"Of course if you care to risk it," she went on still with that fine air of detachment,--"but I have seen breaches that nothing could heal arise in just that way."

Two people sitting down together and thinking over everything they had against each other.

"But I've nothing against Lizzie."

"I daresay not," Miss Desmond lost patience at last, "but she has against you, or will have if you let her stay here brooding over it.

However if you like to risk it--I'm sorry I spoke." She got up and moved to the door.

"No, no," he said hastily, "do not be sorry you spoke. You have given me food for reflection. I will think it all over quietly and--and--"

he did not like to talk about prayers to Miss Desmond somehow, "and--calmly and if I see that you are right--I am sure you mean most kindly by me."

"Indeed I do," she said heartily, and gave him her hand in the manly way he hated. He took it, held it limply an instant, and repeated:

"Most kindly."

He thought it over for so long that the aunt almost lost hope.

"I have to hold my tongue with both hands to keep it quiet. And if I say another word I shall spoil the song," she told Betty. "I've done my absolute best. If that doesn't fetch him, nothing will!"

It had "fetched him." At the end of two interminable days he sent to ask Miss Desmond to speak to him in the study. She went.

"I have been thinking carefully," he said, "most carefully. And I feel that you are right. Perhaps I owe her some amends. Do you know of any quiet country place?"

Miss Desmond thought Betty had perhaps for the moment had almost enough of quiet country places.

"She is very anxious to learn drawing," he said, "and perhaps if I permitted her to do so she might understand it as a sign that I cherish no resentment on account of what has pa.s.sed. But--"

"I know the very thing," said the Aunt, and went on to tell of Madame Gautier, of her cloistral home in Paris where she received a few favoured young girls, of the vigilant maid who conducted them to and from their studies, of the quiet villa on the Marne where in the summer an able master--at least 60 or 65 years of age--conducted sketching parties, to which the students were accompanied either by Madame herself, or by the dragon-maid.

"I'll stand the child six months with her," she said, "or a year even.

So it won't cost you anything. And Madame Gautier is in London now.

You could run up and talk to her yourself."

"Does she speak English?" he asked, anxiously, and being rea.s.sured questioned further.

"And you?" he asked. And when he heard that Norway for a month and then America en route for j.a.pan formed Miss Desmond's programme for the next year he was only just able to mask, with a cough, his deep sigh of relief. For, however much he might respect her judgment, he was always easier when Lizzie and her Aunt Julia were not together.

He went up to town, and found Madame Gautier, the widow of a French pastor, established in a Bloomsbury boarding-house. She was a woman after his own heart--severe, simple, earnest. If he had to part with his Lizzie, he told himself in the returning train, it could be to no better keeper than this.

He himself announced his decision to Betty.

"I have decided," he said, and he spoke very coldly because it was so very difficult to speak at all, "to grant you the wish you expressed some time ago. You shall go to Paris and learn drawing."

"Do you really mean it?" said Betty, as coldly as he.

"I am not in the habit of saying things which I do not mean."

"Thank you very much," said Betty. "I will work hard, and try that the money shan't be wasted."

"Your aunt has kindly offered to pay your expenses."

"When do I go?" asked Betty.

"As soon as your garments can be prepared. I trust that I shall not have cause to regret the confidence I have decided to place in you."

His phrasing was seldom well-inspired. Had he said, "I trust you, my child, and I know I shan't regret it," which was what he meant, she would have come to meet him more than half-way. As it was she said, "Thank you!" again, and left him without more words. He sighed.

"I don't believe she is pleased after all; but she sees I am doing it for her good. Now it comes to the point her heart sinks at the idea of leaving home. But she will understand my motives."

The one thought Betty gave him was:

"He can't bear the sight of me at all now! He's longing to be rid of me! Well, thank Heaven I'm going to Paris! I will have a gra.s.s-lawn dress over green, with three rows of narrow lace insertion, and a hat with yellow roses and--oh, it can't be true. It's too good to be true.

Well, it's a good thing to be hated sometimes, by some people, if they only hate you enough!"

"'So you're going to foreign parts, Miss,' says I."

Mrs. Symes had flung back her bonnet strings and was holding a saucerful of boiling tea skilfully poised on the fingers of one hand.

"'Yes, Mrs. Symes,' says she, 'don't you wish you was going too?' she says. And she laughed, but I'm not easy blinded, and well I see as she only laughed to 'ide a bleedin' 'art. 'Not me, Miss,' says I; 'nice figure I should look a-goin' to a furrin' boardin' school at my time of life.'

"'It ain't boardin' school,' says she. 'I'm a-going to learn to paint pictures. I'll paint your portrait when I come home,' says she, and laughs again--I could see she done it to keep the tears back.

"'I'm sorry for you, Miss, I'm sure,' I says, not to lose the chance of a word in season, 'but I hope it'll prove a blessing to you--I do that.'"

"'Oh, it'll be a blessing right enough,' says she, and keeps on laughing a bit wild like. When the art's full you can't always stop yourself. She'd a done better to 'ave a good cry and tell me 'er troubles. I could a cheered her up a bit p'raps. You know whether I'm considered a comfort at funerals and christenings, Mrs. James."

"I do," said Mrs. James sadly; "none don't know it better."

"You'd a thought she'd a bin glad of a friend in need. But no. She just goes on a-laughing fit to bring tears to your eyes to hear her, and says she, 'I hope you'll all get on all right without me.'"

"I hope you said as how we should miss her something dreadful," said Mrs. James anxiously, "Have another cup."

"Thank you, my dear. Do you take me for a born loony? Course I did.

Said the parish wouldn't be the same without her, and about her pretty reading and all. See here what she give me."

Mrs. James unrolled a violet petticoat.

"Good as new, almost," she said, looking critically at the hem.

"Specially her being taller'n me. So what's not can be cut away, and no loss. She kep' on a-laughing an' a-smiling till the old man he come in and he says in his mimicking way, 'Lizzie,' says 'e, 'they're a-waitin' to fit on your new walkin' costoom,' he says. So I come away, she a-smiling to the last something awful to see."

"Dear, dear," said Mrs. James.

"But you mark my words--she don't deceive _me_. If ever I see a bruised reed and a broken 'art on a young gell's face I see it on hers this day. She may laugh herself black in the face, but she won't laugh me into thinking what I knows to be far otherwise."

"Ah," said Mrs. James resignedly, "we all 'as it to bear one time or another. Young gells is very deceitful though, in their ways, ain't they?"