Chapter 7 of Alice Adams. 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 maneuvers within the protection of her skirt helpful to one of her insteps and to the toes of both her slippers. Her cheery partner was paddling his rosy brows with a fine handkerchief. That was great, he said. Let's go 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 wanted. Wait, he said, 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 so much as 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.  Oh, no, I wouldn't say that. No, she don't. She 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, too, 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.  She thinks I ought to dance a whole lot with her myself and stir up the 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 any one at all, except girls like Mildred Palmer and Henrietta Lamb. My mother wants to run my whole program 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 dancers are always every last one taken. And where do I come in? Alice nodded, her amy ability undamaged. I see, so that's why you dance with me. No, I like to, he protested. I'd 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 were 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 them. I don't have to.  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 into the corridor after all. It's pretty warm in here. Ascenting cheerfully, Dowling conducted her to a pair of easy chairs within a secluded 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, not once, but twice. And her upward glances to her tall companion's face were of a gentle, almost blushing deference.  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 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 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 so, 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 them, 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, roofily. What do 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 and everything for Mildred was that this Mr. Arthur Russell, good-looking, kind-looking, graceful, the perfect fiancée, 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 in 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 four-lorn 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 say you don't want to talk about anything at all, and then 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 do 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.  She was looking about her on all sides in a fidget of annoyance, searching for him, and to his dismay, she saw him.  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 discomforting 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.  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.  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 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 thought it was such a good opportunity, and Henrietta said she had most of her dances taken, but she would 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 refused 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 had a chance to do it, then. I'm sure Miss Adams won't mind if you—not at all, Ella 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 ignobley. Mrs. Dowling permitted a tremulousness to become audible in her voice. It isn't 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 only 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 will 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!  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 underlip 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 of foot, 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 without right 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 an 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 Adams's small veranda and steps, or sat nearby, crossed 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 or luster. 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 bell 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 bell 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.   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 shouted them, you idiots! Hands in pockets they lounged against the palasters, 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? Only the mean beaves 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 rigor 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 businessmen and often make large fortunes. They are men of imagination about two things, women and men of 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 the 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.  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 awfully techy. Don't you like your old friends any more? Not all of them. Who's the new one? He asked, teasingly.  Never mind. Well, all I've got to do is 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 coquettin' 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 it 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 colored man stood watchfully in the doorway. I wonder if you know which of the gentlemen is my brother, Mr. Walter Adams, she said? Yes, him. I know him. Could you tell me where he is? No, I couldn't say. Well, if you see him, would you please tell him that his sister, Miss Adams, is looking for him, and is very anxious to speak to him? Yes, him. Surely! Surely! 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 chants, with a second colored attendant, and the laughter became so vehement that it not only interfered with the past time in hand, but threatened to attract frozen-face attention. I can't help it, man, the laughter explained. I can't help it! There was suddenly the beatonest white boy in his city. The dancers were swinging into an encore, as Alice halted for an irresolute moment in a doorway.  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 Tom'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 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 these alms. What a young hostess does with a fiancé, 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 lessy, 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. I didn'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 someplace 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 dependents' gayities 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 that 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 either 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 that he ought to bother to tell me he couldn't find him, she thought. And then she saw Russell coming across the room to water 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 will 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. 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 going to wait and see what they've 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.  I guess he must have asked everybody in the place if they were Mr. Walter Adams. Well, I'll bet you 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 shooting dice with those coons in the cloakroom. 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 to you and on the way.  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. End of CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX OF ALICE ADAMS. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Alice Adams by Booth-Tarkington 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 them back where they were, or else up in the attic, any way 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.  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 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 Year's on he is going to put me in entire charge of the sundries department, and what do you think is going to be my salary? eleven hundred cool dollars a year, one thousand one hundred dollars, 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 Christmas. 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. You're 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 seize time fixed to a point. Some people have dark hair, some people have blonde 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 stages 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 nightgown, 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 comforter, and with these sway things 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.  Old times with time still ahead. Not 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 Lambs, of course. Lambs 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.  What did you cry for if there wasn't anything the matter? It was just nerves, Papa. It wasn't anything else in the world. Never mind, he said.  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.  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 want 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.  Walter was pretty horrible. Oh, me, my! Adams lamented. I guess that's something we just have to leave work out itself. What are you going to do with a boy 19 or 20 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 Palmer's, Alice explained, tolerantly. And as Mama and I made him take me, 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 herself, 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 to gone on the stage herself, because she always knew she had the talent for it. And well, they got into a kind of a spat about which one had made 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 percent 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 peaked. 