She waved her hand and was gone.

CHAPTER XXII

ONE GREAT PAN IS DEAD

As she went out Markham came forward, but Hermia waved him aside, and, going to the open window, stood silent, her head bent forward, her gaze fixed on Olga's diminishing back. It seemed more than usually shapely, that back, more than usually careless and disdainful. Her feet spurned the ground and tripped lightly among the grasses, her shoulders swinging easily, the feather in her hat nodding, mischievously defiant. After she had melted into the thicket, Hermia still stood watching the spot where she had disappeared. But Markham, no longer to be denied, came from behind and caught her around the waist.

"It's true, Hermia," he whispered, "you love—?"

Her brow had been deep in thought, and at first it had not seemed that she heard him or felt his arms about her, but as his lips touched her cheek she sprang away, her eyes blazing at him.

"You!" As she brushed the cheek his lips touched: "Hardly," scornfully, and then, with a laugh, "I lied, that's all."

"I'll not believe it. You love me—"

"No. I detest you."

He saw a light.

"You heard. You believe that Olga and I—"

"I'm not a fool. One lives and one learns."

He caught her by the shoulders as one does a child, the impulse in him strong to shake her, his heart denying it.

"She knew you were listening all the while. Can't you understand? That was her game. She played it—for you. I've never been in Compi�gne—"

"Let me go—"

"No. Not until you look in my eyes. You love me. You've told her so and me—"

"I lied. It was necessary—"

"Why?"

She struggled, but would not look at him. "Let me go."

"No. Why did you say that unless—"

"The situation—demanded it," she panted. "She had to understand—"

"The truth—"

"No—not the truth. She could not have understood the truth—so I lied to her—lied to her."

With a supreme effort she wrenched away, putting the table between them.

"Oh," she gasped furiously. "That I could ever have believed in you!"

But her anger failed to dismay him. There was a pause during which their glances clashed, hers flashing, contemptuous—his keen, intent and a trifle amused.

"Why did you stay—up there—when the way was clear to the forest."

Her eyes opened a little wider.

"I—I was afraid to go."

"Afraid! Perhaps. but that wasn't the only thing that kept you—"

"What then?" indifferently.

"Curiosity."

"About what?"

"Me."

"Oh!" scornfully.

"It's true. You wanted to hear what passed between us. I thought you had gone. Olga knew you hadn't. She was the cleverest of us all, you see."

"It hasn't made the slightest difference."

He reached her in a stride.

"You love me," he laughed. "I know it now." And as she still turned from him: "And you'll marry me, too, Hermia."

"Never!"

"Yes," he repeated, "you'll marry me. There isn't anything else for you to do."

She was dumb with surprise and could only gasp with rage, but before she could speak he had released her, and, catching up his hat form the table, was out of the door and on his way to the stable.

He laughed up at the sky. Subterfuge could not avail her now. He had learned the truth. Neither mockery, scorn nor any other pretence could divert the genial current of his soul. She loved him. And, whatever he had shown of mastery in her presence, his precious knowledge made him suddenly strangely gentle in his thoughts of her. The sky smiled back at him from over the leafy glades of the Comte de Cahors, and, as his gaze sought the spot in the woods where a moment ago Olga had disappeared, a sober look came into his eyes. Tell? Would she? Would Olga tell? He didn't believe it. He had learned many things. Olga kindled her altar fires not for the warmth of them, but for their incense, the odor of which was breath to her nostrils. The symbols of love—not love itself—what could Olga know of love? He knew—and Hermia? Hermia knew, for he had taught her.

He filled his bucket at the well and sought Clarissa, who was sleeping the sleep of satiety. She had eaten until she could eat no more. Watered, he led her back to the lodge, fastened his hitching strap at the door and went inside, his own appetite advising him that neither he nor Hermia had eaten since yesterday afternoon. His companion had huddled into a chair and was gazing into the fireplace. She did not offer to continue their conversation, nor did he. And so he got out his spirit lamp and made coffee, unpacked some chicken sandwiches, and, helping himself freely to the crockery of the Marquis, presently served the breakfast.

She would not eat at first and he did not insist upon her doing so, but sat comfortably, and in a moment was smacking his lips. The coffee was excellent—the best that could be had in Alen�on, and its odor was delicious. He saw from where he sat her eyes shifting uncertainly. He drained his cup with a great sigh of content, set it down upon the saucer and was in the act of pouring out another helping for himself when she rose and reached forward quickly, appetite triumphant.

"I'd better eat, I suppose," she said jerkily.

He smiled politely and handed her the sandwiches, noting from the tail of his eye that several times during the meal her look sought his face for an explanation of his change of manner, which, not being forthcoming, she sat rather demurely at her meat, emptying the pot of coffee and finishing the last of the bread and chicken. Markham would have smiled if he had dared! What chance had any of the lighter passions against the craving hunger of the healthy young animal? It was another triumph of his philosophy, almost its greatest—Nature at a bound eliminating art and the feminine calculus. When he had finished eating, without a word he rose, and went out to pack Clarissa, and while he was thus engaged Hermia passed him silently with a bucket on the way to the pump for water, and in another moment he was aware that she was washing the dishes. He made no effort to help her, but sat on the door-sill, thoughtfully smoking his pipe.

She came out in a moment and announced that she was ready to go, and he saw that breakfast had done her no harm. So they followed Olga Tcherny's instructions as far as he remembered them and found a path through the woods which led northward. Clarissa had so gorged herself with the stolen fodder (which may have been sweeter on that account) that Markham had to cut a new goad to speed her upon her way. They kept a watch ahead and behind them, and emerged as Olga had prophesied without adventure or accident through a hole in a hedge upon a highroad, along which, still bending their steps northward, they took their way.

Markham's silence had a double meaning. They were at odds just now. A while back Hermia had starved for food. He meant now that she should starve for company. He wanted to think, too, to analyze and weigh his own culpability in the situation where they now found themselves. The imprudence of their venture had not seemed to matter so much back at Evreux, where accident had thrown them together and Hermia had linked her fate to his. She had been little more to him then than an extraordinarily interesting specimen of a genus he little understood, a rebellious slave of convention who had shown him the shackles which galled her wrists and had pleaded with him very prettily to help her strike them off. Could any man have refused her? And yet he had known from that hour that a retribution of some sort awaited them both—Hermia, for ignoring her code; himself, for having permitted her to ignore it. There was a difference now—a difference which their discovery by an outsider had made unpleasantly manifest. De Folligny's appearance at Verneuil had made Markham thoughtful, but Olga's intrusion now had paraphrased their pastoral lyric into unworthy prose. Parnassus wept with them, but no amount of weeping could destroy the ugly doggerel as Olga had written it. Their idyl was smirched, the fair robe of Euterpe was trialing in the dust.

But it was too late for reproaches now. The mischief was done and one thing only left—to emerge with as good a grace as possible from a doubtful position. As the moments passed it became more clear to Markham in which way his duty lay—and the more he thought of it, the more he was convinced that it lay out of Vagabondia. Hermia must go—this very day—and he—to beard their pretty tigress.

The shadow of his thoughts fell upon his brows, and to Hermia, who watched him, when she could do so unobserved, he presented a countenance upon which gloom sat heavily enthroned.

Had he spoken his thoughts as they came to him she could not have read him more easily; and, as Markham gloomed, her own mood lightened. Though she spoke not, a dull fire slumbered in her eye which boded him mischief. Disaster had befallen—and some one was to pay for it; but his bent head was unaware of the smile that suddenly grew, a pale wintry smile which matched the devil in her eyes.

They camped in the mellow afternoon under the trees upon a rugged mountain that guarded the defile, through which a rushing torrent, one of the tributaries of the Oire, dashed over the rocks on its swift course to Argentan. Below them in the valley were a village and a railroad along which a tiny passenger train was slowly proceeding. Markham eyed the train with a grave and melancholy interest. They both observed that it stopped in the village to let off and take on passengers. He built his fire with great deliberateness, gloomy and silent as though performing a last rite for one departed, and ate solemnly, his face long.

At last she could stand the stress of him no longer and burst suddenly into a fit of laughter which echoed madly among the rocks.

"Oh, John Markham!" she cried. "Why so triste? The melancholy sweetness of seeing Olga again?"

"No," he replied calmly. "I was thinking—of other things."

"What?"

A smile broke over his lips. He had been right. There was nothing in the world that a woman has greater pains to endure than silence. He had starved her out.

He didn't reply at once, and that angered her.

"Must I plead with you even for speech?" she asked satirically. "Has it come to this? Will you not smile and throw a crumb of comfort to your bond-woman?"

"I have had nothing to say—until now," he replied, very quietly, over his coffee cup.

She only laughed at him and swept the ground with a low curtsey.

"Thy slave listens. Speak! To what decision has my lord and master arrived?" she asked.

He swallowed his coffee deliberately, unsmiling, his gaze over the valley where the railroad track wormed its way into the North.

"That you're to go to your friends in Paris—at once," he said decisively.

And while she watched him scornfully, the slow fire in her eyes burning suddenly into brightness, he took from his pocket a wallet he had never seen before, and counted out upon the ground some money.

"This," he continued calmly, "is yours. You have earned it. I have kept count. I will owe you, too—what is realized from the sale of—of Clarissa. Or, if you prefer it, I will pay you that now. I hope you will find the arrangement satisfactory."

He had arrested her mockery and she stood silent while he spoke, her gaze upon the ground. But her mood broke forth again with even greater virulence.

"So you want to be ride of me, _Monsieur mon Ma”tre—cancel my indentures—end my apprenticeship to the school of life—turn me adrift in a wicked world, which already treats me none too kindly. Is it wise, I say? Is it kind, is it human—just because a woman crosses our path and threatens my reputation? Look at me. Am I not the same that I was before? Now have I fallen in your graces? You, who professed a while ago to love me—oh, so madly?"

He was silent and would not look at her.

