"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." "In that case," said Miss Desmond, "I should say you were the very wife for him." "_She_ isn't," said Lady St. Craye sitting up. "I feel like a silly school-girl talking to you like this. I think I'll go now. I'm not really so silly as I seem. I've been ill--influenza, you know--and I got so frightfully tired. And I don't think I'm so strong as I used to be. I've always thought I was strong enough to play any part I wanted to play. But--you've been very kind. I'll go--" She lay back. "Don't be silly," said Miss Desmond briskly. "You _are_ a school-girl compared with me, you know. I suppose you've been trying to play the rôle of the designing heroine--to part true lovers and so on, and then you found you couldn't." "They're _not_ true lovers," said Lady St. Craye eagerly; "that's just it. She'd never make him happy. She's too young and too innocent. And when she found out what a man like him is like, she'd break her heart. And he told me he'd be happier with me than he ever had been with her." "Was that true, or--?" "Oh, yes, it was true enough, though he said it. You've met him--he told me. But you don't know him." "I know his kind though," said Miss Desmond. "And so you love him very much indeed, and you don't care for anything else,--and you think you understand him,--and you could forgive him everything? Then you may get him yet, if you care so very much--that is, if Betty doesn't." "She doesn't. She thinks she does, but she doesn't. If only he hadn't written to her--" "My dear," said Miss Desmond, "I was a fool myself once, about a man with eyes his colour. You can't tell me anything that I don't know. Does he know how much you care?" "Yes."