cousin Henry van der
Luyden a whole hamper of carnations from Skuytercliff. She seems so
surprised to receive flowers. Don't people send them in Europe? She
thinks it such a pretty custom."

"Oh, well, no wonder mine were overshadowed by Beaufort's," said Archer
irritably. Then he remembered that he had not put a card with the
roses, and was vexed at having spoken of them. He wanted to say: "I
called on your cousin yesterday," but hesitated. If Madame Olenska had
not spoken of his visit it might seem awkward that he should. Yet not
to do so gave the affair an air of mystery that he disliked. To shake
off the question he began to talk of their own plans, their future, and
Mrs. Welland's insistence on a long engagement.

"If you call it long! Isabel Chivers and Reggie were engaged for two
years: Grace and Thorley for nearly a year and a half. Why aren't we
very well off as we are?"

It was the traditional maidenly interrogation, and he felt ashamed of
himself for finding it singularly childish. No doubt she simply echoed
what was said for her; but she was nearing her twenty-second birthday,
and he wondered at what age "nice" women began to speak for themselves.

"Never, if we won't let them, I suppose," he mused, and recalled his
mad outburst to Mr. Sillerton Jackson: "Women ought to be as free as we
are--"

It would presently be his task to take the bandage from this young
woman's eyes, and bid her look forth on the world. But how many
generations of the women who had gone to her making had descended
bandaged to the family vault? He shivered a little, remembering some
of the new ideas in his scientific books, and the much-cited instance
of the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes because
they had no use for them. What if, when he had bidden May Welland to
open hers, they could only look out blankly at blankness?

"We might be much better off. We might be altogether together--we
might travel."

Her face lit up. "That would be lovely," she owned: she would love to
travel. But her mother would not understand their wanting to do things
so differently.

"As if the mere 'differently' didn't account for it!" the wooer
insisted.

"Newland! You're so original!" she exulted.

His heart sank, for he saw that he was saying all the things that young
men in the same situation were expected to say, and that she was making
the answers that instinct and tradition taught her to make--even t