THE WINGS OF THE BUTTERFLY
John Markham spent an unpleasant evening. He dined alone at a club,
wandering afterward aimlessly from library to billiard room and then
took to the streets, trusting to physical exercise to clear his head of
the tangle that Olga had put into it. Olga, the irrepressible
man-hunter, in love with a "fossilized Galahad_." That was ironically
amusing, extraordinary, if true, a punishment which fitted her crime,
and something of a grim joke on the man-hunter as well as the fossil.
Markham tried to view the matter with unconcern, man-like, recalling
the many times that Olga's name had been coupled with those of various
distinguished foreigners and the frequent reports of her engagement,
always denied and forgotten. And yet she worried him. For a brief
moment she had given him a glimpse of the shadowy recesses where she
hid her naked soul; a glimpse only, like some of those she had given
him when he was painting her portrait; but what he had seen now was
different--an Olga no longer wistful no longer amenable; a wild,
unreasoning thing who purred, cat-like, while he stroked her, sheathing
and unsheathing her claws. There was mischief brewing--he felt it in
her sudden access of self-control, and in the final jest with which she
had left him. He knew her better now. It was when she mocked that
Olga was most dangerous. It was clear that she had not believed him
when he told her the truth. Her standards forbade it, of course. It
was too bad.
But she had not told what she knew--that was the main thing. What if
she did tell now? Hermia could deny it, of course, and if necessary he
must lie, as Olga had said, like a gentleman. And where were Olga's
proofs? Who would confirm her? What evidence, human or documentary
could she bring forward here in New York to prove Hermia's culpability,
if, as it seemed to be her intention, she insisted on carrying her
sweet vengeance to its end? There was no one--he paused, his brow
clouding. De Foligny! Had De Folligny learned who Hermia was? Had
Olga found out about the companion in his automobile at Verneuil? He
waved the thought away. De Folligny was on the other side of the
ocean. The psychological moment for Olga's revelation had passed.
Consoling himself with these thoughts he went home and to bed and
morning found him early at the studio, awaiting his new sitter, in a
more quiescent, if still uncertain, frame of mind.
The portrait of Mrs. Berkeley Hammond on which he had been working sat
smugly upon one of his easels, a thing of shreds and patches (though
the lady was in pearls and a Drécoll frock), a thing "painty" without
being direct, mannered without being elegant, highly colored without
being colorful, a streaky thing with brilliant spots, like the work of
a promising pupil; a pretty poor Markham, which had pleased the sitter
because its face flattered her, and for which she would gladly pay the
considerable sum he charged, while Markham's inner consciousness loudly
proclaimed that the canvas was not worth as much as the crayon sketch
of Madam Daudifret in Normandy which had been the price of a _ragoût_.
Really he would have to pain better. He swung the easel around with a
kick of the foot and faced a new canvas, primed some days before, and
busied himself about his palette and paint tubes.
When Phyllis Van Vorst emerged from the dressing-room a while later
into the cool north light, Markham's eyes sparkled with a genuine
delight. Here was the sort of thing he could do--white satin with
filmy drapery from which rose the fresh-colored flower of girlhood.
Without being really pretty, his model created the illusion of beauty
by her youth, her abundant health and many little tricks of gesture and
expression. Her role was that of the ingénue and she prattled
childishly of many things, flitting like a butterfly from topic to
topic, grave and gay with a careless grace which added something to the
picture she made. Markham let her talk, interjecting monosyllables
lulled by the inexhaustible flow, aware, after the first pose or two,
that he was painting well, with the careless brush of entire
confidence. As Olga had said, he always was at his best when a little
contemptuous. In three hours the head was finished and the background
laid in, _premier coup_-- the best thing he had done in a year.
He twisted the canvas around to get a better look at it and groped for
his pipe, suddenly conscious of the fact that he had painted and that
his model had sat steadily for an hour and a half without a rest.
"You poor child," he muttered with compunction, as he helped her down,
"that's the penalty of being interesting."
"Oh, I'm so glad," she cried, "You _can_ say nice things, can't you?"
"When I think of them," he laughed.
She stood before the canvas in breathless delight.
"Oh, do I look like that, Mr. Markham, like _Psyche_ with the lamp?
It's quite too wonderful for _words_. I'm a _dream_. I've never seen
anything quite so flattering in my _life_. Oh, I'm _so_ glad I came to
you instead of to Teddy Vincent. You've made my poor nose quite
straight--and yet it's _my_ nose, too. How on _earth_ did you do it?
You're not going to work any more--?"
"No--" he laughed, "the head is done."
