till the straight highway was traversed and
well-nigh lost under their tangle. To do whatever one likes is finally to
do nothing that one likes, even though one continues to do what one will;
but Kendricks, though a sage of twenty-seven, was still too young to
understand this.

Beaton scarcely understood it himself, perhaps because he was not yet
twenty-seven. He only knew that his will was somehow sick; that it spent
itself in caprices, and brought him no happiness from the fulfilment of
the most vehement wish. But he was aware that his wishes grew less and
less vehement; he began to have a fear that some time he might have none
at all. It seemed to him that if he could once do something that was
thoroughly distasteful to himself, he might make a beginning in the right
direction; but when he tried this on a small scale, it failed, and it
seemed stupid. Some sort of expiation was the thing he needed, he was
sure; but he could not think of anything in particular to expiate; a man
could not expiate his temperament, and his temperament was what Beaton
decided to be at fault. He perceived that it went deeper than even fate
would have gone; he could have fulfilled an evil destiny and had done
with it, however terrible. His trouble was that he could not escape from
himself; and, for the most part, he justified himself in refusing to try.
After he had come to that distinct understanding with Alma Leighton, and
experienced the relief it really gave him, he thought for a while that if
it had fallen out otherwise, and she had put him in charge of her
destiny, he might have been better able to manage his own. But as it was,
he could only drift, and let all other things take their course. It was
necessary that he should go to see her afterward, to show her that he was
equal to the event; but he did not go so often, and he went rather
oftener to the Dryfooses; it was not easy to see Margaret Vance, except
on the society terms. With much sneering and scorning, he fulfilled the
duties to Mrs. Horn without which he knew he should be dropped from her
list; but one might go to many of her Thursdays without getting many
words with her niece. Beaton hardly knew whether he wanted many; the girl
kept the charm of her innocent stylishness; but latterly she wanted to
talk more about social questions than about the psychical problems that
young people usually debate so personally. Son of the working-people as
he was, Beaton had never cared anyt