The Age of Innocence

t invariably happened in the same way.

Mrs. Julius Beaufort, on the night of her annual ball, never failed to
appear at the Opera; indeed, she always gave her ball on an Opera night
in order to emphasise her complete superiority to household cares, and
her possession of a staff of servants competent to organise every
detail of the entertainment in her absence.

The Beauforts' house was one of the few in New York that possessed a
ball-room (it antedated even Mrs. Manson Mingott's and the Headly
Chiverses'); and at a time when it was beginning to be thought
"provincial" to put a "crash" over the drawing-room floor and move the
furniture upstairs, the possession of a ball-room that was used for no
other purpose, and left for three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of the
year to shuttered darkness, with its gilt chairs stacked in a corner
and its chandelier in a bag; this undoubted superiority was felt to
compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past.

Mrs. Archer, who was fond of coining her social philosophy into axioms,
had once said: "We all have our pet common people--" and though the
phrase was a daring one, its truth was secretly admitted in many an
exclusive bosom. But the Beauforts were not exactly common; some
people said they were even worse. Mrs. Beaufort belonged indeed to one
of America's most honoured families; she had been the lovely Regina
Dallas (of the South Carolina branch), a penniless beauty introduced to
New York society by her cousin, the imprudent Medora Manson, who was
always doing the wrong thing from the right motive. When one was
related to the Mansons and the Rushworths one had a "droit de cite" (as
Mr. Sillerton Jackson, who had frequented the Tuileries, called it) in
New York society; but did one not forfeit it in marrying Julius
Beaufort?

The question was: who was Beaufort? He passed for an Englishman, was
agreeable, handsome, ill-tempered, hospitable and witty. He had come
to America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs. Manson
Mingott's English son-in-law, the banker, and had speedily made himself
an important position in the world of affairs; but his habits were
dissipated, his tongue was bitter, his antecedents were mysterious; and
when Medora Manson announced her cousin's engagement to him it was felt
to be one more act of folly in poor Medora's long record of imprudences.

But folly is as often justified of her children as wisdom, and two
years after young Mrs. Beaufort's marriage it was admitted that she had
the most distinguished house in New York. No one knew exactly how the
miracle was accomplished. She was indolent, passive, the caustic even
called her dull; but dressed like an idol, hung with pearls, growing
younger and blonder and more beautiful each year, she throned in Mr.
Beaufort's heavy brown-stone palace, and drew all the world there
without lifting her jewelled little finger. The knowing people said it
was Beaufort himself who trained the servants, taught the chef new
dishes, told the gardeners what hot-house flowers to grow for the
dinner-table and the drawing-rooms, selected the guests, brewed the
after-dinner punch and dictated the little notes his wife wrote to her
friends. If he did, these domestic activities were privately
performed, and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless
and hospitable millionaire strolling into his own drawing-room with the
detachment of an invited guest, and saying: "My wife's gloxinias are a
marvel, aren't they? I believe she gets them out from Kew."

Mr. Beaufort's secret, people were agreed, was the way he carried
things off. It was all very well to whisper that he had been "helped"
to leave England by the international banking-house in which he had
been employed; he carried off that rumour as easily as the rest--though
New York's business conscience was no less sensitive than its moral
standard--he carried everything before him, and all New York into his
drawing-rooms, and for over twenty years now people had said they were
"going to the Beauforts'" with the same tone of security as if they had
said they were going to Mrs. Manson Mingott's, and with the added
satisfaction of knowing they would get hot canvas-back ducks and
vintage wines, instead of tepid Veuve Clicquot without a year and
warmed-up croquettes from Philadelphia.

Mrs. Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the
Jewel Song; and when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third
act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders, and disappeared,
New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin.

The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to
foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball. The Beauforts
had been among the first people in New York to own their own red velvet
carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen, under
their own awning, instead of hiring it with the supper and the
ball-room chairs. They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the
ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to
the hostess's bedroom and recurling their hair with the aid of the
gas-burner; Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all
his wife's friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly
coiffees when they left home.

Then the house had been boldly planned with a ball-room, so that,
instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at the
Chiverses') one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed
drawing-rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d'or), seeing
from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry,
and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and
tree-ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold
bamboo.

Newland Archer, as became a young man of his position, strolled in
somewhat late. He had left his overcoat with the silk-stockinged
footmen (the stockings were one of Beaufort's few fatuities), had
dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather and furnished
with Buhl and malachite, where a few men were chatting and putting on
their dancing-gloves, and had finally joined the line of guests whom
Mrs. Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson
drawing-room.

Archer was distinctly nervous. He had not gone back to his club after
the Opera (as the young bloods usually did), but, the night being fine,
had walked for some distance up Fifth Avenue before turning back in the
direction of the Beauforts' house. He was definitely afraid that the
Mingotts might be going too far; that, in fact, they might have Granny
Mingott's orders to bring the Countess Olenska to the ball.

