“Oh, I wonder they don’t kill each other!” cried Mrs. Pasmer.  “Isn’t it terrible?” She would not have missed it on any account; but she liked to get all she could out of her emotions.

“They never get hurt,” said Mrs. Saintsbury.  “Oh, look!  There’s Dan Mavering!”

The crowd at the foot of the tree had closed densely, and a wilder roar went up from all the students.  A tall, slim young fellow, lifted on the shoulders of the mass below, and staying himself with one hand against the tree, rapidly stripped away the remnants of the wreath, and flung them into the crowd under him.  A single tuft remained; the crowd was melting away under him in a scramble for the fallen flowers; he made a crooked leap, caught the tuft, and tumbled with it headlong.

“Oh!” breathed the ladies on the Benches, with a general suspiration lost in the ’rahs and clappings, as Mavering reappeared with the bunch of flowers in his hand.  He looked dizzily about, as if not sure, of his course; then his face, flushed and heated, with the hair pulled over the eyes, brightened with recognition, and he advanced upon Mrs. Saintsbury’s party with rapid paces, each of which Mrs. Pasmer commentated with inward conjecture.

“Is he bringing the flowers to Alice?  Isn’t it altogether too conspicuous?  Has he really the right to do it?  What will people think?  Will he give them to me for her, or will he hand them directly to her?  Which should I prefer him to do?  I wonder if I know?”

When she looked up with the air of surprise mixed with deprecation and ironical disclaimer which she had prepared while these things were passing through her mind, young Mavering had reached them, and had paused in a moment’s hesitation before his father.  With a bow of affectionate burlesque, from which he lifted his face to break into laughter at the look in all their eyes, he handed the tattered nosegay to his father.

“Oh, how delightful! how delicate! how perfect!” Mrs. Pasmer confided to herself.

“I think this must be for you, Mrs. Pasmer,” said the elder Mavering, offering her the bouquet, with a grave smile at his son’s whim.

“Oh no, indeed!” said Mrs. Pasmer.  “For Mrs. Saintsbury, of course.”

She gave it to her, and Mrs. Saintsbury at once transferred it to Miss Pasmer.

“They wished me to pass this to you, Alice;” and at this consummation Dan Mavering broke into another happy laugh.

“Mrs. Saintsbury, you always do the right thing at once,” he cried.

“That’s more than I can say of you, Mr. Mavering,” she retorted.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Mavering!” said the girl, receiving the flowers.  It was as if she had been too intent upon them and him to have noticed the little comedy that had conveyed them to her.

VIII.

As soon after Class Day as Mrs. Pasmer’s complaisant sense of the decencies would let her, she went out from Boston to call on Mrs. Saintsbury in Cambridge, and thank her for her kindness to Alice and herself.  “She will know well enough what I come for,” she said to herself, and she felt it the more important to ignore Mrs. Saintsbury’s penetration by every polite futility; this was due to them both:  and she did not go till the second day after.