Alice had forgotten it too.  She sat listening to Mavering’s talk with a certain fascination, but not so much apparently because the meaning of the words pleased her as the sound of his voice, the motion of his lips in speaking, charmed her.  At first he was serious, and even melancholy, as if he were afraid he had offended her; but apparently he soon believed that he had been forgiven, and began to burlesque his own mood, but still with a deference and a watchful observance of her changes of feeling which was delicately flattering in its way.  Now and then when she answered something it was not always to the purpose; he accused her of not hearing what he said, but she would have it that she did, and then he tried to test her by proofs and questions.  It did not matter for anything that was spoken or done; speech and action of whatever sort were mere masks of their young joy in each other, so that when he said, after he had quoted some lines befitting the scene they looked out on; “Now was that from Tennyson or from Tupper?” and she answered, “Neither; it was from Shakespeare,” they joined, in the same happy laugh, and they laughed now and then without saying anything.  Neither this nor that made them more glad or less; they were in a trance, vulnerable to nothing but the summons which must come to leave their dream behind, and issue into the waking world.

In hope or in experience such a moment has come to all, and it is so pretty to those who recognise it from the outside that no one has the heart to hurry it away while it can be helped.  The affair between Alice and Mavering had evidently her mother’s sanction, and all the rest were eager to help it on.  When the party had started to return, they called to them, and let them come behind together.  At the carriages they had what Miss Anderson called a new deal, and Alice and Mavering found themselves together in the rear seat of the last.

The fog began to come in from the sea, and followed them through the woods.  When they emerged upon the highway it wrapped them densely round, and formed a little world, cosy, intimate, where they two dwelt alone with these friends of theirs, each of whom they praised for delightful qualities.  The horses beat along through the mist, in which there seemed no progress, and they lived in a blissful arrest of time.  Miss Anderson called back from the front seat, “My ear buyns; you’re talkin’ about me.”

“Which ear?” cried Mavering.

“Oh, the left, of couyse.”

“Then it’s merely habit, Julie.  You ought to have heard the nice things we were saying about you,” Alice called.

“I’d like to hear all the nice things you’ve been saying.”

This seemed the last effect of subtle wit.  Mavering broke out in his laugh, and Alice’s laugh rang above it.

Mrs. Pasmer looked involuntarily round from the carriage ahead.

“They seem to be having a good time,” said Mrs. Brinkley at her side.