His contempt did not reach Miss Vance. "He died for a cause," she said.
"The holiest."

"Of labor?"

"Of peace. He was there to persuade the strikers to be quiet and go
home."

"I haven't been quite sure," said Beaton. "But in any case he had no
business there. The police were on hand to do the persuading."

"I can't let you talk so!" cried the girl. "It's shocking! Oh, I know
it's the way people talk, and the worst is that in the sight of the world
it's the right way. But the blessing on the peacemakers is not for the
policemen with their clubs."

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 bewilder