Madcap Part 48

"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 s.h.i.+fted.

"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 blus.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sumed 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.