Newland Archer reddened and laughed.  “As much as a man can be.”

She continued to consider him thoughtfully, as if not to miss any shade of meaning in what he said, “Do you think, then, there is a limit?”

“To being in love?  If there is, I haven’t found it!”

She glowed with sympathy.  “Ah—­it’s really and truly a romance?”

“The most romantic of romances!”

“How delightful!  And you found it all out for yourselves—­it was not in the least arranged for you?”

Archer looked at her incredulously.  “Have you forgotten,” he asked with a smile, “that in our country we don’t allow our marriages to be arranged for us?”

A dusky blush rose to her cheek, and he instantly regretted his words.

“Yes,” she answered, “I’d forgotten.  You must forgive me if I sometimes make these mistakes.  I don’t always remember that everything here is good that was—­that was bad where I’ve come from.”  She looked down at her Viennese fan of eagle feathers, and he saw that her lips trembled.

“I’m so sorry,” he said impulsively; “but you are among friends here, you know.”

“Yes—­I know.  Wherever I go I have that feeling.  That’s why I came home.  I want to forget everything else, to become a complete American again, like the Mingotts and Wellands, and you and your delightful mother, and all the other good people here tonight.  Ah, here’s May arriving, and you will want to hurry away to her,” she added, but without moving; and her eyes turned back from the door to rest on the young man’s face.

The drawing-rooms were beginning to fill up with after-dinner guests, and following Madame Olenska’s glance Archer saw May Welland entering with her mother.  In her dress of white and silver, with a wreath of silver blossoms in her hair, the tall girl looked like a Diana just alight from the chase.

“Oh,” said Archer, “I have so many rivals; you see she’s already surrounded.  There’s the Duke being introduced.”

“Then stay with me a little longer,” Madame Olenska said in a low tone, just touching his knee with her plumed fan.  It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him like a caress.

“Yes, let me stay,” he answered in the same tone, hardly knowing what he said; but just then Mr. van der Luyden came up, followed by old Mr. Urban Dagonet.  The Countess greeted them with her grave smile, and Archer, feeling his host’s admonitory glance on him, rose and surrendered his seat.

Madame Olenska held out her hand as if to bid him goodbye.

“Tomorrow, then, after five—­I shall expect you,” she said; and then turned back to make room for Mr. Dagonet.

“Tomorrow—­” Archer heard himself repeating, though there had been no engagement, and during their talk she had given him no hint that she wished to see him again.