“You mean two,” said Alma, with modesty. “But if you stifle at the Dryfooses', why do you go there?”
“Why do I go?” he mused. “Don't you believe in knowing all the natures, the types, you can? Those girls are a strange study: the young one is a simple, earthly creature, as common as an oat-field and the other a sort of sylvan life: fierce, flashing, feline—”
Alma burst out into a laugh. “What apt alliteration! And do they like being studied? I should think the sylvan life might—scratch.”
“No,” said Beaton, with melancholy absence, “it only-purrs.”
The girl felt a rising indignation. “Well, then, Mr. Beaton, I should hope it would scratch, and bite, too. I think you've no business to go about studying people, as you do. It's abominable.”
“Go on,” said the young man. “That Puritan conscience of yours! It appeals to the old Covenanter strain in me—like a voice of pre-existence. Go on—”
“Oh, if I went on I should merely say it was not only abominable, but contemptible.”
“You could be my guardian angel, Alma,” said the young man, making his eyes more and more slumbrous and dreamy.
“Stuff! I hope I have a soul above buttons!”
He smiled, as she rose, and followed her across the room. “Good-night; Mr. Beaton,” she said.