e table. He noticed for the first time the pretty
house-dress she had on, with its barred corsage and under-skirt, and the
heavy silken rope knotted round it at the waist, and dropping in heavy
tufts or balls in front.

The breakfast was Continental in its simplicity, and Mrs. Pasmer said
that they had always kept up their Paris habit of a light breakfast,
even in London, where it was not so easy to follow foreign customs as it
was in America. She was afraid he might find it too light. Then he told
all about his morning's adventure, ending with his breakfast at the
Providence Depot. Mrs. Pasmer entered into the fun of it, but she said
it was for only once in a way, and he must not expect to be let in if
he came at that hour another morning. He said no; he understood what an
extraordinary piece of luck it was for him to be there; and he was there
to be bidden to do whatever they wished. He said so much in recognition
of their goodness, that he became abashed by it. Mrs. Pasmer sat at the
head of the table, and Alice across it from him, so far off that she
seemed parted from him by an insuperable moral distance. A warm flush
seemed to rise from his heart into his throat and stifle him. He wished
to shed tears. His eyes were wet with grateful happiness in answering
Mrs. Pasmer that he would not have any more coffee. "Then," she said,
"we will go into the drawing-room;" but she allowed him and Alice to go
alone.

He was still in that illusion of awe and of distance, and he submitted
to the interposition of another table between their chairs.

"I wish to talk with you," she said, so seriously that he was
frightened, and said to himself: "Now she is going to break it off. She
has thought it over, and she finds she can't endure me."

"Well?" he said huskily.

"You oughtn't to have come here, you know, this morning."

"I know it," he vaguely conceded. "But I didn't expect to get in."

"Well, now you're here, we may as well talk. You must tell your family
at once."

"Yes; I'm going to write to them as soon as I get back to my room. I
couldn't last night."

"But you mustn't write; you must go--and prepare their minds."

"Go?" he echoed. "Oh, that isn't necessary! My father knew about it from
the beginning, and I guess they've all talked it over. Their minds
are prepared." The sense of his immeasurable superiority to any one's
opposition began to dissipate Dan's unnatural awe; at the pleading face
which Alice put on, r