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.”
“Of course not, on Class Day. But I hope we shall get seats. What weather!”
The sun had not been oppressive at any time during the day, though the crowded building had been close and warm, and now it lay like a painted light on the grass and paths over which they
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