Dryfoos's the other day. Have you seen them, any of them, lately?"
"I haven't been there for some time, no," said Beaton, evasively. But he
thought if he was to get on to anything, he had better be candid. "Mr.
Dryfoos was at my studio this morning. He's got a queer notion. He wants
me to paint his son's portrait."
She started. "And will you--"
"No, I couldn't do such a thing. It isn't in my way. I told him so. His
son had a beautiful face an antique profile; a sort of early Christian
type; but I'm too much of a pagan for that sort of thing."
"Yes."
"Yes," Beaton continued, not quite liking her assent after he had invited
it. He had his pride in being a pagan, a Greek, but it failed him in her
presence, now; and he wished that she had protested he was none. "He was
a singular creature; a kind of survival; an exile in our time and place.
I don't know: we don't quite expect a saint to be rustic; but with all
his goodness Conrad Dryfoos was a country person. If he were not dying
for a cause you could imagine him milking." Beaton intended a contempt
that came from the bitterness of having himself once milked the family
cow.
His contempt did not reach Miss Vance. "He died for a cause," she said.
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