The day wasted away in Beaton's hands; at half-past four o'clock he went
out to tea at the house of a lady who was At Home that afternoon from
four till seven. By this time Beaton was in possession of one of those
other selves of which we each have several about us, and was again the
laconic, staccato, rather worldlified young artist whose moments of a
controlled utterance and a certain distinction of manner had commended
him to Mrs. Horn's fancy in the summer at St. Barnaby.
Mrs. Horn's rooms were large, and they never seemed very full, though
this perhaps was because people were always so quiet. The ladies, who
outnumbered the men ten to one, as they always do at a New York tea, were
dressed in sympathy with the low tone every one spoke in, and with the
subdued light which gave a crepuscular uncertainty to the few objects,
the dim pictures, the unexcited upholstery, of the rooms. One breathed
free of bric-a-brac there, and the new-comer breathed softly as one does
on going into church after service has begun. This might be a suggestion
from the voiceless behavior of the man-servant who let you in, but it was
also because Mrs. Horn's At Home was a ceremony, a decorum, and not
festival. At far greater houses there was more gayety, at richer houses
there was more freedom; the suppression at Mrs. Horn's was a personal,
not a social, effect; it was an efflux of her character, demure,
silentious, vague, but very correct.
Beaton easily found his way to her around the grouped skirts and among
the detached figures, and received a pressure of welcome from the hand
which she momentarily relaxed from the tea-pot. She sat behind a table
put crosswise of a remote corner, and offered tea to people whom a niece
of hers received provisionally or sped finally in the outer room. They
did not usually take tea, and when they did they did not usually drink
it; but Beaton was feverishly glad of his cup; he took rum and lemon in
it, and stood talking at Mrs. Horn's side till the next arrival should
displace him: he talked in his French manner.
"I have been hoping to see you," she said. "I wanted to ask you about the
Leightons. Did they really come?"
"I believe so. They are in town--yes. I haven't seen them."
"Then you don't know how they're getting on--that pretty creature, with
her cleverness, and poor Mrs. Leighton? I was afraid they were venturing
on a rash experiment. Do you know where they are?"
"In West Eleventh Street somewhere. Miss Leighton is in Mr. Wetmore's
class."
"I must look them up. Do you know their number?"
"Not at the moment. I can find out."
"Do," said Mrs. Horn. "What courage they must have, to plunge into New
York as they've done! I really didn't think they would. I wonder if
they've succeeded in getting anybody into their house yet?"
"I don't know," said Beaton.
"I discouraged their coming all I could," she sighed, "and I suppose you
did, too. But it's quite useless trying to make people in a place like
St. Barnaby understand how it is in town."
"Yes," said Beaton. He stirred his tea, while inwardly he tried to
believe that he had really discouraged the Leightons from coming to New
York. Perhaps the vexation of his failure made him call Mrs. Horn in his
heart a fraud.
"Yes," she went on, "it is very, very hard. And when they won't
understand, and rush on their doom, you feel that they are going to hold
you respons--"
Mrs. Horn's eyes wandered from Beaton; her voice faltered in the faded
interest of her remark, and then rose with renewed vigor in greeting a
lady who came up and stretched her glove across the tea-cups.
Beaton got himself away and out of the house with a much briefer adieu to
the niece than he had meant to make. The patronizing compassion of Mrs.
Horn for the Leightons filled him with indignation toward her, toward
himself. There was no reason why he should not have ignored them as he
had done; but there was a feeling. It was his nature to be careless, and
he had been spoiled into recklessness; he neglected everybody, and only
remembered them when it suited his whim or his convenience; but he
fiercely resented the inattentions of others toward himself. He had no
scruple about breaking an engagement or failing to keep an appointment;
he made promises without thinking of their fulfilment, and not because he
was a faithless person, but because he was imaginative, and expected at
the time to do what he said, but was fickle, and so did not. As most of
his shortcomings were of a society sort, no great harm was done to
anybody else. He had contracted somewhat the circle of his acquaintance
by what some people called his rudeness, but most people treated it as
his oddity, and were patient with it. One lady said she valued his coming
when he said he would come because it had the charm of the unexpected.
