The Incomplete Amorist

"This is dear and sweet of you," he said to Betty.

"What lovely scheme have you come to break to me? But what's the matter? You're not ill?"

"Oh, don't," said Betty; "don't look like that! I couldn't go without telling you. It's all over, Bobbie."

She had never before called him by that name, and now she did not know what she had called him.

"What's all over?" he asked mechanically.

"Everything," she said; "your thinking I was going to, perhaps, some time—and all that. Because now I never shall. O, Bobbie, I do hate hurting you, and I do like you so frightfully much! But he's written to me: the letter's been delayed. And it's all a mistake. And I'm going to him now. Oh,—I hope you'll be able to forgive me!"

"It's not your fault," he said. "Wait a minute. It's so sudden. Yes, I see. Don't you worry about me, dearest, I shall be all right. May I know who it is?"

"It's Mr. Vernon," said Betty.

"Oh, my God!" Temple's hand clenched. "No, no, no, no!"

"I am so very, very sorry," said Betty in the tone one uses who has trodden on another's foot in an omnibus.

He had sat down at one of the little tables, and was looking out over the shining river with eyes half shut.

"But it's not true," he said. "It can't be true! He's going to marry Lady St. Craye."

"That's all a mistake," said Betty eagerly; "he only said that because—I haven't time to tell you all about it now. But it was all a mistake."

"Betty, dear," he said, using in his turn, for the first time, her Christian name, "don't do it. Don't marry him. You don't know."

"I thought you were his friend."

"So I am," said Temple. "I like him right enough. But what's all the friendship in the world compared with your happiness? Don't marry him—dear. Don't."

"I shall marry whom I choose," said Betty, chin in air, "and it won't be you." ("I don't care if I am vulgar and brutal," she told herself, "it serves him right")

"It's not for me, dear. It's not for me—it's for you. I'll go right away and never see you again. Marry some straight chap—anyone—But not Vernon."

"I am going to marry Mr. Vernon," said Betty with lofty calm, "and I am very sorry for any annoyance I may have caused you. Of course, I see now that I could never—I mean," she added angrily, "I hate people who are false to their friends. Yes—and now I've missed my train."

She had.

"Forgive me," said Temple when the fact was substantiated, and the gray pony put up, "after all, I was your friend before I—before you—before all this that can't come to anything. Let me give you both some coffee and see you to the station. And Betty, don't you go and be sorry about me afterwards. Because, really, it's not your fault and," he laughed and was silent a moment, "and I'd rather have loved you and have it end like this, dear, than never have known you. I truly would."

The journey to Paris was interminable. Betty had decided not to think of Temple, yet that happy morning face of his would come between her and the things she wanted to think of. To have hurt him like that!—It hurt her horribly; much more than she would have believed possible. And she had been cruel. "Of course it's natural that he should say things about Him. He must hate anyone that—He nearly cried when he said that about rather have loved me than not—Yes—" A lump came in Betty's own throat, and her eyes pricked.

"Come, don't cry," said her aunt briskly; "you've made your choice, and you're going to your lover. Don't be like Lot's wife. You can't eat your cake and have it too."

Vernon's concierge assured these ladies that Monsieur was at home.

"He makes the painting in this moment," she said. "Mount then, my ladies."

They mounted.

Betty remembered her last—her first—visit to his studio: when Paula had disappeared and she had gone to him for help. She remembered how the velvet had come off her dress, and how awful her hair had been when she had looked in the glass afterwards. And Lady St. Craye—how beautifully dressed, how smiling and superior!

"Hateful cat!" said Betty on the stairs.

"Eh?" said her aunt.

Now there would be no one in the studio but Vernon. He would be reading over her letters—nothing in them—only little notes about whether she would or wouldn't be free on Tuesday—whether she could or couldn't dine with him on Wednesday. But he would be reading them over—perhaps—

The key was in the door.

"Do you mind waiting on the stairs, Auntie dear," said Betty in a voice of honey; "just the first minute?—I would like to have it for us two—alone. You don't mind?"

"Do as you like," said the aunt rather sadly. "I should knock if I were you."

Betty did not knock. She opened the studio door softly. She would like to see him before he saw her.

She had her wish.

A big canvas stood on the easel, a stool in front of it. The table was in the middle of the room, a yellow embroidered cloth on it. There was food on the cloth—little breads, pretty cakes and strawberries and cherries, and wine in tall, beautiful, topaz-coloured glasses.

Vernon sat in his big chair. Betty could see his profile. He sat there, laughing. On the further arm of the chair sat, laughing also, a very pretty young woman. Her black hair was piled high on her head and fastened with a jewelled pin. The sunlight played in the jewels. She wore a pink silk garment. She held cherries in her hand.

"V'la cheri!" she said, and put one of the twin cherries in her mouth; then she leant over him laughing, and Vernon reached his head forward to take in his mouth the second cherry that dangled below her chin. His mouth was on the cherry, and his eyes in the black eyes of the girl in pink.

Betty banged the door.

"Come away!" she said to Miss Desmond. And she, who had seen, too, the pink picture, came away, holding Betty's arm tight.

"I wonder," she said as they reached the bottom of the staircase, "I wonder he didn't come after us to—to—try to explain."

"I locked the door," said Betty. "Don't speak to me, please."

They were in the train before either broke silence. Betty's face was white and she looked old—thirty almost her aunt thought.

It was Miss Desmond who spoke.

"Betty," she said, "I know how you feel. But you're very young. I think I ought to say that that girl—"

"Don't!" said Betty.

"I mean what we saw doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't love you."

"Perhaps not," said Betty, fierce as a white flame. "Anyhow, it means that I don't love him."

Miss Desmond's tact, worn by three days of anxiety and agitation, broke suddenly, and she said what she regretted for some months:

"Oh, you don't love him now? Well, the other man will console you."