"Or is it me that you fear, mon cher?" she taunted him. "Is it that I've learned too well your lessons? That I've foresworn the conventions which stifled me, the code which enslaved me, that I've earned at last my right to live unbound, untrammeled—with no code but the love of life, no law but that of my own instincts—is it because of this that you deny me? O John Markham! What becomes of your fine philosophy? And of your natural laws? Do they fall, with me, before the first challenge from the world they profess to ignore? It is to laugh."

While she vented her joy of him he rose and faced her, but she did not flinch. Her voice only dropped a tone, and now derided, mocked and cajoled.

"Do you fear me so much, Monsieur le Ma”tre?" she laughed. "Is it that I love you too much to love you wisely? Why should you care, mon ami? Is it not the lot of women to give—always to give?"

Still he turned away from her, his hands fast in his pockets, but a warning murmur broke from his lips. She did not hear it and, coming around behind him, clasped her fingers upon his arms.

"If I tell you that I do not love you, mon ami, will not that be enough—enough to satisfy you that my happiness is not in danger? If I do not love you, what can you fear for me? Why should I care what the world thinks of us? Have I reproached you? Did I not give myself into your keeping, without—"

He turned and caught her into his arms and stopped her mockery with kisses, the man in him triumphant, while she struggled, her lips denied him, dumb and quivering in his arms.

"Now perhaps you know——why it is that you must go," he whispered. "Read it here. I'm mad for you, Hermia—that is why. I can't any longer be with you without reaching forth to take you——you're mine by every law of God or Nature. Philosophy! Who cares? Your lips have babbled it. Let them babble it now—if they dare—"

"Let me go, Philidor," she gasped.

"No, not yet. I've much to say and only this hour to say it in, for in a while you shall go and I will stay with Pan and mourn. The woods will sigh of you, for you will be a nymph no longer. But before you go you shall look love in the eyes and see—love full grown and masterful—here among the everlasting rocks—love so great that you shall be afraid and mock not. Look up. Look in my eyes—"

"No! No!"

"You love me."

"No!"

"You love me."

"N—no!"

As she protested he took her lips, pale lips that would have mocked again, yet dared not, for her eyes had stolen a glance through half-closed lashes and learned that what he said was true. The warm color flooded upward, staining crimson beneath the tan, and her body which had relaxed for a moment under the gust of his ardor protested anew.

"Let me go, Philidor. I-It must not be—can't you understand? Would you justify them—what they say of us? Oh, let me go. Let me—"

She wrenched away from him and stood gasping, Olga Tcherny's last laughter singing in her ears.

"You've justified her—justified her," she almost sobbed, "robbed me of my right to look her in the eyes—as I could do this morning. Why did you kiss me—like that—Philidor? Oh, you've spoiled it all—spoiled it for us both. Why couldn't you have let things be—as they were—so gentle—so sweet—so sane!"

"You mocked at love," he muttered.

"Oh, that I should have misjudged you so. You who were so strong—so kind! Who ruled me with gentleness! and now—"

"You've tried me too far."

She had; and she knew it. There was nothing for it but to skurry for the wings of convention. Alas, for Pan! Hermia was a nymph no longer—only a girl of the cities, upon the defensive for the security of her traditions. She drew aside and sank breathless upon a rock.

"Love is not so ruthless—it does not shock or sear, John Markham," she gasped.

"I've served you patiently—and long," he muttered.

"A week."

"It's enough."

"No."

"You'll marry me."

She raised her head and met his eyes fairly.

"No. I refuse you."

He could not understand.

"You—"

"I refuse to marry you. Is that clear?" she cried.

What had come over her? The warm color had flooded back to her heart and her eyes were cold like dead embers.

"I won't believe you," he said doggedly.

"You must. It was a mistake—all this—a mistake from the first. I was made to have followed you. You should have denied me—then—back there—"

"I loved you then—I know it now—and you—"

"No—not love, John Markham," she went on. "If you had loved me you would have sent me back to Paris—and saved me from—from myself. You loved me then, you say," she laughed scornfully. "What kind of love is this that slinks in hiding, preaches of friendship for its own ends and rants of philosophy? What kind of love that scoffs at public opinion and finds itself at last a topic of amusement at a fashionable dining table? A selfish love, a nameless love from which all tenderness, all gentleness and beauty—"

"Hermia!" He had caught her by the shoulders and held her gaze with his own.

"Let me go. It's true. And you ask me to marry you. Why should you marry me when you can win my lips without it?"

She laughed up at him, a hard little laugh, like a buffet in his face. Still he held her—away from him.

"Your lips are mine," he said gently, "I could take them now—again and again. But I will not. See, I am all tenderness again. Your words cannot harm me—nor yourself. For love is greater than either of us. It is the secret you once asked of me, the secret of life. I've told it to you. I tell it to you now—when I let you go."

Her color came and went and her eyes drooped before him. He dropped his hands, turned his back and walked away.

"That is my reply," he said softly.

Could he have seen the glory that rode suddenly in her eyes as she looked at him, he would have read the heart of her. But that was not to be. Followed a silence. He would not trust himself again. The embers of their fire still smoked. With his foot he crushed them out.

"You will go, at once, to Paris," he said quietly, not looking at her.

She did not move, or reply, and only watched him as he made the preparations for departure. They went down the hill to the village in silence, Markham leading Clarissa at his side. At the gare a train was due in half an hour, and so they sat and waited, looking straight before them, no word passing, and when the train came he found a compartment and put her in it, with her bundle, then stood with head uncovered, until a stain of smoke above the trees was all that remained to him. Presently that, too, vanished, when soberly he took up his cudgel and went his way.

CHAPTER XXIII

A LADY IN THE DUSK

Halfway between the turbid currents of the lower city and the more swiftly running streams to the northward sits Washington Square, an isle of rest amid the tides of humanity which lap its shores.

Here is the true gateway to the city—below it the polyglot of Europe; above, the amalgam which makes America. It is a neighborhood of traditions which speak in the aspect of the solidly built row of houses facing to the south, breasting the living surge, its front unbroken. This park, with its stretch of green, its dusky maples and shaded benches, afforded asylum to Markham, the painter, who liked to come when the day's work was over and watch the shadows fall across the square, creeping slowly up the walls of the Arch, bringing into higher relief the rosy tints on cornice and medallion which remained animate a moment against the purple filigree beyond, a thing of joy and of beauty, a symbol of eternal freedom. He was never sure whether it was more wonderful then, or when a moment later the golden glory gone from its cap, it stood silent amid the roar of the city wrapped in pallid dignity at the end of the glittering Avenue. That Avenue was a symbol, too. It meant the world to which Markham had returned after his glimpse of Elysium, a world not too kind, already laughing perhaps at his secret and Hermia's.

His problem still puzzled him. He had had no word from Olga Tcherny, though he had sought her in Alen�on and Trouville. She had gone to Paris, he had been informed, but he had not been able to find her there in her usual haunts.

Nor had he succeeded in finding Hermia, though he had left no stone unturned in the search. He had watched the hotel registers, inquired at her bankers, and scanned the sailing lists in vain. Had the earth engulfed them both they could not have more mysteriously disappeared.

Cables to New York had been unavailing, and at last, his time growing short, he had sailed from Cherbourg, a sadder but no wiser man. A call at the Challoner house at the upper end of the Avenue had only produced the information that the person he so eagerly sought had not yet returned, and that, in default of instructions to the contrary, her mail was forwarded, as before, to Paris. There was nothing for it but to wait, and Markham became aware that love, in addition to being all the things that he and Hermia had described it, was a grievous hunger which would feed upon no food but itself. He was quite wretched, painted abominably by day and prowled in the streets by night, his disembodied spirit off among the highways of Vagabondia.

November came, and still no letter nor any word of her. He was desperate. Her silence, at first only disappointing, now became ominous. Whatever their misunderstandings in the last hour of their pilgrimage, he deserved something better of her than this. Here in New York it already seemed difficult to visualize her. He could see nothing but the belled cap and coarse stockings of Yvonne, the "woman orchestra." They filled his eye as her essence filled his heart. The broadcloth and beaver of her metropolitan sisters puzzled and dismayed him. He had only seen her once in town and then she had resembled nothing so much as a flippant cherub in skirts—an example of how New York taught the young female idea to shoot. It hadn't been the kind of shooting he had liked. Thimble Island had individualized her—differently; Westport had given her color; but it was Normandy that had completed the human document. She was Hermia, that was all! But here in New York, with Vagabondia but a memory, he was not sure that he would know her. The Avenue was full of young female ideas in the process of shooting, all dressed very much alike, all flippant, all cherubic, and he scanned them with a new interest, wondering at the lapse of circumstance which somehow could not be bridged. Yvonne tailor made! The thing was impossible.

And yet he found it necessary to realize that here in New York it was to be no Yvonne that he would find. Her silence, too, now advised him that she was to be upon the defensive, all her armor bristling with commonplace, against which the flight of his quiver of memorabilia might be dented in vain. How was she thinking of him yonder? In what terms? Did she think of him at all? His questions had even descended to that low condition. He had had such a little share in her life after all, her real life in the cities, which laid its impress with such certainty on those who were its children. He saw the marks of it all about him, the thing one called "good form," the undercurrent of strife for social honor, the corrugated brow of envy, the pomp and circumstance of spilled riches—ah! here was where his shoe would pinch him the most. For Hermia Challoner was wealthy beyond the touch of Midas. If the Westport house or her taste in automobiles had not been green in his memory, it only remained to him to view the stately splendor of the Challoner mansion up town to be reminded that his vagabond companion of a week rightfully belonged to another world in which he was only a reluctant and somewhat captious visitor. Her riches bewildered him. They obtruded unbearably, proclaiming their importance in terms which there was no denying. Vagabondia, it seemed, was a forgotten country.

