 CHAPTER 19 Alice was softly crooning to herself as her mother turned the corner of the house and approached through the dusk. Isn't it the most beautiful evening, the daughter said? Why can't summer last all year? Did you ever know a lovelier twilight than this, Mama?" Mrs. Adams laughed and answered, not since I was your age, I expect. Alice was wistful at once. Don't they stay beautiful after my age? Well, it's not the same thing. Isn't it? Not ever? You may have a different kind from mine, the mother said, a little sadly. I think you will, Alice. You deserve—no, I don't. I don't deserve anything, and I know it. But I'm getting a great deal these days, more than I ever dreamed could come to me. I'm pretty happy, Mama. Her mother would have kissed her, but Alice drew away. Oh, I don't mean—she laughed nervously. I wasn't meaning to tell you I'm engaged, Mama. We're not. I mean—oh! Things seem pretty beautiful in spite of all I've done to spoil them. You! Mrs. Adams cried incredulously. What have you done to spoil things? Little things, Alice said. A thousand little silly—oh, what's the use? He's so honestly what he is—just simple and good and intelligent. I feel a tricky mess beside him. I don't see why he likes me, and sometimes I'm afraid he wouldn't if he knew me. He'd just worship you, said the fawn-mother, and the more he knew you, the more he'd worship you. Alice shook her head. He's not the worshiping kind—not like that at all. He's more. But Mrs. Adams was not interested in this analysis, and she interrupted, briskly. Of course it's time your father and I showed some interest in him. I was just saying I actually don't believe he's ever been inside the house. No, Alice said, musingly—that's true, I don't believe he has. Except when we've walked in the evening we always sat here, even those two times when it was drizzly. It's so much nicer. We'll have to do something or other, of course, her mother said. What like? I was thinking, Mrs. Adams paused. Well, of course we could hardly put off asking him to dinner or something, much longer. Alice was not enthusiastic—so far from it, indeed, that there was a melancholy alarm in her voice. Oh, Mama, must we? Do you think so? Yes, I do. I really do. Couldn't we—well, couldn't we wait? It looks queer, Mrs. Adams said. It isn't the thing at all for a young man to come as much as he does and never more than just barely meet your father and mother. No, we ought to do something. But a dinner, Alice objected. In the first place there isn't anybody I want to ask. There isn't anybody I would ask. I don't mean trying to give a big dinner, her mother explained. I just mean having him to dinner. That mulatto woman, Melania Burns, goes out by the day, and she could bring a waitress. We can get some flowers for the table and just some to put in the living-room. We might just as well go ahead and do it to-morrow as any other time, because your father's in a fine mood, and I saw Melania this afternoon and told her I might want her soon. She said she didn't have any engagements this week, and I can let her know to-night. Suppose when he comes you ask him for to-morrow, Alice. Everything will be very nice, I'm sure. Don't worry about it. Well, but Alice was uncertain. But don't you see it looks so queer not to do something, her mother urged. It looks so kind of poverty-stricken. We really oughtn't to wait any longer. Alice assented, though not with a good heart. Very well, I'll ask him if you think we've got to. That matter's settled, then, Mrs. Adams said. I'll go telephone Melania, and then I'll tell your father about it. But when she went back to her husband she found him in an excited state of mind, and Walter standing before him in the darkness. Adams was almost shouting, so great was his vehemence. Hush! Hush! His wife implored, as she came near them. They'll hear you out on the front porch. I don't care who hears me, Adams said harshly, though he tempered his loudness. Do you want to know what this boy's asking me for? I thought he'd maybe come to tell me he's got a little sense in his head at last and a little decency about what's due his family. I thought he was going to ask me to take him into my plant. No, ma'am, that's not what he wants. No, it isn't, Walter said. In the darkness his face could not be seen. He stood motionless in what seemed an apathetic attitude, and he spoke quietly. No, he repeated. That isn't what I want. You stay down at that place, Adams went on, hotly, instead of trying to be a little used to your family, and the only reason you're allowed to stay is because Mr. Lam's never been able to notice that you're still there. You just wait. You're off, Walter said, in the same quiet way. He knows I'm there. He spoke to me yesterday. He asked me how I was getting along in my work. He did, Adams asked, seeming not to believe him. Yes, he did. What else did he say, Walter? Mrs. Adams asked quickly. Nothing, just walked on. I don't believe he knew who you were, Adams declared. Think not. He called me Walter Adams. At this, Adams was silent, and Walter, after waiting a moment, said, Well, are you going to do anything about me, about what I told you I got to have? What is it, Walter? His mother asked, since Adams did not speak. Walter cleared his throat and replied in a tone as quiet as that he had used before, though with a slight huskiness. I've got to have three hundred and fifty dollars. You better get him to give it to me if you can. Adams found his voice. Yes, he said bitterly. That's all he asks. He won't do anything I ask him to, and in return he asks me for three hundred and fifty dollars. That's all. What in the world, Mrs. Adams exclaimed? What for, Walter? I got to have it, Walter said. But what for? His quiet huskiness did not alter. I got to have it. But can't you tell us I got to have it? That's all you can get out of him, Adams said. He seems to think it'll bring him in three hundred and fifty dollars. A faint tremulousness became evident in the husky voice. Haven't you got it? No, I haven't got it, his father answered, and I've got to go to a bank for more than my payroll next week. Do you think I'm a mint? I don't understand what you mean, Walter, Mrs. Adams, and deposed, perplexed and distressed. If your father had the money, of course he'd need every cent of it, especially just now, and anyhow you could scarcely expect him to give it to you unless you told us what you want with it. But he hasn't got it. All right, Walter said, and after standing a moment more in silence he added impersonally, I don't see as you ever did anything much for me anyhow, either of you. Then, as if this were his valedictory, he turned his back upon them, walked away quickly, and was at once lost to their sight in the darkness. There's a fine boy to have had the trouble of raising, Adams grumbled. Just crazy, that's all. What in the world do you suppose he wants all that money for, his wife said, wonderingly? I can't imagine what he could do with it. I wonder—she paused. I wonder if he—if he what?—Adams prompted her, irritably. If he could have bad associates. God knows, said Adams. I don't. It just looks to me like he had something in him I don't understand. You can't keep your eye on a boy all the time in his city this size, not a boy Walter's age. You've got a girl pretty much in the house, but a boy will follow his nature. I don't know what to do with him. Mrs. Adams brightened a little. He'll come out all right, she said. I'm sure he will. I'm sure he'd never be anything really bad, and he'll come around all right about the glue-works too, you'll see. Of course every young man wants money. It doesn't prove he's doing anything wrong, just because he asks for it. No, all that proves to me is that he hasn't got any good sense, asking me for three hundred and fifty dollars, when he knows as well as you do the position I'm in. If I wanted to, I could hardly let him have three hundred and fifty cents, let alone dollars. I'm afraid you'll have to let me have that much, and maybe a little more, she ventured timidly. And she told him of her plans for the morrow. He objected vehemently. Well, but Alice has probably asked him by this time, Mrs. Adams said. It really must be done, Virgil. You don't want him to think she's ashamed of us, do you? Well, go ahead, but just let me stay away, he begged. Of course I'll expect to undergo a kind of talk with him when he gets ready to say something to us about Alice, but I do hate to have to sit through a fashionable dinner. Why, it isn't going to bother you, she said. Just one young man is a guest. Yes, I know, but you want us to have all this fancy cooking, and I can see well enough you're going to get that old dress-suit out of the cedar chest in the attic and try to make me put it on. I do think you better, Virgil. I hope the moths have got it, he said. Last time I wore it was to the banquet, and it was pretty old then. Of course I don't mind wearing it to the banquet so much, because that was what you might call quite an occasion. He spoke with some reminiscent complacency. The banquet, an affair now five years past, having provided the one time in his life when he had been so distinguished among his fellow citizens as to receive an invitation to be present, with some seven hundred others, at the annual eating and speechmaking of the city's Chamber of Commerce. Anyhow, as you say, I think it would look foolish of me to wear a dress-suit for just one young man, he went on, protesting feebly. What's the use of all so much howdy-do anyway? You don't expect him to believe we put on all that style every night, do you? Is that what you're after? Well, we wanted to think we lived nicely, she admitted. So that's it, he said, quarrellessly. You wanted to think that's our regular gate, do you? Well, he'll know better about me no matter how you fix me up, because he saw me in my regular suit the evening she introduced me to him, and he could tell any way I'm not one of these moving pictures sporting men that's always got a dress-suit on. Besides, you and Alice certainly have some idea he'll come again, haven't you? If they get these things settled between them, he'll be around the house and to meals most any time, won't he? You don't hardly expect to put on style all the time, I guess. Well, he'll see then that this kind of thing was all show-off and bluff, won't he? What about it? Oh, well, by that time! She left the sentence unfinished, as if absently. You could let us have a little money for tomorrow, couldn't you, honey? Oh, I reckon, I reckon, he mumbled. A girl like Alice is some comfort. She don't come around acting as if she'd commit suicide if she didn't get three hundred and fifty dollars in the next five minutes. I expect I can spare five or six dollars for you to show off if I got to. However, she finally obtained fifteen before his bedtime, and the next morning went to market after breakfast, leaving Alice to make the beds. Walter had not yet come downstairs. You'd better call him, Mrs. Adams said, as she departed with a big basket on her arm. I expect he's pretty sleepy. He was out so late last night I didn't hear him come in, though I kept awake till after midnight, listening for him. Tell him he'll be late for work if he doesn't hurry, and see that he drinks his coffee, even if he hasn't time for anything else. And when Malaine it comes, get her started in the kitchen, show her where everything is. She waved her hand as she set out for a corner where the car stopped. Everything will be lovely. Don't forget about Walter. Nevertheless, Alice did forget about Walter for a few minutes. She closed the door, went into the living-room absently, and stared vaguely at one of the old brown plush rocking-chairs there. Upon her forehead were the little shadows of an apprehensive reverie, and her thoughts overlapped one another in her fretful jumble. What will he think? These old chairs, they're hideous. I'll scrub those soot-streaks out of the columns. It won't do any good, though. That long crack in the column, nothing can help that. What will he think of Papa? I hope Mama won't talk too much. When he thinks of Mildred's house, or of Henrietta's or any of him beside this. She said she'd buy plenty of roses that ought to help some. Nothing could be done about those horrible chairs, can't take them up in the attic. A room's got to have chairs. Might have rented some. No. If he ever comes again, he'll see they weren't here. If he comes again, oh, it won't be that bad. But it won't be what he expects. I'm responsible for what he expects. He expects just what the heirs I've put on have made him expect. What did I want to pose so to him for, as if Papa were a wealthy man and all that? What will he think? The photograph of the Coliseum's a rather good thing, though. It helps some, as if we'd bought it in Rome, perhaps. I hope he'll think so. He believes I've been abroad, of course. The other night he said, you remember the feeling you get in the Saint-Chapelle? There's another lie of mine, not saying I didn't remember, because I'd never been there. What makes me do it? Papa must wear his evening clothes, but Walter. With that she recalled her mother's admonition, and went upstairs to Walter's door. She tapped upon it with her fingers. Time to get up, Walter. The rest of us have had breakfast over half an hour ago, and it's nearly eight o'clock. You'll be late. Hurry down, and I'll have some coffee and toast ready for you. There came no sound from within the room, so she wrapped louder. Wake up, Walter. She called and wrapped again without getting any response, and then, finding that the door yielded to her, she opened it and went in. Walter was not there. He had been there, however, had slept upon the bed, though not inside the covers, and Alice supposed he must have come home so late that he had been too sleepy to take off his clothes. Near the foot of the bed was a shallow closet where he kept his other suit and his evening clothes, and the door stood open showing a bare wall. Nothing whatever was in the closet, and Alice was rather surprised at this for a moment. That's queer, she murmured, and then she decided that when he woke he found the clothes he had slept in so mussy he had put on his other suit, and had gone out before breakfast with the must clothes to have them pressed, taking his evening things with them. With this explanation, and failing to observe that it did not account for the absence of shoes from the closet floor, she nodded absently. Yes, that must be it. And when her mother returned, told her that Walter had probably breakfasted downtown. They did not delay over this. The colored woman had arrived, and the basket's disclosures were important. I stopped at Warleys on the way back, said Mrs. Adams, flushed with hurry and excitement. I bought a can of caviar there. I thought we'd have little sandwiches brought into the living-room before dinner—the