If she had been sentimental, or softly reproachful, that would have been
the end; he could not have stood it; he would have had to drop her. But
when she met him on his own ground, and obliged him to be sentimental,
the game was in her hands. Beaton laughed, now, when he thought of that,
and he said to himself that the girl had grown immensely since she had
come to New York; nothing seemed to have been lost upon her; she must
have kept her eyes uncommonly wide open. He noticed that especially in
their talks over her work; she had profited by everything she had seen
and heard; she had all of Wetmore's ideas pat; it amused Beaton to see
how she seized every useful word that he dropped, too, and turned him to
technical account whenever she could. He liked that; she had a great deal
of talent; there was no question of that; if she were a man there could
be no question of her future. He began to construct a future for her; it
included provision for himself, too; it was a common future, in which
their lives and work were united.
He was full of the glow of its prosperity when he met Margaret Vance at
the reception.
The house was one where people might chat a long time together without
publicly committing themselves to an interest in each other except such a
grew out of each other's ideas.
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