He let her say it.



CHAPTER XVI.

"LOVE AND TUPPER."

"Whenever Vernon liked" proved to be the very next day. He was waiting outside the door of the atelier when Betty, in charcoal-smeared pinafore, left the afternoon class.

"Won't you dine with me somewhere to-night?" said he.

"I am going to Garnier's," she said. Not even for him, friend of hers and affianced of another as he might be, would she yet break the rule of a life Paula had instituted.

"Fallen as I am," he answered gaily, "I am not yet so low as to be incapable of dining at Garnier's."

So when Betty passed through the outer room of the restaurant and along the narrow little passage where eyes and nose attest strongly the neighborhood of the kitchen, she was attended by a figure that aroused the spontaneous envy of all her acquaintances. In the inner room where they dined it was remarked that such a figure would be more at home at Durand's or the Cafe de Paris than at Garnier's. That night the first breath of criticism assailed Betty. To afficher oneself with a fellow-student—a "type," Polish or otherwise—that was all very well, but with an obvious Boulevardier, a creature from the other side, this dashed itself against the conventions of the Artistic Quartier. And conventions—even of such quarters—are iron-strong.

"Fiddle-de-dee," said Miss Voscoe to her companions' shocked comments, "they were raised in the same village, or something. He used to give her peanuts when he was in short jackets, and she used to halve her candies with him. Friend of childhood's hour, that's all. And besides he's one of the presidents of our Sketch Club."

But all Garnier's marked that whereas the habitues contented themselves with an omelette aux champignons, saute potatoes and a Petit Suisse, or the like modest menu, Betty's new friend ordered for himself, and for her, "a real regular dinner," beginning with hors d'oeuvre and ending with "mendiants." "Mendiants" are raisins and nuts, the nearest to dessert that at this season you could get at Garniers. Also he passed over with smiling disrelish the little carafons of weak wine for which one pays five sous if the wine be red, and six if it be white. He went out and interviewed Madame at her little desk among the flowers and nuts and special sweet dishes, and it was a bottle of real wine with a real cork to be drawn that adorned the table between him and Betty. To her the whole thing was of the nature of a festival. She enjoyed the little sensation created by her companion; and the knowledge which she thought she had of his relations to Lady St. Craye absolved her of any fear that in dining with him tete-a-tete she was doing anything "not quite nice." To her the thought of his engagement was as good or as bad as a chaperon. For Betty's innocence was deeply laid, and had survived the shock of all the waves that had beaten against it since her coming to Paris. It was more than innocence, it was a very honest, straightforward childish naivete.

"It's almost the same as if he was married," she said: "there can't be any harm in having dinner with a man who's married—or almost married."

So she enjoyed herself. Vernon exerted himself to amuse her. But he was surprised to find that he was not so happy as he had expected to be. It was good that Betty had permitted him to dine with her alone, but it was flat. After dinner he took her to the Odeon, and she said good-night to him with a lighter heart than she had known since Paula left her.

In these rooms now sometimes it was hard to keep one's eyes shut. And to keep her eyes shut was now Betty's aim in life, even more than the art for which she pretended to herself that she lived. For now that Paula had gone the deception of her father would have seemed less justifiable, had she ever allowed herself to face the thought of it for more than a moment; but she used to fly the thought and go round to one of the girls' rooms to talk about Art with a big A, and forget how little she liked or admired Betty Desmond.

She was now one of a circle of English, American and German students. The Sketch Club had brought her eight new friends, and they went about in parties by twos and threes, or even sevens and eights, and Betty went with them, enjoying the fun of it all, which she liked, and missing all that she would not have liked if she had seen it. But Vernon was the only man with whom she dined tete-a-tete or went to the theatre alone.

To him the winter passed in a maze of doubt and self-contempt. He could not take what the gods held out: could not draw from his constant companionship of Betty the pleasure which his artistic principles, his trained instincts taught him to expect. He had now all the tete-a-tetes he cared to ask for, and he hated that it should be so. He almost wanted her to be in a position where such things should be impossible to her. He wanted her to be guarded, watched, sheltered. And he had never wanted that for any woman in his life before.

"I shall be wishing her in a convent next," he said, "with high walls with spikes on the top. Then I should walk round and round the outside of the walls and wish her out. But I should not be able to get at her. And nothing else would either."

Lady St. Craye was more charming than ever. Vernon knew it and sometimes he deliberately tried to let her charm him. But though he perceived her charm he could not feel it. Always before he had felt what he chose to feel. Or perhaps—he hated the thought and would not look at it—perhaps all his love affairs had been just pictures, perhaps he had never felt anything but an artistic pleasure in their grouping and lighting. Perhaps now he was really feeling natural human emotion, didn't they call it? But that was just it. He wasn't. What he felt was resentment, dissatisfaction, a growing inability to control events or to prearrange his sensations. He felt that he himself was controlled. He felt like a wild creature caught in a trap. The trap was not gilded, and he was very uncomfortable in it. Even the affairs of others almost ceased to amuse him. He could hardly call up a cynical smile at Lady St. Craye's evident misapprehension of those conscientious efforts of his to be charmed by her. He was only moved to a very faint amusement when one day Bobbie Temple, smoking in the studio, broke a long silence abruptly to say:

"Look here. Someone was saying the other day that a man can be in love with two women at a time. Do you think it's true?"

"Two? Yes. Or twenty."

"Then it's not love," said Temple wisely.

"They call it love," said Vernon. "I don't know what they mean by it. What do you mean?"

"By love?"

"Yes."

"I don't exactly know," said Temple slowly. "I suppose it's wanting to be with a person, and thinking about nothing else. And thinking they're the most beautiful and all that. And going over everything that they've ever said to you, and wanting—"

"Wanting?"

"Well, I suppose if it's really love you want to marry them."

"You can't marry them, you know," said Vernon; "at least not simultaneously. That's just it. Well?"

"Well that's all. If that's not love, what is?"

"I'm hanged if I know," said Vernon.

"I thought you knew all about those sort of things."

"So did I," said Vernon to himself. Aloud he said:

"If you want a philosophic definition: it's passion transfigured by tenderness—at least I've often said so."

"But can you feel that for two people at once?"

"Or," said Vernon, getting interested in his words, "it's tenderness intoxicated by passion, and not knowing that it's drunk—"

"But can you feel that for two—"

"Oh, bother," said Vernon, "every sort of fool-fancy calls itself love. There's the pleasure of pursuit—there's vanity, there's the satisfaction of your own amour-propre, there's desire, there's intellectual attraction, there's the love of beauty, there's the artist's joy in doing what you know you can do well, and getting a pretty woman for sole audience. You might feel one or two or twenty of these things for one woman, and one or two or twenty different ones for another. But if you mean do you love two women in the same way, I say no. Thank Heaven it's new every time."

"It mayn't be the same way," said Temple, "but it's the same thing to you—if you feel you can't bear to give either of them up."

"Well, then, you can marry one and keep on with the other. Or be 'friends' with both and marry neither. Or cut the whole show and go to the Colonies."

"Then you have to choose between being unhappy or being a blackguard."

"My good chap, that's the situation in which our emotions are always landing us—our confounded emotions and the conventions of Society."

"And how are you to know whether the thing's love—or—all those other things?"

"You don't know: you can't know till it's too late for your knowing to matter. Marriage is like spinach. You can't tell that you hate it till you've tried it. Only—"

"Well?"

"I think I've heard it said," Vernon voiced his own sudden conviction, very carelessly, "that love wants to give and passion wants to take. Love wants to possess the beloved object—and to make her happy. Desire wants possession too—but the happiness is to be for oneself; and if there's not enough happiness for both so much the worse. If I'm talking like a Sunday School book you've brought it on yourself."

"I like it," said Temple.

"Well, since the Dissenting surplice has fallen on me, I'll give you a test. I believe that the more you love a woman the less your thoughts will dwell on the physical side of the business. You want to take care of her."

"Yes," said Temple.

"And then often," Vernon went on, surprised to find that he wanted to help the other in his soul-searchings, "if a chap's not had much to do with women—the women of our class, I mean—he gets a bit dazed with them. They're all so nice, confound them. If a man felt he was falling in love with two women at once, and he had the tiresome temperament that takes these things seriously, it wouldn't be a bad thing for him to go away into the country, and moon about for a few weeks, and see which was the one that bothered his brain most. Then he'd know where he was, and not be led like a lamb to the slaughter by the wrong one. They can't both get him, you know, unless his intentions are strictly dishonourable."

"I wasn't putting the case that either of them wished to get him," said Temple carefully.

Vernon nodded.

"Of course not. The thing simplifies itself wonderfully if neither of them wants to get him. Even if they both do, matters are less complicated. It's when only one of them wants him that it's the very devil for a man not to be sure what he wants. That's very clumsily put—what I mean is—"

"I see what you mean," said Temple impatiently.

"—It's the devil for him because then he lets himself drift and the one who wants him collars him and then of course she always turns out to be the one he didn't want. My observations are as full of wants as an advertisement column. But the thing to do in all relations of life is to make up your mind what it is that you do want, and then to jolly well see that you get it. What I want is a pipe."

He filled and lighted one.

"You talk," said Temple slowly, "as though a man could get anyone—I mean anything, he wanted."

"So he can, my dear chap, if he only wants her badly enough."

"Badly enough?"

"Badly enough to make the supreme sacrifice to get her."

"?" Temple enquired.

"Marriage," Vernon answered; "there's only one excuse for marriage."

"Excuse?"

"Excuse. And that excuse is that one couldn't help it. The only excuse one will have to offer, some day, to the recording angel, for all one's other faults and follies. A man who can help getting married, and doesn't, deserves all he gets."

