“Ah, that she never did!” Mrs. Archer rejoined.

At this point Mr. van der Luyden glanced at his wife, who bent her head slightly in the direction of Mrs. Archer; and the glimmering trains of the three ladies swept out of the door while the gentlemen settled down to their cigars. Mr. van der Luyden supplied short ones on Opera nights; but they were so good that they made his guests deplore his inexorable punctuality.

Archer, after the first act, had detached himself from the party and made his way to the back of the club box. From there he watched, over various Chivers, Mingott and Rushworth shoulders, the same scene that he had looked at, two years previously, on the night of his first meeting with Ellen Olenska. He had half- expected her to appear again in old Mrs. Mingott’s box, but it remained empty; and he sat motionless, his eyes fastened on it, till suddenly Madame Nilsson’s pure soprano broke out into “M’ama, non m’ama … “

Archer turned to the stage, where, in the familiar setting of giant roses and pen-wiper pansies, the same large blonde victim was succumbing to the same small brown seducer.

From the stage his eyes wandered to the point of the horseshoe where May sat between two older ladies, just as, on that former evening, she had sat between Mrs. Lovell Mingott and her newly-arrived “foreign” cousin. As on that evening, she was all in white; and Archer, who had not noticed what she wore, recognised the blue-white satin and old lace of her wedding dress.

It was the custom, in old New York, for brides to appear in this costly garment during the first year or two of marriage: his mother, he knew, kept hers in tissue paper in the hope that Janey might some day wear it, though poor Janey was reaching the age when pearl grey poplin and no bridesmaids would be thought more “appropriate.”

It struck Archer that May, since their return from Europe, had seldom worn her bridal satin, and the surprise of seeing her in it made him compare her appearance with that of the young girl he had watched with such blissful anticipations two years earlier.

And despite being preoccupied, his mind was momentarily transported back to an earlier time—their honeymoon abroad. The young chambermaid Anne had accompanied them to attend to May’s needs. Newland had suggested that the more experienced Miranda accompany them, but May had steadfastly refused. Newland wondered at the time if his young wife was jealous of Miranda.

Early on in their honeymoon, May tried to pleasure her new husband, but behaved all a dither deciding exactly what she should do. Thus far, her experience of the flesh had focused on her forbidden door, and she did not seem to understand how to use her feminine folds other than to lie on her back and let him enter her, which alone was rather tiresome and plain. It was nothing like the pleasure they had enjoyed before their marriage, when they would cavort, with him touching her, kissing her, teasing her breasts, penetrating her nether region, all the while preserving her sacred virginity.