“Of course I want to know you, my dear,”
cried Mrs. Struthers in a round rolling voice that
matched her bold feathers and her brazen wig.
“I want to know everybody who’s young
and interesting and charming. And the Duke tells
me you like music—didn’t you, Duke?
You’re a pianist yourself, I believe?
Well, do you want to hear Sarasate play tomorrow evening
at my house? You know I’ve something going
on every Sunday evening—it’s the
day when New York doesn’t know what to do with
itself, and so I say to it: `Come and be amused.’
And the Duke thought you’d be tempted by Sarasate.
You’ll find a number of your friends.”
Madame Olenska’s face grew brilliant with pleasure.
“How kind! How good of the Duke to think
of me!” She pushed a chair up to the tea-table
and Mrs. Struthers sank into it delectably.
“Of course I shall be too happy to come.”
“That’s all right, my dear. And
bring your young gentleman with you.”
Mrs. Struthers extended a hail-fellow hand to Archer.
“I can’t put a name to you—but
I’m sure I’ve met you—I’ve
met everybody, here, or in Paris or London.
Aren’t you in diplomacy? All the diplomatists
come to me. You like music too? Duke,
you must be sure to bring him.”
The Duke said “Rather” from the depths
of his beard, and Archer withdrew with a stiffly circular
bow that made him feel as full of spine as a self-conscious
school-boy among careless and unnoticing elders.
He was not sorry for the denouement of his visit:
he only wished it had come sooner, and spared him a
certain waste of emotion. As he went out into
the wintry night, New York again became vast and imminent,
and May Welland the loveliest woman in it. He
turned into his florist’s to send her the daily
box of lilies-of-the-valley which, to his confusion,
he found he had forgotten that morning.
As he wrote a word on his card and waited for an
envelope he glanced about the embowered shop, and
his eye lit on a cluster of yellow roses. He
had never seen any as sun-golden before, and his first
impulse was to send them to May instead of the lilies.
But they did not look like her—there was
something too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty.
In a sudden revulsion of mood, and almost without
knowing what he did, he signed to the florist to lay
the roses in another long box, and slipped his card
into a second envelope, on which he wrote the name
of the Countess Olenska; then, just as he was turning
away, he drew the card out again, and left the empty
envelope on the box.
“They’ll go at once?” he enquired,
pointing to the roses.
The florist assured him that they would.
The next day he persuaded May to escape for a walk
in the Park after luncheon. As was the custom
in old-fashioned Episcopalian New York, she usually
accompanied her parents to church on Sunday afternoons;
but Mrs. Welland condoned her truancy, having that
very morning won her over to the necessity of a long
engagement, with time to prepare a hand-embroidered
trousseau containing the proper number of dozens.
