“Don’t! don’t!” she murmured.  “I want to think; I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Neither do I. I feel as if I were a blessed ghost.”

Perhaps it is only in these ecstasies of the senses that the soul ever reaches self-consciousness on earth; and it seems to be only the man-soul which finds itself even in this abandon.  The woman-soul has always something else to think of.

“What shall we do,” said the girl, “if we—­Oh, I dread to meet your mother!  Is she like either of your sisters?”

“No,” he cried joyously; “she’s like me.  If you’re not afraid of me, and you don’t seem to be—­”

“You’re all I have—­you’re all I have in the world.  Do you think she’ll like me?  Oh, do you love me, Dan?”

“You darling! you divine—­” The rest was a mad embrace.  “If you’re not afraid of me, you won’t mind mother.  I wanted you here alone for just a last word, to tell you you needn’t be afraid; to tell you to—­But I needn’t tell you how to act.  You mustn’t treat her as an invalid—­you must treat her like any one else; that’s what she likes.  But you’ll know what’s best, Alice.  Be yourself, and she’ll like you well enough.  I’m not afraid.”

XXXIII: 

When she entered Mrs. Mavering’s room Alice first saw the pictures, the bric-a-brac, the flowers, the dazzle of lights, and then the invalid propped among her pillows, and vividly expectant of her.  She seemed all eager eyes to the girl, aware next of the strong resemblance to Dan in her features, and of the careful toilet the sick woman had made for her.  To youth all forms of suffering are abhorrent, and Alice had to hide a repugnance at sight of this spectre of what had once been a pretty woman.  Through the egotism with which so many years of flattering subjection in her little world had armed her, Mrs. Mavering probably did not feel the girl’s shrinking, or, if she did, took it for the natural embarrassment which she would feel.  She had satisfied herself that she was looking her best, and that her cap and the lace jacket she wore were very becoming, and softened her worst points; the hangings of her bed and the richly embroidered crimson silk coverlet were part of the coquetry of her costume, from which habit had taken all sense of ghastliness; she was proud of them, and she was not aware of the scent of drugs that insisted through the odour of the flowers.

She lifted herself on her elbow as Dan approached with Alice, and the girl felt as if an intense light had been thrown upon her from head to foot in the moment of searching scrutiny that followed.  The invalid’s set look broke into a smile, and she put out her hand, neither hot nor cold, but of a dry neutral, spiritual temperature, and pulled Alice down and kissed her.

“Why, child, your hand’s like ice!” she exclaimed without preamble.  “We used to say that came from a warm heart.”

“I guess it comes from a cold grapery in this case, mother,” said Dan, with his laugh.  “I’ve just been running Alice through it.  And perhaps a little excitement—­”