Alice Adams

lice 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 odour 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. Adams made any progress in this
direction; the others merely feinting, now 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 ever-faithful cooings of applausive laughter. “What a funny thing
weather is!” the girl ran on. “Yesterday it was cool--angels had charge
of it--and to-day 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! Not
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. Mrs. Adams nodded several
times, increasing the emphasis of her gesture, while Alice talked
briskly; but the brooding 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? Of 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 stood behind her. “Do
take this dreadful soup away!”

Thus directly addressed, Gertrude yielded her attention, though
unwillingly, and as if she decided only by a hair's weight 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 prattlings,
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? 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 fleetingly, and seemed to suffer from the heat, in
spite of every manly effort not to wipe his brow too often. His colour,
after rising when he greeted Alice and her father, had departed, leaving
him again moistly pallid; a condition arising from discomfort, no doubt,
but, considered as a decoration, almost poetically becoming to 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 was 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 humour that something
even worse than this dinner must be “the matter with him.”

The small room, suffocated with the odour of boiled sprouts, grew hotter
and hotter as more and more food appeared, slowly borne in, between
deathly long waits, by the resentful, loud-breathing Gertrude. And while
Alice still sought Russell's glance, and read the look upon his face
a dozen different ways, fearing all of them; and while the straggling
little flowers died 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 bestirred himself to make known a
hospitable regret, “By George!” he said. “I meant to 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 myself--unless somebody hands me one, you might say. I've always
been a pipe-smoker, pure and simple, but I ought to remembered 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 way from the tobacconist's; but, after a moment, looking 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 favouring 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 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 there came an interruption: the door-bell
rang, and he paused inquiringly, rather surprised.

Mrs. Adams spoke to Gertrude in an undertone:

“Just say, '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 Mrs. Adams persisted,
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 departed. When she came back she
said:

“He say he wait.”

“But I told you to tell anybody we were not at home,” Mrs Adams
returned. “Who is it?”

“Say he name Mr. Law.”

“We don't know any Mr. Law.”

“Yes'm; he know you. Say he anxious to speak Mr. Adams. Say he wait.”

“Tell him Mr. Adams is engaged.”

“Hold on a minute,” Adams intervened. “Law? No. I don't know any Mr.
Law. You sure you got the name right?”

“Say he name Law,” Gertrude replied, looking at the ceiling to express
her fatigue. “Law. 'S all he tell me; 's all I know.”

Adams frowned. “Law,” he said. “Wasn't it maybe 'Lohr?'”

“Law,” Gertrude repeated. “'S all he tell me; 's all I know.”

“What's he look like?”

“He ain't much,” she said. “'Bout you' age; got brustly white moustache,
nice eye-glasses.”

“It's Charley Lohr!” Adams exclaimed. “I'll go see what he wants.”

“But, Virgil,” his wife remonstrated, “do finish your coffee; he might
stay all evening. Maybe he's come to call.”

Adams laughed. “He isn't much of a caller, I expect. Don't worry: I'll
take him up to my room.” And turning toward Russell, “Ah--if you'll just
excuse me,” he said; and went out to his visitor.

When he had gone, Mrs. Adams finished her coffee, and, having glanced
intelligently from her guest to her daughter, she rose. “I think perhaps
I ought to go and shake hands with Mr. Lohr, myself,” she said, adding
in explanation to Russell, as she reached the door, “He's an old friend
of my husband's and it's a very long time since he's been here.”

Alice nodded and smiled to her brightly, but upon the closing of the
door, the smile vanished; all her liveliness disappeared; and with this
change of expression her complexion itself appeared to change, so that
her rouge became obvious, for she was pale beneath it. However, Russell
did not see the alteration, for he did not look at her; and it was but
a momentary lapse the vacation of a tired girl, who for ten seconds lets
herself look as she feels. Then she shot her vivacity back into place as
by some powerful spring.

“Penny for your thoughts!” she cried, and tossed one of the wilted
roses at him, across the table. “I'll bid more than a penny; I'll bid
tuppence--no, a poor little dead rose a rose for your thoughts, Mr.
Arthur Russell! What are they?”

He shook his head. “I'm afraid I haven't any.”