way you said they did when you went to that dinner at the—but I think that was to go with cocktail's mamma, and of course we haven't— No, Mrs. Adams said. Still, I think it would be nice. We can make them look very dandy on a tray, and the waitress can bring them in. I thought we'd have the soup already on the table, and we can walk right out as soon as we have the sandwiches, so it won't get cold. Then, after the soup, Melana says she can make sweet bread patties with mushrooms, and for the meat-course we'll have lard at fillet. Melana's really a fancy cook, you know, and she says she can do anything like that to perfection. We'll have peas with the fillet, and potato balls, and Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts are fashionable now, they told me, at the market. Then we'll come the chicken salad, and after that the ice-cream. She's going to make an angel-food cake to go with it. And then coffee, and crackers, and a new kind of cheese I got at Warlig's. He says it's very fine. Alice was alarmed. Don't you think perhaps it's too much, mamma? It's better to have too much than too little, her mother said cheerfully. We don't want them to think with that kind of skimp. God knows we have to enough, though, most of the time. Get the flowers in water, child, I bought them at market, because they're so much cheaper there, but they'll keep fresh and nice. You fix them any way you want. Now, hurry, it's got to be a busy day. She had bought three dozen little roses. Alice took them and began to arrange them in vases, keeping the stems separated as far as possible so that the clumps would look larger. She put half a dozen in each of three vases in the living-room, placing one vase on the table in the center of the room, and one at each end of the mantel-piece. Then she took the rest of the roses to the dining-room, but she postponed the arrangement of them until the table should be set just before dinner. She was thoughtful, planning to dry the stems and lay them on the tablecloth like a vine of roses running in a delicate design, if she found that the dozen and a half she had left were enough for that. If they weren't, she would arrange them in a vase. She looked a long time at the little roses in the basin of water where she had put them. Then she sighed and went away to heavier tasks, while her mother worked in the kitchen with Malena. Alice dusted the living-room and the dining-room vigorously, though all the time with a look that grew more and more pensive. And having dusted everything, she wiped the furniture, rubbed it hard. After that she washed the floors and the woodwork. Emerging from the kitchen at noon, Mrs. Adams found her daughter on hands and knees, scrumming the bases of the columns between the hall and the living-room. Now, dearie, she said, you mustn't tire yourself out, and you'd better come and eat something. Your father said he'd get a bite downtown to-day. He was going down to the bank, and Walter eats downtown all the time lately, so I thought we wouldn't bother to set the table for lunch. Come on, and we'll have something in the kitchen. No, Alice said dully, as she went on with her work. I don't want anything. Her mother came closer to her. Why, what's the matter, she said briskly? You seem kind of pale to me, and you don't look—you don't look happy. Well, Alice began, uncertainly, but said no more. See here, Mrs. Adams exclaimed, this is all just for you. You ought to be enjoying it. It's the first time we've entertained, and I don't know how long. I guess it's almost since we had that little party when you were eighteen. Now, what's the matter with you? Nothing. I don't know. But, dearie, aren't you looking forward to this evening? The girl looked up, showing a pallid and solemn face. Oh, yes, of course, she said, and tried to smile. Of course we had to do it. I do think it'll be nice. Of course I'm looking forward to it. CHAPTER 20 She was indeed looking forward to that evening, but in a cloud of apprehension, and although she could never have guessed it, this was the simultaneous condition of another person—none other than the guest for whose pleasure so much cooking and scrubbing seemed to be necessary. Moreover, Mr. Arthur Russell's premonitions were no product of mere coincidence. Neither had any magical sympathy produced them. His state of mind was rather the result of rougher undercurrents, which had all the time been running beneath the surface of a romantic friendship. Never shrewder than when she analyzed the gentleman, Alice did not libel him when she said that he was one of those quiet men who are a bit flirtatious, by which she meant that he was a bit susceptible, the same thing, and he had proved himself susceptible to Alice upon his first sight of her. There, he said to himself, who's that? And in the crowd of girls at his cousin's dance, all strangers to him, she was the one he wanted to know. Since then his summer evenings with her had been as secluded as if, for three hours after the falling of dusk, they too had drawn apart from the world to some dear bower of their own. The little veranda was that glamorous nook, with a faint golden light falling through the glass of the closed door upon Alice, and darkness elsewhere, except for the one round globe of the street lamp at the corner. The people who passed along the sidewalk now and then were only shadows with voices, moving vaguely under the maple trees that loomed in obscure contours against the stars. So as the two sat together, the back of the world was the wall and closed door behind them, and Russell, when he was away from Alice, always thought of her as sitting there before the closed door. A glamour was about her thus, and a spell upon him, but he had a formless anxiety never put into words. All the pictures of her in his mind stopped at the closed door. He had another anxiety, and for the greater part this was of her own creating. She had too often asked him, no matter how gaily, what he had heard about her. Too often begged him not to hear anything. Often hoping to forestall whatever he might hear, she had been at two great pains to account for it, to discredit and mock it. And though he laughed at her for this, telling her truthfully he did not even hear her mentioned, the everlasting irony that deals with all such human forfendings prevailed. Lately he had half confessed to her what a nervousness she had produced. You make me dread the day when I'll hear somebody speaking of you. You're getting me so upset about it that if I ever hear anybody so much as say the name Alice Adams, I'll run. The confession was but half of one, because he laughed, and she took it for an assurance of loyalty in the form of burlesque. She misunderstood. He laughed, but his nervousness was genuine. After any stroke of events, whether a happy one or a catastrophe, we see that the materials for it were a long time gathering, and the only marvel is that the stroke was not prophesied. But bore the air of fatal coincidence may remain fatal indeed to this later view. But what the haphazard aspect dispelled, there is left for scrutiny the same ancient hint from the infinite to the effect that since events have never yet failed to be law-abiding, perhaps it were well for us to deduce that they will continue to be so, until further notice. On the day that was to open the closed door in the background of his pictures of Alice, Russell lunched with his relatives. There were but the four people, Russell and Mildren, and her mother and father, in the great cool dining-room. Arched French windows, shaded by awnings, admitted a mellow light, and looked out upon a green lawn ending in a long conservatory, which revealed through its glass panes a carnival of plants in luxuriant blossom. From his seat at the table Russell glanced out at this pretty display, and informed his cousins that he was surprised. You have such a glorious spread of flowers all over the house, he said. I didn't suppose you'd have any left for out yonder. In fact, I didn't know there were so many splendid flowers in the world. Mrs. Palmer, large, calm, fair, like her daughter, responded with a mild reproach. That's because you haven't been cousinly enough to get used to them, Arthur. You've almost taught us to forget what you look like. In defense Russell waved a hand toward her husband. You see, he's begun to keep me so hard at work. But Mr. Palmer declined the responsibility. Up to four or five in the afternoon, perhaps, he said. After that the young gentleman is as much a stranger to me as he is to my family. I've been wondering who she could be. When a man's preoccupied there must be a lady, then? Russell inquired. That seems to be the view of your sex, Mrs. Palmer suggested. It was my husband who said it, not Mildred or I. Mildred smiled faintly. Papa may be singular in his ideas. They may come entirely from his own experience and have nothing to do with Arthur. Thank you, Mildred, her cousin said, bowing to her gratefully. You seem to understand my character and your father's quite as well. However, Mildred remained grave in the face of this customary pleasantry, not because the old jest worn round, like what preceded it, rolled in an old groove, but because of some preoccupation of her own. Her faint smile had disappeared, and as her cousin's glance met hers she looked down, yet not before he had seen in her eyes the flicker of something like a question—a question both poignant and dismayed. He may have understood it, for his own smile vanished at once in favour of a reciprocal solemnity. You see, Arthur, Mrs. Palmer said, Mildred is always a good cousin. She and I stand by you, even if you do stay away from us for weeks and weeks. Then, observing that he appeared to be so occupied with a bunch of iced grapes upon his plate that he had not heard her, she began to talk to her husband, asking him what was going on downtown. Arthur continued to eat his grapes, but he ventured to look again at Mildred after a few moments. She also appeared to be occupied with a bunch of grapes, though she ate none, and only pulled them from their stems. She sat straight, her features as composed and pure as those of a new marble saint in a cathedral niche. Yet her downcast eyes seemed to conceal many thoughts, and her cousin, against his will, was more aware of what these thoughts might be than of the leisurely conversation between her father and mother. All at once, however, he heard something that startled him, and he listened. And here was the effect of all Alice's forfendings. He listened from the first, with a sinking heart. Mr. Palmer, mildly amused by what he was telling his wife, had just spoken the words, This Virgil Adams. What he had said was, This Virgil Adams, that's the man's name, queer case. Who told you, Mrs. Palmer inquired, not much interested. Alfred Lamb, her husband, answered. He was laughing about his father at the club. Because he, the old gentleman, takes a great pride in his judgment of men, and always boasted to his sons that he had never in his life made a mistake in trusting the wrong man. Now Alfred and James Albert, Jr., think that they may have a great joke on him, and they've twitted him so much about it that he'll scarcely speak to them. From the first, Alfred says, the old chap's only repartee was, You wait and you'll see. And they've asked him so often to show them what they're going to see that he won't say anything at all. He's a funny old fellow, Mrs. Palmer observed. But he shrewd. I can't imagine his being deceived for such a long time. Twenty years, you said? Yes, longer than that, I understand. It appears when this man, this Adams, was a young clerk, the old gentleman trusted him with one of his business secrets, a glue process that Mr. Lamb had spent some money to get hold of. The old chap thought this Adams was going to have quite a future with the Lamb concern, and of course never dreamed he was dishonest. Alfred said this Adams hasn't been of any real use for years, and they should have let him go as Deadwood. The old gentleman wouldn't hear of it, and insisted on his being kept on the payroll, so they just decided to look on it as a sort of pension. Well, one morning last March the man had an attack of some sort down there, and Mr. Lamb got his own car out and went home with him, himself, and worried about him, and went to see him no end all the time he was ill. He would, Mrs. Palmer said approvingly, he's a kind-hearted creature, that old man. Her husband laughed. Alfred says he thinks his kind-heartedness is about cured. It seems that as soon as the man got well again he deliberately walked off with the old gentleman's glue-secret, just calmly stole it. Alfred says he believes that if he had a stroke in the office now himself, his father wouldn't lift a finger to help him. Mrs. Palmer repeated the name to herself thoughtfully. Adams. Virgil Adams? You said his name was Virgil Adams? Yes. She looked at her daughter. Why, you know who that is, Mildred, she said casually. It's that Alice Adams' father, isn't it? Wasn't his name Virgil Adams? I think it is, Mildred said. Mrs. Palmer turned toward her husband. You've seen this Alice Adams here. Mr. Lam's pet swindler must be her father. Mr. Palmer passed a smooth hand over his neat gray hair, which was not disturbed by this effort to stimulate recollection. Oh, yes, he said. Of course, certainly. Quite a good-looking girl. One of Mildred's friends. How queer! Mildred looked up as if in a little alarm, but did not speak. Her mother set matters straight. Fathers are amusing, she said, smilingly to Russell, who was looking at her, though how fixedly she did not notice, for she turned from him at once to enlighten her husband. Every girl who meets Mildred, and tries to push the acquaintance by coming here until the poor child has to hide, isn't a friend of hers, my dear. Mildred's eyes were downcast again, and a faint color rose in her cheeks. Oh, I shouldn't put it quite that way about Alice Adams, she said, in a low voice. I saw something of her for a time. She's not unattractive, in a way. Mrs. Palmer settled the whole case of Alice carelessly. A pushing sort of a girl, she said, a very pushing little person. I, Mildred began, and after hesitating concluded, I rather dropped her. Fortunate you've done so, her father remarked cheerfully. Especially since various members of the Lamb Connection are here frequently, they might not think you'd shown a great deal of tact in having her about the place. He laughed and turned to his cousin. All this isn't very interesting to poor Arthur. How terrible people are with a newcomer in town. They talk as if he knew all about everybody. But we don't know anything about these queer people ourselves, said Mrs. Palmer. We know something about the girl, of course. She used to be a bit too conspicuous, in fact. However, as you say, we might find a subject more interesting for Arthur. She