, and her face, which was
rather narrow, had a pleasing irregularity in the sharp jut of the nose;
in profile the parting of the red lips showed well back into the cheek.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Pasmer, in her own behalf; and she added in
his, "about letting you take so much trouble," so smoothly that it
would have been quite impossible to detect the point of union in the two
utterances.

"Well, don't call it names, anyway, Mrs. Pasmer," pleaded the young man.
"I thought it was nothing but a pleasure and a privilege--"

"The fact is," she explained, neither consenting nor refusing, "that
we were expecting to meet some friends who had tickets for us"--young
Mavering's face fell--"and I can't imagine what's happened."

"Oh, let's hope something dreadful," he cried.

"Perhaps you know them," she delayed further. "Professor Saintsbury!"

"Well, rather! Why, they were here about an hour ago--both of them. They
must have been looking for you."

"Yes; we were to meet them here. We waited to come out with other
friends, and I was afraid we were late." Mrs. Pasmer's face expressed a
tempered disappointment, and she looked at her daughter for indications
of her wishes in the circumstances; seeing in her eye a willingness to
accept young Mavering's invitation, she hesitated more decidedly than
she had yet done, for she was, other things being equal, quite willing
to accept it herself. But other things were not equal, and the whole
situation was very odd. All that she knew of Mr. Mavering the elder was
that he was the old friend of John Munt, and she knew far too little of
John Munt, except that he seemed to go everywhere, and to be welcome,
not to feel that his introduction was hardly a warrant for what looked
like an impending intimacy. She did not dislike Mr. Mavering; he was
evidently a country person of great self-respect, and no doubt of entire
respectability. He seemed very intelligent, too. He was a Harvard man;
he had rather a cultivated manner, or else naturally a clever way of
saying things. But all that was really nothing, if she knew no more
about him, and she certainly did not. If she could only have asked her
daughter who it was that presented young Mavering to her, that might
have formed some clew, but there was no earthly chance of asking this,
and, besides, it was probably one of those haphazard introductions that
people give on such occasions. Young Mavering's behaviour gave her still
greater question: