第52章

She especially approved of the idea of going abroad and confessed her disappointment with her present experiment of America, where it appeared there was no leisure class of men sufficiently large to satisfy the social needs of Mr. Pasmer's nature, and she told Dan that he might expect them in Europe before long. Perhaps they might all three meet him there. At this he betrayed so clearly that he now intended his going to Europe merely as a sequel 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 and his futile duplicity. If it had been in Dan's mind to take part in the rite, Mrs. Pasmer was quite ready at this point to embrace him with motherly tenderness. Her tough little heart was really in her throat with sympathy when she made an errand for the photograph of an English vicarage, which they had hired the summer of the year before, and she sent Alice back with it alone.

It seemed so long since they had met that the change in Alice did not strike him as strange or as too rapidly operated. They met with the fervour natural after such a separation, and she did not so much assume as resume possession of him. It was charming to have her do it, to have her act as if they had always been engaged, to have her try to press down the cowlick that started capriciously across his crown, and to straighten his necktie, and then to drop beside him on the sofa; it thrilled and awed him; and he silently worshipped the superior composure which her sex has in such matters. Whatever was the provisional interpretation which her father and mother pretended to put upon the affair, she apparently had no reservations, and they talked of their future as a thing assured. The Dark Ages, as they agreed to call the period of despair for ever closed that morning, had matured their love till now it was a rapture of pure trust. They talked as if nothing could prevent its fulfilment, and they did not even affect to consider the question of his family's liking it or not liking it. She said that she thought his father was delightful, and he told her that his father had taken the greatest fancy to her at the beginning, and knew that Dan was in love with her. She asked him about his mother, and she said just what he could have wished her to say about his mother's sufferings, and the way 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 right thing, whatever it is.""Well, that's the right thing," she said. "I've thought it out; and that reminds 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 that of the morning, but his dislike was only a vague discomfort--nothing formulated or distinct.

"Yes," she persisted; "and we must do them. You must go to those ladies you disappointed so this morning, and apologise--explain."Dan laughed. "Why, it wasn't such a very ironclad engagement as all that, Alice. They said they were going to drive out to Cambridge over the Milldam, and I said I was going out there to get some of my traps together, 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 be here, 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 a blot 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 our engagement 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 left Campobello." Dan laughed a little.

"How, saw them?"

"Well, I went to a yacht race with them. I happened to meet them in the street, 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 look at anybody that day, or speak!""Well, the fact is, I--I was distracted, and I didn't know what I was doing. 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 the press boat.""Oh!" said Alice. "Was there a large party?""No, no. Not very. Just ourselves, in fact. They were awfully kind.

And they made me go home to dinner with them.""They must have been rather peculiar people," said Alice. "And I don't see how--so soon--" She could not realise that Mavering was then a rejected man, on whom she had voluntarily renounced all claim. Aretroactive resentment which she could not control possessed her with the wish to punish those bold women for being agreeable to one who had since become everything to her, though then he was ostensibly nothing.

In a vague way, Dan felt her displeasure with that passage of his history, but no man could have fully imagined it.

"I couldn't tell half the time what I was saying or eating. I talked at random and ate at random. I guess they thought something was wrong; they asked me who was at Campobello.""Indeed!"

"But you may be sure I didn't give myself away. I was awfully broken up,"he concluded inconsequently.