Hermia stopped and faced him. She learned in that moment that the thing he had dreamed was impossible.
"Please order Mrs. Anstell's machine for me," she said quickly. "I'm going at once."
"Are you ill? Shall I go with you?"
"No—I want to go alone—alone—" she gasped.
Vaguely troubled, he followed her anxiously to the door of the dressing-room, but did her bidding.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY
The account of this atrocity did not reach John Markham for some weeks. With the exception of the people who came to the studio and the few men he met at the club where he dined, he saw little of society, and troubled himself less with its affairs. His life was more secluded, and his work more exacting than ever, and when he walked out, which he did in the late afternoons, he choose avenues which would not remind him of the things he was trying to forget. He had given up hope of Hermia, and though her vision persisted, it was not of the modish, self-contained creature who had received him so coolly that he thought.
This was not the Hermia he had loved. That other girl, the joyous companion of his summer idyl, was no more. At times it almost seemed that she had never been. She had made it clear that she wished no more of him and he had accepted her dictum without question. A more sophisticated lover would have laughed away the barriers she had interposed, followed her carelessly, and brought her to bay when he had proved or disproved the genuineness of her indifference. But Markham was singularly ingenuous, his reasoning as simple and direct as that of a child. He had never understood the woman of society and until Olga had appeared upon his horizon had let her severely alone. Hermia had been an accident—a divine accident. Her frankness had disarmed him, and he had followed his impulses blindly, as (it seemed to him then) she had followed hers. He gloried in the memory of their pilgrimage, its gayety, its freedom and the clean spirit with which they both had entered on it. He had believed in her and in believing had let his heart carry him where it would, willing to forget that she might not be infallible. He had been so sure of her—so sure—and now—
He wiped his brushes on a square of cheesecloth, cleaned his palette and lay in his chair frowning at the portrait, which smiled back at him with ironical amusement. It was curious. All his portraits now smiled. His reputation was based on his skill in making people happy in paint—painting all people happy but himself—Punchinello dancing while his Columbine lay dead. He straightened with a quick intake of the breath, then washed his brushes carefully and changed into street clothes. He was writing to one of his sitters when his knocker clanged and a man in livery entered bearing a note. He opened it and read: