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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington
+#4 in our series by Booth Tarkington
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+Alice Adams
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+by Booth Tarkington
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+July, 1997  [Etext #980]
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+Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington Scanned by Charles Keller with
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+
+ALICE ADAMS by BOOTH TARKINGTON
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The patient, an old-fashioned man, thought the nurse made a
+mistake in keeping both of the windows open, and her sprightly
+disregard of his protests added something to his hatred of her.
+Every evening he told her that anybody with ordinary gumption
+ought to realize that night air was bad for the human frame.
+"The human frame won't stand everything, Miss Perry," he warned
+her, resentfully.  "Even a child, if it had just ordinary
+gumption, ought to know enough not to let the night air blow on
+sick people yes, nor well people, either!  'Keep out of the night
+air, no matter how well you feel.' That's what my mother used to
+tell me when I was a boy.  'Keep out of the night air, Virgil,'
+she'd say.  'Keep out of the night air.'"
+
+"I expect probably her mother told her the same thing," the nurse
+suggested.
+
+"Of course she did.  My grandmother----"
+
+"Oh, I guess your GRANDmother thought so, Mr. Adams!  That was
+when all this flat central country was swampish and hadn't been
+drained off yet.  I guess the truth must been the swamp
+mosquitoes bit people and gave 'em malaria, especially before
+they began to put screens in their windows.  Well, we got screens
+in these windows, and no mosquitoes are goin' to bite us; so just
+you be a good boy and rest your mind and go to sleep like you
+need to."
+
+"Sleep?" he said.  "Likely!"
+
+He thought the night air worst of all in April; he hadn't a doubt
+it would kill him, he declared.  "It's miraculous what the human
+frame WILL survive," he admitted on the last evening of that
+month.  "But you and the doctor ought to both be taught it won't
+stand too dang much!  You poison a man and poison and poison him
+with this April night air----"
+
+"Can't poison you with much more of it," Miss Perry interrupted
+him, indulgently.  "To-morrow it'll be May night air, and I
+expect that'll be a lot better for you, don't you?  Now let's
+just sober down and be a good boy and get some nice sound sleep."
+
+She gave him his medicine, and, having set the glass upon the
+center table, returned to her cot, where, after a still interval,
+she snored faintly.  Upon this, his expression became that of a
+man goaded out of overpowering weariness into irony.
+
+"Sleep?  Oh, CERTAINLY, thank you!"
+
+However, he did sleep intermittently, drowsed between times, and
+even dreamed; but, forgetting his dreams before he opened his
+eyes, and having some part of him all the while aware of his
+discomfort, he believed, as usual, that he lay awake the whole
+night long.  He was conscious of the city as of some single great
+creature resting fitfully in the dark outside his windows.  It
+lay all round about, in the damp cover of its night cloud of
+smoke, and tried to keep quiet for a few hours after midnight,
+but was too powerful a growing thing ever to lie altogether
+still.  Even while it strove to sleep it muttered with digestions
+of the day before, and these already merged with rumblings of the
+morrow.  "Owl" cars, bringing in last passengers over distant
+trolley-lines, now and then howled on a curve; faraway metallic
+stirrings could be heard from factories in the sooty suburbs on
+the plain outside the city; east, west, and south, switch-engines
+chugged and snorted on sidings; and everywhere in the air there
+seemed to be a faint, voluminous hum as of innumerable wires
+trembling overhead to vibration of machinery underground.
+
+In his youth Adams might have been less resentful of sounds such
+as these when they interfered with his night's sleep: even during
+an illness he might have taken some pride in them as proof of his
+citizenship in a "live town"; but at fifty-five he merely hated
+them because they kept him awake.  They "pressed on his nerves,"
+as he put it; and so did almost everything else, for that matter.
+
+He heard the milk-wagon drive into the cross-street beneath his
+windows and stop at each house.  The milkman carried his jars
+round to the "back porch," while the horse moved slowly ahead to
+the gate of the next customer and waited there.  "He's gone into
+Pollocks'," Adams thought, following this progress.  "I hope
+it'll sour on 'em before breakfast.  Delivered the Andersons'.
+Now he's getting out ours.  Listen to the darn brute!  What's HE
+care who wants to sleep!" His complaint was of the horse, who
+casually shifted weight with a clink of steel shoes on the worn
+brick pavement of the street, and then heartily shook himself in
+his harness, perhaps to dislodge a fly far ahead of its season.
+Light had just filmed the windows; and with that the first
+sparrow woke, chirped instantly, and roused neighbours in the
+trees of the small yard, including a loud-voiced robin.
+Vociferations began irregularly, but were soon unanimous.
+
+"Sleep?  Dang likely now, ain't it!"
+
+Night sounds were becoming day sounds; the far-away hooting of
+freight-engines seemed brisker than an hour ago in the dark.  A
+cheerful whistler passed the house, even more careless of
+sleepers than the milkman's horse had been; then a group of
+coloured workmen came by, and although it was impossible to be
+sure whether they were homeward bound from night-work or on their
+way to day- work, at least it was certain that they were jocose.
+Loose, aboriginal laughter preceded them afar, and beat on the
+air long after they had gone by.
+
+The sick-room night-light, shielded from his eyes by a newspaper
+propped against a water-pitcher, still showed a thin glimmering
+that had grown offensive to Adams.  In his wandering and
+enfeebled thoughts, which were much more often imaginings than
+reasonings, the attempt of the night-light to resist the dawn
+reminded him of something unpleasant, though he could not
+discover just what the unpleasant thing was.  Here was a puzzle
+that irritated him the more because he could not solve it, yet
+always seemed just on the point of a solution.  However, he may
+have lost nothing cheerful by remaining in the dark upon the
+matter; for if he had been a little sharper in this introspection
+he might have concluded that the squalor of the night-light, in
+its seeming effort to show against the forerunning of the sun
+itself, had stimulated some half-buried perception within him to
+sketch the painful little synopsis of an autobiography.
+
+In spite of noises without, he drowsed again, not knowing that he
+did; and when he opened his eyes the nurse was just rising from
+her cot.  He took no pleasure in the sight, it may be said.  She
+exhibited to him a face mismodelled by sleep, and set like a clay
+face left on its cheek in a hot and dry studio.  She was still
+only in part awake, however, and by the time she had extinguished
+the night-light and given her patient his tonic, she had
+recovered enough plasticity.  "Well, isn't that grand!  We've had
+another good night," she said as she departed to dress in the
+bathroom.
+
+"Yes, you had another!" he retorted, though not until after she
+had closed the door.
+
+Presently he heard his daughter moving about in her room across
+the narrow hall, and so knew that she had risen.  He hoped she
+would come in to see him soon, for she was the one thing that
+didn't press on his nerves, he felt; though the thought of her
+hurt him, as, indeed, every thought hurt him.  But it was his
+wife who came first.
+
+She wore a lank cotton wrapper, and a crescent of gray hair
+escaped to one temple from beneath the handkerchief she had worn
+upon her head for the night and still retained; but she did
+everything possible to make her expression cheering.
+
+"Oh, you're better again!  I can see that, as soon as I look at
+you," she said.  "Miss Perry tells me you've had another splendid
+night."
+
+He made a sound of irony, which seemed to dispose unfavourably of
+Miss Perry, and then, in order to be more certainly intelligible,
+he added, "She slept well, as usual!"
+
+But his wife's smile persisted.  "It's a good sign to be cross;
+it means you're practically convalescent right now."
+
+"Oh, I am, am I?"
+
+"No doubt in the world!" she exclaimed.  "Why, you're practically
+a well man, Virgil--all except getting your strength back, of
+course, and that isn't going to take long.  You'll be right on
+your feet in a couple of weeks from now."
+
+"Oh, I will?"
+
+"Of course you will!" She laughed briskly, and, going to the
+table in the center of the room, moved his glass of medicine an
+inch or two, turned a book over so that it lay upon its other
+side, and for a few moments occupied herself with similar
+futilities, having taken on the air of a person who makes things
+neat, though she produced no such actual effect upon them.  "Of
+course you will," she repeated, absently.  "You'll be as strong
+as you ever were; maybe stronger."  She paused for a moment, not
+looking at him, then added, cheerfully, "So that you can fly
+around and find something really good to get into."
+
+Something important between them came near the surface here, for
+though she spoke with what seemed but a casual cheerfulness,
+there was a little betraying break in her voice, a trembling just
+perceptible in the utterance of the final word.  And she still
+kept up the affectation of being helpfully preoccupied with the
+table, and did not look at her husband--perhaps because they had
+been married so many years that without looking she knew just
+what his expression would be, and preferred to avoid the actual
+sight of it as long as possible.  Meanwhile, he stared hard at
+her, his lips beginning to move with little distortions not
+lacking in the pathos of a sick man's agitation.
+
+"So that's it," he said.  "That's what you're hinting at."
+
+"'Hinting?'" Mrs. Adams looked surprised and indulgent.  "Why,
+I'm not doing any hinting, Virgil."
+
+"What did you say about my finding 'something good to get into?'"
+he asked, sharply.  "Don't you call that hinting?"
+
+Mrs. Adams turned toward him now; she came to the bedside and
+would have taken his hand, but he quickly moved it away from her.
+
+"You mustn't let yourself get nervous," she said.  "But of course
+when you get well there's only one thing to do.  You mustn't go
+back to that old hole again."
+
+"'Old hole?' That's what you call it, is it?" In spite of his
+weakness, anger made his voice strident, and upon this
+stimulation she spoke more urgently.
+
+"You just mustn't go back to it, Virgil.  It's not fair to any of
+us, and you know it isn't."
+
+"Don't tell me what I know, please!"
+
+She clasped her hands, suddenly carrying her urgency to plaintive
+entreaty.  "Virgil, you WON'T go back to that hole?"
+
+"That's a nice word to use to me!" he said.  "Call a man's
+business a hole!"
+
+"Virgil, if you don't owe it to me to look for something
+different, don't you owe it to your children?  Don't tell me you
+won't do what we all want you to, and what you know in your heart
+you ought to!  And if you HAVE got into one of your stubborn fits
+and are bound to go back there for no other reason except to have
+your own way, don't tell me so, for I can't bear it!"
+
+He looked up at her fiercely.  "You've got a fine way to cure a
+sick man!" he said; but she had concluded her appeal--for that
+time--and instead of making any more words in the matter, let him
+see that there were tears in her eyes, shook her head, and left
+the room.
+
+Alone, he lay breathing rapidly, his emaciated chest proving
+itself equal to the demands his emotion put upon it.  "Fine!" he
+repeated, with husky indignation.  "Fine way to cure a sick man!
+Fine!" Then, after a silence, he gave forth whispering sounds as
+of laughter, his expression the while remaining sore and far from
+humour.
+
+"And give us our daily bread!" he added, meaning that his wife's
+little performance was no novelty.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+In fact, the agitation of Mrs. Adams was genuine, but so well
+under her control that its traces vanished during the three short
+steps she took to cross the narrow hall between her husband's
+door and the one opposite.  Her expression was matter-of-course,
+rather than pathetic, as she entered the pretty room where her
+daughter, half dressed, sat before a dressing-table and played
+with the reflections of a three-leafed mirror framed in blue
+enamel.  That is, just before the moment of her mother's
+entrance, Alice had been playing with the mirror's
+reflections--posturing her arms and her expressions, clasping her
+hands behind her neck, and tilting back her head to foreshorten
+the face in a tableau conceived to represent sauciness, then one
+of smiling weariness, then one of scornful toleration, and all
+very piquant; but as the door opened she hurriedly resumed the
+practical, and occupied her hands in the arrangement of her
+plentiful brownish hair.
+
+They were pretty hands, of a shapeliness delicate and fine.  "The
+best things she's got!" a cold-blooded girl friend said of them,
+and meant to include Alice's mind and character in the implied
+list of possessions surpassed by the notable hands.  However that
+may have been, the rest of her was well enough.  She was often
+called "a right pretty girl"--temperate praise meaning a girl
+rather pretty than otherwise, and this she deserved, to say the
+least.  Even in repose she deserved it, though repose was
+anything but her habit, being seldom seen upon her except at
+home.  On exhibition she led a life of gestures, the unkind said
+to make her lovely hands more memorable; but all of her usually
+accompanied the gestures of the hands, the shoulders ever giving
+them their impulses first, and even her feet being called upon,
+at the same time, for eloquence.
+
+So much liveliness took proper place as only accessory to that of
+the face, where her vivacity reached its climax; and it was
+unfortunate that an ungifted young man, new in the town, should
+have attempted to define the effect upon him of all this
+generosity of emphasis.  He said that "the way she used her cute
+hazel eyes and the wonderful glow of her facial expression gave
+her a mighty spiritual quality."  His actual rendition of the
+word was "spirichul"; but it was not his pronunciation that
+embalmed this outburst in the perennial laughter of Alice's girl
+friends; they made the misfortune far less his than hers.
+
+Her mother comforted her too heartily, insisting that Alice had
+"plenty enough spiritual qualities," certainly more than
+possessed by the other girls who flung the phrase at her, wooden
+things, jealous of everything they were incapable of themselves;
+and then Alice, getting more championship than she sought, grew
+uneasy lest Mrs. Adams should repeat such defenses "outside the
+family"; and Mrs. Adams ended by weeping because the daughter so
+distrusted her intelligence.  Alice frequently thought it
+necessary to instruct her mother.
+
+Her morning greeting was an instruction to-day; or, rather, it
+was an admonition in the style of an entreaty, the more petulant
+as Alice thought that Mrs. Adams might have had a glimpse of the
+posturings to the mirror.  This was a needless worry; the mother
+had caught a thousand such glimpses, with Alice unaware, and she
+thought nothing of the one just flitted.
+
+"For heaven's sake, mama, come clear inside the room and shut the
+door!  PLEASE don't leave it open for everybody to look at me!"
+
+"There isn't anybody to see you," Mrs. Adams explained, obeying.
+"Miss Perry's gone downstairs, and----"
+
+"Mama, I heard you in papa's room," Alice said, not dropping the
+note of complaint.  "I could hear both of you, and I don't think
+you ought to get poor old papa so upset--not in his present
+condition, anyhow."
+
+Mrs. Adams seated herself on the edge of the bed.  "He's better
+all the time," she said, not disturbed.  "He's almost well.  The
+doctor says so and Miss Perry says so; and if we don't get him
+into the right frame of mind now we never will.  The first day
+he's outdoors he'll go back to that old hole--you'll see!  And if
+he once does that, he'll settle down there and it'll be too late
+and we'll never get him out."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I think you could use a little more tact with
+him."
+
+"I do try to," the mother sighed.  "It never was much use with
+him.  I don't think you understand him as well as I do, Alice."
+
+"There's one thing I don't understand about either of you," Alice
+returned, crisply.  "Before people get married they can do
+anything they want to with each other.  Why can't they do the
+same thing after they're married?  When you and papa were young
+people and engaged, he'd have done anything you wanted him to.
+That must have been because you knew how to manage him then.  Why
+can't you go at him the same way now?"
+
+Mrs. Adams sighed again, and laughed a little, making no other
+response; but Alice persisted.  "Well, WHY can't you?  Why can't
+you ask him to do things the way you used to ask him when you
+were just in love with each other?  Why don't you anyhow try it,
+mama, instead of ding-donging at him?"
+
+"'Ding-donging at him,' Alice?" Mrs. Adams said, with a pathos
+somewhat emphasized.  "Is that how my trying to do what I can for
+you strikes you?"
+
+"Never mind that; it's nothing to hurt your feelings."  Alice
+disposed of the pathos briskly.  "Why don't you answer my
+question?  What's the matter with using a little more tact on
+papa?  Why can't you treat him the way you probably did when you
+were young people, before you were married?  I never have
+understood why people can't do that."
+
+"Perhaps you WILL understand some day," her mother said, gently.
+"Maybe you will when you've been married twenty-five years."
+
+"You keep evading.  Why don't you answer my question right
+straight out?"
+
+"There are questions you can't answer to young people, Alice."
+
+"You mean because we're too young to understand the answer?  I
+don't see that at all.  At twenty-two a girl's supposed to have
+some intelligence, isn't she?  And intelligence is the ability to
+understand, isn't it?  Why do I have to wait till I've lived with
+a man twenty-five years to understand why you can't be tactful
+with papa?"
+
+"You may understand some things before that," Mrs. Adams said,
+tremulously.  "You may understand how you hurt me sometimes.
+Youth can't know everything by being intelligent, and by the time
+you could understand the answer you're asking for you'd know it,
+and wouldn't need to ask.  You don't understand your father,
+Alice; you don't know what it takes to change him when he's made
+up his mind to be stubborn."
+
+Alice rose and began to get herself into a skirt.  "Well, I don't
+think making scenes ever changes anybody," she grumbled.  "I
+think a little jolly persuasion goes twice as far, myself."
+
+"'A little jolly persuasion!'" Her mother turned the echo of
+this phrase into an ironic lament.  "Yes, there was a time when I
+thought that, too!  It didn't work; that's all."
+
+"Perhaps you left the 'jolly' part of it out, mama."
+
+For the second time that morning--it was now a little after seven
+o'clock--tears seemed about to offer their solace to Mrs. Adams.
+"I might have expected you to say that, Alice; you never do miss
+a chance," she said, gently.  "It seems queer you don't some time
+miss just ONE chance!"
+
+But Alice, progressing with her toilet, appeared to be little
+concerned.  "Oh, well, I think there are better ways of managing
+a man than just hammering at him."
+
+Mrs. Adams uttered a little cry of pain.  "'Hammering,' Alice?"
+
+"If you'd left it entirely to me," her daughter went on, briskly,
+"I believe papa'd already be willing to do anything we want him
+to."
+
+"That's it; tell me I spoil everything.  Well, I won't interfere
+from now on, you can be sure of it."
+
+"Please don't talk like that," Alice said, quickly.  "I'm old
+enough to realize that papa may need pressure of all sorts; I
+only think it makes him more obstinate to get him cross.  You
+probably do understand him better, but that's one thing I've
+found out and you haven't.  There!" She gave her mother a
+friendly tap on the shoulder and went to the door.  "I'll hop in
+and say hello to him now."
+
+As she went, she continued the fastening of her blouse, and
+appeared in her father's room with one hand still thus engaged,
+but she patted his forehead with the other.
+
+"Poor old papa-daddy!" she said, gaily.  "Every time he's better
+somebody talks him into getting so mad he has a relapse.  It's a
+shame!"
+
+Her father's eyes, beneath their melancholy brows, looked up at
+her wistfully.  "I suppose you heard your mother going for me,"
+he said.
+
+"I heard you going for her, too!" Alice laughed.  "What was it
+all about?"
+
+"Oh, the same danged old story!"
+
+"You mean she wants you to try something new when you get well?"
+Alice asked, with cheerful innocence.  "So we could all have a
+lot more money?"
+
+At this his sorrowful forehead was more sorrowful than ever.  The
+deep horizontal lines moved upward to a pattern of suffering so
+familiar to his daughter that it meant nothing to her; but he
+spoke quietly.  "Yes; so we wouldn't have any money at all, most
+likely."
+
+"Oh, no!" she laughed, and, finishing with her blouse, patted his
+cheeks with both hands.  "Just think how many grand openings
+there must be for a man that knows as much as you do!  I always
+did believe you could get rich if you only cared to, papa."
+
+But upon his forehead the painful pattern still deepened.  "Don't
+you think we've always had enough, the way things are, Alice?"
+
+"Not the way things ARE!" She patted his cheeks again; laughed
+again.  "It used to be enough, maybe anyway we did skimp along on
+it--but the way things are now I expect mama's really pretty
+practical in her ideas, though, I think it's a shame for her to
+bother you about it while you're so weak.  Don't you worry about
+it, though; just think about other things till you get strong."
+
+"You know," he said; "you know it isn't exactly the easiest thing
+in the world for a man of my age to find these grand openings you
+speak of.  And when you've passed half-way from fifty to sixty
+you're apt to see some risk in giving up what you know how to do
+and trying something new."
+
+"My, what a frown!" she cried, blithely.  "Didn't I tell you to
+stop thinking about it till you get ALL well?" She bent over him,
+giving him a gay little kiss on the bridge of his nose.  "There!
+I must run to breakfast.  Cheer up now!  Au 'voir!" And with her
+pretty hand she waved further encouragement from the closing door
+as she departed.
+
+Lightsomely descending the narrow stairway, she whistled as she
+went, her fingers drumming time on the rail; and, still
+whistling, she came into the dining-room, where her mother and
+her brother were already at the table.  The brother, a thin and
+sallow boy of twenty, greeted her without much approval as she
+took her place.
+
+"Nothing seems to trouble you!" he said.
+
+"No; nothing much," she made airy response.  "What's troubling
+yourself, Walter?"
+
+"Don't let that worry you!" he returned, seeming to consider this
+to be repartee of an effective sort; for he furnished a short
+laugh to go with it, and turned to his coffee with the manner of
+one who has satisfactorily closed an episode.
+
+"Walter always seems to have so many secrets!" Alice said,
+studying him shrewdly, but with a friendly enough amusement in
+her scrutiny.  "Everything he does or says seems to be acted for
+the benefit of some mysterious audience inside himself, and he
+always gets its applause.  Take what he said just now: he seems
+to think it means something, but if it does, why, that's just
+another secret between him and the secret audience inside of him!
+We don't really know anything about Walter at all, do we, mama?"
+
+Walter laughed again, in a manner that sustained her theory well
+enough; then after finishing his coffee, he took from his pocket
+a flattened packet in glazed blue paper; extracted with stained
+fingers a bent and wrinkled little cigarette, lighted it, hitched
+up his belted trousers with the air of a person who turns from
+trifles to things better worth his attention, and left the room.
+
+Alice laughed as the door closed.  "He's ALL secrets," she said.
+"Don't you think you really ought to know more about him, mama?"
+
+"I'm sure he's a good boy," Mrs. Adams returned, thoughtfully.
+"He's been very brave about not being able to have the advantages
+that are enjoyed by the boys he's grown up with.  I've never
+heard a word of complaint from him."
+
+"About his not being sent to college?" Alice cried.  "I should
+think you wouldn't!  He didn't even have enough ambition to
+finish high school!"
+
+Mrs. Adams sighed.  "It seemed to me Walter lost his ambition
+when nearly all the boys he'd grown up with went to Eastern
+schools to prepare for college, and we couldn't afford to send
+him.  If only your father would have listened----"
+
+Alice interrupted: "What nonsense!  Walter hated books and
+studying, and athletics, too, for that matter.  He doesn't care
+for anything nice that I ever heard of.  What do you suppose he
+does like, mama?  He must like something or other somewhere, but
+what do you suppose it is?  What does he do with his time?"
+
+"Why, the poor boy's at Lamb and Company's all day.  He doesn't
+get through until five in the afternoon; he doesn't HAVE much
+time."
+
+"Well, we never have dinner until about seven, and he's always
+late for dinner, and goes out, heaven knows where, right
+afterward!" Alice shook her head.  "He used to go with our
+friends' boys, but I don't think he does now."
+
+"Why, how could he?" Mrs. Adams protested.  "That isn't his
+fault, poor child!  The boys he knew when he was younger are
+nearly all away at college."
+
+"Yes, but he doesn't see anything of 'em when they're here at
+holiday-time or vacation.  None of 'em come to the house any
+more."
+
+"I suppose he's made other friends.  It's natural for him to want
+companions, at his age."
+
+"Yes," Alice said, with disapproving emphasis.  "But who are
+they?  I've got an idea he plays pool at some rough place
+down-town."
+
+"Oh, no; I'm sure he's a steady boy," Mrs. Adams protested, but
+her tone was not that of thoroughgoing conviction, and she added,
+"Life might be a very different thing for him if only your father
+can be brought to see----"
+
+"Never mind, mama!  It isn't me that has to be convinced, you
+know; and we can do a lot more with papa if we just let him alone
+about it for a day or two.  Promise me you won't say any more to
+him until--well, until he's able to come downstairs to table.
+Will you?"
+
+Mrs. Adams bit her lip, which had begun to tremble.  "I think
+you can trust me to know a FEW things, Alice," she said.  "I'm a
+little older than you, you know."
+
+"That's a good girl!" Alice jumped up, laughing.  "Don't forget
+it's the same as a promise, and do just cheer him up a little.
+I'll say good-bye to him before I go out."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Oh, I've got lots to do.  I thought I'd run out to Mildred's to
+see what she's going to wear to-night, and then I want to go down
+and buy a yard of chiffon and some narrow ribbon to make new bows
+for my slippers--you'll have to give me some money----"
+
+"If he'll give it to me!" her mother lamented, as they went
+toward the front stairs together; but an hour later she came into
+Alice's room with a bill in her hand.
+
+"He has some money in his bureau drawer," she said.  "He finally
+told me where it was."
+
+There were traces of emotion in her voice, and Alice, looking
+shrewdly at her, saw moisture in her eyes.
+
+"Mama!" she cried.  "You didn't do what you promised me you
+wouldn't, did you--NOT before Miss Perry!"
+
+"Miss Perry's getting him some broth," Mrs. Adams returned,
+calmly.  "Besides, you're mistaken in saying I promised you
+anything; I said I thought you could trust me to know what is
+right."
+
+"So you did bring it up again!" And Alice swung away from her,
+strode to her father's door, flung it open, went to him, and put
+a light hand soothingly over his unrelaxed forehead.
+
+"Poor old papa!" she said.  "It's a shame how everybody wants to
+trouble him.  He shan't be bothered any more at all!  He doesn't
+need to have everybody telling him how to get away from that old
+hole he's worked in so long and begin to make us all nice and
+rich.  HE knows how!"
+
+Thereupon she kissed him a consoling good-bye, and made another
+gay departure, the charming hand again fluttering like a white
+butterfly in the shadow of the closing door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Mrs. Adams had remained in Alice's room, but her mood seemed to
+have changed, during her daughter's little more than momentary
+absence.
+
+"What did he SAY?" she asked, quickly, and her tone was hopeful.
+
+"'Say?'" Alice repeated, impatiently.  "Why, nothing.  I didn't
+let him.  Really, mama, I think the best thing for you to do
+would be to just keep out of his room, because I don't believe
+you can go in there and not talk to him about it, and if you do
+talk we'll never get him to do the right thing.  Never!"
+
+The mother's response was a grieving silence; she turned from her
+daughter and walked to the door.
+
+"Now, for goodness' sake!" Alice cried.  "Don't go making tragedy
+out of my offering you a little practical advice!"
+
+"I'm not," Mrs. Adams gulped, halting.  "I'm just--just going to
+dust the downstairs, Alice."  And with her face still averted,
+she went out into the little hallway, closing the door behind
+her.  A moment later she could be heard descending the stairs,
+the sound of her footsteps carrying somehow an effect of
+resignation.
+
+Alice listened, sighed, and, breathing the words, "Oh, murder!"
+turned to cheerier matters.  She put on a little apple-green
+turban with a dim gold band round it, and then, having shrouded
+the turban in a white veil, which she kept pushed up above her
+forehead, she got herself into a tan coat of soft cloth fashioned
+with rakish severity.  After that, having studied herself gravely
+in a long glass, she took from one of the drawers of her
+dressing-table a black leather card-case cornered in silver
+filigree, but found it empty.
+
+She opened another drawer wherein were two white pasteboard boxes
+of cards, the one set showing simply "Miss Adams," the other
+engraved in Gothic characters, "Miss Alys Tuttle Adams."  The
+latter belonged to Alice's "Alys" period--most girls go through
+it; and Alice must have felt that she had graduated, for, after
+frowning thoughtfully at the exhibit this morning, she took the
+box with its contents, and let the white shower fall from her
+fingers into the waste-basket beside her small desk.  She
+replenished the card-case from the "Miss Adams" box; then, having
+found a pair of fresh white gloves, she tucked an ivory-topped
+Malacca walking-stick under her arm and set forth.
+
+She went down the stairs, buttoning her gloves and still wearing
+the frown with which she had put "Alys" finally out of her life.
+She descended slowly, and paused on the lowest step, looking
+about her with an expression that needed but a slight deepening
+to betoken bitterness.  Its connection with her dropping "Alys"
+forever was slight, however.
+
+The small frame house, about fifteen years old, was already
+inclining to become a new Colonial relic.  The Adamses had built
+it, moving into it from the "Queen Anne" house they had rented
+until they took this step in fashion.  But fifteen years is a
+long time to stand still in the midland country, even for a
+house, and this one was lightly made, though the Adamses had not
+realized how flimsily until they had lived in it for some time.
+"Solid, compact, and convenient" were the instructions to the
+architect, and he had made it compact successfully.  Alice,
+pausing at the foot of the stairway, was at the same time fairly
+in the "living-room," for the only separation between the "living
+room" and the hall was a demarcation suggested to willing
+imaginations by a pair of wooden columns painted white.  These
+columns, pine under the paint, were bruised and chipped at the
+base; one of them showed a crack that threatened to become a
+split; the "hard-wood" floor had become uneven; and in a corner
+the walls apparently failed of solidity, where the wall-paper had
+declined to accompany some staggerings of the plaster beneath it.
+
+The furniture was in great part an accumulation begun with the
+wedding gifts; though some of it was older, two large patent
+rocking-chairs and a footstool having belonged to Mrs. Adams's
+mother in the days of hard brown plush and veneer.  For
+decoration there were pictures and vases.  Mrs. Adams had always
+been fond of vases, she said, and every year her husband's
+Christmas present to her was a vase of one sort or
+another--whatever the clerk showed him, marked at about twelve or
+fourteen dollars.  The pictures were some of them etchings framed
+in gilt: Rheims, Canterbury, schooners grouped against a wharf;
+and Alice could remember how, in her childhood, her father
+sometimes pointed out the watery reflections in this last as very
+fine.  But it was a long time since he had shown interest in such
+things--"or in anything much," as she thought.
+
+Other pictures were two water-colours in baroque frames; one
+being the Amalfi monk on a pergola wall, while the second was a
+yard-wide display of iris blossoms, painted by Alice herself at
+fourteen, as a birthday gift to her mother.  Alice's glance
+paused upon it now with no great pride, but showed more approval
+of an enormous photograph of the Colosseum.  This she thought of
+as "the only good thing in the room"; it possessed and bestowed
+distinction, she felt; and she did not regret having won her
+struggle to get it hung in its conspicuous place of honour over
+the mantelpiece.  Formerly that place had been held for years by
+a steel-engraving, an accurate representation of the Suspension
+Bridge at Niagara Falls.  It was almost as large as its
+successor, the "Colosseum," and it had been presented to Mr.
+Adams by colleagues in his department at Lamb and Company's.
+Adams had shown some feeling when Alice began to urge its removal
+to obscurity in the "upstairs hall"; he even resisted for several
+days after she had the "Colosseum" charged to him, framed in oak,
+and sent to the house.  She cheered him up, of course, when he
+gave way; and her heart never misgave her that there might be a
+doubt which of the two pictures was the more dismaying.
+
+Over the pictures, the vases, the old brown plush rocking-chairs
+and the stool, over the three gilt chairs, over the new
+chintz-covered easy chair and the gray velure sofa--over
+everything everywhere, was the familiar coating of smoke grime.
+It had worked into every fibre of the lace curtains, dingying
+them to an unpleasant gray; it lay on the window-sills and it
+dimmed the glass panes; it covered the walls, covered the
+ceiling, and was smeared darker and thicker in all corners.  Yet
+here was no fault of housewifery; the curse could not be lifted,
+as the ingrained smudges permanent on the once white woodwork
+proved.  The grime was perpetually renewed; scrubbing only ground
+it in.
+
+This particular ugliness was small part of Alice's discontent,
+for though the coating grew a little deeper each year she was
+used to it.  Moreover, she knew that she was not likely to find
+anything better in a thousand miles, so long as she kept to
+cities, and that none of her friends, however opulent, had any
+advantage of her here.  Indeed, throughout all the great
+soft-coal country, people who consider themselves comparatively
+poor may find this consolation: cleanliness has been added to the
+virtues and beatitudes that money can not buy.
+
+Alice brightened a little as she went forward to the front door,
+and she brightened more when the spring breeze met her there.
+Then all depression left her as she walked down the short brick
+path to the sidewalk, looked up and down the street, and saw how
+bravely the maple shade-trees, in spite of the black powder they
+breathed, were flinging out their thousands of young green
+particles overhead.
+
+She turned north, treading the new little shadows on the pavement
+briskly, and, having finished buttoning her gloves, swung down
+her Malacca stick from under her arm to let it tap a more
+leisurely accompaniment to her quick, short step.  She had to
+step quickly if she was to get anywhere; for the closeness of her
+skirt, in spite of its little length, permitted no natural
+stride; but she was pleased to be impeded, these brevities
+forming part of her show of fashion.
+
+Other pedestrians found them not without charm, though approval
+may have been lacking here and there, and at the first crossing
+Alice suffered what she might have accounted an actual injury,
+had she allowed herself to be so sensitive.  An elderly woman in
+fussy black silk stood there, waiting for a streetcar; she was
+all of a globular modelling, with a face patterned like a
+frost-bitten peach; and that the approaching gracefulness was
+uncongenial she naively made too evident.  Her round, wan eyes
+seemed roused to bitter life as they rose from the curved high
+heels of the buckled slippers to the tight little skirt, and
+thence with startled ferocity to the Malacca cane, which plainly
+appeared to her as a decoration not more astounding than it was
+insulting.
+
+Perceiving that the girl was bowing to her, the globular lady
+hurriedly made shift to alter her injurious expression.  "Good
+morning, Mrs. Dowling," Alice said, gravely.  Mrs. Dowling
+returned the salutation with a smile as convincingly benevolent
+as the ghastly smile upon a Santa Claus face; and then, while
+Alice passed on, exploded toward her a single compacted breath
+through tightened lips.
+
+The sound was eloquently audible, though Mrs. Dowling remained
+unaware that in this or any manner whatever she had shed a light
+upon her thoughts; for it was her lifelong innocent conviction
+that other people saw her only as she wished to be seen, and
+heard from her only what she intended to be heard.  At home it
+was always her husband who pulled down the shades of their
+bedroom window.
+
+Alice looked serious for a few moments after the little
+encounter, then found some consolation in the behaviour of a
+gentleman of forty or so who was coming toward her.  Like Mrs.
+Dowling, he had begun to show consciousness of Alice's approach
+while she was yet afar off; but his tokens were of a kind
+pleasanter to her.  He was like Mrs. Dowling again, however, in
+his conception that Alice would not realize the significance of
+what he did.  He passed his hand over his neck-scarf to see that
+it lay neatly to his collar, smoothed a lapel of his coat, and
+adjusted his hat, seeming to be preoccupied the while with
+problems that kept his eyes to the pavement; then, as he came
+within a few feet of her, he looked up, as in a surprised
+recognition almost dramatic, smiled winningly, lifted his hat
+decisively, and carried it to the full arm's length.
+
+Alice's response was all he could have asked.  The cane in her
+right hand stopped short in its swing, while her left hand moved
+in a pretty gesture as if an impulse carried it toward the heart;
+and she smiled, with her under lip caught suddenly between her
+teeth.  Months ago she had seen an actress use this smile in a
+play, and it came perfectly to Alice now, without conscious
+direction, it had been so well acquired; but the pretty hand's
+little impulse toward the heart was an original bit all her own,
+on the spur of the moment.
+
+The gentleman went on, passing from her forward vision as he
+replaced his hat.  Of himself he was nothing to Alice, except for
+the gracious circumstance that he had shown strong consciousness
+of a pretty girl.  He was middle-aged, substantial, a family man,
+securely married; and Alice had with him one of those long
+acquaintances that never become emphasized by so much as five
+minutes of talk; yet for this inconsequent meeting she had
+enacted a little part like a fragment in a pantomime of Spanish
+wooing.
+
+It was not for him--not even to impress him, except as a
+messenger.  Alice was herself almost unaware of her thought,
+which was one of the running thousands of her thoughts that took
+no deliberate form in words.  Nevertheless, she had it, and it
+was the impulse of all her pretty bits of pantomime when she met
+other acquaintances who made their appreciation visible, as this
+substantial gentleman did.  In Alice's unworded thought, he was
+to be thus encouraged as in some measure a champion to speak well
+of her to the world; but more than this: he was to tell some
+magnificent unknown bachelor how wonderful, how mysterious, she
+was.
+
+She hastened on gravely, a little stirred reciprocally with the
+supposed stirrings in the breast of that shadowy ducal mate, who
+must be somewhere "waiting," or perhaps already seeking her; for
+she more often thought of herself as "waiting" while he sought
+her; and sometimes this view of things became so definite that it
+shaped into a murmur on her lips.  "Waiting.  Just waiting."  And
+she might add, "For him!" Then, being twenty-two, she was apt to
+conclude the mystic interview by laughing at herself, though not
+without a continued wistfulness.
+
+She came to a group of small coloured children playing waywardly
+in a puddle at the mouth of a muddy alley; and at sight of her
+they gave over their pastime in order to stare.  She smiled
+brilliantly upon them, but they were too struck with wonder to
+comprehend that the manifestation was friendly; and as Alice
+picked her way in a little detour to keep from the mud, she heard
+one of them say, "Lady got cane!  Jeez'!"
+
+She knew that many coloured children use impieties familiarly,
+and she was not startled.  She was disturbed, however, by an
+unfavourable hint in the speaker's tone.  He was six, probably,
+but the sting of a criticism is not necessarily allayed by
+knowledge of its ignoble source, and Alice had already begun to
+feel a slight uneasiness about her cane.  Mrs. Dowling's stare
+had been strikingly projected at it; other women more than merely
+glanced, their brows and lips contracting impulsively; and Alice
+was aware that one or two of them frankly halted as soon as she
+had passed.
+
+She had seen in several magazines pictures of ladies with canes,
+and on that account she had bought this one, never questioning
+that fashion is recognized, even in the provinces, as soon as
+beheld.  On the contrary, these staring women obviously failed to
+realize that what they were being shown was not an eccentric
+outburst, but the bright harbinger of an illustrious mode.  Alice
+had applied a bit of artificial pigment to her lips and cheeks
+before she set forth this morning; she did not need it, having a
+ready colour of her own, which now mounted high with annoyance.
+
+Then a splendidly shining closed black automobile, with windows
+of polished glass, came silently down the street toward her.
+Within it, as in a luxurious little apartment, three comely
+ladies in mourning sat and gossiped; but when they saw Alice they
+clutched one another.  They instantly recovered, bowing to her
+solemnly as they were borne by, yet were not gone from her sight
+so swiftly but the edge of her side glance caught a flash of
+teeth in mouths suddenly opened, and the dark glisten of black
+gloves again clutching to share mirth.
+
+The colour that outdid the rouge on Alice's cheek extended its
+area and grew warmer as she realized how all too cordial had been
+her nod and smile to these humorous ladies.  But in their
+identity lay a significance causing her a sharper smart, for they
+were of the family of that Lamb, chief of Lamb and Company, who
+had employed her father since before she was born.
+
+"And know his salary!  They'd be SURE to find out about that!"
+was her thought, coupled with another bitter one to the effect
+that they had probably made instantaneous financial estimates of
+what she wore though certainly her walking-stick had most fed
+their hilarity.
+
+She tucked it under her arm, not swinging it again; and her
+breath became quick and irregular as emotion beset her.  She had
+been enjoying her walk, but within the space of the few blocks
+she had gone since she met the substantial gentleman, she found
+that more than the walk was spoiled: suddenly her life seemed to
+be spoiled, too; though she did not view the ruin with
+complaisance.  These Lamb women thought her and her cane
+ridiculous, did they?  she said to herself.  That was their
+parvenu blood: to think because a girl's father worked for their
+grandfather she had no right to be rather striking in style,
+especially when the striking WAS her style.  Probably all the
+other girls and women would agree with them and would laugh at
+her when they got together, and, what might be fatal, would try
+to make all the men think her a silly pretender.  Men were just
+like sheep, and nothing was easier than for women to set up as
+shepherds and pen them in a fold.  "To keep out outsiders," Alice
+thought.  "And make 'em believe I AM an outsider.  What's the use
+of living?"
+
+All seemed lost when a trim young man appeared, striding out of a
+cross-street not far before her, and, turning at the corner, came
+toward her.  Visibly, he slackened his gait to lengthen the time
+of his approach, and, as he was a stranger to her, no motive
+could be ascribed to him other than a wish to have a longer time
+to look at her.
+
+She lifted a pretty hand to a pin at her throat, bit her lip--not
+with the smile, but mysteriously--and at the last instant before
+her shadow touched the stranger, let her eyes gravely meet his.
+A moment later, having arrived before the house which was her
+destination, she halted at the entrance to a driveway leading
+through fine lawns to the intentionally important mansion.  It
+was a pleasant and impressive place to be seen entering, but
+Alice did not enter at once.  She paused, examining a tiny bit of
+mortar which the masons had forgotten to scrape from a brick in
+one of the massive gate-posts.  She frowned at this tiny
+defacement, and with an air of annoyance scraped it away, using
+the ferrule of her cane an act of fastidious proprietorship.  If
+any one had looked back over his shoulder he would not have
+doubted that she lived there.
+
+Alice did not turn to see whether anything of the sort happened
+or not, but she may have surmised that it did.  At all events, it
+was with an invigorated step that she left the gateway behind her
+and went cheerfully up the drive to the house of her friend
+Mildred.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Adams had a restless morning, and toward noon he asked Miss Perry
+to call his daughter; he wished to say something to her.
+
+"I thought I heard her leaving the house a couple of hours
+ago--maybe longer," the nurse told him.  "I'll go see."  And she
+returned from the brief errand, her impression confirmed by
+information from Mrs. Adams.  "Yes.  She went up to Miss Mildred
+Palmer's to see what she's going to wear to-night."
+
+Adams looked at Miss Perry wearily, but remained passive, making
+no inquiries; for he was long accustomed to what seemed to him a
+kind of jargon among ladies, which became the more
+incomprehensible when they tried to explain it.  A man's best
+course, he had found, was just to let it go as so much sound.
+His sorrowful eyes followed the nurse as she went back to her
+rocking-chair by the window, and her placidity showed him that
+there was no mystery for her in the fact that Alice walked two
+miles to ask so simple a question when there was a telephone in
+the house.  Obviously Miss Perry also comprehended why Alice
+thought it important to know what Mildred meant to wear.  Adams
+understood why Alice should be concerned with what she herself
+wore "to look neat and tidy and at her best, why, of course she'd
+want to," he thought--but he realized that it was forever beyond
+him to understand why the clothing of other people had long since
+become an absorbing part of her life.
+
+Her excursion this morning was no novelty; she was continually
+going to see what Mildred meant to wear, or what some other girl
+meant to wear; and when Alice came home from wherever other girls
+or women had been gathered, she always hurried to her mother with
+earnest descriptions of the clothing she had seen.  At such
+times, if Adams was present, he might recognize "organdie," or
+"taffeta," or "chiffon," as words defining certain textiles, but
+the rest was too technical for him, and he was like a dismal boy
+at a sermon, just waiting for it to get itself finished.  Not the
+least of the mystery was his wife's interest: she was almost
+indifferent about her own clothes, and when she consulted Alice
+about them spoke hurriedly and with an air of apology; but when
+Alice described other people's clothes, Mrs. Adams listened as
+eagerly as the daughter talked.
+
+"There they go!" he muttered to-day, a moment after he heard the
+front door closing, a sound recognizable throughout most of the
+thinly built house.  Alice had just returned, and Mrs. Adams
+called to her from the upper hallway, not far from Adams's door.
+
+"What did she SAY?"
+
+"She was sort of snippy about it," Alice returned, ascending the
+stairs.  "She gets that way sometimes, and pretended she hadn't
+made up her mind, but I'm pretty sure it'll be the maize
+Georgette with Malines flounces."
+
+"Didn't you say she wore that at the Pattersons'?" Mrs. Adams
+inquired, as Alice arrived at the top of the stairs.  "And didn't
+you tell me she wore it again at the----"
+
+"Certainly not," Alice interrupted, rather petulantly.  "She's
+never worn it but once, and of course she wouldn't want to wear
+anything to-night that people have seen her in a lot."
+
+Miss Perry opened the door of Adams's room and stepped out.
+"Your father wants to know if you'll come and see him a minute,
+Miss Adams."
+
+"Poor old thing!  Of course!" Alice exclaimed, and went quickly
+into the room, Miss Perry remaining outside.  "What's the matter,
+papa?  Getting awful sick of lying on his tired old back, I
+expect."
+
+"I've had kind of a poor morning," Adams said, as she patted his
+hand comfortingly.  "I been thinking----"
+
+"Didn't I tell you not to?" she cried, gaily.  "Of course you'll
+have poor times when you go and do just exactly what I say you
+mustn't.  You stop thinking this very minute!"
+
+He smiled ruefully, closing his eyes; was silent for a moment,
+then asked her to sit beside the bed.  "I been thinking of
+something I wanted to say," he added.
+
+"What like, papa?"
+
+"Well, it's nothing--much," he said, with something deprecatory
+in his tone, as if he felt vague impulses toward both humour and
+apology.  "I just thought maybe I ought to've said more to you
+some time or other about--well, about the way things ARE, down at
+Lamb and Company's, for instance."
+
+"Now, papa!" She leaned forward in the chair she had taken, and
+pretended to slap his hand crossly.  "Isn't that exactly what I
+said you couldn't think one single think about till you get ALL
+well?"
+
+"Well----" he said, and went on slowly, not looking at her, but
+at the ceiling.  "I just thought maybe it wouldn't been any harm
+if some time or other I told you something about the way they
+sort of depend on me down there."
+
+"Why don't they show it, then?" she asked, quickly.  "That's just
+what mama and I have been feeling so much; they don't appreciate
+you."
+
+"Why, yes, they do," he said.  "Yes, they do.  They began
+h'isting my salary the second year I went in there, and they've
+h'isted it a little every two years all the time I've worked for
+'em.  I've been head of the sundries department for seven years
+now, and I could hardly have more authority in that department
+unless I was a member of the firm itself."
+
+"Well, why don't they make you a member of the firm?  That's what
+they ought to've done!  Yes, and long ago!"
+
+Adams laughed, but sighed with more heartiness than he had
+laughed.  "They call me their 'oldest stand-by' down there."  He
+laughed again, apologetically, as if to excuse himself for taking
+a little pride in this title.  "Yes, sir; they say I'm their
+'oldest stand-by'; and I guess they know they can count on my
+department's turning in as good a report as they look for, at the
+end of every month; but they don't have to take a man into the
+firm to get him to do my work, dearie."
+
+"But you said they depended on you, papa."
+
+"So they do; but of course not so's they couldn't get along
+without me."  He paused, reflecting.  "I don't just seem to know
+how to put it--I mean how to put what I started out to say.  I
+kind of wanted to tell you--well, it seems funny to me, these
+last few years, the way your mother's taken to feeling about it.
+I'd like to see a better established wholesale drug business than
+Lamb and Company this side the Alleghanies--I don't say bigger, I
+say better established--and it's kind of funny for a man that's
+been with a business like that as long as I have to hear it
+called a 'hole.' It's kind of funny when you think, yourself,
+you've done pretty fairly well in a business like that, and the
+men at the head of it seem to think so, too, and put your salary
+just about as high as anybody could consider customary--well,
+what I mean, Alice, it's kind of funny to have your mother think
+it's mostly just--mostly just a failure, so to speak."
+
+His voice had become tremulous in spite of him; and this sign of
+weakness and emotion had sufficient effect upon Alice.  She bent
+over him suddenly, with her arm about him and her cheek against
+his.  "Poor papa!" she murmured.  "Poor papa!"
+
+"No, no," he said.  "I didn't mean anything to trouble you.  I
+just thought----" He hesitated.  "I just wondered--I thought
+maybe it wouldn't be any harm if I said something about how
+things ARE down there.  I got to thinking maybe you didn't
+understand it's a pretty good place.  They're fine people to work
+for; and they've always seemed to think something of me;--the way
+they took Walter on, for instance, soon as I asked 'em, last
+year.  Don't you think that looked a good deal as if they thought
+something of me, Alice?"
+
+"Yes, papa," she said, not moving.
+
+"And the work's right pleasant," he went on.  "Mighty nice boys
+in our department, Alice.  Well, they are in all the departments,
+for that matter.  We have a good deal of fun down there some
+days."
+
+She lifted her head.  "More than you do at home 'some days,' I
+expect, papa!" she said.
+
+He protested feebly.  "Now, I didn't mean that--I didn't want to
+trouble you----"
+
+She looked at him through winking eyelashes.  "I'm sorry I called
+it a 'hole,' papa."
+
+"No, no," he protested, gently.  "It was your mother said that."
+
+"No.  I did, too."
+
+"Well, if you did, it was only because you'd heard her."
+
+She shook her head, then kissed him.  "I'm going to talk to her,"
+she said, and rose decisively.
+
+But at this, her father's troubled voice became quickly louder:
+"You better let her alone.  I just wanted to have a little talk
+with you.  I didn't mean to start any--your mother won't----"
+
+"Now, papa!" Alice spoke cheerfully again, and smiled upon him.
+"I want you to quit worrying!  Everything's going to be all right
+and nobody's going to bother you any more about anything.  You'll
+see!"
+
+She carried her smile out into the hall, but after she had closed
+the door her face was all pity; and her mother, waiting for her
+in the opposite room, spoke sympathetically.
+
+"What's the matter, Alice?  What did he say that's upset you?"
+
+"Wait a minute, mama."  Alice found a handkerchief, used it for
+eyes and suffused nose, gulped, then suddenly and desolately sat
+upon the bed.  "Poor, poor, POOR papa!" she whispered.
+
+"Why?" Mrs. Adams inquired, mildly.  "What's the matter with
+him?  Sometimes you act as if he weren't getting well.  What's he
+been talking about?"
+
+"Mama--well, I think I'm pretty selfish.  Oh, I do!"
+
+"Did he say you were?"
+
+"Papa?  No, indeed!  What I mean is, maybe we're both a little
+selfish to try to make him go out and hunt around for something
+new."
+
+Mrs. Adams looked thoughtful.  "Oh, that's what he was up to!"
+
+"Mama, I think we ought to give it up.  I didn't dream it had
+really hurt him."
+
+"Well, doesn't he hurt us?"
+
+"Never that I know of, mama."
+
+"I don't mean by SAYING things," Mrs. Adams explained,
+impatiently.  "There are more ways than that of hurting people.
+When a man sticks to a salary that doesn't provide for his
+family, isn't that hurting them?"
+
+"Oh, it 'provides' for us well enough, mama.  We have what we
+need--if I weren't so extravagant.  Oh, _I_ know I am!"
+
+But at this admission her mother cried out sharply.
+"'Extravagant!' You haven't one tenth of what the other girls you
+go with have.  And you CAN'T have what you ought to as long as he
+doesn't get out of that horrible place.  It provides bare food
+and shelter for us, but what's that?"
+
+"I don't think we ought to try any more to change him."
+
+"You don't?" Mrs. Adams came and stood before her.  "Listen,
+Alice: your father's asleep; that's his trouble, and he's got to
+be waked up.  He doesn't know that things have changed.  When you
+and Walter were little children we did have enough--at least it
+seemed to be about as much as most of the people we knew.  But
+the town isn't what it was in those days, and times aren't what
+they were then, and these fearful PRICES aren't the old prices.
+Everything else but your father has changed, and all the time
+he's stood still.  He doesn't know it; he thinks because they've
+given him a hundred dollars more every two years he's quite a
+prosperous man!  And he thinks that because his children cost him
+more than he and I cost our parents he gives them--enough!"
+
+"But Walter----" Alice faltered.  "Walter doesn't cost him
+anything at all any more."  And she concluded, in a stricken
+voice, "It's all--me!"
+
+"Why shouldn't it be?" her mother cried.  "You're young--you're
+just at the time when your life should be fullest of good things
+and happiness.  Yet what do you get?"
+
+Alice's lip quivered; she was not unsusceptible to such an
+appeal, but she contrived the semblance of a protest.  "I don't
+have such a bad time not a good DEAL of the time, anyhow.  I've
+got a good MANY of the things other girls have----"
+
+"You have?" Mrs. Adams was piteously satirical.  "I suppose
+you've got a limousine to go to that dance to-night?  I suppose
+you've only got to call a florist and tell him to send you some
+orchids?  I suppose you've----"
+
+But Alice interrupted this list.  Apparently in a single instant
+all emotion left her, and she became businesslike, as one in the
+midst of trifles reminded of really serious matters.  She got up
+from the bed and went to the door of the closet where she kept
+her dresses.  "Oh, see here," she said, briskly.  "I've decided
+to wear my white organdie if you could put in a new lining for
+me.  I'm afraid it'll take you nearly all afternoon."
+
+She brought forth the dress, displayed it upon the bed, and Mrs.
+Adams examined it attentively.
+
+"Do you think you could get it done, mama?"
+
+"I don't see why not," Mrs. Adams answered, passing a thoughtful
+hand over the fabric.  "It oughtn't to take more than four or
+five hours."
+
+"It's a shame to have you sit at the machine that long," Alice
+said, absently, adding, "And I'm sure we ought to let papa alone.
+Let's just give it up, mama."
+
+Mrs. Adams continued her thoughtful examination of the dress.
+"Did you buy the chiffon and ribbon, Alice?"
+
+"Yes.  I'm sure we oughtn't to talk to him about it any more,
+mama."
+
+"Well, we'll see."
+
+"Let's both agree that we'll NEVER say another single word to him
+about it," said Alice.  "It'll be a great deal better if we just
+let him make up his mind for himself."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+With this, having more immediately practical questions before
+them, they dropped the subject, to bend their entire attention
+upon the dress; and when the lunch-gong sounded downstairs Alice
+was still sketching repairs and alterations.  She continued to
+sketch them, not heeding the summons.
+
+"I suppose we'd better go down to lunch," Mrs. Adams said,
+absently.  "She's at the gong again."  "In a minute, mama.  Now
+about the sleeves----" And she went on with her planning.
+Unfortunately the gong was inexpressive of the mood of the person
+who beat upon it.  It consisted of three little metal bowls upon
+a string; they were unequal in size, and, upon being tapped with
+a padded stick, gave forth vibrations almost musically pleasant.
+It was Alice who had substituted this contrivance for the brass
+"dinner-bell" in use throughout her childhood; and neither she
+nor the others of her family realized that the substitution of
+sweeter sounds had made the life of that household more
+difficult.  In spite of dismaying increases in wages, the Adamses
+still strove to keep a cook; and, as they were unable to pay the
+higher rates demanded by a good one, what they usually had was a
+whimsical coloured woman of nomadic impulses.  In the hands of
+such a person the old-fashioned "dinner-bell" was satisfying;
+life could instantly be made intolerable for any one dawdling on
+his way to a meal; the bell was capable of every desirable
+profanity and left nothing bottled up in the breast of the
+ringer.  But the chamois-covered stick might whack upon Alice's
+little Chinese bowls for a considerable length of time and
+produce no great effect of urgency upon a hearer, nor any other
+effect, except fury in the cook.  The ironical impossibility of
+expressing indignation otherwise than by sounds of gentle harmony
+proved exasperating; the cook was apt to become surcharged, so
+that explosive resignations, never rare, were somewhat more
+frequent after the introduction of the gong.
