Indianapolis Times, Volume 35, Number 240, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 February 1923 — Page 8

8

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

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 unti it reached his own hand as he came to meet her. “How terrible of me!” she exclaimed. “To be so late 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, put his hands in his pockets and turned to his wife. “I guess dinner’s more’n ready'.” he said. “We 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 hand. “Be quiet!” “Oh. well—” he muttered. “Sit down!" He was thoroughly my’stifled, 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, my'self, so you have a fellow-sufferer, if that pleases you. Why is it we alvtays 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 ad justing, while her lower jaw moved at intervals, though not now upon any substance, but remiscently, of habit. She halted before Adams, facing him. He looked plaintive. “What you want o’ 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 upon his features, and he would have returned the sandwich to Gertrude. However, as she had crossed the room to Mrs. Adams he checked the 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. 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 serve’,” and retired from view. “Well, well!” Adams said, rising from his chair, with relief. “That’s good! Let’s go 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 him and she shuddered in spite of herself Then, seeing that he looked at her entreatingly, as if he wanted to explain that he was doing the best he could she smiled upon him sunnily, and began to chatter 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 gayety. 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.

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Adams made any progress in this direction; the others merely feinting, new 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 every faithful cooinga of applausive 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 half way 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! Xol 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. Mis. Adams nodded several times, Increasing the emphasis of her gesture, while Alice talked briskly, but the bijpoding waitress continued to brood. A* faint snap of the fingers failed to disturb her; nor was a covert hissing whisper of avail, and Mrs. Adams was beginning to show signs of strain when her daughter relieved her. “Imagine our 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 and jellied instead? Os course it’s because she's equatorial, herself, originally, and only feels at home when Mr. Satan moves it north.” She looked round at Gertrude, who ■>tood behind her. “Do take this dread ful soup away!” Thus directly addressed, Gertrude yielded her attention, though unwillingly, and as if she decided only oy a hair’s breadth 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 an 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 forever!” “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 prattfings, the girl's bright eyes kept seeking his with an eager gayety. which but little veiled both interrogation and entreaty—as If she asked: “Is it too much for you 7 Can’t you bear It? Won’t you please bear it? I would for you. Won’t you give me a sign that it's all right?” He looked at her but fieetlngly, and seemed to suffer from the heat. In spite of every manly effort not to wipe his brow too often. Hie color, after rising when he greeted Alice and her father, had departed, leaving him again moistjy pallid; a condition arising from discomfort, no doubt, but, considered as a decoration, almost poetically becoming tc 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 w r as 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 humor that something even worse than this dinner must be “the matter with him.” The small room, suffocated with the odor of boiled sprouts, grew hotter and hotter as more and more food appeared, slowly boma In, between deathly long waits by the recentful, loud-breathing Gertrude. And while Alice still sought Russell’s glance, and read the look upon his face a dozen diff -ent ways, fearing all of them, and ■while the straggling little flowers died

DOINGS OF THE DUFFS—

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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 • ' himse.f to make known a hospitable regret. “By George!” he in iin o 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 ’em

OUT OUR WAY—By WILLIAMS

TILE OLD HOME TOWN—By STANLEY

myself—unless somebody hands me | one, you might say. I've always been a pipe-smoker, pure and simple, but 1 mbered for 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, and smoke a pipe.” Alice started, remembering what she had told him when he overtook her on her yray from the tobacconist’s; but, after, a moment, looking

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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 sat down, for he was favoring 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

He Had No Comeback

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but what cigars may be all right for a man that can afford ’em, if he likes ’em 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 these came an interruption: the door-bell rang, and be paused inquiringly, rather sur prised. Mrs. Adams spoke to Gertrude in an undertone:

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—By BLOSSER

OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

“Just say, ‘Not at home.’ ” "What?” "If it’s callers, just say we’re not at home.” “What?” “If it’s callers, just say we’re not at home.” Gertrude spoke out freely: “You mean you astin’ me to ’tend you’ front do’ fer you?” She seemed both incredulous and affronted, but Mi's. Adams persisted.

THURSDAY, FEB. 15, 1923

—By ALLMAN

— xj\ aiij

though somewhat apprehensively' "Yes. Hurry—uh—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 disappeared. When she came back she said: “He say he wait.” (To Be ContferaedJ