第129章 PART FIFTH(4)

"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 any more?"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 some one.""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 see him,and you can forbid him the house.""If I could only feel sure,Alma,"said her mother,taking up another branch of the inquiry,"that you really knew your own mind,I should be easier about it.""Then you can rest perfectly quiet,mamma.I do know my own mind;and,what's worse,I know Mr.Beaton's mind.""What do you mean?"

"I mean that he spoke to me the other night simply because Mr.

Fulkerson's engagement had broken him all up.""What expressions!"Mrs.Leighton lamented.

"He let it out himself,"Alma went on."And you wouldn't have thought it was very flattering yourself.When I'm made love to,after this,I prefer to be made love to in an off-year,when there isn't another engaged couple anywhere about.""Did you tell him that,Alma?"

"Tell him that!What do you mean,mamma?I may be indelicate,but I'm not quite so indelicate as that.""I didn't mean you were indelicate,really,Alma,but I wanted to warn you.I think Mr.Beaton was very much in earnest.""Oh,so did he!"

"And you didn't?"

"Oh yes,for the time being.I suppose he's very much in earnest with Miss Vance at times,and with Miss Dryfoos at others.Sometimes he's a painter,and sometimes he's an architect,and sometimes he's a sculptor.

He has too many gifts--too many tastes."

"And if Miss Vance and Miss Dryfoos--"

"Oh,do say Sculpture and Architecture,mamma!It's getting so dreadfully personal!""Alma,you know that I only wish to get at your real feeling in the matter.""And you know that I don't want to let you--especially when I haven't got any real feeling in the matter.But I should think--speaking in the abstract entirely--that if either of those arts was ever going to be in earnest about him,it would want his exclusive devotion for a week at least.""I didn't know,"said Mrs.Leighton,"that he was doing anything now at the others.I thought he was entirely taken up with his work on 'Every Other Week.'""Oh,he is!he is!"

"And you certainly can't say,my dear,that he hasn't been very kind--very useful to you,in that matter."

"And so I ought to have said yes out of gratitude?Thank you,mamma!Ididn't know you held me so cheap."

"You know whether I hold you cheap or not,Alma.I don't want you to cheapen yourself.I don't want you to trifle with any one.I want you to be honest with yourself.""Well,come now,mamma!Suppose you begin.I've been perfectly honest with myself,and I've been honest with Mr.Beaton.I don't care for him,and I've told him I didn't;so he may be supposed to know it.If he comes here after this,he'll come as a plain,unostentatious friend of the family,and it's for you to say whether he shall come in that capacity or not.I hope you won't trifle with him,and let him get the notion that he's coming on any other basis."Mrs.Leighton felt the comfort of the critical attitude far too keenly to abandon it for anything constructive.She only said,"You know very well,Alma,that's a matter I can have nothing to do with.""Then you leave him entirely to me?"

"I hope you will regard his right to candid and open treatment.""He's had nothing but the most open and candid treatment from me,mamma.

It's you that wants to play fast and loose with him.And,to tell you the truth,I believe he would like that a good deal better;I believe that,if there's anything he hates,it's openness and candor."Alma laughed,and put her arms round her mother,who could not help laughing a little,too.