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 billboards 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, even spoke some of them aloud. No, I haven't forgotten you, Mrs. Russell. I remember you very pleasantly. You were Miss Palmer, I recall, in those funny old days. Very kind of you, I'm sure. 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 sure you won't mind mentioning that I don't find much inspiration in these provincials. I really must ask you not to press me, and 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 colorings, 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 that 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 downtown. 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 in firm. 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 will 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 signboard displayed in begrimed gilt letters, the information that Frink's business college occupied the upper floors of the building. Furthermore, Frink here publicly offered personal instruction and training in practical mathematics, bookkeeping, and all branches of the business life, including stenography, typewriting, et cetera. 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 downtown, and never without noticing it. Nor was this the first time she had paused to lift toward it the 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, and 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 them? Did you select by the price?' "'Mercy, no,' she exclaimed, and added, with an after-thought. 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 wiling 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 querilously overstaked 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 downtown 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 am sure he did, Alice agreed, gaily, and she hummed a bar or two of La Paloma, 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 darkie stories, and he'll do anything to draw colored people out and make them talk. And that's what he was doing at Mildred's house 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 colorful 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.  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 gayities 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 everyone 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.  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 smirk of them. 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 non-entities. 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, and then added, I certainly ought to dance well. Why is it so much a duty? When I think of all 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.  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 ever can 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.  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 your 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 and 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. Oh, 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. Think Heaven, I was only fifteen. I was all over it by the next year. No wonder you have 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 was delighted to be caught in a piece of hypocrisy. How lovely, she cried. Then she pointed ahead. Our walk is nearly over.  It's a queer little place, but my father's so attached to it, the family of 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.  You can come in the evening, if you like. She called back to him over her shoulder. Soon? As soon as you like.  He walked rapidly, a fine, easy figure swinging his stick in a way that suggested exhilaration. Alice, staring after him through the irregular arpitures 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's 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. Then 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 of Alice Adams After that she went to her room and sat down before her three-leafed 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 undermining 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 in Alice Adams who didn't exist? Almost everything she had said to him was upon spontaneous impulse, springing to her lips upon 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, to be made, to be used for its own purpose. What appeared to be the desired result was a false-colored 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 colorings 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? Shouldn't I just be myself? And then she thought, but which one is myself? Her eyes dwelt upon 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 was 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 looking so self-satisfied about, he inquired, and added, in his knowing way, I saw you all right, cutie. Where did you see me? Downtown. This afternoon you mean Walter? Yes. This afternoon I mean Walter, he returned, burlesking her voice, at least happily enough to please himself, for he laughed, applauseively. Oh! You never saw me.  I never did see anybody as busy as you get, Alice, when your toe in a barge. My but you keep your hands going. Looking like the air was full of them. That's why I'm on to you, why you looked so tickled this evening. I'll see 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 with some nice young man 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. Yes. His sister retorted quietly. I should think you might have recognized him, Walter. Your sister looked annoyed. Still harping on that, he complained.  By the way, I heard this Russell was supposed to be your dear old sweet friend Mildred, steady. What are you doing walking 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 Lam's such a talker I wonder he don't ruin his grandfather's business. He keeps all us cheap help standing round listening to him nine-tenths of our time. Well, Joe told me this Russell some kin or other to the Palmer family, and he's got some little money of his own, and he's putting it in old Palmer's trust company, and Palmer's going to make him a vice-president of the company. Sort of a keep the money in the family arrangement, Joe Lam 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 old Palmer dies, this Russell will be his son-in-law, and all he'll have to do will be to barely lift his feet and step into the old man's shoes.  You better lay off of there, Alice. Pick somebody that's got less to lose, and you'll make a 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 Lam says he's got some little of his own, didn't say how much. Well then. Walter laughed with his laugh. Cut it out, he baited 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 around the table to her and padded her good-naturedly on the shoulder. Good ol' Ally, he said. Honest, you wouldn't run in fourth place. If I was you, I'd never even start in the class. That frozen-faced gang will rule you off the track as soon as they see your colors. 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 old 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 downtown 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 tonight. Take it 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-faced 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 Walt is 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 not go into that any more, Mama, the daughter begged her. What's the use? It could be of use, Mrs. Adams insisted. It could be 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 vigor 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?  That would be crazy, of course. Little is his work at Lamb's brings in. I wouldn't be so silly as to ask him to give it up 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' 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. Mrs. Board 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 bickering 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 those painful interviews. You can keep up your day and talk till you die and I die, but I'll never make one god's scent 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 dang 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 these 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 gone 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.  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.  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?  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 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 if come—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 want to have the same as the rest of the new generation get. Poor Walter, asking you to go to the movies in 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.  