“I doubt it.  Mr. Trevor,” said Mrs. Brinkley to the host, who had come up for her congratulations, “do you always have such brilliant performances?”

“Well, we have so far,” he answered modestly; and Mrs. Brinkley laughed with him.  This was the first entertainment at Trevor cottage.

“’Sh!” went up all round them, and Mrs. Trevor called across the room, in a reproachful whisper loud enough for every one to hear, “My dear!—­enjoying yourself!” while Mavering stood between the parted curtains waiting for the attention of the company.

“On account of an accident to the call-boy and the mental exhaustion of some of the deities, the next piece will be omitted, and the performance will begin with the one after.  While the audience is waiting, Mercury will go round and take up a collection for the victim of the recent accident, who will probably be indisposed for life.  The collector will be accompanied by a policeman, and may be safely trusted.”

He disappeared behind the curtain with a pas and r swirl of his draperies like the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, and the audience again abandoned itself to applause.

“How very witty he is!” said Miss Cotton, who sat near John Munt.  “Don’t you think he’s really witty?”

“Yes,” Munt assented critically.  “But you should have known his father.”

“Oh, do you know his father?”

“I was in college with him.”

“Oh, do tell me about him, and all Mr. Mavering’s family.  We’re so interested, you know, on account of—­Isn’t it pretty to have that little love idyl going on here?  I wonder—­I’ve been wondering all the time—­what she thinks of all this.  Do you suppose she quite likes it?  His costume is so very remarkable!” Miss Cotton, in the absence of any lady of her intimate circle, was appealing confidentially to John Munt.

“Why, do you think there’s anything serious between them?” he asked, dropping his head forward as people do in church when they wish to whisper to some one in the same pew.

“Why, yes, it seems so,” murmured Miss Cotton.  “His admiration is quite undisguised, isn’t it?”

“A man never can tell,” said Munt.  “We have to leave those things to you ladies.”

“Oh, every one’s talking of it, I assure you.  And you know his family?”

“I knew his father once rather better than anybody else.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes.”  Munt sketched rather a flattered portrait of the elder Mavering, his ability, his goodness, his shyness, which he had always had to make such a hard fight with.  Munt was sensible of an access of popularity in knowing Dan Mavering’s people, and he did not spare his colours.

“Then it isn’t from his father that he gets everything.  He isn’t in the least shy,” said Miss Cotton.

“That must be the mother.”

“And the mother?”

“The mother I don’t know.”

Miss Cotton sighed.  “Sometimes I wish that he did show a little more trepidation.  It would seem as if he were more alive to the great difference that there is between Alice Pasmer and other girls.”