Home > Authors Index > Robert Herrick > Clark's Field > This page
Clark's Field, a novel by Robert Herrick |
||
Chapter 30 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXX Archie was pacified by a copious luncheon in the Eclair restaurant, which is almost as good as a second-class Paris restaurant, and after an idle afternoon the couple went to a popular musical comedy to end their day. Adelle's business with the trust company was now finished, and they must decide upon their next move. Their first impulse after the rout upon the dock had been to dart back to Europe as expeditiously as possible, with Adelle's recovered lamp, and never darken again their native shores. But this pettish mood had been largely forgotten during the fortnight that ensued, and they remembered their plan of going to California so that Archie might present himself in his new estate and his wife to his own people. A cable from Sadie Paul, stating that she had taken "the B. and T." (which being properly interpreted meant that she had decided to marry her Hungarian count) and was returning to her home to celebrate her wedding, determined them. They forthwith made their arrangements to cross the continent and spend the summer on the Pacific Coast. It may as well be said that before departing Adelle had one quite serious business talk with President West of the trust company and the excellent Mr. Smith, whose had been the chastening hand at the time of her elopement. Possibly the wisdom of his remarks was becoming more evident to Adelle as marriage wore on, or it might be that she still did usually as she was told, if she were told with sufficient authority. At any rate, she agreed to leave in the hands of the Washington Trust Company the bulk of her estate, not strictly in the form of a trust,--they could not induce her to surrender the privilege of the lamp to that extent,--but under an agreement by which she bound herself not to disturb the principal of her fortune for a term of years. The bankers represented to her tactfully that neither she nor Mr. Davis had yet had extensive experience in the investment of money; that the operations of the Clark's Field Associates were not finally wound up; that they had had such success in their investments on her account that it would be well to allow them to carry out their scheme of investment, etc. In short, she signed the agreement, which was the last thing she did in B----. Archie, when he learned what she had done, was irritated. Naturally he did not like Mr. Smith and had a grudge against the trust company as a whole. He said that the arrangement reflected upon him and his dignity as a husband, although, as Mr. West had pointed out to Adelle, it was not customary for a husband to be entrusted with the disposal of all his wife's property. Since the vogue of international marriages, American fathers had taken refuge in the trust companies. In spite of argument and sulks, however, Archie could not prevail upon Adelle to undo what she had done, and he had to content himself with the shrewd reflection that it was probably not legally binding and could be broken when opportunity offered. In this affair Adelle displayed an unexpected caution by her willingness to let the trust company remain guardian of her magic lamp for the present. She had a woman's instinctive confidence in an institution, especially in one which years of use had made familiar to her. Archie, she felt justly, must content himself with their income, which would be more than two hundred thousand a year. That should satisfy their immediate wants after the eighteen months of bread-and-butter probation. And after all it was her own money, as the trust officers had said to her again and again. This, however, she did not repeat to Archie. She soothed his irritated pride in other ways, and in the end a fairly contented and harmonious couple were whirled westward in the track of the setting sun to that more golden shore of our continent, where other fate awaited them. _ |
||