Had Hermia forgotten? Was his idyl, the one dream of his life, to end in waking? Was Hermia's mad excursion but another item in the long list of entertainments by means of which she exacted from life payment in diversion which she considered her due? Had he, Markham, been but an incident in this entertainment, a humble second-liner like Luigi Fabiani, who broke stones upon his mighty brother and caught the infant Stella when she was hurled at him? The thought was unpleasant to him, and did his lady no honor—so he dismissed it with reservations. But, whatever unction he laid to his soul, the truth would not be downed that two months had elapsed since that parting in the railway station at SŽes during which time he had neither heard from nor of her.

One comfort he had when hope was at low ebb—the vision of a pale face at a trap-door, its eyes wide in concern—Hermia's face when Olga's fowling piece was discharged; two comforts—the memory of the roses of P�re GuŽgou! Both gave him joy—and reconciled him to her present intolerance which time and an ardor which knew no abating must wipe away. If it hadn't been for Olga!

This was a most exasperating if, a heart-wracking if, an if that made him pause among the ruins of his ancient friendship. He could not believe that it was altogether to chance that he and Hermia owed Olga's discovery of their strange intimacy. In his infatuation he had forgotten that the Ch‰teau de Cahors was near Alen�on and that here was a spot which should at any costs have been avoided. Hermia must have known, too, and yet it seems they had both rushed to their danger with heedlessness which deserved no better fate. But their pursuit and the certainty with which Olga provided the culminating drama created a belief, in his own mind, at least, that had he and Hermia been in Kamschatka, their discomfiture would have been just as surely accomplished. If Olga's motives still remained shrouded in mystery, it was clear that her object had been to bring their companionship to an end, and this she had done, though not precisely in the way she had planned. Hermia hadn't believed that rot about La Croix and Compi�gne. Olga had overshot the mark. Her pleasantry with the loaded shotgun had been better aimed and her frightened game had fallen. It angered him to think how ruthless had been her plan, medi¾val in its simplicity, and how successful she had been in carrying it out. As to her motives—Hermia had insisted that Olga wanted to marry him! Olga and he!

With a muttered word Markham rose from his bench and made his way toward the Arch. Its phase of splendor had passed, for the dusk had fallen swiftly, but its bulk loomed in ghostly grandeur, a solemn sentinel at the meeting place of East and West. The street lights were winking merrily and brougham and limousine passed beneath it, moving rapidly northward. With the setting of the sun a chill had fallen on the wonderful day of Indian summer and people moved briskly on their homeward way. Markham buttoned his light overcoat across his chest and bent his steps in the direction of his apartment, when at the corner of the Avenue he found his way blocked by a solitary female person fashionable attire who for some reason was laughing gaily.

He stopped, awakened suddenly to the fact that the lady of his dreams was before him.

"O Monsieur Philidor!" she laughed. "Well met, upon my word! Have you waited for me long?"

"Olga!"

"The same—flushed with victory over the passing years, joyous, too, at the sight of you. I counted on finding you here."

"I'm delighted—but how—"

"I know your habits, my dear. You always loved to prowl. And there used to be a time, you know, when we prowled together."

He found himself glad to see her—so glad that he forgot how angry he was.

"Let's prowl then," he said, and turned his steps southward again.

"I suppose you know I've been hunting for you."

"Yes."

She volunteered no more.

"When did you get back?" he asked slowly.

"Tuesday. I wasted no time, you see, in looking for you. I've just come from the studio."

"You might have seen me in Normandy if you had cared to."

"Oh, I saw quite enough of you there," she said dryly. "Besides, I knew what you wanted. I wasn't ready to talk to you. I am now."

He laughed uneasily, sparring for wind.

"What have you to say to me?"

"Much. I've been thinking, John. Curious, isn't it? Wearing, too. Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy. Is beauty's ensign yet crimson in my cheeks?"

"If you weren't sure of it you wouldn't ask me," he laughed. "Why didn't you want to see me?"

"I didn't say I didn't want to see you. I merely suggested that I didn't think it wise to."

"Why not?"

"You might not have understood my point of view. You mayn't now. I think I was a trifle bewildered over there. Now I'm clear again," She paused, her gaze focusing quickly, "O John, what a mess you've made of my ideals!"

"I?" he muttered stupidly, but he knew what she meant. "What have I to do with your ideals, Olga?"

"Nothing—except that you gave them birth and then destroyed them. It's infanticide—nothing less," she said slowly.

He groped for a word, stammered and was silent.

She examined him curiously, then smiled.

"Silence? Confession!"

"I've nothing to confess." And then desperately. "Appearances are—were against us. If you've spoken of that—you've done a great mischief—an irreparable wrong—to—to Hermia."

She was laughing again, silently, inwardly, her head bent.

"Oh, as to that, I'll relieve your anxiety at once," she said at last. "It was to rich a secret to tell too quickly—too good a story—and then the embroideries—I had to think of those. No, I have not told it, John,—not yet. You see, after I left you, I changed my mind about things. Your rural amourette is still a secret, mon ami."

He gasped a sigh of relief. How could he ever have believed it of her? He laughed lightly with an air of carelessness.

"You wouldn't tell. I knew that. You're not that sort, Olga—"

"Not so fast, my poor friend," she put in quickly. "I've said that your indiscretion was still a secret, but I still reserve the right to tell it here in New York if the humor seizes me."

"Nonsense," he laughed. "I simply don't believe you would."

She shrugged.

"I have told you the truth. I mean what I say. I shall tell what I know, unless—"

She paused. Her moment was not yet.

"Unless?" he questioned.

"Unless I find reasons why I shouldn't," she finished provokingly.

"Meaning—what?" he persisted.

He regarded her for a moment in silence, quickly joining in her laughter.

"Oh, what's the use of making such a lot of fuss over a thing? It was imprudent, indiscreet of us, if you like. Hermia and I met by accident. I was tramping it—as you know. I asked her if she didn't want to go along, and she did. Simplest thing in the world. We waved convention aside. Nothing odd about that. We're doing it every day."

"Oh, are we?"

"Yes. The laws of convention were only made as props and crutches for the crooked. If you're straight, you don't need 'em."

"Still," she mused sweetly, "society must be protected. Who is to tell which of us is straight and which crooked? Even if we were crooked, you know, neither of us would be willing t admit it."

"But it's a question not so much of my wisdom—as of Hermia's. You'll admit—"

"I admit nothing," she said quickly. "You've surprised, shocked and grieved me beyond words, both of you, also made me feel a trifle foolish. My judgment is shaken to the earth. Here I've been holding you up as a kind of paragon, a fossilized Galahad, with a horizon just at your elbows, to find you touring France, faisant l'aimable with a frolicsome scapegrace in a bolero jacket."

"I would remind you," he broke in stiffly, "that you're speaking of Hermia Challoner."

"Oh, I'm quite aware of it," with a careless wave of her hand. "And as to Hermia's wisdom—life has taught me this—that a woman may be clever, she may be intuitive, she may be skillful, but she's never wise. And so I say—I'm shocked, John Markham, outraged and shocked beyond expression."

"Oh, you're the limit, Olga," he blurted out.

"Simply because I adhere to the traditions of my sex, because I adhere to the memory of my friendships. I like you, John Markham, your simplicity has always appealed to me. And now that you add gallantry to your more sober charms I confess you're quite irresistible."

Markham stopped short.

"I can't have you talking like this," he said quietly. "I don't mind what you say of me, of course, but your choice of words is not fortunate. Miss Challoner and I—"

"Spare your breath," she said, turning on him swiftly. "I'm no fool. I've lived in the world. If Hermia Challoner chooses to lay herself open to criticism that's her lookout. I'll say what I please of her. She has earned that retribution. Talk as you will of your own virtues and hers you'd never succeed in convincing anyone of your innocence—me least of all. What's the use of beating around the bush. I can see through a millstone—if it has a hole in it. Hermia Challoner—"

"Silence!" His fingers gripper her arm and she stopped, ready to scream with the pain of it. "You're insulting the woman I love. Do you hear?" he whispered through set lips. "I'll hear no more of it here—or elsewhere? We traveled together, that is all. My God—that you should dare!" He stopped suddenly, peering through the dusk at her face which still smiled, though the pain of her arm gave her agony, and then he relaxed with a laugh. "You don't mean it, I know. It isn't worthy of you. Why, Olga, you are her friend. You know her intimately—body and soul. You can't believe it. You don't—"

"I do," fiercely. "I do believe it—more's the pity."

They had stopped and were facing each other, bayonets crossed. The city roared about them, but they did not hear it. He dominated her, masterful. She fought back silently, a thing of nerves and passion only, but she did not flinch, though he had already wounded her mortally.

"Lie, if you like to me, John Markham. Lie to me. It's your duty. Lie like a gentleman. But you can't make me believe you. I'm no fool. I'll say what I like of her—or of you, when I choose, where I choose—"

"I won't believe you."

"You must. It has come to that," she went on, whispering. "I've given you the best of me, the very best, what no man has had of me, affection, strong and tender, friendship, clean and wholesome. I gave gladly. I'm not sorry. They were sweeter even than the love in my breast which stifled—which still stifles me."

"Olga!"

The suppressed passion of her confession startled him. Her half-closed eyes burned through the dusk, then paled again.

"It's true," she went on haltingly. "I love you. My love—I'm proud of it—prouder of it than of anything I've ever been or known—because it's sweet and clean. That's why I can look you in the eyes and tell you so. Why shouldn't I? What is my woman's pride beside that other pride? I have not stopped—as she has—to conquer."

"Sh—!"

"She stooped to conquer. I'm glad—glad—it shows the difference between us. It weighs us one against the other. You shall know. One day you shall know. You'll tire of her. It's always the ending of a conquest like that."

"You're mad," he whispered, aghast.

She threw up her hands and pressed them to her breast a moment. Then, with a quivering intake of the breath, the tension broke, and her hands dropped to her sides, her laughter jarring him strangely.