“No, of course not,” she said. “Who could have thoughts in weather like
this? Will you EVER forgive us?”

“What for?”

“Making you eat such a heavy dinner--I mean LOOK at such a heavy dinner,
because you certainly didn't do more than look at it--on such a night!
But the crime draws to a close, and you can begin to cheer up!” She
laughed gaily, and, rising, moved to the door. “Let's go in the other
room; your fearful duty is almost done, and you can run home as soon as
you want to. That's what you're dying to do.”

“Not at all,” he said in a voice so feeble that she laughed aloud.

“Good gracious!” she cried. “I hadn't realized it was THAT bad!”

For this, though he contrived to laugh, he seemed to have no verbal
retort whatever; but followed her into the “living-room,” where she
stopped and turned, facing him.

“Has it really been so frightful?” she asked.

“Why, of course not. Not at all.”

“Of course yes, though, you mean!”

“Not at all. It's been most kind of your mother and father and you.”

“Do you know,” she said, “you've never once looked at me for more than a
second at a time the whole evening? And it seemed to me I looked rather
nice to-night, too!”

“You always do,” he murmured.

“I don't see how you know,” she returned; and then stepping closer
to him, spoke with gentle solicitude: “Tell me: you're really feeling
wretchedly, aren't you? I know you've got a fearful headache, or
something. Tell me!”

“Not at all.”

“You are ill--I'm sure of it.”

“Not at all.”

“On your word?”

“I'm really quite all right.”

“But if you are----” she began; and then, looking at him with a
desperate sweetness, as if this were her last resource to rouse him,
“What's the matter, little boy?” she said with lisping tenderness. “Tell
auntie!”

It was a mistake, for he seemed to flinch, and to lean backward,
however, slightly. She turned away instantly, with a flippant lift and
drop of both hands. “Oh, my dear!” she laughed. “I won't eat you!”

And as the discomfited young man watched her, seeming able to lift
his eyes, now that her back was turned, she went to the front door and
pushed open the screen. “Let's go out on the porch,” she said. “Where we
belong!”

Then, when he had followed her out, and they were seated, “Isn't this
better?” she asked. “Don't you feel more like yourself out here?”

He began a murmur: “Not at----”

But she cut him off sharply: “Please don't say 'Not at all' again!”

“I'm sorry.”

“You do seem sorry about something,” she said. “What is it? Isn't it
time you were telling me what's the matter?”

“Nothing. Indeed nothing's the matter. Of course one IS rather affected
by such weather as this. It may make one a little quieter than usual, of
course.”

She sighed, and let the tired muscles of her face rest. Under the hard
lights, indoors, they had served her until they ached, and it was a
luxury to feel that in the darkness no grimacings need call upon them.

“Of course, if you won't tell me----” she said.

“I can only assure you there's nothing to tell.”

“I know what an ugly little house it is,” she said. “Maybe it was the
furniture--or mama's vases that upset you. Or was it mama herself--or
papa?”

“Nothing 'upset' me.”

At that she uttered a monosyllable of doubting laughter. “I wonder why
you say that.”

“Because it's so.”

“No. It's because you're too kind, or too conscientious, or too
embarrassed--anyhow too something--to tell me.” She leaned forward,
elbows on knees and chin in hands, in the reflective attitude she knew
how to make graceful. “I have a feeling that you're not going to tell
me,” she said, slowly. “Yes--even that you're never going to tell me. I
wonder--I wonder----”

“Yes? What do you wonder?”

“I was just thinking--I wonder if they haven't done it, after all.”

“I don't understand.”

“I wonder,” she went on, still slowly, and in a voice of reflection, “I
wonder who HAS been talking about me to you, after all? Isn't that it?”

“Not at----” he began, but checked himself and substituted another form
of denial. “Nothing is 'it.'”

“Are you sure?”

“Why, yes.”

“How curious!” she said.

“Why?”

“Because all evening you've been so utterly different.”

“But in this weather----”

“No. That wouldn't make you afraid to look at me all evening!”

“But I did look at you. Often.”

“No. Not really a LOOK.”

“But I'm looking at you now.”

