This fact warned Archer to
go warily; but the insinuations about Beaufort made
him reckless. He was mindful, however, if not of his
own danger, at least of the fact that Mr. Jackson was
under his mother's roof, and consequently his guest.
Old New York scrupulously observed the etiquette of
hospitality, and no discussion with a guest was ever
allowed to degenerate into a disagreement.
"Shall we go up and join my mother?" he suggested
curtly, as Mr. Jackson's last cone of ashes dropped into
the brass ashtray at his elbow.
On the drive homeward May remained oddly silent;
through the darkness, he still felt her enveloped in her
menacing blush. What its menace meant he could not
guess: but he was sufficiently warned by the fact that
Madame Olenska's name had evoked it.
They went upstairs, and he turned into the library.
She usually followed him; but he heard her passing
down the passage to her bedroom.
"May!" he called out impatiently; and she came
back, with a slight glance of surprise at his tone.
"This lamp is smoking again; I should think the
servants might see that it's kept properly trimmed," he
grumbled nervously.
"I'm so sorry: it shan't happen again," she answered,
in the firm bright tone she had learned from her mother;
and it exasperated Archer to feel that she was already
beginning to humour him like a younger Mr. Welland.
She bent over to lower the wick, and as the light struck
up on her white shoulders and the clear curves of her
face he thought: "How young she is! For what endless
years this life will have to go on!"
He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth
and the bounding blood in his veins.
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