"In what respect?"

"Oh, in all respects. I'm a great disappointment to her--" He stopped
suddenly. "I mean socially--professionally. You see I'm not the stuff
that successful portrait painters are made of--"

"Except perhaps that you really can paint?" she asked over her shoulder.

He shrugged and followed.


CHAPTER VIII

OLGA TCHERNY

As the guests gathered in the drawing-room and on the terrace before
dinner it was apparent to Markham that, unless he obeyed the
injunctions of his small preceptor, he would be quite forgotten amid
this gay company. On Thimble Island, as in New York, he had not found
them necessary to his own existence, and it was quite clear that her
at "Wake-Robin" they returned his indifference. After the first nod
and appraising glance in his direction, Crosby Downs and Carol
Gouverneur had completely ignored him. Archie Westcott had unbent to
the point of offering him a cigarette, and Trevvy Morehouse, who had
joined them over the cocktails, and injected polite bromidics into the
conversation which Reggie Armistead, who knew nothing of Markham's art
and cared less, only saved by some wholesome enthusiasm, in which all
joined, over the "sand" and all-around good fellowship of their
hostess.