“Yes, that’s what I’m chiefly looking out for now.  I don’t want any of those people in Central Africa to suffer.  That’s the reason I want to marry Alice at the earliest opportunity.  But I suppose there’ll have to be a Mavering embassy to the high contracting powers of the other part now?”

“Your father and one of the girls had better go down.”

“Yes?”

“And invite Mr. and Mrs. Pasmer and their daughter to come up here.”

“All on probation?”

“Oh no.  If you’re pleased, Dan—­”

“I am, mother—­measurably.”  They both laughed at this mild way of putting it.

“Why, then it’s to be supposed that we’re all pleased.  You needn’t bring the whole Pasmer family home to live with you, if you do marry them all.”

“No,” said Dan, and suddenly he became very distraught.  It flashed through him that his mother was expecting him to come home with Alice to live, and that she would not be at all pleased with his scheme of a European sojourn, which Mrs. Pasmer had so cordially adopted.  He was amazed that he had not thought of that, but he refused to see any difficulty which his happiness could not cope with.

“No, there’s that view of it,” he said jollily; and he buried his momentary anxiety out of sight, and, as it were, danced upon its grave.  Nevertheless, he had a desire to get quickly away from the spot.  “I hope the Mavering embassy won’t be a great while getting ready to go,” he said.  “Of course it’s all right; but I shouldn’t want an appearance of reluctance exactly, you know, mother; and if there should be much of an interval between my getting back and their coming on, don’t you know, why, the cat might let herself out of the bag.”

“What cat?” asked his mother demurely.

“Well, you know, you haven’t received my engagement with unmingled enthusiasm, and—­and I suppose they would find it out from me—­from my manner; and—­and I wish they’d come along pretty soon, mother.”

“Poor boy!  I’m afraid the cat got out of the bag when Mrs. Pasmer came to the years of discretion.  But you sha’n’t be left a prey to her.  They shall go back with you.  Ring the bell, and let’s talk it over with them now.”

Dan joyfully obeyed.  He could see that his mother was all on fire with interest in his affair, and that the idea of somehow circumventing Mrs. Pasmer by prompt action was fascinating her.

His sisters came up at once, and his father followed a moment later.  They all took their cue from the mother’s gaiety, and began talking and laughing, except the father, who sat looking on with a smile at their lively spirits and the jokes of which Dan became the victim.  Each family has its own fantastic medium, in which it gets affairs to relieve them of their concrete seriousness, and the Maverings now did this with Dan’s engagement, and played with it as an airy abstraction.  They debated the character of the embassy which was to be sent down to Boston on their behalf, and it was decided that Eunice had better go with her father, as representing more fully the age and respectability of the family:  at first glance the Pasmers would take her for Dan’s mother, and this would be a tremendous advantage.