She had.
"Forgive me," said Temple when the fact was substantiated, and the gray pony put up, "after all, I was your friend before I--before you--before all this that can't come to anything. Let me give you both some coffee and see you to the station. And Betty, don't you go and be sorry about me afterwards. Because, really, it's not your fault and," he laughed and was silent a moment, "and I'd rather have loved you and have it end like this, dear, than never have known you. I truly would."
The journey to Paris was interminable. Betty had decided not to think of Temple, yet that happy morning face of his would come between her and the things she wanted to think of. To have hurt him like that!--It hurt her horribly; much more than she would have believed possible. And she had been cruel. "Of course it's natural that he should say things about Him. He must hate anyone that--He nearly cried when he said that about rather have loved me than not--Yes--" A lump came in Betty's own throat, and her eyes pricked.
"Come, don't cry," said her aunt briskly; "you've made your choice, and you're going to your lover. Don't be like Lot's wife. You can't eat your cake and have it too."
Vernon's concierge assured these ladies that Monsieur was at home.
"He makes the painting in this moment," she said. "Mount then, my ladies."
They mounted.
Betty remembered her last--her first--visit to his studio: when Paula had disappeared and she had gone to him for help. She remembered how the velvet had come off her dress, and how awful her hair had been when she had looked in the glass afterwards. And Lady St. Craye--how beautifully dressed, how smiling and superior!
"Hateful cat!" said Betty on the stairs.
"Eh?" said her aunt.
Now there would be no one in the studio but Vernon. He would be reading over her letters--nothing in them--only little notes about whether she would or wouldn't be free on Tuesday--whether she could or couldn't dine with him on Wednesday. But he would be reading them over--perhaps-The key was in the door.
"Do you mind waiting on the stairs, Auntie dear," said Betty in a voice of honey; "just the first minute?--I would like to have it for us two--alone. You don't mind?"
"Do as you like," said the aunt rather sadly. "I should knock if I were you."