Ten days had passed since Madame Olenska’s departure from New York.  During those ten days Archer had had no sign from her but that conveyed by the return of a key wrapped in tissue paper, and sent to his office in a sealed envelope addressed in her hand.  This retort to his last appeal might have been interpreted as a classic move in a familiar game; but the young man chose to give it a different meaning.  She was still fighting against her fate; but she was going to Europe, and she was not returning to her husband.  Nothing, therefore, was to prevent his following her; and once he had taken the irrevocable step, and had proved to her that it was irrevocable, he believed she would not send him away.

This confidence in the future had steadied him to play his part in the present.  It had kept him from writing to her, or betraying, by any sign or act, his misery and mortification.  It seemed to him that in the deadly silent game between them the trumps were still in his hands; and he waited.

There had been, nevertheless, moments sufficiently difficult to pass; as when Mr. Letterblair, the day after Madame Olenska’s departure, had sent for him to go over the details of the trust which Mrs. Manson Mingott wished to create for her granddaughter.  For a couple of hours Archer had examined the terms of the deed with his senior, all the while obscurely feeling that if he had been consulted it was for some reason other than the obvious one of his cousinship; and that the close of the conference would reveal it.

“Well, the lady can’t deny that it’s a handsome arrangement,” Mr. Letterblair had summed up, after mumbling over a summary of the settlement.  “In fact I’m bound to say she’s been treated pretty handsomely all round.”

“All round?” Archer echoed with a touch of derision.  “Do you refer to her husband’s proposal to give her back her own money?”

Mr. Letterblair’s bushy eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch.  “My dear sir, the law’s the law; and your wife’s cousin was married under the French law.  It’s to be presumed she knew what that meant.”

“Even if she did, what happened subsequently—.”  But Archer paused.  Mr. Letterblair had laid his pen-handle against his big corrugated nose, and was looking down it with the expression assumed by virtuous elderly gentlemen when they wish their youngers to understand that virtue is not synonymous with ignorance.

“My dear sir, I’ve no wish to extenuate the Count’s transgressions; but—­but on the other side . . .  I wouldn’t put my hand in the fire . . . well, that there hadn’t been tit for tat . . . with the young champion. . . .”  Mr. Letterblair unlocked a drawer and pushed a folded paper toward Archer.  “This report, the result of discreet enquiries . . .”  And then, as Archer made no effort to glance at the paper or to repudiate the suggestion, the lawyer somewhat flatly continued:  “I don’t say it’s conclusive, you observe; far from it.  But straws show . . . and on the whole it’s eminently satisfactory for all parties that this dignified solution has been reached.”