Part 40 (1/2)
”I mean that Vernon chap,” said Miss Voscoe down-rightly. ”I told you to change partners every now and then. But with you it's that Vernon this week and last week and the week after next.”
”I've known him longer than I have the others, and I like him,” said Betty.
”Oh, he's all right; fine and dandy!” replied Miss Voscoe. ”He's a big man, too, in his own line. Not the kind you expect to see knocking about at a students' cremerie. Does he give you lessons?”
”He did at home,” said Betty.
”Take care he doesn't teach you what's the easiest thing in creation to learn about a man.”
”What's that?” Betty did not like to have to ask the question.
”Why, how not to be able to do without him, of course,” said Miss Voscoe.
”You're quite mistaken,” said Betty eagerly: ”one of the reasons I don't mind going about with him so much is that he's engaged to be married.”
”Acquainted with the lady?”
”Yes,” said Betty, sheltering behind the convention that an introduction at a tea-party const.i.tutes acquaintances.h.i.+p. She was glad Miss Voscoe had not asked her if she _knew_ Lady St. Craye.
”Oh, well”--Miss Voscoe jumped up and shook the flakes of pastry off her pinafore--”if she doesn't mind, I guess I've got no call to. But why don't you give that saint in the go-to-h.e.l.l collar a turn?”
”Meaning?”
”Mr. Temple. He admires you no end. He'd be always in your pocket if you'd let him. He's worth fifty of the other man _as_ a man, if he isn't as an artist. I keep my eyes skinned--and the Sketch Club gives me a chance to tot them both up. I guess I can size up a man some. The other man isn't _fast_. That's how it strikes me.”
”Fast?” echoed Betty, bewildered.
”Fast dye: fast colour. I suspicion he'd go wrong a bit in the wash.
Temple's fast colour, warranted not to run.”
”I know,” said Betty, ”but I don't care for the colour, and I'm rather tired of the pattern.”
”I wish you'd tell me which of the two was the three-polite-word man.”
”I know you do. But surely you see _now_?”
”You're too cute. Just as likely it's the Temple one, and that's why you're so sick of the pattern by now.”
”Didn't I tell you you were clever?” laughed Betty.
But, all the same, next evening when Vernon called to take her to dinner, she said:
”Couldn't we go somewhere else? I'm tired of Garnier's.”
Vernon was tired of Garnier's, too.
”Do you know Thirion's?” he said. ”Thirion's in the Boulevard St.
Germain, Thirion's where Du Maurier used to go, and Thackeray, and all sorts of celebrated people; and where the host treats you like a friend, and the waiter like a brother?”
”I should love to be treated like a waiter's brother. Do let's go,”