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 wa
s 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.