CHAPTER VIII.
THE ONE AND THE OTHER.
"Some idiot," remarked Eustace Vernon, sipping Vermouth at a little table, "insists that, if you sit long enough outside the Café de la Paix, you will see everyone you have ever known or ever wanted to know pass by. I have sat here for half-an-hour—and—voila."
"You met me, half an hour ago," said the other man.
"Oh,you!" said Vernon affectionately.
"And your hat has gone off every half minute ever since," said the other man.
"Ah, that's to the people I've known. It's the people I've wanted to know that are the rarity."
"Do you mean people you have wanted to know and not known?"
"There aren't many of those," said Vernon; "no it's—Jove, that's a sweet woman!"
"I hate the type," said the other man briefly: "all clothes—no real human being."
The woman was beautifully dressed, in the key whose harmonies are only mastered by Frenchwomen and Americans. She turned her head as her carriage passed, and Vernon's hat went off once more.
"I'd forgotten her profile," said Vernon, "and she's learned how to dress since I saw her last. She's quite human, really, and as charming as anyone ought to be."
"So I should think," said the other man. "I'm sorry I said that, but I didn't know you knew her. How's trade?"
"Oh, I did a picture—well, but a picture! I did it in England in the Spring. Best thing I've done yet. Come and see it."
"I should like to look you up. Where do you hang out?"
"Eighty-six bis Rue Notre Dame des Champs," said Vernon. "Everyone in fiction lives there. It's the only street on the other side that authors seem ever to have dreamed of. Still, it's convenient, so I herd there with all sorts of blackguards, heroes and villains and what not. Eighty-six bis."
"I'll come," said the other man, slowly. "Do you know, Vernon, I'd like awfully to get at your point of view—your philosophy of life?"
"Haven't you got one, my dear chap!—'sufficient unto' is my motto."
"You paint pictures,", the other went on, "so very much too good for the sort of life you lead."
Vernon laughed.
"My dear Temple," he said, "I live, mostly, the life of a vestal virgin."
"You know well enough I'm not quarrelling with the way you spend your evenings," said his dear Temple; "it's your whole outlook that doesn't match your work. Yet there must be some relation between the two, that's what I'd like to get at."
There is a bond stronger than friendship, stronger than love—a bond that cannot be forged in any other shop than the one—the bond between old schoolfellows. Vernon had sometimes wondered why he "stood so much" from Temple. It is a wonder that old schoolfellows often feel, mutually.
"The subject you've started," said he, "is of course, to me, the most interesting. Please develop your thesis."
"Well then, your pictures are good, strong, thorough stuff, with sentiment—yes, just enough sentiment to keep them from the brutality of Degas or the sensualism of Latouche. Whereas you, yourself, seem to have no sentiment."
"I? No sentiment! Oh, Bobby, this is too much! Why, I'm a mass of it! Ask—"
"Yes, ask any woman of your acquaintance. That's just it—or just part of it. You fool them into thinking—oh, I don't know what; but you don't fool me."
"I haven't tried."
"Then you're not brutal, except half a dozen times in the year when you—And I've noticed that when your temper goes smash your morals go at the same time. Is that cause or effect? What's the real you like, and where do you keep it?"
"The real me," said Vernon, "is seen in my pictures, and—and appreciated by my friends; you for instance, are, I believe, genuinely attached to me."
"Oh, rot!" said Bobby.
"I don't see," said Vernon, moving his iron chair to make room for two people at the next table, "why you should expect my pictures to rhyme with my life. A man's art doesn't rhyme with his personality. Most often it contradicts flatly. Look at musicians—what a divine art, and what pigs of high priests! And look at actors—but no, one can't; the spectacle is too sickening."
"I sometimes think," said Temple, emptying his glass, "that the real you isn't made yet. It's waiting for—"
"For the refining touch of a woman's hand, eh? You think the real me is—Oh, Temple, Temple, I've no heart for these childish imaginings! The real me is the man that paints pictures, damn good pictures, too, though I say it."
"And is that what all the women think?
"Ask them, my dear chap; ask them. They won't tell you the truth."
"They're not the only ones who won't. I should like to know what you really think of women, Vernon."
"I don't think about them at all," lied Vernon equably. "They aren't subjects for thought but for emotion—and even of that as little as may be. It's impossible seriously to regard a woman as a human being; she's merely a dear, delightful, dainty—"
"Plaything?"
"Well, yes—or rather a very delicately tuned musical instrument. If you know the scales and the common chords, you can improvise nice little airs and charming variations. She's a sort of—well, a penny whistle, and the music you get depends not on her at all, but on your own technique."