+
+Mrs. Adams took this increased frequency to be only another
+manifestation of the inexplicable new difficulties that beset all
+housekeeping.  You paid a cook double what you had paid one a few
+years before; and the cook knew half as much of cookery, and had
+no gratitude.  The more you gave these people, it seemed, the
+worse they behaved--a condition not to be remedied by simply
+giving them less, because you couldn't even get the worst unless
+you paid her what she demanded.  Nevertheless, Mrs. Adams
+remained fitfully an optimist in the matter.  Brought up by her
+mother to speak of a female cook as "the girl," she had been
+instructed by Alice to drop that definition in favour of one not
+an improvement in accuracy: "the maid."  Almost always, during
+the first day or so after every cook came, Mrs. Adams would say,
+at intervals, with an air of triumph: "I believe--of course it's
+a little soon to be sure--but I do really believe this new maid
+is the treasure we've been looking for so long!" Much in the same
+way that Alice dreamed of a mysterious perfect mate for whom she
+"waited," her mother had a fairy theory that hidden somewhere in
+the universe there was the treasure, the perfect "maid," who
+would come and cook in the Adamses' kitchen, not four days or
+four weeks, but forever.
+
+The present incumbent was not she.  Alice, profoundly interested
+herself, kept her mother likewise so preoccupied with the dress
+that they were but vaguely conscious of the gong's soft warnings,
+though these were repeated and protracted unusually.  Finally the
+sound of a hearty voice, independent and enraged, reached the
+pair.  It came from the hall below.
+
+"I says goo'-BYE!" it called.  "Da'ss all!"
+
+Then the front door slammed.
+
+"Why, what----" Mrs. Adams began.
+
+They went down hurriedly to find out.  Miss Perry informed them.
+
+"I couldn't make her listen to reason," she said.  "She rang the
+gong four or five times and got to talking to herself; and then
+she went up to her room and packed her bag.  I told her she had
+no business to go out the front door, anyhow."
+
+Mrs. Adams took the news philosophically.  "I thought she had
+something like that in her eye when I paid her this morning, and
+I'm not surprised.  Well, we won't let Mr. Adams know anything's
+the matter till I get a new one."
+
+They lunched upon what the late incumbent had left chilling on
+the table, and then Mrs. Adams prepared to wash the dishes; she
+would "have them done in a jiffy," she said, cheerfully.  But it
+was Alice who washed the dishes.
+
+"I DON'T like to have you do that, Alice," her mother protested,
+following her into the kitchen.  "It roughens the hands, and when
+a girl has hands like yours----"
+
+"I know, mama."  Alice looked troubled, but shook her head.  "It
+can't be helped this time; you'll need every minute to get that
+dress done."
+
+Mrs. Adams went away lamenting, while Alice, no expert, began to
+splash the plates and cups and saucers in the warm water.  After
+a while, as she worked, her eyes grew dreamy: she was making
+little gay-coloured pictures of herself, unfounded prophecies of
+how she would look and what would happen to her that evening.
+She saw herself, charming and demure, wearing a fluffy
+idealization of the dress her mother now determinedly struggled
+with upstairs; she saw herself framed in a garlanded archway, the
+entrance to a ballroom, and saw the people on the shining floor
+turning dramatically to look at her; then from all points a rush
+of young men shouting for dances with her; and she constructed a
+superb stranger, tall, dark, masterfully smiling, who swung her
+out of the clamouring group as the music began.  She saw herself
+dancing with him, saw the half-troubled smile she would give him;
+and she accurately smiled that smile as she rinsed the knives and
+forks.
+
+These hopeful fragments of drama were not to be realized, she
+knew; but she played that they were true, and went on creating
+them.  In all of them she wore or carried flowers--her mother's
+sorrow for her in this detail but made it the more important--
+and she saw herself glamorous with orchids; discarded these for
+an armful of long-stemmed, heavy roses; tossed them away for a
+great bouquet of white camellias; and so wandered down a
+lengthening hothouse gallery of floral beauty, all costly and
+beyond her reach except in such a wistful day-dream.  And upon
+her present whole horizon, though she searched it earnestly, she
+could discover no figure of a sender of flowers.
+
+Out of her fancies the desire for flowers to wear that night
+emerged definitely and became poignant; she began to feel that it
+might be particularly important to have them.  "This might be the
+night!" She was still at the age to dream that the night of any
+dance may be the vital point in destiny.  No matter how
+commonplace or disappointing other dance nights have been this
+one may bring the great meeting.  The unknown magnifico may be
+there.
+
+Alice was almost unaware of her own reveries in which this being
+appeared--reveries often so transitory that they developed and
+passed in a few seconds.  And in some of them the being was not
+wholly a stranger; there were moments when he seemed to be
+composed of recognizable fragments of young men she knew--a smile
+she had liked, from one; the figure of another, the hair of
+another--and sometimes she thought he might be concealed, so to
+say, within the person of an actual acquaintance, someone she had
+never suspected of being the right seeker for her, someone who
+had never suspected that it was she who "waited" for him.
+Anything might reveal them to each other: a look, a turn of the
+head, a singular word--perhaps some flowers upon her breast or in
+her hand.
+
+She wiped the dishes slowly, concluding the operation by dropping
+a saucer upon the floor and dreamily sweeping the fragments under
+the stove.  She sighed and replaced the broom near a window,
+letting her glance wander over the small yard outside.  The
+grass, repulsively besooted to the colour of coal-smoke all
+winter, had lately come to life again and now sparkled with
+green, in the midst of which a tiny shot of blue suddenly fixed
+her absent eyes.  They remained upon it for several moments,
+becoming less absent.
+
+It was a violet.
+
+Alice ran upstairs, put on her hat, went outdoors and began to
+search out the violets.  She found twenty-two, a bright
+omen--since the number was that of her years--but not enough
+violets.  There were no more; she had ransacked every foot of the
+yard.
+
+She looked dubiously at the little bunch in her hand, glanced at
+the lawn next door, which offered no favourable prospect; then
+went thoughtfully into the house, left her twenty-two violets in
+a bowl of water, and came quickly out again, her brow marked with
+a frown of decision.  She went to a trolley-line and took a car
+to the outskirts of the city where a new park had been opened.
+
+Here she resumed her search, but it was not an easily rewarded
+one, and for an hour after her arrival she found no violets.  She
+walked conscientiously over the whole stretch of meadow, her eyes
+roving discontentedly; there was never a blue dot in the groomed
+expanse; but at last, as she came near the borders of an old
+grove of trees, left untouched by the municipal landscapers, the
+little flowers appeared, and she began to gather them.  She
+picked them carefully, loosening the earth round each tiny plant,
+so as to bring the roots up with it, that it might live the
+longer; and she had brought a napkin, which she drenched at a
+hydrant, and kept loosely wrapped about the stems of her
+collection.
+
+The turf was too damp for her to kneel; she worked patiently,
+stooping from the waist; and when she got home in a drizzle of
+rain at five o'clock her knees were tremulous with strain, her
+back ached, and she was tired all over, but she had three hundred
+violets.  Her mother moaned when Alice showed them to her,
+fragrant in a basin of water.
+
+"Oh, you POOR child!  To think of your having to: work so hard to
+get things that other girls only need; lift their little fingers
+for!"
+
+"Never mind," said Alice, huskily.  "I've got 'em and I AM going
+to have a good time to-night!"
+
+"You've just got to!" Mrs. Adams agreed, intensely sympathetic.
+"The Lord knows you deserve to, after picking all these violets,
+poor thing, and He wouldn't be mean enough to keep you from it.
+I may have to get dinner before I finish the dress, but I can get
+it done in a few minutes afterward, and it's going to look right
+pretty.  Don't you worry about THAT!  And with all these lovely
+violets----"
+
+"I wonder----" Alice began, paused, then went on, fragmentarily:
+"I suppose--well, I wonder--do you suppose it would have been
+better policy to have told Walter before----"
+
+"No," said her mother.  "It would only have given him longer to
+grumble."
+
+"But he might----"
+
+"Don't worry," Mrs. Adams reassured her.  "He'll be a little
+cross, but he won't be stubborn; just let me talk to him and
+don't you say anything at all, no matter what HE says."
+
+These references to Walter concerned some necessary manoeuvres
+which took place at dinner, and were conducted by the mother,
+Alice having accepted her advice to sit in silence.  Mrs. Adams
+began by laughing cheerfully.  "I wonder how much longer it took
+me to cook this dinner than it does Walter to eat it?" she said.
+"Don't gobble, child!  There's no hurry."
+
+In contact with his own family Walter was no squanderer of words.
+
+"Is for me," he said.  "Got date."
+
+"I know you have, but there's plenty of time."
+
+He smiled in benevolent pity.  "YOU know, do you?  If you made
+any coffee--don't bother if you didn't.  Get some down-town."  He
+seemed about to rise and depart; whereupon Alice, biting her lip,
+sent a panic-stricken glance at her mother.
+
+But Mrs. Adams seemed not at all disturbed; and laughed again.
+"Why, what nonsense, Walter!  I'll bring your coffee in a few
+minutes, but we're going to have dessert first."
+
+"What sort?"
+
+"Some lovely peaches."
+
+"Doe' want 'ny canned peaches," said the frank Walter, moving
+back his chair.  "G'-night."
+
+"Walter!  It doesn't begin till about nine o'clock at the
+earliest."
+
+He paused, mystified.  "What doesn't?"
+
+"The dance."
+
+"What dance?"
+
+"Why, Mildred Palmer's dance, of course."
+
+Walter laughed briefly.  "What's that to me?"
+
+"Why, you haven't forgotten it's TO-NIGHT, have you?" Mrs. Adams
+cried.  "What a boy!"
+
+"I told you a week ago I wasn't going to that ole dance," he
+returned, frowning.  "You heard me."
+
+"Walter!" she exclaimed.  "Of COURSE you're going.  I got your
+clothes all out this afternoon, and brushed them for you.
+They'll look very nice, and----"
+
+"They won't look nice on ME," he interrupted.  "Got date
+down-town, I tell you."
+
+"But of course you'll----"
+
+"See here!" Walter said, decisively.  "Don't get any wrong ideas
+in your head.  I'm just as liable to go up to that ole dance at
+the Palmers' as I am to eat a couple of barrels of broken glass."
+
+"But, Walter----"
+
+Walter was beginning to be seriously annoyed.  "Don't 'Walter'
+me!  I'm no s'ciety snake.  I wouldn't jazz with that Palmer
+crowd if they coaxed me with diamonds."
+
+"Walter----"
+
+"Didn't I tell you it's no use to 'Walter' me?" he demanded.
+
+"My dear child----"
+
+"Oh, Glory!"
+
+At this Mrs. Adams abandoned her air of amusement, looked hurt,
+and glanced at the demure Miss Perry across the table.  "I'm
+afraid Miss Perry won't think you have very good manners,
+Walter."
+
+"You're right she won't," he agreed, grimly.  "Not if I haf to
+hear any more about me goin' to----"
+
+But his mother interrupted him with some asperity: "It seems very
+strange that you always object to going anywhere among OUR
+friends, Walter."
+
+"YOUR friends!" he said, and, rising from his chair, gave
+utterance to an ironical laugh strictly monosyllabic.  "Your
+friends!" he repeated, going to the door.  "Oh, yes!  Certainly!
+Good-NIGHT!"
+
+And looking back over his shoulder to offer a final brief view of
+his derisive face, he took himself out of the room.
+
+Alice gasped: "Mama----"
+
+"I'll stop him!" her mother responded, sharply; and hurried after
+the truant, catching him at the front door with his hat and
+raincoat on.
+
+"Walter----"
+
+"Told you had a date down-town," he said, gruffly, and would have
+opened the door, but she caught his arm and detained him.
+
+"Walter, please come back and finish your dinner.  When I take
+all the trouble to cook it for you, I think you might at
+least----"
+
+"Now, now!" he said.  "That isn't what you're up to.  You don't
+want to make me eat; you want to make me listen."
+
+"Well, you MUST listen!" She retained her grasp upon his arm, and
+made it tighter.  "Walter, please!" she entreated, her voice
+becoming tremulous.  "PLEASE don't make me so much trouble!"
+
+He drew back from her as far as her hold upon him permitted, and
+looked at her sharply.  "Look here!" he said.  "I get you, all
+right!  What's the matter of Alice GOIN' to that party by
+herself?"
+
+"She just CAN'T!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It makes things too MEAN for her, Walter.  All the other girls
+have somebody to depend on after they get there."
+
+"Well, why doesn't she have somebody?" he asked, testily.
+"Somebody besides ME, I mean!  Why hasn't somebody asked her to
+go?  She ought to be THAT popular, anyhow, I sh'd think--she
+TRIES enough!"
+
+"I don't understand how you can be so hard," his mother wailed,
+huskily.  "You know why they don't run after her the way they do
+the other girls she goes with, Walter.  It's because we're poor,
+and she hasn't got any background.
+
+"'Background?'" Walter repeated.  "'Background?' What kind of
+talk is that?"
+
+"You WILL go with her to-night, Walter?" his mother pleaded, not
+stopping to enlighten him.  "You don't understand how hard things
+are for her and how brave she is about them, or you COULDN'T be
+so selfish!  It'd be more than I can bear to see her disappointed
+to-night!  She went clear out to Belleview Park this afternoon,
+Walter, and spent hours and hours picking violets to wear.  You
+WILL----"
+
+Walter's heart was not iron, and the episode of the violets may
+have reached it.  "Oh, BLUB!" he said, and flung his soft hat
+violently at the wall.
+
+His mother beamed with delight.  "THAT'S a good boy, darling!
+You'll never be sorry you----"
+
+"Cut it out," he requested.  "If I take her, will you pay for a
+taxi?"
+
+"Oh, Walter!" And again Mrs. Adams showed distress.  "Couldn't
+you?"
+
+"No, I couldn't; I'm not goin' to throw away my good money like
+that, and you can't tell what time o' night it'll be before she's
+willin' to come home.  What's the matter you payin' for one?"
+
+"I haven't any money."
+
+"Well, father----"
+
+She shook her head dolefully.  "I got some from him this morning,
+and I can't bother him for any more; it upsets him.  He's ALWAYS
+been so terribly close with money----"
+
+"I guess he couldn't help that," Walter observed.  "We're liable
+to go to the poorhouse the way it is.  Well, what's the matter
+our walkin' to this rotten party?"
+
+"In the rain, Walter?"
+
+"Well, it's only a drizzle and we can take a streetcar to within
+a block of the house."
+
+Again his mother shook her head.  "It wouldn't do."
+
+"Well, darn the luck, all right!" he consented, explosively.
+"I'll get her something to ride in.  It means seventy-five
+cents."
+
+"Why, Walter!" Mrs. Adams cried, much pleased.  "Do you know how
+to get a cab for that little?  How splendid!"
+
+"Tain't a cab," Walter informed her crossly.  "It's a tin Lizzie,
+but you don't haf' to tell her what it is till I get her into it,
+do you?"
+
+Mrs. Adams agreed that she didn't.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Alice was busy with herself for two hours after dinner; but a
+little before nine o'clock she stood in front of her long mirror,
+completed, bright-eyed and solemn.  Her hair, exquisitely
+arranged, gave all she asked of it; what artificialities in
+colour she had used upon her face were only bits of emphasis that
+made her prettiness the more distinct; and the dress, not rumpled
+by her mother's careful hours of work, was a white cloud of
+loveliness.  Finally there were two triumphant bouquets of
+violets, each with the stems wrapped in tin-foil shrouded by a
+bow of purple chiffon; and one bouquet she wore at her waist and
+the other she carried in her hand.
+
+Miss Perry, called in by a rapturous mother for the free treat of
+a look at this radiance, insisted that Alice was a vision.
+"Purely and simply a vision!" she said, meaning that no other
+definition whatever would satisfy her.  "I never saw anybody look
+a vision if she don't look one to-night," the admiring nurse
+declared.  "Her papa'll think the same I do about it.  You see if
+he doesn't say she's purely and simply a vision."
+
+Adams did not fulfil the prediction quite literally when Alice
+paid a brief visit to his room to "show" him and bid him
+good-night; but he chuckled feebly.  "Well, well, well!" he said.
+
+"You look mighty fine--MIGHTY fine!" And he waggled a bony finger
+at her two bouquets.  "Why, Alice, who's your beau?"
+
+"Never you mind!" she laughed, archly brushing his nose with the
+violets in her hand.  "He treats me pretty well, doesn't he?"
+
+"Must like to throw his money around!  These violets smell mighty
+sweet, and they ought to, if they're going to a party with YOU.
+Have a good time, dearie."
+
+"I mean to!" she cried; and she repeated this gaily, but with an
+emphasis expressing sharp determination as she left him.  "I MEAN
+to!"
+
+"What was he talking about?" her mother inquired, smoothing the
+rather worn and old evening wrap she had placed on Alice's bed.
+"What were you telling him you 'mean to?'"
+
+Alice went back to her triple mirror for the last time, then
+stood before the long one.  "That I mean to have a good time
+to-night," she said; and as she turned from her reflection to the
+wrap Mrs. Adams held up for her, "It looks as though I COULD,
+don't you think so?"
+
+"You'll just be a queen to-night," her mother whispered in fond
+emotion.  "You mustn't doubt yourself."
+
+"Well, there's one thing," said Alice.  "I think I do look nice
+enough to get along without having to dance with that Frank
+Dowling!  All I ask is for it to happen just once; and if he
+comes near me to-night I'm going to treat him the way the other
+girls do.  Do you suppose Walter's got the taxi out in front?"
+
+"He--he's waiting down in the hall," Mrs. Adams answered,
+nervously; and she held up another garment to go over the wrap.
+
+Alice frowned at it.  "What's that, mama?"
+
+"It's--it's your father's raincoat.  I thought you'd put it on
+over----"
+
+"But I won't need it in a taxicab."
+
+"You will to get in and out, and you needn't take it into the
+Palmers'.  You can leave it in the--in the-- It's drizzling,
+and you'll need it."
+
+"Oh, well," Alice consented; and a few minutes later, as with
+Walter's assistance she climbed into the vehicle he had provided,
+she better understood her mother's solicitude.
+
+"What on earth IS this, Walter?" she asked.
+
+"Never mind; it'll keep you dry enough with the top up," he
+returned, taking his seat beside her.  Then for a time, as they
+went rather jerkily up the street, she was silent; but finally
+she repeated her question: "What IS it, Walter?"
+
+"What's what?"
+
+"This--this CAR?"
+
+"It's a ottomobile."
+
+"I mean--what kind is it?"
+
+"Haven't you got eyes?"
+
+"It's too dark."
+
+"It's a second-hand tin Lizzie," said Walter.  "D'you know what
+that means?  It means a flivver."
+
+"Yes, Walter."
+
+"Got 'ny 'bjections?"
+
+"Why, no, dear," she said, placatively.  "Is it yours, Walter?
+Have you bought it?"
+
+"Me?" he laughed.  "_I_ couldn't buy a used wheelbarrow.  I rent
+this sometimes when I'm goin' out among 'em.  Costs me
+seventy-five cents and the price o' the gas."
+
+"That seems very moderate."
+
+"I guess it is!  The feller owes me some money, and this is the
+only way I'd ever get it off him."
+
+"Is he a garage-keeper?"
+
+"Not exactly!" Walter uttered husky sounds of amusement.  "You'll
+be just as happy, I guess, if you don't know who he is," he said.
+
+His tone misgave her; and she said truthfully that she was
+content not to know who owned the car.  "I joke sometimes about
+how you keep things to yourself," she added, "but I really never
+do pry in your affairs, Walter."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't!"
+
+"Indeed, I don't."
+
+"Yes, you're mighty nice and cooing when you got me where you
+want me," he jeered.  "Well, _I_ just as soon tell you where I
+get this car."
+
+"I'd just as soon you wouldn't, Walter," she said, hurriedly.
+"Please don't."
+
+But Walter meant to tell her.  "Why, there's nothin' exactly
+CRIMINAL about it," he said.  "It belongs to old J. A. Lamb
+himself.  He keeps it for their coon chauffeur.  I rent it from
+him."
+
+"From Mr. LAMB?"
+
+"No; from the coon chauffeur."
+
+"Walter!" she gasped.
+
+"Sure I do!  I can get it any night when the coon isn't goin' to
+use it himself.  He's drivin' their limousine to-night--that
+little Henrietta Lamb's goin' to the party, no matter if her
+father HAS only been dead less'n a year!" He paused, then
+inquired: "Well, how d'you like it?"
+
+She did not speak, and he began to be remorseful for having
+imparted so much information, though his way of expressing regret
+was his own.  "Well, you WILL make the folks make me take you to
+parties!" he said.  "I got to do it the best way I CAN, don't I?"
+
+Then as she made no response, "Oh, the car's CLEAN enough," he
+said.  "This coon, he's as particular as any white man; you
+needn't worry about that."  And as she still said nothing, he
+added gruffly, "I'd of had a better car if I could afforded it.
+You needn't get so upset about it."
+
+"I don't understand--" she said in a low voice--"I don't
+understand how you know such people."
+
+"Such people as who?"
+
+"As--coloured chauffeurs."
+
+"Oh, look here, now!" he protested, loudly.  "Don't you know this
+is a democratic country?"
+
+"Not quite that democratic, is it, Walter?"
+
+"The trouble with you," he retorted, "you don't know there's
+anybody in town except just this silk-shirt crowd."  He paused,
+seeming to await a refutation; but as none came, he expressed
+himself definitely: "They make me sick."
+
+They were coming near their destination, and the glow of the big,
+brightly lighted house was seen before them in the wet night.
+Other cars, not like theirs, were approaching this center of
+brilliance; long triangles of light near the ground swept through
+the fine drizzle; small red tail-lights gleamed again from the
+moist pavement of the street; and, through the myriads of little
+glistening leaves along the curving driveway, glimpses were
+caught of lively colours moving in a white glare as the
+limousines released their occupants under the shelter of the
+porte-cochere.
+
+Alice clutched Walter's arm in a panic; they were just at the
+driveway entrance.  "Walter, we mustn't go in there."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Leave this awful car outside."
+
+"Why, I----"
+
+"Stop!" she insisted, vehemently.  "You've got to!  Go back!"
+
+"Oh, Glory!"
+
+The little car was between the entrance posts; but Walter backed
+it out, avoiding a collision with an impressive machine which
+swerved away from them and passed on toward the porte-cochere,
+showing a man's face grinning at the window as it went by.
+"Flivver runabout got the wrong number!" he said.
+
+"Did he SEE us?" Alice cried.
+
+"Did who see us?"
+
+"Harvey Malone--in that foreign coupe."
+
+"No; he couldn't tell who we were under this top," Walter assured
+her as he brought the little car to a standstill beside the
+curbstone, out in the street.  "What's it matter if he did, the
+big fish?"
+
+Alice responded with a loud sigh, and sat still.
+
+"Well, want to go on back?" Walter inquired.  "You bet I'm
+willing!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, what's the matter our drivin' on up to the
+porte-cochere?  There's room for me to park just the other side
+of it."
+
+"No, NO!"
+
+"What you expect to do?  Sit HERE all night?"
+
+"No, leave the car here."
+
+"_I_ don't care where we leave it," he said.  "Sit still till I
+lock her, so none o' these millionaires around here'll run off
+with her."  He got out with a padlock and chain; and, having put
+these in place, offered Alice his hand.  "Come on, if you're
+ready."
+
+"Wait," she said, and, divesting herself of the raincoat, handed
+it to Walter.  "Please leave this with your things in the men's
+dressing-room, as if it were an extra one of your own, Walter."
+
+He nodded; she jumped out; and they scurried through the drizzle.
+
+As they reached the porte-cochere she began to laugh airily, and
+spoke to the impassive man in livery who stood there.  "Joke on
+us!" she said, hurrying by him toward the door of the house.
+"Our car broke down outside the gate."
+
+The man remained impassive, though he responded with a faint
+gleam as Walter, looking back at him, produced for his benefit a
+cynical distortion of countenance which offered little
+confirmation of Alice's account of things.  Then the door was
+swiftly opened to the brother and sister; and they came into a
+marble-floored hall, where a dozen sleeked young men lounged,
+smoked cigarettes and fastened their gloves, as they waited for
+their ladies.  Alice nodded to one or another of these, and went
+quickly on, her face uplifted and smiling; but Walter detained
+her at the door to which she hastened.
+
+"Listen here," he said.  "I suppose you want me to dance the
+first dance with you----"
+
+"If you please, Walter," she said, meekly.
+
+"How long you goin' to hang around fixin' up in that
+dressin'-room?"
+
+"I'll be out before you're ready yourself," she promised him; and
+kept her word, she was so eager for her good time to begin.  When
+he came for her, they went down the hall to a corridor opening
+upon three great rooms which had been thrown open together, with
+the furniture removed and the broad floors waxed.  At one end of
+the corridor musicians sat in a green grove, and Walter, with
+some interest, turned toward these; but his sister, pressing his
+arm, impelled him in the opposite direction.
+
+"What's the matter now?" he asked.  "That's Jazz Louie and his
+half-breed bunch--three white and four mulatto.  Let's----?"
+
+"No, no," she whispered.  "We must speak to Mildred and Mr. and
+Mrs. Palmer."
+
+"'Speak' to 'em?  I haven't got a thing to say to THOSE berries!"
+
+"Walter, won't you PLEASE behave?"
+
+He seemed to consent, for the moment, at least, and suffered her
+to take him down the corridor toward a floral bower where the
+hostess stood with her father and mother.  Other couples and
+groups were moving in the same direction, carrying with them a
+hubbub of laughter and fragmentary chatterings; and Alice,
+smiling all the time, greeted people on every side of her
+eagerly--a little more eagerly than most of them responded--while
+Walter nodded in a noncommittal manner to one or two, said
+nothing, and yawned audibly, the last resource of a person who
+finds himself nervous in a false situation.  He repeated his yawn
+and was beginning another when a convulsive pressure upon his arm
+made him understand that he must abandon this method of
+reassuring himself.  They were close upon the floral bower.
+
+Mildred was giving her hand to one and another of her guests as
+rapidly as she could, passing them on to her father and mother,
+and at the same time resisting the efforts of three or four
+detached bachelors who besought her to give over her duty in
+favour of the dance-music just beginning to blare.
+
+She was a large, fair girl, with a kindness of eye somewhat
+withheld by an expression of fastidiousness; at first sight of
+her it was clear that she would never in her life do anything
+"incorrect," or wear anything "incorrect."  But her correctness
+was of the finer sort, and had no air of being studied or
+achieved; conduct would never offer her a problem to be settled
+from a book of rules, for the rules were so deep within her that
+she was unconscious of them.  And behind this perfection there
+was an even ampler perfection of what Mrs. Adams called
+"background."  The big, rich, simple house was part of it, and
+Mildred's father and mother were part of it.  They stood beside
+her, large, serene people, murmuring graciously and gently
+inclining their handsome heads as they gave their hands to the
+guests; and even the youngest and most ebullient of these took on
+a hushed mannerliness with a closer approach to the bower.
+
+When the opportunity came for Alice and Walter to pass within
+this precinct, Alice, going first, leaned forward and whispered
+in Mildred's ear.  "You DIDN'T wear the maize georgette!  That's
+what I thought you were going to.  But you look simply DARLING!
+And those pearls----"
+
+Others were crowding decorously forward, anxious to be done with
+ceremony and get to the dancing; and Mildred did not prolong the
+intimacy of Alice's enthusiastic whispering.  With a faint
+accession of colour and a smile tending somewhat in the direction
+of rigidity, she carried Alice's hand immediately onward to Mrs.
+Palmer's.  Alice's own colour showed a little heightening as she
+accepted the suggestion thus implied; nor was that emotional tint
+in any wise decreased, a moment later, by an impression that
+Walter, in concluding the brief exchange of courtesies between
+himself and the stately Mr. Palmer, had again reassured himself
+with a yawn.
+
+But she did not speak of it to Walter; she preferred not to
+confirm the impression and to leave in her mind a possible doubt
+that he had done it.  He followed her out upon the waxed floor,
+said resignedly: "Well, come on," put his arm about her, and they
+began to dance.
+
+Alice danced gracefully and well, but not so well as Walter.  Of
+all the steps and runs, of all the whimsical turns and twirlings,
+of all the rhythmic swayings and dips commanded that season by
+such blarings as were the barbaric product, loud and wild, of the
+Jazz Louies and their half-breed bunches, the thin and sallow
+youth was a master.  Upon his face could be seen contempt of the
+easy marvels he performed as he moved in swift precision from one
+smooth agility to another; and if some too-dainty or jealous
+cavalier complained that to be so much a stylist in dancing was
+"not quite like a gentleman," at least Walter's style was what
+the music called for.  No other dancer in the room could be
+thought comparable to him.  Alice told him so.
+
+"It's wonderful!" she said.  "And the mystery is, where you ever
+learned to DO it!  You never went to dancing-school, but there
+isn't a man in the room who can dance half so well.  I don't see
+why, when you dance like this, you always make such a fuss about
+coming to parties."
+
+He sounded his brief laugh, a jeering bark out of one side of the
+mouth, and swung her miraculously through a closing space between
+two other couples.  "You know a lot about what goes on, don't
+you?  You prob'ly think there's no other place to dance in this
+town except these frozen-face joints."
+
+"'Frozen face?'" she echoed, laughing.  "Why, everybody's having
+a splendid time.  Look at them."
+
+"Oh, they holler loud enough," he said.  "They do it to make each
+other think they're havin' a good time.  You don't call that
+Palmer family frozen-face berries, I s'pose.  No?"
+
+"Certainly not.  They're just dignified and----"
+
+"Yeuh!" said Walter.  "They're dignified, 'specially when you
+tried to whisper to Mildred to show how IN with her you were, and
+she moved you on that way.  SHE'S a hot friend, isn't she!"
+
+"She didn't mean anything by it.  She----"
+
+"Ole Palmer's a hearty, slap you-on-the-back ole berry," Walter
+interrupted; adding in a casual tone, "All I'd like, I'd like to
+hit him."
+
+"Walter!  By the way, you mustn't forget to ask Mildred for a
+dance before the evening is over."
+
+"Me?" He produced the lop-sided appearance of his laugh, but
+without making it vocal.  "You watch me do it!"
+
+"She probably won't have one left, but you must ask her, anyway."
+
+"Why must I?"
+
+"Because, in the first place, you're supposed to, and, in the
+second place, she's my most intimate friend."
+
+"Yeuh?  Is she?  I've heard you pull that 'most-intimate-friend'
+stuff often enough about her.  What's SHE ever do to show she
+is?"
+
+"Never mind.  You really must ask her, Walter.  I want you to;
+and I want you to ask several other girls afterwhile; I'll tell
+you who."
+
+"Keep on wanting; it'll do you good."
+
+"Oh, but you really----"
+
+"Listen!" he said.  "I'm just as liable to dance with any of
+these fairies as I am to buy a bucket o' rusty tacks and eat 'em.
+Forget it!  Soon as I get rid of you I'm goin' back to that room
+where I left my hat and overcoat and smoke myself to death."
+
+"Well," she said, a little ruefully, as the frenzy of Jazz Louie
+and his half-breeds was suddenly abated to silence, "you
+mustn't--you mustn't get rid of me TOO soon, Walter."
+
+They stood near one of the wide doorways, remaining where they
+had stopped.  Other couples, everywhere, joined one another,
+forming vivacious clusters, but none of these groups adopted the
+brother and sister, nor did any one appear to be hurrying in
+Alice's direction to ask her for the next dance.  She looked
+about her, still maintaining that jubilance of look and manner
+she felt so necessary--for it is to the girls who are "having a
+good time" that partners are attracted--and, in order to lend
+greater colour to her impersonation of a lively belle, she began
+to chatter loudly, bringing into play an accompaniment of
+frolicsome gesture.  She brushed Walter's nose saucily with the
+bunch of violets in her hand, tapped him on the shoulder, shook
+her pretty forefinger in his face, flourished her arms, kept her
+shoulders moving, and laughed continuously as she spoke.
+
+"You NAUGHTY old Walter!" she cried.  "AREN'T you ashamed to be
+such a wonderful dancer and then only dance with your own little
+sister!  You could dance on the stage if you wanted to.  Why, you
+could made your FORTUNE that way!  Why don't you?  Wouldn't it be
+just lovely to have all the rows and rows of people clapping
+their hands and shouting, 'Hurrah!  Hurrah, for Walter Adams!
+Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah!"
+
+He stood looking at her in stolid pity.
+
+"Cut it out," he said.  "You better be givin' some of these
+berries the eye so they'll ask you to dance."
+
+She was not to be so easily checked, and laughed loudly,
+flourishing her violets in his face again.  "You WOULD like it;
+you know you would; you needn't pretend!  Just think!  A whole
+big audience shouting, 'Hurrah!  HURRAH!  HUR----'"
+
+"The place'll be pulled if you get any noisier," he interrupted,
+not ungently.  "Besides, I'm no muley cow."
+
+"A 'COW?'" she laughed.  "What on earth----"
+
+"I can't eat dead violets," he explained.  "So don't keep tryin'
+to make me do it."
+
+This had the effect he desired, and subdued her; she abandoned
+her unsisterly coquetries, and looked beamingly about her, but
+her smile was more mechanical than it had been at first.
+
+At home she had seemed beautiful; but here, where the other girls
+competed, things were not as they had been there, with only her
+mother and Miss Perry to give contrast.  These crowds of other
+girls had all done their best, also, to look beautiful, though
+not one of them had worked so hard for such a consummation as
+Alice had.  They did not need to; they did not need to get their
+mothers to make old dresses over; they did not need to hunt
+violets in the rain.
+
+At home her dress had seemed beautiful; but that was different,
+too, where there were dozens of brilliant fabrics, fashioned in
+new ways--some of these new ways startling, which only made the
+wearers centers of interest and shocked no one.  And Alice
+remembered that she had heard a girl say, not long before, "Oh,
+ORGANDIE!  Nobody wears organdie for evening gowns except in
+midsummer."  Alice had thought little of this; but as she looked
+about her and saw no organdie except her own, she found greater
+difficulty in keeping her smile as arch and spontaneous as she
+wished it.  In fact, it was beginning to make her face ache a
+little.
+
+Mildred came in from the corridor, heavily attended.  She carried
+a great bouquet of violets laced with lilies of-the-valley; and
+the violets were lusty, big purple things, their stems wrapped in
+cloth of gold, with silken cords dependent, ending in long
+tassels.  She and her convoy passed near the two young Adamses;
+and it appeared that one of the convoy besought his hostess to
+permit "cutting in"; they were "doing it other places" of late,
+he urged; but he was denied and told to console himself by
+holding the bouquet, at intervals, until his third of the
+sixteenth dance should come.  Alice looked dubiously at her own
+bouquet.
+
+Suddenly she felt that the violets betrayed her; that any one who
+looked at them could see how rustic, how innocent of any
+florist's craft they were "I can't eat dead violets," Walter
+said.  The little wild flowers, dying indeed in the warm air,
+were drooping in a forlorn mass; and it seemed to her that
+whoever noticed them would guess that she had picked them
+herself.  She decided to get rid of them.
+
+Walter was becoming restive.  "Look here!" he said.  "Can't you
+flag one o' these long-tailed birds to take you on for the next
+dance?  You came to have a good time; why don't you get busy and
+have it?  I want to get out and smoke."
+
+"You MUSTN'T leave me, Walter," she whispered, hastily.
+"Somebody'll come for me before long, but until they do----"
+
+"Well, couldn't you sit somewhere?"
+
+"No, no!  There isn't any one I could sit with."
+
+"Well, why not?  Look at those ole dames in the corners.  What's
+the matter your tyin' up with some o' them for a while?"
+
+"PLEASE, Walter; no!"
+
+In fact, that indomitable smile of hers was the more difficult to
+maintain because of these very elders to whom Walter referred.
+They were mothers of girls among the dancers, and they were there
+to fend and contrive for their offspring; to keep them in
+countenance through any trial; to lend them diplomacy in the
+carrying out of all enterprises; to be "background" for them; and
+in these essentially biological functionings to imitate their own
+matings and renew the excitement of their nuptial periods.  Older
+men, husbands of these ladies and fathers of eligible girls, were
+also to be seen, most of them with Mr. Palmer in a billiard-room
+across the corridor.  Mr. and Mrs. Adams had not been invited.
+"Of course papa and mama just barely know Mildred Palmer," Alice
+thought, "and most of the other girls' fathers and mothers are
+old friends of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, but I do think she might
+have ASKED papa and mama, anyway--she needn't have been afraid
+just to ask them; she knew they couldn't come."  And her smiling
+lip twitched a little threateningly, as she concluded the silent
+monologue.  "I suppose she thinks I ought to be glad enough she
+asked Walter!"
+
+Walter was, in fact, rather noticeable.  He was not Mildred's
+only guest to wear a short coat and to appear without gloves; but
+he was singular (at least in his present surroundings) on account
+of a kind of coiffuring he favoured, his hair having been shaped
+after what seemed a Mongol inspiration.  Only upon the top of the
+head was actual hair perceived, the rest appearing to be nudity.
+And even more than by any difference in mode he was set apart by
+his look and manner, in which there seemed to be a brooding,
+secretive and jeering superiority and this was most vividly
+expressed when he felt called upon for his loud, short, lop-sided
+laugh.  Whenever he uttered it Alice laughed, too, as loudly as
+she could, to cover it.
+
+"Well," he said.  "How long we goin' to stand here?  My feet are
+sproutin' roots."
+
+Alice took his arm, and they began to walk aimlessly through the
+rooms, though she tried to look as if they had a definite
+destination, keeping her eyes eager and her lips parted;--people
+had called jovially to them from the distance, she meant to
+imply, and they were going to join these merry friends.  She was
+still upon this ghostly errand when a furious outbreak of drums
+and saxophones sounded a prelude for the second dance.
+
+Walter danced with her again, but he gave her a warning.  "I
+don't want to leave you high and dry," he told her, "but I can't
+stand it.  I got to get somewhere I don't haf' to hurt my eyes
+with these berries; I'll go blind if I got to look at any more of
+'em.  I'm goin' out to smoke as soon as the music begins the next
+time, and you better get fixed for it."
+
+Alice tried to get fixed for it.  As they danced she nodded
+sunnily to every man whose eye she caught, smiled her smile with
+the under lip caught between her teeth; but it was not until the
+end of the intermission after the dance that she saw help coming.
+
+Across the room sat the globular lady she had encountered that
+morning, and beside the globular lady sat a round-headed,
+round-bodied girl; her daughter, at first glance.  The family
+contour was also as evident a characteristic of the short young
+man who stood in front of Mrs. Dowling, engaged with her in a
+discussion which was not without evidences of an earnestness
+almost impassioned.  Like Walter, he was declining to dance a
+third time with sister; he wished to go elsewhere.
+
+Alice from a sidelong eye watched the controversy: she saw the
+globular young man glance toward her, over his shoulder;
+whereupon Mrs. Dowling, following this glance, gave Alice a look
+of open fury, became much more vehement in the argument, and even
+struck her knee with a round, fat fist for emphasis.
+
+"I'm on my way," said Walter.  "There's the music startin' up
+again, and I told you----"
+
+She nodded gratefully.  "It's all right--but come back before
+long, Walter."
+
+The globular young man, red with annoyance, had torn himself from
+his family and was hastening across the room to her.  "C'n I have
+this dance?"
+
+"Why, you nice Frank Dowling!" Alice cried.  "How lovely!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+They danced.  Mr. Dowling should have found other forms of
+exercise and pastime.
+
+Nature has not designed everyone for dancing, though sometimes
+those she has denied are the last to discover her niggardliness.
+But the round young man was at least vigorous enough--too much
+so, when his knees collided with Alice's--and he was too sturdy
+to be thrown off his feet, himself, or to allow his partner to
+fall when he tripped her.  He held her up valiantly, and
+continued to beat a path through the crowd of other dancers by
+main force.
+
+He paid no attention to anything suggested by the efforts of the
+musicians, and appeared to be unaware that there should have been
+some connection between what they were doing and what he was
+doing; but he may have listened to other music of his own, for
+his expression was of high content; he seemed to feel no doubt
+whatever that he was dancing.  Alice kept as far away from him as
+under the circumstances she could; and when they stopped she
+glanced down, and found the execution of unseen manoeuvres,
+within the protection of her skirt, helpful to one of her insteps
+and to the toes of both of her slippers.
+
+Her cheery partner was paddling his rosy brows with a fine
+handkerchief.  "That was great!" he said.  "Let's go out and sit
+in the corridor; they've got some comfortable chairs out there."
+
+"Well--let's not," she returned.  "I believe I'd rather stay in
+here and look at the crowd."
+
+"No; that isn't it," he said, chiding her with a waggish
+forefinger.  "You think if you go out there you'll miss a chance
+of someone else asking you for the next dance, and so you'll have
+to give it to me."
+
+"How absurd!" Then, after a look about her that revealed nothing
+encouraging, she added graciously, "You can have the next if you
+want it."
+
+"Great!" he exclaimed, mechanically.  "Now let's get out of
+here--out of THIS room, anyhow."
+
+"Why?  What's the matter with----"
+
+"My mother," Mr. Dowling explained.  "But don't look at her.
+She keeps motioning me to come and see after Ella, and I'm simply
+NOT going to do it, you see!"
+
+Alice laughed.  "I don't believe it's so much that," she said,
+and consented to walk with him to a point in the next room from
+which Mrs. Dowling's continuous signalling could not be seen.
+"Your mother hates me."
+
+"Oh, no; I wouldn't say that.  No, she don't," he protested,
+innocently.  "She don't know you more than just to speak to, you
+see.  So how could she?"
+
+"Well, she does.  I can tell."
+
+A frown appeared upon his rounded brow.  "No; I'll tell you the
+way she feels.  It's like this: Ella isn't TOO popular, you
+know--it's hard to see why, because she's a right nice girl, in
+her way--and mother thinks I ought to look after her, you see.
+She thinks I ought to dance a whole lot with her myself, and stir
+up other fellows to dance with her--it's simply impossible to
+make mother understand you CAN'T do that, you see.  And then
+about me, you see, if she had her way I wouldn't get to dance
+with anybody at all except girls like Mildred Palmer and
+Henrietta Lamb.  Mother wants to run my whole programme for me,
+you understand, but the trouble of it is--about girls like that,
+you see well, I couldn't do what she wants, even if I wanted to
+myself, because you take those girls, and by the time I get Ella
+off my hands for a minute, why, their dances are always every
+last one taken, and where do I come in?"
+
+Alice nodded, her amiability undamaged.  "I see.  So that's why
+you dance with me."
+
+"No, I like to," he protested.  "I rather dance with you than I
+do with those girls."  And he added with a retrospective
+determination which showed that he had been through quite an
+experience with Mrs. Dowling in this matter.  "I TOLD mother I
+would, too!"
+
+"Did it take all your courage, Frank?"
+
+He looked at her shrewdly.  "Now you're trying to tease me," he
+said.  "I don't care; I WOULD rather dance with you!  In the
+first place, you're a perfectly beautiful dancer, you see, and in
+the second, a man feels a lot more comfortable with you than he
+does with them.  Of course I know almost all the other fellows
+get along with those girls all right; but I don't waste any time
+on 'em I don't have to.  _I_ like people that are always cordial
+to everybody, you see--the way you are."
+
+"Thank you," she said, thoughtfully.
+
+"Oh, I MEAN it," he insisted.  "There goes the band again.  Shall
+we?"
+
+"Suppose we sit it out?" she suggested.  "I believe I'd like to
+go out in the corridor, after all--it's pretty warm in here."
+
+Assenting cheerfully, Dowling conducted her to a pair of
+easy-chairs within a secluding grove of box-trees, and when they
+came to this retreat they found Mildred Palmer just departing,
+under escort of a well-favoured gentleman about thirty.  As these
+two walked slowly away, in the direction of the dancing-floor,
+they left it not to be doubted that they were on excellent terms
+with each other; Mildred was evidently willing to make their
+progress even slower, for she halted momentarily, once or twice;
+and her upward glances to her tall companion's face were of a
+gentle, almost blushing deference.  Never before had Alice seen
+anything like this in her friend's manner.
+
+"How queer!" she murmured.
+
+"What's queer?" Dowling inquired as they sat down.
+
+"Who was that man?"
+
+"Haven't you met him?"
+
+"I never saw him before.  Who is he?"
+
+"Why, it's this Arthur Russell."
+
+"What Arthur Russell?  I never heard of him."  Mr. Dowling was
+puzzled.  "Why, THAT'S funny!  Only the last time I saw you, you
+were telling me how awfully well you knew Mildred Palmer."
+
+"Why, certainly I do," Alice informed him.  "She's my most
+intimate friend."
+
+"That's what makes it seem so funny you haven't heard anything
+about this Russell, because everybody says even if she isn't
+engaged to him right now, she most likely will be before very
+long.  I must say it looks a good deal that way to me, myself."
+
+"What nonsense!" Alice exclaimed.  "She's never even mentioned
+him to me."
+
+The young man glanced at her dubiously and passed a finger over
+the tiny prong that dashingly composed the whole substance of his
+moustache.
+
+"Well, you see, Mildred IS pretty reserved," he remarked.  "This
+Russell is some kind of cousin of the Palmer family, I
+understand."
+
+"He is?"
+
+"Yes--second or third or something, the girls say.  You see, my
+sister Ella hasn't got much to do at home, and don't read
+anything, or sew, or play solitaire, you see; and she hears about
+pretty much everything that goes on, you see.  Well, Ella says a
+lot of the girls have been talking about Mildred and this Arthur
+Russell for quite a while back, you see.  They were all wondering
+what he was going to look like, you see; because he only got here
+yesterday; and that proves she must have been talking to some of
+'em, or else how----"
+
+Alice laughed airily, but the pretty sound ended abruptly with an
+audible intake of breath.  "Of course, while Mildred IS my most
+intimate friend," she said, "I don't mean she tells me
+everything--and naturally she has other friends besides.  What
+else did your sister say she told them about this Mr. Russell?"
+
+"Well, it seems he's VERY well off; at least Henrietta Lamb told
+Ella he was.  Ella says----"
+
+Alice interrupted again, with an increased irritability.  "Oh,
+never mind what Ella says!  Let's find something better to talk
+about than Mr. Russell!"
+
+"Well, I'M willing," Mr. Dowling assented, ruefully.  "What you
+want to talk about?"
+
+But this liberal offer found her unresponsive; she sat leaning
+back, silent, her arms along the arms of her chair, and her eyes,
+moist and bright, fixed upon a wide doorway where the dancers
+fluctuated.  She was disquieted by more than Mildred's reserve,
+though reserve so marked had certainly the significance of a
+warning that Alice's definition, "my most intimate friend,"
+lacked sanction.  Indirect notice to this effect could not well
+have been more emphatic, but the sting of it was left for a later
+moment.  Something else preoccupied Alice: she had just been
+surprised by an odd experience.  At first sight of this Mr.
+Arthur Russell, she had said to herself instantly, in words as
+definite as if she spoke them aloud, though they seemed more like
+words spoken to her by some unknown person within her: "There!
+That's exactly the kind of looking man I'd like to marry!"
+
+In the eyes of the restless and the longing, Providence often
+appears to be worse than inscrutable: an unreliable Omnipotence
+given to haphazard whimsies in dealing with its own creatures,
+choosing at random some among them to be rent with tragic
+deprivations and others to be petted with blessing upon blessing.
+
+In Alice's eyes, Mildred had been blessed enough; something ought
+to be left over, by this time, for another girl.  The final touch
+to the heaping perfection of Christmas-in-everything for Mildred
+was that this Mr. Arthur Russell, good-looking, kind-looking,
+graceful, the perfect fiance, should be also "VERY well off."  Of
+course!  These rich always married one another.  And while the
+Mildreds danced with their Arthur Russells the best an outsider
+could do for herself was to sit with Frank Dowling--the one last
+course left her that was better than dancing with him.
+
+"Well, what DO you want to talk about?" he inquired.
+
+"Nothing," she said.  "Suppose we just sit, Frank."  But a moment
+later she remembered something, and, with a sudden animation,
+began to prattle.  She pointed to the musicians down the
+corridor.  "Oh, look at them!  Look at the leader!  Aren't they
+FUNNY?  Someone told me they're called 'Jazz Louie and his
+half-breed bunch.' Isn't that just crazy?  Don't you love it?  Do
+watch them, Frank."
+
+She continued to chatter, and, while thus keeping his glance away
+from herself, she detached the forlorn bouquet of dead violets
+from her dress and laid it gently beside the one she had carried.
+
+The latter already reposed in the obscurity selected for it at
+the base of one of the box-trees.
+
+Then she was abruptly silent.
+
+"You certainly are a funny girl," Dowling remarked.  "You say you
+don't want to talk about anything at all, and all of a sudden you
+break out and talk a blue streak; and just about the time I begin
+to get interested in what you're saying you shut off!  What's the
+matter with girls, anyhow, when they do things like that?"
+
+"I don't know; we're just queer, I guess."
+
+"I say so!  Well, what'll we do NOW?  Talk, or just sit?"
+
+"Suppose we just sit some more."
+
+"Anything to oblige," he assented.  "I'm willing to sit as long
+as you like."
+
+But even as he made his amiability clear in this matter, the
+peace was threatened--his mother came down the corridor like a
+rolling, ominous cloud.  She was looking about her on all sides,
+in a fidget of annoyance, searching for him, and to his dismay
+she saw him.  She immediately made a horrible face at his
+companion, beckoned to him imperiously with a dumpy arm, and
+shook her head reprovingly.  The unfortunate young man tried to
+repulse her with an icy stare, but this effort having obtained
+little to encourage his feeble hope of driving her away, he
+shifted his chair so that his back was toward her discomfiting
+pantomime.  He should have known better, the instant result was
+Mrs. Dowling in motion at an impetuous waddle.
+
+She entered the box-tree seclusion with the lower rotundities of
+her face hastily modelled into the resemblance of an
+over-benevolent smile a contortion which neglected to spread its
+intended geniality upward to the exasperated eyes and anxious
+forehead.
+
+"I think your mother wants to speak to you, Frank," Alice said,
+upon this advent.
+
+Mrs. Dowling nodded to her.  "Good evening, Miss Adams," she
+said.  "I just thought as you and Frank weren't dancing you
+wouldn't mind my disturbing you----"
+
+"Not at all," Alice murmured.
+
+Mr. Dowling seemed of a different mind.  "Well, what DO you
+want?" he inquired, whereupon his mother struck him roguishly
+with her fan.
+
+"Bad fellow!" She turned to Alice.  "I'm sure you won't mind
+excusing him to let him do something for his old mother, Miss
+Adams."
+
+"What DO you want?" the son repeated.
+
+"Two very nice things," Mrs. Dowling informed him.  "Everybody
+is so anxious for Henrietta Lamb to have a pleasant evening,
+because it's the very first time she's been anywhere since her
+father's death, and of course her dear grandfather's an old
+friend of ours, and----"
+
+"Well, well!" her son interrupted.  "Miss Adams isn't interested
+in all this, mother."
+
+"But Henrietta came to speak to Ella and me, and I told her you
+were so anxious to dance with her----"
+
+"Here!" he cried.  "Look here!  I'd rather do my own----"
+
+"Yes; that's just it," Mrs. Dowling explained.  "I just thought
+it was such a good opportunity; and Henrietta said she had most
+of her dances taken, but she'd give you one if you asked her
+before they were all gone.  So I thought you'd better see her as
+soon as possible."
+
+Dowling's face had become rosy.  "I refuse to do anything of the
+kind."
+
+"Bad fellow!" said his mother, gaily.  "I thought this would be
+the best time for you to see Henrietta, because it won't be long
+till all her dances are gone, and you've promised on your WORD to
+dance the next with Ella, and you mightn't have a chance to do it
+then.  I'm sure Miss Adams won't mind if you----"
+
+"Not at all," Alice said.
+
+"Well, _I_ mind!" he said.  "I wish you COULD understand that
+when I want to dance with any girl I don't need my mother to ask
+her for me.  I really AM more than six years old!"
+
+He spoke with too much vehemence, and Mrs. Dowling at once saw
+how to have her way.  As with husbands and wives, so with many
+fathers and daughters, and so with some sons and mothers: the man
+will himself be cross in public and think nothing of it, nor will
+he greatly mind a little crossness on the part of the woman; but
+let her show agitation before any spectator, he is instantly
+reduced to a coward's slavery.  Women understand that ancient
+weakness, of course; for it is one of their most important means
+of defense, but can be used ignobly.
+
+Mrs. Dowling permitted a tremulousness to become audible in her
+voice.  "It isn't very--very pleasant --to be talked to like that
+by your own son--before strangers!"
+
+"Oh, my!  Look here!" the stricken Dowling protested.  "_I_
+didn't say anything, mother.  I was just joking about how you
+never get over thinking I'm a little boy.  I only----"
+
+Mrs. Dowling continued: "I just thought I was doing you a little
+favour.  I didn't think it would make you so angry."
+
+"Mother, for goodness' sake!  Miss Adams'll think----"
+
+"I suppose," Mrs. Dowling interrupted, piteously, "I suppose it
+doesn't matter what _I_ think!"
+
+"Oh, gracious!"
+
+Alice interfered; she perceived that the ruthless Mrs. Dowling
+meant to have her way.  "I think you'd better go, Frank.
+Really."
+
+"There!" his mother cried.  "Miss Adams says so, herself!  What
+more do you want?"
+
+"Oh, gracious!" he lamented again, and, with a sick look over his
+shoulder at Alice, permitted his mother to take his arm and
+propel him away.  Mrs. Dowling's spirits had strikingly
+recovered even before the pair passed from the corridor: she
+moved almost bouncingly beside her embittered son, and her eyes
+and all the convolutions of her abundant face were blithe.
+
+Alice went in search of Walter, but without much hope of finding
+him.  What he did with himself at frozen-face dances was one of
+his most successful mysteries, and her present excursion gave her
+no clue leading to its solution.  When the musicians again
+lowered their instruments for an interval she had returned,
+alone, to her former seat within the partial shelter of the
+box-trees.
+
+She had now to practice an art that affords but a limited variety
+of methods, even to the expert: the art of seeming to have an
+escort or partner when there is none.  The practitioner must
+imply, merely by expression and attitude, that the supposed
+companion has left her for only a few moments, that she herself
+has sent him upon an errand; and, if possible, the minds of
+observers must be directed toward a conclusion that this errand
+of her devising is an amusing one; at all events, she is alone
+temporarily and of choice, not deserted.  She awaits a devoted
+man who may return at any instant.
+
+Other people desired to sit in Alice's nook, but discovered her
+in occupancy.  She had moved the vacant chair closer to her own,
+and she sat with her arm extended so that her hand, holding her
+lace kerchief, rested upon the back of this second chair,
+claiming it.  Such a preemption, like that of a traveller's bag
+in the rack, was unquestionable; and, for additional evidence,
+sitting with her knees crossed, she kept one foot continuously
+moving a little, in cadence with the other, which tapped the
+floor.  Moreover, she added a fine detail: her half-smile, with
+the under lip caught, seemed to struggle against repression, as
+if she found the service engaging her absent companion even more
+amusing than she would let him see when he returned: there was
+jovial intrigue of some sort afoot, evidently.  Her eyes, beaming
+with secret fun, were averted from intruders, but sometimes, when
+couples approached, seeking possession of the nook, her thoughts
+about the absentee appeared to threaten her with outright
+laughter; and though one or two girls looked at her skeptically,
+as they turned away, their escorts felt no such doubts, and
+merely wondered what importantly funny affair Alice Adams was
+engaged in.  She had learned to do it perfectly.
