But now she felt that a man who wished to get married so obviously and entirely for love was full of all kinds of the best instincts,and only needed the guidance of a wife,to become very noble.She interested herself intensely in balancing the respective merits of the engaged couple,and after her call upon Miss Woodburn in her new character she prided herself upon recognizing the worth of some strictly Southern qualities in her,while maintaining the general average of New England superiority.She could not reconcile herself to the Virginian custom illustrated in her having been christened with the surname of Madison;and she said that its pet form of Mad,which Fulkerson promptly invented,only made it more ridiculous.
Fulkerson was slower in telling Beaton.He was afraid,somehow,of Beaton's taking the matter in the cynical way;Miss Woodburn said she would break off the engagement if Beaton was left to guess it or find it out by accident,and then Fulkerson plucked up his courage.Beaton received the news with gravity,and with a sort of melancholy meekness that strongly moved Fulkerson's sympathy,and made him wish that Beaton was engaged,too.
It made Beaton feel very old;it somehow left him behind and forgotten;in a manner,it made him feel trifled with.Something of the unfriendliness of fate seemed to overcast his resentment,and he allowed the sadness of his conviction that he had not the means to marry on to tinge his recognition of the fact that Alma Leighton would not have wanted him to marry her if he had.He was now often in that martyr mood in which he wished to help his father;not only to deny himself Chianti,but to forego a fur-lined overcoat which he intended to get for the winter,He postponed the moment of actual sacrifice as regarded the Chianti,and he bought the overcoat in an anguish of self-reproach.
He wore it the first evening after he got it in going to call upon the Leightons,and it seemed to him a piece of ghastly irony when Alma complimented his picturesqueness in it and asked him to let her sketch him.
"Oh,you can sketch me,"he said,with so much gloom that it made her laugh.
"If you think it's so serious,I'd rather not.""No,no!Go ahead!How do you want me?"
Oh,fling yourself down on a chair in one of your attitudes of studied negligence;and twist one corner of your mustache with affected absence of mind.""And you think I'm always studied,always affected?""I didn't say so."
"I didn't ask you what you said."
"And I won't tell you what I think."
"Ah,I know what you think."
"What made you ask,then?"The girl laughed again with the satisfaction of her sex in cornering a man.
Beaton made a show of not deigning to reply,and put himself in the pose she suggested,frowning.
"Ah,that's it.But a little more animation--"'As when a great thought strikes along the brain,And flushes all the cheek.'"She put her forehead down on the back of her hand and laughed again.
"You ought to be photographed.You look as if you were sitting for it."Beaton said:"That's because I know I am being photographed,in one way.
I don't think you ought to call me affected.I never am so with you;Iknow it wouldn't be of any use."
"Oh,Mr.Beaton,you flatter."
"No,I never flatter you."
"I meant you flattered yourself."
"How?"
"Oh,I don't know.Imagine."
"I know what you mean.You think I can't be sincere with anybody.""Oh no,I don't."
"What do you think?"
"That you can't--try."Alma gave another victorious laugh.
Miss Woodburn and Fulkerson would once have both feigned a great interest in Alma's sketching Beaton,and made it the subject of talk,in which they approached as nearly as possible the real interest of their lives.
Now they frankly remained away in the dining-room,which was very cozy after the dinner had disappeared;the colonel sat with his lamp and paper in the gallery beyond;Mrs.Leighton was about her housekeeping affairs,in the content she always felt when Alma was with Beaton.
"They seem to be having a pretty good time in there,"said Fulkerson,detaching himself from his own absolute good time as well as he could.
"At least Alma does,"said Miss Woodburn.
"Do you think she cares for him?"
"Quahte as moch as he desoves."
"What makes you all down on Beaton around here?He's not such a bad fellow.""We awe not all doan on him.Mrs.Leighton isn't doan on him.""Oh,I guess if it was the old lady,there wouldn't be much question about it."They both laughed,and Alma said,"They seem to be greatly amused with something in there.""Me,probably,"said Beaton."I seem to amuse everybody to-night.""Don't you always?"
"I always amuse you,I'm afraid,Alma."
She looked at him as if she were going to snub him openly for using her name;but apparently she decided to do it covertly."You didn't at first.I really used to believe you could be serious,once.""Couldn't you believe it again?Now?"
"Not when you put on that wind-harp stop.""Wetmore has been talking to you about me.He would sacrifice his best friend to a phrase.He spends his time making them.""He's made some very pretty ones about you.""Like the one you just quoted?"
"No,not exactly.He admires you ever so much.He says"She stopped,teasingly.
"What?"
"He says you could be almost anything you wished,if you didn't wish to be everything.""That sounds more like the school of Wetmore.That's what you say,Alma.
Well,if there were something you wished me to be,I could be it.""We might adapt Kingsley:'Be good,sweet man,and let who will be clever.'"He could not help laughing.She went on:"I always thought that was the most patronizing and exasperating thing ever addressed to a human girl;and we've had to stand a good deal in our time.I should like to have it applied to the other 'sect'a while.As if any girl that was a girl would be good if she had the remotest chance of being clever.""Then you wouldn't wish me to be good?"Beaton asked.
"Not if you were a girl."