"I've never been in love," said Temple; "not seriously, I mean," he hastened to add, for Vernon was smiling, "not a life or death matter, don't you know; but I do hate the way you talk, and one of these days you'll hate it too."
Miss Desmond's warning floated up through the dim waters of half a year.
"So a lady told me, only last Spring," he said. "Well, I'll take my chance. Going? Well, I'm glad we ran across each other. Don't forget to look me up."
Temple moved off, and Vernon was left alone. He sat idly smoking cigarette after cigarette, and watched the shifting crowd. It was a bright October day, and the crowd was a gay one.
Suddenly his fingers tightened on his cigarette,—but he kept the hand that held it before his face, and he bent his head forward.
Two ladies were passing, on foot. One was the elder Miss Desmond—she who had warned him that one of these days he would be caught—and the other, hanging lovingly on her aunt's arm, was, of course, Betty. But a smart, changed, awakened Betty! She was dressed almost as beautifully as the lady whose profile he had failed to recognise, but much more simply. Her eyes were alight, and she was babbling away to her aunt. She was even gesticulating a little, for all the world like a French girl. He noted the well-gloved hand with which she emphasized some point in her talk.
"That's the hand," he said, "that I held when we sat on the plough in the shed and I told her fortune."
He had risen, and his feet led him along the road they had taken. Ten yards ahead of him he saw the swing of the aunt's serviceable brown skirt and beside it Betty's green and gray.
"I am not breaking my word," he replied to the Inward Monitor. "Who's going out of his way to speak to the girl?"
He watched the brown gown and the green all the way down the Boulevard des Capucines, saw them cross the road and go up the steps of the Madeleine. He paused at the corner. It was hard, certainly, to keep his promise; yet so far it was easy, because he could not well recall himself to the Misses Desmond on the ground of his having six months ago involved the one in a row with her relations, and discussed the situation afterwards with the other.
"I do wonder where they're staying, though," he told himself. "If one were properly introduced—?" But he knew that the aunt would consider no introduction a proper one that should renew his acquaintance with Betty.
"Wolf, wolf," he said, "let the fold alone! There's no door for you, and you've pledged your sacred word as an honourable wolf not to jump any more hurdles."
And as he stood musing, the elder Miss Desmond came down the church steps and walked briskly away.
Some men would, doubtless, have followed her example, if not her direction. Vernon was not one of these. He found himself going up the steps of the great church. He had as good a right to go into the Madeleine as the next man. He would probably not see the girl. If he did he would not speak. Almost certainly he would not even see her.
But Destiny had remembered Mr. Vernon once more. Betty was standing just inside the door, her face upturned, and all her soul in her eyes. The mutterings of the organ and the voices of boys filled the great dark building.
He went and stood close by her. He would not speak. He would keep his word. But she should have a chance of speaking. His eyes were on her face. The hymn ended. She exhaled a held breath, started and spoke.
"You?" she said, "you?" The two words are spelled alike. Spoken, they are capable of infinite variations. The first "you" sent Vernon's blood leaping. The second froze it to what it had been before he met her. For indeed that little unfinished idyll had been almost forgotten by the man who sat drinking Vermouth outside the Café de la Paix.
"How are you?" he whispered. "Won't you shake hands?"
She gave him a limp and unresponsive glove.
"I had almost forgotten you," she said, "but I am glad to see you—because—Come to the door. I don't like talking in churches."
They stood on the steps behind one of the great pillars.
"Do you think it is wise to stand here?" he said. "Your aunt might see us."
"So you followed us in?" said Betty with perfect self-possession. "That was very kind. I have often wished to see you, to tell you how much obliged I am for all your kindness in the Spring. I was only a child then, and I didn't understand, but now I quite see how good it was of you."
"Why do you talk like that?" he said. "You don't think—you can't think it was my fault?"
"Your fault! What?"
"Why, your father finding us and—"
"Oh,that!" she said lightly. "Oh, I had forgotten that! Ridiculous, wasn't it? No, I mean your kindness in giving so many hours to teaching a perfect duffer. Well, now I've seen you and said what I had to say, I think I'll go back."
"No, don't go," he said. "I want to know—oh, all sorts of things! I can see your aunt from afar, and fly if she approaches."
"You don't suppose," said Betty, opening her eyes at him, "that I shan't tell her I've seen you?"
He had supposed it, and cursed his clumsiness.
"Ah, I see," she went on, "you think I should deceive my aunt now because I deceived my step-father in the Spring. But I was a child then,—and besides, I'm fond of my aunt."
"Did you know that she came to see me?"
"Of course. You seem to think we live in an atmosphere of deceit, Mr. Vernon."
"What's the matter with you?" he said bluntly, for finer weapons seemed useless. "What have I done to make you hate me?"
