APRIL HOPES 1887 by William Dean Howells I. From his place on the floor of the Hemenway Gymnasium Mr. Elbridge G. Mavering looked on at the Class Day gaiety with the advantage which hisstature, gave him over most people there. Hundreds of these were prettygirls, in a great variety of charming costumes, such as the eclecticismof modern fashion permits, and all sorts of ingenious compromisesbetween walking dress and ball dress. It struck him that the young menon whose arms they hung, in promenading around the long oval within thecrowd of stationary spectators, were very much younger than studentsused to be, whether they wore the dress-coats of the Seniors or thecut-away of the Juniors and Sophomores; and the young girls themselvesdid not look so old as he remembered them in his day. There was a bandplaying somewhere, and the galleries were well filled with spectatorsseated at their ease, and intent on the party-coloured turmoil of thefloor, where from time to time the younger promenaders broke away fromthe ranks into a waltz, and after some turns drifted back, smiling andcontrolling their quick breath, and resumed their promenade. Theplace was intensely light, in the candour of a summer day which had noreserves; and the brilliancy was not broken by the simple decorations. Ropes of wild laurel twisted up the pine posts of the aisles, and swungin festoons overhead; masses of tropical plants in pots were set alongbetween the posts on one side of the room; and on the other were thelunch tables, where a great many people were standing about, eatingchicken and salmon salads, or strawberries and ice-cream, and drinkingclaret-cup. From the whole rose that blended odour of viands, offlowers, of stuff's, of toilet perfumes, which is the characteristicexpression of, all social festivities, and which exhilarates ordepresses--according as one is new or old to it. Elbridge Mavering kept looking at the faces of the young men as if heexpected to see a certain one; then he turned his eyes patiently upon. The faces around him. He had been introduced to a good many persons, buthe had come to that time of life when an introduction; unless chargedwith some special interest, only adds the pain of doubt to the wearisomeencounter of unfamiliar people; and he had unconsciously put on theseverity of a man who finds himself without acquaintance whereothers are meeting friends, when a small man, with a neatly trimmedreddish-grey beard and prominent eyes, stepped in front of him, andsaluted him with the "Hello, Mavering!" of a contemporary. His face, after a moment of question, relaxed into joyful recognition. "Why, John Munt! is that you?" he said, and he took into his large moistpalm the dry little hand of his friend, while they both broke out intothe incoherencies of people meeting after a long time. Mr. Maveringspoke in it voice soft yet firm, and with a certain thickness of tongue;which gave a boyish charm to his slow, utterance, and Mr. Munt used thesort of bronchial snuffle sometimes cultivated among us as a chest tone. But they were cut short in their intersecting questions and exclamationsby the presence of the lady who detached herself from Mr. Munt's arm asif to leave him the freer for his hand-shaking. "Oh!" he said, suddenly recurring to her; "let me introduce you toMrs. Pasmer, Mr. Mavering, " and the latter made a bow that creased hiswaistcoat at about the height of Mrs. Pasmer's pretty little nose. His waistcoat had the curve which waistcoats often describe at his age;and his heavy shoulders were thrown well back to balance this curve. His coat hung carelessly open; the Panama hat in his hand suggested acertain habitual informality of dress, but his smoothly shaven largehandsome face, with its jaws slowly ruminant upon nothing, intimated theconsequence of a man accustomed to supremacy in a subordinate place. Mrs. Pasmer looked up to acknowledge the introduction with a sort ofpseudo-respectfulness which it would be hard otherwise to describe. Whether she divined or not that she was in the presence of a magnate ofsome sort, she was rather superfluously demure in the first two or threethings she said, and was all sympathy and interest in the meeting ofthese old friends. They declared that they had not seen each other fortwenty years, or, at any rate, not since '59. She listened while theydisputed about the exact date, and looked from time to time at Mr. Munt, as if for some explanation of Mr. Mavering; but Munt himself, when shesaw him last, had only just begun to commend himself to society, whichhad since so fully accepted him, and she had so suddenly, the momentbefore, found her self hand in glove with him that she might well haveappealed to a third person for some explanation of Munt. But she was nota woman to be troubled much by this momentary mystification, and shewas not embarrassed at all when Munt said, as if it had all beenpre-arranged, "Well, now, Mrs. Pasmer, if you'll let me leave you withMr. Mavering a moment, I'll go off and bring that unnatural child toyou; no use dragging you round through this crowd longer. " He made a gesture intended, in the American manner, to be at once politeand jocose, and was gone, leaving Mrs. Pasmer a little surprised, andMr. Mavering in some misgiving, which he tried to overcome pressing hisjaws together two or three times without speaking. She had no troublein getting in the first remark. "Isn't all this charming, Mr. Mavering?"She spoke in a deep low voice, with a caressing manner, and stoodlooking up, at Mr. Mavering with one shoulder shrugged and theother drooped, and a tasteful composition of her fan and hands andhandkerchief at her waist. "Yes, ma'am, it is, " said Mr. Mavering. He seemed to say ma'am toher with a public or official accent, which sent Mrs. Primer's mindfluttering forth to poise briefly at such conjectures as, "Congressmanfrom a country district? judge of the Common Pleas? bank president?railroad superintendent? leading physician in a large town?--no, Mr. Munt said Mister, " and then to return to her pretty blue eyes, and tocentre there in that pseudo-respectful attention under the arch of herneat brows and her soberly crinkled grey-threaded brown hair and hervery appropriate bonnet. A bonnet, she said, was much more than half thebattle after forty, and it was now quite after forty with Mrs. Pasmer;but she was very well dressed otherwise. Mr. Mavering went on to say, with a deliberation that seemed an element of his unknown dignity, whatever it might be, "A number of the young fellows together can give amuch finer spread, and make more of the day, in a place like this, thanwe used to do in our rooms. " "Ah, then you're a Harvard man too!" said Mrs. Primer to herself, withsurprise, which she kept to herself, and she said to Mavering: "Oh yes, indeed! It's altogether better. Aren't they nice looking fellows?" shesaid, putting up her glass to look at the promenaders. "Yes, " Mr. Mavering assented. "I suppose, " he added, out of theconsciousness of his own relation to the affair--"I suppose you've a sonsomewhere here?" "Oh dear, no!" cried Mrs. Primer, with a mingling, superhuman, butfor her of ironical deprecation and derision. "Only a daughter, Mr. Mavering. " At this feat of Mrs. Pasmer's, Mr. Mavering looked at her with questionas to her precise intention, and ended by repeating, hopelessly, "Only adaughter?" "Yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with a sigh of the same irony, "only a poor, despised young girl, Mr. Mavering. " "You speak, " said Mr. Mavering, beginning to catch on a little, "as ifit were a misfortune, " and his, dignity broke up into a smile that hadits queer fascination. "Why, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Pasmer. "Well, I shouldn't have thought so. " "Then you don't believe that all that old-fashioned chivalry anddevotion have gone out? You don't think the young men are all spoilednowadays, and expect the young ladies to offer them attentions?" "No, " said Mr. Mavering slowly, as if recovering from the shock of thenovel ideas. "Do you?" "Oh, I'm such a stranger in Boston--I've lived abroad so long--that Idon't know. One hears all kinds of things. But I'm so glad you're notone of those--pessimists!" "Well, " said Mr. Mavering, still thoughtfully, "I don't know that I canspeak by the card exactly. I can't say how it is now. I haven't beenat a Class Day spread since my own Class Day; I haven't even been atCommencement more than once or twice. But in my time here we didn'texpect the young ladies to show us attentions; at any rate, we didn'twait for them to do it. We were very glad, to be asked to meet them, andwe thought it an honour if the young ladies would let us talk or dancewith them, or take them to picnics. I don't think that any of them couldcomplain of want of attention. " "Yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer, "that's what I preached, that's what Iprophesied, when I brought my daughter home from Europe. I told her thata girl's life in America was one long triumph; but they say now thatgirls have more attention in London even than in Cambridge. One hearssuch dreadful things!" "Like what?" asked Mr. Mavering, with the unserious interest which Mrs. Primer made most people feel in her talk. "Oh; it's too vast a subject. But they tell you about charming girlsmoping the whole evening through at Boston parties, with no young men totalk with, and sitting from the beginning to the end of an assembly andnot going on the floor once. They say that unless a girl fairly throwsherself at the young men's heads she isn't noticed. It's this terribledisproportion of the sexes that's at the root of it, I suppose; itreverses everything. There aren't enough young men to go half round, andthey know it, and take advantage of it. I suppose it began in the war. " He laughed, and, "I should think, " he said, laying hold of a singleidea out of several which she had presented, "that there would always beenough young men in Cambridge to go round. " Mrs. Pasmer gave a little cry. "In Cambridge!" "Yes; when I was in college our superiority was entirely numerical. " "But that's all passed long ago, from what I hear, " retorted Mrs. Pasmer. "I know very well that it used to be thought a great advantagefor a girl to be brought up in Cambridge, because it gave herindependence and ease of manner to have so many young men attentiveto her. But they say the students all go into Boston now, and if theCambridge girls want to meet them, they have to go there too. Oh, Iassure you that, from what I hear, they've changed all that since ourtime, Mr. Mavering. " Mrs. Pasmer was certainly letting herself go a little more than shewould have approved of in another. The result was apparent in thejocosity of this heavy Mr. Mavering's reply. "Well, then, I'm glad that I was of our time, and not of this wickedgeneration. But I presume that unnatural supremacy of the young men isbrought low, so to speak, after marriage?" Mrs. Primer let herself go a little further. "Oh, give us an equalchance, " she laughed, "and we can always take care of ourselves, andsomething more. They say, " she added, "that the young married women nowhave all the attention that girls could wish. " "H'm!" said Mr. Mavering, frowning. "I think I should be tempted to boxmy boy's ears if I saw him paying another man's wife attention. " "What a Roman father!" cried Mrs. Pasmer, greatly amused, and lettingherself go a little further yet. She said to herself that she reallymust find out who this remarkable Mr. Mavering was, and she cast her eyeover the hall for some glimpse of the absent Munt, whose arm she meantto take, and whose ear she meant to fill with questions. But she did notsee him, and something else suggested itself. "He probably wouldn't letyou see him, or if he did, you wouldn't know it. " "How not know it?" Mrs. Primer did not answer. "One hears such dreadful things. What do yousay--or you'll think I'm a terrible gossip--" "Oh no;" said Mr. Mavering, impatient for the dreadful thing, whateverit was. Mrs. Primer resumed: "--to the young married women meeting last winterjust after a lot of pretty girls had came out, and magnanimouslyresolving to give the Buds a chance in society?" "The Buds?" "Yes, the Rose-buds--the debutantes; it's an odious little word, buteverybody uses it. Don't you think that's a strange state of thingsfor America? But I can't believe all those things, " said Mrs. Pasmer, flinging off the shadow of this lurid social condition. "Isn't this apretty scene?" "Yes, it is, " Mr. Mavering admitted, withdrawing his mind gradually froma consideration of Mrs. Pasmer's awful instances. "Yes!" he added, infinal self-possession. "The young fellows certainly do things in a greatdeal better style nowadays than we used to. " "Oh yes, indeed! And all those pretty girls do seem to be having such agood time!" "Yes; they don't have the despised and rejected appearance that you'dlike to have one believe. " "Not in the least!" Mrs. Pasmer readily consented. "They look radiantlyhappy. It shows that you can't trust anything that people say to you. "She abandoned the ground she had just been taking without apparent shamefor her inconsistency. "I fancy it's pretty much as it's always been: ifa girl is attractive, the young men find it out. " "Perhaps, " said Mr. Mavering, unbending with dignity, "the young marriedwomen have held another meeting, and resolved to give the Buds one morechance. " "Oh, there are some pretty mature Roses here, " said Mrs. Pasmer, laughing evasively. "But I suppose Class Day can never be taken from theyoung girls. " "I hope not, " said Mr. Mavering. His wandering eye fell upon someyoung men bringing refreshments across the nave toward them, and he wasreminded to ask Mrs. Pasmer, "Will you have something to eat?" He hadhimself had a good deal to eat, before he took up his position at theadvantageous point where John Munt had found him. "Why, yes, thank you, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "I ought to say, 'An ice, please, ' but I'm really hungry, and--" "I'll get you some of the salad, " said Mr. Mavering, with the increasedliking a man feels for a woman when she owns to an appetite. "Sit downhere, " he added, and he caught a vacant chair toward her. When he turnedabout from doing so, he confronted a young gentleman coming up toMrs. Pasmer with a young lady on his arm, and making a very low bow ofrelinquishment. II. The men looked smilingly at each other without saying anything; and theyounger took in due form the introduction which the young lady gave him. "My mother, Mr. Mavering. " "Mr. Mavering!" cried Mrs. Pasmer, in a pure astonishment, beforeshe had time to colour it with a polite variety of more conventionalemotions. She glanced at the two men, and gave a little "Oh?" of inquiryand resignation, and then said, demurely, "Let me introduce you to Mr. Mavering, Alice, " while the young fellow laughed nervously, and pulledout his handkerchief, partly to hide the play of his laughter, andpartly to wipe away the perspiration which a great deal more laughinghad already gathered on his forehead. He had a vein that showedprominently down its centre, and large, mobile, girlish blue eyes undergood brows, an arched nose, and rather a long face and narrow chin. Hehad beautiful white teeth; as he laughed these were seen set in a jawthat contracted very much toward the front. He was tall and slim, and hewore with elegance the evening dress which Class Day custom prescribesfor the Seniors; in his button-hole he had a club button. "I shall not have to ask an introduction to Mr. Mavering; and you'verobbed me of the pleasure of giving him one to you, Mrs. Pasmer, " hesaid. She heard the young man in the course of a swift review of what she hadsaid to his father, and with a formless resentment of the father's nothaving told her he had a son there; but she answered with the flatteringsympathy she had the use of, "Oh, but you won't miss one pleasure outof so many to-day, Mr. Mavering; and think of the little dramaticsurprise!" "Oh, perfect, " he said, with another laugh. "I told Miss Pasmer as wecame up. " "Oh, then you were in the surprise, Alice!" said Mrs. Pasmer, searchingher daughter's eyes for confession or denial of this little communityof interest. The girl smiled slightly upon the young man, but notdisapprovingly, and made no other answer to her mother, who went on:"Where in the world have you been? Did Mr. Munt find you? Who told youwhere I was? Did you see me? How did you know I was here? Was there everanything so droll?" She did not mean her questions to be answered, or atleast not then; for, while her daughter continued to smile rather moreabsently, and young Mavering broke out continuously in his nervouslaugh, and his father stood regarding him with visible satisfaction, shehummed on, turning to the young man: "But I'm quite appalled at Alice'shaving monopolised even for a few minutes a whole Senior--and probablyan official Senior at that, " she said, with a glance at the pink andwhite club button in his coat lapel, "and I can't let you stay anotherinstant, Mr. Mavering. I know very well how many demands you have uponyou and you must go back directly to your sisters and your cousins andyour aunts, and all the rest of them; you must indeed. " "Oh no! Don't drive me away, Mrs. Pasmer, " pleaded the young man, laughing violently, and then wiping his face. "I assure you that I'veno encumbrances of any kind here except my father, and he seems to havebeen taking very good care of himself. " They all laughed at this, andthe young fellow hurried on: "Don't be alarmed at my button; it onlymeans a love of personal decoration, if that's where you got the notionof my being an official Senior. This isn't my spread; I shall hope towelcome you at Beck Hall after the Tree; and I wish you'd let me beof use to you. Wouldn't you like to go round to some of the smallerspreads? I think it would amuse you. And have you got tickets to theTree, to see us make fools of ourselves? It's worth seeing, Mrs. Pasmer, I assure you. " He rattled on very rapidly but with such a frankness in his urgency, such amiable kindliness, that Mrs. Pasmer could not feel that it waspushing. She looked at her daughter, but she stood as passive in thetransaction as the elder Mavering. She was taller than her mother, andas she waited, her supple figure described that fine lateral curve whichone sees in some Louis Quinze portraits; this effect was enhanced by thefashion of her dress of pale sage green, with a wide stripe or sash ofwhite dropping down the front, from her delicate waist. The same simplecombination of colours was carried up into her hat, which surmounteddarker hair than Mrs. Pasmer's, and a complexion of wholesome pallor;her eyes were grey and grave, with black brows, and her face, which wasrather narrow, had a pleasing irregularity in the sharp jut of the nose;in profile the parting of the red lips showed well back into the cheek. "I don't know, " said Mrs. Pasmer, in her own behalf; and she added inhis, "about letting you take so much trouble, " so smoothly that itwould have been quite impossible to detect the point of union in the twoutterances. "Well, don't call it names, anyway, Mrs. Pasmer, " pleaded the young man. "I thought it was nothing but a pleasure and a privilege--" "The fact is, " she explained, neither consenting nor refusing, "thatwe were expecting to meet some friends who had tickets for us"--youngMavering's face fell--"and I can't imagine what's happened. " "Oh, let's hope something dreadful, " he cried. "Perhaps you know them, " she delayed further. "Professor Saintsbury!" "Well, rather! Why, they were here about an hour ago--both of them. Theymust have been looking for you. " "Yes; we were to meet them here. We waited to come out with otherfriends, and I was afraid we were late. " Mrs. Pasmer's face expressed atempered disappointment, and she looked at her daughter for indicationsof her wishes in the circumstances; seeing in her eye a willingness toaccept young Mavering's invitation, she hesitated more decidedly thanshe had yet done, for she was, other things being equal, quite willingto accept it herself. But other things were not equal, and the wholesituation was very odd. All that she knew of Mr. Mavering the elder wasthat he was the old friend of John Munt, and she knew far too little ofJohn Munt, except that he seemed to go everywhere, and to be welcome, not to feel that his introduction was hardly a warrant for what lookedlike an impending intimacy. She did not dislike Mr. Mavering; he wasevidently a country person of great self-respect, and no doubt of entirerespectability. He seemed very intelligent, too. He was a Harvard man;he had rather a cultivated manner, or else naturally a clever way ofsaying things. But all that was really nothing, if she knew no moreabout him, and she certainly did not. If she could only have asked herdaughter who it was that presented young Mavering to her, that mighthave formed some clew, but there was no earthly chance of asking this, and, besides, it was probably one of those haphazard introductions thatpeople give on such occasions. Young Mavering's behaviour gave her stillgreater question: his self-possession, his entire absence of anxiety;or any expectation of rebuff or snub, might be the ease of unimpeachablesocial acceptance, or it might be merely adventurous effrontery; onlysomething ingenuous and good in the young fellow's handsome face forbadethis conclusion. That his face was so handsome was another of thecomplications. She recalled, in the dreamlike swiftness with which allthese things passed through her mind, what her friends had said to Aliceabout her being sure to meet her fate on Class Day, and she looked ather again to see if she had met it. "Well, mamma?" said the girl, smiling at her mother's look. Mrs. Pasmer thought she must have been keeping young Mavering waitinga long time for his answer. "Why, of course, Alice. But I really don'tknow what to do about the Saintsburys. " This was not in the least true, but it instantly seemed so to Mrs. Pasmer, as a plausible excuse willwhen we make it. "Why, I'll tell you what, Mrs. Pasmer, " said young Mavering, with acordial unsuspicion that both won and reassured her, "we'll be sure tofind them at some of the spreads. Let me be of that much use, anyway;you must. " "We really oughtn't to let you, " said Mrs. Pasmer, making a last effortto cling to her reluctance, but feeling it fail, with a sensation thatwas not disagreeable. She could not help being pleased with the pleasurethat she saw in her daughter's face. Young Mavering's was radiant. "I'll be back in just half a minute, " hesaid, and he took a gay leave of them in running to speak to anotherstudent at the opposite end of the hall. III. "You must allow me to get you something to eat first, Mrs. Pasmer, " saidthe elder Mavering. "Oh no, thank you, " Mrs. Pasmer began. But she changed her mind andsaid, "Or, yes; I will, Mr. Mavering: a very little salad, please. " Shehad really forgotten her hunger, as a woman will in the presence of anysocial interest; but she suddenly thought his going would give hera chance for two words with her daughter, and so she sent him. Ashe creaked heavily across the smooth floor of the nave; "Alice, " shewhispered, "I don't know exactly what I've done: Who introduced thisyoung Mr. Mavering to you?" "Mr. Munt. " "Mr. Munt!" "Yes; he came for me; he said you sent him. He introduced Mr. Mavering, and he was very polite. Mr. Mavering said we ought to go up into thegallery and see how it looked; and Mr. Munt said he'd been up, and Mr. Mavering promised to bring me back to him, but he was not there when wegot back. Mr. Mavering got me some ice cream first, and then he foundyou for me. " "Really, " said Mrs. Pasmer to herself, "the combat thickens!" To herdaughter she said, "He's very handsome. " "He laughs too much, " said the daughter. Her mother recognised heruncandour with a glance. "But he waltzes well, " added the girl. "Waltzes?" echoed the mother. "Did you waltz with him, Alice?" "Everybody else was dancing. He asked me for a turn or two, and ofcourse I did it. What difference?" "Oh, none--none. Only--I didn't see you. " "Perhaps you weren't looking. " "Yes, I was looking all the time. " "What do you mean, mamma?" "Well, " said Mrs. Pasmer, in a final despair, "we don't know anythingabout them. " "We're the only people here who don't, then, " said her daughter. "Theladies were bowing right left to him all the time, and he kept asking ifI knew this one and that one, and all I could say was that some of themwere distant cousins, but I wasn't acquainted with them. I would thinkhe'd wonder who we were. " "Yes, " said the mother thoughtfully. "There! he's laughing with that other student. But don't look!" Mrs. Pasmer saw well enough out of the corner of her eye the joking thatwent on between Mavering and his friend, and it did not displease herto think that it probably referred to Alice. While the young man camehurrying back to them she glanced at the girl standing near her witha keenly critical inspection, from which she was able to exclude allmaternal partiality, and justly decided that she was one of the mosteffective girls in the place. That costume of hers was perfect. Mrs. Pasmer wished now that she could have compared it more carefully withother costumes; she had noticed some very pretty ones; and a feelingof vexation that Alice should have prevented this by being away so longjust when the crowd was densest qualified her satisfaction. The peoplewere going very fast now. The line of the oval in the nave was brokeninto groups of lingering talkers, who were conspicuous to each other, and Mrs. Pasmer felt that she and her daughter were conspicuous to allthe rest where they stood apart, with the two Maverings converging uponthem from different points, the son nodding and laughing to friends ofboth sexes as he came, the father wholly absorbed in not spilling theglass of claret punch which he carried in one hand, and not fallingdown on the slippery floor with the plate of salad which he bore in theother. She had thoughts of feigning unconsciousness; she would have hadno scruple in practising this or any other social stratagem, for thoughshe kept a conscience in regard to certain matters--what she consideredessentials--she lived a thousand little lies every day, and taught herdaughter by precept and example to do the same. You must seem to belooking one way when you were really looking another; you must say thiswhen you meant that; you must act as if you were thinking one thing whenyou were thinking something quite different; and all to no end, for, as she constantly said, people always know perfectly well what you wereabout, whichever way you looked or whatever you said, or no matterhow well you acted the part of thinking what you did not think. Now, although she seemed not to look, she saw all that has been described ata glance, and at another she saw young Mavering slide easily up to hisfather and relieve him of the plate and glass, with a laugh as pleasantand a show of teeth as dazzling as he bestowed upon any of the ladieshe had passed. She owned to her recondite heart that she liked this inyoung Mavering, though at the same time she asked herself what motive hereally had in being so polite to his father before people. But she hadno time to decide; she had only time to pack the question hurriedly awayfor future consideration, when young Mavering arrived at her elbow, andshe turned with a little "Oh!" of surprise so perfectly acted that itgave her the greatest pleasure. IV. "I don't think my father would have got here alive with these things, "said young Mavering. "Did you see how I came to his rescue?" Mrs. Pasmer instantly threw away all pretext of not having seen. "Ohyes! my heart was in my mouth when you bore down upon him, Mr. Mavering. It was a beautiful instance of filial devotion. " "Well, do sit down now, Mrs. Pasmer, and take it comfortably, " said theyoung fellow; and he got her one of the many empty chairs, and would notgive her the things, which he put in another, till she sat down and lethim spread a napkin over her lap. "Really, " she said, "I feel as if I were stopping all the wheels ofClass Day. Am I keeping them from closing the Gymnasium, Mr. Mavering?" "Not quite, " said the young man, with one of his laughs. "I don'tbelieve they will turn us out, and I'll see that they don't lock us in. Don't hurry, Mrs. Pasmer. I'm only sorry you hadn't something sooner. " "Oh, your father proposed getting me something a good while ago. " "Did he? Then I wonder you haven't had it. He's usually on time. " "You're both very energetic, I think, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "He's the father of his son, " said the young fellow, assuming the meritwith a bow of burlesque modesty. It went to Mrs. Pasmer's heart. "Let's hope he'll never forget that, "she said, in an enjoyment of the excitement and the salad that wasbeginning to leave her question of these Maverings a light, diaphanouscloud on the verge of the horizon. The elder Mavering had been trying, without success, to think ofsomething to say to Miss Pasmer, he had twice cleared his throat forthat purpose. But this comedy between his son and the young lady'smother seemed so much lighter and brighter than anything he could havesaid, that he said nothing, and looked on with his mouth set in itsqueer smile, while the girl listened with the gravity of a daughter whosees that her mother is losing her head. Mrs. Pasmer buzzed on in herbadinage with the young man, and allowed him to go for a cup of coffeebefore she rose from her chair, and shook out her skirts with an air ofpleasant expectation of whatever should come next. He came back without it. "The coffee urn has dried up here, Mrs. Pasmer. But you can get some at the other spreads; they'd be inconsolable if youdidn't take something everywhere. " They all started toward the door, but the elder Mavering said, holdingback a little, "Dan, I think I'll go and see--" "Oh no, you mustn't, father, " cried the young man, laying his hand withcaressing entreaty on his father's coat sleeve. "I don't want you to goanywhere till you've seen Professor Saintsbury. We shall be sure to meethim at some of the spreads. I want you to have that talk with him--" Hecorrected himself for the instant's deflection from the interests of hisguest, and added, "I want you to help me hunt him up for Mrs. Pasmer. Now, Mrs. Pasmer, you're not to think it's the least trouble, oranything but a boon, much less say it, " he cried, turning to thedeprecation in Mrs. Pasmer's face. He turned away from it to acknowledgethe smiles and bows of people going out of the place, and he returnedtheir salutations with charming heartiness. In the vestibule they met the friends they were going in search of. V. "With Mr. Mavering, of course!" exclaimed Mrs. Saintsbury: "I might haveknown it. " Mrs. Pasmer would have given anything she could think of tobe able to ask why her friend might have known it; but for the presentthey could only fall upon each other with flashes of self-accusal andexplanation, and rejoicing for their deferred and now accomplishedmeeting. The Professor stood by with the satirical smile with which menwitness the effusion of women. Young Mavering, after sharing the ladies'excitement fully with them, rewarded himself by an exclusive moment withMiss Pasmer. "You must get Mrs. Pasmer to let me show you all of Class Day that aSenior can. I didn't know what a perfect serpent's tooth it was to beone before. Mrs. Saintsbury, " he broke off, "have you got tickets forthe Tree? Ah, she doesn't hear me!" Mrs. Saintsbury was just then saying to the elder Mavering, "I'm so gladyou decided to come today. It would have been a shame if none of youwere here. " She made a feint of dropping her voice, with a glance at DanMavering. "He's such a nice boy, " which made him laugh, and cry out-- "Oh, now? Don't poison my father's mind, Mrs. Saintsbury. " "Oh, some one would be sure to tell him, " retorted the Professor's wife, "and he'd better hear it from a friend. " The young fellow laughed again, and then he shook hands with someladies going out, and asked were they going so soon, from an abstracthospitality, apparently, for he was not one of the hosts; and so turnedonce more to Miss Pasmer. "We must get away from here, or the afternoonwill get away from us, and leave us nothing to show for it. Suppose wemake a start, Miss Pasmer?" He led the way with her out of the vestibule, banked round with potsof palm and fern, and down the steps into the glare of the Cambridgesunshine, blown full, as is the case on Class Day, of fine Cambridgedust, which had drawn a delicate grey veil over the grass of theGymnasium lawn, and mounted in light clouds from the wheels powderingit finer and finer in the street. Along the sidewalks dusty hacks andcarriages were ranged, and others were driving up to let peopledismount at the entrances to the college yard. Within the temporarypicket-fences, secluding a part of the grounds for the students andtheir friends, were seen stretching from dormitory to dormitory longlines of Chinese lanterns, to be lit after nightfall, swung between theelms. Groups of ladies came and went, nearly always under the escort ofsome student; the caterers' carts, disburdened of their ice-creams andsalads, were withdrawn under the shade in the street, and theirdrivers lounged or drowsed upon the seats; now and then a black waiter, brilliant as a bobolink in his white jacket and apron, appeared on someerrand; the large, mild Cambridge policemen kept the entrances to theyard with a benevolent vigilance which was not harsh with the littleIrish children coming up from the Marsh in their best to enjoy the sightof other people's pleasure. "Isn't it a perfect Class Day?" cried young Mavering, as he crossedKirkland Street with Miss Pasmer, and glanced down its vaultedperspective of elms, through which the sunlight broke, and lay in theroad in pools and washes as far as the eye reached. "Did you eversee anything bluer than the sky to-day? I feel as if we'd ordered theweather, with the rest of the things, and I had some credit for it ashost. Do make it a little compliment, Miss Pasmer; I assure you I'll bevery modest about it. " "Ah, I think it's fully up to the occasion, " said the girl, catching thespirit of his amiable satisfaction. "Is it the usual Class Day weather?" "You spoil everything by asking that, " cried the young man; "it obligesme to make a confession--it's always good weather on Class Day. Therehaven't been more than a dozen bad Class Days in the century. But you'lladmit that there can't have been a better Class Day than this?" "Oh yes; it's certainly the pleasantest Class Day I've seen;" said thegirl; and now when Mavering laughed she laughed too. "Thank you so much for saying that! I hope it will pass off in uncloudedbrilliancy; it will, if I can make it. Why, hallo! They're on the otherside of the street yet, and looking about as if they were lost. " He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, and waved it at the othersof their party. They caught sight of it, and came hurrying over through the dust. Mrs. Saintsbury said, apparently as the sum of her consultations withMrs. Pasmer: "The Tree is to be at half-past five; and after we've seena few spreads, I'm going to take the ladies hone for a little rest. " "Oh no; don't do that, " pleaded the young man. After making this protesthe seemed not to have anything to say immediately in support of it. Hemerely added: "This is Miss Pasmer's first Class Day, and I want her tosee it all. " "But you'll have to leave us very soon to get yourself ready for theTree, " suggested the Professor's lady, with a motherly prevision. "I shall want just fifteen minutes for that. " "I know, better, Mr. Mavering, " said Mrs. Saintsbury, with finality. "You will want a good three-quarters of an hour to make yourself asdisreputable as you'll look at the Tree; and you'll have to take timefor counsel and meditation. You may stay with us just half an hour, andthen we shall part inexorably. I've seen a great many more Class Daysthan you have, and I know what they are in their demands upon theSeniors. " "Oh; well! Then we won't think about the time, " said the young man, starting on with Miss Pasmer. "Well, don't undertake too much, " said the lady. She came last in thelittle procession, with the elder Mavering, and her husband and MrsPasmer preceded her. "What?" young Mavering called back, with his smiling face over hisshoulder. "She says not to bite off more than you can chew, " the professoranswered for her. Mavering broke into a conscious laugh, but full of delight, and with hishandkerchief to his face had almost missed the greeting of some ladieswho bowed to him. He had to turn round to acknowledge it, and he wassaluting and returning salutations pretty well all along the line oftheir progress. "I'm afraid you'll think I'm everybody's friend but my own, Miss Pasmer, but I assure you all this is purely accidental. I don't know somany people, after all; only all that I do know seem to be here thismorning. " "I don't think it's a thing to be sorry for, " said the girl. "I wish weknew more people. It's rather forlorn--" "Oh, will you let me introduce some of the fellows to you? They'll be soglad. " "If you'll tell them how forlorn I said I was, " said the girl, with asmile. "Oh, no, no, no! I understand that. And I assure you that I didn'tsuppose--But of course!" he arrested himself in the superfluousreassurance he was offering, "All that goes without saying. Only thereare some of the fellows coming back to the law school, and if you'llallow me--" "We shall be very happy indeed, Mr. Mavering, " said Mrs. Pasmer, behindhim. "Oh, thank you ever so much, Mrs. Pasmer. " This was occasion for anotherburst of laughter with him. He seemed filled with the intoxication ofyouth, whose spirit was in the bright air of the day and radiant in theyoung faces everywhere. The paths intersecting one another between thedifferent dormitories under the drooping elms were thronged withpeople coming and going in pairs and groups; and the academic fete, theprettiest flower of our tough old Puritan stem, had that charm, atonce sylvan and elegant, which enraptures in the pictured fables of theRenaissance. It falls at that moment of the year when the old universitytown, often so commonplace and sometimes so ugly, becomes briefly andalmost pathetically beautiful under the leafage of her hovering elms andin, the perfume of her syringas, and bathed in this joyful tide of youththat overflows her heart. She seems fit then to be the home of the poetswho have loved her and sung her, and the regret of any friend of thehumanities who has left her. "Alice, " said Mrs. Pasmer, leaning forward a little to speak to herdaughter, and ignoring a remark of the Professor's, "did you ever see somany pretty costumes?" "Never, " said the girl, with equal intensity. "Well, it makes you feel that you have got a country, after all, " sighedMrs. Pasmer, in a sort of apostrophe to her European self. "You seesplendid dressing abroad, but it's mostly upon old people who ought tobe sick and ashamed of their pomps and vanities. But here it's the younggirls who dress; and how lovely they are! I thought they were charmingin the Gymnasium, but I see you must get them out-of-doors to have thefull effect. Mr. Mavering, are they always so prettily dressed on ClassDay?" "Well, I'm beginning to feel as if it wouldn't be exactly modest forme to say so, whatever I think. You'd better ask Mrs. Saintsbury; shepretends to know all about it. " "No, I'm bound to say they're not, " said the Professor's wife candidly. "Your daughter, " she added, in a low tone for all to hear, "decides thatquestion. " "I'm so glad you said that, Mrs. Saintsbury, " said the young man. Helooked at the girl; who blushed with a pleasure that seemed to thrill tothe last fibre of her pretty costume. She could not say anything, but her mother asked, with an effort atself-denial: "Do you think so really? It's one of those London things. They have so much taste there now, " she added yielding to her own pridein the dress. "Yes; I supposed it must be, " said Mrs. Saintsbury, "We used to come inmuslins and tremendous hoops--don't you remember?" "Did you look like your photographs?" asked young Mavering, over hisshoulder. "Yes; but we didn't know it then, " said the Professor's wife. "Neither did we, " said the Professor. "We supposed that there had neverbeen anything equal to those hoops and white muslins. " "Thank you, my dear, " said his wife, tapping him between the shoulderswith her fan. "Now don't go any further. " "Do you mean about our first meeting here on Class Day?" asked herhusband. "They'll think so now, " said Mrs. Saintsbury patiently, with a playfulthreat of consequences in her tone. "When I first saw the present Mrs. Saintsbury, " pursued theProfessor--it was his joking way, of describing her, as if there hadbeen several other Mrs. Saintsburys--"she was dancing on the greenhere. " "Ah, they don't dance on the green any more, I hear, " sighed Mrs. Pasmer. "No, they don't, " said the other lady; "and I think it's just as well. It was always a ridiculous affectation of simplicity. " "It must have been rather public, " said young Mavering, in a low voice, to Miss Pasmer. "It doesn't seem as if it could ever have been in character quite, " sheanswered. "We're a thoroughly indoors people, " said the Professor. "And it seemsas if we hadn't really begun to get well as a race till we had come inout of the weather. " "How can you say that on a day like this?" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "I didn'tsuppose any one could be so unromantic. " "Don't flatter him, " cried his wife. "Does he consider that a compliment?" "Not personally, " he answered: "But it's the first duty of a Professorof Comparative Literature to be unromantic. " "I don't understand, " faltered Mrs. Pasmer. "He will be happy to explain, at the greatest possible length, " saidMrs. Saintsbury. "But you shan't spoil our pleasure now, John. " They all laughed, and the Professor looked proud of the wit at hisexpense; the American husband is so, and the public attitude of theAmerican husband and wife toward each other is apt to be amiablysatirical; their relation seems never to have lost its novelty, or tolack droll and surprising contrasts for them. Besides these passages with her husband, Mrs. Saintsbury kept up a fullflow of talk with the elder Mavering, which Mrs. Pasmer did her best tooverhear, for it related largely to his son, whom, it seemed, from thefather's expressions, the Saintsburys had been especially kind to. "No, I assure you, " Mrs. Pasmer heard her protest, "Mr. Saintsbury has, been very much interested in him. I hope he has not put any troublesomeideas into his head. Of course he's very much interested in literature, from his point of view, and he's glad to find any of the young meninterested in it, and that's apt to make him overdo matters a little. " "Dan wished me to talk with him, and I shall certainly be glad to doso, " said the father, but in a tone which conveyed to Mrs. Pasmer theimpression that though he was always open to conviction, his mind wasmade up on this point, whatever it was. VI. The party went to half a dozen spreads, some of which were on a scaleof public grandeur approaching that of the Gymnasium, and others ofa subdued elegance befitting the more private hospitalities in thestudents' rooms. Mrs. Pasmer was very much interested in these rooms, whose luxurious appointments testified to the advance of riches andof the taste to apply them since she used to visit students' rooms infar-off Class Days. The deep window nooks and easy-chairs upholsteredin the leather that seems sacred alike to the seats and the shelves oflibraries; the aesthetic bookcases, low and topped with bric-a-brac; theetchings and prints on the walls, which the elder Mavering went up tolook at with a mystifying air of understanding such things; the foilscrossed over the chimney, and the mantel with its pipes, and itsphotographs of theatrical celebrities tilted about over it--spoke ofconditions mostly foreign to Mrs. Pasmer's memories of Harvard. Thephotographed celebrities seemed to be chosen chiefly for their beauty, and for as much of their beauty as possible, Mrs. Pasmer perceived, withan obscure misgiving of the sort which an older generation always likesto feel concerning the younger, but with a tolerance, too, which waspersonal to herself; it was to be considered that the massive thoughtand honest amiability of Salvini's face, and the deep and spiritualizedpower of Booth's, varied the effect of these companies of posturingnymphs. At many places she either met old friends with whom she clamoured overthe wonder of their encounter there, or was made acquainted with newpeople by the Saintsburys. She kept a mother's eye on her daughter, towhom young Mavering presented everybody within hail or reach, andwhom she could see, whenever she looked at her, a radiant centre ofadmiration. She could hear her talk sometimes, and she said to herselfthat really Alice was coming out; she had never heard her say so manygood things before; she did not know it was in her. She was veryglad then that she had let her wear that dress; it was certainlydistinguished, and the girl carried it off, to her mother's amusement, with the air of a superb lady of the period from which it dated. Shethought what a simple child Alice really was, all the time those otherchildren, the Seniors, were stealing their glances of bold or timidworship at her, and doubtless thinking her a brilliant woman of theworld. But there could be no mistake that she was a success. Part of her triumph was of course due to Mrs. Saintsbury; whosechaperonage; Mrs. Pasmer could see, was everywhere of effect. But itwas also largely due to the vigilant politeness of young Mavering, whoseemed bent on making her have good time, and who let no chance sliphim. Mrs. Pasmer felt his kindness truly; and she did not feel it theless because she knew that there was but one thing that could, at hisfrankly selfish age, make a young fellow wish to make a girl have agood time; except for that reason he must be bending the whole soul ofegotistic youth to making some other girl have a good time. But all thesame, it gave her pause when some one to whom she was introduced spoketo her of her friends the Maverings, as if they were friends of theoldest standing instead of acquaintances of very recent accident. Shedid not think of disclaiming the intimacy, but "Really I shall die ofthese Maverings, " she said to herself, "unless I find out somethingabout them pretty soon. " "I'm not going to take you to the Omicron spread, Mrs. Pasmer, " saidyoung Mavering, coming up to her with such an effect of sympatheticdevotion that she had to ask herself, "Are they my friends, theMaverings?" "The Saintsburys have been there already, and it is a littletoo common. " The tone of superiority gave Mrs. Pasmer courage. "They'regood fellows; and all that, but I want you to see the best. I supposeit will get back to giving the spreads all in the fellows' rooms again. It's a good deal pleasanter, don't you think?" "Oh yes, indeed, " assented Mrs. Pasmer, though she had really beenthinking the private spreads were not nearly so amusing as the largespread she had seen at the Gymnasium. She had also wondered where allMr. Mavering's relations and friends were, and the people who had socialclaims on him, that he could be giving up his Class Day in this recklessfashion to strangers. Alice would account for a good deal, but she wouldnot account for everything. Mrs. Pasmer would have been willing to takehim from others, but if he were so anomalous as to have no one to betaken from, of course it lessened his value as a trophy. These thingswent in and out of her mind, with a final resolution to get a fullexplanation from Mrs. Saintsbury, while she stood and smiled her winningassent up into the young man's handsome face. Mrs. Saintsbury, caught sight of them, and as if suddenly reminded of aforgotten duty, rushed vividly upon him. "Mr. Mavering, I shall not let you stay with us another minute. You mustgo to your room now and get ready. You ought to have a little rest. " He broke out in his laugh. "Do you think I want to go and lie downawhile, like a lady before a party?" "I'm sure you'd be the stronger for it, " said Mrs. Saintsbury. "But go, upon any theory. Don't you see there isn't a Senior left?" He would not look round. "They've gone to other spreads, " he said. "Butnow I'll tell you: it is pretty, near time, and if you'll take me to myroom, I'll go. " "You're a spoiled boy, " said Mrs. Saintsbury. "But I want Mrs. Pasmer to see the room of a real student--a readingman, and all that--and we'll come, to humour you. " "Well, come upon any theory, " said young Mavering. His father, and Professor Saintsbury, who had been instructed by hiswife not to lose sight of her, were at hand, and they crossed to thatold hall which keeps its favour with the students in spite of therivalry of the newer dormitories--it would be hard to say why. Mrs. Pasmer willingly assented to its being much better, out of purecomplaisance, though the ceilings were low and the windows small, and itdid not seem to her that the Franklin stove and the aesthetic paperingand painting of young Mavering's room brought it up to the level ofthose others that she had seen. But with her habit of saying somefriendly lying thing, no matter what her impressions were, sheexclaimed; "Oh, how cosy!" and glad of the word, she went about from oneto another, asking, "Isn't this cosy?" Mrs. Saintsbury said: "It's supposed to be the cell of a recluse; but itis cosy--yes. " "It looks as if some hermit had been using it as a store-room, " said herhusband; for there were odds and ends of furniture and clothes and boxesand handbags scattered about the floor. "I forgot all about them when I asked you, " cried Mavering, laughingout his delight. "They belong to some fellows that are giving spreads intheir rooms, and I let them put them in here. " "Do you commonly let people put things in your room that they want toget rid off?" asked Mrs. Pasmer. "Well, not when I'm expecting company. " "He couldn't refuse even then, if they pressed the matter, " said Mrs. Saintsbury, lecturing upon him to her friend. "I'm afraid you're too amiable altogether, Mr. Mavering. I'm sure youlet people impose upon you, " said the other lady. "You have been lettingus impose upon you. " "Ah! now that proves you're all wrong, Mrs. Pasmer. " "It proves that you know how to say things very prettily. " "Oh, thank you. I know when I'm having a good time, and I do my best toenjoy it. " He ended with the nervous laugh which seemed habitual withhim. "He, does laugh a good deal;" thought Mrs. Pasmer, surveying him withsmiling steadiness. "I suppose it tires Alice. Some of his teeth arefilled at the sides. That vein in his forehead--they say that meansgenius. " She said to him: "I hope you know when others are having a goodtime too, Mr. Mavering? You ought to have that reward. " They both looked at Alice. "Oh, I should be so happy to think you hadn'tbeen bored with it all, Mrs. Pasmer, " he returned;--with-deep feeling. Alice was looking at one of the sketches which were pretty plentifullypinned about the wall, and apparently seeing it and apparently listeningto what Professor Saintsbury was saying; but her mother believed from atremor of the ribbons on her hat that she was conscious of nothing butyoung Mavering's gaze and the sound of his voice. "We've been delighted, simply enchanted, " said Mrs. Pasmer. And shethought; "Now if Alice were to turn round just as she stands, he couldsee all the best points of her face. I wonder what she really thinks ofhim? What is it you have there; Alice?" she asked aloud. The girl turned her face over her shoulder so exactly in the way hermother wished that Mrs. Pasmer could scarcely repress a cry of joy. "Asketch of Mr. Mavering's. " "Oh, how very interesting!" said Mrs. Pasmer. "Do you sketch, Mr. Mavering? But of course. " She pressed forward, and studied the sketchinattentively. "How very, very good!" she buzzed deep in her throat, while, with a glance at her daughter, she thought, "How impassive Aliceis! But she behaves with great dignity. Yes. Perhaps that's best. Andare you going to be an artist?" she asked of Mavering. "Not if it can be prevented, " he answered, laughing again. "But his laugh is very pleasant, " reflected Mrs. Pasmer. "Does Alicedislike it so much?" She repeated aloud, "If it can be prevented?" "They think I might spoil a great lawyer in the attempt. " "Oh, I see. And are you going to be a lawyer? But to be a great painter!And America has so few of them. " She knew quite well that she wastalking nonsense, but she was aware, through her own indifference tothe topic that he was not minding what she said, but was trying to bringhimself into talk with Alice again. The girl persistently listened toProfessor Saintsbury. "Is she punishing him for something?" her mother asked herself. "Whatcan it be for. Does she think he's a little too pushing? Perhaps, he isa little pushing. " She reflected, with an inward sigh, that she wouldknow whether he was if she only knew more about him. He did the honours of his room very simply and nicely, and he saidit was pretty rough to think this was the last of it. After which hefaltered, and something occurred to Mrs Saintsbury. "Why, we're keeping you! It's time for you to dress for the Tree. John"--she reproached her husband--"how could you let us do it?" "Far be it from me to hurry ladies out of other people'shouses--especially ladies who have put themselves in charge of otherpeople. " "No, don't hurry, " pleaded Mavering; "there's plenty of time. " "How much time?" asked Mrs. Saintsbury. He looked at his watch. "Well, a good quarter of an hour. " "And I was to have taken Mrs. Pasmer and Alice home for a little restbefore the Tree!" cried Mrs Saintsbury. "And now we must go at once, orwe shall get no sort of places. " In the civil and satirical parley which followed, no one answeredanother, but young Mavering bore as full a part as the elder ladies, andonly his father and Alice were silent: his guests got themselves out ofhis room. They met at the threshold a young fellow, short and dark andstout, in an old tennis suit. He fell back at sight of them, and tookoff his hat to Mrs. Saintsbury. "Why, Mr. Boardman!" "Don't be bashful, Boardman?" young Mavering called out. "Come in andshow them how I shall look in five minutes. " Mr. Boardman took his introductions with a sort of main-forceself-possession, and then said, "You'll have to look it in less thanfive minutes now, Mavering. You're come for. " "What? Are they ready?" "We must fly, " panted Mrs. Saintsbury, without waiting for the answer, which was lost in the incoherencies of all sorts of au revoirs calledafter and called back. VII. "That is one thing, " said Mrs. Saintsbury, looking swiftly round to seethat the elder Mavering was not within hearing, as she hurried aheadwith Mrs. Pasmer, "that I can't stand in Dan Mavering. Why couldn't hehave warned us that it was getting near the time? Why should he havegone on pretending that there was no hurry? It isn't insincerityexactly, but it isn't candour; no, it's uncandid. Oh, I suppose it's theartistic temperament--never coming straight to the point. " "What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Pasmer eagerly. "I'll tell you sometime. " She looked round and halted a little forAlice, who was walking detached and neglected by the preoccupation ofthe two elderly men. "I'm afraid you're tired, " she said to the girl. "Oh no. " "Of course not, on Class Day. But I hope we shall get seats. Whatweather!" The sun had not been oppressive at any time during the day, though thecrowded building had been close and warm, and now it lay like a paintedlight on the grass and paths over which they passed to the entrance ofthe grounds around the Tree. Holden Chapel, which enclosed the space onthe right as they went in, shed back the sun from its brick-red flank, rising unrelieved in its venerable ugliness by any touch of the festivepreparations; but to their left and diagonally across from them highstagings supported tiers of seats along the equally unlovely red bulksof Hollis and of Harvard. These seats, and the windows in the storiesabove them, were densely packed with people, mostly young girls dressedin a thousand enchanting shades and colours, and bonneted and hatted tothe last effect of fashion. They were like vast terraces of flowers tothe swift glance, and here and there some brilliant parasol, spread tocatch the sun on the higher ranks, was like a flaunting poppy, risingto the light and lolling out above the blooms of lower stature. But theparasols were few, for the two halls flung wide curtains of shadeover the greater part of the spectators, and across to the foot of thechapel, while a piece of the carpentry whose simplicity seems part ofthe Class Day tradition shut out the glare and the uninvited public, striving to penetrate the enclosure next the street. In front of thisyellow pine wall; with its ranks of benches, stood the Class Day Tree, girded at ten or fifteen feet from the ground with a wide band offlowers. Mrs. Pasmer and her friends found themselves so late that if somegentlemen who knew Professor Saintsbury had not given up their placesthey could have got no seats. But this happened, and the three ladieshad harmoniously blended their hues with those of the others in thatbank of bloom, and the gentlemen had somehow made away with theirobstructiveness in different crouching and stooping postures at theirfeet, when the Junior Class filed into the green enclosure amidst the'rahs of their friends; and sank in long ranks on the grass beside thechapel. Then the Sophomores appeared, and were received with cheersby the Juniors, with whom they joined, as soon as they were placed, inheaping ignominy upon the freshmen. The Seniors came last, grotesque inthe variety of their old clothes, and a fierce uproar of 'rahs andyells met them from the students squatted upon the grass as they looselygrouped themselves in front of the Tree; the men of the younger classesformed in three rings, and began circling in different directions aroundthem. Mrs. Pasmer bent across Mrs. Saintsbury to her daughter: "Can you makeout Mr. Mavering among them, Alice?" "No. Hush, mamma!" pleaded the girl. With the subsidence of the tumult in the other classes, the Seniors hadbroken from the stoical silence they kept through it, and were nowwith an equally serious clamour applauding the first of a long listof personages, beginning with the President, and ranging through theirfavourites in the Faculty down to Billy the Postman. The leader whoinvited them to this expression of good feeling exacted the full tale ofnine cheers for each person he named, and before he reached the last the'rahs came in gasps from their dry throats. In the midst of the tumult the marshal flung his hat at the elm; thenthe rush upon the tree took place, and the scramble for the flowers. Thefirst who swarmed up the trunk were promptly plucked down by the legsand flung upon the ground, as if to form a base there for the operationsof the rest; who surged and built themselves up around the elm in anirregular mass. From time to time some one appeared clambering overheads and shoulders to make a desperate lunge and snatch at the flowers, and then fall back into the fluctuant heap again. Yells, cries, andclappings of hands came from the other students, and the spectators inthe seats, involuntarily dying away almost to silence as some strongeror wilfuler aspirant held his own on the heads and shoulders of theothers, or was stayed there by his friends among them till he couldmake sure of a handful of the flowers. A rush was made upon him whenhe reached the ground; if he could keep his flowers from the hands thatsnatched at them, he staggered away with the fragments. The wreath beganto show wide patches of the bark under it; the surging and strugglingcrowd below grew less dense; here and there one struggled out of it andwalked slowly about, panting pitiably. "Oh, I wonder they don't kill each other!" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "Isn't itterrible?" She would not have missed it on any account; but she liked toget all she could out of her emotions. "They never get hurt, " said Mrs. Saintsbury. "Oh, look! There's DanMavering!" The crowd at the foot of the tree had closed densely, and a wilder roarwent up from all the students. A tall, slim young fellow, lifted on theshoulders of the mass below, and staying himself with one hand againstthe tree, rapidly stripped away the remnants of the wreath, and flungthem into the crowd under him. A single tuft remained; the crowd wasmelting away under him in a scramble for the fallen flowers; he made acrooked leap, caught the tuft, and tumbled with it headlong. "Oh!" breathed the ladies on the Benches, with a general suspirationlost in the 'rahs and clappings, as Mavering reappeared with the bunchof flowers in his hand. He looked dizzily about, as if not sure, of hiscourse; then his face, flushed and heated, with the hair pulled overthe eyes, brightened with recognition, and he advanced upon Mrs. Saintsbury's party with rapid paces, each of which Mrs. Pasmercommentated with inward conjecture. "Is he bringing the flowers to Alice? Isn't it altogether tooconspicuous? Has he really the right to do it? What will people think?Will he give them to me for her, or will he hand them directly to her?Which should I prefer him to do? I wonder if I know?" When she looked up with the air of surprise mixed with deprecationand ironical disclaimer which she had prepared while these things werepassing through her mind, young Mavering had reached them, and hadpaused in a moment's hesitation before his father. With a bow ofaffectionate burlesque, from which he lifted his face to break intolaughter at the look in all their eyes, he handed the tattered nosegayto his father. "Oh, how delightful! how delicate! how perfect!" Mrs. Pasmer confided toherself. "I think this must be for you, Mrs. Pasmer, " said the elder Mavering, offering her the bouquet, with a grave smile at his son's whim. "Oh no, indeed!" said Mrs. Pasmer. "For Mrs. Saintsbury, of course. " She gave it to her, and Mrs. Saintsbury at once transferred it to MissPasmer. "They wished me to pass this to you, Alice;" and at this consummationDan Mavering broke into another happy laugh. "Mrs. Saintsbury, you always do the right thing at once, " he cried. "That's more than I can say of you, Mr. Mavering, " she retorted. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Mavering!" said the girl, receiving the flowers. Itwas as if she had been too intent upon them and him to have noticed thelittle comedy that had conveyed them to her. VIII. As soon after Class Day as Mrs. Pasmer's complaisant sense of thedecencies would let her, she went out from Boston to call on Mrs. Saintsbury in Cambridge, and thank her for her kindness to Alice andherself. "She will know well enough what I come for, " she said toherself, and she felt it the more important to ignore Mrs. Saintsbury'spenetration by every polite futility; this was due to them both: and shedid not go till the second day after. Mrs. Saintsbury came down into the darkened, syringa-scented library tofind her, and give her a fan. "You still live, Jenny, " she said, kissing her gaily. They called each other by their girl names, as is rather the customin Boston with ladies who are in the same set, whether they are greatfriends or not. In the more changeful society of Cambridge, where somany new people are constantly coming and going in connection with thecollege, it is not so much the custom; but Mrs. Saintsbury was Bostonborn, as well as Mrs. Pasmer, and was Cantabrigian by marriage--thoughthis is not saying that she was not also thoroughly so by convincementand usage she now rarely went into Boston society. "Yes, Etta--just. But I wasn't sure of it, " said Mrs. Pasmer, "when Iwoke yesterday. I was a mere aching jelly!" "And Alice?" "Oh; I don't think she had any physical consciousness. She was a mererapturous memory!" "She did have a good time, didn't she?" said Mrs. Saintsbury, in agenerous retrospect. "I think she was on her feet every moment in theevening. It kept me from getting tired, to watch her. " "I was afraid you'd be quite worn out. I'd no idea it was so late. Itmust have been nearly half past seven before we got away from theBeck Hall spread, and then by the time we had walked round the collegegrounds--how extremely pretty the lanterns were, and how charming thewhole effect was!--it must have been nine before the dancing began. Well, we owe it all to you, Etta. " "I don't know what you mean by owing. I'm always glad of an excuse forClass Day. And it was Dan Mavering who really managed the affair. " "He was very kind, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with a feeling which was chieflygratitude to her friend for bringing in his name so soon. Now thatit had been spoken, she felt it decorous to throw aside the outerintegument of pretense, which if it could have been entirely exfoliatedwould have caused Mrs. Pasmer morally to disappear, like an onionstripped of its successive laminae. "What did you mean, " she asked, leaning forward, with, her face averted, "about his having the artistic temperament? Is he going to be an artist?I should hope not. " She remembered without shame that she had stronglyurged him to consider how much better it would be to be a painter than alawyer, in the dearth of great American painters. "He could be a painter if he liked--up to a certain point, " said Mrs. Saintsbury. "Or he could be any one of half-a-dozen other things--hislast craze was journalism; but you know what I mean by the artistictemperament: it's that inability to be explicit; that habit of leavingthings vague and undefined, and hoping they'll somehow come out as youwant them of themselves; that way of taking the line of beauty to getat what you wish to do or say, and of being very finicking about littlethings and lag about essentials. That's what I mean by the artistictemperament. " "Yes; that's terrible, " sighed Mrs. Pasmer, with the abstractly severeyet personally pitying perception of one whose every word and act wassincere and direct. "I know just what you mean. But how does it apply toMr. Mavering?" "It doesn't, exactly, " returned her friend. "And I'm always ashamedwhen I say, or even think, anything against Dan Mavering. He's sweetnessitself. We've known him ever since he came to Harvard, and I must saythat a more constant and lovely follow I never saw. It wasn't merelywhen he was a Freshman, and he had that home feeling hanging about himstill that makes all the Freshmen so appreciative of anything you do forthem; but all through the Sophomore and Junior years, when they're sotaken up with their athletics and their societies and their college lifegenerally that they haven't a moment for people that have been kind tothem, he was just as faithful as ever. " "How nice!" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "Yes, indeed! And all the allurements of Boston society haven't takenhim from us altogether. You can't imagine how much this means tillyou've been at home a while and seen how the students are petted andspoiled nowadays in the young society. " "Oh, I've heard of it, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "And is it his versatilityand brilliancy, or his amiability, that makes him such a universalfavourite?" "Universal favourite? I don't know that he's that. " "Well, popular, then. " "Oh, he's certainly very much liked. But, Jenny, there are no universalfavourites in Harvard now, if there ever were: the classes arealtogether too big. And it wouldn't be ability, and it wouldn't beamiability alone, that would give a man any sort of leadership. " "What in the world would it be?" "That question, more than anything else, shows how long you've beenaway, Jenny. It would be family--family, with a judicious mixture of theothers, and with money. " "Is it possible? But of course--I remember! Only at their age one thinksof students as being all hail-fellow-well-met with each other--" "Yes; it's hard to realise how conventional they are--how very muchworldlier than the world--till one sees it as one does in Cambridge. They pique themselves on it. And Mr. Saintsbury"--she was one of thosewomen whom everything reminds of their husbands "says that it isn't abad thing altogether. He says that Harvard is just like the world; andeven if it's a little more so, these boys have got to live in the world, and they had better know what it is. You may not approve of the Harvardspirit, and Mr. Saintsbury doesn't sympathise with it; he only says it'sthe world's spirit. Harvard men--the swells--are far more exclusivethan Oxford men. A student, 'comme il faut', wouldn't at all like tobe supposed to know another student whom we valued for his brilliancy, unless he was popular and well known in college. " "Dear me!" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "But of course! It's perfectly natural, with young people. And it's well enough that they should begin tounderstand how things really are in the world early; it will save themfrom a great many disappointments. " "I assure you we have very little to teach Harvard men in those matters. They could give any of us points. Those who are of good family andstation know how to protect themselves by reserves that the otherswouldn't dare to transgress. But a merely rich man couldn't rise intheir set any more than a merely gifted man. He could get on to acertain point by toadying, and some do; but he would never get to bepopular, like Dan Mavering. " "And what makes him popular?