“And now you quarrel with me because my mother wishes me to do so.”
Alice merely said: “I don't know why I stand here allowing you to intimidate me in my father's house. I demand that you shall stand aside and let me pass.”
“I'll not oblige you to leave the room,” said Dan. “I will go. But if I go, you will understand that I don't come back.”
“I hope that,” said the girl.
“Very well. Good morning, Miss Pasmer.”
She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of his bow, and he whirled out of the room and down the dim narrow passageway into the arms of Mrs. Pasmer, who had resisted as long as she could her curiosity to know what the angry voices of himself and Alice meant.
“O Mr. Mavering, is it you?” she buzzed; and she flung aside one pretence for another in adding, “Couldn't Alice make you stay to breakfast?”
Dan felt a rush of tenderness in his heart at the sound of the kind, humbugging little voice. “No, thank you, Mrs. Pasmer, I couldn't stay, thank you. I—I thank you very much. I—good-bye, Mrs. Pasmer.” He wrung her hand, and found his way out of the apartment door, leaving her to clear up the mystery of his flight and his broken words as she could.
“Alice,” she said, as she entered the room, where the girl had remained, “what have you been doing now?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said, with a remnant of her scorn for Dan qualifying her tone and manner to her mother. “I've dismissed Mr. Mavering.”