第109章

But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery.There were a hundred million tickets in HISlottery, and there was only one prize; the chances had been too decidedly against him.When he thought of Ellen Olenska it was abstractly, serenely, as one might think of some imaginary beloved in a book or a picture: she had become the composite vision of all that he had missed.That vision, faint and tenuous as it was, had kept him from thinking of other women.He had been what was called a faithful husband; and when May had suddenly died--carried off by the infectious pneumonia through which she had nursed their youngest child--he had honestly mourned her.Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of a duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.

Looking about him, he honoured his own past, and mourned for it.After all, there was good in the old ways.

His eyes, making the round of the room--done over by Dallas with English mezzotints, Chippendale cabinets, bits of chosen blue-and-white and pleasantly shaded electric lamps--came back to the old Eastlake writing-table that he had never been willing to banish, and to his first photograph of May, which still kept its place beside his inkstand.

There she was, tall, round-bosomed and willowy, in her starched muslin and flapping Leghorn, as he had seen her under the orange-trees in the Mission garden.

And as he had seen her that day, so she had remained;never quite at the same height, yet never far below it:

generous, faithful, unwearied; but so lacking in imagination, so incapable of growth, that the world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever being conscious of the change.This hard bright blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered.Her incapacity to recognise change made her children conceal their views from her as Archer concealed his; there had been, from the first, a joint pretence of sameness, a kind of innocent family hypocrisy, in which father and children had unconsciously collaborated.And she had died thinking the world a good place, full of loving and harmonious households like her own, and resigned to leave it because she was convinced that, whatever happened, Newland would continue to inculcate in Dallas the same principles and prejudices which had shaped his parents' lives, and that Dallas in turn (when Newland followed her) would transmit the sacred trust to little Bill.And of Mary she was sure as of her own self.So, having snatched little Bill from the grave, and given her life in the effort, she went contentedly to her place in the Archer vault in St.

Mark's, where Mrs.Archer already lay safe from the terrifying "trend" which her daughter-in-law had never even become aware of.

Opposite May's portrait stood one of her daughter.

Mary Chivers was as tall and fair as her mother, but large-waisted, flat-chested and slightly slouching, as the altered fashion required.Mary Chivers's mighty feats of athleticism could not have been performed with the twenty-inch waist that May Archer's azure sash so easily spanned.And the difference seemed symbolic;the mother's life had been as closely girt as her figure.

Mary, who was no less conventional, and no more intelligent, yet led a larger life and held more tolerant views.There was good in the new order too.

The telephone clicked, and Archer, turning from the photographs, unhooked the transmitter at his elbow.

How far they were from the days when the legs of the brass-buttoned messenger boy had been New York's only means of quick communication!

"Chicago wants you."

Ah--it must be a long-distance from Dallas, who had been sent to Chicago by his firm to talk over the plan of the Lakeside palace they were to build for a young millionaire with ideas.The firm always sent Dallas on such errands.

"Hallo, Dad--Yes: Dallas.I say--how do you feel about sailing on Wednesday? Mauretania: Yes, next Wednesday as ever is.Our client wants me to look at some Italian gardens before we settle anything, and has asked me to nip over on the next boat.I've got to be back on the first of June--" the voice broke into a joyful conscious laugh--"so we must look alive.I say, Dad, I want your help: do come."Dallas seemed to be speaking in the room: the voice was as near by and natural as if he had been lounging in his favourite arm-chair by the fire.The fact would not ordinarily have surprised Archer, for long-distance telephoning had become as much a matter of course as electric lighting and five-day Atlantic voyages.But the laugh did startle him; it still seemed wonderful that across all those miles and miles of country--forest, river, mountain, prairie, roaring cities and busy indifferent millions--Dallas's laugh should be able to say:

"Of course, whatever happens, I must get back on the first, because Fanny Beaufort and I are to be married on the fifth."The voice began again: "Think it over? No, sir: not a minute.You've got to say yes now.Why not, I'd like to know? If you can allege a single reason--No; I knew it.

Then it's a go, eh? Because I count on you to ring up the Cunard office first thing tomorrow; and you'd better book a return on a boat from Marseilles.I say, Dad; it'll be our last time together, in this kind of way--.Oh, good! I knew you would."Chicago rang off, and Archer rose and began to pace up and down the room.