It was partly to escape from this question that he hurried down-town, and decided to spend with the Leightons the hour remaining on his hands before it was time to go to the reception for which he was dressed.  It seemed to him important that he should see Alma Leighton.  After all, it was her charm that was most abiding with him; perhaps it was to be final.  He found himself very happy in his present relations with her.  She had dropped that barrier of pretences and ironical surprise.  It seemed to him that they had gone back to the old ground of common artistic interest which he had found so pleasant the summer before.  Apparently she and her mother had both forgiven his neglect of them in the first months of their stay in New York; he was sure that Mrs. Leighton liked him as well as ever, and, if there was still something a little provisional in Alma’s manner at times, it was something that piqued more than it discouraged; it made him curious, not anxious.

He found the young ladies with Fulkerson when he rang.  He seemed to be amusing them both, and they were both amused beyond the merit of so small a pleasantry, Beaton thought, when Fulkerson said:  “Introduce myself, Mr. Beaton:  Mr. Fulkerson of ‘Every Other Week.’  Think I’ve met you at our place.”  The girls laughed, and Alma explained that her mother was not very well, and would be sorry not to see him.  Then she turned, as he felt, perversely, and went on talking with Fulkerson and left him to Miss Woodburn.

She finally recognized his disappointment:  “Ah don’t often get a chance at you, Mr. Beaton, and Ah’m just goin’ to toak yo’ to death.  Yo’ have been Soath yo’self, and yo’ know ho’ we do toak.”

“I’ve survived to say yes,” Beaton admitted.

“Oh, now, do you think we toak so much mo’ than you do in the No’th?” the young lady deprecated.

“I don’t know.  I only know you can’t talk too much for me.  I should like to hear you say Soath and house and about for the rest of my life.”

“That’s what Ah call raght personal, Mr. Beaton.  Now Ah’m goin’ to be personal, too.”  Miss Woodburn flung out over her lap the square of cloth she was embroidering, and asked him:  “Don’t you think that’s beautiful?  Now, as an awtust—­a great awtust?”

“As a great awtust, yes,” said Beaton, mimicking her accent.  “If I were less than great I might have something to say about the arrangement of colors.  You’re as bold and original as Nature.”

“Really?  Oh, now, do tell me yo’ favo’ite colo’, Mr. Beaton.”

“My favorite color?  Bless my soul, why should I prefer any?  Is blue good, or red wicked?  Do people have favorite colors?” Beaton found himself suddenly interested.

“Of co’se they do,” answered the girl.  “Don’t awtusts?”

“I never heard of one that had—­consciously.”

“Is it possible?  I supposed they all had.  Now mah favo’ite colo’ is gawnet.  Don’t you think it’s a pretty colo’?”