"I don't agree with you in the least," said Temple,—"about marriage, I mean. A man ought to want to get married—"

"To anybody? Without its being anybody in particular?"

"Yes," said Temple stoutly. "If he gets to thirty without wanting to marry any one in particular, he ought to look about till he finds some one he does want. It's the right and proper thing to marry and have kiddies."

"Oh, if you're going to be Patriarchal," said Vernon. "What a symbolic dialogue! We begin with love and we end with marriage! There's the tragedy of romance, in a nut-shell. Yes, life's a beastly rotten show, and the light won't last more than another two hours."



"Your hints are always as delicate as gossamer," said Temple. "Don't throw anything at me. I'm going."

He went, leaving his secret in Vernon's hands.

"Poor old Temple! That's the worst of walking carefully all your days: you do come such an awful cropper when you do come one. Two women. The Jasmine lady must have been practising on his poor little heart. Heigh-ho, I wish she could do as much for me! And the other one? Her—I suppose."

The use of the pronoun, the disuse of the grammar pulled him up short.

"By Jove," he said, "that's what people say when—But I'm not in love—with anybody. I want to work."

But he didn't work. He seldom did now. And when he did the work was not good. His easel held most often the portrait of Betty that had been begun at Long Barton—unfinished, but a disquieting likeness. He walked up and down his room not thinking, but dreaming. His dreams took him to the warren, in the pure morning light; he saw Betty; he told himself what he had said, what she had said.

"And it was I who advised her to come to Paris. If only I'd known then—"

He stopped and asked himself what he knew now that he had not known then, refused himself the answer, and went to call on Lady St. Craye.

Christmas came and went; the black winds of January swept the Boulevards, and snow lay white on the walls of court and garden. Betty's life was full now.

The empty cage that had opened its door to love at Long Barton had now other occupants. Ambition was beginning to grow its wing feathers. She could draw—at least some day she would be able to draw. Already she had won a prize with a charcoal study of a bare back. But she did not dare to name this to her father, and when he wrote to ask what was the subject of her prize drawing she replied with misleading truth that it was a study from nature. His imagination pictured a rustic cottage, a water-wheel, a castle and mountains in the distance and cows and a peasant in the foreground.

But though her life was now crowded with new interests that first-comer was not ousted. Only he had changed his plumage and she called him Friendship. She blushed sometimes and stamped her foot when she remembered those meetings in the summer mornings, her tremors, her heart-beats. And oh, the "drivel" she had written in her diary!

"Girls ought never to be allowed to lead that 'sheltered home life,'" she said to Miss Voscoe, "with nothing real in it. It makes your mind all swept and garnished and then you hurry to fill it up with rubbish."

"That's so," said her friend.

"If ever I have a daughter," said Betty, "she shall set to work at something definite the very instant she leaves school—if it's only Hebrew or algebra. Not just Parish duties that she didn't begin, and doesn't want to go on with. But something that's her own work."

"You're beginning to see straight. I surmised you would by and by. But don't you go to the other end of the see-saw, Miss Daisy-Face!"

"What do you mean?" asked Betty. It was the morning interval when students eat patisserie out of folded papers. The two were on the window ledge of the Atelier, looking down on the convent garden where already the buds were breaking to green leaf.

"Why, there's room for the devil even if your flat ain't swept and garnished. He folds up mighty small, and gets into less space than a poppy-seed."

"What do you mean?" asked Betty again.

"I mean that Vernon chap," said Miss Voscoe down-rightly. "I told you to change partners every now and then. But with you it's that Vernon this week and last week and the week after next."

"I've known him longer than I have the others, and I like him," said Betty.

"Oh, he's all right; fine and dandy!" replied Miss Voscoe. "He's a big man, too, in his own line. Not the kind you expect to see knocking about at a students' cremerie. Does he give you lessons?"

"He did at home," said Betty.

"Take care he doesn't teach you what's the easiest thing in creation to learn about a man."

"What's that?" Betty did not like to have to ask the question.

"Why, how not to be able to do without him, of course," said Miss Voscoe.

"You're quite mistaken," said Betty eagerly: "one of the reasons I don't mind going about with him so much is that he's engaged to be married."

"Acquainted with the lady?"

"Yes," said Betty, sheltering behind the convention that an introduction at a tea-party constitutes acquaintanceship. She was glad Miss Voscoe had not asked her if she knew Lady St. Craye.

"Oh, well"—Miss Voscoe jumped up and shook the flakes of pastry off her pinafore—"if she doesn't mind, I guess I've got no call to. But why don't you give that saint in the go-to-hell collar a turn?"

"Meaning?"

"Mr. Temple. He admires you no end. He'd be always in your pocket if you'd let him. He's worth fifty of the other man as a man, if he isn't as an artist. I keep my eyes skinned—and the Sketch Club gives me a chance to tot them both up. I guess I can size up a man some. The other man isn't fast. That's how it strikes me."

"Fast?" echoed Betty, bewildered.

"Fast dye: fast colour. I suspicion he'd go wrong a bit in the wash. Temple's fast colour, warranted not to run."

"I know," said Betty, "but I don't care for the colour, and I'm rather tired of the pattern."

"I wish you'd tell me which of the two was the three-polite-word man."

"I know you do. But surely you see now?"

"You're too cute. Just as likely it's the Temple one, and that's why you're so sick of the pattern by now."

"Didn't I tell you you were clever?" laughed Betty.

But, all the same, next evening when Vernon called to take her to dinner, she said:

"Couldn't we go somewhere else? I'm tired of Garnier's."

Vernon was tired of Garnier's, too.

"Do you know Thirion's?" he said. "Thirion's in the Boulevard St. Germain, Thirion's where Du Maurier used to go, and Thackeray, and all sorts of celebrated people; and where the host treats you like a friend, and the waiter like a brother?"

"I should love to be treated like a waiter's brother. Do let's go," said Betty.

"He's a dream of a waiter," Vernon went on as they turned down the lighted slope of the Rue de Rennes, "has a voice like a trumpet, and takes a pride in calling twenty orders down the speaking-tube in one breath, ending up with a shout. He never makes a mistake either. Shall we walk, or take the tram, or a carriage?"

The Fate who was amusing herself by playing with Betty's destiny had sent Temple to call on Lady St. Craye that afternoon, and Lady St. Craye had seemed bored, so bored that she had hardly appeared to listen to Temple's talk, which, duly directed by her quite early into the channel she desired for it, flowed in a constant stream over the name, the history, the work, the personality of Vernon. When at last the stream ebbed Lady St. Craye made a pretty feint of stifling a yawn.

"Oh, how horrid I am!" she cried with instant penitence, "and how very rude you will think me! I think I have the blues to-day, or, to be more French and more poetic, the black butterflies. It is so sweet of you to have let me talk to you. I know I've been as stupid as an owl. Won't you stay and dine with me? I'll promise to cheer up if you will."

Mr. Temple would, more than gladly.

"Or no," Lady St. Craye went on, "that'll be dull for you, and perhaps even for me if I begin to think I'm boring you. Couldn't we do something desperate—dine at a Latin Quarter restaurant for instance? What was that place you were telling me of, where the waiter has a wonderful voice and makes the orders he shouts down the tube sound like the recitative of the basso at the Opera."

"Thirion's," said Temple; "but it wasn't I, it was Vernon."

"Thirion's, that's it!" Lady St. Craye broke in before Vernon's name left his lips. "Would you like to take me there to dine, Mr. Temple?"

It appeared that Mr. Temple would like it of all things.

"Then I'll go and put on my hat," said she and trailed her sea-green tea-gown across the room. At the door she turned to say: "It will be fun, won't it?"—and to laugh delightedly, like a child who is promised a treat.

That was how it happened that Lady St. Craye, brushing her dark furs against the wall of Thirion's staircase, came, followed by Temple, into the room where Betty and Vernon, their heads rather close together, were discussing the menu.

This was what Lady St. Craye had thought of more than a little. Yet it was not what she had expected. Vernon, perhaps, yes: or the girl. But not Vernon and the girl together. Not now. At her very first visit. It was not for a second that she hesitated. Temple had not even had time to see who it was to whom she spoke before she had walked over to the two, and greeted them.

"How perfectly delightful!" she said. "Miss Desmond, I've been meaning to call on you, but it's been so cold, and I've been so cross, I've called on nobody. Ah, Mr. Vernon, you too?"

She looked at the vacant chair near his, and Vernon had to say:

"You'll join us, of course?"

So the two little parties made one party, and one of the party was angry and annoyed, and no one of the party was quite pleased, and all four concealed what they felt, and affected what they did not feel, with as much of the tact of the truly well-bred as each could call up. In this polite exercise Lady St. Craye was easily first.

She was charming to Temple, she was very nice to Betty, and she spoke to Vernon with a delicate, subtle, faint suggestion of proprietorship in her tone. At least that was how it seemed to Betty. To Temple it seemed that she was tacitly apologising to an old friend for having involuntarily broken up a dinner a deux. To Vernon her tone seemed to spell out an all but overmastering jealousy proudly overmastered. All that pretty fiction of there being now no possibility of sentiment between him and her flickered down and died. And with it the interest that he had felt in her. "She have unexplored reserves? Bah!" he told himself, "she is just like the rest." He felt that she had not come from the other side of the river just to dine with Temple. He knew she had been looking for him. And the temptation assailed him to reward her tender anxiety by devoting himself wholly to Betty. Then he remembered what he had let Betty believe, as to the relations in which he stood to this other woman.

His face lighted up with a smile of answering tenderness. Without neglecting Betty he seemed to lay the real homage of his heart at the feet of that heart's lady.

