Page:Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams.djvu/205

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ALICE ADAMS
195

Alice resumed her placid tone. "You're staying at the Palmers', aren't you?"

"No, not now. I've taken an apartment. I'm going to live here; I'm permanent. Didn't I tell you?"

"I think I'd heard somewhere that you were," she said. "Do you think you'll like living here?"

"How can one tell?"

"If I were in your place I think I should be able to tell, Mr. Russell."

"How?"

"Why, good gracious!" she cried. "Haven't you got the most perfect creature in town for your—your cousin? She expects to make you like living here, doesn't she? How could you keep from liking it, even if you tried not to, under the circumstances?"

"Well, you see, there's such a lot of circumstances," he explained; "I'm not sure I'll like getting back into a business again. I suppose most of the men of my age in the country have been going through the same experience: the War left us with a considerable restlessness of spirit."

"You were in the War?" she asked, quickly, and as quickly answered herself, "Of course you were!"

"I was a left-over; they only let me out about four