"
Archer's gaze, wandering away to the blank walls of
the office, rested on a hanging calendar surmounted by
the rugged features of the President of the United States.
That such a conversation should be going on anywhere
within the millions of square miles subject to his rule
seemed as strange as anything that the imagination
could invent.
"The change--what sort of a change?"
"Ah, Monsieur, if I could tell you!" M. Riviere paused.
"Tenez--the discovery, I suppose, of what I'd never
thought of before: that she's an American. And that if
you're an American of HER kind--of your kind--things
that are accepted in certain other societies, or at least
put up with as part of a general convenient give-and-
take--become unthinkable, simply unthinkable. If
Madame Olenska's relations understood what these things
were, their opposition to her returning would no doubt
be as unconditional as her own; but they seem to
regard her husband's wish to have her back as proof of
an irresistible longing for domestic life." M. Riviere
paused, and then added: "Whereas it's far from being
as simple as that."
Archer looked back to the President of the United
States, and then down at his desk and at the papers
scattered on it. For a second or two he could not trust
himself to speak. During this interval he heard M.
Riviere's chair pushed back, and was aware that the
young man had risen. When he glanced up again he
saw that his visitor was as moved as himself.
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