The Incomplete Amorist

"What's the good of writing?"

"A lie or two isn't much, when you've done all this for her. Come up to my place. You can write to her there."

This was the letter that Paula wrote in Vernon's studio, among the half-empty cups and the scattered plates with cake-crumbs on them.

"My Dear Little Betty: "I must leave without saying good-bye, and I shall never see you again. My father has taken me back. I wrote to him and he came and found me. He has forgiven me everything, only I have had to promise never to speak to anyone I knew in Paris. It is all your doing, dear. God bless you. You have saved me. I shall pray for you every day as long as I live.

"Your poor "Paula."

"Will that do?" she laughed as she held out the letter.

He read it. And he did not laugh.

"Yes--that'll do," he said. "I'll tell her you've gone to England, and I'll send the letter to London to be posted."

"Then that's all settled!"

"Can I do anything for you?" he asked.

"God Himself can't do anything for me," she said, biting the edge of her veil.

"Where are you going now?"

"Back to the d'Harcourt. It's early yet."

She stood defiantly smiling at him.

"What were you doing there--the night you met her?" he asked abruptly.

"What does one do?"

"What's become of de Villermay?" he asked.

"Gone home--got married."

"And so you thought--"

"Oh, if you want to know what I thought you're welcome! I thought I'd damn myself as deep as I could--to pile up the reckoning for him; and I've about done it. Good-bye. I must be getting on."

"I'll come a bit of the way with you," he said.

At the door he turned, took her hand and kissed it gently and reverently.

"That's very sweet of you." She opened astonished eyes at him. "I always used to think you an awful brute."

"It was very theatrical of me," he told himself later. "But it summed up the situation. Sentimental ass you're growing!"

Betty got her letter from England and cried over it and was glad over it.

"I have done one thing, anyway," she told herself, "one really truly good thing. I've saved my poor dear Paula. Oh, how right I was! How I knew her!"