"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 b.u.t.terfly 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 nonent.i.ty 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 Alenon, 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 _m?tier_ 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 G.o.d!" 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 cert.i.tude. "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 repet.i.tion 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 Pre Gu?gou--no roses in my heart. They're withered enough, G.o.d 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.