"I'm not shocked," he said deliberately, "but I'm extremely stupid. How gone?"
"She was living with me here.--Oh, she found the rooms and showed me where to go for meals and gave me good advice--oh, she did everything for me! And now she's gone. And I don't know what to do. Paris is such a horrible place. Perhaps she's been kidnapped or something. And I don't know even how to tell the police. And all this time I'm talking to you is wasted time."
"It isn't wasted. But I must understand. You met this girl and she--"
"She asked your friend Mr. Temple--he was passing and she called out to him--to tell me of a decent hotel, but he asked so many questions. He gave me an address and I didn't go. I went back to her, and we went to a hotel and I persuaded her to come and live with me."
"But your aunt?"
Betty explained about her aunt.
"And your father?"
She explained about her father.
"And now she has gone, and you want to find her?"
"Want to find her?"--Betty started up and began to walk up and down the room.--"I don't care about anything else in the world! She's a dear; you don't know what a dear she is--and I know she was happy here--and now she's gone! I never had a girl friend before--what?"
Vernon had winced, just as Paula had winced, and at the same words.
"You've looked for her at the Café d'Harcourt?"
"No; I promised her that I'd never go there again."
"She seems to have given you some good advice."
"She advised me not to have anything to do with you" said Betty, suddenly spiteful.
"That was good advice--when she gave it," said Vernon, quietly; "but now it's different."
He was silent a moment, realising with a wonder beyond words how different it was. Every word, every glance between him and Betty had, hitherto, been part of a play. She had been a charming figure in a charming comedy. He had known, as it were by rote, that she had feelings--a heart, affections--but they had seemed pale, dream-like, just a delightful background to his own sensations, strong and conscious and delicate. Now for the first time he perceived her as real, a human being in the stress of a real human emotion. And he was conscious of a feeling of protective tenderness, a real, open-air primitive sentiment, with no smell of the footlights about it. He was alone with Betty. He was the only person in Paris to whom she could turn for help. What an opportunity for a fine scene in his best manner! And he found that he did not want a scene: he wanted to help her.