"I hate you? Oh, no—not in the least," said Betty spitefully. "I am very grateful to you for all your kindness."
"Where are you staying?" he asked.
"Hotel Bête," said Betty, off her guard, "but—"
The "but" marked his first score.
"I wish I could have called to see your aunt," he said carelessly, "but I am off to Vienna to-morrow."
Betty believed that she did not change countenance by a hair's breadth.
"I hope you'll have a delightful time," she said politely.
"Thanks. I am sure I shall. The only consolation for leaving Paris is that one is going to Vienna. Are you here for long?"
"I don't know." Betty was on her guard again.
"Paris is a delightful city, isn't it?"
"Most charming."
"Have you been here long?"
"No, not very long."
"Are you still working at your painting? It would be a pity to give that up."
"I am not working just now."
"I see your aunt," he said hurriedly. "Are you going to send me away like this? Don't be so unjust, so ungenerous. It's not like you—my pupil of last Spring was not unjust."
"Your pupil of last Spring was a child and a duffer, Mr. Vernon, as I said before. But she is grateful to you for one thing—no, two."
"What's the other?" he asked swiftly.
"Your drawing-lessons," she demurely answered.
"Then what's the one?"
"Good-bye," she said, and went down the steps to meet her aunt. He effaced himself behind a pillar. In spite of her new coldness, he could not believe that she would tell her aunt of the meeting. And he was right, though Betty's reasons were not his reasons.
"What's the good?" she asked herself as she and her aunt walked across to their hotel. "He's going away to-morrow, and I shall never see him again. Well, I behaved beautifully, that's one thing. He must simply loathe me. So that's all right! If he were staying on in Paris, of course I would tell her."
She believed this fully.
He waited five minutes behind that pillar, and then had himself driven to the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, choosing as driver a man with a white hat, in strict accordance with the advice in Baedeker, though he had never read any of the works of that author.
This new Betty, with the smart gown and the distant manner, awoke at the same time that she contradicted his memories of the Betty of Long Barton. And he should not see her again. Of course he was not going to Vienna, but neither was he going to hang round the Hotel Bête, or to bribe Franz or Elise to smuggle notes to Miss Betty.
"It's never any use trying to join things on again," he told himself. "As well try to mend a spider's web when you have put your boot through it."
'No diver brings up love againDropped onceIn such cold seas!'
"But what has happened? Why does she hate me so? You acted very nicely, dear, but that wasn't indifference. It was hatred, if ever I've seen it. I wonder what it means? Another lover? No—then she'd be sorry for me. It's something that belongs to me—not another man's shadow. But what I shall never know. And she's prettier than ever, too. Oh, hang it!"
His key turned in the lock, and on the door-mat shewed the white square of an envelope—a note from the other woman, the one whose profile he had not remembered. She was in Paris for a time. She had seen him at the Paix, had wondered whether he had his old rooms, had driven straight up on the chance of being able to leave this—wasn't that devotion?—and would he care to call for her at eight and they could dine somewhere and talk over old times? One familiar initial, that of her first name, curled in the corner and the card smelt of jasmine—not of jasmine-scent in bottles, but of the real flower. He had never known how she managed it.
Vernon was not fond of talking over old times, but Betty would be dining at the Hotel Bête—some dull hole, no doubt; he had never heard of it. Well, he could not dine at the Bête, and after all one must dine somewhere. And the other woman had never bored him. That is a terrible weapon in the hands of a rival. And Betty had been most unjust. And what was Betty to him, anyway? His thoughts turned to the American girl who had sketched with him in Brittany that Summer. Ah, if she had not been whisked back to New York by her people, it would not now be a question of Betty or of the Jasmine lady. He took out Miss Van Tromp's portrait and sat looking at it: it was admirable, the fearless poise of the head, the laughing eyes, the full pouting lips. Then Betty's face and the face of the Jasmine lady came between him and Miss Van Tromp.
"Bah," he said, "smell, kiss, wear—at last throw away. Never keep a rose till it's faded." A little tide of Breton memories swept through him.
"Bah," he said again, "she was perfectly charming, but what is the use of charm, half the world away?"
He pulled his trunk from the front of the fire-place, pushed up the iron damper, and made a little fire. He burned all Miss Van Tromp's letters, and her photograph—but, from habit, or from gratitude, he kissed it before he burned it.
"Now," said he as the last sparks died redly on the black embers, "the decks are cleared for action. Shall I sentimentalise about Betty—cold, cruel, changed Betty—or shall I call for the Jasmine lady?"
He did both, and the Jasmine lady might have found him dull. As it happened, she only found himdistrait, and that interested her.
"When we parted," she said, "it was I who was in tears. Now it's you. What is it?"
