Archer felt the irony but did not dare to take it up.
After all, she had perhaps purposely deflected the
conversation from her own affairs, and after the pain his
last words had evidently caused her he felt that all he
could do was to follow her lead. But the sense of the
waning hour made him desperate: he could not bear
the thought that a barrier of words should drop
between them again.
"Yes," he said abruptly; "I went south to ask May
to marry me after Easter. There's no reason why we
shouldn't be married then."
"And May adores you--and yet you couldn't convince
her? I thought her too intelligent to be the slave
of such absurd superstitions."
"She IS too intelligent--she's not their slave."
Madame Olenska looked at him. "Well, then--I don't
understand."
Archer reddened, and hurried on with a rush. "We
had a frank talk--almost the first. She thinks my
impatience a bad sign."
"Merciful heavens--a bad sign?"
"She thinks it means that I can't trust myself to go
on caring for her. She thinks, in short, I want to marry
her at once to get away from some one that I--care for
more."
Madame Olenska examined this curiously. "But if
she thinks that--why isn't she in a hurry too?"
"Because she's not like that: she's so much nobler.
She insists all the more on the long engagement, to give
me time--"
"Time to give her up for the other woman?"
"If I want to."
Madame Olenska leaned toward the fire and gazed
into it with fixed eyes.
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