"No!" he retorted, with a violence that surprised him. "I will not let you pa.s.s till you have listened to me--till you tell me why you treat me so. I won"t stand it--I"ve had enough of this kind of thing."
It surprised Alice too a little, and after a moment"s hesitation she said, "I will listen to you," so much more gently than she had spoken before that Dan relaxed his imperative tone, and began to laugh. "But,"
she added, and her face clouded again, "it will be of no use. My mind is made up this time. Why should we talk?"
"Why, because mine isn"t," said Dan. "What is the matter, Alice? Do you think I would force you, or even ask you, to go home with me to live unless you were entirely willing? It could only be a temporary arrangement anyway."
"That isn"t the question," she retorted. "The question is whether you"ve promised your mother one thing and me another."
"Well, I don"t know about promising," said Dan, laughing a little more uneasily, but still laughing. "As nearly as I can remember, I wasn"t consulted about the matter. Your mother proposed one thing, and my mother proposed another."
"And you agreed to both. That is quite enough--quite characteristic!"
Dan flushed, and stopped laughing. "I don"t know what you mean by characteristic. The thing didn"t have to be decided at once, and I didn"t suppose it would be difficult for either side to give way, if it was judged best. I was sure my mother wouldn"t insist."
"It seems very easy for your family to make sacrifices that are not likely to be required of them."
"You mustn"t criticise my mother!" cried Dan.
"I have not criticised her. You insinuate that we would be too selfish to give up, if it were for the best."
"I do nothing of the kind, and unless you are determined to quarrel with me you wouldn"t say so."
"I don"t wish a quarrel; none is necessary," said Alice coldly.
"You accuse me of being treacherous--"
"I didn"t say treacherous!"
"Faithless, then. It"s a mere quibble about words. I want you to take that back."
"I can"t take it back; it"s the truth. Aren"t you faithless, if you let us go on thinking that you"re going to Europe, and let your mother think that we"re coming home to live after we"re married?"
"No! I"m simply leaving the question open!"
"Yes," said the girl--sadly, "you like to leave questions open. That"s your way."
"Well, I suppose I do till it"s necessary to decide them. It saves the needless effusion of talk," said Dan, with a laugh; and then, as people do in a quarrel, he went back to his angry mood, and said "Besides, I supposed you would be glad of the chance to make some sacrifice for me.
You"re always asking for it."
"Thank you, Mr. Mavering," said Alice, "for reminding me of it; nothing is sacred to you, it seems. I can"t say that you have ever sought any opportunities of self-sacrifice."
"I wasn"t allowed time to do so; they were always presented."
"Thank you again, Mr. Mavering. All this is quite a revelation. I"m glad to know how you really felt about things that you seemed so eager for."
"Alice, you know that I would do anything for you!" cried Dan, rueing his precipitate words.
"Yes; that"s what you"ve repeatedly told me. I used to believe it."
"And I always believed what you said. You said at the picnic that day that you thought I would like to live at Ponkwa.s.set Falls if my business was there--"
"That is not the point!"
"And now you quarrel with me because my mother wishes me to do so."
Alice merely said: "I don"t know why I stand here allowing you to intimidate me in my father"s house. I demand that you shall stand aside and let me pa.s.s."
"I"ll not oblige you to leave the room," said Dan. "I will go. But if I go, you will understand that I don"t come back."
"I hope that," said the girl.
"Very well. Good morning, Miss Pasmer."
She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of his bow, and he whirled out of the room and down the dim narrow pa.s.sageway into the arms of Mrs. Pasmer, who had resisted as long as she could her curiosity to know what the angry voices of himself and Alice meant.
"O Mr. Mavering, is it you?" she buzzed; and she flung aside one pretence for another in adding, "Couldn"t Alice make you stay to breakfast?"
Dan felt a rush of tenderness in his heart at the sound of the kind, humbugging little voice. "No, thank you, Mrs. Pasmer, I couldn"t stay, thank you. I--I thank you very much. I--good-bye, Mrs. Pasmer." He wrung her hand, and found his way out of the apartment door, leaving her to clear up the mystery of his flight and his broken words as she could.
"Alice," she said, as she entered the room, where the girl had remained, "what have you been doing now?"
"Oh, nothing," she said, with a remnant of her scorn for Dan qualifying her tone and manner to her mother. "I"ve dismissed Mr. Mavering."
"Then you want him to come to lunch?" asked her mother. "I should advise him to refuse."
"I don"t think he"d accept," said Alice. Then, as Mrs. Pasmer stood in the door, preventing her egress, as Dan had done before, she asked meekly "Will you let me pa.s.s, mamma? My head aches."
Mrs. Pasmer, whose easy triumphs in so many difficult circ.u.mstances kept her nearly always in good temper, let herself go, at these words, in vexation very uncommon with her. "Indeed I shall not!" she retorted.
"And you will please sit down here and tell me what you mean by dismissing Mr. Mavering. I"m tired of your whims and caprices."
"I can"t talk," began the girl stubbornly.
"Yes, I think you can," said her mother. "At any rate, I can. Now what is it all?"
"Perhaps this letter, will explain," said Alice, continuing to dignify her enforced submission with a tone of unabated hauteur; and she gave her mother Mrs. Mavering"s letter, which Dan had mechanically restored to her.
Mrs. Pasmer read it, not only without indignation, but apparently without displeasure. But, she understood perfectly what the trouble was, when she looked up and asked, cheerfully, "Well?"
"Well!" repeated Alice, with a frown of astonishment. "Don"t you see that he"s promised us one thing and her another, and that he"s false to both?"
"I don"t know," said Mrs. Pasmer, recovering her good-humour in view of a situation that she felt herself able to cope with. "Of course he has to temporise, to manage a little. She"s an invalid, and of course she"s very exacting. He has to humour her. How do you know he has promised her? He hasn"t promised us."
"Hasn"t promised us?" Alice gasped.
"No. He"s simply fallen in with what we"ve said. It"s because he"s so sweet and yielding, and can"t bear to refuse. I can understand it perfectly."
"Then if he hasn"t promised us, he"s deceived us all the more shamefully, for he"s made us think he had."