It was not long after, that Farnham came to dine with them.  They both looked forward to this dinner as an occasion of very considerable importance.  Each felt that much depended upon the demeanor of the other.  Each was conscientiously resolved to do and to say nothing which should pain or embarrass the other.  Each was dying to fall into the other’s arms, but each only succeeded in convincing the other of his or her entire indifference and friendship.

As Farnham came in, Mrs. Belding went up to him with simple kindliness, kissed him, and made him sit down.  “You dear boy,” she said, “you do not know how glad I am to see you here once more.”

Alice looked on, almost jealous of her mother’s privilege.  Then she advanced with shy grace and took Arthur’s hand, and asked:  “Do you begin to feel quite strong again?”

Farnham smiled, and answered, “Quite well, and the strength will soon come.  The first symptom of returning vitality, Mrs. Belding, was my hostility to gruel and other phantom dishes.  I have deliberately come to dinner to-day to dine.”

“I am delighted to hear of your appetite,” said Mrs. Belding; “but I think you may bear a little watching at the table yet,” she added, in a tone of kindly menace.  She was as good as her word, and exercised rather a stricter discipline at dinner than was agreeable to the convalescent, regulating his meat and wine according to ladylike ideas, which are somewhat binding on carnivorous man.  But she was so kindly about it, and Alice aided and abetted with such bashful prettiness, that Farnham felt he could endure starvation with such accessories.  Yet he was not wholly at ease.  He had hoped, in the long hours of his confinement, to find the lady of his love kinder in voice and manner than when he saw her last; and now, when she was sweeter and more tender than he had ever seen her before, the self-tormenting mind of the lover began to suggest that if she loved him she would not be so kind.  He listened to the soft, caressing tones of her voice as she spoke to him, which seemed to convey a blessing in every syllable; he met the wide, clear beauty of her glance, so sweet and bright that his own eyes could hardly support it; he saw the ready smile that came to the full, delicate mouth whenever he spoke; and instead of being made happy by all this, he asked himself if it could mean anything except that she was sorry for him, and wanted to be very polite to him, as she could be nothing more.  His heart sank within him at the thought; he became silent and constrained; and Alice wondered whether she had not gone too far in her resolute kindness.  “Perhaps he has changed his mind,” she thought, “and wishes me not to change mine.”  So these two people, whose hands and hearts were aching to come together, sat in the same drawing-room talking of commonplace things, while their spirits grew heavy as lead.

Mrs. Belding was herself conscious of a certain constraint, and to dispel it asked Alice to sing, and Farnham adding his entreaties, she went to the piano, and said, as all girls say, “What shall I sing?”