The winter had passed agreeably and rapidly for Adelle. But London did not please her because Miss Comstock insisted upon a rather rigorous course of museums and churches and show places, which always fatigued and bored Adelle. She was also taken to garden parties where she was expected to talk, and that was the last thing Adelle liked doing. Whatever expressive reaction to life she had could never be put into words for the casual comer. She would stand helpless before the most persistent man, seeking a means of escape, and as men are rarely persistent or patient with a dumb girl she stood alone much of the time in spite of her reputation for wealth, which Miss Comstock carefully disseminated to prepare the way for her.
One morning while her maid was brushing her hair, an operation that Adelle particularly liked and over which she would dawdle for hours, a card was brought to her, which bore the name—"Mr. Ashly Crane"—and underneath this simple and sufficient explanation—"The Washington Trust Company." Adelle had almost forgotten Mr. Crane's existence. He had become more a signature than a person to her. Nevertheless, the memory of her girlish triumph the last time they had met caused her to hasten her toilet and put in an appearance in the private salon she had at the hotel in something less than half an hour. There she found the young banker very spruce in his frock coat and silk hat, which he had furnished himself with in America and assumed the day of his arrival on English soil. He was taking a vacation, he promptly explained to Adelle, in which, of course, he should do several pieces of important business. But he gave the girl to understand that she was not on this business list: he had looked her up purely as a pleasure. In fact, the trust people had become somewhat uneasy over Miss Clark's frequent drafts, which altogether exceeded the liberal sum that President West felt was suitable for a young woman to spend, though well within her present income, and suggested that Mr. Crane should find out what she was doing and if she were likely to get into mischief. The young banker had had it in mind to see Adelle in any case—she had left a sufficiently distinct impression with him for that. There may have revived in his subconsciousness that earlier dream of capturing for himself the constantly expanding Clark estate, although as yet nothing had defined itself positively in his active mind.
When at last the girl entered the little hotel salon where he had been cooling his heels for the half-hour, he had a distinct quickening of this latent purpose. Adelle Clark was not at this period, if she ever was, what is usually called a pretty girl. She had grown a little, and now gave the impression of being really tall, which was largely an effect of her skillful dressmaker. Pale and slender and graceful, exquisitely draped in a gown subtly made for her, with a profusion of barbaric jewelry which from this time on she always affected, Adelle was what is commonly called striking. She had the enviable quality of attracting attention to herself, even on the jaded streets of Paris, as suggesting something pleasurably different from the stream of passers-by. The American man of affairs did not stop to analyze all this. He was merely conscious that here was a woman whom no man need be ashamed of, even if he married her for other reasons than her beauty. And he set himself at once, not to catechize the bank's ward about her expenditures, but to interest the girl in himself. They went to the Savoy for luncheon, and the trust officer noted pleasurably the attention they received as they made their way through the crowded breakfast-room. And in spite of Adelle's monosyllabic habit of conversation, they got on very well over their food, about which Adelle had well-formulated ideas. He suggested taking a cab and attending the cricket match, and so after luncheon they gayly set forth on the long ride to Hurlingham in the stream of motors and cabs bound for the match.
Adelle smiled shyly at Mr. Crane's heavy sarcasm upon British ways, and replied briefly to his questions about her winter in Paris. The situation was a novel one to her, and she enjoyed it. The one thing her money had thus far not done for her was to bring her men—she had, indeed, done nothing herself to attract them. But now for five hours she had the constant attention of a good-looking, well-dressed, mature man. To be sure Mr. Ashly Crane was much older than she. He gave her the curious sensation of being in some way a relative. Was the Washington Trust Company not the nearest thing to a relative that she had? And Mr. Ashly Crane was the personal symbol to her of the trust company—its voice and lungs and clothes. So she felt a faint emotion over the incident. As they were returning from the cricket field in the English twilight, with the scurry of moving vehicles all about them, Mr. Crane ventured on more personal topics than he had hitherto broached. He felt that by this time they must be quite good friends. So he began,—
Did she like living in Europe?
Yes, she found it very pleasant and Miss Comstock was the nicest teacher she had ever had—really not like a teacher at all; and she liked Miss Baxter and the metal-work. (This was a long and complicated statement for Adelle.)
She must show him some of her work. Was that chain (taking it familiarly in his hands to look at it) her own handiwork?
Oh, no; that was a Lalique ... the chief artist in thisgenrein Paris. (The banker mentally accounted for some of the recent drafts.) Didn't he think it pretty?—such an unusual arrangement of the stones!
He should not call it exactly pretty—odd rather;—but it was very becoming to her.... He should like to see some of her own work, etc.
Oh, she should never dare to show him anything she had done. She was nothing but a beginner, etc., etc.
Later on, as they entered the dark precincts of the city, another step nearer the personal was taken.
She would want to spend another year in Europe probably?
Oh, yes, they had the loveliest plans. Miss Comstock was going to take her and Eveline Glynn on a visit to some friends who had an estate in Poland, in the mountains, a real castle, etc. (Mental note by the banker—"Must look up this Comstock woman—seems to have a good deal of influence upon the girl.") And then they were all going to Italy again in the spring and perhaps Greece, though everybody said that was too hard on account of the poor hotels. And she did want to go up the Nile and see the Sphynx and all the rest of it, etc., etc. (Pause).
Had she any idea what she would like to do afterwards, where she wanted to live?
When?
Why, after she had finished her education.
Oh, she wanted to go on making pretty things—she should have a studio of her own, of course, like Miss Baxter.
"Where?"
"Why in Paris,—perhaps New York," Adelle replied vaguely, indifferently.
That gave Mr. Crane an opportunity for an improving homily on the folly of expatriation, the beauty of living in one's own country among one's own people, and so forth, which brought them to the door of Adelle's hotel. Mr. Crane came in and met Miss Comstock and the girls she had with her. Then he disappeared and returned later in full dress and took the party to the Carlton for dinner and then to a light opera. The girls were entranced with Mr. Crane, especially the two Californians, and redoubled their envy of the fortunate Adelle in having this handsome substitute for a parent. They called him her "beau," by which designation Mr. Ashly Crane was henceforth known among Pussy Comstock's girls during their sojourn in London.
He had not made quite the same favorable impression upon Miss Comstock, who was acquainted with all sorts and conditions of men. The two recognized immediately an antagonism of interests, and spent this first evening of their acquaintance in reconnoitering each other's position with Adelle. "Little bounder," Miss Comstock pronounced with the quick perception of a woman; "he's after the girl's money." While the man said to himself, with the more ponderous indirectness of the male,—"That woman is not quite the influence that an unformed girl should have about her. She's working the girl, too, for motors and things." And yet both smiled and joked companionably across the shoulders of the unconscious Adelle.
As the trust officer returned to his hotel in his hansom, he jingled a few stray coins in his pocket, the remains of twenty pounds in gold that the day had cost him. A long education in finance, however, had taught him to be indifferent to these petty matters of preliminary expense. Nevertheless, before retiring he entered up the sum to the Clark estate expense account. Poor Adelle, dreaming of her "beau"! Her first real spree with a man was charged to her own purse.
