“That's more than I can say of you, Mr. Mavering,” she retorted.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Mavering!” said the girl, receiving the flowers. It was as if she had been too intent upon them and him to have noticed the little comedy that had conveyed them to her.
VIII.
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
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