The trust company had left its ward severely alone since Mr. Smith's
visit to Paris. Like punishing parents they seemed resolved to let
Adelle taste the dregs of her folly by herself. Each quarter they
deposited with the Paris bankers twelve hundred and fifty dollars and
notified them not to honor Mrs. Davis's drafts in excess of this amount.
It was automatic. That was the ideal of the trust company, as it is of
many private persons, to reduce life to automatic processes.
But as the day drew near when the trust company had to give a final
accounting to the probate court of its guardianship, they notified
Adelle by a curt letter that her presence would be desirable. There were
certain matters in connection with her assuming control of her fortune
and terminating their trust that could be transacted more expeditiously
if Mrs. Davis would present herself at their office by the end of May.
"We beg to remain," etc.
The suggestion came as a welcome incentive to the young couple. Anything
that might expedite matters was to their taste. They had talked of
making a visit to Archie's relatives and introducing Adelle to the
modern paradise of the golden slope and at the same time visiting the
Pauls. And so, about the middle of May, the Davises took ship from Havre
for the New World, occupying, in deference to their coming wealth, an
expensive deck suite in the transatlantic hotel, and thus made their
journey in all possible comfort.
They arrived in B---- with a great many trunks that contained a small
part of all those purchases which Adelle had made; also with a dog and
Adelle's maid. Their first real experience of their American citizenship
came naturally at the dock. Archie, who had lost some money on the way
across, and was hazy about his duties and rights as a returning citizen,
had put in an absurd declaration for the customs officers. With their
formidable array of trunks the couple presented at once a vulnerable
aspect to the inspectors, and long after the procession of travelers had
scurried away in cabs, Archie and Adelle were left, hot and
uncomfortable, trying to "explain" their false declaration. Adelle, who
was not usually untruthful, lied shamelessly about the prices she had
paid for things. "It cost just nothing at all,--twenty francs," she
declared as the officer held forth some article whose real value he knew
perfectly well. Adelle lost her assurance, shed tears of shame; Archie
lost his temper and swore at the officer for insulting his wife, and in
consequence every article in the fourteen pieces of baggage was dumped
upon the dock while a grinning audience of inspectors, reporters, and
stevedores gathered about the unhappy pair.
"What a country!" Archie fumed while the inspector was summoning his
superior officer.
"No wonder Americans prefer to live abroad," he remarked loftily to a
convenient reporter, who was preparing copy with his eager eyes.
"We won't live here, will we!" Adelle chorused to her husband.
"Not much!"
"To treat decent people like this, just because they have a few clothes
and things. What do they take us for--hoboes?" Archie continued.
He forgot that he had departed from his native land a scant two years
before with a lean dress-suit case and a small trunk. Also that his wife
and indirectly himself were among the beneficiaries of the law they had
tried to evade. The reporter, who had appraised the pair more
expeditiously than the inspector had their goods, hypocritically drew
them out, asking their opinion of America and Americans, which Archie
set forth volubly.
When the inspectors finally came upon deposits of Adelle's jewelry which
she had skillfully concealed in the toes of her shoes, they declared the
game off and sent all the trunks forthwith to the stores. Their case was
so serious that it must be dealt with specially. The pair finally left
the dock, much chagrined, feeling as nearly like common criminals as
they were ever likely to feel; indeed, somewhat frightened and much less
voluble in protest, whatever their opinion of their fatherland might
still be. It was evidently a serious affair they had got themselves in
for by their perfectly natural desire to save a few dollars at the
expense of the Government.
The next morning when they awoke in the Eclair Hotel, which still
remained B----'s best hostelry, where they had consoled themselves by
taking an expensive suite and ordering a good dinner, they found that
their arrival in America was not unheralded. The reporter had not been
idle. His description of Archie was unkind, and his satirical report of
the couple's sayings and doings was unfriendly. He had somehow
discovered Adelle's connection with Clark's Field, the story of which in
a much garbled form he gave to the public and incidentally doubled the
size of her fortune,--"drawn from one of the most unblushing pieces of
real estate promotion this State has ever seen." Altogether it was the
kind of article to make the conservative gentlemen of the Washington
Trust Company very unhappy. When they read it they wished again that
they had never seen Adelle.
Other papers took up the scent of the "Morning Herald," and for a week
Archie and Adelle were thoroughly introduced to the American people as
an idle pair, of immense inherited wealth, who had failed in their
attempt to defraud the custom house of a few thousand dollars. This
affair kept them busy for the better part of a week, and was finally
settled without prosecution when the collector became convinced that no
serious wrong had been plotted by Archie and Adelle. He gave them both a
little lecture, which they received in a humbler frame of mind than they
had shown at the dock.
Archie rather enjoyed the newspaper notoriety that his marriage to the
heiress of Clark's Field was bringing him. He entertained the reporters
affably at the hotel bar, and established a reputation for not being a
"snob," though so much of a "swell." In fact he was a much less uncouth
specimen than when Adelle had first encountered him in the Paris studio.
A year and a half of ease and petting had served to smooth off those
more obvious roughnesses that had caused Irene Paul to describe him as a
"bounder." He was fashionably dressed according to the Anglo-French
style, and fortunately did not affect soft shirts or flowing ties or
eccentric head-gear, or any other of the traditional marks of the
artist. Lounging in the luxurious hotel corridor, he looked like any
well-to-do young American of twenty-seven or eight. His bright red hair
and small waxed mustache, and his habit of dangling a small cane,
perhaps, were the only distinguishing marks about him. After the customs
case had been disposed of, Archie found time hanging on his hands.
Adelle was occupied with the trust company and all the formalities she
had to go through with before she could actually lay her hands upon her
fortune. Archie read the lighter magazines and loafed about the streets
of B----, peering up through his glasses at the lofty buildings, and
imbibing more cocktails and other varieties of American stimulants than
was good for him.