--to go back to the point we started from, "said Mrs. Pasmer. "Ah, that's hard to say. It's--quality, I suppose. I don't mean socialquality, exactly; but personal charm. He never had a mean thought; ofcourse we're all full of mean thoughts, and Dan is too; but his firstimpulse is always generous and sweet, and at his age people act a greatdeal from impulse. I don't suppose he ever met a human being withoutwanting to make him like him, and trying to do it. " "Yes, he certainly makes you like him, " sighed Mrs. Pasmer. "But Iunderstand that he can't make people like him without family or money;and I don't understand that he's one of those 'nouveaux riches' who aregiving Harvard such a reputation for extravagance nowadays. " There was an inquiring note in Mrs. Pasmer's voice; and in thesyringa-scented obscurity, which protected the ladies from theexpression of each other's faces, Mrs. Saintsbury gave a little laughof intelligence, to which Mrs. Pasmer responded by a murmur of humorousenjoyment at being understood. "Oh no! He isn't one of those. But the Maverings have plenty of money, "said Mrs. Saintsbury, "and Dan's been very free with it, though notlavish. And he came here with a reputation for popularity from a verygood school, and that always goes a very great way in college. " "Yes?" said Mrs. Pasmer, feeling herself getting hopelessly adrift inthese unknown waters; but reposing a pious confidence in her pilot. "Yes; if a sufficient number of his class said he was the best fellow inthe world, he would be pretty sure to be chosen one of the First Ten inthe 'Dickey'. " "What mysteries!" gasped Mrs. Pasmer, disposed to make fun of them, buta little overawed all the same. "What in the world is the 'Dickey'?" "It's the society that the Freshmen are the most eager to get into. They're chosen, ten at a time, by the old members, and to be one of thefirst ten--the only Freshmen chosen--is something quite ineffable. " "I see. " Mrs. Pasmer fanned herself, after taking a long breath. "Andwhen he had got into the------" "Then it would depend upon himself, how he spent his money, and allthat, and what sort of society success he was in Boston. That hasa great deal to do with it from the first. Then another thing iscaution--discreetness; not saying anything censorious or critical ofother men, no matter what they do. And Dan Mavering is the perfection ofprudence, because he's the perfection of good-nature. " Mrs. Pasmer had apparently got all of these facts that she could digest. "And who are the Maverings?" "Why, it's an old Boston name--" "It's too old, isn't it? Like Pasmer. There are no Maverings in Bostonthat I ever heard of. " "No; the name's quite died out just here, I believe: but it's old, andit bids fair to be replated at Ponkwasset Falls. " "At Ponk--" "That's where they have their mills, or factories, or shops, or whateverinstitution they make wall-paper in. " "Wall-paper!" cried Mrs. Pasmer, austerely. After a moment she asked:"And is wall-paper the 'thing' now? I mean--" She tried to think of someway of modifying the commonness of her phrase, but did not. After all, it expressed her meaning. "It isn't the extreme of fashion, of course. But it's manufacturing, andit isn't disgraceful. And the Mavering papers are very pretty, andyou can live with them without becoming anaemic, or having your facetwitch. " "Face twitch?" echoed Mrs. Pasmer. "Yes; arsenical poisoning. " "Oh! Conscientious as well as aesthetic. I see. And does Mr. Maveringput his artistic temperament into them?" "His father does. He's a very interesting man. He has the best taste incertain things--he knows more about etchings, I suppose, than any oneelse in Boston. " "Is it possible! And does he live at Ponkwasset Falls? It's in RhodeIsland, isn't it?" "New Hampshire. Yes; the whole family live there. " "The whole family? Are there many of them? I'd fancied, somehow, thatMr. Mavering was the only----Do tell me about them, Etta, " said Mrs. Pasmer, leaning back in her chair, and fanning herself with an effect ofimpartial interest, to which the dim light of the room lent itself. "He's the only son. But there are daughters, of course--very cultivatedgirls. " "And is he--is the elder Mr. Mavering a--I don't know what made me thinkso--a widower?" "Well, no--not exactly. " "Not exactly! He's not a grass-widower, I hope?" "No, indeed. But his wife's a helpless invalid, and always has been. He's perfectly devoted to her; and he hurried home yesterday, thoughhe wanted very much to stay for Commencement. He's never away fromher longer than he can help. She's bedridden; and you can see from themoment you enter it that it's a man's house. Daughters can't changethat, you know. " "Have you been there?" asked Mrs. Pasmer, surprised that she was gettingso much information, but eager for more. "Why, how long have you knownthem, Etta?" "Only since Dan came to Harvard. Mr. Saintsbury took a fancy to himfrom the start, and the boy was so fond of him that they were alwaysinsisting upon a visit; and last summer we stopped there on our way tothe mountains. " "And the sisters--do they stay there the whole year round? Are theycountrified?" "One doesn't live in the country without being countrified, " said Mrs. Saintsbury. "They're rather quiet girls, though they've been abouta good deal--to Europe with friends, and to New York in the winter. They're older than Dan; they're more like their father. Are you afraidof that draught at the windows?" "Oh no; it's delicious. And he's like the mother?" "Yes. " "Then it's the father who has the artistic taste--he gets that from him;and the mother who has the--" "Temperament--yes. " "How extremely interesting! And so he's going to be a lawyer. Whylawyer, if he's got the talent and the temperament of an artist? Doeshis father wish him to be a lawyer?" "His father wishes him to be a wall-paper maker. " "And the young man compromises on the law. I see, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "And you say he's been going into Boston a great deal? Where does hego?" The ladies entered into this social inquiry with a zest which it wouldbe hard to make the reader share, or perhaps to feel the importance of. It is enough that it ended in the social vindication of Dan Mavering. It would not have been enough for Mrs Pasmer that he was accepted inthe best Cambridge houses; she knew of old how people were accepted inCambridge for their intellectual brilliancy or solidity, their personalworth, and all sorts of things, without consideration of the mysticalsomething which gives vogue in Boston. "How superb Alice was!" Mrs. Saintsbury broke off abruptly. "She hassuch a beautiful manner. Such repose. " "Repose! Yes, " said her mother, thoughtfully. "But she's very intense. And I don't see where she gets it. Her father has repose enough, but hehas no intensity; and I'm all intensity, and no repose. But I'm no morelike my mother than Alice is like me. " "I think she has the Hibbins face, " said Mrs. Saintsbury. "Oh! she's got the Hibbins face, " said Mrs Pasmer, with a disdain oftone which she did not at all feel; the tone was mere absent-mindedness. She was about to revert to the question of Mavering's family, whenthe door-bell rang, and another visitor interrupted her talk with Mrs. Saintsbury. IX. Mrs. Pasmer's husband looked a great deal older than herself, and, byoperation of a well-known law of compensation, he was lean and silent, while she was plump and voluble. He had thick eyebrows, which remainedblack after his hair and beard had become white, and which gave him anaspect of fierceness, expressive of nothing in his character. It wasfrom him that their daughter got her height, and, as Mrs. Pasmer freelyowned, her distinction. Soon after their marriage the Pasmers had gone to live in Paris, wherethey remained faithful to the fortunes of the Second Empire till itsfall, with intervals of return to their own country of a year or twoyears at a time. After the fall of the Empire they made their sojournin England, where they lived upon the edges and surfaces of things, asAmericans must in Europe everywhere, but had more permanency of feelingthan they had known in France, and something like a real social status. At one time it seemed as if they might end their days there; but thatwhich makes Americans different from all other peoples, and whichfinally claims their allegiance for their own land, made them wish tocome back to America, and to come back to Boston. After all, their placein England was strictly inferior, and must be. They knew titles, andconsorted with them, but they had none themselves, and the Englishconstancy which kept their friends faithful to them after they hadbecome an old story, was correlated with the English honesty whichnever permitted them to mistake themselves for even the lowest of thenobility. They went out last, and they did not come in first, ever. The invitations, upon these conditions, might have gone on indefinitely, but they did not imply a future for the young girl in whom the interestsof her parents centred. After being so long a little girl, she hadbecome a great girl, and then all at once she had become a younglady. They had to ask themselves, the mother definitely and the fatherformlessly, whether they wished their daughter to marry an Englishman, and their hearts answered them, like true Republican hearts, Not anuntitled Englishman, while they saw no prospect of her getting anyother. Mrs. Pasmer philosophised the case with a clearness and a couragewhich gave her husband a series of twinges analogous to the toothache, for a man naturally shrinks from such bold realisations. She said Alicehad the beauty of a beauty, and she had the distinction of a beauty, butshe had not the principles of a beauty; there was no use pretending thatshe had. For this reason the Prince of Wales's set, so accessible toAmerican loveliness with the courage of its convictions, was beyond her;and the question was whether there was money enough for a younger son, or whether, if there was, a younger son was worth it. However this might be, there was no question but there was now lessmoney than there had been, and a great deal less. The investments hadnot turned out as they promised; not only had dividends been passed, butthere had been permanent shrinkages. What was once an amiable competencyfrom the pooling of their joint resources had dwindled to a sum thatneeded a careful eye both to the income and the outgo. Alice's becominga young lady had increased their expenses by the suddenly mounting costof her dresses, and of the dresses which her mother must now buy forthe different role she had to sustain in society. They began to askthemselves what it was for, and to question whether, if she could notmarry a noble Englishman, Alice had not better marry a good American. Even with Mrs. Pasmer this question was tacit, and it need not beexplained to any one who knows our life that in her most worldly dreamsshe intended at the bottom of her heart that her daughter should marryfor love. It is the rule that Americans marry for love, and the veryrare exception that they marry for anything else; and if our divorcecourts are so busy in spite of this fact, it is perhaps because theAmericans also unmarry for love, or perhaps because love is not sosufficient in matters of the heart as has been represented in theliterature of people who have not been able to give it so fair atrial. But whether it is all in all in marriage, or only a very markedessential, it is certain that Mrs. Pasmer expected her daughter'smarriage to involve it. She would have shrunk from intimating anythingelse to her as from a gross indecency; and she could not possibly, byany finest insinuation, have made her a partner in her design for herhappiness. That, so far as Alice was concerned, was a thing which was tofall to her as from heaven; for this also is part of the American plan. We are the children of the poets, the devotees of the romancers, so faras that goes; and however material and practical we are in other things, in this we are a republic of shepherds and shepherdesses, and we live ina golden age; which if it sometimes seems an age of inconvertible paper, is certainly so through no want of faith in us. Though the Pasmers said that they ought to go home for Alice's sake, they both understood that they were going home experimentally, and notwith the intention of laying their bones in their native soil, unlessthey liked it, or found they could afford it. Mrs. Pasmer had noillusions in regard to it. She had learned from her former visits homethat it was frightfully expensive; and, during the fifteen years whichthey had spent chiefly abroad, she had observed the decay of thatdistinction which formerly attended returning sojourners from Europe. She had seen them cease gradually from the romantic reverence whichonce clothed them, and decline through a gathering indifference intosomething like slight and compassion, as people who have not beenable to make their place or hold their own at home; and she hadtaught herself so well how to pocket the superiority natural tothe Europeanised American before arriving at consciousness of thisdisesteem, that she paid a ready tribute to people who had always stayedat home. In fact Mrs. Pasmer was a flatterer, and it cannot be claimed for herthat she flattered adroitly always. But adroitness in flattery is notnecessary for its successful use. There is no morsel of it too gross forthe condor gullet and the ostrich stomach of human vanity; there isno society in which it does not give the utterer instant honourand acceptance in greater or less degree. Mrs. Pasmer, who was verygood-natured, employed it because she liked it herself, and knowing howabsolutely worthless it was from her own tongue, prized it from others. She could have rested perfectly safe without it in her social position, which she found unchanged by years of absence. She had not been aHibbins for nothing, and she was not a Pasmer for nothing, though whyshe should have been either for something it would not be easy to say. But while confessing the foibles of Mrs. Pasmer, it would not be fairto omit from the tale of her many virtues the final conscientiousnessof her openly involuted character. Not to mention other things, sheinstituted and practised economies as alien to her nature as to herhusband's, and in their narrowing affairs she kept him out of debt. Shewas prudent; she was alert; and while presenting to the world all theoutward effect of a butterfly, she possessed some of the best qualitiesof the bee. With his senatorial presence, his distinction of person and manner, Mr. Pasmer was inveterately selfish in that province of small personalthings where his wife left him unmolested. In what related to his owncomfort and convenience he was undisputed lord of himself. It was shewho ordered their comings and goings, and decided in which hemispherethey should sojourn from time to time, and in what city, street, andhouse, but always with the understanding that the kitchen and all thedomestic appointments were to her husband's mind. He was sensitive todegrees of heat and cold, and luxurious in the matter of lighting, andhe had a fine nose for plumbing. If he had not occupied himself so muchwith these details, he was the sort of man to have thought Mrs. Pasmer, with her buzz of activities and pretences, rather a tedious littlewoman. He had some delicate tastes, if not refined interests, and wasexpensively fond of certain sorts of bric-a-brac: he spent a great dealof time in packing and unpacking it, and he had cases stored in Rome andLondon and Paris; it had been one of his motives in consenting to comehome that he might get them out, and set up the various objects ofbronze and porcelain in cabinets. He had no vices, unless absoluteidleness ensuing uninterruptedly upon a remotely demonstrated unfitnessfor business can be called a vice. Like other people who have alwaysbeen idle, he did not consider his idleness a vice. He rather plumedhimself upon it, for the man who has done nothing all his life naturallylooks down upon people who have done or are doing something. In Europehe had not all the advantage of this superiority which such a man hashere; he was often thrown with other idle people, who had been uselessfor so many generations that they had almost ceased to have anyconsciousness of it. In their presence Pasmer felt that his uselessnesshad not that passive elegance which only ancestral uselessness can give;that it was positive, and to that degree vulgar. A life like this was not one which would probably involve great passionsor affections, and it would be hard to describe exactly the feelingwith which he regarded his daughter. He liked her, of course, and he hadnaturally expected certain things of her, as a ladylike intelligence, behaviour, and appearance; but he had never shown any great tendernessfor her, or even pride in her. She had never given him any displeasure, however, and he had not shared his wife's question of mind at atemporary phase of Alice's development when she showed a decidedinclination for a religious life. He had apparently not observed thatthe girl had a pensive temperament in spite of the effect of worldlysplendour which her mother contrived for her, and that this pensivenessoccasionally deepened to gloom. He had certainly never seen that ina way of her own she was very romantic. Mrs. Pasmer had seen it, withamusement sometimes, and sometimes with anxiety, but always with thecourage to believe that she could cope with it when it was necessary. Whenever it was necessary she had all the moral courage she wanted; itseemed as if she could have it or not as she liked; and in coming homeshe had taken a flat instead of a house, though she had not talked withher friends three minutes without perceiving that the moment when flatshad promised to assert their social equality with houses in Boston waspast for ever. There were, of course, cases in which there could be noquestion of them; but for the most part they were plainly regarded asmakeshifts, the resorts of people of small means, or the defiancesor errors of people who had lived too much abroad. They stamped theiroccupants as of transitory and fluctuant character; good people mightlive in them, and did, as good people sometimes boarded; but they couldnot be regarded as forming a social base, except in rare instances. They presented peculiar difficulties in calling, and for any sort ofentertainment they were too--not public, perhaps, but--evident. In spite of these objections Mrs. Pasmer took a flat in the Cavendish, and she took it furnished from people who were going abroad for a year. X. Mrs. Pasmer stood at the drawing-room window of this apartment, themorning after her call upon Mrs. Saintsbury, looking out on the passageof an express-wagon load of trunks through Cavendish Square, andcommenting the fact with the tacit reflection that it was quite timeshe should be getting away from Boston too, when her daughter, who waslooking out of the other window, started significantly back. "What is it, Alice?" "Nothing! Mr. Mavering, I think, and that friend of his----" "Which friend? But where? Don't look! They will think we were watchingthem. I can't see them at all. Which way were they going?" Mrs. Pasmerdramatised a careless unconsciousness to the square, while vividlybetraying this anxiety to her daughter. Alice walked away to the furthest part of the room. "They are comingthis way, " she said indifferently. Before Mrs. Pasmer had time to prepare a conditional mood, adaptedeither to their coming that way or going some other, she heard thejanitor below in colloquy with her maid in the kitchen, and then themaid came in to ask if she should say the ladies were at home. "Oh, certainly, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with a caressing politeness thatanticipated the tone she meant to use with Mavering and his friend. "Were you going, Alice? Better stay. It would be awkward sending out foryou. You look well enough. " "Well!" The young men came in, Mavering with his nervous laugh first, andthen Boardman with his twinkling black eyes, and his main-forceself-possession. "We couldn't go away as far as New London without coming to see whetheryou had really survived Class Day, " said the former, addressing hissolicitude to Mrs. Pasmer. "I tried to find out from, Mrs. Saintsbury, but she was very noncommittal. " He laughed again, and shook hands withAlice, whom he now included in his inquiry. "I'm glad she was, " said Mrs. Pasmer--inwardly wondering what he meantby going to New London--"if it sent you to ask in person. " She made themsit down; and she made as little as possible of the young ceremony theythrew into the transaction. To be cosy, to be at ease instantly, wasMrs. Pasmer's way. "We've not only survived, we've taken a new leaseof life from Class Day. I'd for gotten how charming it always was. Or perhaps it didn't use to be so charming? I don't believe they haveanything like it in Europe. Is it always so brilliant?" "I don't know, " said Mavering. "I really believe it was rather a niceone. " "Oh, we were both enraptured, " cried Mrs. Pasmer. Alice added a quiet "Yes, indeed, " and her mother went on-- "And we thought the Beck Hall spread was the crowning glory of the wholeaffair. We owe ever so much to your kindness. " "Oh, not at all, " said Mavering. "But we were talking afterward, Alice and I, about the suddentransformation of all that disheveled crew around the Tree into theimposing swells--may I say howling swells?--" "Yes, do say 'howling, ' Mrs. Pasmer!" implored the young man. "--whom we met afterward at the spread, " she concluded. "How did youmanage it all? Mr. Irving in the 'Lyons Mail' was nothing to it. Wethought we had walked directly over from the Tree; and there you were, all ready to receive us, in immaculate evening dress. " "It was pretty quick work, " modestly admitted the young man. "Could yourecognise any one in that hurly-burly round the Tree?" "We didn't till you rose, like a statue of Victory, and began grabbingfor the spoils from the heads and shoulders of your friends. Who wasyour pedestal?" Mavering put his hand on his friend's broad shoulder, and gave him aplayful push. Boardman turned up his little black eyes at him, with a funny gleam inthem. "Poor Mr. Boardman!" said Mrs. Pasmer. "It didn't hurt him a bit, " said Mavering, pushing him. "He liked it. " "Of course he did, " said Mrs. Pasmer, implying, in flattery of Mavering, that Boardman might be glad of the distinction; and now Boardman lookedas if he were not. She began to get away in adding, "But I wonder youdon't kill each other. " "Oh, we're not so easily killed, " said Mavering. "And what a fairy scene it was at the spread!" said Mrs. Pasmer, turningto Boardman. She had already talked its splendours over with Maveringthe same evening. "I thought we should never get out of the Hall; butwhen we did get out of the window upon that tapestried platform, anddown on the tennis-ground, with Turkey rugs to hide the bare spots init--" She stopped as people do when it is better to leave the effect tothe listener's imagination. "Yes, I think it was rather nice, " said Boardman. "Nice?" repeated Mrs. Pasmer; and she looked at Mavering. "Is that thefamous Harvard Indifferentism?" "No, no, Mrs. Pasmer! It's just his personal envy. He wasn't in thespread, and of course he doesn't like to hear any one praise it. Go on!"They all laughed. "Well, even Mr. Boardman will admit, " said Mrs. Pasmer; "that nothingcould have been prettier than that pavilion at the bottom of the lawn, and the little tables scattered about over it, and all those charmingyoung creatures under that lovely evening sky. " "Ah! Even Boardman can't deny that. We did have the nicest crowd; didn'twe?" "Well, " said Mrs. Pasmer, playfully checking herself in a readyadhesion, "that depends a good deal upon where Mr. Boardman's spreadwas. " "Thank you, " said Boardman. "He wasn't spreading anywhere, " cried his friend. "Except himself--hewas spreading himself everywhere. " "Then I think I should prefer to remain neutral, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with a mock prudence which pleased the young men. In the midst of thepleasure the was giving and feeling she was all the time aware that herdaughter had contributed but one remark to the conversation, and thatshe must be seeming very stiff and cold. She wondered what that meant, and whether she disliked this little Mr. Boardman, or whether she wasagain trying to punish Mr. Mavering for something, and, if so, what itwas. Had he offended her in some way the other day? At any rate, she hadno right to show it. She longed for some chance to scold the girl, and tell her that it would not do, and make her talk. Mr. Maveringwas merely a friendly acquaintance, and there could be no questionof anything personal. She forgot that between young people the socialaffair is always trembling to the personal affair. In the little pause which these reflections gave her mother, the girlstruck in, with the coolness that always astonished Mrs. Pasmer, and asif she had been merely waiting till some phase of the talk interestedher. "Are many of the students going to the race?" she asked Boardman. "Yes; nearly everybody. That is--" "The race?" queried Mrs. Pasmer. "Yes, at New London, " Mavering broke in. "Don't you know? The Universityrace--Harvard and Yale. " "Oh--oh yes, " cried Mrs. Pasmer, wondering how her daughter should knowabout the race, and she not. "Had they talked it over together on ClassDay?" she asked herself. She felt herself, in spite of her efforts tokeep even with them; left behind and left out, as later age must bedistanced and excluded by youth. "Are you gentlemen going to row?" sheasked Mavering. "No; they've ruled the tubs out this time; and we should send anythingelse to the bottom. " Mrs. Pasmer perceived that he was joking, but also that they were not ofthe crew; and she said that if that was the case the should not go. "Oh, don't let that keep you away! Aren't you going? I hoped you weregoing, " continued the young man, speaking with his eyes on Mrs. Pasmer, but with his mind, as she could see by his eyes, on her daughter. "No, no. " "Oh, do go, Mrs. Pasmer!" he urged: "I wish you'd go along to chaperonus. " Mrs. Pasmer accepted the notion with amusement. "I should think youmight look after each other. At any rate, I think I must trust you toMr. Boardman this time. " "Yes; but he's going on business, " persisted Mavering, as if for thepleasure he found in fencing with the air, "and he can't look after me. " "On business?" said Mrs. Pasmer, dropping her outspread fan on her lap, incredulously. "Yes; he's going into journalism--he's gone into it, " laughed Mavering;"and he's going down to report the race for the 'Events'. " "Really!" asked Mrs. Pasmer, with a glance at Boardman, whose drollembarrassment did not contradict his friend's words. "How splendid!"she cried. "I had, heard that a great many Harvard men were taking upjournalism. I'm so glad of it! It will do everything to elevate itstone. " Boardman seemed to suffer under these expectations a little, and hestole a glance of comical menace at his friend. "Yes, " said Mavering; "you'll see a very different tone about the fires, and the fights, and the distressing accidents, in the 'Events' afterthis. " "What does he mean?" she asked Boardman, giving him unavoidably theadvantage of the caressing manner which was in her mind for Mavering. "Well, you see, " said Boardman, "we have to begin pretty low down. " "Oh, but all departments of our press need reforming, don't they?" sheinquired consolingly. "One hears such shocking things about our papersabroad. I'm sure that the more Harvard men go into them the better. Andhow splendid it is to have them going into politics the way they are!They're going into politics too, aren't they?" She looked from one youngman to the other with an idea that she was perhaps shooting rather wild, and an amiable willingness to be laughed at if she were. "Why don't yougo into politics, Mr. Mavering?" "Well, the fact is--" "So many of the young University men do in England, " said Mrs. Pasmer, fortifying her position. "Well, you see, they haven't got such a complete machine in England--" "Oh yes, that dreadful machine!" sighed Mrs. Pasmer, who had heard ofit, but did not know in the least what it was. "Do you think the Harvard crew will beat this time?" Alice asked ofBoardman. "Well, to tell you the truth--" "Oh, but you must never believe him when he begins that way!" criedMavering. "To be sure they will beat. And you ought to be there to seeit. Now, why won't you come, Mrs. Pasmer?" he pleaded, turning to hermother. "Oh, I'm afraid we must be getting away from Boston by that time. It'svery tiresome, but there seems to be nobody left; and one can't stayquite alone, even if you're sick of moving about. Have you ever been--wethink of going there--to Campobello?" "No; but I hear that it's charming, there. I had a friend who was therelast year, and he said it was charming. The only trouble is it's so far. You're pretty well on the way to Europe when you get there. You knowit's all hotel life?" "Yes. It's quite a new place, isn't it?" "Well, it's been opened up several years. And they say it isn't likethe hotel life anywhere else; it's charming. And there's the very nicestclass of people. " "Very nice Philadelphia people, I hear, " said Mrs. Pasmer; "andBaltimore. Don't you think it's well;" she asked deferentially, andunder correction, if she were hazarding too much, "to see somebodybesides Boston people sometimes--if they're nice? That seems to be oneof the great advantages of living abroad. " "Oh, I think there are nice people everywhere, " said the young man, withthe bold expansion of youth. "Yes, " sighed Mrs. Pasmer. "We saw two such delightful young peoplecoming in and out of the hotel in Rome. We were sure they were English. And they were from Chicago! But there are not many Western people atCampobello, are there?" "I really don't know, " said Mavering. "How is it, Boardman? Do many ofyour people go there?" "You know you do make it so frightfully expensive with your money, " saidMrs. Pasmer, explaining with a prompt effect of having known all alongthat Boardman was from the West, "You drive us poor people all away. " "I don't think my money would do it, " said Boardman quietly. "Oh, you wait till you're a Syndicate Correspondent, " said, Mavering, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder, and rising by aid of it. Heleft Mrs. Pasmer to fill the chasm that had so suddenly yawned betweenher and Boardman; and while she tumbled into every sort of floweryfriendliness and compliment, telling him she should look out for hisaccount of the race with the greatest interest, and expressing the hopethat he would get as far as Campobello during the summer, Mavering foundsome minutes for talk with Alice. He was graver with her--far graverthan with her mother--not only because she was a more serious nature, but because they were both young, and youth is not free with youthexcept by slow and cautious degrees. In that little space of timethey talked of pictures, 'a propos' of some on the wall, and of books, because of those on the table. "Oh yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer when they paused, and she felt that her pieceof difficult engineering had been quite successful, "Mrs. Saintsbury wastelling me what a wonderful connoisseur of etchings your father is. " "I believe he does know something about them, " said the young manmodestly. "And he's gone back already?" "Oh yes. He never stays long away from my mother. I shall be going homemyself as soon as I get back from the race. " "And shall you spend the summer there?" "Part of it. I always like to do that. " "Perhaps when you get away you'll come as far as Campobello--with Mr. Boardman, " she added. "Has Boardman promised to go?" laughed Mavering. "He will promiseanything. Well, I'll come to Campobello if you'll come to New London. Docome, Mrs. Pasmer!" The mother stood watching the two young men from the window as they madetheir way across the square together. She had now, for some reason; noapparent scruple in being seen to do so. "How ridiculous that stout little Mr. Boardman is with him!" said Mrs. Pasmer. "He hardly comes up to his shoulder. Why in the world should hehave brought him?" "I thought he was very pleasant, " said the girl. "Yes, yes, of course. And I suppose he'd have felt that it was ratherpointed coming alone. " "Pointed?" "Young men are so queer! Did you like that kind of collar he had on?" "I didn't notice it. " "So very, very high. " "I suppose he has rather a long neck. " "Well, what did you think of his urging us to go to the race? Do youthink he meant it? Do you think he intended it for an invitation?" "I don't think he meant anything; or, if he did, I think he didn't knowwhat. " "Yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer vaguely; "that must be what Mrs. Saintsburymeant by the artistic temperament. " "I like people to be sincere, and not to say things they don't mean, ordon't know whether they mean or not, " said Alice. "Yes, of course, that's the best way, " admitted Mrs. Pasmer. "It's theonly way, " she added, as if it were her own invariable practice. Thenshe added further, "I wonder what he did mean?" She began to yawn, for after her simulation of vivid interest in themthe visit of the young men had fatigued her. In the midst of her yawnher daughter went out of the room, with an impatient gesture, and shesuspended the yawn long enough to smile, and then finished it. XI. After first going to the Owen, at Campobello, the Pasmers took roomsat the Ty'n-y-Coed, which is so much gayer, even if it is not socharacteristic of the old Welsh Admiral's baronial possession ofthe island. It is characteristic enough, and perched on its bluffoverlooking the bay, or whatever the body of water is, it sees a scoreof pretty isles and long reaches of mainland coast, with a white marbleeffect of white-painted wooden Eastport, nestled in the wide lap of theshore, in apparent luxury and apparent innocence of smuggling and themanufacture of herring sardines. The waters that wrap the island inmorning and evening fog temper the air of the latitude to a Newportsoftness in summer, with a sort of inner coolness that is peculiarlydelicious, lulling the day with long calms and light breezes, and afternightfall commonly sending a stiff gale to try the stops of the hotel'sgables and casements, and to make the cheerful blaze on its publichearths acceptable. Once or twice a day the Eastport ferry-boat arrives, with passengers from the southward, at a floating wharf that sinks orswims half a hundred feet on the mighty tides of the Northeast; but allnight long the island is shut up to its own memories and devices. Thepretty romance of the old sailor who left England to become a sortof feudal seigneur here, with a holding of the entire island, and itsfisher-folk for his villeins, forms a picturesque background for theaesthetic leisure and society in the three hotels remembering him andhis language in their names, and housing with a few cottages all thesojourners on the island. By day the broad hotel piazzas shelter such ofthe guests as prefer to let others make their excursions into the heartof the island, and around its rocky, sea-beaten borders; and at night, when the falling mists have brought the early dark, and from lighthouseto lighthouse the fog-horns moan and low to one another, the piazzascede to the corridors and the parlours and smoking-rooms. The life doesnot greatly differ from other seaside hotel life on the surface, andif one were to make distinctions one would perhaps begin by saying thathotel society there has much of the tone of cottage society elsewhere, with a little more accessibility. As the reader doubtless knows, thegreat mass of Boston society, thoughtful of its own weight and bulk, transports itself down the North Shore scarcely further than Manchesterat the furthest; but there are more courageous or more detachablespirits who venture into more distant regions. These contributesomewhat toward peopling Bar Harbour in the summer, but they scarcelycharacterise it in any degree; while at Campobello they settle in littledaring colonies, whose self-reliance will enlist the admiration of thesympathetic observer. They do not refuse the knowledge of other coloniesof other stirps and origins, and they even combine in temporary alliancewith them. But, after all, Boston speaks one language, and New Yorkanother, and Washington a third, and though the several dialects haveonly slight differences of inflection, their moral accents render eacha little difficult for the others. In fact every society is repellantof strangers in the degree that it is sufficient to itself, and isincurious concerning the rest of the world. If it has not the elementsof self-satisfaction in it, if it is uninformed and new and restless, it is more hospitable than an older society which has a sense of meritfounded upon historical documents, and need no longer go out of itselffor comparisons of any sort, knowing that if it seeks anything betterit will probably be disappointed. The natural man, the savage, isas indifferent to others as the exclusive, and those who accuse thecoldness of the Bostonians, and their reluctant or repellant behaviourtoward unknown people, accuse not only civilisation, but nature itself. That love of independence which is notable in us even in our mostacquiescent phases at home is perhaps what brings these cultivated andagreeable people so far away, where they can achieve a sort of sylvanurbanity without responsibility, and without that measuring of purseswhich attends the summer display elsewhere. At Campobello one might bepoor with almost as little shame as in Cambridge if one were cultivated. Mrs. Pasmer, who seldom failed of doing just the right thing forherself, had promptly divined the advantages of Campobello for herfamily. She knew, by dint of a little inquiry, and from the volunteerinformation of enthusiasts who had been there the summer before, justwho was likely to be there during the summer with which she now foundherself confronted. Campobello being yet a new thing, it was not open tothe objection that you were sure to meet such and such people, moreor less common or disagreeable, there; whatever happened, it could belightly handled in the retrospect as the adventure of a partial andfragmentary summer when really she hardly cared where they went. They did not get away from Boston before the middle of July, and afterthe solitude they left behind them there, the Owen at first seemed verygay. But when they had once or twice compared it with the Ty'n-y-Coed, riding to and fro in the barge which formed the connecting link withthe Saturday evening hops of the latter hotel, Mrs. Pasmer decided that, from Alice's point of view, they had made a mistake, and she repaired itwithout delay. The young people were, in fact, all at the Ty'n-y-Coed, and though she found the Owen perfectly satisfying for herself and Mr. Pasmer, she was willing to make the sacrifice of going to a new place:it was not a great sacrifice for one who had dwelt so long in tents. There were scarcely any young girls at the Owen, and no young men, ofcourse. Even at the Ty'n-y-Coed, where young girls abounded, it wouldnot be right to pretend that there were young men enough. Nowhere, perhaps, except at Bar Harbour, is the long-lost balance of thesexes trimmed in New England; and even there the observer, abstractlydelighting in the young girls and their dresses at that grandlove-exchange of Rodick's, must question whether the adjustment isperfectly accurate. At Campobello there were not more than half enough young men, and therewas not enough flirtation to affect the prevailing social mood of theplace: an unfevered, expectationless tranquillity, in which to-day islike yesterday, and to-morrow cannot be different. It is a quiet oflight reading, and slowly, brokenly murmured, contented gossip for theladies, of old newspapers and old stories and luxuriously meditatedcigars for the men, with occasional combinations for a steam-launchcruise among the eddies and islands of the nearer waters, or a voyagefurther off in the Bay of Fundy to the Grand Menan, and a return for thelate dinner which marks the high civilisation of Campobello, and thenan evening of more reading and gossip and cigars, while the night windwhistles outside, and the brawl and crash of the balls among the tenpinscomes softened from the distant alleys. There are pleasant walks, which people seldom take, in many directions, and there are drives andbridle-paths all through the dense, sad, Northern woods which stillsavagely clothe the greater part of the island to its furthershores, where there are shelves and plateaus of rock incomparable forpicnicking. One need ask nothing better, in fact, than to stroll down the sylvanroad that leads to the Owen, past the little fishing-village with itssheds for curing herring; and the pale blue smoke and appetising savourescaping from them; and past the little chapel with which the oldAdmiral attested his love of the Established rite. On this road you maysometimes meet a little English bishop from the Provinces, in his apronand knee-breeches; and there is a certain bridge over a narrow estuary, where in the shallow land-locked pools of the deeply ebbing tide you maythrow stones at sculpin, and witness the admirable indifference of thosefish to human cruelty and folly. In the middle distance you will seea group of herring weirs, which with their coronals of tufted saplingsform the very most picturesque aspect of any fishing industry. You may, now and then find an artist at this point, who, crouched over his easel, or hers, seems to agree with you about the village and the weirs. But Alice Pasmer cared little more for such things than her mother did, and Mrs. Pasmer regarded Nature in all her aspects simply as an adjunctof society, or an occasional feature of the entourage. The girl hadno such worldly feeling about it, but she found slight sympathy in themoods of earth and sky with her peculiar temperament. This temperament, whose recondite origin had almost wholly broken up Mrs. Pasmer's faithin heredity, was like other temperaments, not always in evidence, andAlice was variously regarded as cold, of shy, or proud, or insipid, bythe various other temperaments brought in contact with her own. Shewas apt to be liked because she was as careful of others as she was ofherself, and she never was childishly greedy about such admiration asshe won, as girls often are, perhaps because she did not care for it. Up to this time it is doubtful if her heart had been touched even by thefancies that shake the surface of the soul of youth, and perhaps it wasfor this reason that her seriousness at first fretted Mrs. Pasmer with avague anxiety for her future. Mrs. Pasmer herself remained inalienably Unitarian, but she was aware ofthe prodigious-growth which the Church had been making in society, andwhen Alice showed her inclination for it, she felt that it was not atall as if she had developed a taste for orthodoxy; when finally it didnot seem likely to go too far, it amused Mrs. Pasmer that her daughtershould have taken so intensely to the Anglican rite. In the hotel it attached to her by a common interest several ofthe ladies who had seen her earnestly responsive at the little Owenchapel--ladies left to that affectional solitude which awaits longwidowhood through the death or marriage of children; and other ladies, younger, but yet beginning to grow old with touching courage. Alicewas especially a favourite with the three or four who represented theirclass and condition at the Ty'n-y Coed, and who read the best books readthere, and had the gentlest manners. There was a tacit agreementamong these ladies, who could not help seeing the difference in thetemperaments of the mother and daughter, that Mrs. Pasmer did notunderstand Alice; but probably there were very few people except herselfwhom Mrs. Pasmer did not understand quite well. She understood theseladies and their compassion for Alice, and she did not in the leastresent it. She was willing that people should like Alice for any reasonthey chose, if they did not go too far. With her little flutter offutile deceits, her irreverence for every form of human worth and hertrust in a providence which had seldom failed her, she smiled at thecult of Alice's friends, as she did at the girl's seriousness, whichalso she felt herself able to keep from going too far. While she did not object to the sympathy of these ladies, whateverinspired it, she encouraged another intimacy which grew upcontemporaneously with theirs, and which was frankly secular andpractical, though the girl who attached herself to Alice with one ofthose instant passions of girlhood was also in every exterior observancea strict and diligent Churchwoman. The difference was through thedifference of Boston and New York in everything: the difference betweenidealising and the realising tendency. The elderly and middle-agedBoston women who liked Alice had been touched by something high yet sadin the beauty of her face at church; the New York girl promptly ownedthat she had liked her effect the first Sunday she saw her there, and she knew in a minute she never got those things on this side; herobeisances and genuflections throughout the service, much more profoundand punctilious than those of any one else there, had apparently notprevented her from making a thorough study of Alice's costume and acorrect conjecture as to its authorship. Miss Anderson, who claimed a collateral Dutch ancestry by the Van Hook, tucked in between her non-committal family name and the Julia given herin christening, was of the ordinary slender make of American girlhood, with dull blond hair, and a dull blond complexion, which would have lefther face uninteresting if it had not been for the caprice of her nose insuddenly changing from the ordinary American regularity, after gettingover its bridge, and turning out distinctly 'retrousse'. This gave herprofile animation and character; you could not expect a girl with thatnose to be either irresolute or commonplace, and for good or for illMiss Anderson was decided and original. She carried her figure, whichwas no great things of a figure as to height, with vigorous erectness;she walked with long strides, knocking her skirts into fine eddies andtangles as she went; and she spoke in a bold, deep voice, with toneslike a man in it, all the more amusing and fascinating because of theperfectly feminine eyes with which she looked at you, and the nervous, feminine gestures which she used while she spoke. She took Mrs. Pasmer into her confidence with regard to Alice atan early stage of their acquaintance, which from the first had apatronising or rather protecting quality in it; if she owned herselfless fine, she knew herself shrewder, and more capable of coping withactualities. "I think she's moybid, Alice is, " she said. "She isn't moybid in theusual sense of the word, but she expects more of herself and of thewoyld generally than anybody's going to get out of it. She thinks she'sgoing to get as much as she gives, and that's a great mistake, Mrs. Pasmer, " she said, with that peculiar liquefaction of the canine letterwhich the New-Yorkers alone have the trick of, and which it would betiresome and futile to try to represent throughout her talk. "Oh yes, I quite agree with you, " said Mrs. Pasmer, deep in her throat, and reserving deeper still her enjoyment of this early wisdom of MissAnderson's. "Now, even at church--she carries the same spirit into the church. Shedoesn't make allowance for human nature, and the church does. " "Oh, certainly!" Mrs. Pasmer agreed. "She isn't like a person that's been brought up in the church. It's morelike the old Puritan spirit. --Excuse me, Mrs. Pasmer!" "Yes, indeed! Say anything you like about the Puritans!" said Mrs. Pasmer, delighted that, as a Bostonian, she should be thought to carefor them. "I always forget that you're a Bostonian, " Miss Anderson apologized. "Oh, thank you!" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "I'm going to try to make her like other girls, " continued MissAnderson. "Do, " said Alice's mother, with the effect of wishing her joy of theundertaking. "If there were a few young men about, a little over seventeen anda little under fifty, it would be easier, " said Miss Andersonthoughtfully. "But how are you going to make a girl like other girlswhen there are no young men?" "That's very true, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with an interest which she ofcourse did her best to make impersonal. "Do you think there will bemore, later on?" "They will have to Huey up if they are comin', " said Miss Anderson. "It's the middle of August now, and the hotel closes the second week inSeptember. " "Yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer, vaguely looking at Alice. She had just appearedover the brow of the precipice, along whose face the arrivals anddepartures by the ferry-boat at Campobello obliquely ascend and descend. She came walking swiftly toward the hotel, and, for her, so excitedlythat Mrs. Pasmer involuntarily rose and went to meet her at the top ofthe broad hotel steps. "What is it, Alice?" "Oh, nothing! I thought I saw Mr. Munt coming off the boat. " "Mr. Munt?" "Yes. " She would not stay for further question. Her mother looked after her with the edge of her fan over her mouth tillshe disappeared in the depths of the hotel corridor; then she sat downnear the steps, and chatted with some half-grown boys lounging onthe balustrade, and waited for Munt to come up over the brink of theprecipice. Dan Mavering came with him, running forward with apolite eagerness at sight of Mrs. Pasmer. She distributed a skillfulastonishment equally between the two men she had equally expected tosee, and was extremely cordial with them, not only because she waspleased with them, but because she was still more pleased withher daughter's being, after all, like other girls, when it came toessentials. XII. Alice came down to lunch in a dress which reconciled the seaside and thedrawing-room in an effect entirely satisfactory to her mother, and gaveher hand to both the gentlemen without the affectation of surprise atseeing either. "I saw Mr. Munt coning up from the boat, " she said in answer toMavering's demand for some sort of astonishment from her. "I wasn'tcertain that it was you. " Mrs. Pasmer, whose pretences had been all given away by this simpleconfession, did not resent it, she was so much pleased with herdaughter's evident excitement at the young man's having come. Withoutbeing conscious of it, perhaps, Alice prettily assumed the part ofhostess from the moment of their meeting, and did the honours of thehotel with a tacit implication of knowing that he had come to see herthere. They had only met twice, but now, the third time, meeting aftera little separation, their manner toward each other was as if theiracquaintance had been making progress in the interval. She took himabout quite as if he had joined their family party, and introduced himto Miss Anderson and to all her particular friends, for each of whom, within five minutes after his presentation, he contrived to do somewinning service. She introduced him to her father, whom he treated withdeep respect and said "Sir" to. She showed him the bowling alley, andbegan to play tennis with him. Her mother, sitting with John Munt on the piazza, followed these politeattentions to Mavering with humorous satisfaction, which was qualifiedas they went on. "Alice, " she said to her, at a chance which offered itself during theevening, and then she hesitated for the right word. "Well; mamma?" said the girl impatiently, stopping on her way to walkup and down the piazza with Mavering; she had run in to get a wrap and aTam-o'-Shanter cap. "Don't--overdo--the honours. " "What do you mean, mamma?" asked the girl; dropping her arms before her, and letting the shawl trail on the floor. "Don't you think he was very kind to us on Class Day?" Her mother laughed. "But every one mayn't know it's gratitude. " Alice went out, but she came back in a little while, and went up to herroom without speaking to any one. The fits of elation and depression with which this first day passedfor her succeeded one another during Mavering's stay. He did not needAlice's chaperonage long. By the next morning he seemed to know and tolike everybody in the hotel, where he enjoyed a general favour whichat that moment had no exceptions. In the afternoon he began to organiseexcursions and amusements with the help of Miss Anderson. The plans all referred to Alice, who accepted and approved with anauthority which every one tacitly admitted, just as every one recognisedthat Mavering had come to Campobello because she was there. Such a phaseis perhaps the prettiest in the history of a love affair. All is yet insolution; nothing has been precipitated in word or fact. The parties toit even reserve a final construction of what they themselves say or do;they will not own to their hearts that they mean exactly this or that. It is this phase which in its perfect freedom is the most Americanof all; under other conditions it is an instant, perceptible orimperceptible; under ours it is a distinct stage, unhurried by anyoutside influences. The nearest approach to a definition of the situation was in a walkbetween Mavering and Mrs. Pasmer, and this talk, too, light and brief, might have had no such intention as her fancy assigned his part of it. She recurred to something that had been said on Class Day about histaking up the law immediately, or going abroad first for a year. "Oh, I've abandoned Europe altogether for the present, " he saidlaughing. "And I don't know but I may go back on the law too. " "Indeed! Then you are going to be an artist?" "Oh no; not so bad as that. It isn't settled yet, and I'm off hereto think it over a while before the law school opens in September. Myfather wants me to go into his business and turn my powers to account indesigning wall-papers. " "Oh, how very interesting!" At the same time Mrs. Pasmer ran over thewhole field of her acquaintance without finding another wall-papermaker in it. But she remembered what Mrs. Saintsbury had said: it wasmanufacturing. This reminded her to ask if he had seen the Saintsburyslately, and he said, No; he believed they were still in Cambridge, though. "And we shall actually see a young man, " she said finally, "in the actof deciding his own destiny!" He laughed for pleasure in her persiflage. "Yes; only don't give meaway. Nobody else knows it. " "Oh no, indeed. Too much flattered, Mr. Mavering. Shall you let meknow when you've decided? I shall be dying to know, and I shall be toohigh-minded to ask. " It was not then too late to adapt 'Pinafore' to any exigency of life, and Mavering said, "You will learn from the expression of my eyes. " XIII. The witnesses of Mavering's successful efforts to make everybody likehim were interested in his differentiation of the attentions he offeredevery age and sex from those he paid Alice. But while they all agreedthat there never was a sweeter fellow, they would have been puzzled tosay in just what this difference consisted, and much as they likedhim, the ladies of her cult were not quite satisfied with him tillthey decided that it was marked by an anxiety, a timidity, which wasperfectly fascinating in a man so far from bashfulness as he. That is, he did nice things for others without asking; but with her there wasalways an explicit pause, and an implicit prayer and permission, first. Upon this condition they consented to the glamour which he had for her, and which was evident to every one probably but him. Once agreeing that no one was good enough for Alice Pasmer, whosequalities they felt that only women could really appreciate, they wereinterested to see how near Mavering could come to being good enough; andas the drama played itself before their eyes, they pleased themselves inanalysing its hero. "He is not bashful, certainly, " said one of a little group who satmidway of the piazza while Alice and Mavering walked up and downtogether. "But don't you think he's modest? There's that difference, youknow. " The lady addressed waited so long before answering that the young couplecame abreast of the group, and then she had to wait till they were outof hearing. "Yes, " she said then, with a tender, sighing thoughtfulness, "I've felt that in him. And really think he is a very loveable nature. The only question would be whether he wasn't too loveable. " "Yes, " said the first lady, with the same kind of suspiration, "I knowwhat you mean. And I suppose they ought to be something more alike indisposition. " "Or sympathies?" suggested the other. "Yes, or sympathies. " A third lady laughed a little. "Mr. Mavering has so many sympathies thathe ought to be like her in some of them. " "Do you mean that he's too sympathetic--that he isn't sincere?" askedthe first--a single lady of forty-nine, a Miss Cotton, who had a littleknot of conscience between her pretty eyebrows, tied there by theunremitting effort of half a century to do and say exactly the truth, and to find it out. Mrs. Brinkley, whom she addressed, was of that obesity which seems oftento incline people to sarcasm. "No, I don't think he's insincere. I thinkhe always means what he says and does--Well, do you think a little moreconcentration of good-will would hurt him for Miss Pasmer's purpose--ifshe has it?" "Yes, I see, " said Miss Cotton. She waited, with her kind eyes fixedwistfully upon Alice, for the young people to approach and get by. "Iwonder what the men think of him?" "You might ask Miss Anderson, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "Oh, do you think they tell her?" "Not that exactly, " said Mrs. Brinkley, shaking with good-humouredpleasure in her joke. "Her voice--oh yes. She and Alice are great friends, of course. " "I should think, " said Mrs. Stamwell, the second speaker, "that Mr. Mavering would be jealous sometimes--till he looked twice. " "Yes, " said Miss Cotton, obliged to admit the force of the remark, but feeling that Mr. Mavering had been carried out of the field of hervision by the turn of the talk. "I suppose, " she continued, "that hewouldn't be so well liked by other young men as she is by other girls, do you think?" "I don't think, as a rule, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "that men are half soappreciative of one another as women are. It's most amusing to see theopen scorn with which two young fellows treat each other if a prettygirl introduces them. " All the ladies joined in the laugh with which Mrs. Brinkley herself ledoff. But Miss Cotton stopped laughing first. "Do you mean, ", she asked, "that if a gentleman were generally popularwith gentlemen it would be--" "Because he wasn't generally so with women? Something like that--ifyou'll leave Mr. Mavering out of the question. Oh, how very good ofthem!" she broke off, and all the ladies glanced at Mavering and Alicewhere they had stopped at the further end of the piazza, and werelooking off. "Now I can probably finish before they get back here again. What I do mean, Miss Cotton, is that neither sex willingly accepts thefavourites of the other. " "Yes, " said Miss Cotton admissively. "And all that saves Miss Pasmer is that she has not only the qualitiesthat women like in women, but some of the qualities that men, like inthem. She's thoroughly human. " A little sensation, almost a murmur, not wholly of assent, went roundthat circle which had so nearly voted Alice a saint. "In the first place, she likes to please men. " "Oh!" came from the group. "And that makes them like her--if it doesn't go too far, as her mothersays. " The ladies all laughed, recognising a common turn of phrase in Mrs. Pasmer. "I should think, " said Mrs. Stamwell, "that she would believe a littlein heredity if she noticed that in her daughter;" and the ladies laughedagain. "Then, " Mrs. Brinkley resumed concerning Alice, "she has a very prettyface--an extremely pretty face; she has a tender voice, and she's very, very graceful--in rather an odd way; perhaps it's only a fascinatingawkwardness. Then she dresses--or her mother dresses her--exquisitely. "The ladies, with another sensation, admitted the perfect accuracy withwhich these points had been touched. "That's what men like, what they fall in love with, what Mr. Mavering'sin love with this instant. It's no use women's flattering themselvesthat they don't, for they do. The rest of the virtues and graces andcharms are for women. If that serious girl could only know the sillythings that that amiable simpleton is taken with in her, she'd--" "Never speak to him again?" suggested Miss Cotton. "No, I don't say that. But she would think twice before marrying him. " "And then do it, " said Mrs. Stamwell pensively, with eyes that seemedlooking far into the past. "Yes, and quite right to do it, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "I don't know thatwe should be very proud ourselves if we confessed just what caught ourfancy in our husbands. For my part I shouldn't like to say how much alight hat that Mr. Brinkley happened to be wearing had to do with thematter. " The ladies broke into another laugh, and then checked themselves, so that Mrs. Pasmer, coming out of the corridor upon them, naturallythought they were laughing at her. She reflected that if she had beenin their place she would have shown greater tact by not stopping just atthat instant. But she did not mind. She knew that they talked her over, but having avery good conscience, she simply talked them over in return. "Have youseen my daughter within a few minutes?" she asked. "She was with Mr. Mavering at the end of the piazza a moment ago, "said Mrs. Brinkley. "They must leave just gone round the corner of thebuilding. " "Oh, " said Mrs. Pasmer. She had a novel, with her finger between itsleaves, pressed against her heart, after the manner of ladies coming outon hotel piazzas. She sat down and rested it on her knee, with her handover the top. Miss Cotton bent forward, and Mrs. Pasmer lifted her fingers to let hersee the name of the book. "Oh yes, " said Miss Cotton. "But he's so terribly pessimistic, don't youthink?" "What is it?" asked Mrs. Brinkley. "Fumee, " said Mrs. Pasmer, laying the book title upward on her lap forevery one to see. "Oh yes, " said Mrs. Brinkley, fanning herself. "Tourguenief. That mangave me the worst quarter of an hour with his 'Lisa' that I ever had. " "That's the same as the 'Nichee des Gentilshommes', isn't it?" askedMrs. Pasmer, with the involuntary superiority of a woman who reads herTourguenief in French. "I don't know. I had it in English. I don't build my ships to cross thesea in, as Emerson says; I take those I find built. " "Ah! I was already on the other side, " said Mrs. Pasmer softly. Sheadded: "I must get Lisa. I like a good heart-break; don't you? If that'swhat gave you the bad moment. " "Heart-break? Heart-crush! Where Lavretsky comes back old to the sceneof his love for Lisa, and strikes that chord on the piano--well, Isimply wonder that I'm alive to recommend the book to you. "Do you know, " said Miss Cotton, very deferentially, "that your daughteralways made me think of Lisa?" "Indeed!" cried Mrs. Pasmer, not wholly pleased, but gratified that shewas able to hide her displeasure. "You make me very curious. " "Oh, I doubt if you'll see more than a mere likeness of temperament, "Mrs. Brinkley interfered bluntly. "All the conditions are so different. There couldn't be an American Lisa. That's the charm of these Russiantragedies. You feel that they're so perfectly true there, and soperfectly impossible here. Lavretsky would simply have got himselfdivorced from Varvara Pavlovna, and no clergyman could have objected tomarrying him to Lisa. " "That's what I mean by his pessimism, " said Miss Cotton. "He leaves youno hope. And I think that despair should never be used in a novel exceptfor some good purpose; don't you, Mrs. Brinkley?" "Well, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "I was trying to think what good purposedespair could be put to, in a book or out of it. " "I don't think, " said Mrs. Pasmer, referring to the book in her lap, "that he leaves you altogether in despair here, unless you'd rather he'drun off with Irene than married Tatiana. " "Oh, I certainly didn't wish that;" said Miss Cotton, in self-defence, as if the shot had been aimed at her. "The book ends with a marriage; there's no denying that, " said Mrs. Brinkley, with a reserve in her tone which caused Mrs. Pasmer tocontinue for her-- "And marriage means happiness--in a book. " "I'm not sure that it does in this case. The time would come, afterLitvinof had told Tatiana everything, when she would have to askherself, and not once only, what sort of man it really was who waswilling to break his engagement and run off with another man's wife, andwhether he could ever repent enough for it. She could make excuses forhim, and would, but at the bottom of her heart--No, it seems to methat there, almost for the only time, Tourguenief permitted himself anamiable weakness. All that part of the book has the air of begging thequestion. " "But don't you see, " said Miss Cotton, leaning forward in the way shehad when very earnest, "that he means to show that her love is strongenough for all that?" "But he doesn't, because it isn't. Love isn't strong enough to savepeople from unhappiness through each other's faults. Do you suppose thatso many married people are unhappy in each other because they don't loveeach other? No; it's because they do love each other that their faultsare such a mutual torment. If they were indifferent, they wouldn't mindeach other's faults. Perhaps that's the reason why there are so manyAmerican divorces; if they didn't care, like Europeans, who don't marryfor love, they could stand it. " "Then the moral is, " said Mrs. Pasmer, at her lightest through thesurrounding gravity, "that as all Americans marry for love, onlyAmericans who have been very good ought to get married. " "I'm not sure that the have-been goodness is enough either, " said Mrs. Brinkley, willing to push it to the absurd. "You marry a man's future aswell as his past. " "Dear me! You are terribly exigeante, Mrs. Brinkley, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "One can afford to be so--in the abstract, " answered Mrs. Brinkley. They all stopped talking and looked at John Munt, who was coming towardthem, and each felt a longing to lay the matter before him. There was probably not a woman among them but had felt more, read more, and thought more than John Munt, but he was a man, and the mind of aman is the court of final appeal for the wisest women. Till some man haspronounced upon their wisdom, they do not know whether it is wisdom ornot. Munt drew up his chair, and addressed himself to the whole group throughMrs. Pasmer: "We are thinking of getting up a little picnic to-morrow. " XIV. The day of the picnic struggled till ten o'clock to peer through the fogthat wrapt it with that remote damp and coolness and that nearer drouthand warmth which some fogs have. The low pine groves hung full of it, and it gave a silvery definition to the gossamer threads running fromone grass spear to another in spacious networks over the open levels ofthe old fields that stretch back from the bluff to the woods. At lastit grew thinner, somewhere over the bay; then you could see the smoothwater through it; then it drifted off in ragged fringes before a lightbreeze: when you looked landward again it was all gone there, andseaward it had gathered itself in a low, dun bank along the horizon. Itwas the kind of fog that people interested in Campobello admitted as aptto be common there, but claimed as a kind of local virtue when it beganto break away. They said that it was a very dry fog, not like Newport, and asked you to notice that it did not wet you at all. Four or five carriages, driven by the gentlemen of the party, held thepicnic, which was destined for that beautiful cove on the Bay of Fundywhere the red granite ledges, smooth-washed by ages of storm and sun, lend themselves to such festivities as if they had been artificiallyfashioned into shelves and tables. The whole place is yet so new to menthat this haunt has not acquired that air of repulsive custom which theegg shells and broken bottles and sardine boxes of many seasons give. Or perhaps the winter tempests heap the tides of the bay over the ledge, and wash it clean of these vulgar traces of human resort, and enable itto offer as fresh a welcome to the picnics of each successive summer asif there had never been a picnic in that place before. This was the sense that Mavering professed to have received from it, when he jumped out of the beach wagon in which he had preceded the othercarriages through the weird forest lying between the fringe of farmfields and fishing-villages on the western shore of the island andthese lonely coasts of the bay. As far as the signs of settled humanhabitation last, the road is the good hard country road of New England, climbing steep little hills, and presently leading through long tractsof woodland. But at a certain point beyond the furthest cottageyou leave it, and plunge deep into the heart of the forest, vaguelytraversed by the wheel-path carried through since the island was openedto summer sojourn. Road you can hardly call it, remembering its curiouspauses and hesitations when confronted with stretches of marshy ground, and its staggering progress over the thick stubble of saplings throughwhich it is cut. The progress of teams over it is slow, but there issuch joy of wildness in the solitudes it penetrates that; if the horseshad any gait slower than a walk, one might still wish to stay them. Itis a Northern forest, with the air of having sprang quickly up in thefierce heat and haste of the Northern summers. The small firs are setalmost as dense as rye in a field, and in their struggle to the lightthey have choked one another so that there is a strange blight of deathand defeat on all that vigour of life. Few of the trees have won anylofty growth; they seem to have died and fallen when they were aboutto outstrip the others in size, and from their decay a new sylvangeneration riots rankly upward. The surface of the ground is thinlyclothed with a deciduous undergrowth, above which are the bare, sparestems of the evergreens, and then their limbs thrusting into one anotherin a sombre tangle, with locks of long yellowish-white moss, like thegrey pendants of the Southern pines, dripping from them and drainingtheir brief life. In such a place you must surrender yourself to its influences, profoundly yet vaguely melancholy, or you must resist them with whatevergaiety is in you, or may be conjured out of others. It was concededthat Mavering was the life of the party, as the phrase goes. Hislight-heartedness, as kindly and sympathetic as it was inexhaustible, served to carry them over the worst places in the road of itself. Hejumped down and ran back, when he had passed a bad bit, to see if theothers were getting through safely; the least interesting of the partyhad some proof of his impartial friendliness; he promised an early andtriumphant emergence from all difficulties; he started singing, andsacrificed himself in several tunes, for he could not sing well; hislaugh seemed to be always coming back to Alice, where she rode latein the little procession; several times, with the deference which hedelicately qualified for her, he came himself to see if he could not dosomething for her. "Miss Pasmer, " croaked her friend Miss Anderson, who always began inthat ceremonious way with her, and got to calling her Alice furtheralong in the conversation, "if you don't drop something for that poorfellow to run back two or three miles and get, pretty soon, I'll do itmyself. It's peyfectly disheaytening to see his disappointment when youtell him theye's nothing to be done. " "He seems to get over it, " said Alice evasively. She smiled withpleasure in Miss Anderson's impeachment, however. "Oh, he keeps coming, if that's what you mean. But do drop anumbrella, or a rubber, or something, next time, just to show a properappreciation. " But Mavering did not come any more. Just before they got to the cove, Miss Anderson leaned over again to whisper in Alice's ear, "I told youhe was huyt. Now you must be very good to him the rest of the time. " Upon theory a girl of Alice Pasmer's reserve ought to have resented thisintervention, but it is not probable she did. She flushed a little, butnot with offence, apparently; and she was kinder to Mavering, and lethim do everything for her that he could invent in transferring thethings from the wagons to the rocks. The party gave a gaiety to the wild place which accented its propercharm, as they scattered themselves over the ledges on the bright shawlsspread upon the level spaces. On either hand craggy bluffs hemmedthe cove in, but below the ledge it had a pebbly beach strewn withdrift-wood, and the Bay of Fundy gloomed before it with small fishingcraft tipping and tilting on the swell in the foreground, and dim sailmelting into the dun fog bank at the horizon's edge. The elder ladies of the party stood up, or stretched themselves on theshawls, as they found this or that posture more restful after their longdrive; one, who was skilled in making coffee, had taken possession ofthe pot, and was demanding fire and water for it. The men scatteredthemselves over the beach, and brought her drift enough to roast anox; two of them fetched water from the spring at the back of the ledge, whither they then carried the bottles of ale to cool in its thrillingpool. Each after his or her fashion symbolised a return to nature bysome act or word of self-abandon. "You ought to have brought heavier shoes, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with aserious glance at her daughter's feet. "Well, never mind, " she added. "It doesn't matter if you do spoil them. " "Really, " cried Mrs Brinkley, casting her sandals from her, "I will notbe enslaved to rubbers in such a sylvan scene as this, at any rate. " "Look at Mrs. Stamwell!" said Miss Cotton. "She's actually taken her hatoff. " Mrs. Stamwell had not only gone to this extreme, but had tied a lightlyfluttering handkerchief round her hair. She said she should certainlynot put on that heavy thing again till she got in sight of civilisation. At these words Miss Cotton boldly drew off her gloves, and put them inher pocket. The young girls, slim in their blues flannel skirts and their broadwhite canvas belts, went and came over the rocks. There were somechildren in the party, who were allowed to scream uninterruptedly in thegames which they began to play as soon as they found their feet aftergetting out of the wagons. Some of the gentlemen drove a stake into the beach, and threw stones atit, to see which could knock off the pebble balanced on its top. Severalof the ladies joined them in the sport, and shrieked and laughed whenthey made wild shots with the missiles the men politely gathered forthem. Alice had remained with Mavering to help the hostess of the picniclay the tables, but her mother had followed those who went down tothe beach. At first Mrs. Pasmer looked on at the practice of thestone-throwers with disapproval; but suddenly she let herself go inthis, as she did in other matters that her judgment condemned, and beganto throw stones herself; she became excited, and made the wildest shotsof any, accepting missiles right and left, and making herself dangerousto everybody within a wide circle. A gentleman who had fallen a victimto her skill said, "Just wait, Mrs. Pasmer, till I get in front of thestake. " The men became seriously interested, and worked themselves red and hot;the ladies soon gave it up, and sat down on the sand and began to talk. They all owned themselves hungry, and from time to time they lookedup anxiously at the preparations for lunch on the ledge, where whitenapkins were spread, with bottles at the four corners to keep them fromblowing away. This use of the bottles was considered very amusing; theladies tried to make jokes about it, and the desire to be funny spreadto certain of the men who had quietly left off throwing at the stakebecause they had wrenched their shoulders; they succeeded in beingmerry. They said they thought that coffee took a long time to boil. A lull of expectation fell upon all; even Mavering sat down on the rocksnear the fire, and was at rest a few minutes, by order of Miss Anderson, who said that the sight of his activity tired her to death. "I wonder why always boiled ham at a picnic!" said the lady who took afinal plate of it from a basket. "Under the ordinary conditions, few ofus can be persuaded to touch it. " "It seems to be dear to nature, and to nature's children, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "Perhaps because their digestions are strong. " "Don't you wish that something could be substituted for it?" asked Miss. Cotton. "There have been efforts to replace it with chicken and tongue insandwiches;" said Mrs. Brinkley; "but I think they've only measurablysucceeded--about as temperance drinks have in place of the real strongwaters. " "On the boat coming up, " said Mavering, "we had a troupe of genuinedarky minstrels. One of them sang a song about ham that rather took me-- "'Ham, good old ham! Ham is de best ob meat; It's always good and sweet;You can bake it, you can boil it, You can fry it, you can broil it--Ham, good old ham!'" "Oh, how good!" sighed Mrs. Brinkley. "How sincere! How native! Go on, Mr. Mavering, for ever. " "I haven't the materials, " said Mavering, with his laugh. "The rest wasda capo. But there was another song, about a coloured lady--" "'Six foot high and eight foot round, Holler ob her foot made a hole inde ground. '" "Ah, that's an old friend, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "I remember hearingof that coloured lady when I was a girl. But it's a fine flight of theimagination. What else did they sing?" "I can't remember. But there was something they danced--to show how arheumatic old coloured uncle dances. " He jumped nimbly up, and sketched the stiff and limping figure he hadseen. It was over in a flash. He dropped down again, laughing. "Oh, how wonderfully good!" cried Mrs. Brinkley, with frank joy. "Do itagain. " "Encore! Oh, encore!" came from the people on the beach. Mavering jumped to his feet, and burlesqued the profuse bows of an actorwho refuses to repeat; he was about to drop down again amidst theirwails of protest. "No, don't sit down, Mr. Mavering, " said the lady who had introduced thesubject of ham. "Get some of the young ladies, and go and gather someblueberries for the dessert. There are all the necessaries of life here, but none of the luxuries. " "I'm at the service of the young ladies as an escort, " said Maveringgallantly, with an infusion of joke. "Will you come and pick blueberriesunder my watchful eyes, Miss Pasmer?" "They've gone to pick blueberries, " called the lady through her tubedhand to the people on the beach, and the younger among them scrambled upthe rocks for cups and bowls to follow them. Mrs. Pasmer had an impulse to call her daughter back, and to makesome excuse to keep her from going. She was in an access of decorum, naturally following upon her late outbreak, and it seemed a verypronounced thing for Alice to be going off into the woods with the youngman; but it would have been a pronounced thing to prevent her, and soMrs. Pasmer submitted. "Isn't it delightful, " asked Mrs. Brinkley, following them with hereyes, "to see the charm that gay young fellow has for that serious girl?She looked at him while he was dancing as if she couldn't take her eyesoff him, and she followed him as if he drew her by an invisible spell. Not that spells are ever visible, " she added, saving herself. "Thoughthis one seems to be, " she added further, again saving herself. "Do you really think so?" pleaded Miss Cotton. "Well, I say so, whatever I think. And I'm not going to be caught upon the tenter-hooks of conscience as to all my meanings, Miss Cotton. Idon't know them all. But I'm not one of the Aliceolaters, you know. " "No; of course not. But shouldn't you--Don't you think it would be agreat pity--She's so superior, so very uncommon in every way, that ithardly seems--Ah, I should so like to see some one really fine--not acoarse fibre in him, don't you know. Not that Mr. Mavering's coarse. Butbeside her he does seem so light!" "Perhaps that's the reason she likes him. " "No, no! I can't believe that. She must see more in him than we can. " "I dare say she thinks she does. At any rate, it's a perfectly evidentcase on both sides; and the frank way he's followed her up here, anddevoted himself to her, as if--well, not as if she were the only girl inthe world, but incomparably the best--is certainly not common. " "No, " sighed Miss Cotton, glad to admit it; "that's beautiful. " XV. In the edge of the woods and the open spaces among the trees theblueberries grew larger and sweeter in the late Northern summer thana more southern sun seems to make them. They hung dense upon the lowbushes, and gave them their tint through the soft grey bloom that veiledtheir blue. Sweet-fern in patches broke their mass here and there, andexhaled its wild perfume to the foot or skirt brushing through it. "I don't think there's anything much prettier than these clusters; doyou, Miss Pasmer?" asked Mavering, as he lifted a bunch pendent from thelittle tree before he stripped it into the bowl he carried. "And see! itspoils the bloom to gather them. " He held out a handful, and then tossedthem away. "It ought to be managed more aesthetically for anoccasion like this. I'll tell you what, Miss Pasmer: are you used toblueberrying?" "No, " she said; "I don't know that I ever went blueberrying before. Why?" she asked. "Because, if you haven't, you wouldn't be very efficient perhaps, and soyou might resign yourself to sitting on that log and holding the berriesin your lap, while I pick them. " "But what about the bowls, then?" "Oh, never mind them. I've got an idea. See here!" He clipped off abunch with his knife, and held it up before her, tilting it this wayand that. "Could anything be more graceful! My idea is to serve theblueberry on its native stem at this picnic. What do you think? Sugarwould profane it, and of course they've only got milk enough for thecoffee. " "Delightful!" Alice arranged herself on the log, and made a lap for thebunch. He would not allow that the arrangement was perfect till he hadcushioned the seat and carpeted the ground for her feet with sweet-fern. "Now you're something like a wood-nymph, " he laughed. "Only, wouldn't areal wood-nymph have an apron?" he asked, looking down at her dress. "Oh, it won't hurt the dress. You must begin now, or they'll be callingus. " He was standing and gazing at her with a distracted enjoyment of herpose. "Oh yes, yes, " he answered, coming to himself, and he set abouthis work. He might have got on faster if he had not come to her with nearly everybunch he cut at first, and when he began to deny himself this pleasurehe stopped to admire an idea of hers. "Well, that's charming--making them into bouquets. " "Yes, isn't it?" she cried delightedly, holding a bunch of the berriesup at arm's-length to get the effect. "Ah, but you must have some of this fern and this tall grass to go withit. Why, it's sweet-grass--the sweet-grass of the Indian baskets!" "Is it?" She looked up at him. "And do you think that the mixture wouldbe better than the modest simplicity of the berries, with a few leavesof the same?" "No; you're right; it wouldn't, " he said, throwing away his ferns. "Butyou'll want something to tie the stems with; you must use the grass. " Heleft that with her, and went back to his bushes. He added, from beyonda little thicket, as if what he said were part of the subject, "I wasafraid you wouldn't like my skipping about there on the rocks, doing thecoloured uncle. " "Like it?" "I mean--I--you thought it undignified--trivial--" She said, after a moment: "It was very funny; and people do all sorts ofthings at picnics. That's the pleasure of it, isn't it?" "Yes, it is; but I know you don't always like that kind of thing. " "Do I seem so very severe?" she asked. "Oh no, not severe. I should be afraid of you if you were. I shouldn'thave dared to come to Campobello. " He looked at her across the blueberry bushes. His gay speech meanteverything or nothing. She could parry it with a jest, and then it wouldmean nothing. She let her head droop over her work, and made no answer. "I wish you could have seen those fellows on the boat, " said Mavering. "Hello, Mavering!" called the voice of John Munt, from another part ofthe woods. "Alice!