| Archer stooped over and threw a log upon the embers
Madame Olenska, dropping her cloak, sat down in one of the chairsArcher leaned against the chimney and looked at her
"You're laughing now; but when you wrote me you were unhappy," he said"But I can't feel unhappy when you're here
"I sha'n't be here long," he rejoined, his lips stiffening with the effort to say just so much and no moreBut I'm improvident: I live in the moment when I'm happy
The words stole through him like a temptation, and to close his senses to it he moved away from the hearth and stood gazing out at the black tree-boles against the snowBut it was as if she too had shifted her place, and he still saw her, between himself and the trees, drooping over the fire with her indolent smileArcher's heart was beating insubordinatelyWhat if it were from him that she had been running away, and if she had waited to tell him so till they were here alone together in this secret room?
"Ellen, if I'm really a help to you?if you really wanted me to come?tell me what's wrong, tell me what it is you're running away from," he insisted
He spoke without shifting his position, without even turning to look at her: if the thing was to happen, it was to happen in this way, with the whole width of the room between them, and his eyes still fixed on the outer snow
For a long moment she was silent; and in that moment Archer imagined her, almost heard her, stealing up behind him to throw her light arms about his neckWhile he waited, soul and body throbbing with the miracle to come, his eyes mechanically received the image of a heavily-coated man with his fur collar turned up who was advancing along the path to the houseThe man was hermes kelly handbag Julius Beaufort
"Ah?!" Archer cried, bursting into a laugh
Madame Olenska had sprung up and moved to his side, slipping her hand into his; but after a glance through the window her face paled and she shrank back
"So that was it?" Archer said derisively
"I didn't know he was here," Madame Olenska murmuredHer hand still clung to Archer's; but he drew away from her, and walking out into the passage threw open the door of the house
"Hallo, Beaufort?this way! Madame Olenska was expecting you," he said
During his journey back to New York the next morning, Archer relived with a fatiguing vividness his last moments at Skuytercliff
Beaufort, though clearly annoyed at finding him with Madame Olenska, had, as usual, carried off the situation high-handedlyHis way of ignoring people whose presence inconvenienced him actually gave them, if they were sensitive to it, a feeling of invisibility, of nonexistenceArcher, as the three strolled back through the park, was aware of this odd sense of disembodiment; and humbling as it was to his vanity it gave him the ghostly advantage of observing unobserved
Beaufort had entered the little house with his usual easy assurance; but he could not smile away the vertical line between his eyesIt was fairly clear that Madame Olenska had not known that he was coming, though her words to Archer had hinted at the possibility; at any rate, she had evidently not told him where she was going when she left New York, and her unexplained departure had exasperated himThe ostensible reason of his appearance was the discovery, the very night before, of a "perfect little house," not in the market, which was really just the thing for her, but would be snapped up black gucci bag instantly if she didn't take it; and he was loud in mock-reproaches for the dance she had led him in running away just as he had found it
"If only this new dodge for talking along a wire had been a little bit nearer perfection I might have told you all this from town, and been toasting my toes before the club fire at this minute, instead of tramping after you through the snow," he grumbled, disguising a real irritation under the pretence of it; and at this opening Madame Olenska twisted the talk away to the fantastic possibility that they might one day actually converse with each other from street to street, or even?incredible dream!?from one town to anotherThis struck from all three allusions to Edgar Poe and Jules Verne, and such platitudes as naturally rise to the lips of the most intelligent when they are talking against time, and dealing with a new invention in which it would seem ingenuous to believe too soon; and the question of the telephone carried them safely back to the big housevan der Luyden had not yet returned; and Archer took his leave and walked off to fetch the cutter, while Beaufort followed the Countess Olenska indoorsIt was probable that, little as the van der Luydens encouraged unannounced visits, he could count on being asked to dine, and sent back to the station to catch the nine o'clock train; but more than that he would certainly not get, for it would be inconceivable to his hosts that a gentleman travelling without luggage should wish to spend the night, and distasteful to them to propose it to a person with whom they were on terms of such limited cordiality as Beaufort
Beaufort knew all this, and must have foreseen it; and his taking the long journey for so top chanel bags small a reward gave the measure of his impatienceHe was undeniably in pursuit of the Countess Olenska; and Beaufort had only one object in view in his pursuit of pretty womenHis dull and childless home had long since palled on him; and in addition to more permanent consolations he was always in quest of amorous adventures in his own setThis was the man from whom Madame Olenska was avowedly flying: the question was whether she had fled because his importunities displeased her, or because she did not wholly trust herself to resist them; unless, indeed, all her talk of flight had been a blind, and her departure no more than a manoeuvre
Archer did not really believe thisLittle as he had actually seen of Madame Olenska, he was beginning to think that he could read her face, and if not her face, her voice; and both had betrayed annoyance, and even dismay, at Beaufort's sudden appearanceBut, after all, if this were the case, was it not worse than if she had left New York for the express purpose of meeting him? If she had done that, she ceased to be an object of interest, she threw in her lot with the vulgarest of dissemblers: a woman engaged in a love affair with Beaufort "classed" herself irretrievably
No, it was worse a thousand times if, judging Beaufort, and probably despising him, she was yet drawn to him by all that gave him an advantage over the other men about her: his habit of two continents and two societies, his familiar association with artists and actors and people generally in the world's eye, and his careless contempt for local prejudicesBeaufort was vulgar, he was uneducated, he was purse-proud; but the circumstances of his life, and a certain native shrewdness, made him better chloe bag bay worth talking to than many men, morally and socially his betters, whose horizon was bounded by the Battery and the Central ParkHow should any one coming from a wider world not feel the difference and be attracted by it?
Madame Olenska, in a burst of irritation, had said to Archer that he and she did not talk the same language; and the young man knew that in some respects this was trueBut Beaufort understood every turn of her dialect, and spoke it fluently: his view of life, his tone, his attitude, were merely a coarser reflection of those revealed in Count Olenski's letterThis might seem to be to his disadvantage with Count Olenski's wife; but Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her pastShe might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her, even though it were against her will
Thus, with a painful impartiality, did the young man make out the case for Beaufort, and for Beaufort's victimA longing to enlighten her was strong in him; and there were moments when he imagined that all she asked was to be enlightened
That evening he unpacked his books from LondonThe box was full of things he had been waiting for impatiently; a new volume of Herbert Spencer, another collection of the prolific Alphonse Daudet's brilliant tales, and a novel called "Middlemarch," as to which there had lately been interesting things said in the reviewsHe had declined three dinner invitations in favour of this feast; but though he turned the pages with the sensuous joy of the book-lover, he did not know what he was reading, and one book after another dropped from his balenciaga bag black h |