He said that she was very good; but there was really nobody who knew half as much as Wetmore, or could make any one understand half as much.  Mrs. Horn was afraid, she said, that Mr. Wetmore’s terrible sincerity discouraged Margaret; he would not let her have any illusions about the outcome of what she was doing; and did not Mr. Beaton think that some illusion was necessary with young people?  Of course, it was very nice of Mr. Wetmore to be so honest, but it did not always seem to be the wisest thing.  She begged Mr. Beaton to try to think of some one who would be a little less severe.  Her tone assumed a deeper interest in the people who were coming up and going away, and Beaton perceived that he was dismissed.

He went away with vanity flattered by the sense of having been appealed to concerning Margaret, and then he began to chafe at what she had said of Wetmore’s honesty, apropos of her wish that he still had a class himself.  Did she mean, confound her? that he was insincere, and would let Miss Vance suppose she had more talent than she really had?  The more Beaton thought of this, the more furious he became, and the more he was convinced that something like it had been unconsciously if not consciously in her mind.  He framed some keen retorts, to the general effect that with the atmosphere of illusion preserved so completely at home, Miss Vance hardly needed it in her art studies.  Having just determined never to go near Mrs. Horn’s Thursdays again, he decided to go once more, in order to plant this sting in her capacious but somewhat callous bosom; and he planned how he would lead the talk up to the point from which he should launch it.

In the mean time he felt the need of some present solace, such as only unqualified worship could give him; a cruel wish to feel his power in some direction where, even if it were resisted, it could not be overcome, drove him on.  That a woman who was to Beaton the embodiment of artificiality should intimate, however innocently—­the innocence made it all the worse—­that he was less honest than Wetmore, whom he knew to be so much more honest, was something that must be retaliated somewhere before his self-respect could be restored.  It was only five o’clock, and he went on up-town to the Dryfooses’, though he had been there only the night before last.  He asked for the ladies, and Mrs. Mandel received him.

“The young ladies are down-town shopping,” she said, “but I am very glad of the opportunity of seeing you alone, Mr. Beaton.  You know I lived several years in Europe.”

“Yes,” said Beaton, wondering what that could have to do with her pleasure in seeing him alone.  “I believe so?” He involuntarily gave his words the questioning inflection.

“You have lived abroad, too, and so you won’t find what I am going to ask so strange.  Mr. Beaton, why do you come so much to this house?” Mrs. Mandel bent forward with an aspect of ladylike interest and smiled.