"I'll go see." And she returned from the
brief errand, her impression confirmed by information from Mrs. Adams.
"Yes. She went up to Miss Mildred Palmer's to see what she's going to
wear to-night."

Adams looked at Miss Perry wearily, but remained passive, making no
inquiries; for he was long accustomed to what seemed to him a kind of
jargon among ladies, which became the more incomprehensible when they
tried to explain it. A man's best course, he had found, was just to let
it go as so much sound. His sorrowful eyes followed the nurse as she
went back to her rocking-chair by the window, and her placidity showed
him that there was no mystery for her in the fact that Alice walked
two miles to ask so simple a question when there was a telephone in
the house. Obviously Miss Perry also comprehended why Alice thought it
important to know what Mildred meant to wear. Adams understood why Alice
should be concerned with what she herself wore "to look neat and tidy
and at her best, why, of course she'd want to," he thought--but he
realized that it was forever beyond him to understand why the clothing
of other people had long since become an absorbing part of her life.

Her excursion this morning was no novelty; she was continually going to
see what Mildred meant to wear, or what some other girl meant to wear;
and when Alice came home from wherever other girls or women had been
gathered, she always hurried to her mother with earnest descriptions of
the clothing she had seen. At such times, if Adams was present, he might
recognize "organdie," or "taffeta," or "chiffon," as words defining
certain textiles, but the rest was too technical for him, and he
was like a dismal boy at a sermon, just waiting for it to get itself
finished. Not the least of the mystery was his wife's interest: she was
almost indifferent about her own clothes, and when she consulted Alice
about them spoke hurriedly and with an air of apology; but when Alice
described other people's clothes, Mrs. Adams listened as eagerly as the
daughter talked.

"There they go!" he muttered to-day, a moment after he heard the front
door closing, a sound recognizable throughout most of the thinly built
house. Alice had just returned, and Mrs. Adams called to her from the
upper hallway, not far from Adams's door.

"What did she SAY?"

"She was sort of snippy about it," Alice returned, ascending the stairs.
"She gets that way sometimes, and pretended she hadn't made up her mi