scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the
Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were
engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd."

The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to
her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown
Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes.
And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in
a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she
held out her hand.

"Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said,
still looking at Archer.

In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they
talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit,
and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to
Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland
was thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the
very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at
the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort--" and the young
man himself mentally added: "And she ought to know
that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time
calling on married women. But I daresay in the set
she's lived in they do--they never do anything else."
And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he
prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New
Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own
kind.