"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."