The Incomplete Amorist

And as she passed into the room he caught her eyes and, looking a warning, said: "I am so glad to see you. I began to be afraid you wouldn't be able to come."

"I saw you in the Bois the other day," said Lady St. Craye, "and I have been wanting to know you ever since."

"You are very kind," said Betty. Her hat was on one side, her hair was very untidy, and it was not a becoming untidiness either. She had no gloves, and a bit of the velvet binding of her skirt was loose. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying. There was a black smudge on her cheek.

"Take this chair," said Vernon, and moved a comfortable one with its back to the light.

"Temple--let me present you to Miss Desmond."

Temple bowed, with no flicker of recognition visible in his face. But Betty, flushing scarlet, said: "Mr. Temple and I have met before."

There was the tiniest pause. Then Temple said: "I am so glad to meet you again. I thought you had perhaps left Paris."

"Let me give you some tea," said Vernon.

Tea was made for her,--and conversation. She drank the tea, but she seemed not to know what to do with the conversation.

It fluttered, aimlessly, like a bird with a broken wing. Lady St. Craye did her best, but talk is not easy when each one of a party has its own secret pre-occupying interest, and an overlapping interest in the preoccupation of the others. The air was too electric.

Lady St. Craye had it on her lips that she must go--when Betty rose suddenly.

"Good-bye," she said generally, looking round with miserable eyes that tried to look merely polite.

"Must you go?" asked Vernon, furious with the complicated emotions that, warring in him, left him just as helpless as anyone else.

"I do hope we shall meet again," said Lady St. Craye.

"Mayn't I see you home?" asked Temple unexpectedly, even to himself.

Betty's "No, thank you," was most definite.

She went. Vernon had to let her go. He had guests. He could not leave them. He had lost wholly his ordinary control of circumstances. All through the petrifying awkwardness of the late talk he had been seeking an excuse to go with Betty--to find out what was the matter.

He closed the door and came back. There was no help for it.

But there was help. Lady St. Craye gave it. She rose as Vernon came back.