There was a note in her voice he had not heard before. He glanced at her inquisitively, but she went up the steps, one hand extended over the baluster to his, laughing mischievously. "Good night, Mr. Markham. Thanks for the breakfast—and the philosophy. But please remember that people who love in glass houses—shouldn't cast aspersions."
CHAPTER X
THE FUGITIVE
Like the skillful general who covers his retreat by an unexpected show of strength, Olga Tcherny had retired in good order, with colors flying. She had struck hard, spent some ammunition and endangered her line of communications, but she had reached the cover of the tall timbers, where for the moment it was safe to go into camp, repair damages and take account of injuries.
At the beginning of their acquaintance her interest in Markham had not been unlike that of the motherly hen in the doings of the newly hatched duckling with which she differed as to the practical utility of duckponds. She had been intensely interested in his work and in his career which during the winter in Paris had been definitely shaped as a painter of successful portraits. She had liked the man from the first, liked him well enough to be as genuine as he was, and found delight in a companionship which led her down pleasant lanes of thought—which terminated, as they had begun, in quiet satisfaction. He neither lied to her nor flattered her; his speech had the simple directness of a child's, and while she frequently reproved him for his rusticity, in secret she adored it. She had been used all her life to the polish of Europe, satiated with its compliments, glutted with its hypocrisy, courted by men with manner and no manners, whom she had met with their own weapons. She had never known a real friendship in man—or woman—had not even sought friendship, because life had taught her that, for her, such things did not exist. In Markham she had found the myth without searching, and once found she had grappled it to her soul with hoops of steel. His friendship it was that she had loved—not Markham. He was her own discovery, her very own, and she followed her first sober impulse, calmly, giving him the best of her, scorning the arts which she had been accustomed to employ on other men with so much success.
A born coquette is much like the hunter who hunts for the love of hunting and has no appetite for game upon his own table. Olga Tcherny had hunted in all the covers of sportive Europe with an appetite which always ended with the chase. Markham had not been marked as game. He was simply a delicious accident and she had accepted him as such, grateful for the new appetite which was as healthy as it was unusual.
But it was very natural that his indifference should pique her vanity. Markham did not care for women. That was all the more a reason why he should learn to care for her. The love of being loved was habit, ingrained, and she could not dismiss it with a word. But she gave him her friendship, and having given it would not recant from her secret vow to be honest with it and with him.
There had been moments of uncertainty, moments of ennui, but never of danger—until to-night, when she had fallen from grace and yielded to an impulse, once ignoble, but now ignoble no longer, to bring Markham at all hazards to her feet. It was no longer their friendship that she loved, but Markham. She loved fervently as coquettes will at last, placing in one ship the cargo that had fared forth in so many vessels. It was the coquette in her that had mocked and tantalized him, the coquette even whom he had kissed—but it was the woman who had struck and now suffered the pains of her imprudence.
Olga dismissed the unfortunate Georgette when she came to brush her hair and threw herself on the bed, both hands supporting her chin, staring at vacancy. He had guessed the truth-the agony of it! She had wept—real tears, the tears of subjection. She had begun—a coquette, trusting to her skill in dissimulation, but her heart had betrayed her. She had wept and Markham had seen her tears. Even a less sophisticated man than he would have known that women of her type only weep when they are stirred to the lees. Had she deceived him in the end? The doubt still assailed her. She had cut him deeply, hurt his amour propre and left him scowling in Arcadian resentment. Would the lesson last? Or must she seek further means to convince him of her indifference? Why had she provoked him? A whim—the dormant devil in her—to whom her better self must now pay in the loss of his friendship.
The old relation between them was dead. She had nailed it in its coffin. He did not love her, but she knew, that had she wished, she could have made him think he was, coaxed lies from his lips which both of them would have lived to regret.