Beaton saw that she was nervous; he made his reflection that she was altogether too far gone in good works for the fine arts to reach her; he began to think how he could turn her primitive Christianity to the account of his modern heathenism.  He had no deeper design than to get flattered back into his own favor far enough to find courage for some sort of decisive step.  In his heart he was trying to will whether he should or should not go back to Dryfoos’s house.  It could not be from the caprice that had formerly taken him; it must be from a definite purpose; again he realized this.  “Of course; you are right,” he said.  “I wish I could have answered that old man differently.  I fancy he was bound up in his son, though he quarrelled with him, and crossed him.  But I couldn’t do it; it wasn’t possible.”  He said to himself that if she said “No,” now, he would be ruled by her agreement with him; and if she disagreed with him, he would be ruled still by the chance, and would go no more to the Dryfooses’.  He found himself embarrassed to the point of blushing when she said nothing, and left him, as it were, on his own hands.  “I should like to have given him that comfort; I fancy he hasn’t much comfort in life; but there seems no comfort in me.”

He dropped his head in a fit attitude for compassion; but she poured no pity upon it.

“There is no comfort for us in ourselves,” she said.  “It’s hard to get outside; but there’s only despair within.  When we think we have done something for others, by some great effort, we find it’s all for our own vanity.”

“Yes,” said Beaton.  “If I could paint pictures for righteousness’ sake, I should have been glad to do Conrad Dryfoos for his father.  I felt sorry for him.  Did the rest seem very much broken up?  You saw them all?”

“Not all.  Miss Dryfoos was ill, her sister said.  It’s hard to tell how much people suffer.  His mother seemed bewildered.  The younger sister is a simple creature; she looks like him; I think she must have something of his spirit.”

“Not much spirit of any kind, I imagine,” said Beaton.  “But she’s amiably material.  Did they say Miss Dryfoos was seriously ill?”

“No.  I supposed she might be prostrated by her brother’s death.”

“Does she seem that kind of person to you, Miss Vance?” asked Beaton.

“I don’t know.  I haven’t tried to see so much of them as I might, the past winter.  I was not sure about her when I met her; I’ve never seen much of people, except in my own set, and the—­very poor.  I have been afraid I didn’t understand her.  She may have a kind of pride that would not let her do herself justice.”

Beaton felt the unconscious dislike in the endeavor of praise.  “Then she seems to you like a person whose life—­its trials, its chances—­would make more of than she is now?”

“I didn’t say that.  I can’t judge of her at all; but where we don’t know, don’t you think we ought to imagine the best?”