"We didn"t till you rose, like a statue of Victory, and began grabbing for the spoils from the heads and shoulders of your friends. Who was your pedestal?"
Mavering put his hand on his friend"s broad shoulder, and gave him a playful push.
Boardman turned up his little black eyes at him, with a funny gleam in them.
"Poor Mr. Boardman!" said Mrs. Pasmer.
"It didn"t hurt him a bit," said Mavering, pushing him. "He liked it."
"Of course he did," said Mrs. Pasmer, implying, in flattery of Mavering, that Boardman might be glad of the distinction; and now Boardman looked as if he were not. She began to get away in adding, "But I wonder you don"t kill each other."
"Oh, we"re not so easily killed," said Mavering.
"And what a fairy scene it was at the spread!" said Mrs. Pasmer, turning to Boardman. She had already talked its splendours over with Mavering the same evening. "I thought we should never get out of the Hall; but when we did get out of the window upon that tapestried platform, and down on the tennis-ground, with Turkey rugs to hide the bare spots in it--" She stopped as people do when it is better to leave the effect to the listener"s imagination.
"Yes, I think it was rather nice," said Boardman.
"Nice?" repeated Mrs. Pasmer; and she looked at Mavering. "Is that the famous Harvard Indifferentism?"
"No, no, Mrs. Pasmer! It"s just his personal envy. He wasn"t in the spread, and of course he doesn"t like to hear any one praise it. Go on!"
They all laughed.
"Well, even Mr. Boardman will admit," said Mrs. Pasmer; "that nothing could have been prettier than that pavilion at the bottom of the lawn, and the little tables scattered about over it, and all those charming young creatures under that lovely evening sky."
"Ah! Even Boardman can"t deny that. We did have the nicest crowd; didn"t we?"
"Well," said Mrs. Pasmer, playfully checking herself in a ready adhesion, "that depends a good deal upon where Mr. Boardman"s spread was."
"Thank you," said Boardman.
"He wasn"t spreading anywhere," cried his friend. "Except himself--he was spreading himself everywhere."
"Then I think I should prefer to remain neutral," said Mrs. Pasmer, with a mock prudence which pleased the young men. In the midst of the pleasure the was giving and feeling she was all the time aware that her daughter had contributed but one remark to the conversation, and that she must be seeming very stiff and cold. She wondered what that meant, and whether she disliked this little Mr. Boardman, or whether she was again trying to punish Mr. Mavering for something, and, if so, what it was. Had he offended her in some way the other day? At any rate, she had no right to show it. She longed for some chance to scold the girl, and tell her that it would not do, and make her talk. Mr. Mavering was merely a friendly acquaintance, and there could be no question of anything personal. She forgot that between young people the social affair is always trembling to the personal affair.
In the little pause which these reflections gave her mother, the girl struck in, with the coolness that always astonished Mrs. Pasmer, and as if she had been merely waiting till some phase of the talk interested her.
"Are many of the students going to the race?" she asked Boardman.
"Yes; nearly everybody. That is--"
"The race?" queried Mrs. Pasmer.
"Yes, at New London," Mavering broke in. "Don"t you know? The University race--Harvard and Yale."
"Oh--oh yes," cried Mrs. Pasmer, wondering how her daughter should know about the race, and she not. "Had they talked it over together on Cla.s.s Day?" she asked herself. She felt herself, in spite of her efforts to keep even with them; left behind and left out, as later age must be distanced and excluded by youth. "Are you gentlemen going to row?" she asked Mavering.
"No; they"ve ruled the tubs out this time; and we should send anything else to the bottom."
Mrs. Pasmer perceived that he was joking, but also that they were not of the crew; and she said that if that was the case the should not go.
"Oh, don"t let that keep you away! Aren"t you going? I hoped you were going," continued the young man, speaking with his eyes on Mrs. Pasmer, but with his mind, as she could see by his eyes, on her daughter.
"No, no."
"Oh, do go, Mrs. Pasmer!" he urged: "I wish you"d go along to chaperon us."
Mrs. Pasmer accepted the notion with amus.e.m.e.nt. "I should think you might look after each other. At any rate, I think I must trust you to Mr. Boardman this time."
"Yes; but he"s going on business," persisted Mavering, as if for the pleasure he found in fencing with the air, "and he can"t look after me."
"On business?" said Mrs. Pasmer, dropping her outspread fan on her lap, incredulously.
"Yes; he"s going into journalism--he"s gone into it," laughed Mavering; "and he"s going down to report the race for the "Events"."
"Really!" asked Mrs. Pasmer, with a glance at Boardman, whose droll embarra.s.sment did not contradict his friend"s words. "How splendid!"
she cried. "I had, heard that a great many Harvard men were taking up journalism. I"m so glad of it! It will do everything to elevate its tone."
Boardman seemed to suffer under these expectations a little, and he stole a glance of comical menace at his friend.
"Yes," said Mavering; "you"ll see a very different tone about the fires, and the fights, and the distressing accidents, in the "Events" after this."
"What does he mean?" she asked Boardman, giving him unavoidably the advantage of the caressing manner which was in her mind for Mavering.
"Well, you see," said Boardman, "we have to begin pretty low down."
"Oh, but all departments of our press need reforming, don"t they?" she inquired consolingly. "One hears such shocking things about our papers abroad. I"m sure that the more Harvard men go into them the better. And how splendid it is to have them going into politics the way they are!
They"re going into politics too, aren"t they?" She looked from one young man to the other with an idea that she was perhaps shooting rather wild, and an amiable willingness to be laughed at if she were. "Why don"t you go into politics, Mr. Mavering?"
"Well, the fact is--"
"So many of the young University men do in England," said Mrs. Pasmer, fortifying her position.
"Well, you see, they haven"t got such a complete machine in England--"
"Oh yes, that dreadful machine!" sighed Mrs. Pasmer, who had heard of it, but did not know in the least what it was.
"Do you think the Harvard crew will beat this time?" Alice asked of Boardman.
"Well, to tell you the truth--"
"Oh, but you must never believe him when he begins that way!" cried Mavering. "To be sure they will beat. And you ought to be there to see it. Now, why won"t you come, Mrs. Pasmer?" he pleaded, turning to her mother.
"Oh, I"m afraid we must be getting away from Boston by that time. It"s very tiresome, but there seems to be n.o.body left; and one can"t stay quite alone, even if you"re sick of moving about. Have you ever been--we think of going there--to Campobello?"
"No; but I hear that it"s charming, there. I had a friend who was there last year, and he said it was charming. The only trouble is it"s so far.
You"re pretty well on the way to Europe when you get there. You know it"s all hotel life?"
"Yes. It"s quite a new place, isn"t it?"