The Real Adventure

and scowling at herself in an oblong mahogany-framed mirror in the hall, she walked into the dining-

d out to me that she'd only be a minute, when I passed her door.

d sat down. "Oh, don't ring for Inga," she said.

on Saturday ..."

sofas she wants for a wedding present. That girl I've got isn't much good, and besides, I think there's a chance that Dora may g

f them to the Amazonian young thing who had so nearly thrown a street-car conductor into the street the night before. Their for

cult to describe without exaggeration. It was not bizarre nor "artistic," but you would have understood at once that its departures from the prevailing mode were made on principle. If you took it in con

he marks of passionately held beliefs and eagerly given sacr

re bruskly cut and bruskly worn, their very smartness seeming an impatient concession to necessity. Her smile, if not ill-natured-it wasn't that-was distinctly ironic. A very competent, good-looking yo

rtia observed, when she had done her duty by the e

"She didn't want me to; but I t

he matter with her, i

question from sounding satirical, but her mother's ma

ted serious consequences. But she was in such a state when she came home last night-liter

fe was such a strenuous thing for you when the rest of us were little, that you had

child's note-books," said her mother. "I rather hop

worrying her head off a

eeks deepened a little, but

but really, considering the number of her occupations, it seems to me she does very well. And if she doesn't seem alway

ly. "You graduated at that age, a

te well. Higher education was still an experiment for women then-one of the things they wer

't mean any harm, anyway. Of course Rose is all right, just as I said. And she'll probably

mother agreed. "So

hardly likely to have been the real Rodn

But, without waiting for her daughter's elucidat

w-it really takes one of Rose's own words to describe it. As a toilet representing the total accomplishment of a morning, it was nothing to boast of. But, if you'd been sitting there, invisibly, where y

e had not seen before that day, an

eratingly. "Aren't you ever going to stop and have any fun?" Then

She said it under her breath in t

their surprise, said: "Yes, what do you mean-the real Rodney Aldrich? He looked real

eve it was the Rodney Aldrich-who's so awfully prominent; either somebody else

inent one?" Rose wanted to know.

ney whose pictures the papers were always publishing on the slightest excuse-wasn't likely to be found riding in street-cars, in the first place, and the improbability reached a climax during a furious storm like

words; all the same, what Portia did say, f

hey can walk around like anybody else. However, I

er that that her mother came down-stairs clad for the street,

d the stiff branches of the trees. Her mother's valedictory, given with more confidence now that Port

r own inclination as an example o

" she said. "Home and fi

od fun to lean up against it and force your way through, wh

principal sporting event of her domestic routine-the weekly baking; the fact that she needn't speak to a soul for three hours, a detectiv

y unfair, he was so manifestly engaged trying to make trouble for his poor anemic characters instead of trying to solve their perplexities, th

hen the front door-bell rang, she left that to Inga, too-didn't even sit up and swing her legs off the

ht in the si

beautiful wrath, "Don't dare to touch me like that!"-a splendid, lazy, tousled creature, in a chaotic glory of chestnut hair, an unlaced middy-blouse, a plaid skirt twisted round her knees, and

is second one was practically a snap-shot, be

ld have said for what, the goddess out of the machine being Inga, the maid-of-all-work. But suddenly, at a twinkle she caught in his eye, her own big eyes narrowed and

im she flashe