waiting for the answer,
which was lost in the incoherencies of all sorts of au revoirs called
after and called back.

VII.

"That is one thing," said Mrs. Saintsbury, looking swiftly round to see
that the elder Mavering was not within hearing, as she hurried ahead
with Mrs. Pasmer, "that I can't stand in Dan Mavering. Why couldn't he
have warned us that it was getting near the time? Why should he have
gone on pretending that there was no hurry? It isn't insincerity
exactly, but it isn't candour; no, it's uncandid. Oh, I suppose it's the
artistic temperament--never coming straight to the point."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Pasmer eagerly.

"I'll tell you sometime." She looked round and halted a little for
Alice, who was walking detached and neglected by the preoccupation of
the two elderly men. "I'm afraid you're tired," she said to the girl.

"Oh no."

"Of course not, on Class Day. But I hope we shall get seats. What
weather!"

The sun had not been oppressive at any time during the day, though the
crowded building had been close and warm, and now it lay like a painted
light on the grass and paths over which they passed to the entrance of
the grounds around the Tree. Holden Chapel, which enclosed the space on
the right as they went in, shed back the sun from its brick-red flank,
rising unrelieved in its venerable ugliness by any touch of the festive
preparations; but to their left and diagonally across from them high
stagings supported tiers of seats along the equally unlovely red bulks
of Hollis and of Harvard. These seats, and the windows in the stories
above them, were densely packed with people, mostly young girls dressed
in a thousand enchanting shades and colours, and bonneted and hatted to
the last effect of fashion. They were like vast terraces of flowers to
the swift glance, and here and there some brilliant parasol, spread to
catch the sun on the higher ranks, was like a flaunting poppy, rising
to the light and lolling out above the blooms of lower stature. But the
parasols were few, for the two halls flung wide curtains of shade
over the greater part of the spectators, and across to the foot of the
chapel, while a piece of the carpentry whose simplicity seems part of
the Class Day tradition shut out the glare and the uninvited public,
striving to penetrate the enclosure next the street. In front of this
yellow pine wall; with its ranks of benches, stood the Class Day Tree,
girded at ten or