smiled whimsically upon the young man. Tell the truth, she said. Don't you fairly detest going into business with that tyrant yonder? What? Yes. I beg your pardon, he stammered. You were right, Mrs. Palmer said to her husband. You've bored him so, talking about thievery clerks, he can't even answer an honest question. But Russell was beginning to recover his outward composure. Try me again, he said. I'm afraid I was thinking of something else. This was the best, he found to say. There was a part of him that wanted to protest and deny, but he had not heat enough in the chill that had come upon him. Here was the first mention of Alice, and with it the reason why it was the first. Mr. Palmer had difficulty in recalling her, and she had happened to be spoken of only because her father's betrayal of a benefactor's trust had been so particularly atrocious that in the view of the benefactor's family it contained enough of the element of humour to warrant a mild laugh at a club. There was the deadliness of the story, its lack of malice, even of resentment. Deadlier still were Mrs. Palmer's phrases, a pushing sort of girl, a very pushing little person, and used to be a bit too conspicuous, in fact. But she spoke placidly and by chance, being as obviously without unkindly motive as Mr. Palmer was when he related the cause of Alfred Lam's amusement. Her opinion of the obscure young lady momentarily her topic had been expressed moreover to her husband and at her own table. She sat there, large, kind, serene, a protest might astonish but could not change her, and Russell, crumpling in his strained fingers the lace-edged little web of a napkin upon his knee, found hard enough to grow red, but not enough to challenge her. She noticed his colour and attributed it to the embarrassment of a scrupulously gallant gentleman caught in a lapse of attention to a lady. Don't be disturbed, she said, benevolently. People aren't expected to listen all the time to their relatives. A high colour is very becoming to you, Arthur, but it really isn't necessary between cousins. You can always be informal enough with us to listen only when you care to. His complexion continued to be rudder than usual, however, throughout the meal, and was still somewhat tinted when Mrs. Palmer rose. The man's bringing you cigarettes here, she said, nodding to the two gentlemen. We'll give you a chance to do the sordid kind of talking we know you really like. After a while, Mildred will show you what's in bloom in the hot house, if you wish, Arthur. Mildred followed her, and when they were alone in another of the spacious rooms, went to a window and looked out, while her mother seated herself near the centre of the room in a gilt-armed chair mellowed with old tapestry. Mrs. Palmer looked thoughtfully at her daughter's back, but did not speak until her coffee had been brought for them. Thanks, Mildred said, not turning. I don't care for any coffee, I believe. No, Mrs. Palmer said gently. I'm afraid our good-looking cousin won't think you're very talkative, Mildred. You spoke only about twice at lunch. I shouldn't care for him to get the idea you're peaked because he's come here so little lately, should you? No, I shouldn't, Mildred answered, in a low voice, and with that she turned quickly and came to sit near her mother. But it's what I am afraid of. Mama, did you notice how red he got? You mean when he was caught not listening to a question of mine? Yes. It's very becoming to him. Mama, I don't think that was the reason. I don't think it was because he wasn't listening, I mean. No. I think his colour and his not listening came from the same reason, Mildred said, and although she had come to sit near her mother, she did not look at her. I think it happened because you and Papa—she stopped. Yes? Mrs. Palmer said, good-naturedly, to prompt her. Your father and I did something embarrassing? Mama, it was because of those things that came out about Alice Adams. How could that bother Arthur? Does he know her? Don't you remember? The daughter asked. The day after my dance I mentioned how odd I thought it was in him. I was a little disappointed in him. I'd been seeing that he met everybody, of course, but she was the only girl he asked to meet, and he did it as soon as he noticed her. I hadn't meant to have him meet her. In fact, I was rather sorry I'd felt I had to ask her because she— Oh! She's the sort that tries for the new man, if she has half a chance, and sometimes they seem quite fascinated, for a time that is. I thought Arthur was above all that, or at the very least I gave him credit for being too sophisticated. I see, Mrs. Palmer said, thoughtfully. I remember now that you spoke of it. You said it seemed a little peculiar, but of course it really wasn't. A new man has nothing to go by except his own first impressions. You can't blame poor Arthur. She's quite a pecan't-looking little person. You think he's seen something of her since then? Mildred nodded slowly. I never dreamed such a thing till yesterday, and even then I rather doubted it, till he got so red just now. I was surprised when he asked to meet her, but he just danced with her once and didn't mention her afterward. I forgot all about it. In fact, I virtually forgot all about her. I've seen quite a little of her. Yes, said Mrs. Palmer, she did keep coming here. But I had just about decided that it really wouldn't do, Mildred went on. She isn't—well, I didn't admire her. No, her mother assented, and evidently followed a direct connection of thought and a speech apparently irrelevant. I understand the young Malone wants to marry Henrietta. I hope she won't. He seems rather a gross type of person. Oh, he's just the one, Mildred said. I don't know that he and Alice Adams were ever engaged. She never told me so. She may not have been engaged to any of them. She was just enough among the other girls to get talked about, and one of the reasons I felt a little inclined to be nice to her was that they seemed to be rather edging her out of the circle. It wasn't long before I saw they were right, though. I happened to mention I was going to give a dance, and she pretended to take it as a matter of course that I meant to invite her brother. At least I thought she pretended. She might really have believed it. At any rate, I had to send him a card, but I didn't intend to be let in for that sort of thing again, of course. She's what you said, pushing, though I'm awfully sorry you said it. Why shouldn't I have said it, my dear? Of course I didn't say shouldn't, Mildred explained gravely. I meant only that I'm sorry it happened. Yes, but why? Mama! Mildred turned to her, leaning forward and speaking in a lowered voice. Mama! At first the change was so little it seemed as if Arthur hardly knew it himself. He'd been lovely to me as always, and he was still lovely to me, but— Oh! Well, you've understood. After my dance it was more as if it was just his nature and his training to be lovely to me, as he would be to everyone, a kind of politeness. He had never said he cared for me, but after that I could see he didn't. It was clear after that. I didn't know what had happened. I couldn't think of anything I'd done. Mama! It was Alice Adams. Mrs. Palmer set her little coffee-cup upon the table beside her, calmly following her own motion with her eyes, and not seeming to realize with what serious entreaty her daughter's gaze was fixed upon her. Mildred repeated the last sentence of her revelation and introduced a stress of insistence. Mama! It was Alice Adams. But Mrs. Palmer declined to be greatly impressed, so far as her appearance went at least, and to emphasize her refusal she smiled indulgently. What makes you think so? Henrietta told me yesterday. At this Mrs. Palmer permitted herself to laugh softly aloud. Good heavens! Is Henrietta a soothsayer, or is she Arthur's particular confidant? No, Ella Dowling told her. Mrs. Palmer's laughter continued. Now we have it, she exclaimed. It's a game of gossip. Arthur tells Ella, Ella tells Henrietta, and Henrietta tells— Don't laugh, please, Mama, Mildred begged. Of course Arthur didn't tell anybody. It's roundabout enough, but it's true. I know it. I hadn't quite believed it, but I knew it was true when he got so red. He looked—oh, for a second or so he looked stricken. He thought I didn't notice it, Mama. He's been to see her almost every evening lately. They take long walks together. That's why he hasn't been here. Of Mrs. Palmer's laughter that was left only her indulgent smile, which she had not allowed to vanish. Well, what of it, she said? Mama, yes, said Mrs. Palmer, what of it? But don't you see Mildred's well-tuted voice, though modulated and repressed even in her present emotion, nevertheless had a tenancy to quaver. It's true. Frank Dowling was going to see her one evening, and he saw Arthur sitting on the stoop with her, and didn't go in. And Ella used to go to school with a girl who lives across the street from her. She told Ella, Oh, I understand, Mrs. Palmer interrupted. Suppose he does go there. My dear, I said, what of it? I don't see what you mean, Mama. I'm so afraid he might think we knew about it, and that you and Papa said those things about her and her father on that account, as if we abused them, because he goes there instead of coming here. Nonsense! Mrs. Palmer rose, went to a window, and, turning there, stood with her back to it, facing her daughter and looking at her cheerfully. Nonsense, my dear! It was perfectly clear that she was mentioned by accident, and so was her father. What an extraordinary man! If Arthur makes friends with people like that, he certainly knows better than to expect to hear favourable opinions of them. Besides, it's only a little passing thing with him. Mama, when he goes there almost every— Yes, Mrs. Palmer said, dryly. It seems to me I've heard somewhere that other young men have gone there almost every. She doesn't last, apparently. Arthur is gallant, and he's impressionable, but he's fastidious, and fastidiousness is always the check on impressionableness. A girl belongs to her family, too, and this one does, especially, it strikes me. Arthur is very sensible. He sees more than you would think. Mildred looked at her, hopefully. Then you don't believe he's likely to imagine we said those things of her in any meaning way? At this, Mrs. Palmer laughed again. There's one thing you seem not to have noticed, Mildred. What's that? It seems to have escaped your attention that he never said a word. Might that mean? Mildred began, but she stopped. No, it mightn't, her mother replied, comprehending easily. On the contrary, it might mean that instead of his feeling it too deeply to speak, he was getting a little illumination. Mildred rose and came to her. Why do you suppose he never told us he went there? Do you think he's—do you think he's pleased with her and yet ashamed of it? Why do you suppose he's never spoken of it? Ah, that! Mrs. Palmer said. That might possibly be her own doing. If it is, she's well paid by what your father and I said, because we wouldn't have said it if we'd known that Arthur— She checked herself quickly. Looking over her daughter's shoulder, she saw the two gentlemen coming from the corridor toward the wide doorway of the room, and she greeted them cheerfully. If you finished with each other for a while, she added, Arthur might find it a relief to put his thoughts on something prettier than a trust company, and more fragrant. Arthur came to Mildred. Your mother said at lunch that perhaps you would— I didn't say perhaps, Arthur—Mrs. Palmer interrupted to correct him. I said she would. If you care to see and smell those lovely things out yonder, she'll show them to you. Run along, children. Half an hour later, glancing from a window, she saw them come from the hot-houses, and slowly crossed the lawn. Arthur had a fine rose in his button-hole, and he looked profoundly thoughtful. CHAPTER XXI That morning and noon had been warm, though the stirrings of a feeble breeze made weather not flagrantly intemperate. But at about three o'clock in the afternoon there came out of the south-west a heat like an affliction sent upon an accursed people, and the air was soon dead of it. Dripping negro ditch-diggers whooped with satires praising hell and hot weather as the tossing shovels flickered up to the street level where sluggish male pedestrians carried coats upon hot arms and fanned themselves with straw hats, or, remaining covered, wore soaked handkerchiefs between scalp and straw. Clerks drooped in silent big department stores. Stenographers and offices kept as close to electric fans as the intervening bulk of their employers would let them. Guests and hotels left the lobbies and went to lie unclad upon their beds, while in hospitals the patients murmured querelessly against the heat, and perhaps against some noisy motorist who strove to feel the air by splitting it, not troubled by any foreboding that he, too, that hour next week, might need quiet near a hospital. The hot spell was a true spell, warn upon men's spirits, for it was so hot that in suburban outskirts golfers crept slowly back over the low undulations of their clublands, abandoning their matches and returning to shelter. Even on such a day sizzling work had to be done, as in winter. There were glowing furnaces to be stoked, liquid metals to be poured, but such tasks found seasoned men standing to them, and in all the city probably no brave soul challenged the heat more gamely than Mrs. Adams did, when, in a corner of her small and fiery kitchen, where all day long her hired African immune cooked fiercely, she pressed her husband's evening clothes with a hot iron. No doubt she risked her life, but she risked it cheerfully in so good and necessary a service for him. She would have given her life for him at any time, and both his and her own, for her children. Unconscious of her own heroism she was surprised to find herself rather faint when she finished her ironing. However, she took heart to believe that the clothes looked better in spite of one or two scorched places, and she carried them upstairs to her husband's room before increasing blindness forced her to grope for the nearest chair. Then, trying to rise and walk without having sufficiently recovered, she had to sit down again, but after a little while she was able to get to her feet, and keeping her hand against the wall moved successfully to the door of her own room. Where she wavered, might have gone down had she not been stimulated by the thought of how much depended upon her. She made a final great effort and floundered across the room to her bureau, where she kept some simple restoratives. They served her need, or her faith in them did, and she returned to her work. She went down the stairs, keeping a still, tremulous hand upon the rail, but she smiled brightly when Alice looked up from below, where the woodwork was