"Only it shows that it isn't always the unexpected that happens," she
explained.
It did not occur to him that his behavior was immoral; he did not realize
that it was creating a reputation if not a character for him. While we
are still young we do not realize that our actions have this effect. It
seems to us that people will judge us from what we think and feel. Later
we find out that this is impossible; perhaps we find it out too late;
some of us never find it out at all.
In spite of his shame about the Leightons, Beaton had no present
intention of looking them up or sending Mrs. Horn their address. As a
matter of fact, he never did send it; but he happened to meet Mr. Wetmore
and his wife at the restaurant where he dined, and he got it of the
painter for himself. He did not ask him how Miss Leighton was getting on;
but Wetmore launched out, with Alma for a tacit text, on the futility of
women generally going in for art. "Even when they have talent they've got
too much against them. Where a girl doesn't seem very strong, like Miss
Leighton, no amount of chic is going to help."
His wife disputed him on behalf of her sex, as women always do.
"No, Dolly," he persisted; "she'd better be home milking the cows and
leading the horse to water."
"Do you think she'd better be up till two in the morning at balls and
going all day to receptions and luncheons?"
"Oh, guess it isn't a question of that, even if she weren't drawing. You
knew them at home," he said to Beaton.
"Yes."
"I remember. Her mother said you suggested me. Well, the girl has some
notion of it; there's no doubt about that. But--she's a woman. The
trouble with these talented girls is that they're all woman. If they
weren't, there wouldn't be much chance for the men, Beaton. But we've got
Providence on our own side from the start. I'm able to watch all their
inspirations with perfect composure. I know just how soon it's going to
end in nervous breakdown. Somebody ought to marry them all and put them
out of their misery."
"And what will you do with your students who are married already?" his
wife said. She felt that she had let him go on long enough.
"Oh, they ought to get divorced."
"You ought to be ashamed to take their money if that's what you think of
them."
"My dear, I have a wife to support."
Beaton intervened with a question. "Do you mean that Miss Leighton isn't
standing it very well?"
"How do I know? She isn't the kind that bends; she's the kind that
breaks."
After a little silence Mrs. Wetmore asked, "Won't you come home with us,
Mr. Beaton?"
"Thank you; no. I have an engagement."
"I don't see why that should prevent you," said Wetmore. "But you always
were a punctilious cuss. Well!"
Beaton lingered over his cigar; but no one else whom he knew came in, and
he yielded to the threefold impulse of conscience, of curiosity, of
inclination, in going to call at the Leightons'. He asked for the ladies,
and the maid showed him into the parlor, where he found Mrs. Leighton and
Miss Woodburn.
The widow met him with a welcome neatly marked by resentment; she meant
him to feel that his not coming sooner had been noticed. Miss Woodburn
bubbled and gurgled on, and did what she could to mitigate his
punishment, but she did not feel authorized to stay it, till Mrs.
Leighton, by studied avoidance of her daughter's name, obliged Beaton to
ask for her. Then Miss Woodburn caught up her work, and said, "Ah'll go
and tell her, Mrs. Leighton." At the top of the stairs she found Alma,
and Alma tried to make it seem as if she had not been standing there.
"Mah goodness, chald! there's the handsomest young man asking for you
down there you evah saw. Alh told you' mothah Ah would come up fo' you."
"What--who is it?"
"Don't you know? But ho' could you? He's got the most beautiful eyes,
and he wea's his hai' in a bang, and he talks English like it was
something else, and his name's Mr. Beaton."
"Did he--ask for me?" said Alma, with a dreamy tone. She put her hand on
the stairs rail, and a little shiver ran over her.
"Didn't I tell you? Of coase he did! And you ought to go raght down if
you want to save the poo' fellah's lahfe; you' mothah's just freezin' him
to death."