She kept up her music still because she could employ it at the meetings for the entertainment, and, as she hoped, the elevation of her working-women; but she neglected the other aesthetic interests which once occupied her; and, at sight of Beaton talking with her, Mrs. Horn caught at the hope that he might somehow be turned to account in reviving Margaret’s former interest in art.  She asked him if Mr. Wetmore had his classes that winter as usual; and she said she wished Margaret could be induced to go again:  Mr. Wetmore always said that she did not draw very well, but that she had a great deal of feeling for it, and her work was interesting.  She asked, were the Leightons in town again; and she murmured a regret that she had not been able to see anything of them, without explaining why; she said she had a fancy that if Margaret knew Miss Leighton, and what she was doing, it might stimulate her, perhaps.  She supposed Miss Leighton was still going on with her art?  Beaton said, Oh yes, he believed so.

But his manner did not encourage Mrs. Horn to pursue her aims in that direction, and she said, with a sigh, she wished he still had a class; she always fancied that Margaret got more good from his instruction than from any one else’s.

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.