Indianapolis Times, Volume 35, Number 220, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 January 1923 — Page 8

8

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

Begin here From her experien*e at thp fashionable dance given by MILDRED PALMER, ALICE ADAMS realizes that because of thetr email family income ehe can no longer compete socially with her old friends. Her mother strongly critises MR. ADAMS for his contentment to remain in such a minor position at LAMB & CO. 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 she decides to do something worth while herselt. but she is depressed by her father's gentle ridicule of her desire to become an actress. On an errand for her father Alice again sees the handsome Arthur Russell whom she m*t at Mildred's party. At first Alice does not feel any great interest in him because she suspects he is engaged to Mildred, but from his conversation she perceives that he is pleasantly impressed with her. Go on with the story I what you are like.” “Not very definite, is it? I’m afraid you shed more light a minute or so ago. when you said how different from Mildred you thought I was. That was definite, unforuately!” “I didn’t say it,” Russell explained. “I thought it, and you read my mind. That’s the sort*of a girl I thought you were —one that could read a man’s mind. "Why do you say ‘unfortunately’ you’re not like Mildred?” Alice’s smooth gesture seemed to -ketch Mildred- “Because she’s perfect—why. she's perfectly perfect: She never makes a mistake, and everybody looks up to her—oh, yes, we all fairly adore her! She’s like some big. noble, cold statue —’wav above the rest of us—and she hardly ever does anything mean or treacherous. Os all the girls I know I believe she's played the fewest really petty tricks. She’s —” Russell Interrupted; he looked perplexed. “You say she’s perfeclty perfect, but that she does play some—” Alice laughed, as If at his sweet Innocence. “Men are so funny!” she Informed him. “Os course girls all do mean things sometimes. My own career’s just one long brazen smirch of 'em! What I mean is, Mildred’s perfectly perfect compared to the rest of us.” “X gee,” he said, and seemed to need a moment or two of thoughtfulness. Then he inquired. “What sort of treacherous things do you do?” “I? Oh, the very worst kind! Most people bore me—particularly the men in this town —and I show it.” “But I shouldn’t call that treachery, exactly.” “Well, they do,” Alice laughed. "It’s made me a terribly unpopular character! I do a lot of things they hate. For instance, at a dance I'd a lot rather find some clever old woman and talk to her than dance with ninetenths of these nonentities. I usually do it, too.” “But you danced as if you liked it. You danced better than any other girl I—” “This flattery* of yours doesn't quite turn my head, Mr. Russell, Alice interrupted. “Particularly since Mildred only gave you Ella Dowling to compare with me!” “Oh, no,” he Insisted. “There were others —and of course, Mildred, herself.” “Oh, of course, yes.. I forgot that. Well ” She paused, then prided: “I certainly ought to dance well.” “Why is it so much a duty?” “When I think of the dancing teachers and the expense to papa. All sorts of fancy instructors —I suppose that’s what daughters have fathers for, though isn’t it? To throw money away on them?” “You don't ” Russell began, and his look was one of alarm. “You haven’t taken up ” She understood his apprehension and responded merrily: “Oh, murder, no! You mean you’re afraid I break out sometimes in a piece of cheesecloth and run around a fountain thirty times, and then, for an encore, show how much like snakes I can make my arms look.” “I said you were a mind reader!” he exclaimed. “That’s exactly what I was pretending to be afraid you might do.” “ ‘Pretending’? That’s nicer of you. No: It’s not my mania.” “What Is?” “Oh, nothing in particular that I know of just now. Os course, I’ve had the usual one: the one that every girl goes through." “What's that?” “Good heavens, Mr. Russell, you can't expect me to believe you’re really a man of the world if you don t know that every girl has a time in her life when she's positive she’s divinely talented for the stage! It’s the only universal rule about women that hasn’t got an exception. I don’t mean we all want to go on the stage, but we all think we’d he wonderful if we did. Even Mildred. Oh, she wouldn't confess it to you: you’d have to know her a great deal better than any man can ever know her to find out.” h “I see.” he said. “Girls are always

