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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Streets of Ascalon
+       Episodes in the Unfinished Career of Richard Quarren, Esqre.
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Illustrator: Charles Dana Gibson
+
+Release Date: February 10, 2011 [EBook #35233]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STREETS OF ASCALON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STREETS OF ASCALON
+
+
+Works of Robert W. Chambers
+
+  The Streets of Ascalon
+  Blue-Bird Weather
+  Japonette
+  The Adventures of a Modest Man
+  The Danger Mark
+  Special Messenger
+  The Firing Line
+  The Younger Set
+  The Fighting Chance
+  Some Ladies in Haste
+  The Tree of Heaven
+  The Tracer of Lost Persons
+  A Young Man in a Hurry
+  Lorraine
+  Maids of Paradise
+  Ashes of Empire
+  The Red Republic
+  Outsiders
+  The Common Law
+  Ailsa Paige
+  The Green Mouse
+  Iole
+  The Reckoning
+  The Maid-at-Arms
+  Cardigan
+  The Haunts of Men
+  The Mystery of Choice
+  The Cambric Mask
+  The Maker of Moons
+  The King in Yellow
+  In Search of the Unknown
+  The Conspirators
+  A King and a Few Dukes
+  In the Quarter
+
+For Children
+
+  Garden-Land
+  Forest-Land
+  River-Land
+  Mountain-Land
+  Orchard-Land
+  Outdoor-Land
+  Hide and Seek in Forest-Land
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK
+
+[Illustration: "She excused the witness and turned her back to the
+looking-glass."]
+
+
+
+
+_The_ STREETS
+OF ASCALON
+
+_Episodes in the Unfinished Career of
+Richard Quarren, Esq._
+
+BY
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+CHARLES DANA GIBSON
+
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+1912
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+Copyright, 1912, by The International Magazine Company
+
+
+_Published, September, 1912_
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+EULALIE ASHMORE
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                       BETWEEN
+                                                         PAGES
+
+  "She excused the witness and turned her back
+  to the looking-glass"                         _Frontispiece_
+
+  "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed
+  gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle"             24-25
+
+  "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically,
+  the Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers,
+  deftly evaded their pressing gallantries"              30-31
+
+  "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!'
+  she said lightly"                                      52-53
+
+  "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent
+  on her newspapers"                                     60-61
+
+  "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those
+  young men give there!'"                                78-79
+
+  "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length,
+  reddening again"                                       86-87
+
+  "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because
+  I have a message to deliver--'"                        98-99
+
+  "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about
+  the men!'"                                           116-117
+
+  "Strelsa, curled up on a divan ... listened to
+  his departure with quiet satisfaction"               126-127
+
+  "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked,
+  smiling"                                             128-129
+
+  "Once more, according to the newspapers, her
+  engagement to Sir Charles was expected
+  to be announced"                                     172-173
+
+  "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and
+  regarded in amazement by the neighbors"              178-179
+
+  "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for
+  the first time in nearly two months"                 190-191
+
+  "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next
+  to the battered party in black?'"                    194-195
+
+  "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,'
+  she whispered"                                       210-211
+
+  "So he took the lake path and presently
+  rounded a sharp curve"                               214-215
+
+  "'The old ones are the best,' she commented"         228-229
+
+  "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves,
+  was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable"      246-247
+
+  "A high and soulful tenor voice was singing
+  'Perfumes of Araby'"                                 272-273
+
+  "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very
+  slim in her limp black gown"                         280-281
+
+  Jessie Vining                                        290-291
+
+  "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains
+  and dines with Dankmere and myself
+  at some near restaurant'"                            302-303
+
+  "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling'"     328-329
+
+  "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she
+  asked caressingly"                                   346-347
+
+  "'And it is to be your last breakfast'"              374-375
+
+  Strelsa Leeds                                        380-381
+
+  "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl"              416-417
+
+  "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained
+  feebly"                                              424-425
+
+
+"_Tell it not in Gath, publish it not
+in the streets of Ascalon._"
+
+
+
+
+THE STREETS OF ASCALON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It being rent day, and Saturday, the staff of the "Irish Legation," with
+the exception of Westguard, began to migrate uptown for the monthly
+conference, returning one by one from that mysterious financial jungle
+popularly known as "Downtown." As for Westguard, he had been in his
+apartment all day as usual. He worked where he resided.
+
+A little before five o'clock John Desmond Lacy, Jr., came in, went
+directly to his rooms on the top floor, fished out a check-book, and
+tried to persuade himself that he had a pleasing balance at the
+bank--not because he was likely to have any balance either there or in
+his youthful brain, but because he _had_ to have one somewhere. God
+being good to the Irish he found he had not overdrawn his account.
+
+Roger O'Hara knocked on his door, later, and receiving no response
+called out: "Are you in there, Jack?"
+
+"No," said Lacy, scratching away with his pen in passionate hopes of
+discovering a still bigger balance.
+
+"Sportin' your oak, old Skeezicks?" inquired O'Hara, affectionately,
+delivering a kick at the door.
+
+"Let me alone, you wild Irishman!" shouted Lacy. "If I can't dig out an
+extra hundred somewhere the State Superintendent is likely to sport my
+oak for keeps!"
+
+A big, lumbering, broad-shouldered young fellow was coming up the stairs
+behind O'Hara, a blank book and some papers tucked under his arm, and
+O'Hara nodded to him and opened Mr. Lacy's door without further
+parleying.
+
+"Here's Westguard, now," he said; "and as we can't shoot landlords in
+the close season we'll have to make arrangements to pay for bed and
+board, Jack."
+
+Lacy glanced up from the sheet of figures before him, then waved his
+guests to seats and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Hooray," he remarked to Westguard; "I can draw you a check, Karl, and
+live to tell the tale." And he rose and gave his place at the desk to
+the man addressed, who seated himself heavily, as though tired.
+
+"Before we go over the accounts," he began, "I want to say a word or
+two----"
+
+"Hadn't you better wait till Quarren comes in?" interrupted O'Hara,
+smoking and stretching out his long legs.
+
+"No; I want to talk to you two fellows first. And I'll tell you at once
+what's the matter: Quarren's check came back marked 'no funds.' This is
+the third time; and one of us ought to talk to him."
+
+"It's only a slip," said Lacy--"it's the tendency in him that considers
+the lilies of the field----"
+
+"It isn't square," said Westguard doggedly.
+
+"Nonsense, Karl, Rix means to be square----"
+
+"That's all right, too, but he isn't succeeding. It humiliates me; it
+hurts like hell to have to call his attention to such oversights."
+
+"Oh, he's the gay tra-la-la," said O'Hara, indulgently; "do you think he
+bothers his elegant noddle about such trifles as checks? Besides he's
+almost as Irish as I am--God bless his mother and damn all landlords,
+Lester Caldera included."
+
+"What does Quarren do with all his money, then?" mused Lacy--"soaking
+the public in Tappan-Zee Park and sitting up so close and snug to the
+rich and great!"
+
+"It's his business," said Westguard, "to see that any check he draws is
+properly covered. Overdrafts may be funny in a woman, and in novels, but
+once is too often for any man. And this makes three times for Rix."
+
+"Ah, thin, lave the poor la-ad be! ye could-blooded Sassenach!" said
+Lacy, pretending to the brogue. "Phwat the divil!--'tis the cashier ye
+should blame whin Rix tells him to pay, an' he refuses to projuice the
+long-green wad!"
+
+But Westguard, unsmiling, consulted his memoranda, then, holding up his
+sheet of figures:
+
+"There's a quorum here," he said. "Rix can read this over when he comes
+in, if he likes. Here's the situation." And he read off the items of
+liabilities and assets, showing exactly, and to a penny, how the house
+had been run for the past month.
+
+Everything was there, rent, servants' wages, repairs, provisions, bills
+for heating and lighting, extras, incidentals--all disbursements and
+receipts; then, pausing for comments, and hearing none, he closed the
+ledger with a sharp slap.
+
+"The roof's leakin'," observed O'Hara without particular interest.
+
+"Write to the landlord," said Lacy--"the stingy millionaire."
+
+"He won't fix it," returned the other. "Did you ever hear of Lester
+Caldera spendin' a cent?"
+
+"On himself, yes."
+
+"That's not spendin'; it all goes inside or outside of him somewhere."
+He stretched his legs, crossed them, sucked on his empty pipe, and
+looked around at Westguard, who was still fussing over the figures.
+
+"Are you goin' to the Wycherlys', Karl?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"What costume?"
+
+"None of your business," retorted Westguard pleasantly.
+
+"I'm going as the family Banshee," observed Lacy.
+
+"Did you ever hear me screech, Karl?" And, pointing his nose skyward and
+ruffling up his auburn hair he emitted a yell so unendurable that it
+brought Westguard to his feet, protesting.
+
+"Shut up!" he said. "Do you want to have this house pinched, you crazy
+Milesian?"
+
+"Get out of my rooms if you don't like it," said Lacy. "If I'm going to
+a masked dance as a Banshee I've got to practice screaming, haven't I?"
+
+"I," said O'Hara, "am goin' as a bingle."
+
+"What's a bingle?"
+
+"Nobody knows. Neither do I; and it's killin' me to think up a
+costume.... Dick Quarren's goin', isn't he?"
+
+"Does he ever miss anything?" said Lacy.
+
+"He's missing most of his life," said Westguard so sharply that the
+others opened their eyes.
+
+A flush had settled under Westguard's cheek-bones; he was still jotting
+down figures with a flat silver pencil, but presently he looked up.
+
+"It's the cold and uncomplimentary truth about Ricky," he said. "That
+set he runs with is making an utter fool of him."
+
+"That set," repeated Lacy, grinning. "Why, we all have wealthy relatives
+in it--wealthy, charming, and respectable--h'm!"
+
+"Which is why we're at liberty to curse it out," observed O'Hara,
+complacently. "We all know what it is. Karl is right. If a man is goin'
+to make anythin' of himself he can't run with that expensive pack. One
+may venture to visit the kennels now and then, and look over the new
+litters--perhaps do a little huntin' once in a while--just enough--so
+that the M. F. H. recognises your coat tails when you come a cropper.
+But nix for wire or water! Me for the gate, please. Ah, do you think a
+_man_ can stand what the papers call 'the realm of society' very long?"
+
+"Rix is doing well."
+
+Westguard said: "They've gradually been getting a strangle-hold on him.
+Women are crazy about that sort of man--with his good looks and good
+humour and his infernally easy way of obliging a hundred people at
+once.... Look back a few years! Before he joined that whipper-snapper
+junior club he was full of decent ambition, full of go, unspoiled, fresh
+from college and as promising a youngster as anybody ever met. Where is
+his ambition now? What future has he?--except possibly to marry a
+million at forty-five and settle down with a comfortable grunt in the
+trough. It's coming, I tell you. Look what he was four years ago--a boy
+with clear eyes and a clear skin, frank, clean set, clean minded. Look
+at him now--sallow, wiry, unprofitably wise, rangé, disillusioned--oh,
+hell! they've mauled him to a shadow of a rag!"
+
+Lacy lighted another cigarette and winked at O'Hara. "Karl's off again,"
+he said. "Now we're going to get the Bible and the Sword for fair!"
+
+"Doesn't everybody need them both!" said Westguard, smiling. Then his
+heavy features altered: "I care a good deal for Dick Quarren," he said.
+"That's why his loose and careless financial methods make me mad--that's
+why this loose and careless transformation of a decent, sincere,
+innocent boy into an experienced, easy-going, cynical man makes me
+tired. I've got to stand for it, I suppose, but I don't want to. He's a
+gifted, clever, lovable fellow, but he hasn't any money and any right to
+leisure, and these people are turning him into one of those dancing
+things that leads cotillions and arranges tableaux, and plays social
+diplomat and forgets secrets and has his pockets full of boudoir
+keys--good Lord! I hate to say it, but they're making a tame cat of
+him--they're using him ignobly, I tell you--and that's the truth--if he
+had a friend with courage enough to tell him! I've tried, but I can't
+talk this way to him."
+
+There was a silence: then O'Hara crossed one lank leg over the other,
+gingerly, and contemplated his left shoe.
+
+"Karl," he said, "character never really changes; it only develops.
+What's born in the cradle is lowered into the grave, as some Russian guy
+said. You're a writer, and you know what I say is true."
+
+"Granted. But Quarren's character isn't developing; it's being stifled,
+strangled. He could have been a professional man--a lawyer, and a
+brilliant one--or an engineer, or a physician--any old thing. He's in
+real estate--if you can call it that. All right; why doesn't he _do_
+something in it? I'll tell you why," he added, angrily answering his own
+question; "these silly women are turning Quarren's ambition into
+laziness, his ideals into mockery, his convictions into cynicism----"
+
+He stopped short. The door opened, and Quarren sauntered in.
+
+"Couldn't help hearing part of your sermon, Karl," he said laughing. "Go
+ahead; I don't mind the Bible and the Sword--it's good for Jack Lacy,
+too--and that scoundrel O'Hara. Hit us again, old Ironsides. We're no
+good." And he sat down on the edge of Lacy's bed, and presently
+stretched out on it, gracefully, arms under his blond head.
+
+"You've been catchin' it, Ricky," said O'Hara with a grin. "Karl says
+that fashionable society is a bally wampire a-gorgin' of hisself at the
+expense of bright young men like you. What's the come-back to that,
+sonny?"
+
+"Thanks old fellow," said Quarren laughing and slightly lifting his head
+to look across at Westguard. "Go ahead and talk hell and brimstone. A
+fight is the only free luxury in the Irish Legation. I'll swat you with
+a pillow when I get mad enough."
+
+Westguard bent his heavy head and looked down at the yellow check on the
+table.
+
+"Rix," he said, "I've got to tell you that you have forgotten to make a
+deposit at your bank."
+
+"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Quarren with weary but amiable vexation--"that is
+the third time. What are you fellows going to do? Put me out of the
+Legation?"
+
+"Why the devil are you so careless?" growled Westguard.
+
+"I honestly don't know. I didn't suppose I was so short. I thought I had
+a balance."
+
+"Rot! The minute a man begins to _think_ he has a balance he knows damn
+well that he hasn't! I don't care, Rix--but, take it from me, you'll
+have a mortifying experience one of these days."
+
+"I guess that's right," said Quarren with a kind of careless contrition.
+"I never seem to be more than a lap or two ahead of old lady Ruin. And I
+break the speed-laws, too."
+
+"No youngster ever beat that old woman in a foot-race," observed Lacy.
+"Pay up and give her enough carfare to travel the other way; that's your
+only chance, Ricky."
+
+"Oh, certainly. No fellow need be in debt if he pays up, you Hibernian
+idiot!"
+
+"Do you want some money?" asked Westguard bluntly.
+
+"Sure, Karl, oodles of it! But not from you, old chap."
+
+"You know you can have it from me, too, don't you?" said O'Hara.
+
+Quarren nodded cordially: "I'll get it; no fear. I'm terribly sorry
+about that check. But it will be all right to-morrow, Karl."
