They talked and talked—­about the people they knew, and of whom they found that they thought surprisingly alike, and about themselves, whom they found surprisingly alike in a great many things, and then surprisingly unlike.  Dan brought forward some points of identity which he, and Alice had found in themselves; it was just the same with Miss Anderson.  She found herself rather warm with the seal-skin sacque she had put on; she let him carry it on his arm while they walked, and then lay it over her shoulders when they sat down.  He felt a pang of self-reproach, as if he had been inconstant to Alice.  This was an old habit of feeling, formed during the months of their engagement, when, at her inspiration, he was always bringing himself to book about something.  He replied to her bitterly, in the colloquy which began to hold itself in his mind, and told her that she had no claim upon him now; that if his thoughts wandered from her it was her fault, not his; that she herself had set them free.  But in fact he was like all young men, with a thousand, potentialities of loving.  There was no aspect of beauty that did not tenderly move him; he could not help a soft thrill at the sight of any pretty shape, the sound of any piquant voice; and Alice had merely been the synthesis of all that was most charming to this fancy.  This is a truth which it is the convention of the poets and the novelists to deny; but it is also true that she might have remained the sum of all that was loveliest if she would; or if she could.

It was chiefly because she would not or could not that his glance recognised the charm of Miss Anderson’s back hair, both in its straying gossamer and in the loose mass in which it was caught up under her hat, when he laid her sacque on her shoulders.  They met that afternoon at a Senator’s, and in the house of a distinguished citizen, to whose wife Dan had been presented at Mrs. Whittington’s, and who had somehow got his address, and sent him a card for her evening.  They encountered here with a jocose old friendliness, and a profession of being tired of always meeting Miss Anderson and Mr. Mavering.  He brought her salad and ice, and they made an appointment for another walk in the morning, if it was fine.

He carried her some flowers.  A succession of fine days followed, and they walked every morning.  Sometimes Dan was late, and explained that it was his patent-right man had kept him.  She was interested in the patent-right man, whom Dan began to find not quite so simple as at first, but she was not exacting with him about his want of punctuality; she was very easy-going; she was not always ready herself.  When he began to beat about the bush, to talk insincerities, and to lose himself in intentionless plausibilities, she waited with serene patience for him to have done, and met him on their habitual ground of frankness and reality as if he had not left it.  He got to telling her all his steps with his patent-right man, who seemed to be growing mote and more slippery, and who presently developed a demand for funds.  Then she gave him some very shrewd, practical advice, and told him to go right into the hotel office and telegraph to his father while she was putting on her bonnet.