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 Tillières and of Pierre de Folligny, the testimony of Hermia's pale face at the shooting lodge at Alençon 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 fête 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 "Théâtre 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 décadent, 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.
She could see the play to its end now, for from Reggie's program she had learned that the setting for the second act was the interior of a shooting lodge in the forest, and when the curtain rose she was not surprised at the setting of the stage, which represented, as accurately as possible, the house of the Comte de Cahors, in the forest of Écouves. The approach of the injured wife, discovered in time by the refugees through the half-opened shutter, gives Aristide time to help the fictitious orchestra lady up a stair to the garret, where she is in concealment during the dramatic interview between husband and wife, which ends in the woman seizing a loaded rifle with the intention of killing both herself and her husband. In the struggle which ensues for the possession of the weapon, the gun is discharged, there is a cry overhead and the figure of Madeleine is seen to rise, opening the trap-door, and then to fall the length of the stairs, at the feet of the woman who has been wronged.
The scene was admirably done and carried the audience to its conclusion in breathless silence. The lights of the ball-room, fortunately lowered, had hidden the pallor of Hermia's face but she realized, when they suddenly blazed, that Trevvy Morehouse was looking at her curiously, that her fingers were ice-cold and that, when she spoke a word or two in reply to his anxious query, her voice was strangely unfamiliar. As the applause ceased, there was a general movement toward the supper-room. Hermia rose stiffly and moved as in a dream. Was it her own conscience that told her that Carol Gouverneur was looking at her strangely? Or that there was meaning in the glance and laughter of Mrs. Renshaw and Archie Westcott as she passed them? She tried to smile carelessly, but her muscles would not obey her. Would she never reach the door? People stopped and spoke but she only nodded and passed on, intent upon the shadows of the hallway, where the lights glowed dimly and the gaze of these people would no longer burn past her barriers, searching out the innermost recesses of her heart, which they read according to the hideous lie which Olga had told. A comedy with a sting, she had called it, and the sting meant for Hermia, had poisoned the air with its venom. She leaned heavily on Trevvy's arm but she did not hear what he was saying; and, as they passed the door into the hall, two men, neither of whom she knew, followed her pale face with their glances. Was it her tortured imagination that made her hear one of them say to the other after she had passed, "That's the girl—?"
What girl? Not herself? She gasped a question to Trevvy. He smiled gaily.
"Yes—they were pointing you out. Do you wonder that I'm so proud?"
Hermia stopped and faced him. She learned in that moment that the thing he had dreamed was impossible.
"Please order Mrs. Anstell's machine for me," she said quickly. "I'm going at once."
"Are you ill? Shall I go with you?"
"No—I want to go alone—alone—" she gasped.
Vaguely troubled, he followed her anxiously to the door of the dressing-room, but did her bidding.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY
The account of this atrocity did not reach John Markham for some weeks. With the exception of the people who came to the studio and the few men he met at the club where he dined, he saw little of society, and troubled himself less with its affairs. His life was more secluded, and his work more exacting than ever, and when he walked out, which he did in the late afternoons, he choose avenues which would not remind him of the things he was trying to forget. He had given up hope of Hermia, and though her vision persisted, it was not of the modish, self-contained creature who had received him so coolly that he thought.
This was not the Hermia he had loved. That other girl, the joyous companion of his summer idyl, was no more. At times it almost seemed that she had never been. She had made it clear that she wished no more of him and he had accepted her dictum without question. A more sophisticated lover would have laughed away the barriers she had interposed, followed her carelessly, and brought her to bay when he had proved or disproved the genuineness of her indifference. But Markham was singularly ingenuous, his reasoning as simple and direct as that of a child. He had never understood the woman of society and until Olga had appeared upon his horizon had let her severely alone. Hermia had been an accident—a divine accident. Her frankness had disarmed him, and he had followed his impulses blindly, as (it seemed to him then) she had followed hers. He gloried in the memory of their pilgrimage, its gayety, its freedom and the clean spirit with which they both had entered on it. He had believed in her and in believing had let his heart carry him where it would, willing to forget that she might not be infallible. He had been so sure of her—so sure—and now—
He wiped his brushes on a square of cheesecloth, cleaned his palette and lay in his chair frowning at the portrait, which smiled back at him with ironical amusement. It was curious. All his portraits now smiled. His reputation was based on his skill in making people happy in paint—painting all people happy but himself—Punchinello dancing while his Columbine lay dead. He straightened with a quick intake of the breath, then washed his brushes carefully and changed into street clothes. He was writing to one of his sitters when his knocker clanged and a man in livery entered bearing a note. He opened it and read:
My Dear Mr. Markham: I must see you at once on a matter of importance. Can you come up this afternoon for a dish of tea? I'm sending my car for you in the hope that your engagements will not forbid. If anything prevents to-day, won't you lunch with me to-morrow at two? Very sincerely yours, Sarah Hammond.
