April Hopes | Page 9

with a sensation that was
not disagreeable. She could not help being pleased with the pleasure
that she saw in her daughter's face.
Young Mavering's was radiant. "I'll be back in just half a minute," he
said, and he took a gay leave of them in running to speak to another
student at the opposite end of the hall.

III.
"You must allow me to get you something to eat first, Mrs. Pasmer,"
said the elder Mavering.
"Oh no, thank you," Mrs. Pasmer began. But she changed her mind and
said, "Or, yes; I will, Mr. Mavering: a very little salad, please." She had
really forgotten her hunger, as a woman will in the presence of any

social interest; but she suddenly thought his going would give her a
chance for two words with her daughter, and so she sent him. As he
creaked heavily across the smooth floor of the nave; "Alice," she
whispered, "I don't know exactly what I've done: Who introduced this
young Mr. Mavering to you?"
"Mr. Munt."
"Mr. Munt!"
"Yes; he came for me; he said you sent him. He introduced Mr.
Mavering, and he was very polite. Mr. Mavering said we ought to go
up into the gallery and see how it looked; and Mr. Munt said he'd been
up, and Mr. Mavering promised to bring me back to him, but he was
not there when we got back. Mr. Mavering got me some ice cream first,
and then he found you for me."
"Really," said Mrs. Pasmer to herself, "the combat thickens!" To her
daughter she said, "He's very handsome."
"He laughs too much," said the daughter. Her mother recognised her
uncandour with a glance. "But he waltzes well," added the girl.
"Waltzes?" echoed the mother. "Did you waltz with him, Alice?"
"Everybody else was dancing. He asked me for a turn or two, and of
course I did it. What difference?"
"Oh, none--none. Only--I didn't see you."
"Perhaps you weren't looking."
"Yes, I was looking all the time."
"What do you mean, mamma?"
"Well," said Mrs. Pasmer, in a final despair, "we don't know anything
about them."
"We're the only people here who don't, then," said her daughter. "The
ladies were bowing right left to him all the time, and he kept asking if I
knew this one and that one, and all I could say was that some of them
were distant cousins, but I wasn't acquainted with them. I would think
he'd wonder who we were."
"Yes," said the mother thoughtfully.
"There! he's laughing with that other student. But don't look!"
Mrs. Pasmer saw well enough out of the corner of her eye the joking
that went on between Mavering and his friend, and it did not displease
her to think that it probably referred to Alice. While the young man
came hurrying back to them she glanced at the girl standing near her

with a keenly critical inspection, from which she was able to exclude
all maternal partiality, and justly decided that she was one of the most
effective girls in the place. That costume of hers was perfect. Mrs.
Pasmer wished now that she could have compared it more carefully
with other costumes; she had noticed some very pretty ones; and a
feeling of vexation that Alice should have prevented this by being away
so long just when the crowd was densest qualified her satisfaction. The
people were going very fast now. The line of the oval in the nave was
broken into groups of lingering talkers, who were conspicuous to each
other, and Mrs. Pasmer felt that she and her daughter were conspicuous
to all the rest where they stood apart, with the two Maverings
converging upon them from different points, the son nodding and
laughing to friends of both sexes as he came, the father wholly
absorbed in not spilling the glass of claret punch which he carried in
one hand, and not falling down on the slippery floor with the plate of
salad which he bore in the other. She had thoughts of feigning
unconsciousness; she would have had no scruple in practising this or
any other social stratagem, for though she kept a conscience in regard
to certain matters--what she considered essentials-- she lived a
thousand little lies every day, and taught her daughter by precept and
example to do the same. You must seem to be looking one way when
you were really looking another; you must say this when you meant
that; you must act as if you were thinking one thing when you were
thinking something quite different; and all to no end, for, as she
constantly said, people always know perfectly well what you were
about, whichever way you looked or whatever you said, or no matter
how well you acted