+
+She had learned it during the last two years; she was twenty when
+for the first time she had the shock of finding herself without
+an applicant for one of her dances.  When she was sixteen "all
+the nice boys in town," as her mother said, crowded the Adamses'
+small veranda and steps, or sat near by, cross-legged on the
+lawn, on summer evenings; and at eighteen she had replaced the
+boys with "the older men."  By this time most of "the other
+girls," her contemporaries, were away at school or college, and
+when they came home to stay, they "came out"--that feeble revival
+of an ancient custom offering the maiden to the ceremonial
+inspection of the tribe.  Alice neither went away nor "came out,"
+and, in contrast with those who did, she may have seemed to lack
+freshness of lustre--jewels are richest when revealed all new in
+a white velvet box.  And Alice may have been too eager to secure
+new retainers, too kind in her efforts to keep the old ones.  She
+had been a belle too soon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The device of the absentee partner has the defect that it cannot
+be employed for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, and
+it may not be repeated more than twice in one evening: a single
+repetition, indeed, is weak, and may prove a betrayal.  Alice
+knew that her present performance could be effective during only
+this interval between dances; and though her eyes were guarded,
+she anxiously counted over the partnerless young men who lounged
+together in the doorways within her view.  Every one of them
+ought to have asked her for dances, she thought, and although she
+might have been put to it to give a reason why any of them
+"ought," her heart was hot with resentment against them.
+
+For a girl who has been a belle, it is harder to live through
+these bad times than it is for one who has never known anything
+better.  Like a figure of painted and brightly varnished wood,
+Ella Dowling sat against the wall through dance after dance with
+glassy imperturbability; it was easier to be wooden, Alice
+thought, if you had your mother with you, as Ella had.  You were
+left with at least the shred of a pretense that you came to sit
+with your mother as a spectator, and not to offer yourself to be
+danced with by men who looked you over and rejected you--not for
+the first time.  "Not for the first time": there lay a sting!
+Why had you thought this time might be different from the other
+times?  Why had you broken your back picking those hundreds of
+violets?
+
+Hating the fatuous young men in the doorways more bitterly for
+every instant that she had to maintain her tableau, the smiling
+Alice knew fierce impulses to spring to her feet and shout at
+them, "You IDIOTS!" Hands in pockets, they lounged against the
+pilasters, or faced one another, laughing vaguely, each one of
+them seeming to Alice no more than so much mean beef in clothes.
+She wanted to tell them they were no better than that; and it
+seemed a cruel thing of heaven to let them go on believing
+themselves young lords.  They were doing nothing, killing time.
+Wasn't she at her lowest value at least a means of killing time?
+Evidently the mean beeves thought not.  And when one of them
+finally lounged across the corridor and spoke to her, he was the
+very one to whom she preferred her loneliness.
+
+"Waiting for somebody, Lady Alicia?" he asked, negligently; and
+his easy burlesque of her name was like the familiarity of the
+rest of him.  He was one of those full-bodied, grossly handsome
+men who are powerful and active, but never submit themselves to
+the rigour of becoming athletes, though they shoot and fish from
+expensive camps.  Gloss is the most shining outward mark of the
+type.  Nowadays these men no longer use brilliantine on their
+moustaches, but they have gloss bought from manicure-girls, from
+masseurs, and from automobile-makers; and their eyes, usually
+large, are glossy.  None of this is allowed to interfere with
+business; these are "good business men," and often make large
+fortunes.  They are men of imagination about two things--women
+and money, and, combining their imaginings about both, usually
+make a wise first marriage.  Later, however, they are apt to
+imagine too much about some little woman without whom life seems
+duller than need be.  They run away, leaving the first wife well
+enough dowered.  They are never intentionally unkind to women,
+and in the end they usually make the mistake of thinking they
+have had their money's worth of life.  Here was Mr. Harvey
+Malone, a young specimen in an earlier stage of development,
+trying to marry Henrietta Lamb, and now sauntering over to speak
+to Alice, as a time-killer before his next dance with Henrietta.
+
+Alice made no response to his question, and he dropped lazily
+into the vacant chair, from which she sharply withdrew her hand.
+"I might as well use his chair till he comes, don't you think?
+You don't MIND, do you, old girl?"
+
+"Oh, no," Alice said.  "It doesn't matter one way or the other.
+Please don't call me that."
+
+"So that's how you feel?" Mr. Malone laughed indulgently,
+without much interest.  "I've been meaning to come to see you for
+a long time honestly I have--because I wanted to have a good talk
+with you about old times.  I know you think it was funny, after
+the way I used to come to your house two or three times a week,
+and sometimes oftener--well, I don't blame you for being hurt,
+the way I stopped without explaining or anything.  The truth is
+there wasn't any reason: I just happened to have a lot of
+important things to do and couldn't find the time.  But I AM
+going to call on you some evening--honestly I am.  I don't wonder
+you think----"
+
+"You're mistaken," Alice said.  "I've never thought anything
+about it at all."
+
+"Well, well!" he said, and looked at her languidly.  "What's the
+use of being cross with this old man?  He always means well."
+And, extending his arm, he would have given her a friendly pat
+upon the shoulder but she evaded it.  "Well, well!" he said.
+"Seems to me you're getting awful tetchy!  Don't you like your
+old friends any more?"
+
+"Not all of them."
+
+"Who's the new one?" he asked, teasingly.  "Come on and tell us,
+Alice.  Who is it you were holding this chair for?"
+
+"Never mind."
+
+"Well, all I've got to do is to sit here till he comes back; then
+I'll see who it is."
+
+"He may not come back before you have to go."
+
+"Guess you got me THAT time," Malone admitted, laughing as he
+rose.  "They're tuning up, and I've got this dance.  I AM coming
+around to see you some evening."  He moved away, calling back
+over his shoulder, "Honestly, I am!"
+
+Alice did not look at him,
+
+She had held her tableau as long as she could; it was time for
+her to abandon the box-trees; and she stepped forth frowning, as
+if a little annoyed with the absentee for being such a time upon
+her errand; whereupon the two chairs were instantly seized by a
+coquetting pair who intended to "sit out" the dance.  She walked
+quickly down the broad corridor, turned into the broader hall,
+and hurriedly entered the dressing-room where she had left her
+wraps.
+
+She stayed here as long as she could, pretending to arrange her
+hair at a mirror, then fidgeting with one of her slipper-buckles;
+but the intelligent elderly woman in charge of the room made an
+indefinite sojourn impracticable.  "Perhaps I could help you with
+that buckle, Miss," she suggested, approaching.  "Has it come
+loose?" Alice wrenched desperately; then it was loose.  The
+competent woman, producing needle and thread, deftly made the
+buckle fast; and there was nothing for Alice to do but to express
+her gratitude and go.
+
+She went to the door of the cloak-room opposite, where a coloured
+man stood watchfully in the doorway.  "I wonder if you know which
+of the gentlemen is my brother, Mr. Walter Adams," she said.
+
+"Yes'm; I know him."
+
+"Could you tell me where he is?"
+
+"No'm; I couldn't say."
+
+"Well, if you see him, would you please tell him that his sister,
+Miss Adams, is looking for him and very anxious to speak to him?"
+
+"Yes'm.  Sho'ly, sho'ly!"
+
+As she went away he stared after her and seemed to swell with
+some bursting emotion.  In fact, it was too much for him, and he
+suddenly retired within the room, releasing strangulated
+laughter.
+
+Walter remonstrated.  Behind an excellent screen of coats and
+hats, in a remote part of the room, he was kneeling on the floor,
+engaged in a game of chance with a second coloured attendant; and
+the laughter became so vehement that it not only interfered with
+the pastime in hand, but threatened to attract frozen-face
+attention.
+
+"I cain' he'p it, man," the laughter explained.  "I cain' he'p
+it!  You sut'n'y the beatin'es' white boy 'n 'is city!"
+
+The dancers were swinging into an "encore" as Alice halted for an
+irresolute moment in a doorway.  Across the room, a cluster of
+matrons sat chatting absently, their eyes on their dancing
+daughters; and Alice, finding a refugee's courage, dodged through
+the scurrying couples, seated herself in a chair on the outskirts
+of this colony of elders, and began to talk eagerly to the matron
+nearest her.  The matron seemed unaccustomed to so much vivacity,
+and responded but dryly, whereupon Alice was more vivacious than
+ever; for she meant now to present the picture of a jolly girl
+too much interested in these wise older women to bother about
+every foolish young man who asked her for a dance.
+
+Her matron was constrained to go so far as to supply a tolerant
+nod, now and then, in complement to the girl's animation, and
+Alice was grateful for the nods.  In this fashion she
+supplemented the exhausted resources of the dressing-room and the
+box-tree nook; and lived through two more dances, when again Mr.
+Frank Dowling presented himself as a partner.
+
+She needed no pretense to seek the dressing-room for repairs
+after that number; this time they were necessary and genuine.
+Dowling waited for her, and when she came out he explained for
+the fourth or fifth time how the accident had happened.  "It was
+entirely those other people's fault," he said.  "They got me in a
+kind of a corner, because neither of those fellows knows the
+least thing about guiding; they just jam ahead and expect
+everybody to get out of their way.  It was Charlotte Thom's
+diamond crescent pin that got caught on your dress in the back
+and made such a----"
+
+"Never mind," Alice said in a tired voice.  "The maid fixed it so
+that she says it isn't very noticeable."
+
+"Well, it isn't," he returned.  "You could hardly tell there'd
+been anything the matter.  Where do you want to go?  Mother's
+been interfering in my affairs some more and I've got the next
+taken."
+
+"I was sitting with Mrs. George Dresser.  You might take me back
+there."
+
+He left her with the matron, and Alice returned to her
+picture-making, so that once more, while two numbers passed,
+whoever cared to look was offered the sketch of a jolly, clever
+girl preoccupied with her elders.  Then she found her friend
+Mildred standing before her, presenting Mr. Arthur Russell, who
+asked her to dance with him.
+
+Alice looked uncertain, as though not sure what her engagements
+were; but her perplexity cleared; she nodded, and swung
+rhythmically away with the tall applicant.  She was not grateful
+to her hostess for this alms.  What a young hostess does with a
+fiance, Alice thought, is to make him dance with the unpopular
+girls.  She supposed that Mr. Arthur Russell had already danced
+with Ella Dowling.
+
+The loan of a lover, under these circumstances, may be painful to
+the lessee, and Alice, smiling never more brightly, found nothing
+to say to Mr. Russell, though she thought he might have found
+something to say to her.  "I wonder what Mildred told him," she
+thought.  "Probably she said, 'Dearest, there's one more girl
+you've got to help me out with.  You wouldn't like her much, but
+she dances well enough and she's having a rotten time.  Nobody
+ever goes near her any more.'"
+
+When the music stopped, Russell added his applause to the
+hand-clapping that encouraged the uproarious instruments to
+continue, and as they renewed the tumult, he said heartily,
+"That's splendid!"
+
+Alice gave him a glance, necessarily at short range, and found
+his eyes kindly and pleased.  Here was a friendly soul, it
+appeared, who probably "liked everybody."  No doubt he had
+applauded for an "encore" when he danced with Ella Dowling, gave
+Ella the same genial look, and said, "That's splendid!"
+
+When the "encore" was over, Alice spoke to him for the first
+time.
+
+"Mildred will be looking for you," she said.  "I think you'd
+better take me back to where you found me."
+
+He looked surprised.  "Oh, if you----"
+
+"I'm sure Mildred will be needing you," Alice said, and as she
+took his arm and they walked toward Mrs. Dresser, she thought it
+might be just possible to make a further use of the loan.  "Oh, I
+wonder if you----" she began.
+
+"Yes?" he said, quickly.
+
+"You don't know my brother, Walter Adams," she said.  "But he's
+somewhere I think possibly he's in a smoking-room or some place
+where girls aren't expected, and if you wouldn't think it too
+much trouble to inquire----"
+
+"I'll find him," Russell said, promptly.  "Thank you so much for
+that dance.  I'll bring your brother in a moment."
+
+It was to be a long moment, Alice decided, presently.  Mrs.
+Dresser had grown restive; and her nods and vague responses to
+her young dependent's gaieties were as meager as they could well
+be.  Evidently the matron had no intention of appearing to her
+world in the light of a chaperone for Alice Adams; and she
+finally made this clear.  With a word or two of excuse, breaking
+into something Alice was saying, she rose and went to sit next to
+Mildred's mother, who had become the nucleus of the cluster.  So
+Alice was left very much against the wall, with short stretches
+of vacant chairs on each side of her.  She had come to the end of
+her picture-making, and could only pretend that there was
+something amusing the matter with the arm of her chair.
+
+She supposed that Mildred's Mr. Russell had forgotten Walter by
+this time.  "I'm not even an intimate enough friend of Mildred's
+for him to have thought he ought to bother to tell me he couldn't
+find him," she thought.  And then she saw Russell coming across
+the room toward her, with Walter beside him.  She jumped up
+gaily.
+
+"Oh, thank you!" she cried.  "I know this naughty boy must have
+been terribly hard to find.  Mildred'll NEVER forgive me!  I've
+put you to so much----"
+
+"Not at all," he said, amiably, and went away, leaving the
+brother and sister together.
+
+"Walter, let's dance just once more," Alice said, touching his
+arm placatively.  "I thought--well, perhaps we might go home
+then."
+
+But Walter's expression was that of a person upon whom an outrage
+has just been perpetrated.  "No," he said.  "We've stayed THIS
+long, I'm goin' to wait and see what they got to eat.  And you
+look here!" He turned upon her angrily.  "Don't you ever do that
+again!"
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"Send somebody after me that pokes his nose into every corner of
+the house till he finds me!  'Are you Mr. Walter Adams?' he
+says.  I guess he must asked everybody in the place if they were
+Mr. Walter Adams!  Well, I'll bet a few iron men you wouldn't
+send anybody to hunt for me again if you knew where he found me!"
+
+"Where was it?"
+
+Walter decided that her fit punishment was to know.  "I was
+shootin' dice with those coons in the cloak-room."
+
+"And he saw you?"
+
+"Unless he was blind!" said Walter.  "Come on, I'll dance this
+one more dance with you.  Supper comes after that, and THEN we'll
+go home."
+
+
+Mrs. Adams heard Alice's key turning in the front door and
+hurried down the stairs to meet her.
+
+"Did you get wet coming in, darling?" she asked.  "Did you have a
+good time?"
+
+"Just lovely!" Alice said, cheerily, and after she had arranged
+the latch for Walter, who had gone to return the little car, she
+followed her mother upstairs and hummed a dance-tune on the way.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad you had a nice time," Mrs. Adams said, as they
+reached the door of her daughter's room together.  "You DESERVED
+to, and it's lovely to think----"
+
+But at this, without warning, Alice threw herself into her
+mother's arms, sobbing so loudly that in his room, close by, her
+father, half drowsing through the night, started to full
+wakefulness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+On a morning, a week after this collapse of festal hopes, Mrs.
+Adams and her daughter were concluding a three-days' disturbance,
+the "Spring house-cleaning"--postponed until now by Adams's long
+illness--and Alice, on her knees before a chest of drawers, in
+her mother's room, paused thoughtfully after dusting a packet of
+letters wrapped in worn muslin.  She called to her mother, who
+was scrubbing the floor of the hallway just beyond the open door,
+
+"These old letters you had in the bottom drawer, weren't they
+some papa wrote you before you were married?"
+
+Mrs. Adams laughed and said, "Yes.  Just put 'em back where they
+were--or else up in the attic--anywhere you want to."
+
+"Do you mind if I read one, mama?"
+
+Mrs. Adams laughed again.  "Oh, I guess you can if you want to.
+I expect they're pretty funny!"
+
+Alice laughed in response, and chose the topmost letter of the
+packet.  "My dear, beautiful girl," it began; and she stared at
+these singular words.  They gave her a shock like that caused by
+overhearing some bewildering impropriety; and, having read them
+over to herself several times, she went on to experience other
+shocks.
+
+
+MY DEAR, BEAUTIFUL GIRL:
+
+
+This time yesterday I had a mighty bad case of blues because I
+had not had a word from you in two whole long days and when I do
+not hear from you every day things look mighty down in the mouth
+to me.  Now it is all so different because your letter has
+arrived and besides I have got a piece of news I believe you will
+think as fine as I do.  Darling, you will be surprised, so get
+ready to hear about a big effect on our future.  It is this way.
+I had sort of a suspicion the head of the firm kind of took a
+fancy to me from the first when I went in there, and liked the
+way I attended to my work and so when he took me on this business
+trip with him I felt pretty sure of it and now it turns out I was
+about right.  In return I guess I have got about the best boss in
+this world and I believe you will think so too.  Yes, sweetheart,
+after the talk I have just had with him if J. A. Lamb asked me
+to cut my hand off for him I guess I would come pretty near doing
+it because what he says means the end of our waiting to be
+together.  From New Years on he is going to put me in entire
+charge of the sundries dept. and what do you think is going to
+be my salary?  Eleven hundred cool dollars a year ($1,100.00).
+That's all!  Just only a cool eleven hundred per annum!  Well, I
+guess that will show your mother whether I can take care of you
+or not.  And oh how I would like to see your dear, beautiful,
+loving face when you get this news.
+
+I would like to go out on the public streets and just dance and
+shout and it is all I can do to help doing it, especially when I
+know we will be talking it all over together this time next week,
+and oh my darling, now that your folks have no excuse for putting
+it off any longer we might be in our own little home before Xmas.
+
+Would you be glad?
+
+Well, darling, this settles everything and makes our future just
+about as smooth for us as anybody could ask.  I can hardly
+realize after all this waiting life's troubles are over for you
+and me and we have nothing to do but to enjoy the happiness
+granted us by this wonderful, beautiful thing we call life.  I
+know I am not any poet and the one I tried to write about you the
+day of the picnic was fearful but the way I THINK about you is a
+poem.
+
+Write me what you think of the news.  I know but write me anyhow.
+
+I'll get it before we start home and I can be reading it over all
+the time on the tram.
+
+
+Your always loving
+
+VIRGIL.
+
+
+
+The sound of her mother's diligent scrubbing in the hall came
+back slowly to Alice's hearing, as she restored the letter to the
+packet, wrapped the packet in its muslin covering, and returned
+it to the drawer.  She had remained upon her knees while she read
+the letter; now she sank backward, sitting upon the floor with
+her hands behind her, an unconscious relaxing for better ease to
+think.  Upon her face there had fallen a look of wonder.
+
+For the first time she was vaguely perceiving that life is
+everlasting movement.  Youth really believes what is running
+water to be a permanent crystallization and sees time fixed to a
+point: some people have dark hair, some people have blond hair,
+some people have gray hair.  Until this moment, Alice had no
+conviction that there was a universe before she came into it.
+She had always thought of it as the background of herself: the
+moon was something to make her prettier on a summer night.
+
+But this old letter, through which she saw still flickering an
+ancient starlight of young love, astounded her.  Faintly before
+her it revealed the whole lives of her father and mother, who had
+been young, after all--they REALLY had--and their youth was now
+so utterly passed from them that the picture of it, in the
+letter, was like a burlesque of them.  And so she, herself, must
+pass to such changes, too, and all that now seemed vital to her
+would be nothing.
+
+When her work was finished, that afternoon, she went into her
+father's room.  His recovery had progressed well enough to permit
+the departure of Miss Perry; and Adams, wearing one of Mrs.
+Adams's wrappers over his night-gown, sat in a high-backed chair
+by a closed window.  The weather was warm, but the closed window
+and the flannel wrapper had not sufficed him: round his shoulders
+he had an old crocheted scarf of Alice's; his legs were wrapped
+in a heavy comfort; and, with these swathings about him, and his
+eyes closed, his thin and grizzled head making but a slight
+indentation in the pillow supporting it, he looked old and little
+and queer.
+
+Alice would have gone out softly, but without opening his eyes,
+he spoke to her: "Don't go, dearie.  Come sit with the old man a
+little while."
+
+She brought a chair near his.  "I thought you were napping."
+
+"No.  I don't hardly ever do that.  I just drift a little
+sometimes."
+
+"How do you mean you drift, papa?"
+
+He looked at her vaguely.  "Oh, I don't know.  Kind of pictures.
+They get a little mixed up--old times with times still ahead,
+like planning what to do, you know.  That's as near a nap as I
+get--when the pictures mix up some.  I suppose it's sort of
+drowsing."
+
+She took one of his hands and stroked it.  "What do you mean when
+you say you have pictures like 'planning what to do'?" she asked.
+
+"I mean planning what to do when I get out and able to go to work
+again."
+
+"But that doesn't need any planning," Alice said, quickly.
+"You're going back to your old place at Lamb's, of course."
+
+Adams closed his eyes again, sighing heavily, but made no other
+response.
+
+"Why, of COURSE you are!" she cried.  "What are you talking
+about?"
+
+His head turned slowly toward her, revealing the eyes, open in a
+haggard stare.  "I heard you the other night when you came from
+the party," he said.  "I know what was the matter."
+
+"Indeed, you don't," she assured him.  "You don't know anything
+about it, because there wasn't anything the matter at all."
+
+"Don't you suppose I heard you crying?  What'd you cry for if
+there wasn't anything the matter?"
+
+"Just nerves, papa.  It wasn't anything else in the world."
+
+"Never mind," he said.  "Your mother told me."
+
+"She promised me not to!"
+
+At that Adams laughed mournfully.  "It wouldn't be very likely
+I'd hear you so upset and not ask about it, even if she didn't
+come and tell me on her own hook.  You needn't try to fool me; I
+tell you I know what was the matter."
+
+"The only matter was I had a silly fit," Alice protested.  "It
+did me good, too."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Because I've decided to do something about it, papa."
+
+"That isn't the way your mother looks at it," Adams said,
+ruefully.  "She thinks it's our place to do something about it.
+Well, I don't know--I don't know; everything seems so changed
+these days.  You've always been a good daughter, Alice, and you
+ought to have as much as any of these girls you go with; she's
+convinced me she's right about THAT.  The trouble is----" He
+faltered, apologetically, then went on, "I mean the question
+is--how to get it for you."
+
+"No!" she cried.  "I had no business to make such a fuss just
+because a lot of idiots didn't break their necks to get dances
+with me and because I got mortified about Walter--Walter WAS
+pretty terrible----"
+
+"Oh, me, my!" Adams lamented.  "I guess that's something we just
+have to leave work out itself.  What you going to do with a boy
+nineteen or twenty years old that makes his own living?  Can't
+whip him.  Can't keep him locked up in the house.  Just got to
+hope he'll learn better, I suppose."
+
+"Of course he didn't want to go to the Palmers'," Alice
+explained, tolerantly--"and as mama and I made him take me, and
+he thought that was pretty selfish in me, why, he felt he had a
+right to amuse himself any way he could.  Of course it was awful
+that this--that this Mr. Russell should----" In spite of her,
+the recollection choked her.
+
+"Yes, it was awful," Adams agreed.  "Just awful.  Oh, me, my!"
+
+But Alice recovered herself at once, and showed him a cheerful
+face.  "Well, just a few years from now I probably won't even
+remember it!  I believe hardly anything amounts to as much as we
+think it does at the time."
+
+"Well--sometimes it don't."
+
+"What I've been thinking, papa: it seems to me I ought to DO
+something."
+
+"What like?"
+
+She looked dreamy, but was obviously serious as she told him:
+"Well, I mean I ought to be something besides just a kind of
+nobody.  I ought to----" She paused.
+
+"What, dearie?"
+
+"Well--there's one thing I'd like to do.  I'm sure I COULD do it,
+too."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I want to go on the stage: I know I could act."  At this, her
+father abruptly gave utterance to a feeble cackling of laughter;
+and when Alice, surprised and a little offended, pressed him for
+his reason, he tried to evade, saying, "Nothing, dearie.  I just
+thought of something."  But she persisted until he had to
+explain.
+
+"It made me think of your mother's sister, your Aunt Flora, that
+died when you were little," he said.  "She was always telling how
+she was going on the stage, and talking about how she was certain
+she'd make a great actress, and all so on; and one day your
+mother broke out and said she ought 'a' gone on the stage,
+herself, because she always knew she had the talent for it--and,
+well, they got into kind of a spat about which one'd make the
+best actress.  I had to go out in the hall to laugh!"
+
+"Maybe you were wrong," Alice said, gravely.  "If they both felt
+it, why wouldn't that look as if there was talent in the family?
+I've ALWAYS thought----"
+
+"No, dearie," he said, with a final chuckle.  "Your mother and
+Flora weren't different from a good many others.  I expect ninety
+per cent.  of all the women I ever knew were just sure they'd be
+mighty fine actresses if they ever got the chance.  Well, I guess
+it's a good thing; they enjoy thinking about it and it don't do
+anybody any harm."
+
+Alice was piqued.  For several days she had thought almost
+continuously of a career to be won by her own genius.  Not that
+she planned details, or concerned herself with first steps; her
+picturings overleaped all that.  Principally, she saw her name
+great on all the bill-boards of that unkind city, and herself,
+unchanged in age but glamorous with fame and Paris clothes,
+returning in a private car.  No doubt the pleasantest development
+of her vision was a dialogue with Mildred; and this became so
+real that, as she projected it, Alice assumed the proper
+expressions for both parties to it, formed words with her lips,
+and even spoke some of them aloud.  "No, I haven't forgotten you,
+Mrs. Russell.  I remember you quite pleasantly, in fact.  You
+were a Miss Palmer, I recall, in those funny old days.  Very kind
+of you, I'm shaw.  I appreciate your eagerness to do something
+for me in your own little home.  As you say, a reception WOULD
+renew my acquaintanceship with many old friends--but I'm shaw
+you won't mind my mentioning that I don't find much inspiration
+in these provincials.  I really must ask you not to press me.  An
+artist's time is not her own, though of course I could hardly
+expect you to understand----"
+
+Thus Alice illuminated the dull time; but she retired from the
+interview with her father still manfully displaying an outward
+cheerfulness, while depression grew heavier within, as if she had
+eaten soggy cake.  Her father knew nothing whatever of the stage,
+and she was aware of his ignorance, yet for some reason his
+innocently skeptical amusement reduced her bright project almost
+to nothing.  Something like this always happened, it seemed; she
+was continually making these illuminations, all gay with gildings
+and colourings; and then as soon as anybody else so much as
+glanced at them--even her father, who loved her--the pretty
+designs were stricken with a desolating pallor.  "Is this LIFE?"
+Alice wondered, not doubting that the question was original and
+all her own.  "Is it life to spend your time imagining things
+that aren't so, and never will be?  Beautiful things happen to
+other people; why should I be the only one they never CAN happen
+to?"
+
+The mood lasted overnight; and was still upon her the next
+afternoon when an errand for her father took her down-town.
+Adams had decided to begin smoking again, and Alice felt rather
+degraded, as well as embarrassed, when she went into the large
+shop her father had named, and asked for the cheap tobacco he
+used in his pipe.  She fell back upon an air of amused
+indulgence, hoping thus to suggest that her purchase was made for
+some faithful old retainer, now infirm; and although the calmness
+of the clerk who served her called for no such elaboration of her
+sketch, she ornamented it with a little laugh and with the
+remark, as she dropped the package into her coat-pocket, "I'm
+sure it'll please him; they tell me it's the kind he likes."
+
+Still playing Lady Bountiful, smiling to herself in anticipation
+of the joy she was bringing to the simple old negro or Irish
+follower of the family, she left the shop; but as she came out
+upon the crowded pavement her smile vanished quickly.
+
+Next to the door of the tobacco-shop, there was the open entrance
+to a stairway, and, above this rather bleak and dark aperture, a
+sign-board displayed in begrimed gilt letters the information
+that Frincke's Business College occupied the upper floors of the
+building.  Furthermore, Frincke here publicly offered "personal
+instruction and training in practical mathematics, bookkeeping,
+and all branches of the business life, including stenography,
+typewriting, etc."
+
+Alice halted for a moment, frowning at this signboard as though
+it were something surprising and distasteful which she had never
+seen before.  Yet it was conspicuous in a busy quarter; she
+almost always passed it when she came down-town, and never
+without noticing it.  Nor was this the first time she had paused
+to lift toward it that same glance of vague misgiving.
+
+The building was not what the changeful city defined as a modern
+one, and the dusty wooden stairway, as seen from the pavement,
+disappeared upward into a smoky darkness.  So would the footsteps
+of a girl ascending there lead to a hideous obscurity, Alice
+thought; an obscurity as dreary and as permanent as death.  And
+like dry leaves falling about her she saw her wintry imaginings
+in the May air: pretty girls turning into withered creatures as
+they worked at typing-machines; old maids "taking dictation" from
+men with double chins; Alice saw old maids of a dozen different
+kinds "taking dictation."  Her mind's eye was crowded with them,
+as it always was when she passed that stairway entrance; and
+though they were all different from one another, all of them
+looked a little like herself.
+
+She hated the place, and yet she seldom hurried by it or averted
+her eyes.  It had an unpleasant fascination for her, and a
+mysterious reproach, which she did not seek to fathom.  She
+walked on thoughtfully to-day; and when, at the next corner, she
+turned into the street that led toward home, she was given a
+surprise.  Arthur Russell came rapidly from behind her, lifting
+his hat as she saw him.
+
+"Are you walking north, Miss Adams?" he asked.  "Do you mind if I
+walk with you?"
+
+She was not delighted, but seemed so.  "How charming!" she cried,
+giving him a little flourish of the shapely hands; and then,
+because she wondered if he had seen her coming out of the
+tobacco-shop, she laughed and added, "I've just been on the most
+ridiculous errand!"
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"To order some cigars for my father.  He's been quite ill, poor
+man, and he's so particular--but what in the world do _I_ know
+about cigars?"
+
+Russell laughed.  "Well, what DO you know about 'em?  Did you
+select by the price?"
+
+"Mercy, no!" she exclaimed, and added, with an afterthought, "Of
+course he wrote down the name of the kind he wanted and I gave it
+to the shopman.  I could never have pronounced it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+In her pocket as she spoke her hand rested upon the little sack
+of tobacco, which responded accusingly to the touch of her
+restless fingers; and she found time to wonder why she was
+building up this fiction for Mr. Arthur Russell.  His discovery
+of Walter's device for whiling away the dull evening had shamed
+and distressed her; but she would have suffered no less if almost
+any other had been the discoverer.  In this gentleman, after
+hearing that he was Mildred's Mr. Arthur Russell, Alice felt not
+the slightest "personal interest"; and there was yet to develop
+in her life such a thing as an interest not personal.  At
+twenty-two this state of affairs is not unique.
+
+So far as Alice was concerned Russell might have worn a placard,
+"Engaged."  She looked upon him as diners entering a restaurant
+look upon tables marked "Reserved": the glance, slightly
+discontented, passes on at once.  Or so the eye of a prospector
+wanders querulously over staked and established claims on the
+mountainside, and seeks the virgin land beyond; unless, indeed,
+the prospector be dishonest.  But Alice was no claim-jumper--so
+long as the notice of ownership was plainly posted.
+
+Though she was indifferent now, habit ruled her: and, at the very
+time she wondered why she created fictitious cigars for her
+father, she was also regretting that she had not boldly carried
+her Malacca stick down-town with her.  Her vivacity increased
+automatically.
+
+"Perhaps the clerk thought you wanted the cigars for yourself,"
+Russell suggested.  "He may have taken you for a Spanish
+countess."
+
+"I'm sure he did!" Alice agreed, gaily; and she hummed a bar or
+two of "LaPaloma," snapping her fingers as castanets, and swaying
+her body a little, to suggest the accepted stencil of a "Spanish
+Dancer."  "Would you have taken me for one, Mr. Russell?" she
+asked, as she concluded the impersonation.
+
+"I?  Why, yes," he said.  "I'D take you for anything you wanted
+me to."
+
+"Why, what a speech!" she cried, and, laughing, gave him a quick
+glance in which there glimmered some real surprise.  He was
+looking at her quizzically, but with the liveliest appreciation.
+Her surprise increased; and she was glad that he had joined her.
+
+To be seen walking with such a companion added to her pleasure.
+She would have described him as "altogether quite
+stunning-looking"; and she liked his tall, dark thinness, his
+gray clothes, his soft hat, and his clean brown shoes; she liked
+his easy swing of the stick he carried.
+
+"Shouldn't I have said it?" he asked.  "Would you rather not be
+taken for a Spanish countess?"
+
+"That isn't it," she explained.  "You said----"
+
+"I said I'd take you for whatever you wanted me to.  Isn't that
+all right?"
+
+"It would all depend, wouldn't it?"
+
+"Of course it would depend on what you wanted."
+
+"Oh, no!" she laughed.  "It might depend on a lot of things."
+
+"Such as?"
+
+"Well----" She hesitated, having the mischievous impulse to say,
+"Such as Mildred!" But she decided to omit this reference, and
+became serious, remembering Russell's service to her at Mildred's
+house.  "Speaking of what I want to be taken for," she
+said;--"I've been wondering ever since the other night what you
+did take me for!  You must have taken me for the sister of a
+professional gambler, I'm afraid!"
+
+Russell's look of kindness was the truth about him, she was to
+discover; and he reassured her now by the promptness of his
+friendly chuckle.  "Then your young brother told you where I
+found him, did he?  I kept my face straight at the time, but I
+laughed afterward--to myself.  It struck me as original, to say
+the least: his amusing himself with those darkies."
+
+"Walter IS original," Alice said; and, having adopted this new
+view of her brother's eccentricities, she impulsively went on to
+make it more plausible.  "He's a very odd boy, and I was afraid
+you'd misunderstand.  He tells wonderful 'darky stories,' and
+he'll do anything to draw coloured people out and make them talk;
+and that's what he was doing at Mildred's when you found him for
+me--he says he wins their confidence by playing dice with them.
+In the family we think he'll probably write about them some day.
+He's rather literary."
+
+"Are you?" Russell asked, smiling.
+
+"I?  Oh----" She paused, lifting both hands in a charming gesture
+of helplessness.  "Oh, I'm just--me!"
+
+His glance followed the lightly waved hands with keen approval,
+then rose to the lively and colourful face, with its hazel eyes,
+its small and pretty nose, and the lip-caught smile which seemed
+the climax of her decorative transition.  Never had he seen a
+creature so plastic or so wistful.
+
+Here was a contrast to his cousin Mildred, who was not wistful,
+and controlled any impulses toward plasticity, if she had them.
+"By George!" he said.  "But you ARE different!"
+
+With that, there leaped in her such an impulse of roguish
+gallantry as she could never resist.  She turned her head, and,
+laughing and bright-eyed, looked him full in the face.
+
+"From whom?" she cried.
+
+"From--everybody!" he said.  "Are you a mind-reader?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"How did you know I was thinking you were different from my
+cousin, Mildred Palmer?"
+
+"What makes you think I DID know it?"
+
+"Nonsense!" he said.  "You knew what I was thinking and I knew
+you knew."
+
+"Yes," she said with cool humour.  "How intimate that seems to
+make us all at once!"
+
+Russell left no doubt that he was delighted with these gaieties
+of hers.  "By George!" he exclaimed again.  "I thought you were
+this sort of girl the first moment I saw you!"
+
+"What sort of girl?  Didn't Mildred tell you what sort of girl I
+am when she asked you to dance with me?"
+
+"She didn't ask me to dance with you--I'd been looking at you.
+You were talking to some old ladies, and I asked Mildred who you
+were."
+
+"Oh, so Mildred DIDN'T----" Alice checked herself.  "Who did she
+tell you I was?"
+
+"She just said you were a Miss Adams, so I----"
+
+"'A' Miss Adams?" Alice interrupted.
+
+"Yes.  Then I said I'd like to meet you."
+
+"I see.  You thought you'd save me from the old ladies."
+
+"No.  I thought I'd save myself from some of the girls Mildred
+was getting me to dance with.  There was a Miss Dowling----"
+
+"Poor man!" Alice said, gently, and her impulsive thought was
+that Mildred had taken few chances, and that as a matter of
+self-defense her carefulness might have been well founded.  This
+Mr. Arthur Russell was a much more responsive person than one
+had supposed.
+
+"So, Mr. Russell, you don't know anything about me except what
+you thought when you first saw me?"
+
+"Yes, I know I was right when I thought it."
+
+"You haven't told me what you thought."
+
+"I thought you were like what you ARE like."
+
+"Not very definite, is it?  I'm afraid you shed more light a
+minute or so ago, when you said how different from Mildred you
+thought I was.  That WAS definite, unfortunately!"
+
+"I didn't say it," Russell explained.  "I thought it, and you
+read my mind.  That's the sort of girl I thought you were--one
+that could read a man's mind.  Why do you say 'unfortunately'
+you're not like Mildred?"
+
+Alice's smooth gesture seemed to sketch Mildred.  "Because she's
+perfect--why, she's PERFECTLY perfect!  She never makes a
+mistake, and everybody looks up to her--oh, yes, we all fairly
+adore her!  She's like some big, noble, cold statue--'way above
+the rest of us--and she hardly ever does anything mean or
+treacherous.  Of all the girls I know I believe she's played the
+fewest really petty tricks.  She's----"
+
+Russell interrupted; he looked perplexed.  "You say she's
+perfectly perfect, but that she does play SOME----"
+
+Alice laughed, as if at his sweet innocence.  "Men are so funny!"
+she informed him.  "Of course girls ALL do mean things sometimes.
+My own career's just one long brazen smirch of 'em!  What I mean
+is, Mildred's perfectly perfect compared to the rest of us."
+
+"I see," he said, and seemed to need a moment or two of
+thoughtfulness.  Then he inquired, "What sort of treacherous
+things do YOU do?"
+
+"I?  Oh, the very worst kind!  Most people bore me particularly
+the men in this town--and I show it."
+
+"But I shouldn't call that treacherous, exactly."
+
+"Well, THEY do," Alice laughed.  "It's made me a terribly
+unpopular character!  I do a lot of things they hate.  For
+instance, at a dance I'd a lot rather find some clever old woman
+and talk to her than dance with nine-tenths of these nonentities.
+I usually do it, too."
+
+"But you danced as if you liked it.  You danced better than any
+other girl I----"
+
+"This flattery of yours doesn't quite turn my head, Mr.
+Russell," Alice interrupted.  "Particularly since Mildred only
+gave you Ella Dowling to compare with me!"
+
+"Oh, no," he insisted.  "There were others--and of course
+Mildred, herself."
+
+"Oh, of course, yes.  I forgot that.  Well----" She paused, then
+added, "I certainly OUGHT to dance well."
+
+"Why is it so much a duty?"
+
+"When I think of the dancing-teachers and the expense to papa!
+All sorts of fancy instructors--I suppose that's what daughters
+have fathers for, though, isn't it?  To throw money away on
+them?"
+
+"You don't----" Russell began, and his look was one of alarm.
+"You haven't taken up----"
+
+She understood his apprehension and responded merrily, "Oh,
+murder, no!  You mean you're afraid I break out sometimes in a
+piece of cheesecloth and run around a fountain thirty times, and
+then, for an encore, show how much like snakes I can make my arms
+look."
+
+"I SAID you were a mind-reader!" he exclaimed.  "That's exactly
+what I was pretending to be afraid you might do."
+
+"'Pretending?' That's nicer of you.  No; it's not my mania."
+
+"What is?"
+
+"Oh, nothing in particular that I know of just now.  Of course
+I've had the usual one: the one that every girl goes through."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Good heavens, Mr. Russell, you can't expect me to believe
+you're really a man of the world if you don't know that every
+girl has a time in her life when she's positive she's divinely
+talented for the stage!  It's the only universal rule about women
+that hasn't got an exception.  I don't mean we all want to go on
+the stage, but we all think we'd be wonderful if we did.  Even
+Mildred.  Oh, she wouldn't confess it to you: you'd have to know
+her a great deal better than any man can ever know her to find
+out."
+
+"I see," he said.  "Girls are always telling us we can't know
+them.  I wonder if you----"
+
+She took up his thought before he expressed it, and again he was
+fascinated by her quickness, which indeed seemed to him almost
+telepathic.  "Oh, but DON'T we know one another, though!" she
+cried.
+
+"Such things we have to keep secret--things that go on right
+before YOUR eyes!"
+
+"Why don't some of you tell us?" he asked.
+
+"We can't tell you."
+
+"Too much honour?"
+
+"No.  Not even too much honour among thieves, Mr. Russell.  We
+don't tell you about our tricks against one another because we
+know it wouldn't make any impression on you.  The tricks aren't
+played against you, and you have a soft side for cats with lovely
+manners!"
+
+"What about your tricks against us?"
+
+"Oh, those!" Alice laughed.  "We think they're rather cute!"
+
+"Bravo!" he cried, and hammered the ferrule of his stick upon the
+pavement.
+
+"What's the applause for?"
+
+"For you.  What you said was like running up the black flag to
+the masthead."
+
+"Oh, no.  It was just a modest little sign in a pretty
+flower-bed: 'Gentlemen, beware!'"
+
+"I see I must," he said, gallantly.
+
+"Thanks!  But I mean, beware of the whole bloomin' garden!" Then,
+picking up a thread that had almost disappeared: "You needn't
+think you'll ever find out whether I'm right about Mildred's not
+being an exception by asking her," she said.  "She won't tell
+you: she's not the sort that ever makes a confession."
+
+But Russell had not followed her shift to the former topic.
+"'Mildred's not being an exception?'" he said, vaguely.
+"I don't----"
+
+"An exception about thinking she could be a wonderful thing on the
+stage if she only cared to.  If you asked her I'm pretty sure
+she'd say, 'What nonsense!' Mildred's the dearest, finest thing
+anywhere, but you won't find out many things about her by asking
+her."
+
+Russell's expression became more serious, as it did whenever his
+cousin was made their topic.  "You think not?" he said.  "You
+think she's----"
+
+"No.  But it's not because she isn't sincere exactly.  It's only
+because she has such a lot to live up to.  She has to live up to
+being a girl on the grand style to herself, I mean, of course."
+And without pausing Alice rippled on, "You ought to have seen ME
+when I had the stage-fever!  I used to play 'Juliet' all alone in
+my room.' She lifted her arms in graceful entreaty, pleading
+musically,
+
+     "O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
+     That monthly changes in her circled orb,
+     Lest thy love prove----"
+
+
+She broke off abruptly with a little flourish, snapping thumb and
+finger of each outstretched hand, then laughed and said, "Papa
+used to make such fun of me!  Thank heaven, I was only fifteen; I
+was all over it by the next year."
+
+"No wonder you had the fever," Russell observed.  "You do it
+beautifully.  Why didn't you finish the line?"
+
+"Which one?  'Lest thy love prove likewise variable'?  Juliet was
+saying it to a MAN, you know.  She seems to have been ready to
+worry about his constancy pretty early in their affair!"
+
+Her companion was again thoughtful.  "Yes," he said, seeming to
+be rather irksomely impressed with Alice's suggestion.  "Yes; it
+does appear so."
+
+Alice glanced at his serious face, and yielded to an audacious
+temptation.  "You mustn't take it so hard," she said, flippantly.
+
+"It isn't about you: it's only about Romeo and Juliet."
+
+"See here!" he exclaimed.  "You aren't at your mind-reading
+again, are you?  There are times when it won't do, you know!"
+
+She leaned toward him a little, as if companionably: they were
+walking slowly, and this geniality of hers brought her shoulder
+in light contact with his for a moment.  "Do you dislike my
+mind-reading?" she asked, and, across their two just touching
+shoulders, gave him her sudden look of smiling wistfulness.  "Do
+you hate it?"
+
+He shook his head.  "No, I don't," he said, gravely.  "It's quite
+pleasant.  But I think it says, 'Gentlemen, beware!'"
+
+She instantly moved away from him, with the lawless and frank
+laugh of one who is delighted to be caught in a piece of
+hypocrisy.  "How lovely!" she cried.  Then she pointed ahead.
+"Our walk is nearly over.  We're coming to the foolish little
+house where I live.  It's a queer little place, but my father's
+so attached to it the family have about given up hope of getting
+him to build a real house farther out.  He doesn't mind our being
+extravagant about anything else, but he won't let us alter one
+single thing about his precious little old house.  Well!" She
+halted, and gave him her hand.  "Adieu!"
+
+"I couldn't," he began; hesitated, then asked: "I couldn't come
+in with you for a little while?"
+
+"Not now," she said, quickly.  "You can come----" She paused.
+
+"When?"
+
+"Almost any time."  She turned and walked slowly up the path, but
+he waited.  "You can come in the evening if you like," she called
+back to him over her shoulder.
+
+"Soon?"
+
+"As soon as you like!" She waved her hand; then ran indoors and
+watched him from a window as he went up the street.  He walked
+rapidly, a fine, easy figure, swinging his stick in a way that
+suggested exhilaration.  Alice, staring after him through the
+irregular apertures of a lace curtain, showed no similar
+buoyancy.  Upon the instant she closed the door all sparkle left
+her: she had become at once the simple and sometimes troubled
+girl her family knew.
+
+"What is going on out there?" her mother asked, approaching from
+the dining-room.
+
+"Oh, nothing," Alice said, indifferently, as she turned away.
+"That Mr. Russell met me downtown and walked up with me."
+
+"Mr. Russell?  Oh, the one that's engaged to Mildred?"
+
+"Well--I don't know for certain.  He didn't seem so much like an
+engaged man to me."  And she added, in the tone of thoughtful
+preoccupation: "Anyhow--not so terribly!"
+
+Then she ran upstairs, gave her father his tobacco, filled his
+pipe for him, and petted him as he lighted it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+After that, she went to her room and sat down before her
+three-leaved mirror.  There was where she nearly always sat when
+she came into her room, if she had nothing in mind to do.  She
+went to that chair as naturally as a dog goes to his corner.
+
+She leaned forward, observing her profile; gravity seemed to be
+her mood.  But after a long, almost motionless scrutiny, she
+began to produce dramatic sketches upon that ever-ready stage,
+her countenance: she showed gaiety, satire, doubt, gentleness,
+appreciation of a companion and love-in-hiding--all studied in
+profile first, then repeated for a "three-quarter view."
+Subsequently she ran through them, facing herself in full.
+
+In this manner she outlined a playful scenario for her next
+interview with Arthur Russell; but grew solemn again, thinking of
+the impression she had already sought to give him.  She had no
+twinges for any underminings of her "most intimate friend"--in
+fact, she felt that her work on a new portrait of Mildred for Mr.
+
+Russell had been honest and accurate.  But why had it been her
+instinct to show him an Alice Adams who didn't exist?
+
+Almost everything she had said to him was upon spontaneous
+impulse, springing to her lips on the instant; yet it all seemed
+to have been founded upon a careful design, as if some hidden
+self kept such designs in stock and handed them up to her,
+ready-made, to be used for its own purpose.  What appeared to be
+the desired result was a false-coloured image in Russell's mind;
+but if he liked that image he wouldn't be liking Alice Adams; nor
+would anything he thought about the image be a thought about her.
+
+Nevertheless, she knew she would go on with her false, fancy
+colourings of this nothing as soon as she saw him again; she had
+just been practicing them.  "What's the idea?" she wondered.
+"What makes me tell such lies?  Why shouldn't I be just myself?"
+And then she thought, "But which one is myself?"
+
+Her eyes dwelt on the solemn eyes in the mirror; and her lips,
+disquieted by a deepening wonder, parted to whisper:
+
+"Who in the world are you?"
+
+The apparition before her had obeyed her like an alert slave, but
+now, as she subsided to a complete stillness, that aspect changed
+to the old mockery with which mirrors avenge their wrongs.  The
+nucleus of some queer thing seemed to gather and shape itself
+behind the nothingness of the reflected eyes until it became
+almost an actual strange presence.  If it could be identified,
+perhaps the presence was that of the hidden designer who handed
+up the false, ready-made pictures, and, for unknown purposes,
+made Alice exhibit them; but whatever it was, she suddenly found
+it monkey-like and terrifying.  In a flutter she jumped up and
+went to another part of the room.
+
+A moment or two later she was whistling softly as she hung her
+light coat over a wooden triangle in her closet, and her musing
+now was quainter than the experience that led to it; for what she
+thought was this, "I certainly am a queer girl!" She took a
+little pride in so much originality, believing herself probably
+the only person in the world to have such thoughts as had been
+hers since she entered the room, and the first to be disturbed by
+a strange presence in the mirror.  In fact, the effect of the
+tiny episode became apparent in that look of preoccupied
+complacency to be seen for a time upon any girl who has found
+reason to suspect that she is a being without counterpart.
+
+This slight glow, still faintly radiant, was observed across the
+dinner-table by Walter, but he misinterpreted it.  "What YOU
+lookin' so self-satisfied about?" he inquired, and added in his
+knowing way, "I saw you, all right, cutie!"
+
+"Where'd you see me?"
+
+"Down-town."
+
+"This afternoon, you mean, Walter?"
+
+"Yes, 'this afternoon, I mean, Walter,'" he returned,
+burlesquing her voice at least happily enough to please himself;
+for he laughed applausively.  "Oh, you never saw me!  I passed
+you close enough to pull a tooth, but you were awful busy.  I
+never did see anybody as busy as you get, Alice, when you're
+towin' a barge.  My, but you keep your hands goin'!  Looked like
+the air was full of 'em!  That's why I'm onto why you look so
+tickled this evening; I saw you with that big fish."
+
+Mrs. Adams laughed benevolently; she was not displeased with
+this rallying.  "Well, what of it, Walter?" she asked.  "If you
+happen to see your sister on the street when some nice young man
+is being attentive to her----"
+
+Walter barked and then cackled.  "Whoa, Sal!" he said.  "You got
+the parts mixed.  It's little Alice that was 'being attentive.' I
+know the big fish she was attentive to, all right, too."
+
+"Yes," his sister retorted, quietly.  "I should think you might
+have recognized him, Walter."
+
+Walter looked annoyed.  "Still harpin' on THAT!" he complained.
+"The kind of women I like, if they get sore they just hit you
+somewhere on the face and then they're through.  By the way, I
+heard this Russell was supposed to be your dear, old, sweet
+friend Mildred's steady.  What you doin' walkin' as close to him
+as all that?"
+
+Mrs. Adams addressed her son in gentle reproof, "Why Walter!"
+
+"Oh, never mind, mama," Alice said.  "To the horrid all things
+are horrid."
+
+"Get out!" Walter protested, carelessly.  "I heard all about this
+Russell down at the shop.  Young Joe Lamb's such a talker I
+wonder he don't ruin his grandfather's business; he keeps all us
+cheap help standin' round listening to him nine-tenths of our
+time.  Well, Joe told me this Russell's some kin or other to the
+Palmer family, and he's got some little money of his own, and
+he's puttin' it into ole Palmer's trust company and Palmer's
+goin' to make him a vice-president of the company.  Sort of a
+keep-the-money-in-the-family arrangement, Joe Lamb says."
+
+Mrs. Adams looked thoughtful.  "I don't see----" she began.
+
+"Why, this Russell's supposed to be tied up to Mildred," her son
+explained.  "When ole Palmer dies this Russell will be his
+son-in-law, and all he'll haf' to do'll be to barely lift his
+feet and step into the ole man's shoes.  It's certainly a mighty
+fat hand-me-out for this Russell!  You better lay off o' there,
+Alice.  Pick somebody that's got less to lose and you'll make
+better showing."
+
+Mrs. Adams's air of thoughtfulness had not departed.  "But you
+say this Mr. Russell is well off on his own account, Walter."
+
+"Oh, Joe Lamb says he's got some little of his own.  Didn't know
+how much."
+
+"Well, then----"
+
+Walter laughed his laugh.  "Cut it out," he bade her.  "Alice
+wouldn't run in fourth place."
+
+Alice had been looking at him in a detached way, as though
+estimating the value of a specimen in a collection not her own.
+"Yes," she said, indifferently.  "You REALLY are vulgar, Walter."
+
+He had finished his meal; and, rising, he came round the table to
+her and patted her good-naturedly on the shoulder.  "Good ole
+Allie!" he said.  "HONEST, you wouldn't run in fourth place.  If
+I was you I'd never even start in the class.  That frozen-face
+gang will rule you off the track soon as they see your colours."
+
+"Walter!" his mother said again.
+
+"Well, ain't I her brother?" he returned, seeming to be entirely
+serious and direct, for the moment, at least.  "_I_ like the ole
+girl all right.  Fact is, sometimes I'm kind of sorry for her."
+
+"But what's it all ABOUT?" Alice cried.  "Simply because you met
+me down-town with a man I never saw but once before and just
+barely know!  Why all this palaver?"
+
+"'Why?'" he repeated, grinning.  "Well, I've seen you start
+before, you know!" He went to the door, and paused.  "I got no
+date to-night.  Take you to the movies, you care to go."
+
+She declined crisply.  "No, thanks!"
+
+"Come on," he said, as pleasantly as he knew how.
+
+"Give me a chance to show you a better time than we had up at
+that frozen-face joint.  I'll get you some chop suey afterward."
+
+"No, thanks!"
+
+"All right," he responded and waved a flippant adieu.  "As the
+barber says, 'The better the advice, the worse it's wasted!'
+Good-night!"
+
+Alice shrugged her shoulders; but a moment or two later, as the
+jar of the carelessly slammed front door went through the house,
+she shook her head, reconsidering.  "Perhaps I ought to have gone
+with him.  It might have kept him away from whatever dreadful
+people are his friends--at least for one night."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure Walter's a GOOD boy," Mrs. Adams said, soothingly;
+and this was what she almost always said when either her husband
+or Alice expressed such misgivings.  "He's odd, and he's picked
+up right queer manners; but that's only because we haven't given
+him advantages like the other young men.  But I'm sure he's a
+GOOD boy."
+
+She reverted to the subject a little later, while she washed the
+dishes and Alice wiped them.  "Of course Walter could take his
+place with the other nice boys of the town even yet," she said.
+"I mean, if we could afford to help him financially.  They all
+belong to the country clubs and have cars and----"
+
+"Let's don't go into that any more, mama," the daughter begged
+her.  "What's the use?"
+
+"It COULD be of use," Mrs. Adams insisted.  "It could if your
+father----"
+
+"But papa CAN'T."
+
+"Yes, he can."
+
+"But how can he?  He told me a man of his age CAN'T give up a
+business he's been in practically all his life, and just go
+groping about for something that might never turn up at all.  I
+think he's right about it, too, of course!"
+
+Mrs. Adams splashed among the plates with a new vigour
+heightened by an old bitterness.  "Oh, yes," she said.  "He talks
+that way; but he knows better."
+
+"How could he 'know better,' mama?"
+
+"HE knows how!"
+
+"But what does he know?"