"If I am in tears," he roused himself to say, "it is only because everything passes, 'tout lasse, tout passe, tout casse.'"
"What's broken now?" she asked; "another heart? Oh, yes! you broke mine all to little, little bits. But I've mended it. I wanted frightfully to see you to thank you!
"This is a grateful day for women," thought Vernon, looking the interrogatory.
"Why, for showing me how hearts are broken," she explained; "it's quite easy when you know how, and it's a perfectly delightful game. I play it myself now, and I can't imagine how I ever got on before I learned the rules."
"You forget," he said, smiling. "It was you who broke my heart. And it's not mended yet."
"That's very sweet of you. But really, you know, I'm very glad it was you who broke my heart, and not anyone else. Because, now it's mended, that gives us something to talk about. We have a past. That's really what I wanted to tell you. And that's such a bond, isn't it? When it reallyispast—dead, you know, no nonsense about cataleptic trances, but stone dead."
"Yes," he said, "it is a link. But it isn't the past for me, you know. It can never—"
She held up a pretty jewelled hand.
"Now, don't," she said. "That's just what you don't understand. All that's out of the picture. I know you too well. Just realize that I'm the only nice woman you know who doesn't either expect you to make love to her in the future or hate you for having done it in the past, and you'll want to see me every day. Think of the novelty of it."
"I do and I do," said he, "and I won't protest any more while you're in this mood. Bear with me if I seem idiotic to-night—I've been burning old letters, and that always makes me like a funeral."
"Old letters—mine?"
"I burned yours long ago."
"And it isn't two years since we parted! How many have there been since?"
"Is this the Inquisition or is it Durand's?"
"It's somewhere where we both are," she said, without a trace of sentiment; "that's good enough for me. Do you know I've been married since I saw you last?Andleft a widow—in a short three months it all happened. And—well I'm not very clever, as you know, but—can you imagine what it is like to be married to a man who doesn't understand a single word you say, unless it's about the weather or things to eat? No, don't look shocked. He was a good fellow, and very happy till the motor accident took him and left me this."
She shewed a scar on her smooth arm.
"What a woman it is for surprises! So he was very happy? But of course he was."
"Yes, of course, as you say. I was a model wife. I wore black for a whole year too!"
"Why did you marry him?"
"Well, at the time I thought you might hear of it and be disappointed, or hurt, or something."
"So I am," said Vernon with truth.
"You needn't be," said she. "You'll find me much nicer now I don't want to disappoint you or hurt you, but only to have a good time, and there's no nonsense about love to get in the way, and spoil everything."
"So you're—But this isn't proper! Here am I dining with a lady and I don't even know her name!"
"I know—I wouldn't put it to the note. Didn't that single initial arouse your suspicions? Her name? Her title if you please! I married Harry St. Craye. You remember how we used to laugh at him together."
"That little—I beg your pardon, Lady St. Craye."
"Yes," she said, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum: of the dead nothing but the bones. If he had lived he would certainly have beaten me. Here's to our new friendship!"
"Our new friendship!" he repeated, raising his glass and looking in her eyes. Lady St. Craye looked very beautiful, and Betty was not there. In fact, just now there was no Betty.
He went back to his room humming a song of Yvette Guilbert's. There might have been no flowering May, no buttercup meadows in all the world, for any thought of memory that he had of them. And Betty was a thousand miles away.
That was at night. In the morning Betty was at the Hotel Bête, and the Hotel Bête was no longer a petty little hotel which he did not know and never should know. For the early post brought him a letter which said:
"I am in Paris for a few days and should like to see you if you can make it convenient to call at my hotel on Thursday."
This was Tuesday.
The letter was signed with the name of the uncle from whom Vernon had expectations, and at the head of the letter was the address:
"Hôtel Bête,Cité de Retraite,Rue Boissy d'Anglais."
"Hôtel Bête,Cité de Retraite,Rue Boissy d'Anglais."
"Hôtel Bête,Cité de Retraite,Rue Boissy d'Anglais."
"Now bear witness!" cried Vernon, appealing to the Universe, "bear witness that this isnotmy fault!"
CHAPTER IX.
THE OPPORTUNITY.
Vernon in those two days decided that he did not wish to see Betty again. She was angry with him, and, though he never for an instant distrusted his power to dissipate the cloud, he felt that the lifting of it would leave him and her in that strong light wherein the frail flower of sentiment must wither and perish. Explications were fatal to the delicate mystery, the ethereal half-lights, that Vernon loved. Above all things he detested thetrop dit.
Already a mood of much daylight was making him blink and shrink. He saw himself as he was—or nearly—and the spectacle did not please him. The thought of Lady St. Craye was the only one that seemed to make for any sort of complacency. The thought of Temple rankled oddly.
