They had no children. Adelle had no objections to child-bearing and expected "sometime" to have "two or three" children. Archie thought there would be plenty of time for that "later on" when they had their money. Adelle was still very young, and in the present wandering state of their life children would be a nuisance. Finally they were neither happy nor unhappy. Restless was the adjective that described them most closely. Their bodies and stomachs and nerves and minds and souls were always in a state of disequilibrium, and they were feeling about for equilibrium like blind kittens without forming any successful plan of extricating themselves from their subconscious state of dissatisfaction. With another order of gray matter in their brains either one might have produced out of this disequilibrium some fine, rare flower of form or color or words. But Archie's gray matter, like Adelle's, was not expressive. Their friends thought them happy as well as fortunate. Sadie Paul reported to her sister and Eveline Glynn,--"Dell is crazy about her Archie--she won't let him out of her sight. He's not such a bad sort, but fearfully stuck on himself, just because Dell pets him so." Adelle, as she frequently told Archie, infinitely preferred her choice to Sadie's "Black-and-Tan," as she called the Count Zornec. This was their state after eighteen months of married life. XXVII The trust company had left its ward severely alone since Mr. Smith's visit to Paris. Like punishing parents they seemed resolved to let Adelle taste the dregs of her folly by herself. Each quarter they deposited with the Paris bankers twelve hundred and fifty dollars and notified them not to honor Mrs. Davis's drafts in excess of this amount. It was automatic. That was the ideal of the trust company, as it is of many private persons, to reduce life to automatic processes. But as the day drew near when the trust company had to give a final accounting to the probate court of its guardianship, they notified Adelle by a curt letter that her presence would be desirable. There were certain matters in connection with her assuming control of her fortune and terminating their trust that could be transacted more expeditiously if Mrs. Davis would present herself at their office by the end of May. "We beg to remain," etc. The suggestion came as a welcome incentive to the young couple. Anything that might expedite matters was to their taste. They had talked of making a visit to Archie's relatives and introducing Adelle to the modern paradise of the golden slope and at the same time visiting the Pauls. And so, about the middle of May, the Davises took ship from Havre for the New World, occupying, in deference to their coming wealth, an expensive deck suite in the transatlantic hotel, and thus made their journey in all possible comfort.