again being tormented with superfluous attentions. Alice, don't, her mother said, commiseratingly. You did all of that this morning, and it looks lovely. What's the use of wearing yourself out on it? You ought to be lying down so as to look fresh for tonight. Hadn't you better lie down yourself, the daughter returned. Are you ill, Mama? Certainly not. What in the world makes you think so? You look pretty pale, Alice said, and sighed heavily. It makes me ashamed having you work so hard for me. How foolish! I think it's fun getting ready to entertain a little again, like this. I only wish it hadn't turned so hot. I'm afraid your poor father will suffer. His things are pretty heavy, I noticed. Well, it'll do him good to bear something for style's sake, this once anyhow. She laughed, and coming to Alice, bent down, and kissed her. Dearly, she said tenderly, wouldn't you please slip up stairs now and take just a teeny nap to please your mother? But Alice responded only by moving her head slowly and token of refusal. Do, Mrs. Adams urged, you don't want to look worn out, do you? I'll look all right, Alice said, huskily. Do you like the way I've arranged the furniture now? I've tried all different ways. It's lovely, her mother said, admiringly. I thought the last way you had it was pretty too, but you know best. I never knew anybody with so much taste. If you'd only just quit now and take a little rest. There'd hardly be time, even if I wanted to. It's after five. But I couldn't. Really, I couldn't. How do you think we can manage about Walter? To see that he wears his evening things, I mean. Mrs. Adams pondered. I'm afraid he'll make a lot of objections on account of the weather and everything. I wish we'd had a chance to tell him last night or this morning. I'd have telephoned to him this afternoon, except, well, I scarcely like to call him up at that place, since your father. No, of course not, Mama. If Walter gets home late, Mrs. Adams went on, I'll just slip out and speak to him, in case Mr. Russell's here before he comes. I'll just tell him he's got to hurry and get his things on. Maybe he won't come home to dinner, Alice suggested, rather hopefully. Sometimes he doesn't. No, I think he'll be here. When he doesn't come, he usually telephones by this time to say not to wait for him. He's very thoughtful about that. Well, it really is getting late. I must go and tell her she ought to be preparing her fillet. Dearie, do rest a little. You'd much better do that yourself, Alice called after her. But Mrs. Adams shook her head cheerily, not pausing on her way to the fiery kitchen. Alice continued her useless labours for a time, then carried her bucket to the head of the cellar stairway, where she left it upon the top step, and closing the door returned to the living-room. Again she changed the position of the old plush rocking-chairs, moving them into the corners where she thought they might be least noticeable, and while thus engaged she was startled by a loud ringing of the doorbell. For a moment her face was panic-stricken and she stood staring, then she realised that Russell would not arrive for another hour at the earliest, and recovering her equipoise went to the door. Waiting there in a languid attitude was a young coloured woman with a small bundle under her arm and something malleable in her mouth. "'Listen,' she said. "'You folks expect in a coloured lady?' "'No,' said Alice, especially not at the front door. "'Listen,' the coloured woman said again. "'Listen, say, listen. "'Ain't they another coloured lady already here by the day? "'Listen, ain't Miss Melana Burns here by the day this evening? "'Say, listen, this is the number house she give me.' "'Are you the waitress?' Alice asked, dismally. "'Yes, I'm, if Melana here.' "'Melana is here,' Alice said, and hesitated. But she decided not to send the waitress to the back door. It might be a risk. She let her in. "'What's your name?' "'Me. I'm named Gertrude. Miss Gertrude Colomus.' "'Did you bring a cap and apron?' Gertrude took the little bundle from under her arm. "'Yes, I'm all fixed.' "'I've already set the table,' Alice said. "'I'll show you what we want done.' She led the way to the dining-room, and, after offering some instruction there, received by Gertrude with langer and a slowly moving jaw, she took her into the kitchen where the cap and apron were put on. The effect was not fortunate. Gertrude's eyes were noticeably bloodshot, and affliction made more apparent by the white cap, and Alice drew her mother apart, whispering anxiously. "'Do you suppose it's too late to get someone else?' "'I'm afraid it is,' Mrs. Adam said. "'Melana says it was hard enough to get her. You have to pay them so much that they only work when they feel like it.' "'Mama, could you ask her to wear her cap straighter? Every time she moves her head, she gets it to one side, and her skirt's too long behind and too short in front, and—' "'Oh, I've never seen such feet.' Alice laughed, desolately. And she must quit that terrible chewing. "'Never mind. I'll get to work with her. I'll straighten her out all I can, dearie. Don't worry.' Mrs. Adam's patted her daughter's shoulder encouragingly. "'Now, you can't do another thing, and if you don't run and begin dressing, you won't be ready. It'll only take me a minute to dress myself, and I'll be down long before you will. Run, darling. I'll look after everything.' Alice nodded vaguely, went up to her room, and, after only a moment with her mirror, brought from her closet the dress of white organ-die she had worn the night when she met Russell for the first time. She laid it carefully upon her bed, and began to make ready to put it on. Her mother came in half an hour later to fasten her. "'I'm all dressed,' Mrs. Adam said briskly. Of course it doesn't matter. He won't know what the rest of us even look like. How could he? I know I'm an old sight, but all I want is to look respectable. Do I?' "'You look like the best woman in the world. That's all,' Alice said, with a little gulp. Her mother laughed, and gave her a final scrutiny. You might use just a tiny bit more colour, dearie. I'm afraid the excitement's made you a little pale, and you must brighten up. There's a sort of a look in your eyes as if you'd gotten into a trance and couldn't get out. You've had it all day. I must run. Your father wants me to help him with his studs. Walter hasn't come yet, but I'll look after him, don't worry, and you better hurry, dearie, if you're going to take any time fixing the flowers on the table.' She departed while Alice sat at the mirror again to follow her advice concerning a tiny bit more colour. Before she had finished, her father knocked at the door, and when she responded, came in. He was dressed in the clothes his wife had pressed, but he had lost substantially in weight since they were made for him. No one would have thought that they had been pressed. They hung from him voluminously, seemed to be the clothes of a larger man. Your mother's gone downstairs, he said, in a voice of distress. One of the buttonholes in my shirt is too large, and I can't keep the dang thing fastened. I don't know what to do about it. I only got one other white shirt, and it's kind of ruined. I tried it before I did this one. Do you suppose you could do anything? I'll see, she said. My collars got a frayed edge, he complained, as she examined his troublesome shirt. It's a good deal like wearing a saw, but I expected to wilt down flat pretty soon and not bother me long. I'm liable to wilt down flat myself, I expect. I don't know as I remember any such hot night in the last ten or twelve years. He lifted his head and sniffed the flaccid air, which was laden with a heavy odour. My, but that smell is pretty strong, he said. Stand still, please, Papa, Alice begged him. I can't see what's the matter if you move around. How absurd you are about your old glue-smell, Papa. There isn't a vestige of it, of course. I didn't mean glue, he informed her. I mean cabbage. Is that fashionable now to have cabbage when there's company for dinner? That isn't cabbage, Papa, it's Brussels sprouts. Oh, is it? I don't mind it much, because it keeps that glue smell off me, but it's fairly strong. I expect you don't notice it so much because you've been in the house with it all along and got used to it while it was growing. It is pretty dreadful, Alice said. Are all the windows open downstairs? I'll go down and see if you'll just fix that hole up for me. I'm afraid I can't, she said, not unless you take your shirt off and bring it to me. I'll have to sew the hole smaller. Oh, well, I'll go ask your mother to— No, said Alice. She's got everything on her hands. Run and take it off. Hurry, Papa, I've got to arrange the flowers on the table before he comes. He went away and came back presently, half undressed, bringing the shirt. There's one comfort, he remarked, pensively, as she worked. I've got that collar off for a while. I wish I could go to table like this. I could stand at a good deal better. Do you seem to be making any headway with the dang thing? I think probably I can— Downstairs the doorbell rang, and Alice's arms jerked with the shock. Golly, her father said, did you stick your finger with that fool-needle? She gave him a blank stare. He's come. She was not mistaken, for upon the little veranda Russell stood facing the closed door at last. However, it remained closed for a considerable time after he rang. Inside the house, the warning summons of the bell was immediately followed by another sound, audible to Alice, and her father as a crash preceding a series of muffled falls. Then came a distant voice, bitter and complaint. Oh, Lord! said Adams, what's that? Alice went to the top of the front stairs, and her mother appeared in the hall below. Mama! Mrs. Adams looked up. It's all right, she said, in a loud whisper. Gertrude fell down the cellar stairs. Somebody left a bucket there, and she was interrupted by a gasp from Alice and hastened to reassure her. Don't worry, dearie. She may limp a little, but Adams leaned over the banisters. Did she break anything? He asked. Hush, his wife whispered. No, she seems upset and angry about it more than anything else, but she's rubbing herself, and she'll be all right in time to bring the little sandwiches. Alice, those flowers. I know, Mama, but hurry, Mrs. Adams warned her. Both of you hurry. I must let him in. She turned to the door, smiling cordially, even before she opened it. Do come right in, Mr. Russell, she said, loudly, lifting her voice for additional warning to those above. I'm so glad to receive you informally this way in our own little home. There's a hat rack here under the stairway, she continued, as Russell, murmuring some response, came into the hall. I'm afraid you'll think it's almost too informal, my coming to the door, but unfortunately our housemaids just had a little accident. Oh, nothing to mention. I just thought we better not keep you waiting any longer. Will you step into our living room, please? She led the way between the two small columns and seated herself in one of the plush rocking chairs, selecting it because Alice had pointed out that the chairs themselves were less noticeable when they had people sitting in them. Do sit down, Mr. Russell, it's so very warm. It's really quite a trial just to stand up. Thank you, he said, as he took a seat. Yes, it is quite warm. And this seemed to be the extent of his responsiveness for the moment. He was grave, rather pale, and Mrs. Adams' impression of him, as she formed it then, was of a distinguished-looking young man really elegant in the best sense of the word, but timid and formal when he first meets you. She beamed upon him and used with everything she said a continuous accompaniment of laughter, meaningless except that it was meant to convey cordiality. Of course we do have a great deal of warm weather, she informed him. I'm glad it's so much cooler in the house than it is outdoors. Yes, he said, it is pleasant here indoors. And, stopping with this single untruth, he permitted himself the briefest glance about the room, then his eyes returned to his smiling hostess. Most people make a great fuss about hot weather, she said. The only person I know who doesn't mind the heat the way other people do is Alice. She always seems as cool as if we had a breeze blowing, no matter how hot it is. But then she's so amiable she never minds anything. It's just her character. She's always been that way since she was a little child, always the same to everybody, high and low. I think character's the most important thing in the world after all, don't you, Mr. Russell? Yes, he said, solemnly, and touched his bedued white forehead with a handkerchief. Indeed it is, she agreed with herself, never failing to continue her murmur of laughter. That's what I've always told Alice, but she never sees anything good in herself, and she just laughs at me when I praise her. She sees good in everybody else in the world, no matter how unworthy they are, or how they behave toward her, but she always underestimates herself. From the time she was a little child, she was always that way. When some other little girl would behave selfishly or meanly toward her, do you think she'd come and tell me? Never a word to anybody. The little thing was too proud. She was the same way about school. The teacher had to tell me when she took a prize. She'd bring it home and keep it in her room without a word about it to her father and mother. Now, Walter was just the other way. Walter would. But here Mrs. Adams checked herself, though she increased the volume of her laughter. How silly of me, she exclaimed. I expect you know how mothers are, though, Mr. Russell. Give us a chance, and we'll talk all about our children forever. Alice would feel terribly if she knew how I've been going on about her to you. In this Mrs. Adams was right, though she did not herself suspect it. And upon an almost inaudible word or two from him, she went on with her topic. Of course, my excuse is that few mothers have a daughter like Alice. I suppose we all think the same way about our children, but some of us must be right when we feel we've got the best. Don't you think so? Yes, yes indeed. I'm sure I am, she laughed. I'll let the others speak for themselves. She paused reflectively. No, I think a mother knows when she's got a treasure in her family. If she hasn't got one, she'll pretend she has maybe. But if she has, she knows it. I certainly know I have. She's always been what people call the joy of the household, always cheerful no matter what went wrong and always ready to smooth things over with some bright witty saying. You must be sure not to tell her we've had this little chat about her. She'll just be furious with me. But she is such a dear child. You won't tell her, will you? No, he said, and again applied the handkerchief to his forehead for an instant. No, I'll—he