"Curious, isn't it?" he heard her saying. "You're the last man in the world I would have dreamed of. I used to laugh at you, you know. You were so gauche and so ill-mannered. I took you up as a sort of game. It amused me to try and see what could be made of you. If you'd made love to me, I would have laughed at you. But you didn't. Why didn't you, John? It would have saved us all such a lot of trouble."

Her mockery set him more at ease. He saw a refuge and took it.

"I think you're not quite so mad—as mischievous," he said boldly. "Your loves are too frequent to cause your friends much concern—least of all the one you honor with your present professions. I'm not woman-wise, Olga. And I'm not honey-mouthed. I hope you won't mind if I say I don't believe you."

Her smile vanished.

"You will—in time," she said quickly. "So will—Hermia." She paused, and then, her fingers on his arm, her eyes to his.

"Have you—? Has she—? You wouldn't marry her, John?"

Her tone was soft, but the inference had the ominous sibilance of a whip-lash, which swirled in the air and circled over Hermia, too. He chose his words deliberately.

"She's the sweetest, cleanest, purest woman I've ever known."

She shrugged and drew away. Whatever she felt, no sound escaped her. He followed toward the lights of the Avenue, aware that a crisis in his affairs of some sort had been reached and passed. His companion walked more and more rapidly, setting the pace which outdid the slow movement of his wits.

But he caught up with her presently and took her by the arm.

"Olga, forgive me. You maddened me. I wanted you to know—that Hermia was not what you thought she was. You lower your own standards—can't you see—when you lower hers? She's only a girl—thoughtless, a thing of impulses only—mad impulses if you like—but clean, Olga,—like a child. You've only to look at her and see—"

"I did look at her—and see," she said through her teeth.

He stopped her by main force.

"You've got to listen! Do you hear? It was I who put her in this false position. I who must get her out of it. I owe her that and you owe it to me."

He released her and went on more quietly. "I'm no Galahad and I make no pretences to virtue, but I'm no rake or despoiler of women either. I dare you to doubt it. You didn't doubt it—there—in the studio. You can't doubt it now. Women of your sort—and hers—are inviolable."

Her lids flickered and fell.

"A girl—Olga, a mere child. Think! What is this love of yours that feeds on hatred—on uncleanness Love is made of gentler stuff-beautifies, uplifts—not destroys."

Her head was bent and her face was hidden under her wide hat, but her whisper came to him quite clearly.

"You—tell me—what love is? You!"

When she raised her head her lips were smiling softly, and she moved forward slowly, he at her side. They had reached the Avenue. A motor he had not observed stood near.

"We part here I think. It's adieu, John."

"No," he muttered.

"Oh, yes, it is." And then with a gay laugh which was her best defence—"Too bad we couldn't have hit it off, isn't it? I would have liked it awfully. I give you my word you've never seemed nearly so interesting as at this moment of discomposure. There's a charm in your awkwardness, John,—a native charm. Good night. I go alone."

He followed her a few paces but she reached the machine before him and was whisked away.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WINGS OF THE BUTTERFLY

John Markham spent an unpleasant evening. He dined alone at a club, wandering afterward aimlessly from library to billiard room and then took to the streets, trusting to physical exercise to clear his head of the tangle that Olga had put into it. Olga, the irrepressible man-hunter, in love with a "fossilized Galahad_." That was ironically amusing, extraordinary, if true, a punishment which fitted her crime, and something of a grim joke on the man-hunter as well as the fossil. Markham tried to view the matter with unconcern, man-like, recalling the many times that Olga's name had been coupled with those of various distinguished foreigners and the frequent reports of her engagement, always denied and forgotten. And yet she worried him. For a brief moment she had given him a glimpse of the shadowy recesses where she hid her naked soul; a glimpse only, like some of those she had given him when he was painting her portrait; but what he had seen now was different—an Olga no longer wistful no longer amenable; a wild, unreasoning thing who purred, cat-like, while he stroked her, sheathing and unsheathing her claws. There was mischief brewing—he felt it in her sudden access of self-control, and in the final jest with which she had left him. He knew her better now. It was when she mocked that Olga was most dangerous. It was clear that she had not believed him when he told her the truth. Her standards forbade it, of course. It was too bad.

But she had not told what she knew—that was the main thing. What if she did tell now? Hermia could deny it, of course, and if necessary he must lie, as Olga had said, like a gentleman. And where were Olga's proofs? Who would confirm her? What evidence, human or documentary could she bring forward here in New York to prove Hermia's culpability, if, as it seemed to be her intention, she insisted on carrying her sweet vengeance to its end? There was no one—he paused, his brow clouding. De Foligny! Had De Folligny learned who Hermia was? Had Olga found out about the companion in his automobile at Verneuil? He waved the thought away. De Folligny was on the other side of the ocean. The psychological moment for Olga's revelation had passed.

Consoling himself with these thoughts he went home and to bed and morning found him early at the studio, awaiting his new sitter, in a more quiescent, if still uncertain, frame of mind.

The portrait of Mrs. Berkeley Hammond on which he had been working sat smugly upon one of his easels, a thing of shreds and patches (though the lady was in pearls and a DrŽcoll frock), a thing "painty" without being direct, mannered without being elegant, highly colored without being colorful, a streaky thing with brilliant spots, like the work of a promising pupil; a pretty poor Markham, which had pleased the sitter because its face flattered her, and for which she would gladly pay the considerable sum he charged, while Markham's inner consciousness loudly proclaimed that the canvas was not worth as much as the crayon sketch of Madam Daudifret in Normandy which had been the price of a ragožt. Really he would have to pain better. He swung the easel around with a kick of the foot and faced a new canvas, primed some days before, and busied himself about his palette and paint tubes.

When Phyllis Van Vorst emerged from the dressing-room a while later into the cool north light, Markham's eyes sparkled with a genuine delight. Here was the sort of thing he could do—white satin with filmy drapery from which rose the fresh-colored flower of girlhood. Without being really pretty, his model created the illusion of beauty by her youth, her abundant health and many little tricks of gesture and expression. Her role was that of the ingŽnue and she prattled childishly of many things, flitting like a butterfly from topic to topic, grave and gay with a careless grace which added something to the picture she made. Markham let her talk, interjecting monosyllables lulled by the inexhaustible flow, aware, after the first pose or two, that he was painting well, with the careless brush of entire confidence. As Olga had said, he always was at his best when a little contemptuous. In three hours the head was finished and the background laid in, premier coup— the best thing he had done in a year.

He twisted the canvas around to get a better look at it and groped for his pipe, suddenly conscious of the fact that he had painted and that his model had sat steadily for an hour and a half without a rest.

"You poor child," he muttered with compunction, as he helped her down, "that's the penalty of being interesting."

"Oh, I'm so glad," she cried, "You can say nice things, can't you?"

"When I think of them," he laughed.

She stood before the canvas in breathless delight.

"Oh, do I look like that, Mr. Markham, like Psyche with the lamp? It's quite too wonderful for words. I'm a dream. I've never seen anything quite so flattering in my life. Oh, I'm so glad I came to you instead of to Teddy Vincent. You've made my poor nose quite straight—and yet it's my nose, too. How on earth did you do it? You're not going to work any more—?"

"No—" he laughed, "the head is done."

She sat in the chair he brought forward for her and Markham dropped on the divan near her and smoked. She gazed at the head for a while in rapturous silence.

"O Mr. Markham, will you ever forgive me for being so stupid last summer," she said at last, "about that upside-down painting? I've been so humiliated—"

"I'm not really a landscape man, you know," he said cheerfully by way of consolation, "and it was only a sketch."

"Oh, but they made such a lot of fun of me—at Westport. They're not very merciful—that crowd."

Markham's gaze shifted.

"Yes, I know," he said quietly.

"Oh, have you heard?" his companion laughed suddenly.

"About Crosby Downs."

"No."

"He has married Sybil Trenchard."

Markham took a puff at his pipe.

"Really? Why?"

She laughed. And then quickly.

"I don't know. And Hilda and Carol—Carol Gouverneur, you know—engaged. She has wanted him a long time. Everybody thought he'd wiggle out of it somehow, but he didn't or couldn't or something."

He smiled. "Cupid has had a busy summer."

"Oh, yes, quite extraordinary. You see out of all that house party, there are only three or four left." She spoke of this wholesale selection and apportionment as though her topic had been apples.

"Indeed?" Markham stopped smoking. "Who else?" he asked calmly.

"Me," she said blushing prettily. "I mean I—I and Reggie—"

"Reginald Armistead! I thought that he and Miss Challoner—"

"Oh, that's all off," she laughed. "They didn't really care for each other at all—not that way—just as friends you know. Hermia is a good deal like a fellow. Reggie liked her that way. They were pals—had been from childhood, but then one doesn't marry one's pal."

"I'm very glad," said Markham politely, examining her with a new interest. "I shall make it a point at once to offer him my congratulations. I like him."

"He's adorable, isn't he? But I'm horribly frightened about him. He's so dreadfully reckless—flying, I mean. If it hadn't been for Hermia, I'm sure he never would have begun it. But he has promised me to give it up—now. Hermia may break her neck if she likes; that's Mr. Morehouse's affair, but—"

"Morehouse!" Markham broke in, wide-eyed.

She regarded him calmly.

"Where on earth have you been, Mr. Markham?"

"In—France," he stammered. "Do you mean that Hermia—Miss Challoner is—"

"Engaged to Trevvy? Of course. It was cabled from Paris—to the Herald. But then nobody who knows about things is really very much surprised. Trevvy has been wild about her for years and her family have all wanted it. It's really a very good match. You see Trevvy is so steady and she needs a skid to her wheel—"

She rambled on but to Markham her voice was only a confused chatter of many voices. He rose and turned the easel into a better light, then knocked out his pipe into the fireplace. The room whirled around him and he steadied himself against the mantel, while he tried to listen to what else she was saying. Her loquacity, a moment ago so amusing, had assumed a deeper significance. The phrases purled with diabolical fluidity from her lips, searing like molten metal. Hermia! The girl was mad.

