instinct.  I can't help it.  I suppose I'm just unsociable, that's all."
"Oh, well, I'm sorry," she said, rising.  "If you _won't_ stay--shall I
see you again?"

"I think not.  I'm leaving early."

"Oh," with a stamp of her foot.  "I have no patience with you!"

"You see," he shrugged, "I don't wear well."

They reached the hall and she gave him her fingers.

"I wish you all the happiness in the world," he said quietly.
She glanced at him quickly.

"I'm always happy.  You mean--"

"Your engagement to Mr. Armistead."

Her lips curved demurely.

"Oh, of course--Reggie and I will get along--we'll manage somehow--but
a month is a long while--"

"But life is a longer while--"

"Yes--it is--too long--"

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.

The future?  Had she one?  Happiness?  It must come soon.  She had
reached the beginning of wrinkles and cheekbones and her wrists were
squarer than they used to be.  Thirty!--a year older than Markham!
Roses grown in hothouses are quick to fade.  Would she fade, too,
quickly?

She went to the dressing-table and examined her face in a hand-mirror
with assiduous care.  Yes, crow's feet--three of them at each eye, and
two tiny wrinkles leading into her dimples.  She was positively
haggard to-night.  It did not do for the woman of thirty to cry.  Her
hair--another gray one--she plucked it out viciously.  She _would not_
grow old.  Age was a disease which could be prevented by the use of
proper precautions.  She must stop playing cards so late, get up
earlier, take long walks in the air, play tennis as Hermia did--

She put the mirror down and lay back in her chair, her gaze fixed upon
the wall beside her which bore a photograph of her young hostess
astride her favorite hunter.  Hermia's youth and her own knowledge of
the world--what would she not give for that indomitable combination!
She was glad in a way that Markham had decided to postpone the
painting of Hermia's portrait.  She wasn't quite certain about Hermia.
It was never wise to be certain about any girl--especially if that
girl was seven years younger than you were and quite as pretty.  And
what on earth did Hermia mean by scrubbing John Markham's floor?  In
her present mood it seemed a symbol--was it prophetic?  Markham was
candid in his likes and dislikes and he made no bones now of the
pleasure in Hermia's society.  Hermia was a surprising person.  Her
love of mischief was increasing with her years, her capacity for
making it only limited by the end of opportunity.

She was not surprised when she came downstairs rather late the next
morning to learn that Markham had returned to the island.  This meant
that he was still angry--which was healthful.  She needed a little
time for reconstruction, too, and Markham's anger was a more pleasant
thought for contemplation than his repentance, apology or sentiment,
all of which he would have offered as sops to her pride, and none of
which could have been genuine.  His departure without seeing her meant
that he had believed her spoken word rather than that which had been
written in silence, the testimony of her drooping figure and her
unlucky tears.

A walk refreshed her.  By the time she returned to "Wake-Robin" all
doubts had been cleared from her mind.  She would wait.  He would come
to her.  Time would mend his wounds.

On the way to the house she passed the hangar where her hostess,
Reggie Armistead and Salignac were tinkering with the machines.  She
stopped and watched them for a moment, when Hermia joined her and they
walked toward the house together.

"I'm awfully sorry, Olga--" Hermia paused.

"About what?"

"Last night.  How could _I_ have known that the pergola was occupied!"

"Oh, it didn't matter in the least," she said coolly.  "Markham was
making love to me, that's all.  Pity--isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," said Hermia slowly, "a great pity--you're no respecter of
persons, Olga."

Olga shrugged effectively.

"How should _I_ have known?"

"You have had time enough to study him, I should say.  Why couldn't you
let him be?  When there are so many other men--"

"Hear the child!  One might think that I had brought him to my knees,
_malice propense_.  I didn't.  _Mon Dieu_, one can't always prevent the
unexpected."


Hermia laughed dryly.  "One doesn't plan the unexpected _quite_ so
carefully as you do, Olga, dear."