Markham frowned. There was no getting out of it, it seemed.
"You have Mrs. Hammond's car below?" he said to the waiting footman.
"Yes, sir. I was to get an answer or take you up, if you could go."
"I'll go. I'll be down in a moment."
The man retired, and Markham, somewhat mystified, reread Mrs. Hammond's note and got into this hat and overcoat. A matter of importance! Another commission, perhaps—she had already got him two. And yet it seemed, had it been that, she would have expressed herself differently.
He went down and got into the elegantly appointed limousine and in a while, too short to solve his problem, was set down under the porte cochère of his patronne.
He found her at the tea table, a stout but puissant figure in mauve and black. In the studio she had not bothered him. She had been merely an amiable millionaire, in pearls and black satin. Here in the majestic drawing-room, with her small court gathered about her, she dominated him. He hesitated a second at the door before going forward, but when she saw him she rose at once and excused herself to her guests. After their departure, she motioned him to a chair beside her and entered without delay upon her subject. Her manner was kindly, if restrained, and he saw at once that the matter was of a personal nature.
"I suppose, Mr. Markham, you think it rather curious that I should have sent for you in such haste, but I shouldn't have done so had I not thought it necessary. You understand that, don't you?"
Markham murmured something and waited for her to go on.
"It seems a little difficult to begin, for there are some matters which are not easy even with a friend."
"I am sure if there is anything in which I can help you—"
"There is, Mr. Markham. I should not have dared to speak to you if I hadn't, unfortunately, found myself brought into an affair in which your name has been mentioned."
"My name?"
"Yes. Yours and Miss Challoner's."
He blanched and was immediately conscious that her small eyes were watching him keenly.
"Wh—what have you heard, Mrs. Hammond?" he blurted out.
"One moment, Mr. Markham. I don't want you to think that I am the kind of woman who seeks to pry into the affairs of other people. I don't. I abominate meddlers and will have nothing to say, even if after I tell you what my motives are, you refuse to answer my questions. But a great wrong has been done, an advantage taken of my hospitality. I speak of the theatricals which took place at my house in the country last month."
He stared at her blankly and she smiled.
"I forgot," she went on, "what a hermit you are. Of course you have not heard." She leaned over the tea table and took a slip of paper from under a tea dish. "I shall let you read this so that you may know in just what terms New York is speaking of you—of me—of us."
She handed him the clipping. It was from a weekly paper, which concerned itself with the doings of society, and he read, his eyes glowing:
The much heralded theatricals at "Roods Knoll" have come and gone, but the echoes of this affair are still reverberating the length of the Avenue. It seems that the very clever play, written by a well-known woman of society, was based upon fact, and that the hero and heroine of the adventures depicted are in New York, the girl in question a member of the hunting set and the man a distinguished portrait painter—both of whom shall be nameless. As everyone knows, the play is laid in rural France, and deals with the loves of a French countess who has fled from her husband to join her lover, also married, upon the road, where they become members of a band of strolling mountebanks, the lady masquerading as a Dame Orchestre and the gentleman as an itinerant painter of portraits—
Markham stopped, his eyes seeking those of his hostess.
"The play was given," he said hoarsely, "at your house?"
"It was, Mr. Markham," she said simply. "Read it through to the end, please."
He did so, his horror increasing as the full significance of the description grew upon him. Hermia had seen—had read this. They were talking about her and about him? He could not understand.
"You said that Miss—Miss Challoner's name had been mentioned—and mine," he said slowly. "There is no name—mentioned her. The identity of the people—"
"Your names have been mentioned, Mr. Markham, in my presence. The story back of this vile clipping is on the lips of every gossip in town. Where it originated Heaven only knows, but facts are given and dates which make it ugly in the extreme. I thought it best that you should know and sent for you to assure you that I had no knowledge about the play and its possible reference to any one."
"The play," he asked quietly, "was written by Madame Tcherny?"
She nodded, her eyes regarding him soberly.
"What shall I do, Mr. Markham? If there is some basis of truth in the reports I hear, I have been grossly imposed upon and, whatever the facts, have done a great wrong both to you and Hermia. Unfortunately, she has left New York, and I don't know where to find her. She left town, I am informed, the day after the play was given. I wish she hadn't. It makes things awkward for me. I have the best intentions in the world, but if she ties my hands by silence what can I do?"
Markham had risen and was pacing the floor slowly, his head bent, all this thoughts of Hermia. Olga's cruelty stunned him. She had promised not to speak. Had she spoken other than in this ingenious drama? Or was it—De Folligny? His fists clenched and his jaws worked forward. De Folligny—a man. Here was something tangible—a man, not a woman, to deal with. He turned and stood beside the tea table, struggling for the control of his voice.