There were many similar items added to the account during the next fortnight. It seemed that Mr. Ashly Crane had nothing better to do with his European vacation than to give Miss Clark and her companions a good time, or, as he intimated to Miss Comstock, "to get into closer touch with the company's ward." Naturally he was a godsend to the Comstock girls, for he could take them to places where without a man they could not go. There was a mild orgy of motoring, dining, and theater. Pussy Comstock, experienced campaigner that she was, made no objection to this junketing. A fixed principle with her was to let any man spend his money as freely as he was inclined to. Yet she skillfully so contrived that the young banker had few opportunities of solitary communion with his ward. At first Mr. Crane did not understand why the Glynn girl or one of the Paul sisters was always in the way, and then he comprehended the artful maneuver of the woman and resented it. One afternoon, when he had taken the party up the river, he announced bluntly after tea that he and Adelle were going out in a punt together. Leaving Miss Comstock and the three other girls to amuse themselves as they could, he stoutly pulled forth from the landing and around a bend in the river. Thereafter his efforts relaxed, and he had Adelle to himself for two long hours. And Adelle, reclining on the gaudy cushions under an enormous pink sunshade, was not unenticing. Her air of indolent taciturnity was almost provoking. Mr. Ashly Crane quite persuaded himself that he was really in love with the young heiress.
Oddly enough he chose this opportunity to discuss with her her business affairs, which was the excuse he had tossed Miss Comstock for abstracting the ward from the rest of the party. He found that she knew almost nothing about the source of her fortune—that lean stretch of sandy acres known as Clark's Field. He related to her the outline of the story of the Field as it has been told in these pages. Adelle listened with a peculiarly blank expression on her pale face. She was in fact trying hard to recall certain distant images of her early life—memories that were neither pleasant nor painful, but very odd to her, so strange that she could not realize herself as having once been the little drudge in the rooming-house on Church Street, with the manager of the livery-stable as the star roomer. While the banker was relating the steps by which she had become an heiress, she was seeing the face of the liveryman and that of the probate judge, who had first taken an active part in her destiny and turned it into its present smooth course....
"So," Mr. Crane was saying, "the bank was finally able to make an arrangement by which the long deadlock was broken and Clark's Field could be sold—put on the market in small lots, you know. Owing to a very fortunate provision, you are the beneficiary of one half of the sales made by the Field Associates, as the corporation is called—whenever they dispose of any of it they pay us for you half the money!"
(He neglected to state that this "fortunate provision" was due solely to the shrewdness and probity of Judge Orcutt; that if he and the trust company's president had had their way she would have been obliged to content herself with a much more modest income than she now enjoyed. But doubtless Mr. Crane felt that was irrelevant.)
"So you see, little girl," he concluded, in a burst of unguarded enthusiasm, "we are piling up money for you while you are playing over here."
As something seemed to be expected of her, Adelle remarked lamely,—
"That is very nice."
"Yes," Mr. Crane continued with satisfaction. "You can congratulate yourself on having such good care of your property as we give it.... And let me tell you it didn't look promising at first. There were no end of legal snarls that had to be straightened out—in fact, if I hadn't urged it strongly on the old man I doubt if they would have taken hold of the thing at all!"
"Oh," Adelle responded idly, "what was the trouble?"
"Why, those other heirs—that Edward S. Clark and his children. Iftheyhad turned up we should have been in a pretty mess."
"Oh!"
"It would have upset everything."
"Why?"
He had just explained all this, but thinking that women never understood business matters until everything had been explained several times, and anxious to impress the girl with the benefits that she had derived from the guardian which the law had given her, also indirectly from himself, he patiently went all over the point again.
"Why, your great-grandfather Clark had two sons, and when he died he left a will in which he gave both of his sons an undivided half interest in this land. But the elder son had disappeared—they could never find him."
"Edward," observed the girl, remembering her uncle's frequent curses at the obstinate Edward. "Yes, I know. He went to Chicago and got lost."
"Afterward he went to St. Louis, but beyond that no trace of him or his family can be found."
"I suppose some day he will turn up when he hears that there's some money," Adelle remarked simply.
The banker scowled.
"Well, I hope not!... Edward isn't likely to now: he must be a young thing of eighty-seven by this time."
"Well, his children, then."
"They would have difficulty in proving their claim. You see there's been a judicial sale, ordered by the court, and every precaution taken.... No, there's no possibility of trouble in that quarter."
"Then they won't get their money?" Adelle remarked, thinking how disappointed these hypothetical descendants of Edward Clark must be.
"No," agreed the trust officer with a laugh. "They're too late for dinner."
Adelle, who did not understand the mental jump of a figure of speech, stared at him blankly.
"It's too bad," she observed placidly at last.
"Yes, it is decidedly too bad for them," the banker repeated ironically. "But it's life."
After this profound reflection they paddled idly for a few moments, and then the trust officer resumed, nearer to his theme.
"So you see, Miss Clark, you're likely to be a pretty rich woman when you come of age. The old leases on the estate are running out, and as fast as they can the managers of the Clark's Field Associates sell at a good price or make a long lease at a high figure and everything helps to swell the estate, which we are investing safely for you in good stocks and bonds that are sure to increase in value before you will want to sell them."
"How much money is there?" Adelle demanded unexpectedly. This was her opportunity to discover the size of her magic lamp.
"I couldn't say off hand," the banker replied cautiously. "But enough to keep you from want, if you don't spend too much making jewelry." He added facetiously,—"You don't feel cramped for money, do you?"
"No-o," the girl admitted dubiously. "But you can't always tell what you may want."
"If you don't want much more than you do at present, you're safe," Mr. Crane stated guardedly. "That is, if nothing goes wrong—a panic, and that sort of thing."
After a pause he said,—
"But you should have some one look after your property, invest it for you—a woman can't do that very well."
"The bank does it, don't it?"
"I mean after you are of age and have control of your own property."
"Oh," the girl murmured vaguely, running her hand through the ripples of river water. "That's a good ways off!... I suppose I shall be married by that time, andhewill look after it for me."
She said this in a thoroughly matter-of-fact voice, but the banker almost jumped from his seat at the words.
"You aren't thinking of getting married yet!" he exclaimed hastily.
"I suppose I shall some day," she replied.
"Of course you'll marry sometime," he said with relief; and ran on glibly,—"That is the natural thing. Every girl should get married early. But you must take good care, my dear girl, not to make a mistake. You might be very unhappy, you know. He might not treat you right." And with a sense of climax he exclaimed,—"He might lose all your money—ruin you!"
"Yes, he might," Adelle agreed with composure. "They do that sometimes."
She looked at him from her open gray eyes undisturbed by the prospect, as if, womanlike, she was aware of this unpleasant fate in danger of which she must always be. Mr. Ashly Crane knew that this was the point when his love-making should begin, but suddenly he felt that Adelle Clark was a very difficult person to make love to.
"Perhaps you've been thinking of the man?" he opened clumsily.
She shook her head thoughtfully.
"No, I haven't."
"But you could love some one?"
"I suppose so," she answered in such a matter-of-fact tone that for the moment he was baffled. The present situation, he decided, was unfavorable for love-making, and searched desperately within for his next words.
"I wonder what they look like," Adelle mused aloud.
"Who look like—husbands?"
"No, Edward's children—the other heirs," she explained.