"By Jove," he thought, as the dark, beautiful eyes met his in a look of more tenderness than he had seen in them this many a day, "if only she knew how she's playing my game for me!"

Betty, for her part, refused to recognise a little pain that gnawed at her heart and stole all taste from the best dishes of Thirion's. She talked as much as possible to Temple, because it was the proper thing to do, she told herself, and she talked very badly. Lady St. Craye was transfigured by Vernon's unexpected acceptance of her delicate advances, intoxicated by the sudden flutter of a dream she had only known with wings in full flight, into the region where dreams, clasped to the heart, become realities. She grew momently more beautiful. The host, going from table to table, talking easily to his guests, could not keep his fascinated eyes from her face. The proprietor of Thirion's had good taste, and knew a beautiful woman when he saw her.

Betty's eyes, too, strayed more and more often from her plate, and from Temple to the efflorescence of this new beauty-light. She felt mean and poor, ill-dressed, shabby, dowdy, dull, weary and uninteresting. Her face felt tired. It was an effort to smile.

When the dinner was over she said abruptly:

"If you'll excuse me—I've got a dreadful headache—no, I don't want anyone to see me home. Just put me in a carriage."

She insisted, and it was done.

When the carriage drew up in front of the closed porte cochere of 57 Boulevard Montparnasse, Betty was surprised and wounded to discover that she was crying.

"Well, you knew they were engaged!" she said as she let herself into her room with her latchkey. "You knew they were engaged! What did you expect?"

Temple could not remember afterwards exactly how he got separated from the others. It just happened, as such unimportant things will. He missed them somehow, at a crossing, looked about him in vain, shrugged his shoulders and went home.

Lady St. Craye hesitated a moment with her latchkey in her hand. Then she threw open the door of her flat.

"Come in, won't you?" she said, and led the way into her fire-warm, flower-scented, lamplit room. Vernon also hesitated a moment. Then he followed. He stood on the hearth-rug with his back to the wood fire. He did not speak.

Somehow it was difficult for her to take up their talk at the place and in the strain where it had broken off when Betty proclaimed her headache.

Yet this was what she must do, it seemed to her, or lose all the ground she had gained.

"You've been very charming to me this evening," she said at last, and knew as she said it that it was the wrong thing to say.

"You flatter me," said Vernon.

"I was so surprised to see you there," she went on.

Vernon was surprised that she should say it. He had thought more highly of her powers.

"The pleasure was mine," he said in his most banal tones, "the surprise, alas, was all for you—and all you gained."

"Weren't you surprised?"—Lady St. Craye was angry and humiliated. That she—she—should find herself nervous, at fault, find herself playing the game as crudely as any shopgirl!

"No," said Vernon.

"But you couldn't have expected me?" She knew quite well what she was doing, but she was too nervous to stop herself.

"I've always expected you," he said deliberately, "ever since I told you that I often dined at Thirion's."

"You expected me to—"

"To run after me?" said Vernon with paraded ingenuousness; "yes, didn't you?"

"I run after you? You—" she stopped short, for she saw in his eyes that, if she let him quarrel with her now, it was forever.

He at the same moment awoke from the trance of anger that had come upon him when he found himself alone with her; anger at her, and at himself, fanned to fury by the thought of Betty and of what she, at this moment, must be thinking. He laughed:

"Ah, don't break my heart!" he said, "I've been so happy all the evening fancying that you had—you had—"

"Had what?" she asked with dry lips, for the caress in his tone was such as to deceive the very elect.

"Had felt just the faintest little touch of interest in me. Had cared to know how I spent my evenings, and with whom!"

"You thought I could stoop to spy on you?" she asked. "Monsieur flatters himself."

The anger in him was raising its head again.

"Monsieur very seldom does," he said.

She took that as she chose to take it.

"No, you're beautifully humble."

"And you're proudly beautiful."

She flushed and looked down.

"Don't you like to be told that you're beautiful?"

"Not by you. Not like that!"

"And so you didn't come to Thirion's to see me? How one may deceive oneself! The highest hopes we cherish here! Another beautiful illusion gone!"

She said to herself: "I can do nothing with him in this mood," and aloud she could not help saying: "Was it a beautiful one?"

"Very," he answered gaily. "Can you doubt it?"

She found nothing to say. And even as she fought for words she suddenly found that he had caught her in his arms, and kissed her, and that the sound of the door that had banged behind him was echoing in her ears.

She put her hands to her head. She could not see clearly.



CHAPTER XVII.

INTERVENTIONS.

That kiss gave Lady St. Craye furiously to think, as they say in France.

Had it meant—? What had it meant? Was it the crown of her hopes, her dreams? Was it possible that now, at last, after all that had gone before, she might win him—had won him, even?

The sex-instinct said "No."

Then, if "No" were the answer to that question, the kiss had been mere brutality. It had meant just:

"You chose to follow me—to play the spy. What the deuce do you want? Is it this? God knows you're welcome," the kiss following.

The kiss stung. It was not the first. But the others—even the last of them, two years before, had not had that sting.

Lady St. Craye, biting her lips in lonely dissection of herself and of him, dared take no comfort. Also, she no longer dared to follow him, to watch him, to spy on him.

In her jasmine-scented leisure Lady St. Craye analysed herself, and him and Her. Above all Her—who was Betty. To find out how it all seemed to her—that, presently, seemed to Lady St. Craye the one possible, the one important thing. So after she had given a few days to the analysis of that kiss, had failed to reach certainty as to its elements, had writhed in her failure, and bitterly resented the mysteries constituent that falsified all her calculations, she dressed herself beautifully, and went to call on the constituent, Betty.

Betty was at home. She was drawing at a table, cunningly placed at right angles to the window. She rose with a grace that Lady St. Craye had not seen in her. She was dressed in a plain gown, that hung from the shoulders in long, straight, green folds. Her hair was down.—And Betty had beautiful hair. Lady St. Craye's hair had never been long. Betty's fell nearly to her knees.

"Oh, was the door open?" she said. "I didn't know, I've—I'm so sorry—I've been washing my hair."

"It's lovely," said the other woman, with an appreciation quite genuine. "What a pity you can't always wear it like that!"

"It's long," said Betty disparagingly, "but the colour's horrid. What Miss Voscoe calls Boy colour."

"Boy colour?"

"Oh, just nothing in particular. Mousy."

"If you had golden hair, or black, Miss Desmond, you'd have a quite unfair advantage over the rest of us."

"I don't think so," said Betty very simply; "you see, no one ever sees it down."

"What a charming place you've got here," Lady St. Craye went on.

"Yes," said Betty, "it is nice," and she thought of Paula.

"And do you live here all alone?"

"Yes: I had a friend with me at first, but she's gone back to England."

"Don't you find it very dull?"

"Oh, no! I know lots of people now."

"And they come to see you here?"

Lady St. Craye had decided that it was not necessary to go delicately. The girl was evidently stupid, and one need not pick one's words.

"Yes," said Betty.

"Mr. Vernon's a great friend of yours, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"I suppose you see a great deal of him?"

"Yes. Is there anything else you would like to know?"

The scratch was so sudden, so fierce, so feline that for a moment Lady St. Craye could only look blankly at her hostess. Then she recovered herself enough to say:

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Was I asking a lot of questions? It's a dreadful habit of mine, I'm afraid, when I'm interested in people."

Betty scratched again quite calmly and quite mercilessly.

"It's quite natural that Mr. Vernon should interest you. But I don't think I'm likely to be able to tell you anything about him that you don't know. May I get you some tea?"

It was impossible for Lady St. Craye to reply: "I meant that I was interested in you—not in Mr. Vernon;" so she said:

"Thank you—that will be delightful."

Betty went along the little passage to her kitchen, and her visitor was left to revise her impressions.

When Betty came back with the tea-tray, her hair was twisted up. The kettle could be heard hissing in the tiny kitchen.

"Can't I help you?" Lady St. Craye asked, leaning back indolently in the most comfortable chair.

"No, thank you: it's all done now."



Betty poured the tea for the other woman to drink. Her own remained untasted. She exerted herself to manufacture small-talk, was very amiable, very attentive. Lady St. Craye almost thought she must have dreamed those two sharp cat-scratches at the beginning of the interview. But presently Betty's polite remarks came less readily. There were longer intervals of silence. And Lady St. Craye for once was at a loss. Her nerve was gone. She dared not tempt the claws again. After the longest pause of all Betty said suddenly:

"I think I know why you came to-day."

"I came to see you, because you're a friend of Mr. Vernon's."

"You came to see me because you wanted to find out exactly how much I'm a friend of Mr. Vernon's. Didn't you?"

Candour is the most disconcerting of the virtues.

"Not in the least," Lady St. Craye found herself saying. "I came to see you—because—as I said."

"I don't think it is much use your coming to see me," Betty went on, "though, if you meant it kindly—But you didn't—you didn't! If you had it wouldn't have made any difference. We should never get on with each other, never."

"Really, Miss Desmond"—Lady St. Craye clutched her card-case and half rose—"I begin to think we never should."

Betty's ignorance of the usages of good society stood her friend. She ignored, not consciously, but by the prompting of nature, the social law which decrees that one should not speak of things that really interest one.

"Do sit down," she said. "I'm glad you came—because I know exactly what you mean, now."

"If the knowledge were only mutual!" sighed Lady St. Craye, and found courage to raise eyebrows wearily.

"You don't like my going about with Mr. Vernon. Well, you've only to say so. Only when you're married you'll find you've got your work cut out to keep him from having any friends except you."

Lady St. Craye had the best of reasons for believing this likely to be the truth. She said:

"When I'm married?"

