Chapter 21

NEMESIS

The storm had blown itself out in the night and the sun came blithely up, awaking the forest to its orisons. The oaks dripped jewels and the black pines lifted their gilded spires above the clearing and nodded solemnly to the rosy East. The sun climbed higher and a thin pall of vapor roamed up the hillside from the gorges of the stream and sought the open sky.

Nature had wept out the gusts of her passion and her smiles were the more beautiful through the vestiges of her tears. The sunlight was spattered lavishly among the shadows, glowing with a lambent light in the hidden places under shrub and thicket and dancing madly on leaf and bough. There was mischief in the air and it took but a little flight of the fancy to conjure Pan and his nymphs gamboling about the sleeping house of the vagabonds.

Morning had importuned their shutters long before Markham awoke and gazed with startled eyes at the diagonal bar of orange light which cut the obscurity of their hiding place. Then, rubbing his eyes, he stumbled to his feet and stared at his watch. It was nine o'clock. Hermia still slept, huddled under her overcoat, one rosy cheek pillowed on her open palm, her tumbled hair flooding riotously about her shoulders. Markham stopped a moment to gaze at her again, but she stirred under his look, so he moved quickly away to the door and peered cautiously out, searching the forest with eager eyes. Gaining courage, he went out, making the round of the house with eyes and ears intent. There was much ado among the tree tops and a scurrying of four-footed among the underbrush, but of two-footed things he saw nothing. He fetched a pail of water for Clarissa and was in the act of entering the house when a gun cracked sharply at some distance on his left. The forest stopped to listen with him for a full moment as the echoes went bounding among the rocks. And then a whirring of wings great and small, hither and yon, announced that there were other vagabonds as startled as he. Two more shots, this time in the distance behind him, followed quickly by a startling noise close at hand.

Clarissa, her whole soul in the note, was incontinently braying.

It was an unearthly sound and an unfamiliar one. For never in the smooth course of their acquaintance had she been guilty of such an indiscretion. He hurried to the shed, but before he reached the door she ceased, and when he entered, regarded him with a wistful eye of recrimination which forestalled his reproaches. After all, she was only an ass! The damage, if damage there was, had already been done. In grave doubt as to his own immediate course, he hurried to the lodge, where he found Hermia sitting wide-eyed upon her couch, fearfully awaiting him.

"What on earth has happened, Philidor?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," he laughed. "Our host is abroad with a shotgun. Clarissa objects, and is so much of an ass that she can't hold her tongue about it."

She smiled and got to her feet.

"I must have slept--"

"Precisely seven hours. It's half-past nine. We must be off at once--by the back door if there is one--"

"Are they coming this way?"

"I didn't stop to inquire. They're near enough, at any rate."

"We could explain, couldn't we--I mean about the storm and the door being open?"

"Hardly--this shooting lodge, my child,--this forest, too, is the property of the De Cahors. See--" and he showed her the book.

"O Philidor! What shall we do?"

"Get out at once. They mustn't see you at any cost. If they come _you_ must take to the bushes, and meet me in Hauterire. It's a case of the devil take the hindmost--the hindmost being me and the devil being--" he paused significantly.

"Olga! Do you think she can be shooting, too?"

He shrugged. "She's quite apt to be doing precisely that," he said shortly.

Hermia flew to the window and, unlatching the shutter, peered timidly forth. Markham heard her gasp and looked over her shoulder through the aperture.

"Olga!" she whispered in dismay.

There in the path to the deep wood, smartly attired in gaiters, a short skirt and Alpine hat, her shotgun in the hollow of her arm, was Nemesis. She came up the path at a leisurely gait, and stopped not a hundred feet away, her head held upon one side, smiling and carelessly surveying the premises.

Hermia shrank back and huddled down upon the couch.

"O Philidor, we're lost--"

But he caught her by the shoulder and hurried her out into the hall.

"Up the ladder quickly! It's our only chance. There's a window in the gable and a trellis. I saw it a while ago. You must go--that way when I get her inside. We'll meet at Hauterire. Leave the rest to me."

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 butt 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 Château 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."

His eyes searched her keenly. Her head drooped to her fingers, which pressed her temples nervously. If he had not known her so well he would have almost been ready to believe her contrition genuine. But in a moment she straightened.

"You advise me not to hope, then?" she murmured with a laugh.

Doubt fled. She was mocking him. Her very presence mocked him. The rafters saw his discomfiture, though the attic heard not. Was Hermia gone? He fidgeted his feet, listening. Olga was really intolerable.

"Oh, what's the use?" he muttered. "The humor's out of the thing." A change, subtle and undefined, came over his visitor's expression. She rose imperturbably and walked about, fingering things, reaching at last the book case next to the corridor, and slowly abstracted a volume, turning its leaves idly, and facing the door, spoke with perilous distinctness.

"It is charming here, _mon ami_," she said gaily. "If I had sent for you, things could not have been more agreeably arranged. It is _so_ long since we've met. And I've missed you dreadfully. It mustn't happen again, _mon cher_." She lowered the book and leaned against the door jamb dreamily. "You shall remain here _en vagabond_," she went on, "and I will visit you, bringing you crumbs from the rich men's table, which we will enjoy _à deux_. It will remind us of those days at Compiègne, those long days of sunshine and delight--of the moonlit Oise, and the tiny _auberge_ at La Croix among the beeches, which even the motorists hadn't yet discovered. But even La Croix is not more secluded than this. This lodge is seldom used. No one shall know--not even Madeleine de Cahors."

