She saw both emotions and pitied him a little. But it was necessary to interest this young man enough to keep him there till Vernon should return. Then Vernon would see her home, and she might find out something, however little, about Betty. But if this young man went she too must go. She could not outstay him in the rooms of his friend. So she talked on, and Temple was just as much at her mercy as Betty had been at the mercy of the brother artist in the rabbit warren at Long Barton. But at seven o'clock Vernon had not returned, and it was, after all, Temple who saw her home. Temple, free from the immediate enchantment of her presence, felt the revival of a resentful curiosity. Why had Betty refused his help? Why had she sought Vernon's? Why did women treat him as though he were a curate and Vernon as though he were a god? Well--Lady St. Craye at least had not treated him as curates are treated. CHAPTER XIV. RENUNCIATION. Vernon tore down the stairs three and four at a time, and caught Betty as she was stepping into a hired carriage. "What is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?" "Oh, go back to your friends!" said Betty angrily. "My friends are all right. They'll amuse each other. Tell me." "Then you must come with me," said she. "If I try to tell you here I shall begin to cry again. Don't speak to me. I can't bear it." He got into the carriage. It was not until Betty had let herself into her room and he had followed her in--not till they stood face to face in the middle of the carpet that he spoke again. "Now," he said, "what is it? Where's your aunt, and--" "Sit down, won't you?" she said, pulling off her hat and throwing it on the couch; "it'll take rather a long time to tell, but I must tell you all about it, or else you can't help me. And if you don't help me I don't know what I shall do." Despair was in her voice. He sat down. Betty, in the chair opposite his, sat with hands nervously locked together. "Look here," she said abruptly, "you're sure to think that everything I've done is wrong, but it's no use your saying so." "I won't say so." "Well, then--that day, you know, after I saw you at the Bête--Madame Gautier didn't come to fetch me, and I waited, and waited, and at last I went to her flat, and she was dead,--and I ought to have telegraphed to my step-father to fetch me, but I thought I would like to have one night in Paris first--you know I hadn't seen Paris at all, really." "Yes," he said, trying not to let any anxiety into his voice. "Yes--go on." "And I went to the Café d'Harcourt--What did you say?" "Nothing." "I thought it was where the art students went. And I met a girl there, and she was kind to me." "What sort of a girl? Not an art student?" "No," said Betty hardly, "she wasn't an art student. She told me what she was." "Yes?"