"Try to remember."
"I can"t."
"How strange that we should have both happened to go to the Museum this morning!" she sighed. Then, "Dan," she broke in, "do you suppose that heaven is any different from this?"
"I hope not--if I"m to go there."
"Hush, dear; you mustn"t talk so."
"Why, you provoked me to it."
"Did I? Did I really? Do you think I tempted you to do it? Then I must be wicked, whether I knew I was doing it or not. Yes."
The break in her voice made him look more keenly at her, and he saw the tears glimmer in her eyes. "Alice!"
"No; I"m not good enough for you. I always said that."
"Then don"t say it any more. That"s the only thing I won"t let you say."
"Do you forbid it, really? Won"t you let me even think it?"
"No, not even think it."
"How lovely you are! Oh! I like to be commanded by you."
"Do you? You"ll have lots of fun, then. I"m an awfully commanding spirit."
"I didn"t suppose you were so humorous--always. I"m afraid you won"t like me. I"ve no sense of fun."
"And I"m a little too funny sometimes, I"m afraid."
"No, you never are. When?"
"That night at the Trevors". You didn"t like it."
"I thought Miss Anderson was rather ridiculous," said Alice. "I don"t like buffoonery in women."
"Nor I in men," said Mavering, smiling. "I"ve dropped it."
"Well, now we must part. I must go home at once," said Alice. "It"s perfectly insane."
"Oh no, not yet; not till we"ve said something else; not till we"ve changed the subject."
"What subject?"
"Miss Anderson."
Alice laughed and blushed, but she was not vexed. She liked to have him understand her. "Well, now," she said, as if that were the next thing, "I"m going to cross here at once and walk up the other pavement, and you must go back through the Garden; or else I shall never get away from you."
"May I look over at you?"
"You may glance, but you needn"t expect me to return your glance."
"Oh no."
"And I want you to take the very first Cambridge car that comes along. I command you to."
"I thought you wanted me to do the commanding."
"So I do--in essentials. If you command me not to cry when I get home, I won"t."
She looked at him with an ecstasy of self-sacrifice in her eyes.
"Ah, I sha"n"t do that. I can"t tell what would open. But--Alice!"
"Well, what?" She drifted closely to him, and looked fondly up into his face. In walking they had insensibly drawn nearer together, and she had been obliged constantly to put s.p.a.ce between them. Now, standing at the corner of Arlington Street, and looking tentatively across Beacon, she abandoned all precautions.
"What! I forget. Oh yes! I love you!"
"But you said that before, dearest!"
"Yes; but just now it struck me as a very novel idea. What if your mother shouldn"t like the idea?"
"Nonsense! you know she perfectly idolises you. She did from the first.
And doesn"t she know how I"ve begin behaving about you ever since I--lost you?"
"How have you behaved? Do tell me, Alice?"
"Some time; not now," she said; and with something that was like a gasp, and threatened to be a sob, she suddenly whipped across the road. He walked back to Charles Street by the Garden path, keeping abreast of her, and not losing sight of her for a moment, except when the bulk of a string team watering at the trough beside the pavement intervened. He hurried by, and when he had pa.s.sed it he found himself exactly abreast of her again. Her face was turned toward him; they exchanged a smile, lost in s.p.a.ce. At the corner of Charles Street he deliberately crossed over to her.
"O dearest love! why did you come?" she implored.
"Because you signed to me."
"I hoped you wouldn"t see it. If we"re both to be so weak as this, what are we going to do?"
"But I"m glad you came. Yes: I was frightened. They must have overheard us there when we were talking."
"Well, I didn"t say anything I"m ashamed of. Besides, I shouldn"t care much for the opinion of those nurses and babies."
"Of course not. But people must have seen us. Don"t stand here talking, Dan! Do come on!" She hurried him across the street, and walked him swiftly up the incline of Beacon Street. There, in her new fall suit, with him, glossy-hatted, faultlessly gloved, at a fit distance from her side, she felt more in keeping with the social frame of things than in the Garden path, which was really only a shade better than the Beacon Street Mall of the Common. "Do you suppose anybody saw us that knew us?"
"I hope so! Don"t you want people to know it?"
"Yes, of course. They will have to know it--in the right way. Can you believe that it"s only half a year since we met? It won"t be a year till Cla.s.s Day."
"I don"t believe it, Alice. I can"t recollect anything before I knew you."
"Well, now, as time is so confused, we must try to live for eternity.