The Incomplete Amorist Part 24

"Go back to the Cafe d'Harcourt," she said. "I have forgotten something."

That was why, when Temple called, very early, at the Hotel de l'Unicorne he heard that his cousin had not arrived there the night before--Had not, indeed, arrived at all.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It's a pity," he said. "Certainly she had run away from home. I suppose I frightened her. I was always a clumsy brute with women."

CHAPTER XI.

THE THOUGHT.

The dark-haired woman was still ably answering the chaff of Nini and the Germans. And her face was not the face she had shewn to Betty.

Betty came quietly behind her and touched her shoulder. She leapt in her chair and turned white under the rouge.

"What the devil!--You shouldn't do that!" she said roughly; "You frightened me out of my wits."

"I'm so sorry," said Betty, who was pale too. "Come away, won't you? I want to talk to you."

"Your little friend is charming," said one of the men in thick German-French. "May I order for her a bock or a cerises?"

"Do come," she urged.

"Let's walk," she said. "What's the matter? Where's young Temple?

Don't tell me he's like all the others."

"He meant to be kind," said Betty, "but he asked a lot of questions, and I don't want to know him. I like you better. Isn't there anywhere we can be quiet, and talk? I'm all alone here in Paris, and I do want help. And I'd rather you'd help me than anyone else. Can't I come home with you?"

"No you can't."

"Well then, will you come with me?--not to the hotel he told me of, but to some other--you must know of one."

"What will you do if I don't?"

"I don't know," said Betty very forlornly, "but you _will_, won't you.

You don't know how tired I am. Come with me, and then in the morning we can talk. Do--do."

The other woman took some thirty or forty steps in silence. Then she asked abruptly:

"Have you plenty of money?"

"Yes, lots."

"And you're an artist?"

"Yes--at least I'm a student."

Again the woman reflected. At last she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "Set a thief to catch a thief," she said. "I shall make a dragon of a chaperon, I warn you. Yes, I'll come, just for this one night, but you'll have to pay the hotel bill."

"Of course," said Betty.

"This _is_ an adventure! Where's your luggage?"

"It's at the station, but I want you to promise not to tell that Temple man a word about me. I don't want to see him again. Promise."

"Queer child. But I'll promise. Now look here: if I go into a thing at all I go into it heart and soul; so let's do the thing properly. We must have some luggage. I've got an old portmanteau knocking about.

Will you wait for me somewhere while I get it?"

"I'd rather not," said Betty, remembering the Germans and Nini.

"Well then,--there'd be no harm for a few minutes. You can come with me. This is really rather a lark!"

Five minutes' walking brought the two to a dark house. The woman rang a bell; a latch clicked and a big door swung open. She grasped Betty's hand.

"Don't say a word," she said, and pulled her through.

It was very dark.

The other woman called out a name as they pa.s.sed the door of the concierge, a name that was not Conway, and her hand pulled Betty up flight after flight of steep stairs. On the fifth floor she opened a door with a key, and left Betty standing at the threshold till she had lighted a lamp.

Then "Come in," she said, and shut the door and bolted it.

The room was small and smelt of white rose scent; the looking-gla.s.s had a lace drapery fastened up with crushed red roses; and there were voluminous lace and stuff curtains to bed and window.

"Sit down," said the hostess. She took off her hat and pulled the scarlet flowers from it. She washed her face till it shewed no rouge and no powder, and the brown of lashes and brows was free from the black water-paint. She raked under the bed with a faded sunshade till she found an old brown portmanteau. Her smart black and white dress was changed for a black one, of a mode pa.s.see these three years. A gray chequered golf cape and the dulled hat completed the transformation.

"How nice you look," said Betty.

The other bundled some linen and brushes into the portmanteau.

"The poor old Gladstone's very thin still," she said, and folded skirts; "we must plump it out somehow."

When the portmanteau was filled and strapped, they carried it down between them, in the dark, and got it out on to the pavement.

"I am Miss Conway now," said the woman, "and we will drive to the Hotel de Lille. I went there one Easter with my father."

With the change in her dress a change had come over Miss Conway's voice.

At the Hotel de Lille it was she who ordered the two rooms, communicating, for herself and her cousin, explained where the rest of the luggage was, and gave orders for the morning chocolate.

"This is very jolly," said Betty, when they were alone. "It's like an elopement."

"Exactly," said Miss Conway. "Good night."

"It's rather like a dream, though. I shan't wake up and find you gone, shall I?" Betty asked anxiously.