Alice Adams. Booth Tarkington
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any money at all, most likely.”
“Oh, no!” she laughed, and, finishing with her blouse, patted his cheeks with both hands. “Just think how many grand openings there must be for a man that knows as much as you do! I always did believe you could get rich if you only cared to, papa.”
But upon his forehead the painful pattern still deepened. “Don't you think we've always had enough, the way things are, Alice?”
“Not the way things ARE!” She patted his cheeks again; laughed again. “It used to be enough, maybe anyway we did skimp along on it—but the way things are now I expect mama's really pretty practical in her ideas, though, I think it's a shame for her to bother you about it while you're so weak. Don't you worry about it, though; just think about other things till you get strong.”
“You know,” he said; “you know it isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world for a man of my age to find these grand openings you speak of. And when you've passed half-way from fifty to sixty you're apt to see some risk in giving up what you know how to do and trying something new.”
“My, what a frown!” she cried, blithely. “Didn't I tell you to stop thinking about it till you get ALL well?” She bent over him, giving him a gay little kiss on the bridge of his nose. “There! I must run to breakfast. Cheer up now! Au 'voir!” And with her pretty hand she waved further encouragement from the closing door as she departed.
Lightsomely descending the narrow stairway, she whistled as she went, her fingers drumming time on the rail; and, still whistling, she came into the dining-room, where her mother and her brother were already at the table. The brother, a thin and sallow boy of twenty, greeted her without much approval as she took her place.
“Nothing seems to trouble you!” he said.
“No; nothing much,” she made airy response. “What's troubling yourself, Walter?”
“Don't let that worry you!” he returned, seeming to consider this to be repartee of an effective sort; for he furnished a short laugh to go with it, and turned to his coffee with the manner of one who has satisfactorily closed an episode.
“Walter always seems to have so many secrets!” Alice said, studying him shrewdly, but with a friendly enough amusement in her scrutiny. “Everything he does or says seems to be acted for the benefit of some mysterious audience inside himself, and he always gets its applause. Take what he said just now: he seems to think it means something, but if it does, why, that's just another secret between him and the secret audience inside of him! We don't really know anything about Walter at all, do we, mama?”
Walter laughed again, in a manner that sustained her theory well enough; then after finishing his coffee, he took from his pocket a flattened packet in glazed blue paper; extracted with stained fingers a bent and wrinkled little cigarette, lighted it, hitched up his belted trousers with the air of a person who turns from trifles to things better worth his attention, and left the room.
Alice laughed as the door closed. “He's ALL secrets,” she said. “Don't you think you really ought to know more about him, mama?”
“I'm sure he's a good boy,” Mrs. Adams returned, thoughtfully. “He's been very brave about not being able to have the advantages that are enjoyed by the boys he's grown up with. I've never heard a word of complaint from him.”
“About his not being sent to college?” Alice cried. “I should think you wouldn't! He didn't even have enough ambition to finish high school!”
Mrs. Adams sighed. “It seemed to me Walter lost his ambition when nearly all the boys he'd grown up with went to Eastern schools to prepare for college, and we couldn't afford to send him. If only your father would have listened——”
Alice interrupted: “What nonsense! Walter hated books and studying, and athletics, too, for that matter. He doesn't care for anything nice that I ever heard of. What do you suppose he does like, mama? He must like something or other somewhere, but what do you suppose it is? What does he do with his time?”
“Why, the poor boy's at Lamb and Company's all day. He doesn't get through until five in the afternoon; he doesn't HAVE much time.”
“Well, we never have dinner until about seven, and he's always late for dinner, and goes out, heaven knows where, right afterward!” Alice shook her head. “He used to go with our friends' boys, but I don't think he does now.”
“Why, how could he?” Mrs. Adams protested. “That isn't his fault, poor child! The boys he knew when he was younger are nearly all away at college.”
“Yes, but he doesn't see anything of 'em when they're here at holiday-time or vacation. None of 'em come to the house any more.”
“I suppose he's made other friends. It's natural for him to want companions, at his age.”
“Yes,” Alice said, with disapproving emphasis. “But who are they? I've got an idea he plays pool at some rough place down-town.”
“Oh, no; I'm sure he's a steady boy,” Mrs. Adams protested, but her tone was not that of thoroughgoing conviction, and she added, “Life might be a very different thing for him if only your father can be brought to see——”
“Never mind, mama! It isn't me that has to be convinced, you know; and we can do a lot more with papa if we just let him alone about it for a day or two. Promise me you won't say any more to him until—well, until he's able to come downstairs to table. Will you?”
Mrs. Adams bit her lip, which had begun to tremble. “I think you can trust me to know a FEW things, Alice,” she said. “I'm a little older than you, you know.”
“That's a good girl!” Alice jumped up, laughing. “Don't forget it's the same as a promise, and do just cheer him up a little. I'll say good-bye to him before I go out.”
“Where are you going?”
“Oh, I've got lots to do. I thought I'd run out to Mildred's to see what she's going to wear to-night, and then I want to go down and buy a yard of chiffon and some narrow ribbon to make new bows for my slippers—you'll have to give me some money——”
“If he'll give it to me!” her mother lamented, as they went toward the front stairs together; but an hour later she came into Alice's room with a bill in her hand.
“He has some money in his bureau drawer,” she said. “He finally told me where it was.”
There were traces of emotion in her voice, and Alice, looking shrewdly at her, saw moisture in her eyes.
“Mama!” she cried. “You didn't do what you promised me you wouldn't, did you—NOT before Miss Perry!”
“Miss Perry's getting him some broth,” Mrs. Adams returned, calmly. “Besides, you're mistaken in saying I promised you anything; I said I thought you could trust me to know what is right.”
“So you did bring it up again!” And Alice swung away from her, strode to her father's door, flung it open, went to him, and put a light hand soothingly over his unrelaxed forehead.
“Poor old papa!” she said. “It's a shame how everybody wants to trouble him. He shan't be bothered any more at all! He doesn't need to have everybody telling him how to get away from that old hole he's worked in so long and begin to make us all nice and rich. HE knows how!”
Thereupon she kissed him a consoling good-bye, and made another gay departure, the charming hand again fluttering like a white butterfly in the shadow of the closing door.
CHAPTER III
Mrs. Adams had remained in Alice's room, but her mood seemed to have changed, during her daughter's little more than momentary