The prospect was too alluring. Laura was not an advanced female, with a mission; she was simply a young and lovely woman, capable of the noblest action and feeling should the occasion demand them, but naturally luxurious and beauty-loving in her tastes, and inclined to shun the prosaic side of life.
She made Beaumont feel that she also was critical and exacting. She had lived too long under Mrs. Arnot's influence to be satisfied with a man who merely lived for the pleasure he could get out of each successive day. He saw that she demanded that he should have a purpose and aim in life, and he skilfully met this requirement by frequently descanting on aesthetic culture as the great lever which could move the world, and by suggesting that the great question of his future was how he could best bring this culture to the people. As a Christian, she took issue with him as to its being the great lever, but was enthusiastic over it as a most powerful means of elevating the masses, and she often found herself dreaming over how much a man gifted with Mr. Beaumont's exquisite taste and large wealth could do by placing within the reach of the multitude objects of elevating art and beauty.
By a fine instinct she felt, rather than saw, that Mrs. Arnot did not specially like the seemingly faultless man, and was led to believe that her aunt's ideal knight was to be found among some of the heartier young men who were bent on doing good in the old-fashioned ways; and, with a tendency not unnatural in one so young and romantic, she thought of her aunt as being a bit old-fashioned and prosaic herself. In her youthful and ardent imagination Beaumont came to fill more and more definitely her ideal of the modern knight--a man who summed up within himself the perfect culture of his age, and who was proposing to diffuse that culture as widely as possible.
"You do not admire Mr. Beaumont," said Laura a little abruptly to her aunt one day.
"You are mistaken, Laura; I do admire him very much."
"Well, you do not like him, then, to speak more correctly; he takes no hold upon your sympathies."
"There is some truth in your last remark, I must admit. For some reason he does not. Perhaps it is my fault, and I have sometimes asked myself, Is Mr. Beaumont capable of strong affection or self-sacrificing action? has he much heart?"
"I think you do him injustice in these respects," said Laura warmly.
"Quite probably," replied Mrs. Arnot, adding with a mischievous smile, which brought the rich color to her niece's cheeks, "Perhaps you are in a better position to judge of his possession of these qualities than I am. Thus far he has given me only the opportunity of echoing society's verdict--He is a perfect gentleman. I wish he were a better Christian," she concluded gravely.