--Miss Pasmer!" came that of Miss Anderson. He was going to answer, when he looked at Alice. "We'll let them see ifthey can find us, " he said, and smiled. Alice said nothing at first; she smiled too. "You know more about thewoods than I do. I suppose if they keep looking--" "Oh yes. " He came toward her with a mass of clusters which he hadclipped. "How fast you do them!" he said, standing and looking down ather. "I wish you'd let me come and make up the withes for you when youneed them. " "No, I couldn't allow that on any account, " she answered, twisting somestems of the grass together. "Well, will you let me hold the bunches while you tie them; or tie themwhen you hold them?" "No. " "This once, then?" "This once, perhaps. " "How little you let me do for you!" he sighed. "That gives you a chance to do more for other people, " she answered;and then she dropped her eyes, as if she had been surprised intothat answer. She made haste to add: "That's what makes you so popularwith--everybody!" "Ah, but I'd rather be popular with somebody!" He laughed, and then they both laughed together consciously; and stillnothing or everything had been said. A little silly silence followed, and he said, for escape from it, "I never saw such berries before, evenin September, on the top of Ponkwasset. " "Why, is it a mountain?" she asked. "I thought it was a--falls. " "It's both, " he said. "I suppose it's very beautiful, isn't it! All America seems so lovely, so large. " "It's pretty in the summer. I don't know that I shall like it there inthe winter if I conclude to--Did your--did Mrs. Pasmer tell you what myfather wants me to do?" "About going there to--manufacture?" Mavering nodded. "He's given me three weeks to decide whether I wouldlike to do that or go in for law. That's what I came up here for. " There was a little pause. She bent her head down over the clusters shewas grouping. "Is the light of Campobello particularly good on suchquestions?" she asked. "I don't mean that exactly, but I wish you could help me to someconclusion. " "Yes; why not?" "It's the first time I've ever had a business question referred to me. " "Well, then, you can bring a perfectly fresh mind to it. " "Let me see, " she said, affecting to consider. "It's really a veryimportant matter?" "It is to me. " After a moment she looked up at him. "I should think that you wouldn'tmind living there if your business was there. I suppose it's being idlein places that makes them dull. I thought it was dull in London. Oneought to be glad--oughtn't he?--to live in any place where there'ssomething to do. " "Well, that isn't the way people usually feel, " said Mavering. "That'sthe kind of a place most of them fight shy of. " Alice laughed with an undercurrent of protest, perhaps because she hadseen her parents' whole life, so far as she knew it, passed in this sortof struggle. "I mean that I hate my own life because there seems nothingfor me to do with it. I like to have people do something. " "Do you really?" asked Mavering soberly, as if struck by the novelty ofthe idea. "Yes!" she said, with exaltation. "If I were a man--" He burst into a ringing laugh. "Oh no; don't!" "Why?" she demanded, with provisional indignation. "Because then there wouldn't be any Miss Pasmer. " It seemed to Alice that this joking was rather an unwarranted liberty. Again she could not help joining in his light-heartedness; but shechecked herself so abruptly, and put on a look so austere, that he wasquelled by it. "I mean, " he began--"that is to say--I mean that I don't understand whyladies are always saying that. I am sure they can do what they like, asit is. " "Do you mean that everything is open to them now?" she asked, disentangling a cluster of the berries from those in her lap, andbeginning a fresh bunch. "Yes, " said Mavering. "Something like that--yes. They can do anythingthey like. Lots of them do. " "Oh yes, I know, " said the girl. "But people don't like them to. " "Why, what would you like to be?" he asked. She did not answer, but sorted over the clusters in her lap. "We've gotenough now, haven't we?" she said. "Oh, not half, " he said. "But if you're tired you must let me make upsome of the bunches. " "No, no! I want to do them all myself, " she said, gesturing his offeredhands away, with a little nether appeal in her laughing refusal. "So as to feel that you've been of some use in the world?" he said, dropping contentedly on the ground near her, and watching her industry. "Do you think that would be very wrong?" she asked. "What made thatfriend of yours--Mr. Boardman--go into journalism?" "Oh, virtuous poverty. You're not thinking of becoming a newspaperwoman, Miss Pasmer!" "Why not?" She put the final cluster into the bunch in hand, and beganto wind a withe of sweet-grass around the stems. He dropped forward onhis knees to help her, and together they managed the knot. They wereboth flushed a little when it was tied, and were serious. "Why shouldn't one be a newspaper woman, if Harvard graduates are to bejournalists?" "Well, you know, only a certain kind are. " "What kind?" "Well, not exactly what you'd call the gentlemanly sort. " "I thought Mr. Boardman was a great friend of yours?" "He is. He is one of the best fellows in the world. But you must haveseen that he wasn't a swell. " "I should think he'd be glad he was doing something at once. If I werea--" She stopped, and they laughed together. "I mean that I should hateto be so long getting ready to do something as men are. " "Then you'd rather begin making wall-paper at once than studying law?" "Oh, I don't say that. I'm not competent to advise. But I should liketo feel that I was doing something. I suppose it's hereditary. " Maveringstared a little. "One of my father's sisters has gone into a sisterhood. She's in England. " "Is she a--Catholic?" asked Mavering. "She isn't a Roman Catholic. " "Oh yes!" He dropped forward on his knees again to help her tie thebunch she had finished. It was not so easy as the first. "Oh, thank you!" she said, with unnecessary fervour. "But you shouldn't like to go into a sisterhood, I suppose?" saidMavering, ready to laugh. "Oh, I don't know. Why not?" She looked at him with a flying glance, anddropped her eyes. "Oh, no reason, if you have a fancy for that kind of thing. " "That kind of thing?" repeated Alice severely. "Oh, I don't mean anything disrespectful to it, " said Mavering, throwinghis anxiety off in the laugh he had been holding back. "And I beg yourpardon. But I don't suppose you're in earnest. " "Oh no, I'm not in earnest, " said the girl, letting her wrists fall uponher knees, and the clusters drop from her hands. "I'm not in earnestabout anything; that's the truth--that's the shame. Wouldn't you like, "she broke off, "to be a priest, and go round among these people up hereon their frozen islands in the winter?" "No, " shouted Mavering, "I certainly shouldn't. I don't see how anybodystands it. Ponkwasset Falls is bad enough in the winter, and compared tothis region Ponkwasset Falls is a metropolis. I believe in getting allthe good you can out of the world you were born in--of course withouthurting anybody else. " He stretched his legs out on the bed ofsweet-fern, where he had thrown himself, and rested his head on hishand lifted on his elbow. "I think this is what this place is fit for--apicnic; and I wish every one well out of it for nine months of theyear. " "I don't, " said the girl, with a passionate regret in her voice. "Itwould be heavenly here with--But you--no, you're different. You alwayswant to share your happiness. " "I shouldn't call that happiness. But don't you?" asked Mavering. "No. I'm selfish. " "You don't expect me to be believe that, I suppose. " "Yes, " she went on, "it must be selfishness. You don't believe I'm so, because you can't imagine it. But it's true. If I were to be happy, Ishould be very greedy about it; I couldn't endure to let any one elsehave a part in it. So it's best for me to be wretched, don't you see--togive myself up entirely to doing for others, and not expect any one todo anything for me; then I can be of some use in the world. That's why Ishould like to go into a sisterhood. " Mavering treated it as the best kind of joke, and he was confirmed inthis view of it by her laughing with him, after a first glance of whathe thought mock piteousness. XVI. The clouds sailed across the irregular space of pale blue Northern skywhich the break in the woods opened for them overhead. It was so stillthat they heard, and smiled to hear, the broken voices of the others, who had gone to get berries in another direction--Miss Anderson's hoarsemurmur and Munt's artificial bass. Some words came from the party on therocks. "Isn't it perfect?" cried the young fellow in utter content. "Yes, too perfect, " answered the girl, rousing herself from the reveriein which they had both lost themselves, she did not know how long. "Shall you gather any more?" "No; I guess there's enough. Let's count them. " He stooped over on hishand's and knees, and made as much of counting the bunches as he could. "There's about one bunch and a half a piece. How shall we carry them? Weought to come into camp as impressively as possible. " "Yes, " said Alice, looking into his face with dreamy absence. It wasgoing through her mind, from some romance she had read, What if hewere some sylvan creature, with that gaiety, that natural gladness andsweetness of his, so far from any happiness that was possible to her?Ought not she to be afraid of him? She was thinking she was not afraid. "I'll tell you, " he said. "Tie the stems of all the bunches together, and swing them over a pole, like grapes of Eshcol. Don't you know thepicture?" "Oh yes. " "Hold on! I'll get the pole. " He cut a white birch sapling, and sweptoff its twigs and leaves, then he tied the bunches together, and slungthem over the middle of the pole. "Well?" she asked. "Now we must rest the ends on our shoulders. " "Do you think so?" she asked, with the reluctance that complies. "Yes, but not right away. I'll carry them out of the woods, and we'llform the procession just before we come in sight. " Every one on the ledge recognised the tableau when it appeared, andsaluted it with cheers and hand-clapping. Mrs. Pasmer bent a look on herdaughter which she faced impenetrably. "Where have you been?" "We thought you were lost!" "We were justorganising a search expedition!" different ones shouted at them. The lady with the coffee-pot was kneeling over it with her hand on it. "Have some coffee, you poor things! You must be almost starved. " "We looked about for you everywhere, " said Munt, "and shouted ourselvesdumb. " Miss Anderson passed near Alice. "I knew where you were all the time!" Then the whole party fell to praising the novel conception of thebouquets of blueberries, and the talk began to flow away from Alice andMavering in various channels. All that had happened a few minutes ago in the blueberry patch seemed afar-off dream; the reality had died out of the looks and words. He ran about from one to another, serving every one; in a little whilethe whole affair was in his hospitable hands, and his laugh interspersedand brightened the talk. She got a little back of the others, and sat looking wistfully out overthe bay, with her hands in her lap. "Hold on just half a minute, Miss Pasmer! don't move!" exclaimed theamateur photographer, who is now of all excursions; he jumped to hisfeet, and ran for his apparatus. She sat still, to please him; but whenhe had developed his picture, in a dark corner of the rocks, roofed witha waterproof, he accused her of having changed her position. "But it'sgoing to be splendid, " he said, with another look at it. He took several pictures of the whole party, for which they fell intovarious attitudes of consciousness. Then he shouted to a boat-load ofsailors who had beached their craft while they gathered some drift fortheir galley fire. They had flung their arm-loads into the boat, and hadbent themselves to shove it into the water. "Keep still! don't move!" he yelled at them, with the imperiousness ofthe amateur photographer, and they obeyed with the helplessness of hisvictims. But they looked round. "Oh, idiots!" groaned the artist. "I always wonder what that kind of people think of us kind of people, "said Mrs. Brinkley, with her eye on the photographer's subjects. "Yes, I wonder what they do?" said Miss Cotton, pleased with thespeculative turn which the talk might take from this. "I suppose theyenvy us?" she suggested. "Well, not all of them; and those that do, not respectfully. Theyview, us as the possessors of ill-gotten gains, who would be in a verydifferent place if we had our deserts. " "Do you really think so?" "Yes, I think so; but I don't know that I really think so. That'sanother matter, " said Mrs. Brinkley, with the whimsical resentment whichMiss Cotton's conscientious pursuit seemed always to rouse in her. "I supposed, " continued Miss Cotton, "that it was only among the poorin the cities, who have begin misled by agitators, that the-well-to-doclasses were regarded with suspicion. " "It seems to have begun a great while ago, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "and notexactly with agitators. It was considered very difficult for us to getinto the kingdom of heaven, you know. " "Yes, I know, " assented Miss Cotton. "And there certainly are some things against us. Even when the chancewas given us to sell all we had and give it to the poor, we couldn'tbring our minds to it, and went away exceeding sorrowful. " "I wonder, " said Miss Cotton, "whether those things were ever intendedto be taken literally?" "Let's hope not, " said John Munt, seeing his chance to make a laugh. Mrs. Stamwell said, "Well, I shall take another cup of coffee, at anyrate, " and her hardihood raised another laugh. "That always seems to me the most pitiful thing in the whole Bible, "said Alice, from her place. "To see the right so clearly, and not to bestrong enough to do it. " "My dear, it happens every day, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "I always felt sorry for that poor fellow, too, " said Mavering. "Heseemed to be a good fellow, and it was pretty hard lines for him. " Alice looked round at him with deepening gravity. "Confound those fellows!" said the photographer, glancing at his hastilydeveloped plate. "They moved. " XVII. The picnic party gathered itself up after the lunch, and while some ofthe men, emulous of Mavering's public spirit, helped some of the ladiesto pack the dishes and baskets away under the wagon seats, others threwa corked bottle into the water, and threw stones at it. A few of theladies joined them, but nobody hit the bottle, which was finally leftbobbing about on the tide. Mrs. Brinkley addressed the defeated group, of whom her husband was one, as they came up the beach toward the wagons. "Do you think that displaywas calculated to inspire the lower middle classes with respectfulenvy?" Her husband made himself spokesman for the rest: "No; but you can't tellhow they'd have felt if we'd hit it. " They all now climbed to a higher level, grassy and smooth, on the bluff, from which there was a particular view; and Mavering came, carrying thewraps of Mrs. Pasmer and Alice, with which he associated his overcoat. Abook fell out of one of the pockets when he threw it down. Miss Anderson picked the volume up. "Browning! He reads Browning!Superior young man!" "Oh, don't say that!" pleaded Mavering. "Oh, read something aloud!" cried another of the young ladies. "Isn't Browning rather serious for a picnic?" he asked, with a glance atAlice; he still had a doubt of the effect of the rheumatic uncle's danceupon her, and would have been glad to give her some other aestheticimpression of him. "Oh no!" said Mrs. Brinkley, "nothing is more appropriate to a picnicthan conundrums; they always have them. Choose a good tough one. " "I don't know anything tougher than the 'Legend of Pernik'--orlovelier, " he said, and he began to read, simply, and with a passionatepleasure in the subtle study, feeling its control over his hearers. The gentlemen lay smoking about at their ease; at the end a deepsigh went up from the ladies, cut short by the question which theyimmediately fell into. They could not agree, but they said, one after another: "But you readbeautifully, Mr. Mavering!" "Beautifully!" "Yes, indeed!" "Well, I'm glad there is one point clear, " he said, putting the bookaway, and "I'm afraid you'll think I'm rather sentimental, " he added, ina low voice to Alice, "carrying poetry around with me. " "Oh no!" she replied intensely; "I thank you. " "I thank you, " he retorted, and their eyes met in a deep look. One of the outer circle of smokers came up with his watch in his hand, and addressed the company, "Do you know what time it's got to be? It'sfour o'clock. " They all sprang up with a clamour of surprise. Mrs. Pasmer, under cover of the noise, said, in a low tone, to herdaughter, "Alice, I think you'd better keep a little more with me now. " "Yes, " said the girl, in a sympathy with her mother in which she did notalways find herself. But when Mavering, whom their tacit treaty concerned, turned towardthem, and put himself in charge of Alice, Mrs. Pasmer found herselfdispossessed by the charm of his confidence, and relinquished her tohim. They were going to walk to the Castle Rocks by the path thatnow loses and now finds itself among the fastnesses of the forest, stretching to the loftiest outlook on the bay. The savage woodland ispenetrated only by this forgetful path, that passes now and then averthe bridge of a ravine, and offers to the eye on either hand the mysterydeepening into wilder and weirder tracts of solitude. The party resolveditself into twos and threes, and these straggled far apart, out ofconversational reach of one another. Mrs. Pasmer found herself walkingand talking with John Munt. "Mr. Pasmer hasn't much interest in these excursions, " he suggested. "No; he never goes, " she answered, and, by one of the agile intellectualprocesses natural to women, she arrived at the question, "You and theMaverings are old friends, Mr. Munt?" "I can't say about the son, but I'm his father's friend, and I supposethat I'm his friend too. Everybody seems to be so, " suggested Munt. "Oh Yes, " Mrs. Pasmer assented; "he appears to be a universalfavourite. " "We used to expect great things of Elbridge Mavering in college. We wererather more romantic than the Harvard men are nowadays, and we believedin one another more than they do. Perhaps we idealised one another. But, anyway, our class thought Mavering could do anything. You know about histaste for etchings?" "Yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with a sigh of deep appreciation. "What giftedpeople!" "I understand that the son inherits all his father's talent. " "He sketches delightfully. " "And Mavering wrote. Why, he was our class poet!" cried Munt, remembering the fact with surprise and gratification to himself. "He wasa tremendous satirist. " "Really? And he seems so amiable now. " "Oh, it was only on paper. " "Perhaps he still keeps it up--on wall-paper?" suggested Mrs. Pasmer. Munt laughed at the little joke with a good-will that flattered theveteran flatterer. "I should like to ask him that some time. Will youlend it to me?" "Yes, if such a sayer of good things will deign to borrow--" "Oh, Mrs. Pasmer!" cried Munt, otherwise speechless. "And the mother? Do you know Mrs. Mavering?" "Mrs. Mavering I've never seen. " "Oh!" said Mrs. Pasmer, with a disappointment for which Munt tried toconsole her. "I've never even been at their place. He asked me once a great whileago; but you know how those things are. I've heard that she used to bevery pretty and very gay. They went about a great deal, to Saratoga andCape May and such places--rather out of our beat. " "And now?" "And now she's been an invalid for a great many years. Bedridden, Ibelieve. Paralysis, I think. " "Yes; Mrs. Saintsbury said something of the kind. " "Well, " said Munt, anxious to add to the store of knowledge which thisremark let him understand he had not materially increased, "I think Mrs. Mavering was the origin of the wall-paper--or her money. Mavering waspoor; her father had started it, and Mavering turned in his talent. " "How very interesting! And is that the reason--its being ancestral--thatMr. Mavering wishes his son to go into it?" "Is he going into it?" asked Munt. "He's come up here to think about it. " "I should suppose it would be a very good thing, " said Munt. "What a very remarkable forest!" said Mrs. Pasmer, examining it oneither side, and turning quite round. This gave her, from her placein the van of the straggling procession, a glimpse of Alice and DanMavering far in the rear. "Don't you know, " he was saying to the girl at the same moment, "it'slike some of those Dore illustrations to the Inferno, or the WanderingJew. " "Oh yes. I was trying to think what it was made me think I had seen itbefore, " she answered. "It must be that. But how strange it is!" sheexclaimed, "that sensation of having been there before--in some placebefore where you can't possibly have been. " "And do you feel it here?" he asked, as vividly interested as ifthey two had been the first to notice the phenomenon which has been apsychical consolation to so many young observers. "Yes, " she cried. "I hope I was with you, " he said, with a sudden turn of levity, whichdid not displease her, for there seemed to be a tender earnestnesslurking in it. "I couldn't bear to think of your being alone in such ahowling wilderness. " "Oh, I was with a large picnic, " she retorted gaily. "You might havebeen among the rest. I didn't notice. " "Well, the next time, I wish you'd look closer. I don't like being leftout. " They were so far behind the rest that he devoted himself entirelyto her, and they had grown more and more confidential. They came to a narrow foot-bridge over a deep gorge. The hand-rail hadfallen away. He sprang forward and gave her his hand for the passage. "Who helped you over here?" he demanded. "Don't say I didn't. " "Perhaps it was you, " she murmured, letting him keep the fingers towhich he clung a moment after they had crossed the bridge. Then she tookthem away, and said: "But I can't be sure. There were so many others. " "Other fellows?" he demanded, placing himself before her on the narrowpath, so that she could not get by. "Try to remember, Miss Pasmer. Thisis very important. It would break my heart if it was really some oneelse. " She stole a glance at his face, but it was smiling, though hisvoice was so earnest. "I want to help you over all the bad places, and Idon't want any one else to have a hand in it. " The voice and the face still belied each other, and between them thegirl chose to feel herself trifled with by the artistic temperament. "Ifyou'll please step out of the way, Mr. Mavering, " she said severely, "Ishall not need anybody's help just here. " He instantly moved aside, and they were both silent, till she said, asshe quickened her pace to overtake the others in front, "I don't see howyou can help liking nature in such a place as this. " "I can't--human nature, " he said. It was mere folly; and an abstractfolly at that; but the face that she held down and away from him flushedwith sweet consciousness as she laughed. On the cliff beetling above the bay, where she sat to look out over thesad northern sea, lit with the fishing sail they had seen before, andthe surge washed into the rocky coves far beneath them, he threw himselfat her feet, and made her alone in the company that came and went andtried this view and that from the different points where the picnichostess insisted they should enjoy it. She left the young couple tothemselves, and Mrs. Pasmer seemed to have forgotten that she had biddenAlice to be a little more with her. Alice had forgotten it too. She sat listening to Mavering's talk with acertain fascination, but not so much apparently because the meaning ofthe words pleased her as the sound of his voice, the motion of his lipsin speaking, charmed her. At first he was serious, and even melancholy, as if he were afraid he had offended her; but apparently he soonbelieved that he had been forgiven, and began to burlesque his own mood, but still with a deference and a watchful observance of her changes offeeling which was delicately flattering in its way. Now and then whenshe answered something it was not always to the purpose; he accused herof not hearing what he said, but she would have it that she did, andthen he tried to test her by proofs and questions. It did not matterfor anything that was spoken or done; speech and action of whatever sortwere mere masks of their young joy in each other, so that when he said, after he had quoted some lines befitting the scene they looked out on;"Now was that from Tennyson or from Tupper?" and she answered, "Neither;it was from Shakespeare, " they joined, in the same happy laugh, and theylaughed now and then without saying anything. Neither this nor that madethem more glad or less; they were in a trance, vulnerable to nothing butthe summons which must come to leave their dream behind, and issue intothe waking world. In hope or in experience such a moment has come to all, and it is sopretty to those who recognise it from the outside that no one has theheart to hurry it away while it can be helped. The affair between Aliceand Mavering had evidently her mother's sanction, and all the rest wereeager to help it on. When the party had started to return, they calledto them, and let them come behind together. At the carriages they hadwhat Miss Anderson called a new deal, and Alice and Mavering foundthemselves together in the rear seat of the last. The fog began to come in from the sea, and followed them through thewoods. When they emerged upon the highway it wrapped them densely round, and formed a little world, cosy, intimate, where they two dwelt alonewith these friends of theirs, each of whom they praised for delightfulqualities. The horses beat along through the mist, in which there seemedno progress, and they lived in a blissful arrest of time. Miss Andersoncalled back from the front seat, "My ear buyns; you're talkin' aboutme. " "Which ear?" cried Mavering. "Oh, the left, of couyse. " "Then it's merely habit, Julie. You ought to have heard the nice thingswe were saying about you, " Alice called. "I'd like to hear all the nice things you've been saying. " This seemed the last effect of subtle wit. Mavering broke out in hislaugh, and Alice's laugh rang above it. Mrs. Pasmer looked involuntarily round from the carriage ahead. "They seem to be having a good time, " said Mrs. Brinkley at her side. "Yes; I hope Alice isn't overdoing. " "I'm afraid you're dreadfully tired, " said Mavering to the girl, in alow voice, as he lifted her from her place when they reached the hotelthrough the provisional darkness, and found that after all it was onlydinner-time. "Oh no. I feel as if the picnic were just beginning. " "Then you will come to-night?" "I will see what mamma says. " "Shall I ask her?" "Oh, perhaps not, " said the girl, repressing his ardour, but notseverely. XVIII. They were going to have some theatricals at one of the cottages, and thelady at whose house they were to be given made haste to invite all thepicnic party before it dispersed. Mrs. Pasmer accepted with a mentalreservation, meaning to send an excuse later if she chose; and beforeshe decided the point she kept her husband from going after dinner intothe reading-room, where he spent nearly all his time over a paper and acigar, or in sitting absolutely silent and unoccupied, and made him goto their own room with her. "There is something that I must speak to you about, " she said, closingthe door, "and you must decide for yourself whether you wish to let itgo any further. " "What go any further?" asked Mr. Pasmer, sitting down and putting hishand to the pocket that held his cigar-case with the same series ofmotions. "No, don't smoke, " she said, staying his hand impatiently. "I want youto think. " "How can I think if I don't smoke?" "Very well; smoke, then. Do you want this affair with young Mavering togo any farther?" "Oh!" said Pasmer, "I thought you had been looking after that. " He hadin fact relegated that to the company of the great questions exterior tohis personal comfort which she always decided. "I have been looking after it, but now the time has come when you must, as a father, take some interest in it. " Pasmer's noble mask of a face, from the point of his full white beard tohis fine forehead, crossed by his impressive black eyebrows, expressedall the dignified concern which a father ought to feel in such anaffair; but what he was really feeling was a grave reluctance to have tointervene in any way. "What do you want me to say to him?" he asked. "Why, I don't know that he's going to ask you anything. I don't knowwhether he's said anything to Alice yet, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with someexasperation. Her husband was silent, but his silence insinuated a degree of wonderthat she should approach him prematurely on such a point. "They have been thrown together all day, and there is no use to concealfrom ourselves that they are very much taken with each other?" "I thought, " Pasmer said, "that you said that from the beginning. Didn'tyou want them to be taken with each other?" "That is what you are to decide. " Pasmer silently refused to assume the responsibility. "Well?" demanded his wife, after waiting for him to speak. "Well what?" "What do you decide?" "What is the use of deciding a thing when it is all over?" "It isn't over at all. It can be broken off at any moment. " "Well, break it off, then, if you like. " Mrs. Pasmer resumed the responsibility with a sigh. She felt the burden, the penalty, of power, after having so long enjoyed its sweets, and shewould willingly have abdicated the sovereignty which she had spent herwhole married life in establishing. But there was no one to take it up. "No, I shall not break it off, " she said resentfully; "I shall let it goon. " Then seeing that her husband was not shaken by her threat from hislong-confirmed subjection, she added: "It isn't an ideal affair, but Ithink it will be a very good thing for Alice. He is not what I expected, but he is thoroughly nice, and I should think his family was nice. I'vebeen talking with Mr. Munt about them to-day, and he confirms allthat Etta Saintsbury said. I don't think there can be any doubt of hisintentions in coming here. He isn't a particularly artless young man, but he's been sufficiently frank about Alice since he's been here. " Herhusband smoked on. "His father seems to have taken up the business fromthe artistic side, and Mr. Mavering won't be expected to enter intothe commercial part at once. If it wasn't for Alice, I don't believe hewould think of the business for a moment; he would study law. Of courseit's a little embarrassing to have her engaged at once before she's seenanything of society here, but perhaps it's all for the best, after all:the main thing is that she should be satisfied, and I can see thatshe's only too much so. Yes, she's very much taken with him; and I don'twonder. He is charming. " It was not the first time that Mrs. Pasmer had reasoned in this round;but the utterance of her thoughts seemed to throw a new light on them, and she took a courage from them that they did not always impart. Shearrived at the final opinion expressed, with a throb of tenderness forthe young fellow whom she believed eager to take her daughter from her, and now for the first time she experienced a desolation in the prospect, as if it were an accomplished fact. She was morally a bundle offinesses, but at the bottom of her heart her daughter was all the worldto her. She had made the girl her idol, and if, like some other heathen, she had not always used her idol with the greatest deference, if shehad often expected the impossible from it, and made it pay for herdisappointment, still she had never swerved from her worship of it. Shesuddenly asked herself, What if this young fellow, so charming and sogood, should so wholly monopolise her child that she should no longerhave any share in her? What if Alice, who had so long formed her firstcare and chief object in life, should contentedly lose herself in thelove and care of another, and both should ignore her right to her? Sheanswered herself with a pang that this might happen with any one Alicemarried, and that it would be no worse, at the worst, with Dan Maveringthan with another, while her husband remained impartially silent. Alwayskeeping within the lines to which his wife's supremacy had driven him, he felt safe there, and was not to be easily coaxed out of them. Mrs. Pasmer rose and left him, with his perfect acquiescence, and wentinto her daughter's room. She found Alice there, with a pretty eveningdress laid out on her bed. Mrs. Pasmer was very fond of that dress, andat the thought of Alice in it her spirits rose again. "Oh, are you going, Alice?" "Why, yes, " answered the girl. "Didn't you accept?" "Why, yes, " Mrs. Pasmer admitted. "But aren't you tired?" "Oh, not in the least. I feel as fresh as I did this morning. Don't youwant me to go?" "Oh yes, certainly, I want you to go--if you think you'll enjoy it. " "Enjoy it? Why, why shouldn't I enjoy it, mamma!" "What are you thinking about? It's going to be the greatest kind offun. " "But do you think you ought to look at everything simply as fun?" askedthe mother, with unwonted didacticism. "How everything? What are you thinking about, mamma?" "Oh, nothing! I'm so glad you're going to wear that dress. " "Why, of course! It's my best. But what are you driving at, mamma?" Mrs. Pasmer was really seeking in her daughter that comfort of adistinct volition which she had failed to find in her husband, and shewished to assure herself of it more and more, that she might share withsome one the responsibility which he had refused any part in. "Nothing. But I'm glad you wish so much to go. " The girl dropped herhands and stared. "You must have enjoyed yourself to-day, " she added, asif that were an explanation. "Of course I enjoyed myself! But what has that to do with my wanting togo to-night?" "Oh, nothing. But I hope, Alice, that there is one thing you have lookedfully in the face. " "What thing?" faltered the girl, and now showed herself unable toconfront it by dropping her eyes. "Well, whatever you may have heard or seen, nobody else is in doubtabout it. What do you suppose has brought Mr. Mavering here!" "I don't know. " The denial not only confessed that she did know, but itinformed her mother that all was as yet tacit between the young people. "Very well, then, I know, " said Mrs. Pasmer; "and there is one thingthat you must know before long, Alice. " "What?" she asked faintly. "Your own mind, " said her mother. "I don't ask you what it is, and Ishall wait till you tell me. Of course I shouldn't have let him stayhere if I had objected--" "O mamma!" murmured the girl, dyed with shame to have the facts soboldly touched, but not, probably, too deeply displeased. "Yes. And I know that he would never have thought of going into thatbusiness if he had not expected--hoped--" "Mamma!" "And you ought to consider--" "Oh, don't! don't! don't!" implored the girl. "That's all, " said her mother, turning from Alice, who had hidden herface in her hands, to inspect the costume on the bed. She lifted onepiece of it after another, turned it over, looked at it, and laid itdown. "You can never get such a dress in this country. " She went out of the room, as the girl dropped her face in the pillow. An hour later they met equipped for the evening's pleasure. To the keenglance that her mother gave her, the daughter's eyes had the brightnessof eyes that have been weeping, but they were also bright with thatknowledge of her own mind which Mrs. Pasmer had desired for her. Shemet her mother's glance fearlessly, even proudly, and she carried herstylish costume with a splendour to which only occasions could stimulateher. They dramatised a perfect unconsciousness to each other, but Mrs. Pasmer was by no means satisfied with the decision which she had readin her daughter's looks. Somehow it did not relieve her of theresponsibility, and it did not change the nature of the case. It wasgratifying, of course, to see Alice the object of a passion so sincereand so ardent; so far the triumph was complete, and there was reallynothing objectionable in the young man and his circumstances, thoughthere was nothing very distinguished. But the affair was altogetherdifferent from anything that Mrs. Pasmer had imagined. She had supposedand intended that Alice should meet some one in Boston, and go througha course of society before reaching any decisive step. There was to be awhole season in which to look the ground carefully over, and the groundwas to be all within certain well-ascertained and guarded precincts. Butthis that had happened was outside of these precincts, of at least ontheir mere outskirts. Class Day, of course, was all right; and she couldnot say that the summer colony at Campobello was not thoroughly andessentially Boston; and yet she felt that certain influences, certainsanctions, were absent. To tell the truth, she would not have cared forthe feelings of Mavering's family in regard to the matter, except asthey might afterward concern Alice, and the time had not come when shecould recognise their existence in regard to the affair; and yet shecould have wished that even as it was his family could have seen andapproved it from the start. It would have been more regular. With Alice it was a simpler matter, and of course deeper. For her itwas only a question of himself and herself; no one else existed to thesublime egotism of her love. She did not call it by that name; she didnot permit it to assert itself by any name; it was a mere formless joyin her soul, a trustful and blissful expectance, which she now no morebelieved he could disappoint than that she could die within that hour. All the rebellion that she had sometimes felt at the anomalous attitudeexacted of her sex in regard to such matters was gone. She no longerthought it strange that a girl should be expected to ignore theadmiration of a young man till he explicitly declared it, and shouldthen be fully possessed of all the materials of a decision on the mostmomentous question in life; for she knew that this state of ignorancecould never really exist; she had known from the first moment that hehad thought her beautiful. To-night she was radiant for him. Her eyesshone with the look in which they should meet and give themselves toeach other before they spoke--the look in which they had met already, inwhich they had lived that whole day. XIX. The evening's entertainment was something that must fail before anaudience which was not very kind. They were to present a burlesque ofclassic fable, and the parts, with their general intention, had beendistributed to the different actors; but nothing had been written down, and, beyond the situations and a few points of dialogue, all had tobe improvised. The costumes and properties had been invented from suchthings as came to hand. Sheets sculpturesquely draped the deities whotook part; a fox-pelt from the hearth did duty as the leopard skin ofBacchus; a feather duster served Neptune for a trident; the lyre ofApollo was a dust-pan; a gull's breast furnished Jove with his greybeard. The fable was adapted to modern life, and the scene had been laid inCampobello, the peculiarities of which were to be satirised throughout. The principal situation was to be a passage between Jupiter, representedby Mavering, and Juno, whom Miss Anderson personated; it was to bea scene of conjugal reproaches and reprisals, and to end inreconciliation, in which the father of the gods sacrificed himselfon the altar of domestic peace by promising to bring his family toCampobello every year. This was to be followed by a sketch of the Judgment of Paris, inwhich Juno and Pallas were to be personated by two young men, and MissAnderson took the part of Venus. The pretty drawing-room of the Trevors--young people from Albany, andcousins of Miss Anderson--was curtained off at one end for a stage, andbeyond the sliding doors which divided it in half were set chairs forthe spectators. People had come in whatever dress they liked; the menwere mostly in morning coats; the ladies had generally made some attemptat evening toilet, but they joined in admiring Alice Pasmer's costume, and one of them said that they would let it represent them all, andexpress what each might have done if she would. There was not much timefor their tributes; all the lamps were presently taken away and setalong the floor in front of the curtain as foot-lights, leaving thecompany in a darkness which Mrs. Brinkley pronounced sepulchral. Shemade her reproaches to the master of the house, who had effected thistransposition of the lamps. "I was just thinking some very pretty andvaluable things about your charming cottage, Mr. Trevor: a rug on abare floor, a trim of varnished pine, a wall with half a dozen simpleetchings on it, an open fire, and a mantelpiece without bric-a-brac, how entirely satisfying it all is! And how it upbraids us for heaping upupholstery as we do in town!" "Go on, " said the host. "Those are beautiful thoughts. " "But I can't go on in the dark, " retorted Mrs. Brinkley. "You can'tthink in the dark, much less talk! Can you, Mrs. Pasmer?" Mrs. Pasmer, with Alice next to her, sat just in front of Mrs. Brinkley. "No, " she assented; "but if I could--YOU can thick anywhere, Mrs. Brinkley--Mrs. Trevor's lovely house would inspire me to it. " "Two birds with one stone--thank you, Mrs. Pasmer, for my part of thecompliment. Pick yourself up, Mr. Trevor. " "Oh, thank you, I'm all right, " said Trevor, panting after the ladies'meanings, as a man must. "I suppose thinking and talking in the dark isa good deal like smoking in the dark. " "No; thinking and talking are not at all like smoking under anyconditions. Why in the world should they be?" "Oh, I can't get any fun out of a cigar unless I can see the smoke, " thehost explained. "Do you follow him, Mrs. Pasmer?" "Yes, perfectly. " "Thank you, Mrs. Pasmer, " said Trevor. "I'll get you to tell me how you did it some time, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "But your house is a gem, Mr. Trevor. " "Isn't it?" cried Trevor. "I want my wife to live here the year round. "It was the Trevors' first summer in their cottage, and the experiencedreader will easily recognise his mood. "But she's such a worldly spirit, she won't. " "Oh, I don't know about the year round. Do you, Mrs. Pasmer?" "I should, " said Alice, with the suddenness of youth, breaking into thetalk which she had not been supposed to take any interest in. "Is it proper to kiss a young lady's hand?" said Trevor gratefully, appealing to Mrs. Brinkley. "It isn't very customary in the nineteenth century, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "But you might kiss her fan. He might kiss her fan, mightn't he, Mrs. Pasmer?" "Certainly. Alice, hold out your fan instantly. " The girl humoured the joke, laughing. Trevor pressed his lips to the perfumed sticks. "I will tell Mrs. Trevor, " he said, "and that will decide her. " "It will decide her not to come here at all next year if you tell herall. " "He never tells me all, " said Mrs. Trevor, catching so much of the talkas she came in from some hospitable cares in the dining-room. "They'reincapable of it. What has he been doing now?" "Nothing. Or I will tell you when we are alone, Mrs. Trevor, " said Mrs. Brinkley, with burlesque sympathy. "We oughtn't to have a scene on bothsides of the foot-lights. " A boyish face, all excitement, was thrust out between the curtainsforming the proscenium of the little theatre. "All ready, Mrs. Trevor?" "Yes, all ready, Jim. " He dashed the curtains apart, and marred the effect of his owndisappearance from the scene by tripping over the long legs of Jove, stretched out to the front, where he sat on Mrs. Trevor's richest rug, propped with sofa cushions on either hand. "So perish all the impious race of titans, enemies of the gods!" saidMavering solemnly, as the boy fell sprawling. "Pick the earth-born giantup, Vulcan, my son. " The boy was very small for his age; every one saw that the accident hadnot been premeditated, and when Vulcan appeared, with an exaggeratedlimp, and carried the boy off, a burst of laughter went up from thecompany. It did not matter what the play was to have been after that; it allturned upon the accident. Juno came on, and began to reproach Jupiterfor his carelessness. "I've sent Mercury upstairs for the aynica; buthe says it's no use: that boy won't be able to pass ball for a week. How often have I told you not to sit with your feet out that way! I knewyou'd hurt somebody. " "I didn't have my feet out, " retorted Jupiter. "Besides, " he added, withdignity, and a burlesque of marital special pleading which every wifeand husband recognised, "I always sit with my feet out so, and I alwayswill, so long as I've the spirit of a god. " "Isn't he delicious?" buzzed Mrs. Pasmer, leaning backward to whisper toMrs. Brinkley; it was not that she thought what Dan had just said was sovery fanny, but people are immoderately applausive of amateur dramatics, and she was feeling very fond of the young fellow. The improvisation went wildly and adventurously on, and the curtainsdropped together amidst the facile acclaim of the audience: "It's very well for Jupiter that he happened to think of the curtain, "said Mrs. Brinkley. "They couldn't have kept it up at that level muchlonger. " "Oh, do you think so?" softly murmured Mrs. Pasmer. "It seemed as ifthey could have kept it up all night if they liked. " "I doubt it. Mr. Trevor, " said Mrs. Brinkley to the host, who hadcome up for her congratulations, "do you always have such brilliantperformances?" "Well, we have so far, " he answered modestly; and Mrs. Brinkley laughedwith him. This was the first entertainment at Trevor cottage. "'Sh!" went up all round them, and Mrs. Trevor called across theroom, in a reproachful whisper loud enough for every one to hear, "Mydear!--enjoying yourself!" while Mavering stood between the partedcurtains waiting for the attention of the company. "On account of an accident to the call-boy and the mental exhaustion ofsome of the deities, the next piece will be omitted, and the performancewill begin with the one after. While the audience is waiting, Mercurywill go round and take up a collection for the victim of the recentaccident, who will probably be indisposed for life. The collector willbe accompanied by a policeman, and may be safely trusted. " He disappeared behind the curtain with a pas and r swirl of hisdraperies like the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, and the audience againabandoned itself to applause. "How very witty he is!" said Miss Cotton, who sat near John Munt. "Don'tyou think he's really witty?" "Yes, " Munt assented critically. "But you should have known his father. " "Oh, do you know his father?" "I was in college with him. " "Oh, do tell me about him, and all Mr. Mavering's family. We're sointerested, you know, on account of--Isn't it pretty to have thatlittle love idyl going on here? I wonder--I've been wondering all thetime--what she thinks of all this. Do you suppose she quite likes it?His costume is so very remarkable!" Miss Cotton, in the absence of anylady of her intimate circle, was appealing confidentially to John Munt. "Why, do you think there's anything serious between them?" he asked, dropping his head forward as people do in church when they wish towhisper to some one in the same pew. "Why, yes, it seems so, " murmured Miss Cotton. "His admiration is quiteundisguised, isn't it?" "A man never can tell, " said Munt. "We have to leave those things to youladies. " "Oh, every one's talking of it, I assure you. And you know his family?" "I knew his father once rather better than anybody else. " "Indeed!" "Yes. " Munt sketched rather a flattered portrait of the elder Mavering, his ability, his goodness, his shyness, which he had always had to makesuch a hard fight with. Munt was sensible of an access of popularity inknowing Dan Mavering's people, and he did not spare his colours. "Then it isn't from his father that he gets everything. He isn't in theleast shy, " said Miss Cotton. "That must be the mother. " "And the mother?" "The mother I don't know. " Miss Cotton sighed. "Sometimes I wish that he did show a little moretrepidation. It would seem as if he were more alive to the greatdifference that there is between Alice Pasmer and other girls. " Munt laughed a man's laugh. "I guess he's pretty well alive to that, ifhe's in love with her. " "Oh, in a certain way, of course, but not in the highest way. Now, forinstance, if he felt all her fineness as--as we do, I don't believe he'dbe willing to appear before her just like that. " The father of the godswore a damask tablecloth of a pale golden hue and a classic pattern;his arms were bare, and rather absurdly white; on his feet a pair oflawn-tennis shoes had a very striking effect of sandals. "It seems to me, " Miss Cotton pursued; "that if he really appreciatedher in the highest way, he would wish never to do an undignified ortrivial thing in her presence. " "Oh, perhaps it's that that pleases her in him. They say we're alwaystaken with opposites. " "Yes--do you think so?" asked Miss Cotton. The curtains were flung apart, and the Judgment of Paris followed rathertamely upon what had gone before, though the two young fellows who didJuno and Minerva were very amusing, and the dialogue was full of hits. Some of the audience, an appreciative minority, were of opinion thatMavering and Miss Anderson surpassed themselves in it; she promised himthe most beautiful and cultured wife in Greece. "That settles it, " heanswered. They came out arm in arm, and Paris, having put on a stripedtennis coat over his short-sleeved Greek tunic, moved round among thecompany for their congratulations, Venus ostentatiously showing theapple she had won. "I can haydly keep from eating it, " she explained to Alice; before whomshe dropped Mavering's arm. "I'm awfully hungry. It's hayd woyk. " Alice stood with her head drawn back, looking at the excited girl with asmile, in which seemed to hover somewhere a latent bitterness. Mavering, with a flushed face and a flying tongue, was exchangingsallies with her mother, who smothered him in flatteries. Mrs. Trevor came toward the group, and announced supper. "Mr. Paris, will you take Miss Aphrodite out?" Miss Anderson swept a low bow of renunciation, and tacitly relinquishedMavering to Alice. "Oh, no, no!" said Alice, shrinking back from him, with anintensification of her uncertain smile. "A mere mortal?" "Oh, how very good!" said Mrs. Trevor. There began to be, without any one's intending it, that sort of tacitmisunderstanding which is all the worse because it can only follow upona tacit understanding like that which had established itself betweenAlice and Mavering. They laughed and joked together gaily about allthat went on; they were perfectly good friends; he saw that she and hermother were promptly served; he brought them salad and ice-cream andcoffee himself, only waiting officially upon Miss Anderson first, andAlice thanked him, with the politest deprecation of his devotion; butif their eyes met, it was defensively, and the security between them wasgone. Mavering vaguely felt the loss, without knowing how to retrieveit, and it made him go on more desperately with Miss Anderson. Helaughed and joked recklessly, and Alice began to mark a more explicitdispleasure with her. She made her mother go rather early. On her part, Miss Anderson seemed to find reason for resentment inAlice's bearing toward her. As if she had said to herself that her frankloyalty had been thrown away upon a cold and unresponsive nature, and that her harmless follies in the play had been met with unjustsuspicions, she began to make reprisals, she began in dead earnest toflirt with Mavering. Before the evening passed she had made him seemtaken with her; but how justly she had done this, and with how muchfault of his, no one could have said. There were some who did not noticeit at all, but these were not people who knew Mavering, or knew Alicevery well. XX. The next morning Alice was walking slowly along the road toward thefishing village, when she heard rapid, plunging strides down the woodedhillside on her right. She knew them for Mavering's, and she did notaffect surprise when he made a final leap into the road, and shortenedhis pace beside her. "May I join you, Miss Pasmer?" "I am only going down to the herring-houses, " she began. "And you'll let me go with you?" said the young fellow. "The factis--you're always so frank that you make everything else seemsilly--I've been waiting up there in the woods for you to come by. Mrs. Pasmer told me you had started this way, and I cut across lots toovertake you, and then, when you came in sight, I had to let you passbefore I could screw my courage up to the point of running after you. How is that for open-mindedness?" "It's a very good beginning, I should think. " "Well, don't you think you ought to say now that you're sorry you wereso formidable?" "Am I so formidable?" she asked, and then recognised that she had beentrapped into a leading question. "You are to me. Because I would like always to be sure that I hadpleased you, and for the last twelve hours I've only been able tomake sure that I hadn't. That's the consolation I'm going away with. Ithought I'd get you to confirm my impression explicitly. That's why Iwished to join you. " "Are you--were you going away?" "I'm going by the next boat. What's the use of staying? I should onlymake bad worse. Yesterday I hoped But last night spoiled everything. 'Miss Pasmer, '" he broke out, with a rush of feeling, "you must know whyI came up here to Campobello. " His steps took him a little ahead of her, and he could look back intoher face as he spoke. But apparently he saw nothing in it to give himcourage to go on, for he stopped, and then continued, lightly: "And I'mgoing away because I feel that I've made a failure of the expedition. Iknew that you were supremely disgusted with me last night; but it willbe a sort of comfort if you'll tell me so. " "Oh, " said Alice, "everybody thought it was very brilliant, I'm sure. " "And you thought it was a piece of buffoonery. Well, it was. I wishyou'd say so, Miss Pasmer; though I didn't mean the playing entirely. Itwould be something to start from, and I want to make a beginning--turnover a new leaf. Can't you help me to inscribe a good resolution of themost iron-clad description on the stainless page? I've lain awake allnight composing one. Wouldn't you like to hear it?" "I can't see what good that would do, " she said, with some relentingtoward a smile, in which he instantly prepared himself to bask. "But you will when I've done it. Now listen!" "Please don't go on. " She cut him short with a return to her severity, which he would not recognise. "Well, perhaps I'd better not, " he consented. "It's rather a longresolution, and I don't know that I've committed it perfectly yet. ButI do assure you that if you were disgusted last night, you were not theonly one. I was immensely disgusted myself; and why I wanted you to tellme so, was because when I have a strong pressure brought to bear I canbrace up, and do almost anything, " he said, dropping into earnest. Thenhe rose lightly again, and added, "You have no idea how unpleasant itis to lie awake all night throwing dust in the eyes of an accusingconscience. " "It must have been, if you didn't succeed, " said Alice drily. "Yes, that's it--that's just the point. If I'd succeeded, I should beall right, don't you see. But it was a difficult case. " She turned herface away, but he saw the smile on her cheek, and he laughed as if thiswere what he had been trying to make her do. "I got beaten. I had togive up, and own it. I had to say that I had thrown my chance away, andI had better take myself off. " He looked at her with a real anxiety inhis gay eyes. "The boat goes just after lunch, I believe, " she said indifferently. "Oh yes, I shall have time to get lunch before I go, " he said, withbitterness. "But lunch isn't the only thing; it isn't even the mainthing, Miss Pasmer. " "No?" She hardened her heart. He waited for her to say something more, and then he went on. "Thequestion is whether there's time to undo last night, abolish it, eraseit from the calendar of recorded time--sponge it out, in short--andget back to yesterday afternoon. " She made no reply to this. "Don'tyou think it was a very pleasant picnic, Miss Pasmer?" he asked, withpensive respectfulness. "Very, " she answered drily. He cast a glance at the woods that bordered the road on either side. "That weird forest--I shall never forget it. " "No; it was something to remember, " she said. "And the blueberry patch? We mustn't forget the blueberry patch. " "There were a great many blueberries. " She walked on, and he said, "And that bridge--you don't have thatfeeling of having been here before?" "No. " "Am I walking too fast for you, Miss Pasmer?" "No; I like to walk fast. " "But wouldn't you like to sit down? On this wayside log, for example?"He pointed it out with his stick. "It seems to invite repose, and I knowyou must be tired. " "I'm not tired. " "Ah, that shows that you didn't lie awake grieving over your folliesall night. I hope you rested well, Miss Pasmer. " She said nothing. "IfI thought--if I could hope that you hadn't, it would be a bond ofsympathy, and I would give almost anything for a bond of sympathy justnow, Miss Pasmer. Alice!" he said, with sudden seriousness. "I know thatI'm not worthy even to think of you, and that you're whole worlds aboveme in every way. It's that that takes all heart out of me, and leavesme without a word to say when I'd like to say so much. I would like tospeak--tell you--" She interrupted him. "I wish to speak to you, Mr. Mavering, and tell youthat--I'm very tired, and I'm going back to the hotel. I must ask you tolet me go back alone. " "Alice, I love you. " "I'm sorry you said it--sorry, sorry. " "Why?" he asked, with hopeless futility. "Because there can be no love between us--not friendship even--notacquaintance. " "I shouldn't have asked for your acquaintance, your friendship, if--"His words conveyed a delicate reproach, and they stung her, because theyput her in the wrong. "No matter, " she began wildly. "I didn't mean to wound you. But we mustpart, and we must never see each other again:" He stood confused, as if he could not make it out or believe it. "Butyesterday--" "It's to-day now. " "Ah, no! It's last night. And I can explain. " "No!" she cried. "You shall not make me out so mean and vindictive. Idon't care for last night, nor for anything that happened. " This was nottrue, but it seemed so to her at the moment; she thought that she reallyno longer resented his association with Miss Anderson and his separationfrom herself in all that had taken place. "Then what is it?" "I can't tell you. But everything is over between us--that's all. " "But yesterday--and all these days past--you seemed--" "It's unfair of you to insist--it's ungenerous, ungentlemanly. " That word, which from a woman's tongue always strikes a man like a blowin the face, silenced Mavering. He set his lips and bowed, and theyparted. She turned upon her way, and he kept the path which she had beengoing. It was not the hour when the piazzas were very full, and she slippedinto the dim hotel corridor undetected, or at least undetained. Sheflung into her room, and confronted her mother. Mrs. Pasmer was there looking into a trunk that had overflowed from herown chamber. "What is the matter?" she said to her daughter's excitedface. "Mr. Mavering--" "Well?" "And I refused him. " Mrs. Pasmer was one of those ladies who in any finality have a keenretrovision of all the advantages of a different conclusion. She hadbeen thinking, since she told Dan Mavering which way Alice had gone towalk, that if he were to speak to her now, and she were to accept him, it would involve a great many embarrassing consequences; but she hadconsoled herself with the probability that he would not speak so soonafter the effects of last night, but would only try at the furthestto make his peace with Alice. Since he had spoken, though, and she hadrefused him, Mrs. Pasmer instantly saw all the pleasant things thatwould have followed in another event. "Refused him?" she repeatedprovisionally, while she gathered herself for a full exploration of allthe facts. "Yes, mamma; and I can't talk about it. I wish never to hear his nameagain, or to see him, or to speak to him. " "Why, of course not, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with a fine smile, from thevantage-ground of her superior years, "if you've refused him. " She leftthe trunk which she had been standing over, and sat down, while Aliceswept to and fro before her excitedly. "But why did you refuse him, mydear?" "Why? Because he's detestable--perfectly ignoble. " Her mother probably knew how to translate these exalted expressions intothe more accurate language of maturer life. "Do you mean last night?" "Last night?" cried Alice tragically. "No. Why should I care for lastnight?" "Then I don't understand what you mean, " retorted Mrs. Pasmer. "What didhe say?" she demanded, with authority. "Mamma, I can't talk about it--I won't. " "But you must, Alice. It's your duty. Of course I must know about it. What did he say?" Alice walked up and down the room with her lips firmly closed--likeMavering's lips, it occurred to her; and then she opened them, butwithout speaking. "What did he say?" persisted her mother, and her persistence had itseffect. "Say?" exclaimed the girl indignantly. "He tried to make me say. " "I see, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "Well?" "But I forced him to speak, and then--I rejected him. That's all. " "Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Pasmer. "He was afraid of you. " "And that's what made it the more odious. Do you think I wished him tobe afraid of me? Would that be any pleasure? I should hate myself if Ihad to quell anybody into being unlike themselves. " She sat down for amoment, and then jumped up again, and went to the window, for no reason, and came back. "Yes, " said her mother impartially, "he's light, and he's roundabout. Hecouldn't come straight at anything. " "And would you have me accept such a--being?" Mrs. Pasmer smiled a little at the literary word, and continued: "Buthe's very sweet, and he's as good as the day's long, and he's very fondof you, and--I thought you liked him. " The girl threw up her arms across her eyes. "Oh, how can you say such athing, mamma?" She dropped into a chair at the bedside, and let her face fall into herhands, and cried. Her mother waited for the gust of tears to pass before she said, "But ifyou feel so about it--" "Mamma!" Alice sprang to her feet. "It needn't come from you. I could make some excuse to see him--writehim a little note--" "Never!" exclaimed Alice grandly. "What I've done I've done from myreason, and my feelings have nothing to do with it. " "Oh, very well, " said her mother, going out of the room, not whollydisappointed with what she viewed as a respite, and amused by herdaughter's tragics. "But if you think that the feelings have nothing todo with such a matter, you're very much mistaken. " If she believed thather daughter did not know her real motives in rejecting Dan Mavering, orhad not been able to give them, she did not say so. The little group of Aliceolaters on the piazza, who began to canvass thecauses of Mavering's going before the top of his hat disappeared belowthe bank on the path leading to the ferry-boat, were of two minds. Onefaction held that he was going because Alice had refused him, and thathis gaiety up to the last moment was only a mask to hide his despair. The other side contended that, if he and Alice were not actuallyengaged, they understood each other, and he was going away because hewanted to tell his family, or something of that kind. Between the twoopinions Miss Cotton wavered with a sentimental attraction to either. "What do you really think?" she asked Mrs. Brinkley, arriving from lunchat the corner of the piazza where the group was seated. "Oh, what does it matter, at their age?" she demanded. "But they're just of the age when it does happen to matter, " suggestedMrs. Stamwell. "Yes, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "and that's what makes the whole thing soperfectly ridiculous. Just think of two children, one of twenty and theother of twenty-three, proposing to decide their lifelong destiny insuch a vital matter! Should we trust their judgment in regard to thesmallest business affair? Of course not. They're babes in arms, morallyand mentally speaking. People haven't the data for being wisely in lovetill they've reached the age when they haven't the least wish to be so. Oh, I suppose I thought that I was a grown woman too when I was twenty;I can look back and see that I did; and, what's more preposterous still, I thought Mr. Brinkley was a man at twenty-four. But we were no more fitto accept or reject each other at that infantile period--" "Do you really think so?" asked Miss Cotton, only partially credulous ofMrs. Brinkley's irony. "Yes, it does seem out of all reason, " admitted Mrs. Stamwell. "Of course it is, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "If she has rejected him, she'sdone a very safe thing. Nobody should be allowed to marry before fifty. Then, if people married, it would be because they knew that they lovedeach other. " Miss Cotton reflected a moment. "It is strange that such an importantquestion should have to be decided at an age when the judgment is so farfrom mature. I never happened to look at it in that light before. " "Yes, " said Mrs. Brinkley--and she made herself comfortable in an armchair commanding a stretch of the bay over which the ferry-boat mustpass--"but it's only part and parcel of the whole affair. I'm sure thatno grown person can see the ridiculous young things--inexperienced, ignorant, featherbrained--that nature intrusts with children, theirimmortal little souls and their extremely perishable little bodies, without rebelling at the whole system. When you see what most youngmothers are, how perfectly unfit and incapable, you wonder that thewhole race doesn't teeth and die. Yes, there's one thing I feel prettysure of--that, as matters are arranged now, there oughtn't to be mothersat all, there ought to be only grandmothers. " The group all laughed, even Miss Cotton, but she was the first to becomegrave. At the bottom of her heart there was a doubt whether so light away of treating serious things was not a little wicked. "Perhaps, " she said, "we shall have to go back to the idea thatengagements and marriages are not intended to be regulated by thejudgment, but by the affections. " "I don't know what's intended, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "but I know what is. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the affections have it their ownway, and I must say I don't think the judgment could make a greater messof it. In fact, " she continued, perhaps provoked to the excess by thedeprecation she saw in Miss Cotton's eye, "I consider every brokenengagement nowadays a blessing in disguise. " Miss Cotton said nothing. The other ladies said, "Why, Mrs. Brinkley!" "Yes. The thing has gone altogether too far. The pendulum has swung inthat direction out of all measure. We are married too much. And as anatural consequence we are divorced too much. The whole case is in anutshell: if there were no marriages, there would be no divorces, andthat great abuse would be corrected, at any rate. " All the ladies laughed, Miss Cotton more and more sorrowfully. She likedto have people talk as they do in genteel novels. Mrs. Brinkley's boldexpressions were a series of violent shocks to her nature, and imparteda terrible vibration to the fabric of her whole little rose-colouredideal world; if they had not been the expressions of a person whom agreat many unquestionable persons accepted, who had such an undoubtedstanding, she would have thought them very coarse. As it was, they hada great fascination for her. "But in a case like that of"--she lookedround and lowered her voice--"our young friends, I'm sure you couldn'trejoice if the engagement were broken off. " "Well, I'm not going to be 'a mush of concession, ' as Emerson says, MissCotton. And, in the first place, how do you know they're engaged?" "Ah, I don't; I didn't mean that they were. But wouldn't it be alittle pathetic if, after all that we've seen going on, his coming hereexpressly on her account, and his perfect devotion to her for the pasttwo weeks, it should end in nothing?" "Two weeks isn't a very long time to settle the business of a lifetime. " "No. " "Perhaps she's proposed delay; a little further acquaintance. " "Oh, of course that would be perfectly right. Do you think she did?" "Not if she's as wise as the rest of us would have been at her age. ButI think she ought. " "Yes?" said Miss Cotton semi-interrogatively. "Do you think his behaviour last night would naturally impress her withhis wisdom and constancy?" "No, I can't say that it would, but--" "And this Alice of yours is rather a severe young person. She has herideas, and I'm afraid they're rather heroic. She'd be just with him, ofcourse. But there's nothing a man dreads so much as justice--some men. " "Yes, " pursued Miss Cotton, "but that very disparity--I know they'revery unlike--don't you think--" "Oh yes, I know the theory about that. But if they were exactly alikein temperament, they'd be sufficiently unlike for the purposes ofcounterparts. That was arranged once for all when 'male and femalecreated He them. ' I've no doubt their fancy was caught by all the kindsof difference they find in each other; that's just as natural as it'ssilly. But the misunderstanding, the trouble, the quarrelling, thewear and tear of spirit, that they'd have to go through before theyassimilated--it makes me tired, as the boys say. No: I hope, for theyoung man's own sake, he's got his conge. " "But he's so kind, so good--" "My dear, the world is surfeited with kind, good men. There are half adozen of them at the other end of the piazza smoking; and there comesanother to join them, " she added, as a large figure, semicircular inprofile, advanced itself from a doorway toward a vacant chair among thesmokers. "The very soul of kindness and goodness. " She beckoned towardher husband, who caught sight of her gesture. "Now I can tell you allhis mental processes. First, surprise at seeing some one beckoning;then astonishment that it's I, though who else should beckon him?