第89章 PART THIRD(20)
and,Would she introduce him?Mela said she would,the first chance she got;and she added,They would be much pleased to have him call.She felt herself to be having a beautiful time,and she got directly upon such intimate terms with the student of human nature that she laughed with him about some peculiarities of his,such as his going so far about to ask things he wanted to know from her;she said she never did believe in beating about the bush much.She had noticed the same thing in Miss Vance when she came to call that day;and when the young man owned that he came rather a good deal to Mrs.Horn's house,she asked him,Well,what sort of a girl was Miss Vance,anyway,and where did he suppose she had met her brother?The student of human nature could not say as to this,and as to Miss Vance he judged it safest to treat of the non-society side of her character,her activity in charity,her special devotion to the work among the poor on the East Side,which she personally engaged in.
"Oh,that's where Conrad goes,too!"Mela interrupted."I'll bet anything that's where she met him.I wisht I could tell Christine!
But I suppose she would want to kill me,if I was to speak to her now."The student of human nature said,politely,"Oh,shall I take you to her?"Mela answered,"I guess you better not!"with a laugh so significant that he could not help his inferences concerning both Christine's absorption in the person she was talking with and the habitual violence of her temper.He made note of how Mela helplessly spoke of all her family by their names,as if he were already intimate with them;he fancied that if he could get that in skillfully,it would be a valuable color in his study;the English lord whom she should astonish with it began to form himself out of the dramatic nebulosity in his mind,and to whirl on a definite orbit in American society.But he was puzzled to decide whether Mela's willingness to take him into her confidence on short notice was typical or personal:the trait of a daughter of the natural-gas millionaire,or a foible of her own.
Beaton talked with Christine the greater part of the evening that was left after the concert.He was very grave,and took the tone of a fatherly friend;he spoke guardedly of the people present,and moderated the severity of some of Christine's judgments of their looks and costumes.He did this out of a sort of unreasoned allegiance to Margaret,whom he was in the mood of wishing to please by being very kind and good,as she always was.He had the sense also of atoning by this behavior for some reckless things he had said before that to Christine;he put on a sad,reproving air with her,and gave her the feeling of being held in check.
She chafed at it,and said,glancing at Margaret in talk with her brother,"I don't think Miss Vance is so very pretty,do you?""I never think whether she's pretty or not,"said Becton,with dreamy,affectation."She is merely perfect.Does she know your brother?""So she says.I didn't suppose Conrad ever went anywhere,except to tenement-houses.""It might have been there,"Becton suggested."She goes among friendless people everywhere.""Maybe that's the reason she came to see us!"said Christine.
Becton looked at her with his smouldering eyes,and felt the wish to say,"Yes,it was exactly that,"but he only allowed himself to deny the possibility of any such motive in that case.He added:"I am so glad you know her,Miss Dryfoos.I never met Miss Vance without feeling myself better and truer,somehow;or the wish to be so.""And you think we might be improved,too?"Christine retorted."Well,I must say you're not very flattering,Mr.Becton,anyway."Becton would have liked to answer her according to her cattishness,with a good clawing sarcasm that would leave its smart in her pride;but he was being good,and he could not change all at once.Besides,the girl's attitude under the social honor done her interested him.He was sure she had never been in such good company before,but he could see that she was not in the least affected by the experience.He had told her who this person and that was;and he saw she had understood that the names were of consequence;but she seemed to feel her equality with them all.
Her serenity was not obviously akin to the savage stoicism in which Beaton hid his own consciousness of social inferiority;but having won his way in the world so far by his talent,his personal quality,he did not conceive the simple fact in her case.Christine was self-possessed because she felt that a knowledge of her father's fortune had got around,and she had the peace which money gives to ignorance;but Beaton attributed her poise to indifference to social values.This,while he inwardly sneered at it,avenged him upon his own too keen sense of them,and,together with his temporary allegiance to Margaret's goodness,kept him from retaliating Christine's vulgarity.He said,"I don't see how that could be,"and left the question of flattery to settle itself.
The people began to go away,following each other up to take leave of Mrs.Horn.Christine watched them with unconcern,and either because she would not be governed by the general movement,or because she liked being with Beaton,gave no sign of going.Mela was still talking to the student of human nature,sending out her laugh in deep gurgles amid the unimaginable confidences she was making him about herself,her family,the staff of 'Every Other Week,'Mrs.Mandel,and the kind of life they had all led before she came to them.He was not a blind devotee of art for art's sake,and though he felt that if one could portray Mela just as she was she would be the richest possible material,he was rather ashamed to know some of the things she told him;and he kept looking anxiously about for a chance of escape.The company had reduced itself to the Dryfoos groups and some friends of Mrs.Horn's who had the right to linger,when Margaret crossed the room with Conrad to Christine and Beaton.