"Perhaps there aren't any," he snapped.
And under his breath Mr. Ashly Crane consigned Edward S. Clark and all his offspring to perdition.
Mr. Crane was a persistent person. Otherwise he would hardly have arrived where he had in the Washington Trust Company. Having failed to broach the great subject in the afternoon, he immediately made another opportunity for himself by hustling Adelle, ahead of the others, into his own cab for the return drive to the city, and then jumping in after her and giving the driver the order to leave. It was very ill-bred and he knew it, but he was determined not to bother about Miss Comstock any longer. His vacation was very nearly at an end, and this would be his last chance for another year if the ward was to remain in Europe as was her present determination. He consoled himself with the thought that the others had Adelle's car at their disposal, and gave the order to take a roundabout road back to London. The driver needed but the suggestion to plunge them into a maze of forgotten country roads where there were no lights and no impeding traffic....
There are in general three ways in which to make love to a woman, young or old: the deliberate, the impulsive, and the inevitable. Of the third there is no occasion to speak here, as neither Ashly Crane nor Adelle understood it. Of the remaining two the deliberate method of cautious, persistent siege was more to the taste and the temperament of the banker, but he was strictly limited in time. The Kaiser Nonsuch, on which his passage was reserved, sailed in three days from Southampton, and he must win within that brief period or put the matter over for a whole year. And he judged that Adelle, under her present environment with such an expert manager as Miss Catherine Comstock, would not be left hanging on the bough within his reach for long. A year's delay would almost surely be fatal, and it was uncertain whether he could get away before the next summer from his important responsibilities at the Washington Trust Company. So haste must be the word.
That he should reason thus about a delicate matter of sentiment betrays not merely the man's coarse grain, but the inferiority of the commercial experience in making an accomplished lover. He had been trained in the "new school" of rapid finance to complete large transactions on the moment, never letting small uncertainties or delays interfere with his purposes. It was really not essential to the working of the financial system—even for the salvation of the Washington Trust Company—that Mr. Ashly Crane should turn up at his desk on the morning of the twenty-sixth instanter. It might just as well have been the thirty-first or even the middle of the next month—or, if he should have the good luck to gain the heart and hand of the heiress, never at all! But Mr. Ashly Crane was neither of the temperament nor of the age to play the sentimental game thus desperately. He was altogether too much an American to let his love-making interfere with his business schedule. (Besides, there was not another swift steamer sailing for New York for three weeks.)
So he sighed, and when the cab shot into the umbrageous dimness of old trees he took the girl's hand in his. She made no attempt to withdraw her hand. Probably Adelle was more frightened by this first experience in the eternal situation than the man was, and that is saying a good deal. She took refuge in her usual defense against life and its many perplexities, which was silence, permitting the banker to press her captive hand for several moments while the cab tossed on the uneven road and Crane was summoning his nerve for the next step. Her heart beat a little faster, and she wondered what was going to happen.
That was the man's attempt to encircle her waist with his free arm. In this maneuver Adelle did not assist him: instead, she pushed herself back against the cushion so firmly that it made it a difficult engineering feat to obtain possession of her figure. By this time his face was close to hers, and he was stammering incoherently such words as—"Adelle" ... "Dearest" ... "Love" ... etc. But we will spare the reader Mr. Ashly Crane's crude imitation of ardor. All love-making, even the most sincere and eloquent, is verbally disappointingly alike and rather tame. The human animal, ingenious as he is in many ways, is nevertheless almost as limited as the ape when it comes to the articulation of the deeper emotions. That is why delicacy and the habit ofnuancesgive the experienced wooer such an immense advantage, even with a raw girl like Adelle, over the mere clumsy male. Love, like the drama, being so rigidly limited in technique, is no field for the bungler! And Mr. Ashly Crane was far from being an artist in anything.
By this time Adelle had become aware that she was being made love to. It filled her with a variety of emotions not clearly defined. First of all, there was something of the woman's natural complacency in her first capture, more vivid than when the other girls had dubbed Mr. Crane her "beau." This was abona fideillustration of what all the girls talked about most of the time and the novels were full of from cover to cover—love-making! And next was a feeling akin to repugnance. Mr. Crane was not aged—barely forty-two—and he was good-looking enough and quite the man. But to Adelle he had always been, if not exactly a parent, at least an older brother or uncle,—in some category of relationship other than that of young love. That he should thus hastily be professing ardent sentiments towards her seemed a trifle improper. Beneath these superficial feelings there were, of course, some deeper ones;—for instance, a slight sense of humor in his clumsy management and a feeling of gratification that at last the unknown had arrived. And a something else not wholly unpleasant in her own small person....
Crane was mumbling something about his loneliness and her unprotected condition. Adelle was not aware that she was to be pitied because of lack of protection, but she liked to be the object of sympathy. Gradually she relaxed, and permitted him to insert his arm between her and the cushion, which he seemed so ridiculously anxious to do. At once he drew her slight form towards him. He was saying,—
"Dearest! Can you—will you—"
And she demanded point-blank,—
"What?"
"Love me!" the man breathed very close to her.
"I don't know," she replied, struggling to regain her refuge in the corner from which his embrace had dragged her.
And just here Ashly Crane committed an irretrievable blunder, due to those imperfections of nature and technique which have been described before. As the cab lurched, throwing the girl nearer him, he grasped her very firmly and kissed her. The Kaiser Nonsuch sailed on the Thursday, and it was now Monday....
As his mustached lips sought her small mouth and met the cold, hard little lips, he knew that he had taken a fearful risk. Adelle did not scream. She did not struggle very much. She took the kiss passively, as if she had some curiosity to know what a man's kiss was like. After he had given it with sufficient ardor and was ready to relax his passionate embrace, she drew back calmly into her corner and looked at him very coolly out of her gray eyes. After the flurry of the struggle, with her brown hair slightly awry, her hat tipped back, and her lips still half open as they had been forced by his kiss, she was almost pretty. But those gray eyes looked at him as no girl ought to look after her lover's first kiss, and let us hope as few girls do look. Mr. Ashly Crane read there that he had lost his chance with the heiress. There was just enough of spirit even in his common clay to divine this. If only he had not been so hasty!—not tried to "put the thing through" before sailing, and do it in the manner of the "whirl-wind campaign"....
For a moment or two there was silence within the cab while the car rocked on in its mad race for London. They were well within the outskirts of the city now, and the banker knew that there would not be time to work up to another crisis. He must defer the recovery until the morrow, if he could summon courage to go on with it at all. But the girl still stared at him out of her wide-open eyes, as if she were saying in her small head—"So that's what a man's kiss is like." He muttered uncomfortably a lot of nonsense about forgetting himself, and her forgiving him,—ignorant that in such a grave matter forgiveness is always out of the question: either it is not needed, or it cannot possibly be given. Adelle said nothing, merely looked at him until he was driven to turn his head away and gaze out of the swiftly moving cab at the lighted streets to escape the wonder and the surprise and the contempt in those gray eyes. As they turned into Piccadilly, he remarked brusquely,—"I shall come to-morrow morning—and get your answer!" That was to "save his face," as we say, for her answer was written in those eyes. Again he took her little ungloved hand and tried to bear it to his lips. But this time Adelle gently, firmly extracted it from his grasp and placed it behind her back with its mate, safely out of reach, still looking at him gravely.
