Chapter 33 - Page 2

checking
off each name with her sharp gold pen.

"Henry van der Luyden--Louisa--the Lovell Mingotts
--the Reggie Chiverses--Lawrence Lefferts and
Gertrude--(yes, I suppose May was right to have
them)--the Selfridge Merrys, Sillerton Jackson, Van
Newland and his wife. (How time passes! It seems only
yesterday that he was your best man, Newland)--and
Countess Olenska--yes, I think that's all. . . ."

Mrs. Welland surveyed her son-in-law affectionately.
"No one can say, Newland, that you and May are not
giving Ellen a handsome send-off."

"Ah, well," said Mrs. Archer, "I understand May's
wanting her cousin to tell people abroad that we're not
quite barbarians."

"I'm sure Ellen will appreciate it. She was to arrive
this morning, I believe. It will make a most charming
last impression. The evening before sailing is usually so
dreary," Mrs. Welland cheerfully continued.

Archer turned toward the door, and his mother-in-
law called to him: "Do go in and have a peep at the
table. And don't let May tire herself too much." But he
affected not to hear, and sprang up the stairs to his
library. The room looked at him like an alien countenance
composed into a polite grimace; and he perceived
that it had been ruthlessly "tidied," and prepared,
by a judicious distribution of ash-trays and cedar-wood
boxes, for the gentlemen to smoke in.

"Ah, well," he thought, "it's not for long--" and he
went on to his dressing-room.

Ten days had passed since Madame Olenska's departure
from New York. During those ten days Archer
had had no sign from her but that conveyed by the
return of a key wrapped in tissue paper, and sent to his
office in a sealed envelope addressed in her hand. This
retort to his last appeal might have been interpreted as
a classic move in a familiar game; but the young man
chose to give it a different meaning. She was still fighting
against her fate; but she was going to Europe, and
she was not returning to her husband. Nothing, therefore,
was to prevent his following her; and once he had
taken the irrevocable step, and had proved to her that
it was irrevocable, he believed she would not send him
away.

This confidence in the future had steadied him to
play his part in the present. It had kept him from
writing to her, or betraying, by any sign or act, his
misery and mortification. It seemed to him that in the
deadly silent game between them the trumps were still
in his hands; and he waited.

There had been, nevertheless, moments sufficiently
difficult to pass; as when Mr. Letterblair, the day after
Madame Olenska's departure, had sent for him to go
over the details of the trust which Mrs. Manson Mingott