"It isn't the letter merely.I thought you wouldn't object to a little advance on your 'Every Other Week'work till you kind of got started."Beaton remained inflexible."It can't be done,Fulkerson.Don't I tell you I can't sell myself out to a thing I don't believe in?Can't you understand that?""Oh yes;I can understand that first-rate.I don't want to buy you;Iwant to borrow you.It's all right.See?Come round when you can;I'd like to introduce you to old March.That's going to be our address."He put a card on the table beside the envelope,and Beaton allowed him to go without making him take the check back.He had remembered his father's plea;that unnerved him,and he promised himself again to return his father's poor little check and to work on that picture and give it to Fulkerson for the check he had left and for his back debts.He resolved to go to work on the picture at once;he had set his palette for it;but first he looked at Fulkerson's check.It was for only fifty dollars,and the canny Scotch blood in Beaton rebelled;he could not let this picture go for any such money;he felt a little like a man whose generosity has been trifled with.The conflict of emotions broke him up,and he could not work.
IV
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.