Crane helped her out of the cab, and turned to pay the driver, who was beaming with expectation of an extra fee for his participation in this adventure. When he had settled the fare, Adelle had disappeared within the hotel. Judging that it might be unwise to follow her, Mr. Ashly Crane walked off to his hotel, scowling along the way, very little pleased with himself. He was really more mortified at discovering how poor an artist in the business he was than by his ill success itself.
"Nothing but a meek, pale-faced, little school-girl, too!" he was saying to himself. And aloud,—"Oh, damn the women."
Adelle went straight to her own rooms, but before she could close the door Miss Comstock was on her heels. Having taken the direct route to London in Adelle's swift car, she had had ample time to change her gown, and now looked specially groomed and ready for the encounter, with keen, knowing green eyes. Closing the door carefully, Miss Comstock turned, looked Adelle over from her hat, which was still slightly tipped, to her ungloved hands.
"Well?" she remarked with perceptible irony.
Adelle did not mean to tell anything. She wanted to keep this, her first affair, to herself, no matter what she might consider it to be, and she was not yet sure what she should think of it finally. So she had tried her best to dodge her companions until she had had time to simulate her usual appearance. But she had been caught by "Pussy" red-handed. To the mentor's repeated "Well?" she said nothing, a foolish little smile starting without her will around the corners of her mouth.
"So he kissed you?" Miss Comstock continued; and as Adelle's eyes dropped guiltily, she remarked contemptuously,—"The cad!"
Adelle was only vaguely acquainted with the meaning of this hateful word, but if she had realized its full significance she would not have cared, though she had no desire to defend Mr. Ashly Crane. She was silent, while Miss Comstock tore a few more shreds from Adelle's poor little "affair."
"I knew that was what he was after from the first, my dear. It was written all over him!... A pretty kind of an officer for a trust company to have! If the directors of the Washington Trust Company knew of this there would be trouble for Mr. Ashly Crane!... A ward, too—"
"He's always been nice to me," Adelle protested lamely, feeling that in her invective Pussy was reflecting upon her guardians.
"Of course!... I have no doubt he made up his mind to get you, as soon as he knew how rich you would be."
This was too raw even for Adelle. The girl drew herself up haughtily, and Miss Comstock adroitly covered up her mistake.
"You know, my dear, that is one of the dangers any woman with money is exposed to. Luckily this is your first experience with the mere fortune-hunter, but you will find that there are many men in the world just like this Mr. Ashly Crane, who are incapable of a genuine passion for any woman, and are always looking for a rich wife. No girl wants to think that a man is making love to her because she has money—especially when she has other attractions.... To think that this man, who ought to have shielded you from everything, should be the one to humiliate you so!"
She proceeded with an admirable mingling of flattery and friendliness to put Adelle on her guard against the male sex.
"At least," she concluded, "a man ought to have something to offer a rich girl,—a name or position. What has that little cad to give you? Social position? A title? Nothing! If a woman must marry, she should get something in the bargain."
She succeeded in thoroughly humiliating Adelle for what she had secretly been a little proud of, her first "affair," and easily killed with her contempt any possibility of the girl's yielding to the banker's persistency.
"He said he was coming to see me to-morrow," Adelle finally pouted almost tearfully.
"He will seemeto-morrow instead," Miss Comstock said promptly; "and I don't think he will trouble you again."
The encounter on the following morning between the trust officer and Pussy Comstock is not a part of this story. Enough to say that Mr. Crane got his steamer at Southampton and was happily so seasick all the way across that he could not worry over his failure in the gentle art of love-making. He told his friends that he had spent a dull vacation in England, and spoke disparagingly of British institutions and of Europe for Americans generally. When President West inquired about the ward, he spoke very guardedly of Adelle and of Miss Catherine Comstock. He intimated that Miss Clark had developed into an uninteresting and somewhat headstrong young woman, and implied that he had doubts about the influence which her present mentor had upon her character. However, the trust company would soon be absolved from all responsibility for its ward, and it might be as well to let matters rest as they were for the present, if the drafts from Paris did not become too outrageous, which, of course, was exactly what Mr. West and the other officers wished to do—nothing.
Hereafter Mr. Ashly Crane must honor any draft that Adelle might make, no matter how "outrageous" it was. (The drafts came fluttering across the ocean on every steamer for ever-increasing amounts until the young heiress was living at the rate of nearly forty thousand dollars a year.) The banker might wonder how a young girl, still nominally in school, could get away with so much money. He might fear that her extravagance would become a habit and carry her even beyond the limits of her large means. But he could not say a word. Miss Comstock, indeed, had put him in a sorry situation for a full-grown banker. The more he thought about the unfortunate episode of his love-making, the more he cursed himself. President West, whose special protégé the young banker had always been, held very strict notions about honor and the relation of the officers of the company to its clients. In Adelle's case—that of a minor entrusted to them by the probate court—the president would feel doubly incensed if he suspected that any officer had attempted to take advantage of her unprotected and inexperienced youth. So Mr. Ashly Crane walked softly these days and promptly honored Adelle's drafts.
Of course this was precisely what Pussy Comstock had been clever enough to see when, in the idiom with which Mr. Crane was familiar, she had had the trust officer "on the carpet" and "called him down" on that memorable occasion of the day after. He might tell her, as he had recklessly done, that her own relation to the rich girl depended solely upon his consent, and hint coarsely that he knew well enough the ground of her extreme interest in Adelle's fate. Miss Comstock did not take the trouble to deny either fact. She merely smiled at the blustering banker, and intimated that the president and directors of the trust company might have views about the conduct of its trust officer towards their ward. She had heard much of the prominent social position of President West, and if she were not mistaken Mr. Nelson Glynn, the father of one of her girls, was a director in the bank. Mr. Crane wilted under this fine treatment, and departed as we have seen to do Miss Comstock's will.
This blunder of Adelle's official guardian also gave Miss Comstock a great prestige with the girl herself. Pussy had so cleverly unmasked the designing man that Adelle felt only mortification for the incident and was grateful for Miss Comstock's friendship and impressed by her knowledge of the world. Miss Comstock made much of her in the ensuing weeks, and for this angular and somewhat worn middle-aged woman Adelle began to have the first real passion of her life. She was putty in her hands for a time and obeyed her slightest suggestion. Instead of curbing Adelle's tendency to extravagance, the mistress of the Villa Ponitowski encouraged it, partly for her own gratification and partly to serve warning upon the trust officer. Mr. Crane might well wonder where Adelle put the money she drew; he would have been amazed if he could have known the ingenious ways which Miss Comstock found for improving her opportunity. In all the years that she had pursued her parasitic occupation, she had never had such a free chance, and she began to dream ambitiously of appropriating Adelle and Clark's Field for life.