"He likes me, and he dislikes himself for liking me. Why does he like me? Why does anyone like me? I'm hanged if I know!"
This was the other side of his mood of most days, when the wonder seemed that everyone should not like him. Why shouldn't they? Ordinarily he was hanged if he knew that.
He had expected a note from Lady St. Craye to follow up his dinner with her. He knew how a woman rarely resists the temptation to write to the man in whom she is interested, even while his last words are still ringing in her ears. But no note came, and he concluded that Lady St. Craye was not interested. This reassured while it piqued.
The Hotel Bête is very near the Madeleine, and very near the heart of Paris—of gay Paris, that is,—yet it might have been a hundred miles from anywhere. You go along the Rue Boissy, and stopping at a gateway you turn into a dreary paved court, which is the Cité de la Retraite. Here the doors of the Hotel Bête open before you like the portals of a mausoleum. There is no greeting from the Patronne; your arrival gives rise to no pleasant welcoming bustle. The concierge receives you, and you see at once that her cheerful smile is assumed. No one could really be cheerful at the Hotel Bête.
Vernon felt as though he was entering a family vault of the highest respectability when he passed through its silent hall and enquired for Mr. James Vernon.
Monsieur Vernon was out. No, he had charged no one with a billet for monsieur. Monsieur Vernon would doubtless return for the déjeûner; it was certain that he would return for the diner. Would Monsieur wait?
Monsieur waited, in a little stiff salon with glass doors, prim furniture, and an elaborately ornamental French clock. It was silent, of course. One wonders sometimes whether ornamental French Ormolu clocks have any works, or are solid throughout. For no one has ever seen one of them going.
There were day-old English papers on the table, and the New York Herald. Through the glass doors he could see everyone who came in or went out. And he saw no one. There was a stillness as of the tomb.
Even the waiter, now laying covers for the déjeûner, wore list slippers and his movements were silent as a heron's ghost-gray flight.
He came to the glass door presently.
"Did Monsieur breakfast?"
Vernon was not minded to waste two days in the pursuit of uncles. Here he was, and here he stayed, till Uncle James should appear.
Yes, decidedly, Monsieur breakfasted.
He wondered where the clients of the hotel had hidden themselves. Were they all dead, or merely sight-seeing? As his watch shewed him the approach of half-past twelve he found himself listening for the tramp of approaching feet, the rustle of returning skirts. And still all was silent as the grave.
The sudden summoning sound of a bell roused him from a dreamy wonder as to whether Betty and her aunt had already left. If not, should he meet them at déjeûner? The idea of the possible meeting amused more than it interested him. He crossed the hall and entered the long bare salle á manger.
By Heaven—he was the only guest! A cover was laid for him only—no, at a distance of half the table for another. Then Betty and her aunt had gone. Well, so much the better.
He unfolded his table-napkin. In another moment, doubtless, Uncle James would appear to fill the vacant place.
But in another moment the vacant place was filled—and by Betty—Betty alone, unchaperoned, and bristling with hostility. She bowed very coldly, but she was crimson to the ears. He rose and came to her holding out his hand.
With the waiter looking on, Betty had to give hers, but she gave it in a way that said very plainly:
"I am very surprised and not at all pleased to see you here."
"This is a most unexpected pleasure," he said very distinctly, and added the truth about his uncle.
"Has Monsieur Vernon yet returned?" he asked the waiter who hovered anxiously near.
"No, Monsieur was not yet of return."
"So you see," his look answered the speech of her hand, "it is not my doing in the least."
"I hope your aunt is well," he went on, the waiter handing baked eggs the while.
"Quite well, thank you," said Betty. "And how is your wife? I ought to have asked yesterday, but I forgot."
"My wife?"
"Oh, perhaps you aren't married yet. Of course my father told me of your engagement."
She crumbled bread and smiled pleasantly.
"Sothat'sit," thought Vernon. "Fool that I was to forget it!"
"I am not married," he said coldly, "nor have I ever been engaged to be married."
And he ate eggs stolidly wondering what her next move would be. It was one that surprised him. For she leaned towards him and said in a perfectly new voice:
"Couldn't you get Franz to move you a little more this way? One can't shout across these acres of tablecloth, and I've heaps of things to tell you."
He moved nearer, and once again he wronged Betty by a mental shrinking. Was she really going to own that she had resented the news of his engagement? She was really hopeless. He began to bristle defensively.
1w_cross.jpg (83K)["'Ah, don't be cross!' she said"]
1w_cross.jpg (83K)["'Ah, don't be cross!' she said"]
["'Ah, don't be cross!' she said"]
"Anything you care to tell me will of course be of the greatest possible interest," he was beginning, but Betty interrupted him.
