y shouldn't
your watch stop too?" Mavering tugged it out of the pocket, and then
shoved it back disdainfully. "You couldn't stop that thing with anything
short of a sledgehammer; it's rattling away like a mowing-machine. You
know those Portland women--those ladies I spent the day with when you
were down there at the regatta--the day I came from Campobello--Mrs.
Frobisher and her sister?" He agglutinated one query to another till he
saw a light of intelligence dawn in Boardman's eye. "Well, they're at
the bottom of it, I suppose. I was introduced to them on Class Day, and
I ought to have shown them some attention there; but the moment I saw
Alice--Miss Pasmer--I forgot all about 'em. But they didn't seem to have
noticed it much, and I made it all right with 'em that day at Portland;
and they came up in the fall, and I made an appointment with them to
drive out to Cambridge and show them the place. They were to take me
up at the Art Museum; but that was the day I met Miss Pasmer, and I--I
forgot about those women again."

Boardman was one of those who seldom laugh; but his grin expressed
all the malicious enjoyment he felt. He said nothing in the impressive
silence which Mavering let follow at this point.

"Oh, you think it was funny?" cried Mavering. "I thought it was funny
too; but Alice herself opened my eyes to what I'd done, and I always
intended to make it all right with them when I got the chance. I
supposed she wished me too."

Boardman grinned afresh.

"She told me I must; though she seemed to dislike my having been with
them the day after she'd thrown me over. But if"--Mavering interrupted
himself to say, as the grin widened on Boardman's face--"if you think
it was any case of vulgar jealousy, you're very much mistaken, Boardman.
She isn't capable of it, and she was so magnanimous about it that I made
up my mind to do all I could to retrieve myself. I felt that it was my
duty to her. Well, last night at Mrs. Jim Bellingham's reception--"

A look of professional interest replaced the derision in Boardman's
eyes. "Any particular occasion for the reception? Given in honour of
anybody?"

"I'll contribute to your society notes some other time, Boardman," said
Mavering haughtily. "I'm speaking to a friend, not an interviewer. Well,
whom should I see after the first waltz--I'd been dancing with Alice,
and we were taking a turn through the drawing-room, and she hanging
on my arm, and I knew everybody saw how it w