hardly
put off asking him to dinner, or something, much longer."

Alice was not enthusiastic; so far from it, indeed, that there was a
melancholy alarm in her voice. "Oh, mama, must we? Do you think so?"

"Yes, I do. I really do."

"Couldn't we--well, couldn't we wait?"

"It looks queer," Mrs. Adams said. "It isn't the thing at all for a
young man to come as much as he does, and never more than just barely
meet your father and mother. No. We ought to do something."

"But a dinner!" Alice objected. "In the first place, there isn't anybody
I want to ask. There isn't anybody I WOULD ask."

"I didn't mean trying to give a big dinner," her mother explained. "I
just mean having him to dinner. That mulatto woman, Malena Burns, goes
out by the day, and she could bring a waitress. We can get some flowers
for the table and some to put in the living-room. We might just as well
go ahead and do it to-morrow as any other time; because your father's in
a fine mood, and I saw Malena this afternoon and told her I might want
her soon. She said she didn't have any engagements this week, and I can
let her know to-night. Suppose when he comes you ask him for to-morrow,
Alice. Everything'll be very nice, I'm sure. Don't worry about it."

"Well--but----" Alice was uncertain.

"But don't you see, it looks so queer, not to do SOMETHING?" her mother
urged. "It looks so kind of poverty-stricken. We really oughtn't to wait
any longer."

Alice assented, though not with a good heart. "Very well, I'll ask him,
if you think we've got to."

"That matter's settled then," Mrs. Adams said. "I'll go telephone
Malena, and then I'll tell your father about it."

But when she went back to her husband, she found him in an excited
state of mind, and Walter standing before him in the darkness. Adams was
almost shouting, so great was his vehemence.

"Hush, hush!" his wife implored, as she came near them. "They'll hear
you out on the front porch!"

"I don't care who hears me," Adams said, harshly, though he tempered his
loudness. "Do you want to know what this boy's asking me for? I thought
he'd maybe come to tell me he'd got a little sense in his head at last,
and a little decency about what's due his family! I thought he was
going to ask me to take him into my plant. No, ma'am; THAT'S not what he
wants!"

"No, it isn't," Walter said. In the darkness his face could not be seen;
he stood motionless, in what seemed an apathetic attitude; and he spok