Archer sighed again.

Everybody knew that the Countess Olenska was no longer in the good
graces of her family. Even her devoted champion, old Mrs. Manson
Mingott, had been unable to defend her refusal to return to her
husband. The Mingotts had not proclaimed their disapproval aloud:
their sense of solidarity was too strong. They had simply, as Mrs.
Welland said, "let poor Ellen find her own level"--and that,
mortifyingly and incomprehensibly, was in the dim depths where the
Blenkers prevailed, and "people who wrote" celebrated their untidy
rites. It was incredible, but it was a fact, that Ellen, in spite of
all her opportunities and her privileges, had become simply "Bohemian."
The fact enforced the contention that she had made a fatal mistake in
not returning to Count Olenski. After all, a young woman's place was
under her husband's roof, especially when she had left it in
circumstances that ... well ... if one had cared to look into them ...

"Madame Olenska is a great favourite with the gentlemen," said Miss
Sophy, with her air of wishing to put forth something conciliatory when
she knew that she was planting a dart.

"Ah, that's the danger that a young woman like Madame Olenska is always
exposed to," Mrs. Archer mournfully agreed; and the ladies, on this
conclusion, gathered up their trains to seek the carcel globes of the
drawing-room, while Archer and Mr. Sillerton Jackson withdrew to the
Gothic library.

Once established before the grate, and consoling himself for the
inadequacy of the dinner by the perfection of his cigar, Mr. Jackson
became portentous and communicable.

"If the Beaufort smash comes," he announced, "there are going to be
disclosures."

Archer raised his head quickly: he could never hear the name without
the sharp vision of Beaufort's heavy figure, opulently furred and shod,
advancing through the snow at Skuytercliff.

"There's bound to be," Mr. Jackson continued, "the nastiest kind of a
cleaning up. He hasn't spent all his money on Regina."

"Oh, well--that's discounted, isn't it? My belief is he'll pull out
yet," said the young man, wanting to change the subject.

"Perhaps--perhaps. I know he was to see some of the influential people
today. Of course," Mr. Jackson reluctantly conceded, "it's to be hoped
they can tide him over--this time anyhow. I shouldn't like to think of
poor Regina's spending the rest of her life in some shabby foreign
watering-place for bankrupts."

A