The Incomplete Amorist

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"An instant," said Lady St. Craye; "let me reflect."

The concierge ostentatiously went back to her flowers.

"You have not given _them_ Miss Desmond's address?"

"Madame forgets," said the concierge, wounded virtue bristling in her
voice, "that I was, for the moment, devoted to the interest of
Monsieur. No. I am a loyal soul. I have told _nothing_. Only to
despatch the letter. Behold all!"

"I will give myself the pleasure of offering you a little present next
week," said Lady St. Craye; "it is only that you should say
nothing--nothing--and send no more letters. And--the address?"

"Madame knows it--by what she says."

"Yes, but I want to know if the address you have is the same that I
have. Hotel Chevillon, Grez sur Loing. Is it so?"

"It is exact. I thank you, Madame. Madame would do well to return
_chez elle_ and to repose herself a little. Madame is all pale."

"Is the aunt in Miss Desmond's rooms now?"

"Yes; she writes letters without end, and telegrams; and the
priest-father he runs with them like a sad old black dog that has not
the habit of towns."

"I shall go up and see her," said Lady St. Craye, "and I shall most
likely give her the address. But do not give yourself anxiety. You
will gain more by me than by any of the others. They are not rich. Me,
I am, Heaven be praised."

She went out and along the courtyard. At the foot of the wide shallow
stairs she paused and leaned on the dusty banisters.

"I feel as weak as any rat," she said, "but I must go through with
it--I must."

She climbed the stairs, and stood outside the brown door. The nails
that had held the little card "Miss E. Desmond" still stuck there, but
only four corners of the card remained.

The door was not shut--it always shut unwillingly. She tapped.

"Come in," said a clear, pleasant voice. And she went in.

The room was not as she had seen it on the two occasions when it had
been the battle ground where she and Betty fought for a man. Plaid
travelling-rugs covered the divans. A gold-faced watch in a leather
bracelet ticked on the table among scattered stationery. A lady in a
short sensible dress rose from the table, and the room was scented
with the smell of Hungarian cigarettes.

"I beg your pardon. I thought it was my brother-in-law. Did you call
to see Miss Desmond? She is away for a short time."

"Yes," said Lady St. Craye. "I know. I wanted to see you. The
concierge told me--"

"Oh, these concierges! They tell everything! It's what they were
invented for, I believe. And you wanted--" She stopped, looked hard at
the young woman and went on: "What you want is a good stiff brandy and
soda. Here, where's the head of the pin?--I always think it such a
pity bonnets went out. One could undo strings. That's it. Now, put
your feet up. That's right, I'll be back in half a minute."

Lady St. Craye found herself lying at full length on Betty's divan,
her feet covered with a Tussore driving-rug, her violet-wreathed hat
on a table at some distance.

She closed her eyes. It was just as well. She could get back a little
strength--she could try to arrange coherently what she meant to say.
No: it was not unfair to the girl. She ought to be taken care of. And,
besides, there was no such thing as "unfair." All was fair in--Well,
she was righting for her life. All was fair when one was fighting for
one's life--that was what she meant. Meantime, to lie quite still and
draw long, even breaths--telling oneself at each breath: "I am quite
well, I am quite strong--" seemed best.

There was a sound, a dull plop, the hiss and fizzle of a spurting
syphon, then:

"Drink this: that's right. I've got you."

A strong arm round her shoulders--something buzzing and spitting in a
glass under her nose.

"Drink it up, there's a good child."

She drank. A long breath.

"Now the rest." She was obedient.

"Now shut your eyes and don't bother. When you're better we'll talk."

Silence--save for the fierce scratching of a pen.

"I'm better," announced Lady St. Craye as the pen paused for the
folding of the third letter.

The short skirted woman came and sat on the edge of the divan, very
upright.

"Well then. You oughtn't to be out, you poor little thing."

The words brought the tears to the eyes of one weak with the
self-pitying weakness of convalescence.

"I wanted--"

"Are you a friend of Betty's?"

"Yes--no--I don't know."

"A hated rival perhaps," said the elder woman cheerfully. "You didn't
come to do her a good turn, anyhow, did you?"

"I--I don't know." Again this was all that would come.

"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
role 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."

She rose and stood before the glass, putting on her hat.