"Who has told this story, Mrs. Hammond?" he asked at last.
She shrugged her capacious shoulders and settled her head forward in his direction.
"Frankly, I don't know. Thank God, I'm not in any was responsible for that part of this misfortune. I only know that Olga Tcherny wrote the play. As to her motives in doing so I am at a loss. But if I thought she used my house, violated my hospitality at the expense of one of my guests, to serve some private end, I would—"
The good lady grew red in the face, and then, controlling herself after a moment, "I would find some means of getting her the punishment she deserved. Hermia Challoner was there," she went on quickly. "Her appearance was remarked. She looked ill and left the house before supper. You were invited, too, Mr. Markham, if you will remember, but would not come. I confess I'm at my wit's ends. I shall not question you. All I ask is your advice."
Markham raised his head and looked her in the eyes for a full moment. She was much distressed at the position, and the friendliness of her look was all that could be desired. He hesitated a moment, weighing his duty with his inclination. What was best for Hermia? How could he serve her? How build a bulwark to dyke the flood of scandal which threatened her in her flight? A lie? Obviously that wouldn't do, for Mrs. Hammond believed in him. And the story had gone too far, was too diabolic in its accuracy, for a flat denial without explanation. The truth?
His hostess still regarded him patiently. He searched her with his eyes, his gaze finally falling.
"If one is guiltless one does not fear the truth," he muttered slowly, "nor does virtue fear a lie—but a half-truth will damn even the innocent, Mrs. Hammond."
"There is some basis then for the stories they are telling?" she asked kindly.
"My lips have been sealed. I'm not sure that I have the right to open them now. But I will. I don't think I could pay you a higher compliment than by trusting Miss Challoner's fate entirely into your hands."
Mrs. Hammond, now keenly interested, smiled at him encouragingly.
"Thanks, Mr. Markham, I'm not so old that I have forgotten how to be human."
He glanced around the room and lowered his voice.
"You know—Hermia—Miss Challoner very well, Mrs. Hammond?"
"Since her infancy—a creature of moods—willful, wayward, if you like—but the soul of honor and virtue."
He bowed his head.
"Thanks. You make it easier for me," he said. "I want you to understand first, Mrs. Hammond, that I alone am responsible for this misfortune. Miss Challoner and I met upon the highroad in Normandy, entirely by chance. I was doing the country afoot, as is my custom in summer. He machine was destroyed in an accident. She was alone. I asked her to go with me. She accepted my invitation. It was mad of me to ask her, made of her to accept—but she did accept. We were together more than a week-traveling afoot by day—sleeping in the open when the weather was fine and indoors when I could find a room for her. I had moments of inquietude at my responsibility, for I had done wrong in letting her go with me. She was a child and trusted me. I began by being amused. I ended by— Good God! Mrs. Hammond, I loved—I worshiped her. I couldn't have harmed her. She was sacred to me—and is now. You must understand that."
His hostess's expression, which had grown grave during this recital, relaxed a little.
"I think I understand, Mr. Markham. I am keenly interested. Where does
Olga Tcherny come in?"
Her question bothered him. He thought for a moment, and then went on, deliberately postponing a reply.
"Our relations were clearly established from the first. We had met before, you know, earlier in the summer, and I had visited at Westport. She liked and understood me, and was sensible enough to tell me so; and I—she attracted me—curiously. I had always lived a solitary sort of existence. She simply ignored my prejudices and over-rode them. She invaded my life and took it by storm. She was like the sudden capriccioso after the largo in a symphony. She was Youth and Joy, and she got into my blood like an elixir. I loved her for all the things she was that I was not, but I did not tell her so—not then. I hid my secret, for I knew that if she guessed it would make a difference to us both." He raised his head and went on more rapidly. "We joined a company of strolling mountebanks. Oh, that was true enough—and went with them as far as Alençon. Hermia—Miss Challoner—was a Dame Orchestre and I a 'lightning' artist. We made our living in that way. It was quite wonderful how she played—wonderful how she forgot what she was—how she became what I wanted her to be—an earthling among earthlings. With them she lived in poverty and discomfort, learned the meaning of weariness and felt the pinch of hunger." He smiled. "I suppose you wonder why I'm telling you all this, Mrs. Hammond. I wanted you to understand just what the pilgrimage was—how little it had in common with—with what you have heard these people saying."
"I know, Mr. Markham. I understand," she said gently. Her eyes softened and she looked past him as though back through a vista of the years. "It was Romance—the true Romance," she murmured. "She borrowed a week from Immortality—that, for once, she might be herself. She was free—from this thralldom—free!"
