“Does Mrs. Saintsbury like me?” asked Dan.  “Well, she’s awfully nice.  Don’t you think she’s awfully fond of formulating people?”

“Oh, everybody in Cambridge does that.  They don’t gossip; they merely accumulate materials for the formulation of character.”

“And they get there just the same!” cried Dan.  “Mrs. Saintsbury used to think she had got me down pretty fine,” he suggested.

“Yes!” said Mrs. Pasmer, with an indifference which they both knew she did not feel.

“Yes.  She used to accuse me of preferring to tack, even in a fair wind.”

He looked inquiringly at Mrs. Pasmer; and she said, “How ridiculous!”

“Yes, it was.  Well, I suppose I am rather circuitous about some things.”

“Oh, not at all!”

“And I suppose I’m rather a trial to Alice in that way.”

He looked at Mrs. Pasmer again, and she said:  “I don’t believe you are, in the least.  You can’t tell what is trying to a girl.”

“No,” said Dan pensively, “I can’t.”  Mrs. Pasmer tried to render the interest in her face less vivid.  “I can’t tell where she’s going to bring up.  Talk about tacking!”

“Do you mean the abstract girl; or Alice?”

“Oh, the abstract girl,” said Dan, and they laughed together.  “You think Alice is very straightforward, don’t you?”

“Very,” said Mrs. Pasmer, looking down with a smile—­“for a girl.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.  And don’t you think the most circuitous kind of fellow would be pretty direct compared with the straight-forwardest kind of girl?”

There was a rueful defeat and bewilderment in Dan’s face that made Mrs. Pasmer laugh.  “What has she been doing now?” she asked.

“Mrs. Pasmer,” said Dan, “you and I are the only frank and open people I know.  Well, she began to talk last night about influence—­the influence of other people on us; and she killed off nearly all the people I like before I knew what she was up to, and she finished with Mrs. Brinkley.  I’m glad she didn’t happen to think of you, Mrs. Pasmer, or I shouldn’t be associating with you at the present moment.”  This idea seemed to give Mrs. Pasmer inexpressible pleasure.  Dan went on:  “Do you quite see the connection between our being entirely devoted to each other and my dropping Mrs. Brinkley?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Pasmer.  “Alice doesn’t like satirical people.”

“Well, of course not.  But Mrs. Brinkley is such an admirer of hers.”

“I dare say she tells you so.”

“Oh, but she is!”

“I don’t deny it,” said Mrs. Pasmer.  “But if Alice feels something inimical—­antipatico—­in her atmosphere, it’s no use talking.”

“Oh no, it’s no use talking, and I don’t know that I want to talk.”  After a pause, Mavering asked, “Mrs. Pasmer, don’t you think that where two people are going to be entirely devoted to each other, and self-sacrificing to each other, they ought to divide, and one do all the devotion, and the other all the self-sacrifice?”