Madcap. George Gibbs

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СКАЧАТЬ still fresh in his memory, seemed to endow Dorothy Herrick with a firmer contour, a stronger claim on his interest and sympathies.

      And yet—this little madcap aviatrix disclosed a winning directness and simplicity which charmed and surprised him. She was a joyous soul. He could not remember a morning when he had been so completely abstracted from the usual current of thought and occupation as today, and whatever the faults bequeathed by her intrepid father, she was, as Markham had said to Olga, quite human. There were possibilities in the child-and it seemed a pity that no strong guiding hand led the way on a road like hers, which had so many turnings. She was only an overgrown child as yet, flat chested, slender, almost a boy, and yet redeemed to femininity by an unconscious coquetry which she could no more control than she could the warm flush of her blood; a child indeed, full of quick impulses for good or for evil.

      Markham rose, knocked the ash out of his pipe, walked over to his canvas, set it up against the porch pillar and examined it leisurely. But in a moment he took it indoors and added it to the pile in the living-room, fetching a fresh canvas and carrying his easel and paint-box over the hill to another spot, a shady one among the rocks where he had already painted many times.

      He worked a while and then sat and smoked again, his thoughts afar. What sort of an influence was Olga Tcherny for the mind of this impressionable child? The Countess was clever, generous and wonderfully attractive to men and to women but, as Markham knew, her views of life were liberal and she was not wise—at least, not with a wisdom which would help Hermia Challoner. One doesn't live for ten years in Paris in the set in which Markham had met her without absorbing something of its careless creed, its loose ethical and moral standards. New York society, he knew, reflected much that was bad, and much that was good of the gay worlds of Paris and London; for Americans are unexcelled in the talent of imitation, but from phrases that had passed Olga's lips he knew that she had outgrown her own country.

      Markham tried to paint but things went wrong and so he gave it up, swearing silently at the interruption which had spoiled his day. After lunch he tried it again with no better success, and finally gave it up and, taking a book, went out on a point of rocks where the tide swirled and cast in a fishing line, not because he hoped to catch anything but because fishing, of all the resources available, had most surely the ways of peace. The book was a French treatise on the Marxian philosophies—dull reading for a summer's day when the water lapped merrily at one's feet, the breeze sighed softly, laden with the odors of the mysterious deeps, and sea and sky beckoned him invitingly into the realms of adventure and delight, so dull that, the fish biting not, Markham dozed, and at last rolled over in the sunlight and slept.

      How long he lay there he did not know. He was awakened by the exhaust of a launch close at hand and sat up so quickly that "Karl Marx," rudely jostled by his elbow, went sliding over the edge of the rock and into the sea. But there was no time at present to bewail this calamity for the man in the launch had brought her inshore and hailed him politely.

      "Mr. Markham?" he questioned.

      Markham nodded. "That's my name," he said.

      "A note for you." The launch moved slowly in toward the landing and

       Markham met his visitor, already aware that there was to be a further

       intrusion on his solitude. He broke the seal of the note and read.

       It was from Hermia Challoner.

      Dear Mr. Markham:

      Life, as you see, has yielded me one more sensation without penalty. I am safe at home again, my philosophy triumphant over yours. There isn't a great deal of difference between them after all. You, too, take from life, Mr. Markham—you take what you need just as I do; but just because your needs differ from mine, manlike, you assume that I must be wrong. Perhaps I am. Then so must you, because you give less than I do.

      There is but one way to justify yourself, and that is to give up what you are hoarding—what you prize most highly—your solitude. We want you at "Wake Robin," Mr. Markham. Will you come to dine and stay the night? By so doing you will at least show an amiable disposition, which is more to the point than all the philosophy in the world. We are very informal and dine at eight.

      I am sure that if you disappoint us Madame Tcherny, who is already tired of us all, will perish of ennui.

      Very cordially yours,

       Hermia Challoner

      Markham read the note through and turned toward the cabin for pen and paper.

      "Will you moor the launch and come ashore?"

      "Oh, no, sir," said the man, tinkering with the engine, "I'll wait for you here. Miss Challoner said that I was to wait."

      When Markham reached the bungalow he remembered suddenly that he had no ink, pen—or indeed paper, and yet a verbal reply would hardly be courteous. He stood in the doorway puzzling a moment and then went over to a trunk in the corner, opened it and began pitching its contents about. He straightened at last, put some garments on the bed and looked at them with a ruminative eye.

      "Oh, I had better go," he muttered, rubbing the roughness on his chin. "I owe it to Olga. But why the devil they can't leave a fellow alone—" and, fuming silently, he shaved, made a toilet, and packing some things in a much battered suit case made his way to the launch.

      At the Westport landing he found the Countess Olga, wonderfully attired in an afternoon costume of pale green, awaiting him in a motor.

      "There's a chance for you still, my friend," she laughed. "You have won my fond regard—and, incidentally, the cost of a new frock."

      "I?"

      "Yes. We laid a bet as to whether you would come, Hermia and I. We've been watching the island through the telescope, and saw you embark—so to me—the victor, falls the honor of conducting you home in triumph."

      "I'm to go in chains, it seems," he laughed, getting in beside her.

       "I've rarely seen you looking so handsome."

      "You're improving. It's joy, mon ami, at seeing once again a full grown man. I have been bored—oh, so bored! Will you be nice to me?"

      The motor skimmed smoothly over the perfect roads, mounting the hills through the village and spinning along a turnpike flanked by summer residences. "Wake Robin" stood at some distance from the village on the highest point of the hills and made a very imposing vista from the driveway—an English house with long wings at either side, flanked by terraces, lawns and gardens, guarded from the intrusive eyes of the highway by a high privet hedge. The tennis courts seemed to be the center of interest and in a corner of the terrace which faced the bay were some people taking tea and watching a match of singles between Reggie Armistead and their hostess. The chauffeur took the suit case to the butler and Olga Tcherny led the way to the tea table where Phyllis Van Vorst was pouring tea. Beside her sat a tall handsome woman with a hard mouth, dressed in white linen and a picture hat, who ogled him tentatively through a lorgnon during the moment of introduction before permitting her face to relax into a smile of welcome.

      "So glad," she purred at last, extending a long slim hand in Markham's direction. "Phyllis, do give Mr. Markham some tea."

      "How d'ye do, Mr. Markham," chortled Miss Van Vorst. "I'm afraid you'll have to put up with the Philistines for a while. Hermia's beating Reggie Armistead at tennis, and it's as much as one's life is worth to interrupt."

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