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 Maître?" 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 Alençon 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 Sées 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 Père Guégou! 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 Château de Cahors was near Alençon 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 Compiègne. 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, mediæval 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 Drécoll 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 ragoût. 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 ingénue 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 Alençon, 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 métier 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 Père Guégou—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 Alençon—"
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 Alençon."
"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.