Chapter 10 THE FUGITIVE

Like the skillful general who covers his retreat by an unexpected show of strength, Olga Tcherny had retired in good order, with colors flying. She had struck hard, spent some ammunition and endangered her line of communications, but she had reached the cover of the tall timbers, where for the moment it was safe to go into camp, repair damages and take account of injuries.

At the beginning of their acquaintance her interest in Markham had not been unlike that of the motherly hen in the doings of the newly hatched duckling with which she differed as to the practical utility of duckponds. She had been intensely interested in his work and in his career which during the winter in Paris had been definitely shaped as a painter of successful portraits. She had liked the man from the first, liked him well enough to be as genuine as he was, and found delight in a companionship which led her down pleasant lanes of thought-which terminated, as they had begun, in quiet satisfaction. He neither lied to her nor flattered her; his speech had the simple directness of a child's, and while she frequently reproved him for his rusticity, in secret she adored it. She had been used all her life to the polish of Europe, satiated with its compliments, glutted with its hypocrisy, courted by men with manner and no manners, whom she had met with their own weapons. She had never known a real friendship in man-or woman-had not even sought friendship, because life had taught her that, for her, such things did not exist. In Markham she had found the myth without searching, and once found she had grappled it to her soul with hoops of steel. His friendship it was that she had loved-not Markham. He was her own discovery, her very own, and she followed her first sober impulse, calmly, giving him the best of her, scorning the arts which she had been accustomed to employ on other men with so much success.

A born coquette is much like the hunter who hunts for the love of hunting and has no appetite for game upon his own table. Olga Tcherny had hunted in all the covers of sportive Europe with an appetite which always ended with the chase. Markham had not been marked as game. He was simply a delicious accident and she had accepted him as such, grateful for the new appetite which was as healthy as it was unusual.

But it was very natural that his indifference should pique her vanity. Markham did not care for women. That was all the more a reason why he should learn to care for her. The love of being loved was habit, ingrained, and she could not dismiss it with a word. But she gave him her friendship, and having given it would not recant from her secret vow to be honest with it and with him.

There had been moments of uncertainty, moments of ennui, but never of danger-until to-night, when she had fallen from grace and yielded to an impulse, once ignoble, but now ignoble no longer, to bring Markham at all hazards to her feet. It was no longer their friendship that she loved, but Markham. She loved fervently as coquettes will at last, placing in one ship the cargo that had fared forth in so many vessels. It was the coquette in her that had mocked and tantalized him, the coquette even whom he had kissed-but it was the woman who had struck and now suffered the pains of her imprudence.

Olga dismissed the unfortunate Georgette when she came to brush her hair and threw herself on the bed, both hands supporting her chin, staring at vacancy. He had guessed the truth-the agony of it! She had wept-real tears, the tears of subjection. She had begun-a coquette, trusting to her skill in dissimulation, but her heart had betrayed her. She had wept and Markham had seen her tears. Even a less sophisticated man than he would have known that women of her type only weep when they are stirred to the lees. Had she deceived him in the end? The doubt still assailed her. She had cut him deeply, hurt his amour propre and left him scowling in Arcadian resentment. Would the lesson last? Or must she seek further means to convince him of her indifference? Why had she provoked him? A whim-the dormant devil in her-to whom her better self must now pay in the loss of his friendship.

The old relation between them was dead. She had nailed it in its coffin. He did not love her, but she knew, that had she wished, she could have made him think he was, coaxed lies from his lips which both of them would have lived to regret.

The future? Had she one? Happiness? It must come soon. She had reached the beginning of wrinkles and cheekbones and her wrists were squarer than they used to be. Thirty!-a year older than Markham! Roses grown in hothouses are quick to fade. Would she fade, too, quickly?

