第52章

What are you two plotting together, aunt Medora?"Madame Olenska cried as she came into the room.

She was dressed as if for a ball.Everything about her shimmered and glimmered softly, as if her dress had been woven out of candle-beams; and she carried her head high, like a pretty woman challenging a roomful of rivals.

"We were saying, my dear, that here was something beautiful to surprise you with," Mrs.Manson rejoined, rising to her feet and pointing archly to the flowers.

Madame Olenska stopped short and looked at the bouquet.Her colour did not change, but a sort of white radiance of anger ran over her like summer lightning.

"Ah," she exclaimed, in a shrill voice that the young man had never heard, "who is ridiculous enough to send me a bouquet? Why a bouquet? And why tonight of all nights? I am not going to a ball; I am not a girl engaged to be married.But some people are always ridiculous."She turned back to the door, opened it, and called out: "Nastasia!"The ubiquitous handmaiden promptly appeared, and Archer heard Madame Olenska say, in an Italian that she seemed to pronounce with intentional deliberateness in order that he might follow it: "Here--throw this into the dustbin!" and then, as Nastasia stared protestingly: "But no--it's not the fault of the poor flowers.Tell the boy to carry them to the house three doors away, the house of Mr.Winsett, the dark gentleman who dined here.His wife is ill--they may give her pleasure...The boy is out, you say? Then, my dear one, run yourself; here, put my cloak over you and fly.

I want the thing out of the house immediately! And, as you live, don't say they come from me!"She flung her velvet opera cloak over the maid's shoulders and turned back into the drawing-room, shutting the door sharply.Her bosom was rising high under its lace, and for a moment Archer thought she was about to cry; but she burst into a laugh instead, and looking from the Marchioness to Archer, asked abruptly:

"And you two--have you made friends!"

"It's for Mr.Archer to say, darling; he has waited patiently while you were dressing.""Yes--I gave you time enough: my hair wouldn't go," Madame Olenska said, raising her hand to the heaped-up curls of her chignon."But that reminds me:

I see Dr.Carver is gone, and you'll be late at the Blenkers'.Mr.Archer, will you put my aunt in the carriage?"She followed the Marchioness into the hall, saw her fitted into a miscellaneous heap of overshoes, shawls and tippets, and called from the doorstep: "Mind, the carriage is to be back for me at ten!" Then she returned to the drawing-room, where Archer, on re-entering it, found her standing by the mantelpiece, examining herself in the mirror.It was not usual, in New York society, for a lady to address her parlour-maid as "my dear one," and send her out on an errand wrapped in her own opera-cloak; and Archer, through all his deeper feelings, tasted the pleasurable excitement of being in a world where action followed on emotion with such Olympian speed.

Madame Olenska did not move when he came up behind her, and for a second their eyes met in the mirror; then she turned, threw herself into her sofa-corner, and sighed out: "There's time for a cigarette."He handed her the box and lit a spill for her; and as the flame flashed up into her face she glanced at him with laughing eyes and said: "What do you think of me in a temper?"Archer paused a moment; then he answered with sudden resolution: "It makes me understand what your aunt has been saying about you.""I knew she'd been talking about me.Well?""She said you were used to all kinds of things--splendours and amusements and excitements--that we could never hope to give you here."Madame Olenska smiled faintly into the circle of smoke about her lips.

"Medora is incorrigibly romantic.It has made up to her for so many things!"Archer hesitated again, and again took his risk."Is your aunt's romanticism always consistent with accuracy?""You mean: does she speak the truth?" Her niece considered."Well, I'll tell you: in almost everything she says, there's something true and something untrue.But why do you ask? What has she been telling you?"He looked away into the fire, and then back at her shining presence.His heart tightened with the thought that this was their last evening by that fireside, and that in a moment the carriage would come to carry her away.

"She says--she pretends that Count Olenski has asked her to persuade you to go back to him."Madame Olenska made no answer.She sat motionless, holding her cigarette in her half-lifted hand.The expression of her face had not changed; and Archer remembered that he had before noticed her apparent incapacity for surprise.

"You knew, then?" he broke out.

She was silent for so long that the ash dropped from her cigarette.She brushed it to the floor."She has hinted about a letter: poor darling! Medora's hints--""Is it at your husband's request that she has arrived here suddenly?"Madame Olenska seemed to consider this question also."There again: one can't tell.She told me she had had a `spiritual summons,' whatever that is, from Dr.

Carver.I'm afraid she's going to marry Dr.Carver...

poor Medora, there's always some one she wants to marry.But perhaps the people in Cuba just got tired of her! I think she was with them as a sort of paid companion.Really, I don't know why she came.""But you do believe she has a letter from your husband?"Again Madame Olenska brooded silently; then she said: "After all, it was to be expected."The young man rose and went to lean against the fireplace.A sudden restlessness possessed him, and he was tongue-tied by the sense that their minutes were numbered, and that at any moment he might hear the wheels of the returning carriage.

"You know that your aunt believes you will go back?"Madame Olenska raised her head quickly.A deep blush rose to her face and spread over her neck and shoulders.She blushed seldom and painfully, as if it hurt her like a burn.

"Many cruel things have been believed of me," she said.