+
+Mrs. Adams tossed her head.  "You don't suppose I'm such a fool
+I'd be urging him to give up something for nothing, do you,
+Alice?  Do you suppose I'd want him to just go 'groping around'
+like he was telling you?  That would be crazy, of course.  Little
+as his work at Lamb's brings in, I wouldn't be so silly as to ask
+him to give it up just on a CHANCE he could find something else.
+Good gracious, Alice, you must give me credit for a little
+intelligence once in a while!"
+
+Alice was puzzled.  "But what else could there be except a
+chance?  I don't see----"
+
+"Well, I do," her mother interrupted, decisively.  "That man
+could make us all well off right now if he wanted to.  We could
+have been rich long ago if he'd ever really felt as he ought to
+about his family."
+
+"What!  Why, how could----"
+
+"You know how as well as I do," Mrs. Adams said, crossly.  "I
+guess you haven't forgotten how he treated me about it the Sunday
+before he got sick."
+
+She went on with her work, putting into it a sudden violence
+inspired by the recollection; but Alice, enlightened, gave
+utterance to a laugh of lugubrious derision.  "Oh, the GLUE
+factory again!" she cried.  "How silly!" And she renewed her
+laughter.
+
+So often do the great projects of parents appear ignominious to
+their children.  Mrs. Adams's conception of a glue factory as a
+fairy godmother of this family was an absurd old story which
+Alice had never taken seriously.  She remembered that when she
+was about fifteen her mother began now and then to say something
+to Adams about a "glue factory," rather timidly, and as a vague
+suggestion, but never without irritating him.  Then, for years,
+the preposterous subject had not been mentioned; possibly because
+of some explosion on the part of Adams, when his daughter had not
+been present.  But during the last year Mrs. Adams had quietly
+gone back to these old hints, reviving them at intervals and also
+reviving her husband's irritation.  Alice's bored impression was
+that her mother wanted him to found, or buy, or do something, or
+other, about a glue factory; and that he considered the proposal
+so impracticable as to be insulting.  The parental conversations
+took place when neither Alice nor Walter was at hand, but
+sometimes Alice had come in upon the conclusion of one, to find
+her father in a shouting mood, and shocking the air behind him
+with profane monosyllables as he departed.  Mrs. Adams would be
+left quiet and troubled; and when Alice, sympathizing with the
+goaded man, inquired of her mother why these tiresome bickerings
+had been renewed, she always got the brooding and cryptic answer,
+"He COULD do it--if he wanted to."  Alice failed to comprehend
+the desirability of a glue factory--to her mind a father engaged
+in a glue factory lacked impressiveness; had no advantage over a
+father employed by Lamb and Company; and she supposed that Adams
+knew better than her mother whether such an enterprise would be
+profitable or not.  Emphatically, he thought it would not, for
+she had heard him shouting at the end of one of these painful
+interviews, "You can keep up your dang talk till YOU die and _I_
+die, but I'll never make one God's cent that way!"
+
+There had been a culmination.  Returning from church on the
+Sunday preceding the collapse with which Adams's illness had
+begun, Alice found her mother downstairs, weeping and
+intimidated, while her father's stamping footsteps were loudly
+audible as he strode up and down his room overhead.  So were his
+endless repetitions of invective loudly audible: "That woman!
+Oh, that woman; Oh, that danged woman!"
+
+Mrs. Adams admitted to her daughter that it was "the old glue
+factory" and that her husband's wildness had frightened her into
+a "solemn promise" never to mention the subject again so long as
+she had breath.  Alice laughed.  The "glue factory" idea was not
+only a bore, but ridiculous, and her mother's evident seriousness
+about it one of those inexplicable vagaries we sometimes discover
+in the people we know best.  But this Sunday rampage appeared to
+be the end of it, and when Adams came down to dinner, an hour
+later, he was unusually cheerful.  Alice was glad he had gone
+wild enough to settle the glue factory once and for all; and she
+had ceased to think of the episode long before Friday of that
+week, when Adams was brought home in the middle of the afternoon
+by his old employer, the "great J. A. Lamb," in the latter's
+car.
+
+During the long illness the "glue factory" was completely
+forgotten, by Alice at least; and her laugh was rueful as well as
+derisive now, in the kitchen, when she realized that her mother's
+mind again dwelt upon this abandoned nuisance.  "I thought you'd
+got over all that nonsense, mama," she said.
+
+Mrs. Adams smiled, pathetically.  "Of course you think it's
+nonsense, dearie.  Young people think everything's nonsense that
+they don't know anything about."
+
+"Good gracious!" Alice cried.  "I should think I used to hear
+enough about that horrible old glue factory to know something
+about it!"
+
+"No," her mother returned patiently.  "You've never heard
+anything about it at all."
+
+"I haven't?"
+
+"No.  Your father and I didn't discuss it before you children.
+All you ever heard was when he'd get in such a rage, after we'd
+been speaking of it, that he couldn't control himself when you
+came in.  Wasn't _I_ always quiet?  Did _I_ ever go on talking
+about it?"
+
+"No; perhaps not.  But you're talking about it now, mama, after
+you promised never to mention it again."
+
+"I promised not to mention it to your father," said Mrs. Adams,
+gently.  "I haven't mentioned it to him, have I?"
+
+"Ah, but if you mention it to me I'm afraid you WILL mention it
+to him.  You always do speak of things that you have on your
+mind, and you might get papa all stirred up again about--" Alice
+paused, a light of divination flickering in her eyes.  "Oh!" she
+cried.  "I SEE!"
+
+"What do you see?"
+
+"You HAVE been at him about it!"
+
+"Not one single word!"
+
+"No!" Alice cried.  "Not a WORD, but that's what you've meant all
+along!  You haven't spoken the words to him, but all this urging
+him to change, to 'find something better to go into'--it's all
+been about nothing on earth but your foolish old glue factory
+that you know upsets him, and you gave your solemn word never to
+speak to him about again!  You didn't say it, but you meant
+it--and he KNOWS that's what you meant!  Oh, mama!"
+
+Mrs. Adams, with her hands still automatically at work in the
+flooded dishpan, turned to face her daughter.  "Alice," she said,
+tremulously, "what do I ask for myself?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I say, What do I ask for myself?  Do you suppose _I_ want
+anything?  Don't you know I'd be perfectly content on your
+father's present income if I were the only person to be
+considered?  What do I care about any pleasure for myself?  I'd
+be willing never to have a maid again; _I_ don't mind doing the
+work.  If we didn't have any children I'd be glad to do your
+father's cooking and the housework and the washing and ironing,
+too, for the rest of my life.  I wouldn't care.  I'm a poor cook
+and a poor housekeeper; I don't do anything well; but it would be
+good enough for just him and me.  I wouldn't ever utter one word
+of com----"
+
+"Oh, goodness!" Alice lamented.  "What IS it all about?"
+
+"It's about this," said Mrs. Adams, swallowing.  "You and Walter
+are a new generation and you ought to have the same as the rest
+of the new generation get.  Poor Walter--asking you to go to the
+movies and a Chinese restaurant: the best he had to offer!  Don't
+you suppose _I_ see how the poor boy is deteriorating?  Don't you
+suppose I know what YOU have to go through, Alice?  And when I
+think of that man upstairs----" The agitated voice grew louder.
+"When I think of him and know that nothing in the world but his
+STUBBORNNESS keeps my children from having all they want and what
+they OUGHT to have, do you suppose I'm going to hold myself bound
+to keep to the absolute letter of a silly promise he got from me
+by behaving like a crazy man?  I can't!  I can't do it!  No
+mother could sit by and see him lock up a horn of plenty like
+that in his closet when the children were starving!"
+
+"Oh, goodness, goodness me!" Alice protested.  "We aren't
+precisely 'starving,' are we?"
+
+Mrs. Adams began to weep.  "It's just the same.  Didn't I see
+how flushed and pretty you looked, this afternoon, after you'd
+been walking with this young man that's come here?  Do you
+suppose he'd LOOK at a girl like Mildred Palmer if you had what
+you ought to have?  Do you suppose he'd be going into business
+with her father if YOUR father----"
+
+"Good heavens, mama; you're worse than Walter: I just barely know
+the man!  DON'T be so absurd!"
+
+"Yes, I'm always 'absurd,'" Mrs. Adams moaned.  "All I can do
+is cry, while your father sits upstairs, and his horn of
+plenty----"
+
+But Alice interrupted with a peal of desperate laughter.  "Oh,
+that 'horn of plenty!' Do come down to earth, mama.  How can you
+call a GLUE factory, that doesn't exist except in your mind, a
+'horn of plenty'?  Do let's be a little rational!"
+
+"It COULD be a horn of plenty," the tearful Mrs, Adams insisted.
+"It could!  You don't understand a thing about it."
+
+"Well, I'm willing," Alice said, with tired skepticism.  "Make me
+understand, then.  Where'd you ever get the idea?"
+
+Mrs. Adams withdrew her hands from the water, dried them on a
+towel, and then wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.  "Your father
+could make a fortune if he wanted to," she said, quietly.  "At
+least, I don't say a fortune, but anyhow a great deal more than
+he does make."
+
+"Yes, I've heard that before, mama, and you think he could make
+it out of a glue factory.  What I'm asking is: How?"
+
+"How?  Why, by making glue and selling it.  Don't you know how
+bad most glue is when you try to mend anything?  A good glue is
+one of the rarest things there is; and it would just sell itself,
+once it got started.  Well, your father knows how to make as good
+a glue as there is in the world."
+
+Alice was not interested.  "What of it?  I suppose probably
+anybody could make it if they wanted to."
+
+"I SAID you didn't know anything about it.  Nobody else could
+make it.  Your father knows a formula for making it."
+
+"What of that?"
+
+"It's a secret formula.  It isn't even down on paper.  It's worth
+any amount of money."
+
+"'Any amount?'" Alice said, remaining incredulous.  "Why hasn't
+papa sold it then?"
+
+"Just because he's too stubborn to do anything with it at all!"
+
+"How did papa get it?"
+
+"He got it before you were born, just after we were married.  I
+didn't think much about it then: it wasn't till you were growing
+up and I saw how much we needed money that I----"
+
+"Yes, but how did papa get it?" Alice began to feel a little more
+curious about this possible buried treasure.  "Did he invent it?"
+
+"Partly," Mrs. Adams said, looking somewhat preoccupied.  "He
+and another man invented it."
+
+"Then maybe the other man----"
+
+"He's dead."
+
+"Then his family----"
+
+"I don't think he left any family," Mrs. Adams said.  "Anyhow,
+it belongs to your father.  At least it belongs to him as much as
+it does to any one else.  He's got an absolutely perfect right to
+do anything he wants to with it, and it would make us all
+comfortable if he'd do what I want him to--and he KNOWS it would,
+too!"
+
+Alice shook her head pityingly.  "Poor mama!" she said.  "Of
+course he knows it wouldn't do anything of the kind, or else he'd
+have done it long ago."
+
+"He would, you say?" her mother cried.  "That only shows how
+little you know him!"
+
+"Poor mama!" Alice said again, soothingly.  "If papa were like
+what you say he is, he'd be--why, he'd be crazy!"
+
+Mrs. Adams agreed with a vehemence near passion.  "You're right
+about him for once: that's just what he is!  He sits up there in
+his stubbornness and lets us slave here in the kitchen when if he
+wanted to--if he'd so much as lift his little finger----"
+
+"Oh, come, now!" Alice laughed.  "You can't build even a glue
+factory with just one little finger."
+
+Mrs. Adams seemed about to reply that finding fault with a
+figure of speech was beside the point; but a ringing of the front
+door bell forestalled the retort.  "Now, who do you suppose that
+is?" she wondered aloud, then her face brightened.  "Ah--did Mr.
+Russell ask if he could----"
+
+"No, he wouldn't be coming this evening," Alice said.  "Probably
+it's the great J. A. Lamb: he usually stops for a minute on
+Thursdays to ask how papa's getting along.  I'll go."
+
+She tossed her apron off, and as she went through the house her
+expression was thoughtful.  She was thinking vaguely about the
+glue factory and wondering if there might be "something in it"
+after all.  If her mother was right about the rich possibilities
+of Adams's secret--but that was as far as Alice's speculations
+upon the matter went at this time: they were checked, partly by
+the thought that her father probably hadn't enough money for such
+an enterprise, and partly by the fact that she had arrived at the
+front door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The fine old gentleman revealed when she opened the door was
+probably the last great merchant in America to wear the chin
+beard.  White as white frost, it was trimmed short with exquisite
+precision, while his upper lip and the lower expanses of his
+cheeks were clean and rosy from fresh shaving.  With this trim
+white chin beard, the white waistcoat, the white tie, the suit of
+fine gray cloth, the broad and brilliantly polished black shoes,
+and the wide-brimmed gray felt hat, here was a man who had found
+his style in the seventies of the last century, and thenceforth
+kept it.  Files of old magazines of that period might show him,
+in woodcut, as, "Type of Boston Merchant"; Nast might have drawn
+him as an honest statesman.  He was eighty, hale and sturdy, not
+aged; and his quick blue eyes, still unflecked, and as brisk as a
+boy's, saw everything.
+
+"Well, well, well!" he said, heartily.  "You haven't lost any of
+your good looks since last week, I see, Miss Alice, so I guess
+I'm to take it you haven't been worrying over your daddy.  The
+young feller's getting along all right, is he?"
+
+"He's much better; he's sitting up, Mr. Lamb.  Won't you come
+in?"
+
+"Well, I don't know but I might."  He turned to call toward twin
+disks of light at the curb, "Be out in a minute, Billy"; and the
+silhouette of a chauffeur standing beside a car could be seen to
+salute in response, as the old gentleman stepped into the hall.
+"You don't suppose your daddy's receiving callers yet, is he?"
+
+"He's a good deal stronger than he was when you were here last
+week, but I'm afraid he's not very presentable, though."
+
+"'Presentable?'" The old man echoed her jovially.  "Pshaw!  I've
+seen lots of sick folks.  _I_ know what they look like and how
+they love to kind of nest in among a pile of old blankets and
+wrappers.  Don't you worry about THAT, Miss Alice, if you think
+he'd like to see me."
+
+"Of course he would--if----" Alice hesitated; then said quickly,"
+Of course he'd love to see you and he's quite able to, if you
+care to come up."
+
+She ran up the stairs ahead of him, and had time to snatch the
+crocheted wrap from her father's shoulders.  Swathed as usual, he
+was sitting beside a table, reading the evening paper; but when
+his employer appeared in the doorway he half rose as if to come
+forward in greeting.
+
+"Sit still!" the old gentleman shouted.  "What do you mean?
+Don't you know you're weak as a cat?  D'you think a man can be
+sick as long as you have and NOT be weak as a cat?  What you
+trying to do the polite with ME for?"
+
+Adams gratefully protracted the handshake that accompanied these
+inquiries.  "This is certainly mighty fine of you, Mr. Lamb," he
+said.  "I guess Alice has told you how much our whole family
+appreciate your coming here so regularly to see how this old bag
+o' bones was getting along.  Haven't you, Alice?"
+
+"Yes, papa," she said; and turned to go out, but Lamb checked
+her.
+
+"Stay right here, Miss Alice; I'm not even going to sit down.  I
+know how it upsets sick folks when people outside the family come
+in for the first time."
+
+"You don't upset me," Adams said.  "I'll feel a lot better for
+getting a glimpse of you, Mr. Lamb."
+
+The visitor's laugh was husky, but hearty and re-assuring, like
+his voice in speaking.  "That's the way all my boys blarney me,
+Miss Alice," he said.  "They think I'll make the work lighter on
+'em if they can get me kind of flattered up.  You just tell your
+daddy it's no use; he doesn't get on MY soft side, pretending he
+likes to see me even when he's sick."
+
+"Oh, I'm not so sick any more," Adams said.  "I expect to be back
+in my place ten days from now at the longest."
+
+"Well, now, don't hurry it, Virgil; don't hurry it.  You take
+your time; take your time."
+
+This brought to Adams's lips a feeble smile not lacking in a kind
+of vanity, as feeble.  "Why?" he asked.  "I suppose you think my
+department runs itself down there, do you?"
+
+His employer's response was another husky laugh.  "Well, well,
+well!" he cried, and patted Adams's shoulder with a strong pink
+hand.  "Listen to this young feller, Miss Alice, will you!  He
+thinks we can't get along without him a minute!  Yes, sir, this
+daddy of yours believes the whole works 'll just take and run
+down if he isn't there to keep 'em wound up.  I always suspected
+he thought a good deal of himself, and now I know he does!"
+
+Adams looked troubled.  "Well, I don't like to feel that my
+salary's going on with me not earning it."
+
+"Listen to him, Miss Alice!  Wouldn't you think, now, he'd let me
+be the one to worry about that?  Why, on my word, if your daddy
+had his way, _I_ wouldn't be anywhere.  He'd take all my worrying
+and everything else off my shoulders and shove me right out of
+Lamb and Company!  He would!"
+
+"It seems to me I've been soldiering on you a pretty long while,
+Mr. Lamb," the convalescent said, querulously.  "I don't feel
+right about it; but I'll be back in ten days.  You'll see."
+
+The old man took his hand in parting.  "All right; we'll see,
+Virgil.  Of course we do need you, seriously speaking; but we
+don't need you so bad we'll let you come down there before you're
+fully fit and able."  He went to the door.  "You hear, Miss
+Alice?  That's what I wanted to make the old feller understand,
+and what I want you to kind of enforce on him.  The old place is
+there waiting for him, and it'd wait ten years if it took him
+that long to get good and well.  You see that he remembers it,
+Miss Alice!"
+
+She went down the stairs with him, and he continued to impress
+this upon her until he had gone out of the front door.  And even
+after that, the husky voice called back from the darkness, as he
+went to his car, "Don't forget, Miss Alice; let him take his own
+time.  We always want him, but we want him to get good and well
+first.  Good-night, good-night, young lady!"
+
+When she closed the door her mother came from the farther end of
+the "living-room," where there was no light; and Alice turned to
+her.
+
+"I can't help liking that old man, mama," she said.  "He always
+sounds so--well, so solid and honest and friendly!  I do like
+him."
+
+But Mrs. Adams failed in sympathy upon this point.  "He didn't
+say anything about raising your father's salary, did he?" she
+asked, dryly.
+
+"No."
+
+"No.  I thought not."
+
+She would have said more, but Alice, indisposed to listen, began
+to whistle, ran up the stairs, and went to sit with her father.
+She found him bright-eyed with the excitement a first caller
+brings into a slow convalescence: his cheeks showed actual hints
+of colour; and he was smiling tremulously as he filled and lit
+his pipe.  She brought the crocheted scarf and put it about his
+shoulders again, then took a chair near him.
+
+"I believe seeing Mr. Lamb did do you good, papa," she said.
+"I sort of thought it might, and that's why I let him come up.
+You really look a little like your old self again."
+
+Adams exhaled a breathy "Ha!" with the smoke from his pipe as he
+waved the match to extinguish it.  "That's fine," he said.  "The
+smoke I had before dinner didn't taste the way it used to, and I
+kind of wondered if I'd lost my liking for tobacco, but this one
+seems to be all right.  You bet it did me good to see J.  A.
+Lamb!  He's the biggest man that's ever lived in this town or
+ever will live here; and you can take all the Governors and
+Senators or anything they've raised here, and put 'em in a pot
+with him, and they won't come out one-two-three alongside o' him!
+And to think as big a man as that, with all his interests and
+everything he's got on his mind--to think he'd never let anything
+prevent him from coming here once every week to ask how I was
+getting along, and then walk right upstairs and kind of CALL on
+me, as it were well, it makes me sort of feel as if I wasn't so
+much of a nobody, so to speak, as your mother seems to like to
+make out sometimes."
+
+"How foolish, papa!  Of COURSE you're not 'a nobody.'"
+
+Adams chuckled faintly upon his pipe-stem, what vanity he had
+seeming to be further stimulated by his daughter's applause.  "I
+guess there aren't a whole lot of people in this town that could
+claim J. A. showed that much interest in 'em," he said.  "Of
+course I don't set up to believe it's all because of merit, or
+anything like that.  He'd do the same for anybody else that'd
+been with the company as long as I have, but still it IS
+something to be with the company that long and have him show he
+appreciates it."
+
+"Yes, indeed, it is, papa."
+
+"Yes, sir," Adams said, reflectively.  "Yes, sir, I guess that's
+so.  And besides, it all goes to show the kind of a man he is.
+Simon pure, that's what that man is, Alice.  Simon pure!  There's
+never been anybody work for him that didn't respect him more than
+they did any other man in the world, I guess.  And when you work
+for him you know he respects you, too.  Right from the start you
+get the feeling that J. A. puts absolute confidence in you; and
+that's mighty stimulating: it makes you want to show him he
+hasn't misplaced it.  There's great big moral values to the way a
+man like him gets you to feeling about your relations with the
+business: it ain't all just dollars and cents--not by any means!"
+
+He was silent for a time, then returned with increasing
+enthusiasm to this theme, and Alice was glad to see so much
+renewal of life in him; he had not spoken with a like cheerful
+vigour since before his illness.  The visit of his idolized great
+man had indeed been good for him, putting new spirit into him;
+and liveliness of the body followed that of the spirit.  His
+improvement carried over the night: he slept well and awoke late,
+declaring that he was "pretty near a well man and ready for
+business right now."  Moreover, having slept again in the
+afternoon, he dressed and went down to dinner, leaning but
+lightly on Alice, who conducted him.
+
+"My!  but you and your mother have been at it with your scrubbing
+and dusting!" he said, as they came through the "living-room."
+"I don't know I ever did see the house so spick and span before!"
+His glance fell upon a few carnations in a vase, and he chuckled
+admiringly.  "Flowers, too!  So THAT'S what you coaxed that
+dollar and a half out o 'me for, this morning!"
+
+Other embellishments brought forth his comment when he had taken
+his old seat at the head of the small dinner-table.  "Why, I
+declare, Alice!" he exclaimed.  "I been so busy looking at all
+the spick-and-spanishness after the house-cleaning, and the
+flowers out in the parlour--'living-room' I suppose you want me
+to call it, if I just GOT to be fashionable--I been so busy
+studying over all this so-and-so, I declare I never noticed YOU
+till this minute!  My, but you ARE all dressed up!  What's goin'
+on?  What's it about: you so all dressed up, and flowers in the
+parlour and everything?"
+
+"Don't you see, papa?  It's in honour of your coming downstairs
+again, of course."
+
+"Oh, so that's it," he said.  "I never would 'a' thought of that,
+I guess."
+
+But Walter looked sidelong at his father, and gave forth his sly
+and knowing laugh.  "Neither would I!" he said.
+
+Adams lifted his eyebrows jocosely.  "You're jealous, are you,
+sonny?  You don't want the old man to think our young lady'd make
+so much fuss over him, do you?"
+
+"Go on thinkin' it's over you," Walter retorted, amused.  "Go on
+and think it.  It'll do you good."
+
+"Of course I'll think it," Adams said.  "It isn't anybody's
+birthday.  Certainly the decorations are on account of me coming
+downstairs.  Didn't you hear Alice say so?"
+
+"Sure, I heard her say so."
+
+"Well, then----"
+
+Walter interrupted him with a little music.  Looking shrewdly at
+Alice, he sang:
+
+     "I was walkin' out on Monday with my sweet thing.
+     She's my neat thing,
+     My sweet thing:
+     I'll go round on Tuesday night to see her.
+     Oh, how we'll spoon----"
+
+
+"Walter!" his mother cried.  "WHERE do you learn such vulgar
+songs?" However, she seemed not greatly displeased with him, and
+laughed as she spoke.
+
+"So that's it, Alice!" said Adams.  "Playing the hypocrite with
+your old man, are you?  It's some new beau, is it?"
+
+"I only wish it were," she said, calmly.  "No.  It's just what I
+said: it's all for you, dear."
+
+"Don't let her con you," Walter advised his father.  "She's got
+expectations.  You hang around downstairs a while after dinner
+and you'll see."
+
+But the prophecy failed, though Adams went to his own room
+without waiting to test it.  No one came.
+
+Alice stayed in the "living-room" until half-past nine, when she
+went slowly upstairs.  Her mother, almost tearful, met her at the
+top, and whispered, "You mustn't mind, dearie."
+
+"Mustn't mind what?" Alice asked, and then, as she went on her
+way, laughed scornfully.  "What utter nonsense!" she said.
+
+Next day she cut the stems of the rather scant show of carnations
+and refreshed them with new water.  At dinner, her father, still
+in high spirits, observed that she had again "dressed up" in
+honour of his second descent of the stairs; and Walter repeated
+his fragment of objectionable song; but these jocularities were
+rendered pointless by the eventless evening that followed; and in
+the morning the carnations began to appear tarnished and flaccid.
+
+Alice gave them a long look, then threw them away; and neither
+Walter nor her father was inspired to any rallying by her plain
+costume for that evening.  Mrs. Adams was visibly depressed.
+
+When Alice finished helping her mother with the dishes, she went
+outdoors and sat upon the steps of the little front veranda.  The
+night, gentle with warm air from the south, surrounded her
+pleasantly, and the perpetual smoke was thinner.  Now that the
+furnaces of dwelling-houses were no longer fired, life in that
+city had begun to be less like life in a railway tunnel; people
+were aware of summer in the air, and in the thickened foliage of
+the shade-trees, and in the sky.  Stars were unveiled by the
+passing of the denser smoke fogs, and to-night they could be seen
+clearly; they looked warm and near.  Other girls sat upon
+verandas and stoops in Alice's street, cheerful as young
+fishermen along the banks of a stream.
+
+Alice could hear them from time to time; thin sopranos persistent
+in laughter that fell dismally upon her ears.  She had set no
+lines or nets herself, and what she had of "expectations," as
+Walter called them, were vanished.  For Alice was experienced;
+and one of the conclusions she drew from her experience was that
+when a man says, "I'd take you for anything you wanted me to," he
+may mean it or, he may not; but, if he does, he will not postpone
+the first opportunity to say something more.  Little affairs,
+once begun, must be warmed quickly; for if they cool they are
+dead.
+
+But Alice was not thinking of Arthur Russell.  When she tossed
+away the carnations she likewise tossed away her thoughts of that
+young man.  She had been like a boy who sees upon the street,
+some distance before him, a bit of something round and
+glittering, a possible dime.  He hopes it is a dime, and, until
+he comes near enough to make sure, he plays that it is a dime.
+In his mind he has an adventure with it: he buys something
+delightful.  If he picks it up, discovering only some tin-foil
+which has happened upon a round shape, he feels a sinking.  A
+dulness falls upon him.
+
+So Alice was dull with the loss of an adventure; and when the
+laughter of other girls reached her, intermittently, she had not
+sprightliness enough left in her to be envious of their gaiety.
+Besides, these neighbours were ineligible even for her envy,
+being of another caste; they could never know a dance at the
+Palmers', except remotely, through a newspaper.  Their laughter
+was for the encouragement of snappy young men of the stores and
+offices down-town, clerks, bookkeepers, what not--some of them
+probably graduates of Frincke's Business College.
+
+Then, as she recalled that dark portal, with its dusty stairway
+mounting between close walls to disappear in the upper shadows,
+her mind drew back as from a doorway to Purgatory.  Nevertheless,
+it was a picture often in her reverie; and sometimes it came
+suddenly, without sequence, into the midst of her other thoughts,
+as if it leaped up among them from a lower darkness; and when it
+arrived it wanted to stay.  So a traveller, still roaming the
+world afar, sometimes broods without apparent reason upon his
+family burial lot: "I wonder if I shall end there."
+
+The foreboding passed abruptly, with a jerk of her breath, as the
+street-lamp revealed a tall and easy figure approaching from the
+north, swinging a stick in time to its stride.  She had given
+Russell up--and he came.
+
+"What luck for me!" he exclaimed.  "To find you alone!"
+
+Alice gave him her hand for an instant, not otherwise moving.
+"I'm glad it happened so," she said.  "Let's stay out here, shall
+we?  Do you think it's too provincial to sit on a girl's front
+steps with her?"
+
+"'Provincial?' Why, it's the very best of our institutions," he
+returned, taking his place beside her.  "At least, I think so
+to-night."
+
+"Thanks!  Is that practice for other nights somewhere else?"
+
+"No," he laughed.  "The practicing all led up to this.  Did I
+come too soon?"
+
+"No," she replied, gravely.  "Just in time!"
+
+"I'm glad to be so accurate; I've spent two evenings wanting to
+come, Miss Adams, instead of doing what I was doing."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Dinners.  Large and long dinners.  Your fellow-citizens are
+immensely hospitable to a newcomer."
+
+"Oh, no," Alice said.  "We don't do it for everybody.  Didn't you
+find yourself charmed?"
+
+"One was a men's dinner," he explained.  "Mr. Palmer seemed to
+think I ought to be shown to the principal business men."
+
+"What was the other dinner?"
+
+"My cousin Mildred gave it."
+
+"Oh, DID she!" Alice said, sharply, but she recovered herself in
+the same instant, and laughed.  "She wanted to show you to the
+principal business women, I suppose."
+
+"I don't know.  At all events, I shouldn't give myself out to be
+so much feted by your 'fellow-citizens,' after all, seeing these
+were both done by my relatives, the Palmers.  However, there are
+others to follow, I'm afraid.  I was wondering--I hoped maybe
+you'd be coming to some of them.  Aren't you?"
+
+"I rather doubt it," Alice said, slowly.  "Mildred's dance was
+almost the only evening I've gone out since my father's illness
+began.  He seemed better that day; so I went.  He was better the
+other day when he wanted those cigars.  He's very much up and
+down."  She paused.  "I'd almost forgotten that Mildred is your
+cousin."
+
+"Not a very near one," he explained.  "Mr. Palmer's father was
+my great-uncle."
+
+"Still, of course you are related."
+
+"Yes; that distantly."
+
+Alice said placidly, "It's quite an advantage."
+
+He agreed.  "Yes.  It is."
+
+"No," she said, in the same placid tone.  "I mean for Mildred."
+
+"I don't see----"
+
+She laughed.  "No.  You wouldn't.  I mean it's an advantage over
+the rest of us who might like to compete for some of your time;
+and the worst of it is we can't accuse her of being unfair about
+it.  We can't prove she showed any trickiness in having you for a
+cousin.  Whatever else she might plan to do with you, she didn't
+plan that.  So the rest of us must just bear it!"
+
+"The 'rest of you!'" he laughed.  "It's going to mean a great
+deal of suffering!"
+
+Alice resumed her placid tone.  "You're staying at the Palmers',
+aren't you?"
+
+"No, not now.  I've taken an apartment.  I'm going to live here;
+I'm permanent.  Didn't I tell you?"
+
+"I think I'd heard somewhere that you were," she said.  "Do you
+think you'll like living here?"
+
+"How can one tell?"
+
+"If I were in your place I think I should be able to tell, Mr.
+Russell."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Why, good gracious!" she cried.  "Haven't you got the most
+perfect creature in town for your--your cousin?  SHE expects to
+make you like living here, doesn't she?  How could you keep from
+liking it, even if you tried not to, under the circumstances?"
+
+"Well, you see, there's such a lot of circumstances," he
+explained; "I'm not sure I'll like getting back into a business
+again.  I suppose most of the men of my age in the country have
+been going through the same experience: the War left us with a
+considerable restlessness of spirit."
+
+"You were in the War?" she asked, quickly, and as quickly
+answered herself, "Of course you were!"
+
+"I was a left-over; they only let me out about four months ago,"
+he said.  "It's quite a shake-up trying to settle down again."
+
+"You were in France, then?"
+
+"Oh, yes; but I didn't get up to the front much--only two or
+three times, and then just for a day or so.  I was in the
+transportation service."
+
+"You were an officer, of course."
+
+"Yes," he said.  "They let me play I was a major."
+
+"I guessed a major," she said.  "You'd always be pretty grand, of
+course."
+
+Russell was amused.  "Well, you see," he informed her, "as it
+happened, we had at least several other majors in our army.  Why
+would I always be something 'pretty grand?'"
+
+"You're related to the Palmers.  Don't you notice they always
+affect the pretty grand?"
+
+"Then you think I'm only one of their affectations, I take it."
+
+"Yes, you seem to be the most successful one they've got!" Alice
+said, lightly.  "You certainly do belong to them."  And she
+laughed as if at something hidden from him.  "Don't you?"
+
+"But you've just excused me for that," he protested.  "You said
+nobody could be blamed for my being their third cousin.  What a
+contradictory girl you are!"
+
+Alice shook her head.  "Let's keep away from the kind of girl I
+am."
+
+"No," he said.  "That's just what I came here to talk about."
+
+She shook her head again.  "Let's keep first to the kind of man
+you are.  I'm glad you were in the War."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know."  She was quiet a moment, for she was thinking
+that here she spoke the truth: his service put about him a little
+glamour that helped to please her with him.  She had been pleased
+with him during their walk; pleased with him on his own account;
+and now that pleasure was growing keener.  She looked at him, and
+though the light in which she saw him was little more than
+starlight, she saw that he was looking steadily at her with a
+kindly and smiling seriousness.  All at once it seemed to her
+that the night air was sweeter to breathe, as if a distant
+fragrance of new blossoms had been blown to her.  She smiled back
+to him, and said, "Well, what kind of man are you?"
+
+"I don't know; I've often wondered," he replied.  "What kind of
+girl are you?"
+
+"Don't you remember?  I told you the other day.  I'm just me!"
+
+"But who is that?"
+
+"You forget everything;" said Alice.  "You told me what kind of a
+girl I am.  You seemed to think you'd taken quite a fancy to me
+from the very first."
+
+"So I did," he agreed, heartily.
+
+"But how quickly you forgot it!"
+
+"Oh, no.  I only want YOU to say what kind of a girl you are."
+
+She mocked him.  "'I don't know; I've often wondered!' What kind
+of a girl does Mildred tell you I am?  What has she said about me
+since she told you I was 'a Miss Adams?'"
+
+"I don't know; I haven't asked her."
+
+"Then DON'T ask her," Alice said, quickly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because she's such a perfect creature and I'm such an imperfect
+one.  Perfect creatures have the most perfect way of ruining the
+imperfect ones."
+
+"But then they wouldn't be perfect.  Not if they----"
+
+"Oh, yes, they remain perfectly perfect," she assured him.
+"That's because they never go into details.  They're not so
+vulgar as to come right out and TELL that you've been in jail for
+stealing chickens.  They just look absent-minded and say in a low
+voice, 'Oh, very; but I scarcely think you'd like her
+particularly'; and then begin to talk of something else right
+away."
+
+His smile had disappeared.  "Yes," he said, somewhat ruefully.
+"That does sound like Mildred.  You certainly do seem to know
+her!  Do you know everybody as well as that?"
+
+"Not myself," Alice said.  "I don't know myself at all.  I got to
+wondering about that--about who I was--the other day after you
+walked home with me."
+
+He uttered an exclamation, and added, explaining it, "You do give
+a man a chance to be fatuous, though!  As if it were walking home
+with me that made you wonder about yourself!"
+
+"It was," Alice informed him, coolly.  "I was wondering what I
+wanted to make you think of me, in case I should ever happen to
+see you again."
+
+This audacity appeared to take his breath.  "By George!" he
+cried.
+
+"You mustn't be astonished," she said.  "What I decided then was
+that I would probably never dare to be just myself with you--not
+if I cared to have you want to see me again--and yet here I am,
+just being myself after all!"
+
+"You ARE the cheeriest series of shocks," Russell exclaimed,
+whereupon Alice added to the series.
+
+"Tell me: Is it a good policy for me to follow with you?" she
+asked, and he found the mockery in her voice delightful.  "Would
+you advise me to offer you shocks as a sort of vacation from
+suavity?"
+
+"Suavity" was yet another sketch of Mildred; a recognizable one,
+or it would not have been humorous.  In Alice's hands, so
+dexterous in this work, her statuesque friend was becoming as
+ridiculous as a fine figure of wax left to the mercies of a
+satirist.
+
+But the lively young sculptress knew better than to overdo: what
+she did must appear to spring all from mirth; so she laughed as
+if unwillingly, and said, "I MUSTN'T laugh at Mildred!  In the
+first place, she's your--your cousin.  And in the second place,
+she's not meant to be funny; it isn't right to laugh at really
+splendid people who take themselves seriously.  In the third
+place, you won't come again if I do."
+
+"Don't be sure of that," Russell said, "whatever you do."
+
+"'Whatever I do?'" she echoed.  "That sounds as if you thought I
+COULD be terrific!  Be careful; there's one thing I could do that
+would keep you away."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I could tell you not to come," she said.  "I wonder if I ought
+to."
+
+"Why do you wonder if you 'ought to?'"
+
+"Don't you guess?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then let's both be mysteries to each other," she suggested.  "I
+mystify you because I wonder, and you mystify me because you
+don't guess why I wonder.  We'll let it go at that, shall we?"
+
+"Very well; so long as it's certain that you DON'T tell me not to
+come again."
+
+"I'll not tell you that--yet," she said.  "In fact----" She
+paused, reflecting, with her head to one side.  "In fact, I won't
+tell you not to come, probably, until I see that's what you want
+me to tell you.  I'll let you out easily--and I'll be sure to see
+it.  Even before you do, perhaps."
+
+"That arrangement suits me," Russell returned, and his voice held
+no trace of jocularity: he had become serious.  "It suits me
+better if you're enough in earnest to mean that I can come--oh,
+not whenever I want to; I don't expect so much!--but if you mean
+that I can see you pretty often."
+
+"Of course I'm in earnest," she said.  "But before I say you can
+come 'pretty often,' I'd like to know how much of my time you'd
+need if you did come 'whenever you want to'; and of course you
+wouldn't dare make any answer to that question except one.
+Wouldn't you let me have Thursdays out?"
+
+"No, no," he protested.  "I want to know.  Will you let me come
+pretty often?"
+
+"Lean toward me a little," Alice said.  "I want you to
+understand."  And as he obediently bent his head near hers, she
+inclined toward him as if to whisper; then, in a half-shout, she
+cried,
+
+"YES!"
+
+He clapped his hands.  "By George!" he said.  "What a girl you
+are!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, for the first reason, because you have such gaieties as
+that one.  I should think your father would actually like being
+ill, just to be in the house with you all the time."
+
+"You mean by that," Alice inquired, "I keep my family cheerful
+with my amusing little ways?"
+
+"Yes.  Don't you?"
+
+"There were only boys in your family, weren't there, Mr.
+Russell?"
+
+"I was an only child, unfortunately."
+
+"Yes," she said.  "I see you hadn't any sisters."
+
+For a moment he puzzled over her meaning, then saw it, and was
+more delighted with her than ever.  "I can answer a question of
+yours, now, that I couldn't a while ago."
+
+"Yes, I know," she returned, quietly.
+
+"But how could you know?"
+
+"It's the question I asked you about whether you were going to
+like living here," she said.  "You're about to tell me that now
+you know you WILL like it."
+
+"More telepathy!" he exclaimed.  "Yes, that was it, precisely.  I
+suppose the same thing's been said to you so many times that
+you----"
+
+"No, it hasn't," Alice said, a little confused for the moment.
+"Not at all.  I meant----" She paused, then asked in a gentle
+voice, "Would you really like to know?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, I was only afraid you didn't mean it."
+
+"See here," he said.  "I did mean it.  I told you it was being
+pretty difficult for me to settle down to things again.  Well,
+it's more difficult than you know, but I think I can pull through
+in fair spirits if I can see a girl like you 'pretty often.'"
+
+"All right," she said, in a business-like tone.  "I've told you
+that you can if you want to."
+
+"I do want to," he assured her.  "I do, indeed!"
+
+"How often is 'pretty often,' Mr. Russell?"
+
+"Would you walk with me sometimes?  To-morrow?"
+
+"Sometimes.  Not to-morrow.  The day after."
+
+"That's splendid!" he said.  "You'll walk with me day after
+to-morrow, and the night after that I'll see you at Miss Lamb's
+dance, won't I?"
+
+But this fell rather chillingly upon Alice.  "Miss Lamb's dance?
+Which Miss Lamb?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know--it's the one that's just coming out of mourning."
+
+"Oh, Henrietta--yes.  Is her dance so soon?  I'd forgotten."
+
+"You'll be there, won't you?" he asked.  "Please say you're
+going."
+
+Alice did not respond at once, and he urged her again: "Please do
+promise you'll be there."
+
+"No, I can't promise anything," she said, slowly.  "You see, for
+one thing, papa might not be well enough."
+
+"But if he is?" said Russell.  "If he is you'll surely come,
+won't you?  Or, perhaps----" He hesitated, then went on quickly,
+"I don't know the rules in this place yet, and different places
+have different rules; but do you have to have a chaperone, or
+don't girls just go to dances with the men sometimes?  If they
+do, would you--would you let me take you?"
+
+Alice was startled.  "Good gracious!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Don't you think your relatives---- Aren't you expected to go
+with Mildred--and Mrs. Palmer?"
+
+"Not necessarily.  It doesn't matter what I might be expected to
+do," he said.  "Will you go with me?"
+
+"I---- No; I couldn't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I can't.  I'm not going."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Papa's not really any better," Alice said, huskily.  "I'm too
+worried about him to go to a dance."  Her voice sounded
+emotional, genuinely enough; there was something almost like a
+sob in it.  "Let's talk of other things, please."
+
+He acquiesced gently; but Mrs. Adams, who had been listening to
+the conversation at the open window, just overhead, did not hear
+him.  She had correctly interpreted the sob in Alice's voice,
+and, trembling with sudden anger, she rose from her knees, and
+went fiercely to her husband's room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+He had not undressed, and he sat beside the table, smoking his
+pipe and reading his newspaper.  Upon his forehead the lines in
+that old pattern, the historical map of his troubles, had grown a
+little vaguer lately; relaxed by the complacency of a man who not
+only finds his health restored, but sees the days before him
+promising once more a familiar routine that he has always liked
+to follow.
+
+As his wife came in, closing the door behind her, he looked up
+cheerfully, "Well, mother," he said, "what's the news
+downstairs?"
+
+"That's what I came to tell you," she informed him, grimly.
+
+Adams lowered his newspaper to his knee and peered over his
+spectacles at her.  She had remained by the door, standing, and
+the great greenish shadow of the small lamp-shade upon his table
+revealed her but dubiously.  "Isn't everything all right?" he
+asked.  "What's the matter?"
+
+"Don't worry: I'm going to tell you," she said, her grimness not
+relaxed.  "There's matter enough, Virgil Adams.  Matter enough to
+make me sick of being alive!"
+
+With that, the markings on his brows began to emerge again in all
+their sharpness; the old pattern reappeared.  "Oh, my, my!" he
+lamented.  "I thought maybe we were all going to settle down to a
+little peace for a while.  What's it about now?"
+
+"It's about Alice.  Did you think it was about ME or anything for
+MYSELF?"
+
+Like some ready old machine, always in order, his irritability
+responded immediately and automatically to her emotion.  "How in
+thunder could I think what it's about, or who it's for?  SAY it,
+and get it over!"
+
+"Oh, I'll 'say' it," she promised, ominously.  "What I've come to
+ask you is, How much longer do you expect me to put up with that
+old man and his doings?"
+
+"Whose doings?  What old man?"
+
+She came at him, fiercely accusing.  "You know well enough what
+old man, Virgil Adams!  That old man who was here the other
+night."
+
+"Mr. Lamb?"
+
+"Yes; 'Mister Lamb!'" She mocked his voice.  "What other old man
+would I be likely to mean except J. A. Lamb?"
+
+"What's he been doing now?" her husband inquired, satirically.
+"Where'd you get something new against him since the last time
+you----"
+
+"Just this!" she cried.  "The other night when that man was here,
+if I'd known how he was going to make my child suffer, I'd never
+have let him set his foot in my house."
+
+Adams leaned back in his chair as though her absurdity had eased
+his mind.  "Oh, I see," he said.  "You've just gone plain crazy.
+That's the only explanation of such talk, and it suits the case."
+
+"Hasn't that man made us all suffer every day of our lives?" she
+demanded.  "I'd like to know why it is that my life and my
+children's lives have to be sacrificed to him?"
+
+"How are they 'sacrificed' to him?"
+
+"Because you keep on working for him!  Because you keep on
+letting him hand out whatever miserable little pittance he
+chooses to give you; that's why!  It's as if he were some
+horrible old Juggernaut and I had to see my children's own father
+throwing them under the wheels to keep him satisfied."
+
+"I won't hear any more such stuff!" Lifting his paper, Adams
+affected to read.
+
+"You'd better listen to me," she admonished him.  "You might be
+sorry you didn't, in case he ever tried to set foot in my house
+again!  I might tell him to his face what I think of him."
+
+At this, Adams slapped the newspaper down upon his knee.  "Oh,
+the devil!  What's it matter what you think of him?"
+
+"It had better matter to you!" she cried.  "Do you suppose I'm
+going to submit forever to him and his family and what they're
+doing to my child?"
+
+"What are he and his family doing to 'your child?'"
+
+Mrs. Adams came out with it.  "That snippy little Henrietta Lamb
+has always snubbed Alice every time she's ever had the chance.
+She's followed the lead of the other girls; they've always all of
+'em been jealous of Alice because she dared to try and be happy,
+and because she's showier and better-looking than they are, even
+though you do give her only about thirty-five cents a year to do
+it on!  They've all done everything on earth they could to drive
+the young men away from her and belittle her to 'em; and this
+mean little Henrietta Lamb's been the worst of the whole crowd to
+Alice, every time she could see a chance."
+
+"What for?" Adams asked, incredulously.  "Why should she or
+anybody else pick on Alice?"
+
+"'Why?' 'What for?'" his wife repeated with a greater vehemence.
+"Do YOU ask me such a thing as that?  Do you really want to
+know?"
+
+"Yes; I'd want to know--I would if I believed it."
+
+"Then I'll tell you," she said in a cold fury.  "It's on account
+of you, Virgil, and nothing else in the world."
+
+He hooted at her.  "Oh, yes!  These girls don't like ME, so they
+pick on Alice."
+
+"Quit your palavering and evading," she said.  "A crowd of girls
+like that, when they get a pretty girl like Alice among them,
+they act just like wild beasts.  They'll tear her to pieces, or
+else they'll chase her and run her out, because they know if she
+had half a chance she'd outshine 'em.  They can't do that to a
+girl like Mildred Palmer because she's got money and family to
+back her.  Now you listen to me, Virgil Adams: the way the world
+is now, money IS family.  Alice would have just as much 'family'
+as any of 'em every single bit--if you hadn't fallen behind in
+the race."
+
+"How did I----"
+
+"Yes, you did!" she cried.  "Twenty-five years ago when we were
+starting and this town was smaller, you and I could have gone
+with any of 'em if we'd tried hard enough.  Look at the people we
+knew then that do hold their heads up alongside of anybody in
+this town!  WHY can they?  Because the men of those families made
+money and gave their children everything that makes life worth
+living!  Why can't we hold our heads up?  Because those men
+passed you in the race.  They went up the ladder, and you--you're
+still a clerk down at that old hole!"
+
+"You leave that out, please," he said.  "I thought you were going
+to tell me something Henrietta Lamb had done to our Alice."
+
+"You BET I'm going to tell you," she assured him, vehemently.
+"But first I'm telling WHY she does it.  It's because you've
+never given Alice any backing nor any background, and they all
+know they can do anything they like to her with perfect impunity.
+If she had the hundredth part of what THEY have to fall back on
+she'd have made 'em sing a mighty different song long ago!"
+
+"How would she?"
+
+"Oh, my heavens, but you're slow!" Mrs. Adams moaned.  "Look
+here!  You remember how practically all the nicest boys in this
+town used to come here a few years ago.  Why, they were all crazy
+over her; and the girls HAD to be nice to her then.  Look at the
+difference now!  There'll be a whole month go by and not a young
+man come to call on her, let alone send her candy or flowers, or
+ever think of TAKING her any place and yet she's prettier and
+brighter than she was when they used to come.  It isn't the
+child's fault she couldn't hold 'em, is it?  Poor thing, SHE
+tried hard enough!  I suppose you'd say it was her fault,
+though."
+
+"No; I wouldn't."
+
+"Then whose fault is it?"
+
+"Oh, mine, mine," he said, wearily.  "I drove the young men away,
+of course."
+
+"You might as well have driven 'em, Virgil.  It amounts to just
+the same thing."
+
+"How does it?"
+
+"Because as they got older a good many of 'em began to think more
+about money; that's one thing.  Money's at the bottom of it all,
+for that matter.  Look at these country clubs and all such
+things: the other girls' families belong and we don't, and Alice
+don't; and she can't go unless somebody takes her, and nobody
+does any more.  Look at the other girls' houses, and then look at
+our house, so shabby and old-fashioned she'd be pretty near
+ashamed to ask anybody to come in and sit down nowadays!  Look at
+her clothes--oh, yes; you think you shelled out a lot for that
+little coat of hers and the hat and skirt she got last March; but
+it's nothing.  Some of these girls nowadays spend more than your
+whole salary on their clothes.  And what jewellery has she got?
+A plated watch and two or three little pins and rings of the kind
+people's maids wouldn't wear now.  Good Lord, Virgil Adams, wake
+up!  Don't sit there and tell me you don't know things like this
+mean SUFFERING for the child!"
+
+He had begun to rub his hands wretchedly back and forth over his
+bony knees, as if in that way he somewhat alleviated the tedium
+caused by her racking voice.  "Oh, my, my!" he muttered.  "OH,
+my, my!"
+
+"Yes, I should think you WOULD say 'Oh, my, my!'" she took him
+up, loudly.  "That doesn't help things much!  If you ever wanted
+to DO anything about it, the poor child might see some gleam of
+hope in her life.  You don't CARE for her, that's the trouble;
+you don't care a single thing about her."
+
+"I don't?"
+
+"No; you don't.  Why, even with your miserable little salary you
+could have given her more than you have.  You're the closest man
+I ever knew: it's like pulling teeth to get a dollar out of you
+for her, now and then, and yet you hide some away, every month or
+so, in some wretched little investment or other.  You----"
+
+"Look here, now," he interrupted, angrily.  "You look here!  If I
+didn't put a little by whenever I could, in a bond or something,
+where would you be if anything happened to me?  The insurance
+doctors never passed me; YOU know that.  Haven't we got to have
+SOMETHING to fall back on?"
+
+"Yes, we have!" she cried.  "We ought to have something to go on
+with right now, too, when we need it.  Do you suppose these
+snippets would treat Alice the way they do if she could afford to
+ENTERTAIN?  They leave her out of their dinners and dances simply
+because they know she can't give any dinners and dances to leave
+them out of!  They know she can't get EVEN, and that's the whole
+story!  That's why Henrietta Lamb's done this thing to her now."
+
+Adams had gone back to his rubbing of his knees.  "Oh, my, my!"
+he said.  "WHAT thing?"
+
+She told him.  "Your dear, grand, old Mister Lamb's Henrietta has
+sent out invitations for a large party--a LARGE one.  Everybody
+that is anybody in this town is asked, you can be sure.  There's
+a very fine young man, a Mr. Russell, has just come to town, and
+he's interested in Alice, and he's asked her to go to this dance
+with him.  Well, Alice can't accept.  She can't go with him,
+though she'd give anything in the world to do it.  Do you
+understand?  The reason she can't is because Henrietta Lamb
+hasn't invited her.  Do you want to know why Henrietta hasn't
+invited her?  It's because she knows Alice can't get even, and
+because she thinks Alice ought to be snubbed like this on account
+of only being the daughter of one of her grandfather's clerks.  I
+HOPE you understand!"
+
+"Oh, my, my!" he said.  "OH, my, my!"
+
+"That's your sweet old employer," his wife cried, tauntingly.
+"That's your dear, kind, grand old Mister Lamb!  Alice has been
+left out of a good many smaller things, like big dinners and
+little dances, but this is just the same as serving her notice
+that she's out of everything!  And it's all done by your dear,
+grand old----"
+
+"Look here!" Adams exclaimed.  "I don't want to hear any more of
+that!  You can't hold him responsible for everything his
+grandchildren do, I guess!  He probably doesn't know a thing
+about it.  You don't suppose he's troubling HIS head over----"
+
+But she burst out at him passionately.  "Suppose you trouble YOUR
+head about it!  You'd better, Virgil Adams!  You'd better, unless
+you want to see your child just dry up into a miserable old maid!
+She's still young and she has a chance for happiness, if she had
+a father that didn't bring a millstone to hang around her neck,
+instead of what he ought to give her!  You just wait till you die
+and God asks you what you had in your breast instead of a heart!"
+
+"Oh, my, my!" he groaned.  "What's my heart got to do with it?"
+
+"Nothing!  You haven't got one or you'd give her what she needed.
+Am I asking anything you CAN'T do?  You know better; you know I'm
+not!"
+
+At this he sat suddenly rigid, his troubled hands ceasing to rub
+his knees; and he looked at her fixedly.  "Now, tell me," he
+said, slowly.  "Just what ARE you asking?"
+
+"You know!" she sobbed.
+
+"You mean you've broken your word never to speak of THAT to me
+again?"
+
+"What do _I_ care for my word?" she cried, and, sinking to the
+floor at his feet, rocked herself back and forth there.  "Do you
+suppose I'll let my 'word' keep me from struggling for a little
+happiness for my children?  It won't, I tell you; it won't!  I'll
+struggle for that till I die!  I will, till I die till I die!"
+
+He rubbed his head now instead of his knees, and, shaking all
+over, he got up and began with uncertain steps to pace the floor.
+
+"Hell, hell, hell!" he said.  "I've got to go through THAT
+again!"
+
+"Yes, you have!" she sobbed.  "Till I die."
+
+"Yes; that's what you been after all the time I was getting
+well."
+
+"Yes, I have, and I'll keep on till I die!"
+
+"A fine wife for a man," he said.  "Beggin' a man to be a dirty
+dog!"
+
+"No!  To be a MAN--and I'll keep on till I die!"
+
+Adams again fell back upon his last solace: he walked, half
+staggering, up and down the room, swearing in a rhythmic
+repetition.
+
+His wife had repetitions of her own, and she kept at them in a
+voice that rose to a higher and higher pitch, like the sound of
+an old well-pump.  "Till I die!  Till I die!  Till I DIE!"
+
+She ended in a scream; and Alice, coming up the stairs, thanked
+heaven that Russell had gone.  She ran to her father's door and
+went in.
+
+Adams looked at her, and gesticulated shakily at the convulsive
+figure on the floor.  "Can you get her out of here?"
+
+Alice helped Mrs. Adams to her feet; and the stricken woman
+threw her arms passionately about her daughter.
+
+"Get her out!" Adams said, harshly; then cried, "Wait!"
+
+Alice, moving toward the door, halted, and looked at him blankly,
+over her mother's shoulder.  "What is it, papa?"
+
+He stretched out his arm and pointed at her.  "She says--she says
+you have a mean life, Alice."
+
+"No, papa."
+
+Mrs. Adams turned in her daughter's arms.  "Do you hear her lie?
+Couldn't you be as brave as she is, Virgil?"
+
+"Are you lying, Alice?" he asked.  "Do you have a mean time?"
+
+"No, papa."
+
+He came toward her.  "Look at me!" he said.  "Things like this
+dance now--is that so hard to bear?"
+
+Alice tried to say, "No, papa," again, but she couldn't.
+Suddenly and in spite of herself she began to cry.