The confusion about him ceased and in the silence he heard her voice.

"Are you ill, Mr. Markham?"

He straightened with a short laugh and faced toward her.

"No—not at all. And I was really very much interested," he said evenly. "Miss Challoner is in Europe?" he asked carelessly.

"Oh, yes,—or was—and Trevvy followed her there. She's home now—came yesterday—of course, with Trevvy at her heels. Oh! he'll keep her in order, no fear about that. It's about time that Hermia settled down. She's quite the wildest thing—perfectly properly, you know, Olga Tcherny says—"

"Olga is home, too?" he interrupted, steadying himself.

She nodded quickly and went on. "Olga says that Hermia disappeared from Paris for over a week and no one knew where she was. Trevvy was crazy with anxiety. But she came back one night in an old gray coat and hat with a bundle—the shabbiest thing imaginable, looking like a tramp. Trevvy was in the hotel and saw her. But they patched things up somehow."

"Did Madame Tcherny learn where she had been?"

"Oh, no," she laughed. "You see Olga was too busy with her own affairs. She has a Frenchman in tow this season—she's brought him here with her—florid, blonde, curled and monocled, the Marquis de Folligny—"

"Pierre de Folligny!"

"You know him?"

"Yes—er—slightly."

She had babbled her gossip so lightly and rapidly that this last piece of information had not given him the start its significance deserved. But its import grew.

"It's an affair of long standing, isn't it?" she asked him.

"I—I don't know, I'm sure," he muttered, his brow clouding.

"Something in his manner made her glance at the clock.

"Half-past one—and Reggie's coming to lunch at two. I'll have to tear."

He opened the dressing-room for her and, after she had vanished within, stood glowering at the door like one possessed.

A butterfly that dripped poison! He was drenched with it. How lightly Hermia's name had dropped from her satin wings! He smiled grimly at the thought of his own situation, the central figure in at least one act of this comedy, viewing it from the far side of the proscenium arch, gaping like the rustic in the metropolis who sees himself for the first time depicted upon the stage. What right had she—this little flutter-budget—to know these things—when he was denied them? Hermia—the report of her engagement had been disturbing, but some reason it seemed less important now than the fact that she was here—here in New York within twenty minutes of him—perhaps, upon the very street where he might meet her when he went out. Hermia and Trevvy Morehouse! He simply would not believe it. Hermia might look him in the eyes and tell him so—and then— But she would not dare. Those eyes—blue—violet—gray—all colors as the mood or the sunlight pleased—honest eyes into whose depths he had peered when they were dark with the shadows of the forest and seen his image dancing. She was his that day—all his. He could have taken her; and he had let her go back to Paris—and the excellent Trevelyan. Hermia, his mad vagabond Hermia, was ready to tie herself for life to that automatic nonentity at Westport who trailed, a patient shadow in Hermia's swirling wake. Hermia and Morehouse! He simply wouldn't believe it.

When his sitter had departed in a rush to keep her engagement, he filled his pipe again and walked the floor smoking furiously, the scenario of Olga's little drama taking a more definite form. He understood now the reasons why she had not told what she had seen. He doubted now whether it was her intention to tell. But she had brought the Frenchman De Folligny over to do the telling for her, reserving her little climax until all her marionettes were properly placed according to her own stage directions, when she would let the situation work itself out to its own conclusion. It was an ingenious plan, one which did her hand much credit. She had realized, of course, that a revelation of Hermia's shortcomings in Alen�on, Paris or Trouville would have deprived her vengeance of half its sting. It required a New York background, a quiet drawing-room filled with Hermia's intimates for her "situation" to produce its most telling effect. De Folligny now had the center of the stage and at the proper moment she would pull the necessary wires and the thing would be accomplished.

Something must be done at once. He changed into street clothes and went out, lunched alone on the way uptown and at three was standing at the door of the Challoner house.

The butler showed Markham into the drawing-room and took his card. He did not know whether Miss Challoner was in or not, but he would see. Markham sat and impatiently waited, his eyes meanwhile restlessly roving the splendor of the room in search of some object which would suggest Hermia—mad Hermia of Vagabondia. Opposite him upon the wall was a portrait of her by a distinguished Frenchman, with whose mŽtier he was familiar—an astounding falsehood in various shades of tooth-powder. This Hermia smirked at him like the lady in the fashion page, exuding an atmosphere of wealth and nothing else—a strange, unreal Hermia who floated vaguely between her gilt barriers, neither sprite nor flesh and blood. How could Marsac have known the real Hermia—the heart, the spirit of her as he knew them!

And yet when a few moments later she appeared in the doorway he wondered if he knew her at all. She was dressed for afternoon in some clinging dark stuff which made her figure slim almost to the point of thinness. She wore a small hat with a tall plume and seemed to have gained in stature. Her face was paler and her modulated voice and the studied gesture as she offered him her hand did more to convince him that things were not as they should be.

"So good of you to come, Mr. Markham," he heard her saying coolly. "I was wondering if I'd have the pleasure of seeing you here."

He stood uncertainly at the point of seizing her in his arms when he was made aware of her premeditation. The tepor of her politeness was like a blow between the eyes, and he peered blindly into her face in vain for some sign of the girl he knew.

"Won't you sit down?" she asked, and dumbly he sat. "I hear you were in Normandy," she went on smoothly. "Did you have a good summer? You did leave us rather abruptly at Westport, didn't you? But then you know, of course, I understood that—"

"Hermia," he broke in in a low voice. "What has happened to you? Why didn't you answer my letters. I've been nearly mad with anxiety." He leaned forward toward her, the words falling in a torrent. But she only examined him curiously, a puzzled wrinkle at her brows vying with the set smile she still wore.

"Your letters, Mr. Markham!" she said in surprise. "Oh! You mean the note about the sketch of Thimble Island? I did reply, didn't I? It was awfully nice—"

"Good God!" he muttered, rising. "Haven't you punished me enough now, without this—" with a wave of his hand—"this extravaganza. Haven't I paid? I searched Paris high and low for you, Hermia, haunted your bankers and the hotel where you had been stopping, only returning here at the moment when my engagements in New York made it necessary. Has it been kind of you, or just to ignore my letters and leave me all these weeks in anxiety and ignorance? I've missed you horribly—and I feared—nameless things—that you had forgotten me, that you wanted everything forgotten." As he came forward she rose and took a step toward an inner room, her eyes still narrowed and quizzical, watching him carefully.

"Hermia—Hermia!" He stopped, the tension breaking in a laugh. "Oh, you want to punish me, of course. Don't you think you've paid me well already? See! I'm penitent. What do you want? Shall I go down on my knees to you. I have been on my knees to you for weeks—you must have know it. My letters—"

He paused and then stopped, puzzled, for she had not moved and her gaze surveyed him, coolly critical.

"You got my letters?" he asked anxiously.

She was silent.

"I've written you every day—since you left me—poured my heart out to you. You didn't get them? O Hermia, you must have known what life has been without you. Do you think I could forget what I read in your eyes that day in the forest? Could you forget what you wrote there? Only your lips refused me. Even when they refused me, they were warm with my kisses. They were mine, as you were, body and soul. You loved me, Hermia—from the first. These flimsy barriers you're raising, I'll break them down—and take you—"

As he approached, she reached the curtains, one hand upraised.

"You're dreaming, Mr. Markham," she said, distinctly. "I haven't the least idea what you're talking about."

"You love me—" he stammered.

"I?"

Her laughter checked him effectually. He stood, his full gesture of entreaty frozen into immobility. Then slowly his arms relaxed and he stood awkwardly staring, now thoroughly awake. She meant him to understand that Vagabondia was not—that their week in Arcadia had never been.

He gaped at her a full moment before he found speech.

"You wish to deny that you and I—that you were there with me—in Normandy?" he stammered.

"One only denies the possible, Mr. Markham," she said with a glib certitude. "The impossible needs no denial. I was in Paris and in Switzerland this summer. Obviously I couldn't have been in Normandy, too."

"I see," he muttered mechanically. "You were in Switzerland."

"Yes. In Switzerland, Mr. Markham," she repeated.

He turned slowly and walked toward the window, his hands behind him, struggling for control. When his voice came, it was as firm as her own.

"Can you prove that?" he asked coldly.

"Why should I prove it, Mr. Markham?" she asked, "My word should be sufficient, I think."

The even tones of her voice and the repetition of his name inflamed him. There was little doubt of her apostasy. He turned toward her with a change of manner, his eyes dark.

"Perhaps you'll be obliged to prove it," he muttered.

"I? Why?"

He looked her straight in the eyes.

"Monsieur de Folligny is with Olga Tcherny—her in New York."

The plume on her hat nodded back, and her eyes widely opened gave him a momentary glimpse of her terror.

"De Folligny is here—with Olga!"

"Yes. I've just learned it—to-day."

She moved her slender shoulders upward in the gesture she had learned from Olga Tcherny.

"That will be quite pleasant," she resumed, easily. "He will render us a little less prosy, perhaps."

Markham watched her a moment in silence, his wounds aching dully.

"I came here—to warn you of that—danger," he said slowly. "Since you don't feat it, my mission is ended." He took up his hat and stick and moved toward the door. "I shall not question your wisdom or your sense of responsibility to me or to yourself. But I think I understand at last what you would have of me. Whatever you wish, of course, I shall do without question. I was alone in Normandy—or with someone else, if you like. It was my Vagabondia—not yours. There was no Philidor—no Yvonne—no Cleofonte or Stella—no roses of P�re GuŽgou—no roses in my heart. They're withered enough, God knows. You wish to forget them. You want me to remember you as you are—to-day." He laughed. "I think I'll have no difficulty in doing so—or helping by my silence or my cooperation in carrying out any plans you may have, if you should find it necessary to call upon me."

"I thank you," she murmured, her head bent.

He regarded her a moment steadily, but she would not meet his gaze. At the door he paused.

