ests through his self-love as in this. He had no one
to blame but himself for what had happened, but he blamed Alma for what
might happen in the future because she shut out the way of retrieval
and return. When be thought of the attitude she had taken toward him, it
seemed incredible, and he was always longing to give her a final chance
to reverse her final judgment. It appeared to him that the time had come
for this now, if ever.

XV.

While we are still young we feel a kind of pride, a sort of fierce
pleasure, in any important experience, such as we have read of or heard
of in the lives of others, no matter how painful. It was this pride,
this pleasure, which Beaton now felt in realizing that the toils of fate
were about him, that between him and a future of which Christine Dryfoos
must be the genius there was nothing but the will, the mood, the fancy
of a girl who had not given him the hope that either could ever again
be in his favor. He had nothing to trust to, in fact, but his knowledge
that he had once had them all; she did not deny that; but neither did
she conceal that he had flung away his power over them, and she had told
him that they never could be his again. A man knows that he can love and
wholly cease to love, not once merely, but several times; he recognizes
the fact in regard to himself, both theoretically and practically; but
in regard to women he cherishes the superstition of the romances that
love is once for all, and forever. It was because Beaton would not
believe that Alma Leighton, being a woman, could put him out of her
heart after suffering him to steal into it, that he now hoped anything
from her, and she had been so explicit when they last spoke of that
affair that he did not hope much. He said to himself that he was going
to cast himself on her mercy, to take whatever chance of life, love, and
work there was in her having the smallest pity on him. If she would have
none, then there was but one thing he could do: marry Christine and go
abroad. He did not see how he could bring this alternative to bear upon
Alma; even if she knew what he would do in case of a final rejection,
he had grounds for fearing she would not care; but he brought it to bear
upon himself, and it nerved him to a desperate courage. He could hardly
wait for evening to come, before he went to see her; when it came, it
seemed to have come too soon. He had wrought himself thoroughly into the
conviction that he was in e