e was ringing
Adelaide's door-bell, while she minutely observed the curtains, the
door-mat, the ivy plants in the vestibule, and the brightness of the
brass knobs on the railing. In this she had a double motive: what was
evil she would criticize, what was good she would copy.

Adelaide was sitting with her husband when her visitor's name was brought
up. Since she had discovered that she was to be nothing but a sort of
super-nurse to him, she found herself expert at rendering such service.
She had brought in his favorite flowers, chosen a book for his bedside,
and now sat gossiping beside him, not bringing him, as she said to
herself, any of her real troubles; that would not be good for him. How
extraordinarily easy it was to conceal, she thought. She heard her own
tones, as gay and intimate as ever, as satisfactory to Vincent; and yet
all the time her mind was working apart on her anxieties about
Mathilde--anxieties with which, of course, one couldn't bother a poor
sick creature. She smoothed his pillow with the utmost tenderness.

"Oh, Pringle," she said, in answer to his announcement that Mrs. Baxter
was down-stairs, "you haven't let her in?"

"She's in the drawing-room, Madam." And Pringle added as a clear
indication of what he considered her duty, "She came in Mr. Lanley's
motor."

"Of course she did. Well, say I'll be down," and as Pringle went away
with this encouraging intelligence, Adelaide sank even farther back in
her chair and looked at her husband. "What I am called upon to sacrifice
to other people's love affairs! The Waynes and Mrs. Baxter--I never have
time for my own friends. I don't mind Mrs. Baxter when you're well, and I
can have a dinner; I ask all the stupid people together to whom I owe
parties, and she is so pleased with them, and thinks they represent the
most brilliant New York circle; but to have to go down and actually talk
to her, isn't that hard, Vin?"

"Hard on me," said Farron.

"Oh, I shall come back--exhausted."

"By what you have given out?"

"No, but by her intense intimacy. You have no idea how well she knows me.
It's Adelaide this and Adelaide that and 'the last time you stayed with
me in Baltimore.' You know, Vin, I never stayed with her but once, and
that only because she found me in the hotel and kidnapped me.
However,"--Adelaide stood up with determination,--"one good thing is, I
have begun to have an effect on my father. He does not like her any more.
He was distinctly