This wouldn't do at all. To be taken for persons who were accustomed to the excellences of French cuisine was not Hermia's idea of being a vagabond. She had been studying the face of their hostess and came to a sudden resolution. Here was the person who could, if she would, complete her emancipation. Turning to Markham she said smoothly in French:
"Will you go on to the Inn and see if you can find accommodations? In the meanwhile I will stay here and talk with Madame."
Taking the hint Markham finished his glass and leaving his knapsack on the bench went out into the high road in the direction indicated. He walked slowly, his head bent deep in thought, realizing for the first time the exact nature of the extraordinary compact which he had made with the little nonconformist who had chosen him for a traveling companion. The more he thought of the situation the more apparent became the gravity of his responsibility. Why had he yielded to her reckless whim? Only this morning he had been thanking his lucky stars that he was well rid of women of the world for a month at least. And now—Shades of Pluto! He had one hanging around his nick more securely than any millstone. And this one—Hermia Challoner, an enthusiast without a mission—a feminine abnormity, half child, half oracle, wholly irresponsible and yet, by the same token, wholly and delightfully human!
But in spite of the charm of her amiability and enthusiasm he felt it his duty to think of her at this moment as the daughter of Peter Challoner, the arrogant, hard-fisted harvester of millions—to think of her as he had thought of her when she had left his studio in New York with Olga Tcherny, as the spoiled and rather impertinent example of the evils of careless bringing up, but try as he might he only succeeded in visualizing the tired and rather unhappy little girl who wanted to learn "how to live." Whether that confession were genuine or not it made an appealing picture—one which he could not immediately forget. Markham had lived in the thick of life for a good many years as a man must who wins his way in Paris, but his view of women was elemental, like that of the child who chooses for itself at an early age between the only alternatives it knows, "good" and "bad." To Markham women were good or they were bad and there weren't any women to speak of between these two classifications. He had seen Hermia first as the protégée and boon companion of the Countess Tcherny, had afterward met her as the intimate of such men as Crosby Downs and Carol Gouverneur, and of such women as Mrs. Renshaw, and yet it had never occurred to him to think of Hermia as anything but the spoiled child of Peter Challoner's too eloquent millions, the rebellious victim of environment which meant the end of idealism, the beginning of oblivion.
This hapless waif of good fortune had thrown herself upon his protection and had paid him the highest compliment that a woman could pay a man—a faith in him that was in itself an inspiration.
Was she in earnest and worth teaching? That was the rub, or would weary feet, hunger, thirst, the chance mishaps of the road bring recantation and flight to Trouville or to Paris? He would put her intentions to the test. She could be pretty sure of that—and if she survived this week under his program of peregrination and philosophy there were hopes for her to justify his rather impulsive acquiescence.
A motor approached and stopped beside him, the man at the wheel asking in French à l'Américain the way to Evreux. He directed them and then, finding that he had emerged upon the other side of the town, returned in search of the Inn, his stride somewhat more rapid than before. Of one thing he was now certain. They must get away from the main road without any further delay.
He found Monsieur Duchanel smoking a pipe upon his door-sill. It was no wonder that he had passed the hostelry by; for saving a small sign obscured by the shadows of the trees, the house, an ancient affair of timber and plaster, differed little from the others which faced the street.
Monsieur Duchanel was a short, round-bellied, dust-colored man, with gray hair and a tuft upon his chin. He was the same color as his house and his sign and gave Markham the impression of having sat upon this same door-sill since the years of a remote antiquity. But he got up blithely enough when the painter announced the object of his visit and showed him, with an air of great pride, through the sleeping apartments which at the present moment were all without occupants. One room with a four-poster, which the host announced had once been occupied by no less a personage than Henri Quatre, Markham picked out for Hermia, and chose for himself a small room overlooking the courtyard at the rear. He ordered dinner, a good dinner, with soup, an entrée and a roast to be served in a private room. The American motorist had warned him. But Vagabondia should not begin until to-morrow.
These arrangements made, he returned to the cabaret under the trees. Hermia had disappeared, so he sat at the table, poured out another glass of cider, filled his pipe and waited.