eir time was filled with the relentless routine of the
fashionable life, and they had not a moment to spare for their own
personal lives; besides, Adelaide wouldn't have "fitted in" comfortably.
The men of their set would be shy of her now; the women would regard her
as a waste of time.

Her beauty and her cleverness might have saved her, had she been of one
of those "good families" whom fashionables the world over recognize,
regardless of their wealth or poverty, because recognition of them gives
an elegant plausibility to the pretense that Mammon is not the supreme
god in the Olympus of aristocracy. But--who were the Rangers? They might
be "all right" in Saint X, but where was Saint X? Certainly, not on any
map in the geography of fashion.

So Adelaide, sore but too lethargic to suffer, drifted drearily along,
feeling that if Dory Hargrave were not under the influence of that
brilliant, vanished past of hers, even he would abandon her as had the
rest, or, at least, wouldn't care for her. Not that she doubted his
sincerity in the ideals he professed; but people deceived themselves so
completely. There was her own case; had she for an instant suspected how
flimsily based was her own idea of herself and of her place in the
world?--the "world" meaning, of course, "the set." As is the rule in
"sets," her self-esteem's sole foundation had been what she had, or,
rather, what the family had, and now that that was gone, she held what
was left cheap indeed--and held herself the cheaper that she could feel
thus. At the outset, Arthur, after the familiar male fashion, was
apparently the weaker of the two. But when the test came, when the time
for courageous words was succeeded by the time for deeds, the shrinking
from action that, since the nation grew rich, has become part of the
education of the women of the classes which shelter and coddle their
women, caused Adelaide to seem feeble indeed beside her brother.
Also--and this should never be forgotten in judging such a woman--Arthur
had the advantage of the man's compulsion to act, while Adelaide had the
disadvantage of being under no material necessity to act--and what
necessity but the material is there?

Dory--his love misleading his passion, as it usually does when it has
much influence before marriage--reasoned that, in the interest of the
Adelaide that was to be, after they were married, and in his own interest
with her as well, the wise course for him to pursue was to w