Archer's dilemma - in The Age of Innocence

Great dramatic, perhaps melodramatic, end to book 1 (half-way point) in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence: an example, maybe a unique incident, of a romantic-cliffhanger: Archer heads off suddenly and surprisingly with no notice at work (my he has a tolerant boss - as Wharton makes clear, these white-shoe attorneys did not work very hard in those days, same impression I had from visiting Naumkeag in the Berkshires, where some well-bred NY lawyer would take his 3 month summer vacation every year, imagine that today!) for St. Augustine to visit his fiancee, May Welland, and to ask her to shorten their engagement. We know - even if he doesn't - that his doing so is not about his love for May but about his love for Countess Elena; he wants to remove himself from temptation. May, ever conventional (and perhaps prudish) declines; Archer, back in NYC, continues to visit the Countess and gets ever more deeply into a fix - finally declaring his love for her and, moments later it seems, receiving a telegram from May that her parents have agreed and they can marry within a few weeks. Now Archer is really screwed - he either breaks off the engage or engages in a falsehood and deception over the course of his life. He should break it off - but is he strong enough to do that, or is he, despite his wish to see himself as an artistic soul, real just a boring, privileged conventional guy, well suited to the insipid May Welland? Or, a third possibility - does Elena become less desirable once she's available to him? He seems to me like the kind of guy who is always after the impossible, or the forbidden fruit. The campaign is what interests him, not the conquest so to speak. Book 2 I think jumps forward quite a bit in time - maybe in space as well - as we see how Archer's dilemma sorts itself out - or how he sorts it out, if he's strong enough to take an action whatsoever.