“Oh, well, you must brace up,” said Boardman.  “I’ve got to go now.  She didn’t mean it, of course.”

“Mean what?”

“That you were ungentlemanly.  Women don’t know half the time how hard they’re hitting.”

“I guess she meant that she didn’t want me, anyway,” said Mavering gloomily.

“Ah, I don’t know about that.  You’d better ask her the next time you see her.  Good-bye.”  He had risen, and he offered his hand to Mavering, who was still seated.

“Why, I’ve half a mind to go with you.”

“All right, come along.  But I thought you might be going right on to Boston.”

“No; I’ll wait and go on with you.  How, do you go to the race?”

“In the press boat.”

“Any women?”

“No; we don’t send them on this sort of duty.”

“That settles it.  I have got all I want of that particular sex for the time being.”  Mavering wore a very bitter air as he said this; it seemed to him that he would always be cynical; he rose, and arranged to leave his bag with the restaurateur, who put it under the counter, and then he went out with his friend.

The sun had come out, and the fog was burning away; there was life and lift in the air, which the rejected lover could not refuse to feel, and he said, looking round, and up and down the animated street.  “I guess you’re going to have a good day for it.”

The pavement was pretty well filled with women who had begun shopping.  Carriages were standing beside the pavement; a lady crossed the pavement from a shop door toward a coupe just in front of them, with her hand full of light packages; she dropped one of them, and Mavering sprang forward instinctively and picked it up for her.

“Oh, thank you!” she said, with the deep gratitude which society cultivates for the smallest services.  Then she lifted her drooped eyelashes, and, with a flash of surprise, exclaimed, “Mr. Mavering!” and dropped all her packages that she might shake hands with him.

Boardman sauntered slowly on, but saw with a backward glance Mavering carrying the lady’s packages to the coupe for her; saw him lift his hat there, and shake hands with somebody in the coupe, and then stand talking beside it.  He waited at the corner of the block for Mavering to come up, affecting an interest in the neck-wear of a furnisher’s window.

In about five minutes Mavering joined him.

“Look here, Boardman!  Those ladies have snagged onto me.”

“Are there two of them?”

“Yes, one inside.  And they want me to go with then to see the race.  Their father’s got a little steam-yacht.  They want you to go too.”

Boardman shook his head.

“Well, that’s what I told them—­told them that you had to go on the press boat.  They said they wished they were going on the press boat too.  But I don’t see how I can refuse.  They’re ladies that I met Class Day, and I ought to have shown them a little more attention then; but I got so taken up with—­”