The Incomplete Amorist

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So presently she paid her bill, and went out, and found a tram, and
rode on the top of it through the lighted streets, on the level of the
first floor windows and the brown leaves of the trees in the
Boulevards, and went away and away through the heart of Paris; and
still all her mind could do nothing but thrust off, with both hands,
the thought that was pushing forward towards her thinking. When the
tram stopped at its journey's end she did not alight, but paid for,
and made, the return journey, and found her feet again in the
Boulevard St. Michel.

Of course, she had read her Trilby, and other works dealing with the
Latin Quarter. She knew that in that quarter everyone is not
respectable, but everyone is kind. It seemed good to her to go to a
cafe, to sit at a marble topped table, and drink--not the strange
liqueurs which men drink in books, but homely hot milk, such as some
of the other girls there had before them. It would be perfectly
simple, as well as interesting, to watch the faces of the students,
boys and girls, and when she found a nice girl-face, to speak to it,
asking for the address of a respectable hotel.

So she walked up the wide, tree-planted street feeling very Parisian
indeed, as she called it the "Boule Miche" to herself. And she stopped
at the first Cafe she came to, which happened to be the Cafe
d'Harcourt.

She did not see its name, and if she had it would naturally not have
conveyed any idea to her. The hour was not yet ten, and the Cafe
d'Harcourt was very quiet. There were not a dozen people at the little
tables. Most of them were women. It would be easy to ask her little
questions, with so few people to stare and wonder if she addressed a
stranger.

She sat down, and ordered her hot milk and, with a flutter, awaited
it. This was life. And to-morrow she must telegraph to her
step-father, and everything would end in the old round of parish
duties; all her hopes and dreams would be submerged in the heavy
morass of meeting mothers. The thought leapt up.--Betty hid her eyes
and would not look at it. Instead, she looked at the other people
seated at the tables--the women. They were laughing and talking among
themselves. One or two looked at Betty and smiled with frank
friendliness. Betty smiled back, but with embarrassment. She had heard
that French ladies of rank and fashion would as soon go out without
their stockings as without their paint, but she had not supposed that
the practice extended to art students. And all these ladies were
boldly painted--no mere soupcon of carmine and pearl powder, but good
solid masterpieces in body colour, black, white and red. She smiled in
answer to their obvious friendliness, but she did not ask them for
addresses. A handsome black-browed scowling woman sitting alone
frowned at her. She felt quite hurt. Why should anyone want to be
unkind?

Men selling flowers, toy rabbits, rattling cardboard balls, offered
their wares up and down the row of tables. Betty bought a bunch of
fading late roses and thought, with a sudden sentimentality that
shocked her, of the monthly rose below the window at home. It always
bloomed well up to Christmas. Well, in two days she would see that
rose-bush.

The trams rattled down the Boulevard, carriages rolled by. Every now
and then one of these would stop, and a couple would alight. And
people came on foot. The cafe was filling up. But still none of the
women seemed to Betty exactly the right sort of person to know exactly
the right sort of hotel.

Of course she knew from books that Hotels keep open all night,--but
she did not happen to have read any book which told of the reluctance
of respectable hotels to receive young women without luggage, late in
the evening. So it seemed to her that there was plenty of time.

A blonde girl with jet black brows and eyes like big black beads was
leaning her elbows on her table and talking to her companions, two
tourist-looking Germans in loud checks. They kept glancing at Betty,
and it made her nervous to know that they were talking about her. At
last her eyes met the eyes of the girl, who smiled at her and made a
little gesture of invitation to her, to come and sit at their table.
Betty out of sheer embarrassment might have gone, but just at that
moment the handsome scowling woman rose, rustled quickly to Betty,
knocking over a chair in her passage, held out a hand, and said in
excellent English:

"How do you do?"

Betty gave her hand, but "I don't remember you," said she.

"May I join you?" said the woman sitting down. She wore black and
white and red, and she was frightfully smart, Betty thought. She
glanced at the others--the tourists and the blonde; they were no
longer looking at her.

"Look here," said the woman, speaking low, "I don't know you from
Adam, of course, but I know you're a decent girl. For God's sake go
home to your friends! I don't know what they're about to let you out
alone like this."

"I'm alone in Paris just now," said Betty.

"Good God in Heaven, you little fool! Get back to your lodging. You've
no business here."

"I've as much business as anyone else," said Betty. "I'm an artist,
too, and I want to see life."