+
+Lacy thought to himself with a grin: "He'll kill somebody at Auction to
+square himself--that's what Ricky means to do. God be good to the
+wealthy this winter night!"
+
+O'Hara, lank, carefully scrubbed, carefully turned out as one of his own
+hunters, stood up with a yawn and glanced at his watch.
+
+"Didn't somebody say somebody was comin' in to tea?" he asked generally.
+
+"My cousin, Mrs. Wycherly," said Westguard--"and a friend of hers--I've
+forgotten----"
+
+"Mrs. Leeds," observed Lacy. "And she is reputed to be a radiant peach.
+Did any of you fellows ever meet her in the old days?"
+
+Nobody there had ever seen her.
+
+"Did Mrs. Wycherly say she is a looker?" asked O'Hara, sceptically.
+
+Westguard shrugged: "You know what to expect when one woman tells you
+that another woman is good-looking. Probably she has a face that would
+kill a caterpillar."
+
+Quarren laughed lazily from the bed:
+
+"I hear she's pretty. She's come out of the West. You know, of course,
+who she was."
+
+"Reggie Leeds's wife," said O'Hara, slowly.
+
+There was a silence. Perhaps the men were thinking of the late Reginald
+Leeds, and of the deep damnation of his taking off.
+
+"Have you never seen her?" asked Lacy.
+
+"Nobody ever has. She's never before been here," said Quarren, yawning.
+
+"Then come down and set the kettle on, Ricky. She may be the peachiest
+kind of a peach in a special crate directed to your address and marked
+'Perishable! Rush! With care!' So we'll have to be very careful in
+rushing her----"
+
+"Oh, for Heaven's sake stop that lady-patter," protested O'Hara,
+linking his arm in Lacy's and sauntering toward the door. "That sort of
+conversation is Ricky's line of tea-talk. You'll reduce him to a
+pitiable silence if you take away his only asset."
+
+Westguard gathered up his papers, pausing a moment at the doorway:
+
+"Coming?" he asked briefly of Quarren who was laughing.
+
+"Certainly he's coming," said Lacy returning and attempting to drag him
+from the bed. "Come on, you tea-cup-rattling, macaroon-crunching,
+caste-smitten, fashion-bitten Arbiter Elegantiarum!"
+
+They fought for a moment, then Lacy staggered back under repeated
+wallops from one of his own pillows, and presently retired to his
+bath-room to brush his thick red hair. This hair was his pride and
+sorrow: it defied him in a brilliant cowlick until plastered flat with
+water. However, well soaked, his hair darkened to what he considered a
+chestnut colour. And that made him very proud.
+
+When he had soaked and subdued his ruddy locks he came out to where
+Westguard still stood.
+
+"Are you coming, Rix?" demanded the latter again.
+
+"Not unless you particularly want me," returned Quarren, yawning
+amiably. "I could take a nap if that red-headed Mick would get out of
+here."
+
+Westguard said: "Suit yourself," and followed Lacy and O'Hara down the
+stairs.
+
+The two latter young fellows turned aside into O'Hara's apartments to
+further remake a killing and deadly toilet. Westguard continued on to
+the first floor which he inhabited, and where he found a Japanese
+servant already preparing the tea paraphernalia. A few minutes later
+Mrs. Wycherly arrived with Mrs. Leeds.
+
+All women, experienced or otherwise, never quite lose their curiosity
+concerning a bachelor's quarters. The haunts of men interest woman,
+fascinating the married as well as the unwedded. Deep in their gentle
+souls they know that the most luxurious masculine abode could easily be
+made twice as comfortable by the kindly advice of any woman. Toleration,
+curiosity, sympathy are the emotions which stir feminine hearts when
+inspecting the solitary lair of the human male.
+
+"So these are the new rooms," said Molly Wycherly, patronisingly, after
+O'Hara and Lacy had appeared and everybody had been presented to
+everybody else. "Strelsa, do look at those early Edwards prints! It's
+utterly impossible to find any of them now for sale anywhere."
+
+Strelsa Leeds looked up at the Botticelli Madonna and at Madame Royale;
+and the three men looked at her as though hypnotised.
+
+So this was Reginald Leeds's wife--this distractingly pretty woman--even
+yet scarcely more than a girl--with her delicate colour and vivid lips
+and unspoiled eyes--dark eyes--a kind of purplish gray, very purely and
+exquisitely shaped. But in their grayish-violet depths there was murder.
+And the assassination of Lacy and O'Hara had already been accomplished.
+
+Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black--as though the tragic shadow of
+two years ago still fell across her slender body.
+
+She looked around at the room; Molly Wycherly, pouring tea, nodded to
+Westguard, and he handed the cup to Mrs. Leeds.
+
+She said, smilingly: "And--do you three unprotected men live in this big
+house all by yourselves?"
+
+"There are four of us in the Legation," said Lacy, "and several servants
+to beat off the suffragettes who become enamoured of us."
+
+"The--_legation_?" she repeated, amused at the term.
+
+"Our friends call this house the Irish Legation," he explained. "We're
+all Irish by descent except Westguard who's a Sassenach--and Dick
+Quarren, who is only half Irish.'
+
+"And who is Dick Quarren?" she asked innocently.
+
+"Oh, Strelsa!" cautioned Molly Wycherly--"you really mustn't argue
+yourself unknown."
+
+"But I am unknown," insisted the girl, laughing and looking at the men
+in turn with an engaging candour that bowled them over again, one by
+one. "I _don't_ know who Mr. Quarren is, so why not admit it? _Is_ he
+such a very wonderful personage, Mr. Lacy?"
+
+"Not at all, Mrs. Leeds. He and I share the top floor of the Legation.
+We are, as a matter of record, the two financial wrecks of this
+establishment, so naturally we go to the garret. Poverty is my only
+distinction; Mr. Quarren, however, also leads the grand march at Lyric
+Hall now and then I believe----"
+
+"What is Lyric Hall? Ought I to know?"
+
+Everybody was laughing, and Molly Wycherly said:
+
+"Richard Quarren, known variously as Rix, Ricky, and Dick Quarren, is an
+exceedingly popular and indispensable young man in this town. You'll
+meet him, Strelsa, and probably adore him. We all do."
+
+"Must I wait very long?" asked Strelsa, laughing. "I'd like to have the
+adoration begin."
+
+Lacy said to O'Hara: "Go up and pull that pitiable dub off the bed,
+Roger. The lady wishes to inspect him."
+
+"That's not very civil of Rix," said Mrs. Wycherly; "but I fancy I know
+why he requires slumber." She added, glancing around mischievously at
+the three men who were all looking languishingly at Mrs. Leeds: "He'll
+be sorry when you three gentlemen describe Strelsa to him. I can
+prophesy that much."
+
+"Certainly," said Lacy, airily; "we're all at Mrs. Leeds's feet! Even
+the blind bat of Drumgool could see that! So why deny it?"
+
+"You're not denying it, Mr. Lacy," said Strelsa, laughing. "But I
+realise perfectly that I am in the Irish Legation. So I shall carefully
+salt everything you say to me."
+
+"If you think _I've_ kissed the blessed pebble you ought to listen to
+that other bankrupt upstairs," said Lacy.
+
+"As far as pretty speeches are concerned you seem to be perfectly
+solvent," said Strelsa gaily, looking around her at the various
+adornments of this masculine abode. "I wonder where you dine," she added
+with curiosity unabashed.
+
+"We've a fine dining-room below," he said proudly, "haven't we, Roger?
+And as soon as Dick Quarren and I are sufficiently solvent to warrant
+it, the Legation is going to give a series of brilliant banquets; will
+you come, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"When you are solvent, perhaps," said Strelsa, smiling.
+
+"Westguard and I will give you a banquet at an hour's notice," said
+O'Hara, eagerly. "Will you accept?"
+
+"Such overwhelming offers of hospitality!" she protested. "I had
+believed the contrary about New Yorkers. You see I've just emerged from
+the West, and I don't really know what to think of such bewildering
+cordiality."
+
+"Karl," said Mrs. Wycherly, "are you going to show us over the house? If
+you are we must hurry, as Strelsa and I are to decorate the Calderas'
+box this evening, and it takes me an hour to paint my face." She turned
+a fresh, winsome countenance to Westguard, who laughed, rose, and took
+his pretty cousin by the hand.
+
+Under triple escort Mrs. Wycherly and Mrs. Leeds examined the Legation
+from kitchen to garret--and Strelsa, inadvertently glancing in at a room
+just as Westguard started to close the door, caught sight of a recumbent
+shape on a bed--just a glimpse of a blond, symmetrical head and a
+well-coupled figure, graceful even in the careless relaxation of sleep.
+
+Westguard asked her pardon: "That's Quarren. He was probably up till
+daylight."
+
+"He was," said Molly Wycherly; "and by the same token so was I. Thank
+you so much, Karl.... Thank you, Mr. O'Hara--and you, too,
+Jack!"--offering her hand--"We've had a splendid party.... Strelsa, we
+really ought to go at once----"
+
+"Will you come again?"
+
+"We will come again if you ask us," said Strelsa; "we're perfectly
+fascinated by the Legation."
+
+"And its personnel?" hinted Lacy. "Do you like us, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"I've only seen three of you," parried Strelsa, much amused.
+
+"We refuse to commit ourselves," said Molly. "Good-bye. I suppose you
+all are coming to my house-warming."
+
+They all looked at Mrs. Leeds and said that they were coming--said so
+fervently.
+
+Molly laughed: she had no envy in her make-up, perhaps because she was
+too pretty herself.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, replying to their unasked questions, "Mrs. Leeds
+will be there--and I plainly see _my_ miserable fate. But what can a
+wretched woman expect from the Irish? Not constancy. Strelsa, take
+warning. They loved me once!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Westguard had put them in their limousine, he came back to find
+Quarren in his sitting-room, wearing a dressing-gown, and Lacy madly
+detailing to him the charms of Strelsa Leeds:
+
+"Take it from me, Dicky, she's some queen! You didn't miss a thing but
+the prettiest woman in town! And there's a _something_ about her--a kind
+of a sort of a something----"
+
+"You appear to be in love, dear friend," observed Quarren kindly.
+
+"I am. So's every man here who met her. We don't deny it! We glory in
+our fall! What was that costume of hers, Karl? Mourning?"
+
+"Fancy a glorious creature like her wearin' black for that nasty little
+cad," observed O'Hara disgustedly.
+
+"It's probably fashion, not grief," remarked Westguard.
+
+"I guess it's nix for the weeps," said O'Hara--"after all she probably
+went through with Reggie Leeds, I fancy she had no tears left over."
+
+"I want to talk," cried Lacy; "I want to tell Rix what he missed. I'd
+got as far as her gown, I think----"
+
+"Go on," smiled Quarren.
+
+"Anyway," said Lacy, "she wore a sort of mourning as far as her veil
+went, and her furs and gown and gloves were black, and her purse was
+gun-metal and black opals--rather brisk? Yes?--And all the dingles on
+her were gun-metal--everything black and sober--and that ruddy gold
+head--and--those eyes!--a kind of a purple-gray, Ricky, slanting a
+little, with long black lashes--I noticed 'em--and her lips were very
+vivid--not paint, but a kind of noticeably healthy scarlet--and that
+straight nose--and the fresh fragrant youth of her----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Jack----"
+
+"Sure. I'm through with 'em all. I'm wise to the sex. That was merely a
+word picture. I'm talking like a writer, that's all. That's how you
+boobs talk, isn't it, Karl?"
+
+"Always," said Westguard gravely.
+
+"Me for Mrs. Leeds," remarked O'Hara frankly. "I'd ask her to marry me
+on the drop of a hat."
+
+"Well, I'll drop no hat for _you_!" said Lacy. "And there'll be plenty
+of lunatics in this town who'll go madder than you or me before they
+forget Mrs. Leeds. Wait! Town is going to sit up and take notice when
+this new planet swims into its social ken. How's that epigram, Karl?"
+
+Westguard said thoughtfully: "There'll be notoriety, too, I'm afraid. If
+nobody knows her everybody knows about that wretched boy she married."
+
+Quarren added: "I have always understood that the girl did not want to
+marry him. It was her mother's doings."
+
+O'Hara scowled. "I also have heard that the mother engineered it....
+What was Mrs. Leeds's name? I forget----"
+
+"Strelsa Lanark," said Quarren who never forgot anything.
+
+"Ugh," grunted Westguard. "Fancy a mother throwing her daughter at the
+head of a boy like Reggie Leeds!--as vicious and unclean a little whelp
+as ever--Oh, what's the use?--and _de mortius nihil_--et cetera,
+cock-a-doodle-do!"
+
+"That poor girl had two entire years of him," observed Lacy. "She
+doesn't look more than twenty now--and he's been in--been dead two
+years. Good Heavens! What a child she must have been when she married
+him!"
+
+Westguard nodded: "She had two years of him--and I suppose he seldom
+drew a perfectly sober breath.... He dragged her all over the world with
+him--she standing for his rotten behaviour, trying to play the game with
+the cards hopelessly stacked against her. Vincent Wier met them in
+Naples; Mallison ran across them in Egypt; so did Lydon in Vienna.
+They said it was heartbreaking to see her trying to keep up
+appearances--trying to smile under his nagging or his drunken insults
+in public places. Lydon told me that she behaved like a brick--stuck to
+Reggie, tried to shield him, excuse him, make something out of the
+miserable pup who was doing his best to drag her to his own level and
+deprave her. But I guess she was too young or too unhappy or something,
+because there's no depravity in the girl who was here a few minutes ago.
+I'll swear to that."
+
+After a moment Lacy said: "Well, he got his at last!"
+
+"What was comin' to him," added O'Hara, with satisfaction.
+
+Lacy added, curiously: "_How_ can a man misbehave when he has such a
+woman for a wife?"
+
+"I wonder," observed Quarren, "how many solid citizens read the account
+in the papers and remained scared longer than six weeks?"
+
+"Lord help the wives of men," growled Westguard.... "If any of you
+fellows are dressing for dinner you'd better be about it.... Wait a
+moment, Rix!"--as Quarren, the last to leave, was already passing the
+threshold.
+
+The young fellow turned, smiling: the others went on; Westguard stood
+silent for a moment, then:
+
+"You're about the only man I care for very much," he said bluntly. "If I
+am continually giving you the Bible and the Sword it's the best I have
+to give."
+
+Quarren replied laughingly.
+
+"Don't worry, old fellow. I take what you say all right. And I really
+mean to cut out a lot of fussing and begin to hustle.... Only, isn't it
+a wise thing to keep next to possible clients?"
+
+"The people you train with don't buy lots in Tappan-Zee Park."
+
+"But I may induce them to go into more fashionable enterprises----"
+
+"Not they! The eagle yells on every dollar they finger. If there's any
+bleeding to be done they'll do it, my son."
+
+"Lester Caldera has already asked me about acreage in Westchester."
+
+"Did he do more than ask?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did you charge him for the consultation?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Then he got your professional opinion for nothing."