"Yes," said Betty firmly. "You're jealous; you've no cause to be—and I tell you that because I think being jealous must hurt. But it would have been nicer of you, if you'd come straight to me and said: 'Look here, I don't like you going about with the man I'm engaged to.' I should have understood then and respected you. But to come like a child's Guide to Knowledge—"

The other woman was not listening. "Engaged to him!"—The words sang deliciously, disquietingly in her ears.

"But who said I was engaged to him?"

"He did, of course. He isn't ashamed of it—if you are."

"He told you that!"

"Yes. Now aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

Country-bred Betty, braced by the straightforward directness of Miss Voscoe, and full of the nervous energy engendered by a half-understood trouble, had routed, for a moment, the woman of the world. But only for a moment. Then Lady St. Craye, unable to estimate the gain or loss of the encounter, pulled herself together to make good her retreat.

"Yes," she said, with her charming smile. "I am ashamed of myself. I was jealous—I own it. But I shouldn't have shown it as I did if I'd known the sort of girl you are. Come, forgive me! Can't you understand—and forgive?"

"It was all my fault." The generosity of Betty hastened to meet what it took to be the generosity of the other. "Forgive me. I won't see him again at all—if you don't want me to."

"No, no." Even at that moment, in one illuminating flash, Lady St. Craye saw the explications that must follow the announcement of that renunciatory decision. "No, no. If you do that I shall feel sure that you don't forgive me for being so silly. Just let everything go on—won't you? And please, please don't tell him anything about—about to-day."

"How could I?" asked Betty.

"But promise you won't. You know—men are so vain. I should hate him to know"—she hesitated and then finished the sentence with fine art—"to know—how much I care."

"Of course you care," said Betty downrightly. "You ought to care. It would be horrid of you if you didn't."

"But I don't, now. Now I know you, Miss Desmond. I understand so well—and I like to think of his being with you."

Even to Betty's ears this did not ring quite true.

"You like—?" she said.

"I mean I quite understand now. I thought—I don't know what I thought. You're so pretty, you know. And he has had so very many—love-affairs."

"He hasn't one with me," said Betty briefly.

"Ah, you're still angry. And no wonder. Do forgive me, Miss Desmond, and let's be friends."

Betty's look as she gave her hand was doubtful. But the hand was given.

"And you'll keep my poor little secret?"

"I should have thought you would have been proud for him to know how much you care."

"Ah, my dear," Lady St. Craye became natural for an instant under the transfiguring influence of her real thoughts as she spoke them, "my dear, don't believe it! When a man's sure of you he doesn't care any more. It's while he's not quite sure that he cares."

"I don't think that's so always," said Betty.

"Ah, believe me, there are 'more ways of killing a cat than choking it with butter.' Forgive the homely aphorism. When you have a lover of your own—or perhaps you have now?"

"Perhaps I have." Betty stood on guard with a steady face.

"Well, when you have—or if you have—remember never to let him be quite sure. It's the only way."

The two parted, with a mutually kindly feeling that surprised one as much as the other. Lady St. Craye drove home contrasting bitterly the excellence of her maxims with the ineptitude of her practice. She had let him know that she cared. And he had left her. That was two years ago. And, now that she had met him again, when she might have played the part she had recommended to that chit with the long hair—the part she knew to be the wise one—she had once more suffered passion to overcome wisdom, and had shown him that she loved him. And he had kissed her.

She blushed in the dusk of her carriage for the shame of that kiss.

But he had told that girl that he was engaged to her.

A delicious other flush replaced the blush of shame. Why should he have done that unless he really meant—? In that case the kiss was nothing to blush about. And yet it was. She knew it.

She had time to think in the days that followed, days that brought Temple more than once to her doors, but Vernon never.

Betty left alone let down her damp hair and tried to resume her drawing. But it would not do. The emotion of the interview was too recent. Her heart was beating still with anger, and resentment, and other feelings less easily named.

Vernon was to come to fetch her at seven. She would not face him. Let him go and dine with the woman he belonged to!

Betty went out at half-past six. She would not go to Garnier's, nor to Thirion's. That was where he would look for her.

She walked steadily on, down the boulevard. She would dine at some place she had never been to before. A sickening vision of that first night in Paris swam before her. She saw again the Cafe d'Harcourt, heard the voices of the women who had spoken to Paula, saw the eyes of the men who had been the companions of those women. In that rout the face of Temple shone—clear cut, severe. She remembered the instant resentment that had thrilled her at his protective attitude, remembered it and wondered at it a little. She would not have felt that now. She knew her Paris better than she had done then.

And with the thought, the face of Temple came towards her out of the crowd. He raised his hat in response to her frigid bow, and had almost passed her, when she spoke on an impulse that surprised herself.

"Oh—Mr. Temple!"

He stopped and turned.

"I was looking for a place to dine. I'm tired of Garnier's and Thirion's."

He hesitated. And he, too, remembered the night at the Cafe d'Harcourt, when she had disdained his advice and gone back to take the advice of Paula.

He caught himself assuring himself that a man need not be ashamed to risk being snubbed—making a fool of himself even—if he could do any good. So he said: "You know I have horrid old-fashioned ideas about women," and stopped short.

"Don't you know of any good quiet place near here?" said Betty.

"I think women ought to be taken care of. But some of them—Miss Desmond, I'm so afraid of you—I'm afraid of boring you—"

Remorse stirred her.

"You've always been most awfully kind," she said warmly. "I've often wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about that first time I saw you—I'm not sorry for what I did," she added in haste; "I can never be anything but glad for that. But I'm sorry I seemed ungrateful to you."

"Now you give me courage," he said. "I do know a quiet little place quite near here. And, as you haven't any of your friends with you, won't you take pity on me and let me dine with you?"

"You're sure you're not giving up some nice engagement—just to—to be kind to me?" she asked. And the forlornness of her tone made him almost forget that he had half promised to join a party of Lady St. Craye's.

"I should like to come with you—I should like it of all things," he said; and he said it convincingly.

They dined together, and the dinner was unexpectedly pleasant to both of them. They talked of England, of wood, field and meadow, and Betty found herself talking to him of the garden at home and of the things that grew there, as she had talked to Paula, and as she had never talked to Vernon.

"It's so lovely all the year," she said. "When the last mignonette's over, there are the chrysanthemums, and then the Christmas roses, and ever so early in January the winter aconite and the snow-drops, and the violets under the south wall. And then the little green daffodil leaves come up and the buds, though it's weeks before they turn into flowers. And if it's a mild winter the primroses—just little baby ones—seem to go on all the time."

"Yes," he said, "I know. And the wallflowers, they're green all the time.—And the monthly roses, they flower at Christmas. And then when the real roses begin to bud—and when June comes—and you're drunk with the scent of red roses—the kind you always long for at Christmas."

"Oh, yes," said Betty—"do you feel like that too? And if you get them, they're soft limp-stalked things, like caterpillars half disguised as roses by some incompetent fairy. Not like the stiff solid heavy velvet roses with thick green leaves and heaps of thorns. Those are the roses one longs for."

"Yes," he said. "Those are the roses one longs for." And an odd pause punctuated the sentence.

But the pause did not last. There was so much to talk of—now that barrier of resentment, wattled with remorse, was broken down. It was an odd revelation to each—the love of the other for certain authors, certain pictures, certain symphonies, certain dramas. The discovery of this sort of community of tastes is like the meeting in far foreign countries of a man who speaks the tongue of one's mother land. The two lingered long over their coffee, and the "Grand Marnier" which their liking for "The Garden of Lies" led to their ordering. Betty had forgotten Vernon, forgotten Lady St. Craye, in the delightful interchange of:

"Oh, I do like—"

"And don't you like—?"

"And isn't that splendid?"

These simple sentences, interchanged, took on the value of intimate confidences.

"I've had such a jolly time," Temple said. "I haven't had such a talk for ages."

And yet all the talk had been mere confessions of faith—in Ibsen, in Browning, in Maeterlinck, in English gardens, in Art for Art's sake, and in Whistler and Beethoven.

"I've liked it too," said Betty.

"And it's awfully jolly," he went on, "to feel that you've forgiven me"—the speech suddenly became difficult,—at least I mean to say—" he ended lamely.

"It's I who ought to be forgiven," said Betty. "I'm very glad I met you. I've enjoyed our talk ever so much."

Vernon spent an empty evening, and waylaid Betty as she left her class next day.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I couldn't help it. I suddenly felt I wanted something different. So I dined at a new place."

"Alone?" said Vernon.

"No," said Betty with her chin in the air.

Vernon digested, as best he might, his first mouthful of jealousy—real downright sickening jealousy. The sensation astonished him so much that he lacked the courage to dissect it.

"Will you dine with me to-night?" was all he found to say.

"With pleasure," said Betty. But it was not with pleasure that she dined. There was something between her and Vernon. Both felt it, and both attributed it to the same cause.

The three dinners that followed in the next fortnight brought none of that old lighthearted companionship which had been the gayest of table-decorations. Something was gone—lost—as though a royal rose had suddenly faded, a rainbow-coloured bubble had broken.

"I'm glad," said Betty; "if he's engaged, I don't want to feel happy with him."

She did not feel happy without him. The Inward Monitor grew more and more insistent. She caught herself wondering how Temple, with the serious face and the honest eyes, would regard the lies, the trickeries, the whole tissue of deceit that had won her her chance of following her own art, of living her own life.

Vernon understood, presently, that not even that evening at Thirion's could give the key to this uncomforting change. He had not seen Lady St. Craye since the night of the kiss.

It was after the fourth flat dinner with Betty that he said good-night to her early and abruptly, and drove to Lady St. Craye's.

She was alone. She rose to greet him, and he saw that her eyes were dark-rimmed, and her lips rough.

"This is very nice of you," she said. "It's nearly a month since I saw you."

