"I don't really think that you have," put in Markham.

Olga Tcherny laughed from her chair in a bored amusement.

"Hermia, dear," she said dryly, "I hardly brought you here to deflect
the orbit of genius. Poor Mr. Markham! I shudder to think of his
disastrous career if it depended upon your approval."

Hermia opened her moth to speak, paused and then glanced at Markham.
His thoughts were turned inward again and excluded her completely.
Indeed it was difficult to believe that he remembered what she had
been talking about. In addition to being unpardonably rude, he now
simply ignored her. His manner enraged her. "Perhaps my opinion
doesn't matter to Mr. Markham," she probed with icy distinctness.
"Nevertheless, I represent the public which judges pictures and buys
them. Which orders portraits and pays for them. It's my opinion that
counts--my money upon which the fashionable portrait painter must
depend for his success. He must please me or people like me and the
way to please most easily is to paint me as I ought to be rather than
as I am."

Markham slowly turned so that he faced her and eyed her with a puzzled
expression as he caught the meaning of her remarks, more personal and
arrogant than his brief acquaintance with her seemed in any way to
warrant.

"I'm not a fashionable portrait painter, thank God." he said with some
warmth. "Fortunately I'm not obliged to depend upon the whims or upon
the money of the people whose judgment you consider so important to an