Her uneasiness proved unnecessary, however.  Dory disappointed his aunt, of a new and interestingly difficult spirit to subdue, by taking rooms at the Hendricks Hotel until they should find a place of their own.  Mrs. Ranger asked them to live with her; but Adelaide shrank from putting herself in a position where her mother and Arthur could, and her sister-in-law undoubtedly would, “know too much about our private affairs.”  Mrs. Ranger did not insist.  She would not admit it to herself, but, while she worshiped Del and thought her even more beautiful than she was, and just about perfection in every way, still Madelene was more satisfactory for daily companionship.  Also, Ellen doubted whether two such positive natures as Madelene’s and Adelaide’s would be harmonious under the same roof.  “What’s more,” she reflected, “there may be a baby—­babies.”

Within a fortnight of Del’s return, and before she and Dory had got quite used to each other again, she fixed on an abode.  “Mrs. Dorsey was here this afternoon,” said she, with enthusiasm which, to Dory’s acute perceptions, seemed slightly exaggerated, in fact, forced, “and offered us her house for a year, just to have somebody in it whom she could trust to look after things.  You know she’s taking her daughter abroad to finish.  It was too good a chance to let pass; so I accepted at once.”

Dory turned away abruptly.  With slow deliberation he took a cigarette from his case, lighted it, watched the smoke drift out at the open window.  She was observing him, though she seemed not to be.  And his expression made her just a little afraid.  Unlike most men who lead purely intellectual lives, he had not the slightest suggestion of sexlessness; on the contrary, he seemed as strong, as positive physically, as the look of his forehead and eyes showed him to be mentally.  And now that he had learned to dress with greater care, out of deference to her, she could find nothing about him to help her in protecting herself by criticising him.

“Do you think, Del,” said he, “that we’ll be able to live in that big place on eighteen hundred a year?”

It wasn’t as easy for him thus to remind her of their limited means as it theoretically should have been.  Del was distinctly an expensive-looking luxury.  That dress of hers, pale green, with hat and everything to match or in harmony, was a “simple thing,” but the best dressmaker in the Rue de la Paix had spent a great deal of his costly time in producing that effect of simplicity.  Throughout, she had the cleanness, the freshness, the freedom from affectations which Dory had learned could be got only by large expenditure.  Nor would he have had her any different.  He wanted just the settings she chose for her fair, fine beauty.  The only change he would have asked would have been in the expression of those violet eyes of hers when they looked at him.

“You wish I hadn’t done it!” she exclaimed.  And if he had not glanced away so quickly he would have seen that she was ready to retreat.