"You've not seen much yet," said the woman with a, laugh that Betty
hated to hear. "Have you been brought up in a convent? You an artist!
Look at all of us! Do you need to be told what _our_ trade is?"

"Don't," said Betty; "oh, don't."

"Go home," said the woman, "and say your prayers--I suppose you _do_
say your prayers?--and thank God that it isn't your trade too."

"I don't know what you mean," said Betty.

"Well then, go home and read your Bible. That'll tell you the sort of
woman it is that stands about the corners of streets, or sits at the
Cafe d'Harcourt. What are your people about?"

"My father's in England," said Betty; "he's a clergyman."

"I generally say mine was," said the other, "but I won't to you,
because you'd believe me. My father was church organist, though. And
the Vicarage people were rather fond of me. I used to do a lot of
Parish work." She laughed again.

Betty laid a hand on the other woman's.

"Couldn't you go home to your father--or--something?" she asked
feebly.

"He's cursed me forever--Put it all down in black and white--a regular
commination service. It's you that have got to go home, and do it
_now_, too." She shook off Betty's hand and waved her own to a man who
was passing.

"Here, Mr. Temple--"

The man halted, hesitated and came up to them.

"Look here," said the black-browed woman, "look what a pretty flower
I've found,--and here of all places!"

She indicated Betty by a look. The man looked too, and took the third
chair at their table. Betty wished that the ground might open and
cover her, but the Boule Miche asphalt is solid. The new-comer was
tall and broad-shouldered, with a handsome, serious, boyish face, and
fair hair.

"She won't listen to me--"

"Oh, I did!" Betty put in reproachfully.

"You talk to her like a father. Tell her where naughty little girls go
who stay out late at the Cafe d'Harcourt--fire and brimstone, you
know. She'll understand, she's a clergyman's daughter."

"I really do think you'd better go home," said the new-comer to Betty
with gentle politeness.

"I would, directly," said Betty, almost in tears, "but--the fact is I
haven't settled on a hotel, and I came to this cafe. I thought I could
ask one of these art students to tell me a good hotel, but--so that's
how it is."

"I should think not," Temple answered the hiatus. Then he looked at
the black-browed, scowling woman, and his look was very kind.

"Nini and her German swine were beginning to be amiable," said the
woman in an aside which Betty did not hear. "For Christ's sake take
the child away, and put her safely for the night somewhere, if you
have to ring up a Mother Superior or a Governesses' Aid Society."

"Right. I will." He turned to Betty.

"Will you allow me," he said, "to find a carriage for you, and see you
to a hotel?"

"Thank you," said Betty.

He went out to the curbstone and scanned the road for a passing
carriage.

"Look here," said the black-browed woman, turning suddenly on Betty;
"I daresay you'll think it's not my place to speak--oh, if you don't
think so you will some day, when you're grown up,--but look here. I'm
not chaffing. It's deadly earnest. You be good. See? There's nothing
else that's any good really."

"Yes," said Betty, "I know. If you're not good you won't be happy."

"There you go," the other answered almost fiercely; "it's always the
way. Everyone says it--copybooks and Bible and everything--and no one
believes it till they've tried the other way, and then it's no use
believing anything."

"Oh, yes, it is," said Betty comfortingly, "and you're so kind. I
don't know how to thank you. Being kind _is_ being good too, isn't
it?"

"Well, you aren't always a devil, even if you are in hell. I wish I
could make you understand all the things I didn't understand when I
was like you. But nobody can. That's part of the hell. And you don't
even understand half I'm saying."

"I think I do," said Betty.

"Keep straight," the other said earnestly; "never mind how dull it is.
I used to think it must be dull in Heaven. God knows it's dull in the
other place! Look, he's got a carriage. You can trust him just for
once, but as a rule I'd say 'Don't you trust any of them--they're all
of a piece.' Good-bye; you're a nice little thing."

"Good-bye," said Betty; "oh, good-bye! You _are_ kind, and good!
People can't all be good the same way," she added, vaguely and seeking
to comfort.

"Women can," said the other, "don't you make any mistake. Good-bye."

She watched the carriage drive away, and turned to meet the spiteful
chaff of Nini and her German friends.

"Now," said Mr. Temple, as soon as the wheels began to revolve,
"perhaps you will tell me how you come to be out in Paris alone at
this hour."

Betty stared at him coldly.

"I shall be greatly obliged if you can recommend me a good hotel," she
said.

"I don't even know your name," said he.

"No," she answered briefly.

"I cannot advise you unless you will trust me a little," he said
gently.

