had never quite relinquished, that
they might be something more than aesthetic friends, died in his heart.
She wore black, as she often did; but in spite of its fashion her
dress received a nun-like effect from the pensive absence of her face.
"Decidedly," thought Beaton, "she is far gone in good works."

But he rose, all the same, to meet her on the old level, and he began at
once to talk to her of the subject he had been discussing with her aunt.
He said frankly that they both felt she had unjustifiably turned her
back upon possibilities which she ought not to neglect.

"You know very well," she answered, "that I couldn't do anything in that
way worth the time I should waste on it. Don't talk of it, please. I
suppose my aunt has been asking you to say this, but it's no use. I'm
sorry it's no use, she wishes it so much; but I'm not sorry otherwise.
You can find the pleasure at least of doing good work in it; but I
couldn't find anything in it but a barren amusement. Mr. Wetmore is
right; for me, it's like enjoying an opera, or a ball."

"That's one of Wetmore's phrases. He'd sacrifice anything to them."

She put aside the whole subject with a look. "You were not at Mr.
Dryfoos's the other day. Have you seen them, any of them, lately?"

"I haven't been there for some time, no," said Beaton, evasively. But he
thought if he was to get on to anything, he had better be candid. "Mr.
Dryfoos was at my studio this morning. He's got a queer notion. He wants
me to paint his son's portrait."

She started. "And will you--"

"No, I couldn't do such a thing. It isn't in my way. I told him so. His
son had a beautiful face an antique profile; a sort of early Christian
type; but I'm too much of a pagan for that sort of thing."

"Yes."

"Yes," Beaton continued, not quite liking her assent after he had
invited it. He had his pride in being a pagan, a Greek, but it failed
him in her presence, now; and he wished that she had protested he was
none. "He was a singular creature; a kind of survival; an exile in
our time and place. I don't know: we don't quite expect a saint to be
rustic; but with all his goodness Conrad Dryfoos was a country person.
If he were not dying for a cause you could imagine him milking." Beaton
intended a contempt that came from the bitterness of having himself once
milked the family cow.

His contempt did not reach Miss Vance. "He died for a cause," she said.
"The holiest."

"Of labor?"

"Of peace. He