From the tone of the club box he had perceived how grave a mistake that
would be; and, though he was more than ever determined to "see the
thing through," he felt less chivalrously eager to champion his
betrothed's cousin than before their brief talk at the Opera.

Wandering on to the bouton d'or drawing-room (where Beaufort had had
the audacity to hang "Love Victorious," the much-discussed nude of
Bouguereau) Archer found Mrs. Welland and her daughter standing near
the ball-room door. Couples were already gliding over the floor
beyond: the light of the wax candles fell on revolving tulle skirts, on
girlish heads wreathed with modest blossoms, on the dashing aigrettes
and ornaments of the young married women's coiffures, and on the
glitter of highly glazed shirt-fronts and fresh glace gloves.

Miss Welland, evidently about to join the dancers, hung on the
threshold, her lilies-of-the-valley in her hand (she carried no other
bouquet), her face a little pale, her eyes burning with a candid
excitement. A group of young men and girls were gathered about her,
and there was much hand-clasping, laughing and pleasantry on which Mrs.
Welland, standing slightly apart, shed the beam of a qualified
approval. It was evident that Miss Welland was in the act of
announcing her engagement, while her mother affected the air of
parental reluctance considered suitable to the occasion.

Archer paused a moment. It was at his express wish that the
announcement had been made, and yet it was not thus that he would have
wished to have his happiness known. To proclaim it in the heat and
noise of a crowded ball-room was to rob it of the fine bloom of privacy
which should belong to things nearest the heart. His joy was so deep
that this blurring of the surface left its essence untouched; but he
would have liked to keep the surface pure too. It was something of a
satisfaction to find that May Welland shared this feeling. Her eyes
fled to his beseechingly, and their look said: "Remember, we're doing
this because it's right."

No appeal could have found a more immediate response in Archer's
breast; but he wished that the necessity of their action had been
represented by some ideal reason, and not simply by poor Ellen Olenska.
The group about Miss Welland made way for him with significant smiles,
and after taking his share of the felicitations he drew his betrothed
into the middle of the ball-room floor and put his arm about her waist.

"Now we shan't have to talk," he said, smiling into her candid eyes, as
they floated away on the soft waves of the Blue Danube.

She made no answer. Her lips trembled into a smile, but the eyes
remained distant and serious, as if bent on some ineffable vision.
"Dear," Archer whispered, pressing her to him: it was borne in on him
that the first hours of being engaged, even if spent in a ball-room,
had in them something grave and sacramental. What a new life it was
going to be, with this whiteness, radiance, goodness at one's side!

The dance over, the two, as became an affianced couple, wandered into
the conservatory; and sitting behind a tall screen of tree-ferns and
camellias Newland pressed her gloved hand to his lips.

"You see I did as you asked me to," she said.

"Yes: I couldn't wait," he answered smiling. After a moment he added:
"Only I wish it hadn't had to be at a ball."

"Yes, I know." She met his glance comprehendingly. "But after
all--even here we're alone together, aren't we?"

"Oh, dearest--always!" Archer cried.

Evidently she was always going to understand; she was always going to
say the right thing. The discovery made the cup of his bliss overflow,
and he went on gaily: "The worst of it is that I want to kiss you and
I can't." As he spoke he took a swift glance about the conservatory,
assured himself of their momentary privacy, and catching her to him
laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the audacity of
this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of
the conservatory, and sitting down beside her broke a
lily-of-the-valley from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay
like a sunlit valley at their feet.

"Did you tell my cousin Ellen?" she asked presently, as if she spoke
through a dream.

He roused himself, and remembered that he had not done so. Some
invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign
woman had checked the words on his lips.

"No--I hadn't the chance after all," he said, fibbing hastily.

"Ah." She looked disappointed, but gently resolved on gaining her
point. "You must, then, for I didn't either; and I shouldn't like her
to think--"

"Of course not. But aren't you, after all, the person to do it?"

She pondered on this. "If I'd done it at the right time, yes: but now
that there's been a delay I think you must explain that I'd asked you
to tell her at the Opera, before our speaking about it to everybody
here. Otherwise she might think I had forgotten her. You see, she's
one of the family, and she's been away so long that she's
rather--sensitive."

Archer looked at her glowingly. "Dear and great angel! Of course I'll
tell her." He glanced a trifle apprehensively toward the crowded
ball-room. "But I haven't seen her yet. Has she come?"

"No; at the last minute she decided not to."

"At the last minute?" he echoed, betraying his surprise that she should
ever have considered the alternative possible.

"Yes. She's awfully fond of dancing," the young girl answered simply.
"But suddenly she made up her mind that her dress wasn't smart enough
for a ball, though we thought it so lovely; and so my aunt had to take
her home."

"Oh, well--" said Archer with happy indifference. Nothing about his
betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to
its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the "unpleasant" in which they
had both been brought up.

"She knows as well as I do," he reflected, "the real reason of her
cousin's staying away; but I shall never let her see by the least sign
that I am conscious of there being a shadow of a shade on poor Ellen
Olenska's reputation."