"Yes," he said. "I know it is. Do you remember the last time? Hasn't that taught you not to play with me?"

The kiss was explained now. Lady St. Craye shivered.

"I don't know what you mean?" she said, feebly.

"Oh, yes, you do! You're much too clever not to understand. Come to think of it, you're much too everything—too clever, too beautiful, too charming, too everything."

"You overwhelm me," she made herself say.

"Not at all. You know your points. What I want to know is just one thing—and that's the thing you're going to tell me."

She drew her dry lips inward to moisten them.

"What do you want to know? Why do you speak to me like that? What have I done?"

"That's what you're going to tell me."

"I shall tell you nothing—while you ask in that tone."

"Won't you? How can I persuade you?" his tone caressed and stung. "What arguments can I use? Must I kiss you again?"

She drew herself up, called wildly on all her powers to resent the insult. Nothing came at her call.

"What do you want me to tell you?" she asked, and her eyes implored the mercy she would not consciously have asked.

He saw, and he came a little nearer to her—looking down at her upturned face with eyes before which her own fell.

"You don't want another kiss?" he said. "Then tell me what you've been saying to Miss Desmond."



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TRUTH.

There was a silence.

"Come, my pretty Jasmine lady, speak the truth."

"I will: What a brute you are!"

"So another lady told me a few months ago. Come, tell me."

"Why should I tell you anything?" She tried to touch her tone with scorn.

"Because I choose. You thought you could play with me and fool me and trick me out of what I mean to have—"

"What you mean to have?"

"Yes, what I mean to have. I mean to marry Miss Desmond—if she'll have me."

"You—mean to marry? Saul is among the prophets with a vengeance!" The scorn came naturally to her voice now.

Vernon stood as if turned to stone. Nothing had ever astonished him so much as those four words, spoken in his own voice, "I mean to marry." He repeated them. "I mean to marry Miss Desmond, if she'll have me. And it's your doing."

"Of course," she shrugged her shoulders. "Naturally it would be. Won't you sit down? You look so uncomfortable. Those French tragedy scenes with the hero hat in one hand and gloves in the other always seem to me so comic."

That was her score, the first. He put down the hat and gloves and came towards her. And as he came he hastily sketched his plan of action. When he reached her it was ready formed. His anger was always short lived. It had died down and left him competent as ever to handle the scene.

He took her hands, pushed her gently into a chair near the table, and sat down beside her with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.

"Forgive me, dear," he said. "I was a brute. Forgive me—and help me. No one can help me but you."

It was a master-stroke: and he had staked a good deal on it. The stake was not lost. She found no words.

"My dear, sweet Jasmine lady," he said, "let me talk to you. Let me tell you everything. I can talk to you as I can talk to no one else, because I know you're fond of me. You are fond of me—a little, aren't you—for the sake of old times?"

"Yes," she said, "I am fond of you."

"And you forgive me—you do forgive me for being such a brute? I hardly knew what I was doing."

"Yes," she said, speaking as one speaks in dreams, "I forgive you."

"Thank you," he said humbly; "you were always generous. And you always understand."

"Wait—wait. I'll attend to you presently," she was saying to her heart. "Yes, I know it's all over. I know the game's up. Let me pull through this without disgracing myself, and I'll let you hurt me as much as you like afterwards."

"Tell me," she said gently to Vernon, "tell me everything."

He was silent, his face still hidden. He had cut the knot of an impossible situation and he was pausing to admire the cleverness of the stroke. In two minutes he had blotted out the last six months—months in which he and she had been adversaries. He had thrown himself on her mercy, and he had done wisely. Never, even in the days when he had carefully taught himself to be in love with her, had he liked her so well as now, when she got up from her chair to come and lay her hand softly on his shoulder and to say:

"My poor boy,—but there's nothing for you to be unhappy about. Tell me all about it—from the very beginning."

There was a luxurious temptation in the idea. It was not the first time, naturally, that Vernon had "told all about it" with a sympathetic woman-hand on his shoulder. He knew the strategic value of confidences. But always he had made the confidences fit the occasion—serve the end he had in view. Now, such end as had been in view was gained. He knew that it was only a matter of time now, before she should tell him of her own accord, what he could never by any brutality have forced her to tell. And the temptation to speak, for once, the truth about himself was overmastering. It is a luxury one can so very rarely afford. Most of us go the whole long life-way without tasting it. There was nothing to lose by speaking the truth. Moreover, he must say something, and why not the truth? So he said:

"It all comes of that confounded habit of mine of wanting to be in love."

"Yes," she said, "you were always so anxious to be—weren't you? And you never were—till now."

The echo of his hidden thought made it easier for him to go on.

"It was at Long Barton," he said,—"it's a little dead and alive place in Kent. I was painting that picture that you like—the one that's in the Salon, and I was bored to death, and she walked straight into the composition in a pink gown that made her look like a La France rose that has been rained on—you know the sort of pink-turning-to-mauve."

"And it was love at first sight?" said she, and took away her hand.

"Not it," said Vernon, catching the hand and holding it; "it was just the usual thing. I wanted it to be like all the others."

"Like mine," she said, looking down on him.

"Nothing could be like that," he had the grace to say, looking up at her: "that was only like the others in one thing—that it couldn't last.—What am I thinking of to let you stand there?"

He got up and led her to the divan. They sat down side by side. She wanted to laugh, to sing, to scream. Here was he sitting by her like a lover—holding her hand, the first time these two years, three years nearly—his voice tender as ever. And he was telling her about Her.

"No," he went on, burrowing his shoulder comfortably in the cushions, "it was just the ordinary outline sketch. But it was coming very nicely. She was beginning to be interested, and I had taught myself almost all that was needed—I didn't want to marry her; I didn't want anything except those delicate delightful emotions that come before one is quite, quite sure that she—But you know."

"Yes," she said. "I know."

"Then her father interfered, and vulgarized the whole thing. He's a parson—a weak little rat, but I was sorry for him. Then an aunt came on the scene—a most gentlemanly lady,"—he laughed a little at the recollection,—"and I promised not to go out of my way to see Her again. It was quite easy. The bloom was already brushed from the adventure. I finished the picture, and went to Brittany and forgot the whole silly business."

"There was some one in Brittany, of course?"

"Of course," said he; "there always is. I had a delightful summer. Then in October, sitting at the Cafe de la Paix, I saw her pass. It was the same day I saw you."

"Before or after you saw me?"

"After."

"Then if I'd stopped—if I'd made you come for a drive then and there, you'd never have seen her?"

"That's so," said Vernon; "and by Heaven I almost wish you had!"

The wish was a serpent in her heart. She said: "Go on."

And he went on, and, warming to his subject, grew eloquent on the events of the winter, his emotions, his surmises as to Betty's emotions, his slow awakening to the knowledge that now, for the first time—and so on and so forth.

"You don't know how I tried to fall in love with you again," he said, and kissed her hand. "You're prettier than she is, and cleverer and a thousand times more adorable. But it's no good; it's a sort of madness."

"You never were in love with me."

"No: I don't think I was: but I was happier with you than I shall ever be with her for all that. Talk of the joy of love! Love hurts—hurts damnably. I beg your pardon."

"Yes. I believe it's painful. Go on."

He went on. He was enjoying himself, now, thoroughly.

"And so," the long tale ended, "when I found she had scruples about going about with me alone—because her father had suggested that I was in love with her—I—I let her think that I was engaged to you."

"That is too much!" she cried and would have risen: but he kept her hand fast.

"Ah, don't be angry," he pleaded. "You see, I knew you didn't care about me a little bit: and I never thought you and she would come across each other."

"So you knew all the time that I didn't care?" her self-respect clutched at the spar he threw out.

"Of course. I'm not such a fool as to think—Ah, forgive me for letting her think that. It bought me all I cared to ask for of her time. She's so young, so innocent—she thought it was quite all right as long as I belonged to someone else, and couldn't make love to her."

"And haven't you?"

"Never—never once—since the days at Long Barton when it had to be 'made;' and even then I only made the very beginnings of it. Now—"

"I suppose you've been very, very happy?"

"Don't I tell you? I've never been so wretched in my life! I despise myself. I've always made everything go as I wanted it to go. Now I'm like a leaf in the wind—Pauvre feuille desechee, don't you know. And I hate it. And I hate her being here without anyone to look after her. A hundred times I've had it on the tip of my pen to send that doddering old Underwood an anonymous letter, telling him all about it."

"Underwood?"

"Her step-father.—Oh, I forgot—I didn't tell you." He proceeded to tell her Betty's secret, the death of Madame Gautier and Betty's bid for freedom.

"I see," she said slowly. "Well, there's no great harm done. But I wish you'd trusted me before. You wanted to know, at the beginning of this remarkable interview," she laughed rather forlornly, "what I had told Miss Desmond. Well, I went to see her, and when she told me that you'd told her you were engaged to me, I—I just acted the jealous a little bit. I thought I was helping you—playing up to you. I suppose I overdid it. I'm sorry."

"The question is," said he anxiously, "whether she'll forgive me for that lie. She's most awfully straight, you know."

"She seems to have lied herself," Lady St. Craye could not help saying.

"Ah, yes—but only to her father."

"That hardly counts, you think?"

"It's not the same thing as lying to the person you love. I wish—I wonder whether you'd mind if I never told her it was a lie? Couldn't I tell her that we were engaged but you've broken it off? That you found you liked Temple better, or something?"

She gasped before the sudden vision of the naked gigantic egotism of a man in love.

"You can tell her what you like," she said wearily: "a lie or two more or less—what does it matter?"

"I don't want to lie to her," said Vernon. "I hate to. But she'd never understand the truth."

"You think I understand? It is the truth you've been telling me?"