"She worked—hard," he went on after a moment, "and she earned what money she made. And so did I. But I was bothered. My sins were pursuing me. One day we saw upon the road a man Miss Challoner had met, and at Alençon—"
"Olga Tcherny?" asked Mrs. Hammond keenly.
Markham paused, looked beyond her and went on.
"And at Alençon, when we were giving a performance, some one I knew appeared and recognized me. Need I mention names?"
"Not if you prefer to be silent. And the hunting lodge?"
"We fled from Alençon that night and took refuge from the rain in a house in the forest. Miss Challoner was dead tired. We had been up since sunrise. So we stayed there, thinking ourselves safe. But in the morning—" He paused.
Mrs. Hammond had risen and was fingering the flowers on the tea table.
"In the morning," she finished dryly, "Olga Tcherny found you there. I understand."
He rose and faced her uncomprehendingly. "Mrs. Hammond, do you mean that you believe—as she did?"
She turned quickly and thrust forth both of her plump jeweled hands, and he saw that her friendliness was in no way diminished.
"I'm not one to believe half-truths, Mr. Markham, when I hear whole ones," she said, smiling rosily. "If you had lied to me I should have known it. But you didn't and I believe in you."
She released his hand and made him sit again.
"I've never been so entertained and delighted since—since hundreds of years ago," she sighed. "You were mad—quite mad, both of you. And Hermia—" she stopped, sat quickly upright, and while he watched her, laughed deliberately. "Hermia comes back to New York and engages herself to—to Trevelyan Morehouse! The excellent Trevelyan—after Arcadia! And you?" She read his face like an open book, her humor dying in a gently smile.
"It doesn't matter about me, Mrs. Hammond," he said quietly.
"But I think it does," she insisted. "Do you mean that you can't understand?"
"Understand what, Mrs. Hammond?"
"How that poor child has suffered. Do you mean that you don't know why it is that she has ignored you and fled to Trevelyan Morehouse?"
He made no reply.
"Then I can't help you. There is nothing in the world denser than a lover. The object of his affections is large in his eyes, so large that the focus is blurred. He can't see her—that's all. Hermia was terror-stricken and you were not aware of it. She knew that she was clean and that you were, and the dirt that threatened her threatened her idyl, too."
She stopped abruptly and looked past him.
"I'm afraid I've said too much, Mr. Markham. That is because I see how foolish you have been—both of you in this affair. It's none of my business."
She fingered the clipping on the table and went on vigorously.
"As to this infamous story that they are telling, I shall find means to stop it. How, I don't know just yet. This paper shall print a retraction. I'll manage that. Olga Tcherny—"
"I beg of you—"
"Olga Tcherny's career in New York is ended. She shall never enter my house, or the house of any of my friends. That play was a lie, written with a motive. She has used me shamefully—shamefully—made me an accomplice, and placed me in the undesirable position of sponsor for her villainies."
She rose, walked to the window and looked out upon the Avenue, her lips taking firmer lines of resolution. He watched her in silence, and when she spoke her tones were short and decisive.
"With your permission, Mr. Markham," she said at last, "as Hermia's friend and yours, I shall deny this story in every detail. You must provide me with an alibi."
She turned back into the room and faced him.
"You were not in Normandy last summer—that is positive."
He smiled.
"I am in your hands," he said.
"Where were you?"
"In Holland, if you like. I've tramped there."
"And Hermia?"
"In Switzerland. She went there after leaving me. There was a party.
Morehouse was with her. It's easily proved."
"Good. We must lose that week somewhere. It must be wiped from the calendar. If Hermia only hadn't run away!"
"Mrs. Westfield is still here, I believe," he ventured.
She deliberated a moment.
"Excellent. I shall see her at once. Together we will manage it. You are to leave things to me. I'm not without influence here in New York, Mr. Markham. We shall see. All I ask is that you avoid seeing Olga or taking the matter into your own hands. That would only make a noise—an unpleasant noise. Will you promise me?"
He was silent. She examined him curiously.
"You think you know who told this story?" she asked.
"Yes."
"You think it was not Olga?"
"Yes. She gave me her word she would say nothing. I believed her."
"Was it—" she paused.
"The man we met upon the road in Normandy was Monsieur de Folligny,
Mrs. Hammond."
"Oh! I see." She fingered the sugar tongs a moment. "And you want to question him?" she asked then.
"Er—I would like to find out if it was he who told."
"And then thrash him? You want the papers full of the whole affair, with portraits of the principals, and a description of your romantic—"
"God forbid!"
"How like a man! To get a girl talked about and then of course to want to thrash somebody! I've no patience with you. You must promise to behave yourself or I'll wash my hands of the whole affair."
He smiled down at his clasped hands. "I suppose you are right," he muttered.