+
+"But he, or others, may try to assemble several farms----"
+
+"Why don't they then?--instead of dragging you about at their heels from
+house to house, from card-room to ball-room, from café to opera, from
+one week-end to the next!--robbing you of time, of leisure, of
+opportunity, of ambition--spoiling you--making a bally monkey of you!
+You're always in some fat woman's opera box or on some fat man's yacht
+or coach, or doing some damn thing--with your name figuring in
+everything from Newport to Hot Springs--and--and how can you ever turn
+into anything except a tame cat!"
+
+Quarren's face reddened slightly.
+
+"I'd be perfectly willing to sit in an office all day and all night if
+anybody would give me any business. But what's the use of chewing
+pencils and watching traffic on Forty-second Street?"
+
+"Then go into another business!"
+
+"I haven't any money."
+
+"I'll lend it to you!"
+
+"I can't risk _your_ money, Karl. I'm too uncertain of myself. If
+anybody else offered to stake me I'd try the gamble." ... He looked up
+at Westguard, ashamed, troubled, and showing it like a boy. "I'm afraid
+I don't amount to anything, Karl. I'm afraid I'm no good except in the
+kind of thing I seem to have a talent for."
+
+"Fetching and carrying for the fashionable and wealthy," sneered
+Westguard.
+
+Quarren's face flushed again: "I suppose that's it."
+
+Westguard glared at him: "I wish I could shake it out of you!"
+
+"I guess the poison's there," said Quarren in a low voice. "The worst of
+it is I like it--except when I understand your contempt."
+
+"You _like_ to fetch and carry and go about with your pocket full of
+boudoir keys!"
+
+"People give me as much as I give them."
+
+"They don't!" said the other angrily. "They've taken a decent fellow and
+put him in livery!"
+
+Quarren bit his lip as the blood leaped to his face.
+
+"Don't talk that way, Karl," he said quietly. "Even you have no business
+to take that tone with me."
+
+There was a silence. After a few moments Westguard came over and held
+out his hand. Quarren took it, looked at him.
+
+"I tell you," he said, "there's nothing to me. It's your kindness, Karl,
+that sees in me possibilities that never were."
+
+"They're there. I'll do my duty almost to the point of breaking our
+friendship. But--I'll have to stop short of that point."
+
+A quick smile came over Quarren's face, gay, affectionate:
+
+"You couldn't do that, Karl.... And don't worry. I'll cut out a lot of
+frills and try to do things that are worth while. I mean it, really.
+Don't worry, old fellow."
+
+"All right," said Westguard, smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+A masked dance, which for so long has been out of fashion in the world
+that pretends to it, was the experiment selected by Molly Wycherly for
+the warming up of her new house on Park Avenue.
+
+The snowy avenue for blocks was a mass of motors and carriages; a
+platoon of police took charge of the vehicular mess. Outside of the
+storm-coated lines the penniless world of shreds and patches craned a
+thousand necks as the glittering costumes passed from brougham and
+limousine under the awnings into the great house.
+
+Already in the new ball-room, along the edges of the whirl, masqueraders
+in tumultuous throngs were crowding forward to watch the dancers or
+drifting into the eddies and set-backs where ranks of overloaded gilt
+chairs creaked under jewelled dowagers, and where rickety old beaux
+impersonated tinselled courtiers on wavering but devoted legs.
+
+Aloft in their rococo sky gallery a popular orchestra fiddled
+frenziedly; the great curtains of living green set with thousands of
+gardenias swayed in the air currents like Chinese tapestries; a
+harmonious tumult swept the big new ball-room from end to end--a
+composite uproar in which were mingled the rushing noise of silk,
+clatter of sole and heel, laughter and cries of capering maskers
+gathered from the four quarters of fashionable Gath to grace the
+opening of the House of Wycherly. They were all there, dowager, matron,
+débutante, old beaux, young gallant, dancing, laughing, coquetting,
+flirting. Young eyes mocked the masked eyes that wooed them; adolescence
+tormented maturity; the toothless ogled the toothsome. Unmasking alone
+could set right this topsy-turvy world of carnival.
+
+A sinuous Harlequin, his skin-tight lozenge-patterned dress shimmering
+like the red and gold skin of a Malay snake, came weaving his way
+through the edges of the maelstrom, his eyes under the black half-mask
+glittering maliciously at the victims of his lathe-sword. With it he
+recklessly slapped whatever tempted him, patting gently the rounded arms
+and shoulders of nymph and shepherdess, using more vigour on the plump
+contours of fat and elderly courtiers, spinning on the points of his
+pump-toes, his limber lathe-sword curved in both hands above his head,
+leaping lithely over a chair here and there, and landing always as
+lightly as a cat on silent feet--a wiry, symmetrical figure under the
+rakish bi-corne, instinct with mischief and grace infernal.
+
+Encountering a burly masker dressed like one of Cromwell's ponderous
+Ironsides, he hit him a resounding whack over his aluminum cuirass, and
+whispered:
+
+"That Ironside rig doesn't conceal you: it reveals you, Karl! Out with
+your Bible and your Sword and preach the wrath to come!"
+
+"It will come all right," said Westguard. "Do you know how many hundred
+thousand dollars are wasted here to-night?... And yesterday a woman died
+of hunger in Carmine Street. Don't worry about the wrath of God as long
+as people die of cold and hunger in the streets of Ascalon."
+
+"That's not as bad as dying of inanition--which would happen to the
+majority here if they didn't have things like this to amuse 'em. For
+decency's sake, Karl, pity the perplexities of the rich for a change!"
+
+Westguard grunted something under his casque; then, adjusting his
+aluminum mask:
+
+"Are you having a good time, Dicky? I suppose you are."
+
+"Oh, _I'm_ gay enough," returned the Harlequin airily--"but there's
+never much genuine gaiety among the overfed." And he slapped a passing
+gallant with his wooden sword, spun around on his toes, bent over
+gracefully and stood on his hands, legs twinkling above him in the air.
+Then, with a bound he was on his nimble feet again, and, linking his arm
+in the arm of the Cromwellian trooper, strolled along the ranks of
+fanning dowagers, glancing amiably into their masked faces.
+
+"Same old battle-line," he observed to his companion--"their jewels give
+them away. Same old tiaras, same old ladies--all fat, all fifty, all
+fanning away like the damned. Your aunt has on about a ton of emeralds.
+I think she does it for the purpose of banting, don't you, Karl----"
+
+The uproar drowned his voice: Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed
+gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle for which his cousin Molly
+Wycherly was responsible.
+
+"It's monkey-shines like this that breed anarchists," he growled. "Did
+you notice that rubbering crowd outside the police lines in the snow?
+Molly and Jim ought to see it."
+
+[Illustration: "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around
+at the gorgeous spectacle."]
+
+"Oh, cut it out, Karl," retorted the Harlequin gaily; "there'll be rich
+and poor in the world as long as the bally old show runs--there'll be
+reserved seats and gallery seats and standing room only, and ninety-nine
+percent of the world cooling its shabby heels outside."
+
+"I don't care to discuss the problem with _you_," observed Westguard.
+After a moment he added: "I'm going to dance once or twice and get
+out.... I suppose you'll flit about doing the agreeable and fashionable
+until daylight."
+
+"I suppose so," said the Harlequin, tranquilly. "Why not? Also _you_
+ought to find material here for one of your novels."
+
+"A man doesn't have to hunt for material. It's in his bedroom when he
+wakes; it's all around him all day long. There's no more here than there
+is outside in the snow; and no less.... But dancing all night isn't
+going to help _your_ business, Ricky."
+
+"It won't hurt any business I'm likely to do."
+
+"Isn't your Tappan-Zee Park panning out?"
+
+"Fizzling out. Nobody's bought any building sites."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"How the deuce do I know, Karl! I don't want to talk business, here----"
+
+He ceased speaking as three or four white masked Bacchantes in
+fluttering raiment came dancing by to the wild music of Philemon and
+Baucis. Shaking their be-ribboned tambourines, flowery garlands and
+lynx-skins flying from their shoulders, they sped away on fleet little
+feet, hotly pursued by adorers.
+
+"Come on," said the Harlequin briskly; "I think one of those skylarkers
+ought to prove amusing! Shall I catch you one?"
+
+But he found no encouragement in the swift courtship he attempted; for
+the Bacchantes, loudly protesting at his interference, banged him over
+his head and shoulders with their resounding tambourines and danced away
+unheeding his blandishments.
+
+"Flappers," observed a painted and powdered clown whose voice betrayed
+him as O'Hara; "this town is overstocked with fudge-fed broilers.
+They're always playin' about under foot, spoilin' your huntin'; and if
+you touch 'em they ki-yi no end."
+
+"I suppose you're looking for Mrs. Leeds," said Westguard, smiling.
+
+"I fancy every man here is doin' the same thing," replied the clown.
+"What's her costume? Do you know, Ironsides?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell you if I did," said Westguard frankly.
+
+The Harlequin shrugged.
+
+"This world," he remarked, "is principally encumbered with women, and
+naturally a man supposes the choice is unlimited. But as you live to
+drift from girl to girl you'll discover that there are just two kinds;
+the kind you can kiss and the kind you can't. So finally you marry the
+latter. Does Mrs. Leeds flirt?"
+
+"Will a fish swim?" rejoined the clown. "You bet she will flirt. Haven't
+you met her?"
+
+"I? No," said the Harlequin carelessly. Which secretly amused both
+Westguard and O'Hara, for it had been whispered about that the new
+beauty not only had taken no pains to meet Quarren, but had pointedly
+ignored an opportunity when the choice lay with her, remarking that
+dancing men were one of the social necessities which everybody took for
+granted--like flowers and champagne. And the comment had been carried
+straight to Quarren, who had laughed at the time--and had never
+forgotten it, nor the apparently causeless contempt that evidently had
+inspired it.
+
+The clown brandished his bunch of toy balloons, and gazed about him:
+
+"Anybody who likes can go and tell Mrs. Leeds that I'm her declared
+suitor. I don't care who knows it. I'm foolish about her. She's
+different from any woman I ever saw. And if I don't find her pretty soon
+I'll smash every balloon over your head, Ricky!"
+
+The Harlequin laughed. "Women," he said, "are cut out in various and
+amusing patterns like animal crackers, but the fundamental paste never
+varies, and the same pastry cook seasoned it."
+
+"That's a sickly and degenerate sentiment," observed Westguard.
+
+"You might say that about the unfledged," added O'Hara--"like those
+kittenish Bacchantes. Winifred Miller and the youngest Vernon girl were
+two of those Flappers, I think. But there's no real jollity among the
+satiated," he added despondently. "A mask, a hungry stomach, and empty
+pockets are the proper ingredients for gaiety--take it from me, Karl."
+And he wandered off, beating everybody with his bunch of toy balloons.
+
+Quarren leaped to the seat of a chair and squatted there drawing his
+shimmering legs up under him like a great jewelled spider.
+
+"Bet you ten that the voluminous domino yonder envelops my aunt, Mrs.
+Sprowl," whispered Westguard.
+
+"You're betting on a certainty and a fat ankle."
+
+"Sure. I've seen her ankles going upstairs too often.... What the devil
+is the old lady wearing under that domino?"
+
+"Wait till you see her later," said Quarren, delightedly. "She has come
+as Brunhilda."
+
+"I don't want to see three hundred pounds of relative as Brunhilda,"
+growled Westguard.
+
+"You will, to-morrow. She's given her photograph to a _Herald_ man."
+
+"What did you let her do it for?" demanded Westguard wrathfully.
+
+"Could I help it?"
+
+"You could have stopped her. She thinks your opinion is the last lisp in
+fashionable art problems."
+
+"There are some things you can't tell a woman," said Quarren. "One of
+'em concerns her weight."
+
+"Are you afraid of Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+The Harlequin laughed:
+
+"Where would I be if I incurred your aunt's displeasure, dear friend?"
+
+"Out of the monkey house for good I suppose," admitted Westguard. "Lord,
+Ricky, what a lot you have had to swallow for the sake of staying put
+among these people!"
+
+Quarren sat meditating under his mask, cross-legged, twirling his
+sword, the crash of the floor orchestra dinning in his close-set ears.
+
+"Yes," he said without resentment, "I've endured my share. That's one
+reason why I don't want to let several years of humiliation go for
+nothing. I've earned whatever place I have. And I mean to keep it."
+
+Westguard turned on him half angrily, hesitated, then remained silent.
+What was the use? If Quarren had not been guilty of actually fawning,
+toadying, currying favour, he had certainly permitted himself to be
+rudely used. He had learned very thoroughly his art in the school of the
+courtier--learned how and when to be blind, silent, deaf; how to offer,
+how to yield, when and how to demand and exact. Which, to Westguard,
+meant the prostitution of intelligence. And he loathed the game like a
+man who is free to play it if he cares to. Of those who are denied
+participation, few really hate it.
+
+But he said nothing more; and the Harlequin, indolently stretching his
+glittering limbs, dropped a light hand on Westguard's cuirassed
+shoulder:
+
+"Don't be forever spoiling things for me, Karl. I really do enjoy the
+game as it lies."
+
+"It _does_ lie--that is the trouble, Rix."
+
+"I can't afford to criticise it.... Listen; I'm a mediocre man; I'd
+never count among real men. I count in the set which I amuse and which
+accepts me. Let me enjoy it, can't you?"
+
+An aged dandy, masked, painted, wizened, and dressed like Henri II,
+tottered by with a young girl on his arm, his shrill, falsetto giggle
+piercing the racket around them.
+
+"Do you wish to live to be like that?" asked Westguard sharply.
+
+"Oh, I'll die long before that," said Quarren cheerfully, and leaped
+lightly to his feet. "I shall now accomplish a little dancing," he said,
+pointing with his wooden sword at the tossing throng. "Venus send me a
+pretty married woman who really loves her husband.... By Bacchus! Those
+dancers are going it! Come on, Karl. Leave us foot it!"
+
+Many maskers were throwing confetti now: multi-tinted serpents shot out
+across the clamorous gulf; bunches of roses flung high, rising in swift
+arcs of flight, crossed and recrossed. All along the edges of the dance,
+like froth and autumn leaves cast up from a whirlpool, fluffy feminine
+derelicts and gorgeous masculine escorts were flung pell-mell out of the
+maelstrom and left stranded or drifting breathless among the eddies
+setting in toward the supper-room.
+
+Suddenly, as the Harlequin bent forward to plunge into the crush, the
+very centre of the whirlpool parted, and out of it floated a fluttering,
+jingling, dazzling figure all gold--slender, bare-armed and bare of
+throat and shoulders, auriferous, scintillating from crown to ankle--for
+her sleeveless tabard was cloth-of-gold, and her mask was gold; so were
+her jewelled shoes and the gemmed fillet that bound her locks; and her
+thick hair clustering against her cheeks had the lustre of precious
+metal.
+
+Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the Byzantine dancer,
+besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing gallantries--evaded
+the Harlequin, too, with laughing mockery, skilfully disengaging herself
+from the throng of suitors stumbling around her, crowded and buffeted on
+every side.