He laughed. "I don't think I ever told so much truth in all my life."

"And you've thoroughly enjoyed it! You alway did enjoy new sensations!"

"Ah, don't sneer at me. You don't understand—not quite. Everything's changed. I really do feel as though I'd been born again. The point of view has shifted—and so suddenly, so completely. It's a new Heaven and a new earth. But the new earth's not comfortable, and I don't suppose I shall ever get the new Heaven. But you'll help me—you'll advise me? Do you think I ought to tell her at once? You see, she's so different from other girls—she's—"

"She isn't," Lady St. Craye interrupted, "except that she's the one you love; she's not a bit different from other girls. No girl's different from other girls."

"Ah, you don't know her," he said. "You see, she's so young and brave and true and—what is it—Why—"

Lady St. Craye had rested her head against his coat-sleeve and he knew that she was crying.

"What is it? My dear, don't—you musn't cry."

"I'm not.—At least I'm very tired."

"Brute that I am!" he said with late compunction. "And I've been worrying you with all my silly affairs. Cheer up,—and smile at me before I go! Of course you're tired!"

His hand on her soft hair held her head against his arm.

"No," she said suddenly, "it isn't that I'm tired, really. You've told the truth,—why shouldn't I?" Vernon instantly and deeply regretted the lapse.

"You're really going to marry the girl? You mean it?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll help you. I'll do everything I can for you."

"You're a dear," he said kindly. "You always were."

"I'll be your true friend—oh, yes, I will! Because I love you, Eustace. I've always loved you—I always shall. It can't spoil anything now to tell you, because everything is spoilt. She'll never love you like I do. Nobody ever will."

"You're tired. I've bothered you. You're saying this just to—because—"

"I'm saying it because it's true. Why should you be the only one to speak the truth? Oh, Eustace—when you pretended to think I didn't care, two years ago, I was too proud to speak the truth then. I'm not proud now any more. Go away. I wish I'd never seen you; I wish I'd never been born."

"Yes, dear, yes. I'll go" he said, and rose. She buried her face in the cushion where his shoulder had been.

He was looking round for his hat and gloves—more uncomfortable than he ever remembered to have been.

As he reached the door she sprang up, and he heard the silken swish of her gray gown coming towards him.

"Say good-night," she pleaded. "Oh, Eustace, kiss me again—kindly, not like last time."

He met her half-way, took her in his arms and kissed her forehead very gently, very tenderly.

"My dearest Jasmine lady," he said, "it sounds an impertinence and I daresay you won't believe it, but I was never so sorry in my life as I am now. I'm a beast, and I don't deserve to live. Think what a beast I am—and try to hate me."

She, clung to him and laid her wet cheek against his. Then her lips implored his lips. There was a long silence. It was she—she was always glad of that—who at last found her courage, and drew back.

"Good-bye," she said. "I shall be quite sane to-morrow. And then I'll help you."

When he got out into the street he looked at his watch. It was not yet ten o'clock. He hailed a carriage.

"Fifty-seven Boulevard Montparnasse," he said.

He could still feel Lady St. Craye's wet cheek against his own. The despairing passion of her last kisses had thrilled him through and through.

He wanted to efface the mark of those kisses. He would not be haunted all night by any lips but Betty's.

He had never called at her rooms in the evening. He had been careful for her in that. Even now as he rang the bell he was careful, and when the latch clicked and the door was opened a cautious inch he was ready, as he entered, to call out, in passing the concierge's door not Miss Desmond's name, but the name of the Canadian artist who occupied the studio on the top floor.

He went softly up the stairs and stood listening outside Betty's door. Then he knocked gently. No one answered. Nothing stirred inside.

"She may be out," he told himself. "I'll wait a bit."

At the same time he tapped again; and this time beyond the door something did stir.

Then came Betty's voice:

"Qui est la?"

"It's me—Vernon. May I come in?"

A moment's pause. Then:

"No. You can't possibly. Is anything the matter?"

"No—oh, no, but I wanted so much to see you. May I come to-morrow early?"

"You're sure there's nothing wrong? At home or anything? You haven't come to break anything to me?"

"No—no; it's only something I wanted to tell you."

He began to feel a fool, with his guarded whispers through a locked door.

"Then come at twelve," said Betty in the tones of finality. "Good-night."

He heard an inner door close, and went slowly away. He walked a long way that night. It was not till he was back in his rooms and had lighted his candle and wound up his watch that Lady St. Craye's kisses began to haunt him in good earnest, as he had known they would.

* * * * *

Lady St. Craye, left alone, dried her eyes and set to work, with heart still beating wildly to look about her at the ruins of her world.

The room was quiet with the horrible quiet of a death chamber. And yet his voice still echoed in it. Only a moment ago she had been in his arms, as she had never hoped to be again—more—as she had never been before.

"He would have loved me now," she told herself, "if it hadn't been for that girl. He didn't love me before. He was only playing at love. He didn't know what love was. But he knows now. And it's all too late!"

But was it?

A word to Betty—and—

"But you promised to help him."

"That was before he kissed me."

"But a promise is a promise."

"Yes,—and your life's your life. You'll never have another."

She stood still, her hands hanging by her sides—clenched hands that the rings bit into.

"He will go to her early to-morrow. And she'll accept him, of course. She's never seen anyone else, the little fool."

She knew that she herself would have taken him, would have chosen him as the chief among ten thousand.

"She could have Temple. She'd be much happier with Temple. She and Eustace would make each other wretched. She'd never understand him, and he'd be tired of her in a week."

She had turned up the electric lights now, at her toilet table, and was pulling the pins out of her ruffled hair.

"And he'd never care about her children. And they'd be ugly little horrors."

She was twisting her hair up quickly and firmly.

"I have a right to live my own life," she said, just as Betty had said six months before. "Why am I to sacrifice everything to her—especially when I don't suppose she cares—and now that I know I could get him if she were out of the way?"

She looked at herself in the silver-framed mirror and laughed.

"And you always thought yourself a proud woman!"

Suddenly she dropped the brush; it rattled and spun on the polished floor.

She stamped her foot.

"That settles it!" she said. For in that instant she perceived quite clearly and without mistake that Vernon's attitude had been a parti-pris: that he had thrown, himself on her pity of set purpose, with an end to gain.

"Laughing at me all the time too, of course! And I thought I understood him. Well, I don't misunderstand him for long, anyway," she said, and picked up the hair brush.

"You silly fool," she said to the woman in the glass.

And now she was fully dressed—in long light coat and a hat with, as usual, violets in it. She paused a moment before her writing-table, turned up its light, turned it down again.

"No," she said, "one doesn't write anonymous letters. Besides it would be too late. He'll see her to-morrow early—early."

The door of the flat banged behind her as it had banged behind Vernon half an hour before. Like him, she called a carriage, and on her lips too, as the chill April air caressed them, was the sense of kisses.

And she, too, gave to the coachman the address:

Fifty-seven Boulevard Montparnasse.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE TRUTH WITH A VENGEANCE.

In those three weeks whose meetings with Vernon had been so lacking in charm there had been other meetings for Betty, and in these charm had not been to seek. But it was the charm of restful, pleasant companionship illuminated by a growing certainty that Mr. Temple admired her very much, that he liked her very much, that he did not think her untidy and countrified and ill-dressed, and all the things she had felt herself to be that night when Lady St. Craye and her furs had rustled up the staircase at Thirion's. And she had dined with Mr. Temple and lunched with Mr. Temple, and there had been an afternoon at St. Cloud, and a day at Versailles. Miss Voscoe and some of the other students had been in the party, but not of it as far as Betty was concerned. She had talked to Temple all the time.

"I'm glad to see you've taken my advice," said Miss Voscoe, "only you do go at things so—like a bull at a gate. A month ago it was all that ruffian Vernon. Now it's all Mr. Go-to-Hell. Why not have a change? Try a Pole or a German."

But Betty declined to try a Pole or a German.

What she wanted to do was to persuade herself that she liked Temple as much as she liked Vernon, and, further, that she did not care a straw for either.

Of course it is very wrong indeed to talk pleasantly with a young man when you think you know that he might, just possibly, be falling in love with you. But then it is very interesting, too. To be loved, even by the wrong person, seems in youth's selfish eyes to light up the world as the candle lights the Japanese lantern. And besides, after all, one can't be sure. And it is not maidenly to say "No," even by the vaguest movements of retreat, to a question that has not been asked and perhaps never will be.

And when she was talking to Temple she was not thinking so much of Vernon, and of her unselfish friendship for him, and the depth of her hope that he really would be happy with that woman.

So that it was with quite a sick feeling that her days had been robbed of something that made them easier to live, if not quite worth living, that she read and reread the letter that she found waiting for her after that last unsuccessful dinner with the man whom Temple helped her to forget.

You will see by the letter what progress friendship can make in a month between a young man and woman, even when each is half in love with some one else.

"Sweet friend," said the letter: "This is to say good-bye for a little while. But you will think of me when I am away, won't you? I am going into the country to make some sketches and to think. I don't believe it is possible for English people to think in Paris. And I have things to think over that won't let themselves be thought over quietly here. And I want to see the Spring. I won't ask you to write to me, because I want to be quite alone, and not to have even a word from my sweet and dear friend. I hope your work will go well.

"Yours,

"Robert Temple."

Betty, in bed, was re-reading this when Vernon's knock came at her door. She spoke to him through the door with the letter in her hand. And her real thought when she asked him if he had come to break bad news was that something had happened to Temple.

She went back to bed, but not to sleep. Try as she would, she could not keep away the wonder—what could Vernon have had to say that wanted so badly to get itself said? She hid her eyes and would not look in the face of her hope. There had been a tone in his voice as he whispered on the other side of that stupid door, a tone she had not heard since Long Barton.

