Mrs. Brinkley believed that this was the mere frenzy of sentimentality, the exaltation of a selfish asceticism; but at the break in the girl’s voice and the aversion of her face she could not help a thrill of motherly tenderness for her.  She wanted to tell her she was an unconscious humbug, bent now as always on her own advantage, and really indifferent to others she also wanted to comfort her, and tell her that she exaggerated, and was not to blame.  She did neither, but when Alice turned her face back she seemed encouraged by Mrs. Brinkley’s look to go on:  “I didn’t appreciate her then; she was very generous and high-minded—­too high-minded for me to understand, even.  But we don’t seem to know how good others are till we wrong them.”

“Yes, that is very true,” said Mrs. Brinkley.  She knew that Alice was obviously referring to the breach between herself and Miss Anderson following the night of the Trevor theatricals, and the dislike for her that she had shown with a frankness some of the ladies had thought brutal.  Mrs. Brinkley also believed that her words had a tacit meaning, and she would have liked to have the hardness to say she had seen an unnamed victim of Alice doing his best to console the other she had specified.  But she merely said drily, “Yes, perhaps that’s the reason why we’re allowed to injure people.”

“It must be,” said Alice simply.  “Did Miss Anderson ever speak of me?”

“No; I can’t remember that she ever did.”  Mrs. Brinkley did not feel bound to say that she and Miss Van Hook had discussed her at large, and agreed perfectly about her.

“I should like to see her; I should like to write to her.”

Mrs. Brinkley felt that she ought not to suffer this intimate tendency in the talk: 

“You must find a great many other acquaintances in the hotel, Miss Pasmer.”

“Some of the Frankland girds are here, and the two Bellinghams.  I have hardly spoken to them yet.  Do you think that where you have even been in the right, if you have been harsh, if you have been hasty, if you haven’t made allowances, you ought to offer some atonement?”

“Really, I can’t say,” said Mrs. Brinkley, with a smile of distaste.  “I’m afraid your question isn’t quite in my line of thinking; it’s more in Miss Cotton’s way.  You’d better ask her some time.”

“No,” said Alice sadly; “she would flatter me.”

“Ah!  I always supposed she was very conscientious.”

“She’s conscientious, but she likes me too well.”

“Oh!” commented Mrs. Brinkley to herself, “then you know I don’t like you, and you’ll use me in one way, if you can’t in another.  Very well!” But she found the girl’s trust touching somehow, though the sentimentality of her appeal seemed as tawdry as ever.

“I knew you would be just,” added Alice wistfully.

“Oh, I don’t know about atonements!” said Mrs. Brinkley, with an effect of carelessness.  “It seems to me that we usually make them for our own sake.”