"I'm afraid you're too amiable altogether, Mr. Mavering. I'm sure you let people impose upon you," said the other lady. "You have been letting us 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 to enjoy it." He ended with the nervous laugh which seemed habitual with him.
"He, does laugh a good deal;" thought Mrs. Pasmer, surveying him with smiling steadiness. "I suppose it tires Alice. Some of his teeth are filled at the sides. That vein in his forehead--they say that means genius." She said to him: "I hope you know when others are having a good time too, Mr. Mavering? You ought to have that reward."They both looked at Alice. "Oh, I should be so happy to think you hadn't been bored with it all, Mrs: Pasmer," he returned;--with-deep feeling.
Alice was looking at one of the sketches which were pretty plentifully pinned about the wall, and apparently seeing it and apparently listening to what Professor Saintsbury was saying; but her mother believed from a tremor of the ribbons on her hat that she was conscious of nothing but young Mavering's gaze and the sound of his voice.
"We've been delighted, simply enchanted," said Mrs. Pasmer. And she thought; "Now if Alice were to turn round just as she stands, he could see all the best points of her face. I wonder what she really thinks of him? What is it you have there; Alice?" she asked aloud.
The girl turned her face over her shoulder so exactly in the way her mother 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 sketch inattentively. "How very, very good!" she buzzed deep in her throat, while, with a glance at her daughter, she thought, "How impassive Alice is! But she behaves with great dignity. Yes. Perhaps that's best.
And are 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 Alice dislike 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 was talking nonsense, but she was aware, through her own indifference to the topic that he was not minding what she said, but was trying to bring himself into talk with Alice again. The girl persistently listened to Professor Saintsbury.
"Is she punishing him for something?" her mother asked herself. "What can it be for. Does she think he's a little too pushing? Perhaps, he is a little pushing." She reflected, with an inward sigh, that she would know whether he was if she only knew more about him.
He did the honours of his room very simply and nicely, and he said it was pretty rough to think this was the last of it. After which he faltered, 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's houses--especially ladies who have put themselves in charge of other people.""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 rest before the Tree!" cried Mrs Saintsbury. And now we must go at once, or we shall get no sort of places,"In the civil and satirical parley which followed, no one answered another, but young Mavering bore as full a part as the elder ladies, and only his father and Alice were silent: his guests got themselves out of his room. They met at the threshold a young fellow, short and dark and stout, in an old tennis suit. He fell back at sight of them, and took off his hat to Mrs. Saintsbury.
"Why, Mr. Boardman!"
"Don't be bashful, Boardman?" young Mavering called out. "Come in and show them how I shall look in five minutes."Mr. Boardman took his introductions with a sort of main-force self-possession, and then said, "You'll have to look it in less than five 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 called after and called back.
VII.
"That is one thing," said Mrs. Saintsbury, looking swiftly round to see that the elder Mavering was not within hearing, as she hurried ahead with Mrs. Pasmer, "that I can't stand in Dan Mavering. Why couldn't he have warned us that it was getting near the time? Why should he have gone on pretending that there was no hurry? It isn't insincerity exactly, but it isn't candour; no, it's uncandid. Oh, I suppose it's the artistic 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 for Alice, who was walking detached and neglected by the preoccupation of the two elderly men. "I'm afraid you're tired," she said to the girl.
"Oh no."
