April Hopes eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 446 pages of information about April Hopes.

April Hopes eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 446 pages of information about April Hopes.

“Oh no!  Don’t drive me away, Mrs. Pasmer,” pleaded the young man, laughing violently, and then wiping his face.  “I assure you that I’ve no encumbrances of any kind here except my father, and he seems to have been taking very good care of himself.”  They all laughed at this, and the young fellow hurried on:  “Don’t be alarmed at my button; it only means a love of personal decoration, if that’s where you got the notion of my being an official Senior.  This isn’t my spread; I shall hope to welcome you at Beck Hall after the Tree; and I wish you’d let me be of use to you.  Wouldn’t you like to go round to some of the smaller spreads?  I think it would amuse you.  And have you got tickets to the Tree, to see us make fools of ourselves?  It’s worth seeing, Mrs. Pasmer, I assure you.”

He rattled on very rapidly but with such a frankness in his urgency, such amiable kindliness, that Mrs. Pasmer could not feel that it was pushing.  She looked at her daughter, but she stood as passive in the transaction as the elder Mavering.  She was taller than her mother, and as she waited, her supple figure described that fine lateral curve which one sees in some Louis Quinze portraits; this effect was enhanced by the fashion of her dress of pale sage green, with a wide stripe or sash of white dropping down the front, from her delicate waist.  The same simple combination of colours was carried up into her hat, which surmounted darker hair than Mrs. Pasmer’s, and a complexion of wholesome pallor; her eyes were grey and grave, with black brows, and her face, which was rather narrow, had a pleasing irregularity in the sharp jut of the nose; in profile the parting of the red lips showed well back into the cheek,

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Pasmer, in her own behalf; and she added in his, “about letting you take so much trouble,” so smoothly that it would have been quite impossible to detect the point of union in the two utterances.

“Well, don’t call it names, anyway, Mrs. Pasmer,” pleaded the young man.  “I thought it was nothing but a pleasure and a privilege—­”

“The fact is,” she explained, neither consenting nor refusing, “that we were expecting to meet some friends who had tickets for us”—­young Mavering’s face fell—­“and I can’t imagine what’s happened.”

“Oh, let’s hope something dreadful,” he cried.

“Perhaps you know them,” she delayed further.  “Professor Saintsbury!”

“Well, rather!  Why, they were here about an hour ago—­both of them.  They must have been looking for you.”

“Yes; we were to meet them here.  We waited to come out with other friends, and I was afraid we were late.”  Mrs. Pasmer’s face expressed a tempered disappointment, and she looked at her daughter for indications of her wishes in the circumstances; seeing in her eye a willingness to accept young Mavering’s invitation, she hesitated more decidedly than she had yet done, for she was, other things being equal,

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April Hopes from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.