Mrs. Pasmer was one of those ladies who in any finality have a keen retrovision of all the advantages of a different conclusion.  She had been thinking, since she told Dan Mavering which way Alice had gone to walk, that if he were to speak to her now, and she were to accept him, it would involve a great many embarrassing consequences; but she had consoled herself with the probability that he would not speak so soon after the effects of last night, but would only try at the furthest to make his peace with Alice.  Since he had spoken, though, and she had refused him, Mrs. Pasmer instantly saw all the pleasant things that would have followed in another event.  “Refused him?” she repeated provisionally, while she gathered herself for a full exploration of all the facts.

“Yes, mamma; and I can’t talk about it.  I wish never to hear his name again, or to see him, or to speak to him.”

“Why, of course not,” said Mrs. Pasmer, with a fine smile, from the vantage-ground of her superior years, “if you’ve refused him.”  She left the trunk which she had been standing over, and sat down, while Alice swept to and fro before her excitedly.  “But why did you refuse him, my dear?”

“Why?  Because he’s detestable—­perfectly ignoble.”

Her mother probably knew how to translate these exalted expressions into the more accurate language of maturer life.  “Do you mean last night?”

“Last night?” cried Alice tragically.  “No.  Why should I care for last night?”

“Then I don’t understand what you mean,” retorted Mrs. Pasmer.  “What did he say?” she demanded, with authority.

“Mamma, I can’t talk about it—­I won’t.”

“But you must, Alice.  It’s your duty.  Of course I must know about it.  What did he say?”

Alice walked up and down the room with her lips firmly closed—­like Mavering’s lips, it occurred to her; and then she opened them, but without speaking.

“What did he say?” persisted her mother, and her persistence had its effect.

“Say?” exclaimed the girl indignantly.  “He tried to make me say.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Pasmer.  “Well?”

“But I forced him to speak, and then—­I rejected him.  That’s all.”

“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Pasmer.  “He was afraid of you.”

“And that’s what made it the more odious.  Do you think I wished him to be afraid of me?  Would that be any pleasure?  I should hate myself if I had to quell anybody into being unlike themselves.”  She sat down for a moment, and then jumped up again, and went to the window, for no reason, and came back.

“Yes,” said her mother impartially, “he’s light, and he’s roundabout.  He couldn’t come straight at anything.”

“And would you have me accept such a—­being?”

Mrs. Pasmer smiled a little at the literary word, and continued:  “But he’s very sweet, and he’s as good as the day’s long, and he’s very fond of you, and—­I thought you liked him.”