“Hello, Mavering!” said Mr. Brinkley, coming up and taking his hand into his fat grasp. “On your way to Fortress Monroe? Better come with us. Why; Munt!”
He turned to greet this other Bostonian, who had hardly expressed his joy at meeting with his fellow-townsmen when the hostess rustled softly up, and said, with the irony more or less friendly, which everybody uses in speaking of Boston, or recognising the intellectual pre-eminence of its people, “I'm not going to let you keep this feast of reason all to your selves. I want you to leaven the whole lump,” and she began to disperse them, and to introduce them about right and left.
Dan tried to find his Virginian again, but she was gone. He found Miss Anderson; she was with her aunt. “Shall we be tearing you away?” she asked.
“Oh no. I'm quite ready to go.”
His nerves were in a tremble. Those Boston faces and voices had brought it all back again; it seemed as if he had met Alice. He was silent and incoherent as they drove home, but Miss Anderson apparently did not want to talk much, and apparently did not notice his reticence.
He fell asleep with the pang in his heart which had been there so often.
When Dan came down to breakfast he found the Brinkleys at a pleasant place by one of the windows, and after they had exchanged a pleased surprise with him that they should all happen to be in the same hotel, they asked him to sit at their table.
There was a bright sun shining, and the ache was gone out of Dan's heart. He began to chatter gaily with Mrs. Brinkley about Washington.
“Oh, better come on to Fortress Monroe,” said her husband. “Better come on with us.”
“No, I can't just yet,” said Dan. “I've got some business here that will keep me for awhile. Perhaps I may run down there a little later.”