the straight nose that divided her pale blue eyes was only
a little more pinched about the nostrils than when the
portrait had been painted. She always, indeed, struck
Newland Archer as having been rather gruesomely pre-
served in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly irre-
proachable existence, as bodies caught in glaciers keep
for years a rosy life-in-death.

Like all his family, he esteemed and admired Mrs. van
der Luyden; but he found her gentle bending sweetness
less approachable than the grimness of some of his
mother's old aunts, fierce spinsters who said "No" on
principle before they knew what they were going to be
asked.

Mrs. van der Luyden's attitude said neither yes nor
no, but always appeared to incline to clemency till her
thin lips, wavering into the shadow of a smile, made the
almost invariable reply: "I shall first have to talk this
over with my husband."

She and Mr. van der Luyden were so exactly alike
that Archer often wondered how, after forty years of
the closest conjugality, two such merged identities ever
separated themselves enough for anything as controver-
sial as a talking-over. But as neither had ever reached a
decision without prefacing it by this mysterious con-
clave, Mrs. Archer and her son, having set forth their
case, waited resignedly for the familiar phrase.

Mrs. van der Luyden, however, who had seldom sur-
prised any one, now surprised them by reaching her long
hand toward the bell-rope.

"I think," she said, "I should like Henry to hear what
you have told me."

A footman appeared, to whom she gravely added: "If
Mr. van der Luyden has finished reading the newspaper,
please ask him to be kind enough to come."

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