"Right! Of course I am. This is a case which will require the most careful handling—a case for the subtlest diplomacy. If I am going to risk my reputation for veracity—and jeopardize my hopes of Heaven by the fibs that I must tell in your behalf, I don't propose to have my efforts spoiled by senseless bungling. Will you give me your promise?"
He shrugged. "I suppose there is nothing left for me to do."
She leaned forward toward the tea table with a laugh.
"I'm so glad that you are sensible. Now we shall have our tea. I owe you apologies. My business seemed more urgent than my hospitality."
They sat and chatted for a while, Markham sipping his tea and wondering why he was imparting to this stout and very amiable old lady all his life's secrets. A half hour later, when he rose to go, he realized that he had told her all about his week in Vagabondia, including its sudden termination. She surprised him at intervals by the sympathy of her appreciation, and at others equally serious by an unseemly mirth or an impatience which they had not merited. But when he got up to go she followed him to the door and gave him both of her hands again.
"I like you, John Markham. You're quaint—a relic of a less flippant age. I'm sorry you won't accept any of my invitations—but I'll forgive you, if you'll promise to do as I bid you."
"I'm deeply grateful to you, Mrs. Hammond. Of course, I shall be obedient. I will do whatever you ask of me."
She released him and gave him a gentle push toward the door.
"Then go—and find Hermia!"
"I, Mrs. Hammond?"
"Yes, you. At once."
"But—"
"And when you find her—marry her, do you hear? It's the happiest issue out of your afflictions." She laughed again, rather mischievously. "You know, I think you owe her that!"
"I— She—you—"
"She is waiting for you—somewhere. Find her: Leave the rest to me.
Now go."
He halted again—incredulous, but she waved him past the door where a man appeared to help him into his coat. And so he bowed his thanks and went out into the dusk of the Avenue, his brain teeming with nebulous inconsistencies.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BRASS BELL
Hermia, waiting for him! What did Mrs. Hammond mean? Was the woman mad? Hermia had fled from New York, her proud little head bent before this cruel story which, of course, had gathered impetus in the telling and now indicted her of sins unwritten in the fair page of her experience. Poor child! She had suffered—and he, fool that he was, had sat in his studio, the victim of his false pride, wrapped in his own ego while this vile plot was brewing. He might have done something if he had had his wits about him, instead of hiding his head like an ostrich and imagining himself unseen. Olga—he did not dare to think of Olga Tcherny or of De Folligny. He had given his word to Mrs. Hammond to leave the entire matter in her hands. Even while she had given him her word not to speak she had been planning this refined vengeance, probably knew that Pierre de Folligny had already made a good story of their adventure for some of his new intimates at the Club. He would have a reckoning with her—some day—and with De Folligny! His fingers tightened on his stick, and an angry tide warmed his face and temples. Had he met them, there upon the Avenue at that moment, all his promises to Mrs. Hammond must have been forgotten—and he would have made short work of that unspeakable gentleman. Of Olga Tcherny he thought with hardly less rancor. At one time—a year ago now—Olga had loomed large upon his horizon. Now in the light of his present knowledge of her he wondered how he could have ever thought of her friendship seriously.
She belonged in an atmosphere too sophisticated for his simple rustic soul. She had always lied to him; her friendship was a lie; her love, too—a lie. That declaration—Good God!—and he had been actually at the point of being sorry for her. He had nothing to regret now with regard to Olga Tcherny. She had wiped the slate clean, and made a new account at poor Hermia's expense.
Hermia in exile—and suffering! Her innocence could not make her heart pangs any the less real. Like a child she had followed the line of least resistance, and seeking freedom from the trammels of convention had obeyed her impulses blindly. It was such a trivial transgression to find so crushing a retribution. And he, Markham, walked the streets of New York the envied hero of an "armourette." This was the law, which says that women may sin if they are not found out and that men may sin when they please.
Poor little penitent, atoning for sins uncommitted! All his heart went out to her, and his memory, passing the forbidding vision of her last appearance, now pictured the real Hermia that he knew, a brave, buoyant Hermia, who knew nothing of discouragements and greeted the sunrise with a smile, her head now bowed and, like Niobe, "all tears."
Was she waiting for him? If so, why had she not written? A line, and he would have sped to her. She knew that. She must have known it when she had fled. Where was she now? At Westport, perhaps? In the South somewhere, alone with her maid, avoiding the newspapers, seeking the company of strangers that her ears might not hear or her eyes see the record of her transgression? Had she gone abroad again? Who would know? He might inquire of Phyllis Van Vorst or Caroline Anstell over the telephone. But when he reached his rooms and had taken up the receiver he saw that even this information was denied to him. Any manifest interest or anxiety on his part with regard to Hermia would be regarded with suspicion. Nor was he any more positive than before that his quest would meet with the approval of its object. He was powerless. There was nothing for him but to wait.
