“You must allow me to get you something to eat first, Mrs. Pasmer,” said
the elder Mavering.
“Oh no, thank you,” Mrs. Pasmer began. But she changed her mind and
said, “Or, yes; I will, Mr. Mavering: a very little salad, please.” She
had really forgotten her hunger, as a woman will in the presence of any
social interest; but she suddenly thought his going would give her
a chance for two words with her daughter, and so she sent him. As
he creaked heavily across the smooth floor of the nave; “Alice,” she
whispered, “I don't know exactly what I've done: Who introduced this
young 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 the
gallery 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 we
got back. Mr. Mavering got me some ice cream first, and then he found
you for me.”
“Really,” said Mrs. Pasmer to herself, “the combat thickens!” To her
daughter she said, “He's very handsome.”
“He laughs too much,” said the daughter. Her mother recognised her
uncandour 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 of
course 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 anything
about them.”
“We're the only people here who don't, then,” said her daughter. “The
ladies were bowing right left to him all the time, and he kept asking if
I knew this one and that one, and all I could say was that some of them
were distant cousins, but I wasn't acquainted with them. I would think
he'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 that
went on between Mavering and his friend, and it did not displease her
to think that it probably referred to Alice. While the young man came
hurrying back to them she glanced at the girl standing near her with
a keenly critical inspection, from which she was able to exclude all
maternal partiality, and justly decided that she was one of the most
effective girls in the place. That costume of hers was perfect. Mrs.
Pasmer wished now that she could have compared it more carefully with
other costumes; she had noticed some very pretty ones; and a feeling
of vexation that Alice should have prevented this by being away so long
just when the crowd was densest qualified her satisfaction. The people
were going very fast now. The line of the oval in the nave was broken
into groups of lingering talkers, who were conspicuous to each other,
and Mrs. Pasmer felt that she and her daughter were conspicuous to all
the rest where they stood apart, with the two Maverings converging upon
them from different points, the son nodding and laughing to friends of
both sexes as he came, the father wholly absorbed in not spilling the
glass of claret punch which he carried in one hand, and not falling
down on the slippery floor with the plate of salad which he bore in the
other. She had thoughts of feigning unconsciousness; she would have had
no scruple in practising this or any other social stratagem, for though
she kept a conscience in regard to certain matters--what she considered
essentials--she lived a thousand little lies every day, and taught her
daughter by precept and example to do the same. You must seem to be
looking one way when you were really looking another; you must say this
when you meant that; you must act as if you were thinking one thing when
you were thinking something quite different; and all to no end, for,
as she constantly said, people always know perfectly well what you were
about, whichever way you looked or whatever you said, or no matter
how 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 at
a glance, and at another she saw young Mavering slide easily up to his
father and relieve him of the plate and glass, with a laugh as pleasant
and a show of teeth as dazzling as he bestowed upon any of the ladies
he had passed. She owned to her recondite heart that she liked this in
young Mavering, though at the same time she asked herself what motive he
really had in being so polite to his father before people. But she had
no time to decide; she had only time to pack the question hurriedly away
for future consideration, when young Mavering arrived at her elbow, and
she turned with a little “Oh!” of surprise so perfectly acted that it
gave her the greatest pleasure.