--thenwonder what I can want; then conjecture that I may want him to comehere; then pride in his conjecture; rebellion; compliance. " The ladies were in a scream of laughter as Mr. Brinkley lumbered heavilyto their group. "What is it?" he asked. "Do you believe in broken engagements? Now quick--off-hand!" "Who's engaged?" "No matter. " "Well, you know Punch's advice to those about to marry?" "I know--chestnuts, " said his wife scornfully. They dismissed each otherwith tender bluntness, and he went in to get a match. "Ah, Mrs. Brinkley, " said one of the ladies, "it would be of no use foryou to preach broken engagements to any one who saw you and Mr. Brinkleytogether. " They fell upon her, one after another, and mocked her withthe difference between her doctrine and practice; and they were all themore against her because they had been perhaps a little put down by herwhimsical sayings. "Yes, " she admitted. "But we've been thirty years coming to theunderstanding that you all admire so much; and do you think it was worththe time?" XXI. Mavering kept up until he took leave of the party of young people whohad come over on the ferry-boat to Eastport for the frolic of seeing himoff. It was a tremendous tour de force to accept their company as ifhe were glad of it, and to respond to all their gay nothings gaily; tomaintain a sunny surface on his turbid misery. They had tried to makeAlice come with them, but her mother pleaded a bad headache for her;and he had to parry a hundred sallies about her, and from his sick hearthumour the popular insinuation that there was an understanding betweenthem, and that they had agreed together she should not come. He had tostand about on the steamboat wharf and listen to amiable innuendoes fornearly an hour before the steamer came in from St. John. The fond adieuxof his friends, their offers to take any message back, lasted during theinterminable fifteen minutes that she lay at her moorings, and then heshowed himself at the stern of the boat, and waved his handkerchief inacknowledgment of the last parting salutations on shore. When it was all over, he went down into his state-room, and shut himselfin, and let his misery rollover him. He felt as if there were a flood ofit, and it washed him to and fro, one gall of shame, of self-accusal, of bitterness, from head to foot. But in it all he felt no resentmenttoward Alice, no wish to wreak any smallest part of his suffering uponher. Even while he had hoped for her love, it seemed to him that he hadnot seen her in all that perfection which she now had in irreparableloss. His soul bowed itself fondly over the thought of her; and, stungas he was by that last cruel word of hers, he could not upbraid her. That humility which is love casting out selfishness, the most egotisticof the passions triumphing over itself--Mavering experienced it tothe full. He took all the blame. He could not see that she had everencouraged him to hope for her love, which now appeared a treasureheaven--far beyond his scope; he could only call himself fool, and fool, and fool, and wonder that he could have met her in the remoteness ofthat morning with the belief that but for the follies of last night shemight have answered him differently. He believed now that, whateverhad gone before, she must still have rejected him. She had treated hispresumption very leniently; she had really spared him. It went on, over and over. Sometimes it varied a little, as when hethought of how, when she should tell her mother, Mrs. Pasmer must laugh. He pictured them both laughing at him; and then Mr. Pasmer--he hadscarcely passed a dozen words with him-coming in and asking what theywere laughing at, and their saying, and his laughing too. At other times he figured them as incensed at his temerity, which mustseem to them greater and greater, as now it seemed to him. He had neverthought meanly of himself, and the world so far had seemed to think wellof him; but because Alice Pasmer was impossible to him, he felt that itwas an unpardonable boldness in him to have dreamed of her. Whatmust they be saying of his having passed from the ground of societycompliments and light flirtation to actually telling Alice that he lovedher? He wondered what Mrs. Pasmer had thought of his telling her that he hadcome to Campobello to consider the question whether he should study lawor go into business, and what motive she had supposed he had in tellingher that. He asked himself what motive he had, and tried to pretend thathe had none. He dramatised conversations with Mrs. Pasmer in which helaughed it off. He tried to remember all that had passed the day before at the picnic, and whether Alice had done or said anything to encourage him, and hecould not find that she had. All her trust and freedom was because shefelt perfectly safe with him from any such disgusting absurdity ashe had been guilty of. The ride home through the mist, with its sweetintimacy, that parting which had seemed so full of tender intelligence, were parts of the same illusion. There had been nothing of it on herside from the beginning but a kindliness which he had now flung away forever. He went back to the beginning, and tried to remember the point where hehad started in this fatal labyrinth of error. She had never misled him, but he had misled himself from the first glimpse of her. Whatever was best in his light nature, whatever was generous andself-denying, came out in this humiliation. From the vision of herderision he passed to a picture of her suffering from pity for him, andwrung with a sense of the pain she had given him. He promised himself towrite to her, and beg her not to care for him, because he was not worthyof that. He framed a letter in his mind, in which he posed in some nobleattitudes, and brought tears into his eyes by his magnanimous appealto her not to suffer for the sake of one so unworthy of her seriousthought. He pictured her greatly moved by some of the phrases, and hecomposed for her a reply, which led to another letter from him, and soto a correspondence and a long and tender friendship. In the end hedied suddenly, and then she discovered that she had always loved him. He discovered that he was playing the fool again, and he rose from theberth where he had tumbled himself. The state-room had that smell ofparboiled paint which state-rooms have, and reminded him of the steamerin which he had gone to Europe when a boy, with the family, just afterhis mother's health began to fail. He went down on the deck near the ladies' saloon, where the second-classpassengers were gathered listening to the same band of plantationnegroes who had amused him so much on the eastward trip. The passengerswere mostly pock marked Provincials, and many of them were women; theylounged on the barrels of apples neatly piled up, and listened to themusic without smiling. One of the negroes was singing to the banjo, andanother began to do the rheumatic uncle's breakdown. Mavering said tohimself: "I can't stand that. Oh, what a fool I am! Alice, I love you. Omerciful heavens! O infernal jackass! Ow! Gaw!" At the bow of the boat he found a gang of Italian labourers returning tothe States after some job in the Provinces. They smoked their pipesand whined their Neapolitan dialect together. It made Mavering thinkof Dante, of the Inferno, to which he passed naturally from hisself-denunciation for having been an infernal jackass. The inscriptionon the gate of hell ran through his mind. He thought he would make hislife--his desolate, broken life--a perpetual exile, like Dante's. At thesame time he ground his teeth, and muttered: "Oh, what a fool I am! Oh, idiot! beast! Oh! oh!" The pipes reminded him to smoke, and he tookout his cigarette case. The Italians looked at him; he gave all thecigarettes among them, without keeping any for himself. He determinedto spend the miserable remnant of his life in going about doing good andbestowing alms. He groaned aloud, so that the Italians noticed it, and doubtless spokeof it among themselves. He could not understand their dialect, but hefeigned them saying respectfully compassionate things. Then he gnashedhis teeth again, and cursed his folly. When the bell rang for supper hefound himself very hungry, and ate heavily. After that he went out infront of the cabin, and walked up and down, thinking, and trying notto think. The turmoil in his mind tired him like a prodigious physicalexertion. Toward ten o'clock the night grew rougher. The sea was so phosphorescentthat it broke in sheets and flakes of pale bluish flame from the bowsand wheel-houses, and out in the dark the waves revealed themselves inflashes and long gleams of fire. One of the officers of the boat cameand hung with Mavering over the guard. The weird light from the waterwas reflected on their faces, and showed them to each other. "Well, I never saw anything like this before. Looks like hell; don'tit?" said the officer. "Yes, " said Mavering. "Is it uncommon?" "Well, I should say so. I guess we're going to have a picnic. " Mavering thought of blueberries, but he did not say anything. "I guess it's going to be a regular circus. " Mavering did not care. He asked incuriously, "How do you find yourcourse in such weather?" "Well, we guess where we are, and then give her so many turns of thewheel. " The officer laughed, and Mavering laughed too. He was struck bythe hollow note in his laugh; it seemed to him pathetic; he wondered ifhe should now always laugh so, and if people would remark it. He triedanother laugh; it sounded mechanical. He went to bed, and was so worn out that he fell asleep and began todream. A face came up out of the sea, and brooded over the waters, as inthat picture of Vedder's which he calls "Memory, " but the hair was notblond; it was the colour of those phosphorescent flames, and the eyeswere like it. "Horrible! horrible!" he tried to shriek, but he cried, "Alice, I love you. " There was a burglar in the room, and he was runningafter Miss Pasmer. Mavering caught him, and tried to beat him; his fistsfell like bolls of cotton; the burglar drew his breath in with a long, washing sound like water. Mavering woke deathly sick, and heard the sweep of the waves. The boatwas pitching frightfully. He struggled out into the saloon, and saw thatit was five o'clock. In five hours more it would be a day since he toldAlice that he loved her; it now seemed very improbable. There were agood many half-dressed people in the saloon, and a woman came runningout of her state-room straight to Mavering. She was in her stockingfeet, and her hair hung down her back. "Oh! are we going down?" she implored him. "Have we struck? Oughtn't weto pray--somebody? Shall I wake the children?" "Mavering reassured her, and told her there was no danger. "Well, then, " she said, "I'll go back for my shoes. " "Yes, better get your shoes. " The saloon rose round him and sank. He controlled his sickness byplanting a chair in the centre and sitting in it with his eyes shut. Ashe grew more comfortable he reflected how he had calmed that woman, andhe resolved again to spend his life in doing good. "Yes, that's the onlyticket, " he said to himself, with involuntary frivolity. He thoughtof what the officer had said, and he helplessly added, "Circusticket--reserved seat. " Then he began again, and loaded himself withexecration. The boat got into Portland at nine o'clock, and Mavering left her, taking his hand-bag with him, and letting his trunk go on to Boston. The officer who received his ticket at the gangplank noticed thedestination on it, and said, "Got enough?" "Yes, for one while. " Mavering recognised his acquaintance of the nightbefore. "Don't like picnics very much. " "No, " said Mavering, with abysmal gloom. "They don't agree with me. Never did. " He was aware of trying to make his laugh bitter. The officerdid not notice. Mavering was surprised, after the chill of the storm at sea, to find itrather a warm, close morning in Portland. The restaurant to which thehackman took him as the best in town was full of flies; they bit himawake out of the dreary reveries he fell into while waiting for hisbreakfast. In a mirror opposite he saw his face. It did not lookhaggard; it looked very much as it always did. He fancied playing a partthrough life--hiding a broken heart under a smile. "O you incorrigibleass!" he said to himself, and was afraid he had said it to the younglady who brought him his breakfast, and looked haughtily at him fromunder her bang. She was very thin, and wore a black jersey. He tried to find out whether he had spoken aloud by addressing herpleasantly. "It's pretty cold this morning. " "What say?" "Pretty cool. " "Oh yes. But it's pretty clo-ose, " she replied, in her Yankeecantillation. She went away and left him to the bacon and eggs he hadordered at random. There was a fly under one of the slices of bacon, andMavering confined himself to the coffee. A man came up in a white cap and jacket from a basement in the front ofthe restaurant, where confectionery was sold, and threw down a mass ofmalleable candy on a marble slab, and began to work it. Mavering watchedhim, thinking fuzzily all the time of Alice, and holding long, fatiguingdialogues with the people at the Ty'n-y-Coed, whose several voices heheard. He said to himself that it was worse than yesterday. He wondered if itwould go on getting worse every day. He saw a man pass the door of the restaurant who looked exactly likeBoardman as he glanced in. The resemblance was explained by the man'scoming back, and proving to be really Boardman. XXII. Mavering sprang at him with a demand for the reason of his being there. "I thought it was you as I passed, " said Boardman, "but I couldn't makesure--so dark back here. " "And I thought it was you, but I couldn't believe it, " said Mavering, with equal force, cutting short an interior conversation with Mr. Pasmer, which had begun to hold itself since his first glimpse ofBoardman. "I came down here to do a sort of one-horse yacht race to-day, " Boardmanexplained. "Going to be a yacht race? Better have some breakfast. Or betternot--here. Flies under your bacon. " "Rough on the flies, " said Boardman, snapping the bell which summonedthe spectre in the black jersey, and he sat down. "What are you doing inPortland?" Mavering told him, and then Boardman asked him how he had left thePasmers. Mavering needed no other hint to speak, and he spoke fully, while Boardman listened with an agreeable silence, letting the hero ofthe tale break into self-scornful groans and doleful laughs, and easehis heart with grotesque, inarticulate noises, and made little or nocomments. By the time his breakfast came, Boardman was ready to say, "I didn'tsuppose it was so much of a mash. " "I didn't either, " said Mavering, "when I left Boston. Of course I knewI was going down there to see her, but when I got there it kept goingon, just like anything else, up to the last moment. I didn't realisetill it came to the worst that I had become a mere pulp. " "Well, you won't stay so, " said Boardman, making the first vain attemptat consolation. He lifted the steak he had ordered, and peered beneathit. "All right this time, any way. " "I don't know what you mean by staying so, " replied Mavering, withgloomy rejection of the comfort offered. "You'll see that it's all for the best; that you're well out of it. Ifshe could throw you over, after leading you on--" "But she didn't lead me on!" exclaimed Mavering. "Don't you understandthat it was all my mistake from the first? If I hadn't been perfectlybesotted I should have seen that she was only tolerating me. Don't yousee? Why, hang it, Boardman, I must have had a kind of consciousnessof it under my thick-skinned conceit, after all, for when I came to thepoint--when I did come to the point--I hadn't the sand to stick to itlike a man, and I tried to get her to help me. Yes, I can see that I didnow. I kept fooling about, and fooling about, and it was because I hadthat sort of prescience--of whatever you call it--that I was mistakenabout it from the very beginning. " He wished to tell Boardman about the events of the night before; buthe could not. He said to himself that he did not care about their beinghardly to his credit; but he did not choose to let Alice seem to haveresented anything in them; it belittled her, and claimed too much forhim. So Boardman had to proceed upon a partial knowledge of the facts. "I don't suppose that boomerang way of yours, if that's what you mean, was of much use, " he said. "Use? It ruined me! But what are you going to do? How are you going topresuppose that a girl like Miss Pasmer is interested in an idiot likeyou? I mean me, of course. " Mavering broke off with a dolorous laugh. "And if you can't presuppose it, what are you going to do when it comesto the point? You've got to shillyshally, and then you've got to go itblind. I tell you it's a leap in the dark. " "Well, then, if you've got yourself to blame--" "How am I to blame, I should like to know?" retorted Mavering, rejectingthe first offer from another of the censure which he had been heapingupon himself: the irritation of his nerves spoke. "I did speak out atlast--when it was too late. Well, let it all go, " he groaned aimlessly. "I don't care. But she isn't to blame. I don't think I could admireanybody very much who admired me. No, sir. She did just right. I was afool, and she couldn't have treated me differently. " "Oh, I guess it'll come out all right, " said Boardman, abandoninghimself to mere optimism. "How come all right?" demanded Mavering, flattered by the hope herefused. "It's come right now. I've got my deserts; that's all. " "Oh no, you haven't. What harm have you done? It's all right for youto think small beer of yourself, and I don't see how you could thinkanything else just at present. But you wait awhile. When did it happen?" Mavering took out his watch. "One day, one hour, twenty minutes, andfifteen seconds ago. " "Sure about the seconds? I suppose you didn't hang round a great whileafterward?" "Well, people don't, generally, " said Mavering, with scorn. "Never tried it, " said Boardman, looking critically at his friedpotatoes before venturing upon them. "If you had stayed, perhaps shemight have changed her mind, " he added, as if encouraged to this hopefulview by the result of his scrutiny. "Where did you get your fraudulent reputation for common-sense, Boardman?" retorted Mavering, who had followed his examination of thepotatoes with involuntary interest. "She won't change her mind; sheisn't one of that kind. But she's the one woman in this world who couldhave made a man of me, Boardman. " "Is that so?" asked Boardman lightly. "Well, she is a good-lookinggirl. " "She's divine!" "What a dress that was she had on Class Day!" "I never think what she has on. She makes everything perfect, and thenmakes you forget it. " "She's got style; there's no mistake about that. " "Style!" sighed Mavering; but he attempted no exemplification. "She's awfully graceful. What a walk she's got!" "Oh, don't, don't, Boardman! All that's true, and all that'snothing--nothing to her goodness. She's so good, Boardman! Well, Igive it up! She's religious. You wouldn't think that, may be; you can'timagine a pretty girl religious. And she's all the more intoxicatingwhen she's serious; and when she's forgotten your whole worthlessexistence she's ten thousand times more fascinating than and other girlwhen she's going right for you. There's a kind of look comes into hereyes--kind of absence, rapture, don't you know--when she's serious, thatbrings your heart right into your mouth. She makes you think of someof those pictures--I want to tell you what she said the other day at apicnic when we were off getting blueberries, and you'll understand thatshe isn't like other girls--that she has a soul fall of--of--you knowwhat, Boardman. She has high thoughts about everything. I don't believeshe's ever had a mean or ignoble impulse--she couldn't have. " In thebusiness of imparting his ideas confidentially, Mavering had drawnhimself across the table toward Boardman, without heed to what was onit. "Look out! You'll be into my steak first thing you know. " "Oh, confound your steak?" cried Mavering, pushing the dish away. "Whatdifference does it make? I've lost her, anyway. " "I don't believe you've lost her, " said Boardman. "What's the reason you don't?" retorted Mavering, with contempt. "Because, if she's the serious kind of a girl you say she is, shewouldn't let you come up there and dangle round a whole fortnightwithout letting you know she didn't like it, unless she did like it. Nowyou just go a little into detail. " Mavering was quite willing. He went so much into detail that he leftnothing to Boardman's imagination. He lost the sense of its calamitousclose in recounting the facts of his story at Campobello; he smiledand blushed and laughed in telling certain things; he described MissAnderson and imitated her voice; he drew heads of some of the ladieson the margin of a newspaper, and the tears came into his eyes when herepeated the cruel words which Alice had used at their last meeting. "Oh, well, you must brace up, " said Boardman. "I've got to go now. Shedidn't mean it, of course. " "Mean what?" "That you were ungentlemanly. Women don't know half the time how hardthey're hitting. " "I guess she meant that she didn't want me, anyway, " said Maveringgloomily. "Ah, I don't know about that. You'd better ask her the next time you seeher. Good-bye. " He had risen, and he offered his hand to Mavering, whowas still seated. "Why, I've half a mind to go with you. " "All right, come along. But I thought you might be going right on toBoston. " "No; I'll wait and go on with you. How, do you go to the race?" "In the press boat. " "Any women?" "No; we don't send them on this sort of duty. " "That settles it. I have got all I want of that particular sex for thetime being. " Mavering wore a very bitter air as he said this; it seemedto him that he would always be cynical; he rose, and arranged to leavehis bag with the restaurateur, who put it under the counter, and then hewent out with his friend. The sun had come out, and the fog was burning away; there was life andlift in the air, which the rejected lover could not refuse to feel, andhe said, looking round, and up and down the animated street. "I guessyou're going to have a good day for it. " The pavement was pretty well filled with women who had begun shopping. Carriages were standing beside the pavement; a lady crossed the pavementfrom a shop door toward a coupe just in front of them, with her handfull of light packages; she dropped one of them, and Mavering sprangforward instinctively and picked it up for her. "Oh, thank you!" she said, with the deep gratitude which societycultivates for the smallest services. Then she lifted her droopedeyelashes, and, with a flash of surprise, exclaimed, "Mr. Mavering!" anddropped all her packages that she might shake hands with him. Boardman sauntered slowly on, but saw with a backward glance Maveringcarrying the lady's packages to the coupe for her; saw him lift hishat there, and shake hands with somebody in the coupe, and then standtalking beside it. He waited at the corner of the block for Mavering tocome up, affecting an interest in the neck-wear of a furnisher's window. In about five minutes Mavering joined him. "Look here, Boardman! Those ladies have snagged onto me. " "Are there two of them?" "Yes, one inside. And they want me to go with then to see the race. Their father's got a little steam-yacht. They want you to go too. " Boardman shook his head. "Well, that's what I told them--told them that you had to go on thepress boat. They said they wished they were going on the press boat too. But I don't see how I can refuse. They're ladies that I met Class Day, and I ought to have shown them a little more attention then; but I gotso taken up with--" "I see, " said Boardman, showing his teeth, fine and even as grains ofpop-corn, in a slight sarcastic smile. "Sort of poetical justice, " hesuggested. "Well, it is--sort of, " said Mavering, with a shamefaced consciousness. "What train are you going back on?" "Seven o'clock. " "I'll be there. " He hurried back to rejoin the ladies, and Boardman saw him, after someparley and laughter, get into the coupe, from which he inferred thatthey had turned down the little seat in front, and made him take it; andhe inferred that they must be very jolly, sociable girls. He did not see Mavering again till the train was on its way, when hecame in, looking distraughtly about for his friend. He was again verymelancholy, and said dejectedly that they had made him stay to dinner, and had then driven him down to the station, bag and all. "The oldgentleman came too. I was in hopes I'd find you hanging round somewhere, so that I could introduce you. They're awfully nice. None of thatinfernal Boston stiffness. The one you saw me talking with is married, though. " Boardman was writing out his report from a little book with shorthandnotes in it. There were half a dozen other reporters in the car busywith their work. A man who seemed to be in authority said to one ofthem, "Try to throw in a little humour. " Mavering pulled his hat over his eyes, and leaned his head on the backof his seat, and tried to sleep. XXIII. At his father's agency in Boston he found, the next morning, a letterfrom him saying that he expected to be down that day, and asking Dan tomeet him at the Parker House for dinner. The letter intimated the elderMavering's expectation that his son had reached some conclusion in thematter they had talked of before he left for Campobello. It gave Dan a shiver of self-disgust and a sick feeling of hopelessness. He was quite willing now to do whatever his father wished, but he didnot see haw he could face him and own his defeat. When they met, his father did not seem to notice his despondency, and heasked him nothing about the Pasmers, of course. That would not have beenthe American way. Nothing had been said between the father and son asto the special advantages of Campobello for the decision of the questionpending when they saw each other last; but the son knew that the fatherguessed why he chose that island for the purpose; and now the elder knewthat if the younger had anything to tell him he would tell it, and ifhe had not he would keep it. It was tacitly understood that there was noobjection on the father's part to Miss Pasmer; in fact, there had been aglimmer of humorous intelligence in his eye when the son said he thoughthe should run down to Bar Harbour, and perhaps to Campobello, but he hadsaid nothing to betray his consciousness. They met in the reading-room at Parker's, and Dan said, "Hello, father, "and his father answered, "Well, Dan;" and they shyly touched the handsdropped at their sides as they pressed together in the crowd. The fathergave his boy a keen glance, and then took the lead into the dining-room, where he chose a corner table, and they disposed of their hats on thewindow-seat. "All well at home?" asked the young fellow, as he took up the bill offare to order the dinner. His father hated that, and always made him doit. "Yes, yes; as usual, I believe. Minnie is off for a week at themountains; Eunice is at home. " "Oh! How would you like some green goose, with apple-sauce, sweet-potatoes, and succotash?" "It seems to me that was pretty good, the last time. All right, if youlike it. " "I don't know that I care for anything much. I'm a little off my feed. No soup, " he said, looking up at the waiter bending over him; and thenhe gave the order. "I think you may bring me half a dozen Blue Points, if they're good, " he called after him. "Didn't Bar Harbour agree with you--or Campobello?" asked Mr. Mavering, taking the opening offered him. "No, not very well, " said Dan; and he said no more about it, leavinghis father to make his own inferences as to the kind or degree of thedisagreement. "Well, have you made up your mind?" asked the father, resting his elbowson either side of his plate, and putting his hands together softly, while he looked across them with a cheery kindness at his boy. "Yes, I have, " said Dan slowly. "Well?" "I don't believe I care to go into the law. " "Sure?" "Yes. " "Well, that's all right, then. I wished you to choose freely, and Isuppose you've done so. " "Oh Yes. " "I think you've chosen wisely, and I'm very glad. It's a weight off mymind. I think you'll be happier in the business than you would in thelaw; I think you'll enjoy it. You needn't look forward to a great dealof Ponkwasset Falls, unless you like. " "I shouldn't mind going there, " said Dan listlessly. "It won't be necessary--at first. In fact, it won't be desirable. I wantyou to look up the business at this end a little. " Dan gave a start. "In Boston?" "Yes. It isn't in the shape I want to have it. I propose to open a placeof our own, and to put you in charge. " Something in the young man'sface expressed reluctance, and his father asked kindly, "Would that bedistasteful to you?" "Oh no. It isn't the thing I object to, but I don't know that I careto be in Boston. " He lifted his face and looked his father full in theeyes, but with a gaze that refused to convey anything definite. Then thefather knew that the boy's love affair had gone seriously wrong. The waiter came with the dinner, and made an interruption in which theycould be naturally silent. When he had put the dinner before them, andcumbered them with superfluous service, after the fashion of his kind, he withdrew a little way, and left them to resume their talk. "Well, " said the elder lightly, as if Dan's not caring to be in Bostonhad no particular significance for him, "I don't know that I care tohave you settle down to it immediately. I rather think I'd like to haveyou look about first a little. Go to New York, go to Philadelphia, andsee their processes there. We can't afford to get old-fashioned in ourways. I've always been more interested by the aesthetic side of thebusiness, but you ought to have a taste for the mechanism, from yourgrandfather; your mother has it. " "Oh yes, sir. I think all that's very interesting, " said Dan. "Well, go to France, and see how those fellows do it. Go to London, andlook up William Morris. " "Yes, that would be very nice, " admitted the young fellow, beginning tocatch on. "But I didn't suppose--I didn't expect to begin life with apicnic. " He entered upon his sentence with a jocular buoyancy, but atthe last word, which he fatally drifted upon, his voice fell. He saidto himself that he was greatly changed; that, he should never be gay andbright again; there would always be this undercurrent of sadness; he hadnoticed the undercurrent yesterday when he was laughing and joking withthose girls at Portland. "Oh, I don't want you to buckle down at once, " said his father, smiling. "If you'd decided upon the law, I should have felt that you'd betternot lose time. But as you're going into the business, I don't mind yourtaking a year off. It won't be lost time if you keep your eyes open. I think you'd better go down into Italy and Spain. Look up the oldtapestries and stamped leathers. You may get some ideas. How would youlike it?" "First-rate. I should like it, " said Dan, rising on the waft of hisfather's suggestion, but gloomily lapsing again. Still, it was pleasingto picture himself going about through Europe with a broken heart, andhe did not deny himself the consolation of the vision. "Well, there's nobody to dislike it, " said his father cheerily. He wassure now that Dan had been jilted; otherwise he would have put forthsome objection to a scheme which must interrupt his lovemaking. "There'sno reason why, with our resources, we shouldn't take the lead in thisbusiness. " He went on to speak more fully of his plans, and Dan listened witha nether reference of it all to Alice, but still with a surfaceintelligence on which nothing was lost. "Are you going home with me to-morrow?" asked his father as they rosefrom the table. "Well, perhaps not to-morrow. I've got some of my things to put togetherin Cambridge yet, and perhaps I'd better look after them. But I'vea notion I'd better spend the winter at home, and get an idea of themanufacture before I go abroad. I might sail in January; they say it's agood month. " "Yes, there's sense in that, " said his father. "And perhaps I won't break up in Cambridge till I've been to New Yorkand Philadelphia. What do you think? It's easier striking them fromhere. " "I don't know but you're right, " said his father easily. They had come out of the dining-room, and Dan stopped to get somecigarettes in the office. He looked mechanically at the theatre billsover the cigar case. "I see Irving's at the 'Boston. '" "Oh, you don't say!" said his father. "Let's go and see him. " "If you wish it, sir, " said Dan, with pensive acquiescence. All theMaverings were fond of the theatre, and made any mood the occasion orthe pretext of going to the play. If they were sad, they went; if theywere gay, they went. As long as Dan's mother could get out-of-doors sheused to have herself carried to a box in the theatre whenever she was intown; now that she no longer left her room, she had a dominant passionfor hearing about actors and acting; it was almost a work of piety inher husband and children to see them and report to her. His father left him the next afternoon, and Dan, who had spent theday with him looking into business for the first time, with a runningaccompaniment of Alice in all the details, remained to uninterruptedmisery. He spent the evening in his room, too wretched even for thetheatre. It is true that he tried to find Boardman, but Boardman wasagain off on some newspaper duty; and after trying at several housesin the hope, which he knew was vain, of finding any one in town yet, heshut himself up with his thoughts. They did not differ from the thoughtsof the night before, and the night before that, but they were calmer, and they portended more distinctly a life of self-abnegation andsolitude from that time forth. He tested his feelings, and found thatit was not hurt vanity that he was suffering from: it was really woundedaffection. He did not resent Alice's cruelty; he wished that she mightbe happy; he could endure to see her happy. He wrote a letter to the married one of the two ladies he had spent theday with in Portland, and thanked them for making pass pleasantly a daywhich he would not otherwise have known how to get through. He let asoft, mysterious melancholy pervade his letter; he hinted darkly attrouble and sorrow of which he could not definitely speak. He had thegood sense to tear his letter up when he had finished it, and to senda short, sprightly note instead, saying that if Mrs. Frobisher and hersister came to Boston at the end of the month, as they had spoken ofdoing, they must be sure to let him know. Upon the impulse given him bythis letter he went more cheerfully to bed, and fell instantly asleep. During the next three weeks he bent himself faithfully to the schemesof work his father had outlined for him. He visited New York andPhiladelphia, and looked into the business and the processes there;and he returned to Ponkwasset Falls to report and compare his factsintelligently with those which he now examined in his father'smanufactory for the first time. He began to understand how his father, who was a man of intellectual and artistic interests, should be fond ofthe work. He spent a good deal of time with his mother, and read to her, and gotupon better terms with her than they usually were. They were very muchalike, and she objected to him that he was too light and frivolous. Hesat with his sisters, and took an interest in their pursuits. He drovethem about with his father's sorrels, and resumed something of the oldrelations with them which the selfish years of his college life hadbroken off. As yet he could not speak of Campobello or of what hadhappened there; and his mother and sisters, whatever they thought, madeno more allusion to it than his father had done. They mercifully took it for granted that matters must have gone wrongthere, or else he would speak about them, for there had been some gaybanter among them concerning the objects of his expedition before heleft home. They had heard of the heroine of his Class Day, and they hadtheir doubts of her, such as girls have of their brothers' heroines. They were not inconsolably sorry to have her prove unkind; and theirmother found in the probable event another proof of their father's totalwant of discernment where women were concerned, for the elder Maveringhad come home from Class Day about as much smitten with this mysteriousMiss Pasmer as Dan was. She talked it over indignantly with herdaughters; they were glad of Dan's escape, but they were incensed withthe girl who could let him escape, and they inculpated her in a highdegree of heartless flirtation. They knew how sweet Dan was, and theybelieved him most sincere and good. He had been brilliantly popular incollege, and he was as bright as he could be. What was it she chose notto like in him? They vexed themselves with asking how or in what way shethought herself better. They would not have had her love Dan, but theywere hot against her for not loving him. They did not question him, but they tried in every way to find out howmuch he was hurt, and they watched him in every word and look for signsof change to better or worse, with a growing belief that he was not verymuch hurt. It could not be said that in three weeks he forgot Alice, or had begunto forget her; but he had begun to reconcile himself to his fate, aspeople do in their bereavements by death. His consciousness habituateditself to the facts as something irretrievable. He no longer framedin his mind situations in which the past was restored. He knew that heshould never love again, but he had moments, and more and more of them, in which he experienced that life had objects besides love. There weretimes when he tingled with all the anguish of the first moment ofhis rejection, when he stopped in whatever he was doing, or stoodstock-still, as a man does when arrested by a physical pang, breathless, waiting. There were other times when he went about steeped in gloom soblack that all the world darkened with it, and some mornings when hewoke he wished that the night had lasted for ever, and felt as if thedaylight had uncovered his misery and his shame to every one. He neverknew when he should have these moods, and he thought he should have themas long as he lived. He thought this would be something rather fine. Hehad still other moods, in which he saw an old man with a grey moustache, like Colonel Newcome, meeting a beautiful white-haired lady; the man hadnever married, and he had not seen this lady for fifty years. He bentover, and kissed her hand. "You idiot!" said Mavering to himself. Throughout he kept a goodappetite. In fact, after that first morning in Portland, he had beenhungry three times a day with perfect regularity. He lost the ideaof being sick; he had not even a furred tongue. He fell asleep prettyearly, and he slept through the night without a break. He had to laugha great deal with his mother and sisters, since he could not very wellmope without expecting them to ask why, and he did not wish to saywhy. But there were some laughs which he really enjoyed with the Yankeeforeman of the works, who was a droll, after a common American pattern, and said things that were killingly funny, especially about women, ofwhom his opinions were sarcastic. Dan Mavering suffered, but not solidly. His suffering was short, andcrossed with many gleams of respite and even joy. His disappointmentmade him really unhappy, but not wholly so; it was a genuine sorrow, but a sorrow to which he began to resign himself even in the monotonyof Ponkwasset Falls, and which admitted the thought of Mrs. Frobisher'ssister by the time business called him to Boston. XXIV. Before the end of the first week after Dan came back to town, that whichwas likely to happen whenever chance brought him and Alice together hadtaken place. It was one of the soft days that fall in late October, when theimpending winter seems stayed, and the warm breath of the land drawsseaward and over a thousand miles of Indian summer. The bloom came andwent in quick pulses over the girl's temples as she sat with her headthrown back in the corner of the car, and from moment to moment shestirred slightly as if some stress of rapture made it hard for herto get her breath; a little gleam of light fell from under her falleneyelids into the eyes of the young man beside her, who leaned forwardslightly and slanted his face upward to meet her glances. They said somewords, now and then, indistinguishable to the others; in speaking theysmiled slightly. Sometimes her hand wavered across her lap; in boththeir faces there was something beyond happiness--a transport, apassion, the brief splendour of a supreme moment. They left the car at the Arlington Street corner of the Public Garden, and followed the winding paths diagonally to the further corner onCharles Street. "How stupid we were to get into that ridiculous horse-car!" she said. "What in the world possessed us to do it?" "I can't imagine, " he answered. "What a waste of time it was! If we hadwalked, we might have been twice as long coming. And now you're going tosend me off so soon!" "I don't send you, " she murmured. "But you want me to go. " "Oh no! But you'd better. " "I can't do anything against your wish. " "I wish it--for your own good. " "Ah, do let me go home with you, Alice?" "Don't ask it, or I must say yes. " "Part of the way, then?" "No; not a step! You must take the first car for Cambridge. What time isit now?" "You can see by the clock on the Providence Depot. " "But I wish you to go by your watch, now. Look!" "Alice!" he cried, in pure rapture. "Look!" "It's a quarter of one. " "And we've been three hours together already! Now you must simply fly. If you came home with me I should be sure to let you come in, and if Idon't see mamma alone first, I shall die. Can't you understand?" "No; but I can do the next best thing: I can misunderstand. You want tobe rid of me. " "Shall you be rid of me when we've parted?" she asked, with an innerthrill of earnestness in her gay tone. "Alice!" "You know I didn't mean it, Dan. " "Say it again. " "What?" "Dan. " "Dan, love! Dan, dearest!" "Will that car of yours never come? I've promised myself not to leaveyou till it does, and if I stay here any longer I shall go wild. I can'tbelieve it's happened. Say it again!" "Say what?" "That--" "That I love you? That we're engaged?" "I don't believe it. I can't. " She looked impatiently up the street. "Oh, there comes your car! Run! Stop it!" "I don't run to stop cars. " He made a sign, which the conductor obeyed, and the car halted at the further crossing. She seemed to have forgotten it, and made no movement to dismiss him. "Oh, doesn't it seem too good to be standing here talking in this way, and people think it's about the weather, or society?" She set her head alittle on one side, and twirled the open parasol on her shoulder. "Yes, it does. Tell me it's true, love!" "It's true. How splendid you are!" She said it with an effect for theworld outside of saying it was a lovely day. He retorted, with the same apparent nonchalance, "How beautiful you are!How good! How divine!" The conductor, seeing himself apparently forgotten, gave his bell avicious snap, and his car jolted away. She started nervously. "There! you've lost your car, Dan. " "Have I?" asked Mavering, without troubling himself to look after it. She laughed now, with a faint suggestion of unwillingness in her laugh. "What are you going to do?" "Walk home with you. " "No, indeed; you know I can't let you. " "And are you going to leave me here alone on the street corner, to berun over by the first bicycle that comes along?" "You can sit down in the Garden, and wait for the next car. " "No; I would rather go back to the Art Museum, and make a fresh start. " "To the Art Museum?" she murmured, tenderly. "Yes. Wouldn't you like to see it again?" "Again? I should like to pass my whole life in it!" "Well, walk back with me a little way. There's no hurry about the car. " "Dan!" she said, in a helpless compliance, and they paced very, veryslowly along the Beacon Street path in the Garden. "This is ridiculous. " "Yes, but it's delightful. " "Yes, that's what I meant. Do you suppose any one ever--ever--" "Made love there before?" "How can you say such things? Yes. I always supposed it wouldbe--somewhere else. " "It was somewhere else--once. " "Oh, I meant--the second time. " "Then you did think there was going to be a second time?" "How do I know? I wished it. Do you like me to say that?" "I wish you would never say anything else. " "Yes; there can't be any harm in it now. I thought that if you hadever--liked me, you would still--" "So did I; but I couldn't believe that you--" "Oh, I could. " "Alice!" "Don't you like my confessing it! You asked me to. " "Like it!" "How silly we are!" "Not half so silly as we've been for the last two months. I think we'vejust come to our senses. At least I have. " "Two months!" she sighed. "Has it really been so long as that?" "Two years! Two centuries! It was back in the Dark Ages when you refusedme. " "Dark Ages! I should think so! But don't say refused. It wasn'trefusing, exactly. " "What was it, then?" "Oh, I don't know. Don't speak of it now. " "But, Alice, why did you refuse me?" "Oh, I don't know. You mustn't ask me now. I'll tell you some time. " "Well, come to think of it, " said Mavering, laughing it all lightlyaway, "there's no hurry. Tell me why you accepted me to-day. " "I--I couldn't help it. When I saw you I wanted to fall at your feet. " "What an idea! I didn't want to fall at yours. I was awfully mad. Ishouldn't have spoken to you if you hadn't stopped me and held out yourhand. " "Really? Did you really hate me, Dan?" "Well, I haven't exactly doted on you since we last met. " She did not seem offended at this. "Yes, I suppose so. And I've gone onbeing fonder and fonder of you every minute since that day. I wanted tocall you back when you had got half-way to Eastport. " "I wouldn't have come. It's bad luck to turn back. " She laughed at his drolling. "How funny you are! Now I'm of rather agloomy temperament. Did, you know it?" "You don't look it. " "Oh, but I am. Just now I'm rather excited and--happy. " "So glad!" "Go on! go on! I like you to make fun of me. " The benches on either side were filled with nursemaids in charge ofbaby-carriages, and of young children who were digging in the sandwith their little beach shovels, and playing their games back and forthacross the walk unrebuked by the indulgent policemen. A number ofthem had enclosed a square in the middle of the path with four of thebenches, which they made believe was a fort. The lovers had to walkround it; and the children, chasing one another, dashed into themheadlong, or, backing off from pursuit, bumped up against them. They didnot seem to know it, but walked slowly on without noticing: they werenot aware of an occasional benchful of rather shabby young fellowswho stared hard at the stylish girl and well-dressed young man talkingtogether in such intense low tones, with rapid interchange of radiantglances. "Oh, as to making fun of you, I was going to say--" Mavering began, andafter a pause he broke off with a laugh. "I forget what I was going tosay. " "Try to remember. " "I can't. " "How strange that we should have both happened to go to the Museum thismorning!" she sighed. Then, "Dan, " she broke in, "do you suppose thatheaven is any different from this?" "I hope not--if I'm to go there. " "Hush, dear; you mustn't talk so. " "Why, you provoked me to it. " "Did I? Did I really? Do you think I tempted you to do it? Then I mustbe wicked, whether I knew I was doing it or not. Yes. " The break in her voice made him look more keenly at her, and he saw thetears glimmer in her eyes. "Alice!" "No; I'm not good enough for you. I always said that. " "Then don't say it any more. That's the only thing I won't let you say. " "Do you forbid it, really? Won't you let me even think it?" "No, not even think it. " "How lovely you are! Oh! I like to be commanded by you. " "Do you? You'll have lots of fun, then. I'm an awfully commandingspirit. " "I didn't suppose you were so humorous--always. I'm afraid you won'tlike me. I've no sense of fun. " "And I'm a little too funny sometimes, I'm afraid. " "No, you never are. When?" "That night at the Trevors'. You didn't like it. " "I thought Miss Anderson was rather ridiculous, " said Alice. "I don'tlike buffoonery in women. " "Nor I in men, " said Mavering, smiling. "I've dropped it. " "Well, now we must part. I must go home at once, " said Alice. "It'sperfectly insane. " "Oh no, not yet; not till we've said something else; not till we'vechanged the subject. " "What subject?" "Miss Anderson. " Alice laughed and blushed, but she was not vexed. She liked to have himunderstand her. "Well, now, " she said, as if that were the next thing, "I'm going to cross here at once and walk up the other pavement, andyou must go back through the Garden; or else I shall never get away fromyou. " "May I look over at you?" "You may glance, but you needn't expect me to return your glance. " "Oh no. " "And I want you to take the very first Cambridge car that comes along. Icommand you to. " "I thought you wanted me to do the commanding. " "So I do--in essentials. If you command me not to cry when I get home, Iwon't. " She looked at him with an ecstasy of self-sacrifice in her eyes. "Ah, I sha'n't do that. I can't tell what would open. But--Alice!" "Well, what?" She drifted closely to him, and looked fondly up into hisface. In walking they had insensibly drawn nearer together, and she hadbeen obliged constantly to put space between them. Now, standing at thecorner of Arlington Street, and looking tentatively across Beacon, sheabandoned all precautions. "What! I forget. Oh yes! I love you!" "But you said that before, dearest!" "Yes; but just now it struck me as a very novel idea. What if yourmother shouldn't like the idea?" "Nonsense! you know she perfectly idolises you. She did from the first. And doesn't she know how I've begin behaving about you ever sinceI--lost you?" "How have you behaved? Do tell me, Alice?" "Some time; not now, " she said; and with something that was like a gasp, and threatened to be a sob, she suddenly whipped across the road. Hewalked back to Charles Street by the Garden path, keeping abreast ofher, and not losing sight of her for a moment, except when the bulk ofa string team watering at the trough beside the pavement intervened. Hehurried by, and when he had passed it he found himself exactly abreastof her again. Her face was turned toward him; they exchanged a smile, lost in space. At the corner of Charles Street he deliberately crossedover to her. "O dearest love! why did you come?" she implored. "Because you signed to me. " "I hoped you wouldn't see it. If we're both to be so weak as this, whatare we going to do?" "But I'm glad you came. Yes: I was frightened. They must have overheardus there when we were talking. " "Well, I didn't say anything I'm ashamed of. Besides, I shouldn't caremuch for the opinion of those nurses and babies. " "Of course not. But people must have seen us. Don't stand here talking, Dan! Do come on!" She hurried him across the street, and walked himswiftly up the incline of Beacon Street. There, in her new fall suit, with him, glossy-hatted, faultlessly gloved, at a fit distance from herside, she felt more in keeping with the social frame of things than inthe Garden path, which was really only a shade better than the BeaconStreet Mall of the Common. "Do you suppose anybody saw us that knew us?" "I hope so! Don't you want people to know it?" "Yes, of course. They will have to know it--in the right way. Can youbelieve that it's only half a year since we met? It won't be a year tillClass Day. " "I don't believe it, Alice. I can't recollect anything before I knewyou. " "Well, now, as time is so confused, we must try to live for eternity. We must try to help each other to be good. Oh, when I think what a happygirl I am, I feel that I should be the most ungrateful person under thesun not to be good. Let's try to make our lives perfect--perfect! Theycan be. And we mustn't live for each other alone. We must try to do goodas well as be good. We must be kind and forbearing with every one. " He answered, with tender seriousness, "My life's in your hands, Alice. It shall be whatever you wish. " They were both silent in their deep belief of this. When they spokeagain, she began gaily: "I shall never get over the wonder of it. Howstrange that we should meet at the Museum!" They had both said thisalready, but that did not matter; they had said nearly everything twoor three times. "How did you happen to be there?" she asked, and thequestion was so novel that she added, "I haven't asked you before. " He stopped, with a look of dismay that broke up in a hopeless laugh. "Why, I went there to meet some people--some ladies. And when I saw youI forgot all about them. " Alice laughed to; this was a part of their joy, their triumph. "Who are they?" she asked indifferently, and only to heighten theabsurdity by realising the persons. "You don't know them, " he said. "Mrs. Frobisher and her sister, ofPortland. I promised to meet them there and go out to Cambridge withthem. " "What will they think?" asked Alice. "It's too amusing. " "They'll think I didn't come, " said Mavering, with the easy conscienceof youth and love; and again they laughed at the ridiculous positiontogether. "I remember now I was to be at the door, and they were totake me up in their carriage. I wonder how long they waited? You puteverything else out of my head. " "Do you think I'll keep it out?" she asked archly. "Oh yes; there is nothing else but you now. " The eyes that she dropped, after a glance at him, glistened with tears. A lump came into his throat. "Do you suppose, " he asked huskily, "thatwe can ever misunderstand each other again?" "Never. I see everything clearly now. We shall trust each otherimplicitly, and at the least thing that isn't clear we can speak. Promise me that you'll speak. " "I will, Alice. But after this all will be clear. We shall deal witheach other as we do with ourselves. " "Yes; that will be the way. " "And we mustn't wait for question from each other. We shall know--weshall feel--when there's any misgiving, and then the one that's causedit will speak. " "Yes, " she sighed emphatically. "How perfectly you say it? But that'sbecause you feel it, because you are good. " They walked on, treading the air in a transport of fondness for eachother. Suddenly he stopped. "Miss Pasmer, I feel it my duty to warn you that you're letting me gohome with you. " "Am I? How noble of you to tell me, Dan; for I know you don't want totell. Well, I might as well. But I sha'n't let you come in. You won'ttry, will you? Promise me you won't try. " "I shall only want to come in the first door. " "What for?" "What for? Oh, for half a second. " She turned away her face. He went on. "This engagement has been such a very public affair, so far, that I think I'd like to see my fiancee alone for a moment. " "I don't know what in the world you can have to say more. " He went into the first door with her, and then he went with her upstairsto the door of Mrs. Pasmer's apartment. The passages of the Cavendishwere not well lighted; the little lane or alley that led down to thisdoor from the stairs landing was very dim. "So dark here!" murmured Alice, in a low voice, somewhat tremulous. "But not too dark. " XXV. She burst into the room where her mother sat looking over somehousekeeping accounts. His kiss and his name were upon her lips; hersoul was full of him. "Mamma!" she panted. Her mother did not look round. She could have had no premonition of thevital news that her daughter was bringing, and she went on comparing thefirst autumn month's provision bill with that of the last spring month, and trying to account for the difference. The silence, broken by the rattling of the two bills in her mother'shands as she glanced from one to the other through her glasses, seemedsuddenly impenetrable, and the prismatic world of the girl's raptureburst like a bubble against it. There is no explanation of the effectoutside of temperament and overwrought sensibilities. She stared acrossthe room at her mother, who had not heard her, and then she broke into astorm of tears. "Alice!" cried her mother, with that sanative anger which comes torescue women from the terror of any sudden shock. "What is the matterwith you?--what do you mean?" She dropped both of the provision bills tothe floor, and started toward her daughter. "Nothing--nothing! Let me go. I want to go to my room. " She tried toreach the door beyond her mother. "Indeed you shall not!" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "I will not have you behavingso! What has happened to you? Tell me. You have frightened me half outof my senses. " The girl gave up her efforts to escape, and flung herself on the sofa, with her face in the pillow, where she continued to sob. Her motherbegan to relent at the sight of her passion. As a woman and as a mothershe knew her daughter, and she knew that this passion, whatever it was, must have vent before there could be anything intelligible between them. She did not press her with further question, but set about making her alittle more comfortable on the sofa; she pulled the pillow straight, anddropped a light shawl over the girl's shoulders, so that she should nottake cold. Then Mrs. Pasmer had made up her mind that Alice had met Maveringsomewhere, and that this outburst was the retarded effect of seeing him. During the last six weeks she had assisted at many phases of feeling inregard to him, and knew more clearly than Alice herself the meaning ofthem all. She had been patient and kind, with the resources that everywoman finds in herself when it is the question of a daughter's ordeal inan affair of the heart which she has favoured. The storm passed as quickly as it came, and Alice sat upright castingoff the wraps. But once checked with the fact on her tongue, she foundit hard to utter it. "What is it, Alice?--what is it?" urged her mother. "Nothing. I--Mr. Mavering--we met--I met him at the Museum, and--we'reengaged! It's really so. It seems like raving, but it's true. He camewith me to the door; I wouldn't let him come in. Don't you believe it?Oh, we are! indeed we are! Are you glad, mamma? You know I couldn't havelived without him. " She trembled on the verge of another outbreak. Mrs. Pasmer sacrificed her astonishment in the interest of sanity, andreturned quietly: "Glad, Alice! You know that I think he's the sweetestand best fellow in the world. " "O mamma!" "But are you sure--" "Yes, Yes. I'm not crazy; it isn't a dream he was there--and I methim--I couldn't run away--I put out my hand; I couldn't help it--Ithought I should give way; and he took it; and then--then we wereengaged. I don't know what we said: I went in to look at the 'Joan ofArc' again, and there was no one else there. He seemed to feel just asI did. I don't know whether either of us spoke. But we, knew we wereengaged, and we began to talk. " Mrs. Pasmer began to laugh. To her irreverent soul only the droll sideof the statement appeared. "Don't, mamma!" pleaded Alice piteously. "No, no; I won't. But I hope Dan Mavering will be a little more definiteabout it when I'm allowed to see him. Why couldn't he have come in withyou?" "It would have killed me. I couldn't let him see me cry, and I knew Ishould break down. " "He'll have to see you cry a great many times, Alice, " said her mother, with almost unexampled seriousness. "Yes, but not yet--not so soon. He must think I'm very gloomy, and Iwant to be always bright and cheerful with him. He knows why I wouldn'tlet him come in; he knew I was going to have a cry. " Mrs. Pasmer continued to laugh. "Don't, mamma!" pleaded Alice. "No, I won't, " replied her mother, as before. "I suppose he wasmystified. But now, if it's really settled between you, he'll be cominghere soon to see your papa and me. " "Yes--to-night. " "Well, it's very sudden, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "Though I suppose thesethings always seem so. " "Is it too sudden?" asked Alice, with misgiving. "It seemed so to mewhen it was going on, but I couldn't stop it. " Her mother laughed at her simplicity. "No, when it begins once, nothingcan stop it. But you've really known each other a good while, and forthe last six weeks at least you've known you own mind about him prettyclearly. It's a pity you couldn't have known it before. " "Yes, that's what he says. He says it was such a waste of time. Oh, everything he says is perfectly fascinating!" Her mother laughed and laughed again. "What is it, mamma? Are you laughing at me?" "Oh no. What an idea!" "He couldn't seem to understand why I didn't say Yes the first time, ifI meant it. " She looked down dreamily at her hands in her lap, andthen she said, with a blush and a start, "They're very queer, don't youthink?" "Who?" "Young men. " "Oh, very. " "Yes, " Alice went on musingly. "Their minds are so different. Everythingthey say and do is so unexpected, and yet it seems to be just right. " Mrs. Pasmer asked herself if this single-mindedness was to go on forever, but she had not the heart to treat it with her natural levity. Probably it was what charmed Mavering with the child. Mrs. Pasmer hadthe firm belief that Mavering was not single-minded, and she respectedhim for it. She would not spoil her daughter's perfect trust and hope byany of the cynical suggestions of her own dark wisdom, but entered intoher mood, as such women are able to do, and flattered out of her everydetail of the morning's history. This was a feat which Mrs. Pasmerenjoyed for its own sake, and it fully satisfied the curiosity whichshe naturally felt to know all. She did not comment upon many of theparticulars; she opened her eyes a little at the notion of her daughtersitting for two or three hours and talking with a young man in thegalleries of the Museum, and she asked if anybody they knew had come in. When she heard that there were only strangers, and very few of them, shesaid nothing; and she had the same consolation in regard to the walkingback and forth in the Garden. She was so full of potential escapadesherself, so apt to let herself go at times, that the fact of Alice'sinnocent self-forgetfulness rather satisfied a need of her mother'snature; she exulted in it when she learned that there were only nursesand children in the Garden. "And so you think you won't take up art this winter?" she said, when, inthe process of her cross-examination, Alice had left the sofa and got asfar as the door, with her hat in her hand and her sacque on her arm. "No. " "And the Sisters of St. James--you won't join them either?" The girl escaped from the room. "Alice! Alice!" her mother called after her; she came back. "You haven'ttold me how he happened to be there. " "Oh, that was the most amusing part of it. He had gone there to keep anappointment with two ladies from Portland. They were to take him up intheir carriage and drive out to Cambridge, and when he saw me he forgotall about them. " "And what became of them?" "We don't know. Isn't it ridiculous?" If it appeared other or more than this to Mrs. Pasmer, she did notsay. She merely said, after a moment, "Well, it was certainly devoted, Alice, " and let her go. XXVI. Mavering came in the evening, rather excessively well dressed, and witha hot face and cold hands. While he waited, nominally alone, in thelittle drawing room for Mr. Pasmer, Alice flew in upon him for a swiftembrace, which prolonged itself till the father's step was heard outsidethe door, and then she still had time to vanish by another: the affairwas so nicely adjusted that if Mavering had been in his usual mind hemight have fancied the connivance of Mrs. Pasmer. He did not say what he had meant to say to Alice's father, but it seemedto serve the purpose, for he emerged presently from the sound of hisown voice, unnaturally clamorous, and found Mr. Pasmer saying some verycivil things to him about his character and disposition, so far as theyhad been able to observe it, and their belief and trust in him. Thereseemed to be something provisional or probational intended, but Dancould not make out what it was, and finally it proved of no practicaleffect. He merely inferred that the approval of his family wasrespectfully expected, and he hastened to say, "Oh, that's all right, sir. " Mr. Pasmer went on with more civilities, and lost himself in dumbconjecture as to whether Mavering's father had been in the class beforehim or the class after him in Harvard. He used his black eyebrows a gooddeal during the interview, and Mavering conceived an awe of him greaterthan he had felt at Campobello, yet not unmixed with the affectionin which the newly accepted lover embraces even the relations of hisbetrothed. From time to time Mr. Pasmer looked about with the vagueglance of a man unused to being so long left to his own guidance; andone of these appeals seemed at last to bring Mrs. Pasmer throughthe door, to the relief of both the men, for they had improvidentlydespatched their business, and were getting out of talk. Mr. Pasmerhad, in fact, already asked Dan about the weather outside when his wifeappeared. Dan did not know whether he ought to kiss her or not, but Mrs. Pasmerdid not in the abstract seem like a very kissing kind of person, and helet himself be guided by this impression, in the absence of any fixedprinciple applying to the case. She made some neat remark concerning theprobable settlement of the affair with her husband, and began to laughand joke about it in a manner that was very welcome to Dan; it did notseem to him that it ought to be treated so solemnly. But though Mrs. Pasmer laughed and joked; he was aware of her meaningbusiness--business in the nicest sort of a way, but business after all, and he liked her for it. He was glad to be explicit about his hopes andplans, and told what his circumstances were so fully that Mrs. Pasmer, whom his frankness gratified and amused, felt obliged to say that shehad not meant to ask so much about his affairs, and he must excuse herif she had seemed to do so. She had her own belief that Mavering wouldunderstand, but she did not mind that. She said that, of course, till his own family had been consulted, it must not be consideredseriously--that Mr. Pasmer insisted upon that point; and when Danvehemently asserted the acquiescence of his family beforehand, and urgedhis father's admiration for Alice in proof, she reminded him that hismother was to be considered, and put Mr. Pasmer's scruples forward asher own reason for obduracy. In her husband's presence she attributedto him, with his silent assent, all sorts of reluctances and delicatecompunctions; she gave him the importance which would have beennaturally a husband's due in such an affair, and ingratiated herselfmore and more with the young man. She ignored Mr. Pasmer's withdrawalwhen it took place, after a certain lapse of time, and as the moment hadcome for that, she began to let herself go. She especially approvedof the idea of going abroad and confessed her disappointment with herpresent experiment of America, where it appeared there was no leisureclass of men sufficiently large to satisfy the social needs of Mr. Pasmer's nature, and she told Dan that he might expect them in Europebefore long. Perhaps they might all three meet him there. At this hebetrayed so clearly that he now intended his going to Europe merely as asequel to his marrying Alice, while he affected to fall in with all Mrs. Pasmer said, that she grew fonder than ever of him for his ardour andhis futile duplicity. If it had been in Dan's mind to take part in therite, Mrs. Pasmer was quite ready at this point to embrace him withmotherly tenderness. Her tough little heart was really in her throatwith sympathy when she made an errand for the photograph of an Englishvicarage, which they had hired the summer of the year before, and shesent Alice back with it alone. It seemed so long since they had met that the change in Alice did notstrike him as strange or as too rapidly operated. They met with thefervour natural after such a separation, and she did not so much assumeas resume possession of him. It was charming to have her do it, to haveher act as if they had always been engaged, to have her try to pressdown the cowlick that started capriciously across his crown, and tostraighten his necktie, and then to drop beside him on the sofa; itthrilled and awed him; and he silently worshipped the superior composurewhich her sex has in such matters. Whatever was the provisionalinterpretation which her father and mother pretended to put upon theaffair, she apparently had no reservations, and they talked of theirfuture as a thing assured. The Dark Ages, as they agreed to call theperiod of despair for ever closed that morning, had matured their lovetill now it was a rapture of pure trust. They talked as if nothing couldprevent its fulfilment, and they did not even affect to consider thequestion of his family's liking it or not liking it. She said that shethought his father was delightful, and he told her that his father hadtaken the greatest fancy to her at the beginning, and knew that Dan wasin love with her. She asked him about his mother, and she said just whathe could have wished her to say about his mother's sufferings, and theway she bore them. They talked about Alice's going to see her. "Of course your father will bring your sisters to see me first. " "Is that the way?" he asked: "You may depend upon his doing the rightthing, whatever it is. " "Well, that's the right thing, " she said. "I've thought it out; and thatreminds me of a duty of ours, Dan!" "A duty?" he repeated, with a note of reluctance for its untimeliness. "Yes. Can't you think what?" "No; I didn't know there was a duty left in the world. " "It's full of them. " "Oh, don't say that, Alice!" He did not like this mood so well as thatof the morning, but his dislike was only a vague discomfort--nothingformulated or distinct. "Yes, " she persisted; "and we must do them. You must go to those ladiesyou disappointed so this morning, and apologise--explain. " Dan laughed. "Why, it wasn't such a very ironclad engagement as allthat, Alice. They said they were going to drive out to Cambridge overthe Milldam, and I said I was going out there to get some of my trapstogether, and they could pick me up at the Art Museum if they liked. Besides, how could I explain?" She laughed consciously with him. "Of course. But, " she added ruefully, "I wish you hadn't disappointed them. " "Oh, they'll get over it. If I hadn't disappointed them, I shouldn't behere, and I shouldn't like that. Should you?" "No; but I wish it hadn't happened. It's a blot, and I didn't want ablot on this day. " "Oh, well, it isn't very much of a blot, and I can easily wipe it off. I'll tell you what, Alice! I can write to Mrs. Frobisher, when ourengagement comes out, and tell her how it was. She'll enjoy the joke, and so will Miss Wrayne. They're jolly and easygoing; they won't mind. " "How long have you known them?" "I met them on Class Day, and then I saw them--the day after I leftCampobello. " Dan laughed a little. "How, saw them?" "Well, I went to a yacht race with them. I happened to meet them in thestreet, and they wanted me to go; and I was all broken up, and--I Went. " "Oh!" said Alice. "The day after I--you left Campobello?" "Well--yes. " "And I was thinking of you all that day as--And I couldn't bear to lookat anybody that day, or speak!" "Well, the fact is, I--I was distracted, and I didn't know what I wasdoing. I was desperate; I didn't care. " "How did you find out about the yacht race?" "Boardman told me. Boardman was there. " "Did he know the ladies? Did he go too?" "No. He was there to report the race for the Events. He went on thepress boat. " "Oh!" said Alice. "Was there a large party?" "No, no. Not very. Just ourselves, in fact. They were awfully kind. Andthey made me go home to dinner with them. " "They must have been rather peculiar people, " said Alice. "And I don'tsee how--so soon--" She could not realise that Mavering was thena rejected man, on whom she had voluntarily renounced all claim. Aretroactive resentment which she could not control possessed her withthe wish to punish those bold women for being agreeable to one who hadsince become everything to her, though then he was ostensibly nothing. In a vague way, Dan felt her displeasure with that passage of hishistory, but no man could have fully imagined it. "I couldn't tell half the time what I was saying or eating. I talked atrandom and ate at random. I guess they thought something was wrong; theyasked me who was at Campobello. " "Indeed!" "But you may be sure I didn't give myself away. I was awfully brokenup, " he concluded inconsequently. She liked his being broken up, but she did not like the rest. She wouldnot press the question further now. She only said rather gravely, "Ifit's such a short acquaintance, can you write to them in that familiarway?" "Oh yes! Mrs. Frobisher is one of that kind. " Alice was silent a moment before she said, "I think you'd better notwrite. Let it go, " she sighed. "Yes, that's what I think, " said Dan. "Better let it go. I guess itwill explain itself in the course of time. But I don't want any blotsaround. " He leaned over and looked her smilingly in the face. "Oh no, " she murmured; and then suddenly she caught him round the neck, crying and sobbing. "It's only--because I wanted it to be--perfect. Oh, I wonder if I've done right? Perhaps I oughtn't to have taken you, afterall; but I do love you--dearly, dearly! And I was so unhappy when I'dlost you. And now I'm afraid I shall be a trial to you--nothing but atrial. " The first tears that a young man sees a woman shed for love of him areinexpressibly sweeter than her smiles. Dan choked with tender pride andpity. When he found his voice, he raved out with incoherent endearmentsthat she only made him more and more happy by her wish to have theaffair perfect, and that he wished her always to be exacting with him, for that would give him a chance to do something for her, and all thathe desired, as long as he lived, was to do just what she wished. At the end of his vows and entreaties, she lifted her face radiantly, and bent a smile upon him as sunny as that with which the sky after asummer storm denies that there has ever been rain in the world. "Ah! you--" He could say no more. He could not be more enraptured thanhe was. He could only pass from surprise to surprise, from delight todelight. It was her love of him which wrought these miracles. It was alla miracle, and no part more wonderful than another. That she, who hadseemed as distant as a star, and divinely sacred from human touch, should be there in his arms, with her head on his shoulder, where hiskiss could reach her lips, not only unforbidden, but eagerly welcome, was impossible, and yet it was true. . But it was no more impossible andno truer, than that a being so poised, so perfectly self-centred as she, should already be so helplessly dependent upon him for her happiness. Inthe depths of his soul he invoked awful penalties upon himself if everhe should betray her trust, if ever he should grieve that tender heartin the slightest thing, if from that moment he did not make his wholelife a sacrifice and an expiation. He uttered some of these exalted thoughts, and they did not seem toappear crazy to her. She said yes, they must make their separate livesofferings to each other, and their joint lives an offering to God. Thetears came into his eyes at these words of hers: they were so beautifuland holy and wise. He agreed that one ought always to go to church, and that now he should never miss a service. He owned that he hadbeen culpable in the past. He drew her closer to him--if that werepossible--and sealed his words with a kiss. But he could not realise his happiness then, or afterward, when hewalked the streets under the thinly misted moon of that Indian summernight. He went down to the Events office when he left Alice, and foundBoardman, and told him that he was engaged, and tried to work Boardmanup to some sense of the greatness of the fact. Boardman shoved his finewhite teeth under his spare moustache, and made acceptable jokes, buthe did not ask indiscreet questions, and Dan's statement of the fact didnot seem to give it any more verity than it had before. He tried to getBoardman to come and walk with him and talk it over; but Boardman saidhe had just been detailed to go and work up the case of a Chinaman whohad suicided a little earlier in the evening. "Very well, then; I'll go with you, " said Mavering. "How can you livein such a den as this?" he asked, looking about the little room beforeBoardman turned down his incandescent electric. "There isn't anythingbig enough to hold me but all outdoors. " In the street he linked his arm through his friend's, and said he feltthat he had a right to know all about the happy ending of the affair, since he had been told of that miserable phase of it at Portland. Butwhen he came to the facts he found himself unable to give them with thefulness he had promised. He only imparted a succinct statement as to thewhere and when of the whole matter, leaving the how of it untold. The sketch was apparently enough for Boardman. For all comment, hereminded Mavering that he had told him at Portland it would come out allright. "Yes, you did, Boardman; that's a fact, " said Dan; and he conceived ahigher respect for the penetration of Boardman than he had before. They stopped at a door in a poor court which they had somehow reachedwithout Mavering's privity. "Will you come in?" asked Boardman. "What for?" "Chinaman. " "Chinaman?" Then Mavering remembered. "Good heavens! no. What have I gotto do with him?" "Both mortal, " suggested the reporter. The absurdity of this idea, though a little grisly, struck Dan as a goodjoke. He hit the companionable Boardman on the shoulder, and then gavehim a little hug, and remounted his path of air, and walked off in it. XXVII. Mavering first woke in the morning with the mechanical recurrence ofthat shame and grief which each day had brought him since Alice refusedhim. Then with a leap of the heart came the recollection of all thathad happened yesterday. Yet lurking within his rapture was a mysteryof regret: a reasonless sense of loss, as if the old feeling had beensomething he would have kept. Then this faded, and he had only thelonging to see her, to realise in her presence and with her help thefact that she was his. An unspeakable pride filled him, and a joy inher love. He tried to see some outward vision of his bliss in the glass;but, like the mirror which had refused to interpret his tragedy in thePortland restaurant, it gave back no image of his transport: his facelooked as it always did, and he and the refection laughed at each other: He asked himself how soon he could go and see her. It was now seveno'clock: eight would be too early, of course--it would be ridiculous;and nine--he wondered if he might go to see her at nine. Would they havedone breakfast? Had he any right to call before ten? He was miserable atthe thought of waiting till ten: it would be three hours. He thought ofpretexts--of inviting her to go somewhere, but that was absurd, for hecould see her at home all day if he liked; of carrying her a book, butthere could be no such haste about a book; of going to ask if he hadleft his cane, but why should he be in such a hurry for his cane? All atonce he thought he could take her some flowers--a bouquet to lay besideher plate at breakfast. He dramatised himself charging the servant whoshould take it from him at the door not to say who left it; but Alicewould know, of course, and they would all know; it would be very pretty. He made Mrs. Pasmer say some flattering things of him; and he made Aliceblush deliciously to hear them. He could not manage Mr. Pasmer verywell, and he left him out of the scene: he imagined him shaving inanother room; then he remembered his wearing a full beard. He dressed himself as quickly as he could, and went down into the hotelvestibule, where he had noticed people selling flowers the eveningbefore, but there was no one there with them now, and none of theflorists' shops on the street were open yet. He could not find anythingtill he went to the Providence Depot, and the man there had to take someof his yesterday's flowers out of the refrigerator where he kept them;he was not sure they would be very fresh; but the heavy rosebuds hadfallen open, and they were superb. Dan took all there were, and whenthey had been sprinkled with water, and wrapped in cotton batting, andtied round with paper, it was still only quarter of eight, and heleft them with the man till he could get his breakfast at the Depotrestaurant. There it had a consoling effect of not being so early; manypeople were already breakfasting, and when Dan said, with his order, "Hurry it up, please, " he knew that he was taken for a passenger justarrived or departing. By a fantastic impulse he ordered eggs and baconagain; he felt, it a fine derision of the past and a seal of triumphupon the present to have the same breakfast after his acceptance as hehad ordered after his rejection; he would tell Alice about it, and itwould amuse her. He imagined how he would say it, and she would laugh;but she would be full of a ravishing compassion for his past suffering. They were long bringing the breakfast; when it came he despatched it soquickly that it was only half after eight when he paid his check at thecounter. He tried to be five minutes more getting his flowers, but theman had them all ready for him, and it did not take him ten seconds. Hehad said he would carry them at half-past nine; but thinking it overon a bench in the Garden, he decided that he had better go sooner; theymight breakfast earlier, and there would be no fun if Alice did not findthe roses beside her plate: that was the whole idea. It was not till hestood at the door of the Pasmer apartment that he reflected that he wasnot accomplishing his wish to see Alice by leaving her those flowers; hewas a fool, for now he would have to postpone coming a little, becausehe had already come. The girl who answered the bell did not understand the charge he gave herabout the roses, and he repeated his words. Some one passing throughthe room beyond seemed to hesitate and pause at the sound of his voice. Could it be Alice? Then he should see her, after all! The girl lookedover her shoulder, and said, "Mrs. Pasmer. " Mrs. Pasmer came forward, and he fell into a complicated explanation andapology. At the end she said, "You had better give them yourself. Shewill be here directly. " They were in the room now, and Mrs. Pasmer madethe time pass in rapid talk; but Dan felt that he ought to apologisefrom time to time. "No!" she said, letting herself go. "Stay andbreakfast with us, Mr. Mavering. We shall be so glad to have you. " At last Alice came in, and they decorously shook hands. Mrs. Pasmerturned away a smile at their decorum. "I will see that there's a placefor you, " she said, leaving them. They were instantly in each other's arms. It seemed to him that all thishad happened because he had so strongly wished it. "What is it, Dan? What did you come for?" she asked. "To see if it was really true, Alice. I couldn't believe it. " "Well--let me go--you mustn't--it's too silly. Of course it's true. "She pulled herself free. "Is my hair tumbled? You oughtn't to have come;it's ridiculous; but I'm glad you came. I've been thinking it all over, and I've got a great many things to say to you. But come to breakfastnow. " She had a business-like way of treating the situation that was moreintoxicating than sentiment would have been, and gave it more actuality. Mrs. Pasmer was alone at the table, and explained that Alice's fathernever breakfasted with them, or very seldom. "Where are your flowers?"she asked Alice. "Flowers? What flowers?" "That Mr. Mavering brought. " They all looked at one another. Dan ran out and brought in his roses. "They were trying to get away in the excitement, I guess, Mrs. Pasmer;I found them behind the door. " He had flung them there, without knowingit, when Mrs. Pasmer left him with Alice. He expected her to join him and her mother in being amused at this, buthe was as well pleased to have her touched at his having brought them, and to turn their gaiety off in praise of the roses. She got a vase forthem, and set it on the table. He noticed for the first time the prettyhouse-dress she had on, with its barred corsage and under-skirt, and theheavy silken rope knotted round it at the waist, and dropping in heavytufts or balls in front. The breakfast was Continental in its simplicity, and Mrs. Pasmer saidthat they had always kept up their Paris habit of a light breakfast, even in London, where it was not so easy to follow foreign customs as itwas in America. She was afraid he might find it too light. Then he toldall about his morning's adventure, ending with his breakfast at theProvidence Depot. Mrs. Pasmer entered into the fun of it, but she saidit was for only once in a way, and he must not expect to be let in ifhe came at that hour another morning. He said no; he understood what anextraordinary piece of luck it was for him to be there; and he was thereto be bidden to do whatever they wished. He said so much in recognitionof their goodness, that he became abashed by it. Mrs. Pasmer sat at thehead of the table, and Alice across it from him, so far off that sheseemed parted from him by an insuperable moral distance. A warm flushseemed to rise from his heart into his throat and stifle him. He wishedto shed tears. His eyes were wet with grateful happiness in answeringMrs. Pasmer that he would not have any more coffee. "Then, " she said, "we will go into the drawing-room;" but she allowed him and Alice to goalone. He was still in that illusion of awe and of distance, and he submittedto the interposition of another table between their chairs. "I wish to talk with you, " she said, so seriously that he wasfrightened, and said to himself: "Now she is going to break it off. Shehas thought it over, and she finds she can't endure me. " "Well?" he said huskily. "You oughtn't to have come here, you know, this morning. " "I know it, " he vaguely conceded. "But I didn't expect to get in. " "Well, now you're here, we may as well talk. You must tell your familyat once. " "Yes; I'm going to write to them as soon as I get back to my room. Icouldn't last night. " "But you mustn't write; you must go--and prepare their minds. " "Go?" he echoed. "Oh, that isn't necessary! My father knew about it fromthe beginning, and I guess they've all talked it over. Their mindsare prepared. " The sense of his immeasurable superiority to any one'sopposition began to dissipate Dan's unnatural awe; at the pleading facewhich Alice put on, resting one cheek against the back of one of herclasped hands, and leaning on the table with her elbows, he began to beteased by that silken rope round her waist. "But you don't understand, dear, " she said; and she said "dear" as ifthey were old married people. "You must go to see them, and tell them;and then some of them must come to see me--your father and sisters. " "Why, of course. " His eye now became fastened to one of the fluffysilken balls. "And then mamma and I must go to see your mother, mustn't we?" "It'll be very nice of you--yes. You know she can't come to you. " "Yes, that's what I thought, and--What are you looking at?" she drewherself back from the table and followed the direction of his eye with awoman's instinctive apprehension of disarray. He was ashamed to tell. