"No," he muttered.
"Oh, yes, it is." And then with a gay laugh which was her best defence—"Too bad we couldn't have hit it off, isn't it? I would have liked it awfully. I give you my word you've never seemed nearly so interesting as at this moment of discomposure. There's a charm in your awkwardness, John,—a native charm. Good night. I go alone."
He followed her a few paces but she reached the machine before him and was whisked away.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE WINGS OF THE BUTTERFLY
John Markham spent an unpleasant evening. He dined alone at a club, wandering afterward aimlessly from library to billiard room and then took to the streets, trusting to physical exercise to clear his head of the tangle that Olga had put into it. Olga, the irrepressible man-hunter, in love with a "fossilized Galahad_." That was ironically amusing, extraordinary, if true, a punishment which fitted her crime, and something of a grim joke on the man-hunter as well as the fossil. Markham tried to view the matter with unconcern, man-like, recalling the many times that Olga's name had been coupled with those of various distinguished foreigners and the frequent reports of her engagement, always denied and forgotten. And yet she worried him. For a brief moment she had given him a glimpse of the shadowy recesses where she hid her naked soul; a glimpse only, like some of those she had given him when he was painting her portrait; but what he had seen now was different—an Olga no longer wistful no longer amenable; a wild, unreasoning thing who purred, cat-like, while he stroked her, sheathing and unsheathing her claws. There was mischief brewing—he felt it in her sudden access of self-control, and in the final jest with which she had left him. He knew her better now. It was when she mocked that Olga was most dangerous. It was clear that she had not believed him when he told her the truth. Her standards forbade it, of course. It was too bad.
But she had not told what she knew—that was the main thing. What if she did tell now? Hermia could deny it, of course, and if necessary he must lie, as Olga had said, like a gentleman. And where were Olga's proofs? Who would confirm her? What evidence, human or documentary could she bring forward here in New York to prove Hermia's culpability, if, as it seemed to be her intention, she insisted on carrying her sweet vengeance to its end? There was no one—he paused, his brow clouding. De Foligny! Had De Folligny learned who Hermia was? Had Olga found out about the companion in his automobile at Verneuil? He waved the thought away. De Folligny was on the other side of the ocean. The psychological moment for Olga's revelation had passed.
Consoling himself with these thoughts he went home and to bed and morning found him early at the studio, awaiting his new sitter, in a more quiescent, if still uncertain, frame of mind.
The portrait of Mrs. Berkeley Hammond on which he had been working sat smugly upon one of his easels, a thing of shreds and patches (though the lady was in pearls and a Drécoll frock), a thing "painty" without being direct, mannered without being elegant, highly colored without being colorful, a streaky thing with brilliant spots, like the work of a promising pupil; a pretty poor Markham, which had pleased the sitter because its face flattered her, and for which she would gladly pay the considerable sum he charged, while Markham's inner consciousness loudly proclaimed that the canvas was not worth as much as the crayon sketch of Madam Daudifret in Normandy which had been the price of a ragoût. Really he would have to pain better. He swung the easel around with a kick of the foot and faced a new canvas, primed some days before, and busied himself about his palette and paint tubes.
When Phyllis Van Vorst emerged from the dressing-room a while later into the cool north light, Markham's eyes sparkled with a genuine delight. Here was the sort of thing he could do—white satin with filmy drapery from which rose the fresh-colored flower of girlhood. Without being really pretty, his model created the illusion of beauty by her youth, her abundant health and many little tricks of gesture and expression. Her role was that of the ingénue and she prattled childishly of many things, flitting like a butterfly from topic to topic, grave and gay with a careless grace which added something to the picture she made. Markham let her talk, interjecting monosyllables lulled by the inexhaustible flow, aware, after the first pose or two, that he was painting well, with the careless brush of entire confidence. As Olga had said, he always was at his best when a little contemptuous. In three hours the head was finished and the background laid in, premier coup— the best thing he had done in a year.