The Incomplete Amorist

She listened but she did not speak.

"And I was rather surprised to see her here. And for the moment I thought the woman with her was--well, the last kind of woman who could have been with her, don't you know."

"I see," said Lady St. Craye. "Well, it's fortunate that the dark woman isn't that kind of woman. No doubt you'll be seeing your little friend. You might ask her to tea when I come to see your picture."

"I wish I could." Vernon's manner was never so frank as when he was most on his guard. "She'd love to know you. I wish I could ask them to tea, but I don't know them well enough. And their address I don't know at all. It's a pity; she's a nice little thing."

It was beautifully done. Lady St. Craye inwardly applauded Vernon's acting, and none the less that her own part had grown strangely difficult. She was suddenly conscious of a longing to be alone--to let her face go. She gave herself a moment's pause, caught at her fine courage and said: "Yes, it is a pity. However, I daresay it's safer for her that you can't ask her to tea. She is a nice little thing, and she might fall in love with you, and then, your modesty appeased, you might follow suit! Isn't it annoying when one can't pick up the thread of a conversation? All the time you've been talking I've been wondering what we were talking about before I pointed out the fur hat to you. And I nearly remember, and I can't quite. That is always so worrying, isn't it?"

Her acting was as good as his. And his perception at the moment less clear than hers.

He gave a breath of relief. It would never have done to have Lady St. Craye spying on him and Betty; and now he knew that she was in Paris he knew too that it would be "him and Betty."

"We were talking," he said carefully, "about calling names."

"Oh, thank you!--When one can't remember those silly little things it's like wanting to sneeze and not being able to, isn't it? But we must turn back, or I shall be late for dinner, and I daren't think of the names my hostess will call me then. She has a vocabulary, you know." She named a name and Vernon thought it was he who kept the talk busy among acquaintances till the moment for parting. Lady St. Craye knew that it was she.