But it required little assurance to make one's self at home here where
informality seemed to be the rule, and before Hermia and the Countess
came down Markham found himself on easy terms with the group he had
joined. Mrs. Renshaw's appraisal and patronizing air dismayed him
less than the china blue eyes of Phyllis Van Vorst which she had
raised with a pretty effectiveness to his; Hilda Ashhurst hadn't even
taken the trouble to notice him. When Carol Gouverneur was in her
neighborhood there were no other men in the world.

But Hermia took pains to make her guests aware of the status of Mr.
Markham in her house by seating him on her right at dinner and paying
him an assiduous attention which detracted something from Reggie
Armistead's interest, as well as Olga's, in that repast.

With a carelessness which put him off his guard Hermia drew him into
the general conversation, aroused his sense of humor, until with a
story of an experience in France, which he told with a dry wit that
well suited him, he found himself the center of interest at the head of
the table.

Out on the terrace over the coffee and tobacco, the compound slowly
resolved itself into its elements, social and sentimental. Markham,
scarcely aware of the precise moment when she had appropriated him,
found himself in the garden below the terrace with Olga Tcherny. The
heavy odor of the roses was about them, unstirred by the land breeze
which faintly sighed in the treetops. A warm moon hung over Thimble
Island, its soft lights catching in the ornaments Markham's companion
wore, caressing her white shoulders and dusky hair, and softening the
shadows in her eyes which peered like those of a seer down the path of