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"At the court of the Tuileries," said Mr Sillerton Jackson with his res were pretty openly tolerated"

The scene was the van der Luydens' black walnut dining-roo after Newland Archer's visit to the Museum of Art Mr and Mrs van der Luyden had come to town for a few days from Skuytercliff, whither they had precipitately fled at the announcement of Beaufort's failure It had been represented to them that the disarray into which society had been thrown by this deplorable affair made their presence in town more necessary than ever It was one of the occasions when, as Mrs Archer put it, they "owed it to society" to show themselves at the Opera, and even to open their own doors

"It will never do, my dear Louisa, to let people like Mrs Leina's shoes It is just at such ti to the epidemic of chicken-pox in New York the winter Mrs Struthers first appeared that the married men slipped away to her house while their wives were in the nursery You and dear Henry, Louisa, must stand in the breach as you always have"

Mr and Mrs van der Luyden could not remain deaf to such a call, and reluctantly but heroically they had come to town, unmuffled the house, and sent out invitations for two dinners and an evening reception

On this particular evening they had invited Sillerton Jackson, Mrs Archer and Newland and his wife to go with the for the first ti was done without cereh there were but four guests the repast had begun at seven punctually, so that the proper sequence of courses entlears

Archer had not seen his wife since the evening before He had left early for the office, where he had plunged into an accumulation of unimportant business In the afternoon one of the senior partners had made an unexpected call on his time; and he had reached home so late that May had preceded hie

Now, across the Skuytercliff carnations and the uid; but her eyes shone, and she talked with exaggerated animation

The subject which had called forth Mr Sillerton Jackson's favourite allusion had been brought up (Archer fancied not without intention) by their hostess The Beaufort failure, or rather the Beaufort attitude since the failure, was still a fruitful the-roohly examined and condemned Mrs van der Luyden had turned her scrupulous eyes on May Archer