"And Hermia?" she asked.
He laughed.
"An enfant terrible! Has she no parent—or guardians? Do you encourage this sort of thing?"
"I—Dieu! No! She will kill herself next. I have no influence. She does exactly as she pleases. Advice merely decides her to do the opposite thing."
"It's too bad. She's quite human."
"Oh."
The Countess Olga examined him through her long lashes.
"Are you alone here?"
"Yes. I'm camping."
"Ugh," she shuddered. "You had better come to 'Wake-Robin'."
"No."
She stamped her small foot.
"Oh, I've no patience with you."
"Besides, I haven't been asked," he added.
The others were not approaching and Markham straightened as Hermia came toward him.
"Olga, dear, we must be going. It's too bad to have spoiled your morning, Mr. Markham."
The obvious reply was so easy and so polite, but he scorned it.
"Oh, that doesn't matter," he said, "and I'm the gainer by a clean kitchen."
No flattery there. Hermia colored gently.
"I—I scrubbed his floor," she explained to Olga. "It was filthy."
The Countess Olga's eyes opened a trifle wider.
"I don't doubt it," she said, turning aside.
Miss Van Vorst in her role of ingÂnue by this time was prying about outside the bungalow, on the porch of which she espied Markham's unfinished sketch.
"A painting! May I look? It's all wet and sticky." She had turned it face outward and stood before it uttering childish panegyric. "Oh, it's too perfectly sweet for anything. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so wonderful. Won't you explain it all to me, Mr. Markham?"
Markham good-humoredly took up the canvas.
"Very glad," he said, "only you've got it upside down."
In the pause which followed the laughter Salignac came up the slope and reported to Hermia that he had found nothing wrong with the engine and that the damaged wing could be repaired with a piece of wire.
Hermia's eyes sparkled. The time for her triumphant departure, it seemed, had only been delayed. "Good news," she said quietly. "In that case I intend flying back to 'Wake-Robin'."
A chorus of protests greeted her decision.
"You shan't, Hermia," shouted Reggie Armistead, "until either Salignac or I have tried it out."
"You will oblige me, Reggie," replied Hermia calmly, "by minding your own business."
"O Hermia, after falling this morning! How can you dare?" cried Miss
Van Vorst, with a genteel shudder.
"Si Mademoiselle me permettrait—" began Salignac.
But she waved her hand in negation and indicated the wide lawn in front of the ruined buildings which sloped gently to the water's edge.
"Wheel it there, Salignac," in French, "and, Reggie, please go at once and help."
Armistead's boyish face turned toward her in admiration and in protest, but he followed Salignac without a word.
"It's folly, Hermia," added Hilda. "Something must be wrong with the thing. You remember just the other day—"
"I'm going, Hilda," imperturbably. "You can follow me in the launch."
Of Hermia's companions, Olga Tcherny alone said nothing. She had no humor to waste her breath. And Markham stood beside the group, his arms folded, his head bowed, listening. But when Hermia went into the cottage for her things he followed her.
"You're resolved?" he asked, helping her into her blouse.
"Well, rather."
"I wish I might persuade you—your nerves were—a little shaken this morning."
She paused in the act of putting on her gauntlets and held one small bare hand under his nose that he might see how steady it was. He grasped it in both of his own and then, with an impulse that he couldn't explain, kissed it again and again.
"Don't go, child," he whispered gently. "Not today."
She struggled to withdraw her hand, a warm flush stealing up her neck and temples.
"Let me go, Mr. Markham. Let me go."
He relinquished her and stood aside.
"As you please," he muttered. "I'm sorry—"
She turned, halfway to the door and examined his face.
"Sorry? For what?"
"That I haven't the authority to forbid you."
"You?" she laughed. "That is amusing."
"I would teach you some truths that you have never learned," he persisted, "the fatuity of mere bravado, the uses of life. You couldn't play with it if you knew something of its value—"
"The only value of life is in what you can get from it—"
"Or in what you can give from it—"
"Good-bye, Mr. Markham. I will join your school of philosophy another day. Meanwhile—" and she pointed her gauntleted hand toward the open doorway, "life shall pay me one more sensation."
He shrugged his shoulders and followed.
The machine was already on the lawn surrounded by Hermia's guests and preliminary experiments had proven that all was ready. Hermia climbed into the seat unaided, while Markham stood at one side and watched the propellers started. Faster and faster they flew, the machine held by Armistead and the Frenchman, while Hermia sat looking straight before her down the lawn through the opening between the rocks which led to open water.
"Au revoir, my friends," she cried and gave the word, at which the men sprang clear, and amid cries of encouragement and congratulation the machine moved down the lawn, gathering momentum with every second, rising gracefully with its small burden just before it reached the water and soaring into the air. The people on the lawn watched for a moment and then with one accord rushed for the launch.
Olga Tcherny paused a moment, her hand on Markham's arm.
"You will come to 'Wake-Robin'?" she asked.
"I think not," he replied.
"Then I shall come to Thimble Island," she finished.
"I shall be charmed, of course."
She looked over her shoulder at him and laughed. He was watching the distant spot in the air.
"You're too polite to be quite natural."
"I didn't mean to be."
"Then don't let it happen again."
The voices of her companions were calling to her and she hastened her footsteps.
"Ã bientÂt," she cried.
"Au revoir, Madame." He saw her hurried into the launch, which immediately got under way, its exhaust snorting furiously, and vanished around the point of rocks. In a moment there was nothing left of his visitors to Markham but the lapping of the