"I have heard of your reported engagement," he finished more slowly. "I'd like you to know that I had too much faith in you to believe it. But I think—indeed I'm sure I'm ready to believe it now—if you tell me it's true."

She did not raise her head, but her lips moved inarticulately. He glanced at her a moment longer and then, with an inclination of the head, passed out into the hall and so to the door.

CHAPTER XXV

CIRCE AND THE FOSSIL

Christmas had come and gone and the city had struck its highest note of winter activity. Those envied mortals who compose society, pausing for a brief moment of air and relaxation in the holidays, plunged again into the arduous treadmill of the daily round, urged by the flying lash of unrest, creatures of a common fate, plodding wearily up the path of preferment, not daring to falter or to rest under the pain of instant oblivion.

Olga Tcherny paused only long enough to catch a deep breath after her momentous interview with John Markham in Washington Square and then plunged into the busy throng with De Folligny after. She had heard with some interest the reports of Hermia Challoner's engagement to Mr. Morehouse, but it had made no very deep impression upon her mind. She only considered it, in fact, with reference to its possible effect upon the mind of John Markham, who she soon learned was avoiding the social scene, as had been his custom, before she had made forcible entry into his studio last year and had dragged him forth into the company of his fellow man.

It was quite evident that Hermia was playing her game rather ruthlessly and, whatever her object, John Markham and she for the present at least were at cross purposes. Olga did not dare to go to see him, and though her door stood open she had no hope that he would enter it without encouragement. But one blithe morning she sent him a note:

What's this I hear? Can it be true that your nymph has fled from the woods of Pan to take shelter under the eaves of a Morehouse? And what becomes of the faun? I can't believe it—and yet my rumor comes direct. Do satisfy my craving for veracity, won't you? I'd like awfully to see you, if you'll forgive and forget. I can now give you positive assurances that you will be quite as safe in my drawing-room as in that smudgy place where you immortalize mediocrity. I'll never propose to you again as long as I live. The phantasy has passed, I think. Do you believe me? Come and see—but 'phone first. Affectionately, Olga.

To her surprise, he came the following afternoon. She received him with a frank and careless gayety which put him very much at his ease. He marveled at her assurance and the resumption of the little airs of proprietorship to which he had been accustomed before the visit to Westport. She was the Olga of the portrait with the added graces of a not too obtrusive sympathy and a manner which seemed subtly to suggest self-elimination. He accepted the situation without mental reservation, sat in the chair she indicated with a grateful sigh and watched her pretty hands busy about the tea-tray. Whatever their relations and however directly he could trace his present misfortunes to her very door, the illusion of her friendliness was not to be dispelled, and he relinquished himself to its charm with a grateful sense that, for the moment at least, here was sanctuary.

She found him thinner and said so.

"You're working too hard, my dear Markham," she said. "On every hand I hear of people you've painted or are about to paint. A real success—un success fou—and in spite of yourself! It's quite wonderful."

"I've painted very badly," he muttered.

"Oh, you're too close to your work to have a perspective. Mrs. Hammond has touted you the length and breadth of the town—you know—and that means there's a pedestal for you in her Hall of Fame. What does Immortality taste like? Sweet?"

He laughed. "Fame in New York—is merely a matter of dollars. My prices are enormous—hence my reputation. If I charged what the things are worth, these people would send me back to Paris."

"And still you refuse to go to their houses? I hear that Mrs. Hammond wanted to give a dinner for you—to all her set—and that's quite extraordinary of her—even for a lion—"

"But I couldn't eat them, you know—"

"But you could let them watch you eat—"

"I wouldn't have eaten. You see, magnificence of that sort takes my appetite away."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I suppose I'm a crank. They speak another language—those people. I don't understand them. I find that no exertion of the legs brings my mind and theirs any closer together. They bore me stiff and I bore them. What's the use?"

"You have no social ambitions?"

"None whatever—in the sense you mean. I like my fellow men stripped to the bone. That's indecent when one dines out."

"And your fellow woman?"

He shrugged and laughed.

"She's a child—adorable always. But then I never understand her—nor she me."

She sipped tea and smiled.

"Woman is at once the woman and the serpent, mon ami. All she needs is a man and a Garden of Paradise."

He frowned into his teacup but did not reply.

"Is it true, John?" she asked quietly.

"What is true?"

"That Hermia is to marry Trevvy Morehouse?"

"From whom did you hear that?" he asked.

"From whom have I not heard it? Everyone. Hermia hasn't denied it, has she?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Why should she deny it? It's her own affair."

His tone rebuked her.

"I don't want to be meddlesome, you know. I only thought—"

"Oh, I'm glad you spoke," he murmured. "I—I wanted to talk about her. You know, you and I—when you left me—there in the Park—you gave me the impression that you—er—that you didn't care for Miss Challoner any more—"

"Did I? I'm glad I did. That's the truth. I don't care for her. She cut me very prettily on the street the week after she got back from Europe. Evidently the antipathy is mutual."

He paused, considering.

"I'm sorry she saw fit to do that. That was foolish—very foolish of her."

"Wasn't it? Especially as I had about decided to forget that I'd ever been in Alen�on—"

He put his hand over hers and held it there a moment.

"I want you to forget that, Olga," he muttered. "It—it never happened."

She smiled, her gaze on the andirons.

"You're quite positive of that?"

"Yes. I was—er—in Holland last summer."

"Oh, were you?"

"Yes. And Hermia—Miss Challoner was in Switzerland."

"Yes. So I hear. Very interesting. But how does that explain things to Pierre de Folligny? He met her the other day—and remembered her perfectly—"

Markham rose and paced the floor.

"Oh," he heard her saying, "she denied seeing him in France, of course,—but it was quite awkward—for her, I mean."

He took two or three turns, his brows serious, and then came and stood near her at the mantelpiece.

"You must straighten things out, Olga—with De Folligny," he muttered. "It will ruin her, if he speaks—you know what New York is. Gossip like that travels like fire. And she doesn't deserve it—not that. You've told me that you don't believe in her innocence, but at heart I think you do. You must. I swear to you—on the honor of—"

She raised a hand.

"Don't—!" quickly. "I'm willing to assume her innocence. Haven't I told you that I had been prepared to forget the whole incident—when she cut me. Why did she do that? What does that mean?"

"Not guilt surely—wouldn't she be trying to get you on her side?"

Olga waved an expressive hand.

"Oh, that's impossible—and she knows it."

"Why?"

She paused, shielding her eyes with her fingers. He was such an innocent. But she had no notion of enlightening him.

"She has given you up—to marry. That's clear. I told her secret. The simplest way out of her difficulty is to ignore me. Well—let her. I don't mind. I'll survive. But I would give my ears to let Fifth Avenue know—"

"No—no," he put in quickly, "you mustn't do that— If you've ceased to care for her, you've got your duty to me to consider. Do you hold my honor so lightly—"

"Yours?"

"Yes. She was in my care. I let her go with me. The responsibility was sacred. I was morally pledged to keep her from harm. That responsibility has not ceased because she no longer—because she has made up her mind to—to marry. It's greater even. If you ever told that story—"

"And De Foligny? You forget him—"

He came quickly over and took her hands in his.

"You can seal this secret, if you will, as in a tomb. Do it, Olga. It will be magnificent of you. Give me your word—your promise to keep silent—to keep De Folligny silent—"

She had turned, her chin upon her shoulder, away from him.

"You ask a great deal," she said with reluctance.

"Not more than you can give—not more than you will give. Whatever your—your differences she doesn't deserve this of you. Will it give you pleasure in after years to think of her life embittered—of his life embittered, too, by a piece of gossip, woven out of a tissue of half-truths—that will damn her—as half-truths do?"

"You love her so much as this?" she gasped.

He relinquished her hand—stood a moment looking dumbly at her and then walked the length of the room away. The little clock on the mantel ticked gaily, the fire sparkled and the familiar sounds of the careless city came faintly to their ears. She stirred and he turned toward her.

"Will you promise?" he asked quietly.

"Promise what?"

"Not to speak—of what you saw at Alen�on."

"Yes. I promise that," she said slowly at last.

"Or let De Folligny speak?"

Another silence. And then from thinned lips.

"I—I will use my influence—to keep him silent."

The firmness of her tone assured him. He caught up her hands and pressed them softly to his lips.

"I knew you would, Olga. I knew you were bigger than that. I thank you—I will never forget—"

But before he could finish she had snatched her fingers away from him and was laughing softly at the tea-caddy.

"Now, if you please," she said composedly, "we will speak of pleasanter things."

She opened a long silver box on the table and took a cigarette, offering him one.

"The pipe of peace?" he asked.

"If you like."

He drew in the smoke gratefully.

"Olga, you're a trump," he said with a genuine heartiness.

"Thanks," she said dryly. "I know it. And you're playing me quite successfully—aren't you? Hearts? and I'm the 'dummy.' I never liked playing the 'dummy.'"

He laughed.

"I wish I were quite sure in my mind what you do like to play."

Her look questioned coolly.

"I mean, that, as well as I've thought I've know you, I find that I've never known you at all. You're a creature of bewildering transitions. I hear that you're going to marry De Folligny."

"And what if I am?" she flashed at him.

"I'm sure I wish you every happiness. Only—"

He paused.

"Please finish."

"Nothing—except that you will leave me with an unpleasant sense of having been made a fool of."

She rose, flicked her cigarette into the fire and then turned as if about to speak. But thought better of it. There was a long silence.

"Pierre de Folligny and I are friends of long standing," she said at last. "One marries some day. Why not an old friend? The age of madness passes—I am almost thirty and I have lived—much. It is time—" she finished wearily, "time that I married again. We understand each other perfectly." A smile slowly dawned and broke. "What one wants in a husband is not so much a rhapsodist as a rhymester, not so much a lover as a walking-gentleman—Pierre is that, you know."

She sighed again and rose.