She sat in the chair he brought forward for her and Markham dropped on
the divan near her and smoked. She gazed at the head for a while in
rapturous silence.
"O Mr. Markham, will you _ever_ forgive me for being so stupid last
summer," she said at last, "about that upside-down painting? I've been
so humiliated--"
"I'm not really a landscape man, you know," he said cheerfully by way
of consolation, "and it was only a sketch."
"Oh, but they made such a lot of fun of me--at Westport. They're not
very merciful--that crowd."
Markham's gaze shifted.
"Yes, I know," he said quietly.
"Oh, have you heard?" his companion laughed suddenly.
"About Crosby Downs."
"No."
"He has married Sybil Trenchard."
Markham took a puff at his pipe.
"Really? Why?"
She laughed. And then quickly.
"I don't know. And Hilda and Carol--Carol Gouverneur, you
know--engaged. She has wanted him a long time. Everybody thought he'd
wiggle out of it somehow, but he didn't or couldn't or something."
He smiled. "Cupid has had a busy summer."
"Oh, yes, quite extraordinary. You see out of all that house party,
there are only three or four left." She spoke of this wholesale
selection and apportionment as though her topic had been apples.
"Indeed?" Markham stopped smoking. "Who else?" he asked calmly.
"Me," she said blushing prettily. "I mean I--I and Reggie--"
"Reginald Armistead! I thought that he and Miss Challoner--"
"Oh, that's all off," she laughed. "They didn't really care for each
other at all--not that way--just as friends you know. Hermia is a good
deal like a fellow. Reggie liked her that way. They were pals--had
been from childhood, but then one doesn't marry one's pal."
"I'm very glad," said Markham politely, examining her with a new
interest. "I shall make it a point at once to offer him my
congratulations. I like him."
"He's adorable, isn't he? But I'm horribly frightened about him. He's
so dreadfully reckless--flying, I mean. If it hadn't been for Hermia,
I'm sure he never would have begun it. But he has promised me to give
it up--now. Hermia may break her neck if she likes; that's Mr.
Morehouse's affair, but--"
"Morehouse!" Markham broke in, wide-eyed.
She regarded him calmly.
"Where on earth have you been, Mr. Markham?"
"In--France," he stammered. "Do you mean that Hermia--Miss Challoner
is--"
"Engaged to Trevvy? Of _course_. It was cabled from Paris--to the
_Herald_. But then nobody who knows about things is really very much
surprised. Trevvy has been _wild_ about her for years and her family
have all wanted it. It's really a _very_ good match. You see Trevvy
is so steady and she needs a skid to her wheel--"
She rambled on but to Markham her voice was only a confused chatter of
many voices. He rose and turned the easel into a better light, then
knocked out his pipe into the fireplace. The room whirled around him
and he steadied himself against the mantel, while he tried to listen to
what else she was saying. Her loquacity, a moment ago so amusing, had
assumed a deeper significance. The phrases purled with diabolical
fluidity from her lips, searing like molten metal. Hermia! The girl
was mad.
The confusion about him ceased and in the silence he heard her voice.
"Are you ill, Mr. Markham?"
He straightened with a short laugh and faced toward her.
"No--not at all. And I was really very much interested," he said
evenly. "Miss Challoner is in Europe?" he asked carelessly.
"Oh, yes,--or was--and Trevvy followed her there. She's home now--came
yesterday--of course, with Trevvy at her heels. Oh! he'll keep her in
order, no fear about that. It's about time that Hermia settled down.
She's _quite_ the wildest thing--perfectly properly, you know, Olga
Tcherny says--"
"Olga is home, too?" he interrupted, steadying himself.
She nodded quickly and went on. "Olga says that Hermia disappeared
from Paris for over a week and no one knew where she was. Trevvy was
_crazy_ with anxiety. But she came back one night in an old gray coat
and hat with a bundle--the shabbiest thing imaginable, looking like a
tramp. Trevvy was in the hotel and saw her. But they patched things
up somehow."
"Did Madame Tcherny learn where she had been?"
"Oh, no," she laughed. "You see Olga was too busy with her own
affairs. She has a Frenchman in tow this season--she's brought him
here with her--florid, blonde, curled and monocled, the Marquis de
Folligny--"
"Pierre de Folligny!"
"You know him?"
"Yes--er--slightly."
She had babbled her gossip so lightly and rapidly that this last piece
of information had not given him the start its significance deserved.
But its import grew.
"It's an affair of long standing, isn't it?" she asked him.
"I--I don't know, I'm sure," he muttered, his brow clouding.
"Something in his manner made her glance at the clock.