+
+After her like a flash sped Harlequin: for an instant, just ahead of
+him, she appeared in plain sight, glimmering brightly against the green
+and swaying tapestry of living leaves and flowers, then even as her
+pursuers looked at her, she vanished before their very eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the
+Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing
+gallantries."]
+
+They ran about distractedly hunting for her, Turk, Drum Major, Indian
+Chief, and Charles the First, then reluctantly gave up the quest and
+drifted off to seek for another ideal. All women are ideal under the
+piquant promise of the mask.
+
+A pretty shepherdess, lingering near, whispered close to Quarren's
+shoulder behind her fan:
+
+"Check to you, Harlequin! That golden dancer was the only girl in town
+who hasn't taken any pains to meet you!"
+
+He turned his head, warily, divining Molly Wycherly under the disguise,
+realising, too, that she recognised him.
+
+"You'll never find her now," laughed the shepherdess. "Besides she does
+not care a rap about meeting a mere Harlequin. It's refreshing to see
+you so thoroughly snubbed once in a while." And she danced gaily away,
+arms akimbo, her garlanded crook over her shoulder; and her taunting
+laughter floated back to him where he stood irresolute, wondering how
+the golden dancer could have so completely vanished.
+
+Suddenly he recollected going over the house before its completion with
+Jim Wycherly, who had been his own architect, and the memory of a
+certain peculiarity in the construction of the ball-room flashed into
+his mind. The only possible explanation for her disappearance was that
+somebody had pointed out to her the low door behind the third pillar,
+and she was now in the gilded swallow's-nest aloft.
+
+It was a whim of Wycherly--this concealed stair--he recalled it
+perfectly now--and, parting the living tapestry of blossoms, he laid
+his hand on the ivory and gilded paneling, pressing the heart of one
+carved rose after another, until with a click! a tiny door swung inward,
+revealing a narrow spiral of stairs, lighted rosily by electricity.
+
+He stepped inside, closed the door, and listened, then mounted
+noiselessly. Half way up he caught the aroma of a cigarette; and, a
+second later he stepped out onto a tiny latticed balcony, completely
+screened.
+
+The golden dancer, who evidently had been gazing down on the carnival
+scene below from behind the lattice, whirled around to confront him in a
+little flurry of cigarette smoke.
+
+For a moment they faced each other, then:
+
+"How did you know where to find me, Harlequin?"
+
+"I'd have died if I hadn't found you, fairest, loveliest----"
+
+"That is no answer! Answer me!"
+
+"Why did you flee?" he asked. "Answer that, first."
+
+She glanced at her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"You see why I fled, don't you? Now answer me."
+
+The Harlequin presented the hilt of his sword which was set with a tiny
+mirror.
+
+"You see why I fled after you," he said, "don't you?"
+
+"All the same," she insisted, smilingly, "I have been informed on
+excellent authority that I am the only one, except the family, who knows
+of this balcony. And here comes a Harlequin blundering in! _You_ are not
+Mr. Wycherly; and you're certainly not Molly."
+
+"Alas! My ultimate ends are not as shapely."
+
+"Then who are you?" She added, laughing: "They're shapely enough, too."
+
+"I am only a poor wandering, love-smitten Harlequin--" he said,
+"scorned, despised, and mocked by beauty----"
+
+"Love-smitten?" she repeated.
+
+"Can you doubt it, now?"
+
+She laughed gaily and leaned back against the balcony's velvet rail:
+
+"You lose no time in declaring yourself, do you, Harlequin?--that is, if
+you are hinting that _I_ have smitten you with the pretty passion."
+
+"Through and through, beautiful dancer----"
+
+"How do you know that I am beautiful under this mask?"
+
+"I know many things. That's my compensation for being only a poor
+mountebank of a Harlequin--magic penetration--the clairvoyance of
+radium."
+
+"Did you expect to find _me_ at the top of those cork-screw stairs?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Inference. Every toad hides a jewel in its head. So I argued that
+somewhere in the ugliness of darkest Philistia a gem must be hidden; and
+I've searched for years--up and down throughout the haunts of men from
+Gath to Ascalon. And--behold! My quest is ended at your pretty
+feet!--Rose-Diamond of the World!"
+
+He sank lithely on one knee; she laughed deliciously, looking down at
+his masked face.
+
+"Who are you, Harlequin?--whose wits and legs seem to be equally supple
+and symmetrical?"
+
+"Tell it not in Gath; Publish it not in the streets of Ascalon; I am
+that man for whom you were destined before either you or I were born.
+Are you frightened?"
+
+The Byzantine dancer laughed and shook her head till all the golden
+metal on her was set chiming.
+
+He said, still on one knee at her feet:
+
+"Exquisite phantom of an Empire dead, from what emblazoned sarcophagus
+have you danced forth across our modern oceans to bewitch the Philistia
+of to-day? Who clothed you in scarlet delicately? Who put ornaments of
+gold upon your apparel----"
+
+"You court me with Scripture as smoothly as Heaven's great Enemy," she
+said--"and to your own ends, as does he. Are you leagued with him, O
+agile and intrusive Harlequin, to steal away my peace of mind?"
+
+Lithely, silently he leaped up to the balustrade and, gathering his
+ankles under him, squatted there, cross-legged, peering sideways at her
+through the slanting eye-holes.
+
+"If that screen behind you gives way," she warned him, "you will have
+accomplished your last harlequinade."
+
+He glanced coolly over his shoulder:
+
+"How far is it to the floor below, do you suppose?"
+
+"Far enough to make a good harlequin out of a live one," she said....
+"Please be careful; I really mean it."
+
+"Child," he said solemnly, "do you suppose that I mind falling a hundred
+feet or so on my head? I've already fallen infinitely farther than that
+this evening."
+
+"And it didn't kill you?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
+dramatically.
+
+"No. Because our destiny must first be accomplished before I die."
+
+"Ours?"
+
+"Yours and mine, pretty dancer! I've already fulfilled _my_ destiny by
+falling in love with you at first sight. That was a long fall, wasn't
+it?"
+
+"Very. Am I to fulfil mine in a similar manner?"
+
+"You are."
+
+"Will it--kill me, do you think?"
+
+"I don't think so. Try it."
+
+"Will it hurt?--this terrible fall? And how far must I descend to fall
+in love with you?"
+
+"Sometimes falling in love does hurt," he said gravely, "when the fall
+is a long one."
+
+"Is this to be a long one?"
+
+"You may think so."
+
+"Then I decline to tumble. Please go somewhere about your business,
+Master Harlequin. I'm inclined to like you."
+
+"Dancer, my life's business is wherever you happen to be."
+
+"Why are you so sure?"
+
+"Magic," he said seriously. "I deal in it."
+
+"Wonderful! Your accomplishments overwhelm me. Perhaps, through the aid
+of magic, you can even tell me who I am!"
+
+"I think I can."
+
+"Is that another threat of magic?"
+
+"It's a bet, too, if you like."
+
+"Are you offering to bet me that, before I unmask, you will be able to
+discover who I am?"
+
+"Yes. Will you make it a wager?" She stood, silent, irresolute,
+cautious but curious; then:
+
+"Do you mean that you can find out who _I am_? Now? Here in this
+balcony?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"That is sheer nonsense," she said with decision. "I'll bet you anything
+you like."
+
+"What stakes?"
+
+"Why there's nothing to bet except the usual, is there?"
+
+"You mean flowers, gloves, stockings, bon-bons?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The Harlequin, smiling at her askance, drew from the hilt of his
+lathe-sword a fresh cigarette, lighted it, looked across at the level
+chandelier, and sent a ring of smoke toward the twinkling wilderness of
+prisms hanging in mid-air.
+
+"Let's be original or perish," he said. "I'll bet you a day out of my
+life against a day out of yours that I discover who you are in ten
+minutes."
+
+"I won't accept such a silly wager! What would you do with me for a
+day?"
+
+The Harlequin bent his masked head. Over his body the lozenges of
+scarlet and gold slid crinkling as though with suppressed and serpentine
+mirth.
+
+"_What_ are you laughing at?" she demanded half vexed, half amused.
+
+"Your fears, pretty dancer."
+
+"I am _not_ afraid!"
+
+"Very well. Prove it! I have offered to bet you a day out of my life
+that I'll tell you who you are. Are you afraid to wager a day out of
+yours that I can't do it?"
+
+She shook her head so that the burnished locks clustered against her
+cheeks, and all over her slim figure the jingling gold rang melodiously.
+
+"I haven't long to live," she observed. "A day out of life is too much
+to risk."
+
+"Why don't you think that you have long to live?"
+
+"I haven't. I know it."
+
+"_How_ do you know?"
+
+"I just know.... Besides, I don't wish to live very long."
+
+"You don't wish to live long?"
+
+"Only as long as I'm young enough to be forgetful. Old age is a
+horror--in some cases. I don't desire ever to be forty. After forty they
+say one lives on memory. I don't wish to."
+
+Through the slits of his mask his curious eyes watched her steadily.
+
+"You're not yet twenty-four," he said.
+
+"Not quite. That is a good guess, Harlequin."
+
+"And you don't want to live to be old?"
+
+"No, I don't wish to."
+
+"But you are rather keen on living while you're young."
+
+"I've never thought much about it. If I live, it's all right; if I die,
+I don't think I'll mind it.... I'm sure I shouldn't."
+
+Her cigarette had gone out. She tossed it aside and daintily consented
+to exchange cigarettes with him, offering her little gold case.
+
+"You're carefully inspecting my initials, aren't you?" she observed,
+amused. "But that monogram will not help you, Master Harlequin."
+
+"Marriage alters only the final initial. Are you, by any unhappy
+chance----"
+
+"That's for you to find out! I didn't say I was! I believe you _are_
+making me tell you things!"
+
+She threw back the lustrous hair that shadowed her cheeks and leaned
+forward, her shadowed eyes fixed intently upon him through the apertures
+of her golden mask.
+
+"I'm beginning to wonder uneasily who _you_ may be, Monsieur Harlequin!
+You alarm me a little."
+
+"Aha!" he said. "I've told you I deal in magic! That you don't know who
+I am, even after that confession, makes me reasonably certain who _you_
+are."
+
+"You're trying to scare me," she said, disdainfully.
+
+"I'll do it, yet."
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"You'll wonder more than ever in a few moments.... I'm going to tell you
+who you are. But first of all I want you to fix the forfeit----"
+
+"Why--I don't know.... What do you want of me?" she asked, mockingly.
+
+"Whatever you care to risk."
+
+"Then you'll have to name it. Because I don't particularly care to offer
+you anything.... And please hasten--I'll be missed presently----"
+
+"Won't you bet one day out of your life?"
+
+"No, I won't. I told you I wouldn't."
+
+"Then--one hour. Just a single hour?"
+
+"An hour?"
+
+"Yes, sixty minutes, payable on demand: If I win, you will place at my
+disposal one entire hour out of your life. Will you dare that much,
+pretty dancer?"
+
+She laughed, looked up at him; then readjusting her mask, she nodded
+disdainfully. "Because," she observed, "it is quite impossible for you
+ever to guess who I am. So do your very worst."
+
+He sprang from the balustrade, landing lightly, his left hand spread
+over his heart, his bi-corne flourished in the other.
+
+"You are Strelsa Leeds!" he said in a low voice.
+
+The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a
+bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge.
+
+"It--it is impossible that you should know--" she began, exasperated.
+"How _could_ you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night!
+I came by myself with my maid. It--it _is_ magic! It is
+infernal--abominable magic----"
+
+She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous,
+blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the
+fillet that bound her hair.
+
+After a silence:
+
+"How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed
+chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you--anyhow----"
+
+Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence,
+striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask--trying to
+interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it--or,
+perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two
+strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow.
+
+"Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful
+emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her
+under lip.
+
+"It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!"
+
+"First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit."
+
+"The--the forfeit!" she faltered.
+
+"Did you not lose your wager?"
+
+She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in
+vain for a clew to his identity. Then, a trifle uneasily:
+
+"Yes, of course I lost my wager. But--I did not clearly understand what
+you meant by an hour out of my life."
+
+"It is to be an hour at my disposal," he explained with another
+grotesque bow. "I think that was the wager?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Unless," he remarked carelessly, "you desire the--ah--privilege and
+indisputable prerogative of your delightful sex."
+
+"The privilege of my sex? What is that?" she asked, dangerously polite.
+
+"Why, to change your divine mind--repudiate the obligation----"
+
+"Harlequin!"
+
+"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow.
+
+"I pay what I owe--always.... _Always!_ Do you understand?"
+
+The Harlequin bowed again in arabesques, very low, yet with a singular
+and almost devilish grace:
+
+"Madame concedes that the poor Harlequin has won his wager?"
+
+"Yes, I do--and you don't appear to be particularly humble, either."
+
+"Madame insists on paying?" he inquired suavely.
+
+"Yes, of course I do!" she said, uneasily. "I promised you an hour out
+of my life. Am I to pay it now?"
+
+"You pay by the minute--one minute a day for sixty days. I am going to
+take the first minute now. _Perhaps_ I may ask for the other fifty-nine,
+also."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Shall I show you how?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"A magic pass or two, first," he said gaily, crooking one spangled knee
+and spinning around. Then he whipped out his lathe-sword, held it above
+his head, coolly passed a glittering arm around her waist, and looked
+down into her flushed face.
+
+"You will have to count out the sixty seconds," he said. "I shall be
+otherwise occupied, and I can't trust myself to do two things at once."
+
+"_What_ are you about to do? Sink through a trap-door with me?"
+
+"I am about to salute you with the magic kiss. After that you'll be my
+Columbine forever."
+
+"That is not included in the bet! Is it?" she asked in real
+consternation.
+
+"I may do as I please with my hour, may I not?"
+
+"Was it the bet that you were to be at liberty to--to kiss me?"
+
+"I control absolutely an hour out of your life, do I not? I may use it
+as I please. You had better count out sixty seconds."
+
+She looked down, biting her lip, and touched one hand against her
+cheeks, alternately, as though to cool them with the snowy contact.
+
+He waited in silence for her reply.
+
+"Very well," she said resolutely, "if you elect to use the first minute
+of your hour as frivolously as that, I must submit, I suppose."
+
+And she began to count aloud, rapidly: "One, two, three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight, ni----"
+
+Her face was averted; he could see the tip of one small ear all aflame.
+Presently she ventured a swift glance around at him and saw that he was
+laughing.
+
+"Ten, eleven, twelve," she counted nervously, still watching him;
+"thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--" panic threatened her; she doubled both
+hands in the effort of self-control and timed her counting as though the
+rapid beating of the tempo could hasten her immunity--"sixteen,
+seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, one, two, three----"
+
+"Play fair!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I am trying to. Can't I say it that way up to ten, and then say
+thirty?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. I've still half a minute. You'd better hurry! I may
+begin at any moment."
