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 ingŽnue 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.