As he thought of these two girls,one so charming and the other so divine,it became indefinitely difficult to renounce them for Christine Dryfoos,with her sultry temper and her earthbound ideals.Life had been so flattering to Beaton hitherto that he could not believe them both finally indifferent;and if they were not indifferent,perhaps he did not wish either of them to be very definite.What he really longed for was their sympathy;for a man who is able to walk round quite ruthlessly on the feelings of others often has very tender feelings of his own,easily lacerated,and eagerly responsive to the caresses of compassion.In this frame Beaton determined to go that afternoon,though it was not Mrs.
Horn's day,and call upon her in the hope of possibly seeing Miss Vance alone.As he continued in it,he took this for a sign and actually went.
It did not fall out at once as he wished,but he got Mrs.Horn to talking again about her niece,and Mrs.Horn again regretted that nothing could be done by the fine arts to reclaim Margaret from good works.
"Is she at home?Will you let me see her?"asked Beacon,with something of the scientific interest of a physician inquiring for a patient whose symptoms have been rehearsed to him.He had not asked for her before.
"Yes,certainly,"said Mrs.Horn,and she went herself to call Margaret,and she did not return with her.The girl entered with the gentle grace peculiar to her;and Beaton,bent as he was on his own consolation,could not help being struck with the spiritual exaltation of her look.
At sight of her,the vague hope he had never quite relinquished,that they might be something more than aesthetic friends,died in his heart.
She wore black,as she often did;but in spite of its fashion her dress received a nun-like effect from the pensive absence of her face.
"Decidedly,"thought Beaton,"she is far gone in good works."But he rose,all the same,to meet her on the old level,and he began at once to talk to her of the subject he had been discussing with her aunt.
He said frankly that they both felt she had unjustifiably turned her back upon possibilities which she ought not to neglect.
"You know very well,"she answered,"that I couldn't do anything in that way worth the time I should waste on it.Don't talk of it,please.
I suppose my aunt has been asking you to say this,but it's no use.
I'm sorry it's no use,she wishes it so much;but I'm not sorry otherwise.You can find the pleasure at least of doing good work in it;but I couldn't find anything in it but a barren amusement.Mr.Wetmore is right;for me,it's like enjoying an opera,or a ball.""That's one of Wetmore's phrases.He'd sacrifice anything to them."She put aside the whole subject with a look."You were not at Mr.
Dryfoos's the other day.Have you seen them,any of them,lately?""I haven't been there for some time,no,"said Beaton,evasively.
But he thought if he was to get on to anything,he had better be candid.
"Mr.Dryfoos was at my studio this morning.He's got a queer notion.
He wants me to paint his son's portrait."She started."And will you--"
"No,I couldn't do such a thing.It isn't in my way.I told him so.
His son had a beautiful face an antique profile;a sort of early Christian type;but I'm too much of a pagan for that sort of thing.""Yes."
"Yes,"Beaton continued,not quite liking her assent after he had invited it.He had his pride in being a pagan,a Greek,but it failed him in her presence,now;and he wished that she had protested he was none."He was a singular creature;a kind of survival;an exile in our time and place.
I don't know:we don't quite expect a saint to be rustic;but with all his goodness Conrad Dryfoos was a country person.If he were not dying for a cause you could imagine him milking."Beaton intended a contempt that came from the bitterness of having himself once milked the family cow.
His contempt did not reach Miss Vance."He died for a cause,"she said.
"The holiest."
"Of labor?"
"Of peace.He was there to persuade the strikers to be quiet and go home.""I haven't been quite sure,"said Beaton."But in any case he had no business there.The police were on hand to do the persuading.""I can't let you talk so!"cried the girl."It's shocking!Oh,I know it's the way people talk,and the worst is that in the sight of the world it's the right way.But the blessing on the peacemakers is not for the policemen with their clubs."Beaton saw that she was nervous;he made his reflection that she was altogether too far gone in good works for the fine arts to reach her;he began to think how he could turn her primitive Christianity to the account of his modern heathenism.He had no deeper design than to get flattered back into his own favor far enough to find courage for some sort of decisive step.In his heart he was trying to will whether he should or should not go back to Dryfoos's house.It could not be from the caprice that had formerly taken him;it must be from a definite purpose;again he realized this."Of course;you are right,"he said.
"I wish I could have answered that old man differently.I fancy he was bound up in his son,though he quarrelled with him,and crossed him.But I couldn't do it;it wasn't possible."He said to himself that if she said "No,"now,he would be ruled by her agreement with him;and if she disagreed with him,he would be ruled still by the chance,and would go no more to the Dryfooses'.He found himself embarrassed to the point of blushing when she said nothing,and left him,as it were,on his own hands."I should like to have given him that comfort;I fancy he hasn't much comfort in life;but there seems no comfort in me."He dropped his head in a fit attitude for compassion;but she poured no pity upon it.
