Chapter 21 - Page 2

brougham (the Wellands had given the
carriage), and the abiding occupation and interest of
arranging his new library, which, in spite of family
doubts and disapprovals, had been carried out as he
had dreamed, with a dark embossed paper, Eastlake
book-cases and "sincere" arm-chairs and tables. At the
Century he had found Winsett again, and at the Knickerbocker
the fashionable young men of his own set;
and what with the hours dedicated to the law and
those given to dining out or entertaining friends at
home, with an occasional evening at the Opera or the
play, the life he was living had still seemed a fairly real
and inevitable sort of business.

But Newport represented the escape from duty into
an atmosphere of unmitigated holiday-making. Archer
had tried to persuade May to spend the summer on a
remote island off the coast of Maine (called, appropriately
enough, Mount Desert), where a few hardy Bostonians
and Philadelphians were camping in "native"
cottages, and whence came reports of enchanting
scenery and a wild, almost trapper-like existence amid
woods and waters.

But the Wellands always went to Newport, where
they owned one of the square boxes on the cliffs, and
their son-in-law could adduce no good reason why he
and May should not join them there. As Mrs. Welland
rather tartly pointed out, it was hardly worth while for
May to have worn herself out trying on summer clothes
in Paris if she was not to be allowed to wear them; and
this argument was of a kind to which Archer had as yet
found no answer.

May herself could not understand his obscure
reluctance to fall in with so reasonable and pleasant a way
of spending the summer. She reminded him that he had
always liked Newport in his bachelor days, and as this
was indisputable he could only profess that he was sure
he was going to like it better than ever now that they
were to be there together. But as he stood on the
Beaufort verandah and looked out on the brightly peopled
lawn it came home to him with a shiver that he
was not going to like it at all.

It was not May's fault, poor dear. If, now and then,
during their travels, they had fallen slightly out of step,
harmony had been restored by their return to the
conditions she was used to. He had always foreseen that
she would not disappoint him; and he had been right.
He had married (as most young men did) because he
had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when
a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were
ending in premature disgust; and she had represented
peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense
of an unescapable duty.

He could not say that he had been mistaken in his
choice, for