paused and finished lamely. I'll not tell her. Thus reassured Mrs. Adams set before him some details of her daughter's popularity at sixteen, dwelling upon Alice's impartiality among her young suitors. She never could bear to hurt their feelings and always treated all of them just alike. About half a dozen of them were just bound to marry her. Naturally her father and I considered any such idea ridiculous. She was too young, of course. Thus the mother went on with her biographical sketches while the pale young man sat facing her under the hard overhead light of a white globe set to the ceiling, and listened without interrupting. She was glad to have the chance to tell him a few things about Alice that he might not have guessed for himself, and indeed she had planned to find such an opportunity if she could, but this was getting to be altogether too much of one, she felt. As time passed she was like an actor who must improvise to keep the audience from perceiving that his fellow players have missed their cues, but her anxiety was not portrayed to the still listener. She had a valiant soul. Alice, meanwhile, had arranged her little roses on the table in as many ways, probably, as there were blossoms, and she was still at it when her father arrived in the dining-room by way of the back stairs and kitchen. "'It's pulled out again,' he said, "'but I guess there's no help for it now. It's too late, and anyway it lets in some air when it bulges. I can sit so as it won't be noticed much, I expect. Isn't it time you quit bothering about the looks of the table? Your mother's been talking to him for about half an hour now, and I had the idea he came on your account, not hers. You'd better go and—' "'Just a minute,' Alice said piteously, "'do you think it looks all right?' "'The flowers—' "'Fine. Haven't you better leave them the way they are, though?' "'Just a minute,' she begged again, "'just one minute, Papa.' And she exchanged her rose in front of Russell's plate, for one that seemed to her a little larger. "'You'd better come on,' Adam said, moving to the door. "'Just one more second, Papa.' She shook her head, lamenting, "'Oh, I wish we'd rented some silver.' "'Why?' "'Because so much of the plating has rubbed off a lot of it—just a second, Papa.' And as she spoke she hastily went round the table, gathering the knives and forks and spoons that she thought had their plating best preserved, and exchanging them for the more damaged pieces at Russell's place. "'There,' she sighed, finally, "'now I'll come.' But at the door she paused to look back dubiously over her shoulder. "'What's the matter now?' "'The roses—' "'I believe after all I shouldn't have tried that vine effect. I ought to have kept them in water in the vase. It's so hot they already begin to look a little wilted out on the dry tablecloth like that. "'I believe I'll—' "'Well, look here, Alice,' he remonstrated, as she seemed disposed to turn back. "'Everything will burn up on the stove if you keep on.' "'Oh, well,' she said. The vase was terribly ugly. I can't do any better. We'll go in.' But with her hand on the doorknob she paused. "'No, Papa, we mustn't go in by this door. It might look as if—' "'As if what?' "'Never mind,' she said. "'Let's go the other way.' "'I don't see what difference it makes,' he grumbled. But nevertheless followed her through the kitchen and up the back stairs, then through the upper hallway. At the top of the front stairs she paused for a moment, drawing a deep breath, and then, before her father's puzzled eyes, a transformation came over her. Her shoulders, like her eyelids, had been drooping, but now she threw her head back, the shoulders straightened and the lashes lifted over the sparkling eyes. Vavacity came to her whole body in a flash, and she tripped down the steps, with her pretty hands rising in time to the lilting little tune that she had begun to hum. At the foot of the stairs one of those pretty hands extended itself at full arm's length toward Russell, and continued to be extended until it reached his own hand as he came to meet her. How terrible of me, she exclaimed, to be so late in coming down, and Papa, too, I think you know each other. Her father was advancing toward the young man, expecting to shake hands with him, but Alice stood between them, and Russell, a little flushed, bowed to him gravely over her shoulder without looking at him, whereupon Adams, slightly disconcerted, pulled his hands in his pockets and turned to his wife. I guess dinner's more unready, he said. We'd better go sit down. But she shook her head at him fiercely. Wait! she whispered. What for? For Walter? No. He can't be coming, she returned, hurriedly, and again warned him by a shake of her head. Be quiet! Oh! Well! he muttered. Sit down! He was thoroughly mystified, but obeyed her gesture, and went to the rocking-chair in the opposite corner, where he sat down, and with an expression of meek inquiry, awaited events. Meanwhile, Alice prattled on. It's really not a fault of mine, being tardy. The shameful truth is, I was trying to hurry Papa. He's incorrigible. He stays so late at his terrible old factory—terrible new factory, I should say. I hope you don't hate us for making you dine with us in such fearful weather. I'm nearly dying of the heat myself, so you have a fellow sufferer, if that pleases you. Why is it we always bear things better if we think other people have to stand them, too? And she added, with an excited laugh. Silly of us, don't you think? Gertrude had just made her entrance from the dining-room bearing a tray. She came slowly with an air of resentment, and her skirt still needed adjusting, while her lower jaw moved at intervals, though now not upon any substance, but reminiscently, of habit. She halted before Adams, facing him. He looked plaintive. What do you want of me? he asked. For response she extended the tray toward him with a gesture of indifference, but he still appeared to be puzzled. What in the world, he began, then caught his wife's eye and had presence of mind enough to take a damp and plastic sandwich from the tray. Well, I'll try one, he said. But a moment later, as he fulfilled this promise, an expression of intense dislike came into his features, and he would have returned the sandwich to Gertrude. However, as she had crossed the room to Mrs. Adams, he checked that gesture and sat helplessly with the sandwich in his hand. He made another effort to get rid of it, as the waitress passed him on her way back to the dining-room, but she appeared not to observe him, and he continued to be troubled by it. Alice was a loyal daughter. These are delicious, Mama, she said, and turning to Russell, you missed it, you should have taken one. It's too bad we couldn't have offered you what ought to go with it, of course, but—she was interrupted by the second entrance of Gertrude, who announced, dinner served, and retired from view. Well, Adams said, rising from his chair with relief, that's good, let's see if we can eat it. And as the little group moved toward the open door of the dining-room, he disposed of his sandwich by dropping it in the empty fireplace. Alice, glancing back over her shoulder, was the only one who saw it, and she shuddered in spite of herself. Then, seeing that he looked at her intriguingly, as if he wanted to explain that he was doing the best he could, she smiled upon him sonnally, and began to chat her to Russell again. CHAPTER XXII. Alice kept her sprightly chatter going when they sat down, though the temperature of the room and the sight of hot soup might have discouraged a less determined gaiety. Moreover there were details as unpropitious as the heat. The expiring roses expressed not beauty but pathos, and what faint odor they exhaled was no rival to the lusty emanations of the Brussels sprouts. At the head of the table, Adams, sitting low in his chair, appeared to be unable to flatten the uprising wave of his starched bosom. And Gertrude's manner and expression were of a recognizable hostility during the long period of vain waiting for the cups of soup to be emptied. Only Mrs. Adams made any progress in this direction. The others merely fainting, now and then lifting their spoons as if they intended to do something with them. Alice's talk was little more than cheerful sound, but to fill a desolate interval served its purpose, and her mother supported her with ever-faithful cooings of applause of laughter. What a funny thing weather is! The girl ran on. Yesterday it was cool, angels had charge of it, and today they had an engagement somewhere else, so the devil saw his chance and started to move the equator to the North Pole. But by the time he got halfway he thought of something else he wanted to do, and went off and left the equator here, right on top of us. I wish he'd come back and get it. Why Alice dear! Her mother cried fondly. What an imagination! Not a very pious one, I'm afraid Mr. Russell might think, though. Here she gave Gertrude a hidden signal to remove the soup, but as there was no response she had to make the signal more conspicuous. Gertrude was leaning against the wall, her chin moving like a slow pendulum, her streaked eyes fixed mutinously upon Russell. Mrs. Adams nodded several times, increasing the emphasis of her gesture, while Alice talked briskly, but the brooding waitress continued to brood. A faint snap of the fingers failed to disturb her, nor was a covert hissing whisper of a veil, and Mrs. Adams was beginning to show signs of strain when her daughter relieved her. Imagine how trying to eat anything so hot as soup on a night like this, Alice laughed. What could have been in the cook's mind not to give us something iced or jellyed instead? Of course it's because she's equatorial herself originally, and only feels at home when Mr. Satan moves at North. She looked round at Gertrude who stood behind her, do take this dreadful soup away. Thus directly addressed Gertrude yielded her attention, though unwillingly, and as if she decided only by a hare's weight not to revolt instead. However she finally set herself in slow motion, but overlooked the supposed head of the table, seeming to be unaware of the sweltering little man who sat there. As she disappeared toward the kitchen with but three of the cups upon her tray, he turned to look plaintively after her, and ventured in attempt to recall her. Here, he said, in a low voice. Here you! What is it, Virgil? His wife asked. What's her name? Mrs. Adams gave him a glance of sudden panic, and, seeing that the guest of the evening was not looking at her, but down at the white cloth before him, she frowned hard and shook her head. Unfortunately Alice was not observing her mother, and asked innocently, What's whose name, Papa? Why, this young, darky woman, he explained, she left mine. Never mind, Alice laughed, there's hope for you, Papa. She hasn't gone for ever. I don't know about that, he said, not content with this impulsive assurance. She looked like she is. And his remark, considered as a prediction, had begun to seem warranted before Gertrude's return with China preliminary to the next stage of the banquet. Alice proved herself equal to the long gap, and rattled on through it with a spirit richly justifying her mother's praise of her as always ready to smooth things over, for here was more than long delay to be smoothed over. She smoothed over her father and mother for Russell, and she smoothed over him for them, though he did not know it, and remained unaware of what he owed her. With all this, throughout her prattling's, the girl's bright eyes kept seeking his with an eager gaiety, which but little veiled both interrogation and entreaty, as if she asked, Is it too much for you? Can't you bear it? Won't you please bear it? I would for you. Won't you give me a sign it's all right? He looked at her but fleetingly, and seemed to suffer from the heat, in spite of every manly effort not to wipe his brow too often. His colour after rising when he greeted Alice and her father had departed, leaving him again moistly pallid, a condition arising from discomfort, no doubt, but considered as a decoration almost poetically becoming to him. Not less becoming was the faint, kindly smile which showed his wish to express amusement and approval, and yet it was a smile rather strained and plaintive as if he, like Adams, could only do the best he could. He pleased Adams, who thought him a fine young man, and decidedly the quietest that Alice had ever shown to her family. In her father's opinion this was no small merit, and it was to Russell's credit, too, that he showed embarrassment upon this first intimate presentation. Here was an applicant with both reserve and modesty. So far he seems to be first rate, a mighty fine young man, Adams thought, and prompted by no wish to part from Alice, but by reminiscences of apparent candidates less pleasing, he added, at last. Alice's liveliness never flagged. Her smoothing over of things was an almost continuous performance and had to be. Yet while she chattered through the hot and heavy courses the questions she asked herself were as continuous as the performance, and as poignant as what her eyes seemed to be asking Russell. Why had she not prevailed over her mother's fear of being skimpy? Had she been, indeed, as her mother said she looked, in a trance? But above all, what was the matter with him? What had happened? For she told herself with painful humour that something even worse than this dinner must be the matter with him. The small room, suffocated with the odour of boiled sprouts, grew hotter and hotter as more and more food appeared, slowly born in, between deathly long waits, by the resentful, loud breathing Gertrude. And while Alice still sought Russell's glance, and read the look upon his face a dozen different ways, fearing all of them, and while the straggling little flowers died upon the stained cloth, she felt her heart grow as heavy as the food, and wondered that it did not die like the roses. With the arrival of coffee the host bestowed himself to make known a hospitable regret. By George, he said, I meant to buy some cigars. He addressed himself apologetically to the guest. I don't know what I was thinking about to forget to bring some home with me. I don't use them myself unless somebody hands me one, you might say. I've always been a pipe-smoker, pure and simple, but I ought to remember it for a kind of an occasion like this. Not at all, Russell said. I'm not smoking at all lately, but when I do, I'm like you, I smoke a pipe. Alice started remembering what she had told him when he overtook her on her way from the tobacconists, but after a moment looking at him she decided that he must have forgotten it. If he had remembered, she thought, he could not have helped glancing at her. On the contrary, he seemed more at ease just then than he had since they had sat down, for he was favouring her father with a