"H—m," said Markham. "If there are any missing details that you'd like me to supply, don't hesitate to mention them."
"I wouldn't—if there were any."
"And you believe—"
"That you're madly in love with the most dangerous woman in New York, and that only time and distance can salve your wounds and her conscience."
He puffed at his pipe and shrugged a shoulder.
"That's why I say you're a fraud, Philidor," she went on, "a delusion—also a snare. Your beetling brows, your air of indifference, your intolerance of the world, they're the defensive armor for your shrinking susceptibilities—you a painter of beautiful women! Every sitter in your studio an enemy in the house—every tube of paint a silent witness of your frailty—every brush stroke a delicious pain—the agony of it!"
She tweaked Clarissa's ear and whispered into its tip. "It's much wiser to be just a donkey, isn't it, Clarissa?"
Markham grinned a little sheepishly, but like Clarissa refused to be drawn into the discussion. Indeed, his patience, like that of their beast of burden, continued to be excellent. Hermia's impish spirit was not proof against such imperturbably good humor, and at last she subsided. Markham walked in silence for some moments, speaking after a while with a cool assertiveness.
"It's rather curious, Hermia, if I'm the silly sentimental ass you've been picturing me, that you'd care to trust yourself to what you are pleased to call my shrinking susceptibilities."
"But you're in love with another woman," she said taking to cover quickly.