"No, no. We"ve all your affairs to settle in the morning."
"And yours?"
"Mine were settled long ago. Oh, I forgot--I"m Miss Conway, at the Hotel de Lille. Yes, we"ll settle my affairs in the morning, too. Good night, little girl."
"Good night, Miss Conway."
"They call me Lotty."
"My name"s Betty and--look here, I can"t wait till the morning." Betty clasped her hands, and seemed to be holding her courage between them.
"I"ve come to Paris to study art, and I want you to come and live with me. I know you"d like it, and I"ve got heaps of money--will you?"
She spoke quickly and softly, and her face was flushed and her eyes bright.
There was a pause.
"You silly little duffer--you silly dear little duffer."
The other woman had turned away and was fingering the chains of an ormolu candlestick on the mantelpiece.
Betty put an arm over her shoulders.
"Look here," she said, "I"m not such a duffer as you think. I know people do dreadful things--but they needn"t go on doing them, need they?"
"Yes, they need," said the other; "that"s just it."
Her fingers were still twisting the bronze chains.
"And the women you talked about--in the Bible--they weren"t kind and good, like you; they were just only horrid and not anything else. You told _me_ to be good. Won"t you let me help you? Oh, it does seem such cheek of me, but I never knew anyone before who--I don"t know how to say it. But I am so sorry, and I want you to be good, just as much as you want me to. Dear, dear Lotty!"
"My name"s Paula."
"Paula dear, I wish I wasn"t so stupid, but I know it"s not your fault, and I know you aren"t like that woman with the Germans."
"I should hope not indeed," Paula was roused to flash back; "dirty little French gutter-cat."
"I"ve never been a bit of good to anyone," said Betty, adding her other arm and making a necklace of the two round Paula"s neck, "except to Parishioners perhaps. Do let me be a bit of good to you. Don"t you think I could?"
"You dear little fool!" said Paula gruffly.
"Yes, but say yes--you must! I know you want to. I"ve got lots of money. Kiss me, Paula."
"I won"t!--Don"t kiss me!--I won"t have it! Go away," said the woman, clinging to Betty and returning her kisses.
"Don"t cry," said Betty gently. "We shall be ever so happy. You"ll see. Good night, Paula. Do you know I"ve never had a friend--a girl-friend, I mean?"
"For G.o.d"s sake hold your tongue, and go to bed! Good night."
Betty, alone, faced at last, and for the first time, The Thought. But it had changed its dress when Miss Conway changed hers. It was no longer a Thought: it was a Resolution.
Twin-born with her plan for saving her new friend was the plan for a life that should not be life at Long Barton.
All the evening she had refused to face The Thought. But it had been shaping itself to something more definite than thought. As a Resolution, a Plan, it now unrolled itself before her. She sat in the stiff arm-chair looking straight in front of her, and she saw what she meant to do. The Thought had been wise not to insist too much on recognition. Earlier in the evening it would have seemed merely a selfish temptation. Now it was an opportunity for a good and n.o.ble act. And Betty had always wanted so much to be n.o.ble and good.
Here she was in Paris, alone. Her aunt, train-borne, was every moment further and further away. As for her step-father:
"I hate him," said Betty, "and he hates me. He only let me come to get rid of me. And what good could I do at Long Barton compared with what I can do here? Any one can do Parish work. I"ve got the money Aunt left for Madame Gautier. Perhaps it"s stealing. But is it? The money was meant to pay to keep me in Paris to study Art. And it"s not as if I were staying altogether for selfish reasons--there"s Paula. I"m sure she has really a n.o.ble nature. And it"s not as if I were staying because He is in Paris. Of course, that would be _really wrong_. But he said he was going to Vienna. I suppose his uncle delayed him, but he"ll certainly go. I"m sure it"s right. I"ve learned a lot since I left home. I"m not a child now. I"m a woman, and I must do what I think is right. You know I must, mustn"t I?"
She appealed to the Inward Monitor, but it refused to be propitiated.
"It only seems not quite right because it"s so unusual," she went on; "that"s because I"ve never been anywhere or done anything. After all, it"s my own life, and I have a right to live it as I like. My step-father has never written to Madame Gautier all these months. He won"t now. It"s only to tell him she has changed her address--he only writes to me on Sunday nights. There"s just time. And I"ll keep the money, and when Aunt comes back I"ll tell her everything. She"ll understand."
"Do you think so?" said the Inward Monitor.
"Any way," said Betty, putting her foot down on the Inward Monitor, "I"m going to do it. If it"s only for Paula"s sake. We"ll take rooms, and I"ll go to a Studio, and work hard; and I won"t make friends with gentlemen I don"t know, or anything silly, so there," she added defiantly. "Auntie left the money for me to study in Paris. If I tell my step-father that Madame Gautier is dead, he"ll just fetch me home, and what"ll become of Paula then?"
Thus and thus, ringing the changes on resolve and explanation, her thoughts ran. A clock chimed midnight.
"Is it possible," she asked herself, "that it"s not twelve hours since I was at the Hotel Bete--talking to Him? Well, I shall never see him again, I suppose. How odd that I don"t feel as if I cared whether I did or not. I suppose what I felt about him wasn"t real. It all seems so silly now. Paula is real, and all that I mean to do for her is real. He isn"t."
She prayed that night as usual, but her mind was made up, and she prayed outside a closed door.
Next morning, when her chocolate came up, she carried it into the next room, and, sitting on the edge of her new friend"s bed, breakfasted there.
Paula seemed dazed when she first woke, but soon she was smiling and listening to Betty"s plans.
"How young you look," said Betty, "almost as young as me."
"I"m twenty-five."
"You don"t look it--with your hair in those pretty plaits, and your nightie. You do have lovely nightgowns."
"I"ll get up now," said Paula. "Look out--I nearly upset the tray."
Betty had carefully put away certain facts and labelled them: "Not to be told to anyone, even Paula." No one was to know anything about Vernon. "There is nothing to know really," she told herself. No one was to know that she was alone in Paris without the knowledge of her relations. Lots of girls came to Paris alone to study art. She was just one of these.
She found the lying wonderfully easy. It did not bring with it, either, any of the shame that lying should bring, but rather a sense of triumphant achievement, as from a difficult part played excellently.
She paid the hotel bill, and then the search for rooms began.
"We must be very economical, you know," she said, "but you won"t mind that, will you? I think it will be rather fun."
"It would be awful fun," said the other. "You"ll go and work at the studio, and when you come home after your work I shall have cooked the dejeuner, and we shall have it together on a little table with a nice white cloth and a bunch of flowers on it."
"Yes; and in the evening we"ll go out, to concerts and things, and ride on the tops of trams. And on Sundays--what does one do on Sundays?"
"I suppose one goes to church," said Paula.
"Oh, I think not when we"re working so hard all the week. We"ll go into the country."