marry a nice girl, and then trust to her to look after him.

In the complicated old European communities, Archer
began to guess, love-problems might be less simple and
less easily classified. Rich and idle and ornamental
societies must produce many more such situations; and
there might even be one in which a woman naturally
sensitive and aloof would yet, from the force of
circumstances, from sheer defencelessness and loneliness, be
drawn into a tie inexcusable by conventional standards.

On reaching home he wrote a line to the Countess
Olenska, asking at what hour of the next day she could
receive him, and despatched it by a messenger-boy,
who returned presently with a word to the effect that
she was going to Skuytercliff the next morning to stay
over Sunday with the van der Luydens, but that he
would find her alone that evening after dinner. The
note was written on a rather untidy half-sheet, without
date or address, but her hand was firm and free. He
was amused at the idea of her week-ending in the
stately solitude of Skuytercliff, but immediately afterward
felt that there, of all places, she would most feel
the chill of minds rigorously averted from the "unpleasant."


He was at Mr. Letterblair's punctually at seven, glad
of the pretext for excusing himself soon after dinner.
He had formed his own opinion from the papers entrusted
to him, and did not especially want to go into