"Ah, don't be cross!" she said. "I know I was perfectly horrid yesterday, but I own I was rather hurt."
"Hold back," he adjured her, inwardly, "for Heaven's sake, hold back!"
"You see," she went on, "you and I were such good friends—you'd been so kind—and you told me—you talked to me about things you didn't talk of to other people,—and when I thought you'd told my step-father a secret of yours that you'd never told me, of course I felt hurt—anyone would have."
"I see," said he, beginning to.
"Of course I never dreamed that he'd lied, and even now I don't see—" Then suddenly she did see and crimsoned again.
"He didn't lie," said Vernon carefully, "it was I. But I would never have told him anything that I wouldn't have told you—nor half that I did tell you."
The waiter handed pale meat.
"Yes, the scenery in Brittany is most charming; I did some good work there. The people are so primitive and delightful too."
The waiter withdrew, and Betty said:
"How do you mean—he didn't lie?"
"The fact is," said Vernon, "he—he did not understand our friendship in the least. I imagine friendship was not invented when he was young. It's a tiresome subject, Miss Desmond; let's drop it—shall we?"
"If you like," said she, chilly as December.
"Oh, well then, just let me say it was done for your sake, Miss Desmond. He had no idea that two people should have any interests in common except—except matters of the heart, and the shortest way to convince him was to tell him that my heart was elsewhere. I don't like lies, but there are some people who insist on lies—nothing else will convince them of the truth. Here comes some abhorrent preparation of rice. How goes it with art?"
"I have been working very hard," she said, "but every day I seem to know less and less."
"Oh, that's all right! It's only that every day one knows more and more—of how little one does know. You'll have to pass many milestones before you pass out of that state. Do they always feed you like this here?"
"Some days it's custard," said Betty, "but we've only been here a week."
"We're friends again now, aren't we?" he questioned suddenly.
"Yes—oh, yes!"
"Then I may ask questions. I want to hear what you've been doing since we parted, and where you've been, and how you come to Paris—and where your aunt is, and what she'll say to me when she comes in."
"She likes you," said Betty, "and she won't come in, but Madame Gautier will. Aunt Julia went off this morning—she couldn't delay any longer because of catching the P. & O. at Brindisi; and I'm to wait here till Madame Gautier comes at three. Auntie came all the way back from America to see whether I was happy here. Sheisa dear!"
"And who is Madame Gautier? Is she also a dear? But let's have our coffee in the salon—and tell me everything from the beginning."
"Yes," said Betty, "oh, yes!"
But the salon window was darkened by a passing shape.
"My uncle, bless him!" said Vernon. "I must go. See, here's my card! Won't you write and tell me all about everything? You will, won't you?"
"Yes, but you musn't write to me. Madame Gautier opens all our letters, and friendships weren't invented when she was young either. Good-bye."
Vernon had to go towards the strong English voice that was filling the hall with its inquiries for "Ung Mossoo—ung mossoo Anglay qui avoir certainmong etty icy ce mattan."
Five minutes later Betty saw two figures go along the pavement on the other side of the decorous embroidered muslin blinds which, in the unlikely event of any happening in the Cite de la Retraite, ensure its not being distinctly seen by those who sojourn at the Hotel Bête.
Betty instantly experienced that feminine longing which makes women write to lovers or friends from whom they have but now parted, and she was weaker than Lady St. Craye. There was nothing to do. Her trunks were packed. She had before her two hours, or nearly, of waiting for Madame Gautier. So she wrote, and this is the letter, erasures and all. Vernon, when he got it, was most interested in the erasures here given in italics.
Dear Mr. Vernon:I am very glad we are good friends again, and I should like to tell you everything that has happened. (After you, after he—when my step-father). After the last time I saw you (I was very unhappy because I wanted to go to Paris) I was very anxious to go to Paris because of what you had said. My aunt came down and was very kind. (She told me) She persuaded my step-father to let me go. I think (we) he was glad to get rid of me, for (somehow) he never did care about me, any more than I did about him. There are a great many (other) things that he does not understand. Of course I was wild with joy and thought of nothing but (what you) work, and my aunt brought me over. But I did not see anything of Paris then. We went straight on to Joinville where Madame Gautier has a villa, and (we) my aunt left me there, and went to Norway. It was all very strange at first, but I liked it. Madame Gautier is very strict; it was like being at school. Sometimes I almost (forgot) fancied that I was at school again. There were three other girls besides me, and we had great fun. The Professor was very nice and encouraging. He is very old. So is everybody who comes to the house—(but) it (was) is jolly, because when there are four of you everything is so interesting. We used to have picnics in the woods, and take it in turn to ride in the donkey-cart. And there were musical evenings with the Pastor and the Avocat and their wives. It was very amusing sometimes. Madame Gautier had let her Paris flat, so we stayed at Joinville till a week ago, and then my Aunt walked in one day and took me to Paris for a week. I did enjoy that. And now aunt has gone, and Madame Gautier is taking the inventory and getting the keys, and presently she will come for me, I shall go with her to the Rue Vaugirard, Number 62. It will be very nice seeing the other girls again and telling them all about (everything) my week in Paris. I am so sorry that I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you again, but I am glad we met—because I do not like to think my friends do not trust me.Yours sincerely,Betty Desmond.
