neat brick villa projecting obliquely from the right wing.

"The darling!" thought Newland Archer, his glance
flitting back to the young girl with the lilies-of-the-
valley. "She doesn't even guess what it's all about."
And he contemplated her absorbed young face with a
thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine
initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for
her abysmal purity. "We'll read Faust together . . . by
the Italian lakes . . ." he thought, somewhat hazily
confusing the scene of his projected honey-moon with
the masterpieces of literature which it would be his
manly privilege to reveal to his bride. It was only that
afternoon that May Welland had let him guess that she
"cared" (New York's consecrated phrase of maiden
avowal), and already his imagination, leaping ahead of
the engagement ring, the betrothal kiss and the march
from Lohengrin, pictured her at his side in some scene
of old European witchery.

He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland
Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his
enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact
and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with
the most popular married women of the "younger set,"
in which it was the recognised custom to attract masculine
homage while playfully discouraging it. If he had
probed to the bottom of his vanity (as he sometimes
nearly did) he would have found there the wish that his
wife should be as worldly-wise and as eager to please