Alice Adams Part 49

"What is it?" she asked.

"Why, I forgot what we were just talking about! Your father wants to settle for Walter's deficit. Tell him we'll be glad to accept it; but of course we don't expect him to clean the matter up until he's able to talk business again."

Alice stared at him blankly enough for him to perceive that further explanations were necessary. "It's like this," he said. "You see, if your father decided to keep his works going over yonder, I don't say but he might give us some little compet.i.tion for a time, 'specially as he's got the start on us and about ready for the market. Then I was figuring we could use his plant--it's small, but it'd be to our benefit to have the use of it--and he's got a lease on that big lot; it may come in handy for us if we want to expand some. Well, I'd prefer to make a deal with him as quietly as possible---no good in every Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry hearing about things like this--but I figured he could sell out to me for a little something more'n enough to cover the mortgage he put on this house, and Walter's deficit, too--THAT don't amount to much in dollars and cents. The way I figure it, I could offer him about ninety-three hundred dollars as a total--or say ninety-three hundred and fifty--and if he feels like accepting, why, I'll send a confidential man up here with the papers soon's your father's able to look 'em over. You tell him, will you, and ask him if he sees his way to accepting that figure?"

"Yes," Alice said; and now her own lips twitched, while her eyes filled so that she saw but a blurred image of the old man, who held out his hand in parting. "I'll tell him. Thank you."

He shook her hand hastily. "Well, let's just keep it kind of quiet,"

he said, at the door. "No good in every Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry knowing all what goes on in town! You telephone me when your papa's ready to go over the papers--and call me up at my house to-night, will you? Let me hear how he's feeling?"

"I will," she said, and through her grateful tears gave him a smile almost radiant. "He'll be better, Mr. Lamb. We all will."

CHAPTER XXV

One morning, that autumn, Mrs. Adams came into Alice's room, and found her completing a sober toilet for the street; moreover, the expression revealed in her mirror was harmonious with the business-like severity of her attire. "What makes you look so cross, dearie?" the mother asked.

"Couldn't you find anything nicer to wear than that plain old dark dress?"

"I don't believe I'm cross," the girl said, absently. "I believe I'm just thinking. Isn't it about time?"

"Time for what?"

"Time for thinking--for me, I mean?"

Disregarding this, Mrs. Adams looked her over thoughtfully. "I can't see why you don't wear more colour," she said. "At your age it's becoming and proper, too. Anyhow, when you're going on the street, I think you ought to look just as gay and lively as you can manage. You want to show 'em you've got some s.p.u.n.k!"

"How do you mean, mama?"

"I mean about Walter's running away and the mess your father made of his business. It would help to show 'em you're holding up your head just the same."

"Show whom!"

"All these other girls that----"

"Not I!" Alice laughed shortly, shaking her head. "I've quit dressing at them, and if they saw me they wouldn't think what you want 'em to. It's funny; but we don't often make people think what we want 'em to, mama.

You do thus and so; and you tell yourself, 'Now, seeing me do thus and so, people will naturally think this and that'; but they don't. They think something else--usually just what you DON'T want 'em to. I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody."

"Well, but it wouldn't be pretending. You ought to let people see you're still holding your head up because you ARE. You wouldn't want that Mildred Palmer to think you're cast down about--well, you know you wouldn't want HER not to think you're holding your head up, would you?"

"She wouldn't know whether I am or not, mama." Alice bit her lip, then smiled faintly as she said:

"Anyhow, I'm not thinking about my head in that way--not this morning, I'm not."

Mrs. Adams dropped the subject casually. "Are you going down-town?" she inquired.

"Yes."

"What for?"

"Just something I want to see about. I'll tell you when I come back.

Anything you want me to do?"

"No; I guess not to-day. I thought you might look for a rug, but I'd rather go with you to select it. We'll have to get a new rug for your father's room, I expect."

"I'm glad you think so, mama. I don't suppose he's ever even noticed it, but that old rug of his--well, really!"