+
+"Four--five--six--seven--m-m-m--thirty!" she cried, and the swift
+numbers fled from her lips fairly stumbling over one another, tumbling
+the sequence of hurrying numerals into one breathless gasp of: "Forty!"
+
+His arm slid away from her waist; he stepped backward, and stood,
+watching her, one finger crooked, supporting his chin, the ironical
+smile hovering ever on his lips.
+
+"Fifty!" she counted excitedly, her hands beating time to the counting;
+"--fifty-one--two--three--four--m-m-m--sixty!"--and she whirled around
+to face him with an impulsively triumphant gesture which terminated in
+a swift curtsey, arms flung wide apart.
+
+"_Voila!_" she said, breathlessly, "I've paid my bet! Am I not a good
+sport, Harlequin? Own that I am and I will forgive your outrageous
+impudence!"
+
+"You are a most excellent sport, madame!" he conceded, grinning.
+
+Relief from the tension cooled her cheeks; she laughed bewitchingly and
+looked at him, exultant, unafraid.
+
+"I frightened you well with my desperate counting, didn't I? You
+completely forgot to do--anything, didn't you? Voyons! Admit it!"
+
+"You completely terrorized me," he admitted.
+
+"Besides," she said, "while I was so busily counting the seconds aloud
+you couldn't very well have kissed me, could you? _That_ was strategy.
+You couldn't have managed it, could you?"
+
+"Not very easily."
+
+"I really _did_ nonplus you, didn't I?" she insisted, aware of his
+amusement.
+
+"Oh, entirely," he said. "I became an abject idiot."
+
+She stood breathing more evenly now, the pretty colour coming and going
+in her cheeks. Considering him, looking alternately at his masked eyes
+and at his expressive lips where a kind of silent and infernal mirth
+still flickered, a sudden doubt assailed her. And presently, with a
+dainty shrug, she turned and glanced down through the gilt lattice
+toward the floor below.
+
+"I suppose," she said, tauntingly, "you hope I'll believe that you
+refrained from kissing me out of some belated consideration for decency.
+But I know perfectly well that I perplexed you, and confused you and
+intimidated you."
+
+"This is, of course, the true solution of my motives in not kissing
+you."
+
+She turned toward him:
+
+"What motive?"
+
+"My motive for not kissing you. My only motive was consideration for
+you, and for the sacred conventions of Sainte Grundy."
+
+"I believe," she said scornfully, "you are really trying to make me
+think that you _could_ have done it, and didn't!"
+
+"You are too clever to believe me a martyr to principle, madame!"
+
+She looked at him, stamped her foot till the bangles clashed.
+
+"Why _didn't_ you kiss me, then?--if you wish to spoil my victory?"
+
+"You yourself have told me why."
+
+"Am I wrong? Could you--didn't I surprise you--in fact, paralyse
+you--with astonishment?"
+
+He laughed delighted; and she stamped her ringing foot again.
+
+"I see," she said; "I am supposed to be doubly in your debt, now. I'd
+rather you _had_ kissed me and we were quits!"
+
+"It isn't too late you know."
+
+"It _is_ too late. It's all over."
+
+"Madame, I have fifty-nine other minutes in which to meet your kindly
+expressed wishes. Did you forget?"
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, aghast.
+
+"One hour less one minute is still coming to me."
+
+"Am I--have I--is this ridiculous performance going to happen again?"
+she asked, appalled.
+
+"Fifty-nine times," he laughed, doubling one spangled leg under the
+other and whirling on his toe till he resembled a kaleidoscopic
+teetotum. Then he drew his sword, cut right and left, slapped it back
+into its sheath, and bowed his wriggling bow, one hand over his heart.
+
+"Don't look so troubled, madame," he said. "I release you from your
+debt. You need never pay me what you owe me."
+
+Up went her small head, fiercely, under its flashing hair:
+
+"Thank you. I pay my debts!" she said crisply.
+
+"You decline to accept your release?"
+
+"Yes, I do!--from _you!"_
+
+"You'll see this thing through!--if it takes all winter?"
+
+"Of course;" trying to smile, and not succeeding.
+
+He touched her arm and pointed out across the hot, perfumed gulf to the
+gilded clock on high:
+
+"You _have_ seen it through! It is now one minute to midnight. We have
+been here exactly one hour, lacking a minute, since our bet was on....
+And I've wanted to kiss you all the while."
+
+Confused, she looked at the clock under its elaborate azure and ormolu
+foliations, then turned toward him, still uncertain of her immunity.
+
+"Do you mean that you have really used the hour as you saw fit?" she
+asked. "Have I done my part honestly?--Like a good sportsman? Have I
+really?"
+
+He bowed, laughingly:
+
+"I cheerfully concede it. You are a good sport."
+
+"And--all that time--" she began--"all that time----"
+
+"I had my chances--sixty of them."
+
+"And didn't take them?"
+
+"Only wanted to--but didn't."
+
+"You think that I----"
+
+"A woman never forgets a man who has kissed her. I took the rather
+hopeless chance that you might remember me without that. But it's a long
+shot. I expect that you'll forget me."
+
+"Do you _want_ me to remember you?" she asked, curiously.
+
+"Yes. But you won't."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I know--from the expression of your mouth, perhaps. You are too pretty,
+too popular to remember a poor Harlequin."
+
+"But you never have seen my face? Have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why do you continually say that I am pretty?"
+
+"I can divine what you must be."
+
+"Then--how--why did you refrain from--" She laughed lightly, and looked
+up at him, mockingly. "Really, Harlequin, you _are_ funny. Do you
+realise it?"
+
+She laughed again and the slight flush came back into her cheeks.
+
+"But you're nice, anyway.... Perhaps if you _had_ seen my face you might
+have let me go unkissed all the quicker.... Masks cover horrible
+surprises.... And, then again, if you _had_ seen it, _perhaps_ you might
+_never_ have let me go at all!" she added, audaciously.
+
+In the gilded balcony opposite, the orchestra had now ceased playing;
+the whirl and noise of the dancers filled the immense momentary quiet.
+Then soft chimes from the great clock sounded midnight amid cries of,
+"Unmask! masks off, everybody!"
+
+The Harlequin turned and drawing the black vizard from his face, bent
+low and saluted her hand; and she, responding gaily with a curtsey,
+looked up into the features of an utter stranger.
+
+She stood silent a moment, the surprised smile stamped on her lips;
+then, in her turn, she slipped the mask from her eyes.
+
+"_Voila!_" she cried. "_C'est moi!_"
+
+After a moment he said, half to himself;
+
+"I knew well enough that you must be unusual. But I hadn't any
+idea--any--idea----"
+
+"Then--you are _not_ disappointed in me, monsieur?"
+
+"My only regret is that I had my hour, and wasted it. Those hours never
+sound twice for wandering harlequins."
+
+"Poor Harlequin!" she said saucily--"I'm sorry, but even _your_ magic
+can't recall a vanished hour! Poor, poor Harlequin! You were too
+generous to me!"
+
+"And now you are going to forget me," he said. "That is to be my
+reward."
+
+"Why--I don't think--I don't expect to forget you. I suppose I am likely
+to know you some day.... _Who_ are you, please? Somebody very grand in
+New York?"
+
+"My name is Quarren."
+
+There was a silence; she glanced down at the ball-room floor through
+the lattice screen, then slowly turned around to look at him again.
+
+"Have you ever heard of me?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you disappointed?"
+
+"Y-es. Pleasantly.... I supposed you to be--different."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Has the world been knocking me very dreadfully to you, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"No.... One's impressions form without any reason--and
+vaguely--from--nothing in particular.--I thought you were a very
+different sort of man.--I am glad you are not."
+
+"That is charming of you."
+
+"It's honest. I had no desire to meet the type of man I supposed you to
+be. Am I too frank?"
+
+"No, indeed," he said, laughing, "but I'm horribly afraid that I really
+am the kind of man you imagined me."
+
+"You are not."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"No," she said, shaking her pretty head, "you can't be."
+
+He said, quoting her own words amiably: "I'm merely one of the necessary
+incidents of any social environment--like flowers and champagne----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren!"
+
+In her distress she laid an impulsive hand on his sleeve; he lifted it,
+laid it across the back of his own hand, and bowing, saluted it lightly,
+gaily.
+
+"I am not offended," he said; "--I am what you supposed me."
+
+"Please don't say it! You are not. I didn't know you; I
+was--prejudiced----"
+
+"You'll find me out sooner or later," he said laughing, "so I might as
+well admit that your cap fitted me."
+
+"It doesn't fit!" she retorted; "I was a perfect fool to say that!"
+
+"As long as you like me," he returned, "does it make any difference what
+I am?"
+
+"Of course it does! I'm not likely to find a man agreeable unless he's
+worth noticing."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"Oh, gentle angler, I refuse to nibble. Be content that an hour out of
+my life has sped very swiftly in your company!"
+
+She turned and laid her hand on the little gilt door. He opened it for
+her.
+
+"You've been very nice to me," she said. "I won't forget you."
+
+"You'll certainly forget me for that very reason. If I hadn't been nice
+I'd have been the exception. And you would have remembered."
+
+She said with an odd smile:
+
+"Do you suppose that pleasant things have been so common in my life that
+only the unpleasant episode makes any impression on my memory?"
+
+"To really remember me as I want you to, you ought to have had something
+unpardonable to forgive me."
+
+"Perhaps I have!" she said, daringly; and slipped past him and down the
+narrow stairs, her loup-mask fluttering from her elbow.
+
+At the foot of the stairs she turned, looking back at him over her bare
+shoulder:
+
+"I've mortally offended at least three important men by hiding up there
+with you. That is conceding _something_ to your attractions, isn't it?"
+
+"Everything. Will you let me find you some supper--and let the mortally
+offended suitors sit and whistle a bit longer?"
+
+"Poor suitors--they've probably been performing heel-tattoos for an
+hour.... Very well, then--I feel unusually shameless to-night--and I'll
+go with you. But don't be disagreeable to me if a neglected and
+glowering young man rushes up and drags me away by the back hair."
+
+"Who for example?"
+
+"Barent Van Dyne, for instance."
+
+"Oh, we'll side-step that youthful Knickerbocker," said Quarren, gaily.
+"Leave it to me, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"To behave so outrageously to Mr. Van Dyne is peculiarly horrid and
+wicked of me," she said. "But you don't realise that--and--the fact
+remains that you did _not_ take your forfeit. And I've a lot to make up
+for that, haven't I?" she added so naïvely that they both gave way to
+laughter unrestrained.
+
+The light touch of her arm on his, now guiding him amid the noisy,
+rollicking throngs, now yielding to his guidance, ceased as he threaded
+a way through the crush to a corner, and seated her at a table for two.
+
+In a few moments he came back with all kinds of delectable things; went
+for more, returned laden, shamelessly pulled several palms between them
+and the noisy outer world, and seated himself beside her.
+
+With napkin and plate on the low table beside her, she permitted him to
+serve her. As he filled her champagne glass she lifted it and looked
+across it at him:
+
+"How did you discover my identity?" she asked. "I'm devoured by
+curiosity."
+
+"Shall I tell you?"
+
+"Please."
+
+"I'll take a tumble in your estimation if I tell you."
+
+"I don't think you will. Try it anyway."
+
+"Very well then. Somebody told me."
+
+"And you let me bet with you! And _you_ bet on a _certainty!_"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "is that good sportsmanship, Mr.
+Quarren?"
+
+"No; very bad. And _that_ was why I didn't take the forfeit. Now you
+understand."
+
+She sat considering him, the champagne breaking in her glass.
+
+"Yes, I do understand now. A good sportsman couldn't take a forfeit
+which he won betting on a certainty.... That wasn't a real wager, was
+it?"
+
+"No, it wasn't."
+
+"If it had been, I--I don't suppose you'd have let me go."
+
+"Indeed not!"
+
+They laughed, watching each other, curiously.
+
+"Which ought to teach me never again to make any such highly original
+and sporting wagers," she said. "Anyway, you were perfectly nice about
+it. Of course you couldn't very well have been otherwise. Tell me, did
+you really suppose me to be attractive? You couldn't judge. How could
+you--under that mask?"
+
+"Do you think that your mouth could have possibly belonged to any other
+kind of a face except your own?" he said coolly.
+
+"Is my mouth unusual?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"How is it unusual?"
+
+"I haven't analysed the matter, but it is somehow so indescribable that
+I guessed very easily what the other features must be."
+
+"Oh, flattery! Oh, impudence! Do you remember when Falstaff said that
+the lion could always recognise the true prince? Shame on you, Mr.
+Quarren. You are not only a very adroit flatterer but a perfectly good
+sportsman after all--and the most gifted tormentor I ever knew in all my
+life. And I like you fine!" She laughed, and made a quick little
+gesture, partly arrested as he met her more than half way, touching the
+rim of his glass to hers. "To our friendship," he said.
+
+"Our friendship," she repeated, gaily, "if the gods speed it."
+
+"--And--its consequences," he added. "Don't forget those."
+
+"What are they likely to be?"
+
+"Who knows? That's the gamble! But let us recognise all kinds of
+possibilities, and drink to them, too. Shall we?"
+
+"What do you mean by the consequences of friendship?" she repeated,
+hesitating.
+
+"That is the interesting thing about a new friendship," he explained.
+"Nobody can ever predict what the consequences are to be. Are you afraid
+to drink to the sporting chances, hazards, accidents, and possibilities
+of our new friendship, Mrs. Leeds? _That_ is a perfectly good sporting
+proposition."
+
+She considered him, interested, her eyes full of smiling curiosity,
+perfectly conscious of the swift challenge of his lifted glass.
+
+[Illustration: "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' she said
+lightly."]
+
+After a few seconds' hesitation she struck the ringing rim of her glass
+against his:
+
+"To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!" she said lightly--"with
+every sporting chance, worldly hazard, and heavenly possibility in it!"
+
+For the first time the smile faded from his face, and something in his
+altered features arrested her glass at her very lips.
+
+"How suddenly serious you seem," she said. "Have I said anything?"
+
+He drained his glass; after a second she tasted hers, looked at him,
+finished it, still watching him.
+
+"Really," she said; "you made me feel for a moment as though you and I
+were performing a solemn rite. That was a new phase of you to me--that
+exceedingly sudden and youthful gravity."
+
+He remained silent. Into his mind, just for a second, and while in the
+act of setting the glass to his lips, there had flashed a flicker of
+pale clairvoyance. It seemed to illumine something within him which he
+had never believed in--another self.
+
+For that single instant he caught a glimpse of it, then it faded like a
+spark in a confused dream.
+
+He raised his head and looked gravely across at Strelsa Leeds; and
+level-eyed, smiling, inquisitive, she returned his gaze.
+
+Could this brief contact with her have evoked in him a far-buried
+something which had never before given sign of existence? And could it
+have been anything resembling aspiration that had glimmered so palely
+out of an ordered and sordid commonplace personality which, with all
+its talent for frivolity, he had accepted as his own?
+
+Without reason a slight flush came into his cheeks.