Oh, why had she gone to bed early that night of all nights? She would never go to bed early again as long as she lived!

What?—No, impossible! Yes. Another knock at her door. She sprang out of bed, and stood listening. There was no doubt about it. Vernon had come back. After all what he had to say would not keep till morning. A wild idea of dressing and letting him in was sternly dismissed. For one thing, at topmost speed, it took twenty minutes to dress. He would not wait twenty minutes. Another knock.

She threw on her dressing gown and ran along her little passage—and stooped to the key-hole just as another tap, discreet but insistent, rang on the door panel.

"Go away," she said low and earnestly. "I can't talk to you to-night whatever it is. It must wait till the morning."

"It's I," said the very last voice in all Paris that she expected to hear, "it's Lady St. Craye.—Won't you let me in?"

"Are you alone?" said Betty.

"Of course I'm alone. It's most important. Do open the door."

The door was slowly opened. The visitor rustled through, and Betty shut the door. Then she followed Lady St. Craye into the sitting-room, lighted the lamp, drew the curtain across the clear April night, and stood looking enquiry—and not looking it kindly. Her lips were set in a hard line and she was frowning.

She waited for the other to speak, but after all it was she who broke the silence.

"Well," she said, "what do you want now?"

"I hardly know how to begin," said Lady St. Craye with great truth.

"I should think not!" said Betty. "I don't want to be disagreeable, but I can't think of anything that gives you the right to come and knock me up like this in the middle of the night."

"It's only just past eleven," said Lady St. Craye. And there was another silence. She did not know what to say. A dozen openings suggested themselves, and were instantly rejected. Then, quite suddenly, she knew exactly what to say, what to do. That move of Vernon's—it was a good one, a move too often neglected in this cynical world, but always successful on the stage.

"May I sit down?" she asked forlornly.

Betty, rather roughly, pushed forward a chair.

Lady St. Craye sank into it, looked full at Betty for a long minute; and by the lamp's yellow light Betty saw the tears rise, brim over and fall from the other woman's lashes. Then Lady St. Craye pulled out her handkerchief and began to cry in good earnest.

It was quite easy.

At first Betty looked on in cold contempt. Lady St. Craye had counted on that: she let herself go, wholly. If it ended in hysterics so much the more impressive. She thought of Vernon, of all the hopes of these months, of the downfall of them—everything that should make it impossible for her to stop crying.

"Don't distress yourself," said Betty, very chill and distant.

"Can you—can you lend me a handkerchief?" said the other unexpectedly, screwing up her own drenched cambric in her hand.

Betty fetched a handkerchief.

"I haven't any scent," she said. "I'm sorry."

That nearly dried the tears—but not quite: Lady St. Craye was a persevering woman.

Betty watching her, slowly melted, just as the other knew she would. She put her hand at last on the shoulder of the light coat.

"Come," she said, "don't cry so. I'm sure there's nothing to be so upset about—"

Then came to her sharp as any knife, the thought of what there might be.

"There's nothing wrong with anyone? There hasn't been an accident or anything?"

The other, still speechless, conveyed "No."

"Don't," said Betty again. And slowly and very artistically the flood was abated. Lady St. Craye was almost calm, though still her breath caught now and then in little broken sighs.

"I am so sorry," she said, "so ashamed.—Breaking down like this. You don't know what it is to be as unhappy as I am."

Betty thought she did. We all think we do, in the presence of any grief not our own.

"Can I do anything?" She spoke much more kindly than she had expected to speak.

"Will you let me tell you everything? The whole truth?"

"Of course if you want to, but—"

"Then do sit down—and oh, don't be angry with me, I am so wretched. Just now you thought something had happened to Mr. Vernon. Will you just tell me one thing?—Do you love him?"

"You've no right to ask me that."

"I know I haven't. Well, I'll trust you—though you don't trust me. I'll tell you everything. Two years ago Mr. Vernon and I were engaged."

This was not true; but it took less time to tell than the truth would have taken, and sounded better.

"We were engaged, and I was very fond of him. But he—you know what he is about Women?"

"No," said Betty steadily. "I don't want to hear anything about him."

"But you must.—He is—I don't know how to put it. There's always some woman besides the One with him. I understand that now; I didn't then. I don't think he can help it. It's his temperament."

"I see," said Betty evenly. Her hands and feet were very cold. She was astonished to find how little moved she was in this interview whose end she foresaw so very plainly.

"Yes, and there was a girl at that time—he was always about with her. And I made him scenes—always a most stupid thing to do with a man, you know; and at last I said he must give her up, or give me up. And he gave me up. And I was too proud to let him think I cared—and just to show him how little I cared I married Sir Harry St. Craye. I might just as well have let it alone. He never even heard I had been married till last October! And then it was I who told him. My husband was a brute, and I'm thankful to say he didn't live long. You're very much shocked, I'm afraid?"

"Not at all," said Betty, who was, rather.

"Well, then I met Him again, and we got engaged again, as he told you. And again there was a girl—oh, and another woman besides. But this time I tried to bear it—you know I did try not to be jealous of you."

"You had no cause," said Betty.

"Well, I thought I had. That hurts just as much. And what's the end of it all—all my patience and trying not to see things, and letting him have his own way? He came to me to-night and begged me to release him from his engagement, because—oh, he was beautifully candid—because he meant to marry you."

Betty's heart gave a jump.

"He seems to have been very sure of me," she said loftily.

"No, no; he's not a hairdresser's apprentice—to tell one woman that he's sure of another. He said: 'I mean to marry Miss Desmond if she'll have me.'"

"How kind of him!"

"I wish you'd heard the way he spoke of you."

"I don't want to hear."

"I had to. And I've released him. And now I've come to you. I was proud two years ago. I'm not proud now. I don't care what I do. I'll kneel down at your feet and pray to you as if you were God not to take him away from me. And if you love him it'll all be no good. I know that."

"But—supposing I weren't here—do you think you could get him back?"

"I know I could. Unless of course you were to tell him I'd been here to-night. I should have no chance after that—naturally. I wish I knew what to say to you. You're very young; you'll find someone else, a better man. He's not a good man. There's a girl at Montmartre at this very moment—a girl he's set up in a restaurant. He goes to see her. You'd never stand that sort of thing. I know the sort of girl you are. And you're quite right. But I've got beyond that. I don't care what he is, I don't care what he does. I understand him. I can make allowances for him. I'm his real mate. I could make him happy. You never would—you're too good. Ever since I first met him I've thought of nothing else, cared for nothing else. If he whistled to me I'd give up everything else, everything, and follow him barefoot round the world."

"I heard someone say that in a play once," said Betty musing.

"So did I," said Lady St. Craye very sharply—"but it's true for all that. Well—you can do as you like."

"Of course I can," said Betty.

"I've done all I can now. I've said everything there is to say. And if you love him as I love him every word I've said won't make a scrap of difference. I know that well enough. What I want to know is—do you love him?"

The scene had been set deliberately. But the passion that spoke in it was not assumed. Betty felt young, school-girlish, awkward in the presence of this love—so different from her own timid dreams. The emotion of the other woman had softened her.

"I don't know," she said.

"If you don't know, you don't love him.—At least don't see him till you're sure. You'll do that? As long as he's not married to anyone, there's just a chance that he may love me again. Won't you have pity? Won't you go away like that sensible young man Temple? Mr. Vernon told me he was going into the country to decide which of the two women he likes best is the one he really likes best! Won't you do that?"

"Yes," said Betty slowly, "I'll do that. Look here, I am most awfully sorry, but I don't know—I can't think to-night. I'll go right away—I won't see him to-morrow. Oh, no. I can't come between you and the man you're engaged to," her thoughts were clearing themselves as she spoke. "Of course I knew you were engaged to him. But I never thought. At least—Yes. I'll go away the first thing to-morrow."

"You are very, very good," said Lady St. Craye, and she meant it.

"But I don't know where to go. Tell me where to go."

"Can't you go home?"

"No: I won't. That's too much."

"Go somewhere and sketch."

"Yes,—but where?" said poor Betty impatiently.

"Go to Grez," said the other, not without second thoughts. "It's a lovely place—close to Fontainebleau—Hotel Chevillon. I'll write it down for you.—Old Madame Chevillon's a darling. She'll look after you. It is good of you to forgive me for everything. I'm afraid I was a cat to you."

"No," said Betty, "it was right and brave of you to tell me the whole truth. Oh, truth's the only thing that's any good!"

Lady St. Craye also thought it a useful thing—in moderation. She rose.

"I'll never forget what you're doing for me," she said. "You're a girl in thousand. Look here, my dear: I'm not blind. Don't think I don't value what you're doing. You cared for him in England a little,—and you care a little now. And everything I've said tonight has hurt you hatefully. And you didn't know you cared. You thought it was friendship, didn't you—till you thought I'd come to tell you that something had happened to him. And then you knew. I'm going to accept your sacrifice. I've got to. I can't live if I don't. But I don't want you to think I don't know what a sacrifice it is. I know better than you do—at this moment. No—don't say anything. I don't want to force your confidence. But I do understand."

"I wish everything was different," said Betty.

"Yes. You're thinking, aren't you, that if it hadn't been for Mr. Vernon you'd rather have liked me? And I know now that if it hadn't been for him I should have been very fond of you. And even as it is—"

She put her arms round Betty and spoke close to her ear.

"You're doing more for me than anyone has ever done for me in my life," she said—"more than I'd do for you or any woman. And I love you for it. Dear brave little girl. I hope it isn't going to hurt very badly. I love you for it—and I'll never forget it to the day I die. Kiss me and try to forgive me."