thoughtful attention as Adams responded to the introduction of a man's topic into the conversation at last. Well, Mr. Russell, I guess you're right at that. I don't say but what cigars may be all right for a man that can afford him, if he likes him better than a pipe, but you take a good old pipe now. He continued, and was getting well into the eulogium customarily provoked by this theme, when there came an interruption. The doorbell rang, and he paused, inquiringly, rather surprised. Mrs. Adams spoke to Gertrude in an undertone. Just say not at home. What? If its callers just say we're not at home. Gertrude spoke out freely. She mean you asked me to tend to your front door for you? She seemed both incredulous and affronted, but Mrs. Adams persisted, though somewhat apprehensively. Yes, hurry, um, please, just say we're not at home, if you please. Again Gertrude obviously hesitated between compliance and revolt, and again the meeker course fortunately prevailed with her. She gave Mrs. Adams a stare, grimly derisive, then departed. When she came back she said, he say wait, but I told you to tell anybody we were not at home. Mrs. Adams returned. Who is it? Say name Mr. Law. We don't know any Mr. Law. Yes, him, he know you. Say he anxious to speak to Mr. Adams. Say wait. Tell him Mr. Adams is engaged. Hold on a minute, Adams said. Law? No, I don't know Mr. Law. Are you sure you got the name right? Say he name Law. Gertrude replied, looking at the ceiling to express her fatigue. Law! It's all he tell me. It's all I know. What's he look like? He ain't much, she said. About you age? Got brusley white moustache, nice eyeglasses? It's Charlie Law, Adams exclaimed. I'll go see what he wants. But Virgil, his wife, remonstrated. Do finish your coffee. He might stay all evening. Maybe he's come to call. Adams laughed. He isn't much of a caller, I expect. Don't worry. I'll take him up to my room. And turning toward Russell. Ah! If you'll just excuse me," he said, and went out to his visitor. When he had gone Mrs. Adams finished her coffee, and, having glanced intelligently from her guest to her daughter, she rose. I think perhaps I ought to go and shake hands with Mr. Law myself, she said. Adding, an explanation to Russell as she reached the door, he's an old friend of my husband's, and it's a very long time since he's been here. I don't know what to say. It's an old friend of my husband's, and it's a very long time since he's been here. Alice nodded and smiled to her brightly, but upon the closing of the door the smile vanished. All her liveliness disappeared, and with this change of expression her complexion itself appeared to change, so that her rouge became obvious, for she was pale beneath it. However, Russell did not see the alteration, for he did not look at her, and it was but a momentary lapse. The vacation of a tired girl who, for ten seconds, lets herself look as she feels. Then she shot her vivacity back into place as if by some powerful spring. "'Penny for your thoughts,' she cried, and tossed one of the wilted roses at him across the table. I'll bid more than a penny. I'll bid tuppence. No, a poor little dead rose. A rose for your thoughts, Mr. Arthur Russell. What are they?' He shook his head. I'm afraid I haven't gotten any. "'No, of course not,' she said. Who could have thoughts in weather like this? Will you ever forgive us?' "'What for?' "'For making you eat such a heavy dinner. I mean, look at such a heavy dinner, because you certainly didn't do more than look at it on such a night. But the crime draws to a close, and you can begin to cheer up.' She laughed gaily, and, rising, moved to the door. "'Let's go in the other room. Your fearful duty is almost done, and you can run home as soon as you want to. That's what you're dying to do.' "'Not at all,' he said, in a voice so feeble that she laughed aloud. "'Could gracious,' she cried, I hadn't realised it was that bad.' "'For this,' though he contrived to laugh, he seemed to have no verbal retort whatever, but followed her into the living room, where she stopped and turned, facing him. "'Has it really been so frightful?' she asked. "'Why, of course not. Not at all.' "'Of course, yes, though, you mean. Not at all. It's been most kind of your mother and father and you.' "'Do you know?' she said. "'You never once looked at me for more than a second at a time the whole evening. And it seemed to me I looked rather nice to-night, too.' "'You always do,' he murmured. "'I don't see how you know,' she returned, and then, stepping closer to him, spoke with gentle solicitude. "'Tell me, you're feeling really wretched, aren't you? I know you've got a fearful headache or something. Tell me.' "'Not at all. You are ill, I'm sure of it.' "'Not at all.' "'On your word?' "'I'm really quite all right. "'But if you are,' she began, and then looking at him, with a desperate sweetness, as if this were her last resource to rouse him. "'What's the matter, little boy?' she said, with a lisping tenderness. "'Tell aunty.' "'It was a mistake, for he seemed to flinch and to lean backward, however slightly. She turned away instantly with a flippant lift and drop of both hands. "'Oh, my dear,' she laughed. "'I won't eat you.' And as the discomforted young man watched her, seeming able to lift his eyes now that her back was turned, she went to the front door and pushed open the screen. "'Let's go out on the porch,' she said, where we belong.' Then, when he had followed her out, and they were seated, "'Isn't this better?' she said. "'Don't you feel more like yourself out here?' He began a murmur. "'Not at—' But she cut him off sharply. "'Please don't say not at all again.' "'I'm sorry.' "'You do seem sorry about something,' she said. "'What is it? Isn't it time you were telling me what's the matter?' "'Nothing. Indeed, nothing's the matter. Of course one is rather affected by such weather as this. It may make one a little quieter than usual, of course.' She sighed and let the tired muscles of her face rest. After the hard lights indoors they had served her until they ached, and it was a luxury to feel that in the darkness no grimacings need call upon them. "'Of course, if you won't tell me,' she said. "'I could only assure you there's nothing to tell.' "'I know what an ugly little house it is,' she said. "'Maybe it was the furniture, or Mama's vases that upset you. Or was it Mama herself, or Papa? Nothing upset me.' At that she uttered a monosyllable of doubting laughter. "'I wonder why you say that?' "'Because it's so.' "'No. It's because you're too kind or too conscientious or too embarrassed. Anyhow, do something to tell me.' She leaned forward, elbows on knees and chin in hands. In the reflective attitude she knew how to make graceful. "'I have a feeling that you're not going to tell me,' she said slowly. "'Yes. Even that you're never going to tell me. I wonder. I do wonder.' "'Yes. What do you wonder?' "'I was just thinking. I wonder if they haven't done it after all.' "'I don't understand.' "'I wonder,' she went on, still slowly and in a voice of reflection. "'I wonder who has been talking about me to you after all. Isn't that it?' "'Not it,' he began, but checking himself he substituted another form of denial. Nothing is it.' "'Are you sure?' "'Why yes.' "'How curious,' she said. "'Why?' "'Because all evening you've been so utterly different. But in this weather—' "'No, that wouldn't make you afraid to look at me all evening.' "'But I did look at you often.' "'No, not really a look.' "'But I'm looking at you now.' "'Yes, in the dark,' she said. "'No, the weather might make you even quieter than usual, but it wouldn't strike you so nearly dumb. No, and it wouldn't make you seem to be under such a strain as if you thought only of escape. "'But I haven't—' "'You shouldn't,' she interrupted gently. "'There's nothing you have to escape from, you know. You're committed to—to this friendship.' "'I'm sorry you think,' he began, but did not complete the fragment. She took it up. "'You're sorry I think you're so different,' you mean to say, don't you?' "'Never mind. That's what you did mean to say, but you couldn't finish it, because you're not good at deceiving.' "'No,' he protested feebly. "'I'm not deceiving. I'm—' "'Never mind,' she said again. "'You're sorry I think you're so different. And all in one day, since last night. Yes, your voice sounds sorry, too. It sounds sorryer than it would, just because of my thinking something you could change my mind about in a minute. So it means you're sorry that you are different.' "'No, I—' "'But disregarding the faint denial—' "'Never mind,' she said. "'Do you remember one night when you told me that nothing anybody else could do would ever keep you from coming here? That if you—' "'If you left me, it would be because I drove you away myself?' "'Yes,' he said huskily. It was true. "'Are you sure?' "'Indeed I am,' he answered, in a low voice, but with conviction. Then—' She paused. "'Well, but I haven't driven you away.' "'No.' "'And yet you've gone,' she said quietly. "'Do I seem so stupid as all that? You know what I mean.' She leaned back in her chair again, and her hands, inactive for once, lay motionless in her lap. When she spoke, it was in a rueful whisper. "'I wonder if I have driven you away?' "'You've done nothing—nothing at all,' he said. "'I wonder,' she said once more. But she stopped. In her mind she was going back over their time together since that first beating—fragments of talk, moments of silence, little things of no importance, little things that might be important, moonshine, sunshine, starlight, and her thoughts zigzagged among the jumbling memories. But as if she made for herself a picture of all these fragments, throwing them upon the canvas haphazard, she saw them all just touched with one tainting quality that gave them coherence, the faint false haze she had put over this friendship by her own pretendings. And if this terrible dinner or anything or everything had shown that saffron tint in its true colour to the man at her side, last night almost a lover, then she had indeed of herself driven him away, and might well feel that she was lost. "'Do you know,' she said suddenly, in a clear, loud voice, "'I have the strangest feeling. I feel as if I were going to be with you only about five minutes more in all the rest of my life.' "'Why, no,' he said. "'Of course I'm coming to see you often. I—' "'No,' she interrupted. "'I've never had a feeling like this before. It's—it's just so. That's all. You're going. Why, you're never coming here again.' She stood up abruptly, beginning to tremble all over. "'Why, it's finished, isn't it?' she said, and her trembling was manifest now in her voice. "'Why, it's all over, isn't it?' "'Why, yes.' He had risen as she did. "'I'm afraid you're awfully tired and nervous,' he said. "'I really ought to be going.' "'Yes, of course you ought,' she cried, despairingly. "'There's nothing else for you to do when anything spoiled people can't do anything but run away from it. So, good-bye.' "'At least,' he returned huskily, "'we'll only—' "'we'll only say good-night.' Then, as moving to go, he stumbled upon the veranda's steps. "'Your hat,' she cried. "'I'd like to keep it for a souvenir, but I'm afraid you need it.' She ran into the hall and brought his straw hat from the chair where he had left it. "'You poor thing,' she said, with quavering laughter. "'Don't you know you can't go without your hat?' Then, as they faced each other for the short moment, which both of them knew would be the last of all their veranda moments, Alice's broken laughter grew louder. "'What a thing to say,' she cried. "'What a romantic parting, talking about hats!' Her laughter continued as he turned away, but other sounds came from within the house, clearly audible with the opening of a door upstairs, a long and wailing cry of lamentation in the voice of Mrs. Adams. Russell paused at the steps, uncertain, but Alice waved to him to go on. "'Oh, don't bother,' she said. "'We have lots of that in this funny little old house. Good-bye.' And as he went down the steps, he took into the house and closed the door heavily behind her. End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of Alice Adams. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jeannie. Alice Adams by Booth-Tarkington, Chapter 23. Her mother's wailing could still be heard from overhead, though more faintly. An old Charlie Lohr was coming down the stairs alone. He looked at Alice compassionately. "'I was just coming to suggest maybe you'd excuse yourself from your company,' he said. Your mother was bound not to disturb you and tried her best to keep you from here and how she's taken on, but I thought probably you'd better see to her. "'Yes, I'll come. What's the matter?' "'Well,' he said, "'I only stepped over to offer my sympathy and services as it were. I thought, of course, you folks knew all about it. Fact is, it was in the evening paper, just a little bit of an item on the back page, of course.' "'What is it?' he coughed. "'Well, it ain't anything so terrible,' he said. Fact is, your brother Walter's gotten a little trouble. Well, I suppose you might call it quite a good deal of trouble. Fact is, he's quite considerable short in his accounts down at Lamb & Company.' Alice ran up the stairs and into her father's room, where Mrs. Adams threw herself into her daughter's arms. "'Is he gone?' she sobbed. "'He didn't hear me, did he? I tried so hard.' Alice patted the heaving shoulders, her arms enclosed. "'No, no,' she said. He didn't hear you. It wouldn't have mattered. He doesn't matter anyway.' "'Oh, poor Walter!' the mother cried. Oh, the poor boy! Poor, poor Walter! Poor, poor, poor, poor—' "'Hush, dear, hush!' Alice tried to soothe her, but the lament could not be abated, and from the other side of the room a repetition in a different spirit was as continuous. Adams paced furiously there, pounding his fist into his left palm as he strode. "'The dang boy!' he said. "'Dang little fool! Dang idiot! Dang fool! Why any tell me the dang little fool?' "'He did,' Mrs. Adams sobbed. He did tell you, and you wouldn't give it to him.' "'He did, did he?' Adams shouted at her. What he begged me for was the money to run away with. He'd have a dream of putting back what he took. What the dang nation are you talking about accusing me?' "'He needed it,' she said. He needed it to run away with. How could he expect to live after he got away if he didn't have a little money? Oh, the poor, poor, poor Walter! Poor, poor, poor!' She went back to this repetition, and Adams went back to his own, then paused, seeing his old friend standing in the hallway just outside the open door. "'Ah, I'll just be going, I guess, Virgil,' Lord said. "'I don't see if there's any use in my trying to say any more. I'll do anything you want me to. You understand.' "'Wait a minute,' Adams said, and groaning came and went down