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.