Madcap | Page 2

the window. The
envelope which accompanied the flowers Titine handed to her mistress,
who opened it carelessly between mouthfuls and finally added it to the
accumulated litter of fashionable stationery. Hermia eyed her Dresden
chocolate-pot uncheerfully. This breakfast gift had reached her with an

ominous regularity on Mondays and Thursdays for a month, and the
time had come when something must be done about it. But she did not
permit unpleasant thoughts, if unpleasant they really were, to distract
her from the casual delights of retrospection and the pleasures of her
repast, which she finished with a thoroughness that spoke more
eloquently of the wholesomeness of her appetite even than the real
excellence of the cooking. Upon Titine, who brought her the cigarettes
and a brazier, she created the impression--as she always did indoors--of
a child, greatly overgrown, parading herself with mocking ostentation
in the garments of maturity. The cigarette, too, was a part of this parade,
and she smoked it daintily, though without apparent enjoyment.
Her meal finished, she was ready to receive feminine visitors. She
seldom lacked company, for it is not the fate of a girl of Hermia
Challoner's condition to be left long to her own devices. Her father's
death, some years before, had fallen heavily upon her, but youth and
health had borne her above even that sad event triumphant, and now at
three and twenty, with a fortune which loomed large even in a day of
large fortunes, she lived alone with a legion of servants in the great
house, with no earthly ties but an ineffectual aunt and a Trust
Company.
But she did not suffer for lack of advice as to the conduct of her life or
of her affairs, and she always took it with the sad devotional air which
its givers had learned meant that in the end she would do exactly as she
chose. And so the Aunt and the Trust Company, like the scandalized
Titine, ended inevitably in silent acquiescence.
Of her acquaintances much might be said, both good and bad. They
represented almost every phase of society from the objects of her
charities (which were many and often unreasoning) to the daughters of
her father's friends who belonged in her own sphere of existence. And
if one's character may be judged by that of one's friends, Hermia was of
infinite variety. Perhaps the sportive were most often in her company,
and it was against these that Mrs. Westfield ineffectually railed, but
there was a warmth in her affection for Gertrude Brotherton, who liked
quiet people as a rule (and made Hermia the exception to prove it), and

an intellectual flavor in her attachment for Angela Reeves, who was
interested in social problems, which more than compensated for Miss
Challoner's intimacy with those of a gayer sort.
Her notes written, she dressed for the morning, then lay back in her
chair with a sharp little sigh and pensively touched the scratches on her
face, her expression falling suddenly into lines of discontent. It was a
kind of reaction which frequently followed moments of intense activity
and, realizing its significance, she yielded to it sulkily, her gaze on the
face of the clock which was ticking off purposeless minutes with
maddening precision. She glanced over her shoulder in relief as her
maid appeared in the doorway.
"Will Mademoiselle see the Countess Tcherny and Mees Ashhurst?"
Titine was a great believer in social distinctions.
"Olga! Yes, I was expecting her. Tell them to come right up."
The new arrivals entered the room gaily with the breezy assertiveness
of persons who were assured of their welcome and very much at home.
Hilda Ashhurst was tall, blonde, aquiline and noisy; the Countess,
dainty, dark-eyed and svelte, with the flexible voice which spoke of
familiarity with many tongues and rebuked the nasal greeting of her
more florid companion. Hermia met them with a sigh. Only yesterday
Mrs. Westfield had protested again about Hermia's growing intimacy
with the Countess, who had quite innocently taken unto herself all of
the fashionable vices of polite Europe.
Hilda Ashhurst watched Hermia's expression a moment and then
laughed.
"Been catching it--haven't you? Poor Hermia! It's dreadful to be the one
chick in a family of ugly ducklings--"
"Or the ugly duckling in a family of virtuous chicks--"
"Not ugly, chérie," laughed the Countess. "One is never ugly with a
million francs a year. Such a fortune would beautify a satyr. It even

makes your own prettiness unimportant."
"It is unimportant--"
"Partly because you make it so. You don't care. You don't think about it,
voilâ tout."
"Why should I think about it? I can't change it."
"Oh, yes, you can. Even a homely woman who is clever can make
herself beautiful, a beautiful woman--Dieu! There is nothing in the
world that