"I do respect a woman who has the courage to speak the truth to
another woman," said Miss Desmond. "I hope you'll get him--though it's
not a very kind wish."

Lady St. Craye let herself go completely in a phrase whose memory
stung and rankled for many a long day.

"Ah," she said, "even if he gets tired of me, I shall have got his
children. You don't know what it is to want a child. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Miss Desmond. "No--of course I don't."

CHAPTER XXV.

THE FOREST.

Nothing lifts the heart like the sense of a great self-sacrifice nobly
made. Betty was glad that she could feel so particularly noble. It was
a great help.

"He was mine," she told herself; "he meant to be--And I have given him
up to her. It hurts--yes--but I did the right thing."

She thought she hoped that he would soon forget her. And almost all
that was Betty tried quite sincerely, snatching at every help, to
forget him.

Sometimes the Betty that Betty did not want to be would, quite
deliberately and of set purpose, take out the nest of hungry memories,
look at them, play with them, and hand over her heart for them to feed
on. But always when she had done this she felt, afterwards, a little
sorry, a little ashamed. It was too like the diary at Long Barton.

Consciously or unconsciously one must make some concessions to every
situation or every situation would be impossible. Temple was
here--interested, pleased to see her, glad to talk to her. But he was
not at all inclined to be in love with her: that had been only a silly
fancy of hers--in Paris. He had made up his mind by now who it was
that he cared for. And it wasn't Betty. Probably she hadn't even been
one of the two he came to Grez to think about. He was only a good
friend--and she wanted a good friend. If he were not just a good
friend the situation would be impossible. And Betty chose that the
situation should be possible. For it was pleasant. It was a shield and
a shelter from all the thoughts that she wanted to hide from.

"If she thinks I'm going to break my heart about _him_, she's
mistaken. And so's He. I must be miserable for a bit," said Betty
bravely, "but I'll not be miserable forever, so he needn't think it.
Of course, I shall never care for anyone ever again--unless he were to
love me for years and years before he ever said a word, and then I
might say I would try.--_And_ try. But fall in love?--Never again! Oh,
good gracious, there he is,--and I've not _begun_ to get ready."

Temple was whistling _Deux Amants_ very softly in the courtyard below.
She put her head out of the window.

"I shan't be two minutes," she said, "You might get the basket from
Madame; and my sketching things are on the terrace all ready strapped
up."

The hoofs of the smart gray pony slipped and rattled on the
cobble-stones of the hotel entry.

"Au revoir: amuse yourselves well, my children." Madame Chevillon
stood, one hand on fat hip, the other shading old eyes that they might
watch the progress of the cart up the blinding whiteness of the
village street.

"To the forest, and yet again to the forest and to the forest always,"
she said, turning into the darkened billiard room. "Marie, beware,
thou, of the forest. The good God created it express for the
lovers,--but it is permitted to the devil to promenade himself there
also."

"Those two there," said Marie--"it is very certain that they are in
love?"

"How otherwise?" said Madame. "The good God made us women that the men
should be in love with us--and afterwards, to take care of the
children. There is no other use that a man has for a woman.
Friendship? The Art?--Bah! When a man wants those he demands them of a
man. Of a woman he demands but love, and one gives it to him--one
gives it to him without question!"

The two who had departed for the forest drove on through the swimming,
spinning heat, in silence.

It was not till they reached the little old well by Marlotte that
Betty spoke.

"Don't let's work to-day, Mr. Temple," she said. "My hands are so hot
I could never hold a brush. And your sketch is really finished, you
know."

"What would you like to do?" asked Temple: "river?"

"Oh, no,--not now that we've started for the forest! Its feelings
would be hurt if we turned back. I am sure it loves us to love it,
although it is so big--Like God, you know."

"Yes: I'm sure it does. Do you really think God cares?"

"Of course," said Betty, "because everything would be so silly if He
didn't, you know. I believe He likes us to love him, and what's more,
I believe He likes us to love all the pretty things He's made--trees
and rivers and sunsets and seas."

"And each other," said Temple, and flushed to the ears: "human beings,
I mean, of course," he added hastily.

