“No,” she said, briefly and seriously enough.
“But that seems impossible. What is it I’ve done—what have you against me?”
“Nothing. But that time is past. I couldn’t recall it if I wished. Why did you bring it up? You’ve broken your word. You know I wouldn’t have let you keep coming here if you hadn’t promised never to refer to it.”
“How could I help it? With that happiness near us—Fulkerson—”
“Oh, it’s that? I might have known it!”
“No, it isn’t that—it’s something far deeper. But if it’s nothing you have against me, what is it, Alma, that keeps you from caring for me now as you did then? I haven’t changed.”
“But I have. I shall never care for you again, Mr. Beaton; you might as well understand it once for all. Don’t think it’s anything in yourself, or that I think you unworthy of me. I’m not so self-satisfied as that; I know very well that I’m not a perfect character, and that I’ve no claim on perfection in anybody else. I think women who want that are fools; they won’t get it, and they don’t deserve it. But I’ve learned a good deal more about myself than I knew in St. Barnaby, and a life of work, of art, and of art alone—that’s what I’ve made up my mind to.”
“A woman that’s made up her mind to that has no heart to hinder her!”
“Would a man have that had done so?”
“But I don’t believe you, Alma. You’re merely laughing at me. And, besides, with me you needn’t give up art. We could work together. You know how much I admire your talent. I believe I could help it—serve it; I would be its willing slave, and yours, Heaven knows!”
“I don’t want any slave—nor any slavery. I want to be free—always. Now do you see? I don’t care for you, and I never could in the old way; but I should have to care for someone more than I believe I ever shall to give up my work. Shall we go on?” She looked at her sketch.
“No, we shall not go on,” he said, gloomily, as he rose.
“I suppose you blame me,” she said, rising too.
“Oh no! I blame no one—or only myself. I threw my chance away.”
“I’m glad you see that; and I’m glad you did it. You don’t believe me, of course. Why do men think life can be only the one thing to women? And if you come to the selfish view, who are the happy women? I’m sure that if work doesn’t fail me, health won’t, and happiness won’t.”
“But you could work on with me—”
“Second fiddle. Do you suppose I shouldn’t be woman enough to wish my work always less and lower than yours? At least I’ve heart enough for that!”
“You’ve heart enough for anything, Alma. I was a fool to say you hadn’t.”
“I think the women who keep their hearts have an even chance, at least, of having heart—”
“Ah, there’s where you’re wrong!”
“But mine isn’t mine to give you, anyhow. And now I don’t want you ever to speak to me about this again.”
“Oh, there’s no danger!” he cried, bitterly. “I shall never willingly see you again.”
“That’s as you like, Mr. Beaton. We’ve had to be very frank, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t be friends. Still, we needn’t, if you don’t like.”
“And I may come—I may come here—as—as usual?”
“Why, if you can consistently,” she said, with a smile, and she held out her hand to him.
He went home dazed, and feeling as if it were a bad joke that had been put upon him. At least the affair went so deep that it estranged the aspect of his familiar studio. Some of the things in it were not very familiar; he had spent lately a great deal on rugs, on stuffs, on Japanese bric-a-brac. When he saw these things in the shops he had felt that he must have them; that they were necessary to him; and he was partly in debt for them, still without having sent any of his earnings to pay his father. As he looked at them now he liked to fancy something weird and conscious in them as the silent witnesses of a broken life. He felt about among some of the smaller objects on the mantel for his pipe. Before he slept he was aware, in the luxury of his despair, of a remote relief, an escape; and, after all, the understanding he had come to with Alma was only the explicit formulation of terms long tacit between them. Beaton would have been puzzled more than he knew if she had taken him seriously. It was inevitable that he should declare himself in love with her; but he was not disappointed at her rejection of his love; perhaps not so much as he would have been at its acceptance, though he tried to think otherwise, and to give himself airs of tragedy. He did not really feel that the result was worse than what had gone before, and it left him free.
But he did not go to the Leightons again for so long a time that Mrs. Leighton asked Alma what had happened. Alma told her.
“And he won’t come anymore?” her mother sighed, with reserved censure.
“Oh, I think he will. He couldn’t very well come the next night. But he has the habit of coming, and with Mr. Beaton habit is everything—even the habit of thinking he’s in love with someone.”
“Alma,” said her mother, “I don’t think it’s very nice for a girl to let a young man keep coming to see her after she’s refused him.”
“Why not, if it amuses him and doesn’t hurt the girl?”
“But it does hurt her, Alma. It—it’s indelicate. It isn’t fair to him; it gives him hopes.”
“Well, mamma, it hasn’t happened in the given case yet. If Mr. Beaton comes again, I won’t