"It was very sweet of you to come in, John. Don't misunderstand me again. That—" and she paused to give the word emphasis, "is all over. I'm quite safe as a confidante. Hermia has treated you very badly, I think. I'd like to tell her so—No? Well, good-bye. Do come in again. I want you to know Pierre better. He really is all that a walking-gentleman should be."

He laughed and kissed her fingers, and in a moment had gone.

Olga Tcherny stood immovable where he had left her, one foot upon the fender, her gaze upon the fire. After a time she stretched forth her fingers to the blaze. All over! She straightened slowly and caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. The firelight gleamed under her brows, brought out with unpleasant sharpness the angle of her jaw and touched the bones of her cheek caressingly. She looked again, the truth compelling her, and then buried her face in her arm. The truth—middle age, had set its first mark upon her. The sallow fingers of Time had touched her lightly, more as a warning than as a prophecy, painted with a reluctant brush a deeper tone into the shadows, a higher note in the lights, had brushed in haltingly the false values that now mocked at her. Time! She seemed to count it by her heart-throbs.

She walked across the room and stood before the portrait John Markham had painted of her. The face gazed out from its shadows, its eyes met hers for a moment, then looked through her and beyond, eyes which looked, yet saw not, eyes deep and inscrutable, seers of visions, bathed in memories which would not sink into oblivion. Her eyes he had painted carefully. For him it seemed the rest of the face had been a blank. The nose, the chin, were hers, and the mouth—the lips, a scarlet smudge of illusiveness. They were hers, too. He had had difficulty with her lips, painting and repainting them. They had puzzled him. "The eyes we are born with," he had said—how well she remembered it now! "The lips are what we make ourselves." At last he had painted them in quickly—almost brutally and let them be. They seemed to mock at her now—to contradict the meaning of the eyes—which would not, could not, smile.

Hermia had scoffed at this portrait because it was not "pretty." There was something bigger than mere prettiness here. He had painted the soul of her, reading with his art what had been hidden from the man, as he had strayed through the labyrinth of her thoughts viewing the blighted blossom of her girlhood and wifehood and the neglected garden of her maturity. As she viewed the portrait now in the light of time and event, she saw, more clearly than ever, her soul and body as Markham had seen it. He had painted her as he would have painted character—an old man or an old woman, searching for shadows rather than lights, seeking the anatomy of sorrow rather than that of joy—had made her the subject of a cool and not too flattering psychological investigation. Was this how he had always seen her? This far-looking, inscrutable, satiated woman of the world, who peered forth into the future, from the dull embers of the past—a being whose physical beauty was rather suggested than expressed—whose loveliness lay in what she might have been rather than in what she was? He had always thought of her thus?

She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Not, not always. She remembered now—he couldn't have painted her as he had painted others—as he had painted a while ago the portrait of Phyllis Van Vorst—carelessly, contemptuously. He had probed deeply—painted form his own deeps. They had been very close together in those hours, mentally, spiritually, and only the barrier she herself had raised prevented their physical nearness. That, too, she could have had?

A mist fell across the canvas and Hermia's vision interposed, rosy and careless, her braggart youth triumphant.

She turned, threw herself upon the couch and buried her head, her fingers clenched, in the pillows. She made no sound and lay so immovable that one might have thought she was sleeping. But her blood was coursing madly and her pulses throbbed a wrist and neck. She had been true to her better self—with Markham—and her idealism had brought her only this void of barren regret. Whichever way she looked into the past or into the future, the vista was empty; behind her only the echoes of voices and a grim shape or two; before her—vacancy. She had bared her soul to Markham, there in the Square, torn away the veil of her pride and let him know the truth. Why, God knew. She had been mad. She had believed the worst of Hermia and of him, and had offered herself to him that he might judge between them—her heart and Hermia's, her mind, her body and Hermia's. Was her own face no longer fair that he should have looked at her so curiously and turned away with Hermia's name on his lips, Hermia's image in his heart? A doubt had crept into her mind and lingered insidiously. Hermia innocent! She was beginning to believe it now. In spite of the damning facts she had discovered, the evidence of Madam Bordier and Monsieur Duchanel, of the peasant women at Tilli�res and of Pierre de Folligny, the testimony of Hermia's pale face at the shooting lodge at Alen�on and of her confession which she had not thought of doubting, the belief had slowly gained force in her mind that Markham had not lied to her. She found confirmation of it in Hermia Challoner's disappearance in France, in her attitude toward Markham and in the announcement of her engagement to another man. Markham could not guess, as she did now, that this was only a ruse de femme, born of the access of timidity at the discovery of her indiscretion and the consciousness that she had gone too far with Markham, who must be punished for his share in her downfall. It seemed pitifully clear now.

Olga's bitterness choked and whelmed her. It seemed even worse that Hermia should be innocent. She dared not think of the picture she had made in Markham's mind when she had thrown herself into the scales that he might weigh their frailties and compare them. Hermia innocent! How Olga hated her for it, and for her youth and beauty. They mocked and derided the tender flame that she had nourished, which now glowed ineffectually as in another, a greater light. She hated Hermia for all the things that she herself was not.

Lucidity came to her slowly. After a long while she raised a disordered face and leaned her chin upon her hands, staring at the dying log. She had promised him not to speak. She could not. She had even promised to persuade De Folligny to silence. Had he mentioned the incident already? She did not know. He was not by nature a gossip, but Hermia had not been too tactful and it was a good story—the sanctity of which, upon the mind of a man of De Folligny's temperament, might not be impressive. She would keep her promise to Markham and persuade Pierre to silence. No one should know by word of mouth—

Olga started up, her eyes wide open, staring at the opposite wall, where there hung a colored print of a woodland scene by Morland, and a smile slowly grew at one end of her lips, a crooked smile, that might have been merely quizzical, had not the impression been unpleasantly modified by the narrowing eyes and the tiny wrinkle that suddenly grew between her brows.

"I will do it," she muttered. "It may be amusing."

CHAPTER XXVI

MRS. BERKELEY HAMMOND ENTERTAINS

The heritage of the world comes at last to the pachyderms. Fate is never so unkind as to those who blindly resist her and into the lap of stoic and unimpressionable she pours the horn of plenty.

Trevelyan Morehouse had gone through life on the low gear. In fact he had no change of gears and needed none. He never "hit it up" on the smooth places or burned out his tires on the rough ones, and was therefore always to be found in perfect repair. He was a good hill climber and had a way of arriving at his destination no matter how difficult the going. When others passed him he let them go, and plodded on after them with solemn assurance, his gait so leisurely that rapid travelers had the habit of regarding his conservatism with undisguised contempt. And yet his perseverance, though inconspicuous, was singularly effective. He had won his way into the sanctorum of a big corporation and his advice, though never brilliant, was always sane and peculiarly reliable. He did not mind rebuffs and was so indifferent to indignities that people had ceased to offer them. Socially he could always be trusted to do the usual thing in the usual way and was therefore always much in demand by hostesses who required conventional limitations. In a word he was "the excellent Trevelyan." and the adjective fitted him as snugly as it did the well-known comestible with which it had come to be so comfortably and freely associated. His excellence lay largely in the fact that he did not excel. He was content with his subordinate capacity, wise in his confidence that all things would come to him in the end, if he only waited long enough.

The same rules which he found so successful in business he now applied to his affair of the heart, and plodded off in the wake of the fast flying Hermia, imperturbable and undismayed. His flowers had been sent to her with the regularity of the clock, his visits carefully timed, and his proposals renewed with a well-bred ardor. He had waited patiently through Hermia's short and sportive attachment for "Reggie" Armistead, and when their "trial" engagement reached its tempestuous conclusion, had stepped softly into the breach, rosy with hope and a definite sense that his time had come. Hermia liked him—had liked him for years. She had gotten used to him as one does to a familiar chair or an article of diet. He was a habit with her like her bedroom slippers or her afternoon tea. He was comfortable, always safe and quite sane, which she was not, and she accepted him in the guise of counselor and friend with the same cheerful tolerance that she gave to her Aunt Harriet Westfield or to Mr. Winthrop of the Pilgrim Trust Company.

When Hermia departed suddenly for Europe, her sportive idyl so suddenly shattered, Mr. Morehouse followed her in the next steamer. She had given him no definite encouragement, it was true, and yet he found reasons to hope that the time was at hand when she must make some definite decision. In Europe her brief disappearance from the scene of her usual activities had mystified him and her return to her hotel, shabby and uncommunicative, had aroused a chagrin and an anxiety quite unusual to him; but he had sat and waited her pleasure, survived her turbulent moods and had found his patience at last rewarded by her silent acquiescence in his presence, and by an invitation to accompany her to Switzerland, where she was to join her Aunt Julia and the children.

From the vantage point of his office window down town, where he now sat and viewed the bleak perspective of the city, his memories of the summer with Hermia seemed a strange compound of brief blisses and more enduring pangs. They had been much seen together and the announcement of their engagement which had appeared in the newspapers had not been surprising. Aunt Julia had favored his suit and Mrs. Westfield had given him to understand that it was time Hermia married. But the fact remained that Hermia had not accepted him. His insistence had always provoked and still provoked one of two moods—either resentment or mockery. She either dismissed him in a dudgeon or cajoled him with elusive banter. Why was he so impatient? There was plenty of time? Was he sure that he wanted to marry her? What did her really know about her heart of hearts? Perhaps, if he knew her better he might not want to marry her. He pleaded in patient calm. The world, it seemed, thought them engaged. Why shouldn't he be permitted to think so. She only laughed at him and her heart of hearts had come to be the most profound enigma that it had ever been his fortune to study. So the prize, which he had thought most surely his own, still hung reluctantly upon the lip of the horn of plenty. It would not fall, and all the traditions of his experience forbade that he should jostle it. And so he only watched with patient eyes and a physical restraint which could only be described as "excellent."

