"Look here," said Betty, speaking very fast, "I dare say you mean well, but it isn't your business. The lady I was speaking to--" "That just shews," he said. "She was very kind, and I like her. But I don't intend to be interfered with by any strangers, however well they mean." He laughed for the first time, and she liked him better when she had heard the note of his laughter. "Please forgive me," he said. "You are quite right. Miss Conway is very kind. And I really do want to help you, and I don't want to be impertinent. May I speak plainly?" "Of course." "Well the Café d'Harcourt is not a place for a respectable girl to go to." "I gathered that," she answered quietly. "I won't go there again." "Have you quarreled with your friends?" he persisted; "have you run away?" "No," said Betty, and on a sudden inspiration, added: "I'm very, very tired. You can ask me any questions you like in the morning. Now: will you please tell the man where to go?" The dismissal was unanswerable. He took out his card-case and scribbled on a card. "Where is your luggage?" he asked. "Not here," she said briefly. "I thought not," he smiled again. "I am discerning, am I not? Well, perhaps you didn't know that respectable hotels prefer travellers who have luggage. But they know me at this place. I have said you are my cousin," he added apologetically. He stopped the carriage. "Hôtel de l'Unicorne," he told the driver and stood bareheaded till she was out of sight. The Thought came out and said: "There will be an end of Me if you see that well-meaning person again." Betty would not face the Thought, but she was roused to protect it. She stood up and touched the coachman on the arm. "Go back to the Cafe d'Harcourt," she said. "I have forgotten something." That was why, when Temple called, very early, at the Hôtel de l'Unicorne he heard that his cousin had not arrived there the night before--Had not, indeed, arrived at all. He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a pity," he said. "Certainly she had run away from home. I suppose I frightened her. I was always a clumsy brute with women." CHAPTER XI. THE THOUGHT. The dark-haired woman was still ably answering the chaff of Nini and the Germans. And her face was not the face she had shewn to Betty. Betty came quietly behind her and touched her shoulder. She leapt in her chair and turned white under the rouge. "What the devil!--You shouldn't do that!" she said roughly; "You frightened me out of my wits." "I'm so sorry," said Betty, who was pale too. "Come away, won't you? I want to talk to you." "Your little friend is charming," said one of the men in thick German-French. "May I order for her a bock or a cerises?" "Do come," she urged. "Let's walk," she said. "What's the matter? Where's young Temple? Don't tell me he's like all the others."