"That isn't the way your mother looks at it," Adams said,
ruefully. "She thinks it's our place to do something about it.
Well, I don't know--I don't know; everything seems so changed
these days. You've always been a good daughter, Alice, and you
ought to have as much as any of these girls you go with; she's
convinced me she's right about THAT. The trouble is----" He
faltered, apologetically, then went on, "I mean the question
is--how to get it for you."

"No!" she cried. "I had no business to make such a fuss just
because a lot of idiots didn't break their necks to get dances
with me and because I got mortified about Walter--Walter WAS
pretty terrible----"

"Oh, me, my!" Adams lamented. "I guess that's something we just
have to leave work out itself. What you going to do with a boy
nineteen or twenty years old that makes his own living? Can't
whip him. Can't keep him locked up in the house. Just got to
hope he'll learn better, I suppose."

"Of course he didn't want to go to the Palmers'," Alice
explained, tolerantly--"and as mama and I made him take me, and
he thought that was pretty selfish in me, why, he felt he had a
right to amuse himself any way he could. Of course it was awful
that this--that this Mr. Russell should----" In spite of her,
the recollection choked her.

"Yes, it was awful," Adams agreed. "Just awful. Oh, me, my!"