Archer listened in silence, and she went on:"They'd talked me over, as no doubt you know:persuaded me, Lovell, and Letterblair,and Augusta Welland, and all the rest of them,that I must hold out and cut off her allowance,till she was made to see that it was her duty to go back to Olenski.They thought they'd convinced me when the secretary,or whatever he was, came out with the last proposals:handsome proposals I confess they were. After all,marriage is marriage,and money's money--both useful things in their way ...and I didn't know what to answer--" She broke off and drew a long breath,as if speaking had become an effort."But the minute I laid eyes on her, I said:'You sweet bird, you!Shut you up in that cage again?Never!' And now it's settled that she's to stay here and nurse her Granny as long as there's a Granny to nurse. It's not a gay prospect, but she doesn't mind; and of course I've told Letterblair that she's to be given her proper allowance."
The young man heard her with veins aglow;but in his confusion of mind he hardly knew whether her news brought joy or pain. He had so definitely decided on the course he meant to pursue that for the moment he could not readjust his thoughts. But gradually there stole over him the delicious sense of difficulties deferred and opportunities miraculously provided. If Ellen had consented to come and live with her grandmother it must surely be because she had recognised the impossibility of giving him up. This was her answer to his final appeal of the other day: if she would not take the extreme step he had urged, she had at last yielded to half-measures. He sank back into the thought with the involuntary relief of a man who has been ready to risk everything, and suddenly tastes the dangerous sweetness of security.
"She couldn't have gone back--it was impossible!" he exclaimed.
"Ah, my dear, I always knew you were on her side;and that's why I sent for you today,and why I said to your pretty wife,when she proposed to come with you: 'No, my dear,I'm pining to see Newland,and I don't want anybody to share our transports.' For you see, my dear--" she drew her head back as far as its tethering chins permitted, and looked him full in the eyes--"you see, we shall have a fight yet. The family don't want her here, and they'll say it's because I've been ill, because I'm a weak old woman, that she's persuaded me. I'm not well enough yet to fight them one by one, and you've got to do it for me."
"I?" he stammered.
"You. Why not?" she jerked back at him,her round eyes suddenly as sharp as pen-knives.Her hand fluttered from its chair-arm and lit on his with a clutch of little pale nails like bird-claws. "Why not?" she searchingly repeated.
Archer, under the exposure of her gaze,had recovered his self-possession.
"Oh, I don't count--I'm too insignificant."
"Well, you're Letterblair's partner, ain't you?You've got to get at them through Letterblair.Unless you've got a reason," she insisted.
"Oh, my dear, I back you to hold your own against them all without my help;but you shall have it if you need it, " he reassured her.
"Then we're safe!" she sighed; and smiling on him with all her ancient cunning she added,as she settled her head among the cushions:"I always knew you'd back us up,because they never quote you when they talk about its being her duty to go home."
He winced a little at her terrifying perspicacity,and longed to ask:"And May--do they quote her?" But he judged it safer to turn the question.
"And Madame Olenska?When am I to see her?" he said.
The old lady chuckled, crumpled her lids,and went through the pantomime of archness. "Not today.One at a time, please. Madame Olenska's gone out."
He flushed with disappointment, and she went on:"She's gone out, my child:gone in my carriage to see Regina Beaufort."
She paused for this announcement to produce its effect."That's what she's reduced me to already.The day after she got here she put on her best bonnet,and told me, as cool as a cucumber,that she was going to call on Regina Beaufort.'I don't know her; who is she?' says I. 'She's your grand-niece,and a most unhappy woman,' she says.'She's the wife of a scoundrel,' I answered. 'Well,' she says, 'and so am I,and yet all my family want me to go back to him.' Well,that floored me, and I let her go;and finally one day she said it was raining too hard to go out on foot,and she wanted me to lend her my carriage. 'What for?' I asked her; and she said:'To go and see cousin Regina'--_cousin_!Now, my dear, I looked out of the window,and saw it wasn't raining a drop; but I understood her,and I let her have the carriage.... After all,Regina's a brave woman, and so is she;and I've always liked courage above everything."
Archer bent down and pressed his lips on the little hand that still lay on his.
"Eh--eh--eh!Whose hand did you think you were kissing,young man--your wife's, I hope?" the old lady snapped out with her mocking cackle;and as he rose to go she called out after him:"Give her her Granny's love;but you'd better not say anything about our talk."
XXXI.
Archer had been stunned by old Catherine's news.It was only natural that Madame Olenska should have hastened from Washington in response to her grandmother's summons; but that she should have decided to remain under her roof--especially now that Mrs. Mingott had almost regained her health--was less easy to explain.
Archer was sure that Madame Olenska's decision had not been influenced by the change in her financial situation. He knew the exact figure of the small income which her husband had allowed her at their separation. Without the addition of her grandmother's allowance it was hardly enough to live on, in any sense known to the Mingott vocabulary; and now that Medora Manson, who shared her life, had been ruined, such a pittance would barely keep the two women clothed and fed. Yet Archer was convinced that Madame Olenska had not accepted her grandmother's offer from interested motives.
She had the heedless generosity and the spasmodic extravagance of persons used to large fortunes, and indifferent to money; but she could go without many things which her relations considered indispensable, and Mrs. Lovell Mingott and Mrs. Welland had often been heard to deplore that any one who had enjoyed the cosmopolitan luxuries of Count Olenski's establishments should care so little about "how things were done." Moreover, as Archer knew, several months had passed since her allowance had been cut off; yet in the interval she had made no effort to regain her grandmother's favour. Therefore if she had changed her course it must be for a different reason.
He did not have far to seek for that reason.On the way from the ferry she had told him that he and she must remain apart;but she had said it with her head on his breast.He knew that there was no calculated coquetry in her words;she was fighting her fate as he had fought his,and clinging desperately to her resolve that they should not break faith with the people who trusted them. But during the ten days which had elapsed since her return to New York she had perhaps guessed from his silence, and from the fact of his making no attempt to see her, that he was meditating a decisive step, a step from which there was no turning back. At the thought, a sudden fear of her own weakness might have seized her, and she might have felt that, after all, it was better to accept the compromise usual in such cases, and follow the line of least resistance.