It was beneath Olga's dignity to reply.

"At any rate," continued Hermia, "you've driven him away from
'Wake-Robin'."

"Oh, he'll come back," said Olga lightly.
"Do you think so?"

"Of course."

"We shall see," said the girl.

At the end of three days the Countess Olga realized that for the first
time in her life she had made a mistake in judgment; for Mr. Markham
did not return to "Wake-Robin."  And when she went to the island in
the launch to make her peace with him she found the cabin deserted.

It was not until some days later that she received a letter from him
dated in New York, and sent on the eve of his sailing for Europe.

My Dear Olga:

It is to laugh!  But you can be sure that I was angry for a day or
two.  What is the use?  I have forgotten my misadventure and will
consider it a warning against rose gardens.  I'll not venture into a
rose garden by moonlight again unless quite alone.  It's
dangerous--even with a sworn friend.  It wasn't altogether your fault
or mine, and you served me quite properly in cutting my self-esteem to
ribbons.  But it hurt, Olga.  You know the least of us mortals thinks
he's a heart-breaker, if he tries to be.  You've put me back upon my
shelf among the cobwebs and there I shall remain.  I'm hopeless
material to work with socially and deserve no better fate than to be
laid away and forgotten.  People must take me as I am or not at all.
I don't mind rubbing elbows with the great unwashed.  They're human
somehow.  But your world of dissatisfied women and unsatisfied men!
It gets on my nerves, and so I've cut it and run.


I'm painting an antiquated countess in Havre, and then I'm off for the
open country with a thumb box, a toothbrush and a smile, and with this
equipment I have all that the world can offer.  I shall live upon the
fat of the land at forty sous a day--_ripaille_--under the trees--a
sound red wine to wash the dust from one's throat--and an appetite and
a thirst such as Westport will never know.

_Au revoir, chre_ Olga.  I could wish you with me, but I shall
be many honest kilometers from a limousine, which is not your idea of
a state of being.

With affectionate regards,
Faithfully,
J.M.

In the same mail was a note to Hermia:

My Dear Miss Challoner:

Your kindness deserves a better return than my abrupt and rather
churlish departure from "Wake Robin," and, if it isn't already too
late to restore myself to your graces, I hope you will accept my
regrets and apologies, and the sketch from Thimble Island, which goes
to you by express.  I hope you will like it.  I do.  That's why I've
giving it to you.  But it's hardly complete without the wrecked
monoplane and the small person who came with it.  Perhaps some day
you'll "drop in" on me again somewhere and I can finish it.  Meanwhile
please think seriously about the portrait.  I don't believe I'm just
the man to do it.  I can't seem to see you somehow.  My business is to
portray the social anachronism.  That is easy--a matter of clothes.
But how shall a mere mortal define in terms of paint the dwellers of
the air?  You have me guessing, dear lady.  Imagine _Ariel_ in the
conventional broadcloth of commerce.  It's preposterous.  I can't lend
myself to any such deception.

The rest of the letter was more formal and finished with a message of
congratulation to Mr. Armistead and a word of thanks for her own
hospitality.  And he hoped to remain very cordially "John Markham."

Hermia smiled as she finished it and then read it over again.  The
letter with its mixture of the formal and whimsical both pleased and
reassured her.  It represented more the Markham of Thimble Island, a
person whose identity had lost something of its definiteness since her
talks with Olga in the days that had followed his departure from
"Wake-Robin."  She had been aware of a sense of doubt and
disappointment in him and she had not been quite so sure that she
liked him now.  Of course, if he chose to make a fool of himself over
Olga it was none of her affair, and she had been obliged to admit that
her discovery had taken from him some of the charm of originality.
She did not know what had passed between her guests before her abrupt
descent through the pergola, but she was quite certain she had fallen
into the middle of a psychological moment.  Whose moment was it,
Olga's or his?  She couldn't help wondering.  Olga had intimated that
Markham was in love with her.  Hermia now doubted.  Indeed a suspicion
was growing in her mind that it was Olga who was in love with Markham.
Hermia smiled and put the letter away in her desk.  It didn't matter
to her, of course, only interested her a great deal, but she couldn't
help wondering why, if Markham was so deeply under the spell of Olga's
worldliness, he had not come back to her when she had wanted him.

