Age of Innocence (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Edith Wharton Read Free Book Online Page B

not simply by poor Ellen Olenska. The group about Miss Welland made way for him with significant smiles, and after taking his share of the felicita tions he drew his betrothed into the middle of the ball-room floor and put his arm about her waist.
    “Now we shan’t have to talk,” he said, smiling into her candid eyes, as they floated away on the soft waves of the Blue Danube.
    She made no answer. Her lips trembled into a smile, but the eyes remained distant and serious, as if bent on some ineffable vision. “Dear” Archer whispered, pressing her to him: it was borne in on him that the first hours of being engaged, even if spent in a ball room, had in them something grave and sacramental. What a new life it was going to be, with this whiteness, radiance, goodness at one’s side!
    The dance over, the two, as became an affianced couple, wandered into the conservatory; and sitting behind a tall screen of tree-ferns and camellias Newland pressed her gloved hand to his lips.
    “You see I did as you asked me to,” she said.
    “Yes: I couldn’t wait,” he answered, smiling. After a moment he added: “Only I wish it hadn’t had to be at a ball.”
    “Yes, I know.” She met his glance comprehendingly. “But after all—even here we’re alone together, aren’t we?”
    “Oh, dearest—always!” Archer cried.
    Evidently she was always going to understand; she was always going to say the right thing. The discovery made the cup of his bliss overflow, and he went on gaily: “The worst of it is that I want to kiss you and I can’t.” As he spoke he took a swift glance about the conservatory, assured himself of their momentary privacy, and catching her to him laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the audacity of this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of the conservatory, and sitting down beside her broke a lily-of the-valley from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay like a sunlit valley at their feet.
    “Did you tell my cousin Ellen?” she asked presently, as if she spoke through a dream.
    He roused himself, and remembered that he had not done so. Some invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign woman had checked the words on his lips.
    “No—I hadn’t the chance after all,” he said, fibbing hastily.
    “Ah.” She looked disappointed, but gently resolved on gaining her point. “You must, then, for I didn’t either; and I shouldn’t like her to think—”
    “Of course not. But aren’t you, after all, the person to do it?”
    She pondered on this. “If I’d done it at the right time, yes: but now that there’s been a delay, I think you must explain that I’d asked you to tell her at the Opera, before our speaking about it to everybody here. Otherwise she might think I had forgotten her. You see, she’s one of the family, and she’s been away so long that she’s rather—sensitive.”
    Archer looked at her glowingly. “Dear and great angel! Of course I’ll tell her.” He glanced a trifle apprehensively toward the crowded ball-room. “But I haven’t seen her yet. Has she come?”
    “No; at the last minute she decided not to.”
    “At the last minute?” he echoed, betraying his surprise that she should ever have considered the alternative possible.
    “Yes. She’s awfully fond of dancing,” the young girl answered simply. “But suddenly she made up her mind that her dress wasn’t smart enough for a ball, though we thought it so lovely; and so my aunt had to take her home.”
    “Oh, well—” said Archer with happy indifference. Nothing about his betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the “unpleasant” in which they had both been brought up.
    “She knows as well as I do,” he reflected, “the real reason of her cousin’s staying away; but I shall never let her see by the least sign that I am conscious of there being a shadow of a shade