Indianapolis Times, Volume 35, Number 219, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 January 1923 — Page 8

8

ALICE ADAMS by BOOTH TARKINGTON Copyright, 1921, by Doubleday, Page & Cos.

Begin here Prom her experience at the iasMonaole dance given by MILDRED PALMER. . .. . ALICE ADAMS realizes that because of their small family income she can no longer compete socially with her old friends. Her mother stiongiy critises MR. ADAMS for his contentment to remain in such a minor position at LAMB & CO., but the reading of an old love letter from her father to Mrs. Adams awakens an added tenderness in the heart of Alice for her ailing father, and rather than burden him further with responsibilities shi decides to do thing worth while herself. He feebly laughs when she tells him she wishes to go on the stage. Go on with the story. j/ TT made me think cf your I mother's sister, your Aunt J, Flora, that died when you were little," he said. "She was always telling how she was going on the stage, and talking about how she was certain she’d make a great actress, and all so on; and one day your mother broke out and said she ought 'a' gone on the staged herself, because she always knew she had the talent for it—and. well, they got Into kind of a spat about which one’d make the best actress. I had to go out in the hall to laugh!" "Maybe you were wrong.” Alice said, gravely. "If they both felt it, why wouldn't that look as if there was talent In the family? I've always thought—" “Mo. dearie," he said, with a final chuckle. "Tour mother and Flora weren’t different from a good many others. I expect 90 per cent of all the women I ever knew were just sure they'd be mighty fine actresses If they ever got the chance. Well, I guess it's a good thing; they enjoy thinking about it and it don’t do anybody any harm.” Thus Alice illuminated the dull time; but she retired from the Interview with her father still manfully displaying an outward cheerfulness, while depression grew heavier within, rs if she had eaten soggy cake. Her father knew nothing whatever of the stage, and she was aware of his ignorance, yet for some reason his innocently skeptical amusement re-

duced her bright project almost to nothing. Something like this always happened, it seemed; she was coqtinuaEy making these iliumfnatlons. all gay with gildings and colorings: j and then as soon as anybody else so ; much as glanced at them —even her father, who loved her —the pretty designs were stricken with a desolating pallor. "Is this life?" Alice wondered. not doubting that the question was original and all her own "Is It life to spend your time Imagining things that aren’t so, and never will be? Beautiful things happen to other people; why should I be the only one they never can happen to?" The mood lasted overnight; and was still upon her the next afternoon when an errand for her father took her downtown. Adams had decided to begin smoking again, and Alice felt rather degraded, as well as embarrassed, when she went Into the large shop her father had named, and asked for the cheap tobacco he used In his pipe. She fell back upon an air of amused Indulgence, hoping thus to suggest that her purchase was maue for some faithful old retainer, row infirm; and although the calmness of the clerk who served her called for no such elaboration of her sketch, she ornamented it with a little laugh and with the remark, as she dropped the package Into her coat pocket, "I’m sure It’ll please him: they tell me It's the kind he likes.” Still playing Lady Bountiful, smiling to herself In anticipation of the joy she was bringing to the simple old negro or Irish follower of the family, she left the shop: but as she came out upon the crowded pavement her smile vanished quickly.

Next to the door of the tobacco shop, there was the open entrance to a stairway, and, above this rather bleak and dark aperture, a sign board displayed In begrimed gilt letters the information that Frinck’s Business College occupied the upper floors of j the building. Furthermore. Frincke here publicly offered "personal instruction and training in practical mathematics, bookkeeping, and all branches of the business life, including stenography, typewriting, etc.” The building was not what the changeful city defined as a modern one. Rnd the dusty wooden stairway, as seen from the pavement, disappeared upward Into a smoky darkness. So would the footsteps of a girl ascending there lead to a hideous obscurity, Alice thought; an obscurity as dreary and as permanent as death. And like dry leaves falling about her she saw her wintry Imaginings In the May air: pretty girls turning into withered creatures as they worked at typing-machines; old maids “taking dictation” from men with double chins: Alice saw old maids of a dozen different kinds "taking dictation.” Her mind’s eye was crowded with them, as it always was when she

