shrinking from interfering
with this outside arrangement of destiny. For where she had
interfered--as in getting Archie--she had brought disaster upon herself.
It was always the safer and wiser part for a woman to do nothing until
she was compelled to act. This conviction of Adelle's may seem to our
modernly strenuous natures to evince the last degree of cowardice and
pusillanimity before life. We like to believe that we are changing our
destiny every day and "making character" through a multitude of petty
decisions. As a matter of cold examination, it would probably be found
that few of us, through all our momentous and character-forming
decisions, affect the stream of life as much as we like to think, or
mould character. The difference between Adelle and the strenuous type of
constantly willing woman lies more in the consciousness of fuss and
effort that the latter has. When it came to the necessary point Adelle,
as we have seen, made her own decisions and abided by them, which is
more than the strenuous always do.

At one time, in the course of the long debate with herself, Adelle felt
that she must appeal to some one for advice. In such stress and
perplexity a woman usually appeals to priest or doctor, or both. But
Adelle was entirely without any religious connection, and she had no
doctor in whom she trusted. Instead, she thought of the Washington Trust
Company, which had been the nearest thing to parental authority she had
ever known, but rejected the idea of presenting to them this delicate
problem. The thing, she saw, was beyond their scope and jurisdiction.
The only person she instinctively turned towards for advice was the old
probate judge, who had given her such a lecture on Clark's Field for a
benediction when she last appeared before him. She felt that he would
understand, and that he would have the right idea of what ought to be
done....

Possibly, as the days passed and her mind grew still more towards
comprehension, she would have consulted Judge Orcutt, although she hated
to write letters. She might even have crossed the continent to talk with
the judge. But again Fate took the matter out of her hands and resolved
it in other ways.

XL

That Saturday night there was a large dinner-party at Highcourt in
celebration of some polo match, where the local team was gloriously
vanquished. Archie was eager to gather people around him, all the more
as his drinking and his mistakes in "investments" h