The sketch was apparently enough for Boardman. For all comment, he
reminded Mavering that he had told him at Portland it would come out all
right.

"Yes, you did, Boardman; that's a fact," said Dan; and he conceived a
higher respect for the penetration of Boardman than he had before.

They stopped at a door in a poor court which they had somehow reached
without Mavering's privity. "Will you come in?" asked Boardman.

"What for?"

"Chinaman."

"Chinaman?" Then Mavering remembered. "Good heavens! no. What have I got
to do with him?"

"Both mortal," suggested the reporter.

The absurdity of this idea, though a little grisly, struck Dan as a good
joke. He hit the companionable Boardman on the shoulder, and then gave
him a little hug, and remounted his path of air, and walked off in it.

XXVII.

Mavering first woke in the morning with the mechanical recurrence of
that shame and grief which each day had brought him since Alice refused
him. Then with a leap of the heart came the recollection of all that
had happened yesterday. Yet lurking within his rapture was a mystery
of regret: a reasonless sense of loss, as if the old feeling had been
something he would have kept. Then this faded, and he had only the
longing to see her, to realise in her presence and with her help the
fact that she was his. An unspeakable pride filled him, and a joy in
her love. He tried to see some outward vision of his bliss in the glass;
but, like the mirror which had refused to interpret his tragedy in the
Portland restaurant, it gave back no image of his transport: his face
looked as it always did, and he and the refection laughed at each other:

He asked himself how soon he could go and see her. It was now seven
o'clock: eight would be too early, of course--it would be ridiculous;
and nine--he wondered if he might go to see her at nine. Would they have
done breakfast? Had he any right to call before ten? He was miserable at
the thought of waiting till ten: it would be three hours. He thought of
pretexts--of inviting her to go somewhere, but that was absurd, for he
could see her at home all day if he liked; of carrying her a book, but
there could be no such haste about a book; of going to ask if he had
left his cane, but why should he be in such a hurry for his cane? All at
once he thought he could take her some flowers--a bouquet to lay beside
her plate at breakfast. He dramatised himself charging the servant who
should take it