“Then you want him to come to lunch?” asked her mother. “I should advise him to refuse.”
“I don't think he'd accept,” said Alice. Then, as Mrs. Pasmer stood in the door, preventing her egress, as Dan had done before, she asked meekly “Will you let me pass, mamma? My head aches.”
Mrs. Pasmer, whose easy triumphs in so many difficult circumstances kept her nearly always in good temper, let herself go, at these words, in vexation very uncommon with her. “Indeed I shall not!” she retorted. “And you will please sit down here and tell me what you mean by dismissing Mr. Mavering. I'm tired of your whims and caprices.”
“I can't talk,” began the girl stubbornly.
“Yes, I think you can,” said her mother. “At any rate, I can. Now what is it all?”
“Perhaps this letter, will explain,” said Alice, continuing to dignify her enforced submission with a tone of unabated hauteur; and she gave her mother Mrs. Mavering's letter, which Dan had mechanically restored to her.
Mrs. Pasmer read it, not only without indignation, but apparently without displeasure. But, she understood perfectly what the trouble was, when she looked up and asked, cheerfully, “Well?”
“Well!” repeated Alice, with a frown of astonishment. “Don't you see that he's promised us one thing and her another, and that he's false to both?”
“I don't know,” said Mrs. Pasmer, recovering her good-humour in view of a situation that she felt herself able to cope with. “Of course he has to temporise, to manage a little. She's an invalid, and of course she's very exacting. He has to humour her. How do you know he has promised her? He hasn't promised us.”
“Hasn't promised us?” Alice gasped.