第81章 PART THIRD(12)

Dryfoos is Fulkerson's financial backer in 'Every Other Week'.""Is that so?Well,that's interesting,too.Aren't you rather astonished,Miss Vance,to see what a petty thing Beaton is making of that magazine of his?""Oh,"said Margaret,"it's so very nice,every way;it makes you feel as if you did have a country,after all.It's as chic--that detestable little word!--as those new French books.""Beaton modelled it on them.But you mustn't suppose he does everything about 'Every Other Week';he'd like you to.Beaton,you haven't come up to that cover of your first number,since.That was the design of one of my pupils,Miss Vance--a little girl that Beaton discovered down in New Hampshire last summer.""Oh yes.And have you great hopes of her,Mr.Wetmore?""She seems to have more love of it and knack for it than any one of her sex I've seen yet.It really looks like a case of art for art's sake,at times.But you can't tell.They're liable to get married at any moment,you know.Look here,Beaton,when your natural-gas man gets to the picture-buying stage in his development,just remember your old friends,will you?You know,Miss Vance,those new fellows have their regular stages.They never know what to do with their money,but they find out that people buy pictures,at one point.They shut your things up in their houses where nobody comes,and after a while they overeat themselves--they don't know what,else to do--and die of apoplexy,and leave your pictures to a gallery,and then they see the light.It's slow,but it's pretty sure.Well,I see Beaton isn't going to move on,as he ought to do;and so I must.He always was an unconventional creature."Wetmore went away,but Beaton remained,and he outstayed several other people who came up to speak to Miss Vance.She was interested in everybody,and she liked the talk of these clever literary,artistic,clerical,even theatrical people,and she liked the sort of court with which they recognized her fashion as well as her cleverness;it was very pleasant to be treated intellectually as if she were one of themselves,and socially as if she was not habitually the same,but a sort of guest in Bohemia,a distinguished stranger.If it was Arcadia rather than Bohemia,still she felt her quality of distinguished stranger.The flattery of it touched her fancy,and not her vanity;she had very little vanity.Beaton's devotion made the same sort of appeal;it was not so much that she liked him as she liked being the object of his admiration.

She was a girl of genuine sympathies,intellectual rather than sentimental.In fact,she was an intellectual person,whom qualities of the heart saved from being disagreeable,as they saved her on the other hand from being worldly or cruel in her fashionableness.She had read a great many books,and had ideas about them,quite courageous and original ideas;she knew about pictures--she had been in Wetmore's class;she was fond of music;she was willing to understand even politics;in Boston she might have been agnostic,but in New York she was sincerely religious;she was very accomplished;and perhaps it was her goodness that prevented her feeling what was not best in Beaton.

"Do you think,"she said,after the retreat of one of the comers and goers left her alone with him again,"that those young ladies would like me to call on them?""Those young ladies?"Beaton echoed."Miss Leighton and--""No;I have been there with my aunt's cards already.""Oh yes,"said Beaton,as if he had known of it;he admired the pluck and pride with which Alma had refrained from ever mentioning the fact to him,and had kept her mother from mentioning it,which must have been difficult.

"I mean the Miss Dryfooses.It seems really barbarous,if nobody goes near them.We do all kinds of things,and help all kinds of people in some ways,but we let strangers remain strangers unless they know how to make their way among us.""The Dryfooses certainly wouldn't know how to make their way among you,"said Beaton,with a sort of dreamy absence in his tone.

Miss Vance went on,speaking out the process of reasoning in her mind,rather than any conclusions she had reached."We defend ourselves by trying to believe that they must have friends of their own,or that they would think us patronizing,and wouldn't like being made the objects of social charity;but they needn't really suppose anything of the kind.""I don't imagine they would,"said Beaton."I think they'd be only too happy to have you come.But you wouldn't know what to do with each other,indeed,Miss Vance.""Perhaps we shall like each other,"said the girl,bravely,"and then we shall know.What Church are they of?""I don't believe they're of any,"said Beaton."The mother was brought up a Dunkard.""A Dunkard?"

Beaton told what he knew of the primitive sect,with its early Christian polity,its literal interpretation of Christ's ethics,and its quaint ceremonial of foot-washing;he made something picturesque of that.

"The father is a Mammon-worshipper,pure and simple.I suppose the young ladies go to church,but I don't know where.They haven't tried to convert me.""I'll tell them not to despair--after I've converted them,"said Miss Vance."Will you let me use you as a 'point d'appui',Mr.Beaton?""Any way you like.If you're really going to see them,perhaps I'd better make a confession.I left your banjo with them,after I got it put in order.""How very nice!Then we have a common interest already.""Do you mean the banjo,or--"