"You are very kind,--but I have not yet asked for anyone's advice."

"I am sorry if I have offended you," he said, "but I only wish to be
of service to you."

[Illustration: "She stared at him coldly"]

"Thank you very much," said Betty: "the only service I want is the
name of a good hotel."

"You are unwise to refuse my help," he said. "The place where I found
you shews that you are not to be trusted about alone."

"Look here," said Betty, speaking very fast, "I dare say you mean
well, but it isn't your business. The lady I was speaking to--"

"That just shews," he said.

"She was very kind, and I like her. But I don't intend to be
interfered with by any strangers, however well they mean."

He laughed for the first time, and she liked him better when she had
heard the note of his laughter.

"Please forgive me," he said. "You are quite right. Miss Conway is
very kind. And I really do want to help you, and I don't want to be
impertinent. May I speak plainly?"

"Of course."

"Well the Cafe d'Harcourt is not a place for a respectable girl to go
to."

"I gathered that," she answered quietly. "I won't go there again."

"Have you quarreled with your friends?" he persisted; "have you run
away?"

"No," said Betty, and on a sudden inspiration, added: "I'm very, very
tired. You can ask me any questions you like in the morning. Now: will
you please tell the man where to go?"

The dismissal was unanswerable.

He took out his card-case and scribbled on a card.

"Where is your luggage?" he asked.

"Not here," she said briefly.

"I thought not," he smiled again. "I am discerning, am I not? Well,
perhaps you didn't know that respectable hotels prefer travellers who
have luggage. But they know me at this place. I have said you are my
cousin," he added apologetically.

He stopped the carriage. "Hotel de l'Unicorne," he told the driver and
stood bareheaded till she was out of sight.

The Thought came out and said: "There will be an end of Me if you see
that well-meaning person again." Betty would not face the Thought, but
she was roused to protect it.

She stood up and touched the coachman on the arm.

"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 passed 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-glass
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 passee 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.

"No, no. We've all your affairs to settle in the morning."

"And yours?"

"Mine were settled long ago. Oh, I forgot--I'm Miss Conway, at the
Hotel de Lille. Yes, we'll settle my affairs in the morning, too. Good
night, little girl."

"Good night, Miss Conway."

"They call me Lotty."

"My name's Betty and--look here, I can't wait till the morning." Betty
clasped her hands, and seemed to be holding her courage between them.
"I've come to Paris to study art, and I want you to come and live with
me. I know you'd like it, and I've got heaps of money--will you?"

She spoke quickly and softly, and her face was flushed and her eyes
bright.

There was a pause.

"You silly little duffer--you silly dear little duffer."

The other woman had turned away and was fingering the chains of an
ormolu candlestick on the mantelpiece.

Betty put an arm over her shoulders.

"Look here," she said, "I'm not such a duffer as you think. I know
people do dreadful things--but they needn't go on doing them, need
they?"

"Yes, they need," said the other; "that's just it."

Her fingers were still twisting the bronze chains.

"And the women you talked about--in the Bible--they weren't kind and
good, like you; they were just only horrid and not anything else. You
told _me_ to be good. Won't you let me help you? Oh, it does seem such
cheek of me, but I never knew anyone before who--I don't know how to
say it. But I am so sorry, and I want you to be good, just as much as
you want me to. Dear, dear Lotty!"

"My name's Paula."

"Paula dear, I wish I wasn't so stupid, but I know it's not your
fault, and I know you aren't like that woman with the Germans."

"I should hope not indeed," Paula was roused to flash back; "dirty
little French gutter-cat."

"I've never been a bit of good to anyone," said Betty, adding her
other arm and making a necklace of the two round Paula's neck, "except
to Parishioners perhaps. Do let me be a bit of good to you. Don't you
think I could?"

"You dear little fool!" said Paula gruffly.

"Yes, but say yes--you must! I know you want to. I've got lots of
money. Kiss me, Paula."

"I won't!--Don't kiss me!--I won't have it! Go away," said the woman,
clinging to Betty and returning her kisses.

"Don't cry," said Betty gently. "We shall be ever so happy. You'll
see. Good night, Paula. Do you know I've never had a friend--a
girl-friend, I mean?"

"For God's sake hold your tongue, and go to bed! Good night."

Betty, alone, faced at last, and for the first time, The Thought. But
it had changed its dress when Miss Conway changed hers. It was no
longer a Thought: it was a Resolution.

Twin-born with her plan for saving her new friend was the plan for a
life that should not be life at Long Barton.

