reater feebleness,
she yielded to his desire for refreshment. So they drove to Foyot's and
consumed two hours more in lunching delectably. Archie seemed somewhat
aimless after _dejeuner_, perhaps he did not know just how to attack his
formidable problem. It was Adelle who suggested that they drive to her
banker's and inquire how to get married in American fashion in France.
Adelle felt that bankers knew everything. It was a very elegant and
bewildered young Frenchman whom they found alone in this vacation season
at the bank which Adelle used. After he understood what they wanted he
directed them to their consul. Adelle knew the American consulate
because she had been there to sign papers, and turned the car into the
Avenue de l'Opera with renewed hope. They stopped before the building
from which the American flag was languidly floating and mounted the
stairs to the offices. In the further room, beyond the assortment of
deadbeats that own allegiance to the great American nation, was a little
Irish clerk, who in the absence of the consul and his chief assistant
held up the dignity of the United States. He was a political appointee
from the great State of Illinois, and after an apprenticeship in the
City Hall of Chicago was much more familiar with hasty matrimony than
either of the two flustered young persons who demanded his advice. To
Adelle's blunt salutation, "We want to get married, please!" and then,
as if not sufficiently impressive,--"Now--right off!" he replied
agreeably, not taking the time to remove the cigarette from his
mouth,--"Sure! That's easy."

And he made it easy for them. He found the necessary blank forms in an
office desk and filled them out according to the information the couple
gave him. Adelle in deference to Archie's scruples stretched a point and
made herself of age. When the formalities had been completed, the young
Irishman called in from the outer office one of the hangers-on who
happened to be a seedy minister of the gospel and who looked as if he
were in Paris by mistake.

Thus almost before Archie knew it he had taken to himself Adelle Clark
as wife, the ceremony being witnessed by the consular clerk,--Morris
McBride of Chicago,--and an ex-sailor on his way back to New York of the
name of Harrington. Adelle distributed the remaining pieces of gold in
her purse in the way of _pour-boires_, and then the two found themselves
in the runabout on the Avenue de l'Opera--married.

"I didn't kno