Dear Mr. Vernon:
I am very glad we are good friends again, and I should like to tell you everything that has happened. (After you, after he—when my step-father). After the last time I saw you (I was very unhappy because I wanted to go to Paris) I was very anxious to go to Paris because of what you had said. My aunt came down and was very kind. (She told me) She persuaded my step-father to let me go. I think (we) he was glad to get rid of me, for (somehow) he never did care about me, any more than I did about him. There are a great many (other) things that he does not understand. Of course I was wild with joy and thought of nothing but (what you) work, and my aunt brought me over. But I did not see anything of Paris then. We went straight on to Joinville where Madame Gautier has a villa, and (we) my aunt left me there, and went to Norway. It was all very strange at first, but I liked it. Madame Gautier is very strict; it was like being at school. Sometimes I almost (forgot) fancied that I was at school again. There were three other girls besides me, and we had great fun. The Professor was very nice and encouraging. He is very old. So is everybody who comes to the house—(but) it (was) is jolly, because when there are four of you everything is so interesting. We used to have picnics in the woods, and take it in turn to ride in the donkey-cart. And there were musical evenings with the Pastor and the Avocat and their wives. It was very amusing sometimes. Madame Gautier had let her Paris flat, so we stayed at Joinville till a week ago, and then my Aunt walked in one day and took me to Paris for a week. I did enjoy that. And now aunt has gone, and Madame Gautier is taking the inventory and getting the keys, and presently she will come for me, I shall go with her to the Rue Vaugirard, Number 62. It will be very nice seeing the other girls again and telling them all about (everything) my week in Paris. I am so sorry that I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you again, but I am glad we met—because I do not like to think my friends do not trust me.
Yours sincerely,
Betty Desmond.
That was the letter which Betty posted. But the first letter she wrote was quite different. It began:
"You don't know, you never will know what it is to me to know that you did not deceive me. My dear friend, my only friend! And how I treated you yesterday! And how nobly you forgave me. I shall see you again. I must see you again. No one else has ever understood me." And so on to the "True and constant friend Betty."
"You don't know, you never will know what it is to me to know that you did not deceive me. My dear friend, my only friend! And how I treated you yesterday! And how nobly you forgave me. I shall see you again. I must see you again. No one else has ever understood me." And so on to the "True and constant friend Betty."
She burned this letter.
"The other must go," she said, "that's the worst of life. If I sent the one that's really written as I feel he'd think I was in love with him or some nonsense. But a child who was just in two syllables might have written the other. Sothat'sall right."
She looked at her watch. The same silver watch with which she had once crossed the hand of one who told her fortune.
"How silly all that was!" she said. "I have learned wisdom now. Nearly half-past three. I never knew Madame late before."
And now Betty began to watch the windows for the arrival of her chaperone; and four o'clock came, and five, but no Madame Gautier.
She went out at last and asked to see the Patronne, and to her she explained in a French whose fluency out-ran its correctness, that a lady was to have called for her at three. It was now a quarter past five. What did Madame think she should do?
Madame was lethargic and uninterested. She had no idea. She could not advise. Probably Mademoiselle would do well to wait always.
The concierge was less aloof.
But without doubt Madame, Mademoiselle's friend had forgotten the hour. She would arrive later, certainly. If not, Mademoiselle could stay the night at the hotel, where a young lady would be perfectly well, and go to Madame her friend in the morning.
But Betty was not minded to stay the night alone at the Hótel Bête. For one thing she had very little money,—save that in the fat envelope addressed to Madame Gautier which her aunt had given her. It contained, she knew, the money to pay for her board and lessons during the next six months,—for the elder Miss Desmond was off to India, Japan and Thibet, and her horror of banks and cheques made her very downright in the matter of money. That in the envelope was all Betty had, and that was Madame Gautier's. But the other part of the advice—to go to Madame Gautier's in the morning? If in the morning, why not now?
She decided to go now. No one opposed the idea much. Only Franz seemed a little disturbed and the concierge tepidly urged patience.