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passed that stairway entrance; and though they were all different from one another, all of them looked a little like herself. She hated the place, and yet she seldom hurried by it or averted her eyes. It had an unpleasant fascination for her, and a mysterious reproach, which she- did not seek to fathom. She walked on thoughtfully today; and when, at the next corner, she turned into the street that led toward home, she was given a surprise. Arthur Lussell came rapidly from behind her, lifting his hat as she saw him. "Are you walking north. Miss Adams?” he asked. "Do you mind If I walk with you?” She was not delighted, but seemed so. "How charming!" she cried, giving him a little flourish of the shapely hands; and then, because she wondered if he had seen her coming out of the tobacco-shop, she laughed and added, "I’ve just been on the most ridiculous errand!” "TVhat was that?" "To order some cigars for my father. He’s been quite ill, poor man, end he’s so particular—but what In the world do I know about cigars?” Russell laughed. “Well, what do you know about ’em? Did you select by the price?" "Mercy, no!" she exclaimed, and added, with an afterthought, "Os course he wrote down the name of the kind he wanted and I gave it to the shopman. I could never have pronounced it."

CHAPTER X IN HER pocket as she spoke her hand rested upon the little sack of tobacco, which responded accusingly to the touch of her restless fingers; and she found time to wonder why she was building up this fiction for Mr. Arthur Russell. His discovery of Walter's device for whiling away the dull evening had shamed and distressed her; but she would have suffered no less If almost any other had been the discoverer. Tn this gentleman, after hearing that he was Mildred's Mr. Arthur Russell, Alice felt not the slightest "personal Interest;" and there was yet to develop In her life Buch a thing as an Interest not personal. At £2 this stats of affairs Is not unique.

So far as Alice was concerned Russell might have worn a placard, "Engaged." She looked upon him as diners entering a restaurant look upon tables marked "Reserved:” the glance, slightly discontented, passes on at once. Or so the eye of a prospector wanders querulously over staked and i established claims on the mountain- I side, and seeks the virgin land beyond; ; unless. Indeed, the prospector be dis j honest. But Alice was no claim-jump-er—so long as the notice of owner ship was plainly posted. Though she was Indifferent now. habit ruled her; and, at the very time she wondered why she created fictitio- s cigafs for her father, she was also regretting that she had not boldly carried her Malacca stick downtown with her. Her vivacity increased automatically. "Perhaps the clerk thought you wanted the cigars for yourself." Russell suggested. “He may have taken you for a Spanish countess.” "I’m sure he did!” Alice agreed, gaily; and she hummed a bar or two oi “La Paloma,” snapping her fingers as catanets, and swaying her body a little, to suggest the accepted stencil of a “Spanish Dancer.’’ “Would you have taken me for one. Mr. Russell?” she asked, as she con eluded the Impersonation. “I? Why, yes,” he said. "I'd take jou for anything you wanted me to.’’ "Why, what a speech!” she cried, and, laughing, gave him a quick glance in which there glimmered Vsome real surprise. He was looking at her quizzically, but with the liveliest appreciation. Her surprise Increased; and she was glad that he had Joined her. To be seen walking with such a companion added to her pleasure. She would have described him as "altogether quite stunning-looking;" and she liked his tall, dark thinness, his | stray clothes, his soft hut, and his clean brown shoes; she liked his easy swing of the stick 1* carried. "Shouldn’t I have said It?” he asked. "Would you rather not be taken for a Spanish count' ss?" "That isn’t it," she explained. "You said ”

"I said I'd take you for whatever you wanted me to. Isn’t that -stTI right?” "It would all depend, wouldn’t it?” Os course it would depend on what you wanted.” "Oh, no!” she laughed. "It might depend on a lot of things.” “Such as?” '"Well—” She hesitated, having the mischievous impulse to say, "Such as Mildred!” But she decided to omit this reference, and became serious, remembering Russell’s service to her at Mildred’s house. "Speaking of what I want to be taken for,” she said; "I’ve been wondering ever since the other night what you did take me for! Tou must have taken me for the sister of a professional gambler, I’m afraid!” Russell s look of kindness was the. truth about him, she was to discover; end he reassured her now by the promptness of his friendly chuckle. “Then your young brother told you where I found him. did he? I kept my face straight at the time, but I laughed afterward—to myself. It struck me as original, to say the least; his amusing himself with those darkies.” "Walter is original," Alice said; and having adopted this new view of her brother’s eccentricities, she impulsive ly went on to make it more plausible. "He’s a very odd boy, and I was afraid you’d misunderstand. He tells wonderful ‘darky stories.’ and he’ll do anything to draw colored people out and make them talk; and that's what he was doing at Mildred’s when you found him for me—he says he wins their confidence by playing dice with them. In the family we think he’ll probably write about them some day. He’s rather literary.” ''-re you? Russell asked, smiling. “I? Oh—’’ She paused, lifting both hands in a charming gesture of help lessness. "Oh, I’m lust—me!’’ His glance followed the lightly wa 'l d hands with kcjAi approval. “ to the colorful 1 hazel small and

