"They call me Lotty."
"My name's Betty and—look here, I can't wait till the morning." Betty clasped her hands, and seemed to be holding her courage between them. "I've come to Paris to study art, and I want you to come and live with me. I know you'd like it, and I've got heaps of money—will you?"
She spoke quickly and softly, and her face was flushed and her eyes bright.
There was a pause.
"You silly little duffer—you silly dear little duffer."
The other woman had turned away and was fingering the chains of an ormolu candlestick on the mantelpiece.
Betty put an arm over her shoulders.
"Look here," she said, "I'm not such a duffer as you think. I know people do dreadful things—but they needn't go on doing them, need they?"
"Yes, they need," said the other; "that's just it."
Her fingers were still twisting the bronze chains.