The two clung together for an instant.

"Good-bye," said Lady St. Craye in quite a different voice. "I'm sorry I made a scene. But, really, sometimes I believe one isn't quite sane. Let me write the Grez address. I wish I could think of any set of circumstances in which you'd be pleased to see me again."

"I'll pack to-night," said Betty. "I hope you'll be happy anyway. Do you know I think I have been hating you rather badly without quite knowing it."

"Of course you have," said the other heartily, "but you don't now. Of course you won't leave your address here? If you do that you might as well not go away at all!"

"I'm not quite a fool," said Betty.

"No," said the other with a sigh, "it's I that am the fool. You're—No, I won't say what you are. But—Well. Good night, dear. Try not to hate me again when you come to think it all over quietly."



CHAPTER XX.

WAKING-UP TIME.

Dear Mr. Vernon. This is to thank you very much for all your help and criticism of my work, and to say good-bye. I am called away quite suddenly, so I can't thank you in person, but I shall never forget your kindness. Please remember me to Lady St. Craye. I suppose you will be married quite soon now. And I am sure you will both be very happy.

Yours very sincerely,

Elizabeth Desmond.

This was the letter that Vernon read standing in the shadow of the arch by the concierge's window. The concierge had hailed him as he hurried through to climb the wide shallow stairs and to keep his appointment with Betty when she should leave the atelier.

"But yes, Mademoiselle had departed this morning at nine o'clock. To which station? To the Gare St. Lazare. Yes—Mademoiselle had charged her to remit the billet to Monsieur. No, Mademoiselle had not left any address. But perhaps chez Madame Bianchi?"

But chez Madame Bianchi there was no further news. The so amiable Mademoiselle Desmond had paid her account, had embraced Madame, and—Voila! she was gone. One divined that she had been called suddenly to return to the family roof. A sudden illness of Monsieur her father without doubt.

Could some faint jasmine memory have lingered on the staircase? Or was it some subtler echo of Lady St. Craye's personality that clung there? Abruptly, as he passed Betty's door, the suspicion stung him. Had the Jasmine lady had any hand in this sudden departure?

"Pooh—nonsense!" he said. But all the same he paused at the concierge's window.

"I am desolated to have deranged Madame,"—gold coin changed hands.—"A lady came to see Mademoiselle this morning, is it not?"

"No, no lady had visited Mademoiselle to-day: no one at all in effect."

"Nor last night—very late?"

"No, monsieur," the woman answered meaningly; "no visitor came in last night except Monsieur himself and he came, not to see Mademoiselle, that understands itself, but to see Monsieur Beauchesne an troisieme. No—I am quite sure—I never deceive myself. And Mademoiselle has had no letters since three days. Thanks a thousand times, Monsieur. Good morning."

She locked up the gold piece in the little drawer where already lay the hundred franc note that Lady St. Craye had given her at six o'clock that morning.

"And there'll be another fifty from her next month," she chuckled. "The good God be blessed for intrigues! Without intrigues what would become of us poor concierges?"

For Vernon Paris was empty—the spring sunshine positively distasteful. He did what he could; he enquired at the Gare St. Lazare, describing Betty with careful detail that brought smiles to the lips of the employes. He would not call on Miss Voscoe. He made himself wait till the Sketch Club afternoon—made himself wait, indeed, till all the sketches were criticised—till the last cup of tea was swallowed, or left to cool—the last cake munched—the last student's footfall had died away on the stairs, and he and Miss Voscoe were alone among the scattered tea-cups, blackened bread-crumbs and torn paper.

Then he put his question. Miss Voscoe knew nothing. Guessed Miss Desmond knew her own business best.

"But she's so young," said Vernon; "anything might have happened to her."

"I reckon she's safe enough—where she is," said Miss Voscoe with intention.

"But haven't you any idea why she's gone?" he asked, not at all expecting any answer but "Not the least."

But Miss Voscoe said:

"I have a quite first-class idea and so have you."

He could but beg her pardon interrogatively.

"Oh, you know well enough," said she. "She'd got to go. And it was up to her to do it right now, I guess."

Vernon had to ask why.

"Well, you being engaged to another girl, don't you surmise it might kind of come home to her there were healthier spots for you than the end of her apron strings? Maybe she thought the other lady's apron strings 'ud be suffering for a little show?"

"I'm not engaged," said Vernon shortly.

"Then it's time you were," the answer came with equal shortness. "You'll pardon me making this a heart-to-heart talk—and anyway it's no funeral of mine. But she's the loveliest girl and I right down like her. So you take it from me. That F.F.V. Lady with the violets—Oh, don't pretend you don't know who I mean—the one you're always about with when you aren't with Betty. She's your ticket. Betty's not. Your friend's her style. You pass, this hand, and give the girl a chance."

"I really don't understand—"

"I bet you do," she interrupted with conviction. "I've sized you up right enough, Mr. Vernon. You're no fool. If you've discontinued your engagement Betty doesn't know it. Nor she shan't from me. And one of these next days it'll be borne in on your friend that she's the girl of his life—and when he meets her again he'll get her to see it his way. Don't you spoil the day's fishing."

Vernon laughed.

"You have all the imagination of the greatest nation in the world, Miss Voscoe," he said. "Thank you. These straight talks to young men are the salt of life. Good-bye."

"You haven't all the obfuscation of the stupidest nation in the world," she retorted. "If you had had you'd have had a chance to find out what straight talking means—which it's my belief you never have yet. Good-bye. You take my tip. Either you go back to where you were before you sighted Betty, or if the other one's sick of you too, just shuffle the cards, take a fresh deal and start fair. You go home and spend a quiet evening and think it all over."

Vernon went off laughing, and wondering why he didn't hate Miss Voscoe. He did not laugh long. He sat in his studio, musing till it was too late to go out to dine. Then he found some biscuits and sherry—remnants of preparations for the call of a picture dealer—ate and drank, and spent the evening in the way recommended by Miss Voscoe. He lay face downward on the divan, in the dark, and he did "think it all over."

But first there was the long time when he lay quite still—did not think at all, only remembered her hands and her eyes and her hair, and the pretty way her brows lifted when she was surprised or perplexed—and the four sudden sweet dimples that came near the corners of her mouth when she was amused, and the way her mouth drooped when she was tired.

"I want you. I want you. I want you," said the man who had been the Amorist. "I want you, dear!"

When he did begin to think, he moved uneasily in the dark as thought after thought crept out and stung him and slunk away. The verses he had written at Long Barton—ironic verses, written with the tongue in the cheek—came back with the force of iron truth:

"I love you to my heart's hid core: Those other loves? How can one learn From marshlights how the great fires burn? Ah, no—I never loved before!"

He had smiled at Temple's confidences—when Betty was at hand—to be watched and guarded. Now Betty was away—anywhere. And Temple was deciding whether it was she whom he loved. Suppose he did decide that it was she, and, as Miss Voscoe had said, made her see it? "Damn," said Vernon, "Oh, damn!"

He was beginning to be a connoisseur in the fine flavours of the different brands of jealousy. Anyway there was food for thought.

There was food for little else, in the days that followed. Mr. Vernon's heart, hungry for the first time, had to starve. He went often to Lady St. Craye's. She was so gentle, sweet, yet not too sympathetic—bright, amusing even, but not too vivacious. He approved deeply the delicacy with which she ignored that last wild interview. She was sister, she was friend—and she had the rare merit of seeming to forget that she had been confidante.

It was he who re-opened the subject, after ten days. She had told herself that it was only a question of time. And it was.

"Do you know she's disappeared?" he said abruptly.

"Disappeared?" No one was ever more astonished than Lady St. Craye. Quite natural, the astonishment. Not overdone by so much as a hair's breadth.

So he told her all about it, and she twisted her long topaz chain and listened with exactly the right shade of interest. He told her what Miss Voscoe had said—at least most of it.

"And I worry about Temple," he said; "like any school boy, I worry. If he does decide that he loves her better than you—You said you'd help me. Can't you make sure that he won't love her better?"

"I could, I suppose," she admitted. To herself she said: "Temple's at Grez. She's at Grez. They've been there ten days."

"If only you would," he said. "It's too much to ask, I know. But I can't ask anything that isn't too much! And you're so much more noble and generous than other people—"

"No butter, thanks," she said.

"It's the best butter," he earnestly urged. "I mean that I mean it. Won't you?"

"When I see him again—but it's not very fair to him, is it?"

"He's an awfully good chap, you know," said Vernon innocently. And once more Lady St. Craye bowed before the sublime apparition of the Egoism of Man.

"Good enough for me, you think? Well, perhaps you're right. He's a dear boy. One would feel very safe if one loved a man like that."

"Yes—wouldn't one?" said Vernon.

She wondered whether Betty was feeling safe. No: ten days are a long time, especially in the country—but it would take longer than that to cure even a little imbecile like Betty of the Vernon habit. It was worse than opium. Who ought to know if not she who sat, calm and sympathetic, promising to entangle Temple so as to leave Betty free to become a hopeless prey to the fell disease?

Quite suddenly and to her own intense surprise, she laughed out loud.

"What is it?" his alert vanity bristled in the query.

"It's nothing—only everything! Life's so futile! We pat and pinch our little bit of clay, and look at it and love it and think it's going to be a masterpiece.—and then God glances at it—and He doesn't like the modelling, and He sticks his thumb down, and the whole thing's broken up, and there's nothing left to do but throw away the bits."

"Oh, no," said Vernon; "everything's bound to come right in the end. It all works out straight somehow."

She laughed again.

"Optimism—from you?"

"It's not optimism," he asserted eagerly, "it's only—well, if everything doesn't come right somehow, somewhere, some day, what did He bother to make the world for?"