she asked Boardman, giving him unavoidably the advantage of the caressing manner which was in her mind for Mavering.
“Well, you see,” said Boardman, “we have to begin pretty low down.”
“Oh, but all departments of our press need reforming, don't they?” she inquired consolingly. “One hears such shocking things about our papers abroad. I'm sure that the more Harvard men go into them the better. And how splendid it is to have them going into politics the way they are! They're going into politics too, aren't they?” She looked from one young man to the other with an idea that she was perhaps shooting rather wild, and an amiable willingness to be laughed at if she were. “Why don't you go into politics, Mr. Mavering?”
“Well, the fact is—”
“So many of the young University men do in England,” said Mrs. Pasmer, fortifying her position.
“Well, you see, they haven't got such a complete machine in England—”
“Oh yes, that dreadful machine!” sighed Mrs. Pasmer, who had heard of it, but did not know in the least what it was.
“Do you think the Harvard crew will beat this time?” Alice asked of Boardman.
“Well, to tell you the truth—”
“Oh, but you must never believe him when he begins that way!” cried Mavering. “To be sure they will beat. And you ought to be there to see it. Now, why won't you come, Mrs. Pasmer?” he pleaded, turning to her mother.
“Oh, I'm afraid we must be getting away from Boston by that time. It's very tiresome, but there seems to be nobody left; and one can't stay quite alone, even if you're sick of moving about. Have you ever been—we think of going there—to Campobello?”
“No; but I hear that it's charming, there. I had a friend who was there last year, and he said it was charming. The only trouble is it's so far. You're pretty well on the way to Europe when you get there. You know it's all hotel life?”
“Yes. It's quite a new place, isn't it?”
“Well, it's been opened up several years. And they say it isn't like the hotel life anywhere else; it's charming. And there's the very nicest class of people.”
“Very nice Philadelphia people, I hear,” said Mrs. Pasmer; “and Baltimore. Don't you think it's well;” she asked deferentially, and under correction, if she were hazarding too much, “to see somebody besides Boston people sometimes—if they're nice? That seems to be one of the great advantages of living abroad.”
“Oh, I think there are nice people everywhere,” said the young man, with the bold expansion of youth.
“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Pasmer. “We saw two such delightful young people coming in and out of the hotel in Rome. We were sure they were English. And they were from Chicago! But there are not many Western people at Campobello, are there?”
“I really don't know,” said Mavering. “How is it, Boardman? Do many of your people go there?”
“You know you do make it so frightfully expensive with your money,” said Mrs. Pasmer, explaining with a prompt effect of having known all along that Boardman was from the West, “You drive us poor people all away.”
“I don't think my money would do it,” said Boardman quietly.
“Oh, you wait till you're a Syndicate Correspondent,” said, Mavering, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder, and rising by aid of it. He left Mrs. Pasmer to fill the chasm that had so suddenly yawned between her and Boardman; and while she tumbled into every sort of flowery friendliness and compliment, telling him she should look out for his account of the race with the greatest interest, and expressing the hope that he would get as far as Campobello during the summer, Mavering found some minutes for talk with Alice. He was graver with her—far graver than with her mother—not only because she was a more serious nature, but because they were both young, and youth is not free with youth except by slow and cautious degrees. In that little space of time they talked of pictures, 'a propos' of some on the wall, and of books, because of those on the table.
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Pasmer when they paused, and she felt that her piece of difficult engineering had been quite successful, “Mrs. Saintsbury was telling me what a wonderful connoisseur of etchings your father is.”
“I believe he does know something about them,” said the young man modestly.
“And he's gone back already?”
“Oh yes. He never stays long away from my mother. I shall be going home myself as soon as I get back from the race.”
“And shall you spend the summer there?”
“Part of it. I always like to do that.”
“Perhaps when you get away you'll come as far as Campobello—with Mr. Boardman,” she added.
“Has Boardman promised to go?” laughed Mavering. “He will promise anything. Well, I'll come to Campobello if you'll come to New London. Do come, Mrs. Pasmer!”
The mother stood watching the two young men from the window as they made their way across the square together. She had now, for some reason; no apparent scruple in being seen to do so.
“How ridiculous that stout little Mr. Boardman is with him!” said Mrs. Pasmer. “He hardly comes up to his shoulder. Why in the world should he have brought him?”
“I thought he was very pleasant,” said the girl.
“Yes, yes, of course. And I suppose he'd have felt that it was rather pointed coming alone.”
“Pointed?”
“Young men are so queer! Did you like that kind of collar he had on?”
“I didn't notice it.”
“So very, very high.”
“I suppose he has rather a long neck.”
“Well, what did you think of his urging us to go to the race? Do you think he meant it? Do you think he intended it for an invitation?”
“I don't think he meant anything; or, if he did, I think he didn't know what.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Pasmer vaguely; “that must be what Mrs. Saintsbury meant by the artistic temperament.”
“I like people to be sincere, and not to say things they don't mean, or don't know whether they mean or not,” said Alice.
“Yes, of course, that's the best way,” admitted Mrs. Pasmer. “It's the only way,” she added, as if it were her own invariable practice. Then she added further, “I wonder what he did mean?”
She began to yawn, for after her simulation of vivid interest in them the visit of the young men had fatigued her. In the midst of her yawn her daughter went out of the room, with an impatient gesture, and she suspended the yawn long enough to smile, and then finished it.
