Yellow Roses and Hidden Meanings — The Age of Innocence

Harry Montague, leaving the room, steals back to kiss the end of Ada Dyas's velvet ribbon, and she never hears him. Archer goes to "The Shaughraun" for that silent moment, and tonight it fills his eyes with tears. He tells himself there is no likeness to his last evening with Madame Olenska. He is no handsome actor, and they parted as lawyer and client after a talk that left him sure the Count's charge was not unfounded. The likeness, he decides, is in her: she seems a woman to whom things are bound to happen, and what she takes for granted measures what she has fled.

Archer's report has already done the family's work. He told them she gave up the divorce because she saw it was useless, and they turned their eyes from the "unpleasantness" with relief. Mrs Welland was sure Newland would manage it. Old Mrs Mingott called Ellen a silly goose for wanting to be an old maid when she could be a married Countess. Now, in the Beaufort box, while Mr Jackson murmurs to Mrs Beaufort about dancing at Mrs Struthers's, Ellen asks whether the actor will send his lady yellow roses in the morning. Archer has sent her two boxes, never with a card. She asks what he does while May is away, then tells him, breathlessly, that he was right and she is grateful.

May has gone to St Augustine because Mr Welland's bronchial tubes demand it every winter, and Archer's light work is too respectable to leave. Her letter asks him to "be kind to Ellen," who is lonely and misses the music and clever talk New York lacks. Archer loved her for it and did not mean to act on it. He thinks Ellen can look after herself, with Beaufort at her feet and Mr van der Luyden hovering like a protecting deity. Yet each time he speaks to her, May's simple guess sounds more like second sight. "Ellen Olenska was lonely and she was unhappy."