United States, and then down
at his desk and at the papers scattered on it. For a second or two he
could not trust himself to speak. During this interval he heard M.
Riviere's chair pushed back, and was aware that the young man had
risen. When he glanced up again he saw that his visitor was as moved
as himself.

"Thank you," Archer said simply.

"There's nothing to thank me for, Monsieur: it is I, rather--" M.
Riviere broke off, as if speech for him too were difficult. "I should
like, though," he continued in a firmer voice, "to add one thing. You
asked me if I was in Count Olenski's employ. I am at this moment: I
returned to him, a few months ago, for reasons of private necessity
such as may happen to any one who has persons, ill and older persons,
dependent on him. But from the moment that I have taken the step of
coming here to say these things to you I consider myself discharged,
and I shall tell him so on my return, and give him the reasons. That's
all, Monsieur."

M. Riviere bowed and drew back a step.

"Thank you," Archer said again, as their hands met.

XXVI.

Every year on the fifteenth of October Fifth Avenue opened its
shutters, unrolled its carpets and hung up its triple layer of
window-curtains.

By the first of November this household ritual was over, and society
had begun to look about and take stock of itself. By the fifteenth the
season was in full blast, Opera and theatres were putting forth their
new attractions, dinner-engagements were accumulating, and dates for
dances being fixed. And punctually at about this time Mrs. Archer
always said that New York was very much changed.

Observing it from the lofty stand-point of a non-participant, she was
able, with the help of Mr. Sillerton Jackson and Miss Sophy, to trace
each new crack in its surface, and all the strange weeds pushing up
between the ordered rows of social vegetables. It had been one of the
amusements of Archer's youth to wait for this annual pronouncement of
his mother's, and to hear her enumerate the minute signs of
disintegration that his careless gaze had overlooked. For New York, to
Mrs. Archer's mind, never changed without changing for the worse; and
in this view Miss Sophy Jackson heartily concurred.

Mr. Sillerton Jackson, as became a man of the world, suspended his
judgment and listened with an amused impartiality to the lamentations
of the ladies. But even he never denied that New York had changed; an