The Age of Innocence: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

While Archer and Ellen eat lunch, she tells him about her life since he last saw her. She eventually decided she couldn’t really fit in with New York society, so she decided to try Washington. She’ll probably make a home there for Medora, who’s always in danger of making a bad marriage. Archer is surprised that Ellen isn’t worried about Dr. Carver, but she says he only wants Medora as a convert to his social schemes. She herself is more interested in his ideas than in everyone else’s dedication to European tradition. It seems silly to act like America is a copy of another country rather than making a new society.

Archer asks whether Ellen has seen Beaufort lately. She hasn’t for a long time, but he understands her point of view. Archer thinks she likes Beaufort because he isn’t like other New Yorkers, who are so dull. He asks why she doesn’t go back to Europe. After a long time, she says without emotion that she stays because of him. Archer doesn’t dare to speak. She says he made her understand that the dullness covers things far more delicate than anything in her old life. She’s realized the price of pleasure. She has long wanted to tell him how he’s helped her.

Archer says that Ellen has changed him much more than he has changed her. He married because she told him to. She asks whether the marriage is bad for May. She has to believe that the most important thing is to save people from misery, or else everything she learned from Archer that made her old life seem bare is just a sham. In that case, she might as well go back. Archer says there’s no reason for her to stay if she’s been counting on the success of his marriage. She made him see what a real life would be like, and then she made him continue with a fake one. She says she’s enduring it, so he can too, and she begins to cry.

Ellen’s face suddenly exposes her soul, and Archer sees that all this time, she has been feeling the same anguish as he. Half the room is between them, but they don’t move. Though Archer fixates on her hand on the table, he knows that touching her would not satisfy his desire now. Desperation soon overtakes him; they’re so close, and yet so much stands between them. He asks what’s the use of anything when she’ll go back anyway, but she promises that she won’t go back as long as he stays strong. He knows she means that if he makes any move that will hurt May, Ellen will leave. She says she’ll be all right as long as they are both a part of each other’s lives, but they can’t have any more than that.

Archer springs towards Ellen, and she rises quietly. She takes his hands, but her arms keep him away. They stand that way in silence. Archer understands that he must not do anything that will drive her away. She says not to be unhappy, and he makes her promise again that she won’t go back. She leads the way out to the dining room, where Boston lies across the water.