ough them for his own
baseness. This was the kind of world it was; but he washed his hands of
it. The fault was in human nature, and he reflected with pride that he
had at least not invented human nature; he had not sunk so low as that
yet. The notion amused him; he thought he might get a Satanic epigram out
of it some way. But in the mean time that girl, that wild animal, she
kept visibly, tangibly before him; if he put out his hand he might touch
hers, he might pass his arm round her waist. In Paris, in a set he knew
there, what an effect she would be with that look of hers, and that
beauty, all out of drawing! They would recognize the flame quality in
her. He imagined a joke about her being a fiery spirit, or nymph, naiad,
whatever, from one of her native gas-wells. He began to sketch on a bit
of paper from the table at his elbow vague lines that veiled and revealed
a level, dismal landscape, and a vast flame against an empty sky, and a
shape out of the flame that took on a likeness and floated detached from
it. The sketch ran up the left side of the sheet and stretched across it.
Beaton laughed out. Pretty good to let Fulkerson have that for the cover
of his first number! In black and red it would be effective; it would
catch the eye from the news-stands. He made a motion to throw it on the
fire, but held it back and slid it into the table-drawer, and smoked on.
He saw the dummy with the other sketch in the open drawer which he had
brought away from Fulkerson's in the morning and slipped in there, and he
took it out and looked at it. He made some criticisms in line with his
pencil on it, correcting the drawing here and there, and then he
respected it a little more, though he still smiled at the feminine
quality--a young lady quality.

In spite of his experience the night he called upon the Leightons, Beaton
could not believe that Alma no longer cared for him. She played at having
forgotten him admirably, but he knew that a few months before she had
been very mindful of him. He knew he had neglected them since they came
to New York, where he had led them to expect interest, if not attention;
but he was used to neglecting people, and he was somewhat less used to
being punished for it--punished and forgiven. He felt that Alma had
punished him so thoroughly that she ought to have been satisfied with her
work and to have forgiven him in her heart afterward. He bore no
resentment after the first tingling moments were-past;