Madcap Part 41

And while she went up he returned to the living room, removed the most obvious traces of Hermia's presence, and, as the trap door was slid down into its place, dropped into the nearest armchair, feigning slumber. He heard Olga's footsteps as she prowled around the house and deluded himself for a moment with the thought that she had gone on, when suddenly he saw her poking at the shutters, which she finally pressed open with the b.u.t.t end of her shotgun, filling the room with sunlight and revealing the prostrate Markham, who started up in dismay which needed little simulation.

"Good morning, Philidor," said she quite pleasantly.

"Olga!"

"Did you sleep well? What a sluggard you are! Behold the ant--learn her ways and do likewise."

He rose, and through the window offered her his hand. But she waved him off with the point of her gun.

"Not so fast, my young friend!" she cried, her eyes meanwhile swiftly searching the room. "You're a poacher. Will you surrender?"

"By all means--at discretion--if you'll please not keep pointing that plaguey thing--"

She raised a tiny silver object suspended around her neck by a silver chain.

"Don't you know that it's my duty to my host to whistle for the keepers to come and take you before the magistrate?"

"Of course. Whistle away."

"But I'm not going to--at least, not yet. I want to talk to you first.

I'm coming in--with your permission."

"Charmed!" he said with a gaiety he was far from feeling, and opened the door with a fine flourish. "It's always easy to be hospitable at somebody else's expense," he said.

She entered without ceremony, gun in hand, her eyes, under lowered lids, shifting indolently, yet missing nothing--the pack on the floor, the tumbled couch, and Markham's familiar pipe.

"Quite handsome, I'd say. The Count always had an eye for the picturesque."

She made the round of the lower floor, carelessly observant of its arrangement, while Markham followed her, his ears straining for the sounds of Hermia's escape.

"Are your friends coming here?" he asked.

Olga poked the muzzle of her gun into a cupboard. "Not unless I whistle for them, Monsieur," she said slowly. "They're below me to the left. We have rendezvous at the lower lodge. Lucky, isn't it?"

Markham's eye lit hopefully.

"I am, it seems, completely at your mercy," he laughed.

He preceded her into the living room and in doing so failed to note the brief pause she made beside the stairs to the loft, upon the steps of which, and upon the floor beneath them, plainly to be seen were a number of small particles of mud, broken and dried. Nor did he see the quick smile of triumph replace the puzzled look with which she had pursued her investigations. She followed him in and with a sigh of content dropped into a chair by the fireplace, crossing her knees and leisurely lighting a cigarette.

"_Enfin_," she laughed. "Here we are gain--thou and I, _Monsieur le philospophe_."

He shrugged.

"At your pleasure," he replied.

She examined his face a moment before she went on. And then softly:

"Why did you run away from me last night? You did, you know, Philidor, or you wouldn't be here."

He hesitated a moment.

"I was afraid you'd insist--on my joining your house party."

She cast a glance around the room and laughed.

"It seems that you've already done so."

"Er--a mistake. I was going to camp in the woods, but it came on to rain. The door of this house was unlatched. So I walked in--and here I am."

"Reasonable enough. It _did_ rain. I remember. And weren't you lonely here?"

"Oh, no," he said easily, "I was asleep."

"And I woke you. What a pity!"

"I'm sure--I'm delighted--if you don't lead me to the Ch?teau de Cahors or the magistrate."

"What alternatives! One would think, John Markham, that you were really an enemy of society."

"Society with the small _S_, I am. I'm never less alone than when by myself."

"Which means that two is a crowd? Thanks. I shall tear myself away in a moment, but not until--"

"Don't be foolish, Olga," he whispered. "You know that can't mean you."

"I don't know," she murmured wistfully in a low, even voice, her gaze on the andirons. "You've surely given me no reasons t believe that you cared for my society. I wrote you twice from New York, once form Paris and once from Trouville, and you've only deigned me one reply--_such_ a reply--with comments upon the weather (upon which I was fully informed), and a hope that we might meet in October in New York. It was sweet of you, John, when I came to Europe expressly to see you!"

"Me?" He rose, walked the length of the room and glanced anxiously out of the window. "Impossible!" he said, then turned and stood by the mantel, his back toward the door, his voice tensely subdued. "See here, Olga, don't you think it's about time that you stopped making fun of me--that you and I understood each other? For some reason, after a few years of acquaintance you've suddenly discovered that I amuse you.

Why, I don't know. I'm not your sort--not the sort of man you'd find worth your while in the long run, and you know it. And I don't propose to be caught in your silken mesh, my dear, to be left to dry in the sun when you find some other specimen more to your liking."

Olga laughed silently, her head away from him, and Markham, after a quick glance over his shoulder, went on whispering.

"I gave you my friendship-freely, unreservedly, but you weren't satisfied with that. Hardly! You wanted me to be in love with you.

There's no doubt of it." He laughed. "Oh, anyone else would have done as well, but I happened along at a favorable time--on the back swing of the pendulum. It hurt your pride, I think, that one of my Arcadian simplicity should fail to droop where others, more sophisticated, had fallen swiftly. Perhaps I, too, might have fallen if you hadn't warned me that you had no heart. You did me that kindness."

He stopped, listening. Olga's ears, too, were alert for a sound--a tiny sound of no more volume than that which might have been made by a mouse that had come from overhead.

"But you grew weary of that," he went on quietly. "You wanted something to happen. Your reputation was at stake. It was time for a psychological crisis of sorts--and so you arranged it--in a rose garden."

Olga had stopped smiling now and her brows were narrowing painfully.

"You have no right to speak to me so," she murmured.

"It's true," he finished. "You didn't play fair and you know it."

She bent forward, her elbows on her knees, her gaze on the ashes.

"You hurt me--John," she whispered, scarcely audibly; "you hurt me--terribly."