+
+"Do you hear her?" his wife sobbed.  "Now do you----"
+
+He waved at them fiercely.  "Get out of here!" he said.  "Both of
+you!  Get out of here!"
+
+As they went, he dropped in his chair and bent far forward, so
+that his haggard face was concealed from them.  Then, as Alice
+closed the door, he began to rub his knees again, muttering, "Oh,
+my, my!  OH, my, my!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+There shone a jovial sun overhead on the appointed "day after
+to-morrow"; a day not cool yet of a temperature friendly to
+walkers; and the air, powdered with sunshine, had so much life in
+it that it seemed to sparkle.  To Arthur Russell this was a day
+like a gay companion who pleased him well; but the gay companion
+at his side pleased him even better.  She looked her prettiest,
+chattered her wittiest, smiled her wistfulest, and delighted him
+with all together.
+
+"You look so happy it's easy to see your father's taken a good
+turn," he told her.
+
+"Yes; he has this afternoon, at least," she said.  "I might have
+other reasons for looking cheerful, though."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"Exactly!" she said, giving him a sweet look just enough mocked
+by her laughter.  "For instance!"
+
+"Well, go on," he begged.
+
+"Isn't it expected?" she asked.
+
+"Of you, you mean?"
+
+"No," she returned.  "For you, I mean!"
+
+In this style, which uses a word for any meaning that quick look
+and colourful gesture care to endow it with, she was an expert;
+and she carried it merrily on, leaving him at liberty (one of the
+great values of the style) to choose as he would how much or how
+little she meant.  He was content to supply mere cues, for
+although he had little coquetry of his own, he had lately begun
+to find that the only interesting moments in his life were those
+during which Alice Adams coquetted with him.  Happily, these
+obliging moments extended themselves to cover all the time he
+spent with her.  However serious she might seem, whatever
+appeared to be her topic, all was thou-and-I.
+
+He planned for more of it, seeing otherwise a dull evening ahead;
+and reverted, afterwhile, to a forbidden subject.  "About that
+dance at Miss Lamb's--since your father's so much better----"
+
+She flushed a little.  "Now, now!" she chided him.  "We agreed
+not to say any more about that."
+
+"Yes, but since he IS better----"
+
+Alice shook her head.  "He won't be better to-morrow.  He always
+has a bad day after a good one especially after such a good one
+as this is."
+
+"But if this time it should be different," Russell persisted;
+"wouldn't you be willing to come if he's better by to-morrow
+evening?  Why not wait and decide at the last minute?"
+
+She waved her hands airily.  "What a pother!" she cried.  "What
+does it matter whether poor little Alice Adams goes to a dance or
+not?"
+
+"Well, I thought I'd made it clear that it looks fairly bleak to
+me if you don't go."
+
+"Oh, yes!" she jeered.
+
+"It's the simple truth," he insisted.  "I don't care a great deal
+about dances these days; and if you aren't going to be there----"
+
+"You could stay away," she suggested.  "You wouldn't!"
+
+"Unfortunately, I can't.  I'm afraid I'm supposed to be the
+excuse.  Miss Lamb, in her capacity as a friend of my
+relatives----"
+
+"Oh, she's giving it for YOU!  I see!  On Mildred's account you
+mean?"
+
+At that his face showed an increase of colour.  "I suppose just
+on account of my being a cousin of Mildred's and of----"
+
+"Of course!  You'll have a beautiful time, too.  Henrietta'll see
+that you have somebody to dance with besides Miss Dowling, poor
+man!"
+
+"But what I want somebody to see is that I dance with you!  And
+perhaps your father----"
+
+"Wait!" she said, frowning as if she debated whether or not to
+tell him something of import; then, seeming to decide
+affirmatively, she asked: "Would you really like to know the
+truth about it?"
+
+"If it isn't too unflattering."
+
+"It hasn't anything to do with you at all," she said.  "Of course
+I'd like to go with you and to dance with you--though you don't
+seem to realize that you wouldn't be permitted much time with
+me."
+
+"Oh, yes, I----"
+
+"Never mind!" she laughed.  "Of course you wouldn't.  But even if
+papa should be better to-morrow, I doubt if I'd go.  In fact, I
+know I wouldn't.  There's another reason besides papa."
+
+"Is there?"
+
+"Yes.  The truth is, I don't get on with Henrietta Lamb.  As a
+matter of fact, I dislike her, and of course that means she
+dislikes me.  I should never think of asking her to anything I
+gave, and I really wonder she asks me to things SHE gives."  This
+was a new inspiration; and Alice, beginning to see her way out of
+a perplexity, wished that she had thought of it earlier: she
+should have told him from the first that she and Henrietta had a
+feud, and consequently exchanged no invitations.  Moreover, there
+was another thing to beset her with little anxieties: she might
+better not have told him from the first, as she had indeed told
+him by intimation, that she was the pampered daughter of an
+indulgent father, presumably able to indulge her; for now she
+must elaborately keep to the part.  Veracity is usually simple;
+and its opposite, to be successful, should be as simple; but
+practitioners of the opposite are most often impulsive, like
+Alice; and, like her, they become enmeshed in elaborations.
+
+"It wouldn't be very nice for me to go to her house," Alice went
+on, "when I wouldn't want her in mine.  I've never admired her.
+I've always thought she was lacking in some things most people
+are supposed to be equipped with--for instance, a certain feeling
+about the death of a father who was always pretty decent to his
+daughter.  Henrietta's father died just, eleven months and
+twenty-seven days before your cousin's dance, but she couldn't
+stick out those few last days and make it a year; she was there."
+
+Alice stopped, then laughed ruefully, exclaiming, "But this is
+dreadful of me!"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Blackguarding her to you when she's giving a big party for you!
+Just the way Henrietta would blackguard me to you--heaven knows
+what she WOULDN'T say if she talked about me to you!  It would be
+fair, of course, but--well, I'd rather she didn't!" And with
+that, Alice let her pretty hand, in its white glove, rest upon
+his arm for a moment; and he looked down at it, not unmoved to
+see it there.  "I want to be unfair about just this," she said,
+letting a troubled laughter tremble through her appealing voice
+as she spoke.  "I won't take advantage of her with anybody,
+except just--you!  I'd a little rather you didn't hear anybody
+blackguard me, and, if you don't mind--could you promise not to
+give Henrietta the chance?"
+
+It was charmingly done, with a humorous, faint pathos altogether
+genuine; and Russell found himself suddenly wanting to shout at
+her, "Oh, you DEAR!" Nothing else seemed adequate; but he
+controlled the impulse in favour of something more conservative.
+
+"Imagine any one speaking unkindly of you--not praising you!"
+
+"Who HAS praised me to you?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"I haven't talked about you with any one; but if I did, I know
+they'd----"
+
+"No, no!" she cried, and went on, again accompanying her words
+with little tremulous runs of laughter.  "You don't understand
+this town yet.  You'll be surprised when you do; we're different.
+We talk about one another fearfully!  Haven't I just proved it,
+the way I've been going for Henrietta?  Of course I didn't say
+anything really very terrible about her, but that's only because
+I don't follow that practice the way most of the others do.  They
+don't stop with the worst of the truth they can find: they make
+UP things--yes, they really do!  And, oh, I'd RATHER they didn't
+make up things about me--to you!"
+
+"What difference would it make if they did?" he inquired,
+cheerfully.  "I'd know they weren't true."
+
+"Even if you did know that, they'd make a difference," she said.
+"Oh, yes, they would!  It's too bad, but we don't like anything
+quite so well that's had specks on it, even if we've wiped the
+specks off;--it's just that much spoiled, and some things are all
+spoiled the instant they're the least bit spoiled.  What a man
+thinks about a girl, for instance.  Do you want to have what you
+think about me spoiled, Mr. Russell?"
+
+"Oh, but that's already far beyond reach," he said, lightly.
+
+"But it can't be!" she protested.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because it never can be.  Men don't change their minds about one
+another often: they make it quite an event when they do, and talk
+about it as if something important had happened.  But a girl only
+has to go down-town with a shoe-string unfastened, and every man
+who sees her will change his mind about her.  Don't you know
+that's true?"
+
+"Not of myself, I think."
+
+"There!" she cried.  "That's precisely what every man in the
+world would say!"
+
+"So you wouldn't trust me?"
+
+"Well--I'll be awfully worried if you give 'em a chance to tell
+you that I'm too lazy to tie my shoe-strings!"
+
+He laughed delightedly.  "Is that what they do say?" he asked.
+
+"Just about!  Whatever they hope will get results."  She shook
+her head wisely.  "Oh, yes; we do that here!"
+
+"But I don't mind loose shoe-strings," he said.  "Not if they're
+yours."
+
+"They'll find out what you do mind."
+
+"But suppose," he said, looking at her whimsically; "suppose I
+wouldn't mind anything--so long as it's yours?"
+
+She courtesied.  "Oh, pretty enough!  But a girl who's talked
+about has a weakness that's often a fatal one."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It's this: when she's talked about she isn't THERE.  That's how
+they kill her."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't follow you."
+
+"Don't you see?  If Henrietta--or Mildred--or any of 'em--or some
+of their mothers--oh, we ALL do it!  Well, if any of 'em told you
+I didn't tie my shoe-strings, and if I were there, so that you
+could see me, you'd know it wasn't true.  Even if I were sitting
+so that you couldn't see my feet, and couldn't tell whether the
+strings were tied or not just then, still you could look at me,
+and see that I wasn't the sort of girl to neglect my
+shoe-strings.  But that isn't the way it happens: they'll get at
+you when I'm nowhere around and can't remind you of the sort of
+girl I really am."
+
+"But you don't do that," he complained.  "You don't remind me you
+don't even tell me--the sort of girl you really are!  I'd like to
+know."
+
+"Let's be serious then," she said, and looked serious enough
+herself.  "Would you honestly like to know?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, you must be careful."
+
+"'Careful?'" The word amused him.
+
+"I mean careful not to get me mixed up," she said.  "Careful not
+to mix up the girl you might hear somebody talking about with the
+me I honestly try to make you see.  If you do get those two mixed
+up--well, the whole show'll be spoiled!"
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Because it's----" She checked herself, having begun to speak too
+impulsively; and she was disturbed, realizing in what tricky
+stuff she dealt.  What had been on her lips to say was, "Because
+it's happened before!" She changed to, "Because it's so easy to
+spoil anything--easiest of all to spoil anything that's
+pleasant."
+
+"That might depend."
+
+"No; it's so.  And if you care at all about--about knowing a girl
+who'd like someone to know her----"
+
+"Just 'someone?' That's disappointing."
+
+"Well--you," she said.
+
+"Tell me how 'careful' you want me to be, then!"
+
+"Well, don't you think it would be nice if you didn't give
+anybody the chance to talk about me the way--the way I've just
+been talking about Henrietta Lamb?"
+
+With that they laughed together, and he said, "You may be cutting
+me off from a great deal of information, you know."
+
+"Yes," Alice admitted.  "Somebody might begin to praise me to
+you, too; so it's dangerous to ask you to change the subject if I
+ever happen to be mentioned.  But after all----" She paused.
+
+"'After all' isn't the end of a thought, is it?"
+
+"Sometimes it is of a girl's thought; I suppose men are neater
+about their thoughts, and always finish 'em.  It isn't the end of
+the thought I had then, though."
+
+"What is the end of it?"
+
+She looked at him impulsively.  "Oh, it's foolish," she said, and
+she laughed as laughs one who proposes something probably
+impossible.  "But, WOULDN'T it be pleasant if two people could
+ever just keep themselves TO themselves, so far as they two were
+concerned?  I mean, if they could just manage to be friends
+without people talking about it, or talking to THEM about it?"
+
+"I suppose that might be rather difficult," he said, more amused
+than impressed by her idea.
+
+"I don't know: it might be done," she returned, hopefully.
+"Especially in a town of this size; it's grown so it's quite a
+huge place these days.  People can keep themselves to themselves
+in a big place better, you know.  For instance, nobody knows that
+you and I are taking a walk together today."
+
+"How absurd, when here we are on exhibition!"
+
+"No; we aren't."
+
+"We aren't?"
+
+"Not a bit of it!" she laughed.  "We were the other day, when you
+walked home with me, but anybody could tell that had just
+happened by chance, on account of your overtaking me; people can
+always see things like that.  But we're not on exhibition now.
+Look where I've led you!"
+
+Amused and a little bewildered, he looked up and down the street,
+which was one of gaunt-faced apartment-houses, old, sooty, frame
+boarding-houses, small groceries and drug-stores, laundries and
+one-room plumbers' shops, with the sign of a clairvoyant here
+and there.
+
+"You see?" she said.  "I've been leading you without your knowing
+it.  Of course that's because you're new to the town, and you
+give yourself up to the guidance of an old citizen."
+
+"I'm not so sure, Miss Adams.  It might mean that I don't care
+where I follow so long as I follow you."
+
+"Very well," she said.  "I'd like you to keep on following me at
+least long enough for me to show you that there's something nicer
+ahead of us than this dingy street."
+
+"Is that figurative?" he asked.
+
+"Might be!" she returned, gaily.  "There's a pretty little park
+at the end, but it's very proletarian, and nobody you and I know
+will be more likely to see us there than on this street."
+
+"What an imagination you have!" he exclaimed.  "You turn our
+proper little walk into a Parisian adventure."
+
+She looked at him in what seemed to be a momentary grave
+puzzlement.  "Perhaps you feel that a Parisian adventure mightn't
+please your--your relatives?"
+
+"Why, no," he returned.  "You seem to think of them oftener than
+I do."
+
+This appeared to amuse Alice, or at least to please her, for she
+laughed.  "Then I can afford to quit thinking of them, I suppose.
+It's only that I used to be quite a friend of Mildred's--but
+there!  we needn't to go into that.  I've never been a friend of
+Henrietta Lamb's, though, and I almost wish she weren't taking
+such pains to be a friend of yours."
+
+"Oh, but she's not.  It's all on account of----"
+
+"On Mildred's account," Alice finished this for him, coolly.
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"It's on account of the two families," he was at pains to
+explain, a little awkwardly.  "It's because I'm a relative of the
+Palmers, and the Palmers and the Lambs seem to be old family
+friends."
+
+"Something the Adamses certainly are not," Alice said.  "Not with
+either of 'em; particularly not with the Lambs!" And here, scarce
+aware of what impelled her, she returned to her former
+elaborations and colourings.  "You see, the differences between
+Henrietta and me aren't entirely personal: I couldn't go to her
+house even if I liked her.  The Lambs and Adamses don't get on
+with each other, and we've just about come to the breaking-point
+as it happens."
+
+"I hope it's nothing to bother you."
+
+"Why?  A lot of things bother me."
+
+"I'm sorry they do," he said, and seemed simply to mean it.
+
+She nodded gratefully.  "That's nice of you, Mr. Russell.  It
+helps.  The break between the Adamses and the Lambs is a pretty
+bothersome thing.  It's been coming on a long time."  She sighed
+deeply, and the sigh was half genuine; this half being for her
+father, but the other half probably belonged to her instinctive
+rendering of Juliet Capulet, daughter to a warring house.  "I
+hate it all so!" she added.
+
+"Of course you must."
+
+"I suppose most quarrels between families are on account of
+business," she said.  "That's why they're so sordid.  Certainly
+the Lambs seem a sordid lot to me, though of course I'm biased."
+And with that she began to sketch a history of the commercial
+antagonism that had risen between the Adamses and the Lambs.
+
+The sketching was spontaneous and dramatic.  Mathematics had no
+part in it; nor was there accurate definition of Mr. Adams's
+relation to the institution of Lamb and Company.  The point was
+clouded, in fact; though that might easily be set down to the
+general haziness of young ladies confronted with the mysteries of
+trade or commerce.  Mr. Adams either had been a vague sort of
+junior member of the firm, it appeared, or else he should have
+been made some such thing; at all events, he was an old mainstay
+of the business; and he, as much as any Lamb, had helped to build
+up the prosperity of the company.  But at last, tired of
+providing so much intelligence and energy for which other people
+took profit greater than his own, he had decided to leave the
+company and found a business entirely for himself.  The Lambs
+were going to be enraged when they learned what was afoot.
+
+Such was the impression, a little misted, wrought by Alice's
+quick narrative.  But there was dolorous fact behind it: Adams
+had succumbed.
+
+His wife, grave and nervous, rather than triumphant, in success,
+had told their daughter that the great J. A. would be furious
+and possibly vindictive.  Adams was afraid of him, she said.
+
+"But what for, mama?" Alice asked, since this seemed a turn of
+affairs out of reason.  "What in the world has Mr. Lamb to do
+with papa's leaving the company to set up for himself?  What
+right has he to be angry about it?  If he's such a friend as he
+claims to be, I should think he'd be glad--that is, if the glue
+factory turns out well.  What will he be angry for?"
+
+Mrs. Adams gave Alice an uneasy glance, hesitated, and then
+explained that a resignation from Lamb's had always been looked
+upon, especially by "that old man," as treachery.  You were
+supposed to die in the service, she said bitterly, and her
+daughter, a little mystified, accepted this explanation.  Adams
+had not spoken to her of his surrender; he seemed not inclined to
+speak to her at all, or to any one.
+
+Alice was not serious too long, and she began to laugh as she
+came to the end of her decorative sketch.  "After all, the whole
+thing is perfectly ridiculous," she said.  "In fact, it's FUNNY!
+That's on account of what papa's going to throw over the Lamb
+business FOR!  To save your life you couldn't imagine what he's
+going to do!"
+
+"I won't try, then," Russell assented.
+
+"It takes all the romance out of ME," she laughed.  "You'll never
+go for a Parisian walk with me again, after I tell you what I'll
+be heiress to."  They had come to the entrance of the little
+park; and, as Alice had said, it was a pretty place, especially
+on a day so radiant.  Trees of the oldest forest stood there,
+hale and serene over the trim, bright grass; and the proletarians
+had not come from their factories at this hour; only a few
+mothers and their babies were to be seen, here and there, in the
+shade.  "I think I'll postpone telling you about it till we get
+nearly home again," Alice said, as they began to saunter down one
+of the gravelled paths.  "There's a bench beside a spring farther
+on; we can sit there and talk about a lot of things--things not
+so sticky as my dowry's going to be."
+
+"'Sticky?'" he echoed.  "What in the world----" She laughed
+despairingly.
+
+"A glue factory!"
+
+Then he laughed, too, as much from friendliness as from
+amusement; and she remembered to tell him that the project of a
+glue factory was still "an Adams secret."  It would be known
+soon, however, she added; and the whole Lamb connection would
+probably begin saying all sorts of things, heaven knew what!
+
+Thus Alice built her walls of flimsy, working always gaily, or
+with at least the air of gaiety; and even as she rattled on,
+there was somewhere in her mind a constant little wonder.
+Everything she said seemed to be necessary to support something
+else she had said.  How had it happened?  She found herself
+telling him that since her father had decided on making so great
+a change in his ways, she and her mother hoped at last to
+persuade him to give up that "foolish little house" he had been
+so obstinate about; and she checked herself abruptly on this
+declivity just as she was about to slide into a remark concerning
+her own preference for a "country place."  Discretion caught her
+in time; and something else, in company with discretion, caught
+her, for she stopped short in her talk and blushed.
+
+They had taken possession of the bench beside the spring, by this
+time; and Russell, his elbow on the back of the bench and his
+chin on his hand, the better to look at her, had no guess at the
+cause of the blush, but was content to find it lovely.  At his
+first sight of Alice she had seemed pretty in the particular way
+of being pretty that he happened to like best; and, with every
+moment he spent with her, this prettiness appeared to increase.
+He felt that he could not look at her enough: his gaze followed
+the fluttering of the graceful hands in almost continual gesture
+as she talked; then lifted happily to the vivacious face again.
+She charmed him.
+
+After her abrupt pause, she sighed, then looked at him with her
+eyebrows lifted in a comedy appeal.  "You haven't said you
+wouldn't give Henrietta the chance," she said, in the softest
+voice that can still have a little laugh running in it.
+
+He was puzzled.  "Give Henrietta the chance?"
+
+"YOU know!  You'll let me keep on being unfair, won't you?  Not
+give the other girls a chance to get even?"
+
+He promised, heartily.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Alice had said that no one who knew either Russell or herself
+would be likely to see them in the park or upon the dingy street;
+but although they returned by that same ungenteel thoroughfare
+they were seen by a person who knew them both.  Also, with some
+surprise on the part of Russell, and something more poignant than
+surprise for Alice, they saw this person.
+
+All of the dingy street was ugly, but the greater part of it
+appeared to be honest.  The two pedestrians came upon a block or
+two, however, where it offered suggestions of a less upright
+character, like a steady enough workingman with a naughty book
+sticking out of his pocket.  Three or four dim shops, a single
+story in height, exhibited foul signboards, yet fair enough so
+far as the wording went; one proclaiming a tobacconist, one a
+junk-dealer, one a dispenser of "soft drinks and cigars."  The
+most credulous would have doubted these signboards; for the craft
+of the modern tradesman is exerted to lure indoors the passing
+glance, since if the glance is pleased the feet may follow; but
+this alleged tobacconist and his neighbours had long been fond of
+dust on their windows, evidently, and shades were pulled far down
+on the glass of their doors.  Thus the public eye, small of pupil
+in the light of the open street, was intentionally not invited to
+the dusky interiors.  Something different from mere lack of
+enterprise was apparent; and the signboards might have been
+omitted; they were pains thrown away, since it was plain to the
+world that the business parts of these shops were the brighter
+back rooms implied by the dark front rooms; and that the commerce
+there was in perilous new liquors and in dice and rough girls.
+
+Nothing could have been more innocent than the serenity with
+which these wicked little places revealed themselves for what
+they were; and, bound by this final tie of guilelessness, they
+stood together in a row which ended with a companionable
+barbershop, much like them.  Beyond was a series of soot-harried
+frame two-story houses, once part of a cheerful neighbourhood
+when the town was middle-aged and settled, and not old and
+growing.  These houses, all carrying the label.  "Rooms," had the
+worried look of vacancy that houses have when they are too full
+of everybody without being anybody's home; and there was, too, a
+surreptitious air about them, as if, like the false little shops,
+they advertised something by concealing it.
+
+One of them--the one next to the barber-shop--had across its
+front an ample, jig-sawed veranda, where aforetime, no doubt, the
+father of a family had fanned himself with a palm-leaf fan on
+Sunday afternoons, watching the surreys go by, and where his
+daughter listened to mandolins and badinage on starlit evenings;
+but, although youth still held the veranda, both the youth and
+the veranda were in decay.  The four or five young men who
+lounged there this afternoon were of a type known to shady
+pool-parlours.  Hats found no favour with them; all of them wore
+caps; and their tight clothes, apparently from a common source,
+showed a vivacious fancy for oblique pockets, false belts, and
+Easter-egg colourings.  Another thing common to the group was
+the expression of eye and mouth; and Alice, in the midst of her
+other thoughts, had a distasteful thought about this.
+
+The veranda was within a dozen feet of the sidewalk, and as she
+and her escort came nearer, she took note of the young men, her
+face hardening a little, even before she suspected there might be
+a resemblance between them and any one she knew.  Then she
+observed that each of these loungers wore not for the occasion,
+but as of habit, a look of furtively amused contempt; the mouth
+smiled to one side as if not to dislodge a cigarette, while the
+eyes kept languidly superior.  All at once Alice was reminded of
+Walter; and the slight frown caused by this idea had just begun
+to darken her forehead when Walter himself stepped out of the
+open door of the house and appeared upon the veranda.  Upon his
+head was a new straw hat, and in his hand was a Malacca stick
+with an ivory top, for Alice had finally decided against it for
+herself and had given it to him.  His mood was lively: he twirled
+the stick through his fingers like a drum-major's baton, and
+whistled loudly.
+
+Moreover, he was indeed accompanied.  With him was a thin girl
+who had made a violent black-and-white poster of herself: black
+dress, black flimsy boa, black stockings, white slippers, great
+black hat down upon the black eyes; and beneath the hat a curve
+of cheek and chin made white as whitewash, and in strong
+bilateral motion with gum.
+
+The loungers on the veranda were familiars of the pair; hailed
+them with cacklings; and one began to sing, in a voice all tin:
+
+     "Then my skirt, Sal, and me did go
+     Right straight to the moving-pitcher show.
+     OH, you bashful vamp!"
+
+
+The girl laughed airily.  "God, but you guys are wise!" she said.
+
+"Come on, Wallie."
+
+Walter stared at his sister; then grinned faintly, and nodded at
+Russell as the latter lifted his hat in salutation.  Alice
+uttered an incoherent syllable of exclamation, and, as she began
+to walk faster, she bit her lip hard, not in order to look
+wistful, this time, but to help her keep tears of anger from her
+eyes.
+
+Russell laughed cheerfully.  "Your brother certainly seems to
+have found the place for 'colour' today," he said.  "That girl's
+talk must be full of it."
+
+But Alice had forgotten the colour she herself had used in
+accounting for Walter's peculiarities, and she did not
+understand.  "What?" she said, huskily.
+
+"Don't you remember telling me about him?  How he was going to
+write, probably, and would go anywhere to pick up types and get
+them to talk?"
+
+She kept her eyes ahead, and said sharply, "I think his literary
+tastes scarcely cover this case!"
+
+"Don't be too sure.  He didn't look at all disconcerted.  He
+didn't seem to mind your seeing him."
+
+"That's all the worse, isn't it?"
+
+"Why, no," her friend said, genially.  "It means he didn't
+consider that he was engaged in anything out of the way.  You
+can't expect to understand everything boys do at his age; they do
+all sorts of queer things, and outgrow them.  Your brother
+evidently has a taste for queer people, and very likely he's been
+at least half sincere when he's made you believe he had a
+literary motive behind it.  We all go through----"
+
+"Thanks, Mr. Russell," she interrupted.  "Let's don't say any
+more."
+
+He looked at her flushed face and enlarged eyes; and he liked her
+all the better for her indignation: this was how good sisters
+ought to feel, he thought, failing to understand that most of
+what she felt was not about Walter.  He ventured only a word
+more.  "Try not to mind it so much; it really doesn't amount to
+anything."
+
+She shook her head, and they went on in silence; she did not look
+at him again until they stopped before her own house.  Then she
+gave him only one glimpse of her eyes before she looked down.
+"It's spoiled, isn't it?" she said, in a low voice.
+
+"What's 'spoiled?'"
+
+"Our walk--well, everything.  Somehow it always--is."
+
+"'Always is' what?" he asked.
+
+"Spoiled," she said.
+
+He laughed at that; but without looking at him she suddenly
+offered him her hand, and, as he took it, he felt a hurried,
+violent pressure upon his fingers, as if she meant to thank him
+almost passionately for being kind.  She was gone before he could
+speak to her again.
+
+
+In her room, with the door locked, she did not go to her mirror,
+but to her bed, flinging herself face down, not caring how far
+the pillows put her hat awry.  Sheer grief had followed her
+anger; grief for the calamitous end of her bright afternoon,
+grief for the "end of everything," as she thought then.
+Nevertheless, she gradually grew more composed, and, when her
+mother tapped on the door presently, let her in.  Mrs. Adams
+looked at her with quick apprehension.
+
+"Oh, poor child!  Wasn't he----"
+
+Alice told her.  "You see how it--how it made me look, mama," she
+quavered, having concluded her narrative.  "I'd tried to cover up
+Walter's awfulness at the dance with that story about his being
+'literary,' but no story was big enough to cover this up--and oh!
+it must make him think I tell stories about other things!"
+
+"No, no, no!" Mrs. Adams protested.  "Don't you see?  At the
+worst, all HE could think is that Walter told stories to you
+about why he likes to be with such dreadful people, and you
+believed them.  That's all HE'D think; don't you see?"
+
+Alice's wet eyes began to show a little hopefulness.  "You
+honestly think it might be that way, mama?"
+
+"Why, from what you've told me he said, I KNOW it's that way.
+Didn't he say he wanted to come again?"
+
+"N-no," Alice said, uncertainly.  "But I think he will.  At least
+I begin to think so now.  He----" She stopped.
+
+"From all you tell me, he seems to be a very desirable young
+man," Mrs. Adams said, primly.
+
+Her daughter was silent for several moments; then new tears
+gathered upon her downcast lashes.  "He's just--dear!" she
+faltered.
+
+Mrs. Adams nodded.  "He's told you he isn't engaged, hasn't he?"
+
+"No.  But I know he isn't.  Maybe when he first came here he was
+near it, but I know he's not."
+
+"I guess Mildred Palmer would LIKE him to be, all right!" Mrs.
+Adams was frank enough to say, rather triumphantly; and Alice,
+with a lowered head, murmured:
+
+"Anybody--would."
+
+The words were all but inaudible.
+
+"Don't you worry," her mother said, and patted her on the
+shoulder.  "Everything will come out all right; don't you fear,
+Alice.  Can't you see that beside any other girl in town you're
+just a perfect QUEEN?  Do you think any young man that wasn't
+prejudiced, or something, would need more than just one look
+to----"
+
+But Alice moved away from the caressing hand.  "Never mind, mama.
+I wonder he looks at me at all.  And if he does again, after
+seeing my brother with those horrible people----"
+
+"Now, now!" Mrs. Adams interrupted, expostulating mournfully.
+"I'm sure Walter's a GOOD boy----"
+
+"You are?" Alice cried, with a sudden vigour.  "You ARE?"
+
+"I'm sure he's GOOD, yes--and if he isn't, it's not his fault.
+It's mine."
+
+"What nonsense!"
+
+"No, it's true," Mrs. Adams lamented.  "I tried to bring him up
+to be good, God knows; and when he was little he was the best boy
+I ever saw.  When he came from Sunday-school he'd always run to
+me and we'd go over the lesson together; and he let me come in
+his room at night to hear his prayers almost until he was
+sixteen.  Most boys won't do that with their mothers--not nearly
+that long.  I tried so hard to bring him up right--but if
+anything's gone wrong it's my fault."
+
+"How could it be?  You've just said----"
+
+"It's because I didn't make your father this--this new step
+earlier.  Then Walter might have had all the advantages that
+other----"
+
+"Oh, mama, PLEASE!" Alice begged her.  "Let's don't go over all
+that again.  Isn't it more important to think what's to be done
+about him?  Is he going to be allowed to go on disgracing us as
+he does?"
+
+Mrs. Adams sighed profoundly.  "I don't know what to do," she
+confessed, unhappily.  "Your father's so upset about--about this
+new step he's taking--I don't feel as if we ought to----"
+
+"No, no!" Alice cried.  "Papa mustn't be distressed with this, on
+top of everything else.  But SOMETHING'S got to be done about
+Walter."
+
+"What can be?" her mother asked, helplessly.  "What can be?"
+
+Alice admitted that she didn't know.
+
+
+At dinner, an hour later, Walter's habitually veiled glance
+lifted, now and then, to touch her furtively;--he was waiting, as
+he would have said, for her to "spring it"; and he had prepared a
+brief and sincere defense to the effect that he made his own
+living, and would like to inquire whose business it was to offer
+intrusive comment upon his private conduct.  But she said
+nothing, while his father and mother were as silent as she.
+Walter concluded that there was to be no attack, but changed his
+mind when his father, who ate only a little, and broodingly at
+that, rose to leave the table and spoke to him.
+
+"Walter," he said, "when you've finished I wish you'd come up to
+my room.  I got something I want to say to you."
+
+Walter shot a hard look at his apathetic sister, then turned to
+his father.  "Make it to-morrow," he said.  "This is Satad'y
+night and I got a date."
+
+"No," Adams said, frowning.  "You come up before you go out.
+It's important."
+
+"All right; I've had all I want to eat," Walter returned.  "I got
+a few minutes.  Make it quick."
+
+He followed his father upstairs, and when they were in the room
+together Adams shut the door, sat down, and began to rub his
+knees.
+
+"Rheumatism?" the boy inquired, slyly.  "That what you want to
+talk to me about?"
+
+"No."  But Adams did not go on; he seemed to be in difficulties
+for words, and Walter decided to help him.
+
+"Hop ahead and spring it," he said.  "Get it off your mind: I'll
+tell the world _I_ should worry!  You aren't goin' to bother ME
+any, so why bother yourself?  Alice hopped home and told you she
+saw me playin' around with some pretty gay-lookin' berries and
+you----"
+
+"Alice?" his father said, obviously surprised.  "It's nothing
+about Alice."
+
+"Didn't she tell you----"
+
+"I haven't talked with her all day."
+
+"Oh, I see," Walter said.  "She told mother and mother told you."
+
+"No, neither of 'em have told me anything.  What was there to
+tell?"
+
+Walter laughed.  "Oh, it's nothin'," he said.  "I was just
+startin' out to buy a girl friend o' mine a rhinestone buckle I
+lost to her on a bet, this afternoon, and Alice came along with
+that big Russell fish; and I thought she looked sore.  She
+expects me to like the kind she likes, and I don't like 'em.  I
+thought she'd prob'ly got you all stirred up about it."
+
+"No, no," his father said, peevishly.  "I don't know anything
+about it, and I don't care to know anything about it.  I want to
+talk to you about something important."
+
+Then, as he was again silent, Walter said, "Well, TALK about it;
+I'm listening."
+
+"It's this," Adams began, heavily.  "It's about me going into
+this glue business.  Your mother's told you, hasn't she?"
+
+"She said you were goin' to leave the old place down-town and
+start a glue factory.  That's all I know about it; I got my own
+affairs to 'tend to."
+
+"Well, this is your affair," his father said, frowning.  "You
+can't stay with Lamb and Company."
+
+Walter looked a little startled.  "What you mean, I can't?  Why
+not?"
+
+"You've got to help me," Adams explained slowly; and he frowned
+more deeply, as if the interview were growing increasingly
+laborious for him.  "It's going to be a big pull to get this
+business on its feet."
+
+"Yes!" Walter exclaimed with a sharp skepticism.  "I should say
+it was!" He stared at his father incredulously.  "Look here;
+aren't you just a little bit sudden, the way you're goin' about
+things?  You've let mother shove you a little too fast, haven't
+you?  Do you know anything about what it means to set up a new
+business these days?"
+
+"Yes, I know all about it," Adams said.  "About this business, I
+do."
+
+"How do you?"
+
+"Because I made a long study of it.  I'm not afraid of going
+about it the wrong way; but it's a hard job and you'll have to
+put in all whatever sense and strength you've got."
+
+Walter began to breathe quickly, and his lips were agitated; then
+he set them obstinately.  "Oh; I will," he said.
+
+"Yes, you will," Adams returned, not noticing that his son's
+inflection was satiric.  "It's going to take every bit of energy
+in your body, and all the energy I got left in mine, and every
+cent of the little I've saved, besides something I'll have to
+raise on this house.  I'm going right at it, now I've got to; and
+you'll have to quit Lamb's by the end of next week."
+
+"Oh, I will?" Walter's voice grew louder, and there was a
+shrillness in it.  "I got to quit Lamb's the end of next week,
+have I?" He stepped forward, angrily.  "Listen!" he said.  "I'm
+not walkin' out o' Lamb's, see?  I'm not quittin' down there: I
+stay with 'em, see?"
+
+Adams looked up at him, astonished.  "You'll leave there next
+Saturday," he said.  "I've got to have you."
+
+"You don't anything o' the kind," Walter told him, sharply.  "Do
+you expect to pay me anything?"
+
+"I'd pay you about what you been getting down there."
+
+"Then pay somebody else; _I_ don't know anything about glue.  You
+get somebody else."
+
+"No.  You've got to---"
+
+Walter cut him off with the utmost vehemence.  "Don't tell me
+what I got to do!  I know what I got to do better'n you, I guess!
+I stay at Lamb's, see?"
+
+Adams rose angrily.  "You'll do what I tell you.  You can't stay
+down there."
+
+"Why can't I?"
+
+"Because I won't let you."
+
+"Listen!  Keep on not lettin' me: I'll be there just the same."
+
+At that his father broke into a sour laughter.  "THEY won't let
+you, Walter!  They won't have you down there after they find out
+I'm going."
+
+"Why won't they?  You don't think they're goin' to be all shot to
+pieces over losin' YOU, do you?"
+
+"I tell you they won't let you stay," his father insisted,
+loudly.
+
+"Why, what do they care whether you go or not?"
+
+"They'll care enough to fire YOU, my boy!"
+
+"Look here, then; show me why."
+
+"They'll do it!"
+
+"Yes," Walter jeered; "you keep sayin' they will, but when I ask
+you to show me why, you keep sayin' they will!  That makes little
+headway with ME, I can tell you!"
+
+Adams groaned, and, rubbing his head, began to pace the floor.
+Walter's refusal was something he had not anticipated; and he
+felt the weakness of his own attempt to meet it: he seemed
+powerless to do anything but utter angry words, which, as Walter
+said, made little headway.  "Oh, my, my!" he muttered, "OH, my,
+my!"
+
+Walter, usually sallow, had grown pale: he watched his father
+narrowly, and now took a sudden resolution.  "Look here," he
+said.  "When you say Lamb's is likely to fire me because you're
+goin' to quit, you talk like the people that have to be locked
+up.  I don't know where you get such things in your head; Lamb
+and Company won't know you're gone.  Listen: I can stay there
+long as I want to.  But I'll tell you what I'll do: make it worth
+my while and I'll hook up with your old glue factory, after all."
+
+Adams stopped his pacing abruptly, and stared at him.  "'Make it
+worth your while?' What you mean?"
+
+"I got a good use for three hundred dollars right now," Walter
+said.  "Let me have it and I'll quit Lamb's to work for you.
+Don't let me have it and I SWEAR I won't!"
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"Is everybody crazy that needs three hundred dollars?"
+
+"Yes," Adams said.  "They are if they ask ME for it, when I got
+to stretch every cent I can lay my hands on to make it look like
+a dollar!"
+
+"You won't do it?"
+
+Adams burst out at him.  "You little fool!  If I had three
+hundred dollars to throw away, besides the pay I expected to give
+you, haven't you got sense enough to see I could hire a man worth
+three hundred dollars more to me than you'd be?  It's a FINE time
+to ask me for three hundred dollars, isn't it!  What FOR?
+Rhinestone buckles to throw around on your 'girl friends?' Shame
+on you!  Ask me to BRIBE you to help yourself and your own
+family!"
+
+"I'll give you a last chance," Walter said.  "Either you do what
+I want, or I won't do what you want.  Don't ask me again after
+this, because----"
+
+Adams interrupted him fiercely.  "'Ask you again!' Don't worry
+about that, my boy!  All I ask you is to get out o' my room."
+
+"Look here," Walter said, quietly; and his lopsided smile
+distorted his livid cheek.  "Look here: I expect YOU wouldn't
+give me three hundred dollars to save my life, would you?"
+
+"You make me sick," Adams said, in his bitterness.  "Get out of
+here."
+
+Walter went out, whistling; and Adams drooped into his old chair
+again as the door closed.  "OH, my, my!" he groaned.  "Oh, Lordy,
+Lordy!  The way of the transgressor----"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+He meant his own transgression and his own way; for Walter's
+stubborn refusal appeared to Adams just then as one of the
+inexplicable but righteous besettings he must encounter in
+following that way.  "Oh, Lordy, Lord!" he groaned, and then, as
+resentment moved him--"That dang boy!  Dang idiot" Yet he knew
+himself for a greater idiot because he had not been able to tell
+Walter the truth.  He could not bring himself to do it, nor even
+to state his case in its best terms; and that was because he felt
+that even in its best terms the case was a bad one.
+
+Of all his regrets the greatest was that in a moment of vanity
+and tenderness, twenty-five years ago, he had told his young wife
+a business secret.  He had wanted to show how important her
+husband was becoming, and how much the head of the universe, J.
+A.  Lamb, trusted to his integrity and ability.  The great man
+had an idea: he thought of "branching out a little," he told
+Adams confidentially, and there were possibilities of profit in
+glue.
+
+What he wanted was a liquid glue to be put into little bottles
+and sold cheaply.  "The kind of thing that sells itself," he
+said; "the kind of thing that pays its own small way as it goes
+along, until it has profits enough to begin advertising it right.
+Everybody has to use glue, and if I make mine convenient and
+cheap, everybody'll buy mine.  But it's got to be glue that'll
+STICK; it's got to be the best; and if we find how to make it
+we've got to keep it a big secret, of course, or anybody can
+steal it from us.  There was a man here last month; he knew a
+formula he wanted to sell me, 'sight unseen'; but he was in such
+a hurry I got suspicious, and I found he'd managed to steal it,
+working for the big packers in their glue-works.  We've got to
+find a better glue than that, anyhow.  I'm going to set you and
+Campbell at it.  You're a practical, wide-awake young feller, and
+Campbell's a mighty good chemist; I guess you two boys ought to
+make something happen."
+
+His guess was shrewd enough.  Working in a shed a little way
+outside the town, where their cheery employer visited them
+sometimes to study their malodorous stews, the two young men
+found what Lamb had set them to find.  But Campbell was
+thoughtful over the discovery.  "Look here," he said.  "Why ain't
+this just about yours and mine?  After all, it may be Lamb's
+money that's paid for the stuff we've used, but it hasn't cost
+much."
+
+"But he pays US," Adams remonstrated, horrified by his
+companion's idea.  "He paid us to do it.  It belongs absolutely
+to him."
+
+"Oh, I know he THINKS it does," Campbell admitted, plaintively.
+"I suppose we've got to let him take it.  It's not patentable,
+and he'll have to do pretty well by us when he starts his
+factory, because he's got to depend on us to run the making of
+the stuff so that the workmen can't get onto the process.  You
+better ask him the same salary I do, and mine's going to be high."
+
+But the high salary, thus pleasantly imagined, was never paid.
+Campbell died of typhoid fever, that summer, leaving Adams and
+his employer the only possessors of the formula, an unwritten
+one; and Adams, pleased to think himself more important to the
+great man than ever, told his wife that there could be little
+doubt of his being put in sole charge of the prospective
+glue-works.  Unfortunately, the enterprise remained prospective.
+
+Its projector had already become "inveigled into another
+side-line," as he told Adams.  One of his sons had persuaded him
+to take up a "cough-lozenge," to be called the "Jalamb Balm
+Trochee"; and the lozenge did well enough to amuse Mr. Lamb and
+occupy his spare time, which was really about all he had asked of
+the glue project.  He had "all the MONEY anybody ought to want,"
+he said, when Adams urged him; and he could "start up this little
+glue side-line" at any time; the formula was safe in their two
+heads.
+
+At intervals Adams would seek opportunity to speak of "the little
+glue side-line" to his patron, and to suggest that the years were
+passing; but Lamb, petting other hobbies, had lost interest.
+"Oh, I'll start it up some day, maybe.  If I don't, I may turn it
+over to my heirs: it's always an asset, worth something or other,
+of course.  We'll probably take it up some day, though, you and
+I."
+
+The sun persistently declined to rise on that day, and, as time
+went on, Adams saw that his rather timid urgings bored his
+employer, and he ceased to bring up the subject.  Lamb apparently
+forgot all about glue, but Adams discovered that unfortunately
+there was someone else who remembered it.
+
+"It's really YOURS," she argued, that painful day when for the
+first time she suggested his using his knowledge for the benefit
+of himself and his family.  "Mr. Campbell might have had a right
+to part of it, but he died and didn't leave any kin, so it
+belongs to you."
+
+"Suppose J. A. Lamb hired me to saw some wood," Adams said.
+"Would the sticks belong to me?"
+
+"He hasn't got any right to take your invention and bury it," she
+protested.  "What good is it doing him if he doesn't DO anything
+with it?  What good is it doing ANYBODY?  None in the world!  And
+what harm would it do him if you went ahead and did this for
+yourself and for your children?  None in the world!  And what
+could he do to you if he WAS old pig enough to get angry with you
+for doing it?  He couldn't do a single thing, and you've admitted
+he couldn't, yourself.  So what's your reason for depriving your
+children and your wife of the benefits you know you could give
+'em?"
+
+"Nothing but decency," he answered; and she had her reply ready
+for that.  It seemed to him that, strive as he would, he could
+not reach her mind with even the plainest language; while
+everything that she said to him, with such vehemence, sounded
+like so much obstinate gibberish.  Over and over he pressed her
+with the same illustration, on the point of ownership, though he
+thought he was varying it.
+
+"Suppose he hired me to build him a house: would that be MY
+house?"
+
+"He didn't hire you to build him a house.  You and Campbell
+invented----"
+
+"Look here: suppose you give a cook a soup-bone and some
+vegetables, and pay her to make you a soup: has she got a right
+to take and sell it?  You know better!"
+
+"I know ONE thing: if that old man tried to keep your own
+invention from you he's no better than a robber!"
+
+They never found any point of contact in all their passionate
+discussions of this ethical question; and the question was no
+more settled between them, now that Adams had succumbed, than it
+had ever been.  But at least the wrangling about it was over:
+they were grave together, almost silent, and an uneasiness
+prevailed with her as much as with him.
+
+He had already been out of the house, to walk about the small
+green yard; and on Monday afternoon he sent for a taxicab and
+went down-town, but kept a long way from the "wholesale section,"
+where stood the formidable old oblong pile of Lamb and Company.
+He arranged for the sale of the bonds he had laid away, and for
+placing a mortgage upon his house; and on his way home, after
+five o'clock, he went to see an old friend, a man whose term of
+service with Lamb and Company was even a little longer than his
+own.
+
+This veteran, returned from the day's work, was sitting in front
+of the apartment house where he lived, but when the cab stopped
+at the curb he rose and came forward, offering a jocular
+greeting.  "Well, well, Virgil Adams!  I always thought you had a
+sporty streak in you.  Travel in your own hired private
+automobile nowadays, do you?  Pamperin' yourself because you're
+still layin' off sick, I expect."
+
+"Oh, I'm well enough again, Charley Lohr," Adams said, as he got
+out and shook hands.  Then, telling the driver to wait, he took
+his friend's arm, walked to the bench with him, and sat down.  "I
+been practically well for some time," he said.  "I'm fixin' to
+get into harness again."
+
+"Bein' sick has certainly produced a change of heart in you," his
+friend laughed.  "You're the last man I ever expected to see
+blowin' yourself--or anybody else to a taxicab!  For that matter,
+I never heard of you bein' in ANY kind of a cab, 'less'n it might
+be when you been pall-bearer for somebody.  What's come over
+you?"
+
+"Well, I got to turn over a new leaf, and that's a fact," Adams
+said.  "I got a lot to do, and the only way to accomplish it,
+it's got to be done soon, or I won't have anything to live on
+while I'm doing it."
+
+"What you talkin' about?  What you got to do except to get strong
+enough to come back to the old place?"
+
+"Well----" Adams paused, then coughed, and said slowly, "Fact is,
+Charley Lohr, I been thinking likely I wouldn't come back."
+
+"What!  What you talkin' about?"
+
+"No," said Adams.  "I been thinking I might likely kind of branch
+out on my own account."
+
+"Well, I'll be doggoned!" Old Charley Lohr was amazed; he ruffled
+up his gray moustache with thumb and forefinger, leaving his
+mouth open beneath, like a dark cave under a tangled wintry
+thicket.  "Why, that's the doggonedest thing I ever heard!" he
+said.  "I already am the oldest inhabitant down there, but if you
+go, there won't be anybody else of the old generation at all.
+What on earth you thinkin' of goin' into?"
+
+"Well," said Adams, "I rather you didn't mention it till I get
+started of course anybody'll know what it is by then--but I HAVE
+been kind of planning to put a liquid glue on the market."
+
+His friend, still ruffling the gray moustache upward, stared at
+him in frowning perplexity.  "Glue?" he said.  "GLUE!"
+
+"Yes.  I been sort of milling over the idea of taking up
+something like that."
+
+"Handlin' it for some firm, you mean?"
+
+"No.  Making it.  Sort of a glue-works likely."
+
+Lohr continued to frown.  "Let me think," he said.  "Didn't the
+ole man have some such idea once, himself?"
+
+Adams leaned forward, rubbing his knees; and he coughed again
+before he spoke.  "Well, yes.  Fact is, he did.  That is to say,
+a mighty long while ago he did."
+
+"I remember," said Lohr.  "He never said anything about it that I
+know of; but seems to me I recollect we had sort of a rumour
+around the place how you and that man--le's see, wasn't his name
+Campbell, that died of typhoid fever?  Yes, that was it,
+Campbell.  Didn't the ole man have you and Campbell workin' sort
+of private on some glue proposition or other?"
+
+"Yes, he did."  Adams nodded.  "I found out a good deal about
+glue then, too."
+
+"Been workin' on it since, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes.  Kept it in my mind and studied out new things about it."
+
+Lohr looked serious.  "Well, but see here," he said.  "I hope it
+ain't anything the ole man'll think might infringe on whatever he
+had you doin' for HIM.  You know how he is: broad-minded,
+liberal, free-handed man as walks this earth, and if he thought
+he owed you a cent he'd sell his right hand for a pork-chop to
+pay it, if that was the only way; but if he got the idea anybody
+was tryin' to get the better of him, he'd sell BOTH his hands, if
+he had to, to keep 'em from doin' it.  Yes, at eighty, he would!
+Not that I mean I think you might be tryin' to get the better of
+him, Virg.  You're a mighty close ole codger, but such a thing
+ain't in you.  What I mean: I hope there ain't any chance for the
+ole man to THINK you might be----"
+
+"Oh, no," Adams interrupted.  "As a matter of fact, I don't
+believe he'll ever think about it at all, and if he did he
+wouldn't have any real right to feel offended at me: the process
+I'm going to use is one I expect to change and improve a lot
+different from the one Campbell and I worked on for him."
+
+"Well, that's good," said Lohr.  "Of course you know what you're
+up to: you're old enough, God knows!" He laughed ruefully.  "My,
+but it will seem funny to me--down there with you gone!  I expect
+you and I both been gettin' to be pretty much dead-wood in the
+place, the way the young fellows look at it, and the only one
+that'd miss either of us would be the other one!  Have you told
+the ole man yet?"
+
+"Well----" Adams spoke laboriously.  "No.  No, I haven't.  I
+thought--well, that's what I wanted to see you about."
+
+"What can I do?"
+
+"I thought I'd write him a letter and get you to hand it to him
+for me."
+
+"My soul!" his friend exclaimed.  "Why on earth don't you just go
+down there and tell him?"
+
+Adams became pitiably embarrassed.  He stammered, coughed,
+stammered again, wrinkling his face so deeply he seemed about to
+weep; but finally he contrived to utter an apologetic laugh.  "I
+ought to do that, of course; but in some way or other I just
+don't seem to be able to--to manage it."
+
+"Why in the world not?" the mystified Lohr inquired.
+
+"I could hardly tell you--'less'n it is to say that when you been
+with one boss all your life it's so--so kind of embarrassing--to
+quit him, I just can't make up my mind to go and speak to him
+about it.  No; I got it in my head a letter's the only
+satisfactory way to do it, and I thought I'd ask you to hand it
+to him,"
+
+"Well, of course I don't mind doin' that for you," Lohr said,
+mildly.  "But why in the world don't you just mail it to him?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," Adams returned.  "You know, like that,
+it'd have to go through a clerk and that secretary of his, and I
+don't know who all.  There's a couple of kind of delicate points
+I want to put in it: for instance, I want to explain to him how
+much improvement and so on I'm going to introduce on the old
+process I helped to work out with Campbell when we were working
+for him, so't he'll understand it's a different article and no
+infringement at all.  Then there's another thing: you see all
+during while I was sick he had my salary paid to me it amounts to
+considerable, I was on my back so long.  Under the circumstances,
+because I'm quitting, I don't feel as if I ought to accept it,
+and so I'll have a check for him in the letter to cover it, and I
+want to be sure he knows it, and gets it personally.  If it had
+to go through a lot of other people, the way it would if I put it
+in the mail, why, you can't tell.  So what I thought: if you'd
+hand it to him for me, and maybe if he happened to read it right
+then, or anything, it might be you'd notice whatever he'd happen
+to say about it--and you could tell me afterward."
+
+"All right," Lohr said.  "Certainly if you'd rather do it that
+way, I'll hand it to him and tell you what he says; that is, if
+he says anything and I hear him.  Got it written?"
+
+"No; I'll send it around to you last of the week."  Adams moved
+toward his taxicab.  "Don't say anything to anybody about it,
+Charley, especially till after that."
+
+"All right."
+
+"And, Charley, I'll be mighty obliged to you," Adams said, and
+came back to shake hands in farewell.  "There's one thing more
+you might do--if you'd ever happen to feel like it."  He kept his
+eyes rather vaguely fixed on a point above his friend's head as
+he spoke, and his voice was not well controlled.  "I been--I been
+down there a good many years and I may not 'a' been so much use
+lately as I was at first, but I always tried to do my best for
+the old firm.  If anything turned out so's they DID kind of take
+offense with me, down there, why, just say a good word for me--if
+you'd happen to feel like it, maybe."
+
+Old Charley Lohr assured him that he would speak a good word if
+opportunity became available; then, after the cab had driven
+away, he went up to his small apartment on the third floor and
+muttered ruminatively until his wife inquired what he was talking
+to himself about.
+
+"Ole Virg Adams," he told her.  "He's out again after his long
+spell of sickness, and the way it looks to me he'd better stayed
+in bed."
+
+"You mean he still looks too bad to be out?"
+
+"Oh, I expect he's gettin' his HEALTH back," Lohr said, frowning.
+
+"Then what's the matter with him?  You mean he's lost his mind?"
+
+"My goodness, but women do jump at conclusions!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Lohr, "what other conclusion did you leave me
+to jump at?"
+
+Her husband explained with a little heat: "People can have a
+sickness that AFFECTS their mind, can't they?  Their mind can get
+some affected without bein' LOST, can't it?"
+
+"Then you mean the poor man's mind does seem affected?"
+
+"Why, no; I'd scarcely go as far as that," Lohr said,
+inconsistently, and declined to be more definite.
+
+
+Adams devoted the latter part of that evening to the composition
+of his letter--a disquieting task not completed when, at eleven
+o'clock, he heard his daughter coming up the stairs.  She was
+singing to herself in a low, sweet voice, and Adams paused to
+listen incredulously, with his pen lifted and his mouth open, as
+if he heard the strangest sound in the world.  Then he set down
+the pen upon a blotter, went to his door, and opened it, looking
+out at her as she came.
+
+"Well, dearie, you seem to be feeling pretty good," he said.
+"What you been doing?"
+
+"Just sitting out on the front steps, papa."
+
+"All alone, I suppose."
+
+"No.  Mr. Russell called."
+
+"Oh, he did?" Adams pretended to be surprised.  "What all could
+you and he find to talk about till this hour o' the night?"
+
+She laughed gaily.  "You don't know me, papa!"
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"You've never found out that I always do all the talking."
+
+"Didn't you let him get a word in all evening?"
+
+"Oh, yes; every now and then."
+
+Adams took her hand and petted it.  "Well, what did he say?"
+
+Alice gave him a radiant look and kissed him.  "Not what you
+think!" she laughed; then slapped his cheek with saucy affection,
+pirouetted across the narrow hall and into her own room, and
+curtsied to him as she closed her door.
+
+Adams went back to his writing with a lighter heart; for since
+Alice was born she had been to him the apple of his eye, his own
+phrase in thinking of her; and what he was doing now was for her.