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking. " "What?" "Well, I don't know. That it seems so strange any one else should haveany to do with it--my family and yours. But I suppose they must. Yes, it's all right. " "Why, of course. If your family didn't like it--" "It wouldn't make any difference to me, " said Dan resolutely. "It would to me, " she retorted, with tender reproach. "Do you suppose itwould be pleasant to go into a family that didn't like you? Suppose papaand mamma didn't like you?" "But I thought they did, " said Mavering, with his mind still partly onthe rope and the fluffy ball, but keeping his eyes away. "Yes, they do, " said Alice. "But your family don't know me at all; andyour father's only seen me once. Can't you understand? I'm afraid wedon't look at it seriously enough--earnestly--and oh, I do wish to haveeverything done as it should be! Sometimes, when I think of it, itmakes me tremble. I've been thinking about it all the morning, and--and--praying. " Dan wanted to fall on his knees to her. The idea of Alice in prayer wasfascinating. "I wish our life to begin with others, and not with ourselves. If we'reintrusted with so much happiness, doesn't it mean that we're to do goodwith it--to give it to others as if it were money?" The nobleness of this thought stirred Dan greatly; his eyes wanderedback to the silken rope; but now it seemed to him an emblem of voluntarysuffering and self-sacrifice, like a devotee's hempen girdle. Heperceived that the love of this angelic girl would elevate him andhallow his whole life if he would let it. He answered her, fervently, that he would be guided by her in this as in everything; that he knewhe was selfish, and he was afraid he was not very good; but it was notbecause he had not wished to be so; it was because he had not had anyincentive. He thought how much nobler and better this was than the talkhe had usually had with girls. He said that of course he would go homeand tell his people; he saw now that it would make them happier if theycould hear it directly from him. He had only thought of writing becausehe could not bear to think of letting a day pass without seeing her; butif he took the early morning train he could get back the same night, and still have three hours at Ponkwasset Falls, and he would go the nextday, if she said so. "Go to-day, Dan, " she said, and she stretched out her hand impressivelyacross the table toward him. He seized it with a gush of tenderness, andthey drew together in their resolution to live for others. He said hewould go at once. But the next train did not leave till two o'clock, andthere was plenty of time. In the meanwhile it was in the accomplishmentof their high aims that they sat down on the sofa together and talked oftheir future; Alice conditioned it wholly upon his people's approvalof her, which seemed wildly unnecessary to Mavering, and amused himimmensely. "Yes, " she said, "I know you will think me strange in a great manythings; but I shall never keep anything from you, and I'm going to tellyou that I went to matins this morning. " "To matins?" echoed Dan. He would not quite have liked her a Catholic;he remembered with relief that she had said she was not a RomanCatholic; though when he came to think, he would not have cared a greatdeal. Nothing could have changed her from being Alice. "Yes, I wished to consecrate the first morning of our engagement; andI'm always going. I determined that I would go before breakfast--thatwas what made breakfast so late. Don't you like it?" she asked timidly. "Like it!" he said. "I'm going with you:" "Oh no!" she turned upon him. "That wouldn't do. " She became graveagain. "I'm glad you approve of it, for I should feel that there wassomething wanting to our happiness. If marriage is a sacrament, whyshouldn't an engagement be?" "It is, " said Dan, and he felt that it was holy; till then he had neverrealised that marriage was a sacrament, though he had often heard thephrase. At the end of an hour they took a tender leave of each other, hastenedby the sound of Mrs. Pasmer's voice without. Alice escaped from one doorbefore her mother entered by the other. Dan remained, trying to lookunconcerned, but he was sensible of succeeding so poorly that he thoughthe had better offer his hand to Mrs. Pasmer at once. He told her that hewas going up to Ponkwasset Falls at two o'clock, and asked her to pleaseremember him to Mr. Pasmer. She said she would, and asked him if he were to be gone long. "Oh no; just overnight--till I can tell them what's happened. " He feltit a comfort to be trivial with Mrs. Pasmer, after bracing up to Alice'sideals. "I suppose they'll have to know. " "What an exemplary son!" said Mrs. Pasmer. "Yes, I suppose they will. " "I supposed it would be enough if I wrote, but Alice thinks I'd betterreport in person. " "I think you had, indeed! And it will be a good thing for you both tohave the time for clarifying your ideas. Did she tell you she had beenat matins this morning?" A light of laughter trembled in Mrs. Pasmer'seyes, and Mavering could not keep a responsive gleam out of his own. Inan instant the dedication of his engagement by morning prayer ceased tobe a high and solemn thought, and became deliciously amusing; and thislaughing Alice over with her mother did more to realise the fact thatshe was his than anything else had yet done. In that dark passage outside he felt two arms go tenderly round hisneck; and a soft shape strain itself to his heart. "I know you have beenlaughing about me. But you may. I'm yours now, even to laugh at, if youwant. " "You are mine to fall down and worship, " he vowed, with an instantrevulsion of feeling. Alice didn't say anything; he felt her hand fumbling about his coatlapel. "Where is your breast pocket?" she asked; and he took hold of herhand, which left a carte-de-visite-shaped something in his. "It isn't very good, " she murmured, as well as she could, with her lipsagainst his cheek, "but I thought you'd like to show them some proof ofmy existence. I shall have none of yours while you're gone. " "O Alice! you think of everything!" His heart was pierced by the soft reproach implied in her words; he hadnot thought to ask her for her photograph, but she had thought to giveit; she must have felt it strange that he had not asked for it, and shehad meant to slip it in his pocket and let him find it there. But evenhis pang of self-upbraiding was a part of his transport. He seemed tofloat down the stairs; his mind was in a delirious whirl. "I shall gomad, " he said to himself in the excess of his joy--"I shall die!" XXVIII. The parting scene with Alice persisted in Mavering's thought far on theway to Ponkwasset Falls. He now succeeded in saying everything to her:how deeply he felt her giving him her photograph to cheer him inhis separation from her; how much he appreciated her forethought inproviding him with some answer when his mother and sisters should askhim about her looks. He took out the picture, and pretended to the otherpassengers to be looking very closely at it, and so managed to kiss it. He told her that now he understood what love really was; how powerful;how it did conquer everything; that it had changed him and made himalready a better man. He made her refuse all merit in the work. When he began to formulate the facts for communication to his family, love did not seem so potent; he found himself ashamed of his passion, or at least unwilling to let it be its own excuse even; he had a wishto give it almost any other appearance. Until he came in sight of thestation and the Works, it had not seemed possible for any one to objectto Alice. He had been going home as a matter of form to receive theadhesion of his family. But now he was forced to see that she might beconsidered critically, even reluctantly. This would only be becausehis family did not understand how perfect Alice was; but they might notunderstand. With his father there would be no difficulty. His father had seen Aliceand admired her; he would be all right. Dan found himself hoping thisrather anxiously, as if from the instinctive need of his father'ssupport with his mother and sisters. He stopped at the Works when heleft the train, and found his father in his private office beyond thebook-keeper's picket-fence, which he penetrated, with a nod to theaccountant. "Hello, Dan!" said his father, looking up; and "Hello, father!" saidDan. Being alone, the father and son not only shook hands, but kissedeach other, as they used to do in meeting after an absence when Dan wasyounger. He had closed his father's door with his left hand in giving his right, and now he said at once, "Father, I've come home to tell you that I'mengaged to be married. " Dan had prearranged his father's behaviour at this announcement, buthe now perceived that he would have to modify the scene if it were torepresent the facts. His father did not brighten all over and demand, "Miss Pasmer, of course?" he contrived to hide whatever start the newshad given him, and was some time in asking, with his soft lisp, "Isn'tthat rather sudden, Dan?" "Well, not for me, " said Dan, laughing uneasily. "It's--you know her, father--Miss Pasmer. " "Oh yes, " said his father, certainly not with displeasure, and yet notwith enthusiasm. "I've had ever since Class Day to think it over, and it--came to aclimax yesterday. " "And then you stopped thinking, " said his father--to gain time, itappeared to Dan. "Yes, sir, " said Dan. "I haven't thought since. " "Well, " said his father, with an amusement which was not unfriendly. He added, after a moment, "But I thought that had been broken off, " andDan's instinct penetrated to the lurking fact that his father must havetalked the rupture over with his mother, and not wholly regretted it. "There was a kind of--hitch at one time, " he admitted; "but it's allright now. " "Well, well, " said his father, "this is great news--great news, " and heseemed to be shaping himself to the new posture of affairs, while givingit a conditional recognition. "She's a beautiful creature. " "Isn't she?" cried Dan, with a little break in his voice, for he hadfound his father's manner rather trying. "And she's good too. I assureyou that she is--she is simply perfect every way. " "Well, " said the elder Mavering, rising and pulling down the rolling topof his desk, "I'm glad to hear it, for your sake, Dan. Have you been upat the house yet?" "No; I'm just off the train. " "How is her mother--how is Mrs. Pasmer? All well?" "Yes, sir, " said Dan; "they're all very well. You don't know Mr. Pasmer, I believe, sir, do you?" "Not since college. What sort of person is he?" "He's very refined and quiet. Very handsome. Very courteous. Very niceindeed. " "Ah! that's good, " said Elbridge Mavering, with the effect of not havingbeen very attentive to his son's answer. They walked up the long slope of the hillside on which the house stood, overlooking the valley where the Works were, and fronting the plateauacross the river where the village of operatives' houses was scattered. The paling light of what had been a very red sunset flushed them, andbrought out the picturesqueness which the architect, who designedthem for a particular effect in the view from the owner's mansion, hadintended. A good carriage road followed the easiest line of ascent towards thisedifice, and reached a gateway. Within it began to describe a curvebordered with asphalted footways to the broad verandah of the house, andthen descended again to the gate. The grounds enclosed were planted withdeciduous shrubs, which had now mostly dropped their leaves, and clumpsof firs darkening in the evening light with the gleam of some gardenstatues shivering about the lawn next the house. The breeze grew colderand stiffer as the father and son mounted toward the mansion which Danused to believe was like a chateau, with its Mansard-roof and dormerwindows and chimneys. It now blocked its space sharply out of the thinpink of the western sky, and its lights sparkled with a wintry keennesswhich had often thrilled Dan when he climbed the hill from the stationin former homecomings. Their brilliancy gave him a strange sinkingof the heart for no reason. He and his father had kept up a sort ofdesultory talk about Alice, and he could not have said that hisfather had seemed indifferent; he had touched the affair only tooacquiescently; it was painfully like everything else. When they came infull sight of the house, Dan left the subject, as he realised presently, from a reasonless fear of being overheard. "It seems much later here, sir, than it does in Boston, " he said, glancing round at the maples, which stood ragged, with half their leavesblown from them. "Yes; we're in the hills, and we're further north, " answered his father. "There's Minnie. " Dan had seen his sister on the verandah, pausing at sight of him, andpuzzled to make out who was with her father. He had an impulse to hailher with a shout, but he could not. In his last walk with her he hadtold her that he should never marry, and they had planned to livetogether. It was a joke; but now he felt as if he had come to rob her ofsomething, and he walked soberly on with his father. "Why, Dan, you good-for-nothing fellow!" she called out when he camenear enough to be unmistakable, and ran down the steps to kiss him. "What in the world are you doing here? When did you come? Why didn't youhollo, instead of letting me stand here guessing? You're not sick, areyou?" The father got himself indoors unnoticed in the excitement of thebrother's arrival. This would have been the best moment for Dan to tellhis sister of his engagement; he knew it, but he parried her curiosityabout his coming; and then his sister Eunice came out, and he could notspeak. They all went together into the house flaming with naphtha gas, and with the steam heat already on, and Dan said he would take his bagto his room, and then come down again. He knew that he had left them tothink that there was something very mysterious in his coming, and whilehe washed away the grime of his journey he was planning how to appearperfectly natural when he should get back to his sisters. He recollectedthat he had not asked either them or his father how his mother was, butit was certainly not because his mind was not full of her. Alice nowseemed very remote from him, further even than his gun, or his boyishcollection of moths and butterflies, on which his eye fell in rovingabout his room. For a bitter instant it seemed to him as if they wereall alike toys, and in a sudden despair he asked himself what had becomeof his happiness. It was scarcely half a day since he had parted intransport from Alice. He made pretexts to keep from returning at once to his sisters, and itwas nearly half an hour before he went down to them. By that time hisfather was with them in the library, and they were waiting tea for him. XXIX. A family of rich people in the country, apart from intellectualinterests, is apt to gormandise; and the Maverings always sat down to aluxurious table, which was most abundant and tempting at the meal theycalled tea, when the invention of the Portuguese man-cook was taxedto supply the demands of appetites at once eager and fastidious. Theyprolonged the meal as much as possible in winter, and Dan used to liketo get home just in time for tea when he came up from Harvard; it wasalways very jolly, and he brought a boy's hunger to its abundance. Thedining-room, full of shining light, and treated from the low-downgrate, was a pleasant place. But now his spirits failed to rise withthe physical cheer; he was almost bashfully silent; he sat cowed in thepresence of his sisters, and careworn in the place where he used to beso gay and bold. They were waiting to have him begin about himself, ashe always did when he had been away, and were ready to sympathise withhis egotism, whatever new turn it took. He mystified them by askingabout them and their affairs, and by dealing in futile generalities, instead of launching out with any business that he happened at the timeto be full of. But he did not attend to their answers to his questions;he was absent-minded, and only knew that his face was flushed, and thathe was obviously ill at ease. His younger sister turned from him impatiently at last. "Father, what isthe matter with Dan?" Her bold recognition of their common constraint broke it down. Danlooked at his father with helpless consent, and his father said quietly, "He tells me he's engaged. " "What nonsense!" said his sister Eunice. "Why, Dan!" cried Minnie; and he felt a reproach in her words which thewords did not express. A silence followed, in which the father alongwent on with his supper. The girls sat staring at Dan with incredulouseyes. He became suddenly angry. "I don't know what's so very extraordinary about it, or why there shouldbe such a pother, " he began; and he knew that he was insolently ignoringabundant reasons for pother, if there had been any pother. "Yes, I'mengaged. " He expected now that they would believe him, and ask whom he was engagedto; but apparently they were still unable to realise it. He was obligedto go on. "I'm engaged to Miss Pasmer. " "To Miss Pasmer!" repeated Eunice. "But I thought--" Minnie began, and then stopped. Dan commanded his temper by a strong effort, and condescended toexplain. "There was a misunderstanding, but it's all right now; I onlymet her yesterday, and--it's all right. " He had to keep on ignoring whathad passed between him and his sisters during the month he spent at homeafter his return from Campobello. He did not wish to do so; he wouldhave been glad to laugh over that epoch of ill-concealed heart-breakwith them; but the way they had taken the fact of his engagement made itimpossible. He was forced to keep them at a distance; they forced him. "I'm glad, " he added bitterly, "that the news seems to be so agreeableto my family. Thank you for your cordial congratulations. " He swalloweda large cup of tea, and kept looking down. "How silly!" said Eunice, who was much the oldest of the three. "Didyou expect us to fall upon your neck before we could believe it wasn't ahoax of father's?" "A hoax!" Dan burst out. "I suppose, " said Minnie, with mock meekness, "that if we're to bedevoured, it's no use saying we didn't roil the brook. I'm sure Icongratulate you, Dan, with all my heart, " she added, with a tremblingvoice. "I congratulate Miss Pasmer, " said Eunice, "on securing such a veryreasonable husband. " When Eunice first became a young lady she was so much older than Danthat in his mother's absence she sometimes authorised herself to box hisears, till she was finally overthrown in battle by the growing boy. Shestill felt herself so much his tutelary genius that she could not letthe idea of his engagement awe her, or keep her from giving him a neededlesson. Dan jumped to his feet, and passionately threw his napkin on hischair. "There, that will do, Eunice!" interposed the father. "Sit down, Dan, and don't be an ass, if you are engaged. Do you expect to come up herewith a bombshell in your pocket, and explode it among us without causingany commotion? We all desire your happiness, and we are glad if youthink you've found it, but we want to have time to realise it. We hadonly adjusted our minds to the apparent fact that you hadn't found itwhen you were here before. " His father began very severely, but when heended with this recognition of what they had all blinked till then, theylaughed together. "My pillow isn't dry yet, with the tears I shed for you, Dan, " saidMinnie demurely. "I shall have to countermand my mourning, " said Eunice, "and wear loudercolours than ever. Unless, " she added, "Miss Pasmer changes her mindagain. " This divination of the past gave them all a chance for another laugh, and Dan's sisters began to reconcile themselves to the fact ofhis engagement, if not to Miss Pasmer. In what was abstractly sodisagreeable there was the comfort that they could joke about hishappiness; they had not felt free to make light of his misery when hewas at home before. They began to ask all the questions they could thinkof as to how and when, and they assimilated the fact more and more inacquiring these particulars and making a mock of them and him. "Of course you haven't got her photograph, " suggested Eunice. "You knowwe've never had the pleasure of meeting the young lady yet. " "Yes, " Dan owned, blushing, "I have. She thought I might like to show itto mother: But it isn't--" "A very good one--they never are, " said Minnie. "And it was taken several years ago--they always are, " said Eunice. "And she doesn't photograph well, anyway. " "And this one was just after a long fit of sickness. " Dan drew it out of his pocket, after some fumbling for it, while hetolerated their gibes. Eunice put her nose to it. "I hope it's your cigarettes it smells of, "she said. "Yes; she doesn't use the weed, " answered Dan. "Oh, I didn't mean that, exactly, " returned his sister, holding thepicture off at arm's length, and viewing it critically with contractedeyes. Dan could not help laughing. "I don't think it's been near any othercigar-case, " he answered tranquilly. Minnie looked at it very near to, covering all but the face with herhand. "Dan, she's lovely!" she cried, and Dan's heart leaped into histhroat As he gratefully met his sister's eyes. "You'll like her, Min. " Eunice took the photograph from her for a second scrutiny. "She'scertainly very stylish. Rather a beak of a nose, and a little toobird--like on the whole. But she isn't so bad. Is it like her?" sheasked with a glance at her father. "I might say--after looking, " he replied. "True! I didn't know but Dan had shown it to you as soon as you met. Heseemed to be in such a hurry to let us all know. " The father said, "I don't think it flatters her, " and he looked at itmore carefully. "Not much of her mother there?" he suggested to Dan. "No, sir; she's more like her father. " "Well, after all this excitement, I believe I'll have another cup oftea, and take something to eat, if Miss Pasmer's photograph doesn'tobject, " said Eunice, and she replenished her cup and plate. "What coloured hair and eyes has she, Dan?" asked Minnie. He had to think so as to be exact. "Well, you might say they were black, her eyebrows are so dark. But I believe they're a sort of greyish-blue. " "Not an uncommon colour for eyes, " said Eunice, "but rather peculiar forhair. " They got to making fun of the picture, and Dan told them about Alice andher family; the father left them at the table, and then came back withword from Dan's mother that she was ready to see him. XXX. By eight o'clock in the evening the pain with which every day beganfor Mrs. Mavering was lulled, and her jarred nerves were stayed by theopiates till she fell asleep about midnight. In this interval the familygathered into her room, and brought her their news and the cheer oftheir health. The girls chattered on one side of her bed, and theirfather sat with his newspaper on the other, and read aloud the passageswhich he thought would interest her, while she lay propped among herpillows, brilliantly eager for the world opening this glimpse of itselfto her shining eyes. That was on her good nights, when the drugs didtheir work, but there were times when they failed, and the day's agonyprolonged itself through the evening, and the sleep won at last was aheavy stupor. Then the sufferer's temper gave way under the stress; shebecame the torment she suffered, and tore the hearts she loved. Most ofall, she afflicted the man who had been so faithful to her misery, andmaddened him to reprisals, of which he afterward abjectly repented. Hertongue was sharpened by pain, and pitilessly skilled to inculpate and topunish; it pierced and burned like fire but when a good day came againshe made it up to the victims by the angelic sweetness and sanitywhich they felt was her real self; the cruelty was only the mask of hersuffering. When she was better they brought to her room anybody who was stayingwith them, and she liked them to be jolly in the spacious chamber. Thepleasantest things of the house were assembled, and all its comfortsconcentrated, in the place which she and they knew she should quit butonce. It was made gay with flowers and pictures; it was the salon forthose fortunate hours when she became the lightest and blithest ofthe company in it, and made the youngest guest forget that there wassickness or pain in the world by the spirit with which she ignored herown. Her laugh became young again; she joked; she entered into whatthey were doing and reading and thinking, and sent them away full of thesympathy which in this mood of hers she had for every mood in others. Girls sighed out their wonder and envy to her daughters when they lefther; the young men whom she captivated with her divination of theirpassions or ambitions went away celebrating her supernatural knowledgeof human nature. The next evening after some night of rare and happyexcitement, the family saw her nurse carrying the pictures and flowersand vases out of her room, in sign of her renunciation of them all, and assembled silently, shrinkingly, in her chamber, to take each theirportion of her anguish, of the blame and the penalty. The householdadjusted itself to her humours, for she was supreme in it. When Dan used to come home from Harvard she put on a pretty cap forhim, and distinguished him as company by certain laces hiding her wastedframe, and giving their pathetic coquetry to her transparent wrists. Hewas her favourite, and the girls acknowledged him so, and made theirfun of her for spoiling him. He found out as he grew up that her brokenhealth dated from his birth, and at first this deeply affected him; buthis young life soon lost the keenness of the impression, and he lovedhis mother because she loved him, and not because she had been dying forhim so many years. As he now came into her room, and the waiting-woman went out of it withher usual, "Well, Mr. Dan!" the tenderness which filled him at sight ofhis mother was mixed with that sense of guilt which had tormented him attimes ever since he met his sisters. He was going to take himself fromher; he realised that. "Well, Dan!" she called, so gaily that he said to himself, "No, fatherhasn't told her anything about it, " and was instantly able to answer heras cheerfully, "Well, mother!" He bent over her to kiss her, and the odour of the clean linen minglingwith that of the opium, and the cologne with which she had triedto banish its scent, opened to him one of those vast reaches ofassociations which perfumes can unlock, and he saw her lying therethrough those years of pain, as many as half his life, and suddenly thetears gushed into his eyes, and he fell on his knees, and hid his facein the bed-clothes and sobbed. She kept smoothing his head, which shook under her thin hand, andsaying, "Poor Dan! poor Dan!" but did not question him. He knew thatshe knew what he had come to tell her, and that his tears, which had notbeen meant for that, had made interest with her for him and his cause, and that she was already on his side. He tried boyishly to dignify the situation when he lifted his face, andhe said, "I didn't mean to come boohooing to you in this way, and I'mashamed of myself. " "I know, Dan; but you've been wrought up, and I don't wonder. Youmustn't mind your father and your sisters. Of course, they're rathersurprised, and they don't like your taking yourself from them--we, noneof us do. " At these honest words Dan tried to become honest too. At least hedropped his pretence of dignity, and became as a little child in hissimple greed for sympathy. "But it isn't necessarily that; is it, mother?" "Yes, it's all that, Dan; and it's all right, because it's that. Wedon't like it, but our not liking it has nothing to do with its beingright or wrong. " "I supposed that father would have been pleased, anyway; for he has seenher, and--and. Of course the girls haven't, but I think they might havetrusted my judgment a little. I'm not quite a fool. " His mother smiled. "Oh, it isn't a question of the wisdom of yourchoice; it's the unexpectedness. We all saw that you were very unhappywhen you were here before, and we supposed it had gone wrong. " "It had, mother, " said Dan. "She refused me at Campobello. But it was amisunderstanding, and as soon as we met--" "I knew you had met again, and what you had come home for, and I toldyour father so, when he came to say you were here. " "Did you, mother?" he asked, charmed at her having guessed that. "Yes. She must be a good girl to send you straight home to tell us. " "You knew I wouldn't have thought of that myself, " said Dan joyously. "Iwanted to write; I thought that would do just as well. I hated to leaveher, but she made me come. She is the best, and the wisest, and the mostunselfish--O mother, I can't tell you about her! You must see her. Youcan't realise her till you see her, mother. You'll like each other, I'm sure of that. You're just alike. " It seemed to Dan that they wereexactly alike. "Then perhaps we sha'n't, " suggested his mother. "Let me see herpicture. " "How did you know I had it? If it hadn't been for her, I shouldn't havebrought any. She put it into my pocket just as I was leaving. She saidyou would all want to see what she looked like. " He had taken it out of his pocket, and he held it, smiling fondly uponit. Alice seemed to smile back at him. He had lost her in the reluctanceof his father and sisters; and now his mother--it was his mother who hadgiven her to him again. He thought how tenderly he loved his mother. When he could yield her the photograph, she looked long and silently atit. "She has a great deal of character, Dan. " "There you've hit it, mother! I'd rather you would have said that thananything else. But don't you think she's beautiful? She's the gentlestcreature, when you come to know her! I was awfully afraid of her atfirst. I thought she was very haughty. But she isn't at all. She'sreally very self-depreciatory; she thinks she isn't good enough for me. You ought to hear her talk, mother, as I have. She's full of the noblestideals--of being of some use in the world, of being self-devoted, and--all that kind of thing. And you can see that she's capable of it. Her aunt's in a Protestant sisterhood, " he said, with a solemnity whichdid not seem to communicate itself to his mother, for Mrs. Maveringsmiled. Dan smiled too, and said: "But I can't tell you about Alice, mother. She's perfect. " His heart overflowed with proud delight in her, and he was fool enough to add, "She's so affectionate!" His mother kept herself from laughing. "I dare say she is, Dan--withyou. " Then she hid all but her eyes with the photograph, and gave way. "What a donkey!" said Dan, meaning himself. "If I go on, I shall disgustyou with her. What I mean is that she isn't at all proud, as I used tothink she was. " "No girl is, under the circumstances. She has all she can do to be proudof you. " "Do you think so, mother?" he said, enraptured with the notion. "I'vedone my best--or my worst--not to give her any reason to be so. " "She doesn't 'want any--the less the better. You silly boy! Don't yousuppose she wants to make you out of whole cloth just as you do withher? She doesn't want any facts to start with; they'd be in the way. Well, now, I can make out, with your help, what the young lady is;but what are the father and mother? They're rather important in thesecases. " "Oh, they're the nicest kind of people, " said Dan, in optimisticgeneralisation. "You'd like Mrs. Pasmer. She's awfully nice. " "Do you say that because you think I wouldn't?" asked his mother. "Isn'tshe rather sly and hum-bugging?" "Well, yes, she is, to a certain extent, " Dan admitted, with a laugh. "But she doesn't mean any harm by it. She's extremely kind-hearted. " "To you? I dare say. And Mr. Pasmer is rather under her thumb?" "Well, yes, you might say thumb, " Dan consented, feeling it useless todefend the Pasmers against this analysis. "We won't say heel, " returned his mother; "we're too polite. And yourfather says he had the reputation in college of being one of the mostselfish fellows in the world. He's never done anything since but losemost of his money. He's been absolutely idle and useless all his days. "She turned her vivid blue eyes suddenly upon her son's. Dan winced. "You know how hard father is upon people who haven't doneanything. It's a mania of his. Of course Mr. Pasmer doesn't show toadvantage where there's no--no leisure class. " "Poor man!" Dan was going to say, "He's very amiable, though, " but he was afraidof his mother's retorting, "To you?" and he held his peace, lookingchapfallen. Whether his mother took pity on him or not, her next sally wasconsoling. "But your Alice may not take after either of them. Her fatheris the worst of his breed, it seems; the rest are useful people, from what your father knows, and there's a great deal to be hoped forcollaterally. She had an uncle in college at the same time who waseverything that her father was not. " "One of her aunts is in one of those Protestant religious houses inEngland, " repeated Dan. "Oh!" said his mother shortly, "I don't know that I like thatparticularly. But probably she isn't useless there. Is Alice veryreligious?" "Well, I suppose, " said Dan, with a smile for the devotions that cameinto his thought, "she's what would be called 'Piscopal pious. " Mrs. Mavering referred to the photograph, which she still held inher hand. "Well, she's pure and good, at any rate. I suppose you lookforward to a long engagement?" Dan was somewhat taken aback at a supposition so very contrary to whatwas in his mind. "Well, I don't know. Why?" "It might be said that you are very young. How old is Agnes--Alice, Imean?" "Twenty-one. But now, look here, mother! It's no use considering such athing in the abstract, is it?" "No, " said his mother, with a smile for what might be coming. "This is the way I've been viewing it; I may say it's the way Alice hasbeen viewing it--or Mrs. Pasmer, rather. " "Decidedly Mrs. Pasmer, rather. Better be honest, Dan. " "I'll do my best. I was thinking, hoping, that is, that as I'm goingright into the business--have gone into it already, in fact--and couldbegin life at once, that perhaps there wouldn't be much sense in waitinga great while. " "Yes?" "That's all. That is, if you and father are agreed. " He reflected uponthis provision, and added, with a laugh of confusion and pleasure: "Itseems to be so very much more of a family affair than I used to think itwas. " "You thought it concerned just you and her?" said his mother, with archsympathy. "Well, yes. " "Poor fellow! She knew better than that, you may be sure. At any rate, her mother did. " "What Mrs. Pasmer doesn't know isn't probably worth knowing, " said Dan, with an amused sense of her omniscience. "I thought so, " sighed his mother, smiling too. "And now you begin tofind out that it concerns the families in all their branches on bothsides. " "Oh, if it stopped at the families and their ramifications! But it seemsto take in society and the general public. " "So it does--more than you can realise. You can't get married toyourself alone, as young people think; and if you don't marry happily, you sin against the peace and comfort of the whole community. " "Yes, that's what I'm chiefly looking out for now. I don't want any ofthose people in Central Africa to suffer. That's the reason I want tomarry Alice at the earliest opportunity. But I suppose there'll have tobe a Mavering embassy to the high contracting powers of the other partnow?" "Your father and one of the girls had better go down. " "Yes?" "And invite Mr. And Mrs. Pasmer and their daughter to come up here. " "All on probation?" "Oh no. If you're pleased, Dan--" "I am, mother--measurably. " They both laughed at this mild way ofputting it. "Why, then it's to be supposed that we're all pleased. You needn't bringthe whole Pasmer family home to live with you, if you do marry themall. " "No, " said Dan, and suddenly he became very distraught. It flashedthrough him that his mother was expecting him to come home with Aliceto live, and that she would not be at all pleased with his scheme ofa European sojourn, which Mrs. Pasmer had so cordially adopted. Hewas amazed that he had not thought of that, but he refused to see anydifficulty which his happiness could not cope with. "No, there's that view of it, " he said jollily; and he buried hismomentary anxiety out of sight, and, as it were, danced upon its grave. Nevertheless, he had a desire to get quickly away from the spot. "I hopethe Mavering embassy won't be a great while getting ready to go, " hesaid. "Of course it's all right; but I shouldn't want an appearance ofreluctance exactly, you know, mother; and if there should be much of aninterval between my getting back and their coming on, don't you know, why, the cat might let herself out of the bag. " "What cat?" asked his mother demurely. "Well, you know, you haven't received my engagement with unmingledenthusiasm, and--and I suppose they would find it out from me--from mymanner; and--and I wish they'd come along pretty soon, mother. " "Poor boy! I'm afraid the cat got out of the bag when Mrs. Pasmer cameto the years of discretion. But you sha'n't be left a prey to her. Theyshall go back with you. Ring the bell, and let's talk it over with themnow. " Dan joyfully obeyed. He could see that his mother was all on fire withinterest in his affair, and that the idea of somehow circumventing Mrs. Pasmer by prompt action was fascinating her. His sisters came up at once, and his father followed a moment later. They all took their cue from the mother's gaiety, and began talking andlaughing, except the father, who sat looking on with a smile at theirlively spirits and the jokes of which Dan became the victim. Each familyhas its own fantastic medium, in which it gets affairs to relieve themof their concrete seriousness, and the Maverings now did this with Dan'sengagement, and played with it as an airy abstraction. They debated thecharacter of the embassy which was to be sent down to Boston on theirbehalf, and it was decided that Eunice had better go with her father, as representing more fully the age and respectability of the family: atfirst glance the Pasmers would take her for Dan's mother, and this wouldbe a tremendous advantage. "And if I like the ridiculous little chit, " said Eunice, "I think Ishall let Dan marry her at once. I see no reason why he shouldn't and Icouldn't stand a long engagement; I should break it off. " "I guess there are others who will have something to say about that, "retorted the younger sister. "I've always wanted a long engagement inthis family, and as there seems to be no chance for it with the ladies, I wish to make the most of Dan's. I always like it where the hero getssick and the heroine nurses him. I want Dan to get sick, and have Alicecome here and take care of him. " "No; this marriage must take place at once. What do you say, father?"asked Eunice. Her father sat, enjoying the talk, at the foot of the bed, with atendency to doze. "You might ask Dan, " he said, with a lazy cast of hiseye toward his son. "Dan has nothing to do with it. " "Dan shall not be consulted. " The two girls stormed upon their father with their different reasons. "Now I will tell you Girls, be still!" their mother broke in. "Listen tome: I have an idea. " "Listen to her: she has an idea!" echoed Eunice, in recitative. "Will you be quiet?" demanded the mother. "We will be du-u-mb!" When they became so, at the verge of their mother's patience, of whichthey knew the limits, she went on: "I think Dan had better get marriedat once. " "There, Minnie!" "But what does Dan say?" "I will--make the sacrifice, " said Dan meekly. "Noble boy! That's exactly what Washington said to his mother when sheasked him not to go to sea, " said Minnie. "And then he went into the militia, and made it all right with himselfthat way, " said Eunice. "Dan can't play his filial piety on this family. Go on, mother. " "I want him to bring his wife home, and live with us, " continued hismother. "In the L part!" cried Minnie, clasping her hands in rapture. "I'vealways said what a perfect little apartment it was by itself. " "Well, don't say it again, then, " returned her sister. "Always is oftenenough. Well, in the L part Go on, mother! Don't ask where you were, when it's so exciting. " "I don't care whether it's in the L part or not. There's plenty of roomin the great barn of a place everywhere. " "But what about his taking care of the business in Boston?" suggestedEunice, looking at her father. "There's no hurry about that. " "And about the excursion to aesthetic centres abroad?" Minnie added. "That could be managed, " said her father, with the same ironical smile. The mother and the girls went on wildly planning Dan's future for him. It was all in a strain of extravagant burlesque. But he could not takehis part in it with his usual zest. He laughed and joked too, but at thebottom of his heart was an uneasy remembrance of the different future hehad talked over with Mrs. Pasmer so confidently. But he said to himselfbuoyantly at last that it would come out all right. His mother wouldgive in, or else Alice could reconcile her mother to whatever seemedreally best. He parted from his mother with fond gaiety. His sisters came out of theroom with him. "I'm perfectly sore with laughing, " said Minnie. "It seems like oldtimes--doesn't it, Dan?--such a gale with mother. " XXXI. An engagement must always be a little incredible at first to thefamilies of the betrothed, and especially to the family of the youngman; in the girl's, the mother, at least, will have a more realisingsense of the situation. If there are elder sisters who have beenaccustomed to regard their brother as very young, he will seem all theyounger because in such a matter he has treated himself as if he werea man; and Eunice Mavering said, after seeing the Pasmers, "Well, Dan, it's all well enough, I suppose, but it seems too ridiculous. " "What's ridiculous about it, I should like to know?" he demanded. "Oh, I don't know. Who'll look after you when you're married? Oh, Iforgot Ma'am Pasmer!" "I guess we shall be able to look after ourselves, " said Dan; a littlesulkily. "Yes, if you'll be allowed to, " insinuated his sister. They spoke at the end of a talk in which he had fretted at the reticenceof both his sister and his father concerning the Pasmers, whom they hadjust been to see. He was vexed with his father, because he felt that hehad been influenced by Eunice, and had somehow gone back on him. He wasvexed and he was grieved because his father had left them at the doorof the hotel without saying anything in praise of Alice, beyond thegeneralities that would not carry favour with Eunice; and he wasdepressed with a certain sense of Alice's father and mother, whichseemed to have imparted itself to him from the others, and to be theMavering opinion of them. He could no longer see Mrs. Pasmer harmless iftrivial, and good-hearted if inveterately scheming; he could not seethe dignity and refinement which he had believed in Mr. Pasmer; they hadboth suffered a sort of shrinkage or collapse, from which he could notrehabilitate them. But this would have been nothing if his sister's andhis father's eyes, through which he seemed to have been looking, hadnot shown him Alice in a light in which she appeared strange and queeralmost to eccentricity. He was hurt at this effect from their want ofsympathy, his pride was touched, and he said to himself that he shouldnot fish for Eunice's praise; but he found himself saying, withoutsurprise, "I suppose you will do what you can to prejudice mother andMin. " "Isn't that a little previous?" asked Eunice. "Have I said anythingagainst Miss Pasmer?" "You haven't because you couldn't, " said Dan, with foolish bitterness. "Oh, I don't know about that. She's a human being, I suppose--at leastthat was the impression I got from her parentage. " "What have you got to say against her parents?" demanded Dan savagely. "Oh, nothing. I didn't come down to Boston to denounce the Pasmerfamily. " "I suppose you didn't like their being in a flat; you'd have liked tofind them in a house on Commonwealth Avenue or Beacon Street. " "I'll own I'm a snob, " said Eunice, with maddening meekness. "So'sfather. " "They are connected with the best families in the city, and they arein the best society. They do what they please, and they live where theylike. They have been so long in Europe that they don't care for thosesilly distinctions. But what you say doesn't harm them. It's simplydisgraceful to you; that's all, " said Dan furiously. "I'm glad it's no worse, Dan, " said his sister, with a tranquil smile. "And if you'll stop prancing up and down the room, and take a seat, andbehave yourself in a Christian manner, I'll talk with you; and if youdon't, I won't. Do you suppose I'm going to be bullied into likingthem?" "You can like them or not, as you please, " said Dan sullenly; but he satdown, and waited decently for his sister to speak. "But you can't abusethem--at least in my presence. " "I didn't know men lost their heads as well as their hearts, " saidEunice. "Perhaps it's only an exchange, though, and it's Miss Pasmer'shead. " Dan started, but did not say anything, and Eunice smoothlycontinued: "No, I don't believe it is. She looked like a sensible girl, and she talked sensibly. I should think she had a very good head. Shehas good manners, and she's extremely pretty, and very graceful. I'msurprised she should be in love with such a simpleton. " "Oh, go on! Abuse me as much as you like, " said Dan. He was at oncesoothed by her praise of Alice. "No, it isn't necessary to go on; the case is a little too obvious. But I think she will do very well. I hope you're not marrying the wholefamily, though. I suppose that it's always a question of which shall bescooped up. They will want to scoop you up, and we shall want to scoopher up. I dare say Ma'am Pasmer has her little plan; what is it?" Dan started at this touch on the quick, but he controlled himself, andsaid, with dignity, "I have my own plans. " "Well, you know what mother's are, " returned Eunice easily. "You seemso cheerful that I suppose yours are quite the same, and you're justkeeping them for a surprise. " She laughed provokingly, and Dan burstforth again-- "You seem to live to give people pain. You take a fiendish delight intorturing others. But if you think you can influence me in the slightestdegree, you're very much mistaken. " "Well, well, there! It sha'n't be teased any more, so it sha'n't! Itshall have its own way, it shall, and nobody shall say a word againstits little girly's mother. " Eunice rose from her chair, and patted Danon the head as she passed to the adjoining room. He caught her hand, and flung it violently away; she shrieked with delight in his childishresentment, and left him sulking. She was gone two or three minutes, andwhen she came back it was in quite a different mood, as often happenswith women in a little lapse of time. "Dan, I think Miss Pasmer is a beautiful girl, and I know we shall alllike her, if you don't set us against her by your arrogance. Of coursewe don't know anything about her yet, and you don't, really; but sheseems a very lovable little thing, and if she's rather silent andundemonstrative, why, she'll be all the better for you: you've gotdemonstration enough for twenty. And I think the family are well enough. Mrs. Pasmer is thoroughly harmless; and Mr. Pasmer is a most dignifiedpersonage; his eyebrows alone are worth the price of admission. " Dancould not help smiling. "All that there is about it is, you mustn'texpect to drive people into raptures about them, and expect them to gogrovelling round on their knees because you do. " "Oh, I know I'm an infernal idiot, " said Dan, yielding to the mingledsarcasm and flattery. "It's because I'm so anxious; and you all seem soconfoundedly provisional about it. Eunice, what do you suppose fatherreally thinks?" Eunice seemed tempted to a relapse into her teasing, but she did notyield. "Oh, father's all right--from your point of view. He's beenridiculous from the first; perhaps that's the reason he doesn't feelobliged to expatiate and expand a great deal at present. " "Do you think so?" cried Dan, instantly adopting her as an ally. "Well, if I sad so, oughtn't it to be enough?" "It depends upon what else you say. Look here, now, Eunice!" Dan said, with a laughing mixture of fun and earnest, "what are you going to sayto mother? It's no use, being disagreeable, is it? Of course, I don'tcontend for ideal perfection anywhere, and I don't expect it. But thereisn't anything experimental about this thing, and don't you think we hadbetter all make the best of it?" "That sounds very impartial. " "It is impartial. I'm a purely disinterested spectator. " "Oh, quite. " "And don't you suppose I understand Mr. And Mrs. Pasmer quite as wellas you do? All I say is that Alice is simply the noblest girl that everbreathed, and--" "Now you're talking sense, Dan!" "Well, what are you going to say when you get home, Eunice? Come!" "That we had better make the best of it. " "And what else?" "That you're hopelessly infatuated; and that she will twist you roundher finger. " "Well?" "But that you've had your own way so much, it will do you good to havesomebody else's a while. " "I guess you're pretty solid, " said Dan, after thinking it over for amoment. "I don't believe you're going to make it hard for me, and I knowyou can make it just what you please. But I want you to be frank withmother. Of course I wish you felt about the whole affair just as I do, but if you're right on the main question, I don't care for the rest. I'drather mother would know just how you feel about it, " said Dan, with asigh for the honesty which he felt to be not immediately attainable inhis own case. "Well, I'll see what can be done, " Eunice finally assented. Whatever her feelings were in regard to the matter, she must havesatisfied herself that the situation was not to be changed by herdisliking it, and she began to talk so sympathetically with Dan thatshe soon had the whole story of his love out of him. They laughed agood deal together at it, but it convinced her that he had not beenhoodwinked into the engagement. It is always the belief of a young man'sfamily, especially his mother and sisters, that unfair means have beenused to win him, if the family of his betrothed are unknown to them; andit was a relief, if not exactly a comfort, for Eunice Mavering to findthat Alice was as great a simpleton as Dan, and perhaps a sincerersimpleton. XXXII. A week later, in fulfilment of the arrangement made by Mrs. Pasmer andEunice Mavering, Alice and her mother returned the formal visit of Dan'speople. While Alice stood before the mirror in one of the sumptuously furnishedrooms assigned them, arranging a ribbon for the effect upon Dan's motherafter dinner, and regarding its relation to her serious beauty, Mrs. Pasmer came out of her chamber adjoining, and began to inspect theformal splendour of the place. "What a perfect man's house!" she said, peering about. "You can see thateverything has been done to order. They have their own taste; they'reartistic enough for that--or the father is--and they've given orders tohave things done so and so, and the New York upholsterer has come up andtaken the measure of the rooms and done it. But it isn't like New York, and it isn't individual. The whole house is just like those girls'tailor-made costumes in character. They were made in New York, but theydon't wear them with the New York style; there's no more atmosphereabout them than if they were young men dressed up. There isn't a thinglacking in the house here; there's an awful completeness; but eventhe ornaments seem laid on, like the hot and cold water. I never saw ahandsomer, more uninviting room than that drawing room. I suppose theetching will come some time after supper. What do you think of it all, Alice?" "Oh, I don't know. They must be very rich, " said the girl indifferently. "You can't tell. Country people of a certain kind are apt to puteverything on their backs and their walls and floors. Of course such ahouse here doesn't mean what it would in town. " She examined the textureof the carpet more critically, and the curtains; she had no shame abouta curiosity that made her daughter shrink. "Don't, mamma!" pleaded the girl. "What if they should come?" "They won't come, " said Mrs. Pasmer; and her notice being called toAlice, she made her take off the ribbon. "You're better without it. " "I'm so nervous I don't know what I'm doing, " said Alice, removing it, with a whimper. "Well, I can't have you breaking down!" cried her mother warningly:she really wished to shake her, as a culmination of her own conflictingemotions. "Alice, stop this instant! Stop it, I say!" "But if I don't like her?" whimpered Alice. "You're not going to marry her. Now stop! Here, bathe your eyes; they'reall red. Though I don't know that it matters. Yes, they'll expect you tohave been crying, " said Mrs. Pasmer, seeing the situation more andmore clearly. "It's perfectly natural. " But she took some cologne on ahandkerchief, and recomposed Alice's countenance for her. "There, thecolour becomes you, and I never saw your eyes look so bright. " There was a pathos in their brilliancy which of course betrayed her tothe Mavering girls. It softened Eunice, and encouraged Minnie, whohad been a little afraid of the Pasmers. They both kissed Alice withsisterly affection. Their father merely saw how handsome she looked, andDan's heart seemed to melt in his breast with tenderness. In recognition of the different habits of their guests, they had dinnerinstead of tea. The Portuguese cook had outdone himself, and coursefollowed course in triumphal succession. Mrs. Pasmer praised it allwith a sincerity that took away a little of the zest she felt in makingflattering speeches. Everything about the table was perfect, but in a man's fashion, likethe rest of the house. It lacked the atmospheric charm, the otherwiseindefinable grace, which a woman's taste gives. It was in fact ElbridgeMavering's taste which had characterised the whole; the daughters simplyaccepted and approved. "Yes, " said Eunice, "we haven't much else to do; so we eat. And Joe doeshis best to spoil us. " "Joe?" "Joe's the cook. All Portuguese cooks are Joe. " "How very amusing!" said Mrs. Pasmer. "You must let me speak of yourgrapes. I never saw anything so--well!--except your roses. " "There you touched father in two tender spots. He cultivates both. " "Really? Alice, did you ever see anything like these roses?" Alice looked away from Dan a moment, and blushed to find that she hadbeen looking so long at him. "Ah, I have, " said Mavering gallantly. "Does he often do it?" asked Mrs. Pasmer, in an obvious aside to Eunice. Dan answered for him. "He never had such a chance before. " Between coffee, which they drank at table, and tea, which they were totake in Mrs. Mavering's room, they acted upon a suggestion from Eunicethat her father should show Mrs. Pasmer his rose-house. At one end ofthe dining-room was a little apse of glass full of flowering plantsgrowing out of the ground, and with a delicate fountain tinkling intheir midst. Dan ran before the rest, and opened two glass doors inthe further side of this half-bubble, and at the same time with a touchflashed up a succession of brilliant lights in some space beyond, fromwhich there gushed in a wave of hothouse fragrance, warm, heavy, humid. It was a pretty little effect for guests new to the house, and waspart of Elbridge Mavering's pleasure in this feature of his place. Mrs. Pasmer responded with generous sympathy, for if she really likedanything with her whole heart, it was an effect, and she traversed thehalf-bubble by its pebbled path, showering praises right and left witha fulness and accuracy that missed no detail, while Alice followedsilently, her hand in Minnie Mavering's, and cold with suppressedexcitement. The rose-house was divided by a wall, pierced with frequentdoorways, over which the trees were trained and the roses hung; and oneither side were ranks of rare and costly kinds, weighed down with budand bloom. The air was thick with their breath and the pungent odours ofthe rich soil from which they grew, and the glass roof was misted withthe mingled exhalations. Mr. Mavering walked beside Alice, modestly explaining the difficultiesof rose culture, and his method of dealing with the red spider. He had astout knife in his hand, and he cropped long, heavy-laden stems of rosesfrom the walls and the beds, casually giving her their different names, and laying them along his arm in a massive sheaf. Mrs. Pasmer and Eunice had gone forward with Dan, and were waiting forthem at the thither end of the rose-house. "Alice! just imagine: the grapery is beyond this, " cried the girl'smother. "It's a cold grapery, " said Mr. Mavering. "I hope you'll see itto-morrow. " "Oh, why not to-night?" shouted Dan. "Because it's a cold grapery, " said Eunice; "and after this rose-house, it's an Arctic grapery. You're crazy, Dan. " "Well, I want Alice to see it anyway, " he persisted wilfully. "There'snothing like a cold grapery by starlight. I'll get some wraps. " They allknew that he wished to be alone with her a moment, and the three women, consenting with their hearts, protested with their tongues, followinghim in his flight with their chorus, and greeting his return. He muffledher to the chin in a fur-lined overcoat, which he had laid hands on thefirst thing; and her mother, still protesting, helped to tie a scarfover her hair so as not to disarrange it. "Here, " he pointed, "we canrun through it, and it's worth seeing. Better come, " he said to theothers as he opened the door, and hurried Alice down the path under thekeen sparkle of the crystal roof, blotched with the leaves and bunchesof the vines. Coming out of the dense, sensuous, vaporous air of therose-house into this clear, thin atmosphere, delicately penetratedwith the fragrance, pure and cold, of the fruit, it was as if they hadentered another world. His arm crept round her in the odorous obscurity. "Look up! See the stars through the vines! But when she lifted her facehe bent his upon it for a wild kiss. "Don't! don't!" she murmured. "I want to think; I don't know what I'mdoing. " "Neither do I. I feel as if I were a blessed ghost. " Perhaps it is only in these ecstasies of the senses that the soulever reaches self-consciousness on earth; and it seems to be only theman-soul which finds itself even in this abandon. The woman-soul hasalways something else to think of. "What shall we do, " said the girl, "if we--Oh, I dread to meet yourmother! Is she like either of your sisters?" "No, " he cried joyously; "she's like me. If you're not afraid of me, andyou don't seem to be--" "You're all I have--you're all I have in the world. Do you think she'lllike me? Oh, do you love me, Dan?" "You darling! you divine--" The rest was a mad embrace. "If you're notafraid of me, you won't mind mother. I wanted you here alone for justa last word, to tell you you needn't be afraid; to tell you to--But Ineedn't tell you how to act. You mustn't treat her as an invalid--youmust treat her like any one else; that's what she likes. But you'll knowwhat's best, Alice. Be yourself, and she'll like you well enough. I'mnot afraid. " XXXIII: When she entered Mrs. Mavering's room Alice first saw the pictures, thebric-a-brac, the flowers, the dazzle of lights, and then the invalidpropped among her pillows, and vividly expectant of her. She seemed alleager eyes to the girl, aware next of the strong resemblance to Dan inher features, and of the careful toilet the sick woman had made for her. To youth all forms of suffering are abhorrent, and Alice had to hidea repugnance at sight of this spectre of what had once been a prettywoman. Through the egotism with which so many years of flatteringsubjection in her little world had armed her, Mrs. Mavering probably didnot feel the girl's shrinking, or, if she did, took it for the naturalembarrassment which she would feel. She had satisfied herself that shewas looking her best, and that her cap and the lace jacket she wore werevery becoming, and softened her worst points; the hangings of herbed and the richly embroidered crimson silk coverlet were part ofthe coquetry of her costume, from which habit had taken all sense ofghastliness; she was proud of them, and she was not aware of the scentof drugs that insisted through the odour of the flowers. She lifted herself on her elbow as Dan approached with Alice, and thegirl felt as if an intense light had been thrown upon her from head tofoot in the moment of searching scrutiny that followed. The invalid'sset look broke into a smile, and she put out her hand, neither hot norcold, but of a dry neutral, spiritual temperature, and pulled Alice downand kissed her. "Why, child, your hand's like ice!" she exclaimed without preamble. "Weused to say that came from a warm heart. " "I guess it comes from a cold grapery in this case, mother, " said Dan, with his laugh. "I've just been running Alice through it. And perhaps alittle excitement--" "Excitement?" echoed his mother. "Cold grapery, I dare say, and verysilly of you, Dan; but there's no occasion for excitement, as if we werestrangers. Sit down in that chair, my dear. And, Dan, you go roundto the other side of the bed; I want Alice all to myself. I saw yourphotograph a week ago, and I've thought about you for ages since, andwondered whether you would approve of your old friend. " "Oh yes, " whispered the girl, suppressing a tremor; and Dan's eyes weresuffused with grateful tears at his mother's graciousness. Alice's reticence seemed to please the invalid. "I hope you'll like allyour old friends here; you've begun with the worst among us, but perhapsyou like him the best because he is the worst; I do. " "You may believe just half of that, Alice, " cried Dan. "Then believe the best half, or the half you like best, " said Mrs. Mavering. "There must be something good in him if you like him. Havethey welcomed you home, my dear?" "We've all made a stagger at it, " said Dan, while Alice was falteringover the words which were so slow to come. "Don't try to answer my formal stupidities. You are welcome, and that'senough, and more than enough of speeches. Did you have a comfortablejourney up?" "Oh, very. " "Was it cold?" "Not at all. The cars were very hot. " "Have you had any snow yet at Boston?" "No, none at all yet. " "Now I feel that we're talking sense. I hope you found everything inyour room? I can't look after things as I would like, and so I inquire. " "There's everything, " said Alice. "We're very comfortable. " "I'm very glad. I had Dan look, he's my housekeeper; he understands mebetter than my girls; he's like me, more. That's what makes us so fondof each other; it's a kind of personal vanity. But he has his goodpoints, Dan has. He's very amiable, and I was too, at his age--and tillI came here. But I'm not going to tell you of his good points; I daresay you've found them out. I'll tell you about his bad ones. He saysyou're very serious. Are you?" She pressed the girl's hand, which shehad kept in hers, and regarded her keenly. Alice dropped her eyes at the odd question. "I don't know, " shefaltered. "Sometimes. " "Well, that's good. Dan's frivolous. " "Oh, sometimes--only sometimes!" he interposed. "He's frivolous, and he's very light-minded; but he's none the worse forthat. " "Oh, thank you, " said Dan; and Alice, still puzzled, laughedprovisionally. "No; I want you to understand that. He's light-hearted too, and that'sa great thing in this world. If you're serious you'll be apt to beheavyhearted, and then you'll find Dan of use. And I hope he'll knowhow, to turn your seriousness to account too, he needs something to keephim down--to keep him from blowing away. Yes, it's very well for peopleto be opposites. Only they must understand each other, If they do that, then they get along. Light-heartedness or heavy-heartedness comes to thesame thing if they know how to use it for each other. You see, I'vegot to be a great philosopher lying here; nobody dares contradict meor interrupt me when I'm constructing my theories, and so I get themperfect. " "I wish I could hear them all, " said Alice, with sincerity that madeMrs. Mavering laugh as light-heartedly as Dan himself, and that seemedto suggest the nest thing to her. "You can for the asking, almost any time. Are you a very truthfulperson, my dear? Don't take the trouble to deny it if you are, " sheadded, at Alice's stare. "You see, I'm not at all conventional andyou needn't be. Come! tell the truth for once, at any rate. Are youhabitually truthful?" "Yes, I think I am, " said Alice, still staring. "Dan's not, " said his mother quietly. "Oh, see here, now, mother! Don't give me away!" "He'll tell the truth in extremity, of course, and he'll tell it if it'spleasant, always; but if you don't expect much more of him you won't bedisappointed; and you can make him of great use. " "You see where I got it, anyway, Alice, " said Dan, laughing across thebed at her. "Yes, you got it from me: I own it. A great part of my life was made upof making life pleasant to others by fibbing. I stopped it when I camehere. " "Oh, not altogether, mother!" urged her son. "You mustn't be too hard onyourself. " She ignored his interruption: "You'll find Dan a great convenience withthat agreeable habit of his. You can get him to make all your verbalexcuses for you (he'll, do it beautifully), and dictate all the thousandand one little lying notes you'll have to write; he won't mind it in theleast, and it will save you a great wear-and-tear of conscience. " "Go on, mother, go on, " said Dan, with delighted eyes, that asked ofAlice if it were not all perfectly charming. "And you can come in with your habitual truthfulness where Dan wouldn'tknow what to do, poor fellow. You'll have the moral courage to comeright to the point when he would like to shillyshally, and you can befrank while he's trying to think how to make y-e-s spell no. " "Any other little compliments, mother?" suggested Dan. "No, " said Mrs. Mavering; "that's all. I thought I'd better have it offmy mind; I knew you'd never get it off yours, and Alice had betterknow the worst. It is the worst, my dear, and if I talked of him tilldoomsday I couldn't say any more harm of him. I needn't tell you howsweet he is; you know that, I'm sure; but you can't know yet how gentleand forbearing he is, how patient, how full of kindness to every livingsoul, how unselfish, how--" She lost her voice. "Oh, come now, mother, " Dan protested huskily. Alice did not say anything; she bent over, without repugnance, andgathered the shadowy shape into her strong young arms, and kissed thewasted face whose unearthly coolness was like the leaf of a floweragainst her lips. "He never gave me a moment's trouble, " said themother, "and I'm sure he'll make you happy. How kind of you not to beafraid of me--" "Afraid!" cried the girl, with passionate solemnity. "I shall never feelsafe away from you!" The door opened upon the sound of voices, and the others came in. Mrs. Pasmer did not wait for an introduction, but with an affectationof impulse which she felt Mrs. Mavering would penetrate and respect, shewent up to the bed and presented herself. Dan's mother smiled hospitablyupon her, and they had some playful words about their children. Mrs. Pasmer neatly conveyed the regrets of her husband, who had hoped up tothe last moment that the heavy cold he had taken would let him come withher; and the invalid made her guest sit down on the right hand of herbed, which seemed to be the place of honour, while her husband tookDan's place on the left, and admired his wife's skill in fence. At theend of her encounter with Mrs. Pasmer she called out with her strongvoice, "Why don't you get your banjo, Molly, and play something?" "A banjo? Oh, do!" