e not as
calm as we are." She pronounced the "we" with a faint emphasis that
gave it an ironic sound.

Archer felt the irony but did not dare to take it up. After all, she
had perhaps purposely deflected the conversation from her own affairs,
and after the pain his last words had evidently caused her he felt that
all he could do was to follow her lead. But the sense of the waning
hour made him desperate: he could not bear the thought that a barrier
of words should drop between them again.

"Yes," he said abruptly; "I went south to ask May to marry me after
Easter. There's no reason why we shouldn't be married then."

"And May adores you--and yet you couldn't convince her? I thought her
too intelligent to be the slave of such absurd superstitions."

"She IS too intelligent--she's not their slave."

Madame Olenska looked at him. "Well, then--I don't understand."

Archer reddened, and hurried on with a rush. "We had a frank
talk--almost the first. She thinks my impatience a bad sign."

"Merciful heavens--a bad sign?"

"She thinks it means that I can't trust myself to go on caring for her.
She thinks, in short, I want to marry her at once to get away from some
one that I--care for more."

Madame Olenska examined this curiously. "But if she thinks that--why
isn't she in a hurry too?"

"Because she's not like that: she's so much nobler. She insists all
the more on the long engagement, to give me time--"

"Time to give her up for the other woman?"

"If I want to."

Madame Olenska leaned toward the fire and gazed into it with fixed
eyes. Down the quiet street Archer heard the approaching trot of her
horses.

"That IS noble," she said, with a slight break in her voice.

"Yes. But it's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous? Because you don't care for any one else?"

"Because I don't mean to marry any one else."

"Ah." There was another long interval. At length she looked up at him
and asked: "This other woman--does she love you?"

"Oh, there's no other woman; I mean, the person that May was thinking
of is--was never--"

"Then, why, after all, are you in such haste?"

"There's your carriage," said Archer.

She half-rose and looked about her with absent eyes. Her fan and
gloves lay on the sofa beside her and she picked them up mechanically.

"Yes; I suppose I must be going."

"You're going to Mrs. Struthers's?"

"Yes." She smiled and added: "I must go where I am invited, or I
should be too lo