A northeaster had set in along the coast, and the guests of "Wake
Robin" were driven indoors.  Olga, when she wasn't playing auction,
wandered from window to window, looking out at the dreary skies,
venting her ennui on anyone within earshot.  Archie Westcott, who was
losing more money than he could afford to lose, now lacked the buoyant
spirits which carried him so blithely along the crest of the social
wave and scowled gloomily at his cards which persisted in favoring his
opponents.  Crosby Downs, whose waistband had again reached its
fullest tension, sought the tall grasses of the smoking-room and
refused to be dislodged.  Without the shadows of her hat and veil
Mrs. Renshaw showed her age to a day, and that didn't improve her
temper.  Beatrice Coddington had an attack of the megrims and remained
in her room.

Hermia played bottle pool and pinochle with Reggie Armistead until they
began discussing the exact terms of Hermia's promise when there began a
quarrel which lasted the entire afternoon and ended in Reggie's going
out into the pouring rain and swearing that he would never come back.
But he did come back just in time for dinner, through which he sat
pretending that he was interested in Phyllis Van Vorst and casting
gloomy looks in the direction of the oblivious Hermia.  At the end of
three days there were no more than two people in the house on terms of
civility, and most of Hermia's guests had departed.

Olga Tcherny, after an afternoon alone in her room, came downstairs at
the last extremity of fatigue.

"I can't stand it another hour, Hermia.  I'm off in the morning."

"Off?  Where?" asked Hermia.

"Oh, I don't know.  Anywhere.  New York first and then--"

"Normandy?" queried Hermia impertinently.

Olga only smiled.


CHAPTER XI

THE GATES OF CHANCE

Markham had finished the portrait of his antiquated countess in Havre
and abandoning the luxuries of the Hotel Frascati had taken to the
road with his knapsack and painting kit for a two months' jaunt along
unfrequented Norman byways.  This had been his custom since his first
year in Paris, when his means were small and the _wanderlust_ drove
him forth from the streets of Paris.  He had walked from the Savoie to
Brittany, from Belgium to Provence and the vagabond instinct in him
had grown no less with advancing years.  He liked the long days in the
open.  The slowly moving panorama of hill and dell, which was lost
upon the touring motorists who continually passed him, filling the air
with their evil smells and clouds of dust.  He liked the odor of the
loam in the early morning, the clean air washed by the dew and
redolent of burning wood, the drowsy hour of noon with its meal of
cheese and bread eaten at the shady brink of some musical stream and
the day-dream or doze that followed it; the long mellow afternoons
under the blue arch of sky where the pink clouds moved as lazily as
he, in vagabond procession, across the zenith.  His aimlessness and
theirs made them brothers of the air, and he followed them under the
trackless sky, aware that his destination for the night lay somewhere
ahead of him, leaving the rest to chance and the patron saint of
Nomads.  He liked the rugged faces he saw on the road, the Norman
welcome of his host and the deep sleep of utter weariness and content
which defied the tooth of time and discomfort.

After a few days in Rouen, where he always lingered longer than he
intended to, he had crossed the river at Sotteville an had followed
main roads which led him to the south and east through the heart of
the historic Eure.

He had given Trouville a wide berth; for he knew some people there,
friends of Olga Tcherny's, people of fashion who would have looked
askance at his dusty clothes and general air of disrepute.  He was not
in the humor for Olga's kind of friends or indeed for Olga, if as the
last note from her had indicated she, too, had arrived on this side of
the water.  He was sufficient unto himself and gloried in his
selfishness.  Song he would have and did often have at night with his
chance companions of the road, and wine or the sound Norman cider
which was better--but no women--no women for him!

