still smaller
house, people wondered that her rich niece had not been able to do
something for her. Then came the news that Ellen's own marriage had
ended in disaster, and that she was herself returning home to seek rest
and oblivion among her kinsfolk.

These things passed through Newland Archer's mind a week later as he
watched the Countess Olenska enter the van der Luyden drawing-room on
the evening of the momentous dinner. The occasion was a solemn one,
and he wondered a little nervously how she would carry it off. She
came rather late, one hand still ungloved, and fastening a bracelet
about her wrist; yet she entered without any appearance of haste or
embarrassment the drawing-room in which New York's most chosen company
was somewhat awfully assembled.

In the middle of the room she paused, looking about her with a grave
mouth and smiling eyes; and in that instant Newland Archer rejected the
general verdict on her looks. It was true that her early radiance was
gone. The red cheeks had paled; she was thin, worn, a little
older-looking than her age, which must have been nearly thirty. But
there was about her the mysterious authority of beauty, a sureness in
the carriage of the head, the movement of the eyes, which, without
being in the least theatrical, struck his as highly trained and full of
a conscious power. At the same time she was simpler in manner than
most of the ladies present, and many people (as he heard afterward from
Janey) were disappointed that her appearance was not more
"stylish"--for stylishness was what New York most valued. It was,
perhaps, Archer reflected, because her early vivacity had disappeared;
because she was so quiet--quiet in her movements, her voice, and the
tones of her low-pitched voice. New York had expected something a good
deal more reasonant in a young woman with such a history.

The dinner was a somewhat formidable business. Dining with the van der
Luydens was at best no light matter, and dining there with a Duke who
was their cousin was almost a religious solemnity. It pleased Archer
to think that only an old New Yorker could perceive the shade of
difference (to New York) between being merely a Duke and being the van
der Luydens' Duke. New York took stray noblemen calmly, and even
(except in the Struthers set) with a certain distrustful hauteur; but
when they presented such credentials as these they were received with
an old-fashioned cordiality that they would h