Book I
16. Chapter XVI.
(continued)
"I'm afraid Ellen's ideas are not at all like ours. She
was barely eighteen when Medora Manson took her
back to Europe--you remember the excitement when
she appeared in black at her coming-out ball? Another
of Medora's fads--really this time it was almost
prophetic! That must have been at least twelve years ago;
and since then Ellen has never been to America. No
wonder she is completely Europeanised."
"But European society is not given to divorce: Countess
Olenska thought she would be conforming to American
ideas in asking for her freedom." It was the first
time that the young man had pronounced her name
since he had left Skuytercliff, and he felt the colour rise
to his cheek.
Mrs. Welland smiled compassionately. "That is just
like the extraordinary things that foreigners invent about
us. They think we dine at two o'clock and countenance
divorce! That is why it seems to me so foolish to
entertain them when they come to New York. They
accept our hospitality, and then they go home and
repeat the same stupid stories."
Archer made no comment on this, and Mrs. Welland
continued: "But we do most thoroughly appreciate your
persuading Ellen to give up the idea. Her grandmother
and her uncle Lovell could do nothing with her; both
of them have written that her changing her mind was
entirely due to your influence--in fact she said so to
her grandmother. She has an unbounded admiration
for you. Poor Ellen--she was always a wayward child.
I wonder what her fate will be?"
"What we've all contrived to make it," he felt like
answering. "if you'd all of you rather she should be
Beaufort's mistress than some decent fellow's wife you've
certainly gone the right way about it."
He wondered what Mrs. Welland would have said if
he had uttered the words instead of merely thinking
them. He could picture the sudden decomposure of her
firm placid features, to which a lifelong mastery over
trifles had given an air of factitious authority. Traces
still lingered on them of a fresh beauty like her daughter's;
and he asked himself if May's face was doomed
to thicken into the same middle-aged image of invincible
innocence.
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