+
+He smiled as he picked up his pen to begin a new draft of the
+painful letter; but presently he looked puzzled.  After all, she
+could be happy just as things were, it seemed.  Then why had he
+taken what his wife called "this new step," which he had so long
+resisted?
+
+He could only sigh and wonder.  "Life works out pretty
+peculiarly," he thought; for he couldn't go back now, though the
+reason he couldn't was not clearly apparent.  He had to go ahead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+He was out in his taxicab again the next morning, and by noon he
+had secured what he wanted.
+
+It was curiously significant that he worked so quickly.  All the
+years during which his wife had pressed him toward his present
+shift he had sworn to himself, as well as to her, that he would
+never yield; and yet when he did yield he had no plans to make,
+because he found them already prepared and worked out in detail
+in his mind; as if he had long contemplated the "step" he
+believed himself incapable of taking.
+
+Sometimes he had thought of improving his income by exchanging
+his little collection of bonds for a "small rental property," if
+he could find "a good buy"; and he had spent many of his spare
+hours rambling over the enormously spreading city and its
+purlieus, looking for the ideal "buy."  It remained unattainable,
+so far as he was concerned; but he found other things.
+
+Not twice a crow's mile from his own house there was a dismal and
+slummish quarter, a decayed "industrial district" of earlier
+days.  Most of the industries were small; some of them died,
+perishing of bankruptcy or fire; and a few had moved, leaving
+their shells.  Of the relics, the best was a brick building which
+had been the largest and most important factory in the quarter:
+it had been injured by a long vacancy almost as serious as a
+fire, in effect, and Adams had often guessed at the sum needed to
+put it in repair.
+
+When he passed it, he would look at it with an interest which he
+supposed detached and idly speculative.  "That'd be just the
+thing," he thought.  "If a fellow had money enough, and took a
+notion to set up some new business on a big scale, this would be
+a pretty good place--to make glue, for instance, if that wasn't
+out of the question, of course.  It would take a lot of money,
+though; a great deal too much for me to expect to handle--even if
+I'd ever dream of doing such a thing."
+
+Opposite the dismantled factory was a muddy, open lot of two
+acres or so, and near the middle of the lot, a long brick shed
+stood in a desolate abandonment, not happily decorated by old
+coatings of theatrical and medicinal advertisements.  But the
+brick shed had two wooden ells, and, though both shed and ells
+were of a single story, here was empty space enough for a modest
+enterprise--"space enough for almost anything, to start with,"
+Adams thought, as he walked through the low buildings, one day,
+when he was prospecting in that section.  "Yes, I suppose I COULD
+swing this," he thought.  "If the process belonged to me, say,
+instead of being out of the question because it isn't my
+property--or if I was the kind of man to do such a thing anyhow,
+here would be something I could probably get hold of pretty
+cheap.  They'd want a lot of money for a lease on that big
+building over the way--but this, why, I should think it'd be
+practically nothing at all."
+
+Then, by chance, meeting an agent he knew, he made
+inquiries--merely to satisfy a casual curiosity, he thought--and
+he found matters much as he had supposed, except that the owners
+of the big building did not wish to let, but to sell it, and this
+at a price so exorbitant that Adams laughed.  But the long brick
+shed in the great muddy lot was for sale or to let, or "pretty
+near to be given away," he learned, if anybody would take it.
+
+Adams took it now, though without seeing that he had been
+destined to take it, and that some dreary wizard in the back of
+his head had foreseen all along that he would take it, and
+planned to be ready.  He drove in his taxicab to look the place
+over again, then down-town to arrange for a lease; and came home
+to lunch with his wife and daughter.  Things were "moving," he
+told them.
+
+He boasted a little of having acted so decisively, and said that
+since the dang thing had to be done, it was "going to be done
+RIGHT!" He was almost cheerful, in a feverish way, and when the
+cab came for him again, soon after lunch, he explained that he
+intended not only to get things done right, but also to "get 'em
+done quick!" Alice, following him to the front door, looked at
+him anxiously and asked if she couldn't help.  He laughed at her
+grimly.
+
+"Then let me go along with you in the cab," she begged.  "You
+don't look able to start in so hard, papa, just when you're
+barely beginning to get your strength back.  Do let me go with
+you and see if I can't help--or at least take care of you if you
+should get to feeling badly."
+
+He declined, but upon pressure let her put a tiny bottle of
+spirits of ammonia in his pocket, and promised to make use of it
+if he "felt faint or anything."  Then he was off again; and the
+next morning had men at work in his sheds, though the wages he
+had to pay frightened him.
+
+He directed the workmen in every detail, hurrying them by example
+and exhortations, and receiving, in consequence, several
+declarations of independence, as well as one resignation, which
+took effect immediately.  "Yous capitalusts seem to think a man's
+got nothin' to do but break his back p'doosin' wealth fer yous to
+squander," the resigning person loudly complained.  "You look
+out: the toiler's day is a-comin', and it ain't so fur off,
+neither!" But the capitalist was already out of hearing, gone to
+find a man to take this orator's place.
+
+By the end of the week, Adams felt that he had moved
+satisfactorily forward in his preparations for the simple
+equipment he needed; but he hated the pause of Sunday.  He didn't
+WANT any rest, he told Alice impatiently, when she suggested that
+the idle day might be good for him.
+
+Late that afternoon he walked over to the apartment house where
+old Charley Lohr lived, and gave his friend the letter he wanted
+the head of Lamb and Company to receive "personally."  "I'll take
+it as a mighty great favour in you to hand it to him personally,
+Charley," he said, in parting.  "And you won't forget, in case he
+says anything about it--and remember if you ever do get a chance
+to put in a good word for me later, you know----"
+
+Old Charley promised to remember, and, when Mrs. Lohr came out
+of the "kitchenette," after the door closed, he said
+thoughtfully, "Just skin and bones."
+
+"You mean Mr. Adams is?" Mrs. Lohr inquired.
+
+"Who'd you think I meant?" he returned.  "One o' these partridges
+in the wall-paper?"
+
+"Did he look so badly?"
+
+"Looked kind of distracted to me," her husband replied.  "These
+little thin fellers can stand a heap sometimes, though.  He'll be
+over here again Monday."
+
+"Did he say he would?"
+
+"No," said Lohr.  "But he will.  You'll see.  He'll be over to
+find out what the big boss says when I give him this letter.
+Expect I'd be kind of anxious, myself, if I was him."
+
+"Why would you?  What's Mr. Adams doing to be so anxious about?"
+
+Lohr's expression became one of reserve, the look of a man who
+has found that when he speaks his inner thoughts his wife jumps
+too far to conclusions.  "Oh, nothing," he said.  "Of course any
+man starting up a new business is bound to be pretty nervous a
+while.  He'll be over here to-morrow evening, all right; you'll
+see."
+
+The prediction was fulfilled: Adams arrived just after Mrs. Lohr
+had removed the dinner dishes to her "kitchenette"; but Lohr had
+little information to give his caller.
+
+"He didn't say a word, Virgil; nary a word.  I took it into his
+office and handed it to him, and he just sat and read it; that's
+all.  I kind of stood around as long as I could, but he was
+sittin' at his desk with his side to me, and he never turned
+around full toward me, as it were, so I couldn't hardly even tell
+anything.  All I know: he just read it."
+
+"Well, but see here," Adams began, nervously.  "Well----"
+
+"Well what, Virg?"
+
+"Well, but what did he say when he DID speak?"
+
+"He didn't speak.  Not so long I was in there, anyhow.  He just
+sat there and read it.  Read kind of slow.  Then, when he came to
+the end, he turned back and started to read it all over again.
+By that time there was three or four other men standin' around in
+the office waitin' to speak to him, and I had to go."
+
+Adams sighed, and stared at the floor, irresolute.  "Well, I'll
+be getting along back home then, I guess, Charley.  So you're
+sure you couldn't tell anything what he might have thought about
+it, then?"
+
+"Not a thing in the world.  I've told you all I know, Virg."
+
+"I guess so, I guess so," Adams said, mournfully.  "I feel mighty
+obliged to you, Charley Lohr; mighty obliged.  Good-night to
+you."  And he departed, sighing in perplexity.
+
+On his way home, preoccupied with many thoughts, he walked so
+slowly that once or twice he stopped and stood motionless for a
+few moments, without being aware of it; and when he reached the
+juncture of the sidewalk with the short brick path that led to
+his own front door, he stopped again, and stood for more than a
+minute.  "Ah, I wish I knew," he whispered, plaintively.  "I do
+wish I knew what he thought about it."
+
+He was roused by a laugh that came lightly from the little
+veranda near by.  "Papa!" Alice called gaily.  "What are you
+standing there muttering to yourself about?"
+
+"Oh, are you there, dearie?" he said, and came up the path.  A
+tall figure rose from a chair on the veranda.
+
+"Papa, this is Mr. Russell."
+
+The two men shook hands, Adams saying, "Pleased to make your
+acquaintance," as they looked at each other in the faint light
+diffused through the opaque glass in the upper part of the door.
+Adams's impression was of a strong and tall young man,
+fashionable but gentle; and Russell's was of a dried, little old
+business man with a grizzled moustache, worried bright eyes,
+shapeless dark clothes, and a homely manner.
+
+"Nice evening," Adams said further, as their hands parted.  "Nice
+time o' year it is, but we don't always have as good weather as
+this; that's the trouble of it.  Well----" He went to the door.
+"Well--I bid you good evening," he said, and retired within the
+house.
+
+Alice laughed.  "He's the old-fashionedest man in town, I suppose
+and frightfully impressed with you, I could see!"
+
+"What nonsense!" said Russell.  "How could anybody be impressed
+with me?"
+
+"Why not?  Because you're quiet?  Good gracious!  Don't you know
+that you're the most impressive sort?  We chatterers spend all
+our time playing to you quiet people."
+
+"Yes; we're only the audience."
+
+"'Only!'" she echoed.  "Why, we live for you, and we can't live
+without you."
+
+"I wish you couldn't," said Russell.  "That would be a new
+experience for both of us, wouldn't it?"
+
+"It might be a rather bleak one for me," she answered, lightly.
+"I'm afraid I'll miss these summer evenings with you when they're
+over.  I'll miss them enough, thanks!"
+
+"Do they have to be over some time?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, everything's over some time, isn't it?"
+
+Russell laughed at her.  "Don't let's look so far ahead as that,"
+he said.  "We don't need to be already thinking of the cemetery,
+do we?"
+
+"I didn't," she said, shaking her head.  "Our summer evenings
+will be over before then, Mr. Russell."
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Good heavens!" she said.  "THERE'S laconic eloquence: almost a
+proposal in a single word!  Never mind, I shan't hold you to it.
+But to answer you: well, I'm always looking ahead, and somehow I
+usually see about how things are coming out."
+
+"Yes," he said.  "I suppose most of us do; at least it seems as
+if we did, because we so seldom feel surprised by the way they do
+come out.  But maybe that's only because life isn't like a play
+in a theatre, and most things come about so gradually we get used
+to them."
+
+"No, I'm sure I can see quite a long way ahead," she insisted,
+gravely.  "And it doesn't seem to me as if our summer evenings
+could last very long.  Something'll interfere--somebody will, I
+mean--they'll SAY something----"
+
+"What if they do?"
+
+She moved her shoulders in a little apprehensive shiver.  "It'll
+change you," she said.  "I'm just sure something spiteful's going
+to happen to me.  You'll feel differently about--things."
+
+"Now, isn't that an idea!" he exclaimed.
+
+"It will," she insisted.  "I know something spiteful's going to
+happen!"
+
+"You seem possessed by a notion not a bit flattering to me," he
+remarked.
+
+"Oh, but isn't it?  That's just what it is!  Why isn't it?"
+
+"Because it implies that I'm made of such soft material the
+slightest breeze will mess me all up.  I'm not so like that as I
+evidently appear; and if it's true that we're afraid other people
+will do the things we'd be most likely to do ourselves, it seems
+to me that I ought to be the one to be afraid.  I ought to be
+afraid that somebody may say something about me to you that will
+make you believe I'm a professional forger."
+
+"No.  We both know they won't," she said.  "We both know you're
+the sort of person everybody in the world says nice things
+about."  She lifted her hand to silence him as he laughed at
+this.  "Oh, of course you are!  I think perhaps you're a little
+flirtatious--most quiet men have that one sly way with 'em--oh,
+yes, they do!  But you happen to be the kind of man everybody
+loves to praise.  And if you weren't, _I_ shouldn't hear anything
+terrible about you.  I told you I was unpopular: I don't see
+anybody at all any more.  The only man except you who's been to
+see me in a month is that fearful little fat Frank Dowling, and I
+sent word to HIM I wasn't home.  Nobody'd tell me of your
+wickedness, you see."
+
+"Then let me break some news to you," Russell said.  "Nobody
+would tell me of yours, either.  Nobody's even mentioned you to
+me."
+
+She burlesqued a cry of anguish.  "That IS obscurity!  I suppose
+I'm too apt to forget that they say the population's about half a
+million nowadays.  There ARE other people to talk about, you
+feel, then?"
+
+"None that I want to," he said.  "But I should think the size of
+the place might relieve your mind of what seems to insist on
+burdening it.  Besides, I'd rather you thought me a better man
+than you do."
+
+"What kind of a man do I think you are?"
+
+"The kind affected by what's said about people instead of by what
+they do themselves."
+
+"Aren't you?"
+
+"No, I'm not," he said.  "If you want our summer evenings to be
+over you'll have to drive me away yourself."
+
+"Nobody else could?"
+
+"No."
+
+She was silent, leaning forward, with her elbows on her knees and
+her clasped hands against her lips.  Then, not moving, she said
+softly:
+
+"Well--I won't!"
+
+She was silent again, and he said nothing, but looked at her,
+seeming to be content with looking.  Her attitude was one only a
+graceful person should assume, but she was graceful; and, in the
+wan light, which made a prettily shaped mist of her, she had
+beauty.  Perhaps it was beauty of the hour, and of the love scene
+almost made into form by what they had both just said, but she
+had it; and though beauty of the hour passes, he who sees it will
+long remember it and the hour when it came.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" he asked.
+
+She leaned back in her chair and did not answer at once.  Then
+she said:
+
+"I don't know; I doubt if I was thinking of anything.  It seems
+to me I wasn't.  I think I was just being sort of sadly happy
+just then."
+
+"Were you?  Was it 'sadly,' too?"
+
+"Don't you know?" she said.  "It seems to me that only little
+children can be just happily happy.  I think when we get older
+our happiest moments are like the one I had just then: it's as if
+we heard strains of minor music running through them--oh, so
+sweet, but oh, so sad!"
+
+"But what makes it sad for YOU?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, in a lighter tone.  "Perhaps it's a
+kind of useless foreboding I seem to have pretty often.  It may
+be that--or it may be poor papa."
+
+"You ARE a funny, delightful girl, though!" Russell laughed.
+"When your father's so well again that he goes out walking in the
+evenings!"
+
+"He does too much walking," Alice said.  "Too much altogether,
+over at his new plant.  But there isn't any stopping him."  She
+laughed and shook her head.  "When a man gets an ambition to be a
+multi-millionaire his family don't appear to have much weight
+with him.  He'll walk all he wants to, in spite of them."
+
+"I suppose so," Russell said, absently; then he leaned forward.
+"I wish I could understand better why you were 'sadly' happy."
+
+Meanwhile, as Alice shed what further light she could on this
+point, the man ambitious to be a "multi-millionaire" was indeed
+walking too much for his own good.  He had gone to bed, hoping to
+sleep well and rise early for a long day's work, but he could not
+rest, and now, in his nightgown and slippers, he was pacing the
+floor of his room.
+
+"I wish I DID know," he thought, over and over.  "I DO wish I
+knew how he feels about it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+That was a thought almost continuously in his mind, even when he
+was hardest at work; and, as the days went on and he could not
+free himself, he became querulous about it.  "I guess I'm the
+biggest dang fool alive," he told his wife as they sat together
+one evening.  "I got plenty else to bother me, without worrying
+my head off about what HE thinks.  I can't help what he thinks;
+it's too late for that.  So why should I keep pestering myself
+about it?"
+
+"It'll wear off, Virgil," Mrs. Adams said, reassuringly.  She
+was gentle and sympathetic with him, and for the first time in
+many years he would come to sit with her and talk, when he had
+finished his day's work.  He had told her, evading her eye, "Oh,
+I don't blame you.  You didn't get after me to do this on your
+own account; you couldn't help it."
+
+"Yes; but it don't wear off," he complained.  "This afternoon I
+was showing the men how I wanted my vats to go, and I caught my
+fool self standing there saying to my fool self, 'It's funny I
+don't hear how he feels about it from SOMEbody.' I was saying it
+aloud, almost--and it IS funny I don't hear anything!"
+
+"Well, you see what it means, don't you, Virgil?  It only means
+he hasn't said anything to anybody about it.  Don't you think
+you're getting kind of morbid over it?"
+
+"Maybe, maybe," he muttered.
+
+"Why, yes," she said, briskly.  "You don't realize what a little
+bit of a thing all this is to him.  It's been a long, long while
+since the last time you even mentioned glue to him, and he's
+probably forgotten everything about it."
+
+"You're off your base; it isn't like him to forget things," Adams
+returned, peevishly.  "He may seem to forget 'em, but he don't."
+
+"But he's not thinking about this, or you'd have heard from him
+before now."
+
+Her husband shook his head.  "Ah, that's just it!" he said.  "Why
+HAVEN'T I heard from him?"
+
+"It's all your morbidness, Virgil.  Look at Walter: if Mr. Lamb
+held this up against you, would he still let Walter stay there?
+Wouldn't he have discharged Walter if he felt angry with you?"
+
+"That dang boy!" Adams said.  "If he WANTED to come with me now,
+I wouldn't hardly let him, What do you suppose makes him so
+bull-headed?"
+
+"But hasn't he a right to choose for himself?" she asked.  "I
+suppose he feels he ought to stick to what he thinks is sure pay.
+As soon as he sees that you're going to succeed with the
+glue-works he'll want to be with you quick enough."
+
+"Well, he better get a little sense in his head," Adams returned,
+crossly.  "He wanted me to pay him a three-hundred-dollar bonus
+in advance, when anybody with a grain of common sense knows I
+need every penny I can lay my hands on!"
+
+"Never mind," she said.  "He'll come around later and be glad of
+the chance."
+
+"He'll have to beg for it then!  _I_ won't ask him again."
+
+"Oh, Walter will come out all right; you needn't worry.  And
+don't you see that Mr. Lamb's not discharging him means there's
+no hard feeling against you, Virgil?"
+
+"I can't make it out at all," he said, frowning.  "The only thing
+I can THINK it means is that J. A. Lamb is so fair-minded--and
+of course he IS one of the fair-mindedest men alive I suppose
+that's the reason he hasn't fired Walter.  He may know," Adams
+concluded, morosely--"he may know that's just another thing to
+make me feel all the meaner: keeping my boy there on a salary
+after I've done him an injury."
+
+"Now, now!" she said, trying to comfort him.  "You couldn't do
+anybody an injury to save your life, and everybody knows it."
+
+"Well, anybody ought to know I wouldn't WANT to do an injury, but
+this world isn't built so't we can do just what we want."  He
+paused, reflecting.  "Of course there may be one explanation of
+why Walter's still there: J. A. maybe hasn't noticed that he IS
+there.  There's so many I expect he hardly knows him by sight."
+
+"Well, just do quit thinking about it," she urged him.  "It only
+bothers you without doing any good.  Don't you know that?"
+
+"Don't I, though!" he laughed, feebly.  "I know it better'n
+anybody!  How funny that is: when you know thinking about a thing
+only pesters you without helping anything at all, and yet you
+keep right on pestering yourself with it!"
+
+"But WHY?" she said.  "What's the use when you know you haven't
+done anything wrong, Virgil?  You said yourself you were going to
+improve the process so much it would be different from the old
+one, and you'd REALLY have a right to it."
+
+Adams had persuaded himself of this when he yielded; he had found
+it necessary to persuade himself of it--though there was a part
+of him, of course, that remained unpersuaded; and this
+discomfiting part of him was what made his present trouble.
+"Yes, I know," he said.  "That's true, but I can't quite seem to
+get away from the fact that the principle of the process is a
+good deal the same--well, it's more'n that; it's just about the
+same as the one he hired Campbell and me to work out for him.
+Truth is, nobody could tell the difference, and I don't know as
+there IS any difference except in these improvements I'm making.
+Of course, the improvements do give me pretty near a perfect
+right to it, as a person might say; and that's one of the things
+I thought of putting in my letter to him; but I was afraid he'd
+just think I was trying to make up excuses, so I left it out.  I
+kind of worried all the time I was writing that letter, because
+if he thought I WAS just making up excuses, why, it might set him
+just so much more against me."
+
+Ever since Mrs. Adams had found that she was to have her way,
+the depths of her eyes had been troubled by a continuous
+uneasiness; and, although she knew it was there, and sometimes
+veiled it by keeping the revealing eyes averted from her husband
+and children, she could not always cover it under that assumption
+of absent-mindedness.  The uneasy look became vivid, and her
+voice was slightly tremulous now, as she said, "But what if he
+SHOULD be against you--although I don't believe he is, of
+course--you told me he couldn't DO anything to you, Virgil."
+
+"No," he said, slowly.  "I can't see how he could do anything.
+It was just a secret, not a patent; the thing ain't patentable.
+I've tried to think what he could do--supposing he was to want
+to--but I can't figure out anything at all that would be any harm
+to me.  There isn't any way in the world it could be made a
+question of law.  Only thing he could do'd be to TELL people his
+side of it, and set 'em against me.  I been kind of waiting for
+that to happen, all along."
+
+She looked somewhat relieved.  "So did I expect it," she said.
+"I was dreading it most on Alice's account: it might have--well,
+young men are so easily influenced and all.  But so far as the
+business is concerned, what if Mr. Lamb did talk?  That wouldn't
+amount to much.  It wouldn't affect the business; not to hurt.
+And, besides, he isn't even doing that."
+
+"No; anyhow not yet, it seems."  And Adams sighed again,
+wistfully.  "But I WOULD give a good deal to know what he
+thinks!"
+
+Before his surrender he had always supposed that if he did such
+an unthinkable thing as to seize upon the glue process for
+himself, what he would feel must be an overpowering shame.  But
+shame is the rarest thing in the world: what he felt was this
+unremittent curiosity about his old employer's thoughts.  It was
+an obsession, yet he did not want to hear what Lamb "thought"
+from Lamb himself, for Adams had a second obsession, and this was
+his dread of meeting the old man face to face.  Such an encounter
+could happen only by chance and unexpectedly; since Adams would
+have avoided any deliberate meeting, so long as his legs had
+strength to carry him, even if Lamb came to the house to see him.
+
+But people do meet unexpectedly; and when Adams had to be
+down-town he kept away from the "wholesale district."  One day he
+did see Lamb, as the latter went by in his car, impassive, going
+home to lunch; and Adams, in the crowd at a corner, knew that the
+old man had not seen him.  Nevertheless, in a street car, on the
+way back to his sheds, an hour later, he was still subject to
+little shivering seizures of horror.
+
+He worked unceasingly, seeming to keep at it even in his sleep,
+for he always woke in the midst of a planning and estimating that
+must have been going on in his mind before consciousness of
+himself returned.  Moreover, the work, thus urged, went rapidly,
+in spite of the high wages he had to pay his labourers for their
+short hours.  "It eats money," he complained, and, in fact, by
+the time his vats and boilers were in place it had eaten almost
+all he could supply; but in addition to his equipment he now
+owned a stock of "raw material," raw indeed; and when operations
+should be a little further along he was confident his banker
+would be willing to "carry" him.
+
+Six weeks from the day he had obtained his lease he began his
+glue-making.  The terrible smells came out of the sheds and went
+writhing like snakes all through that quarter of the town.  A
+smiling man, strolling and breathing the air with satisfaction,
+would turn a corner and smile no more, but hurry.  However,
+coloured people had almost all the dwellings of this old section
+to themselves; and although even they were troubled, there was
+recompense for them.  Being philosophic about what appeared to
+them as in the order of nature, they sought neither escape nor
+redress, and soon learned to bear what the wind brought them.
+They even made use of it to enrich those figures of speech with
+which the native impulses of coloured people decorate their
+communications: they flavoured metaphor, simile, and invective
+with it; and thus may be said to have enjoyed it.  But the man
+who produced it took a hot bath as soon as he reached his home
+the evening of that first day when his manufacturing began.  Then
+he put on fresh clothes; but after dinner he seemed to be
+haunted, and asked his wife if she "noticed anything."
+
+She laughed and inquired what he meant.
+
+"Seems to me as if that glue-works smell hadn't quit hanging to
+me," he explained.  "Don't you notice it?"
+
+"No!  What an idea!"
+
+He laughed, too, but uneasily; and told her he was sure "the dang
+glue smell" was somehow sticking to him.  Later, he went outdoors
+and walked up and down the small yard in the dusk; but now and
+then he stood still, with his head lifted, and sniffed the air
+suspiciously.  "Can YOU smell it?" he called to Alice, who sat
+upon the veranda, prettily dressed and waiting in a reverie.
+
+"Smell what, papa?"
+
+"That dang glue-works."
+
+She did the same thing her mother had done: laughed, and said,
+"No!  How foolish!  Why, papa, it's over two miles from here!"
+
+"You don't get it at all?" he insisted.
+
+"The idea!  The air is lovely to-night, papa."
+
+The air did not seem lovely to him, for he was positive that he
+detected the taint.  He wondered how far it carried, and if J.
+A.  Lamb would smell it, too, out on his own lawn a mile to the
+north; and if he did, would he guess what it was?  Then Adams
+laughed at himself for such nonsense; but could not rid his
+nostrils of their disgust.  To him the whole town seemed to smell
+of his glue-works.
+
+Nevertheless, the glue was making, and his sheds were busy.
+"Guess we're stirrin' up this ole neighbourhood with more than
+the smell," his foreman remarked one morning.
+
+"How's that?" Adams inquired.
+
+"That great big, enormous ole dead butterine factory across the
+street from our lot," the man said.  "Nothin' like settin' an
+example to bring real estate to life.  That place is full o'
+carpenters startin' in to make a regular buildin' of it again.
+Guess you ought to have the credit of it, because you was the
+first man in ten years to see any possibilities in this
+neighbourhood."
+
+Adams was pleased, and, going out to see for himself, heard a
+great hammering and sawing from within the building; while
+carpenters were just emerging gingerly upon the dangerous roof.
+He walked out over the dried mud of his deep lot, crossed the
+street, and spoke genially to a workman who was removing the
+broken glass of a window on the ground floor.
+
+"Here!  What's all this howdy-do over here?"
+
+"Goin' to fix her all up, I guess," the workman said.  "Big job
+it is, too."
+
+"Sh' think it would be."
+
+"Yes, sir; a pretty big job--a pretty big job.  Got men at it on
+all four floors and on the roof.  They're doin' it RIGHT."
+
+"Who's doing it?"
+
+"Lord!  I d' know.  Some o' these here big manufacturing
+corporations, I guess."
+
+"What's it going to be?"
+
+"They tell ME," the workman answered--"they tell ME she's goin'
+to be a butterine factory again.  Anyways, I hope she won't be
+anything to smell like that glue-works you got over there not
+while I'm workin' around her, anyways!"
+
+"That smell's all right," Adams said.  "You soon get used to it."
+
+"You do?" The man appeared incredulous.  "Listen!  I was over in
+France: it's a good thing them Dutchmen never thought of it; we'd
+of had to quit!"
+
+Adams laughed, and went back to his sheds.  "I guess my foreman
+was right," he told his wife, that evening, with a little
+satisfaction.  "As soon as one man shows enterprise enough to
+found an industry in a broken-down neighbourhood, somebody else
+is sure to follow.  I kind of like the look of it: it'll help
+make our place seem sort of more busy and prosperous when it
+comes to getting a loan from the bank--and I got to get one
+mighty soon, too.  I did think some that if things go as well as
+there's every reason to think they OUGHT to, I might want to
+spread out and maybe get hold of that old factory myself; but I
+hardly expected to be able to handle a proposition of that size
+before two or three years from now, and anyhow there's room
+enough on the lot I got, if we need more buildings some day.
+Things are going about as fine as I could ask: I hired some girls
+to-day to do the bottling--coloured girls along about sixteen to
+twenty years old.  Afterwhile, I expect to get a machine to put
+the stuff in the little bottles, when we begin to get good
+returns; but half a dozen of these coloured girls can do it all
+right now, by hand.  We're getting to have really quite a little
+plant over there: yes, sir, quite a regular little plant!"
+
+He chuckled, and at this cheerful sound, of a kind his wife had
+almost forgotten he was capable of producing, she ventured to put
+her hand upon his arm.  They had gone outdoors, after dinner,
+taking two chairs with them, and were sitting through the late
+twilight together, keeping well away from the "front porch,"
+which was not yet occupied, however Alice was in her room
+changing her dress.
+
+"Well, honey," Mrs. Adams said, taking confidence not only to
+put her hand upon his arm, but to revive this disused
+endearment;--"it's grand to have you so optimistic.  Maybe some
+time you'll admit I was right, after all.  Everything's going so
+well, it seems a pity you didn't take this--this step--long ago.
+Don't you think maybe so, Virgil?"
+
+"Well--if I was ever going to, I don't know but I might as well
+of.  I got to admit the proposition begins to look pretty good: I
+know the stuff'll sell, and I can't see a thing in the world to
+stop it.  It does look good, and if--if----" He paused.
+
+"If what?" she said, suddenly anxious.
+
+He laughed plaintively, as if confessing a superstition.  "It's
+funny--well, it's mighty funny about that smell.  I've got so
+used to it at the plant I never seem to notice it at all over
+there.  It's only when I get away.  Honestly, can't you
+notice----?"
+
+"Virgil!" She lifted her hand to strike his arm chidingly.  "Do
+quit harping on that nonsense!"
+
+"Oh, of course it don't amount to anything," he said.  "A person
+can stand a good deal of just smell.  It don't WORRY me any."
+
+"I should think not especially as there isn't any."
+
+"Well," he said, "I feel pretty fair over the whole thing--a lot
+better'n I ever expected to, anyhow.  I don't know as there's any
+reason I shouldn't tell you so."
+
+She was deeply pleased with this acknowledgment, and her voice
+had tenderness in it as she responded: "There, honey!  Didn't I
+always say you'd be glad if you did it?"
+
+Embarrassed, he coughed loudly, then filled his pipe and lit it.
+"Well," he said, slowly, "it's a puzzle.  Yes, sir, it's a
+puzzle."
+
+"What is?"
+
+"Pretty much everything, I guess."
+
+As he spoke, a song came to them from a lighted window over their
+heads.  Then the window darkened abruptly, but the song continued
+as Alice went down through the house to wait on the little
+veranda.  "Mi chiamo Mimi," she sang, and in her voice throbbed
+something almost startling in its sweetness.  Her father and
+mother listened, not speaking until the song stopped with the
+click of the wire screen at the front door as Alice came out.
+
+"My!" said her father.  "How sweet she does sing!  I don't know
+as I ever heard her voice sound nicer than it did just then."
+
+"There's something that makes it sound that way," his wife told
+him.
+
+"I suppose so," he said, sighing.  "I suppose so.  You think----"
+
+"She's just terribly in love with him!"
+
+"I expect that's the way it ought to be," he said, then drew upon
+his pipe for reflection, and became murmurous with the symptoms
+of melancholy laughter.  "It don't make things less of a puzzle,
+though, does it?"
+
+"In what way, Virgil?"
+
+"Why, here," he said--"here we go through all this muck and moil
+to help fix things nicer for her at home, and what's it all
+amount to?  Seems like she's just gone ahead the way she'd 'a'
+gone anyhow; and now, I suppose, getting ready to up and leave
+us!  Ain't that a puzzle to you?  It is to me."
+
+"Oh, but things haven't gone that far yet."
+
+"Why, you just said----"
+
+She gave a little cry of protest.  "Oh, they aren't ENGAGED yet.
+Of course they WILL be; he's just as much interested in her as
+she is in him, but----"
+
+"Well, what's the trouble then?"
+
+"You ARE a simple old fellow!" his wife exclaimed, and then rose
+from her chair.  "That reminds me," she said.
+
+"What of?" he asked.  "What's my being simple remind you of?"
+
+"Nothing!" she laughed.  "It wasn't you that reminded me.  It was
+just something that's been on my mind.  I don't believe he's
+actually ever been inside our house!"
+
+"Hasn't he?"
+
+"I actually don't believe he ever has," she said.  "Of course we
+must----" She paused, debating.
+
+"We must what?"
+
+"I guess I better talk to Alice about it right now," she said.
+"He don't usually come for about half an hour yet; I guess I've
+got time."  And with that she walked away, leaving him to his
+puzzles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Alice was softly crooning to herself as her mother turned the
+corner of the house and approached through the dusk.
+
+"Isn't it the most BEAUTIFUL evening!" the daughter said.  "WHY
+can't summer last all year?  Did you ever know a lovelier
+twilight than this, mama?"
+
+Mrs. Adams laughed, and answered, "Not since I was your age, I
+expect."
+
+Alice was wistful at once.  "Don't they stay beautiful after my
+age?"
+
+"Well, it's not the same thing."
+
+"Isn't it?  Not ever?"
+
+"You may have a different kind from mine," the mother said, a
+little sadly.  "I think you will, Alice.  You deserve----"
+
+"No, I don't.  I don't deserve anything, and I know it.  But I'm
+getting a great deal these days--more than I ever dreamed COULD
+come to me.  I'm-- I'm pretty happy, mama!"
+
+"Dearie!" Her mother would have kissed her, but Alice drew away.
+
+"Oh, I don't mean----" She laughed nervously.  "I wasn't meaning
+to tell you I'm ENGAGED, mama.  We're not.  I mean--oh!  things
+seem pretty beautiful in spite of all I've done to spoil 'em."
+
+"You?" Mrs. Adams cried, incredulously.  "What have you done to
+spoil anything?"
+
+"Little things," Alice said.  "A thousand little silly--oh,
+what's the use?  He's so honestly what he is--just simple and
+good and intelligent--I feel a tricky mess beside him!  I don't
+see why he likes me; and sometimes I'm afraid he wouldn't if he
+knew me."
+
+"He'd just worship you," said the fond mother.  "And the more he
+knew you, the more he'd worship you."
+
+Alice shook her head.  "He's not the worshiping kind.  Not like
+that at all.  He's more----"
+
+But Mrs. Adams was not interested in this analysis, and she
+interrupted briskly, "Of course it's time your father and I
+showed some interest in him.  I was just saying I actually don't
+believe he's ever been inside the house."
+
+"No," Alice said, musingly; "that's true: I don't believe he has.
+Except when we've walked in the evening we've always sat out
+here, even those two times when it was drizzly.  It's so much
+nicer."
+
+"We'll have to do SOMETHING or other, of course," her mother
+said.
+
+"What like?"
+
+"I was thinking----" Mrs. Adams paused.  "Well, of course we
+could hardly put off asking him to dinner, or something, much
+longer."
+
+Alice was not enthusiastic; so far from it, indeed, that there
+was a melancholy alarm in her voice.  "Oh, mama, must we?  Do you
+think so?"
+
+"Yes, I do.  I really do."
+
+"Couldn't we--well, couldn't we wait?"
+
+"It looks queer," Mrs. Adams said.  "It isn't the thing at all
+for a young man to come as much as he does, and never more than
+just barely meet your father and mother.  No.  We ought to do
+something."
+
+"But a dinner!" Alice objected.  "In the first place, there isn't
+anybody I want to ask.  There isn't anybody I WOULD ask."
+
+"I didn't mean trying to give a big dinner," her mother
+explained.  "I just mean having him to dinner.  That mulatto
+woman, Malena Burns, goes out by the day, and she could bring a
+waitress.  We can get some flowers for the table and some to put
+in the living-room.  We might just as well go ahead and do it
+to-morrow as any other time; because your father's in a fine
+mood, and I saw Malena this afternoon and told her I might want
+her soon.  She said she didn't have any engagements this week,
+and I can let her know to-night.  Suppose when he comes you ask
+him for to-morrow, Alice.  Everything'll be very nice, I'm sure.
+Don't worry about it."
+
+"Well--but----" Alice was uncertain.
+
+"But don't you see, it looks so queer, not to do SOMETHING?" her
+mother urged.  "It looks so kind of poverty-stricken.  We really
+oughtn't to wait any longer."
+
+Alice assented, though not with a good heart.  "Very well, I'll
+ask him, if you think we've got to."
+
+"That matter's settled then," Mrs. Adams said.  "I'll go
+telephone Malena, and then I'll tell your father about it."
+
+But when she went back to her husband, she found him in an
+excited state of mind, and Walter standing before him in the
+darkness.  Adams was almost shouting, so great was his vehemence.
+
+"Hush, hush!" his wife implored, as she came near them.  "They'll
+hear you out on the front porch!"
+
+"I don't care who hears me," Adams said, harshly, though he
+tempered his loudness.  "Do you want to know what this boy's
+asking me for?  I thought he'd maybe come to tell me he'd got a
+little sense in his head at last, and a little decency about
+what's due his family!  I thought he was going to ask me to take
+him into my plant.  No, ma'am; THAT'S not what he wants!"
+
+"No, it isn't," Walter said.  In the darkness his face could not
+be seen; he stood motionless, in what seemed an apathetic
+attitude; and he spoke quietly, "No," he repeated.  "That isn't
+what I want."
+
+"You stay down at that place," Adams went on, hotly, "instead of
+trying to be a little use to your family; and the only reason
+you're ALLOWED to stay there is because Mr. Lamb's never
+happened to notice you ARE still there!  You just wait----"
+
+"You're off," Walter said, in the same quiet way.  "He knows I'm
+there.  He spoke to me yesterday: he asked me how I was getting
+along with my work."
+
+"He did?" Adams said, seeming not to believe him.
+
+"Yes.  He did."
+
+"What else did he say, Walter?" Mrs. Adams asked quickly.
+
+"Nothin'.  Just walked on."
+
+"I don't believe he knew who you were," Adams declared.
+
+"Think not?  He called me 'Walter Adams.'"
+
+At this Adams was silent; and Walter, after waiting a moment,
+said:
+
+"Well, are you going to do anything about me?  About what I told
+you I got to have?"
+
+"What is it, Walter?" his mother asked, since Adams did not
+speak.
+
+Walter cleared his throat, and replied in a tone as quiet as that
+he had used before, though with a slight huskiness, "I got to
+have three hundred and fifty dollars.  You better get him to give
+it to me if you can."
+
+Adams found his voice.  "Yes," he said, bitterly.  "That's all he
+asks!  He won't do anything I ask HIM to, and in return he asks
+me for three hundred and fifty dollars!  That's all!"
+
+"What in the world!" Mrs. Adams exclaimed.  "What FOR, Walter?"
+
+"I got to have it," Walter said.
+
+"But what FOR?"
+
+His quiet huskiness did not alter.  "I got to have it."
+
+"But can't you tell us----"
+
+"I got to have it."
+
+"That's all you can get out of him," Adams said.  "He seems to
+think it'll bring him in three hundred and fifty dollars!"
+
+A faint tremulousness became evident in the husky voice.
+"Haven't you got it?"
+
+"NO, I haven't got it!" his father answered.  "And I've got to go
+to a bank for more than my pay-roll next week.  Do you think I'm
+a mint?"
+
+"I don't understand what you mean, Walter," Mrs. Adams
+interposed, perplexed and distressed.  "If your father had the
+money, of course he'd need every cent of it, especially just now,
+and, anyhow, you could scarcely expect him to give it to you,
+unless you told us what you want with it.  But he hasn't got it."
+
+"All right," Walter said; and after standing a moment more, in
+silence, he added, impersonally, "I don't see as you ever did
+anything much for me, anyhow either of you."
+
+Then, as if this were his valedictory, he turned his back upon
+them, walked away quickly, and was at once lost to their sight in
+the darkness.
+
+"There's a fine boy to've had the trouble of raising!" Adams
+grumbled.  "Just crazy, that's all."
+
+"What in the world do you suppose he wants all that money for?"
+his wife said, wonderingly.  "I can't imagine what he could DO
+with it.  I wonder----" She paused.  "I wonder if he----"
+
+"If he what?" Adams prompted her irritably.
+
+"If he COULD have bad--associates."
+
+"God knows!" said Adams.  "_I_ don't!  It just looks to me like
+he had something in him I don't understand.  You can't keep your
+eye on a boy all the time in a city this size, not a boy Walter's
+age.  You got a girl pretty much in the house, but a boy'll
+follow his nature.  _I_ don't know what to do with him!"
+
+Mrs. Adams brightened a little.  "He'll come out all right," she
+said.  "I'm sure he will.  I'm sure he'd never be anything really
+bad: and he'll come around all right about the glue-works, too;
+you'll see.  Of course every young man wants money--it doesn't
+prove he's doing anything wrong just because he asks you for it."
+
+"No.  All it proves to me is that he hasn't got good sense asking
+me for three hundred and fifty dollars, when he knows as well as
+you do the position I'm in!  If I wanted to, I couldn't hardly
+let him have three hundred and fifty cents, let alone dollars!"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to let ME have that much--and maybe a
+little more," she ventured, timidly; and she told him of her
+plans for the morrow.  He objected vehemently.
+
+"Oh, but Alice has probably asked him by this time," Mrs. Adams
+said.  "It really must be done, Virgil: you don't want him to
+think she's ashamed of us, do you?"
+
+"Well, go ahead, but just let me stay away," he begged.  "Of
+course I expect to undergo a kind of talk with him, when he gets
+ready to say something to us about Alice, but I do hate to have
+to sit through a fashionable dinner."
+
+"Why, it isn't going to bother you," she said; "just one young
+man as a guest."
+
+"Yes, I know; but you want to have all this fancy cookin'; and I
+see well enough you're going to get that old dress suit out of
+the cedar chest in the attic, and try to make me put it on me."
+
+"I do think you better, Virgil."
+
+"I hope the moths have got in it," he said.  "Last time I wore it
+was to the banquet, and it was pretty old then.  Of course I
+didn't mind wearing it to the banquet so much, because that was
+what you might call quite an occasion."  He spoke with some
+reminiscent complacency; "the banquet," an affair now five years
+past, having provided the one time in his life when he had been
+so distinguished among his fellow-citizens as to receive an
+invitation to be present, with some seven hundred others, at the
+annual eating and speech-making of the city's Chamber of
+Commerce.  "Anyhow, as you say, I think it would look foolish of
+me to wear a dress suit for just one young man," he went on
+protesting, feebly.  "What's the use of all so much howdy-do,
+anyway?  You don't expect him to believe we put on all that style
+every night, do you?  Is that what you're after?"
+
+"Well, we want him to think we live nicely," she admitted.
+
+"So that's it!" he said, querulously.  "You want him to think
+that's our regular gait, do you?  Well, he'll know better about
+me, no matter how you fix me up, because he saw me in my regular
+suit the evening she introduced me to him, and he could tell
+anyway I'm not one of these moving-picture sporting-men that's
+always got a dress suit on.  Besides, you and Alice certainly
+have some idea he'll come AGAIN, haven't you?  If they get things
+settled between 'em he'll be around the house and to meals most
+any time, won't he?  You don't hardly expect to put on style all
+the time, I guess.  Well, he'll see then that this kind of thing
+was all show-off, and bluff, won't he?  What about it?"
+
+"Oh, well, by THAT time----" She left the sentence unfinished, as
+if absently.  "You could let us have a little money for
+to-morrow, couldn't you, honey?"
+
+"Oh, I reckon, I reckon," he mumbled.  "A girl like Alice is some
+comfort: she don't come around acting as if she'd commit suicide
+if she didn't get three hundred and fifty dollars in the next
+five minutes.  I expect I can spare five or six dollars for your
+show-off if I got to."
+
+However, she finally obtained fifteen before his bedtime; and the
+next morning "went to market" after breakfast, leaving Alice to
+make the beds.  Walter had not yet come downstairs.  "You had
+better call him," Mrs. Adams said, as she departed with a big
+basket on her arm.  "I expect he's pretty sleepy; he was out so
+late last night I didn't hear him come in, though I kept awake
+till after midnight, listening for him.  Tell him he'll be late
+to work if he doesn't hurry; and see that he drinks his coffee,
+even if he hasn't time for anything else.  And when Malena comes,
+get her started in the kitchen: show her where everything is."
+She waved her hand, as she set out for a corner where the cars
+stopped.  "Everything'll be lovely.  Don't forget about Walter."
+
+Nevertheless, Alice forgot about Walter for a few minutes.  She
+closed the door, went into the "living-room" absently, and
+stared vaguely at one of the old brown-plush rocking-chairs
+there.  Upon her forehead were the little shadows of an
+apprehensive reverie, and her thoughts overlapped one another in
+a fretful jumble.  "What will he think?  These old
+chairs--they're hideous.  I'll scrub those soot-streaks on the
+columns: it won't do any good, though.  That long crack in the
+column--nothing can help it.  What will he think of papa?  I hope
+mama won't talk too much.  When he thinks of Mildred's house, or
+of Henrietta's, or any of 'em, beside this-- She said she'd buy
+plenty of roses; that ought to help some.  Nothing could be done
+about these horrible chairs: can't take 'em up in the attic--a
+room's got to have chairs!  Might have rented some.  No; if he
+ever comes again he'd see they weren't here.  'If he ever comes
+again'--oh, it won't be THAT bad!  But it won't be what he
+expects.  I'm responsible for what he expects: he expects just
+what the airs I've put on have made him expect.  What did I want
+to pose so to him for--as if papa were a wealthy man and all
+that?  What WILL he think?  The photograph of the Colosseum's a
+rather good thing, though.  It helps some--as if we'd bought it
+in Rome perhaps.  I hope he'll think so; he believes I've been
+abroad, of course.  The other night he said, 'You remember the
+feeling you get in the Sainte-Chapelle'.--There's another lie of
+mine, not saying I didn't remember because I'd never been there.
+What makes me do it?  Papa MUST wear his evening clothes.  But
+Walter----"
+
+With that she recalled her mother's admonition, and went upstairs
+to Walter's door.  She tapped upon it with her fingers.
+
+"Time to get up, Walter.  The rest of us had breakfast over half
+an hour ago, and it's nearly eight o'clock.  You'll be late.
+Hurry down and I'll have some coffee and toast ready for you."
+There came no sound from within the room, so she rapped louder.
+
+"Wake up, Walter!"
+
+She called and rapped again, without getting any response, and
+then, finding that the door yielded to her, opened it and went
+in.  Walter was not there.
+
+He had been there, however; had slept upon the bed, though not
+inside the covers; and Alice supposed he must have come home so
+late that he had been too sleepy to take off his clothes.  Near
+the foot of the bed was a shallow closet where he kept his "other
+suit" and his evening clothes; and the door stood open, showing a
+bare wall.  Nothing whatever was in the closet, and Alice was
+rather surprised at this for a moment.  "That's queer," she
+murmured; and then she decided that when he woke he found the
+clothes he had slept in "so mussy" he had put on his "other
+suit," and had gone out before breakfast with the mussed clothes
+to have them pressed, taking his evening things with them.
+Satisfied with this explanation, and failing to observe that it
+did not account for the absence of shoes from the closet floor,
+she nodded absently, "Yes, that must be it"; and, when her mother
+returned, told her that Walter had probably breakfasted
+down-town.  They did not delay over this; the coloured woman had
+arrived, and the basket's disclosures were important.
+
+"I stopped at Worlig's on the way back," said Mrs. Adams,
+flushed with hurry and excitement.  "I bought a can of caviar
+there.  I thought we'd have little sandwiches brought into the
+'living-room' before dinner, the way you said they did when you
+went to that dinner at the----"
+
+"But I think that was to go with cocktails, mama, and of course
+we haven't----"
+
+"No," Mrs. Adams said.  "Still, I think it would be nice.  We
+can make them look very dainty, on a tray, and the waitress can
+bring them in.  I thought we'd have the soup already on the
+table; and we can walk right out as soon as we have the
+sandwiches, so it won't get cold.  Then, after the soup, Malena
+says she can make sweetbread pates with mushrooms: and for the
+meat course we'll have larded fillet.  Malena's really a fancy
+cook, you know, and she says she can do anything like that to
+perfection.  We'll have peas with the fillet, and potato balls
+and Brussels sprouts.  Brussels sprouts are fashionable now, they
+told me at market.  Then will come the chicken salad, and after
+that the ice-cream--she's going to make an angel-food cake to go
+with it--and then coffee and crackers and a new kind of cheese I
+got at Worlig's, he says is very fine."
+
+Alice was alarmed.  "Don't you think perhaps it's too much,
+mama?"
+
+"It's better to have too much than too little," her mother said,
+cheerfully.  "We don't want him to think we're the kind that
+skimp.  Lord knows we have to enough, though, most of the time!
+Get the flowers in water, child.  I bought 'em at market because
+they're so much cheaper there, but they'll keep fresh and nice.
+You fix 'em any way you want.  Hurry!  It's got to be a busy
+day."
+
+She had bought three dozen little roses.  Alice took them and
+began to arrange them in vases, keeping the stems separated as
+far as possible so that the clumps would look larger.  She put
+half a dozen in each of three vases in the "living-room," placing
+one vase on the table in the center of the room, and one at each
+end of the mantelpiece.  Then she took the rest of the roses to
+the dining-room; but she postponed the arrangement of them until
+the table should be set, just before dinner.  She was thoughtful;
+planning to dry the stems and lay them on the tablecloth like a
+vine of roses running in a delicate design, if she found that the
+dozen and a half she had left were enough for that.  If they
+weren't she would arrange them in a vase.
+
+She looked a long time at the little roses in the basin of water,
+where she had put them; then she sighed, and went away to heavier
+tasks, while her mother worked in the kitchen with Malena.  Alice
+dusted the "living-room" and the dining-room vigorously, though
+all the time with a look that grew more and more pensive; and
+having dusted everything, she wiped the furniture; rubbed it
+hard.  After that, she washed the floors and the woodwork.
+
+Emerging from the kitchen at noon, Mrs. Adams found her daughter
+on hands and knees, scrubbing the bases of the columns between
+the hall and the "living-room."
+
+"Now, dearie," she said, "you mustn't tire yourself out, and
+you'd better come and eat something.  Your father said he'd get a
+bite down-town to-day--he was going down to the bank--and Walter
+eats down-town all the time lately, so I thought we wouldn't
+bother to set the table for lunch.  Come on and we'll have
+something in the kitchen."
+
+"No," Alice said, dully, as she went on with the work.  "I don't
+want anything."
+
+Her mother came closer to her.  "Why, what's the matter?" she
+asked, briskly.  "You seem kind of pale, to me; and you don't
+look--you don't look HAPPY."
+
+"Well----" Alice began, uncertainly, but said no more.
+
+"See here!" Mrs. Adams exclaimed.  "This is all just for you!
+You ought to be ENJOYING it.  Why, it's the first time
+we've--we've entertained in I don't know how long!  I guess it's
+almost since we had that little party when you were eighteen.
+What's the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing.  I don't know."
+
+"But, dearie, aren't you looking FORWARD to this evening?"
+
+The girl looked up, showing a pallid and solemn face.  "Oh, yes,
+of course," she said, and tried to smile.  "Of course we had to
+do it--I do think it'll be nice.  Of course I'm looking forward
+to it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+She was indeed "looking forward" to that evening, but in a cloud
+of apprehension; and, although she could never have guessed it,
+this was the simultaneous condition of another person--none other
+than the guest for whose pleasure so much cooking and scrubbing
+seemed to be necessary.  Moreover, Mr. Arthur Russell's
+premonitions were no product of mere coincidence; neither had any
+magical sympathy produced them.  His state of mind was rather the
+result of rougher undercurrents which had all the time been
+running beneath the surface of a romantic friendship.
+
+Never shrewder than when she analyzed the gentlemen, Alice did
+not libel him when she said he was one of those quiet men who are
+a bit flirtatious, by which she meant that he was a bit
+"susceptible," the same thing--and he had proved himself
+susceptible to Alice upon his first sight of her.  "There!" he
+said to himself.  "Who's that?" And in the crowd of girls at his
+cousin's dance, all strangers to him, she was the one he wanted
+to know.
+
+Since then, his summer evenings with her had been as secluded as
+if, for three hours after the falling of dusk, they two had drawn
+apart from the world to some dear bower of their own.  The little
+veranda was that glamorous nook, with a faint golden light
+falling through the glass of the closed door upon Alice, and
+darkness elsewhere, except for the one round globe of the street
+lamp at the corner.  The people who passed along the sidewalk,
+now and then, were only shadows with voices, moving vaguely under
+the maple trees that loomed in obscure contours against the
+stars.  So, as the two sat together, the back of the world was
+the wall and closed door behind them; and Russell, when he was
+away from Alice, always thought of her as sitting there before
+the closed door.  A glamour was about her thus, and a spell upon
+him; but he had a formless anxiety never put into words: all the
+pictures of her in his mind stopped at the closed door.
+
+He had another anxiety; and, for the greater part, this was of
+her own creating.  She had too often asked him (no matter how
+gaily) what he heard about her, too often begged him not to hear
+anything.  Then, hoping to forestall whatever he might hear, she
+had been at too great pains to account for it, to discredit and
+mock it; and, though he laughed at her for this, telling her
+truthfully he did not even hear her mentioned, the everlasting
+irony that deals with all such human forefendings prevailed.
+
+Lately, he had half confessed to her what a nervousness she had
+produced.  "You make me dread the day when I'll hear somebody
+speaking of you.  You're getting me so upset about it that if I
+ever hear anybody so much as say the name 'Alice Adams,' I'll
+run!" The confession was but half of one because he laughed; and
+she took it for an assurance of loyalty in the form of burlesque.
+
+She misunderstood: he laughed, but his nervousness was genuine.
+
+After any stroke of events, whether a happy one or a catastrophe,
+we see that the materials for it were a long time gathering, and
+the only marvel is that the stroke was not prophesied.  What bore
+the air of fatal coincidence may remain fatal indeed, to this
+later view; but, with the haphazard aspect dispelled, there is
+left for scrutiny the same ancient hint from the Infinite to the
+effect that since events have never yet failed to be law-abiding,
+perhaps it were well for us to deduce that they will continue to
+be so until further notice.
+
+.  .  .  On the day that was to open the closed door in the
+background of his pictures of Alice, Russell lunched with his
+relatives.  There were but the four people, Russell and Mildred
+and her mother and father, in the great, cool dining-room.
+Arched French windows, shaded by awnings, admitted a mellow light
+and looked out upon a green lawn ending in a long conservatory,
+which revealed through its glass panes a carnival of plants in
+luxuriant blossom.  From his seat at the table, Russell glanced
+out at this pretty display, and informed his cousins that he was
+surprised.  "You have such a glorious spread of flowers all over
+the house," he said, "I didn't suppose you'd have any left out
+yonder.  In fact, I didn't know there were so many splendid
+flowers in the world."
+
+Mrs. Palmer, large, calm, fair, like her daughter, responded
+with a mild reproach: "That's because you haven't been cousinly
+enough to get used to them, Arthur.  You've almost taught us to
+forget what you look like."
