The Incomplete Amorist

"I do, though. Well, which of us is to begin? You see, child, the difficulty is that we neither of us know how much the other knows and we don't want to give ourselves away. It's so awkward to talk when it's like that."

"I think I know more than you do. I—you needn't think I want to hurt her. I should have liked her awfully, if it hadn't been—"

"If it hadn't been for the man. Yes, I see. Who was he?"

Lady St. Craye felt absolutely defenceless. Besides, what did it matter?

"Mr. Vernon," she said.

"Ah, now we're getting to the horses! My dear child, don't look so guilty. You're not the first; you won't be the last—especially with eyes the colour his are. And so you hate Betty?"

"No, I don't. I should like to tell you all about it—all the truth."

"You can't," said Miss Desmond, "no woman can. But I'll give you credit for trying to, if you'll go straight ahead. But first of all—how long is it since you saw her?"

"Nearly a month."

"Well; she's disappeared. Her father and I got here last night. She's gone away and left no address. She was living with a Madame Gautier and—"

"Madame Gautier died last October," said Lady St. Craye—"the twenty-fifth."

"I had a letter from her brother—it got me in Bombay. But I couldn't believe it. And who has Betty been living with?"

"Look here," said Lady St. Craye. "I came to give the whole thing away, and hand her over to you. I know where she is. But now I don't want to. Her father's a brute, I know."

"Not he," said Miss Desmond; "he's only a man and a very, very silly one. I'll pledge you my word he'll never approach her, whatever she's done. It's not anything too awful for words, I'm certain. Come, tell me."

Lady St. Craye told Betty's secret at some length.

"Did she tell you this?"

"No."

"He did then?"

"Yes."

"Oh, men are darlings! The soul of honour—unsullied blades! My word! Do you mind if I smoke?"

She lighted a cigarette.

"I suppose I'm very dishonourable too," said Lady St. Craye.

"You? Oh no, you're only a woman!—And then?"

"Well, at last I asked her to go away, and she went."

"Well, that was decent of her, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"And now you're going to tell me where she is and I'm to take her home and keep her out of his way. Is that it?"

"I don't know," said Lady St. Craye very truly, "why I came to you at all. Because it's all no good. He's written and proposed for her to her father—and if she cares—"

"Well, if she cares—and he cares—Do you really mean that you'd care to marry a man who's in love with another woman?"

"I'd marry him if he was in love with fifty other women."

"In that case," said Miss Desmond, "I should say you were the very wife for him."

"She isn't," said Lady St. Craye sitting up. "I feel like a silly school-girl talking to you like this. I think I'll go now. I'm not really so silly as I seem. I've been ill—influenza, you know—and I got so frightfully tired. And I don't think I'm so strong as I used to be. I've always thought I was strong enough to play any part I wanted to play. But—you've been very kind. I'll go—" She lay back.

"Don't be silly," said Miss Desmond briskly. "You are a school-girl compared with me, you know. I suppose you've been trying to play the rôle of the designing heroine—to part true lovers and so on, and then you found you couldn't."

"They're not true lovers," said Lady St. Craye eagerly; "that's just it. She'd never make him happy. She's too young and too innocent. And when she found out what a man like him is like, she'd break her heart. And he told me he'd be happier with me than he ever had been with her."

"Was that true, or—?"

"Oh, yes, it was true enough, though he said it. You've met him—he told me. But you don't know him."

"I know his kind though," said Miss Desmond. "And so you love him very much indeed, and you don't care for anything else,—and you think you understand him,—and you could forgive him everything? Then you may get him yet, if you care so very much—that is, if Betty doesn't."

"She doesn't. She thinks she does, but she doesn't. If only he hadn't written to her—"

"My dear," said Miss Desmond, "I was a fool myself once, about a man with eyes his colour. You can't tell me anything that I don't know. Does he know how much you care?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that's a pity—still—Well, is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"I don't want to tell anyone anything. Only—when she said she'd go away, I advised her where to go—and I told her of a quiet place—and Mr. Temple's there. He's the other man who admires her."

"I see. How Machiavelian of you!"—Miss Desmond touched the younger woman's hand with brusque gentleness—"And—?"

"And I didn't quite tell her the truth about Mr. Vernon and me," said Lady St. Craye, wallowing in the abject joys of the confessional. "And I am a beast and not fit to live. But," she added with the true penitent's instinct of self-defence, "I know it's only—oh, I don't know what—not love, with her. And it's my life."

"Yes. And what about him?"

"It's not love with him. At least it is—but she'd bore him. It's really his waking-up time. He's been playing the game just for counters all the while. Now he's learning to play with gold."

"And it'll stay learnt. I see," said Miss Desmond. "Look here, I like you. I know we shouldn't have said all we have if you weren't ill, and I weren't anxious. But I'm with you in one thing. I don't want him to marry Betty. She wouldn't understand an artist in emotion. Is this Temple straight?"

"As a yardstick."

"And as wooden? Well, that's better. I'm on your side. But—we've been talking without the veils on—tell me one thing. Are you sure you could get him if Betty were out of the way?"

"He kissed me once—since he's loved her," said Lady St. Craye, "and then I knew I could. He liked me better than he liked her—in all the other ways—before. I'm a shameless idiot; it's really only because I'm so feeble."