The Real Adventure

family affair-as possible. The recentness of the death of Rodney's mother gave an adequate excuse for such an arrangement, but the comparative narr

from being human and simple mannered and altogether delightful to have about. She was so competent, too, and intelligent (Rose didn't see why Portia should find any

elephone, from his office. "Do you remember asking me, Freddy, two or three w

ht down," she said, "and we'll go somewhere for lunch. Don't you realize t

, in his somnambulistic condition, was able to give her, and she passed it

y like Rodney," he commented.

t. I hope I can make her like me. Roddy's the only brother I've got in the world, and I'm

his, though she admitted it had taken

me to see if she'd do. And then all at once I thought, what good would it do me to decide that she wouldn't? I couldn't change his relation to

ke me before I come away and think of me as a nice sort of person to be related by marriage to, it won't

first acquaintance, had been a sort of slatternly Amazon. But the effect of this was, really, very happy; because when a perfectly presentably clad, well-bred, admirably poised young girl came into the room and greeted her neither shyly nor eagerly, nor with any affecta

ity as a wife for Rodney, but Rodney's as a husband for her. It was this, perhaps, that led her to say, at

e, that I suspect you'll find him, sometimes, being a

with which Rose had answered that remark. She had her chauffeur stop at the first drug store they came to and

her smile. She looked at me like that just as I was leaving, and my throat's tight with it yet. She's such a darl

. She was sorry, she said, but it was the only way she had left, nowadays, of getting hold of him. Then she introduced a trivial, tran

g to be an endless process, apparently. H

ked puzzled and rather unhappy, she elucidated further. "What's your concession, dear old stupid

em," he objected. "She doesn't care

f the musical things, engage a table for dinner and for supper, at two of the restaurants, and send her flowers. Do it handsomely, you know, as if or

ast he smiled, reached over and patted her hand. "All ri

iageman at the entrance to the smartest of Chicago's supper restaurants, stepped into Ma

could shine like that. All the evening you've kept my heart in my thr

. Not one smallest thing about it. You see, it's t

ously at that-wanted

ourse, and two or three times to the restaurants. But never-oh, as if I belonged like that. It always seemed a little wrong, and extravagant. And then, it's never lasted. After the theater, or the dinner, I've walked over to the elevated, you

and buy a car for ourselves. It's ridiculous I didn't get one long ago. Frederica's always been at me to. You see, mother wouldn't

hat he was a liar. A motor-car, it pointed out, was one of the things he had always denounced as a part of the

he said. "You give me so much. And I-I have so little to give back. And I want to-I want to give you all

e she had ever begun