It was not then too late to adapt ‘Pinafore’ to any exigency of life, and Mavering said, “You will learn from the expression of my eyes.”

XIII.

The witnesses of Mavering’s successful efforts to make everybody like him were interested in his differentiation of the attentions he offered every age and sex from those he paid Alice.  But while they all agreed that there never was a sweeter fellow, they would have been puzzled to say in just what this difference consisted, and much as they liked him, the ladies of her cult were not quite satisfied with him till they decided that it was marked by an anxiety, a timidity, which was perfectly fascinating in a man so far from bashfulness as he.  That is, he did nice things for others without asking; but with her there was always an explicit pause, and an implicit prayer and permission, first.  Upon this condition they consented to the glamour which he had for her, and which was evident to every one probably but him.

Once agreeing that no one was good enough for Alice Pasmer, whose qualities they felt that only women could really appreciate, they were interested to see how near Mavering could come to being good enough; and as the drama played itself before their eyes, they pleased themselves in analysing its hero.

“He is not bashful, certainly,” said one of a little group who sat midway of the piazza while Alice and Mavering walked up and down together.  “But don’t you think he’s modest?  There’s that difference, you know.”

The lady addressed waited so long before answering that the young couple came abreast of the group, and then she had to wait till they were out of hearing.  “Yes,” she said then, with a tender, sighing thoughtfulness, “I’ve felt that in him.  And really think he is a very loveable nature.  The only question would be whether he wasn’t too loveable.”

“Yes,” said the first lady, with the same kind of suspiration, “I know what you mean.  And I suppose they ought to be something more alike in disposition.”

“Or sympathies?” suggested the other.

“Yes, or sympathies.”

A third lady laughed a little.  “Mr. Mavering has so many sympathies that he ought to be like her in some of them.”

“Do you mean that he’s too sympathetic—­that he isn’t sincere?” asked the first—­a single lady of forty-nine, a Miss Cotton, who had a little knot of conscience between her pretty eyebrows, tied there by the unremitting effort of half a century to do and say exactly the truth, and to find it out.

Mrs. Brinkley, whom she addressed, was of that obesity which seems often to incline people to sarcasm.  “No, I don’t think he’s insincere.  I think he always means what he says and does—­Well, do you think a little more concentration of good-will would hurt him for Miss Pasmer’s purpose—­if she has it?”

“Yes, I see,” said Miss Cotton.  She waited, with her kind eyes fixed wistfully upon Alice, for the young people to approach and get by.  “I wonder what the men think of him?”