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "It's so picturesque andinteresting! I heard that young ladies had taken it up, and I shouldso like to hear it!" She had turned to Mrs. Mavering again, and she nowbeamed winningly upon her. Alice regarded the girl with a puzzled frown as she brought her banjo infrom another room and sat down with it. She relaxed the severity of herstare a little as Molly played one wild air after another, singing someof them with an evidence of training in her naive effectiveness. Therewere some Mexican songs which she had learned in a late visit to theircountry, and some Creole melodies caught up in a winter's sojourn toLouisiana. The elder sister accompanied her on the piano, not withthe hard, resolute proficiency which one might have expected of EuniceMavering, but with a sympathy which was perhaps the expression of hershare of the family kindliness. "Your children seem to have been everywhere, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with asigh of flattering envy. "Oh, you're not going to stop!" she pleaded, turning from Mrs. Mavering to Molly. "I think Dan had better do the rheumatic uncle now, " said Eunice, fromthe piano. "Oh yes! the rheumatic uncle--do, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "We know therheumatic uncle, " she added, with a glance at Alice. Dan looked at hertoo, as if doubtful of her approval; and then he told in character aYankee story which he had worked up from the talk of his friend theforeman. It made them all laugh. Mrs. Pasmer was the gayest; she let herself go, and throughout theevening she flattered right and left, and said, in her good-night toMrs. Mavering, that she had never imagined so delightful a time. "OMrs. Mavering, I don't wonder your children love their home. It's arevelation. " XXXIV. "She's a cat, Dan, " said his mother quietly, and not without liking, when he looked in for his goodnight kiss after the rest were gone; "aperfect tabby. But your Alice is sublime. " "O mother--" "She's a little too sublime for me. But you're young, and you can standit. " Dan laughed with delight. "Yes, I think I can, mother. All I ask is thechance. " "Oh, you're very much in love, both of you; there's no doubt aboutthat. What I mean is that she's very high strung, very intense. She hasideals--any one can see that. " Dan took it all for praise. "Yes, " he said eagerly, "that's what I toldyou. And that will be the best thing about it for me. I have no ideals. " "Well, you must find out what hers are, and live up to them. " "Oh, there won't be any trouble about that, " said Dan buoyantly. "You must help her to find them out too. " He looked puzzled. "Youmustn't expect the child to be too definite at first, nor to be alwaysright, even when she's full of ideals. You must be very patient withher, Dan. " "Oh, I will, mother! You know that. How could I ever be impatient withAlice?" "Very forbearing, and very kind, and indefatigably forgiving. Ask yourfather how to behave. " Dan promised to do so, with a laugh at the joke. It had never occurredto him that his father was particularly exemplary in these things, or that his mother idolised him for what seemed to Dan simply amatter-of-course endurance of her sick whims and freaks and moods. Hebroke forth into a vehement protest of his good intentions, to which hismother did not seem very attentive. After a while she asked-- "Is she always so silent, Dan?" "Well, not with me, mother. Of course she was a little embarrassed; shedidn't know exactly what to say, I suppose--" "Oh, I rather liked that. At least she isn't a rattle-pate. And we shallget acquainted; we shall like each other. She will understand me whenyou bring her home here to live with us, and--" "Yes, " said Dan, rising rather hastily, and stooping over to his mother. "I'm not going to let you talk any more now, or we shall have to sufferfor it to-morrow night. " He got gaily away before his mother could amplify a suggestion whichspoiled a little of his pleasure in the praises--he thought they wereunqualified and enthusiastic praises--she had been heaping upon Alice. He wished to go to bed with them all sweet and unalloyed in his thought, to sleep, to dream upon his perfect triumph. Mrs. Pasmer was a long time in undressing, and in calming down afterthe demands which the different events of the evening had made upon herresources. "It has certainly been a very mixed evening, Alice, " she said, as shetook the pins out of her back hair and let it fall; and she continued totalk as she went back and forth between their rooms. "What do you thinkof banjo-playing for young ladies? Isn't it rather rowdy? Decidedlyrowdy, I think. And Dan's Yankee story! I expected to see the oldgentleman get up and perform some trick. " "I suppose they do it to amuse Mrs. Mavering, " said Alice, with colddispleasure. "Oh, it's quite right, " tittered Mrs. Pasmer. "It would be as much astheir lives are worth if they didn't. You can see that she rules themwith a rod of iron. What a will! I'm glad you're not going to comeunder her sway; I really think you couldn't be safe from her in thesame hemisphere; it's well you're going abroad at once. They're a veryself-concentrated family, don't you think--very self-satisfied? Ofcourse that's the danger of living off by themselves as they do: theyget to thinking there's nobody else in the world. You would simply beabsorbed by them: it's a hair-breadth escape. "How splendidly Dan contrasts with the others! Oh, he's delightful;he's a man of the world. Give me the world, after all! And he's soconsiderate of their rustic conceit! What a house! It's perfectlybaronial--and ridiculous. In any other country it would meansomething--society, entertainments, troops of guests; but here itdoesn't mean anything but money. Not that money isn't a very good thing;I wish we had more of it. But now you see how very little it can do byitself. You looked very well, Alice, and behaved with great dignity;perhaps too much. You ought to enter a little more into the spiritof things, even if you don't respect them. That oldest girl isn'tparticularly pleased, I fancy, though it doesn't matter really. " Alice replied to her mother from time to time with absent Yeses andNoes; she sat by the window looking out on the hillside lawn before thehouse; the moon had risen, and poured a flood of snowy light over it, inwhich the cold statues dimly shone, and the firs, in clumps and singly, blackened with an inky solidity. Beyond wandered the hills, their barepasturage broken here and there by blotches of woodland. After her mother had gone to bed she turned her light down and resumedher seat by the window, pressing her hot forehead against the pane, andlosing all sense of the scene without in the whirl of her thoughts. After this, evening of gay welcome in Dan's family, and those momentsof tenderness with him, her heart was troubled. She now realised herengagement as something exterior to herself and her own family, andconfronted for the first time its responsibilities, its ties, and itsclaims. It was not enough to be everything to Dan; she could not bethat unless she were something to his family. She did not realise thisvividly, but with the remoteness which all verities except those ofsensation have for youth. Her uneasiness was full of exultation, of triumph; she knew she had beenadmired by Dan's family, and she experienced the sweetness of havingpleased them for his sake; his happy eyes shone before her; but she wastouched in her self-love by what her mother had coarsely characterisedin them. They had regarded her liking them as a matter of course; hismother had ignored her even in pretending to decry Dan to her. But againthis was very remote, very momentary. It was no nearer, no more lastingon the surface of her happiness, than the flying whiff's of thin cloudthat chased across the moon and lost themselves in the vast blue aroundit. XXXV. People came to the first of Mrs. James Bellingham's receptions withthe expectation of pleasure which the earlier receptions of the seasonawaken even in the oldest and wisest. But they tried to dissemble theireagerness in a fashionable tardiness. "We get later and later, " saidMrs. Brinkley to John Munt, as she sat watching the slow gathering ofthe crowd. By half-past eleven it had not yet hidden Mrs. Bellingham, where she stood near the middle of the room, from the pleasant cornerthey had found after accidentally arriving together. Mr. Brinkley hadnot come; he said he might not be too old for receptions, but he was toogood; in either case he preferred to stay at home. "We used to comeat nine o'clock, and now we come at I'm getting into a quotation fromMother Goose, I think. " "I thought it was Browning, " said Munt, with his witticism manner. Neither he nor Mrs. Brinkley was particularly glad to be together, butat Mrs. James Bellingham's it was well not to fling any companionshipaway till you were sure of something else. Besides, Mrs. Brinkley wasindolent and good-natured, and Munt was active and good-natured, andthey were well fitted to get on for ten or fifteen minutes. While theytalked she kept an eye out for other acquaintance, and he stood alert toescape at the first chance. "How is it we are here so early--or ratheryou are?" she pursued irrelevantly. "Oh, I don't know, " said Munt, accepting the implication of his superiorfashion with pleasure. "I never mind being among the first. It's ratherinteresting to see people come in--don't you think?" "That depends a good deal on the people. I don't find a great variety intheir smirks and smiles to Mrs. Bellingham; I seem to be doing them allmyself. And there's a monotony about their apprehension and helplessnesswhen they're turned adrift that's altogether too much like my own. No, Mr. Munt, I can't agree with you that it's interesting to see peoplecome in. It's altogether too autobiographical. What else have you tosuggest?" "I'm afraid I'm at the end of my string, " said Munt. "I suppose we shallsee the Pasmers and young Mavering here to-night. " Mrs. Brinkley turned and looked sharply at him. "You've heard of the engagement?" he asked. "No, decidedly, I haven't. And after his flight from Campobello it's thelast thing I expected to hear of. When did it come out?" "Only within a few days. They've been keeping it rather quiet. Mrs. Pasmer told me herself. " Mrs. Brinkley gave herself a moment for reflection. "Well, if he canstand it, I suppose I can. " "That isn't exactly what people are saying to Mrs. Pasmer, Mrs. Brinkley, " suggested Munt, with his humorous manner. "I dare say they're trying to make her believe that her daughter issacrificed. That's the way. But she knows better. " "There's no doubt but she's informed herself. She put me through mycatechism about the Maverings the day of the picnic down there. " "Do you know them?" "Bridge Mavering and I were at Harvard together. " "Tell me about them. " Mrs. Brinkley listened to Munt's praises of hisold friend with an attention superficially divided with the people towhom she bowed and smiled. The room was filling up. "Well, " she said atthe end, "he's a sweet young fellow. I hope he likes his Pasmers. " "I guess there's no doubt about his liking one of them--the principalone. " "Yes, if she is the principal one. " There was an implication ineverything she said that Dan Mavering had been hoodwinked by Mrs. Pasmer. Mature ladies always like to imply something of the sort inthese cases. They like to ignore the prime agency of youth and love, andpretend that marriage is a game that parents play at with us, as ifwe were in an old comedy; it is a tradition. "Will he take her home tolive?" "No. I heard that they're all going abroad--for a year, or two atleast. " "Ah! I thought so, " cried Mrs. Brinkley. She looked up with whimsicalpleasure in the uncertainty of an old gentleman who is staring hard ather through his glasses. "Well, " she said with a pleasant sharpness, "doyou make me out?" "As nearly as my belief in your wisdom will allow, " said the oldgentleman, as distinctly as his long white moustache and an apparentabsence of teeth behind it would let him. John Munt had eagerlyabandoned the seat he was keeping at Mrs. Brinkley's side, and hadlaunched himself into the thickening crowd. The old gentleman, who waslank and tall, folded himself down into it, He continued as tranquillyas if seated quite alone with Mrs. Brinkley, and not minding that hisvoice, with the senile crow in it, made itself heard by others. "I'malways surprised to find sensible people at these things of Jane's. They're most extraordinary things. Jane's idea of society is to turn aherd of human beings loose in her house, and see what will come of it. She has no more sense of hospitality or responsibility than the Elementsor Divine Providence. You may come here and have a good time--if youcan get it; she won't object; or you may die of solitude and inanition;she'd never know it. I don't know but it's rather sublime in her. It'slike the indifference of fate; but it's rather rough on those who don'tunderstand it. She likes to see her rooms filled with pretty dresses, but she has no social instincts and no social inspiration whatever. She lights and heats and feeds her guests, and then she leaves them tothemselves. She's a kind woman--Jane is a very good-natured woman, and Ireally think she'd be grieved if she thought any one went away unhappy, but she does nothing to make them at home in her house--absolutelynothing. " "Perhaps she does all they deserve for them. I don't know that any oneacquires merit by coming to an evening party; and it's impossible to bepersonally hospitable to everybody in such a crowd. " "Yes, I've sometimes taken that view of it. And yet if you ask astranger to your house, you establish a tacit understanding with himthat you won't forget him after you have him there. I like to go aboutand note the mystification of strangers who've come here with somenotion of a little attention. It's delightfully poignant; I suffer withthem; it's a cheap luxury of woe; I follow them through all the turnsand windings of their experience. Of course the theory is that, beingturned loose here with the rest, they may speak to anybody; but the factis, they can't. Sometimes I should like to hail some of these unfriendedspirits, but I haven't the courage. I'm not individually bashful, but Ihave a thousand years of Anglo-Saxon civilisation behind me. There oughtto be policemen, to show strangers about and be kind to them. I've justseen two pretty women cast away in a corner, and clinging to a smallwater-colour on the wall with a show of interest that would melt a heartof stone. Why do you come, Mrs. Brinkley? I should like to know. You'renot obliged to. " "No, " said Mrs. Brinkley, lowering her voice instinctively, as if tobring his down. "I suppose I come from force of habit I've been coming along time, you know. Why do you come?" "Because I can't sleep. If I could sleep, I should be at home in bed. "A weariness came into his thin face and dim eyes that was pathetic, and passed into a whimsical sarcasm. "I'm not one of the great leisureclass, you know, that voluntarily turns night into day. Do you know whatI go about saying now?" "Something amusing, I suppose. " "You'd better not be so sure of that. I've discovered a fact, or ratherI've formulated an old one. I've always been troubled how to classifypeople here, there are so many exceptions; and I've ended by broadlygeneralising them as women and men. " Mrs. Brinkley was certainly amused at this. "It seems to me that thereyou've been anticipated by nature--not to mention art. " "Oh, not in my particular view. The women in America represent thearistocracy which exists everywhere else in both sexes. You are born tothe patrician leisure; you have the accomplishments and the clothesand manners and ideals; and we men are a natural commonalty, born tobusiness, to newspapers, to cigars, and horses. This natural femalearistocracy of ours establishes the forms, usages, places, and times ofsociety. The epicene aristocracies of other countries turn night intoday in their social pleasures, and our noblesse sympathetically followstheir example. You ladies, who can lie till noon next day, come toJane's reception at eleven o'clock, and you drag along with you a herdof us brokers, bankers, merchants, lawyers, and doctors, who must be atour offices and counting-rooms before nine in the morning. The hours ofus work-people are regulated by the wholesome industries of thegreat democracy which we're a part of; and the hours of our wives anddaughters by the deleterious pleasures of the Old World aristocracy. That's the reason we're not all at home in bed. " "I thought you were not at home in bed because you couldn't sleep. " "I know it. And you've no idea how horrible a bed is that you can'tsleep in. " The old man's voice broke in a tremor. "Ah, it's a bed oftorture! I spend many a wicked hour in mine, envying St. Lawrence hisgridiron. But what do you think of my theory?" "It's a very pretty theory. My only objection to it is that it's tooflattering. You know I rather prefer to abuse my sex; and to be set upas a natural aristocracy--I don't know that I can quite agree tothat, even to account satisfactorily for being at your sister-in-law'sreception. " "You're too modest, Mrs. Brinkley. " "No, really. There ought to be some men among us--men without morrows. Now, why don't you and my husband set an example to your sex? Why don'tyou relax your severe sense of duty? Why need you insist upon being atyour offices every morning at nine? Why don't you fling off these habitsof lifelong industry, and be gracefully indolent in the interest of thehigher civilisation?" Bromfield Corey looked round at her with a smile of relish for hersatire. Her husband was a notoriously lazy man, who had chosen to liverestrictedly upon an inherited property rather than increase it by thesmallest exertion. "Do you think we could get Andy Pasmer to join us?" "No, I can't encourage you with that idea. You must get on without Mr. Pasmer; he's going back to Europe with his son-in-law. " "Do you mean that their girl's married?" "No-engaged. It's just out. " "Well, I must say Mrs. Pasmer has made use of her time. " He too liked toimply that it was all an effect of her manoeuvring, and that the youngpeople had nothing to do with it; this survival from European fictiondies hard. "Who is the young man?" Mrs. Brinkley gave him an account of Dan Mavering as she had seen him atCampobello, and of his family as she just heard of them. "Mr. Munt wastelling me about them as you came up. " "Why, was that John Munt?" "Yes; didn't you know him?" "No, " said Corey sadly. "I don't know anybody nowadays. I seem to begoing to pieces every way. I don't call sixty-nine such a very greatage. " "Not at all!" cried Mrs. Brinkley. "I'm fifty-four myself, andBrinkley's sixty. " "But I feel a thousand years old. I don't see people, and when I do Idon't know 'em. My head's in a cloud. " He let it hang heavily; thenhe lifted it, and said: "He's a nice, comfortable fellow, Munt is. Whydidn't he stop and talk a bit?" "Well, Munt's modest, you know; and I suppose he thought he might be thethird that makes company a crowd. Besides, nobody stops and talks a bitat these things. They're afraid of boring or being bored. " "Yes, they're all in as unnatural a mood as if they were posing for aphotograph. I wonder who invented this sort of thing? Do you know, " saidthe old man, "that I think it's rather worse with us than with any otherpeople? We're a simple, sincere folk, domestic in our instincts, notgregarious or frivolous in any way; and when we're wrenched awayfrom our firesides, and packed in our best clothes into Jane's gildedsaloons, we feel vindictive; we feel wicked. When the Boston beingabandons himself--or herself--to fashion, she suffers a depravation intosomething quite lurid. She has a bad conscience, and she hardens herheart with talk that's tremendously cynical. It's amusing, " said Corey, staring round him purblindly at the groups and files of people surgingand eddying past the corner where he sat with Mrs. Brinkley. "No; it's shocking, " said his companion. "At any rate, you mustn't saysuch things, even if you think them. I can't let you go too far, youknow. These young people think it heavenly, here. " She took with him the tone that elderly people use with those older thanthemselves who have begun to break; there were authority and patronagein it. At the bottom of her heart she thought that Bromfield Coreyshould not have been allowed to come; but she determined to keep himsafe and harmless as far as she could. From time to time the crowd was a stationary mass in front of them; thenit dissolved and flowed away, to gather anew; there were moments whenthe floor near them was quite vacant; then it was inundated again withsilken trains. From another part of the house came the sound of music, and most of the young people who passed went two and two, as if theywere partners in the dance, and had come out of the ball-room betweendances. There was a good deal of nervous talk, politely subdued amongthem; but it was not the note of unearthly rapture which Mrs. Brinkley'sconventional claim had implied; it was self-interested, eager, anxious;and was probably not different from the voice of good society anywhere. XXXVI. "Why, there's Dan Mavering now!" said Mrs. Brinkley, rather to herselfthan to her companion. "And alone!" Dan's face showed above most of the heads and shoulders about him; itwas flushed, and looked troubled and excited. He caught sight of Mrs. Brinkley, and his eyes brightened joyfully. He slipped quickly throughthe crowd, and bowed over her hand, while he stammered out, withoutgiving her a chance for reply till the end: "O Mrs. Brinkley, I'm soglad to see you! I'm going--I want to ask a great favour of you, Mrs. Brinkley. I want to bring--I want to introduce some friends of mine toyou--some ladies, Mrs. Brinkley; very nice people I met last summer atPortland. Their father--General Wrayne--has been building some railroadsdown East, and they're very nice people; but they don't know anyone--any ladies--and they've been looking at the pictures ever sincethey came. They're very good pictures; but it isn't an exhibition!" Hebroke down with a laugh. "Why, of course, Mr. Mavering; I shall be delighted, " said Mrs. Brinkley, with a hospitality rendered reckless by her sympathy with theyoung fellow. "By all means!" "Oh; thanks!--thank you aver so much!" said Dan. "I'll bring them toyou--they'll understand!" He slipped into the crowd again. Corey made an offer of going. Mrs. Brinkley stopped him with her fan. "No--stay, Mr. Corey. Unless you wish to go. I fancy it's the people youwere talking about, and you must help me through with them. " "I ask nothing better, " said the old man, unresentful of Dan's havingnot even seemed to see him, in his generous preoccupation. "I shouldlike to see how you'll get on, and perhaps I can be of use. " "Of course you can--the greatest. " "But why hasn't he introduced them to his Pasmers? What? Eh? Oh!"Corey made these utterances in response to a sharper pressure of Mrs. Brinkley's fan on his arm. Dan was opening a way through the crowd before them for two ladies, whomhe now introduced. "Mrs. Frobisher, Mrs. Brinkley; and Miss Wrayne. " Mrs. Brinkley cordially gave her hand to the ladies, and said, "May Iintroduce Mr. Corey? Mr. Mavering, let me introduce you to Mr. Corey. "The old man rose and stood with the little group. Dan's face shone with flattered pride and joyous triumph. He bubbledout some happy incoherencies about the honour and pleasure, while at thesame time he beamed with tender gratitude upon Mrs. Brinkley, who wasbehaving with a gracious, humorous kindliness to the aliens cast uponher mercies. Mrs. Frobisher, after a half-hour of Boston society, was not that presence of easy gaiety which crossed Dan's path on thePortland pavement the morning of his arrival from Campobello; but shewas still a handsome, effective woman, of whom you would have hesitatedto say whether she was showy or distinguished. Perhaps she was a littleof both, with an air of command bred of supremacy in frontier garrisons;her sister was like her in the way that a young girl may be like a youngmatron. They blossomed alike in the genial atmosphere of Mrs. Brinkleyand of Mr. Corey. He began at once to make bantering speeches with themboth. The friendliness of an old man and a stout elderly woman might nothave been their ideal of success at an evening party, used as they wereto the unstinted homage of young captains and lieutenants, but a briefexperience of Mrs. Bellingham's hospitality must have taught themhumility; and when a stout, elderly gentleman, whose baldness was stilltrying to be blond, joined the group, the spectacle was not withoutits points of resemblance to a social ovation. Perhaps it was a Bostonsocial ovation. "Hallo, Corey!" said this stout gentleman, whom Mrs. Brinkley at onceintroduced as Mr. Bellingham, and whose salutation Corey returned with"Hallo, Charles!" of equal intimacy. Mr. Bellingham caught at the name of Frobisher. "Mrs. Major DickFrobisher?" "Mrs. Colonel now, but Dick always, " said the lady, with immediatecomradery. "Do you know my husband?" "I should think so!" said Bellingham; and a talk of common interestand mutual reminiscence sprang up between them. Bellingham graphicallydepicted his meeting with Colonel Frobisher the last time he was out onthe Plains, and Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne discovered to their greatsatisfaction that he was the brother of Mrs. Stephen Blake, of Omaba, who had come out to the fort once with her husband, and capturedthe garrison, as they said. Mrs. Frobisher accounted for her presentseparation from her husband, and said she had come on for a while to bewith her father and sister, who both needed more looking after than theIndians. Her father had left the army, and was building railroads. Miss Wrayne, when she was not appealed to for confirmation orrecollection by her sister, was having a lively talk with Corey and Mrs. Brinkley; she seemed to enter into their humour; and no one paid muchattention to Dan Mavering. He hung upon the outskirts of the littlegroup; proffering unrequited sympathy and applause; and at last hemurmured something about having to go back to some friends, and tookhimself off. Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne let him go with a certainshade--the lightest, and yet evident--of not wholly satisfied pique:women know how to accept a reparation on account, and without giving areceipt in full. Mrs. Brinkley gave him her hand with an effect of compassionateintelligence and appreciation of the sacrifice he must have made inleaving Alice. "May I congratulate you?" she murmured. "Oh yes, indeed; thank you, Mrs. Brinkley, " he gushed tremulously; andhe pressed her hand hard, and clung to it, as if he would like to takeher with him. Neither of the older men noticed his going. They were both takenin their elderly way with these two handsome young women, and theyprofessed regret--Bellingham that his mother was not there, and Coreythat neither his wife nor daughters had come, whom they might otherwisehave introduced. They did not offer to share their acquaintance with anyone else, but they made the most of it themselves, as if knowing a goodthing when they had it. Their devotion to Mrs. Frobisher and her sisterheightened the curiosity of such people as noticed it, but it wouldbe wrong to say that it moved any in that self-limited company with astrong wish to know the ladies. The time comes to every man, no matterhow great a power he may be in society, when the general social opinionretires him for senility, and this time had come for Bromfield Corey. Hecould no longer make or mar any success; and Charles Bellingham was sonotoriously amiable, so deeply compromised by his inveterate habitof liking nearly every one, that his notice could not distinguish oradvantage a newcomer. He and Corey took the ladies down to supper. Mrs. Brinkley saw themthere together, and a little later she saw old Corey wander off;forgetful of Miss Wrayne. She saw Dan Mavering, but not the Pasmers, andthen, when Corey forgot Miss Wrayne, she saw Dan, forlorn and bewilderedlooking, approach the girl, and offer her his arm for the return to thedrawing-room; she took it with a bright, cold smile, making white ringsof ironical deprecation around the pupils of her eyes. "What is that poor boy doing, I wonder?" said Mrs. Brinkley to herself. XXXVII. The next morning Dan Mavering knocked at Boardman's door before thereporter was up. This might have been any time before one o'clock, butit was really at half-past nine. Boardman wanted to know who was there, and when Mavering had said it was he, Boardman seemed to ponder thefact awhile before Mavering heard him getting out of bed and comingbarefooted to the door. He unlocked it, and got back into bed; then hecalled out, "Come in, " and Mavering pushed the door open impatiently. But he stood blank and silent, looking helplessly at his friend. A strong glare of winter light came in through the naked sash--forBoardman apparently not only did not close his window-blinds, but didnot pull down his curtains, when he went to bed--and shone upon hisgay, shrewd face where he lay, showing his pop-corn teeth in a smile atMavering. "Prefer to stand?" he asked by and by, after Mavering had remainedstanding in silence, with no signs of proposing to sit down or speak. Mavering glanced at the only chair in the room: Boardman's clothesdripped and dangled over it. "Throw 'em on the bed, " he said, followingMavering's glance. "I'll take the bed myself, " said Mavering; and he sat down on the sideof it, and was again suggestively silent. Boardman moved his head on the pillow, as he watched Mavering's face, with the agreeable sense of personal security which we all feel inviewing trouble from the outside: "You seem balled up about something. " Mavering sighed heavily. "Balled up? It's no word for it. Boardman, I'm done for. Yesterday I was the happiest fellow in the world, andnow--Yes, it's all over with me, and it's my own fault, as usual. Look;at that!" He jerked Boardman a note which he had been holding fastin his band, and got up and went to look himself at the wide range ofchimney-pots and slated roofs which Boardman's dormer-window commanded. "Want me to read it?" Boardman asked; and Mavering nodded withoutglancing round. It dispersed through the air of Boardman's room, as heunfolded it, a thin, elect perfume, like a feminine presence, refinedand strict; and Boardman involuntarily passed his hand over his rumpledhair, as if to make himself a little more personable before reading theletter. "DEAR MR. MAVERING, --I enclose the ring you gave me the other day, andI release you from the promise you gave with it. I am convinced that youwronged yourself in offering either without your whole heart, and I caretoo much for your happiness to let you persist in your sacrifice. "In begging that you will not uselessly attempt to see me, but that youwill consider this note final, I know you will do me the justice notto attribute an ungenerous motive to me. I shall rejoice to hear of anygood that may befall you; and I shall try not to envy any one throughwhom it comes. --Yours sincerely, " "ALICE PASMER. "P. S. --I say nothing of circumstances or of persons; I feel that anycomment of mine upon them would be idle. " Mavering looked up at the sound Boardman made in refolding the letter. Boardman grinned, with sparkling eyes. "Pretty neat, " he said. "Pretty infernally neat, " roared Mavering. "Do you suppose she means business?" "Of course she means business. Why shouldn't she?" "I don't know. Why should she?" "Well, I'll tell you, Boardman. I suppose I shall have to tell you ifI'm going to get any good out of you; but it's a dose. " He came awayfrom the window, and swept Boardman's clothes off the chair preparatoryto taking it. Boardman lifted his head nervously from the pillow. "Oh; I'll put them on the bed, if you're so punctilious!" criedMavering. "I don't mind the clothes, " said Boardman. "I thought I heard my watchknock on the floor in my vest pocket. Just take it out, will you, andsee if you've stopped it?" "Oh, confound your old Waterbury! All the world's stopped; why shouldn'tyour watch stop too?" Mavering tugged it out of the pocket, and thenshoved it back disdainfully. "You couldn't stop that thing with anythingshort of a sledgehammer; it's rattling away like a mowing-machine. Youknow those Portland women--those ladies I spent the day with when youwere down there at the regatta--the day I came from Campobello--Mrs. Frobisher and her sister?" He agglutinated one query to another till hesaw a light of intelligence dawn in Boardman's eye. "Well, they're atthe bottom of it, I suppose. I was introduced to them on Class Day, andI ought to have shown them some attention there; but the moment I sawAlice--Miss Pasmer--I forgot all about 'em. But they didn't seem to havenoticed it much, and I made it all right with 'em that day at Portland;and they came up in the fall, and I made an appointment with them todrive out to Cambridge and show them the place. They were to take meup at the Art Museum; but that was the day I met Miss Pasmer, and I--Iforgot about those women again. " Boardman was one of those who seldom laugh; but his grin expressedall the malicious enjoyment he felt. He said nothing in the impressivesilence which Mavering let follow at this point. "Oh, you think it was funny?" cried Mavering. "I thought it was funnytoo; but Alice herself opened my eyes to what I'd done, and I alwaysintended to make it all right with them when I got the chance. Isupposed she wished me too. " Boardman grinned afresh. "She told me I must; though she seemed to dislike my having been withthem the day after she'd thrown me over. But if"--Mavering interruptedhimself to say, as the grin widened on Boardman's face--"if you thinkit was any case of vulgar jealousy, you're very much mistaken, Boardman. She isn't capable of it, and she was so magnanimous about it that I madeup my mind to do all I could to retrieve myself. I felt that it was myduty to her. Well, last night at Mrs. Jim Bellingham's reception--" A look of professional interest replaced the derision in Boardman'seyes. "Any particular occasion for the reception? Given in honour ofanybody?" "I'll contribute to your society notes some other time, Boardman, " saidMavering haughtily. "I'm speaking to a friend, not an interviewer. Well, whom should I see after the first waltz--I'd been dancing with Alice, and we were taking a turn through the drawing-room, and she hangingon my arm, and I knew everybody saw how it was, and I was feelingwell--whom should I see but these women. They were in a corner bythemselves, looking at a picture, and trying to look as if they weredoing it voluntarily. But I could see at a glance that they didn'tknow anybody; and I knew they had better be in the heart of theSahara without acquaintances than where they were; and when they bowedforlornly across the room to me, my heart was in my mouth, I felt sosorry for them; and I told Alice who they were; and I supposed she'dwant to rush right over to them with me--" "And did she rush?" asked Boardman, filling up a pause which Maveringmade in wiping his face. "How infernally hot you have it in here!" He went to the window andthrew it up; and then did not sit down again, but continued to walk backand forth as he talked. "She didn't seem to know who they were at first, and when I made her understand she hung back, and said, 'Those showythings?' and I must say I think she was wrong; they were dressed asquietly as nine-tenths of the people there; only they are rather large, handsome women. I said I thought we ought to go and speak to them, they seemed stranded there; but she didn't seem to see it; and, whenI persisted, she said, 'Well, you go if you think best; but take me tomamma. ' And I supposed it was all right; and I told Mrs. Pasmer I'dbe back in a minute, and then I went off to those women. And after I'dtalked with them a while I saw Mrs. Brinkley sitting with old BromfieldCorey in another corner, and I got them across and introduced them;after I'd explained to Mrs. Brinkley who they were; and they began tohave a good time, and I--didn't. " "Just so, " said Boardman. "I thought I hadn't been gone any while at all from Alice; but theweather had changed by the time I had got back. Alice was prettyserious, and she was engaged two or three dances deep; and I could seeher looking over the fellows' shoulders, as she went round and round, pretty pale. I hung about till she was free; but then she couldn't dancewith me; she said her head ached, and she made her mother take her homebefore supper; and I mooned round like my own ghost a while, and thenI went home. And as if that wasn't enough, I could see by the looks ofthose other women--old Corey forgot Miss Wrayne in the supper-room, andI had to take her back--that I hadn't made it right with them, even;they were as hard and smooth as glass. I'd ruined myself, and ruinedmyself for nothing. " Mavering flung Boardman's chair over, and seated himself on its rungs. "I went to bed, and waited for the next thing to happen. I found mythunderbolt waiting for me when I woke up. I didn't know what it wasgoing to be, but when I felt a ring through the envelope of that note Iknew what it was. I mind-read that note before I opened it. " "Give it to the Society for Psychical Research, " suggested Boardman. "Been to breakfast?" "Breakfast!" echoed Mavering. "Well, now, Boardman, what use do yousuppose I've got for breakfast under the circumstances?" "Well, not very much; but your story's made me pretty hungry. Would youmind turning your back, or going out and sitting on the top step of thestairs' landing, or something, while I get up and dress?" "Oh, I can go, if you want to get rid of me, " said Mavering, withunresentful sadness. "But I hoped you might have something to suggest, Boardy. ' "Well, I've suggested two things, and you don't like either. Why not goround and ask to see the old lady?" "Mrs. Pasmer?" "Yes. " "Well, I thought of that. But I didn't like to mention it, for fearyou'd sit on it. When would you go?" "Well, about as quick as I could get there. It's early for a call, butit's a peculiar occasion, and it'll show your interest in the thing. Youcan't very well let it cool on your hands, unless you mean to accept thesituation. " "What do you mean?" demanded Mavering, getting up and standing overBoardman. "Do you think I could accept the situation, as you call it, and live?" "You did once, " said Boardman. "You couldn't, unless you could fix it upwith Mrs. Frobisher's sister. " Mavering blushed. "It was a different thing altogether then. I couldhave broken off then, but I tell you it would kill me now. I've gotin too deep. My whole life's set on that girl. You can't understand, Boardman, because you've never been there; but I couldn't give her up. " "All right. Better go and see the old lady without loss of time; or theold man, if you prefer. " Mavering sat down on the edge of the bed again. "Look here, Boardman, what do you mean?" "By what?" "By being so confoundedly heartless. Did you suppose that I wanted topay those women any attention last night from an interested motive?" "Seems to have been Miss Pasmer's impression. " "Well, you're mistaken. She had no such impression. She would have toomuch self-respect, too much pride--magnanimity. She would know thatafter such a girl as she is I couldn't think of any other woman; thething is simply impossible. " "That's the theory. " "Theory? It's the practice!" "Certain exceptions. " "There's no exception in my case. No, sir! I tell you this thing is forall time--for eternity. It makes me or it mars me, once for all. She maylisten to me or she may not listen, but as long as she lives there's noother woman alive for me. " "Better go and tell her so. You're wasting your arguments on me. " "Why?" "Because I'm convinced already. Because people always marry their firstand only loves. Because people never marry twice for love. Because I'venever seen you hit before, and I know you never could be again. Now goand convince Miss Pasmer. She'll believe you, because she'll know thatshe can never care for any one but you, and you naturally can't care foranybody but her. It's a perfectly clear case. All you've got to do is toset it before her. " "If I were you, I wouldn't try to work that cynical racket, Boardman, "said Mavering. He rose, but he sighed drearily, and regarded Boardman'sgrin with lack-lustre absence. But he went away without saying anythingmore; and walked mechanically toward the Cavendish. As he rang at thedoor of Mrs. Pasmer's apartments he recalled another early visit he hadpaid there; he thought how joyful and exuberant he was then, and howcrushed and desperate now. He was not without youthful satisfaction inthe disparity of his different moods; it seemed to stamp him as a man oflarge and varied experience. XXXVIII. Mrs. Pasmer was genuinely surprised to see Mavering, and he pursued hisadvantage--if it was an advantage--by coming directly to the point. Hetook it for granted that she knew all about the matter, and he threwhimself upon her mercy without delay. "Mrs. Pasmer, you must help me about this business with Alice, " he brokeout at once. "I don't know what to make of it; but I know I can explainit. Of course, " he added, smiling ruefully, "the two statements don'thang together; but what I mean is that if I can find out what thetrouble is, I can make it all right, because there's nothing wrong aboutit; don't you see?" Mrs. Pasmer tried to keep the mystification out of her eye; but shecould not even succeed in seeming to do so, which she would have likedalmost as well. "Don't you know what I mean?" asked Dan. Mrs. Pasmer chanced it. "That Alice was a little out of sorts lastnight?" she queried leadingly. "Yes, " said Mavering fervently. "And about her--her writing to me. " "Writing to you?" Mrs. Pasmer was going to ask, when Dan gave her theletter. "I don't know whether I ought to show it, but I must. I must have yourhelp, and I can't, unless you understand the case. " Mrs. Pasmer had begun to read the note. It explained what the girlherself had refused to give any satisfactory reason for--her earlyretirement from the reception, her mysterious disappearance into her ownroom on reaching home, and her resolute silence on the way. Mrs. Pasmer had known that there must be some trouble with Dan, and she hadsuspected that Alice was vexed with him on account of those women;but it was beyond her cheerful imagination that she should go to suchlengths in her resentment. She could conceive of her wishing to punishhim, to retaliate her suffering on him; but to renounce him for itwas another thing; and she did not attribute to her daughter any othermotive than she would have felt herself. It was always this way withMrs. Pasmer: she followed her daughter accurately up to a certain point;beyond that she did not believe the girl knew herself what she meant;and perhaps she was not altogether wrong. Girlhood is often a turmoilof wild impulses, ignorant exaltations, mistaken ideals, which reallyrepresent no intelligent purpose, and come from disordered nerves, ill-advised reading, and the erroneous perspective of inexperience. Mrs. Pasmer felt this, and she was tempted to break into a laugh over Alice'sheroics; but she preferred to keep a serious countenance, partly becauseshe did not feel the least seriously. She was instantly resolved not tolet this letter accomplish anything more than Dan's temporary abasement, and she would have preferred to shorten this to the briefest momentpossible. She liked him, and she was convinced that Alice could never dobetter, if half so well. She would now have preferred to treat him withfamiliar confidence, to tell him that she had no idea of Alice's writinghim that nonsensical letter, and he was not to pay the least attentionto it; for of course it meant nothing; but another principle of hercomplex nature came into play, and she silently folded the note andreturned it to Dan, trembling before her. "Well?" he quavered. "Well, " returned Mrs. Pasmer judicially, while she enjoyed his tremor, whose needlessness inwardly amused her--"well, of course, Alice was--" "Annoyed, I know. And it was all my fault--or my misfortune. But Iassure you, Mrs. Pasmer, that I thought I was doing something that wouldplease her--in the highest and noblest way. Now don't you know I did?" Mrs. Pasmer again wished to laugh, but in the face of Dan's tragedyshe had to forbear. She contented herself with saying: "Of course. Butperhaps it wasn't the best time for pleasing her just in that way. " "It was then or never. I can see now--why, I could see all thetime--just how it might look; but I supposed Alice wouldn't carefor that, and if I hadn't tried to make some reparation then to Mrs. Frobisher and her sister, I never could. Don't you see?" "Yes, certainly. But--" "And Alice herself told me to go and look after them, " interposedMavering. He suppressed, a little uncandidly, the fact of her firstreluctance. "But you know it was the first time you had been out together?" "Yes. " "And naturally she would wish to have you a good deal to herself, or atleast not seeming to run after other people. " "Yes, yes; I know that. " "And no one ever likes to be taken at their word in a thing like that. " "I ought to have thought of that, but I didn't. I wish I had gone to youfirst, Mrs. Pasmer. Somehow it seems to me as if I were very young andinexperienced; I didn't use to feel so. I wish you were always on handto advise me, Mrs. Pasmer. " Dan hung his head, and his face, usually sogay, was blotted with gloom. "Will you take my advice now?" asked Mrs. Pasmer. "Indeed I will!" cried the young fellow, lifting his head. "What is it?" "See Alice about this. " Dan jumped to his feet, and the sunshine broke out over his face again. "Mrs. Pasmer, I promised to take your advice, and I'll do it. I will seeher. But how? Where? Let me have your advice on that point too. " They began to laugh together, and Dan was at once inexpressibly happy. Those two light natures thoroughly comprehended each other. Mrs. Pasmer had proposed his seeing Alice with due seriousness, butnow she had a longing to let herself go; she felt all the pleasure thatother people felt in doing Dan Mavering a pleasure, and something more, because he was so perfectly intelligible to her. She let herself go. "You might stay to breakfast. " "Mrs. Pasmer, I will--I will do that too. I'm awfully hungry, and I putmyself in your hands. " "Let me see, " said Mrs. Pasmer thoughtfully, "how it can be contrived. " "Yes;" said Mavering, ready for a panic. "How? She wouldn't stand asurprise?" "No; I had thought of that. " "No behind-a-screen or next-room business?" "No, " said Mrs. Pasmer, with a light sigh. "Alice is peculiar. I'mafraid she wouldn't like it. " "Isn't there any little ruse she would like?" "I can't think of any. Perhaps I'd better go and tell her you're hereand wish to see her. " "Do you think you'd better?" asked Dan doubtfully. "Perhaps she won'tcome. " "She will come, " said Mrs. Pasmer confidently. She did not say that she thought Alice would be curious to know why hehad come, and that she was too just to condemn him unheard. But she was right about the main point. Alice came, and Dan could seewith his own weary eyes that she had not slept either. She stopped just inside the portiere, and waited for him to speak. Buthe could not, though a smile from his sense of the absurdity of theirseriousness hovered about his lips. His first impulse was to rush uponher and catch her in his arms, and perhaps this might have been well, but the moment for it passed, and then it became impossible. "Well?" she said at last, lifting her head, and looking at him withimpassioned solemnity. "You wished to see me? I hoped you wouldn't. It would have spared me something. But perhaps I had no right to yourforbearance. " "Alice, how can you say such things to me?" asked the young fellow, deeply hurt. She responded to his tone. "I'm sorry if it wounds you. But I only meanwhat I say. " "You've a right to my forbearance, and not only that, but to my--mylife; to everything that I am, " cried Dan, in a quiver of tenderness atthe sight of her and the sound of her voice. "Alice, why did you writeme that letter?--why did you send me back my ring?" "Because, " she said, looking him seriously in the face--"because Iwished you to be free, to be happy. " "Well, you've gone the wrong way about it. I can never be free from you;I never can be happy without you. " "I did it for your good, then, which ought to be above your happiness. Don't think I acted hastily. I thought it over all night long. I didn'tsleep--" "Neither did I, " interposed Dan. "And I saw that I had no claim to you; that you never could be trulyhappy with me--" "I'll take the chances, " he interrupted. "Alice, you don't suppose Icared for those women any more than the ground under your feet, do you?I don't suppose I should ever have given them a second thought if youhadn't seemed to feel so badly about my neglecting them; and I thoughtyou'd be pleased to have me try to make it up to them if I could. " "I know your motive was good--the noblest. Don't think that I did youinjustice, or that I was vexed because you went away with them. " "You sent me. " "Yes; and now I give you up to them altogether. It was a mistake, acrime, for me to think we could be anything to each other when our lovebegan with a wrong to some one else. " "With a wrong to some one else?" "You neglected them on Class Day after you saw me. " "Why, of course I did. How could I help it?" A flush of pleasure came into the girl's pale face; but she banished it, and continued gravely, "Then at Portland you were with them all day. " "You'd given me up--you'd thrown me over, Alice, " he pleaded. "I know that; I don't blame you. But you made them believe that you werevery much interested in them. " "I don't know what I did. I was perfectly desperate. " "Yes; it was my fault. And then, when they came to meet you at theMuseum, I had made you forget them; I'd made you wound them and insultthem again. No. I've thought it all out, and we never could be happy. Don't think that I do it from any resentful motive. " "Alice? how could I think that?--Of you!" "I have tried--prayed--to be purified from that, and I believe that Ihave been. " "You never had a selfish thought. " "And I have come to see that you were perfectly right in what you didlast night. At first I was wounded. " "Oh, did I wound you, Alice?" he grieved. "But afterward I could see that you belonged to them, and not me, and--and I give you up to them. Yes, freely, fully. " Alice stood there, beautiful, pathetic, austere; and Dan had halted inthe spot to which he had advanced, when her eye forbade him to approachnearer. He did not mean to joke, and it was in despair that he criedout: "But which, Alice? There are two of them. " "Two?" she repeated vaguely. "Yes; Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne. You can't give me up to both ofthem. " "Both?" she repeated again. She could not condescend to specify; itwould be ridiculous, and as it was, she felt her dignity hopelesslyshaken. The tears came into her eyes. "Yes. And neither of them wants me--they haven't got any use for me. Mrs. Frobisher is married already, and Miss Wrayne took the trouble lastnight to let me feel that, so far as she was concerned, I hadn't made itall right, and couldn't. I thought I had rather a cold parting with you, Alice, but it was quite tropical to what you left me to. " A faint smile, mingled with a blush of relenting, stole into her face, and he hurriedon. "I don't suppose I tried very hard to thaw her out. I wasn't muchinterested. If you must give me up, you must give me up to some oneelse, for they don't want me, and I don't want them. " Alice's headdropped lover, and he could come nearer now without her seeming to knowit. "But why need you give me up? There's really no occasion for it, Iassure you. " "I wished, " she explained, "to show you that I loved you for somethingabove yourself and myself--far above either--" She stopped and dropped the hand which she had raised to fend him off;and he profited by the little pause she made to take her in his armswithout seeming to do so. "Well, " he said, "I don't believe I was formedto be loved on a very high plane. But I'm not too proud to be loved formy own sake; and I don't think there's anything above you, Alice. " "Oh yes, there is! I don't deserve to be happy, and that's the reasonwhy I'm not allowed to be happy in any noble way. I can't bear to giveyou up; you know I can't; but you ought to give me up--indeed you ought. I have ideals, but I can't live up to them. You ought to go. You oughtto leave me. " She accented each little sentence by vividly pressingherself to his heart, and he had the wisdom or the instinct to treattheir reconciliation as nothing settled, but merely provisional in itsnature. "Well, we'll see about that. I don't want to go till after breakfast, anyway; your mother says I may stay, and I'm awfully hungry. If Isee anything particularly base in you, perhaps I sha'n't come back tolunch. " Dan would have liked to turn it alt off into a joke, now that the worstwas apparently over; but Alice freed herself from him, and held him offwith her hand set against his breast. "Does mamma know about it?" shedemanded sternly. "Well, she knows there's been some misunderstanding, " said Dan, with alaugh that was anxious, in view of the clouds possibly gathering again. "How much?" "Well, I can't say exactly. " He would not say that he did not know, buthe felt that he could truly say that he could not say. She dropped her hand, and consented to be deceived. Dan caught her againto his breast; but he had an odd, vague sense of doing it carefully, ofusing a little of the caution with which one seizes the stem of a rosebetween the thorns. "I can bear to be ridiculous with you, " she whispered, with animplication which he understood. "You haven't been ridiculous, dearest, " he said; and his tension gaveway in a convulsive laugh, which partially expressed his feelingof restored security, and partly his amusement in realising how thesituation would have pleased Mrs. Pasmer if she could have known it. Mrs. Pasmer was seated behind her coffee biggin at the breakfast-tablewhen he came into the room with Alice, and she lifted an eye from itsglass bulb long enough to catch his flying glance of exultation andadmonition. Then, while she regarded the chemical struggle in the bulb, with the rapt eye of a magician reading fate in his crystal ball, shequestioned herself how much she should know, and how much she shouldignore. It was a great moment for Mrs. Pasmer, full of delicious choice. "Do you understand this process, Mr. Mavering?" she said, glancing up athim warily for farther instruction. "I've seen it done, " said Dan, "but I never knew how it was managed. Ialways thought it was going to blow up; but it seemed to me that if youwere good and true and very meek, and had a conscience void of offence, it wouldn't. " "Yes, that's what it seems to depend upon, " said Mrs. Pasmer, keepingher eye on the bulb. She dodged suddenly forward, and put out thespirit-lamp. "Now have your coffee!" she cried, with a great air ofrelief. "You must need it by this time, " she said with a low cynicallaugh--"both of you!" "Did you always make coffee with a biggin in France, Mrs. Pasmer?" askedDan; and he laughed out the last burden that lurked in his heart. Mrs. Pasmer joined him. "No, Mr. Mavering. In France you don't need abiggin. I set mine up when we went to England. " Alice looked darkly from one of these light spirits to the other, andthen they all shrieked together. They went on talking volubly from that, and they talked as far away fromwhat they were thinking about as possible. They talked of Europe, andMrs. Pasmer said where they would live and what they would do when theyall got back there together. Dan abetted her, and said that they mustcross in June. Mrs. Pasmer said that she thought June was a good month. He asked if it were not the month of the marriages too, and she answeredthat he must ask Alice about that. Alice blushed and laughed her sweetreluctant laugh, and said she did not know; she had never been married. It was silly, but it was delicious; it made them really one family. Deepin his consciousness a compunction pierced and teased Dan. But he saidto himself that it was all a joke about their European plans, or elsehis people would consent to it if he really wished it. XXXIX. A period of entire harmony and tenderness followed the episode whichseemed to threaten the lovers with the loss of each other. Maveringforbore to make Alice feel that in attempting a sacrifice whichconsulted only his good and ignored his happiness, and then failing init so promptly, she had played rather a silly part. After one or twotentative jokes in that direction he found the ground unsafe, and withthe instinct which served him in place of more premeditated piety hewithdrew, and was able to treat the affair with something like religiousawe. He was obliged, in fact, to steady Alice's own faith in it, andto keep her from falling under dangerous self-condemnation in that andother excesses of uninstructed self-devotion. This brought no fatigue tohis robust affection, whatever it might have done to a heart more triedin such exercises. Love acquaints youth with many things in characterand temperament which are none the less interesting because it neverexplains them; and Dan was of such a make that its revelations of Alicewere charming to him because they were novel. He had thought her aperson of such serene and flawless wisdom that it was rather a reliefto find her subject to gusts of imprudence, to unexpected passions andresentments, to foibles and errors, like other people. Her power of coldreticence; which she could employ at will, was something that fascinatedhim almost as much as that habit of impulsive concession which seemed tocame neither from her will nor her reason. He was a person himselfwho was so eager to give other people pleasure that he quivered withimpatience to see them happy through his words or acts; he could notbear to think that any one to whom he was speaking was not perfectlycomfortable in regard to him; and it was for this reason perhaps that headmired a girl who could prescribe herself a line of social conduct, andfollow it out regardless of individual pangs--who could act from idealsand principles, and not from emotions and sympathies. He knew that shehad the emotions and sympathies, for there were times when she lavishedthem on him; and that she could seem without them was another proof ofthat depth of nature which he liked to imagine had first attracted himto her. Dan Mavering had never been able to snub any one in his life;it gave him a great respect for Alice that it seemed not to cost her aneffort or a regret, and it charmed him to think that her severity waspart of the unconscious sham which imposed her upon the world for aperson of inflexible design and invariable constancy to it. He was notlong in seeing that she shared this illusion, if it was an illusion, andthat perhaps the only person besides himself who was in the joke washer mother. Mrs. Pasmer and he grew more and more into each other'sconfidence in talking Alice over, and he admired the intrepidity of thislady, who was not afraid of her daughter even in the girl's most toppingmoments of self-abasement. For his own part, these moods of hers neverfailed to cause him confusion and anxiety. They commonly intimatedthemselves parenthetically in the midst of some blissful talk they werehaving, and overcast his clear sky with retrospective ideals of conductor presentimental plans for contingencies that might never occur. Hefound himself suddenly under condemnation for not having reproved her ata given time when she forced him to admit she had seemed unkind or coldto others; she made him promise that even at the risk of alienating heraffections he would make up for her deficiencies of behaviour in suchmatters whenever he noticed them. She now praised him for what he haddone for Mrs. Frobisher and her sister at Mrs. Bellingham's reception;she said it was generous, heroic. But Mavering rested satisfied with hisachievement in that instance, and did not attempt anything else of thekind. He did not reason from cause to effect in regard to it: a man'slove is such that while it lasts he cannot project its object far enoughfrom him to judge it reasonable or unreasonable; but Dan's instinctshad been disciplined and his perceptions sharpened by that experience. Besides, in bidding him take this impartial and even admonitory coursetoward her, she stipulated that they should maintain to the world aperfect harmony of conduct which should be an outward image of theunion of their lives. She said that anything less than a continuedself-sacrifice of one to the other was not worthy of the name of love, and that she should not be happy unless he required this of her. Shesaid that they ought each to find out what was the most distastefulthing which they could mutually require, and then do it; she asked himto try to think what she most hated, and let her do that for him; as forher, she only asked to ask nothing of him. Mavering could not worship enough this nobility of soul in her, andhe celebrated it to Boardman with the passionate need of impartinghis rapture which a lover feel. Boardman acquiesced in silence, with aglance of reserved sarcasm, or contented himself with laconic satireof his friend's general condition, and avoided any comment that mightspecifically apply to the points Dan made. Alice allowed him to havethis confidant, and did not demand of him a report of all he said toBoardman. A main fact of their love, she said, must be their utter faithin each other. She had her own confidante, and the disparity of yearsbetween her and Miss Cotton counted for nothing in the friendship whichtheir exchange of trust and sympathy cemented. Miss Cotton, in thefreshness of her sympathy and the ideality of her inexperience, wasin fact younger than Alice, at whose feet, in the things of soul andcharacter, she loved to sit. She never said to her what she believed:that a girl of her exemplary principles, a nature conscious of suchnoble ideals, so superior to other girls, who in her place would begiven up to the happiness of the moment, and indifferent to the sense ofduty to herself and to others, was sacrificed to a person of Mavering'sgay, bright nature and trivial conception of life. She did not denyhis sweetness; that was perhaps the one saving thing about him; and sheconfessed that he simply adored Alice; that counted for everything, andit was everything in his favour that he could appreciate such a girl. She hoped, she prayed, that Alice might never realise how little depthhe had; that she might go through life and never suspect it. If shedid so, then they might be happy together to the end, or at least Alicemight never know she was unhappy. Miss Cotton never said these things in so many words; it is doubtful ifshe ever said them in any form of words; with her sensitive anxiety notto do injustice to any one, she took Dan's part against those who viewedthe engagement as she allowed it to appear only to her secret heart. Shedefended him the more eagerly because she felt that it was for Alice'ssake, and that everything must be done to keep her from knowing howpeople looked at the affair, even to changing people's minds. She saidto all who spoke to her of it that of course Alice was superior to him, but he was devoted to her, and he would grow into an equality withher. He was naturally very refined, she said, and, if he was not a veryserious person, he was amiable beyond anything. She alleged many littleincidents of their acquaintance at Campobello in proof of her theorythat he had an instinctive appreciation of Alice, and she was sure thatno one could value her nobleness of character more than he. She had seenthem a good deal together since their engagement, and it was beautifulto see his manner with her. They were opposites, but she counted a gooddeal upon that very difference in their temperaments to draw them toeach other. It was an easy matter to see Dan and Alice together. Their engagementcame out in the usual way: it had been announced to a few of theirnearest friends, and intelligence of it soon spread from their own setthrough society generally; it had been published in the Sunday paperswhile it was still in the tender condition of a rumour, and had beendenied by some of their acquaintance and believed by all. The Pasmer cousinship had been just in the performance of the duties ofblood toward Alice since the return of her family from Europe, and nowdid what was proper in the circumstances. All who were connected withher called upon her and congratulated her; they knew Dan, the younger ofthem, much better than they knew her; and though he had shrunk from thenebulous bulk of social potentiality which every young man is to thatmuch smaller nucleus to which definite betrothal reduces him, they couldbe perfectly sincere in calling him the sweetest fellow that ever was, and too lovely to live. In such a matter Mr. Pasmer was naturally nothing; he could not be lessthan he was at other times, but he was not more; and it was Mrs. Pasmerwho shared fully with her daughter the momentary interest which theengagement gave Alice with all her kindred. They believed, of course, that they recognised in it an effect of her skill in managing; theyagreed to suppose that she had got Mavering for Alice, and to ignore thebeauty and passion of youth as factors in the case. The closest ofthe kindred, with the romantic delicacy of Americans in such things, approached the question of Dan's position and prospects, and heard withsatisfaction the good accounts which Mrs. Pasmer was able to give ofhis father's prosperity. There had always been more or less apprehensionamong them of a time when a family subscription would be necessary forBob Pasmer, and in the relief which the new situation gave them someof them tried to remember having known Dan's father in College, but itfinally came to their guessing that they must have heard John Munt speakof him. Mrs. Pasmer had a supreme control in the affair. She believed with therest--so deeply is this delusion seated--that she had made the match;but knowing herself to have used no dishonest magic in the process, shewas able to enjoy it with a clean conscience. She grew fonder of Dan;they understood each other; she was his refuge from Alice's ideals, andhelped him laugh off his perplexity with them. They were none the lesssincere because they were not in the least frank with each other. Shelet Dan beat about the bush to his heart's content, and waited for himat the point which she knew he was coming to, with an unconsciousnesswhich he knew was factitious; neither of them got tired of this, orfailed freshly to admire the other's strategy. XL. It cannot be pretended that Alice was quite pleased with the way herfriends took her engagement, or rather the way in which they spoke ofDan. It seemed to her that she alone, or she chiefly, ought to feel thatsweetness and loveliness of which every one told her, as if she couldnot have known it. If he was sweet and lovely to every one, how was hedifferent to her except in degree? Ought he not to be different in kind?She put the case to Miss Cotton, whom it puzzled, while she assuredAlice that he was different in kind to her, though he might not seemso; the very fact that he was different in degree proved that he wasdifferent in kind. This logic sufficed for the moment of its expression, but it did not prevent Alice from putting the case to Dan himself. Atone of those little times when she sat beside him alone and rearrangedhis necktie, or played with his watch chain, or passed a critical handover his cowlick, she asked him if he did not think they ought to havean ideal in their engagement. "What ideal?" he asked. He thought it wasall solid ideal through and through. "Oh, " she said, "be more and moreto each other. " He said he did not see how that could be; if there wasanything more of him, she was welcome to it, but he rather thought shehad it all. She explained that she meant being less to others; and heasked her to explain that. "Well, when we're anywhere together, don't you think we ought to showhow different we are to each other from what we are to any one else. " Dan laughed. "I'm afraid we do, Alice; I always supposed one ought tohide that little preference as much as possible. You don't want me to bedangling after you every moment?" "No-o-o. But not--dangle after others. " Dan sighed a little--a little impatiently. "Do I dangle after others?" "Of course not. But show that we're thoroughly united in all our tastesand feelings, and--like and dislike the same persons. " "I don't think that will be difficult, " said Dan. She was silent a moment, and then she said; "You don't like to have mebring up such things?" "Oh yes, I do. I wish to be and do just what you wish. " "But I can see, I can understand, that you would sooner pass the timewithout talking of them. You like to be perfectly happy, and not to haveany cares when--when you're with me this way?" "Well, yes, I suppose I do, " said Dan, laughing again. "I suppose Irather do like to keep pleasure and duty apart. But there's nothing youcan wish, Alice, that isn't a pleasure to me. " "I'm very different, " said the girl. "I can't be at peace unless I knowthat I have a right to be so. But now, after this, I'm going to doyour way. If it's your way, it'll be the right way--for me. " She lookedsublimely resolved, with a grand lift of the eyes, and Dan caught her tohim in a rapture, breaking into laughter. "Oh, don't! Mine's a bad way--the worst kind of a way, " he cried. "It makes everybody like you, and mine makes nobody like me. " "It makes me like you, and that's quite enough. I don't want otherpeople to like you!" "Yes, that's what I mean!" cried Alice; and now she flung herself onhis neck, and the tears came. "Do you suppose it can be very pleasant tohave everybody talking of you as if everybody loved you as much--as muchas I do?" She clutched him tighter and sobbed. "O Alice! Alice! Alice! Nobody could ever be what you are to me!" Hesoothed and comforted her with endearing words and touches; but beforehe could have believed her half consoled she pulled away from him, andasked, with shining eyes, "Do you think Mr. Boardman is a good influencein your life?" "Boardman!" cried Mavering, in astonishment. "Why, I thought you likedBoardman?" "I do; and I respect him very much. But that isn't the question. Don'tyou think we ought to ask ourselves how others influence us?" "Well, I don't see much of Boardy nowadays; but I like to drop down andtouch earth in Boardy once in a while--I'm in the air so much. Board hasmore common-sense, more solid chunk-wisdom, than anybody I know. He'skept me from making a fool of myself more times--" "Wasn't he with you that day with--with those women in Portland?" Dan winced a little, and then laughed. "No, he wasn't. That was thetrouble. Boardman was off on the press boat. I thought I told you. Butif you object to Boardman--" "I don't. You mustn't think I object to people when I ask you aboutthem. All that I wished was that you should think yourself what sort ofinfluence he was. I think he's a very good influence. " "He's a splendid fellow, Boardman is, Alice!" cried Dan. "You ought tohave seen how he fought his way through college on such a little money, and never skulked or felt mean. He wasn't appreciated for it; the mendon't notice these things much; but he didn't want to have it noticed;always acted as if it was neither here nor there; and now I guess hesends out home whatever he has left after keeping soul and body togetherevery week. " He spoke, perhaps, with too great an effect of relief. Alice listened, as it seemed, to his tone rather than his words, and said absently-- "Yes, that's grand. But I don't want you to act as if you were afraid ofme in such things. " "Afraid?" Dan echoed. "I don't mean actually afraid, but as if you thought I couldn't bereasonable; as if you supposed I didn't expect you to make mistakes orto be imperfect. " "Yes, I know you're very reasonable, and you're more patient with methan I deserve; I know all that, and it's only my wish to come up toyour standard, I suppose, that gives me that apprehensive appearance. " "That was what vexed me with you there at Campobello, when you--askedme--" "Yes, I know. " "You ought to have understood me better. You ought to know now that Idon't wish you to do anything on my account, but because it's somethingwe owe to others. " "Oh, excuse me! I'd much rather do it for you, " cried Dan; but Alicelooked so grave, so hurt, that he hastened on: "How in the world does itconcern others whether we are devoted or not, whether we're harmoniousand two-souls-with-but-a-single-thought, and all that?" He could nothelp being light about it. "How?" Alice repeated. "Won't it give them an idea of what--what--of howmuch--how truly--if we care for each other--how people ought to care? Wedon't do it for ourselves. That would be selfish and disgusting. We doit because it's something that we owe to the idea of being engaged--ofhaving devoted our lives to each other, and would show--would teach--" "Oh yes! I know what you mean, " said Dan, and he gave way in asputtering laugh. "But they wouldn't understand. They'd only think wewere spoons on each other; and if they noticed that I cooled off towardpeople I'd liked, and warmed up toward those you liked, they'd say youmade me. " "Should you care?" asked Alice sublimely, withdrawing a little from hisarm. "Oh no! only on your account, " he answered, checking his laugh. "You needn't on my account, " she returned. "If we sacrifice somelittle preferences to each other, isn't that right? I shall be glad tosacrifice all of mine to you. Isn't our--marriage to be full of suchsacrifices? I expect to give up everything to you. " She looked at himwith a sad severity. He began to laugh again. "Oh no, Alice! Don't do that! I couldn't standit. I want some little chance at the renunciations myself. " She withdrew still further from his side, and said, with a cold anger, "It's that detestable Mrs. Brinkley. " "Mrs. Brinkley!" shouted Dan. "Yes; with her pessimism. I have heard her talk. She influences you. Nothing is sacred to her. It was she who took up with those army womenthat night. " "Well, Alice, I must say you can give things as ugly names as the nextone. I haven't seen Mrs. Brinkley the whole winter, except in yourcompany. But she has more sense than all the other women I know. " "Oh, thank you!" "You know I don't mean you, " he pushed on. "And she isn't a pessimist. She's very kindhearted, and that night she was very polite and good tothose army women, as you call them, when you had refused to say a wordor do anything for them. " "I knew it had been rankling in your mind all along, " said the girl"I expected it to coma out sooner or later. And you talk aboutrenunciation! You never forget nor forgive the slightest thing. But Idon't ask your forgiveness. " "Alice!" "No. You are as hard as iron. You have that pleasant outside manner thatmakes people think you're very gentle and yielding, but all the timeyou're like adamant. I would rather die than ask your forgiveness foranything, and you'd rather let me than give it. " "Well, then, I ask your forgiveness, Alice, and I'm sure you won't letme die without it. " They regarded each other a moment. Then the tenderness gushed up intheir hearts, a passionate tide, and swept them into each other's arms. "O Dan, " she cried, "how sweet you are! how good! how lovely! Oh, howwonderful it is! I wanted to hate you, but I couldn't. I couldn't doanything but love you. Yes, now I understand what love is, and how itcan do everything, and last for ever. " XLI. Mavering came to lunch the next day, and had a word with Mrs. Pasmerbefore Alice came in. Mr. Pasmer usually lunched at the club. "We don't see much of Mrs. Saintsbury nowadays, " he suggested. "No; it's a great way to Cambridge, " said Mrs. Pasmer, stifling, in alittle sigh of apparent regret for the separation, the curiosity shefelt as to Dan's motive in mentioning Mrs. Saintsbury. She was verypatient with him when he went on. "Yes, it is a great way. And a strange thing about it is that whenyou're living here it's a good deal further from Boston to Cambridgethan it is from Cambridge to Boston. " "Yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer; "every one notices that. " Dan sat absently silent for a time before he said, "Yes, I guess I mustgo out and see Mrs. Saintsbury. " "Yes, you ought. She's very fond of you. You and Alice ought both togo. " "Does Mrs. Saintsbury like me?" asked Dan. "Well, she's awfully nice. Don't you think she's awfully fond of formulating people?" "Oh, everybody in Cambridge does that. They don't gossip; they merelyaccumulate materials for the formulation of character. " "And they get there just the same!" cried Dan. "Mrs. Saintsbury used tothink she had got me down pretty fine, " he suggested. "Yes!" said Mrs. Pasmer, with an indifference which they both knew shedid not feel. "Yes. She used to accuse me of preferring to tack, even in a fair wind. " He looked inquiringly at Mrs. Pasmer; and she said, "How ridiculous!" "Yes, it was. Well, I suppose I am rather circuitous about some things. " "Oh, not at all!" "And I suppose I'm rather a trial to Alice in that way. " He looked at Mrs. Pasmer again, and she said: "I don't believe you are, in the least. You can't tell what is trying to a girl. " "No, " said Dan pensively, "I can't. " Mrs. Pasmer tried to render theinterest in her face less vivid. "I can't tell where she's going tobring up. Talk about tacking!" "Do you mean the abstract girl; or Alice?" "Oh, the abstract girl, " said Dan, and they laughed together. "You thinkAlice is very straightforward, don't you?" "Very, " said Mrs. Pasmer, looking down with a smile--"for a girl. " "Yes, that's what I mean. And don't you think the most circuitous kindof fellow would be pretty direct compared with the straight-forwardestkind of girl?" There was a rueful defeat and bewilderment in Dan's face that made Mrs. Pasmer laugh. "What has she been doing now?" she asked. "Mrs. Pasmer, " said Dan, "you and I are the only frank and open people Iknow. Well, she began to talk last night about influence--the influenceof other people on us; and she killed off nearly all the people I likebefore I knew what she was up to, and she finished with Mrs. Brinkley. I'm glad she didn't happen to think of you, Mrs. Pasmer, or I shouldn'tbe associating with you at the present moment. " This idea seemed to giveMrs. Pasmer inexpressible pleasure. Dan went on: "Do you quite seethe connection between our being entirely devoted to each other and mydropping Mrs. Brinkley?" "I don't know, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "Alice doesn't like satirical people. " "Well, of course not. But Mrs. Brinkley is such an admirer of hers. " "I dare say she tells you so. " "Oh, but she is!" "I don't deny it, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "But if Alice feels somethinginimical--antipatico--in her atmosphere, it's no use talking. " "Oh no, it's no use talking, and I don't know that I want to talk. "After a pause, Mavering asked, "Mrs. Pasmer, don't you think thatwhere two people are going to be entirely devoted to each other, andself-sacrificing to each other, they ought to divide, and one do all thedevotion, and the other all the self-sacrifice?" Mrs. Pasmer was amused by the droll look in Dan's eyes. "I think theyought to be willing to share evenly, " she said. "Yes; that's what I say--share and share alike. I'm not selfish aboutthose little things. " He blew off a long sighing breath. "Mrs. Pasmer, don't you think we ought to have an ideal of conduct?" Mrs. Pasmer abandoned herself to laughter. "O Dan! Dan! You will be thedeath of me. " "We will die together, then, Mrs. Pasmer. Alice will kill me. " Heregarded her with a sad sympathy in his eye as she laughed and laughedwith delicious intelligence of the case. The intelligence was perfect, from their point of view; but whether it fathomed the girl's wholeintention or aspiration is another matter. Perhaps this was not veryclear to herself. At any rate, Mavering did not go any more to see Mrs. Brinkley, whose house he had liked to drop into. Alice went severaltimes, to show, she said, that she had no feeling in the matter; andMrs. Brinkley, when she met Dan, forbore to embarrass him with questionsor reproaches; she only praised Alice to him. There were not many other influences that Alice cut him off from;she even exposed him to some influences that might have been thoughtdeleterious. She made him go and call alone upon certain young ladieswhom she specified, and she praised several others to him, though shedid not praise them for the same things that he did. One of them was agirl to whom Alice had taken a great fancy, such as often buds into aromantic passion between women; she was very gentle and mild, and shehad none of that strength of will which she admired in Alice. One nightthere was a sleighing party to a hotel in the suburbs, where they haddancing and then supper. After the supper they danced "Little SallyWaters" for a finale, instead of the Virginia Reel, and Alice would notgo on the floor with Dan; she said she disliked that dance; but shetold him to dance with Miss Langham. It became a gale of fun, and in theheight of it Dan slipped and fell with his partner. They laughed it off, with the rest, but after a while the girl began to cry; she had receiveda painful bruise. All the way home, while the others laughed and sangand chattered, Dan was troubled about this poor girl; his anxiety becamea joke with the whole sleighful of people. When he parted with Alice at her door, he said, "I'm afraid I hurt MissLangham; I feel awfully about it. " "Yes; there's no doubt of that. Good night!" She left him to go off to his lodging, hot and tingling with indignationat her injustice. But kindlier thoughts came to him before he slept, andhe fell asleep with a smile of tenderness for her on his lips. He couldsee how he was wrong to go out with any one else when Alice saidshe disliked the dance; he ought not to have taken advantage of hergenerosity in appointing him a partner; it was trying for her to see himmake that ludicrous tumble, of course; and perhaps he had overdone theattentive sympathy on the way home. It flattered him that she could nothelp showing her jealousy--that is flattering, at first; and Danwas able to go and confess all but this to Alice. She received hissubmission magnanimously, and said that she was glad it had happened, because his saying this showed that now they understood each otherperfectly. Then she fixed her eyes on his, and said, "I've just beenround to see Lilly, and she's as well as ever; it was only a nervousshock. " Whether Mavering was really indifferent to Miss Langham's condition, or whether the education of his perceptions had gone so far that heconsciously ignored her, he answered, "That was splendid of you, Alice. " "No, " she said; "it's you that are splendid; and you always are. Oh, Iwonder if I can ever be worthy of you!" Their mutual forgiveness was very sweet to them, and they went onpraising each other. Alice suddenly broke away from this weakeningexchange of worship, and said, with that air of coming to business whichhe lad learned to recognise and dread a little, "Dan, don't you think Iought to write to your mother?" "Write to my mother?" "Why, you have written to her. You wrote as soon as you got back, andshe answered you. " "Yes; but write regularly?