XXXVI.
“Why, there's Dan Mavering now!” said Mrs. Brinkley, rather to herself than to her companion. “And alone!”
Dan's face showed above most of the heads and shoulders about him; it was flushed, and looked troubled and excited. He caught sight of Mrs. Brinkley, and his eyes brightened joyfully. He slipped quickly through the crowd, and bowed over her hand, while he stammered out, without giving her a chance for reply till the end: “O Mrs. Brinkley, I'm so glad to see you! I'm going—I want to ask a great favour of you, Mrs. Brinkley. I want to bring—I want to introduce some friends of mine to you—some ladies, Mrs. Brinkley; very nice people I met last summer at Portland. Their father—General Wrayne—has been building some railroads down East, and they're very nice people; but they don't know any one—any ladies—and they've been looking at the pictures ever since they came. They're very good pictures; but it isn't an exhibition!” He broke down with a laugh.
“Why, of course, Mr. Mavering; I shall be delighted,” said Mrs. Brinkley, with a hospitality rendered reckless by her sympathy with the young fellow. “By all means!”
“Oh; thanks!—thank you aver so much!” said Dan. “I'll bring them to you—they'll understand!” He slipped into the crowd again.
Corey made an offer of going. Mrs. Brinkley stopped him with her fan. “No—stay, Mr. Corey. Unless you wish to go. I fancy it's the people you were talking about, and you must help me through with them.”
“I ask nothing better,” said the old man, unresentful of Dan's having not even seemed to see him, in his generous preoccupation. “I should like to see how you'll get on, and perhaps I can be of use.”
“Of course you can—the greatest.”
“But why hasn't he introduced them to his Pasmers? What? Eh? Oh!” Corey made these utterances in response to a sharper pressure of Mrs. Brinkley's fan on his arm.
Dan was opening a way through the crowd before them for two ladies, whom he now introduced. “Mrs. Frobisher, Mrs. Brinkley; and Miss Wrayne.”