"Of course," said Betty, unconscious of the flush; "but religion tells
you that--it doesn't tell you about the little things. It does say
about herbs of the field and the floods clapping their hands and all
that--but that's only His works praising Him, not us loving all His
works. I think He's most awfully pleased when we love some little,
nice, tiny thing that He never thought we'd notice."

"Did your father teach you to think like this?"

"Oh, dear no!" said Betty. "He doesn't like the little pretty things."

"It's odd," said Temple. "Look at those yellow roses all over that
hideous villa."

"My step-father would only see the villa. Well, must we work to-day?"

"What would you like to do?"

"I should like to go to those big rocks--the Rochers des Demoiselles,
aren't they?--and tie up the pony, and climb up, and sit in a black
shadow and look out over the green tops of the trees. You see things
when you're idle that you never see when you're working, even if
you're trying to paint those very things."

So, by and by, the gray pony was unharnessed and tied to a tree in a
cool, grassy place where he also could be happy, and the two others
took the winding stony path.

A turn in the smooth-worn way brought them to a platform overhanging
the precipice that fell a sheer thirty feet to the tops of the trees
on the slope below. White, silvery sand carpeted the ledge, and on the
sand the shadow of a leaning rock fell blue.

"Here" said Betty, and sank down. Her sketchbook scooped the sand with
its cover. "Oh, I _am_ hot!" She threw off her hat.

"You don't look it," said Temple, and pulled the big bottle of weak
claret and water from the luncheon basket.

"Drink!" he said, offering the little glass when he had filled it.

Betty drank, in little sips.

"How extraordinarily nice it is to drink when you're thirsty," she
said, "and how heavenly this shadow is."

A long silence. Temple filled and lighted a pipe. From a slope of dry
grass a little below them came the dusty rattle of grasshoppers' talk.

"It is very good here," said Betty. "Oh, how glad I am I came away
from Paris. Everything looks different here--I mean the things that
look as if they mattered there don't matter here--and the things that
didn't matter there--oh, here, they do!"

"Yes," said Temple, making little mounds of sand with the edge of his
hand as he lay, "I never expected to have such days in this world as
I've had here with you. We've grown to be very good friends here,
haven't we?"

"We were very good friends in Paris," said Betty, remembering the
letter that had announced his departure.

"But it wasn't the same," he persisted. "When did we talk in Paris as
we've talked here?"

"I talked to you, even in Paris, more than I've ever talked to anyone
else, all the same," said Betty.

"Thank you," he said; "that's the nicest thing you've ever said to
me."

"It wasn't meant to be nice," said Betty; "it's true. Don't you know
there are some people you never can talk to without wondering what
they'll think of you, and whether you hadn't better have said
something else? It's nothing to do with whether you like them or not,"
she went on, thinking of talks with Vernon, many talks--and in all of
them she had been definitely and consciously on guard. "You may like
people quite frightfully, and yet you can't talk to them."

"Yes," he said, "but you couldn't talk to a person you disliked, could
you? Real talk, I mean?"

"Of course not," said Betty. "Do you know I'm dreadfully hungry!"

It was after lunch that Temple said:

"When are you going home, Miss Desmond?" She looked up, for his use
of her name was rare.

"I don't know: some time," she answered absently. But the question ran
through her mind like a needle drawing after it the thread on which
were strung all the little longings for Long Barton--for the familiar
fields and flowers, that had gathered there since she first saw the
silver may and the golden broom at Bourron station. That was nearly a
month ago. What a month it had been--the gleaming river, the neat
intimate simplicity of the little culture, white roads, and roses and
rocks, and more than all--trees, and trees and trees again.

And with all this--Temple. He lodged at Montigny, true. And she at
Grez. But each day brought to her door the best companion in the
world. He had never even asked how she came to be at Grez. After that
first, "Where's your party?" he had guarded his lips. It had seemed so
natural, and so extremely fortunate that he should be here. If she had
been all alone she would have allowed herself to think too much of
Vernon--of what might have been.

"I am going to England next week!" he said. Betty was shocked to
perceive that this news hurt her. Well, why shouldn't it hurt her? She
wasn't absolutely insensible to friendship, she supposed. And
sensibility to friendship was nothing to be ashamed of. On the
contrary.

"I shall miss you most awfully," said she with the air of one
flaunting a flag.

"I wish you'd go home," he said. "Haven't you had enough of your
experiment, or whatever it was, yet?"

