offered me a chair?"

"I suppose he thought you'd have sense enough to sit down if you wanted
to."

"O Olga, don't quibble. He's impossible."

The Countess shrugged.

"It's a matter of taste."

"Taste! One doesn't want to be affronted. Is he like this to every
one?"

"No. That's just the point. He isn't. I think, Hermia, dear," and
she laughed, "that he didn't like _you_."

"Me! Why not?"

"He doesn't like Bath-buns. He once told me so. Besides, I don't
think he's altogether in sympathy with the things you typify."

"How does he know what I typify--when I don't know myself? I don't
typify anything."


"Oh, yes, you do, to a man like Markham. From the eyrie where his soul
is wont to sit, John Markham has a fine perspective on life--yours and
mine. But I imagine that you make the more conspicuous silhouette. To
him you represent 'the New York Idea'--only more so. Besides that