an odd, vague sense of doing it carefully, of
using a little of the caution with which one seizes the stem of a rose
between the thorns.

"I can bear to be ridiculous with you," she whispered, with an
implication which he understood.

"You haven't been ridiculous, dearest," he said; and his tension gave
way in a convulsive laugh, which partially expressed his feeling
of restored security, and partly his amusement in realising how the
situation would have pleased Mrs. Pasmer if she could have known it.

Mrs. Pasmer was seated behind her coffee biggin at the breakfast-table
when he came into the room with Alice, and she lifted an eye from its
glass bulb long enough to catch his flying glance of exultation and
admonition. Then, while she regarded the chemical struggle in the bulb,
with the rapt eye of a magician reading fate in his crystal ball, she
questioned herself how much she should know, and how much she should
ignore. It was a great moment for Mrs. Pasmer, full of delicious choice.
"Do you understand this process, Mr. Mavering?" she said, glancing up at
him warily for farther instruction.

"I've seen it done," said Dan, "but I never knew how it was managed. I
always thought it was going to blow up; but it seemed to me that if you
were good and true and very meek, and had a conscience void of offence,
it wouldn't."

"Yes, that's what it seems to depend upon," said Mrs. Pasmer, keeping
her eye on the bulb. She dodged suddenly forward, and put out the
spirit-lamp. "Now have your coffee!" she cried, with a great air of
relief. "You must need it by this time," she said with a low cynical
laugh--"both of you!"

"Did you always make coffee with a biggin in France, Mrs. Pasmer?" asked
Dan; and he laughed out the last burden that lurked in his heart.

Mrs. Pasmer joined him. "No, Mr. Mavering. In France you don't need a
biggin. I set mine up when we went to England."

Alice looked darkly from one of these light spirits to the other, and
then they all shrieked together.

They went on talking volubly from that, and they talked as far away from
what they were thinking about as possible. They talked of Europe, and
Mrs. Pasmer said where they would live and what they would do when they
all got back there together. Dan abetted her, and said that they must
cross in June. Mrs. Pasmer said that she thought June was a good month.
He asked if it were not the month of the marriages too, and she answered
that he must ask Alic