"There was some one in Brittany, of course?" "Of course," said he; "there always is. I had a delightful summer. Then in October, sitting at the Café de la Paix, I saw her pass. It was the same day I saw you." "Before or after you saw me?" "After." "Then if I'd stopped--if I'd made you come for a drive then and there, you'd never have seen her?" "That's so," said Vernon; "and by Heaven I almost wish you had!" The wish was a serpent in her heart. She said: "Go on." And he went on, and, warming to his subject, grew eloquent on the events of the winter, his emotions, his surmises as to Betty's emotions, his slow awakening to the knowledge that now, for the first time--and so on and so forth. "You don't know how I tried to fall in love with you again," he said, and kissed her hand. "You're prettier than she is, and cleverer and a thousand times more adorable. But it's no good; it's a sort of madness." "You never were in love with me." "No: I don't think I was: but I was happier with you than I shall ever be with her for all that. Talk of the joy of love! Love hurts--hurts damnably. I beg your pardon." "Yes. I believe it's painful. Go on." He went on. He was enjoying himself, now, thoroughly. "And so," the long tale ended, "when I found she had scruples about going about with me alone--because her father had suggested that I was in love with her--I--I let her think that I was engaged to you." "That is too much!" she cried and would have risen: but he kept her hand fast. "Ah, don't be angry," he pleaded. "You see, I knew you didn't care about me a little bit: and I never thought you and she would come across each other." "So you knew all the time that I didn't care?" her self-respect clutched at the spar he threw out. "Of course. I'm not such a fool as to think--Ah, forgive me for letting her think that. It bought me all I cared to ask for of her time. She's so young, so innocent--she thought it was quite all right as long as I belonged to someone else, and couldn't make love to her." "And haven't you?" "Never--never once--since the days at Long Barton when it had to be 'made;' and even then I only made the very beginnings of it. Now--" "I suppose you've been very, very happy?" "Don't I tell you? I've never been so wretched in my life! I despise myself. I've always made everything go as I wanted it to go. Now I'm like a leaf in the wind--_Pauvre feuille desechée_, don't you know. And I hate it. And I hate her being here without anyone to look after her. A hundred times I've had it on the tip of my pen to send that doddering old Underwood an anonymous letter, telling him all about it." "Underwood?" "Her step-father.--Oh, I forgot--I didn't tell you." He proceeded to tell her Betty's secret, the death of Madame Gautier and Betty's bid for freedom.