He halted again—incredulous, but she waved him past the door where a man appeared to help him into his coat. And so he bowed his thanks and went out into the dusk of the Avenue, his brain teeming with nebulous inconsistencies.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BRASS BELL
Hermia, waiting for him! What did Mrs. Hammond mean? Was the woman mad? Hermia had fled from New York, her proud little head bent before this cruel story which, of course, had gathered impetus in the telling and now indicted her of sins unwritten in the fair page of her experience. Poor child! She had suffered—and he, fool that he was, had sat in his studio, the victim of his false pride, wrapped in his own ego while this vile plot was brewing. He might have done something if he had had his wits about him, instead of hiding his head like an ostrich and imagining himself unseen. Olga—he did not dare to think of Olga Tcherny or of De Folligny. He had given his word to Mrs. Hammond to leave the entire matter in her hands. Even while she had given him her word not to speak she had been planning this refined vengeance, probably knew that Pierre de Folligny had already made a good story of their adventure for some of his new intimates at the Club. He would have a reckoning with her—some day—and with De Folligny! His fingers tightened on his stick, and an angry tide warmed his face and temples. Had he met them, there upon the Avenue at that moment, all his promises to Mrs. Hammond must have been forgotten—and he would have made short work of that unspeakable gentleman. Of Olga Tcherny he thought with hardly less rancor. At one time—a year ago now—Olga had loomed large upon his horizon. Now in the light of his present knowledge of her he wondered how he could have ever thought of her friendship seriously.
She belonged in an atmosphere too sophisticated for his simple rustic soul. She had always lied to him; her friendship was a lie; her love, too—a lie. That declaration—Good God!—and he had been actually at the point of being sorry for her. He had nothing to regret now with regard to Olga Tcherny. She had wiped the slate clean, and made a new account at poor Hermia's expense.
Hermia in exile—and suffering! Her innocence could not make her heart pangs any the less real. Like a child she had followed the line of least resistance, and seeking freedom from the trammels of convention had obeyed her impulses blindly. It was such a trivial transgression to find so crushing a retribution. And he, Markham, walked the streets of New York the envied hero of an "armourette." This was the law, which says that women may sin if they are not found out and that men may sin when they please.
Poor little penitent, atoning for sins uncommitted! All his heart went out to her, and his memory, passing the forbidding vision of her last appearance, now pictured the real Hermia that he knew, a brave, buoyant Hermia, who knew nothing of discouragements and greeted the sunrise with a smile, her head now bowed and, like Niobe, "all tears."
Was she waiting for him? If so, why had she not written? A line, and he would have sped to her. She knew that. She must have known it when she had fled. Where was she now? At Westport, perhaps? In the South somewhere, alone with her maid, avoiding the newspapers, seeking the company of strangers that her ears might not hear or her eyes see the record of her transgression? Had she gone abroad again? Who would know? He might inquire of Phyllis Van Vorst or Caroline Anstell over the telephone. But when he reached his rooms and had taken up the receiver he saw that even this information was denied to him. Any manifest interest or anxiety on his part with regard to Hermia would be regarded with suspicion. Nor was he any more positive than before that his quest would meet with the approval of its object. He was powerless. There was nothing for him but to wait.
The thought of going to his club to dine was repellant to him. The story that Mrs. Hammond had let him read was not common property and, though none of his acquaintances would have had the bad taste to mention his connection with it, his appearance among them must revive its disagreeable details, at Hermia's expense. So for some days he dined alone at an obscure restaurant, glooming over the evening paper and wondering what could be done. Night after night he walked the street until, at last, wearied and no nearer the solution of his problem, he went home and to bed, to toss restlessly most of the night and plan impossibilities. Through his thoughts, the friendship of Mrs. Berkeley Hammond hovered comfortingly. She was not a woman to promise idly. She had been interested in his story and felt herself morally bound to make some sort of restitution to Hermia for her own unwilling responsibility in the attention that had been drawn to it. He did not doubt that she would use all her influence to minimize the effect of Olga's machinations, and he felt sure with such a friend at court that Hermia need have little fear from the opinions of Mrs. Hammond's friends and her own, and these after all were the only opinions that mattered to her.
An early morning, a few days after the interview with Mrs. Hammond, found Markham at his studio, somber and dark eyed, regarding his latest work with a savage eye of disapproval. He didn't feel like working, and by a piece of good fortune his time was free for him to do what he chose. He would have liked above all things to have employed it in a visit to the house of Olga Tcherny and thence with dispatch to the hotel of Monsieur de Folligny, where what remained of his wrath could be honestly expended in a manner befitting the occasion. This occupation being denied him, there was nothing left but to take what pleasure he could from the mental picture that he made of it.