The Incomplete Amorist

"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?"