Part 33 (1/2)

”No, I state it as a fact. How can you respect such people?”

”You might respect yourself, then,” said the girl. ”Or perhaps that wouldn't be so easy, either.”

”No, it wouldn't. I like to have you say these things to me,” said Beaton, impartially.

”Well, I like to say them,” Alma returned.

”They do me good.”

”Oh, I don't know that that was my motive.”

”There is no one like you--no one,” said Beaton, as if apostrophizing her in her absence. ”To come from that house, with its a.s.sertions of money--you can hear it c.h.i.n.k; you can smell the foul old banknotes; it stifles you--into an atmosphere like this, is like coming into another world.”

”Thank you,” said Alma. ”I'm glad there isn't that unpleasant odor here; but I wish there was a little more of the c.h.i.n.king.”

”No, no! Don't say that!” he implored. ”I like to think that there is one soul uncontaminated by the sense of money in this big, brutal, sordid city.”

”You mean two,” said Alma, with modesty. ”But if you stifle at the Dryfooses', why do you go there?”

”Why do I go?” he mused. ”Don't you believe in knowing all the natures, the types, you can? Those girls are a strange study: the young one is a simple, earthly creature, as common as an oat-field and the other a sort of sylvan life: fierce, flas.h.i.+ng, feline--”

Alma burst out into a laugh. ”What apt alliteration! And do they like being studied? I should think the sylvan life might--scratch.”

”No,” said Beaton, with melancholy absence, ”it only-purrs.”

The girl felt a rising indignation. ”Well, then, Mr. Beaton, I should hope it would scratch, and bite, too. I think you've no business to go about studying people, as you do. It's abominable.”

”Go on,” said the young man. ”That Puritan conscience of yours! It appeals to the old Covenanter strain in me--like a voice of pre-existence. Go on--”

”Oh, if I went on I should merely say it was not only abominable, but contemptible.”

”You could be my guardian angel, Alma,” said the young man, making his eyes more and more slumbrous and dreamy.

”Stuff! I hope I have a soul above b.u.t.tons!”

He smiled, as she rose, and followed her across the room. ”Good-night; Mr. Beaton,” she said.

Miss Woodburn and Fulkerson came in from the other room. ”What! You're not going, Beaton?”

”Yes; I'm going to a reception. I stopped in on my way.”

”To kill time,” Alma explained.

”Well,” said Fulkerson, gallantly, ”this is the last place I should like to do it. But I guess I'd better be going, too. It has sometimes occurred to me that there is such a thing as staying too late. But with Brother Beaton, here, just starting in for an evening's amus.e.m.e.nt, it does seem a little early yet. Can't you urge me to stay, somebody?”

The two girls laughed, and Miss Woodburn said:

”Mr. Beaton is such a b.u.t.terfly of fas.h.i.+on! Ah wish Ah was on mah way to a pawty. Ah feel quahte envious.”

”But he didn't say it to make you,” Alma explained, with meek softness.