Her notes written, she dressed for the morning, then lay back in her chair with a sharp little sigh and pensively touched the scratches on her face, her expression falling suddenly into lines of discontent. It was a kind of reaction which frequently followed moments of intense activity and, realizing its significance, she yielded to it sulkily, her gaze on the face of the clock which was ticking off purposeless minutes with maddening precision. She glanced over her shoulder in relief as her maid appeared in the doorway.
"Will Mademoiselle see the Countess Tcherny and Mees Ashhurst?" Titine was a great believer in social distinctions.
"Olga! Yes, I was expecting her. Tell them to come right up."
The new arrivals entered the room gaily with the breezy assertiveness of persons who were assured of their welcome and very much at home. Hilda Ashhurst was tall, blonde, aquiline and noisy; the Countess, dainty, dark-eyed and svelte, with the flexible voice which spoke of familiarity with many tongues and rebuked the nasal greeting of her more florid companion. Hermia met them with a sigh. Only yesterday Mrs. Westfield had protested again about Hermia's growing intimacy with the Countess, who had quite innocently taken unto herself all of the fashionable vices of polite Europe.
Hilda Ashhurst watched Hermia's expression a moment and then laughed.
"Been catching it—haven't you? Poor Hermia! It's dreadful to be the one chick in a family of ugly ducklings—"
"Or the ugly duckling in a family of virtuous chicks—"
"Not ugly, chÂrie," laughed the Countess. "One is never ugly with a million francs a year. Such a fortune would beautify a satyr. It even makes your own prettiness unimportant."
"It is unimportant—"
"Partly because you make it so. You don't care. You don't think about it, voil tout."
"Why should I think about it? I can't change it."
"Oh, yes, you can. Even a homely woman who is clever can make herself beautiful, a beautiful woman—Dieu! There is nothing in the world that a clever, beautiful woman cannot be."
"I'm not clever or—"
"I shall not flatter you, cara mia. You are—er—quite handsome enough. If you cared for the artistic you could go through a salon like the Piper of Hamelin with a queue of gentlemen reaching back into the corridors of infinity. Instead of which you wear mannish clothes, do your hair in a Bath-bun, and permit men the privilege of equality. Oh, la, la! A man is no longer useful when one ceases to mystify him."
She strolled to the window, sniffed at Trevvy Morehouse's roses, helped herself to a cigarette and sat down.
Hermia was not inartistic and she resented the imputation. It was only that her art and Olga's differed by the breadth of an ocean.
"For me, when a man becomes mystified he ceases to be useful," laughed
Hermia.
"Pouf! my dear," said the Countess with a wave of her cigarette. "I simply do not believe you. A man is never so useful as when he moves in the dark. Women were born to mystify. Some of us do it one way—some in another. If you wear mannish clothes and a Bath-bun, it is because they become you extraordinarily well and because they form a disguise more complete and mystifying than anything else you could assume."
"A disguise!"
"Exactly. You wish to create the impression that you are indifferent to men—that men, by the same token, are indifferent to you." The Countess Olga smiled. "Your disguise is complete, mon enfant—except for one thing—your femininity—which refuses to be extinguished. You do not hate men. If you did you would not go to so much trouble to look like them. One day you will love very badly—very madly. And then—" the Countess paused and raised her eyebrows and her hands expressively. "You're like me. It's simple enough," she continued. "You have everything you want, including men who amuse but do not inspire. Obviously, you will only be satisfied with something you can't get, my dear."
"Horrors! What a bird of ill-omen you are. And I shall love in vain?"
The Countess snuffed out her cigarette daintily upon the ash tray.
"Can one love in vain? Perhaps.
/*
_"'Aimer pour Âtre aimÂ, c'est de l'homme,
Aimer pour aimer, c'est Presque de l'ange.'"
*/
"I'm afraid I'm not that kind of an angel."
Hilda Ashhurst laughed.
"Olga is."
"Olga!" exclaimed Hermia with a glance of inquiry.
"Haven't you heard? She has thrown her young affections away upon that owl-like nondescript who has been doing her portrait."
"I can't believe it."
"It's true," said the Countess calmly. "I am quite mad about him. He has the mind of a philosopher, the soul of a child, the heart of a woman—"
"—the manners of a boor and the impudence of the devil," added Hilda spitefully.
Hermia laughed but the Countess Olga's narrowed eyes passed Hilda scornfully.
"Any one can have good manners. They're the hallmark of mediocrity. And as for impudence—that is the one sin a man may commit which a woman forgives."
"I can't," said Hilda.
The Countess Olga's right shoulder moved toward her ear the fraction of an inch.
"He's hateful, Hermia," continued Hilda quickly, "a gorilla of a man, with a lowering brow, untidy hair, and a blue chin—"
"He is adorable," insisted Olga.
"How very interesting!" laughed Hermia. "An adorable philosopher, with the impudence of the devil, and the blue chin of a gorilla! When did you meet this logical—the zoological paradox?"
"Oh, in Paris. I knew him only slightly, but he moved in a set whose edges touched mine—the talented people of mine. He had already made his way. He has been back in America only a year. We met early in the winter quite by chance. You know the rest. He has painted my portrait—a really great portrait. You shall see."
"Oh, it was this morning we were going, wasn't it? I'll be ready in a moment, dear."
"But Hilda shall be left in the shopping district, finished Olga.
"By all means," said Miss Ashhurst scornfully.
CHAPTER II
THE GORILLA
Of all her friends Olga Teherny was the one who amused and entertained Hermia the most. She was older than Hermia, much more experienced and to tell the truth quite as mad in her own way as Hermia was. There were times when even Hermia could not entirely approve of her, but she forgave her much because she was herself and because, no matter what depended upon it, she could not be different if she tried. Olga Egerton had been born in Russia, where her father had been called as a consulting engineer of the railway department of the Russian Government. Though American born, the girl had been educated according to the European fashion and at twenty had married and lost the young nobleman whose name she bore, and had buried him in his family crypt in Moscow with the simple fortitude of one who is well out of a bad bargain. But she had paid her toll to disillusion and the age of thirty found her a little more careless, a little more worldly-wise than was necessary, even in a cosmopolitan. Her comments spared neither friend nor foe and Hilda Ashhurst, whose mind grasped only the obvious facts of existence, came in for more than a share of the lady's invective.
Indeed, Markam, the painter, seemed this morning to be the only luminous