Madcap | Page 6

Hermia tartly. "I merely question your point of view. You do not see couleur de rose, Mr. Markham?"
"No. Life is not that color."
"Oh, la la!" from Olga. "Life is any color one wishes, and sometimes the color one does not wish. Very pale at times, gray, yellow and at times red--oh, so red! The soul is the chameleon which absorbs and reflects it. Today," she signed, "my chameleon has taken a vacation." She rose abruptly and threw out her arms with a dramatic gesture.
"Oh, you two infants--with your wise talk of life--you have already depressed me to the point of dissolution. I've no patience with you--with either of you. You've spoiled my morning, and I'll not stay here another minute." She reached for her trinkets on the table and rattled them viciously. "It's too bad. With the best intentions in the world I bring two of my friends together and they fall instantly into verbal fisticuffs. Hermia, you deserve no better fate than to be locked in here with this bear of a man until you both learn civility."
But Hermia had already preceded the Countess to the door, whither Markham followed them.
"I should be charmed," said Markham.
"To learn civility?" asked Hermia acidly.
"I might even learn that--"
"It is inconceivable," put in the Countess. "You know, Markham, I don't mind your being bearish with me. In fact, I've taken it as the greatest of compliments. I thought that humor of yours was my special prerogative of friendship. But now alas! When I see how uncivil you can be to others I have a sense of lost caste. And you--instead of being amusingly whimsical and ent??t��--are in danger of becoming merely bourgeois. I warn you now that if you plan to be uncivil to everybody--I shall give you up."
Markham and Hermia laughed. They couldn't help it. She was too absurd.
"Oh, I hope you won't do that," pleaded Markham.
"I'm capable of unheard of cruelties to those who incur my displeasure. I may even bring Miss Challoner in to call again."
Markham, protesting, followed them to the door.
"Au revoir, Monsieur," said the Countess.
Markham bowed in the general direction of the shadow in the hallway into which Miss Challoner had vanished and then turned back and took up his palette and brushes.
CHAPTER III
THE INEFFECTUAL AUNT
The two women had hardly reached the limousine before the vials of Hermia's wrath were opened.
"What a dreadful person! Olga, how could you have stood him all the while he painted you?"
"We made out very nicely, thank you."
"Hilda was right. He is a gorilla. Do you know he never even offered me a chair?"
"I suppose he thought you'd have sense enough to sit down if you wanted to."
"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 passed."
"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