The Incomplete Amorist Part 18

"Then what's the one?"

"Good-bye," she said, and went down the steps to meet her aunt. He effaced himself behind a pillar. In spite of her new coldness, he could not believe that she would tell her aunt of the meeting. And he was right, though Betty's reasons were not his reasons.

"What's the good?" she asked herself as she and her aunt walked across to their hotel. "He's going away to-morrow, and I shall never see him again. Well, I behaved beautifully, that's one thing. He must simply loathe me. So that's all right! If he were staying on in Paris, of course I would tell her."

She believed this fully.

He waited five minutes behind that pillar, and then had himself driven to the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, choosing as driver a man with a white hat, in strict accordance with the advice in Baedeker, though he had never read any of the works of that author.

This new Betty, with the smart gown and the distant manner, awoke at the same time that she contradicted his memories of the Betty of Long Barton. And he should not see her again. Of course he was not going to Vienna, but neither was he going to hang round the Hotel Bete, or to bribe Franz or Elise to smuggle notes to Miss Betty.

"It's never any use trying to join things on again," he told himself.

"As well try to mend a spider's web when you have put your boot through it."

'No diver brings up love again Dropped once In such cold seas!'

"But what has happened? Why does she hate me so? You acted very nicely, dear, but that wasn't indifference. It was hatred, if ever I've seen it. I wonder what it means? Another lover? No--then she'd be sorry for me. It's something that belongs to me--not another man's shadow. But what I shall never know. And she's prettier than ever, too. Oh, hang it!"

His key turned in the lock, and on the door-mat shewed the white square of an envelope--a note from the other woman, the one whose profile he had not remembered. She was in Paris for a time. She had seen him at the Paix, had wondered whether he had his old rooms, had driven straight up on the chance of being able to leave this--wasn't that devotion?--and would he care to call for her at eight and they could dine somewhere and talk over old times? One familiar initial, that of her first name, curled in the corner and the card smelt of jasmine--not of jasmine-scent in bottles, but of the real flower. He had never known how she managed it.

Vernon was not fond of talking over old times, but Betty would be dining at the Hotel Bete--some dull hole, no doubt; he had never heard of it. Well, he could not dine at the Bete, and after all one must dine somewhere. And the other woman had never bored him. That is a terrible weapon in the hands of a rival. And Betty had been most unjust. And what was Betty to him, anyway? His thoughts turned to the American girl who had sketched with him in Brittany that Summer. Ah, if she had not been whisked back to New York by her people, it would not now be a question of Betty or of the Jasmine lady. He took out Miss Van Tromp's portrait and sat looking at it: it was admirable, the fearless poise of the head, the laughing eyes, the full pouting lips.

Then Betty's face and the face of the Jasmine lady came between him and Miss Van Tromp.

"Bah," he said, "smell, kiss, wear--at last throw away. Never keep a rose till it's faded." A little tide of Breton memories swept through him.

"Bah," he said again, "she was perfectly charming, but what is the use of charm, half the world away?"

He pulled his trunk from the front of the fire-place, pushed up the iron damper, and made a little fire. He burned all Miss Van Tromp's letters, and her photograph--but, from habit, or from grat.i.tude, he kissed it before he burned it.

"Now," said he as the last sparks died redly on the black embers, "the decks are cleared for action. Shall I sentimentalise about Betty--cold, cruel, changed Betty--or shall I call for the Jasmine lady?"

He did both, and the Jasmine lady might have found him dull. As it happened, she only found him _distrait_, and that interested her.

"When we parted," she said, "it was I who was in tears. Now it's you.

What is it?"

"If I am in tears," he roused himself to say, "it is only because everything pa.s.ses, 'tout la.s.se, tout pa.s.se, tout ca.s.se.'"

"What's broken now?" she asked; "another heart? Oh, yes! you broke mine all to little, little bits. But I've mended it. I wanted frightfully to see you to thank you!

"This is a grateful day for women," thought Vernon, looking the interrogatory.

"Why, for showing me how hearts are broken," she explained; "it's quite easy when you know how, and it's a perfectly delightful game. I play it myself now, and I can't imagine how I ever got on before I learned the rules."

"You forget," he said, smiling. "It was you who broke my heart. And it's not mended yet."

"That's very sweet of you. But really, you know, I'm very glad it was you who broke my heart, and not anyone else. Because, now it's mended, that gives us something to talk about. We have a past. That's really what I wanted to tell you. And that's such a bond, isn't it? When it really _is_ past--dead, you know, no nonsense about cataleptic trances, but stone dead."

"Yes," he said, "it is a link. But it isn't the past for me, you know.

It can never--"

She held up a pretty jewelled hand.

"Now, don't," she said. "That's just what you don't understand. All that's out of the picture. I know you too well. Just realize that I'm the only nice woman you know who doesn't either expect you to make love to her in the future or hate you for having done it in the past, and you'll want to see me every day. Think of the novelty of it."

"I do and I do," said he, "and I won't protest any more while you're in this mood. Bear with me if I seem idiotic to-night--I've been burning old letters, and that always makes me like a funeral."

"Old letters--mine?"

"I burned yours long ago."

"And it isn't two years since we parted! How many have there been since?"

"Is this the Inquisition or is it Durand's?"

"It's somewhere where we both are," she said, without a trace of sentiment; "that's good enough for me. Do you know I've been married since I saw you last? _And_ left a widow--in a short three months it all happened. And--well I'm not very clever, as you know, but--can you imagine what it is like to be married to a man who doesn't understand a single word you say, unless it's about the weather or things to eat?

No, don't look shocked. He was a good fellow, and very happy till the motor accident took him and left me this."

She shewed a scar on her smooth arm.

"What a woman it is for surprises! So he was very happy? But of course he was."

"Yes, of course, as you say. I was a model wife. I wore black for a whole year too!"

"Why did you marry him?"

"Well, at the time I thought you might hear of it and be disappointed, or hurt, or something."

"So I am," said Vernon with truth.

"You needn't be," said she. "You'll find me much nicer now I don't want to disappoint you or hurt you, but only to have a good time, and there's no nonsense about love to get in the way, and spoil everything."

"So you're--But this isn't proper! Here am I dining with a lady and I don't even know her name!"

"I know--I wouldn't put it to the note. Didn't that single initial arouse your suspicions? Her name? Her t.i.tle if you please! I married Harry St. Craye. You remember how we used to laugh at him together."

"That little--I beg your pardon, Lady St. Craye."

"Yes," she said, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum: of the dead nothing but the bones. If he had lived he would certainly have beaten me. Here's to our new friendship!"

"Our new friendship!" he repeated, raising his gla.s.s and looking in her eyes. Lady St. Craye looked very beautiful, and Betty was not there. In fact, just now there was no Betty.

He went back to his room humming a song of Yvette Guilbert's. There might have been no flowering May, no b.u.t.tercup meadows in all the world, for any thought of memory that he had of them. And Betty was a thousand miles away.

That was at night. In the morning Betty was at the Hotel Bete, and the Hotel Bete was no longer a petty little hotel which he did not know and never should know. For the early post brought him a letter which said:

"I am in Paris for a few days and should like to see you if you can make it convenient to call at my hotel on Thursday."

This was Tuesday.