"
"Wetmore has been talking to you about me. He would sacrifice his best
friend to a phrase. He spends his time making them."
"He's made some very pretty ones about you."
"Like the one you just quoted?"
"No, not exactly. He admires you ever so much. He says" She stopped,
teasingly.
"What?"
"He says you could be almost anything you wished, if you didn't wish to
be everything."
"That sounds more like the school of Wetmore. That's what you say, Alma.
Well, if there were something you wished me to be, I could be it."
"We might adapt Kingsley: 'Be good, sweet man, and let who will be
clever.'" He could not help laughing. She went on: "I always thought that
was the most patronizing and exasperating thing ever addressed to a human
girl; and we've had to stand a good deal in our time. I should like to
have it applied to the other 'sect' a while. As if any girl that was a
girl would be good if she had the remotest chance of being clever."
"Then you wouldn't wish me to be good?" Beaton asked.
"Not if you were a girl."
"You want to shock me. Well, I suppose I deserve it. But if I were
one-tenth part as good as you are, Alma, I should have a lighter heart
than I have now. I know that I'm fickle, but I'm not false, as you think
I am.
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