"O Olga, don"t quibble. He"s impossible."

The Countess shrugged.

"It"s a matter of taste."

"Taste! One doesn"t want to be affronted. Is he like this to every one?"

"No. That"s just the point. He isn"t. I think, Hermia, dear," and she laughed, "that he didn"t like _you_."

"Me! Why not?"

"He doesn"t like Bath-buns. He once told me so. Besides, I don"t think he"s altogether in sympathy with the things you typify."

"How does he know what I typify--when I don"t know myself? I don"t typify anything."

"Oh, yes, you do, to a man like Markham. From the eyrie where his soul is wont to sit, John Markham has a fine perspective on life--yours and mine. But I imagine that you make the more conspicuous silhouette. To him you represent "the New York Idea"--only more so. Besides that you"re a vellum edition of the Feminist Movement with suffrage expurgated. In other words, darling, to a lonely and somewhat morbid philosopher like Markham you"re a horrible example of what may become of a female person of liberal views who has had the world suddenly laid in her lap; the spoiled child launched into the full possession of a fabulous fortune with no ambition more serious than to become the "champeen lady-aviator of Madison Avenue--""

"Olga! You"re horrid," broke in Hermia.

"I know it. It"s the reaction from a morning which began too cheerfully. I think I"ll leave you now, if you"ll drop me at the Blouse Shop--"

"But I thought we were going--"

"No. Not this morning. The mood has pa.s.sed."

"Oh, very well," said Hermia.

The two pecked each other just below the eye after the manner of women and the Countess departed, while Hermia quizzically watched her graceful back until it had disappeared in the shadows of the store.

The current that usually flowed between them was absent now, so Hermia let her go; for Olga Tcherny, when in this mood, wore an armor which Hermia, clever as she thought herself, had never been able to penetrate.

Hermia continued on her way uptown, aware that the change in the Countess Olga was due to intangible influences which she could not define but which she was sure had something to do with the odious person whose studio she had visited. Could it be that Olga really cared for this queer Markham of the goggled eyes, this absent-minded, self-centered creature, who rumpled his hair, smoked a pipe and growled his cheap philosophy? A pose, of course, aimed this morning at Hermia. He flattered her. She felt obliged for the line of demarcation he had so carefully drawn between his life and hers. As if she needed the challenge of his impudence to become aware of it!

And yet I her heart she found herself denying that his impudence had irritated her less than his indifference. To tell the truth, Hermia did not like being ignored. It was the first time in fact, that any man had ignored her, and she did not enjoy the sensation. She shrugged her shoulders carelessly and glanced out of the window of her car--and to be ignored by such a personas this grubby painter--it was maddening! She thought of him as "grubby," whatever that meant, because she did not like him, but it was even more maddening for her to think of Olga Tcherny"s portrait, which, in spite of her flippant remarks, she had been forced to admit revealed a knowledge of feminine psychology that had excited her amazement and admiration.

One deduction led to another. She found herself wondering what kind of a portrait this Markham would make of her, whether he would see, as he had seen in Olga--the things that lay below the surface--the dreams that came, the aspirations, half-formed, toward something different, the moments of revulsion at the emptiness of her life, which, in spite of the material benefits it possessed, was, after all, only material.

Would he paint those--the shadows as well as the lights? Or would he see her as Marsac, the Frenchman, had seen her, the pretty, irresponsible child of fortune who lived only for others who were as gay as herself with no more serious purpose in life than to become, as Olga had said, "the champeen lady-aviator of Madison Avenue."

Hermia lunched alone--out of humor with all the world--and went upstairs with a volume of plays which had just come from the stationer. But she had hardly settled herself comfortably when t.i.tine announced Mrs. Westfield.

It was the ineffectual Aunt.

"Oh, yes," with an air of resignation, "tell Mrs. Westfield to come up."

She pulled the hair over her temples to conceal the scars of her morning"s accident and met Mrs. Westfield at the landing outside.

"_Dear_ Aunt Harriet. So glad," she said, grimacing cheerfully to salve her conscience. "What _have_ I been doing now?"

"What _haven"t_ you been doing, child?"

The good lady sank into a chair, the severe lines in her face more than usually acidulous, but Hermia only smiled sweetly, for Mrs. Westfield"s forbidding aspect, as she well knew, concealed the most indulgent of dispositions.

