Part 48 (1/2)
”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 s.h.i.+fted.
”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 blus.h.i.+ng prettily. ”I mean I--I and Reggie--”
”Reginald Armistead! I thought that he and Miss Challoner--”