XXXVII.
The next morning Dan Mavering knocked at Boardman's door before thereporter was up. This might have been any time before one o'clock, butit was really at half-past nine. Boardman wanted to know who was there,and when Mavering had said it was he, Boardman seemed to ponder thefact awhile before Mavering heard him getting out of bed and comingbarefooted to the door. He unlocked it, and got back into bed; then hecalled out, "Come in," and Mavering pushed the door open impatiently.But he stood blank and silent, looking helplessly at his friend.A strong glare of winter light came in through the naked sash--forBoardman apparently not only did not close his window-blinds, but didnot pull down his curtains, when he went to bed--and shone upon hisgay, shrewd face where he lay, showing his pop-corn teeth in a smile atMavering.
"Prefer to stand?" he asked by and by, after Mavering had remainedstanding in silence, with no signs of proposing to sit down or speak.Mavering glanced at the only chair in the room: Boardman's clothesdripped and dangled over it. "Throw 'em on the bed," he said, followingMavering's glance.
"I'll take the bed myself," said Mavering; and he sat down on the sideof it, and was again suggestively silent.
Boardman moved his head on the pillow, as he watched Mavering's face,with the agreeable sense of personal security which we all feel inviewing trouble from the outside: "You seem balled up about something."
Mavering sighed heavily. "Balled up? It's no word for it. Boardman,I'm done for. Yesterday I was the happiest fellow in the world, andnow--Yes, it's all over with me, and it's my own fault, as usual. Look;at that!" He jerked Boardman a note which he had been holding fastin his band, and got up and went to look himself at the wide range ofchimney-pots and slated roofs which Boardman's dormer-window commanded.
"Want me to read it?" Boardman asked; and Mavering nodded withoutglancing round. It dispersed through the air of Boardman's room, as heunfolded it, a thin, elect perfume, like a feminine presence, refinedand strict; and Boardman involuntarily passed his hand over his rumpledhair, as if to make himself a little more personable before reading theletter.
"DEAR MR. MAVERING,--I enclose the ring you gave me the other day, andI release you from the promise you gave with it. I am convinced that youwronged yourself in offering either without your whole heart, and I caretoo much for your happiness to let you persist in your sacrifice.
"In begging that you will not uselessly attempt to see me, but that youwill consider this note final, I know you will do me the justice notto attribute an ungenerous motive to me. I shall rejoice to hear of anygood that may befall you; and I shall try not to envy any one throughwhom it comes.--Yours sincerely,"
"ALICE PASMER.
"P.S.--I say nothing of circumstances or of persons; I feel that anycomment of mine upon them would be idle."
Mavering looked up at the sound Boardman made in refolding the letter.Boardman grinned, with sparkling eyes. "Pretty neat," he said.
"Pretty infernally neat," roared Mavering.
"Do you suppose she means business?"
"Of course she means business. Why shouldn't she?"
"I don't know. Why should she?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Boardman. I suppose I shall have to tell you ifI'm going to get any good out of you; but it's a dose." He came awayfrom the window, and swept Boardman's clothes off the chair preparatoryto taking it.
Boardman lifted his head nervously from the pillow.
"Oh; I'll put them on the bed, if you're so punctilious!" criedMavering.
"I don't mind the clothes," said Boardman. "I thought I heard my watchknock on the floor in my vest pocket. Just take it out, will you, andsee if you've stopped it?"
"Oh, confound your old Waterbury! All the world's stopped; why shouldn'tyour watch stop too?" Mavering tugged it out of the pocket, and thenshoved it back disdainfully. "You couldn't stop that thing with anythingshort of a sledgehammer; it's rattling away like a mowing-machine. Youknow those Portland women--those ladies I spent the day with when youwere down there at the regatta--the day I came from Campobello--Mrs.Frobisher and her sister?" He agglutinated one query to another till hesaw a light of intelligence dawn in Boardman's eye. "Well, they're atthe bottom of it, I suppose. I was introduced to them on Class Day, andI ought to have shown them some attention there; but the moment I sawAlice--Miss Pasmer--I forgot all about 'em. But they didn't seem to havenoticed it much, and I made it all right with 'em that day at Portland;and they came up in the fall, and I made an appointment with them todrive out to Cambridge and show them the place. They were to take meup at the Art Museum; but that was the day I met Miss Pasmer, and I--Iforgot about those women again."
Boardman was one of those who seldom laugh; but his grin expressedall the malicious enjoyment he felt. He said nothing in the impressivesilence which Mavering let follow at this point.
"Oh, you think it was funny?" cried Mavering. "I thought it was funnytoo; but Alice herself opened my eyes to what I'd done, and I alwaysintended to make it all right with them when I got the chance. Isupposed she wished me too."
Boardman grinned afresh.
"She told me I must; though she seemed to dislike my having been withthem the day after she'd thrown me over. But if"--Mavering interruptedhimself to say, as the grin widened on Boardman's face--"if you thinkit was any case of vulgar jealousy, you're very much mistaken, Boardman.She isn't capable of it, and she was so magnanimous about it that I madeup my mind to do all I could to retrieve myself. I felt that it was myduty to her. Well, last night at Mrs. Jim Bellingham's reception--"
A look of professional interest replaced the derision in Boardman'seyes. "Any particular occasion for the reception? Given in honour ofanybody?"
