on, in the absence of any
lady of her intimate circle, was appealing confidentially to John Munt.

"Why, do you think there's anything serious between them?" he asked,
dropping his head forward as people do in church when they wish to
whisper to some one in the same pew.

"Why, yes, it seems so," murmured Miss Cotton. "His admiration is quite
undisguised, isn't it?"

"A man never can tell," said Munt. "We have to leave those things to you
ladies."

"Oh, every one's talking of it, I assure you. And you know his family?"

"I knew his father once rather better than anybody else."

"Indeed!"

"Yes." Munt sketched rather a flattered portrait of the elder Mavering,
his ability, his goodness, his shyness, which he had always had to make
such a hard fight with. Munt was sensible of an access of popularity in
knowing Dan Mavering's people, and he did not spare his colours.

"Then it isn't from his father that he gets everything. He isn't in the
least shy," said Miss Cotton.

"That must be the mother."

"And the mother?"

"The mother I don't know."

Miss Cotton sighed. "Sometimes I wish that he did show a little more
trepidation. It would seem as if he were more alive to the great
difference that there is between Alice Pasmer and other girls."

Munt laughed a man's laugh. "I guess he's pretty well alive to that, if
he's in love with her."

"Oh, in a certain way, of course, but not in the highest way. Now, for
instance, if he felt all her fineness as--as we do, I don't believe he'd
be willing to appear before her just like that." The father of the gods
wore a damask tablecloth of a pale golden hue and a classic pattern;
his arms were bare, and rather absurdly white; on his feet a pair of
lawn-tennis shoes had a very striking effect of sandals.

"It seems to me," Miss Cotton pursued; "that if he really appreciated
her in the highest way, he would wish never to do an undignified or
trivial thing in her presence."

"Oh, perhaps it's that that pleases her in him. They say we're always
taken with opposites."

"Yes--do you think so?" asked Miss Cotton.

The curtains were flung apart, and the Judgment of Paris followed rather
tamely upon what had gone before, though the two young fellows who did
Juno and Minerva were very amusing, and the dialogue was full of hits.
Some of the audience, an appreciative minority, were of opinion that
Mavering and Miss Anderson surpassed themselves in it; she promised him
the most b