It was on the road beyond Evreux that he thus congratulated himself for
the twentieth time.  His path passed near the brink of a river fringed
with trees and to the right the hills mounted abruptly to a rocky
eminence, crowned with an ancient castle which stolidly sat as it had
done for a thousand years and guarded the peaceful valley beneath.  It
had looked down upon the pageantry of an earlier day when knights in
armor had ridden forth of its portals for the honor of their ladies,
had listened to the hoof-beats of more than one army, and had heard in
the distance the clash of Ivry.  To-day a railroad wound around the
base of its pedestal, reminding it of the new order of things and of
its own antiquity.

As Markham approached the railroad crossing, from the opposite
direction, in a cloud of dust, came an automobile.  But as it neared
the track a woman waving a red flag and blowing a horn came running
from a small house by the roadside and pulled the gates across the
road.  The automobile, which had only one occupant, came to a sudden
stop and an argument followed.  Markham was too far away to hear what
was said, but the gestures of the disputants could be easily
understood.  There was no train in sight and plenty of time to cross,
said the motorist.  The peasant waved her flag and pointed down the
track.  More words, more gesticulations, but the gate-keeper was
obdurate.  The motorist looked up the track and at the gate and road,
and then followed explosives, smoke and dust from the impatient
machine, which slowly moved backward a short distance up the road
again.  Markham, slowly approaching, watched the comedy with interest.
An impatient Parisian, jealous of the passing minutes, and an
obstinate peasant--to whom passing minutes had no significance--could
any two humans be more definitely antagonistic?

What was the person in the car about?  More explosions and the blue of
burning oil as the car came forward, its cutout open, turning to the
left off the road over a ditch and into a field.  The gate-keeper ran
forward shaking her flag and screaming as she guessed the motorist's
intention.  But it was too late.  The car was hidden for a moment from
Markham's view in the declivity upon the other side of the railroad
embankment, the exhaust roaring furiously, and leaped into sight, the
front wheels high in the air as it took the near rail and then fell
heavily with a complaining groan across the track and moved no more,
its rear axle snapped in two.

Of all the fool performances!  Markham ran forward crying in French to
the chauffeur to jump, for around the profile of the hill the
locomotive of the oncoming train was emerging.  The motorist looked at
Markham and then at the advancing train in bewilderment; then jumped
clear of the track beside Markham as the freight train, its brakes
creaking, its steam shrieking, crashed into the unfortunate machine,
turning it over and then crumpling it into a shapeless mass, through
which it tore, its impetus carrying it well down the road and
scattering the torn fragments of nickel and steel on both sides of the
tracks.

It was not until the train had been brought to a stop that Markham had
had time to notice that the motorist was a woman--not until she turned
a rather wan face in his direction that he saw that the victim of this
misfortune was Hermia Challoner.

"You, child!" he gasped.  "What in the name of all that's impossible--"

"John Markham!"

"Good Lord, but you had a close call for it!  Couldn't you have waited
a moment--"

"It was a new machine," she stammered.  "I was trying for a record to
Trouville from Paris."

"It was a d--n fool thing to do," he blurted forth angrily.  "You might
have been killed."

She looked at him, her lips compressed, but made no reply.

The gate-woman, who for a few moments had stood as though petrified
with fright, now resumed her screams and gesticulations as the crew of
the train descended.  In a few moments they surrounded Hermia, all
shouting at once, and waving their arms under Hermia's nose.  She
attempted replies, but the noise was deafening and no one listened to
her.  Peasants working in the fields nearby who had heard the crash
came running and added their numbers and temperaments to the Babel.
The gate-keeper thrust herself violently into the midst of the group
pointing at the wreck of the machine and at Hermia, her remarks as
unintelligible to the train crew as they were to Markham.

