Part 10 (1/2)
The Countess Olga examined him through her long lashes.
”Are you alone here?”
”Yes. I'm camping.”
”Ugh,” she shuddered. ”You had better come to 'Wake-Robin'.”
”No.”
She stamped her small foot.
”Oh, I've no patience with you.”
”Besides, I haven't been asked,” he added.
The others were not approaching and Markham straightened as Hermia came toward him.
”Olga, dear, we must be going. It's too bad to have spoiled your morning, Mr. Markham.”
The obvious reply was so easy and so polite, but he scorned it.
”Oh, that doesn't matter,” he said, ”and I'm the gainer by a clean kitchen.”
No flattery there. Hermia colored gently.
”I--I scrubbed his floor,” she explained to Olga. ”It was filthy.”
The Countess Olga's eyes opened a trifle wider.
”I don't doubt it,” she said, turning aside.
Miss Van Vorst in her role of ing?nue by this time was prying about outside the bungalow, on the porch of which she espied Markham's unfinished sketch.
”A painting! May I look? It's all wet and sticky.” She had turned it face outward and stood before it uttering childish panegyric. ”Oh, it's too perfectly sweet for anything. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so wonderful. Won't you explain it all to me, Mr. Markham?”
Markham good-humoredly took up the canvas.
”Very glad,” he said, ”only you've got it upside down.”
In the pause which followed the laughter Salignac came up the slope and reported to Hermia that he had found nothing wrong with the engine and that the damaged wing could be repaired with a piece of wire.
Hermia's eyes sparkled. The time for her triumphant departure, it seemed, had only been delayed. ”Good news,” she said quietly. ”In that case I intend flying back to 'Wake-Robin'.”
A chorus of protests greeted her decision.
”You shan't, Hermia,” shouted Reggie Armistead, ”until either Salignac or I have tried it out.”
”You will oblige me, Reggie,” replied Hermia calmly, ”by minding your own business.”
”O Hermia, after falling this morning! How can you dare?” cried Miss Van Vorst, with a genteel shudder.