"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.
"There is no comfort for us in ourselves," she said. "It's hard to get
outside; but there's only despair within. When we think we have done
something for others, by some great effort, we find it's all for our own
vanity."
"Yes," said Beaton. "If I could paint pictures for righteousness' sake, I
should have been glad to do Conrad Dryfoos for his father. I felt sorry
for him. Did the rest seem very much broken up? You saw them all?"
"Not all. Miss Dryfoos was ill, her sister said. It's hard to tell how
much people suffer. His mother seemed bewildered. The younger sister is a
simple creature; she looks like him; I think she must have something of
his spirit."
"Not much spirit of any kind, I imagine," said Beaton. "But she's amiably
material. Did they say Miss Dryfoos was seriously ill?"
"No. I supposed she might be prostrated by her brother's death."
"Does she seem that kind of person to you, Miss Vance?" asked Beaton.
"I don't know. I haven't tried to see so much of them as I might, the
past winter. I was not sure about her when I met her; I've never seen
much of people, except in my own set, and the--very poor. I have been
afraid I didn't understand her. She may have a kind of pride that would
not let her do herself justice."
Beaton felt the unconscious dislike in the endeavor of praise. "Then she
seems to you like a person whose life--its trials, its chances--would
make more of than she is now?"
"I didn't say that. I can't judge of her at all; but where we don't know,
don't you think we ought to imagine the best?"
"Oh yes," said Beaton. "I didn't know but what I once said of them might
have prejudiced you against them. I have accused myself of it." He always
took a tone of conscientiousness, of self-censure, in talking with Miss
Vance; he could not help it.
"Oh no. And I never allowed myself to form any judgment of her. She is
very pretty, don't you think, in a kind of way?"
"Very."
"She has a beautiful brunette coloring: that floury white and the
delicate pink in it. Her eyes are beautiful."
"She's graceful, too," said Beaton. "I've tried her in color; but I
didn't make it out."
"I've wondered sometimes," said Miss Vance, "whether that elusive quality
you find in some people you try to paint doesn't characterize them all
through. Miss Dryfoos might be ever so much finer and better than we
would find out in the society way that seems the only way."
"Perhaps," said Beaton, gloomily; and he went away profoundly discouraged
by this last analysis of Christine's character. The angelic
imperviousness of Miss Vance to properties of which his own wickedness
was so keenly aware in Christine might have made him laugh, if it had not
been such a serious affair with him. As it was, he smiled to think how
very differently Alma Leighton would have judged her from Miss Vance's
premises. He liked that clear vision of Alma's even when it pierced his
own disguises. Yes, that was the light he had let die out, and it might
have shone upon his path through life. Beaton never felt so poignantly
the disadvantage of having on any given occasion been wanting to his own
interests through his self-love as in this. He had no one to blame but
himself for what had happened, but he blamed Alma for what might happen
in the future because she shut out the way of retrieval and return. When
he thought of the attitude she had taken toward him, it seemed
incredible, and he was always longing to give her a final chance to
reverse her final judgment. It appeared to him that the time had come for
this now, if ever.