"Half-past one--and Reggie's coming to lunch at two. I'll have to
_tear_."
He opened the dressing-room for her and, after she had vanished within,
stood glowering at the door like one possessed.
A butterfly that dripped poison! He was drenched with it. How lightly
Hermia's name had dropped from her satin wings! He smiled grimly at
the thought of his own situation, the central figure in at least one
act of this comedy, viewing it from the far side of the proscenium
arch, gaping like the rustic in the metropolis who sees himself for the
first time depicted upon the stage. What right had she--this little
flutter-budget--to know these things--when he was denied them?
Hermia--the report of her engagement had been disturbing, but some
reason it seemed less important now than the fact that she was
here--here in New York within twenty minutes of him--perhaps, upon the
very street where he might meet her when he went out. Hermia and
Trevvy Morehouse! He simply would not believe it. Hermia might look
him in the eyes and tell him so--and then-- But she would not dare.
Those eyes--blue--violet--gray--all colors as the mood or the sunlight
pleased--honest eyes into whose depths he had peered when they were
dark with the shadows of the forest and seen his image dancing. She
was his that day--all his. He could have taken her; and he had let her
go back to Paris--and the excellent Trevelyan. Hermia, his mad
vagabond Hermia, was ready to tie herself for life to that automatic
nonentity at Westport who trailed, a patient shadow in Hermia's
swirling wake. Hermia and Morehouse! He simply wouldn't believe it.
When his sitter had departed in a rush to keep her engagement, he
filled his pipe again and walked the floor smoking furiously, the
scenario of Olga's little drama taking a more definite form. He
understood now the reasons why she had not told what she had seen. He
doubted now whether it was her intention to tell. But she had brought
the Frenchman De Folligny over to do the telling for her, reserving her
little climax until all her marionettes were properly placed according
to her own stage directions, when she would let the situation work
itself out to its own conclusion. It was an ingenious plan, one which
did her hand much credit. She had realized, of course, that a
revelation of Hermia's shortcomings in Alençon, Paris or Trouville
would have deprived her vengeance of half its sting. It required a New
York background, a quiet drawing-room filled with Hermia's intimates
for her "situation" to produce its most telling effect. De Folligny
now had the center of the stage and at the proper moment she would pull
the necessary wires and the thing would be accomplished.
Something must be done at once. He changed into street clothes and
went out, lunched alone on the way uptown and at three was standing at
the door of the Challoner house.
The butler showed Markham into the drawing-room and took his card. He
did not know whether Miss Challoner was in or not, but he would see.
Markham sat and impatiently waited, his eyes meanwhile restlessly
roving the splendor of the room in search of some object which would
suggest Hermia--mad Hermia of Vagabondia. Opposite him upon the wall
was a portrait of her by a distinguished Frenchman, with whose
_métier_ he was familiar--an astounding falsehood in various shades of
tooth-powder. This Hermia smirked at him like the lady in the fashion
page, exuding an atmosphere of wealth and nothing else--a strange,
unreal Hermia who floated vaguely between her gilt barriers, neither
sprite nor flesh and blood. How could Marsac have known the real
Hermia--the heart, the spirit of her as he knew them!
And yet when a few moments later she appeared in the doorway he
wondered if he knew her at all. She was dressed for afternoon in some
clinging dark stuff which made her figure slim almost to the point of
thinness. She wore a small hat with a tall plume and seemed to have
gained in stature. Her face was paler and her modulated voice and the
studied gesture as she offered him her hand did more to convince him
that things were not as they should be.
"_So_ good of you to come, Mr. Markham," he heard her saying coolly.
"I was wondering if I'd have the pleasure of seeing you here."
He stood uncertainly at the point of seizing her in his arms when he
was made aware of her premeditation. The tepor of her politeness was
like a blow between the eyes, and he peered blindly into her face in
vain for some sign of the girl he knew.
"Won't you sit down?" she asked, and dumbly he sat. "I hear you were
in Normandy," she went on smoothly. "Did you have a good summer? You
did leave us rather abruptly at Westport, didn't you? But then you
know, of course, I understood that--"
"Hermia," he broke in in a low voice. "What has happened to you? Why
didn't you answer my letters. I've been nearly mad with anxiety." He
leaned forward toward her, the words falling in a torrent. But she
only examined him curiously, a puzzled wrinkle at her brows vying with
the set smile she still wore.
