smoothly gloved hands,
and said, after a pause: "What do you do while May is away?"

"I stick to my work," he answered, faintly annoyed by the question.

In obedience to a long-established habit, the Wellands had left the
previous week for St. Augustine, where, out of regard for the supposed
susceptibility of Mr. Welland's bronchial tubes, they always spent the
latter part of the winter. Mr. Welland was a mild and silent man, with
no opinions but with many habits. With these habits none might
interfere; and one of them demanded that his wife and daughter should
always go with him on his annual journey to the south. To preserve an
unbroken domesticity was essential to his peace of mind; he would not
have known where his hair-brushes were, or how to provide stamps for
his letters, if Mrs. Welland had not been there to tell him.

As all the members of the family adored each other, and as Mr. Welland
was the central object of their idolatry, it never occurred to his wife
and May to let him go to St. Augustine alone; and his sons, who were
both in the law, and could not leave New York during the winter, always
joined him for Easter and travelled back with him.

It was impossible for Archer to discuss the necessity of May's
accompanying her father. The reputation of the Mingotts' family
physician was largely based on the attack of pneumonia which Mr.
Welland had never had; and his insistence on St. Augustine was
therefore inflexible. Originally, it had been intended that May's
engagement should not be announced till her return from Florida, and
the fact that it had been made known sooner could not be expected to
alter Mr. Welland's plans. Archer would have liked to join the
travellers and have a few weeks of sunshine and boating with his
betrothed; but he too was bound by custom and conventions. Little
arduous as his professional duties were, he would have been convicted
of frivolity by the whole Mingott clan if he had suggested asking for a
holiday in mid-winter; and he accepted May's departure with the
resignation which he perceived would have to be one of the principal
constituents of married life.

He was conscious that Madame Olenska was looking at him under lowered
lids. "I have done what you wished--what you advised," she said
abruptly.

"Ah--I'm glad," he returned, embarrassed by her broaching the subject
at such a moment.

"I understand--that you were right," she went on a little breathlessly;
"but