There had been "much talk about and about" the project. Now it was to be. There had been interviews. There was the first in which the elder Miss Desmond told her brother-in-law in the plain speech she loved exactly what sort of a fool he had made of himself in the matter of Betty and the fortune-telling. When he was convinced of error--it was not easily done--he would have liked to tell Betty that he was sorry, but he belonged to a generation that does not apologise to the next. The second interview was between the aunt and Betty. That was the one in which so much good advice was given. "You know," the aunt wound up, "all young women want to be in love, and all young men too. I don't mean that there was anything of that sort between you and your artist friend. But there might have been. Now look here,--I'm going to speak quite straight to you. Don't you ever let young men get monkeying about with your hands; whether they call it fortune-telling or whether they don't, their reason for doing so is always the same--or likely to be. And you want to keep your hand--as well as your lips--for the man you're going to marry. That's all, but don't you forget it. Now what's this I hear about your wanting to go to Paris?" "I did want to go," said Betty, "but I don't care about anything now. Everything's hateful." "It always is," said the aunt, "but it won't always be." "Don't think I care a straw about not seeing Mr. Vernon again," said Betty hastily. "It's not that." "Of course not," said the aunt sympathetically. "No,--but Father was so hateful--you've no idea. If I'd--if I'd run away and got married secretly he couldn't have made more fuss." "You're a little harsh--just a little. Of course you and I know exactly how it was, but remember how it looked to him. Why, it couldn't have looked worse if you really _had_ been arranging an elopement." "He _hadn't_ got his arm around me," insisted Betty; "it was somewhere right away in the background. He was holding himself up with it." "Don't I tell you I understand all that perfectly? What I want to understand is how you feel about Paris. Are you absolutely off the idea?" "I couldn't go if I wasn't." "I wonder what you think Paris is like," mused the aunt. "I suppose you think it's all one wild razzle-dazzle--one delirious round of--of museums and picture galleries." "No, I don't," said Betty rather shortly. "If you went you'd have to work." "There's no chance of my going." "Then we'll put the idea away and say no more about it. Get me my Continental Bradshaw out of my dressing-bag: I'm no use here. Nobody loves me, and I'll go to Norway by the first omnibus to-morrow morning." "Don't," said Betty; "how can you say nobody loves you?"