All the evening she had refused to face The Thought. But it had been
shaping itself to something more definite than thought. As a
Resolution, a Plan, it now unrolled itself before her. She sat in the
stiff arm-chair looking straight in front of her, and she saw what she
meant to do. The Thought had been wise not to insist too much on
recognition. Earlier in the evening it would have seemed merely a
selfish temptation. Now it was an opportunity for a good and noble
act. And Betty had always wanted so much to be noble and good.

Here she was in Paris, alone. Her aunt, train-borne, was every moment
further and further away. As for her step-father:

"I hate him," said Betty, "and he hates me. He only let me come to get
rid of me. And what good could I do at Long Barton compared with what
I can do here? Any one can do Parish work. I've got the money Aunt
left for Madame Gautier. Perhaps it's stealing. But is it? The money
was meant to pay to keep me in Paris to study Art. And it's not as if
I were staying altogether for selfish reasons--there's Paula. I'm sure
she has really a noble nature. And it's not as if I were staying
because He is in Paris. Of course, that would be _really wrong_. But
he said he was going to Vienna. I suppose his uncle delayed him, but
he'll certainly go. I'm sure it's right. I've learned a lot since I
left home. I'm not a child now. I'm a woman, and I must do what I
think is right. You know I must, mustn't I?"

She appealed to the Inward Monitor, but it refused to be propitiated.

"It only seems not quite right because it's so unusual," she went on;
"that's because I've never been anywhere or done anything. After all,
it's my own life, and I have a right to live it as I like. My
step-father has never written to Madame Gautier all these months. He
won't now. It's only to tell him she has changed her address--he only
writes to me on Sunday nights. There's just time. And I'll keep the
money, and when Aunt comes back I'll tell her everything. She'll
understand."

"Do you think so?" said the Inward Monitor.

"Any way," said Betty, putting her foot down on the Inward Monitor,
"I'm going to do it. If it's only for Paula's sake. We'll take rooms,
and I'll go to a Studio, and work hard; and I won't make friends with
gentlemen I don't know, or anything silly, so there," she added
defiantly. "Auntie left the money for me to study in Paris. If I tell
my step-father that Madame Gautier is dead, he'll just fetch me home,
and what'll become of Paula then?"

Thus and thus, ringing the changes on resolve and explanation, her
thoughts ran. A clock chimed midnight.

"Is it possible," she asked herself, "that it's not twelve hours since
I was at the Hotel Bete--talking to Him? Well, I shall never see him
again, I suppose. How odd that I don't feel as if I cared whether I
did or not. I suppose what I felt about him wasn't real. It all seems
so silly now. Paula is real, and all that I mean to do for her is
real. He isn't."

She prayed that night as usual, but her mind was made up, and she
prayed outside a closed door.

Next morning, when her chocolate came up, she carried it into the next
room, and, sitting on the edge of her new friend's bed, breakfasted
there.

Paula seemed dazed when she first woke, but soon she was smiling and
listening to Betty's plans.

"How young you look," said Betty, "almost as young as me."

"I'm twenty-five."

"You don't look it--with your hair in those pretty plaits, and your
nightie. You do have lovely nightgowns."

"I'll get up now," said Paula. "Look out--I nearly upset the tray."

Betty had carefully put away certain facts and labelled them: "Not to
be told to anyone, even Paula." No one was to know anything about
Vernon. "There is nothing to know really," she told herself. No one
was to know that she was alone in Paris without the knowledge of her
relations. Lots of girls came to Paris alone to study art. She was
just one of these.

She found the lying wonderfully easy. It did not bring with it,
either, any of the shame that lying should bring, but rather a sense
of triumphant achievement, as from a difficult part played
excellently.

She paid the hotel bill, and then the search for rooms began.

"We must be very economical, you know," she said, "but you won't mind
that, will you? I think it will be rather fun."

"It would be awful fun," said the other. "You'll go and work at the
studio, and when you come home after your work I shall have cooked the
dejeuner, and we shall have it together on a little table with a nice
white cloth and a bunch of flowers on it."

"Yes; and in the evening we'll go out, to concerts and things, and
ride on the tops of trams. And on Sundays--what does one do on
Sundays?"

"I suppose one goes to church," said Paula.

"Oh, I think not when we're working so hard all the week. We'll go
into the country."

"We can take the river steamer and go to St. Cloud, or go out on the
tram to Clamart--the woods there are just exactly like the woods at
home. What part of England do you live in?"

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