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 would 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 absurd. Yes, I'm always absurd, Mrs. Adams moaned. All I can do is cry while your father sits upstairs in his horn of plenty. But Alice interrupted with a peel of desperate laughter. Oh, that horn of plenty do come down to worth, 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 did 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. Whatever 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 written 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 anyone else. He's got an absolutely perfect right to do anything he wants to do with it, and it would make us all comfortable if he would 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 the vehemence near passion. We're right up on 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 would so much as lift his little finger. Oh, come now, Alice laughed. You can't even build 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 doorbell forestalled the retort. Now, who do you suppose that is? She wondered aloud, and 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 chinbeard. 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 chinbeard, the white west coat, 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, hail and sturdy, not aged, and his quick blue eyes still unflecked, and his 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 fellow'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 discs 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, do you? 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. Psh!  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 croakshade wrap from her father's shoulders. Swayed 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? Do you think a man can be as sick as long as you have and not be weak as a cat? What are 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.  Haven't you, Alice? Yes, Papa, she said, and she 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 folk 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 reassuring, 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 them if they can get me kind of flattered up. You just tell your daddy it's no use. He doesn't get my soft side, pretending he likes to see me even when he's sick.  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' 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' shoulder with a strong, pink hand. Listen to this young fellow, Miss Alice. He thinks we can't get along without him a minute. Yes, sir, this daddy of yours believes the whole works will just take and run down if he isn't there to keep him 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 and 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 time, Mr. Lamb," the convalescent said, querilously. I don't feel right about it, but I'll be back in ten days. You'll see. The old man took his hand and parting. All right, we'll see, Virgil.  He went to the door. You hear, Miss Alice, that's what I wanted you 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 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 father 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 honest and solid 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 of first-collar rings into a slow convalescence. His cheeks showed actual hints of color, 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 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 them in a pot with him, and they won't come out one, two, three alongside of him. And to think as big a man as that, with all his interests in 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 if 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 him, 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 had 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 to 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 vigor 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.  I don't know, I ever did see the house so spic 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 of 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've been so busy looking at all the spic and spanishness after the house cleaning, and the flowers out in the parlor, living-room, I suppose you want me to call it, if I just got to be fashionable. I've 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 going on? What's it about? You all dressed up, and flowers in the parlor and everything. Don't you see, Papa, it's an honour of your coming downstairs again, of course. Oh, that's it, he said. I never would have thought of that, I guess. But Walter looked side-long at his father and gave forth his sly and knowing laugh. Neither would I, he said. Adams lifted his eyebrows to coastly.  You don't want the old man to think our young lady had made so much fuss over him, do you?  Go on and think it. It'll do you good. Of course I think it, Adam said. It isn't anybody's birthday. Maybe the decorations are on account of me coming downstairs. Didn't you hear Alice say so? Sure, I heard her say so. Well then.  Looking shrewdly at Alice, he sang, I was walking 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 wheel-spoon!  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 bow, 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. You 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. Walter repeated his fragment of adjectionable song, but these trochularities 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 tonight 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 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 tinfoil which has happened upon a round shape, he feels a sinking, a dullness 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 Palmer's except remotely, through a newspaper. Their laughter was for the encouragement of snappy young men of the stores and offices downtown, clerks, bookkeepers, what not, some of them probably graduates of Frink'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-plot. I wonder if I shall end there. The foreboding passed abruptly, with a jerk of her breath, as the street-land 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?  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 practising 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-businessmen. 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 fated by your fellow-citizens, after all, seeing these were both done by my relatives, the Parmers. 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 doubted, 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 Mildred is your cousin. Not a very near one, he explained. Mr. Parmer'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 Parmer's, 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 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 those circumstances? Well, you see, there's such a lot of circumstances, he explained. I'm not sure I will like getting back into a business again. I suppose most of the men my age and 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 leftover. 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 a pretty grand one, 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 Palmer's. Didn'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 it's 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.  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 walks. She was pleased with him on his own account, and now that pleasure was growing keener. She looked at him and thought 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 was that? You forget everything, St. Alice. You told me what kind of a girl I am. You seemed to think you had taken quite a fancy to me from the very first. So I did, he agreed heartily. But how quickly you forget 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?  Perfect creatures have the most perfect ways 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 detail. They're not so vulgar as to come right out and tell you 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 roofily. That does sound like Mildred. You certainly do seem to know her. Do you know everybody else 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.  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 sharks, Russell exclaimed, whereupon Alice added to the series. Tell me, is it a good policy for me to follow with you, she said, 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 where 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 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.  We'll let it go with 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 are 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 would need if you did come whenever you want to, and, of course, you wouldn't dare to 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 gayities 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, that I keep my family cheerful with my amusing little ways? Yes, don't you?  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.  Your telepathy, he exclaimed. Yes, that was it precisely, I suppose that 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, and 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 can 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 like to walk with me sometimes, to-morrow? Sometimes. Not to-morrow, the day after. That's splendid, he said. You'll walk with me the day after to-morrow, and the night after that I'll see you at Miss Lam's dance, won't I? But this fell rather chillingly upon Alice. Miss Lam's dance? Which Miss Lam? She asked. I don't know, it's the one that's just coming out of morning. 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 you're 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 overheard, 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. End of chapter 12 . . .