the stairs with him. You say you didn't see the old man at all?' "'No, I don't know a thing about what he's going to do,' Lord said, as they reached the lower floor. "'Not a thing. But look here, Virgil, I don't see as this calls for you and your wife to take on so hard about. Anyhow, not as hard as the way you've started.' "'No,' Adams gulped. "'It always seems that way to the other party that's only looking on.' "'Oh, well, I know that, of course,' old Charlie returned, soothingly. "'But look here, Virgil. They may not catch the boy. They didn't even seem to be sure what trainee made, and if they do get him, why the old man might decide not to prosecute.' "'Him?' Adams cried, interrupting. "'Him, not prosecute? Why, that's what he's been waiting for all along. He thinks my boy and me both cheated him. Why, he was just letting Walter walk into a trap. Didn't you say they'd been suspecting him for some time back? Didn't you say they'd been watching him and were just about fixing to arrest him?' "'Yes, I know,' said Lord, but you can't tell, especially if you raise the money and pay it back.' "'Every cent,' Adams vociferated. "'Every last penny. I can raise it. I got to raise it. I'm going to put a loan on my factory tomorrow. Oh, I'll get it for him,' you tell him, every last penny.' "'Well, old fellow, you just try and get quiet and down some now.' Charlie held out his hand and parting. You and your wife just quiet down some. You ain't the healthiest man in the world, you know, and you already been under quite some strain before this happened. You want to take care of yourself for the sake of your wife and that sweet little girl upstairs, you know.' "'Now, good night,' he finished, stepping out onto the veranda. "'You send for me if there's anything I can do.' "'Do,' Adams echoed. "'There ain't anything anybody can do.' And then, as his old friend went down the path to the sidewalk, he called after him, "'You tell him I'll pay him every last cent, every last dang dirty penny.' He slammed the door and went rapidly up the stairs, talking loudly to himself. Every dang last dirty penny. Thinks everybody in this family wants to steal from him, does he? Thinks we're all yellow, does he? I'll show him.' And he came into his own room, vociferating, every last dang dirty penny. Mrs. Adams had collapsed and Alice had put her upon his bed where she lay tossing convulsively and sobbing, "'Oh, poor Walter,' over and over. But after a time she varied the sorry tune. "'Oh, poor Alice,' she moaned, clinging to her daughter's hand, "'Oh, poor, poor Alice, to have this come on the night of your dinner just when everything seemed to be going so well at last. "'Oh, poor, poor, poor.' "'Hush,' Alice said sharply. "'Don't say, poor Alice, I'm all right.' "'You must be,' her mother cried, clutching her. "'You've just got to be. One of us has got to be all right. Surely God wouldn't mind just one of us being all right. That wouldn't hurt him.' "'Hush, hush, mother. Hush.'" But Mrs. Adams only clutched her the more tightly. He seemed such a nice man, Deary. He may not see this in the paper. Mr. Law said it was just a little bit of an item. He may not see it, Deary. Then her anguish went back to Walter again for his needs as a fugitive. She had meant to repair his underwear but had postponed doing so, and her neglect now appeared to be a detail as lamentable as the calamity itself. She could neither be still upon it nor herself exhaust its urgings to self-reproach, though she finally took up another theme temporarily. Upon an unusually violent outbreak of her husbands in denunciation of the runaway, she cried out faintly that he was cruel and further wearied her broken voice with details of Walter's beauty as a baby and time pieties throughout his infancy. And so the hot night wore on. Three had struck before Mrs. Adams was got to bed, and Alice, returning to her own room, could hear her father's bare feet thudding back and forth after that. Poor Papa, she whispered, in helpless imitation of her mother. Poor Papa, poor Mama, poor Walter, poor all of us. She fell asleep after a time while from across the hall the bare feet still thudded over their changeless root, and she woke at seven, hearing Adams pass her door, shod. In her wrapper she ran out into the hallway and found him descending the stairs. Papa! Hush! he said, and looked up at her with reddened eyes. Don't wake your mother. I won't, she whispered. How about you? You haven't slept at all. Yes, I did. I got some sleep. I'm going over to the works now. I got to throw some figures together to show the bank. Don't worry, I'll get things fixed up. You go back to bed. Goodbye. Wait! she bade him sharply. What for? You've got to have some breakfast. Don't want any. You wait, she said, imperiously, and disappeared to return almost at once. I can cook in my bedroom slippers, she explained, but I don't believe I could in my bare feet. Descending softly she made him wait in the dining-room until she brought him toast and eggs and coffee. Eat, she said, and I'm going to telephone for a taxi cab to take you if you think you've really got to go. No, I'm going to walk. I want to walk. She shook her head anxiously. You don't look able. You've walked all night. No, I didn't, he returned. I tell you, I got some sleep. I got all I wanted anyhow. But Papa, here, he interrupted, looking at her suddenly and setting down his cup of coffee. Look here, what about this Mr. Russell? I forgot all about him. What about him? Her lip trembled a little, but she controlled it before she spoke. Well, what about him, Papa? she asked, calmly enough. Well, we could hardly—Adams paused, frowning heavily. We could hardly expect he wouldn't hear something about all this. Yes, of course, he'll hear it, Papa. Well? Well, what? she asked, gently. You don't think he'd be the cheap kind it'd make a difference with, of course? Oh, no, he isn't cheap. It won't make any difference with him. Adam suffered a profound sigh to escape him. Well, I'm glad of that, anyway. The difference, she explained. The difference was made without his hearing anything about Walter. He doesn't know anything about that yet. Well, what does he know about? Only about me, she said. What do you mean by that, Atlas? he asked, helplessly. Never mind, she said. It's nothing beside the real trouble we're in. I'll tell you some time. You eat your eggs and toast. You can't keep going on just coffee. I can't eat any eggs and toast, he objected, rising. I can't. Then wait till I bring you something else. No, he said irritably. I won't do it. I don't want any dang food, and look here. He spoke sharply to stop her as she went toward the telephone. I don't want any dang taxi, either. You look after your mother when she wakes up. I got to be at work. And though she followed him to the front door and treating, he could not be stayed or hindered. He went through the quiet morning streets at a rickety rapid-gate, swinging his old straw hat in his hands and whispering angrily to himself as he went. His grizzled hair, not trimmed for a month, blew back from his damp forehead in the warm breeze. His reddened eyes stared hard at nothing from under blinking lids, and one side of his face twitched startlingly from time to time. Children might have run from him or mocked him. When he had come into that fallen quarter his industry had partly revived and wholly made odorous, a negro woman leaning upon her white-washed gate gazed after him and chuckled for the benefit of a gossiping friend in the next tiny yard. Oh, good Satan, what's the matter of that old glue man? Who, him? the neighbour inquired. What do you do now? He went into his old self, the first explained joyously. Looked like gone distracted. Oh, glue man! Adams's legs had grown more uncertain with his hard walk, and he stumbled heavily as he crossed the baked mud of his broad lot, but he cared little for that. He was almost unaware of it, in fact. Thus his eyes saw as little as his body felt, and so he failed to observe something that would have given him additional light upon an old phrase that already meant quite enough for him. There are, in the wide world, people who have never learned its meaning, but most are either young or beautifully unobservant, who remain wholly unaware of the inner poignancies the words convey. A rain of misfortunes. It is a boiling rain, seemingly whimsical in its choice of spots whereupon to fall, and so far as mortal eye can tell, neither the just nor the unjust may hope to avoid it, or need worry themselves by expecting it. It had selected the Adams family for its scaldings. No question. The glue-works foreman, standing in the doorway of the brick shed, observed his employer's eccentric approach, and doubtfully stroked a whiskered chin. Well, there ain't no particular use getting so upset about it, he said, as Adams came up. When a thing happens, why, it happens, and that's all there is to it. When a thing's so, why, it's so. All you can do about it is think if there's anything you can do, and that's what you'd better be doing with this case. Adams halted and seemed to gape at him. What case, he said, with difficulty. Was it in the morning papers, too? No, it ain't in no morning papers. My land, it don't need to be in no papers. Look at the size of it. The size of what? Why, great God, the foreman exclaimed. He ain't even see it. Look, look yonder. Adams stared vaguely at the man's outstretched hand and pointing finger. Then he turned and saw a great sign upon the façade of the big factory building across the street. It was large enough to be read two blocks away. After the fifteenth of next month this building will be occupied by the J.A. Lamb Liquid Glue Company, Incorporated. A grey touring car had just come to rest before the principal entrance of the building, and J.A. Lamb himself descended from it. He glanced over toward the humble rival of his projected great industry, saw his old clerk, and immediately walked across the street and the law to speak to him. He said, in his husky, cheerful voice, How's your glue works? Adams uttered an inarticulate sound and lifted the hand that held his hat as if to make a protestive gesture, but failed to carry it out, and his arm sank limp at his side. The foreman, however, seemed to feel that something ought to be said. Our glue works, hell, he remarked. I guess we won't have no glue works over here, not very long if we got to compete with the size thing you got over there. Lamb chuckled. I kind of had some such notion, he said. See, Virgil, I couldn't exactly let you walk off with it, like swallowing a pad of butter now, could I? It didn't look exactly reasonable to expect me to let go like that, now did it. Adams found a half-choked voice somewhere in his throat. Do you—would you step into my office a minute, Mr. Lamb? Why, certainly, I'm willing to have a little talk with you, the old gentleman said, as he followed his former employee in doors, and he added, I feel a lot more like it than I did before I got that up over yonder, Virgil. Adams threw open the door of the rough room he called his office, having as justification for this title little more than the fact that he had a telephone there, and a deal-table that served as a desk. Just step into the office, please, he said. Lamb glanced at the desk, at the kitchen chair before it, and at the telephone, and at the partition walls built of old boards, some covered with ancient paint and some merely weather-beaten, the salvage of a house-wrecker, and he smiled broadly. So these are your offices, are they, he said? You expect to do quite a business here, I guess, don't you, Virgil? Adams turned upon him a stricken and tortured face. Have you seen Charlie lore since last night, Mr. Lamb? No, I haven't seen Charlie. Well, I told him to tell you, Adams began. I told him I'd pay you. Pay me what you expect to make out of glue, you mean, Virgil? No, Adams said, swallowing. I mean, what my boy owes you. That's what I told Charlie to tell you. I told him to tell you I'd pay you every last— Well, well, the old gentleman interrupted, testily. I don't know anything about that. I'm expecting to pay you, Adams went on, swallowing again painfully. I was expecting to do it out of a loan I thought I could get on my glue-works. The old gentleman lifted his frosted eyebrows. Oh, out of the glue-works! You expected to raise money on the glue-works, did you? At that, Adams' agitation increased prodigiously. How'd you think I expected to pay you, he said? Did you think I expected to get money out on my old bones? He slapped himself harshly upon the chest and legs. Do you think a bank will lend money on a man's ribs and his broken-down old knee bones? They won't do it. You've got to have some business prospects to show him if you haven't got any property nor securities. And what business prospects have I got now with that sign of yours up over Yonder? Why, you don't need to make an ounce of glue. Your sign's fixed me without your doing another lick. That's all you had to do. Just put your sign up. You needn't to— Just let me tell you something, Virgil Adams. The old man interrupted harshly. I got just one right important thing to tell you before we talk any further business, and that's this. There's some few men in this town made their money in off-color ways, but there aren't many. And those there are have had to be a darn sight slicker than you know how to be, or ever will know how to be. Yes, sir, and they none of them had the gumption to try to make it out of a man that had the spirit not to let him and the strength not to let him. I know what you thought. Here, you said to yourself, here's this old fool J.A. Lamb. He's kind of worn out and in his second childhood like. I can put it over on him without his ever. I did not, Adam shouted. A great deal you know about my feelings and all what I said to myself. There's one thing I wanted to tell you, and that's what I'm saying to myself now and what my feelings are this minute. He struck the table a great blow with his thin fist and shook the damaged knuckles in the air. I just want to tell you whatever I did feel I don't feel mean any more. Not today I don't. There's a meaner man in this world today than I am, Mr. Lamb. Oh, so you feel better about yourself today. Do you, Virgil? You bet I do. You worked till you got me where you want me and I wouldn't do that to another man, no matter what he did to me. I wouldn't. What are you talking about? How have I got you where I want you? Ain't it plain enough, Adam's cried? You even got me where I can't raise the money to pay back what my boy owes you. Do you suppose anybody's fool enough to let me have a cent on this business after one look at what you got over there across the road? No, I don't. No, you don't, Adam's echoed hoarsely. What's more, you knew my house was mortgaged and my—I did not, Lamb interrupted angrily. What do I care