As soon after Class Day as Mrs. Pasmer's complaisant sense of the
decencies would let her, she went out from Boston to call on Mrs.
Saintsbury in Cambridge, and thank her for her kindness to Alice and
herself. “She will know well enough what I come for,” she said to
herself, and she felt it the more important to ignore Mrs. Saintsbury's
penetration by every polite futility; this was due to them both: and she
did not go till the second day after.
Mrs. Saintsbury came down into the darkened, syringa-scented library to
find 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 custom
in Boston with ladies who are in the same set, whether they are great
friends or not. In the more changeful society of Cambridge, where so
many new people are constantly coming and going in connection with the
college, it is not so much the custom; but Mrs. Saintsbury was Boston
born, as well as Mrs. Pasmer, and was Cantabrigian by marriage--though
this is not saying that she was not also thoroughly so by convincement
and usage she now rarely went into Boston society.
“Yes, Etta--just. But I wasn't sure of it,” said Mrs. Pasmer, “when I
woke yesterday. I was a mere aching jelly!”
“And Alice?”
“Oh; I don't think she had any physical consciousness. She was a mere
rapturous memory!”
“She did have a good time, didn't she?” said Mrs. Saintsbury, in a
generous retrospect. “I think she was on her feet every moment in the
evening. 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. It
must have been nearly half past seven before we got away from the
Beck Hall spread, and then by the time we had walked round the college
grounds--how extremely pretty the lanterns were, and how charming the
whole 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 for
Class Day. And it was Dan Mavering who really managed the affair.”
“He was very kind,” said Mrs. Pasmer, with a feeling which was chiefly
gratitude to her friend for bringing in his name so soon. Now that
it had been spoken, she felt it decorous to throw aside the outer
integument of pretense, which if it could have been entirely exfoliated
would have caused Mrs. Pasmer morally to disappear, like an onion
stripped 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 strongly
urged him to consider how much better it would be to be a painter than a
lawyer, 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--his
last craze was journalism; but you know what I mean by the artistic
temperament: it's that inability to be explicit; that habit of leaving
things vague and undefined, and hoping they'll somehow come out as you
want them of themselves; that way of taking the line of beauty to get
at what you wish to do or say, and of being very finicking about little
things and lag about essentials. That's what I mean by the artistic
temperament.”
“Yes; that's terrible,” sighed Mrs. Pasmer, with the abstractly severe
yet personally pitying perception of one whose every word and act was
sincere and direct. “I know just what you mean. But how does it apply to
Mr. Mavering?”
“It doesn't, exactly,” returned her friend. “And I'm always ashamed
when I say, or even think, anything against Dan Mavering. He's sweetness
itself. We've known him ever since he came to Harvard, and I must say
that a more constant and lovely follow I never saw. It wasn't merely
when he was a Freshman, and he had that home feeling hanging about him
still that makes all the Freshmen so appreciative of anything you do for
them; but all through the Sophomore and Junior years, when they're so
taken up with their athletics and their societies and their college life
generally that they haven't a moment for people that have been kind to
them, he was just as faithful as ever.”
“How nice!” cried Mrs. Pasmer.
“Yes, indeed! And all the allurements of Boston society haven't taken
him from us altogether. You can't imagine how much this means till
you've been at home a while and seen how the students are petted and
spoiled nowadays in the young society.”
“Oh, I've heard of it,” said Mrs. Pasmer. “And is it his versatility
and brilliancy, or his amiability, that makes him such a universal
favourite?”
“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 universal
favourites in Harvard now, if there ever were: the classes are
altogether too big. And it wouldn't be ability, and it wouldn't be
amiability 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 been
away, Jenny. It would be family--family, with a judicious mixture of the
others, and with money.”
“Is it possible? But of course--I remember! Only at their age one thinks
of students as being all hail-fellow-well-met with each other--”
“Yes; it's hard to realise how conventional they are--how very much
worldlier than the world--till one sees it as one does in Cambridge.
They pique themselves on it. And Mr. Saintsbury”--she was one of those
women whom everything reminds of their husbands “says that it isn't a
bad thing altogether. He says that Harvard is just like the world; and
even 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 Harvard
spirit, and Mr. Saintsbury doesn't sympathise with it; he only says it's
the world's spirit. Harvard men--the swells--are far more exclusive
than Oxford men. A student, 'comme il faut', wouldn't at all like to
be 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 to
understand how things really are in the world early; it will save them
from 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 and
station know how to protect themselves by reserves that the others
wouldn't dare to transgress. But a merely rich man couldn't rise in
their set any more than a merely gifted man. He could get on to a
certain point by toadying, and some do; but he would never get to be
popular, 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 social
quality, exactly; but personal charm. He never had a mean thought; of
course we're all full of mean thoughts, and Dan is too; but his first
impulse is always generous and sweet, and at his age people act a great
deal from impulse. I don't suppose he ever met a human being without
wanting to make him like him, and trying to do it.”