With Pussy's approval Adelle bought another motor, a high-powered touring-car, and she kept besides several saddle-horses for use in the Bois. She generously assumed the entire rent of Miss Baxter's expensive studio when that imprudent artist found herself in difficulties; but that comes a little later. Adelle defrayed all the expenses of the Nile trip which Miss Comstock made with her family this winter. These are a few instances of the spending habit, but the great leak was the constant wastefulness to which Adelle was becoming accustomed. She spent a lot of money merely for the sake of spending it, buying nothings of all sorts to give away or throw away. It seemed as if all the penurious years of the Clarks were now being revenged in one long prodigal draft by this last representative of their line. The magic lamp responded admirably each time Adelle rubbed it by simply writing her name upon a slip of paper at the banker's. She had a child's curiosity to find out the limits of its marvelous power, and daringly increased her demands upon it. Possibly if Miss Comstock's designs had carried, she might have discovered this limit within a few years: but her fate was shaping otherwise.
Meantime her little "affair" with the banker excited the other girls in the family, who felt that the rich young heiress must encounter many wonderful adventures in love. Adelle was initiated in the great theme, and for the first time began to take an interest in men. Perhaps Mr. Ashly Crane's crude love-making had broken down certain inhibitions in the girl's passive nature, had overcome an instinctive repugnance to sex encounters. The path of the next wooer would doubtless be easier. But that lucky man did not put in an appearance. Miss Comstock jealously guarded the approaches to her treasure with greater discretion than ever before. She made no effort to prepare for her an alliance with an impecunious scion of the minor Continental nobility such as she arranged later for Sadie Paul. She said that she could think of no one good enough for her dear Adelle, and anyway the girl was altogether too young to think of marrying—another year would be ample time. So Adelle was confined to the younger brothers and friends of her companions, who turned up in Paris at different times, and upon these she tried timidly her powers of charm with no great success. Apparently she was content to remain without "beaux." Luxury had made her indolent, and her days were full of petty occupations that distract the spirit. Yet at times she felt a vague emptiness in her life which she soon found means of filling in an unsuspected manner.
Adelle's interest in the art of jewelry had not ceased, but she was away from Paris this second year so much that her work in Miss Baxter's studio had been sadly interrupted. After her return from the Nile in March, however, she developed anew her passion for making pins and chains and rings, and spent long afternoons in the studio on the Rue de l'Université. Miss Comstock thought nothing of these absences; indeed, was relieved to have Adelle so harmlessly and elegantly employed. It is true that Adelle was working in the studio, but she was working under a new tutelage. A fellow-townsman of Miss Baxter's had turned up in Paris that autumn and frequented her studio as the only place where he could be sure of a welcome, warmth, and an occasional cup of tea. This young Californian, Archie Davis by name, had found his way to Paris as the traditional home of the arts, and expected to make himself famous as a painter. A graduate of the State University, he had been engaged by his father in vine culture on the sunny slopes of Santa Rosa, but the life of a California wine-grower had not appealed to him. From the slopes of Santa Rosa he soon drifted to San Francisco, and there conceived of himself as a painter. He was a large, vigorous, rather common young Californian, with reddish hair and a slightly freckled face, who was really at home on horseback in the wilds of his native land, but at a loss on the streets of Paris where he found himself frequently without much money. Viticulture was not paying well at this time in California, and Archie's father, in cutting down expenses all around, chose to begin with Archie, who had not done anything to assist the family fortunes. Archie took it good-naturedly and kept usually cheerful, though seedy and often hungry. He felt that his was the typical story of the artist, and if he would only persist, in spite of poverty and discouragement, he must ultimately become a great painter because of his discomfiture.
"They can't freeze me out!" was a common saying on his lips, given with a toss of the head and a smiling face which made an impression upon women. Also his whistling philosophy, phrased as, "You never know your luck!"
Miss Baxter, who had no great confidence in his ability, was kind to Archie Davis for the sake of California, where she had known his people, and because a single woman, no matter what her kind or condition may be, likes to have some man within call. Adelle met him, as she met dozens of other men, in the easy intimacy of the studio. At first she did not regard him nor he her. Sadie Paul, who happened to be present at the time, pronounced him a "bounder," which made no great impression upon Adelle, any more than had Miss Comstock's "cad" for the banker. It was not until she had settled in Paris for the spring and was a fairly regular worker in the studio that Archie began to play a part in her life.
It is easy to see why they should draw together. Adelle, thanks to all the accessories that her money provided, presented a radiant and rare vision to the young Californian, who knew only women like Cornelia Baxter—mere workers—or the more vulgar intimacies of the streets and cafes. Adelle Clark did not resemble even the sturdy California lassies with whom he had been a favorite on the university campus. With her motors and gowns and jewels she was the exotic, the privileged goddess of wealth. To her Archie was at first mere Boy, then Youth. His seedy state did not disturb her. Though dainty in habit, she had not become delicate in instinct. And Archie's "freshness" amused her, his casual familiarity of the sort that exclaimed, while he fingered a bit of her handiwork,—"Say, girlie, but that is a peach of a ring!... Is it for Some One now?"
She laughed at his "freshness," and felt perfectly at home with him. It was not until after several weeks of this acquaintanceship that the affair developed, unexpectedly, the opportunity being given.
One rainy April afternoon when Adelle arrived at the studio she found it empty except for the presence of Archie Davis, who was dozing on the divan in front of the small stove. Adelle had come briskly up the stairs from her car, and the ride through the damp air had given her pale cheeks some color. She threw back her long coat, revealing a rose-colored bodice that made her quite pretty. Then the two discovered themselves alone in the big studio. Adelle had a faint consciousness of the fact, but supposing that Miss Baxter would return, she tossed aside her wrap and with a mere "Hello, Archie!" went over to the corner where on a small bench she was wont to pound and chisel and twist.
"Say, but you look good enough to eat!" the youth remarked appreciatively.
Adelle laughed at the compliment.
"Why are you always thinking of eating?" she asked.
"I guess because a good meal don't often come my way," he yawned in reply.
Adelle wanted to find out why this was so, but could not frame her question to her satisfaction. Archie happened to be in one of those rare moments of melancholy introspection when he doubted even his divine calling to art. He was really hungry and somewhat cold, and life did not seem inviting.
"I don't know," he observed after a time, "as this art game is all it looks to be from a distance—that is," he added, watching Adelle with appreciative eyes, "unless you happen to have the dough to support it on the side."
"Aren't you painting?" Adelle asked after another pause.
"Nope!"
"Why not?"
"I can't paint when I'm feeling bad."
"What's the matter?..."
According to the novelists love-making—"the approach of the sexes"—is an affair of infinite precision and fine intention; but according to nature, at least in those less self-conscious circles wherein are found the vast majority, it is one of the casual and apparently aimless forms of human contact. For a good hour these two played the ancient game, but the movements, the articulate ones, at least, were of the last degree of banality and insignificance—too trivial to recite even here.
That consciousness of being alone with a young man, which had come over Adelle on her entrance, developed gradually into a pleasant sense of intimacy with Archie. Miss Baxter did not come back to make the tea, as she usually did at this hour. Adelle was acutely aware that the young man had counted on getting this tea and really needed the nourishment. She wanted to give him food, to be kind to him. At last she ventured to suggest,—"Don't you know some place around here where we could get something to eat? I guess Miss Baxter isn't coming back this afternoon."
