Adelina was out a good deal; nearly every evening, in fact, when it didn't rain and sometimes when it did. Her friends often brought her back in motors which champed and snorted under our bed-room windows with what seemed to me unnecessary violence considering the hour, which would be around 11.30 p.m. Not that I minded for myself at all, but only on the neighbors' account. They probably knew better what was going on than I did, and I hate to be an object of neighborhood interest. You could hear the clatter of voices through the stutters of the machine, and an occasional laugh—then Adelina would run up the front steps in great spirits. She always preferred the front steps on these occasions, and, of course, I said nothing. What was there to say? Aren't we living in the twentieth century, and fighting for democracy?
What really jarred on me was the exaggerated effect of silence with which Adelina made her way up to her own room after she remembered that it was 11.45, just as if the thunderous explosions from without had contributed nothing to our knowledge of her whereabouts. It is the indirect imputation of imbecility that most deeply wounds our feelings in this world.