“Yes, he certainly makes you like him,” sighed Mrs. Pasmer. “But I
understand 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 are
giving Harvard such a reputation for extravagance nowadays.”
There was an inquiring note in Mrs. Pasmer's voice; and in the
syringa-scented obscurity, which protected the ladies from the
expression of each other's faces, Mrs. Saintsbury gave a little laugh
of intelligence, to which Mrs. Pasmer responded by a murmur of humorous
enjoyment 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 not
lavish. And he came here with a reputation for popularity from a very
good school, and that always goes a very great way in college.”
“Yes?” said Mrs. Pasmer, feeling herself getting hopelessly adrift in
these unknown waters; but reposing a pious confidence in her pilot.
“Yes; if a sufficient number of his class said he was the best fellow in
the world, he would be pretty sure to be chosen one of the First Ten in
the 'Dickey'.”
“What mysteries!” gasped Mrs. Pasmer, disposed to make fun of them, but
a 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 the
first ten--the only Freshmen chosen--is something quite ineffable.”
“I see.” Mrs. Pasmer fanned herself, after taking a long breath. “And
when he had got into the------”
“Then it would depend upon himself, how he spent his money, and all
that, and what sort of society success he was in Boston. That has
a great deal to do with it from the first. Then another thing is
caution--discreetness; not saying anything censorious or critical of
other men, no matter what they do. And Dan Mavering is the perfection of
prudence, 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 Boston
that I ever heard of.”
“No; the name's quite died out just here, I believe: but it's old, and
it bids fair to be replated at Ponkwasset Falls.”
“At Ponk--”
“That's where they have their mills, or factories, or shops, or whatever
institution 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 some
way 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, and
it isn't disgraceful. And the Mavering papers are very pretty, and
you can live with them without becoming anaemic, or having your face
twitch.”
“Face twitch?” echoed Mrs. Pasmer.
“Yes; arsenical poisoning.”
“Oh! Conscientious as well as aesthetic. I see. And does Mr. Mavering
put his artistic temperament into them?”
“His father does. He's a very interesting man. He has the best taste in
certain things--he knows more about etchings, I suppose, than any one
else in Boston.”
“Is it possible! And does he live at Ponkwasset Falls? It's in Rhode
Island, isn't it?”
“New Hampshire. Yes; the whole family live there.”
“The whole family? Are there many of them? I'd fancied, somehow, that
Mr. Mavering was the only----Do tell me about them, Etta,” said Mrs.
Pasmer, leaning back in her chair, and fanning herself with an effect of
impartial interest, to which the dim light of the room lent itself.
“He's the only son. But there are daughters, of course--very cultivated
girls.”
“And is he--is the elder Mr. Mavering a--I don't know what made me think
so--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, though
he wanted very much to stay for Commencement. He's never away from
her longer than he can help. She's bedridden; and you can see from the
moment you enter it that it's a man's house. Daughters can't change
that, you know.”
“Have you been there?” asked Mrs. Pasmer, surprised that she was getting
so much information, but eager for more. “Why, how long have you known
them, Etta?”
“Only since Dan came to Harvard. Mr. Saintsbury took a fancy to him
from the start, and the boy was so fond of him that they were always
insisting upon a visit; and last summer we stopped there on our way to
the mountains.”
“And the sisters--do they stay there the whole year round? Are they
countrified?”
“One doesn't live in the country without being countrified,” said Mrs.
Saintsbury. “They're rather quiet girls, though they've been about
a 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 afraid
of 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. Why
lawyer, if he's got the talent and the temperament of an artist? Does
his 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 he
go?”
The ladies entered into this social inquiry with a zest which it would
be 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 in
the best Cambridge houses; she knew of old how people were accepted in
Cambridge for their intellectual brilliancy or solidity, their personal
worth, and all sorts of things, without consideration of the mystical
something which gives vogue in Boston.
“How superb Alice was!” Mrs. Saintsbury broke off abruptly. “She has
such 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 he
has no intensity; and I'm all intensity, and no repose. But I'm no more
like 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 of
tone 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, when
the door-bell rang, and another visitor interrupted her talk with Mrs.
Saintsbury.