"I'd like you to know that I had too much faith in you to believe it.

But I think--indeed I'm sure I'm ready to believe it now--if you tell me it's true."

She did not raise her head, but her lips moved inarticulately. He glanced at her a moment longer and then, with an inclination of the head, pa.s.sed out into the hall and so to the door.

CHAPTER XXV

CIRCE AND THE FOSSIL

Christmas had come and gone and the city had struck its highest note of winter activity. Those envied mortals who compose society, pausing for a brief moment of air and relaxation in the holidays, plunged again into the arduous treadmill of the daily round, urged by the flying lash of unrest, creatures of a common fate, plodding wearily up the path of preferment, not daring to falter or to rest under the pain of instant oblivion.

Olga Tcherny paused only long enough to catch a deep breath after her momentous interview with John Markham in Washington Square and then plunged into the busy throng with De Folligny after. She had heard with some interest the reports of Hermia Challoner's engagement to Mr.

Morehouse, but it had made no very deep impression upon her mind. She only considered it, in fact, with reference to its possible effect upon the mind of John Markham, who she soon learned was avoiding the social scene, as had been his custom, before she had made forcible entry into his studio last year and had dragged him forth into the company of his fellow man.

It was quite evident that Hermia was playing her game rather ruthlessly and, whatever her object, John Markham and she for the present at least were at cross purposes. Olga did not dare to go to see him, and though her door stood open she had no hope that he would enter it without encouragement. But one blithe morning she sent him a note:

What's this I hear? Can it be true that your nymph has fled from the woods of Pan to take shelter under the eaves of a _Morehouse_? And what becomes of the faun? I can't believe it--and yet my rumor comes direct. Do satisfy my craving for veracity, won't you? I'd like awfully to see you, if you'll forgive and forget. I can now give you positive a.s.surances that you will be quite as safe in my drawing-room as in that smudgy place where you immortalize mediocrity. I'll never propose to you again as long as I live. The phantasy has pa.s.sed, I think. Do you believe me? Come and see--but _'phone_ first.

Affectionately, Olga.

To her surprise, he came the following afternoon. She received him with a frank and careless gayety which put him very much at his ease.

He marveled at her a.s.surance and the resumption of the little airs of proprietorship to which he had been accustomed before the visit to Westport. She was the Olga of the portrait with the added graces of a not too obtrusive sympathy and a manner which seemed subtly to suggest self-elimination. He accepted the situation without mental reservation, sat in the chair she indicated with a grateful sigh and watched her pretty hands busy about the tea-tray. Whatever their relations and however directly he could trace his present misfortunes to her very door, the illusion of her friendliness was not to be dispelled, and he relinquished himself to its charm with a grateful sense that, for the moment at least, here was sanctuary.

She found him thinner and said so.

"You're working too hard, my dear Markham," she said. "On every hand I hear of people you've painted or are about to paint. A real success--_un success fou_--and in spite of yourself! It's quite wonderful."

"I've painted very badly," he muttered.

"Oh, you're too close to your work to have a perspective. Mrs. Hammond has touted you the length and breadth of the town--you know--and that means there's a pedestal for you in her Hall of Fame. What does Immortality taste like? Sweet?"

He laughed. "Fame in New York--is merely a matter of dollars. My prices are enormous--hence my reputation. If I charged what the things are worth, these people would send me back to Paris."

"And still you refuse to go to their houses? I hear that Mrs. Hammond wanted to give a dinner for you--to all her set--and that's quite extraordinary of her--even for a lion--"

"But I couldn't eat them, you know--"

"But you could let them watch you eat--"

"I wouldn't have eaten. You see, magnificence of that sort takes my appet.i.te away."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I suppose I'm a crank. They speak another language--those people. I don't understand them. I find that no exertion of the legs brings my mind and theirs any closer together.

They bore me stiff and I bore them. What's the use?"

"You have no social ambitions?"

"None whatever--in the sense you mean. I like my fellow men stripped to the bone. That's indecent when one dines out."

"And your fellow woman?"

He shrugged and laughed.

"She's a child--adorable always. But then I never understand her--nor she me."

She sipped tea and smiled.

"Woman is at once the woman and the serpent, _mon ami_. All she needs is a man and a Garden of Paradise."

He frowned into his teacup but did not reply.

"Is it true, John?" she asked quietly.

"What is true?"

"That Hermia is to marry Trevvy Morehouse?"

"From whom did you hear that?" he asked.

"From whom have I not heard it? Everyone. Hermia hasn't denied it, has she?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Why should she deny it? It's her own affair."

His tone rebuked her.

"I don't want to be meddlesome, you know. I only thought--"

"Oh, I'm glad you spoke," he murmured. "I--I wanted to talk about her.

You know, you and I--when you left me--there in the Park--you gave me the impression that you--er--that you didn't care for Miss Challoner any more--"

"Did I? I'm glad I did. That's the truth. I don't care for her. She cut me very prettily on the street the week after she got back from Europe. Evidently the antipathy is mutual."

He paused, considering.

"I'm sorry she saw fit to do that. That was foolish--very foolish of her."

"Wasn't it? Especially as I had about decided to forget that I'd ever been in Alenon--"

He put his hand over hers and held it there a moment.

"I want you to forget that, Olga," he muttered. "It--it never happened."

She smiled, her gaze on the andirons.

"You're quite positive of that?"

"Yes. I was--er--in Holland last summer."

"Oh, _were_ you?"