[‘STOLEN’ JEWELS FOUND Woman Leaves Valuables Under Pillow in Hotel Room. Jewelry valued at S2BO which Mrs. Guy Osborn of Jasonville reported to the police had been “stolen” from her room in the Hotel Lincoln was found under a pillow where she had placed it for safekeeping, the hotel management said today. Hotel authorities said Mrs. Osborn's jewelry had been found and started on its way to her by mail before local police arrived to investigate. DOGS GET 130 RABBITS Loss of SIOO Caused by Ravages of Canines. One hundred and thirty rabbits, property of the Hoosier Warrens at 3210 N. Olney St., are reported to have “gone to the dogs” over the last week-end, entailing a loss of more than SIOO. The owner of the Warrens said the dogs, in addition to eating some of his most valuable rabbits. tore down nearly half the hutches. Germans have to work fourteen days . year to pay their taxes; French--eight days.

telling us we can’t know them. I wonder if you ’’ She took up his thought before he expressed It, and again he was fascinated by her quickness, "which Indeed seemed to him almost telepathic. “Oh, but don't we know one another, though!” she cried. “Such things we have to keep secret —things that go on right before your eyes!” “Why don't some of you tell us?” he asked. “We can't tell you." “Too much honour?” “No. Not even too much honour among thieves, Mr. Russell. We don't tell you about our tricks against one another because we know it wouldn't make any impression on ycu. The tricks aren't played against you, and you have a spift side for cats with lovely manners!” “What about your tricks against us?” “Oh, those!” Alice laughed. “We think they’re rather cute!” “Bravo!” he cried, and hammered the ferrule of his stick upon the pavement. “What’s the applause for?” “For you. What you said was Uke running up the black flag to the masthead.” “Oh. no. It was just a modest little sign in a pretty flower-bed: 'Gentlemen, beware!’ ’’ “I see I must,” he said, gallantly. “Thanks! But I mean, beware of the whole bloomin’ garden!” Then, picking up a thread that had almost disappeared: “You needn't think you’ll ever find out whether I’m right about Mildred’s not being an exception by asking her,” she said. “She won’t tell you: she's not the sort that ever makes a confession." But Russell had not followed her shift to the former topic. “ 'Mildred's not being an exception?’ ” he said, vaguely. “I don’t —” “An exception about thinking she could be a wonderful thing on the stage if she only cared to. If you asked her I'm pretty sure she’d say, ‘What nonsense!’ Mildred's tho dearest, finest thing anywhere, but you won't find out many things about her by asking her.” Russell's expression became more serious, as it did whenever his cousin was made their topic. “You think not?” he said. “You think she’s —” “No. But it’s not because she isn't sincere exactly. It’s only because she has such a lot to live up to. She has to live up to being a girl on the grand style—to herself, I mean, of course.” And without pausing Alice rippled on, “You ought to have seen me when I had the stage-fever ! I U3ed to play •Juliet’ all alone in my room.' She lifted her arms In graceful entreaty, pleading musically.

