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.
XXVIII
Adelle was distinctly roused by her return to America and all the memories awakened at the sight of familiar streets, the home of the Washington Trust Company, and the probate court whither she was obliged to go. Judge Orcutt was still sitting on the bench and seemed to her to be exactly as she remembered him, only grayer and a little more bent over his high bench. He was still that courteous, slightly distant gentleman from another age, whose mind behind the dreamy eyes seemed eternally occupied with larger matters than the administration and disposal of human property. He remembered Adelle, or professed to, and gave her a kindly old man's smile when he shook hands with her, in spite of all the réclame of her indecorous return to her native land. He said nothing of that, however, but refreshed his memory by consulting a little book where he entered all sorts of curious items not strictly legal that occurred to him in connection with important cases. From these pages he easily revived all the details of Adelle, her aunt, and the now famous Clark's Field.
Looking up from his book, he scrutinized with unusual interest the young woman who had come before him after an absence of seven years. He was reflecting, perhaps, that, although she was unaware of the fact, he had played the part to her in an important crisis of a wise and beneficent Providence. In all likelihood he had preserved for her the chance of possessing the large fortune which she was about to receive with his approval from the Washington Trust Company. No wonder that he looked keenly at the young woman standing before him! What was she now? What had she done with herself these seven crucial years of her life to prepare herself for her good fortune and justify his care of her interests? How had the enjoyment of ease and the expectation of coming wealth, with all its opening of gates and widening of horizons, affected little Adelle Clark—the insignificant drudge from the Alton rooming-house?...
Judge Orcutt no longer published thin volumes of poetry. The bar said that he was now devoting himself more seriously to his profession. The truth was, perhaps, that in face of his accumulating knowledge of life and human beings, he no longer had the incentive to write lyrics. The poetry, however, was there ineradicably in his soul, affecting his judgments,—the lawyers still called him "cranky" or "erratic,"—and giving even to routine judicial acts a significance and dignity little suspected by the careless practitioners in his court.... And so this elderly gentleman, for he had crossed the sixty mark by now, recalled the timid, pale-faced, undersized girl, with her "common" aunt, who seven years before had appeared in his court and to whom he had been the instrument of giving riches. What had she done with the golden spoon he had thrust into her mouth and what would she do with it now? Ah, that was always the question with these inheritances which he was called upon to administer according to the complicated rules of law—and the law books afforded no answer to such questions!...
"My dear," he said, with one of his beautiful smiles that seemed to irradiate the "case" before him with its personal kindliness and sympathy, "so you have been living in Europe the last few years and are now married?"