Mrs. Saintsbury came down into the darkened, syringa-scented library to find her, and give her a fan.

“You still live, Jenny,” she said, kissing her gaily.

They called each other by their girl names, as is rather the custom in Boston with ladies who are in the same set, whether they are great friends or not.  In the more changeful society of Cambridge, where so many new people are constantly coming and going in connection with the college, it is not so much the custom; but Mrs. Saintsbury was Boston born, as well as Mrs. Pasmer, and was Cantabrigian by marriage—­though this is not saying that she was not also thoroughly so by convincement and usage she now rarely went into Boston society.

“Yes, Etta—­just.  But I wasn’t sure of it,” said Mrs. Pasmer, “when I woke yesterday.  I was a mere aching jelly!”

“And Alice?”

“Oh; I don’t think she had any physical consciousness.  She was a mere rapturous memory!”

“She did have a good time, didn’t she?” said Mrs. Saintsbury, in a generous retrospect.  “I think she was on her feet every moment in the evening.  It kept me from getting tired, to watch her.”

“I was afraid you’d be quite worn out.  I’d no idea it was so late.  It must have been nearly half past seven before we got away from the Beck Hall spread, and then by the time we had walked round the college grounds—­how extremely pretty the lanterns were, and how charming the whole effect was!—­it must have been nine before the dancing began.  Well, we owe it all to you, Etta.”

“I don’t know what you mean by owing.  I’m always glad of an excuse for Class Day.  And it was Dan Mavering who really managed the affair.”

“He was very kind,” said Mrs. Pasmer, with a feeling which was chiefly gratitude to her friend for bringing in his name so soon.  Now that it had been spoken, she felt it decorous to throw aside the outer integument of pretense, which if it could have been entirely exfoliated would have caused Mrs. Pasmer morally to disappear, like an onion stripped of its successive laminae.

“What did you mean,” she asked, leaning forward, with, her face averted, “about his having the artistic temperament?  Is he going to be an artist?  I should hope not.”  She remembered without shame that she had strongly urged him to consider how much better it would be to be a painter than a lawyer, in the dearth of great American painters.

“He could be a painter if he liked—­up to a certain point,” said Mrs. Saintsbury.  “Or he could be any one of half-a-dozen other things—­his last craze was journalism; but you know what I mean by the artistic temperament:  it’s that inability to be explicit; that habit of leaving things vague and undefined, and hoping they’ll somehow come out as you want them of themselves; that way of taking the line of beauty to get at what you wish to do or say, and of being very finicking about little things and lag about essentials.  That’s what I mean by the artistic temperament.”