DOINGS OF THE DUFFS—

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TiiEAl DAVB IS UOiSE FUKEVER—

j GOMG 1 .- CT*S JIMMY AMCM- VOUW LOOKIM’ See'PY, I THEM DAYS IS Hamilton " - u.i uowoets Mwu? pci voue cto’es hale cost laeaj Thlm oeee FIFTEEN GONF FOBEVE^.^ ewe? _____ ceaxs -* ** l ra.

**** *** '***' " ffpEAIEMBERA ten m firU \THE HOOTSTOWN BUS ARRIVED TODAY FOUR! DAYS LATTE

pretty nose, and, the lip-caught rmile which seemed the climax of her decorative transition. Never had he seen a creature so plastic or so wistful. Here was a contrast to his cousin Mildred, who was not wistful, and controlled any impulses toward nlasticity. if she had them. "By Geotge!” he said. “But .you are different!”) With that, there leaped in her such an impulse of roguish gallantry as she could never resist. She turned her

OUT OUIi WAY—By WILLIAMS

THE OLD HOME TOWN—By STANLEY

head, and, laughing and bright-eyed, looked him full in the face. “From whom?” she cried. "From—everybody!” he said. “Are you a mind-reader?" “Why?” “How did you know I was thinking you were different from my cousin, Mildred Palmer?” "What raaif'S you think I did know it?” "Nonsense!” he eeid. "You knew

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

what I was thinking and I knew you knew.” “Yes,” she said with cool humor. “How intimate that seems to make i us all at once!” Russell left no doubt that he was | delighted with these gayeties of hers. | "By George!” he exclaimed again. “I | thought you were this sort of girl the j first moment I saw you!” “What sort of girl? Didn't Mildred tell yoil what sort of girl I amjajMd

A Woman’s Rights

Pursur* This On Your Player-Piano

§j -lusd !yiisU'.~ stuff mid /yeu, mi 1 SPOS6 , 1 % uoUseUse- vMV. rr iswY VrtroTb eaY >Y tSI 1 ? cou> IVI -mi® Uouse - Wavj- \ - vorrn ah icv picxeU? ' I T*' - X PTTV YoU boys had YOU l_ UovlE OF-M SMI3 \J R BEBV] WTU ME Okl A POL M3 R VoU UERB vjrrt* M f .. oßnfe yJlp W.S s.. I—. _-v 1, _ _ r-ve /•t | 4 \ ED ~T COL r> 'Tr UGVVTUIwiG Okie I l IVAAeiUE-m\S- I RECALLS \ UltTlL YOU STOPPED \WI GOF TUAYSTtIFF A MIQUYWUeU VIE-TRIE-D-It) \ YALKIIJS.'- J ATO AVI ESKIMO UP A BIYOF WALRUS woULt , GE r A SeY iVn BROTH- lY WAS So COLD f[ Ls suvISTROKe! / YHE BROTH WOULD BOIL / L } yjjk at the BcnrtM aud / Hf • \ I y \fREE-Z Jj ITIUE KWTOR RECAILG A COOI IV\STANCE

she asked you to dance with me?” “She didn’t ask me to dance with you—l’d been looking at you. Y'ou were talking to some old ladies, and I asked Mildred who you were.” “Oh, so Mildred didn’t—” Alice checkod herself. “Who did she tel) you I was?” “She just said you were a Miss AdamSjSjjM^ A Vice

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—By BLOSSER

OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

“Yes. Then I said I’d like to carefulness might have been wefll you.” ~ This Mr. Arthur Russell “I see. Y'ou thought you'd H much more responsive person me from the old ladies.” one had supposed. “No. I thought I'd" save s*o. M l '- Russell, you don't know from some the girls Mildred about me except what you getting me o dance with. when you first saw me?" a Miss Dowling—” 1 know I was right when I "Poor man!” Alice sfdd, vb'. 4 it." and her impulsive thought was cn't told me what you Mildred had taken few chances.^^^^H^^^^^k a matter Be Continued.)

JAN. 22. 1923

—By ALLMAN

—By AL POSEN