Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1917 — The Real Adventure [ARTICLE]

The Real Adventure

A NOVEL.

By Henry Kitchell Webster

(Copyright 1818, The Bobbe-MenlU Company) CHAPTER Vl—Continued. For the next half-hour,' until the car stopped in front of her house. Rose acted on this request—told about her life before and since her marriage to Rodney, about her friends, her amusements —anything that came into her mind. But she lingered before getting out of the car, to say: “I hope I haven’t forgotten a single word of your —preaching. You said so many things I want to think about.” “Don’t trouble your soul with that, child,” said the actress. “All the sermon you need can be boiled down into a sentence, and until you have found it out yourself, you won’t believe it.” “Try me,” said Rose. “Then attend. How shall I say it? Nothing worth having comes as a gift, nor even can be bought—cheap. Everything of value in your life will cost you dear, and sometime or other you’ll have to pay the price of it.” It was with a very thoughtful, perplexed face that Rose watched the car drive away, and then walked slowly into the house —the ideal house —and allowed herself to be relieved of her ■wraps by the perfect maid. , There was still an hour before she need begin dressing for the Randolph dinner; when Rodney came home this vague, scary, nightmarish sort of feeling which for no, reasonable reason seemed to be clutching at her, would be forgotten. She wished he would come—hoped he wouldn’t be late; and finally sat down before the telephone with a half-formed idea of calling him up. Just as she laid her hand upon the receiver, the telephone bell rang. It was Rodney calling her. “Oh, that you, Rose?” he said. “I sha’n’t be out till late tonight. I’ve got to work.” “But Roddy, dearest,” she protested, ■“you have to come home. You’ve got the Randolphs’ dinner.” ... 1 “Oh!” he said. “I forgot all about it. But it doesn’t make a bit of difference, anyway. I wouldn’t leave the office before I have finished this job for anybody short of the Angel GabrielJ-’ ’-* -- --- - “But” —it was absurd that her eyes should be filling up and her throat getting lumpy over a thing like this — “But what shall I do? Shall I tell Eleanor we can’t come, pr shalTl offer to come without you?” “I don’t care! Do whichever you like. I’ve got enough to think about without deciding that. Now do hang up and run along.”

“But Rodney, what’s happened? Has* something gone wrong?” “Heavens, no!” he said. “What is there to go wrong? I’ve got a big ■day in court to-morrow and I’ve struck a snag, and I’ve got to wriggle out of it somehow, before I quit. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Go to your dinner and have a good time. Good-by.” The cl ick in the receiver told her he had hung up. The difficulty about the Randolphs was managed easily enough. Eleanor was perfectly gracious about it and Insisted that Rose should come by herself. She was completely dressed a good three-quarters of an hour before it was time to start, and if she drove straight downtown she would have a ten-minute visit with Rodney and still not be late for the dinner. She found a single elevator in com; mission in the great, gloomy rotunda •of the office building, and the watchman who ran her up made a terrible noise shutting the gate after he had let her out on the fifteenth floor.. The ■dim marble borridor echoed her footfalls ominously, and when she reached the door of his outer office and tried It, she found it locked. The next door down the corridor was the one that led directly into his private office, and here the light shone through the ground glass. She stole up tp It as softly as she could, tried it and found it locked, too, so she knocked. Through the open transom above it, she heat'd him softly swear in a heartfelt sort of way, and heard his chair thrust back. The next moment he opened the door with a Jerk. His glare of annoyance changed to bewilderment at the sight of her, and he said: “Rose! Has anything happened? What’s the matter?" And, catching her by the arm,'he led her into the office. “Here, sit down and get your breath and tell me about it!” She smiled and took his face in both her hands. “But it’s the other way,” she said. “There’s nothing the matter with ma I came down, you poor old boy.to see what was the matter with you." He frowned and took her hands away and stepped back out of her reach. Had it not been for the sheer incredibility of it, she’d have thought that her touch was actually distasteful to him. “Oh,” he said. “I thought I told yon over the phone there was nothing