[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

mutual services by making him look at his native city objectively. Viewed thus, as through the wrong end of a
telescope, it looked disconcertingly small and distant; but then from Samarkand it would.
A flame darted from the logs and she bent over the fire, stretching her thin hands so close to it that a faint halo
shone about the oval nails. The light touched to russet the rings of dark hair escaping from her braids, and
made her pale face paler.
"There are plenty of people to tell you what to do," Archer rejoined, obscurely envious of them.
"Oh--all my aunts? And my dear old Granny?" She considered the idea impartially. "They're all a little vexed
with me for setting up for myself--poor Granny especially. She wanted to keep me with her; but I had to be
free--" He was impressed by this light way of speaking of the formidable Catherine, and moved by the
thought of what must have given Madame Olenska this thirst for even the loneliest kind of freedom. But the
idea of Beaufort gnawed him.
"I think I understand how you feel," he said. "Still, your family can advise you; explain differences; show you
the way."
She lifted her thin black eyebrows. "Is New York such a labyrinth? I thought it so straight up and down-- like
Fifth Avenue. And with all the cross streets numbered!" She seemed to guess his faint disapproval of this, and
Information about Project Gutenberg 36
added, with the rare smile that enchanted her whole face: "If you knew how I like it for just THAT-- the
straight-up-and-downness, and the big honest labels on everything!"
He saw his chance. "Everything may be labelled-- but everybody is not."
"Perhaps. I may simplify too much--but you'll warn me if I do." She turned from the fire to look at him.
"There are only two people here who make me feel as if they understood what I mean and could explain
things to me: you and Mr. Beaufort."
Archer winced at the joining of the names, and then, with a quick readjustment, understood, sympathised and
pitied. So close to the powers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freely in their air. But
since she felt that he understood her also, his business would be to make her see Beaufort as he really was,
with all he represented--and abhor it.
He answered gently: "I understand. But just at first don't let go of your old friends' hands: I mean the older
women, your Granny Mingott, Mrs. Welland, Mrs. van der Luyden. They like and admire you--they want to
help you."
She shook her head and sighed. "Oh, I know--I know! But on condition that they don't hear anything
unpleasant. Aunt Welland put it in those very words when I tried. . . . Does no one want to know the truth
here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!" She
lifted her hands to her face, and he saw her thin shoulders shaken by a sob.
"Madame Olenska!--Oh, don't, Ellen," he cried, starting up and bending over her. He drew down one of her
hands, clasping and chafing it like a child's while he murmured reassuring words; but in a moment she freed
herself, and looked up at him with wet lashes.
"Does no one cry here, either? I suppose there's no need to, in heaven," she said, straightening her loosened
braids with a laugh, and bending over the tea- kettle. It was burnt into his consciousness that he had called her
"Ellen"--called her so twice; and that she had not noticed it. Far down the inverted telescope he saw the faint
white figure of May Welland--in New York.
Suddenly Nastasia put her head in to say something in her rich Italian.
Madame Olenska, again with a hand at her hair, uttered an exclamation of assent--a flashing "Gia--
gia"--and the Duke of St. Austrey entered, piloting a tremendous blackwigged and red-plumed lady in
overflowing furs.
"My dear Countess, I've brought an old friend of mine to see you--Mrs. Struthers. She wasn't asked to the
party last night, and she wants to know you."
The Duke beamed on the group, and Madame Olenska advanced with a murmur of welcome toward the queer [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]