Meantime her little "affair" with the banker excited the other girls in the family, who felt that the rich young heiress must encounter many wonderful adventures in love. Adelle was initiated in the great theme, and for the first time began to take an interest in men. Perhaps Mr. Ashly Crane's crude love-making had broken down certain inhibitions in the girl's passive nature, had overcome an instinctive repugnance to sex encounters. The path of the next wooer would doubtless be easier. But that lucky man did not put in an appearance. Miss Comstock jealously guarded the approaches to her treasure with greater discretion than ever before. She made no effort to prepare for her an alliance with an impecunious scion of the minor Continental nobility such as she arranged later for Sadie Paul. She said that she could think of no one good enough for her dear Adelle, and anyway the girl was altogether too young to think of marrying--another year would be ample time. So Adelle was confined to the younger brothers and friends of her companions, who turned up in Paris at different times, and upon these she tried timidly her powers of charm with no great success. Apparently she was content to remain without "beaux." Luxury had made her indolent, and her days were full of petty occupations that distract the spirit. Yet at times she felt a vague emptiness in her life which she soon found means of filling in an unsuspected manner. Adelle's interest in the art of jewelry had not ceased, but she was away from Paris this second year so much that her work in Miss Baxter's studio had been sadly interrupted. After her return from the Nile in March, however, she developed anew her passion for making pins and chains and rings, and spent long afternoons in the studio on the Rue de l'Universite. Miss Comstock thought nothing of these absences; indeed, was relieved to have Adelle so harmlessly and elegantly employed. It is true that Adelle was working in the studio, but she was working under a new tutelage. A fellow-townsman of Miss Baxter's had turned up in Paris that autumn and frequented her studio as the only place where he could be sure of a welcome, warmth, and an occasional cup of tea. This young Californian, Archie Davis by name, had found his way to Paris as the traditional home of the arts, and expected to make himself famous as a painter. A graduate of the State University, he had been engaged by his father in vine culture on the sunny slopes of Santa Rosa, but the life of a California wine-grower had not appealed to him. From the slopes of Santa Rosa he soon drifted to San Francisco, and there conceived of himself as a painter. He was a large, vigorous, rather common young Californian, with reddish hair and a slightly freckled face, who was really at home on horseback in the wilds of his native land, but at a loss on the streets of Paris where he found himself frequently without much money. Viticulture was not paying well at this time in California,