+
+"Why do you regard me so owlishly?" she asked, amused. "I repeat that
+you made me feel as though we were performing a sort of solemn rite when
+we drank our toast."
+
+"You couldn't feel that way with such a thoroughly frivolous man as I
+am. Could you?"
+
+"I'm rather frivolous myself," she admitted, laughing. "I really can't
+imagine why you made me feel so serious--or why you looked as though you
+were. I've no talent for solemnity. Have you?"
+
+"I don't think so," he said. "What a terrible din everybody is making!
+How hot and stifling it is here--with all those cloying gardenias.... A
+man said, this evening, that this sort of thing makes for anarchy....
+It's rather beastly of me to sit here criticising my host's
+magnificence.... Do you know--it's curious, too--but I wish that, for
+the next hour or two, you and I were somewhere alone under a good wide
+sky--where there was no noise. It's an odd idea, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds.
+And probably you don't share it with me."
+
+She remained silent, thoughtful, her violet-gray eyes humorously
+considering him.
+
+"How do you know I don't?" she said at last. "I'm not enamoured of
+noise, either."
+
+"There's another thing," he went on, smiling--"it's rather curious,
+too--but somehow I've a sort of a vague idea that I've a lot of things
+to talk to you about. It's odd, isn't it?"
+
+"Well you know," she reminded him, "you couldn't very well have a lot
+of things to talk to me about considering the fact that we've known each
+other only an hour or so."
+
+"It doesn't seem logical.... And yet, there's that inexplicable
+sensation of being on the verge of fairly bursting into millions of
+words for your benefit--words which all my life have been bottled up in
+me, accumulating, waiting for this opportunity."
+
+They both were laughing, yet already a slight tension threatened
+both--had menaced them, vaguely, from the very first. It seemed to
+impend ever so slightly, like a margin of faintest shadow edging
+sunlight; yet it was always there.
+
+"I haven't time for millions of words this evening," she said. "Won't
+some remain fresh and sparkling and epigrammatic until--until----"
+
+"To-morrow? They'll possibly keep that long."
+
+"I didn't say to-morrow."
+
+"I did."
+
+"I'm perfectly aware of the subtle suggestion and subtler flattery, Mr.
+Quarren."
+
+"Then, may I see you to-morrow?"
+
+"Utterly impossible--pitiably hopeless. You see I am frank about the
+heart-rending disappointment it is to me--and must be to you. But after
+I am awake I am in the hands of Mrs. Lannis. And there's no room for you
+in that pretty cradle."
+
+"The next day, then?"
+
+"We're going to Florida for three weeks."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Molly and Jim and I."
+
+"Palm Beach?"
+
+"Ultimately."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Oh! Have you the effrontery to tell me to my face that you'll be in the
+same mind about me three weeks hence?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Do you expect me to believe you?"
+
+"I don't know--what to expect--of you, of myself," he said so quietly
+that she looked up quickly.
+
+"Mr. Quarren! _Are_ you a sentimental man? I had mentally absolved you
+from _that_ preconception of mine--among other apparently unmerited
+ideas concerning you."
+
+"I suppose you'll arise and flee if I tell you that you're different
+from other women," he said.
+
+"You wouldn't be such an idiot as to tell me that, would you?"
+
+"I might be. I'm just beginning to realise my capacity for imbecility.
+You're different in this way anyhow; no woman ever before induced me to
+pull a solemn countenance."
+
+"I _don't_ induce you! I ask you not to."
+
+"I _try_ not to; but, somehow, there's something so--so real about
+_you_----"
+
+"Are you accustomed to foregather with the disembodied?"
+
+"I'm beginning to think that my world is rather thickly populated with
+ghosts--phantoms of a more real world."
+
+He looked at her soberly; she had thought him younger than he now
+seemed. A slight irritation silenced her for a moment, then,
+impatiently:
+
+"You speak cynically and I dislike it. What reason have you to express
+world-weary sentiments?--you who are young, who probably have never
+known real sorrow, deep unhappiness! I have little patience with a
+morbid view of anything, Mr. Quarren. I merely warn you--in the event of
+your ever desiring to obtain my good graces."
+
+"I do desire them."
+
+"Then be yourself."
+
+"I don't know what I am. I thought I knew. Your advent has disorganised
+both my complacency and my resignation."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Must I answer?"
+
+"Of course!" she said, laughing.
+
+"Then--the Harlequin who followed you up those stairs, never came down
+again."
+
+"Oh!" she said, unenlightened.
+
+"I'm wondering who it was who came down out of that balcony in the wake
+of the golden dancer," he added.
+
+"You and I--you very absurd young man. What are you trying to say?"
+
+"I--wonder," he said, smiling, "what I am trying to say."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Sunshine illuminated the rose-silk curtains of Mrs. Leeds's bedroom with
+parallel slats of light and cast a frail and tremulous net of gold
+across her bed. The sparrows in the Japanese ivy seemed to be unusually
+boisterous, and their persistent metallic chatter disturbed Strelsa who
+presently unclosed her gray eyes upon her own reflected features in the
+wall-glass opposite.
+
+Face still flushed with slumber, she lay there considering her mirrored
+features with humorous, sleepy eyes; then she sat up, stretched her
+arms, yawned, patted her red lips with her palm, pressed her knuckles
+over her eyelids, and presently slipped out of bed. Her bath was ready;
+so was her maid.
+
+A little later, cross-legged on the bed once more, she sat sipping her
+chocolate and studying the morning papers with an interest and
+satisfaction unjaded.
+
+Coupled with the naïve curiosity of a kitten remained her unspoiled
+capacity for pleasure, and the interest of a child in a world unfolding
+daily in a sequence of miracles under her intent and delighted eyes.
+
+Bare of throat and arm and shoulder, the lustrous hair shadowing her
+face, she now appeared unexpectedly frail, even thin, as though the
+fuller curves of the mould in which she was being formed had not yet
+been filled up.
+
+Fully dressed, gown and furs lent to her something of a youthful
+maturity which was entirely deceptive; for here, in bed, the golden
+daylight revealed childish contours accented so delicately that they
+seemed almost sexless. And in her intent gray eyes and in her
+undeveloped mind was all that completed the bodily and mental
+harmony--youth unawakened as yet except to a confused memory of
+pain--and the dreamy and passionless unconsciousness of an unusually
+late adolescence.
+
+At twenty-four Strelsa still looked upon her morning chocolate with a
+healthy appetite; and the excitement of seeing her own name and picture
+in the daily press had as yet lost none of its delightful thrill.
+
+All the morning papers reported the Wycherlys' house-warming with
+cloying detail. And she adored it. What paragraphs particularly
+concerned herself, her capable maid had enclosed in inky brackets. These
+Strelsa read first of all, warm with pleasure at every stereotyped
+tribute to her loveliness.
+
+The comments she perused were of all sorts, even the ungrammatical sort,
+but she read them all with profound interest, and loved every one, even
+the most fulsome. For life, and its kinder experience, was just
+beginning for her after a shabby childhood, a lonely girlhood, and a
+marriage unspeakable, the memory of which already had become to her as
+vaguely poignant as the dull recollection of a nightmare.
+
+So her appetite for kindness, even the newspaper variety, was keen and
+not at all discriminating; and the reaction from two years'
+solitude--two years of endurance, of shrinking from public comment--had
+developed in her a fierce longing for pleasure and for play-fellows.
+Her fellow-men had responded with an enthusiasm which still surprised
+her delightfully at moments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clever Swedish maid now removed the four-legged tray from her knees;
+Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her newspapers,
+satisfying a natural curiosity concerning what the world thought about
+her costume of the night before, her beauty, herself, and the people she
+knew. At last, agreeably satiated, she lowered the newspaper and lay
+back, dreamy-eyed, faintly smiling, lost in pleasant retrospection.
+
+Had she really appeared as charming last night as these exceedingly kind
+New York newspapers pretended? Did this jolly world really consider her
+so beautiful? She wished to believe it. She tried to. Perhaps it was
+really true--because all these daily paragraphs, which had begun with
+her advent into certain New York sets, must really have been founded on
+something unusual about her.
+
+And it could not be her fortune which continued to inspire such
+journalistic loyalty and devotion, because she had none--scarcely enough
+money in fact to manage with, dress with, pay her servants, and maintain
+her pretty little house in the East Eighties.
+
+It could not be her wit; she had no more than the average American girl.
+Nor was there anything else in her--neither her cultivation,
+attainments, nor talents--to entitle her to distinction. So apparently
+it must be her beauty that evoked paragraphs which had already made her
+a fashion in the metropolis--was making her a cult--even perhaps a
+notoriety.
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her
+newspapers."]
+
+Because those people who had personally known Reginald Leeds, were
+exceedingly curious concerning this young girl who had been a nobody, as
+far as New York was concerned, until her name became legally coupled
+with the name of one of the richest and most dissipated scions of an old
+and honourable New York family.
+
+The public which had read with characteristic eagerness all about the
+miserable finish of Reginald Leeds, found its abominable curiosity
+piqued by his youthful widow's appearance in town.
+
+It is the newspapers' business to give the public what it wants--at
+least that appears to be the popular impression; and so they gave the
+public all it wanted about Strelsa Leeds, in daily chunks. And then
+some. Which, in the beginning, she shrank from, horrified, frightened,
+astonished--because, in the beginning, every mention of her name was
+coupled with a glossary in full explanation of who she was, entailing a
+condensed review of a sordid story which, for two years, she had striven
+to obliterate from her mind. But these post-mortems lasted only a week
+or so. Except for a sporadic eruption of the case in a provincial paper
+now and then, which somebody always thoughtfully sent to her, the press
+finally let the tragedy alone, contenting its intellectual public with
+daily chronicles of young Mrs. Leeds's social activities.
+
+A million boarding houses throughout the land, read about her beauty
+with avidity; and fat old women in soiled pink wrappers began to mention
+her intimately to each other as "Strelsa Leeds"--the first hall-mark of
+social fame--and there was loud discussion, in a million humble homes,
+about the fashionable men who were paying her marked attention; and the
+chances she had for bagging earls and dukes were maintained and
+combated, below stairs and above, with an eagerness, envy, and
+back-stairs knowledge truly and profoundly democratic.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her morning mail had begun to assume almost fashionable proportions, but
+she could not yet reconcile herself to the idea of even such a clever
+maid as her own assuming power of social secretary. So she still read
+and answered all her letters--or rather neglected to notice the
+majority, which invested her with a kind of awe to some and made others
+furious and unwillingly respectful.
+
+Letters, bills, notes, invitations, advertisements were scattered over
+the bedclothes as she lay there, thinking over the pleasures and
+excitement of last night's folly--thinking of Quarren, among others, and
+of the swift intimacy that had sprung up between them--like a
+witch-flower over night--thinking of her imprudence, and of the cold
+displeasure of Barent Van Dyne who, toward daylight, had found her
+almost nose to nose with Quarren, absorbed in exchanging with that young
+man ideas and perfectly futile notions about everything on top, inside,
+and underneath the habitable globe.
+
+She blushed as she remembered her flimsy excuses to Van Dyne--she had
+the grace to blush over that memory--and how any of the dignity incident
+to the occasion had been all Van Dyne's--and how, as she took his
+irreproachable arm and parted ceremoniously with Quarren, she had
+imprudently extended her hand behind her as her escort bore her away--a
+childish impulse--the innocent coquetry of a village belle--she
+flushed again at the recollection--and at the memory of Quarren's lips
+on her finger-tips--and how her hand had closed on the gardenia he
+pressed into it----
+
+She turned her head on the pillow; the flower she had taken from him lay
+beside her on her night table, limp, discoloured, malodorous; and she
+picked it up, daintily, and flung it into the fireplace.
+
+At the same moment the telephone rang downstairs in the library.
+Presently her maid knocked, announcing Mr. Quarren on the wire.
+
+"I'm not at home," said Strelsa, surprised, or rather trying to feel a
+certain astonishment. What really surprised her was that she felt none.
+
+Her maid was already closing the door behind her when Strelsa said:
+
+"Wait a moment, Freda." And, after thinking, she smiled to herself and
+added: "You may set my transmitter on the table beside me, and hang up
+the receiver in the library.... Be sure to hang it up at once."
+
+Then, sitting up in bed, she unhooked the receiver and set it to her
+ear.
+
+"Mr. Quarren," she began coldly, and without preliminary amenities,
+"have you any possible excuse for awaking me at such an unearthly hour
+as mid-day?"
+
+"Good Lord," he exclaimed contritely, "did I do that?"
+
+She had no more passion for the exact truth than the average woman, and
+she quibbled:
+
+"Do you think I would say so if it were not true?" she demanded.
+
+"No, of course not----"
+
+"Well, then!" An indignant pause. "But," she added honestly, "I was not
+exactly what you might call asleep, although it practically amounts to
+the same thing. I was reposing.... Are _you_ feeling quite fit this
+morning?" she added demurely.
+
+"I'd be all right if I could see you----"
+
+"You can't! What an idea!"
+
+"Why not? What are you going to do?"
+
+"There's no particular reason why I should detail my daily duties,
+obligations, and engagements to you; is there?--But I'm an unusually
+kind-hearted person, and not easily offended by people's
+inquisitiveness. So I'll overlook your bad manners. First, then, I am
+lunching at the Province Club, then I am going to a matinée at the
+Casino, afterward dropping in for tea at the Sprowls, dining at the
+Calderas, going to the Opera with the Vernons, and afterward, with them,
+to a dance at the Van Dynes.... So, will you kindly inform me where
+_you_ enter the scene?"
+
+She could hear him laugh over the telephone.
+
+"What are you doing just now?" he asked.
+
+"I am seated upon my innocent nocturnal couch, draped in exceedingly
+intimate attire, conversing over the telephone with the original Paul
+Pry."
+
+"Could anything induce you to array yourself more conventionally,
+receive me, and let me take you to your luncheon at the Province Club?"
+
+"But I don't _wish_ to see you."
+
+"Is that perfectly true?"
+
+"Perfectly. I've just thrown your gardenia into the fireplace. Doesn't
+that prove it?"
+
+"Oh, no. Because it's too early, yet, for either of us to treasure such
+things----"
+
+"What horrid impertinence!"
+
+"Isn't it! But your heavenly gift of humour will transform my impudence
+into a harmless and diverting sincerity. Please let me see you, Mrs.
+Leeds--just for a few moments."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are going South and there are three restless weeks ahead of
+me----"
+
+This time he could hear her clear, far laughter:
+
+"What has _my_ going to Florida to do with _your_ restlessness?"
+
+"Your very question irrevocably links cause and effect----"
+
+"Don't be absurd, Mr. Quarren!"
+
+"Absurdity is the badge of all our Guild----"
+
+"What Guild do _you_ belong to?"
+
+"The associated order of ardent suitors----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren! You are becoming ridiculous; do you know it?"
+
+"No, _I_ don't realise it, but they say all the rest of the world
+considers suitors ridiculous----"
+
+"Do you expect me to listen to such nonsense at such an hour in the
+morning?"