"I didn't mean for him," her mother explained, thoughtfully. "No; he don't mind it, and he'd likely make a fuss if we changed it on his account. No; what I meant--we'll have to put your father in Walter's room. He won't mind, I don't expect--not much."

"No, I suppose not," Alice agreed, rather sadly. "I heard the bell awhile ago. Was it somebody about that?"

"Yes; just before I came upstairs. Mrs. Lohr gave him a note to me, and he was really a very pleasant-looking young man. A VERY pleasant-looking young man," Mrs. Adams repeated with increased animation and a thoughtful glance at her daughter. "He's a Mr. Will d.i.c.kson; he has a first-rate position with the gas works, Mrs. Lohr says, and he's fully able to afford a nice room. So if you and I double up in here, then with that young married couple in my room, and this Mr. d.i.c.kson in your father's, we'll just about have things settled. I thought maybe I could make one more place at table, too, so that with the other people from outside we'd be serving eleven altogether. You see if I have to pay this cook twelve dollars a week--it can't be helped, I guess--well, one more would certainly help toward a profit. Of course it's a terribly worrying thing to see how we WILL come out. Don't you suppose we could squeeze in one more?"

"I suppose it COULD be managed; yes."

Mrs. Adams brightened. "I'm sure it'll be pleasant having that young married couple in the house and especially this Mr. Will d.i.c.kson. He seemed very much of a gentleman, and anxious to get settled in good surroundings. I was very favourably impressed with him in every way; and he explained to me about his name; it seems it isn't William, it's just 'Will'; his parents had him christened that way. It's curious." She paused, and then, with an effort to seem casual, which veiled nothing from her daughter: "It's QUITE curious," she said again. "But it's rather attractive and different, don't you think?"

"Poor mama!" Alice laughed compa.s.sionately. "Poor mama!"

"He is, though," Mrs. Adams maintained. "He's very much of a gentleman, unless I'm no judge of appearances; and it'll really be nice to have him in the house."

"No doubt," Alice said, as she opened her door to depart. "I don't suppose we'll mind having any of 'em as much as we thought we would.

Good-bye."

But her mother detained her, catching her by the arm. "Alice, you do hate it, don't you!"

"No," the girl said, quickly. "There wasn't anything else to do."

Mrs. Adams became emotional at once: her face cried tragedy, and her voice misfortune. "There MIGHT have been something else to do! Oh, Alice, you gave your father bad advice when you upheld him in taking a miserable little ninety-three hundred and fifty from that old wretch! If your father'd just had the gumption to hold out, they'd have had to pay him anything he asked. If he'd just had the gumption and a little manly COURAGE----"

"Hush!" Alice whispered, for her mother's voice grew louder. "Hush!

He'll hear you, mama."

"Could he hear me too often?" the embittered lady asked. "If he'd listened to me at the right time, would we have to be taking in boarders and sinking DOWN in the scale at the end of our lives, instead of going UP? You were both wrong; we didn't need to be so panicky--that was just what that old man wanted: to scare us and buy us out for nothing! If your father'd just listened to me then, or if for once in his life he'd just been half a MAN----"

Alice put her hand over her mother's mouth. "You mustn't! He WILL hear you!"

But from the other side of Adams's closed door his voice came querulously. "Oh, I HEAR her, all right!"

"You see, mama?" Alice said, and, as Mrs. Adams turned away, weeping, the daughter sighed; then went in to speak to her father.

He was in his old chair by the table, with a pillow behind his head, but the crocheted scarf and Mrs. Adams's wrapper swathed him no more; he wore a dressing-gown his wife had bought for him, and was smoking his pipe. "The old story, is it?" he said, as Alice came in. "The same, same old story! Well, well! Has she gone?"

"Yes, papa."

"Got your hat on," he said. "Where you going?"

"I'm going down-town on an errand of my own. Is there anything you want, papa?"