me to think them over. I feel I can guarantee that no assessment
will be necessary."

And when the railways had mysteriously and abruptly ceased to misbehave,
and the strike had suddenly fizzled out, he offered his stock to the
university as a gift. "I shall see to it," he wrote, "that the company is
not molested again, but is helped in every way." Arthur was for holding
off, but Scarborough said, "No. He will keep his word." And Scarborough
was right in regarding the matter as settled and acceptance of the
splendid gift as safe. Whitney had his own code of honesty, of honor. It
was not square dealing, but doing exactly what he specifically engaged to
do. He would have stolen anything he could--anything he regarded as worth
his while. On the other hand, he would have sacrificed nearly all, if not
all, his fortune, to live up to the letter of his given word. This,
though no court would have enforced the agreement he had made, though
there was no written record of it, no witness other than himself, the
other party, and the Almighty--for Charles Whitney believed in an
Almighty God and an old-fashioned hell and a Day of Judgment. He
conducted his religious bookkeeping precisely as he conducted his
business bookkeeping, and was confident that he could escape hell as he
had escaped the penitentiary.

CHAPTER XXII

VILLA D'ORSAY

Adelaide did not reach home until the troubles with and through Charles
Whitney were settled, and Arthur and Dory were deep in carrying out the
plans to make the mills and factories part of the university and not
merely its property. When Scarborough's urgent cable came, Dory found
that all the steamers were full. Adelaide could go with him only by
taking a berth in a room with three women in the bottom of the ship.
"Impossible accommodations," thought he, "for so luxurious a person and
so poor a sailor"; and he did not tell her that this berth could be had.
"You'll have to wait a week or so," said he. "As you can't well stay on
here alone, why not accept Mrs. Whitney's invitation to join her?"

Adelaide disliked Mrs. Whitney, but there seemed to be no alternative.
Mrs. Whitney was at Paris, on the way to America after the wedding and a
severe cure at Aix and an aftercure in Switzerland. She had come for the
finishing touches of rejuvenation--to get her hair redone and to go
through her biennial agony of having Auguste, beauty specialist to the
royalty, nobility and fashion, and demimonde