The thought of going to his club to dine was repellant to him. The story that Mrs. Hammond had let him read was not common property and, though none of his acquaintances would have had the bad taste to mention his connection with it, his appearance among them must revive its disagreeable details, at Hermia's expense. So for some days he dined alone at an obscure restaurant, glooming over the evening paper and wondering what could be done. Night after night he walked the street until, at last, wearied and no nearer the solution of his problem, he went home and to bed, to toss restlessly most of the night and plan impossibilities. Through his thoughts, the friendship of Mrs. Berkeley Hammond hovered comfortingly. She was not a woman to promise idly. She had been interested in his story and felt herself morally bound to make some sort of restitution to Hermia for her own unwilling responsibility in the attention that had been drawn to it. He did not doubt that she would use all her influence to minimize the effect of Olga's machinations, and he felt sure with such a friend at court that Hermia need have little fear from the opinions of Mrs. Hammond's friends and her own, and these after all were the only opinions that mattered to her.
An early morning, a few days after the interview with Mrs. Hammond, found Markham at his studio, somber and dark eyed, regarding his latest work with a savage eye of disapproval. He didn't feel like working, and by a piece of good fortune his time was free for him to do what he chose. He would have liked above all things to have employed it in a visit to the house of Olga Tcherny and thence with dispatch to the hotel of Monsieur de Folligny, where what remained of his wrath could be honestly expended in a manner befitting the occasion. This occupation being denied him, there was nothing left but to take what pleasure he could from the mental picture that he made of it.
At last he rose and groped for his tobacco. A precious lot of good that would do him! It would have been a pity, too, because murder, even such justifiable murder, had not yet received the sanction of society as represented in the New York Department of Police. He paced the floor restlessly and brought up before his desk, where the janitor of the building had a few moments ago laid the morning mail. He took it up idly—and glanced over it—a note or two in the fashionable feminine scrawl about sittings, a letter from a framemaker, one from his Paris agent, and the usual litter of circulars. He took them up one by one, opened them, put some of them aside and consigned others to the paper basket. A small package lay at the bottom of the pile, an unobtrusive package neatly tied with string—evidently an advertisement of some sort—of a paint or of a canvas. He was about to drop it with the others when he was made aware that as he turned the small parcel over it emitted a tinkle as of two metal objects striking together. He turned it again and examined the address and stamp. His name was printed in ink as though with a bad pen and the stamp was French. Now really curious as to its contents and aware of its individuality, he cut the string and opened it. There was an inner wrapping of tissue paper containing a small white pasteboard box which bore the name of a fashionable New York jeweler, and inside the box the origin of the tinkle was revealed in a small brass bell.
He took the object out, his wonder growing, and held it suspended between his thumb and forefinger. A brass bell no larger than his thumbnail, a tarnished little trinket, no longer new, which tinkled merrily under his astonished gaze. He examined the thing more carefully, his bewilderment increasing, noting the curious construction, which was unlike that of the toy bells which had adorned the necks of the wooly beasts abroad at Christmas-time. It was heavy for its size, and when he moved it had a decisive and very mellow note. Who would send him a thing like this and why? There must have been a mistake. He took up the paper wrapper from the waste basket and examined it with renewed interest.
John Markham, Esquire,
—West—th Street,
New York City.
With a stamp of the French Republic and a postmark of—What were the postmarks? Paris. Of course. And the other? VAL-E—? Valence? Valence was in the South of France on the Rhone. He had never been there. No. That wouldn't do. VAL-L-E—Vallécy!
A brass bell from Vallécy! Still he did not understand. He took the object up again and scrutinized it, its meaning dawning slowly. Vallécy! That was the village where he and Hermia had stayed with Mère Guégou. There was the garden of the golden roses where—The bell! It was from Hermia's head-dress—the belled cap of the Femme Orchestre! He knew it now. It was a token. Hermia had sent it—from Vallécy. A token.
In high excitement he examined the obscure postmark again. The accent on the E, a little smudged, but quite legible. Hermia had sent the bell as a token from Vagabondia which meant that she was there in Père Guégou's garden, whither she had fled when her own world had renounced her. She was waiting for him. She needed him, and took this means of showing him that all things that had happened to them both since they had parted in the forest at Sées were to be forgotten—that they were both to take life up—from Vallécy. He stood a moment in joyous uncertainty, his glance on the clock, then, quickly wrapping the memento in its tissue paper, thrust it into his coat pocket and in a moment was striding like a madman down the street. At his apartment he rang for a taxicab, thrust a few things into a suitcase, wrote a note or two and in half an hour was on his way to the bank and then to the steamship wharf.
