Indianapolis Times, Volume 35, Number 227, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 January 1923 — Page 8

8

ALICE ADAMS by BOOTH TARKINGTON Second novel In the Times series by Indiana writers Copyright, 1921, by Doubleday, Page & Cos.

Befrin Here MRS. VIRGIL ADAMS never ceases to criticise her husband for his willingness to remain with LAMB & CO., at a small salary and blames him for the trouble their children, ALICE, and WALTER have in not being able to hold their own in the social circle of the city. It is expected that the wealthy MILDRED PALMER will marry ARTHUR RUSSELL, her third cousin, and upon her fathers death Mr. Russell will be given her father's place in business, but this arrangement does not appeal to Mr. Russell. He has been favorably impressed with Alice and asks to take her to a dance given in his honor by Henrietta Lamb. Alice tells him she cannot accept as she is not on friendly terms with Miss Lamb. Go on with the story. , LACKGUARDING her to you when she's giving a I J big party for you! Just the way Henrietta would blackguard me to you—heaven knows what she wouldn’t say if she talked about me to you! It would be fair, of course, but—well, I’d rather she didn’t!” And with that, Alice let her pretty hand, in its white glove, rest upon his arm for a moment; and he locked down at it. not unmoved to see it there. "I want to be unfair about just this,” she said, letting a troubled laughter tremble through her appealing voice as she spoke. "I won't take advantage of her with anybody, except just —you! I’d a little rather you didn't hear anybody blackguard me. and. if you aon’t mind—could you promise not to give Henrietta the chance?" It was charmingly done, with a humorous, faint pathos altogether genuine; and Russell found himself suddenly wanting to shout at her, “Oh, you dear!” Nothing else seemed adequate; but he controlled the Impulse In favor of something more conservative. “Imagine any one speaking unkindly of you—not praising you!” “Who has praised me to you?” she asked, quickly. “I haven’t talked about you with any one; but if I did, I know they’d—” “No, no!” she cried, and went on, again accompanying her words with little tremulous runs of laughter. “You don’t understand this town yet. You’ll be surprised when you do; we’re different. We talk about one another fearfully! Haven’t I just proved it, the way I've been going for Henrietta? Os course I didn’t say anything really very terrible about her, but that's only because I don’t follow that practice the way most of the others do. They don’t stop with the worst of the truth they can find; they make up things—yes, they really do! And, oh, I’d rather they didn't make up things about me —to you!” “What difference would it make if they did?” he inquired, cheerfully. •'l'd know they weren’t true.” “Even if you did know that, they’d make a difference,” she said. “Oh. yes, they would! It’s too bad, but we don’t like anything quite so well that’s had specks on it, even if we’ve wiped the specks off —it’s just that much spoiled, and some things are all spoiled the instant they’re the least bit spoiled. What a man thinks about a girl, for instance. Do you want to have what you think about me spoiled, Mr. Russell?” "Oh, but that’s already far beyond reach,” he said, lightly. “But it can’t be!” she protested. "Why not?” “Because it never can be. Men don't change their minds about one another often; they make it quite an event when they do. and talk about it as if something important had happened. But a girl only has to go downtown with a shoe-string unfastened, and every man who sees her will change his mind about her. Don’t you know that’s true?” "Not of myself, I think.” “There!” she cried. “That’s precisely what every man in the world would say!” “So you wouldn't trust me?” “Well—l’ll be awfully worried if you give ’em a chance to tell you that I'm too lazy to tie my shoestrings’.” He laughed delightedly. “Is that what they do say?” he asked. "Just about! Whatever they hope

OEAUTIFUL Toledo woman says money could not buy the splendid health Taniac gave her.

"Tanlac has given me more strength and endurance that I ever hoped for,'' declared Mrs. Pearl Libert, 722 Stickney Ave, Toledo, Ohio, popular demonstrator. “I \fas on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and it was all I could do to stay at work through the day. Tt was almost useless for me to go to meals or retire at night, for I could neither eat ; or sleep to do any good. Bursting headaches and terrible dizzy spells added to my misery and I was about ready to give up. “Tanlac quickly corrected my troubles. I have gained considerable weight and can stay on my feet all day without tiring. Money couldn't buy the good Tanlac has done me.” Tanlac is sold by all good druggists. Over 35-millton bottles sold.—Adv.