Archie instantly rose to the suggestion: he knew all the restaurants within the radius of two miles. And so, escorted by the young man, Adelle was soon entering a discreet small café, where, after infinite conversation with the proprietor, a tepid concoction was served with some excellent small cakes. Adelle then had one of the purest joys of her existence in watching the gusto with which the young Californian dispatched his tea and cakes even to the last crumbs of thebrioche. She wanted to ask him to dine with her somewhere, but did not dare. In time they went back to the studio, which was now dark and still deserted, and after puttering for another half-hour Adelle departed in her car for the Villa Ponitowski. Nothing more momentous than what has been related happened, but both felt profoundly that something had happened. Archie, less daring or more skillful than his predecessor, did not press his advantage,—did not even ask to accompany the girl home,—and Adelle was left with the happy illusion of a mysterious human interest.
At last Adelle had a young man! He was not much of a young man in the eyes of Miss Comstock or Irene Paul, perhaps, but Adelle did not care for that. Incipient love awoke in the girl all her latent power of guile. This time she did not "give herself away" to "Pussy" nor to her companions, knowing instinctively that her toy would be taken away from her if it was discovered. For two months she managed almost daily meetings with Archie Davis without arousing the suspicion of any one, except possibly Miss Baxter, who did not consider the matter seriously. When late in May Miss Comstock took it into her head to motor to Italy for a trip to the Lakes and Venice, Adelle tried her best to escape, but failed. She departed sulkily, and managed to scrawl a letter and post it privately almost every day. Each mile that bore her farther from Paris filled her heart with gloom, and she made mad plans of escape. Her emotions having at last been stirred dominated her exclusively. She wanted Archie every moment. She wrote him to meet the party, casually, somewhere. But Archie, alas, was altogether too poor to follow his lady about Europe. She would have sent him the money for the journey if she had known how to do it. Instead, she sent him picture postcards of the monuments of southern France and northern Italy.
It was in Venice one languid afternoon in early June, as she was coming out from Cook's, where she had been to get her mail, that she heard her name,—"Adelle!... Miss Clark,"—and looking around discovered her lover leaning against a pillar of the piazza. He had somehow found the means to follow her, arriving that morning by the third-class train, and had hung around the piazza, confident that the girl must appear in this center of civic activity. They at once took to a gondola as the safest method of privacy. And it was in this gondola, behind the little black curtains of thefelza, that Adelle received her second kiss from the lips of a man. But this time due preparation had been made: the kiss was neither unexpected nor undesired, and on her part, at least, the embrace had all the fervor of nature.
As they floated out upon the still waters of the lagoon beyond the lonely hospital, with the translucent silver haze of the magic city hanging above them, Adelle felt that heaven had been thrust unexpectedly into her arms. This was something far beyond the magic touch of her lamp, and all the sweeter because it came to her as a personal gift, independent of her fortune. At least she felt so. It is permissible to doubt if Archie Davis would have been sufficiently stirred by a penniless girl to have spent his recent remittance in chasing her to Italy, but such fine discriminations about young love are cruel. Sufficient for them both, in these gray and golden hours of the June afternoon in Venice, that they had come together. In time Adelle learned just how the miracle had been worked. Father Davis's remittance to take his son back to the ranch had at last arrived with a rather acid letter of parental instructions from the wine-grower. Archie with the true recklessness of youth had torn the letter to shreds and cashed the draft, purchased a third-class ticket for Venice, and put almost all that was left of the money into a much-needed suit of clothes. And now?
Adelle, with an unexpected acuteness, felt that Archie even in his present rehabilitated condition would be an object of suspicion to the keen eyes of Pussy Comstock, whom she was beginning to find troublesome. And she felt quite inadequate to explaining Archie plausibly. So it was decided between the lovers before the gondola returned to the city that they should meet clandestinely while the party remained in Venice. It was the family habit to take prolonged siestas after the second breakfast, when Adelle would be free to slip forth and join Archie in the cool recesses of a neighboring church. Other opportunity might arise. Young love is content with little—or thinks it will be. They parted with a final kiss, and Adelle thoughtfully paid the boatmen when they landed at the piazzetta.
There followed for one week the most exciting and the most taxing episode in Adelle's small existence. She never had time for naps or odd moments of indolent nothings. In spite of the languorous heat, she became alert and schemed all her waking moments how best to make time for Archie. After a few days she bribed her maid so that she could get out of the hotel to a gondola after the others had gone to their rooms for the night. It was all a piece of pure recklessness, and Adelle was hardly adept enough to have carried it on long without detection. Fortunately, Miss Comstock was much occupied with some important English people, for whose sake she had really dragged the party down to Venice. And for seven days Adelle spent rapturous hours behind the black curtains of a gondola, varied by hardly less exciting hours of planning to bring her joy once more to her lips. Then Miss Comstock's English friends departed and the family set out for the North. They went by the International and Archie followed more slowly by theomnibus. He overtook the party at Lucerne, but Lucerne is not as well adapted as Venice for the shy retreats of love. They were content to return to Paris, where they imagined their liberty would be less circumscribed....
It was at Lucerne that Adelle's lover demanded rather brusquely why she was "so mortal scared of the schoolma'am?" Was she not a young woman of nineteen and of independent means, without the annoying necessity of consulting her parents in her choice of a lover? This put it into Adelle's mind that in the last resort she might defy Pussy and have her precious one all to herself in untrammeled freedom—in other words, marry Archie. But she was really afraid of Miss Comstock, and also doubtful of what her guardian, the trust company, might do to her. For the present she was content, or nearly so, with what she had, and was not thinking much about marriage. Her lover must be satisfied with stolen moments and secret meetings in public places, with an occasional kiss.
Marriage was really the only solution, and Archie knew it. If Adelle had not been possessed of such a very large golden spoon, the whole affair might have resulted differently and more disastrously. But her fortune both endangered and protected her. For Archie was no worse and no better than many a young man of his antecedents and condition. It is, perhaps, to be doubted if he would have contented himself indefinitely with innocent love-making, if the girl had not been so far removed from him in estate.... He meant to marry Adelle when he could, which meant as soon as it would be safe for her to marry. That might not be for another two years, until she was mistress of herself in law and of her fortune.
Shortly after their return to Paris, the "home" at Neuilly was closed for the summer and the family went to Étretat to occupy a villa that Adelle had leased previous to her infatuation. There seemed no way of escaping Étretat without betraying her real reasons. She said something about staying on in Paris through June to work in the studio, but Pussy firmly closed the house and shipped the servants to Adelle's villa. If she only had not chosen Étretat, she wailed to Archie, but some nearer Normandy watering-place from which she might have motored up to Paris on one excuse or another and thus had glimpses of her lover! He must come to Étretat. But Archie was again without funds, living on the bounty of a hospitable fellow-countryman. After a fortnight of loneliness beside the sea, Adelle invented an elaborate pretext to return to Paris, but Miss Comstock insisted on accompanying her and stuck so closely to her side during three hot days that there was no chance for a sight of Archie. At last Adelle was sulkily dragged back to Étretat. Then she asked Miss Baxter to visit her and induced that good-natured young woman to send Archie a sufficient sum of money, as coming from an admirer of his art, to enable him to take up his residence in the neighborhood. Miss Baxter demurred over "giving him such a head," but finally was persuaded. Archie Davis was probably more surprised than ever before in his life to learn that one of his loose efforts on canvas had so impressed an American amateur of the arts that the latter had given Miss Baxter a five-hundred-dollar check for him and an order for a seascape from the Brittany shore. Behold Archie established at Pluydell in a picturesque thatched cottage with his easel and paint-box! Pluydell is on the road from Étretat to Fécamp, and not over ten minutes' ride in a swift motor-car from the villa that Adelle occupied.