"I thought you'd given up interfering," she said crossly. At least she
meant to speak crossly.

"I thought I could say anything to you now without your--your not
understanding."

"So you can." She was suddenly not cross again.

"Ah, no I can't," he said. "I want to say things to you that I can't
say here. Won't you go home? Won't you let me come to see you there?
Say I may. You will let me?"

If she said Yes--she refused to pursue that train of thought another
inch. If she said No--then a sudden end--and forever an end--to this
good companionship. "I wish I had never, never seen _Him_!" she told
herself.

Then she found that she was speaking.

"The reason I was all alone in Paris," she was saying. The reason took
a long time to expound.--The shadow withdrew itself and they had to
shift the camp just when it came to the part about Betty's first
meeting with Temple himself.

"And so," she said, "I've done what I meant to do--and I'm a hateful
liar--and you'll never want to speak to me again."

She rooted up a fern and tore it into little ribbons.

"Why have you told me all this?" he said slowly.

"I don't know," said she.

"It is because you care, a little bit about--about my thinking well of
you?"

"I can't care about that, or I shouldn't have told you, should I?
Let's get back home. The pony's lost by this time, I expect."

"Is it because you don't want to have any--any secrets between us?"

"Not in the least," said Betty, chin in the air. "I shouldn't _dream_
of telling you my secrets--or anyone else of course, I mean," she
added politely.

He sighed. "Well," he said, "I wish you'd go home."

"Why don't you say you're disappointed in me, and that you despise me,
and that you don't care about being friends any more, with a girl
who's told lies and taken her aunt's money and done everything wrong
you can think of? Let's go back. I don't want to stay here any more,
with you being silently contemptuous as hard as ever you can. Why
don't you say something?"

"I don't want to say the only thing I want to say. I don't want to say
it here. Won't you go home and let me come and tell you at Long
Barton?"

"You do think me horrid. Why don't you say so?"

"No. I don't."

"Then it's because you don't care what I am or what I do. I thought a
man's friendship didn't mean much!" She crushed the fern into a rough
ball and threw it over the edge of the rock.

"Oh, hang it all," said Temple. "Look here, Miss Desmond. I came away
from Paris because I didn't know what was the matter with me. I didn't
know who it was I really cared about. And before I'd been here one
single day, I knew. And then I met you. And I haven't said a word,
because you're here alone--and besides I wanted you to get used to
talking to me and all that. And now you say I don't care. No, confound
it all, it's too much! I wanted to ask you to marry me. And I'd have
waited any length of time till there was a chance for me." He had
almost turned his back on her, and leaning his chin on his elbow was
looking out over the tree-tops far below. "And now you've gone and
rushed me into asking you _now_, when I know there isn't the least
chance for me,--and anyhow I ought to have held my tongue! And now
it's all no good, and it's your fault. Why did you say I didn't care?"

"You knew it was coming," Betty told herself, "when he asked if he
might come to Long Barton to see you. You knew it. You might have
stopped it. And you didn't. And now what are you going to do?"

What she did was to lean back to reach another fern--to pluck and
smooth its fronds.

"Are you very angry?" asked Temple forlornly.

"No," said Betty; "how could I be? But I wish you hadn't. It's spoiled
everything."

"Do you think I don't know all that?"

"I wish I could," said Betty very sincerely, "but--"

"Of course," he said bitterly. "I knew that."

"He doesn't care about me," said Betty: "he's engaged to someone
else."

"And you care very much?" He kept his face turned away.

"I don't know," said Betty; "sometimes I think I'm getting not to care
at all."

"Then--look here: may I ask you again some time, and we'll go on just
like we have been?"

"No," said Betty. "I'm going back to England at the end of the week.
Besides, you aren't quite sure it's me you care for.--At least you
weren't when you came away from Paris. How can you be sure you're sure
now?"

He turned and looked at her.

"I beg your pardon," she said instantly. "I think I didn't understand.
Let's go back now, shall we?"

"For Heaven's sake," he said, "don't let this break up everything!
Don't avoid me in the little time that's left. I won't talk about it
any more--I won't worry you--"

"Don't be silly," she said, and she smiled at him a little sadly; "you
talk as though I didn't know you."

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