--Show that I think of her all the time?When I really think I'm going to take you from her, I seem so cruel andheartless!" "Oh, I don't look at it in that light, Alice. " "Don't joke! And when I think that we're going away to leave her, forseveral years, perhaps, as soon as we're married, I can't make it seemright. I know how she depends upon your being near her, and seeingher every now and then; and to go off to Europe for years, perhaps--Ofcourse you can be of use to your father there; but do you think it'sright toward your mother? I want you to think. " Dan thought, but his thinking was mainly to the effect that he did notknow what she was driving at. Had she got any inkling of that plan ofhis mother's for them to come and stay a year or two at the Falls aftertheir marriage? He always expected to be able to reconcile that planwith the Pasmer plan of going at once; to his optimism the two were notreally incompatible; but he did not wish them prematurely confronted inAlice's mind. Was this her way of letting him know that she knew whathis mother wished, and that she was willing to make the sacrifice? Orwas it just some vague longing to please him by a show of affectiontoward his family, an unmeditated impulse of reparation? He had animpulse himself to be frank with Alice, to take her at her word, and toallow that he did not like the notion of going abroad. This was Dan'snotion of being frank; he could still reserve the fact that he had givenhis mother a tacit promise to bring Alice home to live, but he postponedeven this. He said: "Oh, I guess that'll be all right, Alice. Atany rate, there's no need to think about it yet awhile. That can bearranged. " "Yes, " said Alice; "but don't you think I'd better get into the habit ofwriting regularly to your mother now, so that there needn't be any breakwhen we go abroad?" He could see now that she had no idea of giving thatplan up, and he was glad that he had not said anything. "I think, " shecontinued, "that I shall write to her once a week, and give her a fullaccount of our life from day to day; it'll be more like a diary; andthen, when we get over there, I can keep it up without any effort, andshe won't feel so much that you've gone. " She seemed to refer the plan to him, and he said it was capital. Infact, he did like the notion of a diary; that sort of historical viewwould involve less danger of precipitating a discussion of the twoschemes of life for the future. "It's awfully kind of you, Alice, topropose such a thing, and you mustn't make it a burden. Any sort oflittle sketchy record will do; mother can read between the lines, youknow. " "It won't be a burden, " said the girl tenderly. "I shall seem to bedoing it for your mother, but I know I shall be doing it for you. I doeverything for you. Do you think it's right?" "Oh; it must be, " said Dan, laughing. "It's so pleasant. " "Oh, " said the girl gloomily; "that's what makes me doubt it. " XLII. Eunice Mavering acknowledged Alice's first letter. She said that hermother read it aloud to them all, and had been delighted with the goodaccount she gave of Dan, and fascinated with all the story of theirdaily doings and sayings. She wished Eunice to tell Alice how fully sheappreciated her thoughtfulness of a sick old woman, and that she wasgoing to write herself and thank her. But Eunice added that Alice mustnot be surprised if her mother was not very prompt in this, and she sentmessages from all the family, affectionate for Alice, and polite for herfather and mother. Alice showed Dan the letter, and he seemed to find nothing noticeable init. "She says your mother will write later, " Alice suggested. "Yes. You ought to feel very much complimented by that. Mother'sautographs are pretty uncommon, " he said, smiling. "Why, doesn't she write? Can't she? Does it tire her?" asked Alice. "Oh yes, she can write, but she hates to. She gets Eunice or Minnie towrite usually. " "Dan, " cried Alice intensely, "why didn't you tell me?" "Why, I thought you knew it, " he explained easily. "She likes to read, and likes to talk, but it bores her to write. I don't suppose I get morethan two or three pencil scratches from her in the course of a year. Shemakes the girls write. But you needn't mind her not writing. You may besure she's glad of your letters. " "It makes me seem very presumptuous to be writing to her when there's nochance of her answering, " Alice grieved. "It's as if I had passed overyour sisters' heads. I ought to have written to them. " "Oh, well, you can do that now, " said Dan soothingly. "No. No, I can't do it now. It would be ridiculous. " She was silent, andpresently she asked, "Is there anything else about your mother that Iought to know?" She looked at him with a sort of impending discipline inher eyes which he had learned to dread; it meant such a long course ofthings, such a very great variety of atonement and expiation for him, that he could not bring himself to confront it steadily. His heart gave a feeble leap; he would have gladly told her all that wasin it, and he meant to do so at the right time, but this did not seemthe moment. "I can't say that there is, " he answered coldly. In that need of consecrating her happiness which Alice felt, she went agreat deal to church in those days. Sometimes she felt the need almostof defence against her happiness, and a vague apprehension mixed withit. Could it be right to let it claim her whole being, as it seemedto do? Than was the question which she once asked Dan, and it made himlaugh, and catch her to him in a rapture that served for the time, andthen left her to more morbid doubts. Evidently he could not follow herin them; he could not even imagine them; and while he was with herthey seemed to have no verity or value. But she talked them over veryhypothetically and impersonally with Miss Cotton, in whose sympathy theyresumed all their import, and gained something more. In the idealisationwhich the girl underwent in this atmosphere all her thoughts andpurposes had a significance which she would not of herself, perhaps, have attached to them. They discussed them and analysed them with asatisfaction in the result which could not be represented withoutan effect of caricature. They measured Alice's romance together, andevolved from it a sublimation of responsibility, of duty, of devotion, which Alice found it impossible to submit to Dan when he came with hissimple-hearted, single-minded purpose of getting Mrs. Pasmer out of theroom, and sitting down with his arm around Alice's waist. When he hadaccomplished this it seemed sufficient in itself, and she had to think, to struggle to recall things beyond it, above it. He could not be madeto see at such times how their lives could be more in unison thanthey were. When she proposed doing something for him which he knewwas disagreeable to her, he would not let her; and when she hintedat anything she wished him to do for her because she knew it wasdisagreeable to him, he consented so promptly, so joyously, that sheperceived he could not have given the least thought to it. She felt every day that they were alien in their tastes and aims; theirpleasures were not the same, and though it was sweet, though it wascharming, to have him give up so willingly all his preferences, shefelt, without knowing that the time must come when this could not be so, that it was all wrong. "But these very differences, these antagonisms, if you wish to call themso, " suggested Miss Cotton, in talking Alice's misgivings over with her, "aren't they just what will draw you together more and more? Isn'tit what attracted you to each other? The very fact that you are suchperfect counterparts--" "Yes, " the girl assented, "that's what we're taught to believe. " Shemeant by the novels, to which we all trust our instruction in suchmatters, and her doubt doubly rankled after she had put it to silence. She kept on writing to Dan's mother, though more and more perfunctorily;and now Eunice and now Minnie Mavering acknowledged her letters. Sheknew that they must think she was silly, but having entered by Dan'sconnivance upon her folly, she was too proud to abandon it. At last, after she had ceased to expect it, came a letter from hismother, not a brief note, but a letter which the invalid had evidentlytasked herself to make long and full, in recognition of Alice's kindnessin writing to her so much. The girl opened it, and, after a verifyingglance at the signature, began to read it with a thrill of tendertriumph, and the fond prevision of the greater pleasure of reading itagain with Dan. But after reading it once through, she did not wait for him beforereading it again and again. She did this with bewilderment, intershotwith flashes of conviction, and then doubts of this conviction. When shecould misunderstand no longer, she rose quietly and folded the letter, and put it carefully back into its envelope and into her writing desk, where she sat down and wrote, in her clearest and firmest hand, thisnote to Mavering-- "I wish to see you immediately. "ALICE PASMER. " XLIII Dan had learned, with a lover's keenness, to read Alice's moods in themost colourless wording of her notes. She was rather apt to write himnotes, taking back or reaffirming the effect of something that had justpassed between them. Her note were tempered to varying degrees of heatand cold, so fine that no one else would have felt the difference, butsensible to him in their subtlest intention. Perhaps a mere witness of the fact would have been alarmed by a notewhich began without an address, except that on the envelope, and endedits peremptory brevity with the writer's name signed in full. Dan readcalamity in it, and he had all the more trouble to pull himself togetherto meet it because he had parted with unusual tenderness from Alicethe night before, after an evening in which it seemed to him that theirideals had been completely reconciled. The note came, as her notes were apt to come, while Dan was atbreakfast, which he was rather luxurious about for so young a man, andhe felt formlessly glad afterward that he had drunk his first cup ofcoffee before he opened it, for it chilled the second cup, and seemed totake all character out of the omelet. He obeyed it, wondering what the doom menaced in it might be, butknowing that it was doom, and leaving his breakfast half-finished, witha dull sense of the tragedy of doing so. He would have liked to ask for Mrs. Pasmer first, and interpose a momentof her cheerful unreality between himself and his interview with Alice, but he decided that he had better not do this, and they met at once, with the width of the room between them. Her look was one that made itimpassable to the simple impulse he usually had to take her in his armsand kiss her. But as she stood holding out a letter to him, with theapparent intention that he should come and take it, he traversed theintervening space and took it. "Why, it's from mother!" he said joyously, with a glance at thehandwriting. "Will you please explain it?" said Alice, and Dan began to read it. It began with a good many excuses for not having written before, andwent on with a pretty expression of interest in Alice's letters andgratitude for them; Mrs. Mavering assured the girl that she could notimagine what a pleasure they had been to her. She promised herselfthat they should be great friends, and she said that she looked forwardeagerly to the time, now drawing near, when Dan should bring her home tothem. She said she knew Alice would find it dull at the Falls except forhim, but they would all do their best, and she would find the placevery different from what she had seen it in the winter. Alice could makebelieve that she was there just for the summer, and Mrs. Mavering hopedthat before the summer was gone she would be so sorry for a sick oldwoman that she would not even wish to go with it. This part of theletter, which gave Dan away so hopelessly, as he felt, was phrased sotouchingly, that he looked up from it with moist eyes to the hard coldjudgment in the eyes of Alice. "Will you please explain it?" she repeated. He tried to temporise. "Explain what?" Alice was prompt to say, "Had you promised your mother to take me hometo live?" Dan did not answer. "You promised my mother to go abroad. What else have you promised?" Hecontinued silent, and she added, "You are a faithless man. " They werethe words of Romola, in the romance, to Tito; she had often admiredthem; and they seemed to her equally the measure of Dan's offence. "Alice--" "Here are your letters and remembrances, Mr. Mavering. " Dan mechanicallyreceived the packet she had been holding behind her; with a perversefreak of intelligence he observed that, though much larger now, it wastied up with the same ribbon which had fastened it when Alice returnedhis letters and gifts before. "Good-bye. I wish you every happinessconsistent with your nature. " She bowed coldly, and was about to leave him, as she had planned; butshe had not arranged that he should be standing in front of the door, and he was there, with no apparent intention of moving. "Will you allow me to pass?" she was forced to ask, however, haughtily. "No!" he retorted, with a violence that surprised him. "I will not letyou pass till you have listened to me--till you tell me why you treat meso. I won't stand it--I've had enough of this kind of thing. " It surprised Alice too a little, and after a moment's hesitation shesaid, "I will listen to you, " so much more gently than she had spokenbefore that Dan relaxed his imperative tone, and began to laugh. "But, "she added, and her face clouded again, "it will be of no use. My mind ismade up this time. Why should we talk?" "Why, because mine isn't, " said Dan. "What is the matter, Alice? Do youthink I would force you, or even ask you, to go home with me tolive unless you were entirely willing? It could only be a temporaryarrangement anyway. " "That isn't the question, " she retorted. "The question is whether you'vepromised your mother one thing and me another. " "Well, I don't know about promising, " said Dan, laughing a little moreuneasily, but still laughing. "As nearly as I can remember, I wasn'tconsulted about the matter. Your mother proposed one thing, and mymother proposed another. " "And you agreed to both. That is quite enough--quite characteristic!" Dan flushed, and stopped laughing. "I don't know what you mean bycharacteristic. The thing didn't have to be decided at once, and Ididn't suppose it would be difficult for either side to give way, if itwas judged best. I was sure my mother wouldn't insist. " "It seems very easy for your family to make sacrifices that are notlikely to be required of them. " "You mustn't criticise my mother!" cried Dan. "I have not criticised her. You insinuate that we would be too selfishto give up, if it were for the best. " "I do nothing of the kind, and unless you are determined to quarrel withme you wouldn't say so. " "I don't wish a quarrel; none is necessary, " said Alice coldly. "You accuse me of being treacherous--" "I didn't say treacherous!" "Faithless, then. It's a mere quibble about words. I want you to takethat back. " "I can't take it back; it's the truth. Aren't you faithless, if you letus go on thinking that you're going to Europe, and let your mother thinkthat we're coming home to live after we're married?" "No! I'm simply leaving the question open!" "Yes, " said the girl--sadly, "you like to leave questions open. That'syour way. " "Well, I suppose I do till it's necessary to decide them. It saves theneedless effusion of talk, " said Dan, with a laugh; and then, as peopledo in a quarrel, he went back to his angry mood, and said "Besides, Isupposed you would be glad of the chance to make some sacrifice for me. You're always asking for it. " "Thank you, Mr. Mavering, " said Alice, "for reminding me of it; nothingis sacred to you, it seems. I can't say that you have ever sought anyopportunities of self-sacrifice. " "I wasn't allowed time to do so; they were always presented. " "Thank you again, Mr. Mavering. All this is quite a revelation. I'm gladto know how you really felt about things that you seemed so eager for. " "Alice, you know that I would do anything for you!" cried Dan, rueinghis precipitate words. "Yes; that's what you've repeatedly told me. I used to believe it. " "And I always believed what you said. You said at the picnic that daythat you thought I would like to live at Ponkwasset Falls if my businesswas there--" "That is not the point!" "And now you quarrel with me because my mother wishes me to do so. " Alice merely said: "I don't know why I stand here allowing you tointimidate me in my father's house. I demand that you shall stand asideand let me pass. " "I'll not oblige you to leave the room, " said Dan. "I will go. But if Igo, you will understand that I don't come back. " "I hope that, " said the girl. "Very well. Good morning, Miss Pasmer. " She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of his bow, and hewhirled out of the room and down the dim narrow passageway into the armsof Mrs. Pasmer, who had resisted as long as she could her curiosity toknow what the angry voices of himself and Alice meant. "O Mr. Mavering, is it you?" she buzzed; and she flung aside onepretence for another in adding, "Couldn't Alice make you stay tobreakfast?" Dan felt a rush of tenderness in his heart at the sound of the kind, humbugging little voice. "No, thank you, Mrs. Pasmer, I couldn't stay, thank you. I--I thank you very much. I--good-bye, Mrs. Pasmer. " He wrungher hand, and found his way out of the apartment door, leaving her toclear up the mystery of his flight and his broken words as she could. "Alice, " she said, as she entered the room, where the girl had remained, "what have you been doing now?" "Oh, nothing, " she said, with a remnant of her scorn for Dan qualifyingher tone and manner to her mother. "I've dismissed Mr. Mavering. " "Then you want him to come to lunch?" asked her mother. "I should advisehim to refuse. " "I don't think he'd accept, " said Alice. Then, as Mrs. Pasmer stoodin the door, preventing her egress, as Dan had done before, she askedmeekly "Will you let me pass, mamma? My head aches. " Mrs. Pasmer, whose easy triumphs in so many difficult circumstances kepther nearly always in good temper, let herself go, at these words, invexation very uncommon with her. "Indeed I shall not!" she retorted. "And you will please sit down here and tell me what you mean bydismissing Mr. Mavering. I'm tired of your whims and caprices. " "I can't talk, " began the girl stubbornly. "Yes, I think you can, " said her mother. "At any rate, I can. Now whatis it all?" "Perhaps this letter, will explain, " said Alice, continuing to dignifyher enforced submission with a tone of unabated hauteur; and she gaveher mother Mrs. Mavering's letter, which Dan had mechanically restoredto her. Mrs. Pasmer read it, not only without indignation, but apparentlywithout displeasure. But, she understood perfectly what the trouble was, when she looked up and asked, cheerfully, "Well?" "Well!" repeated Alice, with a frown of astonishment. "Don't you seethat he's promised us one thing and her another, and that he's false toboth?" "I don't know, " said Mrs. Pasmer, recovering her good-humour in view ofa situation that she felt herself able to cope with. "Of course he hasto temporise, to manage a little. She's an invalid, and of course she'svery exacting. He has to humour her. How do you know he has promisedher? He hasn't promised us. " "Hasn't promised us?" Alice gasped. "No. He's simply fallen in with what we've said. It's because he'sso sweet and yielding, and can't bear to refuse. I can understand itperfectly. " "Then if he hasn't promised us, he's deceived us all the moreshamefully, for he's made us think he had. " "He hasn't me, " said Mrs. Pasmer, smiling at the stormy virtue in herdaughter's face. "And what if you should go home awhile with him--forthe summer, say? It couldn't last longer, much; and it wouldn't hurt usto wait. I suppose he hoped for something of that kind. " "Oh, it isn't that, " groaned the girl, in a kind of bewilderment. "Icould have gone there with him joyfully, and lived all my days, if he'donly been frank with me. " "Oh no, you couldn't, " said her mother, with cosy security. "When itcomes to it, you don't like giving up any more than other people. It'svery hard for you to give up; he sees that--he knows it, and he doesn'treally like to ask any sort of sacrifice from you. He's afraid of you. " "Don't I know that?" demanded Alice desolately: "I've known it from thefirst, and I've felt it all the time. It's all a mistake, and has been. We never could understand each other. We're too different. " "That needn't prevent you understanding him. It needn't prevent you fromseeing how really kind and good he is--how faithful and constant he is. " "Oh, you say that--you praise him--because you like him. " "Of course I do. And can't you?" "No. The least grain of deceit--of temporising, you call it--spoilseverything. It's over, " said the girl, rising, with a sigh, from thechair she had dropped into. "We're best apart; we could only have beenwretched and wicked together. " "What did you say to him, Alice?" asked her mother, unshaken by herrhetoric. "I told him he was a faithless person. " "Then you were a cruel girl, " cried Mrs. Pasmer, with suddenindignation; "and if you were not my daughter I could be glad he hadescaped you. I don't know where you got all those silly, romanticnotions of yours about these things. You certainly didn't get them fromme, " she continued, with undeniable truth, "and I don't believe youget them from your Church, It's just as Miss Anderson said: your Churchmakes allowance for human nature, but you make none. " "I shouldn't go to Julia Anderson for instruction in such matters, " saidthe girl, with cold resentment. "I wish you would go to her for a little commonsense--or somebody, " saidMrs. Pasmer. "Do you know what talk this will make?" "I don't care for the talk. It would be worse than talk to marry a manwhom I couldn't trust--who wanted to please me so much that he had todeceive me, and was too much afraid of me to tell me the truth. " "You headstrong girl!" said her mother impartially, admiring at the sametime the girl's haughty beauty. There was an argument in reserve in Mrs. Pasmer's mind which perhapsnone but an American mother would have hesitated to urge; but it is sowholly our tradition to treat the important business of marriage as aromantic episode that even she could not bring herself to insist thather daughter should not throw away a chance so advantageous fromevery worldly point of view. She could only ask, "If you break thisengagement, what do you expect to do?" "The engagement is broken. I shall go into a sisterhood. " "You will do nothing of the kind, with my consent, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "Iwill have no such nonsense. Don't flatter yourself that I will. Even ifI approved of such a thing, I should think it wicked to let you do it. You're always fancying yourself doing something very devoted, but I'venever seen you ready to give up your own will, or your own comforteven, in the slightest degree. And Dan Mavering, if he were twice astemporising and circuitous"--the word came to her from her talk withhim--"would be twice too good for you. I'm going to breakfast. " XLIV. The difficulty in life is to bring experience to the level ofexpectation, to match our real emotions in view of any great occasionwith the ideal emotions which we have taught ourselves that we ought tofeel. This is all the truer when the occasion is tragical: we surpriseourselves in a helplessness to which the great event, death, ruin, lost love, reveals itself slowly, and at first wears the aspect of anunbroken continuance of what has been, or at most of another incident inthe habitual sequence. Dan Mavering came out into the bright winter morning knowing thathis engagement was broken, but feeling it so little that he could notbelieve it. He failed to realise it, to seize it for a fact, and hecould not let it remain that dumb and formless wretchedness, withoutproportion or dimensions, which it now seemed to be, weighing his lifedown. To verify it, to begin to outlive it, he must instantly impartit, he must tell it, he must see it with others' eyes. This was thenecessity of his youth and of his sympathy, which included himselfas well as the rest of the race in its activity. He had the usualenvironment of a young man who has money. He belonged to clubs, and hehad a large acquaintance among men of his own age, who lived a lifeof greater leisure; or were more absorbed in business, but whom he metconstantly in society. For one reason or another, or for no other reasonthan that he was Dan Mavering and liked every one, he liked them all. Hethought himself great friends with them; he dined and lunched with them;and they knew the Pasmers, and all about his engagement. But he did notgo to any of them now, with the need he felt to impart his calamity, toget the support of come other's credence and opinion of it. He went toa friend whom, in the way of his world, he met very seldom, but whom healways found, as he said, just where he had left him. Boardman never made any sign of suspecting that he was put on and off, according to Dan's necessity or desire for comfort or congratulation;but it was part of their joke that Dan's coming to him always meantsomething decisive in his experiences. The reporter was at his latebreakfast, which his landlady furnished him in his room, though, as Mrs. Mash said, she never gave meals, but a cup of coffee and an egg or two, yes. "Well?" he said, without looking up. "Well, I'm done for!" cried Dan. "Again?" asked Boardman. "Again! The other time was nothing, Boardman--I knew it wasn't anything;but this--this is final. " "Go on, " said Boardman, looking about for his individual salt-cellar, which he found under the edge of his plate; and Mavering laid thewhole case before him. As he made no comment on it for a while, Danwas obliged to ask him what he thought of it. "Well, " he said, with thesmile that showed the evenness of his pretty teeth, "there's a kind ofwild justice in it. " He admitted this, with the object of meeting Dan'sviews in an opinion. "So you think I'm a faithless man too, do you?" demanded Maveringstormily. "Not from your point of view, " said Boardman, who kept on quietly eatingand drinking. Mavering was too amiable not to feel Boardman's innocence of offence inhis unperturbed behaviour. "There was no faithlessness about it, and youknow it, " he went on, half laughing, half crying, in his excitement, andmaking Boardman the avenue of an appeal really addressed to Alice. "Iwas ready to do what either side decided. " "Or both, " suggested Boardman. "Yes, or both, " said Dan, boldly accepting the suggestion. "It wouldn'thave cost me a pang to give up if I'd been in the place of either. " "I guess that's what she could never understand, " Boardman mused aloud. "And I could never understand how any one could fail to see that thatwas what I intended--expected: that it would all come out right ofitself--naturally. " Dan was still addressing Alice in this belatedreasoning. "But to be accused of bad faith--of trying to deceive anyone--" "Pretty rough, " said Boardman. "Rough? It's more than I can stand!" "Well, you don't seem to be asked to stand it, " said Boardman, andMavering laughed forlornly with him at his joke, and then walked awayand looked out of Boardman's dormer-window on the roofs below, with their dirty, smoke-stained February snow. He pulled out hishandkerchief, and wiped his face with it. When he turned round, Boardmanlooked keenly at him, and asked, with an air of caution, "And so it'sall up?" "Yes, it's all up, " said Dan hoarsely. "No danger of a relapse?" "What do you mean?" "No danger of having my sympathy handed over later to Miss Pasmer forexamination?" "I guess you can speak up freely, Boardman, " said Dan, "if that's whatyou mean. Miss Pasmer and I are quits. " "Well, then, I'm glad of it. She wasn't the one for you. She isn't fitfor you. " "What's the reason she isn't?" cried Dan. "She's the most beautiful andnoble girl in the world, and the most conscientious, and the best--ifshe is unjust to me. " "No doubt of that. I'm not attacking her, and I'm not defending you. " "What are you doing then?" "Simply saying that I don't believe you two would ever understand eachother. You haven't got the same point of view, and you couldn't make itgo. Both out of a scrape. " "I don't know what you mean by a scrape, " said Dan, resenting the wordmore than the idea. Boardman tacitly refused to modify or withdraw it, and Dan said, after a sulky silence, in which he began to dramatise ameeting with his family: "I'm going home; I can't stand it here. What'sthe reason you can't come with me, Boardman?" "Do you mean to your rooms?" "No; to the Falls. " "Thanks. Guess not. " "Why not?" "Don't care about being a fifth wheel. " "Oh, pshaw, now, Boardman! Look here, you must go. I want you to go. I--I want your support. That's it. I'm all broken up, and I couldn'tstand that three hours' pull alone. They'll be glad to see you--all ofthem. Don't you suppose they'll be glad to see you? They're always glad;and they'll understand. " "I don't believe you want me to go yourself. You just think you do. " "No. I really do want you, Boardman. I want to talk it over with you. Ido want you. I'm not fooling. " "Don't think I could get away. " Yet he seemed to be pleased with thenotion of the Falls; it made him smile. "Well, see, " said Mavering disconsolately. "I'm going round to my roomsnow, and I'll be there till two o'clock; train's at 2. 30. " He wenttowards the door, where he faced about. "And you don't think it would beof any use?" "Any use--what?" "Trying to--to--to make it up. " "How should I know?" "No, no; of course you couldn't, " said Dan, miserably downcast. All theresentment which Alice's injustice had roused in him had died out;he was suffering as helplessly and hopelessly as a child. "Well, " hesighed, as he swung out of the door. Boardman found him seated at his writing-desk in his smoking-jacketwhen he came to him, rather early, and on the desk were laid out theproperties of the little play which had come to a tragic close. Therewere some small bits of jewellery, among the rest a ring of hers whichAlice had been letting him wear; a lock of her hair which he had kept, for the greater convenience of kissing, in the original parcel, tiedwith crimson ribbon; a succession of flowers which she had worn, moreand more dry and brown with age; one of her gloves, which he had foundand kept from the day they first met in Cambridge; a bunch of witheredbluebells tied with sweet-grass, whose odour filled the room, from thepicnic at Campobello; scraps of paper with her writing on them, andcards; several photographs of her, and piles of notes and letters. "Look here, " said Dan, knowing it was Boardman without turning round, "what am I to do about these things?" Boardman respectfully examined them over his shoulder. "Don't know whatthe usual ceremony is, " he said, he ventured to add, referring to theheaps of letters, "Seems to have been rather epistolary, doesn't she?" "Oh, don't talk of her as if she were dead!" cried Dan. "I've beenfeeling as if she were. " All at once he dropped his head among thesewitnesses of his loss, and sobbed. Boardman appeared shocked, and yet somewhat amused; he made a soft lowsibilation between his teeth. Dan lifted his head. "Boardman, if you ever give me away!" "Oh, I don't suppose it's very hilarious, " said Boardman, with vaguekindness. "Packed yet?" he asked, getting away from the subject assomething he did not feel himself fitted to deal with consecutively. "I'm only going to take a bag, " said Mavering, going to get some clothesdown from a closet where his words had a sepulchral reverberation. "Can't I help?" asked Boardman, keeping away from the sad memorials ofDan's love strewn about on the desk, and yet not able to keep his eyesoff them across the room. "Well, I don't know, " said Dan. He came out with his armful of coats andtrousers, and threw them on the bed. "Are you going?" "If I could believe you wanted me to. " "Good!" cried Mavering, and the fact seemed to brighten him immediately. "If you want to, stuff these things in, while I'm doing up these otherthings. " He nodded his head side-wise toward the desk. "All right, " said Boardman. His burst of grief must have relieved Dan greatly. He set aboutgathering up the relics on the desk, and getting a suitable piece ofpaper to wrap them in. He rejected several pieces as inappropriate. "I don't know what kind of paper to do these things up in, " he said atlast. "Any special kind of paper required?" Boardman asked, pausing in theact of folding a pair of pantaloons so as not to break the fall over theboot. "I didn't know there was, but there seems to be, " said Dan. "Silver paper seems to be rather more for cake and that sort of thing, "suggested Boardman. "Kind of mourning too, isn't it--silver?" "I don't know, " said Dan. "But I haven't got any silver paper. " "Newspaper wouldn't do?" "Well, hardly, Boardman, " said Dan, with sarcasm. "Well, " said Boardman, "I should have supposed that nothing could besimpler than to send back a lot of love-letters; but the question ofpaper seems insuperable. Manila paper wouldn't do either. And then comesstring. What kind of string are you going to tie it up with?" "Well, we won't start that question till we get to it, " answered Dan, looking about. "If I could find some kind of a box--" "Haven't you got a collar box? Be the very thing!" Boardman hadgone back to the coats and trousers, abandoning Dan to the subtlerdifficulties in which he was involved. "They've all got labels, " said Mavering, getting down one marked "TheTennyson" and another lettered "The Clarion, " and looking at them withcold rejection. "Don't see how you're going to send these things back at all, then. Haveto keep them, I guess. " Boardman finished his task, and came back toDan. "I guess I've got it now, " said Mavering, lifting the lid of his desk, and taking out a large stiff envelope, in which a set of photographicviews had come. "Seems to have been made for it, " Boardman exulted, watching theenvelope, as it filled up, expand into a kind of shapely packet. Danput the things silently in, and sealed the parcel with his ring. Then heturned it over to address it, but the writing of Alice's name for thispurpose seemed too much for him, in spite of Boardman's humorous supportthroughout. "Oh, I can't do it, " he said, falling back in his chair. "Let me, " said his friend, cheerfully ignoring his despair. Hephilosophised the whole transaction, as he addressed the package, rangfor a messenger, and sent it away, telling him to call a cab for tenminutes past two. "Mighty good thing in life that we move by steps. Now on the stage, orin a novel, you'd have got those things together and addressed 'em, anddespatched 'em, in just the right kind of paper, with just the rightkind of string round it, at a dash; and then you'd have had time to goup and lean your head against something and soliloquise, or else thinkunutterable things. But here you see how a merciful Providence blocksyour way all along. You've had to fight through all sort of sordidlittle details to the grand tragic result of getting off Miss Pasmer'sletters, and when you reach it you don't mind it a bit. " "Don't I?" demanded Dan, in as hollow a voice as he could. "You'd jokeat a funeral, Boardman. " "I've seen some pretty cheerful funerals, " said Boardman. "And it's thisprinciple of steps, of degrees, of having to do this little thing, andthat little thing, that keeps funerals from killing the survivors. Isuppose this is worse than a funeral--look at it in the right light. Youmourn as one without hope, don't you? Live through it too, I suppose. " He made Dan help get the rest of his things into his bag, and with onelittle artifice and another prevented him from stagnating in despair. He dissented from the idea of waiting over another day to see if Alicewould not relent when she got her letters back, and send for Dan to comeand see her. "Relent a good deal more when she finds you've gone out of town, if shesends for you, " he argued; and he got Dan into the cab and off tothe station, carefully making him an active partner in the wholeundertaking, even to checking his own bag. Before he bought his own ticket he appealed once more to Dan. "Look here! I feel like a fool going off with you on this expedition. Behonest for once, now, Mavering, and tell me you've thought better of it, and don't want me to go!" "Yes--yes, I do. Oh yes, you've got to go. I I do want you. I--you makeme see things in just the right light, don't you know. That idea ofyours about little steps--it's braced me all up. Yes--" "You're such an infernal humbug, " said Boardman, "I can't tell whetheryou want me or not. But I'm in for it now, and I'll go. " Then he boughthis ticket. XLV. Boardman put himself in charge of Mavering, and took him into thesmoking car. It was impossible to indulge a poetic gloom there withoutbecoming unpleasantly conspicuous in the smoking and euchre andprofanity. Some of the men were silent and dull, but no one wasapparently very unhappy, and perhaps if Dan had dealt in absolutesincerity with himself, even he would not have found himself whollyso. He did not feel as he had felt when Alice rejected him. Then he waswounded to the quick through his vanity, and now; in spite of all, inspite of the involuntary tender swaying of his heart toward her throughthe mere force of habit, in spite of some remote compunctions for hiswant of candour with her, he was supported by a sense of her injustice, her hardness. Related with this was an obscure sense of escape, ofliberation, which, however he might silence and disown it, was stillthere. He could not help being aware that he had long relinquishedtastes customs, purposes, ideals, to gain a peace that seemed more andmore fleeting and uncertain, and that he had submitted to others which, now that the moment of giving pleasure by his submission was past, herecognised as disagreeable. He felt a sort of guilt in his enlargement;he knew, by all that he had, ever heard or read of people in hisposition, that he ought to be altogether miserable; and yet thisconsciousness of relief persisted. He told himself that a very tragicalthing had befallen him; that this broken engagement was the ruin ofhis life and the end of his youth, and that he must live on an oldand joyless man, wise with the knowledge that comes to decrepitude anddespair; he imagined a certain look for himself, a gait, a name, thatwould express this; but all the same he was aware of having got out ofsomething. Was it a bondage, a scrape, as Boardman called it? He thoughthe must be a very light, shallow, and frivolous nature not to be utterlybroken up by his disaster. "I don't know what I'm going home for, " he said hoarsely to Boardman. "Kind of a rest, I suppose, " suggested his friend. "Yes, I guess that's it, " said Dan. "I'm tired. " It seemed to him that this was rather fine; it was a fatigue of the soulthat he was to rest from. He remembered the apostrophic close of a novelin which the heroine dies after much emotional suffering. "Quiet, quietheart!" he repeated to himself. Yes, he too had died to hope, to love, to happiness. As they drew near their journey's end he said, "I don't know how I'mgoing to break it to them. " "Oh, probably break itself, " said Boardman. "These things usually do. " "Yes, of course, " Dan assented. "Know from your looks that something's up. Or you might let me go aheada little and prepare them. " Dan laughed. "It was awfully good of you to come, Boardman. I don't knowwhat I should have done without you. " "Nothing I like more than these little trips. Brightens you up to serethe misery of others; makes you feel that you're on peculiarly goodterms with Providence. Haven't enjoyed myself so much since that day inPortland. " Boardman's eyes twinkled. "Yes, " said Dan, with a deep sigh, "it's a pity it hadn't ended there. " "Oh, I don't know. You won't have to go through with it again. Somethingthat had to come, wasn't it? Never been satisfied if you hadn't triedit. Kind of aching void before, and now you've got enough. " "Yes, I've got enough, " said Dan, "if that's all. " When they got out of the train at Ponkwasset Falls, and the conductorand the brakeman, who knew Dan as his father's son, and treated him withthe distinction due a representative of an interest valued by the road, had bidden him a respectfully intimate good-night, and he began to climbthe hill to his father's house, he recurred to the difficulty before himin breaking the news to his family. "I wish I could have it over in aflash. I wish I'd thought to telegraph it to them. " "Wouldn't have done, " said Boardman. "It would have given 'em time toformulate questions and conjectures, and now the astonishment will taketheir breath away till you can get your second wind, and then--you'll beall right. " "You think so?" asked Dan submissively. "Know so. You see, if you could have had it over in a flash, it wouldhave knocked you flat. But now you've taken all the little steps, andyou've got a lot more to take, and you're all braced up. See? You'relike rock, now--adamant. " Dan laughed in forlorn perception ofBoardman's affectionate irony. "Little steps are the thing. You'll haveto go in now and meet your family, and pass the time of day with eachone, and talk about the weather, and account for my being along, andask how they all are; and by the time you've had dinner, and got settledwith your legs out in front of the fire, you'll be just in the mood forit. Enjoy telling them all about it. " "Don't, Boardman, " pleaded Dan. "Boardy, I believe if I could get in andup to my room without anybody's seeing me, I'd let you tell them. Theredon't seem to be anybody about, and I think we could manage it. " "It wouldn't work, " said Boardman. "Got to do it yourself. " "Well, then, wait a minute, " said Dan desperately; and Boardman knewthat he was to stay outside while Dan reconnoitred the interior. Danopened one door after another till he stood within the hot brilliantlylighted hall. Eunice Mavering was coming down the stairs, hooded andwrapped for a walk on the long verandahs before supper. "Dan!" she cried. "It's all up, Eunice, " he said at once, as if she had asked him aboutit. "My engagement's off. " "Oh, I'm so glad!" She descended upon him with outstretched arms, butstopped herself before she reached him. "It's a hoax. What do you mean?Do you really mean it, Dan?" "I guess I mean it. But don't--Hold on! Where's Minnie?" Eunice turned, and ran back upstairs. "Minnie! Min!" she called on herway. "Dan's engagement's off. " "I don't believe it!" answered Minnie's voice joyously, from within someroom. It was followed by her presence, with successive inquiries. "Howdo you know? Did you get a letter? When did it happen? Oh, isn't it toogood?" Minnie was also dressed for the verandah promenade, which they alwaystook when the snow was too deep. She caught sight of her brother as shecame down. "Why, Dan's here! Dan, I've been thinking about you all day. "She kissed him, which Eunice was now reminded to do too. "Yes, it's true, Minnie, " said Dan gravely. "I came up to tell you. Itdon't seem to distress you much. " "Dan!" said his sister reproachfully. "You know I didn't mean to sayanything I only felt so glad to have you back again. " "I understand, Minnie--I don't blame you. It's all right. How's mother?Father up from the works yet? I'm going to my room. " "Indeed you're not!" cried Eunice, with elder sisterly authority. "Youshall tell us about it first. " "Oh no! Let him go, Eunice!" pleaded Minnie, "Poor Dan! And I don'tthink we ought to go to walk when--" Dan's eyes dimmed, and his voice weakened a little at her sympathy. "Yes, go. I'm tired--that's all. There isn't anything to tell you, hardly. Miss Pasmer--" "Why, he's pale!" cried Minnie. "Eunice!" "Oh, it's just the heat in here. " Dan really felt a little sick andfaint with it, but he was not sorry to seem affected by the day's strainupon his nerves. The girls began to take off their wraps. "Don't. I'll go with you. Boardman's out there. " "Boardman! What nonsense!" exclaimed Eunice. "He'll like to hear your opinion of it, " Dan began; but his sisterpulled the doors open, and ran out to see if he really meant that too. Whether Boardman had heard her, or had discreetly withdrawn out ofearshot at the first sound of voices, she could not tell, but she foundhim some distance away from the snow-box on the piazza. "Dan's justmanaged to tell us you were here, " she said, giving him her hand. "I'mglad to see you. Do come in. " "Come along as a sort of Job's comforter, " Boardman explained, ashe followed her in; and he had the silly look that the man who feelshimself superfluous must wear. "Then you know about it?" said Eunice, while Minnie Mavering and he wereshaking hands. "Yes, Boardman knows; he can tell you about it, " said Dan, from the hallchair he had dropped into. He rose and made his way to the stairs, withthe effect of leaving the whole thing to them. His sisters ran after him, and got him upstairs and into his room, withBoardman's semi-satirical connivance, and Eunice put up the window, while Minnie went to get some cologne to wet his forehead. Their effortswere so successful that he revived sufficiently to drive them out of hisroom, and make them go and show Boardman to his. "You know the way, Mr. Boardman, " said Eunice, going before him, whileMinnie followed timorously, but curious for what he should say. Shelingered on the threshold, while her sister went in and pulled theelectric apparatus which lighted the gas-burners. "I suppose Dan didn'tbreak it?" she said, turning sharply upon him. "No; and I don't think he was to blame, " said Boardman, inferring herreserved anxiety. "Oh, I'm quite sure of that, " said Eunice, rejecting what she had askedfor. "You'll find everything, Mr. Boardman. It was kind of you to comewith Dan. Supper's at seven. " "How severe you were with him!" murmured Minnie, following her away. "Severe with Dan?" "No--with Mr. Boardman. " "What nonsense! I had to be. I couldn't let him defend Dan to me. Coupleof silly boys!" After a moment Minnie said, "I don't think he's silly. " "Who?" "Mr. Boardman. " "Well, Dan is, then, to bring him at such a time. But I suppose he feltthat he couldn't get here without him. What a boy! Think of such a childbeing engaged! I hope we shan't hear any more of such nonsense for onewhile again--at least till Dan's got his growth. " They went down into the library, where, in their excitement, they satdown with most of their outdoor things on. Minnie had the soft contrary-mindedness of gentle natures. "I shouldlike to know how you would have had Dan bear it, " she said rebelliously. "How? Like a man. Or like a woman. How do you suppose Miss Pasmer'sbearing it? Do you suppose she's got some friend to help her?" "If she's broken it, she doesn't need any one, " urged Minnie. "Well, " said Eunice, with her high scorn of Dan unabated, "I never couldhave liked that girl, but I certainly begin to respect her. I think Icould have got on with her--now that it's no use. I declare, " she brokeoff, "we're sitting here sweltering to death! What are we keeping ourthings on for?" She began to tear hers violently off and to fling themon chairs, scolding, and laughing at the same time with Minnie, at theirabsent-mindedness. A heavy step sounded on the verandah without. "There's father!" she cried vividly, jumping to her feet and running tothe door, while Minnie, in a nervous bewilderment, ran off upstairs toher room. Eunice flung the door open. "Well, father, we've got Dan backagain. " And at a look of quiet question in his eye she hurried on: "Hisengagement's broken, and he's come up here to tell us, and brought Mr. Boardman along to help. " "Where is he?" asked the father, with his ruminant quiet, pulling offfirst one sleeve of his overcoat, and pausing for Eunice's answer beforehe pulled off the other. XLVI. "He's up in his room, resting from the effort. " She laughed nervously, and her father made no comment. He took off his articles, and then wentcreaking upstairs to Dan's room. But at the door he paused, with hishand on the knob, and turned away to his own room without entering. Dan must have heard him; in a few minutes he came to him. "Well, Dan, " said his father, shaking hands. "I suppose Eunice has told you? Well, I want to tell you why ithappened. " There was something in his father that always steadied Dan and kept himto the point. He now put the whole case fairly and squarely, and hiscandour and openness seemed to him to react and characterise his conductthroughout. He did not realise that this was not so till his fathersaid at the close, with mild justice, "You were to blame for letting thething run on so at loose ends. " "Yes, of course, " said Dan, seeing that he was. "But there was nointention of deceiving any one of bad faith--" "Of course not. " "I thought it could be easily arranged whenever it came to the point. " "If you'd been older, you wouldn't have thought that. You had women todeal with on both sides. But if it's all over, I'm not sorry. I alwaysadmired Miss Pasmer, but I've been more and more afraid you were notsuited to each other. Your mother doesn't know you're here?" "No, sir, I suppose not. Do you think it will distress her?" "How did your sisters take it?" Dan gave a rueful laugh. "It seemed to be rather a popular move withthem. " "I will see your mother first, " said the father. He left them when they went into the library after supper, and a littlelater Dan and Eunice left Boardman in charge of Minnie there. He looked after their unannounced withdrawal in comic consciousness. "It's no use pretending that I'm not a pretty large plurality here, " hesaid to Minnie. "Oh, I'm so glad you came!" she cried, with a kindness which was as realas if it had been more sincere. "Do you think mother will feel it much?" asked Dan anxiously, as he wentupstairs with Eunice. "Well, she'll hate to lose a correspondent--such a regular one, " saidEunice, and the affair being so far beyond any other comment, shelaughed the rest of the way to their mother's room. The whole family had in some degree that foible which affects people wholead isolated lives; they come to think that they are the only peoplewho have their virtues; they exaggerate these, and they conceive akindness even for the qualities which are not their virtues. Mrs. Mavering's life was secluded again from the family seclusion, and theirpeculiarities were intensified in her. Besides, she had some verymarked peculiarities of her own, and these were also intensified bythe solitude to which she was necessarily left so much. She meditated agreat deal upon the character of her children, and she liked to analyseand censure it both in her own mind and openly in their presence. Shewas very trenchant and definite in these estimates of them; she likedto ticket them, and then ticket them anew. She explored their ancestralhistory on both sides for the origin of their traits, and there weretimes when she reduced them in formula to mere congeries of inheritedcharacteristics. If Eunice was self-willed and despotic, she was justlike her grandmother Mavering; if Minnie was all sentiment and gentlestubbornness, it was because two aunts of hers, one on either side, were exactly so; if Dan loved pleasure and beauty, and was sinuous anduncertain in so many ways, and yet was so kind and faithful and good, aswell as shilly-shallying and undecided, it was because her mother, andher mother's father, had these qualities in the same combination. When she took her children to pieces before their faces, she wassharp and admonitory enough with them. She warned them to what theircharacters would bring them to if they did not look out; but perhapsbecause she beheld them so hopelessly the present effect of theaccumulated tendencies of the family past, she was tender and forgivingto their actions. The mother came in there, and superseded thestudent of heredity: she found excuse for them in the perversity ofcircumstance, in the peculiar hardship of the case, in the malignantmisbehaviour of others. As Dan entered, with the precedence his father and sister yielded him asthe principal actor in the scene which must follow, she lifted herselfvigorously in bed, and propped herself on the elbow of one arm while shestretched the other towards him. "I'm glad of it, Dan!" she called, at the moment he opened the door, and as he came toward her she continued, with the amazing velocity ofutterance peculiar to nervous sufferers of her sex: "I know all aboutit, and I don't blame you a bit! And I don't blame her! Poor helplessyoung things! But it's a perfect mercy it's all over; it's the greatestdeliverance I ever heard of! You'd have been eaten up alive. I saw it, and I knew it from the very first moment, and I've lived in fear andtrembling for you. You could have got on well enough if you'd been leftto yourselves, but that you couldn't have been nor hope to be as long asyou breathed, from the meddling and the machinations and the malice ofthat unscrupulous and unconscionable old Cat!" By the time Mrs. Mavering had hissed out the last word she had her armround her boy's neck and was clutching him, safe and sound after hisperil, to her breast; and between her kissing and crying she repeatedher accusals and denunciations with violent volubility. Dan could not have replied to them in that effusion of gratitude andtenderness he felt for his mother's partisanship; and when she went onin almost the very terms of his self-defence, and told him that he haddone as he had because it was easy for him to yield, and he could notimagine a Cat who would put her daughter up to entrapping him into apromise that she knew must break his mother's heart, he found her soright on the main point that he could not help some question of Mrs. Pasmer in his soul. Could she really have been at the bottom of it all?She was very sly, and she might be very false, and it was certainly shewho had first proposed their going abroad together. It looked as if itmight be as his mother said, and at any rate it was no time to disputeher, and he did not say a word in behalf of Mrs. Pasmer, whom shecontinued to rend in a thousand pieces and scatter to the winds till shehad to stop breathless. "Yes! it's quite as I expected! She did everything she could to trap youinto it. She fairly flung that poor girl at you. She laid her plansso that you couldn't say no--she understood your character from thestart!--and then, when it came out by accident, and she saw that shehad older heads to deal with, and you were not going to be quite at hermercy, she dropped the mask in an instant, and made Alice break withyou. Oh, I could see through her from the beginning! And the next time, Dan, I advise you, as you never suspect anybody yourself, to consultwith somebody who doesn't take people for what they seem, and not to letyourself be flattered out of your sensor, even if you see your fatheris. " Mrs. Mavering dropped back on her pillow, and her husband smiledpatiently at their daughter. Dan saw his patient smile and understood it; and the injustice which hisfather bore made him finally unwilling to let another remain under it. Hard as it was to oppose his mother in anything when she was praisinghim so sweetly and comforting him in the moment of his need, he pulledhimself together to protest: "No, no, mother! I don't think Mrs. Pasmerwas to blame; I don't believe she had anything to do with it. She'salways stood my friend--" "Oh, I've no doubt she's made you think so, Dan, " said his mother, withunabated fondness for him; "and you think so because you're so simpleand good, and never suspect evil of any one. It's this hideous optimismthat's killing everything--" A certain note in the invalid's falling voice seemed to warn her hearersof an impending change that could do no one good. Eunice rose hastilyand interrupted: "Mother, Mr. Boardman's here. He came up with Dan. MayMinnie come in with him?" Mrs. Mavering shot a glance of inquiry at Dan, and then let a swiftinspection range over all the details of the room, and finallyconcentrate itself on the silk and lace of her bed, over which shepassed a smoothing hand. "Mr. Boardman?" she cried, with instantlyrecovered amiability. "Of course she may!" XLVII. In Boston the rumour of Dan's broken engagement was followed promptlyby a denial of it; both the rumour and the denial were apparentlyauthoritative; but it gives the effect of a little greater sagacity todistrust rumours of all kinds, and most people went to bed, after theteas and dinners and receptions and clubs at which the fact was firstdebated, in the self-persuasion that it was not so. The next day theyfound the rumour still persistent; the denial was still in the airtoo, but it seemed weaker; at the end of the third day it had become aquestion as to which broke the engagement, and why; by the end of a weekit was known that Alice had broken the engagement, but the reason couldnot be ascertained. This was not for want of asking, more or less direct. Pasmer, of course, went and came at his club with perfect immunity. Men are quite ascurious as women, but they set business bounds to their curiosity, anddo not dream of passing these. With women who have no business of theirown, and can not quell themselves with the reflection that this thingor that is not their affair, there is no question so intimate that theywill not put it to some other woman; perhaps it is not so intimate, orperhaps it will not seem so; at any rate, they chance it. Mrs. Pasmerwas given every opportunity to explain the facts to the ladies whomshe met, and if she was much afflicted by Alice's behaviour, she had ameasure of consolation in using her skill to baffle the research of heracquaintance. After each encounter of the kind she had the pleasure ofreflecting that absolutely nothing more than she meant had become known. The case never became fully known through her; it was the girl herselfwho told it to Miss Cotton in one of those moments of confidence whichare necessary to burdened minds; and it is doubtful if more than two orthree people ever clearly understood it; most preferred one or other ofseveral mistaken versions which society finally settled down to. The paroxysm of self-doubt, almost self-accusal, in which Alice came toMiss Cotton, moved the latter to the deepest sympathy, and left her withmisgivings which became an intolerable anguish to her conscience. Thechild was so afflicted at what she had done, not because she wished tobe reconciled with her lover, but because she was afraid she had beenunjust, been cruelly impatient and peremptory with him; she seemed toMiss Cotton so absolutely alone and friendless with her great trouble, she was so helpless, so hopeless, she was so anxious to do right, andso fearful she had done wrong, that Miss Cotton would not have beenMiss Cotton if she had not taken her in her arms and assured her that ineverything she had done she had been sublimely and nobly right, a lessonto all her sex in such matters for ever. She told her that she hadalways admired her, but that now she idolised her; that she felt likegoing down on her knees and simply worshipping her. "Oh, don't say that, Miss Cotton!" pleaded Alice, pulling away fromher embrace, but still clinging to her with her tremulous, cold littlehands. "I can't bear it! I'm wicked and hard you don't know how bad Iam; and I'm afraid of being weak, of doing more harm yet. Oh, I wrongedhim cruelly in ever letting him get engaged to me! But now what you'vesaid will support me. If you think I've done right--It must seem strangeto you that I should come to you with my trouble instead of my mother;but I've been to her, and--and we think alike on so few subjects, don'tyou know--" "Yes, yes; I know, dear!" said Miss Cotton, in the tender folly ofher heart, with the satisfaction which every woman feels in being moresufficient to another in trouble than her natural comforters. "And I wanted to know how you saw it; and now, if you feel as you say, Ican never doubt myself again. " She tempested out of Miss Cotton's house, all tearful under the veil shehad pulled down, and as she shut the door of her coupe, Miss Cotton'sheart jumped into her throat with an impulse to run after her, to recallher, to recant, to modify everything. From that moment Miss Cotton's trouble began, and it became a tormentthat mounted and gave her no peace till she imparted it. She said toherself that she should suffer to the utmost in this matter, and if shespoke to any one, it must not be to same one who had agreed with herabout Alice, but to some hard, skeptical nature, some one who would lookat it from a totally different point of view, and would punish her forher error, if she had committed an error, in supporting and consolingAlice. All the time she was thinking of Mrs. Brinkley; Mrs. Brinkleyhad come into her mind at once; but it was only after repeated strugglesthat she could get the strength to go to her. Mrs. Brinkley, sacredly pledged to secrecy, listened with a sufficientlydismaying air to the story which Miss Cotton told her in the extremityof her fear and doubt. "Well, " she said at the end, "have you written to Mr. Mavering?" "Written to Mr. Mavering?" gasped Miss Cotton. "Yes--to tell him she wants him back. " "Wants him back?" Miss Cotton echoed again. "That's what she came to you for. " "Oh, Mrs. Brinkley!" moaned Miss Cotton, and she stared at her in mutereproach. Mrs. Brinkley laughed. "I don't say she knew that she came for that; butthere's no doubt that she did; and she went away bitterly disappointedwith your consolation and support. She didn't want anything of thekind--you may comfort yourself with that reflection, Miss Cotton. " "Mrs. Brinkley, " said Miss Cotton, with a severity which ought to havebeen extremely effective from so mild a person, "do you mean to accusethat poor child of dissimulation--of deceit--in such--a--a--" "No!" shouted Mrs. Brinkley; "she didn't know what she was doing anymore than you did; and she went home perfectly heart-broken; and I hopeshe'll stay so, for the good of all parties concerned. " Miss Cotton was so bewildered by Mrs. Brinkley's interpretation ofAlice's latent motives that she let the truculent hostility of heraspiration pass unheeded. She looked helplessly about, and seemed faint, so that Mrs. Brinkley, without appearing to notice her state, interposedthe question of a little sherry. When it had been brought, and MissCotton had sipped the glass that trembled in one hand while her emotionshattered a biscuit with the other, Mrs. Brinkley went on: "I'm glad theengagement is broken, and I hope it will never be mended. If what youtell me of her reason for breaking it is true--" "Oh, I feel so guilty for telling you! I'd no right to! Please neverspeak of it!" pleaded Miss Cotton. "Then I feel more than ever that it was all a mistake, and that to helpit on again would be a--crime. " Miss Cotton gave a small jump at the word, as if she had alreadycommitted the crime: she had longed to do it. "Yes; I mean to say that they are better parted than plighted. Ifmatches are made in heaven, I believe some of them are unmade there too. They're not adapted to each other; there's too great a disparity. " "You mean, " began Miss Cotton, from her prepossession of Alice'ssuperiority, "that she's altogether his inferior, intellectually andmorally. " "Oh, I can't admit that!" cried Miss Cotton, glad to have Mrs. Brinkleygo too far, and plucking up courage from her excess. "Intellectually and morally, " repeated Mrs. Brinkley, with the mountingconviction which ladies seem to get from mere persistence. "I saw thatgirl at Campobello; I watched her. " "I never felt that you did her justice!" cried Miss Cotton, with thevalour of a hen-sparrow. "There was an antipathy. " "There certainly wasn't a sympathy, I'm happy to say, " retorted Mrs. Brinkley. "I know her, and I know her family, root and branch. ThePasmers are the dullest and most selfish people in the world. " "Oh, I don't think that's her character, " said Miss Cotton, ruffling herfeathers defensively. "Neither do I. She has no fixed character. No girl has. Nobody has. Weall have twenty different characters--more characters than gowns--and weput them on and take them off just as often for different occasions. I know you think each person is permanently this or that; but myexperience is that half the time they're the other thing. " "Then why, " said Miss Cotton, winking hard, as some weak people do whenthey thick they are making a point, "do you say that Alice is dull andselfish?" "I don't--not always, or not simply so. That's the character of thePasmer blood, but it's crossed with twenty different currents in her;and from some body that the Pasmer dulness and selfishness must havedriven mad she got a crazy streak of piety; and that's got mixed up inher again with a nonsensical ideal of duty; and everything she does shenot only thinks is right, but she thinks it's religious, and she thinksit's unselfish. " "If you'd seen her, if you'd heard her, this morning, " said Miss Cotton, "you wouldn't say that, Mrs. Brinkley. " Mrs. Brinkley refused this with an impatient gesture. "It isn't whatshe is now, or seems to be, or thinks she is. It's what she's going tofinally harden into--what's going to be her prevailing character. NowDan Mavering has just the faults that will make such a girl think herown defects are virtues, because they're so different. I tell you AlicePasmer has neither the head nor the heart to appreciate the goodness, the loveliness, of a fellow like Dan Mavering. " "I think she feels his sweetness fully, " urged Miss Cotton. "But shecouldn't endure his uncertainty. With her the truth is first of allthings. " "Then she's a little goose. If she had the sense to know it, she wouldknow that he might delay and temporise and beat about the bush, but hewould be true when it was necessary. I haven't the least doubt in theworld but that poor fellow was going on in perfect security, because hefelt that it would be so easy for him to give up, and supposed it wouldbe just as easy for her. I don't suppose he had a misgiving, and it musthave come upon him like a thunder-clap. " "Don't you think, " timidly suggested Miss Cotton, "that truth is thefirst essential in marriage?" "Of course it is. And if this girl was worthy of Dan Mavering, if shewere capable of loving him or anybody else unselfishly, she would havefelt his truth even if she couldn't have seen it. I believe this minutethat that manoeuvring, humbugging mother of hers is a better woman, akinder woman, than she is. " "Alice says her mother took his part, " said Miss Cotton, with a sigh. "She took your view of it. " "She's a sensible woman. But I hope she won't be able to get him intoher toils again, " continued Mrs. Brinkley, recurring to the conventionalestimate of Mrs. Pasmer. "I can't help feeling--believing--that they'll come together somehowstill, " murmured Miss Cotton. It seemed to her that she had all alongwished this; and she tried to remember if what she had said to comfortAlice might be construed as adverse to a reconciliation. "I hope they won't, then, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "for they couldn't helpbeing unhappy together, with their temperaments. There's one thing, Miss Cotton, that's more essential in marriage than Miss Pasmer'sinstantaneous honesty, and that's patience. " "Patience with wrong?" demanded Miss Cotton. "Yes, even with wrong; but I meant patience with each other. Marriageis a perpetual pardon, concession, surrender; it's an everlasting givingup; that's the divine thing about it; and that's just what Miss Passercould never conceive of, because she is self-righteous and conceited andunyielding. She would make him miserable. " Miss Cotton rose in a bewilderment which did not permit her to go atonce. There was something in her mind which she wished to urge, but shecould not make it out, though she fingered in vague generalities. Whenshe got a block away from the house it suddenly came to her. Love! Ifthey loved each other, would not all be well with them? She would haveliked to run back and put that question to Mrs. Brinkley; but justthen she met Brinkley lumbering heavily homeward; she heard his hardbreathing from the exertion of bowing to her as he passed. His wife met him in the hall, and went up to kiss him. He smeltabominably of tobacco smoke. "Hullo!" said her husband. "What are you after?" "Nothing, " said his wife, enjoying his joke. "Come in here; I want totell you how I have just sat upon Miss Cotton. " XLVIII. The relations between Dan and his father had always been kindly andtrustful; they now became, in a degree that touched and flattered theyoung fellow, confidential. With the rest of the family there soonceased to be any reference to his engagement; his sisters were glad, each in her way, to have him back again; and, whatever they may havesaid between themselves, they said nothing to him about Alice. Hismother appeared to have finished with the matter the first night; shehad her theory, and she did it justice; and when Mrs. Mavering had oncedone a thing justice, she did not bring it up again unless somebodydisputed it. But nobody had defended Mrs. Pasmer after Dan's feebleprotest in her behalf; Mrs. Mavering's theory was accepted withobedience if not conviction; the whole affair dropped, except betweenDan and his father. Dan was certainly not so gay as he used to be; he was glad to find thathe was not so gay. There had been a sort of mercy in the suddenness ofthe shock; it benumbed him, and the real stress and pain came during thelong weeks that followed, when nothing occurred to vary the situationin any manner; he did not hear a word about Alice from Boston, nor anyrumour of her people. At first he had intended to go back with Boardman and face it out; butthere seemed no use in this, and when it came to the point he found itimpossible. Boardman went back alone, and he put Dan's things togetherin his rooms at Boston and sent them to him, so that Dan remained athome. He set about helping his father at the business with unaffecteddocility. He tried not to pose, and he did his best to bear his lossand humiliation with manly fortitude. But his whole life had not set sostrongly in one direction that it could be sharply turned aside now, and not in moments of forgetfulness press against the barriers almostto bursting. Now and then, when he came to himself from the wontedtendency, and remembered that Alice and he, who had been all in all toeach other, were now nothing, the pain was so sharp, so astonishing, that he could not keep down a groan, which he then tried to turn offwith a cough, or a snatch of song, or a whistle, looking wildly round tosee if any one had noticed. Once this happened when his father and he were walking silently homefrom the works, and his father said, without touching him or showing hissympathy except in his tone of humorously frank recognition, "Does itstill hurt a little occasionally, Dan?" "Yes, sir, it hurts, " said the son; and he turned his face aside, andwhistled through his teeth. "Well, it's a trial, I suppose, " said his father, with his gentle, softhalf-lisp. "But there are greater trials. " "How, greater?" asked Dan, with sad incredulity. "I've lost all thatmade life worth living; and it's all my own fault, too. " "Yes, " said his father; "I think she was a good girl. " "Good!" cried Dan; the word seemed to choke him. "Still, I doubt if it's all your fault. " Dan looked round at him. Headded, "And I think it's perhaps for the best as it is. " Dan halted, and then said, "Oh, I suppose so, " with dreary resignation, as they walked on. "Let us go round by the paddock, " said his father, "and see if Pat'sput the horses up yet. You can hardly remember your mother, before shebecame an invalid, I suppose, " he added, as Dan mechanically turnedaside with him from the path that led to the house into that leading tothe barn. "No; I was such a little fellow, " said Dan. "Women give up a great deal when they marry, " said the elder. "It's notstrange that they exaggerate the sacrifice, and expect more in returnthan it's in the nature of men to give them. I should have been sorry tohave you marry a woman of an exacting disposition. " "I'm afraid she was exacting, " said Dan. "But she never asked more thanwas right. " "And it's difficult to do all that's right, " suggested the elder. "I'm sure you always have, father, " said the son. The father did not respond. "I wish you could remember your mother whenshe was well, " he said. Presently he added, "I think it isn't best for awoman to be too much in love with her husband. " Dan took this to himself, and he laughed harshly. "She's been able todissemble her love at last. " His father went on, "Women keep the romantic feeling longer than men; itdies out of us very soon--perhaps too soon. " "You think I couldn't have come to time?" asked Dan. "Well, as it'sturned out, I won't have to. " "No man can be all a woman wishes him to be, " said his father. "It'sbetter for the disappointment to come before it's too late. " "I was to blame, " said Dan stoutly. "She was all right. " "You were to blame in the particular instance, " his father answered. "But in general the fault was in her--or her temperament. As long as theromance lasted she might have deluded herself, and believed you were allshe imagined you; but romance can't last, even with women. I don likeyour faults, and I don't want you to excuse them to yourself. I don'tlike your chancing things, and leaving them to come out all right ofthemselves; but I've always tried to make you children see all yourqualities in their true proportion and relation. " "Yes; I know that, sir, " said Dan. "Perhaps, " continued his father, as they swung easily along, shoulderto shoulder, "I may have gone too far in that direction because I wasafraid that you might take your mother too seriously in the other--thatyou might not understand that she judged you from her nerves and nother convictions. It's part of her malady, of her suffering, that herinherited Puritanism clouds her judgment, and makes her see all faultsas of one size and equally damning. I wish you to know that she was notalways so, but was once able to distinguish differences in error, and torealise that evil is of ill-will. " "Yes; I know that, " said Dan. "She is now--when she feels well. " "Harm comes from many things, but evil is of the heart. I wouldn'thave you condemn yourself too severely for harm that you didn'tintend--that's remorse--that's insanity; and I wouldn't have you fallunder the condemnation of another's invalid judgment. " "Thank you, father, " said Dan. They had come up to the paddock behind the barn, and they laid theirarms on the fence while they looked over at the horses, which werestill there. The beasts, in their rough winter coats, some bedaubed withfrozen clots of the mud in which they had been rolling earlier in theafternoon, stood motionless in the thin, keen breeze that crept overthe hillside from the March sunset, and blew their manes and tails outtoward Dan and his father. Dan's pony sent him a gleam of recognitionfrom under his frowsy bangs, but did not stir. "Bunch looks like a caterpillar, " he said, recalling the time when hisfather had given him the pony; he was a boy then, and the pony was asmuch to him, it went through his mind, as Alice had ever been. Was itall a jest, an irony? he asked himself. "He's getting pretty old, " said his father. "Let's see: you were onlytwelve. " "Ten, " said Dan. "We've had him thirteen years. " Some of the horses pricked up their ears at the sound of their voices. One of them bit another's neck; the victim threw up his heels andsquealed. Pat called from the stable, "Heigh, you divils!" "I think he'd better take them in, " said Dan's father; and he continued, as if it were all the same subject, "I hope you'll have seen somethingmore of the world before you fall in love the next time. " "Thank you; there won't be any next time. But do you consider the worldsuch a school of morals; then? I supposed it was a very bad place. " "We seem to have been all born into it, " said the father. He lifted hisarms from the fence, and Dan mechanically followed him into the stable. A warm, homely smell of hay and of horses filled the place; a lanternglimmered, a faint blot, in the loft where Pat was pitching some hayforward to the edge of the boards; the naphtha gas weakly flared fromthe jets beside the harness-room, whence a smell of leather issued andmingled with the other smell. The simple, earthy wholesomeness of theplace appealed to Dan and comforted him. The hay began to tumble fromthe loft with a pleasant rustling sound. His father called up to Pat, "I think you'd better take the horses innow. " "Yes, sir: I've got the box-stalls ready for 'em. " Dan remembered how he and Eunice used to get into the box-stall withhis pony, and play at circus with it; he stood up on the pony, andhis sister was the ring-master. The picture of his careless childhoodreflected a deeper pathos upon his troubled present, and he sighedagain. His father said, as they moved on through the barn: "Some of the bestpeople I've ever known were what were called worldly people. Theyare apt to be sincere, and they have none of the spiritual pride, theconceit of self-righteousness, which often comes to people who are shutup by conscience or circumstance to the study of their own motives andactions. " "I don't think she was one of that kind, " said Dan. "Oh, I don't know that she was. But the chances of happiness, ofgoodness, would be greater with a less self-centred person--for you. " "Ah, Yes! For me!" said Dan bitterly. "Because I hadn't it in me tobe frank with her. With a man like me, a woman had better be a littlescampish, too! Father, I could get over the loss; she might have died, and I could have got over that; but I can't get over being to blame. " "I don't think I'd indulge in any remorse, " said his father. "There'snothing so useless, so depraving, as that. If you see you're wrong, it'sfor your warning, not for your destruction. " Dan was not really feeling very remorseful; he had never felt that hewas much to blame; but he had an intellectual perception of the case, and he thought that he ought to feel remorseful; it was this persuasionthat he took for an emotion. He continued to look very disconsolate. "Come, " said his father, touching his arm, "I don't want you to broodupon these things. It can do no manner of good. I want you to go toNew York next week and look after that Lafflin process. If it's what hethinks--if he can really cast his brass patterns without air-holes--itwill revolutionise our business. I want to get hold of him. " The Portuguese cook was standing in the basement door which they passedat the back of the house. He saluted father and son with a glitteringsmile. "Hello, Joe!" said Dan. "Ah, Joe!" said his father; he touched his hat to the cook, who snatchedhis cap off. "What a brick you are, father!" thought Dan. His heart leaped at thenotion of getting away from Ponkwasset; he perceived how it had beenirking him to stay. "If you think I could manage it with Lafflin--" "Oh, I think you could. He's another slippery