"Adelle," she said with a sneer, sitting down before the fire, "I thought you knew too much to do this sort of thing." Adelle was silent. "And such a common bounder, too!" It was Irene Paul's opprobrious epithet, which Adelle was beginning to comprehend. She winced, but made no reply. "You might easily get yourself into serious trouble, my dear, with a man like that." Adelle cowered under the stings of her lash and said nothing. "I shall write the young man to-morrow that if he wants to see you he had better pay his visits here," she said tolerantly. "This is your house--you can see him here, you know. There are ways and ways of doing such things, my dear." With a yawn and a hateful smile Pussy departed. It was over, and she was alive. At first Adelle felt relieved until she pondered what it meant. Archie would be exposed to the keen shafts of Pussy's contempt and to the girls' titters and snubs. And probably there would be no chance at all for the kissing and all the rest. It was Pussy's clever way of effectually disposing of Archie. She understood that. Adelle stayed awake for several hours, a most unusual occurrence, revolving matters in her confused mind. When she could stand it no longer she got up, dressed herself carefully in her motoring dress, and stole downstairs through the silent house, out to the garage which was at the other end of the garden. Eveline's little Pomeranian squeaked once, but did not arouse the household. Adelle cranked her car feverishly and succeeded at last, after much effort, in starting the engine and in pushing back the garage door. It was by far the most desperate step in life she had ever taken, and she felt ready to faint. She clambered into the car and released the clutch, more dead than alive, as she thought. With a leap and a whir she was down the road to Archie's cottage. XXIII Safely there she felt more composed. Stopping her engine she got out and walked to the window of the room on the ground floor that she knew the young Californian occupied. It was open. Leaning through the rose-vine she called faintly,--"Archie! Archie!" But the young painter slept solidly, and she was forced to take a stick and poke the bunch of bed-clothes in the corner before she could arouse the sleeping Archie. When he came to the window, she exclaimed,-- "Some thing awful has happened, Archie!" "What's the row?" "We're found out. Pussy knows and the girls. Irene told 'em!" That apparently did not seem to Archie the ultimate catastrophe that it did to her. He stood in his pajamas beside the window, ungallantly yawning and rubbing his eyes. "Well," he observed, "what are you going to do about it?" Doubtless to his masculine good sense it seemed merely adding folly to folly thus to run away from the villa at midnight and expose them to further trouble. Adelle did not argue nor explain. "Put your clothes on," she said, with considerable decision, "and come out to the car."