“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.
XV
While we are still young we feel a kind of pride, a sort of fierce pleasure, in any important experience, such as we have read of or heard of in the lives of others, no matter how painful. It was this pride, this pleasure, which Beaton now felt in realizing that the toils of fate were about him, that between him and a future of which Christine Dryfoos must be the genius there was nothing but the will, the mood, the fancy of a girl who had not given him the hope that either could ever again be in his favor. He had nothing to trust to, in fact, but his knowledge that he had once had them all; she did not deny that; but neither did she conceal that he had flung away his power over them, and she had told him that they never could be his again. A man knows that he can love and wholly cease to love, not once merely, but several times; he recognizes the fact in regard to himself, both theoretically and practically; but in regard to women he cherishes the superstition of the romances that love is once for all, and forever. It was because Beaton would not believe that Alma Leighton, being a woman, could put him out of her heart after suffering him to steal into it, that he now hoped anything from her, and she had been so explicit when they last spoke of that affair that he did not hope much. He said to himself that he was going to cast himself on her mercy, to take whatever chance of life, love, and work there was in her having the smallest pity on him. If she would have none, then there was but one thing he could do: marry Christine and go abroad. He did not see how he could bring this alternative to bear upon Alma; even if she knew what he would do in case of a final rejection, he had grounds for fearing she would not care; but he brought it to bear upon himself, and it nerved him to a desperate courage. He could hardly wait for evening to come, before he went to see her; when it came, it seemed to have come too soon. He had wrought himself thoroughly into the conviction that he was in earnest, and that everything depended upon her answer to him, but it was not till he found himself in her presence, and alone with her, that he realized the truth of his conviction. Then the influences of her grace, her gayety, her arch beauty, above all, her good sense, penetrated his soul like a subtle intoxication, and he said to himself that he was right; he could not live without her; these attributes of hers were what he needed to win him, to cheer him, to charm him, to guide him. He longed so to please her, to ingratiate himself with her, that he attempted to be light like her in his talk, but lapsed into abysmal absences and gloomy recesses of introspection.
“What are you laughing at?” he asked, suddenly starting from one of these.
“What you are thinking of.”
“It’s nothing to laugh at. Do you know what I’m thinking of?”
“Don’t tell, if it’s dreadful.”
“Oh, I dare say you wouldn’t think it’s dreadful,” he said, with bitterness. “It’s simply the case of a man who has made a fool of himself and sees no help of retrieval in himself.”
“Can anyone else help a man unmake a fool of himself?” she asked, with a smile.
“Yes. In a case like this.”
“Dear me! This is very interesting.”
She did not ask him what the case was, but he was launched now, and he pressed on. “I am the man who has made a fool of himself—”
“Oh!”
“And you can help me out if you will. Alma, I wish you could see me as I really am.”
“Do you, Mr. Beaton? Perhaps I do.”
“No; you don’t. You formulated me in a certain way, and you won’t allow for the change that takes place in everyone. You have changed; why shouldn’t I?”
“Has this to do with your having made a fool of yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! Then I don’t see how you have changed.”
She laughed, and he too, ruefully. “You’re cruel. Not but what I deserve your mockery. But the change was not
