It came to pass, however, in the course of their second year of absence that Mr. Warder had occasion to make the college town his headquarters for several months; so Alice and her former governess were installed in one of the hotels for the winter, that her father might have as much of her company as possible; and the Burnhams rejoiced greatly thereat.
Yet here was Erskine, barely six weeks afterwards, considering it not necessary to invite Alice to dinner! The poor mother sighed over the perversity and the blindness of young manhood, and knew for the first time that if Erskine had developed the peculiar interest which Miss Parker seemed to have awakened, for Alice Warder, instead, she could have rejoiced with her whole heart.
They came to dinner, Alice and her Boston cousin, a Harvard student of marked ability, and Miss Parker and her brother. And Alice was fully as marked a contrast to the other young woman as Ruth had believed that she would be. First, in the matter of dress. Alice Warder was an artist in dress. She wore at this quiet little dinner party a cloth gown of olive-green, so severely plain in its make-up that its richness of texture and faultless workmanship were apparent. And Miss Parker appeared in an elbow-sleeved white dress badly laundered and profusely trimmed with a quantity of lace that was startling rather than fine. Moreover, she was adorned with a mass of hothouse blooms to which she referred so significantly that the little company were at once made aware that Erskine was the giver.
But the dress was perfection compared with the poor girl's manner. She gayly and unblushingly appropriated Erskine to herself and rallied her brother on the situation.
"Poor Jim! you haven't any girl at all, have you? Since Miss Warder—must I call you 'Miss Warder'? it sounds ever so much more friendly and cosey to say 'Alice.' You must look after your cousin, I suppose. Are you sure he is your cousin? You know that is a dodge girls have when—Oh, well, never mind; I won't bother you. This is good for Jim; he always has half a dozen strings to his bow and can never decide which one of them he wants the most; so this will be excellent discipline for him, leaving him out in the cold. Dear me! What am I talking about? Here is Mrs. Burnham looking young enough this minute to be one of us."
All this, while they were making their way through the boarding-house halls and large dining-room to a cosey little alcove, where a table had been set for the Burnhams and their guests. Erskine's face had flushed deeply during the outburst, and he had darted an annoyed look at his mother to see if she was hearing it. He led the way across the dining-room much to the irrepressible Mamie's disappointment, though she chose to seem to ridicule it.
"Dear me!" she said in a stage whisper to Alice, "do look at that ridiculous boy walking off alone. Where I come from, the fellows take the girls out to supper. Can't I borrow your cousin for this evening, and get even with him?"
Mrs. Burnham felt the color rising in her face, but Alice was gracious and lovely. She laughed pleasantly as though used to such jokes, linked her arm in the girl's, and said merrily:—
"We will give them all the slip, my dear, and go in together."