acquaintance, and there could be no question of anything personal. She
forgot that between young people the social affair is always trembling to
the personal affair.

In the little pause which these reflections gave her mother, the girl
struck in, with the coolness that always astonished Mrs. Pasmer, and as
if she had been merely waiting till some phase of the talk interested
her.

"Are many of the students going to the race?" she asked Boardman.

"Yes; nearly everybody. That is--"

"The race?" queried Mrs. Pasmer.

"Yes, at New London," Mavering broke in. "Don't you know? The University
race--Harvard and Yale."

"Oh--oh yes," cried Mrs. Pasmer, wondering how her daughter should know
about the race, and she not. "Had they talked it over together on Class
Day?" she asked herself. She felt herself, in spite of her efforts to
keep even with them; left behind and left out, as later age must be
distanced and excluded by youth. "Are you gentlemen going to row?" she
asked Mavering.

"No; they've ruled the tubs out this time; and we should send anything
else to the bottom."

Mrs. Pasmer perceived that he was joking, but also that they were not of
the crew; and she said that if that was the case the should not go.