Markham listened dumbly at first in incomprehension and then in amazement. He had never been in Compiègne with Olga or anyone else. And La Croix--! What was she about? Her purpose came to him slowly, and with the revelation, anger.

He covered the distance between them in a step.

"Silence," he whispered, aware of the trap door about their very ears.

She smiled up into his face sweetly.

"I suppose you'll be denying next that you were ever in Compiègne--"

"I do."

"Or that you would have married me last summer if I--"

"Olga!"

"If I hadn't been wise enough--"

"You're mad!"

She drew back form him, her eyes wide, but she had no reply. He took one step toward her and then stopped, impotent before her frailness, his glance wavering toward the door into the loft which mutely stared at him. Hermia would have gone by now--she _must_ have gone. The way had been clear for twenty minutes. He looked away, and then, since there seemed nothing else to do, he laughed. But Olga didn't seem to hear him. She was fingering the shotgun which lay beside her on the table.

"Mad? Perhaps I am," she said with slow distinctness. "Though you're the last one in the world who should tell me so."

She picked up the weapon and, before he had really guessed what she was about, calmly discharged one of its barrels out of the window.

The noise was deafening and the silence which followed freighted with importance. A scraping of feet overhead, a rattle of loose hinges, and a frightened face at the aperture. Olga Tcherny turned, took a step or two into the doorway, glanced upward and then let her astonished gaze fall on Markham, who was peering up, imploring mutely.

"You--and Hermia!" This from Olga, who had recovered her speech with difficulty. "What does it mean, John?"

But John Markham thrust his hands deep into his pockets and turned his back.

"What does it mean?" she repeated distinctly. "You and Hermia--here? I hardly understand--" But Markham, looking out of the end window, shrugged his shoulders, refusing to reply. He was fuddled with misery, bewildered by the turn of events which were quite beyond his management.

Another long pause, during which he was conscious that Hermia, her dignity in jeopardy, was descending the ladder and now faced their visitor, a fugitive smile upon her lips, pale but quite composed.

"Hello, Olga," he heard her say.

The Countess Tcherny's gaze traveled over her from head to heel, the gaze of one who looks at a person one has never seen before. She looked long but replied not; then her chin was lowered quickly the fraction of an inch, after which she raised the gun, broke it and threw out the shell from the still smoking barrel.

"Stupid of me, wasn't it?" she said coolly. "I forgot it was loaded."

"It's lucky you didn't hurt yourself," said Hermia.

"Isn't it? How dreadful, Hermia, if I had peppered the trap door!"

"I rather think you did," said Hermia. She walked across to the fireplace with a queer laugh. "Well! You've brought down the game. Now whistle for your dogs!"

Olga's face was quite serious.

"I'm sure that I don't in the least know what you're talking about. Your presence is surprising enough--"

Hermia looked defiance.

"Is it? Why? You've outwitted me. I'm simply acknowledging the fact. John Markham and I have been traveling together for a week--as you perceive--_en vagabond_. We like it. It's most amusing. Indiscreet? Perhaps. If so, I'll take the consequences. Can I say more?"

Olga's smile came slowly--with difficulty. The bravado of fear? Or of indifference? She had never really measured weapons with Hermia.

"I'm the last person in the world whose censure you need fear, my dear," she said suavely.

"I don't fear it," said Hermia promptly. "I'm quite sure I'd rather have had you fin me out than any one I know."

Bravado again.

"I'm glad, darling," Olga purred. "It's sweet of you to say so."

"I don't mean that I wanted to be discovered. If I had I shouldn't have fled from the _roulotte_ of the Fabiani family yesterday when you were looking for me. You traced us from Alençon, of course--"

"I? Why should I follow you?"

"I haven't the slightest idea--unless your conversation a moment ago with John Markham explains it."

"You heard--that!"

"Oh, yes,--didn't you want me to? I'm not deaf. But you needn't be at all worried about it." She paused and brushed the dust of the loft from her coat sleeve. "You know, Olga, I don't believe it--_any_ of it."

Olga smiled sagely, but Markham, who all this while had been standing like a figure of wax, now showed signs of animation.

"It was all a joke, of course, Hermia," he began, moving forward. "Olga knows as well as I do that--"

But Hermia had waved him into silence.

"Let me finish," she insisted, and he paused.

"I fancy the atmosphere needs clearing," she went on coolly, "and we may as well do it at once. As I remarked a few moments ago, I deny nothing, crave no indulgences, from you, Olga, or from anyone. I cry _peccavi_. But I want you to understand that I feel no regret. Even at the cost of this dénouement I should not hesitate to seek my freedom--if I could find it with John Markham. I love him. And he--_do_ let me finish, Philidor,--he loves _me_. So there you are. There's nothing more to be said. What _could_ one say?"

Olga had reached the door, shrugging her shoulders very prettily.

"Nothing, perhaps, except 'good day,'" she laughed. "It seems that I'm _de trop_. I'll go at once."

AT the door she paused. "You will be quite secure from interruption here to-day, I think. When you go, take to the forest to the northward and you should get out in safety. This secret is delicious. When you are well out of harm's way, _mess amiss_, I shall tell it, in my best manner, at the dinner table."

She waved her hand and was gone.