The Incomplete Amorist

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.