"I'll contribute to your society notes some other time, Boardman," saidMavering haughtily. "I'm speaking to a friend, not an interviewer. Well,whom should I see after the first waltz--I'd been dancing with Alice,and we were taking a turn through the drawing-room, and she hangingon my arm, and I knew everybody saw how it was, and I was feelingwell--whom should I see but these women. They were in a corner bythemselves, looking at a picture, and trying to look as if they weredoing it voluntarily. But I could see at a glance that they didn'tknow anybody; and I knew they had better be in the heart of theSahara without acquaintances than where they were; and when they bowedforlornly across the room to me, my heart was in my mouth, I felt sosorry for them; and I told Alice who they were; and I supposed she'dwant to rush right over to them with me--"
"And did she rush?" asked Boardman, filling up a pause which Maveringmade in wiping his face.
"How infernally hot you have it in here!" He went to the window andthrew it up; and then did not sit down again, but continued to walk backand forth as he talked. "She didn't seem to know who they were at first,and when I made her understand she hung back, and said, 'Those showythings?' and I must say I think she was wrong; they were dressed asquietly as nine-tenths of the people there; only they are rather large,handsome women. I said I thought we ought to go and speak to them,they seemed stranded there; but she didn't seem to see it; and, whenI persisted, she said, 'Well, you go if you think best; but take me tomamma.' And I supposed it was all right; and I told Mrs. Pasmer I'dbe back in a minute, and then I went off to those women. And after I'dtalked with them a while I saw Mrs. Brinkley sitting with old BromfieldCorey in another corner, and I got them across and introduced them;after I'd explained to Mrs. Brinkley who they were; and they began tohave a good time, and I--didn't."
"Just so," said Boardman.
"I thought I hadn't been gone any while at all from Alice; but theweather had changed by the time I had got back. Alice was prettyserious, and she was engaged two or three dances deep; and I could seeher looking over the fellows' shoulders, as she went round and round,pretty pale. I hung about till she was free; but then she couldn't dancewith me; she said her head ached, and she made her mother take her homebefore supper; and I mooned round like my own ghost a while, and thenI went home. And as if that wasn't enough, I could see by th
e looks ofthose other women--old Corey forgot Miss Wrayne in the supper-room, andI had to take her back--that I hadn't made it right with them, even;they were as hard and smooth as glass. I'd ruined myself, and ruinedmyself for nothing."
Mavering flung Boardman's chair over, and seated himself on its rungs.
"I went to bed, and waited for the next thing to happen. I found mythunderbolt waiting for me when I woke up. I didn't know what it wasgoing to be, but when I felt a ring through the envelope of that note Iknew what it was. I mind-read that note before I opened it."
"Give it to the Society for Psychical Research," suggested Boardman."Been to breakfast?"
"Breakfast!" echoed Mavering. "Well, now, Boardman, what use do yousuppose I've got for breakfast under the circumstances?"
"Well, not very much; but your story's made me pretty hungry. Would youmind turning your back, or going out and sitting on the top step of thestairs' landing, or something, while I get up and dress?"
"Oh, I can go, if you want to get rid of me," said Mavering, withunresentful sadness. "But I hoped you might have something to suggest,Boardy.'
"Well, I've suggested two things, and you don't like either. Why not goround and ask to see the old lady?"
"Mrs. Pasmer?"
"Yes."
"Well, I thought of that. But I didn't like to mention it, for fearyou'd sit on it. When would you go?"
"Well, about as quick as I could get there. It's early for a call, butit's a peculiar occasion, and it'll show your interest in the thing. Youcan't very well let it cool on your hands, unless you mean to accept thesituation."
"What do you mean?" demanded Mavering, getting up and standing overBoardman. "Do you think I could accept the situation, as you call it,and live?"
"You did once," said Boardman. "You couldn't, unless you could fix it upwith Mrs. Frobisher's sister."
Mavering blushed. "It was a different thing altogether then. I couldhave broken off then, but I tell you it would kill me now. I've gotin too deep. My whole life's set on that girl. You can't understand,Boardman, because you've never been there; but I couldn't give her up."
"All right. Better go and see the old lady without loss of time; or theold man, if you prefer."
Mavering sat down on the edge of the bed again. "Look here, Boardman,what do you mean?"
"By what?"
"By being so confoundedly heartless. Did you suppose that I wanted topay those women any attention last night from an interested motive?"
"Seems to have been Miss Pasmer's impression."
"Well, you're mistaken. She had no such impression. She would have toomuch self-respect, too much pride--magnanimity. She would know thatafter such a girl as she is I couldn't think of any other woman; thething is simply impossible."
"That's the theory."
"Theory? It's the practice!"
"Certain exceptions."
"There's no exception in my case. No, sir! I tell you this thing is forall time--for eternity. It makes me or it mars me, once for all. She maylisten to me or she may not listen, but as long as she lives there's noother woman alive for me."
"Better go and tell her so. You're wasting your arguments on me."
"Why?"
"Because I'm convinced already. Because people always marry their firstand only loves. Because people never marry twice for love. Because I'venever seen you hit before, and I know you never could be again. Now goand convince Miss Pasmer. She'll believe you, because she'll know thatshe can never care for any one but you, and you naturally can't care foranybody but her. It's a perfectly clear case. All you've got to do is toset it before her."
"If I were you, I wouldn't try to work that cynical racket, Boardman,"said Mavering. He rose, but he sighed drearily, and regarded Boardman'sgrin with lack-lustre absence. But he went away without saying anythingmore; and walked mechanically toward the Cavendish. As he rang at thedoor of Mrs. Pasmer's apartments he recalled another early visit he hadpaid there; he thought how joyful and exuberant he was then, and howcrushed and desperate now. He was not without youthful satisfaction inthe disparity of his different moods; it seemed to stamp him as a man oflarge and varied experience.
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