Hermia stood her ground, but when one of the train crew seized her by
the arm and thrust his grimy face close to her own she grew pale and
drew back.  Markham stepped between and gave the fellow a shove which
sent him sprawling.  There was a pause and for a moment matters looked
difficult.  But Markham mounted the embankment, drew Hermia up beside
him, put his back against a car, held up his hand and in French
demanded silence.  His voice rang true and they listened.  He had seen
the accident from the road and would bear witness.  It was not the
fault of the gate-keeper or of the lady who drove the car.  It was
simply an accident tin which lives had fortunately been spared.  The
axle of the machine had broken upon the track.  If there was any claim
for damages he would testify that the engineer was not to blame.

A man in a peasant's smock from a neighboring field, who, it appeared,
held some local office of authority, now took a hand in the
investigation and, after a number of questions of Hermia and the
gate-keeper, sent the train upon its way.

Amid the turmoil of the gate-keeper's voice who was recounting the
affair to the latest arrivals Hermia watched the train as it passed
between the fragments of what a few minutes before had been a new
French machine.  Some of the peasants had already gathered around the
wreck and one of them restored her leather bag, which had been tossed
some distance into the ditch.  To all appearances this was the only
salvage and she took it gratefully.  A walk down the track convinced
Markham that what was left of the car was only fit for the scrap-heap.
And as the crowd still surrounded Hermia he put his arm in hers and
led her away.  She followed him silently up the road by which she had
come until they had left the gaping crowd behind them.  Then he made
her sit on a bank by the roadside and unslinging his knapsack dropped
beside her.  "Well?" he asked.

She looked down the road toward the scene of her misfortune, the smile,
half plaintive, half whimsical, that had been hovering on her lips
suddenly breaking.

"If you scold me I shall cry."

"I'm not going to scold," he said kindly.  "That wouldn't help matters."

"It was such a beautiful piece of mechanism--so human--so
intelligent--" a tear trembled on her lashes and fell--"and I've only
had it two days."

She was the child with a broken toy.  It was the child he wanted to
comfort.

"I'm sorry," he said genuinely.  "I wish I could put it together for
you again."

"It's gone--irretrievably.  There's nothing to be done, of course."
And then, "Oh! it seems so cruel!  The thing cried out like a wounded
animal.  You heard it, didn't you?  And it was all my fault.  That's
what hurts me so."

"One gets over being hurt, but one doesn't get over being dead.  You
only missed being killed by the part of a second."

She dashed the tears form her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Oh, I know.  And I'm awfully grateful.  I really am.  I don't know why
I didn't jump sooner.  I saw the train, too.  I simply couldn't move.
I seemed to be glued there--until you shouted.  It was lucky you were
there."

She buried her face in her hands a moment and when she straightened was
quite calm again.

"It's all over now, Mr. Markham, and I'm awfully obliged," she said
with a laugh.  "You seem fated to be the recording angel of my maddest
ventures."

"It _was_ madness," he insisted.

"I know it," she sighed.  "And yet I'm quite sure I would do it again."

"I don't doubt that in the least," he replied gravely, concealing a
smile as one would have done from a mischievous child.

There was a silence.

"The world is very small, isn't it, Mr. Markham?" she asked.  "What on
earth are you doing here?

"I?  Oh, vagabonding.  It's a habit I have, I'm doing Normandy."

She examined him from top to toe and then said amusedly:

"Did you know that for the past week Olga has been searching Havre high
and low for you?"

"No.  I didn't know it.  Where is she now?"

"At Trouville.  And I was to have dined with her tonight."

"I'm afraid you'll hardly get there," he said, looking at his watch.
"This line doesn't connect."

"Doesn't it?  Oh, some line will, I suppose."  And then irrelevantly,
"Do you know, Mr. Markham, I've often wondered what it would be like to
be a vagabond?  I think I really am one deep down in my heart."

