Chapter Summary of The Age of Innocence - Study Guide by Edith Wharton

Newland decides that he absolutely must leave and whispers to May that he has a beastly headache and wants to go home. In the carriage, Newland opens the window, needing air. Stepping out of the carriage, May tears her wedding dress. Newland asks if she'd like some brandy "because she looks very pale" but May blushes and says "no". Newland tries to talk to May about Ellen; but May cleverly guides the conversation to explain that Ellen will be returning to Europe soon. Newland is obviously shaken by the news and May leaves the room quietly saying "my head aches too." The Archers begin setting up for their first dinner party, "a big event" for a young couple. The party will be in honour of Ellen Olenska leaving New York and returning to Europe.

Although Ellen had not spoken to Newland in ten days, he returned a key that he had given her earlier in a blank envelope. Newland is assigned the job of evaluating Ellen's trust. All the while that he is taking care of her finances, he think that there will be an affair between the two in the future. His belief in the future keeps him from writing to her.

The night of the dinner party Ellen looks pale, "lustreless and almost ugly." But still, Newland had never loved her face as much as he did at that moment." Newland notices that Ellen's hand is ungloved. Newland thinks, "If it were only to see her hand again I should have to follow her". Normally, only "foreign visitors" would be important enough to sit at the hosts left and take the place of Mrs. van der Luyden. But, they make an exception and let Ellen sit to the host's left because, "There were certain things that had to be done, and If done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe." Newland realises that everyone thinks that a true "affair" had been going on between Newland and Ellen; the celebration is really because the "separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had been achieved." It was the New York way to take a life without any traces of blood. Everyone sits at the table discussing travel in a dispassionate way. Newland looks at Ellen; he imagines she is thinking, "Let's see it through," which means, let's have our affair as planned. All the men retire to the library after dinner, and discuss how their society is changing. Larry Lefferts says, "If things go on at this pace we shall see our children fighting for invitations to swindlers' houses and marrying Beaufort's bastards." Later that evening, May asks if it is all right if they have a talk. Newland tries to tell her that he is tired of life and wants to go on a long trip; May says, that he can't go because she found out today that she is pregnant. Newland has a "sick stare" and asks whom she has told. She says that she's told Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Welland and Ellen. She had told Ellen about it two weeks ago. Newland asks her why she would tell Ellen about her pregnancy if she was not sure about it until today. She says, "I wasn't sure then, but I told her I was."

Newland is now fifty-seven and he is remembering his life while sitting at his writing table. He thinks about his son Dallas and his daughter Mary. Mary married one of Reggie Chivers's dullest sons. Dallas became an architect and Newland became a politician, briefly. Newland realises that he has become a "good citizen" although he has missed the "flower of life." Newland respected the duty of marriage and mourned when May died. Dallas calls his father on the telephone and tells him that he is going to Paris on business; Newland must accompany him. Newland reflects that so much had changed in his world. Dallas, his eldest son, was in fact marrying one of "Beaufort's bastards", Fanny Beaufort, and no one cared! Newland goes to Paris with his son; there, Dallas informs him that Ellen is expecting them in the evening. Dallas says that Newland should definitely go see her because Ellen was once "Newland's Fanny", the "woman Newland would have chucked everything for, but didn't." Dallas reveals that May said, on her death bed, that she asked Newland to give up the thing he wanted most, and he did." Newland says simply, "She didn't ask." Dallas then remarks that May and Newland never told each other anything; they lived in a silent "deaf and dumb asylum." When Newland and Dallas arrive in Ellen's neighbourhood; Newland decided that he doesn't want to go up and see her. When Dallas asks him what she should say on his behalf, he says, say that I'm "Old-fashioned." Dallas goes to see Ellen and Newland sits on the bench outside her building for a long time; when a servant comes to shut her shutters, Newland decides to leave the neighbourhood.