“Yes--in the dark!” she said. “No--the weather might make you even
quieter than usual, but it wouldn't strike you so nearly dumb. No--and
it wouldn't make you seem to be under such a strain--as if you thought
only of escape!”

“But I haven't----”

“You shouldn't,” she interrupted, gently. “There's nothing you have to
escape from, you know. You aren't committed to--to this friendship.”

“I'm sorry you think----” he began, but did not complete the fragment.

She took it up. “You're sorry I think you're so different, you mean to
say, don't you? Never mind: that's what you did mean to say, but you
couldn't finish it because you're not good at deceiving.”

“Oh, no,” he protested, feebly. “I'm not deceiving. I'm----”

“Never mind,” she said again. “You're sorry I think you're so
different--and all in one day--since last night. Yes, your voice SOUNDS
sorry, too. It sounds sorrier than it would just because of my thinking
something you could change my mind about in a minute so it means you're
sorry you ARE different.”

“No--I----”

But disregarding the faint denial, “Never mind,” she said. “Do you
remember one night when you told me that nothing anybody else could do
would ever keep you from coming here? That if you--if you left me it
would be because I drove you away myself?”

“Yes,” he said, huskily. “It was true.”

“Are you sure?”

“Indeed I am,” he answered in a low voice, but with conviction.

“Then----” She paused. “Well--but I haven't driven you away.”

“No.”

“And yet you've gone,” she said, quietly.

“Do I seem so stupid as all that?”

“You know what I mean.” She leaned back in her chair again, and her
hands, inactive for once, lay motionless in her lap. When she spoke it
was in a rueful whisper:

“I wonder if I HAVE driven you away?”

“You've done nothing--nothing at all,” he said.

“I wonder----” she said once more, but she stopped. In her mind she was
going back over their time together since the first meeting--fragments
of talk, moments of silence, little things of no importance, little
things that might be important; moonshine, sunshine, starlight; and her
thoughts zigzagged among the jumbling memories; but, as if she made for
herself a picture of all these fragments, throwing them upon the canvas
haphazard, she saw them all just touched with the one tainting quality
that gave them coherence, the faint, false haze she had put over this
friendship by her own pretendings. And, if this terrible dinner, or
anything, or everything, had shown that saffron tint in its true colour
to the man at her side, last night almost a lover, then she had indeed
of herself driven him away, and might well feel that she was lost.

“Do you know?” she said, suddenly, in a clear, loud voice. “I have the
strangest feeling. I feel as if I were going to be with you only about
five minutes more in all the rest of my life!”

“Why, no,” he said. “Of course I'm coming to see you--often. I----”

“No,” she interrupted. “I've never had a feeling like this before.
It's--it's just SO; that's all! You're GOING--why, you're never coming
here again!” She stood up, abruptly, beginning to tremble all over.
“Why, it's FINISHED, isn't it?” she said, and her trembling was manifest
now in her voice. “Why, it's all OVER, isn't it? Why, yes!”

He had risen as she did. “I'm afraid you're awfully tired and nervous,”
he said. “I really ought to be going.”

“Yes, of COURSE you ought,” she cried, despairingly. “There's nothing
else for you to do. When anything's spoiled, people CAN'T do anything
but run away from it. So good-bye!”

“At least,” he returned, huskily, “we'll only--only say good-night.”

Then, as moving to go, he stumbled upon the veranda steps, “Your HAT!”
she cried. “I'd like to keep it for a souvenir, but I'm afraid you need
it!”

She ran into the hall and brought his straw hat from the chair where he
had left it. “You poor thing!” she said, with quavering laughter. “Don't
you know you can't go without your hat?”

Then, as they faced each other for the short moment which both of them
knew would be the last of all their veranda moments, Alice's broken
laughter grew louder. “What a thing to say!” she cried. “What a romantic
parting--talking about HATS!”

Her laughter continued as he turned away, but other sounds came from
within the house, clearly audible with the opening of a door upstairs--a
long and wailing cry of lamentation in the voice of Mrs. Adams. Russell
paused at the steps, uncertain, but Alice waved to him to go on.

“Oh, don't bother,” she said. “We have lots of that in this funny little
old house! Good-bye!”

And as he went down the steps, she ran back into the house and closed
the door heavily behind her.