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?"

"Yo