information. So the car bowled along through the night at a good
forty miles an hour.

Long before they reached Paris the sun had come up out of the hot
meadows along the road and they were forced to stop at Chartres for
_petrol_ and breakfast. Adelle wanted to cut the breakfast to a bowl of
hot coffee, but Archie firmly insisted that they must be braced with
food for the ordeal before them. She yielded to Archie and reluctantly
descended from her seat, stiff with fatigue but elated. After breakfast
Archie suggested that they should leave the car at the inn and proceed
to Paris conventionally by train. But Adelle would not give up one
kilometre of her great dash for liberty and Archie. Nor would she
consider his going on by train to make arrangements for the marriage.

So they resumed their rapid flight, but mishaps with tires began, and it
was noon before they entered the Porte Maillot. As they drove past the
Villa Ponitowski, Adelle looked furtively up at the shutters as if she
expected to see Pussy's severe face lurking there. She guided the
machine to the Rue de l'Universite and stopped beneath Miss Baxter's
studio windows. If Archie had proposed it, she would have gone at once
to a hotel with him and registered, but he prudently suggested the
studio, where he hoped to find Cornelia Baxter. But the sculptress had
gone away somewhere, and the big room was empty--also hot and dusty.
They sat down before the fireless stove and looked at each other.

Adelle was very tired and on the verge of hysterical tears. Archie had
not been very efficient in the tire trouble. She felt that now, at any
rate, he should take hold of their situation and manage. But Archie
seemed helpless, was not at home in the situation. (If Adelle had had
more experience she might have been chilled even now by his conduct and
managed her life differently.)

"I'm so tired," she moaned, throwing herself down on the divan. "Don't
you love me, Archie?"

Of course he did, but he did not offer to embrace her, and she was
obliged to go over to where he sat in a wilted attitude and embrace him.

"You are mine now for always," she said, almost solemnly.

"Yes," he admitted, as if he did not exactly like the form in which the
sentiment had been expressed.

"What are we going to do?"

"Get some food first. I'm starved, aren't you?"

Adelle, weary as she was, might not consider food as of the first
importance in this crisis, but recognizing Archie's g