What did she mean by saying that if he knew her better he might not want to marry her? Vague doubts assailed him. Did he, after all, know her? What was this chapter of her life of which he knew nothing and to which she had so frequently alluded? Was it something which had happened to her in America? Or had it something to do with her disappearance last summer from Paris, after which she had returned sober and intolerant? He gave it up. He was always giving her up and then putting his doubts of her in his pocket with his neat handkerchief, plodding sedulously as before. He must wait. Everything that he had got in life had come from waiting and Hermia, his philosophy told him, must be no exception to the rule.

The winter drew on toward spring. Lent arrived, and society, quite bored and thoroughly exhausted, halted in the mad round of the "one-step" and turned to calmer delights. Country places in adjacent counties were opened and guests flitted from one house to the other in a continuous round of visits.

Mrs. Berkeley Hammond's invitations, whether to the big house near the Park or to Rood's Knoll, her place in the country, were much in demand. The Hammonds had unlimited means, the social instinct, worthy family traditions, and a talent for entertainment, a combination of qualities and circumstances which explained the importance of this family in the social life of the city. The mantle of an older leader who had passed had fallen comfortably on Mrs. Hammond's capacious shoulders and she wore it with a familiar grace which gave the impression that it had always been there. Conservative, the more radical called her, and radical, the conservative; but her taste and her chef were both above reproach, and her dinners, whether large or small, had the distinction which only comes of a rare order of tact and discrimination. Nor were her hospitalities confined to the entertainment of the indigenous. Visitors to New York, foreign celebrities, literary, artistic or political, found within her doors a welcome and a company exactly suited to their social requirements. She liked young people, too, and contrived to let them know it, to the end that her dances, while formal, were gay rather than "stodgy," juvenescent rather than patriarchal.

The house at Rood's Knoll was a huge affair, of brick and timbered plaster, set in the midst of its thousand acres of woodland in the heart of the hills. Lent found it full of people and its gayety was reflected in other houses of the neighborhood whose owners, like the Hammonds, kept open house. There was much to do. March went out like a lion and the snow which kept the more timid indoors at the cards made wonderful coasting and sledding, of which latter these wearied children of fortune were not slow to take advantage. The ponds were frozen, too, and skating was added to the sum of their rural delights.

Hermia Challoner, who was visiting Caroline Anstell, joined feverishly in these pursuits, glad of the opportunity they afforded her of relief from her personal problems. There were some of her intimates here in the neighborhood, but she found greater security in the society of an older set of whom she had seen little in town and in the pleasure of picking up the loose ends of these acquaintanceships she managed to forget, at least temporarily, her sword of Damocles. Olga Tcherny was one of Mrs. Berkeley Hammond's house guests, but she had not been in evidence on either of the occasions when Hermia had called. There was some excitement over an evening which Mrs. Hammond was planning to take place in the country during the latter days of Lent. The invitations were noncommittal and merely mentioned the date and hour, but it was understood that "everyone" was to be there, and that an entertainment a little out of the ordinary was to be provided.

It was, therefore, with a pleasurable anticipation that Hermia got down from the Anstell's machine on the appointed evening, and followed her party into the great house. The rooms were comfortably filled, but not crowded, and it seemed that the women had done their best to add their share to the merely decorative requirements of the occasion. The ball-room lights shimmered softly on the rich tissues of their costumes, and caught in the facets of the jewels on their bared shoulders. Society was at its best, upon its good behavior, patiently eking out the few short days that remained to it of the penitential season. Hermia managed to elude the watchful Trevelyan and entered the ball-room with Beatrice Coddington and Caroline Anstell. Just inside she found herself face to face with the Countess Tcherny. She would have passed on, but Olga was not to be denied.

"So glad to see you, Hermia, dear," she purred, her eyes lighting. "It's really dreadfully unlucky how seldom we've met this winter. You're a little thinner, aren't you? But it becomes you awfully."

"Thanks," said Hermia. "I'm quite well."

"I hope you'll like the play, you know I—" and she whispered. "Nobody knows—I wrote it."

"Oh, really," Hermia smiled coolly. "I hope it's quite moral."

"Oh, you must judge for yourself," said Olga, and disappeared.

The men, having searched the premises vainly for the bridge tables, resigned themselves to the inevitable and drifted by twos and threes into the ball-room, where they melted into the gay company which was not seated, or stood along the back and side walls, making a somber background for the splendid plumage of their dinner-partners.

"Tableaux-vivants, for a dollar!" said Archie Westcott in bored desperation.

"Oh, rot!" blurted out Crosby Downs in contempt. "What's the use? They'll be havin' Mrs. Jarley's waxworks next—"

"Or the 'Dream of Fair Women'—"

"Or charades. Not a card in sight—or a cigar! Rotten taste—I'd call it."

The music of the orchestra silenced these protests and a ripple of expectation passed over the audience as the curtain rose, disclosing a sylvan glade and a startled nymph in meager draperies hiding from a faun. The music trembled for a moment and then, as the nymph was discovered, broke into wild concords through which the violins sang tunefully as the chase began. It was not for some moments that the audience awoke to the fact that these must be the Austrian dancers whose visit to New York had been so widely heralded. Captured at last, the nymph was submissive, and the dance which followed revealed artistry of an order with which most of the spectators were unfamiliar. Even Crosby Downs ceased to grumble and wedged himself down the side wall where he could have a better view. The dance ended amid applause and the audience now really aroused from its lethargy eagerly awaited the next rise of the curtain.

The first part of the program, it seemed, was to be a vaudeville. A famous tenor sang folk songs of sunny Italy; two French pantomimists did a graceful and amusing Pierrot and Pierrette; a comedian did a black-face monologue; and the first part of the program concluded with the performances of a young violinist, the son of a Russian tobacconist down town, whom Mrs. Berkeley Hammond had "discovered" and was now sending to Europe to complete his musical education. A budding genius, was the verdict, almost ready to blossom. The brief period of disquiet which had followed Hermia's meeting with Olga, had been forgotten in her enjoyment of the performance and in the gay chatter of her companions and of her neighbors back and front. When the curtain had fallen upon the violinist, there was a rustle of programs.

"'The Lady Orchestra,' some on back of her read aloud. 'Comedy with a Sting—' What's coming now? What's a 'Lady Orchestra'? Does anyone know?"

"A 'Lady Orchestra,' my dear Phyllis," said Reggie Armistead, "is an orchestra lady."

"An orchestra lady! I wonder what she plays—"

"The devil probably—he's your most familiar instrument."

"Reggie! I'm surprised at you. You know—"

The remainder of Miss Van Vorst's speech was lost to Hermia, who sat staring speechless at the stage curtain, her body suddenly ice-cold, all its blood throbbing in her temples. "The Lady Orchestra!" The words had fallen so lightly that their significance had dawned upon her slowly. This play—this "comedy with a sting" was about her—Hermia—and John Markham. Olga had written it, and was even now watching her face for some sign of weakness. Olga, De Folligny—and how many others? Terror gripped her—blind terror, every instinct urging flight. But this, she knew, was impossible. She stared hard at the red curtain, and swallowed nervously, sure now that, whatever the play revealed, she must sit until its end, giving no sign of the tumult that raged within her. The eyes of the audience burned into the back of her head, and she seemed to read a knowledge of her secret in every careless glance thrown in her direction. This was a vengeance worth of Olga—the refinement of cruelty.

"What is it, Hermia," she heard Caroline Anstell whispering. "Are you ill, dear?"

"Oh, no, not at all. Why do you ask?" coolly.

"I thought you looked a little tired."

"I—I think it's the heat," said Hermia. "Sh—Carrie, there goes the curtain."

If Hermia had been startled a moment ago, she now learned that she would have need of all her courage. The curtain revealed the market-place of a French town on a f�te day. To the left a row of penny shows, a "man hedgehog," an "homme sauvage" and an Albino lady who told fortunes; to the right a platform backed by a canvas wall, surmounted by a sign in huge letters "ThŽ‰tre Tony Ricardo" flanked by rudely painted representations of the acts which were to be seen within. The setting was admirable and brought forth immediate applause form the audience, under which Hermia hid her gasp of dismay. There were even pictures like those which Philidor had painted, of Cleofonte breaking chains and of the child Stella flying in mid-air, and at one side the legend "Artistide Bruant, painter of portraits at two francs fifty—soldiers ten sous." Sure now of the scene which was to follow, but outwardly quite composed, Hermia listened carelessly to the dialogue, saw the acrobat appear, and the "Lady Orchestra," who was the guilty heroine of the piece, take her place upon the platform beside him. Here the resemblance to reality ceased, for the heroine was dark and Aristide blonde and beardless, and yet this very discrimination on Olga's part seemed to point more definitely to Hermia even than if the characterization had been truthfully followed. The actors were professionals who had been well drilled in their parts and the plot developed quickly in the dialogue between Madeleine, the erring wife, and Aristide, the recreant husband, who had fled from fashionable Paris, met upon the road and joined this troupe of Caravaners that they might taste life together in rural simplicity and security. The dialogue was clever, if dŽcadent, the situations amusing, the action rapid, the first act ending with the appearance of the irate wife of Aristide, and the disappearance of the guilty couple, just in time to avoid discovery.

During the entr'acte, though the restless guests moved about, Hermia sat rooted to her chair, fascinated with horror. Her body seemed nerveless and she feared that if she rose her limbs would not support her, or, if they did support her, she must fly like a mad thing from the house. And so she sat, a fixed smile frozen on her lips, greeting those who approached her. Beatrice Coddington left her seat, and Trevvy Morehouse made haste to fill it. He had never seemed so welcome to Hermia as at the present moment, and his patient mien and quiet commonplaces did much to restore her composure; so that when the bell rang for the curtain of the second act, she was laughing with a brave show of enjoyment at Reggie and Phyllis, who seemed at the point of severing their amatory relations. Hermia was prepared for anything now. If her breach of conventions had found her out, there was no one, not even Olga, who would look at her and say that she was showing the white feather.