She went to the dressing-table and examined her face in a hand-mirror with assiduous care. Yes, crow's feet-three of them at each eye, and two tiny wrinkles leading into her dimples. She was positively haggard to-night. It did not do for the woman of thirty to cry. Her hair-another gray one-she plucked it out viciously. She would not grow old. Age was a disease which could be prevented by the use of proper precautions. She must stop playing cards so late, get up earlier, take long walks in the air, play tennis as Hermia did-

She put the mirror down and lay back in her chair, her gaze fixed upon the wall beside her which bore a photograph of her young hostess astride her favorite hunter. Hermia's youth and her own knowledge of the world-what would she not give for that indomitable combination! She was glad in a way that Markham had decided to postpone the painting of Hermia's portrait. She wasn't quite certain about Hermia. It was never wise to be certain about any girl-especially if that girl was seven years younger than you were and quite as pretty. And what on earth did Hermia mean by scrubbing John Markham's floor? In her present mood it seemed a symbol-was it prophetic? Markham was candid in his likes and dislikes and he made no bones now of the pleasure in Hermia's society. Hermia was a surprising person. Her love of mischief was increasing with her years, her capacity for making it only limited by the end of opportunity.

She was not surprised when she came downstairs rather late the next morning to learn that Markham had returned to the island. This meant that he was still angry-which was healthful. She needed a little time for reconstruction, too, and Markham's anger was a more pleasant thought for contemplation than his repentance, apology or sentiment, all of which he would have offered as sops to her pride, and none of which could have been genuine. His departure without seeing her meant that he had believed her spoken word rather than that which had been written in silence, the testimony of her drooping figure and her unlucky tears.

A walk refreshed her. By the time she returned to "Wake-Robin" all doubts had been cleared from her mind. She would wait. He would come to her. Time would mend his wounds.

On the way to the house she passed the hangar where her hostess, Reggie Armistead and Salignac were tinkering with the machines. She stopped and watched them for a moment, when Hermia joined her and they walked toward the house together.

"I'm awfully sorry, Olga-" Hermia paused.

"About what?"

"Last night. How could I have known that the pergola was occupied!"

"Oh, it didn't matter in the least," she said coolly. "Markham was making love to me, that's all. Pity-isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," said Hermia slowly, "a great pity-you're no respecter of persons, Olga."

Olga shrugged effectively.

"How should I have known?"

"You have had time enough to study him, I should say. Why couldn't you let him be? When there are so many other men-"

"Hear the child! One might think that I had brought him to my knees, malice propense. I didn't. Mon Dieu, one can't always prevent the unexpected."

Hermia laughed dryly. "One doesn't plan the unexpected quite so carefully as you do, Olga, dear."

It was beneath Olga's dignity to reply.

"At any rate," continued Hermia, "you've driven him away from

'Wake-Robin'."

"Oh, he'll come back," said Olga lightly.

"Do you think so?"

"Of course."

"We shall see," said the girl.

At the end of three days the Countess Olga realized that for the first time in her life she had made a mistake in judgment; for Mr. Markham did not return to "Wake-Robin." And when she went to the island in the launch to make her peace with him she found the cabin deserted.

It was not until some days later that she received a letter from him dated in New York, and sent on the eve of his sailing for Europe.

My Dear Olga:

It is to laugh! But you can be sure that I was angry for a day or two. What is the use? I have forgotten my misadventure and will consider it a warning against rose gardens. I'll not venture into a rose garden by moonlight again unless quite alone. It's dangerous-even with a sworn friend. It wasn't altogether your fault or mine, and you served me quite properly in cutting my self-esteem to ribbons. But it hurt, Olga. You know the least of us mortals thinks he's a heart-breaker, if he tries to be. You've put me back upon my shelf among the cobwebs and there I shall remain. I'm hopeless material to work with socially and deserve no better fate than to be laid away and forgotten. People must take me as I am or not at all. I don't mind rubbing elbows with the great unwashed. They're human somehow. But your world of dissatisfied women and unsatisfied men! It gets on my nerves, and so I've cut it and run.

