In certain crises the beauty of an old adage asserts itself even to the stupidest. Roland had taken the bull by the horns and got tossed for his pains; yet even while he was in the air he kept assuring himself that he would land on his feet. The next morning the memory of the old man's anger affected him not at all. Passion, he knew, burns itself out, and its threats subside into ashes. The relentless parent was a spectacle with which the stage had made him so familiar that he needed no prompter's book to tell him that when the curtain fell it would be on a tableau of awaited forgiveness. And even though Mr. Dunellen and the traditional father might differ, yet on the subject of wills and bequests he understood that the legislature had in its wisdom prevented a testator from devising more than one-half his property to the detriment of kith and of kin. If things came to the worst Justine would get five million instead of ten; and five million, though not elastic enough, as Jones had said, to entertain with, still represented an income that sufficed for the necessaries of life. On that score his mind was at rest. Moreover, it was manifestly impossible for Justine's father to live forever: there was an odor of fresh earth about him which to his own keen nostrils long since had betokened the grave; and if meanwhile he chose to keep the purse-strings drawn, Justine had enough from her mother's estate to last till the strings were loosed. Rents are high in New York, and to those bred in certain of its manors there is a choice between urban palaces and suburban flats. But Paris is less fastidious. In that lovely city a thousand-franc note need not be spent in a day; and in Italy the possibilities of the lira are great. In view of these things, Roland and his wife one week later took ship and sailed for France. PART II. I. To those that have suffered certain things there are forms of entertainment which neither amuse nor bore, but which pain. And this evening, as Justine sat in the stalls, the play which was being given, and which, as plays go, was endurable enough, caused her no pleasure, no weariness even, only a longing to get away and be alone. Now and then a shudder visited her, her hand tightened on her fan, and at times she would close her eyes, dull her hearing, and try to fancy that her girlhood was recovered, that she was free again, that she was dead, that her husband was--anything imaginable in fact, save the knowledge that she was there, side-by-side with him, and that presently they would return together to the hideousness of their uptown flat.