“Oh, but you must never believe him when he begins that way!” cried Mavering.  “To be sure they will beat.  And you ought to be there to see it.  Now, why won’t you come, Mrs. Pasmer?” he pleaded, turning to her mother.

“Oh, I’m afraid we must be getting away from Boston by that time.  It’s very tiresome, but there seems to be nobody left; and one can’t stay quite alone, even if you’re sick of moving about.  Have you ever been—­we think of going there—­to Campobello?”

“No; but I hear that it’s charming, there.  I had a friend who was there last year, and he said it was charming.  The only trouble is it’s so far.  You’re pretty well on the way to Europe when you get there.  You know it’s all hotel life?”

“Yes.  It’s quite a new place, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s been opened up several years.  And they say it isn’t like the hotel life anywhere else; it’s charming.  And there’s the very nicest class of people.”

“Very nice Philadelphia people, I hear,” said Mrs. Pasmer; “and Baltimore.  Don’t you think it’s well;” she asked deferentially, and under correction, if she were hazarding too much, “to see somebody besides Boston people sometimes—­if they’re nice?  That seems to be one of the great advantages of living abroad.”

“Oh, I think there are nice people everywhere,” said the young man, with the bold expansion of youth.

“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Pasmer.  “We saw two such delightful young people coming in and out of the hotel in Rome.  We were sure they were English.  And they were from Chicago!  But there are not many Western people at Campobello, are there?”

“I really don’t know,” said Mavering.  “How is it, Boardman?  Do many of your people go there?”

“You know you do make it so frightfully expensive with your money,” said Mrs. Pasmer, explaining with a prompt effect of having known all along that Boardman was from the West, “You drive us poor people all away.”

“I don’t think my money would do it,” said Boardman quietly.

“Oh, you wait till you’re a Syndicate Correspondent,” said, Mavering, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and rising by aid of it.  He left Mrs. Pasmer to fill the chasm that had so suddenly yawned between her and Boardman; and while she tumbled into every sort of flowery friendliness and compliment, telling him she should look out for his account of the race with the greatest interest, and expressing the hope that he would get as far as Campobello during the summer, Mavering found some minutes for talk with Alice.  He was graver with her—­far graver than with her mother—­not only because she was a more serious nature, but because they were both young, and youth is not free with youth except by slow and cautious degrees.  In that little space of time they talked of pictures, ‘a propos’ of some on the wall, and of books, because of those on the table.

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Pasmer when they paused, and she felt that her piece of difficult engineering had been quite successful, “Mrs. Saintsbury was telling me what a wonderful connoisseur of etchings your father is.”