, of three continents, burn
off her outer skin that nature might replace it with one new and fresh
and unwrinkled. She was heavily veiled as she and Adelaide traveled down
to Cherbourg to the steamer. As soon as she got aboard she retired to her
room and remained hidden there during the voyage, seen only by her maid,
her face covered day and night with Auguste's marvelous skin-coaxing
mask. Adelaide did not see her again until the morning of the last day,
when she appeared on deck dressed beautifully and youthfully for the
shore, her skin as fair and smooth as a girl's, and looking like an elder
sister of Adelaide's--at a distance.

She paused in New York; Adelaide hastened to Saint X, though she was
looking forward uneasily to her arrival because she feared she would have
to live at the old Hargrave house in University Avenue. Miss Skeffington
ruled there, and she knew Miss Skeffington--one of those old-fashioned
old maids whose rigid ideas of morality extend to the ordering of
personal habits in minutest detail. Under her military sway everyone had
to rise for breakfast at seven sharp, had to dine exactly at noon, sup
when the clock struck the half hour after five. Ingress and egress for
members of the family was by the side door only, the front door being
reserved for company. For company also was the parlor, and for company
the front stairs with their brilliant carpet, new, though laid for the
first time nearly a quarter of a century before; for company also was the
best room in the house, which ought to have been attractive, but was a
little damp from being shut up so much, and was the cause of many a cold
to guests. "I simply can't stand it to live by the striking of clocks!"
thought Adelaide. "I must do something! But what?"

Her uneasiness proved unnecessary, however. Dory disappointed his aunt,
of a new and interestingly difficult spirit to subdue, by taking rooms at
the Hendricks Hotel until they should find a place of their own. Mrs.
Ranger asked them to live with her; but Adelaide shrank from putting
herself in a position where her mother and Arthur could, and her
sister-in-law undoubtedly would, "know too much about our private
affairs." Mrs. Ranger did not insist. She would not admit it to herself,
but, while she worshiped Del and thought her even more beautiful than she
was, and just about perfection in every way, still Madelene was more
satisfactory for daily companionship. Also, Ellen doubted whether tw