The young man painted intermittently during August, and Adelle discovered a mad passion for driving her new runabout alone, which her friends naturally voted quite "piggy" in her. If she was occasionally bullied into taking a companion with her, she drove the car so recklessly around the roughest country lanes that the friend never asked for another chance to ride with her. And thus she was free many times to make the dash over the familiar bit of chalk road, leave her car beneath the yellow rose-vine that covered the cottage, and walk across the sand to that particular corner of the wide beach where the young American had established himself with umbrella and painting tools....
What did they do with themselves all the hours that Adelle contrived to snatch for her Archie? First there was a good deal of kissing. Adelle grew fonder of this emotional expression as she became accustomed to it, and sometimes rather wearied Archie with her tenderness. Then there was a good deal of affectionate fondling, rumpling his red hair, pulling his clothes and tie into place, criticizing his appearance and health. Adelle when she was at the doll age never had had a chance for these things, and now all her woman's instincts began to bloom at once. She wanted to dress and care for her treasure and deluged him with small trinkets, many of them made by her own somewhat bungling hands. After these more intimate desires had been gratified, Adelle might take a critical look at the canvas over which Archie was dawdling and pronounce it "pretty" or "odd," or ask what it was meant to be. Then throwing herself down on the sand or turf and pulling her broad straw hat over her face she prepared for "talk." "Talk" consisted mostly of question and answer,—
"Where did you go last night?"
"Casino."
"Whom did you see at the casino?"
"Same crowd."
"Did you play?"
"Just a little."
"Did you win?"
"Yep!"
"Much?"
"A couple of plunks," etc.
Or,—
"Did Pussy catch you last night?"
"No! Never said a word."
"Who was the man you were walking with?"
"Oh, that little man with the glasses—he's a friend of Pussy's, English."
Perhaps as follows,—
"Pussy is talking of our all going to India next winter."
"India;—what for?"
"She always wants to go some place."
"You aren't going to India?" (Lover's alarms.)
"Of course I shan't!"
One easily might undervalue Adelle's passion, however, if it were judged solely by its intellectual quality. The beauty and the wonder of passion is that it cannot be weighed by any mental scales, its terms are not transferable. Adelle's share of the universal mystery, in spite of the banality of its expression, may have been as great as any woman's who ever lived. At least it filled her being and swept her to unexpected heights of feeling and power.
She was completely happy at this time, but Archie after the first days was restless and somewhat bored. There were long periods when he could neither make love nor paint, and he took to spending his idle evenings at the Casino, which was not good for his slender purse. As the weeks passed and their ruses seemed successful, the two grew more reckless and indulged in flying expeditions about the country roads in Adelle's little car. One evening, as they were returning in the sunset glow from a long jaunt down the coast, Adelle at the wheel and Archie's arm encircling her waist, they came plump upon Irene Paul and Pussy Comstock in a hired motor. Adelle stiffened and threw on high speed. They dashed past in a whirl of dust, but the Paul girl's eyes met Adelle's. She felt sure of Irene, and hoped that Pussy had not recognized them. But they must be more careful in the future. If Pussy found out—well, they must "do something." This time she shouldn't be deprived of Archie. Never!
Adelle dressed slowly, revolving in her mind what she should say to Irene, who had called Archie a "bounder," and descended to the salon where the family were waiting for her. Nothing was said until they were seated at the dinner-table. Irene obstinately kept her eyes away and Adelle felt troubled. Suddenly Miss Comstock, looking across the table with her penetrating smile, asked sweetly,—"Don't you find it difficult to drive as you were this afternoon, Adelle?"
Like all clumsy persons Adelle lied and lied badly. She had not been on the road since she took Eveline to the Casino. Pussy must have been mistaken. Miss Comstock did not press the point, but Irene Paul looked at Adelle and smiled wickedly. Adelle knew that she had been betrayed and her heart sank. Presently Miss Comstock began to talk about the red-haired artist who was living in a picturesque cottage out on the Pluydell road. A very ordinary young American, she observed cuttingly. Had the girls seen him sketching? Adelle knew that the blood was mounting to her pale face, and she bent her head over her food. The end had come.
That evening they went to the Casino to hear the music, and by chance Archie was there, too, and threw self-conscious glances towards their table. Between the soothing strains of Franz Lehr, Pussy whispered into Adelle's ear,—
"Why don't you bow to your young friend? He looks as if he wanted to join us."
Adelle gazed at her tormentor pitifully, but said nothing. The rest of the evening she sat in cold misery trying to think what might happen, resolved that in any case the worst should not happen: she would not lose her Archie. She returned to the villa in dumb pain to await in her room the expected visit. She did not even undress, preferring to be ready for instant action. Soon there was a knock and Pussy entered. She was in her dressing-gown and looked formidable and unlovely to the girl.
"Adelle," she said with a sneer, sitting down before the fire, "I thought you knew too much to do this sort of thing."
Adelle was silent.
"And such a common bounder, too!"
It was Irene Paul's opprobrious epithet, which Adelle was beginning to comprehend. She winced, but made no reply.
"You might easily get yourself into serious trouble, my dear, with a man like that."
Adelle cowered under the stings of her lash and said nothing.
"I shall write the young man to-morrow that if he wants to see you he had better pay his visits here," she said tolerantly. "This is your house—you can see him here, you know. There are ways and ways of doing such things, my dear."
With a yawn and a hateful smile Pussy departed.
It was over, and she was alive. At first Adelle felt relieved until she pondered what it meant. Archie would be exposed to the keen shafts of Pussy's contempt and to the girls' titters and snubs. And probably there would be no chance at all for the kissing and all the rest. It was Pussy's clever way of effectually disposing of Archie. She understood that.
Adelle stayed awake for several hours, a most unusual occurrence, revolving matters in her confused mind. When she could stand it no longer she got up, dressed herself carefully in her motoring dress, and stole downstairs through the silent house, out to the garage which was at the other end of the garden. Eveline's little Pomeranian squeaked once, but did not arouse the household. Adelle cranked her car feverishly and succeeded at last, after much effort, in starting the engine and in pushing back the garage door. It was by far the most desperate step in life she had ever taken, and she felt ready to faint. She clambered into the car and released the clutch, more dead than alive, as she thought. With a leap and a whir she was down the road to Archie's cottage.
Safely there she felt more composed. Stopping her engine she got out and walked to the window of the room on the ground floor that she knew the young Californian occupied. It was open. Leaning through the rose-vine she called faintly,—"Archie! Archie!" But the young painter slept solidly, and she was forced to take a stick and poke the bunch of bed-clothes in the corner before she could arouse the sleeping Archie. When he came to the window, she exclaimed,—
"Some thing awful has happened, Archie!"
"What's the row?"
"We're found out. Pussy knows and the girls. Irene told 'em!"
That apparently did not seem to Archie the ultimate catastrophe that it did to her. He stood in his pajamas beside the window, ungallantly yawning and rubbing his eyes.
