“What is going on out there?” her mother
asked, approaching from the dining-room.
“Oh, nothing,” Alice said, indifferently,
as she turned away. “That Mr. Russell met
me downtown and walked up with me.”
“Mr. Russell? Oh, the one that’s
engaged to Mildred?”
“Well—I don’t know for certain.
He didn’t seem so much like an engaged man
to me.” And she added, in the tone of thoughtful
preoccupation: “Anyhow—not so
terribly!”
Then she ran upstairs, gave her father his tobacco,
filled his pipe for him, and petted him as he lighted
it.
After that, she went to her room and sat down before
her three-leaved mirror. There was where she
nearly always sat when she came into her room, if
she had nothing in mind to do. She went to that
chair as naturally as a dog goes to his corner.
She leaned forward, observing her profile; gravity
seemed to be her mood. But after a long, almost
motionless scrutiny, she began to produce dramatic
sketches upon that ever-ready stage, her countenance:
she showed gaiety, satire, doubt, gentleness, appreciation
of a companion and love-in-hiding—all studied
in profile first, then repeated for a “three-quarter
view.” Subsequently she ran through them,
facing herself in full.
In this manner she outlined a playful scenario for
her next interview with Arthur Russell; but grew solemn
again, thinking of the impression she had already
sought to give him. She had no twinges for any
underminings of her “most intimate friend”—in
fact, she felt that her work on a new portrait of Mildred
for Mr. Russell had been honest and accurate.
But why had it been her instinct to show him an Alice
Adams who didn’t exist?
Almost everything she had said to him was upon spontaneous
impulse, springing to her lips on the instant; yet
it all seemed to have been founded upon a careful
design, as if some hidden self kept such designs in
stock and handed them up to her, ready-made, to be
used for its own purpose. What appeared to be
the desired result was a false-coloured image in Russell’s
mind; but if he liked that image he wouldn’t
be liking Alice Adams; nor would anything he thought
about the image be a thought about her.
Nevertheless, she knew she would go on with her false,
fancy colourings of this nothing as soon as she saw
him again; she had just been practicing them.
“What’s the idea?” she wondered.
“What makes me tell such lies? Why shouldn’t
I be just myself?” And then she thought, “But
which one is myself?”
Her eyes dwelt on the solemn eyes in the mirror; and
her lips, disquieted by a deepening wonder, parted
to whisper:
“Who in the world are you?”
