Finally, they sallied forth and with some money that Adelle had contrived to extract, probably from the sale of another piece of real jewelry, they consoled themselves with an elaborate dinner at a famous restaurant in the Champs Elysees, and as it was a warm evening drove afterwards out to the Bois. The next day Adelle ventured forth to the bankers alone, and secured the first quarterly installment of the funds left there to her account by the prim Mr. Smith. With the notes and gold she hastened back to Archie, and the couple began to plan seriously for the future. It is not my purpose to follow the pair in their erratic course during the next eighteen months, although it had its ludicrous as well as pathetic steps. That they were not ready for any sort of matrimonial partnership, is of course obvious, but as they shared their disability with a goodly proportion of young married people the world over, it does not count. Adelle, being the woman, learned her lesson more quickly than Archie, and under conceivable circumstances might have made as much of a success with her rash choice, in spite of Mr. Smith's prophecies, as many others make with their more prudently premeditated ones. She wanted to be married, and on the whole she was content when she got what she wanted,--at least, in the beginning,--which is the essential condition of marital comfort. But Archie had not by any means been as anxious to tie himself up for good as Adelle had been, and was more restive with what he found marriage to a rich--at least, expectantly rich--wife to be. In a blind effort to find a congenial environment, they moved about over the map a good deal. First they went to Venice, of which Adelle especially had rosy memories associated with the dawn of love. They took a furnished apartment in an old palace over the Canal, and set up four swarthy, muscled rowers in blue sashes. Venice has been for many generations the haven of love, especially of irregular or illicit love: but its attraction evaporates swiftly after the ceremony has taken place. No spot where the male cannot stretch himself and get away from domesticity for a few hours is safe except for the diviner, more ecstatic forms of passion. In a few weeks the couple became deadly bored with Venice and its picture postcard replica of life. At Archie's suggestion they next sought Munich, where some of his artist acquaintance had settled. This was an atmosphere of work, more or less, and Adelle amused herself by thinking that she and her husband were members of that glorious band of free lances of art. They took a studio apartment and set up their crafts jointly. If either had had the real stuff of the artist, it might have gone well; but two idle and rather uninformed persons in the same studio produce disaster. Munich soon became an affair of beer, skittles, and music in company with the more careless spirits that gathered there that winter. Among them happened to be Sadie Paul.