that ludicrous tumble, of course; and perhaps he had overdone the attentive sympathy on the way home.  It flattered him that she could not help showing her jealousy—­that is flattering, at first; and Dan was able to go and confess all but this to Alice.  She received his submission magnanimously, and said that she was glad it had happened, because his saying this showed that now they understood each other perfectly.  Then she fixed her eyes on his, and said, “I’ve just been round to see Lilly, and she’s as well as ever; it was only a nervous shock.”

Whether Mavering was really indifferent to Miss Langham’s condition, or whether the education of his perceptions had gone so far that he consciously ignored her, he answered, “That was splendid of you, Alice.”

“No,” she said; “it’s you that are splendid; and you always are.  Oh, I wonder if I can ever be worthy of you!”

Their mutual forgiveness was very sweet to them, and they went on praising each other.  Alice suddenly broke away from this weakening exchange of worship, and said, with that air of coming to business which he lad learned to recognise and dread a little, “Dan, don’t you think I ought to write to your mother?”

“Write to my mother?” Why, you have written to her.  You wrote as soon as you got back, and she answered you.”

“Yes; but write regularly?—­Show that I think of her all the time?” When I really think I’m going to take you from her, I seem so cruel and heartless!”

“Oh, I don’t look at it in that light, Alice.”

“Don’t joke!  And when I think that we’re going away to leave her, for several years, perhaps, as soon as we’re married, I can’t make it seem right.  I know how she depends upon your being near her, and seeing her every now and then; and to go off to Europe for years, perhaps—­Of course you can be of use to your father there; but do you think it’s right toward your mother?  I want you to think.”

Dan thought, but his thinking was mainly to the effect that he did not know what she was driving at.  Had she got any inkling of that plan of his mother’s for them to come and stay a year or two at the Falls after their marriage?  He always expected to be able to reconcile that plan with the Pasmer plan of going at once; to his optimism the two were not really incompatible; but he did not wish them prematurely confronted in Alice’s mind.  Was this her way of letting him know that she knew what his mother wished, and that she was willing to make the sacrifice?  Or was it just some vague longing to please him by a show of affection toward his family, an unmeditated impulse of reparation?  He had an impulse himself to be frank with Alice, to take her at her word, and to allow that he did not like the notion of going abroad.  This was Dan’s notion of being frank; he could still reserve the fact that he had given his mother a tacit promise to bring Alice home to live, but he postponed even this.  He said:  “Oh, I guess that’ll be all right, Alice.  At any rate, there’s no need to think about it yet awhile.  That can be arranged.”