Adelle was received by the new president, that same Mr. Solomon Smith who had delivered the trust company's ultimatum to her after her marriage. Mr. Smith, it seemed, had recently succeeded to the dignity of President West, who had retired as chairman of the company's board, fat with honor and profit. President Solomon Smith received Adelle with all the consideration due to such an old and rich client, whose business interests were still presumably considerable, although latterly she had seen fit to remove them from the cautious guardianship of the trust company. She was in mourning, he noticed, and looked much older and more of a person in every way than when it had been his official duty to deliver his solemn wigging in the Paris studio to the trust company's erring ward. Mr. Smith probably realized with satisfaction the success of his prophecies on the consequences of her rash act, which he had so eloquently pointed out. Adelle made no reference, however, to her own troubles, nor explained why she had announced herself by her maiden name. She had come on more important business.
It took her some time to make clear to the banker what the real purpose of her visit was, and when Mr. Smith realized it he summoned to the conference two other officers of the institution, who were better acquainted with the detail of the Clark estate than he was. After the thing had been put before them, the temperature in the president's office leaped upwards with astonishing rapidity on this chilly day in early May. Three more horrified gentlemen it would have been hard to find in the entire city, whose citizens are easily horrified. For this woman, whom Fate and the Washington Trust Company had endowed with a large fortune, to try to raise the ghost of that troublesome Edward S. Clark, whom they had been at so much pains and expense to lay, seemed merely mad. When Adelle reiterated her conviction that she herself had discovered at last the heirs of the lost Edward S., President Smith demanded with some asperity whether Mrs. Davis—Mrs. Clark—understood what this meant. Adelle replied very simply that she supposed it meant the California Clarks getting at last their half of Clark's Field, which certainly belonged to them more than to her.
"Not at all!" all three gentlemen roared at her exasperatedly.
"They'd have a hard time making good their title now!" one of them remarked, with a cynical laugh.
"It would mean a lot of expensive litigation for one thing," another injected.
"Which would fall upon you," the trust president pointed out.
"But why?" Adelle asked quietly. "I shouldn't fight their claims."
The three gentlemen gasped, and then let forth a flood of discordant protest, which was summed up by the president's flat assertion,—
"You'd have to!"
Patiently, while his colleagues waited, he tried to make clear to Adelle in words of two syllables that the Clark's Field Associates would be obliged to defend the titles they had given to the land, and she as majority partner in this lucrative enterprise would have to stand her share of the risk and the legal expense involved. Adelle saw that the affair was more complex than she had thought and said so, with no indication, however, of giving up her purpose.