When Archer and Ellen reveal their feelings for each other midway through the novel, Archer becomes overwhelmed with his desire for her. The narrator captures this via evocative imagery, as seen in the following passage:
For a long moment [Ellen] was silent; and in that moment Archer imagined her, stealing up behind him to throw her light arms about his neck. While he waited, soul and body throbbing with the miracle to come, his eyes mechanically received the image of a heavily-coated man with his fur collar turned up who was advancing along the path to the house.
The imagery here is significant—readers can feel how desperately Archer wants Ellen to “throw her light arms about his neck” and also how his “soul and body throbb[ed] with the miracle to come.” This latter phrase is Wharton’s way of communicating the erotic energy between the two characters, and how Archer is expecting that they will now begin their sexual relationship. Unfortunately for him, Beaufort (the “heavily-coated man with his fur collar turned up”) disrupts what little alone time they were able to have.
Moments like this—in which the depth of Archer’s desire for Ellen becomes clear—hint at the failures of the institution of marriage. Archer feels pressured to marry May because she is everything he “should” want (according to the rules of New York society), but, when he is being true to himself, he knows he actually wants to be with Ellen. Part of why he desires her in particular is because, like him, she is not wedded to following the rules.
Near the end of the novel, Archer prepares to tell May about his relationship with Ellen, but is interrupted by May telling him that she is pregnant. Wharton effectively uses imagery to capture the unspoken subtext in the scene:
“Have you told any one else?”
“Only Mamma and your mother.” She paused, and then added hurriedly, the blood flushing up to her forehead: “That is—and Ellen. You know I told you we’d had a long talk one afternoon—and how dear she was to me.”
“Ah—” said Archer, his heart stopping. […] “But that was a fortnight ago, wasn’t it? I thought you said you weren’t sure till today.”
Her colour burned deeper, but she held his gaze. “No; I wasn’t sure then—but I told her I was. And you see I was right!” she exclaimed, her blue eyes wet with victory.
The dialogue in this scene is arguably less important than the imagery Wharton uses to describe Archer and Ellen’s physical reactions in their conversation. Before revealing that she told Ellen she was pregnant, May’s “blood flush[es] up to her forehead.” And after she says it, Archer’s “heart stop[s].” These sensory descriptions help readers to understand what isn’t being spoken between them, i.e., that May intentionally told Ellen about the pregnancy to make Ellen give up her relationship with Archer and leave town.
When Archer notes that May couldn’t have known she was pregnant two weeks ago, May’s “colour burned deeper” and, when she admits to stretching the truth, her eyes become “wet with victory.” Again, the imagery here says what the dialogue does not—that May intentionally lied to Ellen because she knew about the affair, and she feels no shame about it.
This is one of the moments in which Archer must accept that May is not as innocent as he always believed her to be—she knew the truth about his relationship with Ellen all along and intentionally sabotaged it to keep Archer from leaving her.
