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parted and a deep blush on her cheeks.
Archer, as he looked at her, was reminded of the glow which had suffused her face in the Mission Garden at
St. Augustine. He became aware of the same obscure effort in her, the same reaching out toward something
beyond the usual range of her vision.
"She hates Ellen," he thought, "and she's trying to overcome the feeling, and to get me to help her to overcome
it."
The thought moved him, and for a moment he was on the point of breaking the silence between them, and
throwing himself on her mercy.
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"You understand, don't you," she went on, "why the family have sometimes been annoyed? We all did what
we could for her at first; but she never seemed to understand. And now this idea of going to see Mrs. Beaufort,
of going there in Granny's carriage! I'm afraid she's quite alienated the van der Luydens . . ."
"Ah," said Archer with an impatient laugh. The open door had closed between them again.
"It's time to dress; we're dining out, aren't we?" he asked, moving from the fire.
She rose also, but lingered near the hearth. As he walked past her she moved forward impulsively, as though
to detain him: their eyes met, and he saw that hers were of the same swimming blue as when he had left her to
drive to Jersey City.
She flung her arms about his neck and pressed her cheek to his.
"You haven't kissed me today," she said in a whisper; and he felt her tremble in his arms.
XXXII.
At the court of the Tuileries," said Mr. Sillerton Jackson with his reminiscent smile, "such things were pretty
openly tolerated."
The scene was the van der Luydens' black walnut dining-room in Madison Avenue, and the time the evening
after Newland Archer's visit to the Museum of Art. Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden had come to town for a few
days from Skuytercliff, whither they had precipitately fled at the announcement of Beaufort's failure. It had
been represented to them that the disarray into which society had been thrown by this deplorable affair made
their presence in town more necessary than ever. It was one of the occasions when, as Mrs. Archer put it, they
"owed it to society" to show themselves at the Opera, and even to open their own doors.
"It will never do, my dear Louisa, to let people like Mrs. Lemuel Struthers think they can step into Regina's
shoes. It is just at such times that new people push in and get a footing. It was owing to the epidemic of
chicken-pox in New York the winter Mrs. Struthers first appeared that the married men slipped away to her
house while their wives were in the nursery. You and dear Henry, Louisa, must stand in the breach as you
always have."
Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden could not remain deaf to such a call, and reluctantly but heroically they had
come to town, unmuffled the house, and sent out invitations for two dinners and an evening reception.
On this particular evening they had invited Sillerton Jackson, Mrs. Archer and Newland and his wife to go
with them to the Opera, where Faust was being sung for the first time that winter. Nothing was done without
ceremony under the van der Luyden roof, and though there were but four guests the repast had begun at seven
punctually, so that the proper sequence of courses might be served without haste before the gentlemen settled
down to their cigars.
Archer had not seen his wife since the evening before. He had left early for the office, where he had plunged
into an accumulation of unimportant business. In the afternoon one of the senior partners had made an
unexpected call on his time; and he had reached home so late that May had preceded him to the van der
Luydens', and sent back the carriage.
Now, across the Skuytercliff carnations and the massive plate, she struck him as pale and languid; but her eyes
shone, and she talked with exaggerated animation.
The subject which had called forth Mr. Sillerton Jackson's favourite allusion had been brought up (Archer
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