+
+In defense Russell waved a hand toward her husband.  "You see,
+he's begun to keep me so hard at work----"
+
+But Mr. Palmer declined the responsibility.  "Up to four or five
+in the afternoon, perhaps," he said.  "After that, the young
+gentleman is as much a stranger to me as he is to my family.
+I've been wondering who she could be."
+
+"When a man's preoccupied there must be a lady then?" Russell
+inquired.
+
+"That seems to be the view of your sex," Mrs; Palmer suggested.
+"It was my husband who said it, not Mildred or I."
+
+Mildred smiled faintly.  "Papa may be singular in his ideas; they
+may come entirely from his own experience, and have nothing to do
+with Arthur."
+
+"Thank you, Mildred," her cousin said, bowing to her gratefully.
+"You seem to understand my character--and your father's quite as
+well!"
+
+However, Mildred remained grave in the face of this customary
+pleasantry, not because the old jest, worn round, like what
+preceded it, rolled in an old groove, but because of some
+preoccupation of her own.  Her faint smile had disappeared, and,
+as her cousin's glance met hers, she looked down; yet not before
+he had seen in her eyes the flicker of something like a
+question--a question both poignant and dismayed.  He may have
+understood it; for his own smile vanished at once in favour of a
+reciprocal solemnity.
+
+"You see, Arthur," Mrs. Palmer said, "Mildred is always a good
+cousin.  She and I stand by you, even if you do stay away from us
+for weeks and weeks."  Then, observing that he appeared to be so
+occupied with a bunch of iced grapes upon his plate that he had
+not heard her, she began to talk to her husband, asking him what
+was "going on down-town."
+
+Arthur continued to eat his grapes, but he ventured to look again
+at Mildred after a few moments.  She, also, appeared to be
+occupied with a bunch of grapes though she ate none, and only
+pulled them from their stems.  She sat straight, her features as
+composed and pure as those of a new marble saint in a cathedral
+niche; yet her downcast eyes seemed to conceal many thoughts; and
+her cousin, against his will, was more aware of what these
+thoughts might be than of the leisurely conversation between her
+father and mother.  All at once, however, he heard something that
+startled him, and he listened--and here was the effect of all
+Alice's forefendings; he listened from the first with a sinking
+heart.
+
+Mr. Palmer, mildly amused by what he was telling his wife, had
+just spoken the words, "this Virgil Adams."  What he had said
+was, "this Virgil Adams--that's the man's name.  Queer case."
+
+"Who told you?" Mrs. Palmer inquired, not much interested.
+
+"Alfred Lamb," her husband answered.  "He was laughing about his
+father, at the club.  You see the old gentleman takes a great
+pride in his judgment of men, and always boasted to his sons that
+he'd never in his life made a mistake in trusting the wrong man.
+Now Alfred and James Albert, Junior, think they have a great joke
+on him; and they've twitted him so much about it he'll scarcely
+speak to them.  From the first, Alfred says, the old chap's only
+repartee was, 'You wait and you'll see!' And they've asked him so
+often to show them what they're going to see that he won't say
+anything at all!"
+
+"He's a funny old fellow," Mrs. Palmer observed.  "But he's so
+shrewd I can't imagine his being deceived for such a long time.
+Twenty years, you said?"
+
+"Yes, longer than that, I understand.  It appears when this
+man--this Adams--was a young clerk, the old gentleman trusted him
+with one of his business secrets, a glue process that Mr. Lamb
+had spent some money to get hold of.  The old chap thought this
+Adams was going to have quite a future with the Lamb concern, and
+of course never dreamed he was dishonest.  Alfred says this Adams
+hasn't been of any real use for years, and they should have let
+him go as dead wood, but the old gentleman wouldn't hear of it,
+and insisted on his being kept on the payroll; so they just
+decided to look on it as a sort of pension.  Well, one morning
+last March the man had an attack of some sort down there, and Mr.
+Lamb got his own car out and went home with him, himself, and
+worried about him and went to see him no end, all the time he was
+ill."
+
+"He would," Mrs. Palmer said, approvingly.  "He's a kind-hearted
+creature, that old man."
+
+Her husband laughed.  "Alfred says he thinks his kind-heartedness
+is about cured!  It seems that as soon as the man got well again
+he deliberately walked off with the old gentleman's glue secret.
+Just calmly stole it!  Alfred says he believes that if he had a
+stroke in the office now, himself, his father wouldn't lift a
+finger to help him!"
+
+Mrs. Palmer repeated the name to herself thoughtfully.
+"'Adams'--'Virgil Adams.' You said his name was Virgil Adams?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She looked at her daughter.  "Why, you know who that is,
+Mildred," she said, casually.  "It's that Alice Adams's father,
+isn't it?  Wasn't his name Virgil Adams?"
+
+"I think it is," Mildred said.
+
+Mrs. Palmer turned toward her husband.  "You've seen this Alice
+Adams here.  Mr. Lamb's pet swindler must be her father."
+
+Mr. Palmer passed a smooth hand over his neat gray hair, which
+was not disturbed by this effort to stimulate recollection.  "Oh,
+yes," he said.  "Of course--certainly.  Quite a good-looking
+girl--one of Mildred's friends.  How queer!"
+
+Mildred looked up, as if in a little alarm, but did not speak.
+Her mother set matters straight.  "Fathers ARE amusing," she said
+smilingly to Russell, who was looking at her, though how fixedly
+she did not notice; for she turned from him at once to enlighten
+her husband.  "Every girl who meets Mildred, and tries to push
+the acquaintance by coming here until the poor child has to hide,
+isn't a FRIEND of hers, my dear!"
+
+Mildred's eyes were downcast again, and a faint colour rose in
+her cheeks.  "Oh, I shouldn't put it quite that way about Alice
+Adams," she said, in a low voice.  "I saw something of her for a
+time.  She's not unattractive in a way."
+
+Mrs. Palmer settled the whole case of Alice carelessly.  "A
+pushing sort of girl," she said.  "A very pushing little person."
+
+"I----" Mildred began; and, after hesitating, concluded, "I
+rather dropped her."
+
+"Fortunate you've done so," her father remarked, cheerfully.
+"Especially since various members of the Lamb connection are here
+frequently.  They mightn't think you'd show great tact in having
+her about the place."  He laughed, and turned to his cousin.
+"All this isn't very interesting to poor Arthur.  How terrible
+people are with a newcomer in a town; they talk as if he knew all
+about everybody!"
+
+"But we don't know anything about these queer people, ourselves,"
+said Mrs. Palmer.  "We know something about the girl, of
+course--she used to be a bit too conspicuous, in fact!  However,
+as you say, we might find a subject more interesting for Arthur."
+
+She smiled whimsically upon the young man.  "Tell the truth," she
+said.  "Don't you fairly detest going into business with that
+tyrant yonder?"
+
+"What?  Yes--I beg your pardon!" he stammered.
+
+"You were right," Mrs. Palmer said to her husband.  "You've
+bored him so, talking about thievish clerks, he can't even answer
+an honest question."
+
+But Russell was beginning to recover his outward composure.  "Try
+me again," he said.  "I'm afraid I was thinking of something
+else."
+
+This was the best he found to say.  There was a part of him that
+wanted to protest and deny, but he had not heat enough, in the
+chill that had come upon him.  Here was the first "mention" of
+Alice, and with it the reason why it was the first: Mr. Palmer
+had difficulty in recalling her, and she happened to be spoken
+of, only because her father's betrayal of a benefactor's trust
+had been so peculiarly atrocious that, in the view of the
+benefactor's family, it contained enough of the element of humour
+to warrant a mild laugh at a club.  There was the deadliness of
+the story: its lack of malice, even of resentment.  Deadlier
+still were Mrs. Palmer's phrases: "a pushing sort of girl," "a
+very pushing little person," and "used to be a bit TOO
+conspicuous, in fact."  But she spoke placidly and by chance;
+being as obviously without unkindly motive as Mr. Palmer was
+when he related the cause of Alfred Lamb's amusement.  Her
+opinion of the obscure young lady momentarily her topic had been
+expressed, moreover, to her husband, and at her own table.  She
+sat there, large, kind, serene--a protest might astonish but
+could not change her; and Russell, crumpling in his strained
+fingers the lace-edged little web of a napkin on his knee, found
+heart enough to grow red, but not enough to challenge her.
+
+She noticed his colour, and attributed it to the embarrassment of
+a scrupulously gallant gentleman caught in a lapse of attention
+to a lady.  "Don't be disturbed," she said, benevolently.
+"People aren't expected to listen all the time to their
+relatives.  A high colour's very becoming to you, Arthur; but it
+really isn't necessary between cousins.  You can always be
+informal enough with us to listen only when you care to."
+
+His complexion continued to be ruddier than usual, however,
+throughout the meal, and was still somewhat tinted when Mrs.
+Palmer rose.  "The man's bringing you cigarettes here," she said,
+nodding to the two gentlemen.  "We'll give you a chance to do the
+sordid kind of talking we know you really like.  Afterwhile,
+Mildred will show you what's in bloom in the hothouse, if you
+wish, Arthur."
+
+Mildred followed her, and, when they were alone in another of the
+spacious rooms, went to a window and looked out, while her mother
+seated herself near the center of the room in a gilt armchair,
+mellowed with old Aubusson tapestry.  Mrs. Palmer looked
+thoughtfully at her daughter's back, but did not speak to her
+until coffee had been brought for them.
+
+"Thanks," Mildred said, not turning, "I don't care for any
+coffee, I believe."
+
+"No?" Mrs. Palmer said, gently.  "I'm afraid our good-looking
+cousin won't think you're very talkative, Mildred.  You spoke
+only about twice at lunch.  I shouldn't care for him to get the
+idea you're piqued because he's come here so little lately,
+should you?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't," Mildred answered in a low voice, and with that
+she turned quickly, and came to sit near her mother.  "But it's
+what I am afraid of!  Mama, did you notice how red he got?"
+
+"You mean when he was caught not listening to a question of mine?
+Yes; it's very becoming to him."
+
+"Mama, I don't think that was the reason.  I don't think it was
+because he wasn't listening, I mean."
+
+"No?"
+
+"I think his colour and his not listening came from the same
+reason," Mildred said, and although she had come to sit near her
+mother, she did not look at her.  "I think it happened because
+you and papa----" She stopped.
+
+"Yes?" Mrs. Palmer said, good-naturedly, to prompt her.  "Your
+father and I did something embarrassing?"
+
+"Mama, it was because of those things that came out about Alice
+Adams."
+
+"How could that bother Arthur?  Does he know her?"
+
+"Don't you remember?" the daughter asked.  "The day after my
+dance I mentioned how odd I thought it was in him--I was a little
+disappointed in him.  I'd been seeing that he met everybody, of
+course, but she was the only girl HE asked to meet; and he did it
+as soon as he noticed her.  I hadn't meant to have him meet
+her--in fact, I was rather sorry I'd felt I had to ask her,
+because she oh, well, she's the sort that 'tries for the new
+man,' if she has half a chance; and sometimes they seem quite
+fascinated--for a time, that is.  I thought Arthur was above all
+that; or at the very least I gave him credit for being too
+sophisticated."
+
+"I see," Mrs. Palmer said, thoughtfully.  "I remember now that
+you spoke of it.  You said it seemed a little peculiar, but of
+course it really wasn't: a 'new man' has nothing to go by, except
+his own first impressions.  You can't blame poor Arthur--she's
+quite a piquant looking little person.  You think he's seen
+something of her since then?"
+
+Mildred nodded slowly.  "I never dreamed such a thing till
+yesterday, and even then I rather doubted it--till he got so red,
+just now!  I was surprised when he asked to meet her, but he just
+danced with her once and didn't mention her afterward; I forgot
+all about it--in fact, I virtually forgot all about HER.  I'd
+seen quite a little of her----"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Palmer.  "She did keep coming here!"
+
+"But I'd just about decided that it really wouldn't do," Mildred
+went on.  "She isn't--well, I didn't admire her."
+
+"No," her mother assented, and evidently followed a direct
+connection of thought in a speech apparently irrelevant.  "I
+understand the young Malone wants to marry Henrietta.  I hope she
+won't; he seems rather a gross type of person."
+
+"Oh, he's just one," Mildred said.  "I don't know that he and
+Alice Adams were ever engaged--she never told me so.  She may not
+have been engaged to any of them; she was just enough among the
+other girls to get talked about--and one of the reasons I felt a
+little inclined to be nice to her was that they seemed to be
+rather edging her out of the circle.  It wasn't long before I saw
+they were right, though.  I happened to mention I was going to
+give a dance and she pretended to take it as a matter of course
+that I meant to invite her brother--at least, I thought she
+pretended; she may have really believed it.  At any rate, I had
+to send him a card; but I didn't intend to be let in for that
+sort of thing again, of course.  She's what you said, 'pushing';
+though I'm awfully sorry you said it."
+
+"Why shouldn't I have said it, my dear?"
+
+"Of course I didn't say 'shouldn't.'" Mildred explained,
+gravely.  "I meant only that I'm sorry it happened."
+
+"Yes; but why?"
+
+"Mama"--Mildred turned to her, leaning forward and speaking in a
+lowered voice--"Mama, at first the change was so little it seemed
+as if Arthur hardly knew it himself.  He'd been lovely to me
+always, and he was still lovely to me but--oh, well, you've
+understood--after my dance it was more as if it was just his
+nature and his training to be lovely to me, as he would be to
+everyone a kind of politeness.  He'd never said he CARED for me,
+but after that I could see he didn't.  It was clear--after that.
+I didn't know what had happened; I couldn't think of anything I'd
+done.  Mama--it was Alice Adams."
+
+Mrs. Palmer set her little coffee-cup upon the table beside her,
+calmly following her own motion with her eyes, and not seeming to
+realize with what serious entreaty her daughter's gaze was fixed
+upon her.  Mildred repeated the last sentence of her revelation,
+and introduced a stress of insistence.
+
+"Mama, it WAS Alice Adams!"
+
+But Mrs. Palmer declined to be greatly impressed, so far as her
+appearance went, at least; and to emphasize her refusal, she
+smiled indulgently.  "What makes you think so?"
+
+"Henrietta told me yesterday."
+
+At this Mrs. Palmer permitted herself to laugh softly aloud.
+"Good heavens!  Is Henrietta a soothsayer?  Or is she Arthur's
+particular confidante?"
+
+"No.  Ella Dowling told her."
+
+Mrs. Palmer's laughter continued.  "Now we have it!" she
+exclaimed.  "It's a game of gossip: Arthur tells Ella, Ella tells
+Henrietta, and Henrietta tells----"
+
+"Don't laugh, please, mama," Mildred begged.  "Of course Arthur
+didn't tell anybody.  It's roundabout enough, but it's true.  I
+know it!  I hadn't quite believed it, but I knew it was true when
+he got so red.  He looked--oh, for a second or so he looked
+--stricken!  He thought I didn't notice it.  Mama, he's been to
+see her almost every evening lately.  They take long walks
+together.  That's why he hasn't been here."
+
+Of Mrs. Palmer's laughter there was left only her indulgent
+smile, which she had not allowed to vanish.  "Well, what of it?"
+she said.
+
+"Mama!"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Palmer.  "What of it?"
+
+"But don't you see?" Mildred's well-tutored voice, though
+modulated and repressed even in her present emotion, nevertheless
+had a tendency to quaver.  "It's true.  Frank Dowling was going
+to see her one evening and he saw Arthur sitting on the stoop
+with her, and didn't go in.  And Ella used to go to school with a
+girl who lives across the street from here.  She told Ella----"
+
+"Oh, I understand," Mrs. Palmer interrupted.  "Suppose he does
+go there.  My dear, I said, 'What of it?'"
+
+"I don't see what you mean, mama.  I'm so afraid he might think
+we knew about it, and that you and papa said those things about
+her and her father on that account--as if we abused them because
+he goes there instead of coming here."
+
+"Nonsense!" Mrs. Palmer rose, went to a window, and, turning
+there, stood with her back to it, facing her daughter and looking
+at her cheerfully.  "Nonsense, my dear!  It was perfectly clear
+that she was mentioned by accident, and so was her father.  What
+an extraordinary man!  If Arthur makes friends with people like
+that, he certainly knows better than to expect to hear favourable
+opinions of them.  Besides, it's only a little passing thing with
+him."
+
+"Mama!  When he goes there almost every----"
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Palmer said, dryly.  "It seems to me I've heard
+somewhere that other young men have gone there 'almost every!'
+She doesn't last, apparently.  Arthur's gallant, and he's
+impressionable--but he's fastidious, and fastidiousness is
+always the check on impressionableness.  A girl belongs to her
+family, too--and this one does especially, it strikes me!
+Arthur's very sensible; he sees more than you'd think."
+
+Mildred looked at her hopefully.  "Then you don't believe he's
+likely to imagine we said those things of her in any meaning
+way?"
+
+At this, Mrs. Palmer laughed again.  "There's one thing you seem
+not to have noticed, Mildred."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It seems to have escaped your attention that he never said a
+word."
+
+"Mightn't that mean----?" Mildred began, but she stopped.
+
+"No, it mightn't," her mother replied, comprehending easily.  "On
+the contrary, it might mean that instead of his feeling it too
+deeply to speak, he was getting a little illumination."
+
+Mildred rose and came to her.  "WHY do you suppose he never told
+us he went there?  Do you think he's--do you think he's pleased
+with her, and yet ashamed of it?  WHY do you suppose he's never
+spoken of it?"
+
+"Ah, that," Mrs. Palmer said,--"that might possibly be her own
+doing.  If it is, she's well paid by what your father and I said,
+because we wouldn't have said it if we'd known that Arthur----"
+She checked herself quickly.  Looking over her daughter's
+shoulder, she saw the two gentlemen coming from the corridor
+toward the wide doorway of the room; and she greeted them
+cheerfully.  "If you've finished with each other for a while,"
+she added, "Arthur may find it a relief to put his thoughts on
+something prettier than a trust company--and more fragrant."
+
+Arthur came to Mildred.
+
+"Your mother said at lunch that perhaps you'd----"
+
+"I didn't say 'perhaps,' Arthur," Mrs. Palmer interrupted, to
+correct him.  "I said she would.  If you care to see and smell
+those lovely things out yonder, she'll show them to you.  Run
+along, children!"
+
+
+Half an hour later, glancing from a window, she saw them come
+from the hothouses and slowly cross the lawn.  Arthur had a fine
+rose in his buttonhole and looked profoundly thoughtful.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+That morning and noon had been warm, though the stirrings of a
+feeble breeze made weather not flagrantly intemperate; but at
+about three o'clock in the afternoon there came out of the
+southwest a heat like an affliction sent upon an accursed people,
+and the air was soon dead of it.  Dripping negro ditch-diggers
+whooped with satires praising hell and hot weather, as the
+tossing shovels flickered up to the street level, where sluggish
+male pedestrians carried coats upon hot arms, and fanned
+themselves with straw hats, or, remaining covered, wore soaked
+handkerchiefs between scalp and straw.  Clerks drooped in silent,
+big department stores, stenographers in offices kept as close to
+electric fans as the intervening bulk of their employers would
+let them; guests in hotels left the lobbies and went to lie
+unclad upon their beds; while in hospitals the patients murmured
+querulously against the heat, and perhaps against some noisy
+motorist who strove to feel the air by splitting it, not troubled
+by any foreboding that he, too, that hour next week, might need
+quiet near a hospital.  The "hot spell" was a true spell, one
+upon men's spirits; for it was so hot that, in suburban
+outskirts, golfers crept slowly back over the low undulations of
+their club lands, abandoning their matches and returning to
+shelter.
+
+Even on such a day, sizzling work had to be done, as in winter.
+There were glowing furnaces to be stoked, liquid metals to be
+poured; but such tasks found seasoned men standing to them; and
+in all the city probably no brave soul challenged the heat more
+gamely than Mrs. Adams did, when, in a corner of her small and
+fiery kitchen, where all day long her hired African immune cooked
+fiercely, she pressed her husband's evening clothes with a hot
+iron.  No doubt she risked her life, but she risked it cheerfully
+in so good and necessary a service for him.  She would have given
+her life for him at any time, and both his and her own for her
+children.
+
+Unconscious of her own heroism, she was surprised to find herself
+rather faint when she finished her ironing.  However, she took
+heart to believe that the clothes looked better, in spite of one
+or two scorched places; and she carried them upstairs to her
+husband's room before increasing blindness forced her to grope
+for the nearest chair.  Then, trying to rise and walk, without
+having sufficiently recovered, she had to sit down again; but
+after a little while she was able to get upon her feet; and,
+keeping her hand against the wall, moved successfully to the door
+of her own room.  Here she wavered; might have gone down, had she
+not been stimulated by the thought of how much depended upon
+her;--she made a final great effort, and floundered across the
+room to her bureau, where she kept some simple restoratives.
+They served her need, or her faith in them did; and she returned
+to her work.
+
+She went down the stairs, keeping a still tremulous hand upon the
+rail; but she smiled brightly when Alice looked up from below,
+where the woodwork was again being tormented with superfluous
+attentions.
+
+"Alice, DON'T!" her mother said, commiseratingly.  "You did all
+that this morning and it looks lovely.  What's the use of wearing
+yourself out on it?  You ought to be lying down, so's to look
+fresh for to-night."
+
+"Hadn't you better lie down yourself?" the daughter returned.
+"Are you ill, mama?"
+
+"Certainly not.  What in the world makes you think so?"
+
+"You look pretty pale," Alice said, and sighed heavily.  "It
+makes me ashamed, having you work so hard--for me."
+
+"How foolish!  I think it's fun, getting ready to entertain a
+little again, like this.  I only wish it hadn't turned so hot:
+I'm afraid your poor father'll suffer--his things are pretty
+heavy, I noticed.  Well, it'll do him good to bear something for
+style's sake this once, anyhow!" She laughed, and coming to
+Alice, bent down and kissed her.  "Dearie," she said, tenderly,
+"wouldn't you please slip upstairs now and take just a little
+teeny nap to please your mother?"
+
+But Alice responded only by moving her head slowly, in token of
+refusal.
+
+"Do!" Mrs. Adams urged.  "You don't want to look worn out, do
+you?"
+
+"I'll LOOK all right," Alice said, huskily.  "Do you like the way
+I've arranged the furniture now?  I've tried all the different
+ways it'll go."
+
+"It's lovely," her mother said, admiringly.  "I thought the last
+way you had it was pretty, too.  But you know best; I never knew
+anybody with so much taste.  If you'd only just quit now, and
+take a little rest----"
+
+"There'd hardly be time, even if I wanted to; it's after five but
+I couldn't; really, I couldn't.  How do you think we can manage
+about Walter--to see that he wears his evening things, I mean?"
+
+Mrs. Adams pondered.  "I'm afraid he'll make a lot of
+objections, on account of the weather and everything.  I wish
+we'd had a chance to tell him last night or this morning.  I'd
+have telephoned to him this afternoon except--well, I scarcely
+like to call him up at that place, since your father----"
+
+"No, of course not, mama."
+
+"If Walter gets home late," Mrs. Adams went on, "I'll just slip
+out and speak to him, in case Mr. Russell's here before he
+comes.  I'll just tell him he's got to hurry and get his things
+on."
+
+"Maybe he won't come home to dinner," Alice suggested, rather
+hopefully.  "Sometimes he doesn't."
+
+"No; I think he'll be here.  When he doesn't come he usually
+telephones by this time to say not to wait for him; he's very
+thoughtful about that.  Well, it really is getting late: I must
+go and tell her she ought to be preparing her fillet.  Dearie, DO
+rest a little."
+
+"You'd much better do that yourself," Alice called after her, but
+Mrs. Adams shook her head cheerily, not pausing on her way to
+the fiery kitchen.
+
+Alice continued her useless labours for a time; then carried her
+bucket to the head of the cellar stairway, where she left it upon
+the top step; and, closing the door, returned to the
+"living-room;" Again she changed the positions of the old plush
+rocking-chairs, moving them into the corners where she thought
+they might be least noticeable; and while thus engaged she was
+startled by a loud ringing of the door-bell.  For a moment her
+face was panic-stricken, and she stood staring, then she realized
+that Russell would not arrive for another hour, at the earliest,
+and recovering her equipoise, went to the door.
+
+Waiting there, in a languid attitude, was a young coloured woman,
+with a small bundle under her arm and something malleable in her
+mouth.  "Listen," she said.  "You folks expectin' a coloured
+lady?"
+
+"No," said Alice.  "Especially not at the front door."
+
+"Listen," the coloured woman said again.  "Listen.  Say, listen.
+Ain't they another coloured lady awready here by the day?
+Listen.  Ain't Miz Malena Burns here by the day this evenin'?
+Say, listen.  This the number house she give ME."
+
+"Are you the waitress?" Alice asked, dismally.
+
+"Yes'm, if Malena here."
+
+"Malena is here," Alice said, and hesitated; but she decided not
+to send the waitress to the back door; it might be a risk.  She
+let her in.  "What's your name?"
+
+"Me?  I'm name' Gertrude.  Miss Gertrude Collamus."
+
+"Did you bring a cap and apron?"
+
+Gertrude took the little bundle from under her arm.  "Yes'm.  I'm
+all fix'."
+
+"I've already set the table," Alice said.  "I'll show you what we
+want done."
+
+She led the way to the dining-room, and, after offering some
+instruction there, received by Gertrude with languor and a slowly
+moving jaw, she took her into the kitchen, where the cap and
+apron were put on.  The effect was not fortunate; Gertrude's eyes
+were noticeably bloodshot, an affliction made more apparent by
+the white cap; and Alice drew her mother apart, whispering
+anxiously,
+
+"Do you suppose it's too late to get someone else?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is," Mrs. Adams said.  "Malena says it was hard
+enough to get HER!  You have to pay them so much that they only
+work when they feel like it."
+
+"Mama, could you ask her to wear her cap straighter?  Every time
+she moves her head she gets it on one side, and her skirt's too
+long behind and too short in front--and oh, I've NEVER seen such
+FEET!" Alice laughed desolately.  "And she MUST quit that
+terrible chewing!"
+
+"Never mind; I'll get to work with her.  I'll straighten her out
+all I can, dearie; don't worry."  Mrs. Adams patted her
+daughter's shoulder encouragingly.  "Now YOU can't do another
+thing, and if you don't run and begin dressing you won't be
+ready.  It'll only take me a minute to dress, myself, and I'll be
+down long before you will.  Run, darling!  I'll look after
+everything."
+
+Alice nodded vaguely, went up to her room, and, after only a
+moment with her mirror, brought from her closet the dress of
+white organdie she had worn the night when she met Russell for
+the first time.  She laid it carefully upon her bed, and began to
+make ready to put it on.  Her mother came in, half an hour later,
+to "fasten" her.
+
+"I'M all dressed," Mrs. Adams said, briskly.  "Of course it
+doesn't matter.  He won't know what the rest of us even look
+like: How could he?  I know I'm an old SIGHT, but all I want is
+to look respectable.  Do I?"
+
+"You look like the best woman in the world; that's all!" Alice
+said, with a little gulp.
+
+Her mother laughed and gave her a final scrutiny.  "You might use
+just a tiny bit more colour, dearie-- I'm afraid the excitement's
+made you a little pale.  And you MUST brighten up!  There's sort
+of a look in your eyes as if you'd got in a trance and couldn't
+get out.  You've had it all day.  I must run: your father wants
+me to help him with his studs.  Walter hasn't come yet, but I'll
+look after him; don't worry, And you better HURRY, dearie, if
+you're going to take any time fixing the flowers on the table."
+
+She departed, while Alice sat at the mirror again, to follow her
+advice concerning a "tiny bit more colour."  Before she had
+finished, her father knocked at the door, and, when she
+responded, came in.  He was dressed in the clothes his wife had
+pressed; but he had lost substantially in weight since they were
+made for him; no one would have thought that they had been
+pressed.  They hung from him voluminously, seeming to be the
+clothes of a larger man.
+
+"Your mother's gone downstairs," he said, in a voice of distress.
+
+"One of the buttonholes in my shirt is too large and I can't keep
+the dang thing fastened.  _I_ don't know what to do about it!  I
+only got one other white shirt, and it's kind of ruined: I tried
+it before I did this one.  Do you s'pose you could do anything?"
+
+"I'll see," she said.
+
+"My collar's got a frayed edge," he complained, as she examined
+his troublesome shirt.  "It's a good deal like wearing a saw; but
+I expect it'll wilt down flat pretty soon, and not bother me
+long.  I'm liable to wilt down flat, myself, I expect; I don't
+know as I remember any such hot night in the last ten or twelve
+years."  He lifted his head and sniffed the flaccid air, which
+was laden with a heavy odour.  "My, but that smell is pretty
+strong!" he said.
+
+"Stand still, please, papa," Alice begged him.  "I can't see
+what's the matter if you move around.  How absurd you are about
+your old glue smell, papa!  There isn't a vestige of it, of
+course."
+
+"I didn't mean glue," he informed her.  "I mean cabbage.  Is that
+fashionable now, to have cabbage when there's company for
+dinner?"
+
+"That isn't cabbage, papa.  It's Brussels sprouts."
+
+"Oh, is it?  I don't mind it much, because it keeps that glue
+smell off me, but it's fairly strong.  I expect you don't notice
+it so much because you been in the house with it all along, and
+got used to it while it was growing."
+
+"It is pretty dreadful," Alice said.  "Are all the windows open
+downstairs?"
+
+"I'll go down and see, if you'll just fix that hole up for me."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't," she said.  "Not unless you take your shirt
+off and bring it to me.  I'll have to sew the hole smaller."
+
+"Oh, well, I'll go ask your mother to----"
+
+"No," said Alice.  "She's got everything on her hands.  Run and
+take it off.  Hurry, papa; I've got to arrange the flowers on the
+table before he comes."
+
+He went away, and came back presently, half undressed, bringing
+the shirt.  "There's ONE comfort," he remarked, pensively, as she
+worked.  "I've got that collar off--for a while, anyway.  I wish
+I could go to table like this; I could stand it a good deal
+better.  Do you seem to be making any headway with the dang
+thing?"
+
+"I think probably I can----"
+
+Downstairs the door-bell rang, and Alice's arms jerked with the
+shock.
+
+"Golly!" her father said.  "Did you stick your finger with that
+fool needle?"
+
+She gave him a blank stare.  "He's come!"
+
+She was not mistaken, for, upon the little veranda, Russell stood
+facing the closed door at last.  However, it remained closed for
+a considerable time after he rang.  Inside the house the warning
+summons of the bell was immediately followed by another sound,
+audible to Alice and her father as a crash preceding a series of
+muffled falls.  Then came a distant voice, bitter in complaint.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" said Adams.  "What's that?"
+
+Alice went to the top of the front stairs, and her mother
+appeared in the hall below.
+
+"Mama!"
+
+Mrs. Adams looked up.  "It's all right," she said, in a loud
+whisper.  "Gertrude fell down the cellar stairs.  Somebody left a
+bucket there, and----" She was interrupted by a gasp from Alice,
+and hastened to reassure her.  "Don't worry, dearie.  She may
+limp a little, but----"
+
+Adams leaned over the banisters.  "Did she break anything?" he
+asked.
+
+"Hush!" his wife whispered.  "No.  She seems upset and angry
+about it, more than anything else; but she's rubbing herself, and
+she'll be all right in time to bring in the little sandwiches.
+Alice!  Those flowers!"
+
+"I know, mama.  But----"
+
+"Hurry!" Mrs. Adams warned her.  "Both of you hurry!  I MUST let
+him in!"
+
+She turned to the door, smiling cordially, even before she opened
+it.  "Do come right in, Mr. Russell," she said, loudly, lifting
+her voice for additional warning to those above.  "I'm SO glad to
+receive you informally, this way, in our own little home.
+There's a hat-rack here under the stairway," she continued, as
+Russell, murmuring some response, came into the hall.  "I'm
+afraid you'll think it's almost TOO informal, my coming to the
+door, but unfortunately our housemaid's just had a little
+accident--oh, nothing to mention!  I just thought we better not
+keep you waiting any longer.  Will you step into our living-room,
+please?"
+
+She led the way between the two small columns, and seated herself
+in one of the plush rocking-chairs, selecting it because Alice
+had once pointed out that the chairs, themselves, were less
+noticeable when they had people sitting in them.  "Do sit down,
+Mr. Russell; it's so very warm it's really quite a trial just to
+stand up!"
+
+"Thank you," he said, as he took a seat.  "Yes.  It is quite
+warm."  And this seemed to be the extent of his responsiveness
+for the moment.  He was grave, rather pale; and Mrs. Adams's
+impression of him, as she formed it then, was of "a
+distinguished-looking young man, really elegant in the best sense
+of the word, but timid and formal when he first meets you."  She
+beamed upon him, and used with everything she said a continuous
+accompaniment of laughter, meaningless except that it was meant
+to convey cordiality.  "Of course we DO have a great deal of warm
+weather," she informed him.  "I'm glad it's so much cooler in the
+house than it is outdoors."
+
+"Yes," he said.  "It is pleasanter indoors."  And, stopping with
+this single untruth, he permitted himself the briefest glance
+about the room; then his eyes returned to his smiling hostess.
+
+"Most people make a great fuss about hot weather," she said.
+"The only person I know who doesn't mind the heat the way other
+people do is Alice.  She always seems as cool as if we had a
+breeze blowing, no matter how hot it is.  But then she's so
+amiable she never minds anything.  It's just her character.
+She's always been that way since she was a little child; always
+the same to everybody, high and low.  I think character's the
+most important thing in the world, after all, don't you, Mr.
+Russell?"
+
+"Yes," he said, solemnly; and touched his bedewed white forehead
+with a handkerchief.
+
+"Indeed it is," she agreed with herself, never failing to
+continue her murmur of laughter.  "That's what I've always told
+Alice; but she never sees anything good in herself, and she just
+laughs at me when I praise her.  She sees good in everybody ELSE
+in the world, no matter how unworthy they are, or how they behave
+toward HER; but she always underestimates herself.  From the time
+she was a little child she was always that way.  When some other
+little girl would behave selfishly or meanly toward her, do you
+think she'd come and tell me?  Never a word to anybody!  The
+little thing was too proud!  She was the same way about school.
+The teachers had to tell me when she took a prize; she'd bring it
+home and keep it in her room without a word about it to her
+father and mother.  Now, Walter was just the other way.  Walter
+would----" But here Mrs. Adams checked herself, though she
+increased the volume of her laughter.  "How silly of me!" she
+exclaimed.  "I expect you know how mothers ARE, though, Mr.
+Russell.  Give us a chance and we'll talk about our children
+forever!  Alice would feel terribly if she knew how I've been
+going on about her to you."
+
+In this Mrs. Adams was right, though she did not herself suspect
+it, and upon an almost inaudible word or two from him she went on
+with her topic.  "Of course my excuse is that few mothers have a
+daughter like Alice.  I suppose we all think the same way about
+our children, but SOME of us must be right when we feel we've got
+the best.  Don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes.  Yes, indeed."
+
+"I'm sure _I_ am!" she laughed.  "I'll let the others speak for
+themselves."  She paused reflectively.  "No; I think a mother
+knows when she's got a treasure in her family.  If she HASN'T got
+one, she'll pretend she has, maybe; but if she has, she knows it.
+I certainly know _I_ have.  She's always been what people call
+'the joy of the household'--always cheerful, no matter what went
+wrong, and always ready to smooth things over with some bright,
+witty saying.  You must be sure not to TELL we've had this little
+chat about her--she'd just be furious with me--but she IS such a
+dear child!  You won't tell her, will you?"
+
+"No," he said, and again applied the handkerchief to his forehead
+for an instant.  "No, I'll----" He paused, and finished lamely:
+"I'll--not tell her."
+
+Thus reassured, Mrs. Adams set before him some details of her
+daughter's popularity at sixteen, dwelling upon Alice's
+impartiality among her young suitors: "She never could BEAR to
+hurt their feelings, and always treated all of them just alike.
+About half a dozen of them were just BOUND to marry her!
+Naturally, her father and I considered any such idea ridiculous;
+she was too young, of course."
+
+Thus the mother went on with her biographical sketches, while the
+pale young man sat facing her under the hard overhead light of a
+white globe, set to the ceiling; and listened without
+interrupting.  She was glad to have the chance to tell him a few
+things about Alice he might not have guessed for himself, and,
+indeed, she had planned to find such an opportunity, if she
+could; but this was getting to be altogether too much of one, she
+felt.  As time passed, she was like an actor who must improvise
+to keep the audience from perceiving that his fellow-players have
+missed their cues; but her anxiety was not betrayed to the still
+listener; she had a valiant soul.
+
+Alice, meanwhile, had arranged her little roses on the table in
+as many ways, probably, as there were blossoms; and she was still
+at it when her father arrived in the dining-room by way of the
+back stairs and the kitchen.
+
+"It's pulled out again," he said.  "But I guess there's no help
+for it now; it's too late, and anyway it lets some air into me
+when it bulges.  I can sit so's it won't be noticed much, I
+expect.  Isn't it time you quit bothering about the looks of the
+table?  Your mother's been talking to him about half an hour now,
+and I had the idea he came on your account, not hers.  Hadn't you
+better go and----"
+
+"Just a minute."  Alice said, piteously.  "Do YOU think it looks
+all right?"
+
+"The flowers?  Fine!  Hadn't you better leave 'em the way they
+are, though?"
+
+"Just a minute," she begged again.  "Just ONE minute, papa!" And
+she exchanged a rose in front of Russell's plate for one that
+seemed to her a little larger.
+
+"You better come on," Adams said, moving to the door.
+
+"Just ONE more second, papa."  She shook her head, lamenting.
+"Oh, I wish we'd rented some silver!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because so much of the plating has rubbed off a lot of it.  JUST
+a second, papa."  And as she spoke she hastily went round the
+table, gathering the knives and forks and spoons that she thought
+had their plating best preserved, and exchanging them for more
+damaged pieces at Russell's place.  "There!" she sighed, finally.
+
+"Now I'll come."  But at the door she paused to look back
+dubiously, over her shoulder.
+
+"What's the matter now?"
+
+"The roses.  I believe after all I shouldn't have tried that vine
+effect; I ought to have kept them in water, in the vase.  It's so
+hot, they already begin to look a little wilted, out on the dry
+tablecloth like that.  I believe I'll----"
+
+"Why, look here, Alice!" he remonstrated, as she seemed disposed
+to turn back.  "Everything'll burn up on the stove if you keep
+on----"
+
+"Oh, well," she said, "the vase was terribly ugly; I can't do any
+better.  We'll go in."  But with her hand on the door-knob she
+paused.  "No, papa.  We mustn't go in by this door.  It might
+look as if----"
+
+"As if what?"
+
+"Never mind," she said.  "Let's go the other way."
+
+"I don't see what difference it makes," he grumbled, but
+nevertheless followed her through the kitchen, and up the back
+stairs then through the upper hallway.  At the top of the front
+stairs she paused for a moment, drawing a deep breath; and then,
+before her father's puzzled eyes, a transformation came upon her.
+
+Her shoulders, like her eyelids, had been drooping, but now she
+threw her head back: the shoulders straightened, and the lashes
+lifted over sparkling eyes; vivacity came to her whole body in a
+flash; and she tripped down the steps, with her pretty hands
+rising in time to the lilting little tune she had begun to hum.
+
+At the foot of the stairs, one of those pretty hands extended
+itself at full arm's length toward Russell, and continued to be
+extended until it reached his own hand as he came to meet her.
+"How terrible of me!" she exclaimed.  "To be so late coming down!
+And papa, too--I think you know each other."
+
+Her father was advancing toward the young man, expecting to shake
+hands with him, but Alice stood between them, and Russell, a
+little flushed, bowed to him gravely over her shoulder, without
+looking at him; whereupon Adams, slightly disconcerted, put his
+hands in his pockets and turned to his wife.
+
+"I guess dinner's more'n ready," he said.  "We better go sit
+down."
+
+But she shook her head at him fiercely, "Wait!" she whispered.
+
+"What for?  For Walter?"
+
+"No; he can't be coming," she returned, hurriedly, and again
+warned him by a shake of her head.  "Be quiet!"
+
+"Oh, well----" he muttered.
+
+"Sit down!"
+
+He was thoroughly mystified, but obeyed her gesture and went to
+the rocking-chair in the opposite corner, where he sat down, and,
+with an expression of meek inquiry, awaited events.
+
+Meanwhile, Alice prattled on: "It's really not a fault of mine,
+being tardy.  The shameful truth is I was trying to hurry papa.
+He's incorrigible: he stays so late at his terrible old
+factory--terrible new factory, I should say.  I hope you don't
+HATE us for making you dine with us in such fearful weather!  I'm
+nearly dying of the heat, myself, so you have a fellow-sufferer,
+if that pleases you.  Why is it we always bear things better if
+we think other people have to stand them, too?" And she added,
+with an excited laugh: "SILLY of us, don't you think?"
+
+Gertrude had just made her entrance from the dining-room, bearing
+a tray.  She came slowly, with an air of resentment; and her
+skirt still needed adjusting, while her lower jaw moved at
+intervals, though not now upon any substance, but reminiscently,
+of habit.  She halted before Adams, facing him.
+
+He looked plaintive.  "What you want o' me?" he asked.
+
+For response, she extended the tray toward him with a gesture of
+indifference; but he still appeared to be puzzled.  "What in the
+world----?" he began, then caught his wife's eye, and had
+presence of mind enough to take a damp and plastic sandwich from
+the tray.  "Well, I'll TRY one," he said, but a moment later, as
+he fulfilled this promise, an expression of intense dislike came
+upon his features, and he would have returned the sandwich to
+Gertrude.  However, as she had crossed the room to Mrs. Adams he
+checked the gesture, and sat helplessly, with the sandwich in his
+hand.  He made another effort to get rid of it as the waitress
+passed him, on her way back to the dining-room, but she appeared
+not to observe him, and he continued to be troubled by it.
+
+Alice was a loyal daughter.  "These are delicious, mama," she
+said; and turning to Russell, "You missed it; you should have
+taken one.  Too bad we couldn't have offered you what ought to go
+with it, of course, but----"
+
+She was interrupted by the second entrance of Gertrude, who
+announced, "Dinner serve'," and retired from view.
+
+"Well, well!" Adams said, rising from his chair, with relief.
+"That's good!  Let's go see if we can eat it."  And as the little
+group moved toward the open door of the dining-room he disposed
+of his sandwich by dropping it in the empty fireplace.
+
+Alice, glancing back over her shoulder, was the only one who saw
+him, and she shuddered in spite of herself.  Then, seeing that he
+looked at her entreatingly, as if he wanted to explain that he
+was doing the best he could, she smiled upon him sunnily, and
+began to chatter to Russell again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Alice kept her sprightly chatter going when they sat down, though
+the temperature of the room and the sight of hot soup might have
+discouraged a less determined gayety.  Moreover, there were
+details as unpropitious as the heat: the expiring roses expressed
+not beauty but pathos, and what faint odour they exhaled was no
+rival to the lusty emanations of the Brussels sprouts; at the
+head of the table, Adams, sitting low in his chair, appeared to
+be unable to flatten the uprising wave of his starched bosom; and
+Gertrude's manner and expression were of a recognizable hostility
+during the long period of vain waiting for the cups of soup to be
+emptied.  Only Mrs. Adams made any progress in this direction;
+the others merely feinting, now and then lifting their spoons as
+if they intended to do something with them.
+
+Alice's talk was little more than cheerful sound, but, to fill a
+desolate interval, served its purpose; and her mother supported
+her with ever-faithful cooings of applausive laughter.  "What a
+funny thing weather is!" the girl ran on.  "Yesterday it was
+cool--angels had charge of it--and to-day they had an engagement
+somewhere else, so the devil saw his chance and started to move
+the equator to the North Pole; but by the time he got half-way,
+he thought of something else he wanted to do, and went off; and
+left the equator here, right on top of US!  I wish he'd come back
+and get it!"
+
+"Why, Alice dear!" her mother cried, fondly.  "What an
+imagination!  Not a very pious one, I'm afraid Mr. Russell might
+think, though!" Here she gave Gertrude a hidden signal to remove
+the soup; but, as there was no response, she had to make the
+signal more conspicuous.  Gertrude was leaning against the wall,
+her chin moving like a slow pendulum, her streaked eyes fixed
+mutinously upon Russell.  Mrs. Adams nodded several times,
+increasing the emphasis of her gesture, while Alice talked
+briskly; but the brooding waitress continued to brood.  A faint
+snap of the fingers failed to disturb her; nor was a covert
+hissing whisper of avail, and Mrs. Adams was beginning to show
+signs of strain when her daughter relieved her.
+
+"Imagine our trying to eat anything so hot as soup on a night
+like this!" Alice laughed.  "What COULD have been in the cook's
+mind not to give us something iced and jellied instead?  Of
+course it's because she's equatorial, herself, originally, and
+only feels at home when Mr. Satan moves it north."  She looked
+round at Gertrude, who stood behind her.  "Do take this dreadful
+soup away!"
+
+Thus directly addressed, Gertrude yielded her attention, though
+unwillingly, and as if she decided only by a hair's weight not to
+revolt, instead.  However, she finally set herself in slow
+motion; but overlooked the supposed head of the table, seeming to
+be unaware of the sweltering little man who sat there.  As she
+disappeared toward the kitchen with but three of the cups upon
+her tray he turned to look plaintively after her, and ventured an
+attempt to recall her.
+
+"Here!" he said, in a low voice.  "Here, you!"
+
+"What is it, Virgil?" his wife asked.
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+Mrs. Adams gave him a glance of sudden panic, and, seeing that
+the guest of the evening was not looking at her, but down at the
+white cloth before him, she frowned hard, and shook her head.
+
+Unfortunately Alice was not observing her mother, and asked,
+innocently: "What's whose name, papa?"
+
+"Why, this young darky woman," he explained.  "She left mine."
+
+"Never mind," Alice laughed.  "There's hope for you, papa.  She
+hasn't gone forever!"
+
+"I don't know about that," he said, not content with this
+impulsive assurance.  "She LOOKED like she is."  And his remark,
+considered as a prediction, had begun to seem warranted before
+Gertrude's return with china preliminary to the next stage of the
+banquet.
+
+Alice proved herself equal to the long gap, and rattled on
+through it with a spirit richly justifying her mother's praise of
+her as "always ready to smooth things over"; for here was more
+than long delay to be smoothed over.  She smoothed over her
+father and mother for Russell; and she smoothed over him for
+them, though he did not know it, and remained unaware of what he
+owed her.  With all this, throughout her prattlings, the girl's
+bright eyes kept seeking his with an eager gayety, which but
+little veiled both interrogation and entreaty--as if she asked:
+"Is it too much for you?  Can't you bear it?  Won't you PLEASE
+bear it?  I would for you.  Won't you give me a sign that it's
+all right?"
+
+He looked at her but fleetingly, and seemed to suffer from the
+heat, in spite of every manly effort not to wipe his brow too
+often.  His colour, after rising when he greeted Alice and her
+father, had departed, leaving him again moistly pallid; a
+condition arising from discomfort, no doubt, but, considered as a
+decoration, almost poetically becoming to him.  Not less becoming
+was the faint, kindly smile, which showed his wish to express
+amusement and approval; and yet it was a smile rather strained
+and plaintive, as if he, like Adams, could only do the best he
+could.
+
+He pleased Adams, who thought him a fine young man, and decidedly
+the quietest that Alice had ever shown to her family.  In her
+father's opinion this was no small merit; and it was to Russell's
+credit, too, that he showed embarrassment upon this first
+intimate presentation; here was an applicant with both reserve
+and modesty.  "So far, he seems to be first rate a mighty fine
+young man," Adams thought; and, prompted by no wish to part from
+Alice but by reminiscences of apparent candidates less pleasing,
+he added, "At last!"
+
+Alice's liveliness never flagged.  Her smoothing over of things
+was an almost continuous performance, and had to be.  Yet, while
+she chattered through the hot and heavy courses, the questions
+she asked herself were as continuous as the performance, and as
+poignant as what her eyes seemed to be asking Russell.  Why had
+she not prevailed over her mother's fear of being "skimpy?" Had
+she been, indeed, as her mother said she looked, "in a trance?"
+But above all: What was the matter with HIM?  What had happened?
+For she told herself with painful humour that something even
+worse than this dinner must be "the matter with him."
+
+The small room, suffocated with the odour of boiled sprouts, grew
+hotter and hotter as more and more food appeared, slowly borne
+in, between deathly long waits, by the resentful, loud-breathing
+Gertrude.  And while Alice still sought Russell's glance, and
+read the look upon his face a dozen different ways, fearing all
+of them; and while the straggling little flowers died upon the
+stained cloth, she felt her heart grow as heavy as the food, and
+wondered that it did not die like the roses.
+
+With the arrival of coffee, the host bestirred himself to make
+known a hospitable regret, "By George!" he said.  "I meant to buy
+some cigars."  He addressed himself apologetically to the guest.
+"I don't know what I was thinking about, to forget to bring some
+home with me.  I don't use 'em myself--unless somebody hands me
+one, you might say.  I've always been a pipe-smoker, pure and
+simple, but I ought to remembered for kind of an occasion like
+this."
+
+"Not at all," Russell said.  "I'm not smoking at all lately; but
+when I do, I'm like you, and smoke a pipe."
+
+Alice started, remembering what she had told him when he overtook
+her on her way from the tobacconist's; but, after a moment,
+looking at him, she decided that he must have forgotten it.  If
+he had remembered, she thought, he could not have helped glancing
+at her.  On the contrary, he seemed more at ease, just then, than
+he had since they sat down, for he was favouring her father with
+a thoughtful attention as Adams responded to the introduction of
+a man's topic into the conversation at last.  "Well, Mr.
+Russell, I guess you're right, at that.  I don't say but what
+cigars may be all right for a man that can afford 'em, if he
+likes 'em better than a pipe, but you take a good old pipe
+now----"
+
+He continued, and was getting well into the eulogium customarily
+provoked by this theme, when there came an interruption: the
+door-bell rang, and he paused inquiringly, rather surprised.
+
+Mrs. Adams spoke to Gertrude in an undertone:
+
+"Just say, 'Not at home.'"
+
+"What?"
+
+"If it's callers, just say we're not at home."
+
+Gertrude spoke out freely: "You mean you astin' me to 'tend you'
+front do' fer you?"
+
+She seemed both incredulous and affronted, but Mrs. Adams
+persisted, though somewhat apprehensively.  "Yes.
+Hurry--uh--please.  Just say we're not at home if you please."
+
+Again Gertrude obviously hesitated between compliance and revolt,
+and again the meeker course fortunately prevailed with her.  She
+gave Mrs. Adams a stare, grimly derisive, then departed.  When
+she came back she said:
+
+"He say he wait."
+
+"But I told you to tell anybody we were not at home," Mrs Adams
+returned.  "Who is it?"
+
+"Say he name Mr. Law."
+
+"We don't know any Mr. Law."
+
+"Yes'm; he know you.  Say he anxious to speak Mr. Adams.  Say he
+wait."
+
+"Tell him Mr. Adams is engaged."
+
+"Hold on a minute," Adams intervened.  "Law?  No.  I don't know
+any Mr. Law.  You sure you got the name right?"
+
+"Say he name Law," Gertrude replied, looking at the ceiling to
+express her fatigue.  "Law.  'S all he tell me; 's all I know."
+
+Adams frowned.  "Law," he said.  "Wasn't it maybe 'Lohr?'"
+
+"Law," Gertrude repeated.  "'S all he tell me; 's all I know."
+
+"What's he look like?"
+
+"He ain't much," she said.  "'Bout you' age; got brustly white
+moustache, nice eye-glasses."
+
+"It's Charley Lohr!" Adams exclaimed.  "I'll go see what he
+wants."
+
+"But, Virgil," his wife remonstrated, "do finish your coffee; he
+might stay all evening.  Maybe he's come to call."
+
+Adams laughed.  "He isn't much of a caller, I expect.  Don't
+worry: I'll take him up to my room."  And turning toward Russell,
+"Ah--if you'll just excuse me," he said; and went out to his
+visitor.
+
+When he had gone, Mrs. Adams finished her coffee, and, having
+glanced intelligently from her guest to her daughter, she rose.
+"I think perhaps I ought to go and shake hands with Mr. Lohr,
+myself," she said, adding in explanation to Russell, as she
+reached the door, "He's an old friend of my husband's and it's a
+very long time since he's been here."
+
+Alice nodded and smiled to her brightly, but upon the closing of
+the door, the smile vanished; all her liveliness disappeared; and
+with this change of expression her complexion itself appeared to
+change, so that her rouge became obvious, for she was pale
+beneath it.  However, Russell did not see the alteration, for he
+did not look at her; and it was but a momentary lapse the
+vacation of a tired girl, who for ten seconds lets herself look
+as she feels.  Then she shot her vivacity back into place as by
+some powerful spring.
+
+"Penny for your thoughts!" she cried, and tossed one of the
+wilted roses at him, across the table.  "I'll bid more than a
+penny; I'll bid tuppence--no, a poor little dead rose a rose for
+your thoughts, Mr. Arthur Russell!  What are they?"
+
+He shook his head.  "I'm afraid I haven't any."
+
+"No, of course not," she said.  "Who could have thoughts in
+weather like this?  Will you EVER forgive us?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Making you eat such a heavy dinner--I mean LOOK at such a heavy
+dinner, because you certainly didn't do more than look at it--on
+such a night!  But the crime draws to a close, and you can begin
+to cheer up!" She laughed gaily, and, rising, moved to the door.
+"Let's go in the other room; your fearful duty is almost done,
+and you can run home as soon as you want to.  That's what you're
+dying to do."
+
+"Not at all," he said in a voice so feeble that she laughed
+aloud.
+
+"Good gracious!" she cried.  "I hadn't realized it was THAT bad!"
+
+For this, though he contrived to laugh, he seemed to have no
+verbal retort whatever; but followed her into the "living-room,"
+where she stopped and turned, facing him.
+
+"Has it really been so frightful?" she asked.
+
+"Why, of course not.  Not at all."
+
+"Of course yes, though, you mean!"
+
+"Not at all.  It's been most kind of your mother and father and
+you."
+
+"Do you know," she said, "you've never once looked at me for more
+than a second at a time the whole evening?  And it seemed to me I
+looked rather nice to-night, too!"
+
+"You always do," he murmured.
+
+"I don't see how you know," she returned; and then stepping
+closer to him, spoke with gentle solicitude: "Tell me: you're
+really feeling wretchedly, aren't you?  I know you've got a
+fearful headache, or something.  Tell me!"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"You are ill--I'm sure of it."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"On your word?"
+
+"I'm really quite all right."
+
+"But if you are----" she began; and then, looking at him with a
+desperate sweetness, as if this were her last resource to rouse
+him, "What's the matter, little boy?" she said with lisping
+tenderness.  "Tell auntie!"
+
+It was a mistake, for he seemed to flinch, and to lean backward,
+however, slightly.  She turned away instantly, with a flippant
+lift and drop of both hands.  "Oh, my dear!" she laughed.  "I
+won't eat you!"