"Well," he observed, "what are you going to do about it?"
Doubtless to his masculine good sense it seemed merely adding folly to folly thus to run away from the villa at midnight and expose them to further trouble.
Adelle did not argue nor explain.
"Put your clothes on," she said, with considerable decision, "and come out to the car."
Thereupon she went back to the car, cranked it afresh, and waited for him to appear. He came out of the rose-covered window, after a reasonable time, and climbed in beside the girl. She seemed to expect it, and there was not anything else to do. Adelle threw in the clutch and started at a lively pace, turning into the broad highroad which ran in a straight line southwards towards the French capital.
"What are you going to do?" Archie asked, now seriously awake and somewhat disturbed.
"I'm never going back to that place again," the girl flamed resolutely. "Never!"
As if to emphasize a vow she threw one arm around her lover's neck and drew his face to hers so that she could kiss it,—a maneuver she executed at some risk to their safety. "Oh, Archie, I love you so—I can't give you up!" she whispered by way of explanation.
He returned her kiss with good will, though mentally preoccupied, and said, "Of course not, dearest!" and continued to hold her while she steered the car, which was traveling at a lively rate along the emptyroute nationalein the direction of Paris. And thus they proceeded for mile after mile or rather ten kilometres after ten kilometres. Adelle and the car seemed to be inspired by the same energy and will. Archie realized that they were going rapidly to Paris and felt rather frightened at first. It was one thing to make love to an heiress not yet of age, but another to elope with her across France at night. Archie was not sure, but he thought there might be legal complications in the way of immediate matrimony. He might be getting himself in for a thoroughgoing scrape, which was not much to his liking. But there seemed no way of stopping Adelle or the car.
For Adelle had no doubts. It was the greatest night of her life. She drove the car recklessly, but splendidly. Every now and then she would turn her pale face to her lover and say peremptorily,—"Kiss me, Archie!"—and Archie dutifully gave the kiss, which seemed to be all the stimulant she needed.
The wild rush through the night beside her lover appeased something within her. It answered her craving for romance, newly awakened, for daring and desperation and achievement of bliss. She felt exalted, proud of herself, as if she were vindicating her claim to character. To-morrow, when Pussy Comstock and the girls found that she had gone, they would know that she was no weak fool. And by that time, of course, it would all be over—irrevocable.
"You'll marry me as soon as we get there," she remarked once to Archie in exactly the same tone as she said, "Kiss me, Archie." The young man falteringly replied,—"Of course, if we can."
"Of course we can! Why not?" Adelle replied firmly. "Americans can marry any time."
She felt sure that speedy marriage was an inalienable right that went with American citizenship together with the privilege of getting divorced whenever one cared to. Archie was by no means so sure of this point, but he thought it well not to discuss it until they both had more exact information. So the car bowled along through the night at a good forty miles an hour.
Long before they reached Paris the sun had come up out of the hot meadows along the road and they were forced to stop at Chartres forpetroland breakfast. Adelle wanted to cut the breakfast to a bowl of hot coffee, but Archie firmly insisted that they must be braced with food for the ordeal before them. She yielded to Archie and reluctantly descended from her seat, stiff with fatigue but elated. After breakfast Archie suggested that they should leave the car at the inn and proceed to Paris conventionally by train. But Adelle would not give up one kilometre of her great dash for liberty and Archie. Nor would she consider his going on by train to make arrangements for the marriage.
So they resumed their rapid flight, but mishaps with tires began, and it was noon before they entered the Porte Maillot. As they drove past the Villa Ponitowski, Adelle looked furtively up at the shutters as if she expected to see Pussy's severe face lurking there. She guided the machine to the Rue de l'Université and stopped beneath Miss Baxter's studio windows. If Archie had proposed it, she would have gone at once to a hotel with him and registered, but he prudently suggested the studio, where he hoped to find Cornelia Baxter. But the sculptress had gone away somewhere, and the big room was empty—also hot and dusty. They sat down before the fireless stove and looked at each other.
Adelle was very tired and on the verge of hysterical tears. Archie had not been very efficient in the tire trouble. She felt that now, at any rate, he should take hold of their situation and manage. But Archie seemed helpless, was not at home in the situation. (If Adelle had had more experience she might have been chilled even now by his conduct and managed her life differently.)
"I'm so tired," she moaned, throwing herself down on the divan. "Don't you love me, Archie?"
Of course he did, but he did not offer to embrace her, and she was obliged to go over to where he sat in a wilted attitude and embrace him.
"You are mine now for always," she said, almost solemnly.
"Yes," he admitted, as if he did not exactly like the form in which the sentiment had been expressed.
"What are we going to do?"
"Get some food first. I'm starved, aren't you?"
Adelle, weary as she was, might not consider food as of the first importance in this crisis, but recognizing Archie's greater feebleness, she yielded to his desire for refreshment. So they drove to Foyot's and consumed two hours more in lunching delectably. Archie seemed somewhat aimless afterdejeuner, perhaps he did not know just how to attack his formidable problem. It was Adelle who suggested that they drive to her banker's and inquire how to get married in American fashion in France. Adelle felt that bankers knew everything. It was a very elegant and bewildered young Frenchman whom they found alone in this vacation season at the bank which Adelle used. After he understood what they wanted he directed them to their consul. Adelle knew the American consulate because she had been there to sign papers, and turned the car into the Avenue de l'Opéra with renewed hope. They stopped before the building from which the American flag was languidly floating and mounted the stairs to the offices. In the further room, beyond the assortment of deadbeats that own allegiance to the great American nation, was a little Irish clerk, who in the absence of the consul and his chief assistant held up the dignity of the United States. He was a political appointee from the great State of Illinois, and after an apprenticeship in the City Hall of Chicago was much more familiar with hasty matrimony than either of the two flustered young persons who demanded his advice. To Adelle's blunt salutation, "We want to get married, please!" and then, as if not sufficiently impressive,—"Now—right off!" he replied agreeably, not taking the time to remove the cigarette from his mouth,—"Sure! That's easy."
And he made it easy for them. He found the necessary blank forms in an office desk and filled them out according to the information the couple gave him. Adelle in deference to Archie's scruples stretched a point and made herself of age. When the formalities had been completed, the young Irishman called in from the outer office one of the hangers-on who happened to be a seedy minister of the gospel and who looked as if he were in Paris by mistake.
Thus almost before Archie knew it he had taken to himself Adelle Clark as wife, the ceremony being witnessed by the consular clerk,—Morris McBride of Chicago,—and an ex-sailor on his way back to New York of the name of Harrington. Adelle distributed the remaining pieces of gold in her purse in the way ofpour-boires, and then the two found themselves in the runabout on the Avenue de l'Opéra—married.
"I didn't know it could be done so easily," Archie observed breathlessly.
"Anything can be done when you want to, if you have the money," Adelle replied, evincing how thoroughly she had mastered the philosophy of the magic lamp.
"And what shall we do now?" her husband inquired.
(They say that in marriage the first trivial events are significant of what will happen thereafter, like straws upon the stream betraying which way the current flows. Possibly Archie's question indicates the quality of this marriage, also the fact that presently Adelle set their course.)