He had no definite plans except that he must take the first steamer which left New York for Europe. A brief glance at his morning paper advised him of two sailings this morning, one for Havre and the other for Cherbourg, and he had made up his mind to take one steamer or the other. The taxicab crawled, it seemed, and on the way downtown was caught in a block of traffic which delayed him for ten minutes, during which he fumed silently. But he reached the dock with scarcely a quarter of an hour to spare, and after a difficulty which was cleared away, found himself upon the deck of the Kaiserin Augusta, a somewhat flustered individual, with many loose ends dangling in retrospect, with no cabin as yet assigned to him, sober of face but inexpressibly happy.
It was really not until his ship was well out at sea and the voyage fairly begun that Markham had the opportunity to settle down comfortably and mediate upon the surprising events of the morning. He found a steamer chair in a quiet place and then gave himself up to his thoughts. He took the tiny object from his breast pocket and turned it over in his fingers. Of course it was Hermia's. The wonder was that he had not recognized it at first glance. This bell and its other small companions had tinkled their way into his heart at each step she had taken down the long road from Evreux to Alençon—tinkled merrily at Passy, joyously at Vallécy, disdainfully at Verneuil, and contentedly at La Mesle. Alençon had made them tragic so they had been packed in Hermia's bundle which went with her to Sées and were heard no more, except in a faint tinkle of protest as she was put aboard the train for Paris. Wonderful bells they were, tiny chimes that had rung in the season of their joy and lingered in their memory never to be forgotten. Tokens—Hermia had realized it—symbols of her greatest happiness and his, with life reduced to the simplest elements, in which there had been no place for the extravagant commonplaces of the other life which they both had lived and endured. Hermia had fled to Vallécy to the motherly breast of Mère Guégou, and there perhaps was weeping out her troubles. He took out the square of paper (he had clipped it with his penknife) which bore the address and examined it again. This and the bell were all he had had to start him off on his fateful pilgrimage. But they were enough. She could not have written him after her treatment of him in New York. She had thrown herself upon his mercy, given her message ambiguity that he might ignore it if he chose, or read, as she had hoped he would, the message of her heart, across the distances. It was the message of a vagabond like himself, as definite a message as the gypsy patteran which shows the way from one camp to another. His patteran pointed to Vallécy, that lovely village by the Arth where he had first told Hermia that he loved her. Beyond Vallécy had come misunderstanding, bitterness, misfortune. She had chosen that spot as though by instinct. She wanted him to remember her there where love had first been spoken. Alone and waiting for him among the roses of Père Guégou—
He started up from his chair in bewilderment, staring blankly at the sunlit sea, suddenly mindful of the fact that in the hurry of getting away he had not cabled her. He threw his rugs aside and made his way hastily to the office, to find unluckily that the wireless had gotten out of order, and that it might be several hours before it was repaired. He strolled on deck again, thoughtful, suddenly impressed with the potency of the charm that had called him. The thought of replying to her message had not until this moment entered his head. All that he had been able to think of was that he must get to her at once, follow the patteran at top speed. He had done so and now unhappily remembered a dozen neglected people who must wonder at his extraordinary disappearance. But he only smiled joyously. He had another engagement.
He took up his walk along the promenade deck, careless of the enemies he had made, careless of the friendships he might lose, all his thoughts of the small vagabond at Vallécy. His inability to communicate with her by wireless set him thinking. Wasn't that, too, a symbol? If he got a message over what would be its effect? Would she still wait for him, looking forward to the precious hour of their meeting? Or would her mind change at the last moment and send her flying from him again? This was more like Hermia, the real Hermia that he knew. He feared her moods still. And if he refused to cable her would her patience last until he got to France? He cast is memory over the months that had passed in New York. He guessed how much she had suffered. He had followed her social career through the newspapers and he knew now that she had gone gaily that she might hide her terror. She was tired—poor child—tired in body and spirit, and that was why she had not stayed in Paris among the fashionable people she knew there; that was why she had fled to Vallécy, where at least she might be at peace, unreminded by those of her own social sphere of the villainous story which pursued her. There at Vallécy she sat remote, with her own innocence for company, convalescent—amid these primitive surroundings—from the sickness that her world had given her. She would wait for him if she wasn't sure that he would come. He smiled. He would not send the wireless. Nor would he wire her from Cherbourg.
A search of the postmark of his much-beloved package revealed the date "Av. 22." She had sent her token on the twenty-second of April and it was now only the second of May. Ten days only had passed, and he was already well on his way to her. In less than a week more he would be in Vallécy. She would wait for him. Markham, as will be observed, was learning something about women—about one woman at least, the only woman in the world who mattered.
