Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALICE AWAKENS. leader of feminine movements, failed to strike a sympathetic chord. “TY don’t know yet just what course I'll adopt,” she said to herself at last, ‘“ but before I try to conquer the world I’m going to conquer East Morton. Then, if I like, I can look for new fields of endeavor. In the mean time I’m going away from here— and I won’t be back until the Ugly Duck- ling can make them all sit up and take notice!” ‘Then she slipped up-stairs to her own pretty room, and carefully locked the door. She threw open a closet and peeped smiling- ly into its depths. She took the chintz cover from a trunk in the corner, and raised its lid. From the shelf of another closet she lifted down a number of bandboxes, pulled off the lids, and left them scattered about the floor. on her face as she did so, an illumination which gave it an intriguing quality .that would have startled East Morton. Her brain was sharpening and her plan was be- ginning to formulate as she slipped down- stairs again to inform Jane, her housekeeper, that she was going away. Il. ALICE had taken a taxi over to Carols- ville, and there boarded the train for New York. So no one was aware of her de- parture until Hallie received a letter from her two mornings later. It was written on the stationery of the Hotel Martha Wash- ington, and its contents made Hallie’s baby blue eyes open wide. A minute later she was at the telephone talking eagerly to Pauline. ‘ Can you im- apine whatever has come over her?”’ she was asking. ‘‘ Just let me read you the letter!” And she read: “ DEAR HALLIE: “T’ve been called away, and may be gone quite a little time. It was quite unexpected, and I simply did not have time to arrange matters as I should have liked at home. “ Jane is a good old soul and will look after things in my absence, but you know how stupid she is. There were some details I just could not entrust her with, and I wonder if you would mind attending to them for me? “ You'll find my room in frightful disorder. There was a mischievous smile - 45 I had to pack a few things and run. So, if you wouldn’t mind going to the house and straightening up a little bit I'll be eternally grateful. * Affectionately, “ ALICE. “Pp, S—TI'll only be here overnight, so a letter wouldn’t reach me. I'll send you my address later on. oA” ‘“‘ She certainly has a nerve to ask us to clear up after her!’’ snapped Pauline over ‘the phone. “ But I’m dying of curiosity to know where she’s gone and why,” was Hallie’s answer. “ Let’s go down together—and take Marie along. Perhaps we can persuade old Jane to tell us all about it.” ‘Fair enough!” consented Pauline, and then the conversation drifted off into a seemingly endless discussion of frocks, fash- ions and flirtations, interspersed with gossip. Shortly after luncheon a touring-car drove up before the Blake home, and three fluffy visions of loveliness alighted and made their way through the little garden. ‘Old Jane answered their summons and said that Alice had explained to her about the letter. No, indeed, she didn’t know exactly why Miss Alice had gone, or just when she was com- ing back. Disappointed, the three plied her eagerly with questions, but whether or not Jane really knew, that was her story —and she stuck to it. So the three went up-stairs to explore the hastily deserted bedchamber, and there they discovered a revelation that rendered them speechless. “Will you look?” exclaimed Pauline, staring into a half-open drawer, from which showered, as in a filmy waterfall, the laciest of lingerie and the sheerest of silken, em- broidered hosiery. Hallie stood spellbound before the closet, gaping at a costly array of dainty after- noon frocks and stunning evening gowns that made her own wardrobe look poverty- stricken. Marie, too, had a surprise. Each hat-box revealed a still more fetching crea- tion from some well-known Fifth Avenue milliner—chapeaux, whose labels suggested extravagance forbidden to any of the three. ‘“‘ And I said she didn’t care for clothes!” Marie sank down upon the bed, thunder- struck. ‘ Do you realize that these things COMmiclboo SS C©