know
what's best, Alice. Be yourself, and she'll like you well enough. I'm
not afraid."

XXXIII:

When she entered Mrs. Mavering's room Alice first saw the pictures, the
bric-a-brac, the flowers, the dazzle of lights, and then the invalid
propped among her pillows, and vividly expectant of her. She seemed all
eager eyes to the girl, aware next of the strong resemblance to Dan in
her features, and of the careful toilet the sick woman had made for her.
To youth all forms of suffering are abhorrent, and Alice had to hide
a repugnance at sight of this spectre of what had once been a pretty
woman. Through the egotism with which so many years of flattering
subjection in her little world had armed her, Mrs. Mavering probably did
not feel the girl's shrinking, or, if she did, took it for the natural
embarrassment which she would feel. She had satisfied herself that she
was looking her best, and that her cap and the lace jacket she wore were
very becoming, and softened her worst points; the hangings of her
bed and the richly embroidered crimson silk coverlet were part of
the coquetry of her costume, from which habit had taken all sense of
ghastliness; she was proud of them, and she was not aware of the scent
of drugs that insisted through the odour of the flowers.

She lifted herself on her elbow as Dan approached with Alice, and the
girl felt as if an intense light had been thrown upon her from head to
foot in the moment of searching scrutiny that followed. The invalid's
set look broke into a smile, and she put out her hand, neither hot nor
cold, but of a dry neutral, spiritual temperature, and pulled Alice down
and kissed her.

"Why, child, your hand's like ice!" she exclaimed without preamble. "We
used to say that came from a warm heart."

"I guess it comes from a cold grapery in this case, mother," said Dan,
with his laugh. "I've just been running Alice through it. And perhaps a
little excitement--"

"Excitement?" echoed his mother. "Cold grapery, I dare say, and very
silly of you, Dan; but there's no occasion for excitement, as if we were
strangers. Sit down in that chair, my dear. And, Dan, you go round
to the other side of the bed; I want Alice all to myself. I saw your
photograph a week ago, and I've thought about you for ages since, and
wondered whether you would approve of your old friend."

"Oh yes," whispered the girl, suppressing a tremor; and Dan's eyes were
suffused with grateful tears at his mother