will get results.” She shook her head wisely. “Oh, yes; we do that here!” “But I don’t mind loose shoestrings,” he said. “Not if they’re yours.” "They'll find out what you do mind.” “But suppose,” he said, looking at het whimsically; “suppose I wouldn’t mind anything—so long as it’s yours?” She courtesied. “Oh. pretty enough! Eut a girl who’s talked about has a weakness that’s often a fatal one.” "What is it?” “It’s this: when she’s talked about she isn’t there. That’s how they kill her.” "I’m afraid I don’t follow you.” “Don’t you see? If Henrietta—or Mildred —or any of ’em —or some of their mothers—oh. we all do it! Well, if any df ’em told you I didn’t tie my shoestrings, and if I were there, so that you could see me, you’d know it wasn't true. Even if I were sitting so that you couldn’t see my feet, and couldn’t tell whether the strings were tied or not just then, still you could look at me, and see that I wasn’t the sort of girl to neglect my shoestrings. But that Isn’t the way it happens; they’ll get at you when I'm nowhere around and can’t remind you of the sort of girl I really am.” “But you don’t do that,” he complained. “You don’t remind rhe—you don’t even tell me—the sort of girl you really are! I'd like to know.” “Let’s be serious then,” she said, and looked serious enough herself. "Would you honestly like to know?” “Yes.” “Well, then you must be careful." " ‘Careful?’ ’’ The word amused him. “I mean careful not to get me mixed up,” she said. “Careful not to mix up the girl you might hear somebody talking about with the me I honestly try to make you see. If you do get those two mixed up—well, the whole show'll be spoiled!” “What makes you think so?” “Because it’s—” She checked herself, having begun to speak too Impulsively; and she was disturbed, realizing in what tricky stuff she dealt. What had been on her lips to say was, "Because it’s happened before!” She changed to, “Because it’s so easy to spoil anything—easiest of all to spoil anything that’s pltsant.” “That might depend.” “No; it’s so. And if you care at all about —about knowing a girl who’cl like some one to know her —” “Just ‘some one?’ That’s disappointing.” “Well —you.” she said. “Tell me how ‘careful* you want me to be, then!” “Well, don't you think it would be nice if you didn't give anybody the chance to talk about me the way—the way I've just been talking about Henrietta Lamb?” With that they laughed together, and he said: “You may be cutting me off from a great deal of information, you know.” “Ves,” Alice admitted. “Somebody might begin to praise me to you. too; so it’s dangerous to ask you to change the subject if I ever happen to be mentioned. But, after all—” She paused. “ ‘After all’ isn’t the end of a thought, is It?” "Sometimes it is of a girl's thought; I suppose men are neater about their thoughts, and always finish ’em. It isn’t the end of the thought I had then, though." “What is the end of it?” She looked at him impulsively. “Oh, it’s foolish.” she said, and she laughed as laughs one who proposes something probably impossible. "But wouldn’t it be pleasant if two people could ever just keep themselves to themselves, so far as they two were concerned? I mean, if they could just manage to be friends without people talking about it, or talking to them about it?" “I suppose that might be rather difficult,” he said, more amused than impressed by her idea. “I don’t know; it might be done,” she returned, hopefully. “Especially in a town of this size; it’s grown so it’s luite a huge place these days. People can keep themselves to themselves in a big place better, you know. For instance, nobody knows that you and I ar ; taking a walk together today.” “How absurd, when here we are on exhibition!” “No; we aren’t.” “We aren’t?” “Not a bit of it!” she laughed. “Wo were the other day, when you walked home with me, but anybody could tell that had just happened by chance, on account of your overtaking me; people can always see things like that. But we’re not on exhibition now. Look where I’ve led you!” Amused and a little bewildered, he looked up and down the street, which was one of gaunt-faced apartmenthouses, old, sooty, frame boardinghouses, small groceries and drugstores, laundries and one-room plumbers’ shops, with the sign of a clairvoyant here and there. “You see?” she said. “I’ve been leading you without your knowing it. Os course that’s because you’re new to the town, and you give yourself up to the guidance of an old citizen.” “I’m not so sure, Miss Adams. It might mean that I don’t care where I follow so long as I follow you.” “Very well,” she said. “I’d like you to keen on following me—at least long enough for'me to show you that there’s something nicer ahead of us than this dingy street.” “Is that figurative?” he asked. “Might be!” she returned, gaily. “There’s a pretty little park at the end. but it's very proletarian, and no- | body you and I know will be more likely to see us there than on this street.” “What an imagination you have!” he exclaimed. “You turn our proper little walk into a Parisian adventure.” She looked at him in what seemed to be a momentary grave puzzlement. “Perhaps you feel that a Parisian adventure mightn't please your—your relatives?” “Why, no," he returned. “You .seem to think of them oftener than I do." This appeared to amuse Alice, or at least to please her, for she laughed. “Then I can afford to quit thinking of them, I suppose. It’s only that I used quite a friend of Mildred's—but jMn't to _ J into that -a.*

DOINGS OF THE DUFFS—

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and I almost wish she weren't taking such pains to be a friend of yours.” “Oh, but she's not. It's all on account of ” “On Mildred’s account,” Alice finished this for him, coolly. “Yes, of eours<V' account of the two families,” /gtAy.t pains to explain, a little 1 ni a rela-

OUT OUR WAY—By WILLIAMS

THE OLD HOME TOWN—By STiYNLEY

and the Lambs seem to be old family friends.” “Something the Adamses certainly are not,” Alice said. “Not with either of ’em; particularly not with the Lambs!” And here, scarce aware of what impelled her, she returned to her former elaborations and colorings. “You see, the differences between entirely per-

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

if 1 liked her. The Lambs and Adamses don’t get on with each other, and we’ve just about come to the breaking point as it happens.” “I hope it’s nothing to bother you.” "Why? A lot of things bother me.” “I’m sorry they do,” he said, and seemed simply to mean it. She nodded gratefully. “That’s nice of you, Mr. Russell. It helps. The the Adamses and the

Danny Has an Alibi

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Get This On Your Gramaphone

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I>ambs is a pretty bothersome thing. It’s been coming on a long time.” She sighed deeply, and the sigh was half genuine; this half being for her father, but the other half probably belonged to her instinctive rendering of Juliet Capulet, daughter to a warring house. ”1 hate it. all so!” she added. “Os course you must.” “I suppose most quarrels between on account of {justness,”

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—By BLOSSER

OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

she said. “That’s why they're so sordid. Certainly the Lambs seem a sordid lot to me, though of course I’m biased.” And with that she began to sketch a history of the commercial antagonism that had risen between the Adamses and the Lambs. (To Be Continued.) Flower Rosettes Huge flower rosettes axe a, popular

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trimming on taffeta, satin and geor gette frocks. Sometimes they match the frock and other times they are a decided com ~st. Spring Millinery A charming hat of sapphire blue taffeta is embroidered in gray yarn Tarn flowers are popular on spring haU.

JAN. 31, 1923

—By ALLMAN

—By AL POSEN