about your house? What's the use you're talking like that, Adam's cried? You got me where I can't even raise the money to pay what my boy owes the company so as I can't show any reason to stop the prosecution and keep him out of the penitentiary. That's where you worked till you got me. What, Lamb shouted, you accuse me of? Accus you? What am I telling you? Do you think I got no eyes? And Adam's hammered the table again. Why, you knew the boy was weak? I did not. Listen, you kept him there after you got mad at my leaving the way I did. You kept him there after you suspected him and you had him watched. You let him go on, just waited to catch him and ruin him. You're crazy, the old man bellowed. I didn't know there was anything against the boy till last night. You're crazy, I say. Adam's looked at, with his hair disordered over his haggard forehead and bloodshot eyes, with his bruised hands pounding the table and flying in a hundred wild and absurd gestures while his feet shuffled constantly to preserve his balance upon staggering legs. He was the picture of a man with a mind gone to rags. Maybe I am crazy, he cried, his voice breaking and quavering. Maybe I am, but I wouldn't stand there and taunt a man with it if I'd done to him what you've done to me. Just look at me. I worked all my life for you and what I did when I quit never harmed you. It didn't make two cents worth the difference in your life and it looked like it had mean all the difference in the world to my family. And now look what you've done to me for it. Tell you, Mr. Lamb, there never was a man looked up to another man the way I looked up to you the whole of my life, but I don't look up to you any more. You think you've got a fine day of it now riding up in your automobile to look at that sign, and then over here at my poor little works that you've ruined. But listen to me just this one last time. The cracking voice broke into falsetto and the gesticulating hands fluttered uncontrollably. Just you listen, he panted. You think I did you a bad turn and now you got me ruined for it and you got my works ruined and my family ruined. And if anybody had told me this time last year I'd ever say such a thing to you I'd call him a dang liar, but I do say it. I say you've acted toward me like a doggone, mean man. His voice exhausted, like his body, was just able to do him this final service. Then he sank, crumpled into the chair by the table, his chin down hard upon his chest. I tell you you're crazy, Lamb said again. I never in the world, but he checked himself, staring in sudden perplexity at his accuser. Look here, he said. What's the matter with you? Have you got another of those?" He put his hand upon Adam's shoulder, which jerked feebly under the touch. The old man went to the door and called to the foreman. Here, he said, run and tell my chauffeur to bring my car over here. Tell him to drive right up over the sidewalk and across the lot. Tell him to hurry. So it happened. The great J.A. Lamb, a second time, brought his former clerk home. Stricken and almost inanimate. End of Chapter 23. Chapter 24 About five o'clock that afternoon, the old gentleman came back to Adam's house, and when Alice opened the door, he nodded, walking into the living-room without speaking, then stood, frowning, as if he hesitated to decide some perplexing question. Well, how was he now? He asked, finally. The doctor was here again a little while ago. He thinks Papa's coming through it. He's pretty sure he will. Something like the way it was last spring? Yes. Not a bit of sense to it, Lamb said, gruffly. When he was getting well the other time, the doctor told me it wasn't a regular stroke, so to speak, this cerebral effusion thing. Said there wasn't any particular reason for your father to expect he'd ever have another attack. If he'd take a little care of himself. Said he could consider himself well as anybody else long as he did that. Yes, but he didn't do it. Lamb nodded, sighed aloud, and crossed the room to a chair. I guess not, he said, as he sat down. Busted his health up over his glue-works, I expect. Yes. I guess so. I guess so. Then he looked up at her with a glimmer of anxiety in his eyes. Has he come to yet? Yes. He's talked a little, his mind's clear, he spoke to Mama and me, and to Miss Perry. Alice laughed, sadly. We were lucky enough to get her back, but Papa didn't seem to think it was lucky. When he recognized her, he said, oh, my goodness, it isn't you, is it? Well, that's a good sign if he's getting a little cross. Did he—did he happen to say anything, for instance, about me? This question, awkwardly delivered, had the effect of removing the girl's pallor. Rosie Tintz came quickly upon her cheeks. He—yes, he did, she said. Naturally, he's troubled about—about—she stopped. About your brother, maybe? Yes, about making up the— Here, now, Lamb said, uncomfortably, as she stopped again. Listen, young lady, let's don't talk about that just yet. I want to ask you. You understand all about this glue business, I expect, don't you? I'm not sure, I only know— Let me tell you, he interrupted, impatiently. I'll tell you all about it in two words. The process belonged to me, and your father up and walked off with it. There's no getting around that much, anyhow. Isn't there? Alice stared at him. I think you're mistaken, Mr. Lamb. Didn't Papa improve it so that it virtually belonged to him? There was a spark in the old blue eyes at that. What! he cried. Is that the way he got around it? While in all my life I never heard such a— But he left the sentence unfinished. The testiness went out of his husky voice, and the anger out of his eyes. Well, I expect maybe that was the way of it, he said. Anyhow, it's right for you to stand up for your father, and if you think he had a right to it. But he did, she cried. I expect so, the old man returned, specifically. I expect so, probably. Anyhow, it's a question that's neither here nor there right now. What I was thinking of saying— Well, did your father happen to let out that he and I had words this morning? No. Well, we did. He sighed and shook his head. Your father? Well, he used some pretty hard expressions toward me, young lady. They weren't so, I'm glad to say, but he used them to me, and the worst of it was, he believed them. Well, I've been thinking it over, and I thought I'd just have a kind of little talk with you to set matters straight, so to speak. Yes, Mr. Lamb? For instance, he said, it's like this. Now, I hope you won't think I mean any indelicacy, but you take your brother's case, since we got to mention it. While your father had the whole thing worked out in his mind wrong as anybody ever got anything. If I had acted the way your father thought I did about that, while somebody just ought to take me out and shoot me, do you know what that man thought? I'm not sure. He frowned at her and asked, well, what do you think about it? I don't know, she said. I don't believe I think anything at all about anything today. Well, well, he returned. I expect not. I expect not. You kind of look to me as if you ought to be in bed yourself, young lady. Oh, no. I guess you mean, oh, yes, and I won't keep you long, but there's something we got to get fixed up, and I'd rather talk to you than I would to your mother, because you're a smart girl and always friendly, and I want to be sure I'm understood. Now, listen. I will, Alice promised, smiling faintly. I never hardly noticed your brother was still working for me, he explained, earnestly. I never thought anything about it. My sons sort of tried to tease me about the way your father about is taking up this glue business, so to speak, and one day Albert Junior asked me if I felt all right about your brother staying there after that, and I told him, well, I just asked him to shut up. If the boy wanted to stay there, I didn't consider it my business to send him away on account of any feeling I had toward his father, not as long as he did his work right, and the report showed he did. Well, as it happens, it looks now as if he stayed because he had to. He couldn't quit because he'd been found out if he did. Well, he'd been covering up his shortage for a considerable time, do you know what your father practically charged me with about that? No, Mr. Lamb. In his resentment the old gentleman's ruddy face became ruddier and his husky voice huskier, thinks I kept the boy there because I suspected him, thinks I did it to get even with him. Do I look to you like a man that'd do such a thing? No, she said gently. I don't think you would. No, he exclaimed, nor he didn't think so if he was himself. He's known me too long, and he must have been sort of brooding over there this whole business. I mean, before Walter's trouble, he must have been taking it to heart pretty hard for some time back. He thought I didn't think much of him any more, and I expect he may be wondered some what I was going to do. And there's nothing worse than that state of mind to make a man suspicious of all kinds of meanness. Well, he practically stood up there and accused me to my face of fixing things so he could never raise the money to settle for Walter and ask us not to prosecute. That's the state of mind your father's brooding got him into, young lady, charging me with a trick like that. I'm sorry, she said. I know you'd never. The old man slapped his sturdy knee angrily. Why, that dang fool of a Virgil Adams, he exclaimed. He wouldn't even give me a chance to talk, and he got me so mad I couldn't hardly talk anyway. He might have known from the first I wasn't going to let him walk in and beat me out of my own—that is, he might have known I wouldn't let him get ahead of me in any business matter, not with my boys tweeting me about it every few minutes. But to talk to me the way he did this morning. Well, he was out of his head, that's all. Now, wait just a minute, he interposed, as she seemed about to speak. In the first place, we aren't going to push this case against your brother. I believe in the law all right, and businessmen got to protect themselves, but in a case like this, where restitution's made by the family, I expect it's just as well sometimes to use a little influence and let matters drop. Of course, your brother will have to keep out of the state, that's all. But you said—she faltered. Yes, what did I say? You said where restitution is made by the family. That's what seemed to trouble Papa so terribly, because—because restitution couldn't— Why, yes, it could. That's what I'm here to talk to you about. I don't see— I'm going to tell you, ain't I? he said gruffly. Just hold your horses a minute, please. He coughed, rose from his chair, walked up and down the room, and then halted before her. It's like this, he said. After I brought your father home this morning, there was one of the things he told me when he was going for me over Yonder. It kind of stuck in my craw. It was something about all this glue controversy, not meaning anything to me in particular, and meaning a whole heap to him and his family. Well, he was wrong about that, two ways. The first one was, it did mean a good deal to me to have him go back on me after so many years. I don't need to say any more about it, except just to tell you, it meant quite a little more to me than you'd think, maybe. The other way he was wrong is, that how much a thing means to one man, and how little it means to another, ain't the right way to look at a business matter. I suppose it isn't, Mr. Lamb. No, he said. It isn't. It's not the right way to look at anything. Yes, and your father knows it, as well as I do, when he's in his right mind. And I expect that's one of the reasons he got so mad at me. But anyhow, I couldn't help thinking about how much all this thing had maybe meant to him. As I say, it kind of stuck in my craw. I want you to tell him something from me. And I want you to go and tell him right off of his able and willing to listen. You tell him, I got kind of a notion he was pushed into this thing by circumstances. And tell him, I've lived long enough to know that circumstances can beat the best of us. You tell him I said the best of us. Tell him I haven't got a bit of feeling against him, not any more. And tell him, I came here to ask him not to have any against me. Yes, Mr. Lamb. Tell him I said, the old man paused abruptly, and Alice was surprised in a dull and tired kind of way when she saw that his lips had begun to twitch and his eyelids to blink. But he recovered himself almost at once and continued, I want him to remember, forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those that transgress against us. And if he and I been transgressing against each other, why tell him I think it's time we quit such foolishness. He coughed again, smiled heartily upon her, and walked toward the door, then turned back to her with an exclamation. Well, if I ain't an old fool. What is it, she asked? Why, I forgot what we were just talking about. Your father wants to settle for Walter's deficit. Tell him we'll be glad to accept it, but of course we don't expect him to clear the matter up until he's able to talk business again. Alice stared at him blankly enough for him to perceive that further explanations were necessary. It's like this, he said. You see, if your father decided to keep his works going over Yonder, I don't say but he might give us some little competition for a time, especially as he's got the start on us and about ready for the market. Then I was figuring we could use his plant. It's small, but it'd be to our benefit to have the use of it. And he's got a lease on that big lot. It may come in handy for us if we want to expand some. Well, I prefer to make a deal with him as quietly as possible. No good in every Tom, Dick, and Harry hearing about things like this. But I figured he could sell out to me for a little something more and enough to cover the mortgage he put on this house, and that's it too. That don't amount to much in dollars and cents. The way I figure it, I could offer him about ninety-three hundred dollars as a total or say ninety-three hundred fifty. And if he feels like accepting, why, I'll send a confidential man up here with the papers as soon as your father's able to look him over. You tell him, will you, and ask him if he sees his way to accepting that figure. Yes, Alice said, and now her own lips twitched while her eyes filled so that she saw but a blurred image of the old man who held out his hand in parting. Well, tell him, thank you. He shook her hand hastily. Well, let's just keep it kind of quiet, he said at the door. No good in every Tom, Dick, and Harry knowing all that goes on in this town. You telephone me when your father's ready to go over the papers and call me up at my house tonight, will you? Let me hear how he's feeling. I will, she said, and through her grateful tears gave him a smile almost radiant. He'll be better, Mr. Lamb. We all will.