+
+And as the discomfited young man watched her, seeming able to
+lift his eyes, now that her back was turned, she went to the
+front door and pushed open the screen.  "Let's go out on the
+porch," she said.  "Where we belong!"
+
+Then, when he had followed her out, and they were seated, "Isn't
+this better?" she asked.  "Don't you feel more like yourself out
+here?"
+
+He began a murmur: "Not at----"
+
+But she cut him off sharply: "Please don't say 'Not at all'
+again!"
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"You do seem sorry about something," she said.  "What is it?
+Isn't it time you were telling me what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing.  Indeed nothing's the matter.  Of course one IS rather
+affected by such weather as this.  It may make one a little
+quieter than usual, of course."
+
+She sighed, and let the tired muscles of her face rest.  Under
+the hard lights, indoors, they had served her until they ached,
+and it was a luxury to feel that in the darkness no grimacings
+need call upon them.
+
+"Of course, if you won't tell me----" she said.
+
+"I can only assure you there's nothing to tell."
+
+"I know what an ugly little house it is," she said.  "Maybe it
+was the furniture--or mama's vases that upset you.  Or was it
+mama herself--or papa?"
+
+"Nothing 'upset' me."
+
+At that she uttered a monosyllable of doubting laughter.  "I
+wonder why you say that."
+
+"Because it's so."
+
+"No.  It's because you're too kind, or too conscientious, or too
+embarrassed--anyhow too something--to tell me."  She leaned
+forward, elbows on knees and chin in hands, in the reflective
+attitude she knew how to make graceful.  "I have a feeling that
+you're not going to tell me," she said, slowly.  "Yes--even that
+you're never going to tell me.  I wonder--I wonder----"
+
+"Yes?  What do you wonder?"
+
+"I was just thinking--I wonder if they haven't done it, after
+all."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"I wonder," she went on, still slowly, and in a voice of
+reflection, "I wonder who HAS been talking about me to you, after
+all?  Isn't that it?"
+
+"Not at----" he began, but checked himself and substituted
+another form of denial.  "Nothing is 'it.'"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Why, yes."
+
+"How curious!" she said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because all evening you've been so utterly different."
+
+"But in this weather----"
+
+"No.  That wouldn't make you afraid to look at me all evening!"
+
+"But I did look at you.  Often."
+
+"No.  Not really a LOOK."
+
+"But I'm looking at you now."
+
+"Yes--in the dark!" she said.  "No--the weather might make you
+even quieter than usual, but it wouldn't strike you so nearly
+dumb.  No--and it wouldn't make you seem to be under such a
+strain--as if you thought only of escape!"
+
+"But I haven't----"
+
+"You shouldn't," she interrupted, gently.  "There's nothing you
+have to escape from, you know.  You aren't committed to--to this
+friendship."
+
+"I'm sorry you think----" he began, but did not complete the
+fragment.
+
+She took it up.  "You're sorry I think you're so different, you
+mean to say, don't you?  Never mind: that's what you did mean to
+say, but you couldn't finish it because you're not good at
+deceiving."
+
+"Oh, no," he protested, feebly.  "I'm not deceiving.  I'm----"
+
+"Never mind," she said again.  "You're sorry I think you're so
+different--and all in one day--since last night.  Yes, your voice
+SOUNDS sorry, too.  It sounds sorrier than it would just because
+of my thinking something you could change my mind about in a
+minute so it means you're sorry you ARE different."
+
+"No--I----"
+
+But disregarding the faint denial, "Never mind," she said.  "Do
+you remember one night when you told me that nothing anybody else
+could do would ever keep you from coming here?  That if you--if
+you left me it would be because I drove you away myself?"
+
+"Yes," he said, huskily.  "It was true."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Indeed I am," he answered in a low voice, but with conviction.
+
+"Then----" She paused.  "Well--but I haven't driven you away."
+
+"No."
+
+"And yet you've gone," she said, quietly.
+
+"Do I seem so stupid as all that?"
+
+"You know what I mean."  She leaned back in her chair again, and
+her hands, inactive for once, lay motionless in her lap.  When
+she spoke it was in a rueful whisper:
+
+"I wonder if I HAVE driven you away?"
+
+"You've done nothing--nothing at all," he said.
+
+"I wonder----" she said once more, but she stopped.  In her mind
+she was going back over their time together since the first
+meeting--fragments of talk, moments of silence, little things of
+no importance, little things that might be important; moonshine,
+sunshine, starlight; and her thoughts zigzagged among the
+jumbling memories; but, as if she made for herself a picture of
+all these fragments, throwing them upon the canvas haphazard, she
+saw them all just touched with the one tainting quality that gave
+them coherence, the faint, false haze she had put over this
+friendship by her own pretendings.  And, if this terrible dinner,
+or anything, or everything, had shown that saffron tint in its
+true colour to the man at her side, last night almost a lover,
+then she had indeed of herself driven him away, and might well
+feel that she was lost.
+
+"Do you know?" she said, suddenly, in a clear, loud voice.  "I
+have the strangest feeling.  I feel as if I were going to be with
+you only about five minutes more in all the rest of my life!"
+
+"Why, no," he said.  "Of course I'm coming to see you--often.
+I----"
+
+"No," she interrupted.  "I've never had a feeling like this
+before.  It's--it's just SO; that's all!  You're GOING--why,
+you're never coming here again!" She stood up, abruptly,
+beginning to tremble all over.  "Why, it's FINISHED, isn't it?"
+she said, and her trembling was manifest now in her voice.  "Why,
+it's all OVER, isn't it?  Why, yes!"
+
+He had risen as she did.  "I'm afraid you're awfully tired and
+nervous," he said.  "I really ought to be going."
+
+"Yes, of COURSE you ought," she cried, despairingly.  "There's
+nothing else for you to do.  When anything's spoiled, people
+CAN'T do anything but run away from it.  So good-bye!"
+
+"At least," he returned, huskily, "we'll only--only say
+good-night."
+
+Then, as moving to go, he stumbled upon the veranda steps, "Your
+HAT!" she cried.  "I'd like to keep it for a souvenir, but I'm
+afraid you need it!"
+
+She ran into the hall and brought his straw hat from the chair
+where he had left it.  "You poor thing!" she said, with quavering
+laughter.  "Don't you know you can't go without your hat?"
+
+Then, as they faced each other for the short moment which both of
+them knew would be the last of all their veranda moments, Alice's
+broken laughter grew louder.  "What a thing to say!" she cried.
+"What a romantic parting--talking about HATS!"
+
+Her laughter continued as he turned away, but other sounds came
+from within the house, clearly audible with the opening of a door
+upstairs--a long and wailing cry of lamentation in the voice of
+Mrs. Adams.  Russell paused at the steps, uncertain, but Alice
+waved to him to go on.
+
+"Oh, don't bother," she said.  "We have lots of that in this
+funny little old house!  Good-bye!"
+
+And as he went down the steps, she ran back into the house and
+closed the door heavily behind her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Her mother's wailing could still be heard from overhead, though
+more faintly; and old Charley Lohr was coming down the stairs
+alone.
+
+He looked at Alice compassionately.  "I was just comin' to
+suggest maybe you'd excuse yourself from your company," he said.
+"Your mother was bound not to disturb you, and tried her best to
+keep you from hearin' how she's takin' on, but I thought probably
+you better see to her."
+
+"Yes, I'll come.  What's the matter?"
+
+"Well," he said, "_I_ only stepped over to offer my sympathy and
+services, as it were.  _I_ thought of course you folks knew all
+about it.  Fact is, it was in the evening paper--just a little
+bit of an item on the back page, of course."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He coughed.  "Well, it ain't anything so terrible," he said.
+"Fact is, your brother Walter's got in a little trouble--well, I
+suppose you might call it quite a good deal of trouble.  Fact is,
+he's quite considerable short in his accounts down at Lamb and
+Company."
+
+Alice ran up the stairs and into her father's room, where Mrs.
+Adams threw herself into her daughter's arms.  "Is he gone?" she
+sobbed.  "He didn't hear me, did he?  I tried so hard----"
+
+Alice patted the heaving shoulders her arms enclosed.  "No, no,"
+she said.  "He didn't hear you--it wouldn't have mattered--he
+doesn't matter anyway."
+
+"Oh, POOR Walter!" The mother cried.  "Oh, the POOR boy!  Poor,
+poor Walter!  Poor, poor, poor, POOR----"
+
+"Hush, dear, hush!" Alice tried to soothe her, but the lament
+could not be abated, and from the other side of the room a
+repetition in a different spirit was as continuous.  Adams paced
+furiously there, pounding his fist into his left palm as he
+strode.  "The dang boy!" he said.  "Dang little fool!  Dang
+idiot!  Dang fool!  Whyn't he TELL me, the dang little fool?"
+
+"He DID!" Mrs. Adams sobbed.  "He DID tell you, and you wouldn't
+GIVE it to him."
+
+"He DID, did he?" Adams shouted at her.  "What he begged me for
+was money to run away with!  He never dreamed of putting back
+what he took.  What the dangnation you talking about--accusing
+me!"
+
+"He NEEDED it," she said.  "He needed it to run away with!  How
+could he expect to LIVE, after he got away, if he didn't have a
+little money?  Oh, poor, poor, POOR Walter!  Poor, poor,
+poor----"
+
+She went back to this repetition; and Adams went back to his own,
+then paused, seeing his old friend standing in the hallway
+outside the open door.
+
+"Ah--I'll just be goin', I guess, Virgil," Lohr said.  "I don't
+see as there's any use my tryin' to say any more.  I'll do
+anything you want me to, you understand."
+
+"Wait a minute," Adams said, and, groaning, came and went down
+the stairs with him.  "You say you didn't see the old man at
+all?"
+
+"No, I don't know a thing about what he's going to do," Lohr
+said, as they reached the lower floor.  "Not a thing.  But look
+here, Virgil, I don't see as this calls for you and your wife to
+take on so hard about--anyhow not as hard as the way you've
+started."
+
+"No," Adams gulped.  "It always seems that way to the other party
+that's only looking on!"
+
+"Oh, well, I know that, of course," old Charley returned,
+soothingly.  "But look here, Virgil: they may not catch the boy;
+they didn't even seem to be sure what train he made, and if they
+do get him, why, the ole man might decide not to prosecute
+if----"
+
+"HIM?" Adams cried, interrupting.  "Him not prosecute?  Why,
+that's what he's been waiting for, all along!  He thinks my boy
+and me both cheated him!  Why, he was just letting Walter walk
+into a trap!  Didn't you say they'd been suspecting him for some
+time back?  Didn't you say they'd been watching him and were just
+about fixing to arrest him?"
+
+"Yes, I know," said Lohr; "but you can't tell, especially if you
+raise the money and pay it back."
+
+"Every cent!" Adams vociferated.  "Every last penny!  I can raise
+it--I GOT to raise it!  I'm going to put a loan on my factory
+to-morrow.  Oh, I'll get it for him, you tell him!  Every last
+penny!"
+
+"Well, ole feller, you just try and get quieted down some now."
+Charley held out his hand in parting.  "You and your wife just
+quiet down some.  You AIN'T the healthiest man in the world, you
+know, and you already been under quite some strain before this
+happened.  You want to take care of yourself for the sake of your
+wife and that sweet little girl upstairs, you know.  Now,
+good-night," he finished, stepping out upon the veranda.  "You
+send for me if there's anything I can do."
+
+"Do?" Adams echoed.  "There ain't anything ANYBODY can do!" And
+then, as his old friend went down the path to the sidewalk, he
+called after him, "You tell him I'll pay him every last cent!
+Every last, dang, dirty PENNY!"
+
+He slammed the door and went rapidly up the stairs, talking
+loudly to himself.  "Every dang, last, dirty penny!  Thinks
+EVERYBODY in this family wants to steal from him, does he?
+Thinks we're ALL yellow, does he?  I'll show him!" And he came
+into his own room vociferating, "Every last, dang, dirty penny!"
+
+Mrs. Adams had collapsed, and Alice had put her upon his bed,
+where she lay tossing convulsively and sobbing, "Oh, POOR
+Walter!" over and over, but after a time she varied the sorry
+tune.  "Oh, poor Alice!" she moaned, clinging to her daughter's
+hand.  "Oh, poor, POOR Alice to have THIS come on the night of
+your dinner--just when everything seemed to be going so well--at
+last--oh, poor, poor, POOR----"
+
+"Hush!" Alice said, sharply.  "Don't say 'poor Alice!' I'm all
+right."
+
+"You MUST be!" her mother cried, clutching her.  "You've just GOT
+to be!  ONE of us has got to be all right--surely God wouldn't
+mind just ONE of us being all right--that wouldn't hurt Him----"
+
+"Hush, hush, mother!  Hush!"
+
+But Mrs. Adams only clutched her the more tightly.  "He seemed
+SUCH a nice young man, dearie!  He may not see this in the
+paper--Mr. Lohr said it was just a little bit of an item--he MAY
+not see it, dearie----"
+
+Then her anguish went back to Walter again; and to his needs as a
+fugitive--she had meant to repair his underwear, but had
+postponed doing so, and her neglect now appeared to be a detail
+as lamentable as the calamity itself.  She could neither be
+stilled upon it, nor herself exhaust its urgings to self-
+reproach, though she finally took up another theme temporarily.
+Upon an unusually violent outbreak of her husband's, in
+denunciation of the runaway, she cried out faintly that he was
+cruel; and further wearied her broken voice with details of
+Walter's beauty as a baby, and of his bedtime pieties throughout
+his infancy.
+
+So the hot night wore on.  Three had struck before Mrs. Adams
+was got to bed; and Alice, returning to her own room, could hear
+her father's bare feet thudding back and forth after that.  "Poor
+papa!" she whispered in helpless imitation of her mother.  "Poor
+papa!  Poor mama!  Poor Walter!  Poor all of us!"
+
+She fell asleep, after a time, while from across the hall the
+bare feet still thudded over their changeless route; and she woke
+at seven, hearing Adams pass her door, shod.  In her wrapper she
+ran out into the hallway and found him descending the stairs.
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Hush," he said, and looked up at her with reddened eyes.  "Don't
+wake your mother."
+
+"I won't," she whispered.  "How about you?  You haven't slept any
+at all!"
+
+"Yes, I did.  I got some sleep.  I'm going over to the works now.
+I got to throw some figures together to show the bank.  Don't
+worry: I'll get things fixed up.  You go back to bed.  Good-bye."
+
+"Wait!" she bade him sharply.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"You've got to have some breakfast."
+
+"Don't want 'ny."
+
+"You wait!" she said, imperiously, and disappeared to return
+almost at once.  "I can cook in my bedroom slippers," she
+explained, "but I don't believe I could in my bare feet!"
+
+Descending softly, she made him wait in the dining-room until she
+brought him toast and eggs and coffee.  "Eat!" she said.  "And
+I'm going to telephone for a taxicab to take you, if you think
+you've really got to go."
+
+"No, I'm going to walk--I WANT to walk."
+
+She shook her head anxiously.  "You don't look able.  You've
+walked all night."
+
+"No, I didn't," he returned.  "I tell you I got some sleep.  I
+got all I wanted anyhow."
+
+"But, papa----"
+
+"Here!" he interrupted, looking up at her suddenly and setting
+down his cup of coffee.  "Look here!  What about this Mr.
+Russell?  I forgot all about him.  What about him?"
+
+Her lip trembled a little, but she controlled it before she
+spoke.  "Well, what about him, papa?" she asked, calmly enough.
+
+"Well, we could hardly----" Adams paused, frowning heavily.  "We
+could hardly expect he wouldn't hear something about all this."
+
+"Yes; of course he'll hear it, papa."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, what?" she asked, gently.
+
+"You don't think he'd be the--the cheap kind it'd make a
+difference with, of course."
+
+"Oh, no; he isn't cheap.  It won't make any difference with him."
+
+Adams suffered a profound sigh to escape him.  "Well--I'm glad of
+that, anyway."
+
+"The difference," she explained--"the difference was made without
+his hearing anything about Walter.  He doesn't know about THAT
+yet."
+
+"Well, what does he know about?"
+
+"Only," she said, "about me."
+
+"What you mean by that, Alice?" he asked, helplessly.
+
+"Never mind," she said.  "It's nothing beside the real trouble
+we're in--I'll tell you some time.  You eat your eggs and toast;
+you can't keep going on just coffee."
+
+"I can't eat any eggs and toast," he objected, rising.  "I
+can't."
+
+"Then wait till I can bring you something else."
+
+"No," he said, irritably.  "I won't do it!  I don't want any dang
+food!  And look here"--he spoke sharply to stop her, as she went
+toward the telephone--"I don't want any dang taxi, either!  You
+look after your mother when she wakes up.  I got to be at WORK!"
+
+And though she followed him to the front door, entreating, he
+could not be stayed or hindered.  He went through the quiet
+morning streets at a rickety, rapid gait, swinging his old straw
+hat in his hands, and whispering angrily to himself as he went.
+His grizzled hair, not trimmed for a month, blew back from his
+damp forehead in the warm breeze; his reddened eyes stared hard
+at nothing from under blinking lids; and one side of his face
+twitched startlingly from time to time;--children might have run
+from him, or mocked him.
+
+When he had come into that fallen quarter his industry had partly
+revived and wholly made odorous, a negro woman, leaning upon her
+whitewashed gate, gazed after him and chuckled for the benefit of
+a gossiping friend in the next tiny yard.  "Oh, good Satan!
+Wha'ssa matter that ole glue man?"
+
+"Who?  Him?" the neighbour inquired.  "What he do now?"
+
+"Talkin' to his ole se'f!" the first explained, joyously.  "Look
+like gone distracted--ole glue man!"
+
+Adams's legs had grown more uncertain with his hard walk, and he
+stumbled heavily as he crossed the baked mud of his broad lot,
+but cared little for that, was almost unaware of it, in fact.
+Thus his eyes saw as little as his body felt, and so he failed to
+observe something that would have given him additional light upon
+an old phrase that already meant quite enough for him.
+
+There are in the wide world people who have never learned its
+meaning; but most are either young or beautifully unobservant who
+remain wholly unaware of the inner poignancies the words convey:
+"a rain of misfortunes."  It is a boiling rain, seemingly
+whimsical in its choice of spots whereon to fall; and, so far as
+mortal eye can tell, neither the just nor the unjust may hope to
+avoid it, or need worry themselves by expecting it.  It had
+selected the Adams family for its scaldings; no question.
+
+The glue-works foreman, standing in the doorway of the brick
+shed, observed his employer's eccentric approach, and doubtfully
+stroked a whiskered chin.
+
+"Well, they ain't no putticular use gettin' so upset over it," he
+said, as Adams came up.  "When a thing happens, why, it happens,
+and that's all there is to it.  When a thing's so, why, it's so.
+All you can do about it is think if there's anything you CAN do;
+and that's what you better be doin' with this case."
+
+Adams halted, and seemed to gape at him.  "What--case?" he said,
+with difficulty.  "Was it in the morning papers, too?"
+
+"No, it ain't in no morning papers.  My land!  It don't need to
+be in no papers; look at the SIZE of it!"
+
+"The size of what?"
+
+"Why, great God!" the foreman exclaimed.  "He ain't even seen it.
+Look!  Look yonder!"
+
+Adams stared vaguely at the man's outstretched hand and pointing
+forefinger, then turned and saw a great sign upon the facade of
+the big factory building across the street.  The letters were
+large enough to be read two blocks away.
+
+     "AFTER THE FIFTEENTH OF NEXT MONTH
+     THIS BUILDING WILL BE OCCUPIED BY
+     THE J. A. LAMB LIQUID GLUE CO.  INC."
+
+
+A gray touring-car had just come to rest before the principal
+entrance of the building, and J. A. Lamb himself descended from
+it.  He glanced over toward the humble rival of his projected
+great industry, saw his old clerk, and immediately walked across
+the street and the lot to speak to him.
+
+"Well, Adams," he said, in his husky, cheerful voice, "how's your
+glue-works?"
+
+Adams uttered an inarticulate sound, and lifted the hand that
+held his hat as if to make a protective gesture, but failed to
+carry it out; and his arm sank limp at his side.  The foreman,
+however, seemed to feel that something ought to be said.
+
+"Our glue-works, hell!" he remarked.  "I guess we won't HAVE no
+glue-works over here not very long, if we got to compete with the
+sized thing you got over there!"
+
+Lamb chuckled.  "I kind of had some such notion," he said.  "You
+see, Virgil, I couldn't exactly let you walk off with it like
+swallering a pat o' butter, now, could I?  It didn't look exactly
+reasonable to expect me to let go like that, now, did it?"
+
+Adams found a half-choked voice somewhere in his throat.  "Do
+you--would you step into my office a minute, Mr. Lamb?"
+
+"Why, certainly I'm willing to have a little talk with you," the
+old gentleman said, as he followed his former employee indoors,
+and he added, "I feel a lot more like it than I did before I got
+THAT up, over yonder, Virgil!"
+
+Adams threw open the door of the rough room he called his office,
+having as justification for this title little more than the fact
+that he had a telephone there and a deal table that served as a
+desk.  "Just step into the office, please," he said.
+
+Lamb glanced at the desk, at the kitchen chair before it, at the
+telephone, and at the partition walls built of old boards, some
+covered with ancient paint and some merely weatherbeaten, the
+salvage of a house-wrecker; and he smiled broadly.  "So these are
+your offices, are they?" he asked.  "You expect to do quite a
+business here, I guess, don't you, Virgil?"
+
+Adams turned upon him a stricken and tortured face.  "Have you
+seen Charley Lohr since last night, Mr. Lamb?"
+
+"No; I haven't seen Charley."
+
+"Well, I told him to tell you," Adams began;-- "I told him I'd
+pay you----"
+
+"Pay me what you expect to make out o' glue, you mean, Virgil?"
+
+"No," Adams said, swallowing.  "I mean what my boy owes you.
+That's what I told Charley to tell you.  I told him to tell you
+I'd pay you every last----"
+
+"Well, well!" the old gentleman interrupted, testily.  "I don't
+know anything about that."
+
+"I'm expecting to pay you," Adams went on, swallowing again,
+painfully.  "I was expecting to do it out of a loan I thought I
+could get on my glue-works."
+
+The old gentleman lifted his frosted eyebrows.  "Oh, out o' the
+GLUE-works?  You expected to raise money on the glue-works, did
+you?"
+
+At that, Adams's agitation increased prodigiously.  "How'd you
+THINK I expected to pay you?" he said.  "Did you think I expected
+to get money on my own old bones?" He slapped himself harshly
+upon the chest and legs.  "Do you think a bank'll lend money on a
+man's ribs and his broken-down old knee-bones?  They won't do it!
+You got to have some BUSINESS prospects to show 'em, if you
+haven't got any property nor securities; and what business
+prospects have I got now, with that sign of yours up over yonder?
+Why, you don't need to make an OUNCE o' glue; your sign's fixed
+ME without your doing another lick!  THAT'S all you had to do;
+just put your sign up!  You needn't to----"
+
+"Just let me tell you something, Virgil Adams," the old man
+interrupted, harshly.  "I got just one right important thing to
+tell you before we talk any further business; and that's this:
+there's some few men in this town made their money in off-colour
+ways, but there aren't many; and those there are have had to be a
+darn sight slicker than you know how to be, or ever WILL know how
+to be!  Yes, sir, and they none of them had the little gumption
+to try to make it out of a man that had the spirit not to let
+'em, and the STRENGTH not to let 'em!  I know what you thought.
+'Here,' you said to yourself, 'here's this ole fool J. A. Lamb;
+he's kind of worn out and in his second childhood like; I can put
+it over on him, without his ever----'"
+
+"I did not!" Adams shouted.  "A great deal YOU know about my
+feelings and all what I said to myself!  There's one thing I want
+to tell YOU, and that's what I'm saying to myself NOW, and what
+my feelings are this MINUTE!"
+
+He struck the table a great blow with his thin fist, and shook
+the damaged knuckles in the air.  "I just want to tell you,
+whatever I did feel, I don't feel MEAN any more; not to-day, I
+don't.  There's a meaner man in this world than _I_ am, Mr.
+Lamb!"
+
+"Oh, so you feel better about yourself to-day, do you, Virgil?"
+
+"You bet I do!  You worked till you got me where you want me; and
+I wouldn't do that to another man, no matter what he did to me!
+I wouldn't----"
+
+"What you talkin' about!  How've I 'got you where I want you?'"
+
+"Ain't it plain enough?" Adams cried.  "You even got me where I
+can't raise the money to pay back what my boy owes you!  Do you
+suppose anybody's fool enough to let me have a cent on this
+business after one look at what you got over there across the
+road?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"No, you don't," Adams echoed, hoarsely.  "What's more, you knew
+my house was mortgaged, and my----"
+
+"I did not," Lamb interrupted, angrily.  "What do _I_ care about
+your house?"
+
+"What's the use your talking like that?" Adams cried.  "You got
+me where I can't even raise the money to pay what my boy owes the
+company, so't I can't show any reason to stop the prosecution and
+keep him out the penitentiary.  That's where you worked till you
+got ME!"
+
+"What!" Lamb shouted.  "You accuse me of----"
+
+"'Accuse you?' What am I telling you?  Do you think I got no
+EYES?" And Adams hammered the table again.  "Why, you knew the
+boy was weak----"
+
+"I did not!"
+
+"Listen: you kept him there after you got mad at my leaving the
+way I did.  You kept him there after you suspected him; and you
+had him watched; you let him go on; just waited to catch him and
+ruin him!"
+
+"You're crazy!" the old man bellowed.  "I didn't know there was
+anything against the boy till last night.  You're CRAZY, I say!"
+
+Adams looked it.  With his hair disordered over his haggard
+forehead and bloodshot eyes; with his bruised hands pounding the
+table and flying in a hundred wild and absurd gestures, while his
+feet shuffled constantly to preserve his balance upon staggering
+legs, he was the picture of a man with a mind gone to rags.
+
+"Maybe I AM crazy!" he cried, his voice breaking and quavering.
+"Maybe I am, but I wouldn't stand there and taunt a man with it
+if I'd done to him what you've done to me!  Just look at me: I
+worked all my life for you, and what I did when I quit never
+harmed you--it didn't make two cents' worth o' difference in your
+life and it looked like it'd mean all the difference in the world
+to my family--and now look what you've DONE to me for it!  I tell
+you, Mr. Lamb, there never was a man looked up to another man
+the way I looked up to you the whole o' my life, but I don't look
+up to you any more!  You think you got a fine day of it now,
+riding up in your automobile to look at that sign--and then over
+here at my poor little works that you've ruined.  But listen to
+me just this one last time!" The cracking voice broke into
+falsetto, and the gesticulating hands fluttered uncontrollably.
+"Just you listen!" he panted.  "You think I did you a bad turn,
+and now you got me ruined for it, and you got my works ruined,
+and my family ruined; and if anybody'd 'a' told me this time last
+year I'd ever say such a thing to you I'd called him a dang liar,
+but I DO say it: I say you've acted toward me like--like a--a
+doggone mean--man!"
+
+His voice, exhausted, like his body, was just able to do him this
+final service; then he sank, crumpled, into the chair by the
+table, his chin down hard upon his chest.
+
+"I tell you, you're crazy!" Lamb said again.  "I never in the
+world----" But he checked himself, staring in sudden perplexity
+at his accuser.  "Look here!" he said.  "What's the matter of
+you?  Have you got another of those----?" He put his hand upon
+Adams's shoulder, which jerked feebly under the touch.
+
+The old man went to the door and called to the foreman.
+
+"Here!" he said.  "Run and tell my chauffeur to bring my car over
+here.  Tell him to drive right up over the sidewalk and across
+the lot.  Tell him to hurry!"
+
+So, it happened, the great J. A. Lamb a second time brought his
+former clerk home, stricken and almost inanimate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+About five o'clock that afternoon, the old gentleman came back to
+Adams's house; and when Alice opened the door, he nodded, walked
+into the "living-room" without speaking; then stood frowning as
+if he hesitated to decide some perplexing question.
+
+"Well, how is he now?" he asked, finally.
+
+"The doctor was here again a little while ago; he thinks papa's
+coming through it.  He's pretty sure he will."
+
+"Something like the way it was last spring?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not a bit of sense to it!" Lamb said, gruffly.  "When he was
+getting well the other time the doctor told me it wasn't a
+regular stroke, so to speak--this 'cerebral effusion' thing.
+Said there wasn't any particular reason for your father to expect
+he'd ever have another attack, if he'd take a little care of
+himself.  Said he could consider himself well as anybody else
+long as he did that."
+
+"Yes.  But he didn't do it!"
+
+Lamb nodded, sighed aloud, and crossed the room to a chair.  "I
+guess not," he said, as he sat down.  "Bustin' his health up over
+his glue-works, I expect."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I guess so; I guess so."  Then he looked up at her with a
+glimmer of anxiety in his eyes.  "Has he came to yet?"
+
+"Yes.  He's talked a little.  His mind's clear; he spoke to mama
+and me and to Miss Perry."  Alice laughed sadly.  "We were lucky
+enough to get her back, but papa didn't seem to think it was
+lucky.  When he recognized her he said, 'Oh, my goodness, 'tisn't
+YOU, is it!'"
+
+"Well, that's a good sign, if he's getting a little cross.  Did
+he--did he happen to say anything--for instance, about me?"
+
+This question, awkwardly delivered, had the effect of removing
+the girl's pallor; rosy tints came quickly upon her cheeks.
+"He--yes, he did," she said.  "Naturally, he's troubled
+about--about----" She stopped.
+
+"About your brother, maybe?"
+
+"Yes, about making up the----"
+
+"Here, now," Lamb said, uncomfortably, as she stopped again.
+"Listen, young lady; let's don't talk about that just yet.  I
+want to ask you: you understand all about this glue business, I
+expect, don't you?"
+
+"I'm not sure.  I only know----"
+
+"Let me tell you," he interrupted, impatiently.  "I'll tell you
+all about it in two words.  The process belonged to me, and your
+father up and walked off with it; there's no getting around THAT
+much, anyhow."
+
+"Isn't there?" Alice stared at him.  "I think you're mistaken,
+Mr. Lamb.  Didn't papa improve it so that it virtually belonged
+to him?"
+
+There was a spark in the old blue eyes at this.  "What?" he
+cried.  "Is that the way he got around it?  Why, in all my life I
+never heard of such a----" But he left the sentence unfinished;
+the testiness went out of his husky voice and the anger out of
+his eyes.  "Well, I expect maybe that was the way of it," he
+said.  "Anyhow, it's right for you to stand up for your father;
+and if you think he had a right to it----"
+
+"But he did!" she cried.
+
+"I expect so," the old man returned, pacifically.  "I expect so,
+probably.  Anyhow, it's a question that's neither here nor there,
+right now.  What I was thinking of saying--well, did your father
+happen to let out that he and I had words this morning?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, we did."  He sighed and shook his head.  "Your
+father--well, he used some pretty hard expressions toward me,
+young lady.  They weren't SO, I'm glad to say, but he used 'em to
+me, and the worst of it was he believed 'em.  Well, I been
+thinking it over, and I thought I'd just have a kind of little
+talk with you to set matters straight, so to speak."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lamb."
+
+"For instance," he said, "it's like this.  Now, I hope you won't
+think I mean any indelicacy, but you take your brother's case,
+since we got to mention it, why, your father had the whole thing
+worked out in his mind about as wrong as anybody ever got
+anything.  If I'd acted the way your father thought I did about
+that, why, somebody just ought to take me out and shoot me!  Do
+YOU know what that man thought?"
+
+"I'm not sure."
+
+He frowned at her, and asked, "Well, what do you think about it?"
+
+"I don't know," she said.  "I don't believe I think anything at
+all about anything to-day."
+
+"Well, well," he returned; "I expect not; I expect not.  You kind
+of look to me as if you ought to be in bed yourself, young lady."
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"I guess you mean 'Oh, yes'; and I won't keep you long, but
+there's something we got to get fixed up, and I'd rather talk to
+you than I would to your mother, because you're a smart girl and
+always friendly; and I want to be sure I'm understood.  Now,
+listen."
+
+"I will," Alice promised, smiling faintly.
+
+"I never even hardly noticed your brother was still working for
+me," he explained, earnestly.  "I never thought anything about
+it.  My sons sort of tried to tease me about the way your
+father--about his taking up this glue business, so to speak--and
+one day Albert, Junior, asked me if I felt all right about your
+brother's staying there after that, and I told him--well, I just
+asked him to shut up.  If the boy wanted to stay there, I didn't
+consider it my business to send him away on account of any
+feeling I had toward his father; not as long as he did his work
+right--and the report showed he did.  Well, as it happens, it
+looks now as if he stayed because he HAD to; he couldn't quit
+because he'd 'a' been found out if he did.  Well, he'd been
+covering up his shortage for a considerable time--and do you know
+what your father practically charged me with about that?"
+
+"No, Mr. Lamb."
+
+In his resentment, the old gentleman's ruddy face became ruddier
+and his husky voice huskier.  "Thinks I kept the boy there
+because I suspected him!  Thinks I did it to get even with HIM!
+Do I look to YOU like a man that'd do such a thing?"
+
+"No," she said, gently.  "I don't think you would."
+
+"No!" he exclaimed.  "Nor HE wouldn't think so if he was himself;
+he's known me too long.  But he must been sort of brooding over
+this whole business-- I mean before Walter's trouble he must been
+taking it to heart pretty hard for some time back.  He thought I
+didn't think much of him any more--and I expect he maybe wondered
+some what I was going to DO--and there's nothing worse'n that
+state of mind to make a man suspicious of all kinds of meanness.
+Well, he practically stood up there and accused me to my face of
+fixing things so't he couldn't ever raise the money to settle for
+Walter and ask us not to prosecute.  That's the state of mind
+your father's brooding got him into, young lady--charging me with
+a trick like that!"
+
+"I'm sorry," she said.  "I know you'd never----"
+
+The old man slapped his sturdy knee, angrily.  "Why, that dang
+fool of a Virgil Adams!" he exclaimed.  "He wouldn't even give me
+a chance to talk; and he got me so mad I couldn't hardly talk,
+anyway!  He might 'a' known from the first I wasn't going to let
+him walk in and beat me out of my own--that is, he might 'a'
+known I wouldn't let him get ahead of me in a business
+matter--not with my boys twitting me about it every few minutes!
+But to talk to me the way he did this morning--well, he was out
+of his head; that's all!  Now, wait just a minute," he
+interposed, as she seemed about to speak.  "In the first place,
+we aren't going to push this case against your brother.  I
+believe in the law, all right, and business men got to protect
+themselves; but in a case like this, where restitution's made by
+the family, why, I expect it's just as well sometimes to use a
+little influence and let matters drop.  Of course your brother'll
+have to keep out o' this state; that's all."
+
+"But--you said----" she faltered.
+
+"Yes.  What'd I say?"
+
+"You said, 'where restitution's made by the family.' That's what
+seemed to trouble papa so terribly, because--because restitution
+couldn't----"
+
+"Why, yes, it could.  That's what I'm here to talk to you about."
+
+"I don't see----"
+
+"I'm going to TELL you, ain't I?" he said, gruffly.  "Just hold
+your horses a minute, please."  He coughed, rose from his chair,
+walked up and down the room, then halted before her.  "It's like
+this," he said.  "After I brought your father home, this morning,
+there was one of the things he told me, when he was going for me,
+over yonder--it kind of stuck in my craw.  It was something about
+all this glue controversy not meaning anything to me in
+particular, and meaning a whole heap to him and his family.
+Well, he was wrong about that two ways.  The first one was, it
+did mean a good deal to me to have him go back on me after so
+many years.  I don't need to say any more about it, except just
+to tell you it meant quite a little more to me than you'd think,
+maybe.  The other way he was wrong is, that how much a thing
+means to one man and how little it means to another ain't the
+right way to look at a business matter."
+
+"I suppose it isn't, Mr. Lamb."
+
+"No," he said.  "It isn't.  It's not the right way to look at
+anything.  Yes, and your father knows it as well as I do, when
+he's in his right mind; and I expect that's one of the reasons he
+got so mad at me--but anyhow, I couldn't help thinking about how
+much all this thing HAD maybe meant to him;--as I say, it kind of
+stuck in my craw.  I want you to tell him something from me, and
+I want you to go and tell him right off, if he's able and willing
+to listen.  You tell him I got kind of a notion he was pushed
+into this thing by circumstances, and tell him I've lived long
+enough to know that circumstances can beat the best of us--you
+tell him I said 'the BEST of us.' Tell him I haven't got a bit of
+feeling against him--not any more--and tell him I came here to
+ask him not to have any against me."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lamb."
+
+"Tell him I said----" The old man paused abruptly and Alice was
+surprised, in a dull and tired way, when she saw that his lips
+had begun to twitch and his eyelids to blink; but he recovered
+himself almost at once, and continued: "I want him to remember,
+'Forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those that
+transgress against us'; and if he and I been transgressing
+against each other, why, tell him I think it's time we QUIT such
+foolishness!"
+
+He coughed again, smiled heartily upon her, and walked toward the
+door; then turned back to her with an exclamation: "Well, if I
+ain't an old fool!"
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"Why, I forgot what we were just talking about!  Your father
+wants to settle for Walter's deficit.  Tell him we'll be glad to
+accept it; but of course we don't expect him to clean the matter
+up until he's able to talk business again."
+
+Alice stared at him blankly enough for him to perceive that
+further explanations were necessary.  "It's like this," he said.
+"You see, if your father decided to keep his works going over
+yonder, I don't say but he might give us some little competition
+for a time, 'specially as he's got the start on us and about
+ready for the market.  Then I was figuring we could use his
+plant--it's small, but it'd be to our benefit to have the use of
+it--and he's got a lease on that big lot; it may come in handy
+for us if we want to expand some.  Well, I'd prefer to make a
+deal with him as quietly as possible---no good in every Tom, Dick
+and Harry hearing about things like this--but I figured he could
+sell out to me for a little something more'n enough to cover the
+mortgage he put on this house, and Walter's deficit, too--THAT
+don't amount to much in dollars and cents.  The way I figure it,
+I could offer him about ninety-three hundred dollars as a
+total--or say ninety-three hundred and fifty--and if he feels
+like accepting, why, I'll send a confidential man up here with
+the papers soon's your father's able to look 'em over.  You tell
+him, will you, and ask him if he sees his way to accepting that
+figure?"
+
+"Yes," Alice said; and now her own lips twitched, while her eyes
+filled so that she saw but a blurred image of the old man, who
+held out his hand in parting.  "I'll tell him.  Thank you."
+
+He shook her hand hastily.  "Well, let's just keep it kind of
+quiet," he said, at the door.  "No good in every Tom, Dick and
+Harry knowing all what goes on in town!  You telephone me when
+your papa's ready to go over the papers--and call me up at my
+house to-night, will you?  Let me hear how he's feeling?"
+
+"I will," she said, and through her grateful tears gave him a
+smile almost radiant.  "He'll be better, Mr. Lamb.  We all
+will."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+One morning, that autumn, Mrs. Adams came into Alice's room, and
+found her completing a sober toilet for the street; moreover, the
+expression revealed in her mirror was harmonious with the
+business-like severity of her attire.  "What makes you look so
+cross, dearie?" the mother asked.  "Couldn't you find anything
+nicer to wear than that plain old dark dress?"
+
+"I don't believe I'm cross," the girl said, absently.  "I believe
+I'm just thinking.  Isn't it about time?"
+
+"Time for what?"
+
+"Time for thinking--for me, I mean?"
+
+Disregarding this, Mrs. Adams looked her over thoughtfully.  "I
+can't see why you don't wear more colour," she said.  "At your
+age it's becoming and proper, too.  Anyhow, when you're going on
+the street, I think you ought to look just as gay and lively as
+you can manage.  You want to show 'em you've got some spunk!"
+
+"How do you mean, mama?"
+
+"I mean about Walter's running away and the mess your father made
+of his business.  It would help to show 'em you're holding up
+your head just the same."
+
+"Show whom!"
+
+"All these other girls that----"
+
+"Not I!" Alice laughed shortly, shaking her head.  "I've quit
+dressing at them, and if they saw me they wouldn't think what you
+want 'em to.  It's funny; but we don't often make people think
+what we want 'em to, mama.  You do thus and so; and you tell
+yourself, 'Now, seeing me do thus and so, people will naturally
+think this and that'; but they don't.  They think something
+else--usually just what you DON'T want 'em to.  I suppose about
+the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling
+ourselves that we fool somebody."
+
+"Well, but it wouldn't be pretending.  You ought to let people
+see you're still holding your head up because you ARE.  You
+wouldn't want that Mildred Palmer to think you're cast down
+about--well, you know you wouldn't want HER not to think you're
+holding your head up, would you?"
+
+"She wouldn't know whether I am or not, mama."  Alice bit her
+lip, then smiled faintly as she said:
+
+"Anyhow, I'm not thinking about my head in that way--not this
+morning, I'm not."
+
+Mrs. Adams dropped the subject casually.  "Are you going
+down-town?" she inquired.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Just something I want to see about.  I'll tell you when I come
+back.  Anything you want me to do?"
+
+"No; I guess not to-day.  I thought you might look for a rug, but
+I'd rather go with you to select it.  We'll have to get a new rug
+for your father's room, I expect."
+
+"I'm glad you think so, mama.  I don't suppose he's ever even
+noticed it, but that old rug of his--well, really!"
+
+"I didn't mean for him," her mother explained, thoughtfully.
+"No; he don't mind it, and he'd likely make a fuss if we changed
+it on his account.  No; what I meant--we'll have to put your
+father in Walter's room.  He won't mind, I don't expect--not
+much."
+
+"No, I suppose not," Alice agreed, rather sadly.  "I heard the
+bell awhile ago.  Was it somebody about that?"
+
+"Yes; just before I came upstairs.  Mrs. Lohr gave him a note to
+me, and he was really a very pleasant-looking young man.  A VERY
+pleasant-looking young man," Mrs. Adams repeated with increased
+animation and a thoughtful glance at her daughter.  "He's a Mr.
+Will Dickson; he has a first-rate position with the gas works,
+Mrs. Lohr says, and he's fully able to afford a nice room.  So
+if you and I double up in here, then with that young married
+couple in my room, and this Mr. Dickson in your father's, we'll
+just about have things settled.  I thought maybe I could make one
+more place at table, too, so that with the other people from
+outside we'd be serving eleven altogether.  You see if I have to
+pay this cook twelve dollars a week--it can't be helped, I
+guess--well, one more would certainly help toward a profit.  Of
+course it's a terribly worrying thing to see how we WILL come
+out.  Don't you suppose we could squeeze in one more?"
+
+"I suppose it COULD be managed; yes."
+
+Mrs. Adams brightened.  "I'm sure it'll be pleasant having that
+young married couple in the house and especially this Mr. Will
+Dickson.  He seemed very much of a gentleman, and anxious to get
+settled in good surroundings.  I was very favourably impressed
+with him in every way; and he explained to me about his name; it
+seems it isn't William, it's just 'Will'; his parents had him
+christened that way.  It's curious."  She paused, and then, with
+an effort to seem casual, which veiled nothing from her daughter:
+"It's QUITE curious," she said again.  "But it's rather
+attractive and different, don't you think?"
+
+"Poor mama!" Alice laughed compassionately.  "Poor mama!"
+
+"He is, though," Mrs. Adams maintained.  "He's very much of a
+gentleman, unless I'm no judge of appearances; and it'll really
+be nice to have him in the house."
+
+"No doubt," Alice said, as she opened her door to depart.  "I
+don't suppose we'll mind having any of 'em as much as we thought
+we would.  Good-bye."
+
+But her mother detained her, catching her by the arm.  "Alice,
+you do hate it, don't you!"
+
+"No," the girl said, quickly.  "There wasn't anything else to
+do."
+
+Mrs. Adams became emotional at once: her face cried tragedy, and
+her voice misfortune.  "There MIGHT have been something else to
+do!  Oh, Alice, you gave your father bad advice when you upheld
+him in taking a miserable little ninety-three hundred and fifty
+from that old wretch!  If your father'd just had the gumption to
+hold out, they'd have had to pay him anything he asked.  If he'd
+just had the gumption and a little manly COURAGE----"
+
+"Hush!" Alice whispered, for her mother's voice grew louder.
+"Hush!  He'll hear you, mama."
+
+"Could he hear me too often?" the embittered lady asked.  "If
+he'd listened to me at the right time, would we have to be taking
+in boarders and sinking DOWN in the scale at the end of our
+lives, instead of going UP?  You were both wrong; we didn't need
+to be so panicky--that was just what that old man wanted: to
+scare us and buy us out for nothing!  If your father'd just
+listened to me then, or if for once in his life he'd just been
+half a MAN----"
+
+Alice put her hand over her mother's mouth.  "You mustn't!  He
+WILL hear you!"
+
+But from the other side of Adams's closed door his voice came
+querulously.  "Oh, I HEAR her, all right!"
+
+"You see, mama?" Alice said, and, as Mrs. Adams turned away,
+weeping, the daughter sighed; then went in to speak to her
+father.
+
+He was in his old chair by the table, with a pillow behind his
+head, but the crocheted scarf and Mrs. Adams's wrapper swathed
+him no more; he wore a dressing-gown his wife had bought for him,
+and was smoking his pipe.  "The old story, is it?" he said, as
+Alice came in.  "The same, same old story!  Well, well!  Has she
+gone?"
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"Got your hat on," he said.  "Where you going?"
+
+"I'm going down-town on an errand of my own.  Is there anything
+you want, papa?"
+
+"Yes, there is."  He smiled at her.  "I wish you'd sit down a
+while and talk to me unless your errand----"
+
+"No," she said, taking a chair near him.  "I was just going down
+to see about some arrangements I was making for myself.  There's
+no hurry."
+
+"What arrangements for yourself, dearie?"
+
+"I'll tell you afterwards--after I find out something about 'em
+myself."
+
+"All right," he said, indulgently.  "Keep your secrets; keep your
+secrets."  He paused, drew musingly upon his pipe, and shook his
+head.  "Funny--the way your mother looks at things!  For the
+matter o' that, everything's pretty funny, I expect, if you stop
+to think about it.  For instance, let her say all she likes, but
+we were pushed right spang to the wall, if J. A. Lamb hadn't
+taken it into his head to make that offer for the works; and
+there's one of the things I been thinking about lately, Alice:
+thinking about how funny they work out."
+
+"What did you think about it, papa!"
+
+"Well, I've seen it happen in other people's lives, time and time
+again; and now it's happened in ours.  You think you're going to
+be pushed right up against the wall; you can't see any way out,
+or any hope at all; you think you're GONE--and then something you
+never counted on turns up; and, while maybe you never do get back
+to where you used to be, yet somehow you kind of squirm out of
+being right SPANG against the wall.  You keep on going--maybe you
+can't go much, but you do go a little.  See what I mean?"
+
+"Yes.  I understand, dear."
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid you do," he said.  "Too bad!  You oughtn't to
+understand it at your age.  It seems to me a good deal as if the
+Lord really meant for the young people to have the good times,
+and for the old to have the troubles; and when anybody as young
+as you has trouble there's a big mistake somewhere."
+
+"Oh, no!" she protested.
+
+But he persisted whimsically in this view of divine error: "Yes,
+it does look a good deal that way.  But of course we can't tell;
+we're never certain about anything--not about anything at all.
+Sometimes I look at it another way, though.  Sometimes it looks
+to me as if a body's troubles came on him mainly because he
+hadn't had sense enough to know how not to have any--as if his
+troubles were kind of like a boy's getting kept in after school
+by the teacher, to give him discipline, or something or other.
+But, my, my!  We don't learn easy!" He chuckled mournfully.  "Not
+to learn how to live till we're about ready to die, it certainly
+seems to me dang tough!"
+
+"Then I wouldn't brood on such a notion, papa," she said.
+
+"'Brood?' No!" he returned.  "I just kind o' mull it over."  He
+chuckled again, sighed, and then, not looking at her, he said,
+"That Mr. Russell--your mother tells me he hasn't been here
+again--not since----"
+
+"No," she said, quietly, as Adams paused.  "He never came again."
+
+"Well, but maybe----"
+
+"No," she said.  "There isn't any 'maybe.' I told him good-bye
+that night, papa.  It was before he knew about Walter--I told
+you."
+
+"Well, well," Adams said.  "Young people are entitled to their
+own privacy; I don't want to pry."  He emptied his pipe into a
+chipped saucer on the table beside him, laid the pipe aside, and
+reverted to a former topic.  "Speaking of dying----"
+
+"Well, but we weren't!" Alice protested.
+
+"Yes, about not knowing how to live till you're through
+living--and THEN maybe not!" he said, chuckling at his own
+determined pessimism.  "I see I'm pretty old because I talk this
+way--I remember my grandmother saying things a good deal like all
+what I'm saying now; I used to hear her at it when I was a young
+fellow--she was a right gloomy old lady, I remember.  Well,
+anyhow, it reminds me: I want to get on my feet again as soon as
+I can; I got to look around and find something to go into."
+
+Alice shook her head gently.  "But, papa, he told you----"
+
+"Never mind throwing that dang doctor up at me!" Adams
+interrupted, peevishly.  "He said I'd be good for SOME kind of
+light job--if I could find just the right thing.  'Where there
+wouldn't be either any physical or mental strain,' he said.
+Well, I got to find something like that.  Anyway, I'll feel
+better if I can just get out LOOKING for it."
+
+"But, papa, I'm afraid you won't find it, and you'll be
+disappointed."
+
+"Well, I want to hunt around and SEE, anyhow."
+
+Alice patted his hand.  "You must just be contented, papa.
+Everything's going to be all right, and you mustn't get to
+worrying about doing anything.  We own this house it's all
+clear--and you've taken care of mama and me all our lives; now
+it's our turn."
+
+"No, sir!" he said, querulously.  "I don't like the idea of being
+the landlady's husband around a boarding-house; it goes against
+my gizzard.  _I_ know: makes out the bills for his wife Sunday
+mornings--works with a screw-driver on somebody's bureau drawer
+sometimes--'tends the furnace maybe--one the boarders gives him a
+cigar now and then.  That's a FINE life to look forward to!  No,
+sir; I don't want to finish as a landlady's husband!"
+
+Alice looked grave; for she knew the sketch was but too
+accurately prophetic in every probability.  "But, papa," she
+said, to console him, "don't you think maybe there isn't such a
+thing as a 'finish,' after all!  You say perhaps we don't learn
+to live till we die but maybe that's how it is AFTER we die,
+too--just learning some more, the way we do here, and maybe
+through trouble again, even after that."
+
+"Oh, it might be," he sighed.  "I expect so."
+
+"Well, then," she said, "what's the use of talking about a
+'finish?' We do keep looking ahead to things as if they'd finish
+something, but when we get TO them, they don't finish anything.
+They're just part of going on.  I'll tell you--I looked ahead all
+summer to something I was afraid of, and I said to myself, 'Well,
+if that happens, I'm finished!' But it wasn't so, papa.  It did
+happen, and nothing's finished; I'm going on, just the same
+only----" She stopped and blushed.
+
+"Only what?" he asked.
+
+"Well----" She blushed more deeply, then jumped up, and, standing
+before him, caught both his hands in hers.  "Well, don't you
+think, since we do have to go on, we ought at least to have
+learned some sense about how to do it?"
+
+He looked up at her adoringly.
+
+"What _I_ think," he said, and his voice trembled;--"I think
+you're the smartest girl in the world!  I wouldn't trade you for
+the whole kit-and-boodle of 'em!"
+
+But as this folly of his threatened to make her tearful, she
+kissed him hastily, and went forth upon her errand.
+
+Since the night of the tragic-comic dinner she had not seen
+Russell, nor caught even the remotest chance glimpse of him; and
+it was curious that she should encounter him as she went upon
+such an errand as now engaged her.  At a corner, not far from
+that tobacconist's shop she had just left when he overtook her
+and walked with her for the first time, she met him to-day.  He
+turned the corner, coming toward her, and they were face to face;
+whereupon that engaging face of Russell's was instantly reddened,
+but Alice's remained serene.
+
+She stopped short, though; and so did he; then she smiled
+brightly as she put out her hand.
+
+"Why, Mr. Russell!"
+
+"I'm so--I'm so glad to have this--this chance," he stammered.
+"I've wanted to tell you--it's just that going into a new
+undertaking--this business life--one doesn't get to do a great
+many things he'd like to.  I hope you'll let me call again some
+time, if I can."
+
+"Yes, do!" she said, cordially, and then, with a quick nod, went
+briskly on.
+
+She breathed more rapidly, but knew that he could not have
+detected it, and she took some pride in herself for the way she
+had met this little crisis.  But to have met it with such easy
+courage meant to her something more reassuring than a momentary
+pride in the serenity she had shown.  For she found that what she
+had resolved in her inmost heart was now really true: she was
+"through with all that!"
+
+She walked on, but more slowly, for the tobacconist's shop was
+not far from her now--and, beyond it, that portal of doom,
+Frincke's Business College.  Already Alice could read the
+begrimed gilt letters of the sign; and although they had spelled
+destiny never with a more painful imminence than just then, an
+old habit of dramatizing herself still prevailed with her.
+
+There came into her mind a whimsical comparison of her fate with
+that of the heroine in a French romance she had read long ago and
+remembered well, for she had cried over it.  The story ended with
+the heroine's taking the veil after a death blow to love; and the
+final scene again became vivid to Alice, for a moment.  Again, as
+when she had read and wept, she seemed herself to stand among the
+great shadows in the cathedral nave; smelled the smoky incense on
+the enclosed air, and heard the solemn pulses of the organ.  She
+remembered how the novice's father knelt, trembling, beside a
+pillar of gray stone; how the faithless lover watched and
+shivered behind the statue of a saint; how stifled sobs and
+outcries were heard when the novice came to the altar; and how a
+shaft of light struck through the rose-window, enveloping her in
+an amber glow.
+
+It was the vision of a moment only, and for no longer than a
+moment did Alice tell herself that the romance provided a
+prettier way of taking the veil than she had chosen, and that a
+faithless lover, shaking with remorse behind a saint's statue,
+was a greater solace than one left on a street corner protesting
+that he'd like to call some time--if he could!  Her pity for
+herself vanished more reluctantly; but she shook it off and tried
+to smile at it, and at her romantic recollections--at all of
+them.  She had something important to think of.
+
+She passed the tobacconist's, and before her was that dark
+entrance to the wooden stairway leading up to Frincke's Business
+College--the very doorway she had always looked upon as the end
+of youth and the end of hope.
+
+How often she had gone by here, hating the dreary obscurity of
+that stairway; how often she had thought of this obscurity as
+something lying in wait to obliterate the footsteps of any girl
+who should ascend into the smoky darkness above!  Never had she
+passed without those ominous imaginings of hers: pretty girls
+turning into old maids "taking dictation"--old maids of a dozen
+different types, yet all looking a little like herself.
+
+Well, she was here at last!  She looked up and down the street
+quickly, and then, with a little heave of the shoulders, she went
+bravely in, under the sign, and began to climb the wooden steps.
+Half-way up the shadows were heaviest, but after that the place
+began to seem brighter.  There was an open window overhead
+somewhere, she found; and the steps at the top were gay with
+sunshine.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington
+
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