Middletown transcript., 1917-05-26

the road, so he could speak with au-
thOrity. It was wonderful Odyssey
when you could get him to tell it,
and as Rose made a good audience,
she got the whole thing at her dinner
table.
The thing got sociological twist
eventually, of course, when Jane want
ed to know If it were true that the
chorus girls received inadequate pay.
Jimmy demolished this with more
wrath than he often showed. He didn't
know any other sort Of job that paid
totally unframed girl as well. 1t
took really accomplished stenogra-
pher, for instance, to earn as much
week as was paid the average chorus
girl. The trouble was that the indis-
pensable assets in the business were
not character and intelligence and am
bition, but just personal charms.
"But a girl who's serious about it,
who doesn't have to be told the same
thing more than once, and catches on,
sometimes, without being told at all,
why, she can always have a job and
she can be as Independent as any:
body. She can get twenty-five dollars
week or even as high as thirty"
The latter part of this conversation
was what she was to remember after
ward, but the thing that impressed
Rose at the time, and that held her
for hours looking on at the League
show rehearsals, was what Jimmy had
told her about the technical side of
the work of production, the labors Of
the director, and so on.
AS the weeks and months wore away,
and as the season Of violent alter
nations between summer and winter,
which the Chicagoan calls spring,
gave place to summer itself, Rose
was driven to intrench herself more
and more deeply behind this great
expectation. 1t was like a dam hold
ing back waters that otherwise would
have rushed down upon her and swept
her away.
And then came Harriet, Rodney's
other sister, and the pressure behind
the dam rose higher.
Rose had tried, rather unsuccess-
fully, to realize that there was actu-
ally in existence another woman who
occupied, by blood anyway, the same
position toward Rodney and herself
that Frederick did. She felt almost
like a real sister toward Frederick.
But without quite putting the notion
into words, she had always felt it
was just as well that Harriet was an
| Italian conteSSa, four thousand miles
away. Rodney and Frederick spoke
Of her affectionately, to be sure, but
their references made a picture Of a
rather formidably correct, seriously
aristocratic sort of person.
She'd discovered, along in the win
ter sometime, that Harriet's affairs
were going rather badly. 1t was along
in May that the cable came to Frede-
rica announcing that Harriet was COM
ing back for a long visit. "That's all
she said," Rodney explained to Rose.
"But l suppose it means the finish
She said she didn't want any fuss
made, but she hinted she'd like to have
Freddy meet her in New York, and
Freddy's going. Poor old Harriet! We
must try to cheer her up"
She didn't seem much in need of
cheering up, Rose thought, when they
first met. All that showed on the con-
tessa's highly polished surface was a
disposition to talk humorously over
old times with her old friends, in
Guiding her brother and sister, and a
sort of dismayed acquiescence in the
smoky seriousness, the inadequate
civilization, of the city Of her birth.
Toward Rose herself, the contessa
was, one might say, studiously affec-
tionate. She avoided being either dis
agreeable or patronizing. Rose could
see, indeed, how she avoided it.
About this time the question where
Rose and Rodney were going to live
after their lease on the McCrea house
ended, had begun to press for an an
swer. October first was when the
lease expired, and 1t wasn't far from
the date at which they expected the
baby. They spent some lovely after
Moons during the days Of the emerg.
ing spring, cruising about looking at
possible places.
This was the situation when Har-
riet took a hand in it. 1t was a situa.
ton made to order for Harriet to
take hand in. Shed sized it up at
a glance, made up her mind in three
minutes what was the sensible thing
for them to do, written a note TO
Florence McCrea in Paris, and then
bided her opportunity to put her idea
into effect. To her Rose was simply q
well-meaning, somewhat inadequately
civilized young person, the beneficiary,
through her marriage with Rodney, of
piece Of unmerited good fortune.
When she got Florence McCrea's s
answer to her letter, she took the
first occasion to get Rodney off by
himself and talk a little common
sense into him.
"What about where to live, Rod
ney?" she asked. made up your
mind about it yet? 1t is time someone
with little common sense straight
ened you out about this"
Harriet couldn't be sure from the
length of time he took seeing that