chap. " Dan laughed for pleasure and pain at his father's joke. XLIX. In New York Dan found that Lafflin had gone to Washington to look upsomething in connection with his patent. In his eagerness to get awayfrom home, Dan had supposed that his father meant to make a holiday forhim, and he learned with a little surprise that he was quite in earnestabout getting hold of the invention he wrote home of Lafflin's absence;and he got a telegram in reply ordering him to follow on to Washington. The sun was shining warm on the asphalt when he stepped out of thePennsylvania Depot with his bag in his hand, and put it into the hansomthat drove up for him. The sky overhead was of an intense blue that madehim remember the Boston sky as pale and grey; when the hansom tiltedout into the Avenue he had a joyous glimpse of the White House; ofthe Capitol swimming like a balloon in the cloudless air. A keen Marchbreeze swept the dust before him, and through its veil the classicTreasury Building showed like one edifice standing perfect amid ruinrepresented by the jag-tooth irregularities of the business architecturealong the wide street. He had never been in Washington before, and he had a confused senseof having got back to Rome, which he remembered from his boyish visit. Throughout his stay he seemed to be coming up against the facade ofthe Temple of Neptune; but it was the Patent Office, or the TreasuryBuilding, or the White House, and under the gay Southern sky thisreversion to the sensations of a happier time began at once, and madeitself a lasting relief. He felt a lift in his spirits from the first. They gave him a room at Wormley's, where the chairs comported themselvesas self-respectfully upon two or three legs as they would have done atBoston upon four; the cooking was excellent, and a mercenary welcomeglittered from all the kind black faces around him. After the quiet ofPonkwasset and the rush of New York, the lazy ease of the hotel pleasedhim; the clack of boots over its pavements, the clouds of tobacco smoke, the Southern and Western accents, the spectacle of people unexpectedlyencountering and recognising each other in the office and thedining-room, all helped to restore him to a hopefuller mood. Withoutasking his heart too curiously why, he found it lighter; he felt that hewas still young. In the weather he had struck a cold wave, and the wind was bitter inthe streets, but they were full of sun; he found the grass green insheltered places, and in one of the Circles he plucked a blossomed sprayfrom an adventurous forceythia. This happened when he was walking fromWormley's to the Arlington by a roundabout way of his own involuntaryinvention, and he had the flowers in his button-hole when Lafflin waspointed out to him in the reading room there, and he introduced himself. Lafflin had put his hat far back on his head, and was intensely chewinga toothpick, with an air of rapture from everything about him. He seemeda very simple soul to Dan's inexperience of men, and the young fellowhad no difficulty in committing him to a fair conditional arrangement. He was going to stay some days in Washington, and he promised otherinterviews, so that Dan thought it best to stay too. He used a sheet ofthe Arlington letter-paper in writing his father of what he had done;and then, as Lafflin had left him, he posted his letter at the clerk'sdesk, and wandered out through a corridor different from that which hehad come in by. It led by the door of the ladies parlour, and at thesound of women's voices Dan halted. For no other reason than that suchvoices always irresistibly allured him, he went in, putting on an airof having come to look for some one. There were two or three groups ofladies receiving friends in different parts of the room. At the windowa girl's figure silhouetted itself against the keen light, and ashe advanced into the room, peering about, it turned with a certainvividness that seemed familiar. This young lady, whoever she was, hadthe advantage of Dan in seeing him with the light on his face, and hewas still in the dark about her, when she advanced swiftly upon him, holding out her hand. "You don't seem to know your old friends, Mr. Mavering, " and the manlytones left him no doubt. He felt a rush of gladness, and he clasped her hand and clung to it asif he were not going to let it go again, bubbling out incoherencies ofpleasure at meeting her. "Why, Miss Anderson! You here? What a piece ofluck! Of course I couldn't see you against the window--make you out! Butsomething looked familiar--and the way you turned! And when you startedtoward me! I'm awfully glad! When--where are you--that is--" Miss Anderson kept laughing with him, and bubbled back that she was veryglad too, and she was staying with her aunt in that hotel, and they hadbeen there a month, and didn't he think Washington was charming? But itwas too bad he had just got there with that blizzard. The weather hadbeen perfectly divine till the day before yesterday. He took the spray of forceythia out of his buttonhole. "I can believeit. I found this in one, of the squares, and I think it belongs toyou. " He offered it with a bow and a laugh, and she took it in the samehumour. "What is the language of forceythia?" she asked. "It has none--only expressive silence, you know. " A middle-aged lady came in, and Miss Anderson said, "My aunt, Mr. Mavering. " "Mr. Mavering will hardly remember me, " said the lady, giving him herhand. He protested that he should indeed, but she had really made but avague impression upon him at Campobello. He knew that she was there withMiss Anderson; he had been polite to her as he was to all women; but hehad not noticed her much, and in his heart he had a slight for her, ascompared with the Boston people he was more naturally thrown with; hecertainly had not remembered that she was a little hard of hearing. Miss Van Hook was in a steel-grey effect of dress, and, she had carriedthis up into her hair, of which she worn two short vertical curls oneach temple. She did not sit down, and Dan perceived that the ladies were going out. In her tailor-made suit of close-fitting serge and her Paris bonnet, carried like a crest on her pretty little head, Miss Anderson wascharming. She had a short veil that came across the base of her livelynose, and left her mouth and chin to make the most of themselves, unprejudiced by its irregularity. Dan felt it a hardship to part with them, but he prepared to takehimself off. Miss Anderson asked him how long he was to be inWashington, and said he must come to see them; they meant to stay twoweeks yet, and then they were going to Old Point Comfort; they had theirrooms engaged. He walked down to their carriage with the ladies and put them into it, and Miss Anderson still kept him talking there. Her aunt said: "Why shouldn't you come with us, Mr. Mavering? We'regoing to Mrs. Secretary Miller's reception. " Dan gave himself a glance. "I don't know--if you want me?" "We want you, " said Miss Anderson. "Very well, then, I'll go. " He got in, and they began rolling over that smooth Washington asphaltwhich makes talk in a carriage as easy as in a drawing-room. Dan keptsaying to himself, "Now she's going to bring up Campobello;" but MissAnderson never recurred to their former meeting, and except for thesense of old acquaintance which was manifest in her treatment of himhe might have thought that they had never met before. She talked ofWashington and its informal delights; and of those plans which her aunthad made, like every one who spends a month in Washington, to spend allthe remaining winters of her life there. It seemed to Dan that Miss Anderson was avoiding Campobello on hisaccount; he knew from what Alice had told him that there had beenmuch surmise about their affair after he had left the island, and hesuspected that Miss Anderson thought the subject was painful to him. Hewished to reassure her. He asked at the first break in the talk aboutWashington, "How are the Trevors?" "Oh, quite well, " she said, promptly availing herself of the opening. "Have you seen any of our Campobello friends lately in Boston?" "No; I've been at home for the last month--in the country. " He scannedher face to see if she knew anything of his engagement. But she seemedhonestly ignorant of everything since Campobello; she was not just thekind of New York girl who would visit in Boston, or have friends livingthere; probably she had never heard of his engagement. Somehow thisseemed to simplify matters for Dan. She did not ask specifically afterthe Pasmers; but that might have been because of the sort of break inher friendship with Alice after that night at the Trevors'; she did notask specifically after Mrs. Brinkley or any of the others. At Mrs. Secretary Miller's door there was a rapid arrival and departureof carriages, of coupes, of hansoms, and of herdics, all managed by aman in plain livery, who opened and shut the doors, and sent thedrivers off without the intervention of a policeman; it is the genius ofWashington, which distinguishes it from every other capital, from everyother city, to make no show of formality, of any manner of constraintanywhere. People were swarming in and out; coming and going on footas well as by carriage. The blandest of coloured uncles receivedtheir cards in the hall and put them into a vast tray heaped up withpasteboard, smiling affectionately upon them as if they had done him afavour. "Don't you like them?" asked Dan of Miss Anderson; he meant the Southernnegroes. "I adoye them, " she responded, with equal fervour. "You must study somenew types here for next summer, " she added. Dan laughed and winced too. "Yes!" Then he said solemnly, "I am notgoing to Campobello next summer. " They felt into a stream of people tending toward an archway between thedrawing-rooms, where Mrs. Secretary Miller stood with two lady friendswho were helping her receive. They smiled wearily but kindly uponthe crowd, for whom the Secretary's wife had a look of impartialhospitality. She could not have known more than one in fifty; andshe met them all with this look at first, breaking into incredulousrecognition when she found a friend. "Don't go away yet, " she saidcordially, to Miss Van Hook and her niece, and she held their hands fora moment with a gentle look of relief and appeal which included Dan. "Let me introduce you to Mrs. Tolliver and to Miss Dixon. " These ladies said that it was not necessary in regard to Miss Andersonand Miss Van Hook; and as the crowd pushed them on, Dan felt that theyhad been received with distinction. The crowd expressed the national variety of rich and poor, plain andfashionable, urbane and rustic; they elbowed and shouldered each otherupon a perfect equality in a place where all were as free to come as tothe White House, and they jostled quaint groups of almond-eyed legationsin the yellows and purples of the East, who looked dreamily on as ifpuzzled past all surmise by the scene. Certain young gentlemen withthe unmistakable air of being European or South American attaches foundtheir way about on their little feet, which the stalwart boots ofthe republican masses must have imperilled; and smiled with a faintdiplomatic superiority, not visibly admitted, but all the sameindisputable. Several of these seemed to know Miss Anderson, and tookher presentation of Mavering with exaggerated effusion. "I want to introduce you to my cousin over yonder, " she said, gettingrid of a minute Brazilian under-secretary, and putting her hand on Dan'sarm to direct him: "Mrs. Justice Averill. " Miss Van Hook, keeping her look of severe vigilance, really followed herenergetic niece, who took the lead, as a young lady must whenever sheand her chaperon meet on equal terms. Mrs. Justice Averill, who was from the far West somewhere, received Danwith the ease of the far East, and was talking London and Paris to himbefore the end of the third minute. It gave Dan a sense of liberation, of expansion; he filled his lungs with the cosmopolitan air in a sortof intoxication; without formulating it, he felt, with the astonishmentwhich must always attend the Bostonian's perception of the fact, thatthere is a great social life in America outside of Boston. At Campobellohe had thought Miss Anderson a very jolly girl, bright, and up to allsorts of things; but in the presence of the portable Boston there hecould not help regarding her with a sort of tolerance which he nowblushed for; he thought he had been a great ass. She seemed to know allsorts of nice people, and she strove with generous hospitality to makehim have a good time. She said it was Cabinet Day, and that all thesecretaries' wives were receiving, and she told him he had better makethe rounds with them. He assented very willingly, and at six o'clock hewas already so much in the spirit of this free and simple society, so much opener and therefore so much wiser than any other, that heprofessed a profound disappointment with the two or three Cabinet ladieswhose failure to receive brought his pleasure to a premature close. "But I suppose you're going to Mrs. Whittington's to-night!" MissAnderson said to him, as they drove up to Wormley's, where she set himdown. Miss Van Hook had long ceased to say anything; Dan thought her aperfect duenna. "You know you can go late there, " she added. "No, I can't go at all, " said Dan. "I don't know them. " "They're New England people, " urged Miss Anderson; as if to make him tryto think that he was asked to Mrs. Whittington's. "I don't know more than half the population of New England, " said Dan, with apparent levity, but real forlornness. "If you'd like to go--if you're sure you've no other engagement--" "Oh, I'm certain of that?" "--we would come for you. " "Do!" "At half-past ten, then. " Miss Anderson explained to her aunt, who cordially confirmed herinvitation, and they both shook hands with him upon it, and he backedout of the carriage with a grin of happiness on his face; it remainedthere while he wrote out the order for his dinner, which they requireat Wormley's in holograph. The waiter reflected his smile with ethnicalwarm-heartedness. For a moment Dan tried to think what it was he hadforgotten; he thought it was some other dish; then he remembered thatit was his broken heart. He tried to subdue himself; but there wassomething in the air of the place, the climate, perhaps, or a pleasantsense of its facile social life, that kept him buoyant in spite ofhimself. He went out after dinner, and saw part of a poor play, andreturned in time to dress for his appointment with Miss Anderson. Heraunt was with her, of course; she seemed to Dan more indefatigable thanshe was by day. He could not think her superfluous; and she was verygood-natured. She made little remarks full of conventional wisdom, andappealed to his judgment on several points as they drove along. Whenthey came to a street lamp where she could see him, he nodded and saidyes, or no, respectfully. Between times he talked with Miss Anderson, who lectured him upon Washington society, and prepared him for thedifference he was to find between Mrs. Whittington's evening of invitedguests and the Cabinet ladies' afternoon of volunteer guests. "Volunteer guests is good, " he laughed. "Do you mean that anybody cango?" "Anybody that is able to be about. This is Cabinet Day. There's aSupreme Court Day and a Senators' Day, and a Representatives' Day. Doyou mean to say you weren't going to call upon your Senator?" "I didn't know I had any. " "Neither did I till I came here. But you've got two; everybody's gottwo. And the President's wife receives three times a week, and thePresident has two or three days. They say the public days at the WhiteHouse are great fun. I've been to some of the invited, or semi-invitedor official evenings. " He could not see that difference from the great public receptionswhich Miss Anderson had promised him at Mrs. Whittington's, though hepretended afterward that he had done so. The people were more uniformlywell dressed, there were not so many of them, and the hostess was sureof knowing her acquaintances at first glance; but there was the sameease, the same unconstraint, the same absence of provincial anxietywhich makes a Washington a lighter and friendlier London. There wererather more sallow attaches; in their low-cut white waistcoats, withsmall brass buttons, they moved more consciously about, and lookedweightier personages than several foreign ministers who were present. Dan was soon lost from the side of Miss Anderson, who more and moreseemed to him important socially. She seemed, in her present leadership;to know more of life, than he; to be maturer. But she did not abuse hersuperiority; she kept an effect of her last summer's friendliness forhim throughout. Several times, finding herself near him; she introducedhim to people. Guests kept arriving till midnight. Among the latest, when Dan had losthimself far from Boston in talk with a young lady from Richmond, whospoke with a slur of her vowels that fascinated him, came Mr. AndMrs. Brinkley. He felt himself grow pale and inattentive to his prettyVirginian. That accent of Mrs. Brinkley's recalled him to his history. He hoped that she would not see him; but in another moment he wasgreeting her with a warmth which Bostonians seldom show in meeting atBoston. "When did you come to Washington?" she asked, trying to keep herconsciousness out of her eyes, which she let dwell kindly upon him. "Day before yesterday--no, yesterday. It seems a month, I've seen anddone so much, " he said, with his laugh. "Miss Anderson's been showing methe whole of Washington society. Have you been here long?" "Since morning, " said Mrs. Brinkley. And she added, "Miss Anderson?" "Yes--Campobello, don't you know?" "Oh yes. Is she here to-night?" "I came with her and her aunt. " "Oh yes. " "How is all Boston?" asked Dan boldly. "I don't know; I'm just going down to Old Point Comfort to ask. Everyother house on the Back Bay has been abandoned for the Hygeia. " Mrs. Brinkley stopped, and then she asked. "Are you just up from there?" "No; but I don't know but I shall go. " "Hello, Mavering!" said Mr. Brinkley, coming up and taking his hand intohis fat grasp. "On your way to Fortress Monroe? Better come with us. Why; Munt!" He turned to greet this other Bostonian, who had hardly expressed hisjoy at meeting with his fellow-townsmen when the hostess rustled softlyup, and said, with the irony more or less friendly, which everybody usesin speaking of Boston, or recognising the intellectual pre-eminence ofits people, "I'm not going to let you keep this feast of reason allto your selves. I want you to leaven the whole lump, " and she began todisperse them, and to introduce them about right and left. Dan tried to find his Virginian again, but she was gone. He found MissAnderson; she was with her aunt. "Shall we be tearing you away?" sheasked. "Oh no. I'm quite ready to go. " His nerves were in a tremble. Those Boston faces and voices had broughtit all back again; it seemed as if he had met Alice. He was silent andincoherent as they drove home, but Miss Anderson apparently did not wantto talk much, and apparently did not notice his reticence. He fell asleep with the pang in his heart which had been there so often. When Dan came down to breakfast he found the Brinkleys at a pleasantplace by one of the windows, and after they had exchanged a pleasedsurprise with him that they should all happen to be in the same hotel, they asked him to sit at their table. There was a bright sun shining, and the ache was gone out of Dan'sheart. He began to chatter gaily with Mrs. Brinkley about Washington. "Oh, better come on to Fortress Monroe, " said her husband. "Better comeon with us. " "No, I can't just yet, " said Dan. "I've got some business here that willkeep me for awhile. Perhaps I may run down there a little later. " "Miss Anderson seems to have a good deal of business in Washington too, "observed Brinkley, with some hazy notion of saying a pleasant rallyingthing to the young man. He wondered at the glare his wife gave him. Withthose panned oysters before him he had forgotten all about Dan's loveaffair with Miss Pasmer. Mrs. Brinkley hastened to make the mention of Miss Anderson asimpersonal as possible. "It was so nice to meet her again. She is such an honest, wholesomecreature, and so bright and full of sense. She always made me think ofthe broad daylight. I always liked that girl. " "Yes; isn't she jolly?" said Dan joyously. "She seems to know everybodyhere. It's a great piece of luck for me. They're going to take a housein Washington next winter. " "Yes; I know that stage, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "Her aunt's an amusinglyNew-York respectability. I don't think you'd find just such Miss Mitfordcurls as hers in all Boston. " "Yes, they are like the portraits, aren't they?" said Dan; delighted. "She's very nice, don't you think?" "Very. But Miss Anderson is more than that. I was disposed to becritical of her at Campobello for a while, but she wore extremely well. All at once you found yourself admiring her uncommon common-sense. "Yes. That's just it, " cried Dan. "She is so sensible!" "I think she's very pretty, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "Well, her nose, " suggested Dan. "It seems a little capricious. " "It's a trifle bizarre, I suppose. But what beautiful eyes! And herfigure! I declare that girl's carriage is something superb. " "Yes, she has a magnificent walk. " "Walks with her carriage, " mused Brinkley aloud. His wife did not regard him. "I don't know what Miss Anderson'sprinciples are, but her practices are perfect. I never knew her do anunkind or shabby thing. She seems very good and very wise. And thatdeep voice of hers has such a charm. It's so restful. You feel as ifyou could repose upon it for a thousand years. Well! You will get downbefore we leave?" "Yes, I will, " said Dan. "I'm here after a man who's after a patent, and as soon as I can finish up my business with him I believe I will rundown to Fortress Monroe. " "This eleven-o'clock train will get you there at six, " said Brinkley. "Better telegraph for your rooms. " "Or, let us know, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "and we'll secure them for you. " "Oh, thank you, " said Dan. He went away, feeling that Mrs. Brinkley was the pleasantest woman heever met. He knew that she had talked Miss Anderson so fully in orderto take away the implication of her husband's joke, and he admired hertact. He thought of this as he loitered along the street from Wormley'sto the Arlington, where he was going to find Miss Anderson, by anappointment of the night before, and take a walk with her; and thinkingof tact made him think of Mrs. Pasmer. Mrs. Pasmer was full of tact; andhow kind she had always been to him! She had really been like a motherto him; he was sure she had understood him; he believed she had defendedhim; with a futility of which he felt the pathos, he made her defend himnow to Alice. Alice was very hard and cold, as when he saw her last; hermother's words fell upon her as upon a stone; even Mrs. Pasmer's tears, which Dan made her shed, had no effect upon the haughty girl. Not thathe cared now. The blizzard of the previous days had whirled away; the sunshine laystill, with a warm glisten and sparkle, on the asphalt which seemed tobask in it, and which it softened to the foot. He loitered by the gateof the little park or plantation where the statue of General Jacksonis riding a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, and looked over at theFrench-Italian classicism of the White House architecture with a pensivejoy at finding pleasure in it, and then he went on to the Arlington. Miss Anderson was waiting for him in the parlour, and they went a longwalk up the avenues and across half the alphabet in the streets, andthrough the pretty squares and circles, where the statues were sometimesbeautiful and always picturesque; and the sparrows made a vernalchirping in the naked trees and on the green grass. In two or three theysat down on the iron benches and rested. They talked and talked--about the people they knew, and of whom theyfound that they thought surprisingly alike, and about themselves, whom they found surprisingly alike in a great many things, and thensurprisingly unlike. Dan brought forward some points of identity whichhe, and Alice had found in themselves; it was just the same with MissAnderson. She found herself rather warm with the seal-skin sacque shehad put on; she let him carry it on his arm while they walked, andthen lay it over her shoulders when they sat down. He felt a pang ofself-reproach, as if he had been inconstant to Alice. This was an oldhabit of feeling, formed during the months of their engagement, when, ather inspiration, he was always bringing himself to book about something. He replied to her bitterly, in the colloquy which began to hold itselfin his mind, and told her that she had no claim upon him now; thatif his thoughts wandered from her it was her fault, not his; that sheherself had set them free. But in fact he was like all young men, witha thousand, potentialities of loving. There was no aspect of beauty thatdid not tenderly move him; he could not help a soft thrill at the sightof any pretty shape, the sound of any piquant voice; and Alice hadmerely been the synthesis of all that was most charming to thisfancy. This is a truth which it is the convention of the poets and thenovelists to deny; but it is also true that she might have remained thesum of all that was loveliest if she would; or if she could. It was chiefly because she would not or could not that his glancerecognised the charm of Miss Anderson's back hair, both in its strayinggossamer and in the loose mass in which it was caught up under her hat, when he laid her sacque on her shoulders. They met that afternoon at aSenator's, and in the house of a distinguished citizen, to whose wifeDan had been presented at Mrs. Whittington's, and who had somehow gothis address, and sent him a card for her evening. They encounteredhere with a jocose old friendliness, and a profession of being tired ofalways meeting Miss Anderson and Mr. Mavering. He brought her salad andice, and they made an appointment for another walk in the morning, if itwas fine. He carried her some flowers. A succession of fine days followed, andthey walked every morning. Sometimes Dan was late, and explained thatit was his patent-right man had kept him. She was interested in thepatent-right man, whom Dan began to find not quite so simple as atfirst, but she was not exacting with him about his want of punctuality;she was very easy-going; she was not always ready herself. When he beganto beat about the bush, to talk insincerities, and to lose himself inintentionless plausibilities, she waited with serene patience for him tohave done, and met him on their habitual ground of frankness and realityas if he had not left it. He got to telling her all his steps with hispatent-right man, who seemed to be growing mote and more slippery, andwho presently developed a demand for funds. Then she gave him some veryshrewd, practical advice, and told him to go right into the hotel officeand telegraph to his father while she was putting on her bonnet. "Yes, " he said, "that's what I thought of doing. " But he admired her foradvising him; he said to himself that Miss Anderson was the kind of girlhis father would admire. She was good, and she was of the world too;that was what his father meant. He imagined himself arriving home andsaying, "Well father, you know that despatch I sent you, about Lafflin'swanting money?" and telling him about Miss Anderson. Then he fancied heracquainted with his sisters and visiting them, and his father more andmore fond of her, and perhaps in declining health, and eager to see hisson settled in life; and he pictured himself telling her that he haddone with love for ever, but if she could accept respect, fidelity, gratitude, he was ready to devote his life to her. She refused him, butthey always remained good friends and comrades; she married another, perhaps Boardman, while Dan was writing out his telegram, and he brokeinto whispered maledictions on his folly, which attracted the notice ofthe operator. One morning when he sent up his name to Miss Anderson, whom he did notfind in the hotel parlour, the servant came back with word that MissVan Hook would like to have him come up to their rooms. But it was MissAnderson who met him at the door. "It seemed rather formal to send you word that Miss Van Hook wasindisposed, and Miss Anderson would be unable to walk this morning, andI thought perhaps you'd rather come up and get my regrets in person. AndI wanted you to see our view. " She led the way to the window for it, but they did not look at it, though they sat down there apparently for the purpose. Dan put his hatbeside his chair, and observed some inattentive civilities in inquiringafter Miss Van Hook's health, and in hearing that it was merely a badheadache, one of a sort in which her niece hated to leave her to serveherself with the wet compresses which Miss Van Hook always bore on herforehead for it. "One thing: it's decided us to be off for Fortress Monroe at last. Weshall go by the boat to-morrow, if my aunt's better. " "To-morrow?" said Dan. "What's to become of me when you're gone?" "Oh, we shall not take the whole population with us, " suggested MissAnderson. "I wish you would take me. I told Mrs. Brinkley I would come while shewas there, but I'm afraid I can't get off. Lafflin is developing intoall sorts of strange propositions. " "I think you'd better look out for that man, " said Miss Anderson. "Oh, I do nothing without consulting my father. But I shall miss you. " "Thank you, " said the girl gravely. "I don't mean in a business capacity only. " They both laughed, and Dan looked about the room, which he found was aprivate hotel parlour, softened to a more domestic effect by the signsof its prolonged occupation by two refined women. On a table stood aleather photograph envelope with three cabinet pictures in it. Along thetop lay a spray of withered forceythia. Dan's wandering eyes rested onit. Miss Anderson went and softly closed the door opening into the nextroom. "I was afraid our talking might disturb my aunt, " she said, and on herway back to him she picked up the photograph case and brought it to thelight. "These are my father and mother. We live at Yonkers; but I'm withmy aunt a good deal of the time in town--even when I'm at home. " Shelaughed at her own contradictory statement, and put the case backwithout explaining the third figure--a figure in uniform. Danconjectured a military brother, or from her indifference perhaps amilitia brother, and then forgot about him. But the partial Yonkersresidence accounted for traits of unconventionality in Miss Andersonwhich he had not been able to reconcile with the notion of anexclusively New York breeding. He felt the relief, the sympathy, thecertainty of intelligence which every person whose life has been partlyspent in the country feels at finding that a suspected cockney has alsohad the outlook into nature and simplicity. On the Yonkers basis they became more intimate, more personal, and Dantold her about Ponkwasset Falls and his mother and sisters; he told herabout his father, and she said she should like to see his father; shethought he must be like her father. All at once, and for no reason that he could think of afterward, except, perhaps, the desire to see the case with her eyes, he began to tell herof his affair with Alice, and how and why it was broken off; he told thewhole truth in regard to that, and did not spare himself. She listened without once speaking, but without apparent surprise at theconfidence, though she may have felt surprised. At times she looked asif her thoughts were away from what he was saying. He ended with, "I'm sure I don't know why I've told you all this. But Iwanted you to know about me. The worst. " Miss Anderson said, looking down, "I always thought she was a veryconscientious giyl. " Then after a pause, in which she seemed to beovercoming an embarrassment in being obliged to speak of another in sucha conviction, "I think she was very moybid. She was like ever so manyNew England giyls that I've met. They seem to want some excuse forsuffering; and they must suffer even if it's through somebody else. Idon't know; they're romantic, New England giyls are; they have too manyideals. " Dan felt a balm in this; he too had noticed a superfluity of idealsin Alice, he had borne the burden of realising some of them; they allseemed to relate in objectionable degree to his perfectionation. So hesaid gloomily, "She was very good. And I was to blame. " "Oh yes!" said Miss Anderson, catching her breath in a queer way; "sheseyved you right. " She rose abruptly, as if she heard her aunt speak, and Dan perceivedthat he had been making a long call. He went away dazed and dissatisfied; he knew now that he ought not tohave told Miss Anderson about his affair, unless he meant more by hisconfidence than he really did--unless he meant to follow it up. He took leave of her, and asked her to make his adieux to her aunt; butthe next day he came down to the boat to see them off. It seemed to himthat their interview had ended too hastily; he felt sore and restlessover it; he hoped that something more conclusive might happen. But atthe boat Miss Anderson and her aunt were inseparable. Miss Van Hook saidshe hoped they should soon see him at the Hygeia, and he replied that hewas not sure that he should be able to come after all. Miss Anderson called something after him as he turned from them to goashore. He ran back eagerly to know what it was. "Better lookout forthat Mr. Lafflin of yours, " she repeated. "Oh! oh yes, " he said, indefinitely disappointed. "I shall keep a sharpeye on him. " He was disappointed, but he could not have said what he hadhoped or expected her to say. He was humbled before himself for havingtold Miss Anderson about his affair with Alice, and had wished she wouldsay something that he might scramble back to his self-esteem upon. Hehad told her all that partly from mere weakness, from his longing forthe sympathy which he was always so ready to give, and partly from thewillingness to pose before her as a broken heart, to dazzle her by theirony and persiflage with which he could treat such a tragical matter;but he could not feel that he had succeeded. The sum of her comment hadbeen that Alice had served him right. He did not know whether she reallybelieved that or merely said it to punish him for some reason; but hecould never let it be the last word. He tingled as he turned to wavehis handkerchief to her on the boat, with the suspicion that she waslaughing at him; and he could not console himself with any hero ofa novel who had got himself into just such a box. There were alwayscircumstances, incidents, mitigations, that kept the hero still a hero, and ennobled the box into an unjust prison cell. L. On the long sunny piazza of the Hygeia Mrs. Brinkley and Miss Van Hooksat and talked in a community of interest which they had not discoveredduring the summer before at Campobello, and with an equality of hearingwhich the sound of the waves washing almost at their feet establishedbetween them. In this pleasant noise Miss Van Hook heard as well as anyone, and Mrs. Brinkley gradually realised that it was the trouble ofhaving to lift her voice that had kept her from cultivating a veryagreeable acquaintance before. The ladies sat in a secluded corner, wearing light wraps that they had often found comfortable at Campobelloin August, and from time to time attested to each other theirastonishment that they needed no more at Old Point in early April. They did this not only as a just tribute to the amiable climate, but asa relief from the topic which had been absorbing them, and to which theyconstantly returned. "No, " said Mrs. Brinkley, with a sort of finality, "I think it is thebest thing that could possibly have happened to him. He is bearing it ina very manly way, but I fancy he has felt it deeply, poor fellow. He'snever been in Boston since, and I don't believe he'd come here if he'dany idea how many Boston people there were in the hotel--we swarm! Itwould be very painful to him. " "Yes, " said Miss Van Hook, "young people seem to feel those things. " "Of course he's going to get over it. That's what young people do too. At his age he can't help being caught with every pretty face and everypretty figure, even in the midst of his woe, and it's only a questionof time till he seizes some pretty hand and gets drawn out of italtogether. " "I think that would be the case with my niece, too, " said Miss Van Hook, "if she wasn't kept in it by a sense of loyalty. I don't believe shereally dares much for Lieutenant Willing any more; but he sees nosociety where he's stationed, of course, and his constancy is a--arebuke and a--a--an incentive to her. They were engaged a long time agojust after he left West Point--and we've always been in hopes thathe would be removed to some post where he could meet other ladies andbecome interested in some one else. But he never has, and so the affairremains. It's most undesirable they should marry, and in the meantimeshe won't break it off, and it's spoiling her chances in life. " "It is too bad, " sighed Mrs. Brinkley, "but of course you can donothing. I see that. " "No, we can do nothing. We have tried everything. I used to think it wasbecause she was so dull there at Yonkers with her family, and broodedupon the one idea all the time, that she could not get over it; and atfirst it did seem when she came to me that she would get over it. Sheis very fond of gaiety--of young men's society, and she's had plentyof little flirtations that didn't mean anything, and never amounted toanything. Every now and then a letter would come from the wilds where hewas stationed, and spoil it all. She seemed to feel a sort of chivalrousobligation because he was so far off and helpless and lonely. " "Yes, I understand, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "What a pity she couldn't bemade to feel that that didn't deepen the obligation at all. " "I've tried to make her, " said Miss Van Hook, "and I've been everywherewith her. One winter we were up the Nile, and another in Nice, and lastwinter we were in Rome. She met young men everywhere, and had offersupon offers; but it was of no use. She remained just the same, and tillshe met Mr. Mavering in Washington I don't believe--" Miss Van Hook stopped, and Mrs. Brinkley said, "And yet she alwaysseemed to me particularly practical and level-headed--as the men say. " "So she is. But she is really very romantic about some things; and whenit comes to a matter of that kind, girls are about all alike, don't youthink?" "Oh yes, " said Mrs. Brinkley hopelessly, and both ladies looked out overthe water, where the waves came rolling in one after another to wastethemselves on the shore as futilely as if they had been lives. In the evening Miss Anderson got two letters from the clerk, at the hourwhen the ladies all flocked to his desk with the eagerness for letterswhich is so engaging in them. One she pulled open and glanced at witha sort of impassioned indifference; the other she read in one intensemoment, and then ran it into her pocket, and with her hand still on ithurried vividly flushing to her room, and read and read it again withconstantly mounting emotion. "WORMLEY's HOTEL, Washington, April 7, 188-. "DEAR MISS ANDERSON, --I have been acting on your parting advice to lookout for that Mr. Lafflin of mine, and I have discovered that he is anunmitigated scamp. Consequently there is nothing more to keep me inWashington, and I should now like your advice about coming to FortressMonroe. Do you find it malarial? On the boat your aunt asked me to come, but you said nothing about it, and I was left to suppose that you didnot think it would agree with me. Do you still think so? or what do youthink? I know you think it was uncalled for and in extremely bad tastefor me to tell you what I did the other day; and I have thought so too. There is only one thing that could justify it--that is, I think it mightjustify it--if you thought so. But I do not feel sure that you wouldlike to know it, or, if you knew it, would like it. I've been ratherslow coming to the conclusion myself, and perhaps it's only thebeginning of the end; and not the conclusion--if there is such adifference. But the question now is whether I may come and tell you whatI think it is--justify myself, or make things worse than they are now. I don't know that they can be worse, but I think I should like to try. Ithink your presence would inspire me. "Washington is a wilderness since Miss--Van Hook left. It is not ahowling wilderness simply because it has not enough left in it to howl;but it has all the other merits of a wilderness. "Yours sincerely, "D. F. MAVERING. " After a second perusal of this note, Miss Anderson recurred to the otherletter which she had neglected for it, and read it with eyes from whichthe tears slowly fell upon it. Then she sat a long time at her tablewith both letters before her, and did not move, except to take herhandkerchief out of her pocket and dry her eyes, from which the tearsbegan at once to drip again. At last she started forward, and caught penand paper toward her, biting her lip and frowning as if to keep herselffirm, and she said to the central figure in the photograph case whichstood at the back of the table, "I will, I will! You are a man, anyway. " She sat down, and by a series of impulses she wrote a letter, with whichshe gave herself no pause till she put it in the clerk's hands, to whomshe ran downstairs with it, kicking her skirt into wild whirls as sheran, and catching her foot in it and stumbling. "Will it go--go to-night?" she demanded tragically. "Just in time, " said the clerk, without looking up, and apparently notthinking that her tone betrayed any unusual amount of emotion in a ladyposting a letter; he was used to intensity on such occasions. The letter ran-- "DEAR MR. MAVERING, --We shall now be here so short a time that I do notthink it advisable for you to come. "Your letter was rather enigmatical, and I do not know whether Iunderstood it exactly. I suppose you told me what you did for goodreasons of your own, and I did not think much about it. I believe thequestion of taste did not come up in my mind. "My aunt joins me in kindest regards. "Yours very sincerely, "JULIA V. H. ANDERSON. "P. S. --I think that I ought to return your letter. I know that you wouldnot object to my keeping it, but it does not seem right. I wish toask your congratulations. I have been engaged for several years toLieutenant Willing, of the Army. He has been transferred from his postin Montana to Fort Hamilton at New York, and we are to be married inJune. " The next morning Mrs. Brinkley came up from breakfast in a sort ofduplex excitement, which she tried to impart to her husband; he stoodwith his back toward the door, bending forward to the glass for a moreaccurate view of his face, from which he had scraped half the lather inshaving. She had two cards in her hand: "Miss Van Hook and Miss Anderson havegone. They went this morning. I found their P. P. C. 's by my plate. " Mr. Brinkley made an inarticulate noise for comment, and assumed thecontemptuous sneer which some men find convenient for shaving the lowerlip. "And guess who's come, of all people in the world?" "I don't know, " said Brinkley, seizing his chance to speak. "The Pasmers!--Alice and her mother! Isn't it awful?" Mr. Brinkley had entered upon a very difficult spot at the corner ofhis left jaw. He finished it before he said, "I don't see anything awfulabout it, so long as Pasmer hasn't come too. " "But Dan Mavering! He's in Washington, and he may come down here anyday. Just think how shocking that would be!" "Isn't that rather a theory?" asked Mr. Brinkley, finding suchopportunities for conversation as he could. "I dare say Mrs. Pasmerwould be very glad to see him. " "I've no doubt she would, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "But it's the worstthing that could happen--for him. And I feel like writing him not tocome--telegraphing him. " "You know how the man made a fortune in Chicago, " said her husband, drying his razor tenderly on a towel before beginning to strop it. "Iadvise you to let the whole thing alone. It doesn't concern us in anyway whatever. " "Then, " said Mrs. Brinkley, "there ought to be a committee to take it inhand and warn him. " "I dare say you could make one up among the ladies. But don't be thefirst to move in the matter. " "I really believe, " said his wife, with her mind taken off the point bythe attractiveness of a surmise which had just occurred to her, "thatMrs. Pasmer would be capable of following him down if she knew he was inWashington. " "Yes, if she know. But she probably doesn't. " "Yes, " said Mrs. Brinkley disappointedly. "I think the sudden departureof the Van Hooks must have had something to do with Dan Mavering. " "Seems a very influential young man, " said her husband. "He attracts andrepels people right and left. Did you speak to the Pasmers?" "No; you'd better, when you go down. They've just come into thedining-room. The girl looks like death. " "Well, I'll talk to her about Mavering. That'll cheer her up. " Mrs. Brinkley looked at him for an instant as if she really thought himcapable of it. Then she joined him in his laugh. Mrs. Brinkley had theorised Alice Pasmer as simply and primitivelyselfish, like the rest of the Pasmers in whom the family traitsprevailed. When Mavering stopped coming to her house after his engagement shejustly suspected that it was because Alice had forbidden him, and shehad rejoiced at the broken engagement as an escape for Dan; she hadfrankly said so, and she had received him back into full favour at thefirst moment in Washington. She liked Miss Anderson, and she had hoped, with the interest which women feel in every such affair, that herflirtation with him might become serious. But now this had apparentlynot happened. Julia Anderson was gone with mystifying precipitation, and Alice Pasmer had come with an unexpectedness which had the aspect offatality. Mrs. Brinkley felt bound, of course, since there was no open enmitybetween them, to meet the Pasmers on the neutral ground of the Hygeiawith conventional amiability. She was really touched by the absentwanness of the girls look, and by the later-coming recognition whichshaped her mouth into a pathetic snide. Alice did not look like deathquite, as Mrs. Brinkley had told her husband, with the necessity her sexhas for putting its superlatives before its positives; but she was paleand thin, and she moved with a languid step when they all met at nightafter Mrs. Brinkley had kept out of the Pasmers' way during the day. "She has been ill all the latter part of the winter, " said Mrs. Pasmerto Mrs. Brinkley that night in the corner of the spreading hotelparlours, where they found themselves. Mrs. Pasmer did not look wellherself; she spoke with her eyes fixed anxiously on the door Alice hadjust passed out of. "She is going to bed, but I know I shall find herawake whenever I go. " "Perhaps, " suggested Mrs. Brinkley, "this soft, heavy sea air will puther to sleep. " She tried to speak drily and indifferently, but she couldnot; she was, in fact, very much interested by the situation, and shewas touched, in spite of her distaste for them both, by the evidentunhappiness of mother and daughter. She knew what it came from, andshe said to herself that they deserved it; but this did not altogetherfortify her against their pathos. "I can hardly keep awake myself, " sheadded gruffly. "I hope it may help her, " said Mrs. Pasmer; "the doctor strongly urgedour coming. " "Mr. Pasmer isn't with you, " said Mrs. Brinkley, feeling that it wasdecent to say something about him. "No; he was detained. " Mrs. Pasmer did not explain the cause of hisdetention, and the two ladies slowly waved their fans a moment insilence. "Are there many Boston People in the house?" Mrs. Pasmer asked. "It's full of them, " cried Mrs. Brinkley. "I had scarcely noticed, " sighed Mrs. Pasmer; and Mrs. Brinkley knewthat this was not true. "Alice takes up all my thoughts, " she added; andthis might be true enough. She leaned a little forward and asked, in alow, entreating voice over her fan, "Mrs. Brinkley, have you seen Mr. Mavering lately?" Mrs. Brinkley considered this a little too bold, a little too brazen. Had they actually come South in pursuit of him? It was shameless, andshe let Mrs. Pasmer know something of her feeling in the shortnesswith which she answered, "I saw him in Washington the other day--for amoment. " She shortened the time she had spent in Dan's company so as tocut Mrs. Pasmer off from as much comfort as possible, and she stared ather in open astonishment. Mrs. Pasmer dropped her eyes and fingered the edge of her fan with asubmissiveness that seemed to Mrs. Brinkley the perfection of duplicity;she wanted to shake her. "I knew, " sighed Mrs. Pasmer, "that you hadalways been such a friend of his. " It is the last straw which breaks the camel's back; Mrs. Brinkley felther moral vertebrae give way; she almost heard them crack; but if therewas really a detonation, the drowned the noise with a harsh laugh. "Oh, he had other friends in Washington. I met him everywhere withMiss Anderson. " This statement conflicted with the theory of her singleinstant with Dan, but she felt that in such a cause, in the cause ofgiving pain to a woman like Mrs. Pasmer, the deflection from exact truthwas justifiable. She hurried on: "I rather expected he might rundown here, but now that they're gone, I don't suppose he'll come. Youremember Miss Anderson's aunt, Miss Van Hook?" "Oh yes, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "She was here with her. " "Miss Van Hook was such a New York type--of a certain kind, " said Mrs. Pasmer. She rose, with a smile at once so conventional, so heroic, andso pitiful that Mrs. Brinkley felt the remorse of a generous victor. She went to her room, hardening her heart, and she burst in with a floodof voluble exasperation that threatened all the neighbouring rooms withoverflow. "Well, " she cried, "they have shown their hands completely. They havecome here to hound Dan Mavering down, and get him into their toilsagain. Why, the woman actually said as much! But I fancy I have givenher a fit of insomnia that will enable her to share her daughter'svigils. Really such impudence I never heard of!" "Do you want everybody in the corridor to hear of it?" asked Brinkley, from behind a newspaper. "I know one thing, " continued Mrs. Brinkley, dropping her voice a coupleof octaves. "They will never get him here if I can help it. He won'tcome, anyway, now Miss Anderson is gone; but I'll make assurance doublysure by writing him not to come; I'll tell him they've gone; and than weare going too. " "You had better remember the man in Chicago, " said her husband. "Well, this is my business--or I'll make it my business!" cried Mrs. Brinkley. She went on talking rapidly, rising with great excitement inher voice at times, and then remembering to speak lower; and her husbandapparently read on through most of her talk, though now and then he madesome comment that seemed of almost inspired aptness. "The way they both made up to me was disgusting. But I know the girl isjust a tool in her mother's hands. Her mother seemed actually passivein comparison. For skilful wheedling I could fall down and worship thatwoman; I really admire her. As long as the girl was with us she keptherself in the background and put the girl at me. It was simply amasterpiece. " "How do you know she put her at you?" asked Brinkley. "How? By the way she seemed not to do it! And because from what I knowof that stupid Pasmer pride it would be perfectly impossible for any onewho was a Pasmer to take her deprecatory manner toward me of herself. You ought to have seen it! It was simply perfect. " "Perhaps, " said Brinkley, with a remote dreaminess, "she was trulysorry. " "Truly stuff! No, indeed; she hates me as much as ever--more!" "Well, then, may be she's doing it because she hates you--doing it forher soul's good--sort of penance, sort of atonement to Mavering. " Mrs. Brinkley turned round from her dressing-table to see what herhusband meant, but the newspaper hid him. We all know that our ownnatures are mixed and contradictory, but we each attribute to others alogical consistency which we never find in any one out of the novels. Alice Pasmer was cold and reticent, and Mrs. Brinkley, who had livedhalf a century in a world full of paradoxes, could not imagine hersubject to gusts of passionate frankness; she knew the girl to beproud and distant, and she could not conceive of an abject humilityand longing for sympathy in her heart. If Alice felt, when she saw Mrs. Brinkley, that she had a providential opportunity to punish herselffor her injustice to Dan, the fact could not be established upon Mrs. Brinkley's theory of her. If the ascetic impulse is the most purelyselfish impulse in human nature, Mrs. Brinkley might not have beenmistaken in suspecting her of an ignoble motive, though it might havehad for the girl the last sublimity of self-sacrifice. The woman whodisliked her and pitied her knew that she had no arts, and rather thanadopt so simple a theory of her behaviour as her husband had advancedshe held all the more strenuously to her own theory that Alice waspractising her mother's arts. This was inevitable, partly from the senseof Mrs. Pasmer's artfulness which everybody had, and partly from theallegiance which we pay--and women especially like to pay--to thetradition of the playwrights and the novelists, that social results ofall kinds are the work of deep, and more or less darkling, design on thepart of other women--such other women as Mrs. Pasmer. Mrs. Brinkley continued to talk, but the god spoke no more from behindthe newspaper; and afterward Mrs. Brinkley lay a long time awake;hardening her heart. But she was haunted to the verge of her dreams bythat girl's sick look, by her languid walk, and by the effect which shehad seen her own words take upon Mrs. Pasmer--an effect so admirablydisowned, so perfectly obvious. Before she could get to sleep she wasobliged to make a compromise with her heart, in pursuance of which, whenshe found Mrs. Pasmer at breakfast alone in the morning, she went up toher, and said, holding her hand a moment, "I hope your daughter sleptwell last night. " "No, " said Mrs. Pasmer, slipping her hand away, "I can't say that shedid. " There was probably no resentment expressed in the way she withdrewher hand, but the other thought there was. "I wish I could do something for her, " she cried. "Oh, thank you, " said Mrs. Pasmer. "It's very good of you. " And Mrs. Brinkley fancied she smiled rather bitterly. Mrs. Brinkley went out upon the seaward verandah of the hotel with thisbitterness of Mrs. Pasmer's smile in her thoughts; and it disposed herto feel more keenly the quality of Miss Pasmer's smile. She found thegirl standing there at a remote point of that long stretch of planking, and looking out over the water; she held with both hands across herbreast the soft chuddah shawl which the wind caught and fluttered awayfrom her waist. She was alone, said as Mrs. Brinkley's compunctionsgoaded her nearer, she fancied that the saw Alice master a primarydislike in her face, and put on a look of pathetic propitiation. She didnot come forward to meet Mrs. Brinkley, who liked better her waiting tobe approached; but she smiled gratefully when Mrs. Brinkley put out herhand, and she took it with a very cold one. "You must find it chilly here, " said the elder woman. "I had better be out in the air all I could, the doctor said, " answeredAlice. "Well, then, come with me round the corner; there's a sort of recessthere, and you won't be blown to pierces, " said Mrs. Brinkley, withauthority. They sat down together in the recess, and she added: "I usedto sit here with Miss Van Hook; she could hear better in the noise thewaves made. I hope it isn't too much for you. " "Oh no, " said Alice. "Mamma said you told her they were here. " Mrs. Brinkley reassured herself from this; Miss Van Hook's name had ratherslipped out; but of course Mrs. Pasmer had not repeated what she hadsaid about Dan in this connection. "I wish I could have seen Julia, "Alice went on. "It would have been quite like Campobello again. " "Oh, quite, " said Mrs. Brinkley, with a short breath, and not knowingwhither this tended. Alice did not leave her in doubt. "I should like to have seen her, and begged her for the way I treatedher the last part of the time there. I feel as if I could make my wholelife a reparation, " she added passionately. Mrs. Brinkley believed that this was the mere frenzy of sentimentality, the exaltation of a selfish asceticism; but at the break in the girl'svoice and the aversion of her face she could not help a thrillof motherly tenderness for her. She wanted to tell her she was anunconscious humbug, bent now as always on her own advantage, and reallyindifferent to others she also wanted to comfort her, and tell her thatshe exaggerated, and was not to blame. She did neither, but when Aliceturned her face back she seemed encouraged by Mrs. Brinkley's look togo on: "I didn't appreciate her then; she was very generous andhigh-minded--too high-minded for me to understand, even. But we don'tseem to know how good others are till we wrong them. " "Yes, that is very true, " said Mrs. Brinkley. She knew that Alice wasobviously referring to the breach between herself and Miss Andersonfollowing the night of the Trevor theatricals, and the dislike forher that she had shown with a frankness some of the ladies had thoughtbrutal. Mrs. Brinkley also believed that her words had a tacit meaning, and she would have liked to have the hardness to say she had seen anunnamed victim of Alice doing his best to console the other she hadspecified. But she merely said drily, "Yes, perhaps that's the reasonwhy we're allowed to injure people. " "It must be, " said Alice simply. "Did Miss Anderson ever speak of me?" "No; I can't remember that she ever did. " Mrs. Brinkley did not feelbound to say that she and Miss Van Hook had discussed her at large, andagreed perfectly about her. "I should like to see her; I should like to write to her. " Mrs. Brinkley felt that she ought not to suffer this intimate tendencyin the talk: "You must find a great many other acquaintances in the hotel, MissPasmer. " "Some of the Frankland girds are here, and the two Bellinghams. I havehardly spoken to them yet. Do you think that where you have even beenin the right, if you have been harsh, if you have been hasty, if youhaven't made allowances, you ought to offer some atonement?" "Really, I can't say, " said Mrs. Brinkley, with a smile of distaste. "I'm afraid your question isn't quite in my line of thinking; it's morein Miss Cotton's way. You'd better ask her some time. " "No, " said Alice sadly; "she would flatter me. " "Ah! I always supposed she was very conscientious. " "She's conscientious, but she likes me too well. " "Oh!" commented Mrs. Brinkley to herself, "then you know I don't likeyou, and you'll use me in one way, if you can't in another. Verywell!" But she found the girl's trust touching somehow, though thesentimentality of her appeal seemed as tawdry as ever. "I knew you would be just, " added Alice wistfully. "Oh, I don't know about atonements!" said Mrs. Brinkley, with an effectof carelessness. "It seems to me that we usually make them for our ownsake. " "I have thought of that, " said Alice, with a look of expectation. "And we usually astonish other people when we offer them. " "Either they don't like it, or else they don't feel so much injured aswe had supposed. " "Oh, but there's no question--" "If Miss Anderson--" "Miss Anderson? Oh--oh yes!" "If Miss Anderson for example, " pursued Mrs. Brinkley, "felt aggrievedwith you. But really I've no right to enter into your affairs, MissPasmer. " "Oh Yes, yes!--do! I asked you to, " the girl implored. "I doubt if it will help matters for her to know that you regretanything; and if she shouldn't happen to have thought that you wereunjust to her, it would make her uncomfortable for nothing. " "Do you think so?" asked the girl, with a disappointment that betrayeditself in her voice and eyes. "I never feel I myself competent to advise, " said Mrs. Brinkley. "I cancriticise--anybody can--and I do, pretty freely; but advice is a moreserious matter. Each of us must act from herself--from what she thinksis right. " "Yes, I see. Thank you so much, Mrs. Brinkley. " "After all, we have a right to do ourselves good, even when we pretendthat it's good to others, if we don't do them any harm. " "Yes, I see. " Alice looked away, and then seemed about to speak again;but one of Mrs. Brinkley's acquaintance came up, and the girl rose witha frightened air and went away. "Alice's talk with you this morning did her so much good!" said Mrs. Pasmer, later. "She has always felt so badly about Miss Anderson!" Mrs. Brinkley saw that Mrs. Pasmer wished to confine the meaning oftheir talk to Miss Anderson, and she assented, with a penetration ofwhich she saw that Mrs. Pasmer was gratefully aware. She grew more tolerant of both the Pasmers as the danger of greaterintimacy from them, which seemed to threaten at first seemed to passaway. She had not responded to their advances, but there was no reasonwhy she should not be civil to them; there had never been any openquarrel with them. She often found herself in talk with them, and wasamused to note that she was the only Bostonian whom they did not keepaloof from. It could not be said that she came to like either of them better. Shestill suspected Mrs. Pasmer of design, though she developed none beyondmanoeuvring Alice out of the way of people whom she wished to avoid; andshe still found the girl, as she always thought her, as egotist, whosebest impulses toward others had a final aim in herself. She thought hervery crude in her ideas--cruder than she had seemed at Campobello, whereshe had perhaps been softened by her affinition with the gentler andkindlier nature of Dan Mavering. Mrs. Brinkley was never tired of sayingthat he had made the most fortunate escape in the world, and thoughBrinkley owned he was tired of hearing it, she continued to say it witha great variety of speculation. She recognised that in most girls ofAlice's age many traits are in solution, waiting their precipitationinto character by the chemical contact which time and chances mustbring, and that it was not fair to judge her by the present ferment ofhereditary tendencies; but she rejoiced all the same that it was not DanMavering's character which was to give fixity to hers. The more she sawof the girl the more she was convinced that two such people could onlymake each other unhappy; from day to day, almost from hour to hour, sheresolved to write to Mavering and tell him not to come. She was sure that the Pasmers wished to have the affair on again, andpart of her fascination with a girl whom she neither liked nor approvedwas her belief that Alice's health had broken under the strain of herregrets and her despair. She did not get better from the change ofair; she grew more listless and languid, and more dependent upon Mrs. Brinkley's chary sympathy. The older woman asked herself again and againwhat made the girl cling to her? Was she going to ask her finally tointercede with Dan? or was it really a despairing atonement to him, the most disagreeable sacrifice she could offer, as Mr. Brinkley hadstupidly suggested? She believed that Alice's selfishness and morbidsentiment were equal to either. Brinkley generally took the girl's part against his wife, and in a heavyjocose way tried to cheer her up. He did little things for her; fetchedand carried chairs and cushions and rugs, and gave his attentions theair of pleasantries. One of his offices was to get the ladies' lettersfor them in the evening, and one night he came in beaming with a letterfor each of them where they sat together in the parlour. He distributedthem into their laps. "Hello! I've made a mistake, " he said, putting down his head to takeback the letter he had dropped in Miss Pasmer's lap. "I've given you mywife's letter. " The girl glanced at it, gave a moaning kind of cry, and fell beak in herchair, hiding her face in her hands. Mrs. Brinkley, possessed herself of the other letter, and, though pastthe age when ladies wish to kill their husbands for their stupidity, she gave Brinkley a look of massacre which mystified even more thanit murdered his innocence. He had to learn later from his wife's moreelicit fury what the women had all known instantly. He showed his usefulness in gathering Alice up and getting her to hermother's room. "Oh, Mrs. Brinkley, " implored Mrs. Pasmer, following her to the door, "is Mr. Mavering coming here?" "I don't know--I can't say--I haven't read the letter yet. " "Oh, do let me know when you've read it, won't you? I don't know what weshall do. " Mrs. Brinkley read the letter in her own room. "You go down, " she saidto her husband, with unabated ferocity; "and telegraph Dan Mavering atWormley's not to came. Say we're going away at once. " Then she sent Mrs. Pasmer a slip of paper on which she had written, "Notcoming. " It has been the experience of every one to have some alien concern comeinto his life and torment him with more anxiety than any affair of hisown. This is, perhaps, a hint from the infinite sympathy which feelsfor us all that none of us can hope to free himself from the troubles ofothers, that we are each bound to each by ties which, for the most part, we cannot perceive, but which, at the moment their stress comes, wecannot break. Mrs. Brinkley lay awake and raged impotently against her complicity withthe unhappiness of that distasteful girl and her more than distastefulmother. In her revolt against it she renounced the interest she hadfelt in that silly boy, and his ridiculous love business, so reallyunimportant to her whatever turn it took. She asked herself what itmattered to her whether those children marred their lives one way oranother way. There was a lurid moment before she slept when she wishedBrinkley to go down and recall her telegram; but he refused to be a foolat so much inconvenience to himself. Mrs. Brinkley came to breakfast feeling so much more haggard than shefound either of the Pasmers looking, that she was able to throw offher lingering remorse for having told Mavering not to come. She had theadvantage also of doubt as to her precise motive in having done so; shehad either done so because she had judged it best for him not to seeMiss Pasmer again, or else she had done so to relieve the girl from thepain of an encounter which her mother evidently dreaded for her. If onemotive seemed at moments outrageously meddling and presumptuous, theother was so nobly good and kind that it more than counterbalanced it inMrs. Brinkley's mind, who knew very well in spite of her doubt that shehad, acted from a mixture of both. With this conviction, it was botha comfort and a pang to find by the register of the hotel, which shefurtively consulted, that Dan had not arrived by the morning boat, asshe groundlessly feared and hoped he might have done. In any case, however, and at the end of all the ends, she had that girlon her hands more than ever; and believing as she did that Dan and Alicehad only to meet in order to be reconciled, she felt that the girl whomshe had balked of her prey was her innocent victim. What right had sheto interfere? Was he not her natural prey? If he liked being a prey, who was lawfully to forbid him? He was not perfect; he would know how totake care of himself probably; in marriage things equalised themselves. She looked at the girl's thin cheeks and lack-lustre eyes, and pitiedand hated her with that strange mixture of feeling which our victimsaspire in us. She walked out on the verandah with the Pasmers after breakfast, andchatted a while about indifferent things; and Alice made an effort toignore the event of the night before with a pathos which wrung Mrs. Brinkley's heart, and with a gay resolution which ought to have been agreat pleasure to such a veteran dissembler as her mother. She said shehad never found the air so delicious; she really believed it would beginto do her good now; but it was a little fresh just there, and with hereyes she invited her mother to come with her round the corner into thatsheltered recess, and invited Mrs. Brinkley not to come. It was that effect of resentment which is lighter even than a touch, thewaft of the arrow's feather; but it could wound a guilty heart, and Mrs. Brinkley sat down where she was, realising with a pang that the timewhen she might have been everything to this unhappy girl had just passedfor ever, and henceforth she could be nothing. She remained musingsadly upon the contradictions she had felt in the girl's character, theconfusion of good and evil, the potentialities of misery and harm, thepotentialities of bliss and good; and she felt less and less satisfiedwith herself. She had really presumed to interfere with Fate; perhapsshe had interfered with Providence. She would have given anything torecall her act; and then with a flash she realised that it was quitepossible to recall it. She could telegraph Mavering to come; and sherose, humbly and gratefully, as if from an answered prayer, to go and doso. She was not at all a young woman, and many things had come and gonein her life that ought to have fortified her against surprise; but shewanted to scream like a little frightened girl as Dan Mavering steppedout of the parlour door toward her. The habit of not screaming, however, prevailed, and she made a tolerably successful effort to treat him withdecent composure. She gave him a rigid hand. "Where in the world did youcome from? Did you get my telegram?" "No. Did you get my letter?" "Yes. " "Well, I took a notion to come right on after I wrote, and I started onthe same train with it. But they said it was no use trying to get intothe Hygeia, and I stopped last night at the little hotel in Hampton. I've just walked over, and Mr. Brinkley told me you were out heresomewhere. That's the whole story, I believe. " He gave his nervouslaugh, but it seemed to Mrs. Brinkley that it had not much joy in it. "Hush!" she said involuntarily, receding to her chair and sinking backinto it again. He looked surprised. "You know the Van Hooks are gone?" He laughed harshly. "I should think they were dead from your manner, Mrs. Brinkley. But I didn't come to see the Van Hooks. What made youthink I did?" He gave her a look which she found so dishonest, so really insincere, that she resolved to abandon him to Providence as soon as she could. "Oh, I didn't know but there had been some little understanding atWashington. " "Perhaps on their part. They were people who seemed to take a goodmany things for granted, but they could hardly expect to control otherpeople's movements. " He looked sharply at Mrs. Brinkley, as if to question how much she knew;but she had now measured him, and she said, "Oh! then the visit's tome?" "Entirely, " cried Dan. The old sweetness came into his laughing eyesagain, and went to Mrs. Brinkley's heart. She wished him to be happy, somehow; she would have done anything for him; she wished she knew whatto do. Ought she to tell him the Pasmers were there? Ought she to makeup some excuse and get him away before he met them? She felt herselfgetting more and more bewildered and helpless. Those women might comeround that corner any moment and then she know the first sight ofAlice's face would do or undo everything with Dan. Did she wish themreconciled? Did she wish them for ever parted? She no longer knew whatshe wished; she only knew that she had no right to wish anything. Shecontinued to talk on with Dan, who grew more and more at ease, and didmost of the talking, while Mrs. Brinkley's whole being narrowed itselfto the question. Would the Pasmers come back that way, or would they goround the further corner, and get into the hotel by another door? The suspense seemed interminable; they must have already gone that otherway. Suddenly she heard the pushing back of chairs in that recess. Shecould not bear it. She jumped to her feet. "Just wait a moment, Mr. Mavering! I'll join you again. Mr. Brinkley isexpecting--I must--" ***** One morning of the following June Mrs. Brinkley sat well forward in thebeautiful church where Dan and Alice were to be married. The lovely daybecame a still lovelier day within, enriched by the dyes of the stainedwindows through which it streamed; the still place was dim yet brightwith it; the figures painted on the walls had a soft distinctness;a body of light seemed to irradiate from the depths of the dome likelamp-light. There was a subdued murmur of voices among the people in the pews: theywere in a sacred edifice without being exactly at church, and they mighttalk; now and then a muffled, nervous laugh escaped. A delicate scentof flowers from the masses in the chancel mixed with the light and theprevailing silence. There was a soft, continuous rustle of drapery asthe ladies advanced up the thickly carpeted aisles on the arms of theyoung ushers and compressed themselves into place in the pews. Two or three people whom she did not know were put into the pew withMrs. Brinkley, but she kept her seat next the aisle; presently an usherbrought up a lady who sat down beside her, and then for a moment or twoseemed to sink and rise, as if on the springs of an intense excitement. It was Miss Cotton, who, while this process of quiescing lasted, appeared not to know Mrs. Brinkley. When she became aware of her, allwas lost again. "Mrs. Brinkley!" she cried, as well as one can cry inwhisper. "Is it possible?" "I have my doubts, " Mrs. Brinkley whispered back. "But we'll suppose thecase. " "Oh, it's all too good to be true! How I envy you being the means ofbringing them together, Mrs. Brinkley!" "Means?" "Yes--they owe it all to you; you needn't try to deny it; he's toldevery one!" "I was sure she hadn't, " said Mrs. Brinkley, remembering how Alice hadmarked an increasing ignorance of any part she might have had in theaffair from the first moment of her reconciliation with Dan; she had theeffect of feeling that she had sacrificed enough to Mrs. Brinkley; andMrs. Brinkley had been restored to all the original strength of herconviction that she was a solemn little unconscious egotist, and Dan wasas unselfish and good as he was unequal to her exactions. "Oh no?" said Miss Cotton. "She couldn't!" implying that Alice would betoo delicate to speak of it. "Do you see any of his family here?" asked Mrs. Brinkley. "Yes; over there--up front. " Miss Cotton motioned, with her eyes towarda pew in which Mrs. Brinkley distinguished an elderly gentleman'sdown-misted bald head and the back of a young lady's bonnet. "His fatherand sister; the other's a bridemaid; mother bed-ridden and couldn'tcome. " "They might have brought her in an-arm-chair, " suggested Mrs. Brinkleyironically, "on such an occasion. But perhaps they don't take muchinterest in such a patched-up affair. " "Oh yes, they do!" exclaimed Miss Cotton. "They idolise Alice. " "And Mrs. Pasmer and Mister, too?" "I don't suppose that so much matters. " "They know how to acquiesce, I've no doubt. " "Oh yes! You've heard? The young people are going abroad first with herfamily for a year, and then they come back to live with his--where theWorks are. " "Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Brinkley. "Why, Mrs. Brinkley, do you still feel that way?" asked Miss Cotton, with a certain distress. "It seems to me that if ever two young peoplehad the promise of happiness, they have. Just see what their love hasdone for them already!" "And you still think that in these cases love can do everything?" Miss Cotton was about to reply, when she observed that the people abouther had stopped talking. The bridegroom, with his best man, in whom hisfew acquaintances there recognised Boardman with some surprise, cameover the chancel from one side. Miss Cotton bent close to Mrs. Brinkley and whispered rapidly: "Alicefound out Mr. Mavering wished it, and insisted on his having him. It wasa great concession, but she's perfectly magnanimous. Poor fellow! how hedoes look!" Alice, on her father's arm, with her bridemaids, of whom the first wasMinnie Mavering, mounted the chancel steps, where Mr. Pasmer remainedstanding till he advanced to give away the bride. He behaved with greatdignity, but seemed deeply affected; the ladies in the front pews saidthey could see his face twitch; but he never looked handsomer. The five clergymen came from the back of the chancel in their whitesurplices. The ceremony proceeded to the end. The young couple drove at once to the station, where they were to takethe train for New York, and wait there a day or two for Mrs. And Mr. Pasmer before they all sailed. As they drove along, Alice held Dan's wrist in the cold clutch of hertrembling little ungloved hand, on which her wedding ring shone. "Odearest! let us be good!" she said. "I will try my best. I will try notto be exacting and unreasonable, and I know I can. I won't even make anyconditions, if you will always be frank and open with me, and tell meeverything. " He leaned over and kissed her behind the drawn curtains. "I will, Alice!I will indeed! I won't keep anything from you after this. " He resolved to tell her all about Julia Anderson at the right moment, when Alice was in the mood, and as soon as he thoroughly understood whathe had really meant himself. If he had been different she would not have asked him to be frank andopen; if she had been different, he might have been frank and open. Thiswas the beginning of their married life.