"Vagabonds are born--not made, Miss Challoner.  They belong to the
immortal Fellowship of the Open Air, an association which dates from
Esau--an exclusive company, I can tell you, which black-balled brother
Jacob, and made Franois Villon its laureate.  It is the only
club in the world where the possession of money is looked on with
suspicion.  Imagine a vagabond in a six thousand-dollar motor car!"

She opened her eyes wide and threw out her hands with a hopeless
gesture.

"But I'm not responsible for the money.  _I_ didn't make it.  I don't
see why I haven't just as much right to be a vagabond as you have."

He examined her amusedly.

"You would have the right perhaps if it wasn't for your unfortunate
millions.  It's too bad.  I'm really very sorry for you."

His irony passed beyond her.

"I _am_ a vagabond," she insisted.  "I haven't a single conventional
instinct.  I've never had.  I hate convention.  It fetters and stifles
me.  My money!  If you only knew how I loathe the responsibilities,
the endless formalities, the people who prey upon me and those who
would like to, the toadying of the older people, the hypocrisy of the
younger ones.  It isn't me that they care for.  I have no friends.  No
one as rich as I am _can_ have friends.  I distrust everyone.
Sometimes I've thought of going away from it all--disappearing and
never coming back again.  I'm so tired of having everything I want.  I
want to want something I can't get.  I am weary of everything that
life can offer me.  I have to choose unhealthy excitements to keep my
soul alive.  Speed--danger--they're the only things that seem to make
life worth while."

He shook his head as she paused for breath.

"Oh, I know you think I'm mad.  I seem so by contrast to your content.
You seem so happy, Mr. Markham."

"I am," he said.  "All vagabonds are happy."

She looked at him enviously as though she might by chance discover his
secret of life, but he lit his pipe and puffed at it silently.

"What is your secret of happiness, Mr. Markham?" she asked wistfully.
"Tell me, won't you?"

"'An open hand, an easy shoe and a hope to make the day go through,'"
he quoted with a quick laugh.

"What else?"

"Thirst--and a good inn to quench it at."

"Yes--"

"A conscience," he finished, "with little on it--a purse with little in
it.  You see the Ancient Order of Vagabonds never used purses--unless
they were other people's."

He stopped with a laugh and glanced down the road toward the scene of
Hermia's accident.  "All of which is interesting," he said with a
practical air, "but doesn't exactly solve the problem of how we're to
get you to Trouville in time for dinner with the Countess Tcherny."
He took a road map from his pocket and spread it out on his knapsack
between them, while Hermia peered over his shoulder and followed his
long forefinger.

"Evreux, Conches, Breteuil--we must be about here--yes--and there's
your crooked railroad.  It goes around to Evreux, where there's a
through line to the coast.  You might hire a horse and wagon--but even
then you would hardly get to Evreux before sunset.  Miss Challoner,
I'm afraid you'll not reach Trouville to-night--"

"Oh, I don't care," she said.  "It's a matter of indifference to me
whether I reach Trouville at all--"

"But your friends will worry."

"Oh, no--I could wire them, I suppose--"

"Oh yes.  And there's a good inn at Evreux.  But we had better be going
at once."

He folded his map, put it in his pocket and rose, slinging his
knapsack across his shoulder and offering her a hand to rise.  But she
didn't move or look at him.  She had plucked a blade of grass and was
nibbling at it, her gaze on the distant landscape to the southward.

"Wait a moment, please.  I--I've something more to say to you."

He looked at her keenly, then leaned against the bole of a tree,
listening.

"I--I don't know just what you'll think of me, but if I--I didn't feel
pretty sure that you'd understand what I mean I don't think I'd have
the courage to speak to you.  You once told me you liked me a great
deal, Mr. Markham, and I--I know you meant it because you're not a man
to say things you don't mean."

"That's true," he confirmed to her.  "I'm not."

"And I think that's one of the reasons I believe in you," she went on,
smiling, "and why I thought your friendship might be worth while.
You're the only person I've ever met in my world or out of it whose