Chapter 17 - Page 2

built
this house you'd have thought I was moving to California!
Nobody ever HAD built above Fortieth Street--no,
says I, nor above the Battery either, before Christopher
Columbus discovered America. No, no; not one of
them wants to be different; they're as scared of it as the
small-pox. Ah, my dear Mr. Archer, I thank my stars
I'm nothing but a vulgar Spicer; but there's not one of
my own children that takes after me but my little
Ellen." She broke off, still twinkling at him, and asked,
with the casual irrelevance of old age: "Now, why in
the world didn't you marry my little Ellen?"

Archer laughed. "For one thing, she wasn't there to
be married."

"No--to be sure; more's the pity. And now it's too
late; her life is finished." She spoke with the cold-
blooded complacency of the aged throwing earth into
the grave of young hopes. The young man's heart grew
chill, and he said hurriedly: "Can't I persuade you to
use your influence with the Wellands, Mrs. Mingott? I
wasn't made for long engagements."

Old Catherine beamed on him approvingly. "No; I
can see that. You've got a quick eye. When you were a
little boy I've no doubt you liked to be helped first."
She threw back her head with a laugh that made her
chins ripple like little waves. "Ah, here's my Ellen
now!" she exclaimed, as the portieres parted behind
her.

Madame Olenska came forward with a smile. Her
face looked vivid and happy, and she held out her hand
gaily to Archer while she stooped to her grandmother's
kiss.

"I was just saying to him, my dear: 'Now, why
didn't you marry my little Ellen?'"

Madame Olenska looked at Archer, still smiling. "And
what did he answer?"

"Oh, my darling, I leave you to find that out! He's
been down to Florida to see his sweetheart."

"Yes, I know." She still looked at him. "I went to see
your mother, to ask where you'd gone. I sent a note
that you never answered, and I was afraid you were
ill."

He muttered something about leaving unexpectedly,
in a great hurry, and having intended to write to her
from St. Augustine.

"And of course once you were there you never thought
of me again!" She continued to beam on him with a
gaiety that might have been a studied assumption of
indifference.

"If she still needs me, she's determined not to let me
see it," he thought, stung by her manner. He wanted to
thank her for having been to see his mother, but under
the ancestress's malicious eye he felt himself tongue-
tied and constrained.

"Look at him--in such hot haste to get married that
he took French leave and rushed down to implore the
silly girl on his knees! That's something like a