r point of view; but whether it fathomed the girl's whole
intention or aspiration is another matter. Perhaps this was not very
clear to herself. At any rate, Mavering did not go any more to see Mrs.
Brinkley, whose house he had liked to drop into. Alice went several
times, to show, she said, that she had no feeling in the matter; and
Mrs. Brinkley, when she met Dan, forbore to embarrass him with questions
or reproaches; she only praised Alice to him.

There were not many other influences that Alice cut him off from;
she even exposed him to some influences that might have been thought
deleterious. She made him go and call alone upon certain young ladies
whom she specified, and she praised several others to him, though she
did not praise them for the same things that he did. One of them was a
girl to whom Alice had taken a great fancy, such as often buds into a
romantic passion between women; she was very gentle and mild, and she
had none of that strength of will which she admired in Alice. One night
there was a sleighing party to a hotel in the suburbs, where they had
dancing and then supper. After the supper they danced "Little Sally
Waters" for a finale, instead of the Virginia Reel, and Alice would not
go on the floor with Dan; she said she disliked that dance; but she
told him to dance with Miss Langham. It became a gale of fun, and in the
height of it Dan slipped and fell with his partner. They laughed it off,
with the rest, but after a while the girl began to cry; she had received
a painful bruise. All the way home, while the others laughed and sang
and chattered, Dan was troubled about this poor girl; his anxiety became
a joke with the whole sleighful of people.

When he parted with Alice at her door, he said, "I'm afraid I hurt Miss
Langham; I feel awfully about it."

"Yes; there's no doubt of that. Good night!"

She left him to go off to his lodging, hot and tingling with indignation
at her injustice. But kindlier thoughts came to him before he slept, and
he fell asleep with a smile of tenderness for her on his lips. He could
see how he was wrong to go out with any one else when Alice said
she disliked the dance; he ought not to have taken advantage of her
generosity in appointing him a partner; it was trying for her to see him
make that ludicrous tumble, of course; and perhaps he had overdone the
attentive sympathy on the way home. It flattered him that she could not
help showing her jealousy--that is flatte