+
+"It's half past twelve; and my weak solution of nonsense is suitable to
+the time of day----"
+
+"Am I to understand that the solution becomes stronger as the day
+advances?"
+
+"Exactly; the solution becomes so concentrated and powerful that traces
+of common-sense begin to appear----"
+
+"I didn't notice any last night."
+
+"Van Dyne interfered."
+
+"Poor Mr. Van Dyne. If you'd been civil to him he might have asked you
+to the dance to-night--if I had suggested it. But you were horridly
+rude."
+
+"I? Rude?"
+
+"You're not going to be rude enough to say it was I who behaved badly to
+him, are you? Oh, the shocking vanity of man! No doubt you are thinking
+that it was I who, serpent-like, whispered temptation into your innocent
+ear, and drew you away into a corner, and shoved palms in front of us,
+and brought silver and fine linen, and rare fruits and sparkling wines;
+and paid shameless court with an intelligent weather-eye always on the
+watch for a flouted and justly indignant cavalier!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "you did all those things. And now you're trying to
+evade the results."
+
+"What are the results?"
+
+"A partly demented young man clamouring to see you at high-noon while
+the cold cruel cause of his lunacy looks on and laughs."
+
+"I'm afraid that young man must continue to clamour," she said,
+immensely amused at the picture he drew. "How far away is he at this
+moment?"
+
+"In the Legation, a blithering wreck."
+
+"Why not in his office frantically immersed in vast business enterprises
+and cataclysmic speculations?"
+
+"I'm rather afraid that if business immerses him too completely he will
+be found drowned some day."
+
+"You promised--_said_ that you were going to begin a vigorous campaign,"
+she reminded him reproachfully. "I asked it of you; and you agreed."
+
+"I am beginning life anew--or trying to--by seeking the perennial source
+of daily spiritual and mundane inspiration----"
+
+"Why won't you be serious?"
+
+"I am. Were you not the source of my new inspiration? Last night did
+something or other to me--I am not yet perfectly sure what it was. I
+want to see you to be sure--if only for a--moment--merely to satisfy
+myself that you are real----"
+
+"Will one moment be enough?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"One second--or half a one?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"Very well--if you promise not to expect or ask for more than that----"
+
+"That is terribly nice of you!"
+
+"It is, overwhelmingly. But really I don't know whether I am nice or
+merely weak-minded. Because I've lingered here gossiping so long with
+you that I've simply got to fly like a mad creature about my dressing.
+Good-bye----"
+
+"Shall I come up immediately?"
+
+"Of course not! I expect to be dressing for hours and
+hours--figuratively speaking.... Perhaps you might start in ten minutes
+if you are coming in a taxi."
+
+"You are an angel----"
+
+"That is not telephone vernacular.... And perhaps you had better be
+prompt, because Mrs. Lannis is coming for me--that is, if you have
+anything to--to say--that----"
+
+She flushed up, annoyed at her own stupidity, then felt grateful to him
+as he answered lightly:
+
+"Of course; she might misunderstand our informality. Shall I see you in
+half an hour?"
+
+"If I can manage it," she said.
+
+She managed it, somehow. At first, really indifferent, and not very
+much amused, the talk with him had gradually aroused in her the same
+interest and pleasurable curiosity that she had experienced in
+exchanging badinage with him the night before. Now she really wanted to
+see him, and she took enough trouble about it to set her deft maid
+flying about her offices.
+
+First a fragrant precursor of his advent arrived in the shape of a great
+bunch of winter violets; and her maid fastened them to her black fox
+muff. Then the distant door-bell sounded; and in an extraordinarily
+short space of time, wearing her pretty fur hat, her boa, and carrying a
+muff that matched both, with his violets pinned to it, she entered the
+dim drawing-room, halting just beyond the threshold.
+
+"Are you not ashamed," she said, severely, "to come battering at my door
+at this hour of the day?"
+
+"Abjectly."
+
+They exchanged a brief handshake; she seated herself on the arm of a
+sofa; he stood before the unlighted fireplace, looking at her with a
+half smiling half curious air which made her laugh outright.
+
+"Bien! C'est moi, monsieur," she said. "Me voici! C'est moi-même!"
+
+"I believe you _are_ real after all," he admitted.
+
+"Do I seem different?"
+
+"Yes--and no."
+
+"How am I different?"
+
+"Well, somehow, last night, I got the notion that you were younger,
+thinner--and not very real----"
+
+"Are you presuming to criticise my appearance last night?" she asked
+with mock indignation. "Because if you are, I proudly refer you to the
+enlightened metropolitan morning press."
+
+"I read all about you," he said, smiling.
+
+"I am glad you did. You will doubtless now be inclined to treat me with
+the respect due to my years and experience."
+
+"I believe," he said, "that your gown and hat and furs make a charming
+difference----"
+
+"How perfectly horrid of you! I thought you admired my costume last
+night!"
+
+"Oh, Lord," he said--"you were sufficiently charming last night. But
+now, in your fluffy furs, you seem rather taller--less slender
+perhaps--and tremendously fetching----"
+
+"Say that my clothes improve me, and that in reality I'm a horrid, thin
+little beast!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I know I am, but I haven't
+finished growing yet. Really that's the truth, Mr. Quarren. Would you
+believe that I have grown an inch since last spring?"
+
+"I believe it," he said, "but would you mind stopping now? You are
+exactly right."
+
+"You _know_ I'm thin and flat as a board!"
+
+"You're perfect!"
+
+"It's too late to say that to me----"
+
+"It is too early to say more."
+
+"Let's don't talk about myself, please."
+
+"It has become the only subject in the world that interests me----"
+
+"Please, Mr. Quarren! Are you actually attempting to be silly at this
+hour of the day? The wise inanities of midnight sound perilously flat in
+the sunshine--flatter than the flattest champagne, which no
+bread-crumbs can galvanise into a single bubble. Tell me, why did you
+wish to see me this morning. I mean the real reason? Was it merely to
+find out whether I was weak-minded enough to receive you?"
+
+He looked at her, smiling:
+
+"I wanted to see whether you were as real and genuine and wholesome and
+unspoiled and--and friendly as I thought you were last night."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"More so."
+
+"Are you so sure about my friendliness?"
+
+"I want to believe in it," he said. "It means a lot to me already."
+
+"Believe in it then, you very badly spoiled young man," she said,
+stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "I do like you.... And now I
+think you had better go--unless you want to see Mrs. Lannis."
+
+Retaining her hand for a second he said:
+
+"Before you leave town will you let me ask you a question?"
+
+"I am leaving to-morrow. You'll have to ask it now."
+
+Their hands fell apart; he seemed doubtful, and she awaited his
+question, smilingly. And as he made no sign of asking she said:
+
+"You have my permission to ask it. Is it a very impertinent question?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"How impertinent is it?" she inquired curiously.
+
+"Unpardonably personal."
+
+After a silence she laughed.
+
+"Last night," she said, "you told me that I would probably forget you
+unless I had something unpardonable to forgive you. Isn't this a good
+opportunity to leave your unpardonable imprint upon my insulted
+memory?"
+
+"Excellent," he said. "This is my outrageous question: are you engaged
+to be married?"
+
+For a full minute she remained silent in her intense displeasure. After
+the first swift glance of surprise her gray eyes had dropped, and she
+sat on the gilded arm of the sofa, studying the floor covering--an
+ancient Saraband rug, with the inevitable and monotonous river-loop
+symbol covering its old-rose ground in uninteresting repetition. After a
+while she lifted her head and met his gaze, quietly.
+
+"I am trying to believe that you did not mean to be offensive," she
+said. "And now that I have a shadow of a reason to pardon you, I shall
+probably do so, ultimately."
+
+"But you won't answer me?" he said, reddening.
+
+"Of course not. Are we on any such footing of intimacy--even of
+friendship, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"No. But you are going away--and my reason for speaking--" He checked
+himself; his reasons were impossible; there was no extenuation to be
+found in them, no adequate explanation for them, or for his attitude
+toward this young girl which had crystallised over night--over a
+sleepless, thrilling night--dazzling him with its wonder and its truth
+and its purity in the clean rays of the morning sun.
+
+She watched his expression as it changed, troubled, uncertain how to
+regard him, now.
+
+"It isn't very much like you, to ask me such a question," she said.
+
+"Before I met you, you thought me one kind of a man; after I met you,
+you thought me another. Have I turned out to be a third kind?"
+
+"N-no."
+
+"Would I turn into the first kind if I ask you again to answer my
+question?"
+
+She gave him a swift, expressionless glance:
+
+"I want to like you; I'm trying to, Mr. Quarren. Won't you let me?"
+
+"I want to have the right to like _you_, too--perhaps more than you will
+care to have me----"
+
+"Please don't speak that way--I don't know what you mean, anyway----"
+
+"That is why I asked you the question--to find out whether I had a right
+to----"
+
+"Right!" she repeated. "What right? What do you mean? What have you
+misinterpreted in me that has given you any rights as far as I am
+concerned? Did you misunderstand our few hours of masked acquaintance--a
+few moments of perfectly innocent imprudence?--my overlooking certain
+conventions and listening to you at the telephone this morning--my
+receiving you here at this silly hour? What has given you any right to
+say anything to me, Mr. Quarren--to hint of the possibility of anything
+serious--for the future--or at any time whatever?"
+
+"I have no right," he said, wincing.
+
+"Indeed you have not!" she rejoined warmly, flushed and affronted. "I am
+glad that is perfectly clear to you."
+
+"No right at all," he repeated--"except the personal privilege of
+recognising what is cleanest and sweetest and most admirable and most
+unspoiled in life; the right to care for it without knowing exactly
+why--the desire to be part of it--as have all men who are awakened
+out of trivial dreams when such a woman as you crosses their limited and
+foolish horizon."
+
+She sat staring at him, struggling to comprehend what he was saying,
+perfectly unable to believe, nor even wishing to, yet painfully
+attentive to his every word.
+
+"Mr. Quarren," she said, "I was hurt. I imagined presumption where there
+was none. But I am afraid you are romantic and impulsive to an amazing
+degree. Yet, both romance and impulse have a place and a reason, not
+undignified, in human intercourse."--She felt rather superior in turning
+this phrase, and looked on him a little more kindly----
+
+"If the compliment which you have left me to infer is purely a romantic
+one, it is nevertheless unwarranted--and, forgive me, unacceptable. The
+trouble is----"
+
+She paused to recover her wits and her breath; but he took the latter
+away again as he said:
+
+"I am in love with you; that is the trouble, Mrs. Leeds. And I really
+have no business to say so until I amount to something."
+
+"You have no business to say so anyway after one single evening's
+acquaintance!" she retorted hotly.
+
+"Oh, that! If love were a matter of time and convention--like five
+o'clock tea!--but it isn't, you know. It isn't the brevity of our
+acquaintance that worries me; it's what _I_ am--and what _you_
+are--and--and the long, long road I have to travel before I am worth
+your lightest consideration--I never was in love before. Forgive my
+crudeness. I'm only conscious of the--hopelessness of it all."
+
+Breathless, confused, incredulous, she sat there staring at
+him--listening to and watching this tall, quiet, cool young fellow who
+was telling her such incomprehensible things in a manner that began to
+fascinate her. With an effort she collected herself, shook off the
+almost eerie interest that was already beginning to obsess her, and
+stood up, flushed but composed.
+
+"Shall we not say any more about it?" she said quietly. "Because there
+is nothing more to say, Mr. Quarren--except--thank you for--for feeling
+so amiably toward me--for believing me more than I really am.... And I
+would like to have your friendship still, if I may----"
+
+"You have it."
+
+"Even yet?"
+
+"Why not?... It's selfish of me to say it--but I wish you--could have
+saved me," he said almost carelessly.
+
+"From what, Mr. Quarren? I really do not understand you."
+
+"From being what I am--the sort of man you first divined me to be."
+
+"What do you mean by 'saving' you?" she asked, coldly.
+
+"I don't know!--giving me a glimmer of hope I suppose--something to
+strive for."
+
+"One saves one's self," she said.
+
+He turned an altered face toward her: and she looked at him intently.
+
+"I guess you are right," he said with a short laugh. "If there is
+anything worth saving, one saves one's self."
+
+"I think that is true," she said.... "And--if my friendship--if you
+really care for it----"
+
+He met her gaze:
+
+"I honestly don't know. I've been carried off my feet by you,
+completely. A man, under such conditions, doesn't know anything--not
+even enough to hold his tongue--as you may have noticed. I am in love
+with you. As I am to-day, my love for you would do you no good--I don't
+know whether yours would do me any good--or your friendship, either. It
+ought to if I amounted to anything; but I don't--and I don't know."
+
+"I wish you would not speak so bitterly--please----"
+
+"All right. It wasn't bitterness; it was just whine. ... I'll go, now.
+You will comprehend, after you think it over, that there is at least
+nothing of impertinence in my loving you--only a blind unreason--a
+deadly fear lest the other man in me, suddenly revealed, vanish before I
+could understand him. Because when I saw you, life's meaning broke out
+suddenly--like a star--and that's another stale simile. But one has to
+climb very far before one can touch even the nearest of the stars.... So
+forgive my one lucid interval.... I shall probably never have
+another.... May I take you to your carriage?"
+
+"Mrs. Lannis is calling for me."
+
+"Then--I will take my leave--and the tatters of my reputation--any song
+can buy it, now----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I don't want you to go--like this. I want you to go away knowing in
+your heart that you have been very--nice--agreeable--to a young girl who
+hasn't perhaps had as much experience as you think----"
+
+"Thank God," he said, smiling.
+
+"I want you to like me, always," she said. "Will you?"
+
+"I promise," he replied so blithely that for a moment his light irony
+deceived her. Then something in his eyes left her silent, concerned,
+unresponsive--only her heart seemed to repeat persistently in childish
+reiteration, the endless question, Why? Why? Why? And she heard it but
+found no answer where love was not, and had never been.
+
+"I--am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I--I try to understand you--but
+I don't seem to.... I am so _very_ sorry that you--care for me."
+
+He took her gloved hand, and she let him.
+
+"I guess I'm nothing but a harlequin after all," he said, "and they're
+legitimate objects for pity. Good-bye, Mrs. Leeds. You've been very
+patient and sweet with a blithering lunatic.... I've committed only
+another harlequinade of a brand-new sort. But the fall from that balcony
+would have been less destructive."
+
+She looked at him out of her gray eyes.
+
+"One thing," she said, with a tremulous smile, "you may be certain that
+I am not going to forget you very easily."
+
+"Another thing," he said, "I shall never forget you as long as I live;
+and--you have my violets, I see. Are they to follow the gardenia?"
+
+"Only when their time comes," she said, trying to laugh.
+
+So he wished her a happy trip and sojourn in the South, and went away
+into the city--downtown, by the way to drop into an office chair in an
+empty office and listen to the click of a typewriter in the outer room,
+and sit there hour after hour with his chin in his hand staring at
+nothing out of the clear blue eyes of a boy.