The voyage seemed interminable, through the ship was a fast one, and the day's run (on paper) highly satisfactory. He knew no one aboard but some of the officers, with whom he had crossed before, and he was thankful that he was therefore left alone with his thoughts, which were infinitely more pleasing to him than the chatter of the salon or smoking-room. He read novels, or tried to, but his own story was so much more interesting, so much more real than those he could find that he gave them up after a trial or two and lived again his own romance. The time to take it up again where he had left it off came slowly, but at last the Lizard hove into sight and the passengers for France prepared for debarkation. Morning of the next day found Markham in the express to Paris. Evreux was his station, and from there to Verneuil was a little over an hour, most of it along the road he and Hermia had so blithely traveled. The road from Verneuil to Vallécy—he would cover it afoot if there were no vehicles to be begged, borrowed or stolen.
CHAPTER XXIX
DUO
At some distance from the village street he dismissed the vehicle which had brought him from Verneuil, a rickety affair drawn by an emaciated horse, and suitcase in hand strode up the hill toward the house of Madame Guégou, the garden wall of which was visible beyond the flowering orchard. The air was laden with odors, sweet with the smell of the fruit blossoms and early shrubs. In the meadow to the left some goats were grazing and, as he passed, the wether raised his head and examined him incuriously, its bell clanking solemnly. The sun was already beyond the profile of the forest; beyond the sleepy village and against the warm sky thin threads of purple smoke ascended in perpendicular lines and then drifted lazily down to the mist of the valley below. Nature breathed slowly, deeply, as though aware that its state was not a matter of days or even of years, but of an eternity, during which its evolution must not be hurried.
After the turmoil of steamer and railroad this silence was oppressive. Minute sounds came to Markham across the distances, the bark of a dog, the lowing of cattle, a shutter closing, human voices near and far, each one distinct, but each mellowed and softened as though strained through a silver mesh. He missed the shudder of the steamer, the rattle of the train, the jolting even of the station wagon from which he had just descended; for they were all a part of the fever of his voyage made in such mad haste, sounds which had soothed and given him patience, their very turbulence assuring him that he was losing no time upon the way. And now that he had reached his destination, a violent reaction had set in. He was still moving forward toward the house with the walled garden, but a fear obsessed him that perhaps after all there had been a mistake. What if, after all, Hermia were not here? His suitcase gained in weight and he perspired gently. Why hadn't he cabled her at the first moment of his decision to sail or why hadn't he relayed his wireless across when the opportunity had offered? All his hopes seemed to be slipping from his finger ends. Was this Vagabondia? It seemed different somehow. He was aware of his neatly creased trousers, his bowler hat, his gloves, and the leather bag which reeked of sophistication. He was an anachronism, or Vallécy was. They were not attune. He and Vallécy clashed discordantly.
Timorously, almost upon tiptoe, he reached the village street. A dog emerged from a field, sniffed at the crease of his trousers suspiciously and growled. At this moment Markham desired anything but commotion, so he chirped to the animal and stroke on, his head bent, his gaze on the portal of the ancien, which, as he noted, was forbiddingly closed. He paused a moment, eyeing the cur which stopped when he stopped, still regarding him uncertainly. And then summoning his courage he went to the door and knocked. This noise, which sounded faintly enough to Markham, seemed to be the demonstration of hostility the dog was waiting for, and it began barking furiously, snapping almost at Markham's immaculate heels, a signal which was taken up immediately, near and far, by every cur in the village. Curious heads were poked out of windows, and at last after a few moments his door was opened just wide enough for the head of his former hostess to inspect him.
"Madame Guégou," he began uncertainly and then paused.
The door opened a trifle wider.
"It is I," she remarked, her gaze on the suitcase. "I can buy nothing,
Monsieur."
He laughed uneasily.
"You do not remember me, Madame?" he asked.
She relinquished the door-knob and emerged, inspecting his clothing.
"You are from Paris, of course. Last year perhaps, you came—"
"I did—last summer, Madame. I am Philidor—the artist."
"You! Monsieur! You Philidor!" She leaned forward upon the step, her eyes searching his face. "Philidor was not such as you. He wore a beard and—" She suddenly caught him by the shoulder and turned him toward the sunset. "I might think—and yet—"
"I am Philidor," he repeated, laughing. "I came in search of—of
Yvonne."
"You—are he! It is true. The saints be praised!" She threw the door inside open and called: "Jules! Jules! He is come. Monsieur Philidor is here!"
The ancien limped forward from the inner darkness, showing his gums.
"I knew it," he cried triumphantly. "Did I not say that he would return?"
Markham took the bony fingers, his anxious gaze going past them toward the glow of the kitchen.
"And Yvonne?" he asked feverishly. "She is within?"
"She is here, yes, she is here—waiting for you."
He dropped his valise and strode past them eagerly. A pot simmered upon the fire, the table gave evidence of a recent repast, and a pile of dishes nearby stood mutely in evidence, but of Hermia there was no sign.