"You're really going to marry the girl? You mean it?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll help you. I'll do everything I can for you."
"You're a dear," he said kindly. "You always were."
"I'll be your true friend--oh, yes, I will! Because I love you, Eustace. I've always loved you--I always shall. It can't spoil anything now to tell you, because everything is spoilt. She'll never love you like I do. Nobody ever will."
"You're tired. I've bothered you. You're saying this just to--because--"
"I'm saying it because it's true. Why should you be the only one to speak the truth? Oh, Eustace--when you pretended to think I didn't care, two years ago, I was too proud to speak the truth then. I'm not proud now any more. Go away. I wish I'd never seen you; I wish I'd never been born."
"Yes, dear, yes. I'll go" he said, and rose. She buried her face in the cushion where his shoulder had been.
He was looking round for his hat and gloves--more uncomfortable than he ever remembered to have been.
As he reached the door she sprang up, and he heard the silken swish of her gray gown coming towards him.
"Say good-night," she pleaded. "Oh, Eustace, kiss me again--kindly, not like last time."
He met her half-way, took her in his arms and kissed her forehead very gently, very tenderly.
"My dearest Jasmine lady," he said, "it sounds an impertinence and I daresay you won't believe it, but I was never so sorry in my life as I am now. I'm a beast, and I don't deserve to live. Think what a beast I am--and try to hate me."
She, clung to him and laid her wet cheek against his. Then her lips implored his lips. There was a long silence. It was she--she was always glad of that--who at last found her courage, and drew back.
"Good-bye," she said. "I shall be quite sane to-morrow. And then I'll help you."
When he got out into the street he looked at his watch. It was not yet ten o'clock. He hailed a carriage.
"Fifty-seven Boulevard Montparnasse," he said.
He could still feel Lady St. Craye's wet cheek against his own. The despairing passion of her last kisses had thrilled him through and through.
He wanted to efface the mark of those kisses. He would not be haunted all night by any lips but Betty's.
He had never called at her rooms in the evening. He had been careful for her in that. Even now as he rang the bell he was careful, and when the latch clicked and the door was opened a cautious inch he was ready, as he entered, to call out, in passing the concierge's door not Miss Desmond's name, but the name of the Canadian artist who occupied the studio on the top floor.