[...] He concludes with a an incisive recognition of her dilemma which is realised in her presentation of Archer: 'Mrs Wharton's triumph is that she has described these rites and surfaces and burdens as familiarly as if she loved them and as lucidly as if she hated them.'

In other words, whatever Wharton's satire of old New York, whatever the results of her autopsy over its corpse, she has no other world to turn to, and this is why Archer must concede and marry May. [...]