“That settles it,” said Ross, with a forced, pained smile.  “We’ll neither of us touch it.  I was getting into the habit of taking too much—­not really too much—­but—­Oh, you understand.”

“That’s the way father feels about it,” said Theresa, laughing.  “We never drink at home—­except mother when she has a spell, and has to be kept up on brandy.”

Ross threw his arm up to hide his face.  “Let me sleep, do,” he said gently.

CHAPTER XVIII

LOVE, THE BLUNDERER

As Dory had several months’ work before him at Paris, he and Del took a furnished apartment in the Rue de Rivoli, high up, attractive within, before its balconied windows the stately trees, the fountains, the bright flower beds, the thronged playgrounds of the Tuileries.  But they were not long left to themselves; in their second week, the concierge’s little girl late one afternoon brought Janet’s card up to Adelaide.  As Janet entered, Del regretted having yielded to impulse and admitted her.  For, the granddaughter of “blue-jeans Jones,” the tavern keeper, was looking the elegant and idle aristocrat from the tip of the tall, graceful plume in her most Parisian of hats to the buckles of shoes which matched her dress, parasol, and jewels.  A lovely Janet, a marvelous Janet; a toilette it must have taken her two hours to make, and spiritual hazel eyes that forbade the idea of her giving so much as a moment’s thought to any material thing, even to dress.  Adelaide had spent with the dressmakers a good part of the letter of credit her mother slipped into her traveling bag at the parting; she herself was in a negligee which had as much style as Janet’s costume and, in addition, individual taste, whereof Janet had but little; and besides, while her beauty had the same American delicateness, as of the finest, least florid Sevres or Dresden, it also had a look of durability which Janet’s beauty lacked—­for Janet’s beauty depended upon those fragilities, coloring and contour.  Adelaide was not notably vain, had a clear sense of her defects, tended to exaggerate them, rather than her many and decisive good points.  It was not Janet’s appearance that unsettled Del; she brought into the room the atmosphere Del had breathed during all those important years of girlhood, and had not yet lost her fondness for.  It depressed her at once about herself to note how this vision of the life that had been but would never be again affected her.

“You are sad, dear,” said Janet, as she kissed her on both cheeks with a diffusing of perfume that gave her a sense of a bouquet of priceless exotics waving before her face.

“You are sad, dear,” she repeated, with that air of tenderest sympathy which can be the safest cover for subtle malice.

Adelaide shrank.

“I’m so glad I’ve come when I may be able to do some good.”

Adelaide winced.

“How cozy these rooms are—­”