"Playing polo with men, racing in your motor and getting yourself talked about in the papers! Really, Hermia, what will you be doing next?"

"Flying," said Hermia.

Mrs. Westfield hesitated between a gasp and a smile.

"I don"t doubt it. You are quite capable of anything--only your wings will not be sent from Heaven--"

"No--from Paris. I"m going to have a Bleriot."

"Do you actually mean that you"re going to--O Hermia! Not _fly_--!"

The girl nodded.

"I--I"m afraid I am, Auntie. It"s the sporting thing.

You know I never could _bear_ having Reggie Armistead do anything I couldn"t. Every one will be doing it soon."

"I can"t believe that you"re in earnest."

"I am, awfully."

"But the danger! You must realize that!"

"I do--that"s what attracts me." She got up and put her arms around Mrs. Westfield"s neck. "O Auntie, dear, don"t bother. I"m absolutely impossible anyway. I can"t be happy doing the things that other girls do, and you might as well let me have my own way--"

"But flying--"

"It"s as simple as child"s play. If you"d ever done it you"d wonder how people would ever be content to motor or ride--"

"You"ve been up--?"

"Last week at Garden City. I"m crazy about it."

"Yes, child, crazy--mad. I"ve done what I could to keep your amus.e.m.e.nts within the bounds of reason and without avail, but I wouldn"t be doing my duty to your sainted mother if I didn"t try to save you from yourself. I shall do something to prevent this--this madcap venture--I don"t know what. I shall see Mr. Winthrop at the Trust Company. There must be some way--"

The pendants in the good lady"s ears trembled in the light, and her hand groped for her handkerchief. "You _can"t_, Hermia. I"ll not permit it. I"ll get out an injunction--or something. It was all very well when you were a child--but now--do you realize that you"re a woman, a grown woman, with responsibilities to the community? It"s time that you were married, settled down and took your proper place in New York. I had hoped that you would have matured and forgotten the childish pastimes of your girlhood but now--now--"

Mrs. Westfield, having found her handkerchief, wept into it, her emotions too deep for other expression, while Hermia, now really moved, sank at her feet upon the floor, her arms about her Aunt"s shoulders, and tried to comfort her. "I"m not the slightest use in the world, Auntie, dear. I haven"t a single homely virtue to recommend me. I"m only fit to ride and dance and motor and frivol. And whom should I marry? Surely not Reggie Armistead or Crosby Downs! Reggie and I have always fought like cats across a wire, and as for Crosby--I would as life marry the great Cham of Tartary. No, dear, I"m not ready for marriage yet. I simply couldn"t. There, there, don"t cry.

You"ve done your duty. I"m not worth bothering about. I"m not going to do anything dreadful. And besides--you know if anything _did_ happen to me, the money would go to Millicent and Theodore."

"I--I don"t want anything to happen to you," said Mrs. Westfield, weeping anew.

"Nothing will--you know I"m not hankering to die--but I don"t mind taking a sporting chance with a game like that."

"But what good can it possibly do?"

Hermia Challoner laughed a little bitterly. "My dear Auntie, my life has not been planned with reference to the ultimate possible good.

I"m a renegade if you like, a hoyden with a shrewd sense of personal morality but with no other sense whatever. I was born under a mad moon with some wild humor in my blood from an earlier incarnation and I can"t--I simply _can"t_ be conventional. I"ve tried doing as other--and nicer--girls do but it wearies me to the point of distraction. Their lives are so pale, so empty, so full of pretensions. They have always seemed so. When I used to romp like a boy my elders told me it was an unnatural way for little girls to play. But I kept on romping. If it hadn"t been natural I shouldn"t have romped. Perhaps Sybil Trenchard is natural--or Caroline Anstell.

They"re conventional girls--automatic parts of the social machinery, eating, sleeping, decking themselves for the daily round, mere things of s.e.x, their whole life planned so that they may make a desirable marriage. Good Lord, Auntie! And whom will they marry? Fellows like Archie Westcott or Carol Gouverneur, fellows with notorious habits which marriage is not likely to mend. How could it? No one expects it to. The girls who marry men like that get what they bargain for--looks for money--money for looks--"