Their walk homeward could not have been a happy one. When Randolph met Adéline, at ten minutes before seven, her face was flushed and her eyes swollen.
"Adéline! have you consented to be made a nun, then?"
"Not if I know it! Not if my Randolphe ees true."
"Are you game to run away, Adéline? It would be a sin to cut off all that splendid hair. My mother is at Long Branch. Shall we go to her? I have money enough to take us down."
"Long Branch! It vould be divine! my Randolphe. Ze saison ees not yet there passed. I vill go. But--for ze toilettes? And so many are demanded zere. But yes! I do see ze vay. I vill send ze robes to _cette chère_ Mlle. Petitôt, and she vill forvard by express."
"The very thing! I hate the bother of women's trunks. Besides, we could not get them out of the house. You can stroll in to Mlle. Petitôt after dinner and explain. She will do anything to oblige a friend. And then your maid can bundle the things over the wall, from the one garden to the other, and Mlle. Petitôt will do the rest. Our train leaves at half-past eleven to-night. I shall be at the corner with a cab at eleven sharp. Be sure and bring as little baggage as you can; nothing but what I can carry on the run from here to the corner, for you know we might be chased, and then it would be convent, sure--a hand-bag is the best thing."
"There is the dinner bell. _Au revoir_. I shall be ready at eleven."
Amelia Jordan was surprised rather than pleased, three days after, when the cards of her "children" were brought up to her with her morning tea. They had arrived late overnight, she was told, too late to disturb her, and they hoped to see her at breakfast about ten.
"Oh, you imprudent children!" she cried an hour later, meeting them in a broad verandah overlooking the sea. "You impetuous, inconsiderate, absurd pair of children. And to come to Long Branch, of all places. Do you know how much a day it costs to live here? And what about gowns, Adéline? You can scarcely come down to breakfast, even once, in that travelling suit, and assuredly you must not be seen in it again after half-past eleven."
"We came to you, mother, because we had no one else," said Randolph. "Adéline has run away, without a single thing, unless Mlle. Petitôt should send her some clothes, and that depends on the maid's being able to throw them over the garden wall."