been a preserving fluid rather than a ravaging element; yet her look of indestructible youthfulness made her seem neither hard nor dull, but only primitive and pure. In the thick of this meditation Archer suddenly felt himself looking at her with the startled gaze of a stranger, and plunged into a reminiscence of the wedding-breakfast and of Granny Mingott’s immense and triumphant pervasion of it.
May settled down to frank enjoyment of the subject. “I was surprised, though—weren’t you?—that aunt Medora came after all. Ellen wrote that they were neither of them well enough to take the journey; I do wish it had been she who had recovered! Did you see the exquisite old lace she sent me?”
He had known that the moment must come sooner or later, but he had somewhat imagined that by force of willing he might hold it at bay.
“Yes—I—no: yes, it was beautiful,” he said, looking at her blindly, and wondering if, whenever he heard those two syllables, all his carefully built-up world would tumble about him like a house of cards.
“Aren’t you tired? It will be good to have some tea when we arrive—I’m sure the aunts have got everything beautifully ready,” he rattled on, taking her hand in his; and her mind rushed away instantly to the magnificent tea and coffee service of Baltimore silver which the Beauforts had sent, and which “went” so perfectly with uncle Lovell Mingott’s trays and side-dishes.
In the spring twilight the train stopped at the Rhinebeck station, and they walked along the platform to the waiting carriage.
“Ah, how awfully kind of the van der Luydens—they’ve sent their man over from Skuytercliff to meet us,” Archer exclaimed, as a sedate person out of livery approached them and relieved the maid of her bags.