I'm painting an antiquated countess in Havre, and then I'm off for the open country with a thumb box, a toothbrush and a smile, and with this equipment I have all that the world can offer. I shall live upon the fat of the land at forty sous a day-ripaille-under the trees-a sound red wine to wash the dust from one's throat-and an appetite and a thirst such as Westport will never know.

Au revoir, chre Olga. I could wish you with me, but I shall be many honest kilometers from a limousine, which is not your idea of a state of being.

With affectionate regards,

Faithfully,

J.M.

In the same mail was a note to Hermia:

My Dear Miss Challoner:

Your kindness deserves a better return than my abrupt and rather churlish departure from "Wake Robin," and, if it isn't already too late to restore myself to your graces, I hope you will accept my regrets and apologies, and the sketch from Thimble Island, which goes to you by express. I hope you will like it. I do. That's why I've giving it to you. But it's hardly complete without the wrecked monoplane and the small person who came with it. Perhaps some day you'll "drop in" on me again somewhere and I can finish it. Meanwhile please think seriously about the portrait. I don't believe I'm just the man to do it. I can't seem to see you somehow. My business is to portray the social anachronism. That is easy-a matter of clothes. But how shall a mere mortal define in terms of paint the dwellers of the air? You have me guessing, dear lady. Imagine Ariel in the conventional broadcloth of commerce. It's preposterous. I can't lend myself to any such deception.

The rest of the letter was more formal and finished with a message of congratulation to Mr. Armistead and a word of thanks for her own hospitality. And he hoped to remain very cordially "John Markham."

Hermia smiled as she finished it and then read it over again. The letter with its mixture of the formal and whimsical both pleased and reassured her. It represented more the Markham of Thimble Island, a person whose identity had lost something of its definiteness since her talks with Olga in the days that had followed his departure from "Wake-Robin." She had been aware of a sense of doubt and disappointment in him and she had not been quite so sure that she liked him now. Of course, if he chose to make a fool of himself over Olga it was none of her affair, and she had been obliged to admit that her discovery had taken from him some of the charm of originality. She did not know what had passed between her guests before her abrupt descent through the pergola, but she was quite certain she had fallen into the middle of a psychological moment. Whose moment was it, Olga's or his? She couldn't help wondering. Olga had intimated that Markham was in love with her. Hermia now doubted. Indeed a suspicion was growing in her mind that it was Olga who was in love with Markham. Hermia smiled and put the letter away in her desk. It didn't matter to her, of course, only interested her a great deal, but she couldn't help wondering why, if Markham was so deeply under the spell of Olga's worldliness, he had not come back to her when she had wanted him.

A northeaster had set in along the coast, and the guests of "Wake Robin" were driven indoors. Olga, when she wasn't playing auction, wandered from window to window, looking out at the dreary skies, venting her ennui on anyone within earshot. Archie Westcott, who was losing more money than he could afford to lose, now lacked the buoyant spirits which carried him so blithely along the crest of the social wave and scowled gloomily at his cards which persisted in favoring his opponents. Crosby Downs, whose waistband had again reached its fullest tension, sought the tall grasses of the smoking-room and refused to be dislodged. Without the shadows of her hat and veil Mrs. Renshaw showed her age to a day, and that didn't improve her temper. Beatrice Coddington had an attack of the megrims and remained in her room.

Hermia played bottle pool and pinochle with Reggie Armistead until they began discussing the exact terms of Hermia's promise when there began a quarrel which lasted the entire afternoon and ended in Reggie's going out into the pouring rain and swearing that he would never come back. But he did come back just in time for dinner, through which he sat pretending that he was interested in Phyllis Van Vorst and casting gloomy looks in the direction of the oblivious Hermia. At the end of three days there were no more than two people in the house on terms of civility, and most of Hermia's guests had departed.

Olga Tcherny, after an afternoon alone in her room, came downstairs at the last extremity of fatigue.

"I can't stand it another hour, Hermia. I'm off in the morning."

"Off? Where?" asked Hermia.

"Oh, I don't know. Anywhere. New York first and then-"

"Normandy?" queried Hermia impertinently.

Olga only smiled.