is a violent irritant; in large quantity, it causes those to whom it is administered to regard the person administering it as insane.  Perhaps Adelaide might have talked more or less frankly to Janet had Janet not been so obviously in the highest of her own kind of heavens.  She was raised to this pinnacle by the devoted attentions of the Viscount Brunais, eldest son of Saint Berthe and the most agreeable and adaptable of men, if the smallest and homeliest.  Adelaide spoke of his intelligence to Janet, when they were alone before dinner on the fourth day, and Janet at once responded.

“And such a soul!” she exclaimed.  “He inherits all the splendid, noble traditions of their old, old family.  You see in his face that he is descended from generations of refinement and—­and—­freedom from contact with vulgarizing work, don’t you?”

“That hadn’t struck me,” said Adelaide amiably.  “But he’s a well-meaning, good-hearted little man, and, of course, he feels as at home in the surroundings he’s had all his life as a bird on a bough.  Who doesn’t?”

“But when you know him better, when you know him as I know him—­” Janet’s expression disclosed the secret.

“But won’t you be lonely—­away off here—­among—­foreign people?” said Adelaide.

“Oh, I should love it here!” exclaimed Janet.  “It seems to me I—­he and I—­must have lived in this very chateau in a former existence.  We have talked about it, and he agrees with me.  We are so harmonious.”

“You’ve really made up your mind to—­to marry him?” Adelaide had almost said “to buy him”; she had a sense that it was her duty to disregard Janet’s pretenses, and “buy” was so exactly the word to use with these people to whom money was the paramount consideration, the thought behind every other thought, the feeling behind every other feeling, the mainspring of their lives, the mainstay of all the fictions of their aristocracy.

“That depends on father,” replied Janet.  “Mother has gone to talk to him about it.”

“I’m sure your father won’t stand between you and happiness,” said Adelaide.

“But he doesn’t understand these aristocratic people,” replied she.  “Of course, if it depended upon Aristide and me, we should be married without consulting anybody.  But he can’t legally marry without his father’s consent, and his father naturally wants proper settlements.  It’s a cruel law, don’t you think?”

Adelaide thought not; she thought it, on the contrary, an admirable device to “save the face” of a mercenary lover posing as a sentimentalist and money-spurner.  But she merely said, “I think it’s most characteristic, most aristocratic.”  She knew Janet, how shrewd she was, how thoroughly she understood the “coarse side of life.”  She added, “And your father’ll come round.”

“I wish I could believe it,” sighed Janet.  “The Saint Berthes have an exaggerated notion of papa’s wealth.  Besides, they need a good deal.  They were robbed horribly by those dreadful revolutionists.  They used to own all this part of the country.  All these people round here with their little farms were once the peasants of Aristide’s ancestors.  Now—­even this chateau has a mortgage on it.  I couldn’t keep back the tears, while Aristide was telling me.”