The Incomplete Amorist Part 32

"It wasn't flattering at all.--In fact it wasn't a portrait."

"A caricature?"

"But you don't mind what people say of you, do you?"

"You are trying to frighten me."

"No, really," she said with pretty earnestness; "it's only that he has always talked about you as his best friend, and I imagined you would be like him."

Temple's uneasy wonderings about Betty's trouble, her acquaintance with Vernon, the meaning of her visit to him, were pushed to the back of his mind.

"I wish I were like him," said he,--"at any rate, in his paintings."

"At any rate--yes. But one can't have everything, you know. You have qualities which he hasn't--qualities that you wouldn't exchange for any qualities of his."

"That wasn't what I meant; I--the fact is, I like old Vernon, but I can't understand him."

"That philosophy of life eludes you still? Now, I understand him, but I don't always like him--not all of him."

"I wonder whether anyone understands him?"

"He's not such a sphinx as he looks!" Her tone betrayed a slight pique--"Now, your character would be much harder to read. That's one of the differences."

"We are all transparent enough--to those who look through the right gla.s.ses," said Temple. "And part of my character is my inability to find any gla.s.s through which I could see him clearly."

This comparison of his character and Vernon's, with its sudden a.s.sumption of intimacy, charmed yet embarra.s.sed him.

She saw both emotions and pitied him a little. But it was necessary to interest this young man enough to keep him there till Vernon should return. Then Vernon would see her home, and she might find out something, however little, about Betty. But if this young man went she too must go. She could not outstay him in the rooms of his friend. So she talked on, and Temple was just as much at her mercy as Betty had been at the mercy of the brother artist in the rabbit warren at Long Barton.

But at seven o'clock Vernon had not returned, and it was, after all, Temple who saw her home.

Temple, free from the immediate enchantment of her presence, felt the revival of a resentful curiosity.

Why had Betty refused his help? Why had she sought Vernon's? Why did women treat him as though he were a curate and Vernon as though he were a G.o.d? Well--Lady St. Craye at least had not treated him as curates are treated.

CHAPTER XIV.

RENUNCIATION.

Vernon tore down the stairs three and four at a time, and caught Betty as she was stepping into a hired carriage.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, go back to your friends!" said Betty angrily.

"My friends are all right. They'll amuse each other. Tell me."

"Then you must come with me," said she. "If I try to tell you here I shall begin to cry again. Don't speak to me. I can't bear it."

He got into the carriage. It was not until Betty had let herself into her room and he had followed her in--not till they stood face to face in the middle of the carpet that he spoke again.

"Now," he said, "what is it? Where's your aunt, and--"

"Sit down, won't you?" she said, pulling off her hat and throwing it on the couch; "it'll take rather a long time to tell, but I must tell you all about it, or else you can't help me. And if you don't help me I don't know what I shall do."

Despair was in her voice.

He sat down. Betty, in the chair opposite his, sat with hands nervously locked together.

"Look here," she said abruptly, "you're sure to think that everything I've done is wrong, but it's no use your saying so."

"I won't say so."

"Well, then--that day, you know, after I saw you at the Bete--Madame Gautier didn't come to fetch me, and I waited, and waited, and at last I went to her flat, and she was dead,--and I ought to have telegraphed to my step-father to fetch me, but I thought I would like to have one night in Paris first--you know I hadn't seen Paris at all, really."

"Yes," he said, trying not to let any anxiety into his voice. "Yes--go on."

"And I went to the Cafe d'Harcourt--What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"I thought it was where the art students went. And I met a girl there, and she was kind to me."

"What sort of a girl? Not an art student?"

"No," said Betty hardly, "she wasn't an art student. She told me what she was."

"Yes?"

"And I--I don't think I should have done it just for me alone, but--I did want to stay in Paris and work--and I wanted to help her to be good--she _is_ good really, in spite of everything. Oh, I know you're horribly shocked, but I can't help it! And now she's gone,--and I can't find her."

"I'm not shocked," he said deliberately, "but I'm extremely stupid.

How gone?"

"She was living with me here.--Oh, she found the rooms and showed me where to go for meals and gave me good advice--oh, she did everything for me! And now she's gone. And I don't know what to do. Paris is such a horrible place. Perhaps she's been kidnapped or something. And I don't know even how to tell the police. And all this time I'm talking to you is wasted time."

"It isn't wasted. But I must understand. You met this girl and she--"

"She asked your friend Mr. Temple--he was pa.s.sing and she called out to him--to tell me of a decent hotel, but he asked so many questions.

He gave me an address and I didn't go. I went back to her, and we went to a hotel and I persuaded her to come and live with me."

"But your aunt?"

Betty explained about her aunt.