"Your letters, Mr. Markham!" she said in surprise. "Oh! You mean the
note about the sketch of Thimble Island? I _did_ reply, didn't I? It
was awfully nice--"
"Good God!" he muttered, rising. "Haven't you punished me enough now,
without this--" with a wave of his hand--"this extravaganza. Haven't I
paid? I searched Paris high and low for you, Hermia, haunted your
bankers and the hotel where you had been stopping, only returning here
at the moment when my engagements in New York made it necessary. Has
it been kind of you, or just to ignore my letters and leave me all
these weeks in anxiety and ignorance? I've missed you horribly--and I
feared--nameless things--that you had forgotten me, that you wanted
everything forgotten." As he came forward she rose and took a step
toward an inner room, her eyes still narrowed and quizzical, watching
him carefully.
"Hermia--Hermia!" He stopped, the tension breaking in a laugh. "Oh,
you want to punish me, of course. Don't you think you've paid me well
already? See! I'm penitent. What do you want? Shall I go down on my
knees to you. I have been on my knees to you for weeks--you must have
know it. My letters--"
He paused and then stopped, puzzled, for she had not moved and her gaze
surveyed him, coolly critical.
"You got my letters?" he asked anxiously.
She was silent.
"I've written you every day--since you left me--poured my heart out to
you. You didn't get them? O Hermia, you must have known what life has
been without you. Do you think I could forget what I read in your eyes
that day in the forest? Could _you_ forget what you wrote there? Only
your lips refused me. Even when they refused me, they were warm with
my kisses. They were mine, as you were, body and soul. You loved me,
Hermia--from the first. These flimsy barriers you're raising, I'll
break them down--and take you--"
As he approached, she reached the curtains, one hand upraised.
"You're dreaming, Mr. Markham," she said, distinctly. "I haven't the
least idea what you're talking about."
"You love me--" he stammered.
"_I_?"
Her laughter checked him effectually. He stood, his full gesture of
entreaty frozen into immobility. Then slowly his arms relaxed and he
stood awkwardly staring, now thoroughly awake. She meant him to
understand that Vagabondia was not--that their week in Arcadia had
never been.
He gaped at her a full moment before he found speech.
"You wish to deny that you and I--that you were there with me--in
Normandy?" he stammered.
"One only denies the possible, Mr. Markham," she said with a glib
certitude. "The impossible needs no denial. I was in Paris and in
Switzerland this summer. Obviously I couldn't have been in Normandy,
too."
"I see," he muttered mechanically. "You were in Switzerland."
"Yes. In Switzerland, Mr. Markham," she repeated.
He turned slowly and walked toward the window, his hands behind him,
struggling for control. When his voice came, it was as firm as her own.
"Can you prove that?" he asked coldly.
"Why should I prove it, Mr. Markham?" she asked, "My word should be
sufficient, I think."
The even tones of her voice and the repetition of his name inflamed
him. There was little doubt of her apostasy. He turned toward her
with a change of manner, his eyes dark.
"Perhaps you'll be obliged to prove it," he muttered.
"I? Why?"
He looked her straight in the eyes.
"Monsieur de Folligny is with Olga Tcherny--her in New York."
The plume on her hat nodded back, and her eyes widely opened gave him a
momentary glimpse of her terror.
"De Folligny is here--with Olga!"
"Yes. I've just learned it--to-day."
She moved her slender shoulders upward in the gesture she had learned
from Olga Tcherny.
"That will be quite pleasant," she resumed, easily. "He will render us
a little less prosy, perhaps."
Markham watched her a moment in silence, his wounds aching dully.
"I came here--to warn you of that--danger," he said slowly. "Since
you don't feat it, my mission is ended." He took up his hat and stick
and moved toward the door. "I shall not question your wisdom or your
sense of responsibility to me or to yourself. But I think I
understand at last what you would have of me. Whatever you wish, of
course, I shall do without question. I was alone in Normandy--or with
someone else, if you like. It was my Vagabondia--not yours. There
was no Philidor--no Yvonne--no Cleofonte or Stella--no roses of
Père Guégou--no roses in my heart. They're withered
enough, God knows. You wish to forget them. You want me to remember
you as you are--to-day." He laughed. "I think I'll have no
difficulty in doing so--or helping by my silence or my cooperation in
carrying out any plans you may have, if you should find it necessary
to call upon me."
"I thank you," she murmured, her head bent.
He regarded her a moment steadily, but she would not meet his gaze. At
the door he paused.
"I have heard of your reported engagement," he finished more slowly.
"I'd like you to know that I had too much faith in you to believe it.
But I think--indeed I'm sure I'm ready to believe it now--if you tell
me it's true."
She did not raise her head, but her lips moved inarticulately. He
glanced at her a moment longer and then, with an inclination of the
head, passed out into the hall and so to the door.