But Betty was fretted by waiting. Also she knew that Vernon and his uncle might return at any moment. And it would perhaps be awkward for him to find her there—she would not for the world cause him a moment's annoyance. Besides he might think she had waited on the chance of seeing him again. That was not to be borne.
"I will return and take my trunks," she said; and a carriage was called.
There was something very exhilarating in driving through the streets of Paris, alone, in a nice little carriage with fat pneumatic tires. The street lamps were alight, and the shops not yet closed. Almost every house seemed to be a shop.
"I wonder where all the people live," said Betty.
The Place de la Concorde delighted her with its many lamps and its splendid space.
"How glorious it would be to live alone in Paris," she thought, "be driven about in cabs just when one liked and where one liked! Oh, I am tired of being a school-girl! I suppose they won't let me be grown up till I'm so old I shall wish I was a school-girl again."
She loved the river with its reflected lights,—but it made her shudder, too.
"Of course I shall never be allowed to see the Morgue," she said; "they won't let me see anything real. Even this little teeny tiny bit of a drive, I daresay it's not comme il faut! I do hope Madame won't be furious. She couldn't expect me to wait forever. Perhaps, too, she's ill, and no one to look after her. Oh, I'm sure I'm right to go."
The doubt, however, grew as the carriage jolted through narrower streets, and when it drew up at an open carriage-door, Betty jumped out, paid the coachman, and went in quite prepared to be scolded.
She went through the doorway and stood looking for the list of names such as are set at the foot of the stairs leading to flats in London. There was no such list. From a lighted doorway on the right came a babel of shrill, high-pitched voices. Betty looked in at the door and the voices ceased.
"Pardon, Madame," said Betty. "I seek Madame Gautier."
Everyone in the crowded stuffy lamplit little room drew a deep breath.
"Mademoiselle is without doubt one of Madame's young ladies?"
Perhaps it was the sudden hushing of the raised voices, perhaps it was something in the flushed faces that all turned towards her. To her dying day Betty will never know why she did not say "Yes." What she did say was:
"I am a friend of Madame's. Is she at home?"
"No, Mademoiselle,—she is not at home; she will never be at home more, the poor lady. She is dead, Mademoiselle—an accident, one of those cursed automobiles ran over her at her very door, Mademoiselle, before our eyes."
Betty felt sick.
"Thank you," she said, "it is very sudden."
"Will Mademoiselle leave her name?" the concierge asked curiously. "The brother of Madame, he is in the commerce at Nantes. A telegramme has been sent—he arrives to-morrow morning. He will give Mademoiselle details."
Again Betty said what she had not intended to say. She said:
"Miss Brown." Perhaps the brother in the commerce vaguely suggested the addition, "of Manchester."
Then she turned away, and got out of the light into the friendly dusk of the street.
"Tiens, but it is droll," said the concierge's friend, "a young girl, and all alone like that."
"Oh, it is nothing," said the concierge; "the English are mad—all! Their young girls run the streets at all hours, and the Devil guards them."
Betty stood in the street. She could not go back to that circle of harpy faces, all eagerly tearing to pieces the details of poor old Madame Gautier's death. She must be alone—think. She would have to write home. Her father would come to fetch her. Her aunt was beyond the reach of appeal. Her artist-life would be over. Everything would be over. She would be dragged back to the Parishing and the Mothers' meetings and the black-cotton-covered books and the Sunday School.
And she would never have lived in Paris at all!
She walked down the street.
"I can't think—Imustthink! I'll have this night to myself to think in, anyway. I'll go to some cheap hotel. I have enough for that."
She hailed a passing carriage, drove to the Hotel Bête, took her luggage to the Gare du Nord, and left it there.
Then as she stood on the station step, she felt something in her hand. It was the fat letter addressed to Madame Gautier. And she knew it was fat with bank notes.
She unfastened her dress and thrust the letter into her bosom, buttoning the dress carefully over it.
"But I won't go to my hotel yet," she said. "I won't even look for one. I'll see Paris a bit first."
She hailed a coachman.
"Go," she said, "to some restaurant in the Latin Quarter—where the art students eat."
"And I'm alone in Paris, and perfectly free," said Betty, leaning back on the cushions. "No, I won't tell my coachman to drive along the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, wherever that is. Oh, it is glorious to be perfectly free. Oh, poor Madame Gautier! Oh dear, oh dear!" She held her breath and wondered why she could feel sorry.
"You are a wretch," she said, "poor Madame was kind to you in her hard narrow way, and now is she lying cold and dead, all broken up by that cruel motor car."
The horror of the picture helped by Betty's excitement brought the tears and she encouraged them.
"It is something to find one is not entirely heartless," she said at last, drying her eyes, as the carriage drew up at a place where there were people and voices and many lights.