‘‘O. swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon. That monthly changes in her circled orb. Lest thy love prove—” She broke off abruptly with a little flourish, snapping thumb and forefinger of each outstretched hand, then laughed and said. “Papa used to make such fun of me! Thank heaven, I was only 15; I was all over it by the next y-jar.” “No wonder you had the fever,” Russell observed. “You do It beautifully. Why didn’t you finish the line?” “Which one? ‘Lest thy love prove likewise variable’? Juliet was saying it to a man, you know. She seems to have been ready to worry about his constancy pretty early In their affair!” Her companion was again thoughtful. “Yes,” he said, seeming to be rather Irksomely Impressed with Alice's suggestion. “Yes; it does appear so.” Alice glanced at his serious face, and yielded to an audacious temptation. “You mustn't take It so hard," she said, flippantly. “It Isn’t about you: It’s only about Romeo and JuPet.” “See here!” he exclaimed. “You aren’t at your mind reading again, are you? There are times when it won’t do, you know!" She leaned toward him a little, as if eompanlonably: they were walking slowly, and this geniality of hers brought her shoulder in light contact with his for a moment. “Do you dislike my mind reading?” she asked, and, across their two just touching shoulders, gave him her sudden look of smiling wistfulness. “Do you hate it?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he said, gravely. “It’s quite pleasant. But I think it says, ‘Gentlemen, beware!’ ” She lnstantlv moved from him, with the lawless and frank laugh of one who is delighted to be caught In a piece of hypocrisy. “How lovely!” she cried. Then she pointed ahead. “Our walk is nearly over. We’re coming to the foolish little house where I live. It’s a queer little place, but my father’s so attached to It the family have about given up hope of getting him to build a real house farther out. He doesn’t mind our being extravagant about anything else, but he won’t let us alter one single thing about his precious little old house. Well!” She halted, and gave him her hand. “Adieu!” “I couldn’t,” he began; hesitated, then asked: “I couldn’t come In with you for a little while?” “Not now,” she said, quickly. “You can come—” She paused. “When?” “Almost any time.” She turned and walked slowly up the path, but he waited. “You can come In the evening if you like," she called back to him over her shoulder. “Soon?” “As soon as you like!” She waved her hand: then ran Indoors and watched him from a window as he J went up the street. He walked rapid ly, a fine, easy figure, swinging his stick in a way that suggested exhilaration. Alice, staring after him through the Irregular apertures of a lace curtain, showed no similar buoyancy. Upon the instant she closed the door all sparkle left her: she had become at once the simple and sometimes troubled girl her family knew. “What’s going on out there?” her mother asked, approaching from the dining room. “Oh. nothing,” Alice said, indifferently, as she turned away. “That Mr. Russell met me downtown and walked up with rn- ”

DOTNGS OF THE HUFFS —

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"Mr. Russell? Oh, the one that’s engaged to Mildred?” “Well —I don’t know for certain. He didn’t seem so much like an engaged man to me.” And she added, in the tone of thoughtful preoccupation; “Anyhow— not so terribly.” Then she ran upstairs, gave her father his tobacco, filled his pipe for him, an petted him as he lighted it.

OUT OUR WAY—By WILLIAMS

THE OLD HOME TOWN—By STANLEY

CHAPTER XI AFTER that, she went to her room and sat down before her three-leaved mirror. There was where she nearly always sat when she came into her room, if she had nothing in mind to do. She went to that chair as naturally as a dog goes to his corner. She forward, observing her profile, gravity seemed to be her mood.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

But after a long, almost motionless scrutiny, she began to produce dramatic sketches upon that ever-ready stage, her countenance; she showed gaiety, satire, doubt, gentleness, appreciation of a companion and love-in-hiding—all studied in profile first, then repeated for a “three-quarter view.” Subsequently she ran through them, facing herself in full. In this manner she outlined a play-

Have a Heart, Olivia

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ful scenario for her next interview with Arthur Russell; but grew solemn again, thinking of the impression she had already sought to give him. She bad no twinge for any underminings of her “most intimate friend” —in fact, she felt that her work on anew portrait of Mildred for Mr. Russell had been honest and accurate. But why had it been her instinct to show him an Alice Adams who didn’t exist? Almost everything aha had said to

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OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

him was upon spontaneous impulse, springing to her lips on the instant; yet it all seemed to have been founded upon a careful design, as if some hidden self kept such designs in stock and handed them up to her, ready-made, to be used for its own purpose. What appeared to be the desired result was a false-coloured image in Russell’s mind; but if he liked that image he wouldn’t be liking Alice Adams; nor would anything

JAN. 23, 1923

—By ALLMAN

—By AL POSEN

he thought about the image be a' thought about her. Nevertheless, she knew she would go on with her false, fancy colorings of this nothing as son as she saw him again; she had just been practicing’them. “What's the idea?” she wondered. “What makes me tell such lies? Why shouldn’t 1 be just myself?" And then she thought, “But which one ia myself?” (To Be CoiUinnodj