us call her Ellen, you know. A telegram came from Boston: she said she
might be gone for two days. I do LOVE the way she does her hair, don't
you?" Miss Blenker rambled on.

Archer continued to stare through her as though she had been
transparent. All he saw was the trumpery parasol that arched its
pinkness above her giggling head.

After a moment he ventured: "You don't happen to know why Madame
Olenska went to Boston? I hope it was not on account of bad news?"

Miss Blenker took this with a cheerful incredulity. "Oh, I don't
believe so. She didn't tell us what was in the telegram. I think she
didn't want the Marchioness to know. She's so romantic-looking, isn't
she? Doesn't she remind you of Mrs. Scott-Siddons when she reads 'Lady
Geraldine's Courtship'? Did you never hear her?"

Archer was dealing hurriedly with crowding thoughts. His whole future
seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless
emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever
to happen. He glanced about him at the unpruned garden, the
tumble-down house, and the oak-grove under which the dusk was
gathering. It had seemed so exactly the place in which he ought to
have found Madame Olenska; and she was far away, and even the pink
sunshade was not hers ...

He frowned and hesitated. "You don't know, I suppose--I shall be in
Boston tomorrow. If I could manage to see her--"

He felt that Miss Blenker was losing interest in him, though her smile
persisted. "Oh, of course; how lovely of you! She's staying at the
Parker House; it must be horrible there in this weather."

After that Archer was but intermittently aware of the remarks they
exchanged. He could only remember stoutly resisting her entreaty that
he should await the returning family and have high tea with them before
he drove home. At length, with his hostess still at his side, he
passed out of range of the wooden Cupid, unfastened his horses and
drove off. At the turn of the lane he saw Miss Blenker standing at the
gate and waving the pink parasol.

XXIII.

The next morning, when Archer got out of the Fall River train, he
emerged upon a steaming midsummer Boston. The streets near the station
were full of the smell of beer and coffee and decaying fruit and a
shirt-sleeved populace moved through them with the intimate abandon of
boarders going down the passage to the bathroom.

Archer found a cab and drove to the Som