+
+And she went away to her luncheon at the Province Club with Susanne
+Lannis who wished her to meet some of the governors--very grand
+ladies--upon whose good will depended Strelsa's election to the most
+aristocratic, comfortable, wisely managed, and thriftiest of all
+metropolitan clubs.
+
+After luncheon she, with Mrs. Lannis and Chrysos Lacy--a pretty
+red-haired edition of her brother--went to see "Sumurun."
+
+And after they had tea at the redoubtable Mrs. Sprowl's, where there
+were more footmen than guests, more magnificence than comfort, and more
+wickedness in the gossip than lemon in the tea or Irish in the more
+popular high-ball.
+
+The old lady, fat, pink, enormous, looked about her out of her little
+glittering green eyes with a pleased conviction that everybody on earth
+was mortally afraid of her. And everybody, who happened to be anybody in
+New York, was exactly that--with a few eccentric exceptions like her
+nephew, Karl Westguard, and half a dozen heavily upholstered matrons
+whose social altitude left them nothing to be afraid of except lack of
+deference and death.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl had a fat, wheezy, and misleading laugh; and it took time
+for Strelsa to understand that there was anything really venomous in the
+old lady; but the gossip there that afternoon, and the wheezy delight in
+driving a last nail into the coffin of some moribund reputation, made
+plain to her why her hostess was held in such respectful terror.
+
+The talk finally swerved from Molly Wycherly's ball to the Irish
+Legation, and Mrs. Sprowl leaned toward Strelsa, and panted behind her
+fan:
+
+"A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men give there!
+Orgies, I understand! No pretty actress in town is kept sighing long for
+invitations. Even"--she whispered the name of a lovely and respectable
+prima-donna with a perfectly good husband and progeny--and nodded so
+violently that it set her coughing.
+
+"Oh," cried Strelsa, distressed, "surely you have been misinformed!"
+
+"Not in the least," wheezed the old lady. "She is no better than the
+rest of 'em! And I sent for my nephew Karl, and I brought him up
+roundly. 'Karl!' said I, 'what the devil do you mean! Do you want that
+husband of hers dragging you all into court?' And, do you know, my dear,
+he appeared perfectly astounded--said it wasn't so--just as you said a
+moment ago. But I can put two and two together, yet; I'm not too old and
+witless to do that! And I warrant you I gave him a tongue trouncing
+which he won't forget. ... Probably he retailed it to that O'Hara man,
+and to young Quarren, too. If he did it won't hurt 'em, either."
+
+She was speaking now so generally that everybody heard her, and Cyrille
+Caldera said:
+
+"Ricky is certainly innocuous, anyway."
+
+"Oh, _is_ he!" said Mrs. Sprowl with another wheezy laugh. "I fancy I
+know that boy. Did you say 'harmless,' Susanne? Well, _you_ ought to
+know, of course----"
+
+Cyrille Caldera blushed brightly although her affair with Quarren had
+been of the most innocent description.
+
+[Illustration: "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men
+give there!'"]
+
+"There's probably as much ground for indicting Ricky as there is for
+indicting me," she protested. "He's merely a nice, useful boy----"
+
+"Rather vapid, don't you think?" observed a thin young woman in sables
+and an abundance of front teeth.
+
+"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and
+a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination."
+
+"He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell
+me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly
+harmless."
+
+"Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to.
+
+"Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde--whose husband must have been
+an idiot--and Cynthia Challis--she married Prince Sarnoff, you
+remember----"
+
+"The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy.
+
+"I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl.
+"How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar----"
+
+"Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis.
+
+"Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em
+marry him. Poor Ricky."
+
+"Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is _so_ nice, and nobody is likely to
+marry him."
+
+"Why?" asked Strelsa.
+
+"Because he's--why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't
+you know it?"
+
+"No," said Strelsa.
+
+"That's the trouble--partly. Then there's no social advantage for any
+girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out
+of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky--unless he
+marries a lame duck."
+
+"Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained
+Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed.
+
+"Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight."
+
+"The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's
+intelligent otherwise I fancy."
+
+"Yes, but not intellectual."
+
+"I think you are possibly mistaken."
+
+The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis
+laughed.
+
+"Are _you_ his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night
+for the first time."
+
+"Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet
+Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But
+you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison
+arrives." At which sally everybody laughed.
+
+Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the
+coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British
+officer's arrival.
+
+Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew,
+because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was
+understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning
+people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa
+Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of
+fashionable banter.
+
+"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles
+you'll forget Ricky."
+
+"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl,
+why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy."
+
+"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the
+eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are
+pretty."
+
+"I have enough--almost----"
+
+"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!"
+laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa--you'll need
+them."
+
+"You are mistaken. I _have_ enough. I'd like to be happy for a while."
+
+The naïve inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and
+happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of
+the past which had unconsciously evoked it.
+
+After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in,
+one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of
+Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in
+kennel parlance.
+
+To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed
+loud and long.
+
+"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves
+as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular
+among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby
+agape. But your man of the world has other tastes."
+
+"Jaded tastes," said somebody.
+
+"Maybe they're jaded and vicious--but they're his. And maybe that girl
+has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But
+it's the last shriek among people who know."
+
+"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French
+sculptor who did the Merode?"
+
+"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else.
+
+"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds
+needs padding--to suit my notions."
+
+"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl
+will be scandalous when she fills out a little more.... If she only had
+the wits to match what she is going to be!--But there's a streak of
+something silly in her--I suspect latent sentiment--which is likely to
+finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels
+for Ricky, now!--a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except
+in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little
+minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky."
+
+"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing.
+
+"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks
+in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that
+girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind
+about Strelsa Leeds, and"--she glared around her, fanning vigorously--"I
+_think_ nobody is likely to interfere."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid
+down the law of limits to him so decisively that, taken aback,
+astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment.
+
+When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly
+that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned.
+
+But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who
+had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders.
+
+When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had
+taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his
+conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her.
+
+He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing
+sponsor for Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old
+lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?"
+
+He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at
+Strelsa.
+
+Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very
+bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals.
+
+"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass.
+
+"What?" he asked sullenly.
+
+"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix--and also amass a little
+common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to
+start things for her. Which I shan't--in that direction."
+
+"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with
+an unpleasant laugh.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically.
+
+"I understand the Earl of Dankmere, perfectly," she said--"also other
+people, including young, and sulky boys. So if you clearly understand my
+wishes, and the girl doesn't make a fool of herself over you or any
+other callow ineligible, her future will give me something agreeable to
+occupy me."
+
+The blood stung his face as he stood up--a tall graceful figure among
+the others in the box--a clean-cut, wholesome boy to all appearances,
+with that easy and amiable presence which is not distinction but which
+sometimes is even more agreeable.
+
+Lips compressed, the flush still hot on his face, he stood silent,
+tasting all the bitterness that his career had stored up for him--sick
+with contempt for a self that could accept and swallow such things. For
+he had been well schooled, but scarcely to that contemptible point.
+
+"Of course," he said, pleasantly, "you understand that I shall do as I
+please."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl laughed:
+
+"I'll see to that, too, Ricky."
+
+Chrysos Lacy leaned forward and began to talk to him, and his training
+reacted mechanically, for he seemed at once to become his gay and
+engaging self.
+
+He did not return to the Vernons' box nor did he see Strelsa again
+before she went South.
+
+The next night a note was delivered to him, written from the Wycherlys'
+car, "Wind-Flower."
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN:
+
+     "Why did you not come back to say good-bye? You spoke of doing so.
+     I'm afraid Chrysos Lacy is responsible.
+
+     "The dance at the Van Dynes was very jolly. I am exceedingly sorry
+     you were not there. Thank you for the flowers and bon-bons that
+     were delivered to me in my state-room. My violets are not yet
+     entirely faded, so they have not yet joined your gardenia in the
+     limbo of useless things.
+
+     "Mr. Westguard came to the train. He _is_ nice.
+
+     "Mr. O'Hara and Chrysos and Jack Lacy were there, so in spite of
+     your conspicuous absence the Legation maintained its gay reputation
+     and covered itself with immortal blarney.
+
+     "This letter was started as a note to thank you for your gifts, but
+     it is becoming a serial as Molly and Jim and I sit here watching
+     the North Carolina landscape fly past our windows like streaks of
+     brown lightened only by the occasional delicious and sunny green of
+     some long-leafed pine.
+
+     "There's nothing to see from horizon to horizon except the
+     monotonous repetition of mules and niggers and evil-looking cypress
+     swamps and a few razor-backs and a buzzard flying very high in the
+     blue.
+
+     "Thank you again for my flowers.... I wonder if you understand that
+     my instinct is to be friends with you?
+
+     "It was from the very beginning.
+
+     "And please don't be absurd enough to think that I am going to
+     forget you--or our jolly escapade at the Wycherly ball. You behaved
+     very handsomely once. I know I can count on your kindness to me.
+
+     "Good-bye, and many many thanks--as Jack Lacy says--'f'r the manny
+     booggy-rides, an' th' goom-candy, an' the boonches av malagy
+     grrapes'!
+
+                                  "Sincerely your friend,
+
+                                             "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+That same day Sir Charles Mallison arrived in New York and went directly
+to Mrs. Sprowl's house. Their interview was rather brief but loudly
+cordial on the old lady's part:
+
+"How's my sister and Foxy?" she asked--meaning Sir Renard and Lady
+Spinney.
+
+Sir Charles regretted he had not seen them.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Quite fit, thanks." And he gravely trusted that her own health was
+satisfactory.
+
+"You haven't changed your mind?" she asked with a smile which the
+profane might consider more like a grin.
+
+Sir Charles said he had not, and a healthy colour showed under the tan.
+
+"All these years," commented the old lady, ironically.
+
+"Four," said Sir Charles.
+
+"Was it four years ago when you saw her in Egypt?"
+
+"Four years--last month--the tenth."
+
+"And never saw her again?"
+
+"Never."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl shook with asthmatic mirth:
+
+"Such story-book constancy! Why didn't you ask your friend the late
+Sirdar to have Leeds pitched into the Nile. It would have saved you
+those four years' waiting? You know you haven't many years to waste, Sir
+Charles."
+
+"I'm forty-five," he said, colouring painfully.
+
+"Four years gone to hell," said the old lady with that delicate candour
+which sometimes characterised her.... "And now what do you propose to do
+with the rest of 'em? Dawdle away your time?"
+
+[Illustration: "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length, reddening
+again."]
+
+"Face my fate," he admitted touching his moustache and fearfully
+embarrassed.
+
+"Well, if you're in a hurry, you'll have to go down South to face it.
+She's at Palm Beach for the next three weeks."
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+She looked up at him, her little opaque green eyes a trifle softened.
+
+"I am trying to get you the prettiest woman in America," she said. "I'm
+ready to fight off everybody else--beat 'em to death," she added, her
+eyes snapping, then suddenly kind again--"because, Sir Charles, I like
+you. And for no other reason on earth!"
+
+Which was not the exact truth. It was for another man's sake she was
+kind to him. And the other man had been dead many years.
+
+Sir Charles thanked her, awkwardly, and fell silent again, pulling his
+moustache.
+
+"Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?" he ventured, at length, reddening again.
+
+"Perfectly. She's a bit wiry just now--thin--leggy, y' know. Some
+fanciers prefer 'em weedy. But she'll plump up. I know the breed."
+
+He shrank from her loud voice and the vulgarity of her comments, and she
+was aware of it and didn't care a rap. There were plenty of noble ladies
+as vulgar as she, and more so--and anyway it was not this well-built,
+sober-faced man of forty-five whom she was serving with all the craft
+and insolence and brutality and generosity that was in her--it was the
+son of a dead man who had been much to her. How much nobody in these
+days gossiped about any longer, for it was a long time ago, a long, long
+time ago that she had made her curtsey to a young queen and a prince
+consort. And Sir Charles's father had died at Majuba Hill.
+
+"There's a wretched little knock-kneed peer on the cards," she observed;
+"Dankmere. He seems to think she has money or something. If he comes
+over here, as my sister writes, I'll set him straighter than his own
+legs. And I've written Foxy to tell him so."
+
+"Dankmere is a very good chap," said Sir Charles, terribly embarrassed.
+
+"But not good enough. His level is the Quartier d'Europe. He'll find it;
+no fear.... When do you go South?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, so honestly that she grinned again.
+
+"Then I'll give you a letter to Molly Wycherly. Her husband is Jim
+Wycherly--one of your sort--eternally lumbering after something to kill.
+He has a bungalow on some lagoon where he murders ducks, and no doubt
+he'll go there. But his wife will be stopping at Palm Beach. I'll send
+you a letter to her in the morning."
+
+"Many thanks," said Sir Charles, shyly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Strelsa remained South longer than she had expected to remain, and at
+the end of the third week Quarren wrote her.
+
+
+     "DEAR MRS. LEEDS:
+
+     "Will you accept from me a copy of Karl's new book? And are you
+     ever coming back? You are missing an unusually diverting winter;
+     the opera is exceptional, there are some really interesting plays
+     in town and several new and amusing people--Prince and Princess
+     Sarnoff for example; and the Earl of Dankmere, an anxious, and
+     perplexed little man, sadly hard up, and simple-minded enough to
+     say so; which amuses everybody immensely.
+
+     "He's pathetically original; plebeian on his mother's side; very
+     good-natured; nothing at all of a sportsman; and painfully short of
+     both intellect and cash--a funny, harmless, distracted little man
+     who runs about asking everybody the best and quickest methods of
+     amassing a comfortable fortune in America. And I must say that
+     people have jollied him rather cruelly.
+
+     "The Sarnoffs on the other hand are modest and nice people--the
+     Prince is a yellow, dried-up Asiatic who is making a collection of
+     parasites--a shrewd, kindly, and clever little scientist. His wife
+     is a charming girl, intellectual but deliciously feminine. She was
+     Cynthia Challis before her marriage, and always a most attractive
+     and engaging personality. They dined with us at the Legation on
+     Thursday.
+
+     "Afterward there was a dance at Mrs. Sprowl's. I led from one end,
+     Lester Caldera from the other. One or two newspapers criticised the
+     decorations and favours as vulgarly expensive; spoke of a 'monkey
+     figure'--purely imaginary--which they said I introduced into the
+     cotillion, and that the favours were marmosets!--who probably were
+     the intellectual peers of anybody present.
+
+     "The old lady is in a terrific temper. I'm afraid some poor
+     scribblers are going to catch it. I thought it very funny.
+
+     "Speaking of scribblers and temper reminds me that Karl Westguard's
+     new book is stirring up a toy tempest. He has succeeded in
+     offending a dozen people who pretend to recognise themselves or
+     their relatives among the various characters. I don't know whether
+     the novel is really any good, or not. We, who know Karl so
+     intimately, find it hard to realise that perhaps he may be a writer
+     of some importance.
+
+     "There appears to be considerable excitement about this new book.
+     People seem inclined to discuss it at dinners; Karl's publishers
+     are delighted. Karl, on the contrary, is not at all flattered by
+     the kind of a success that menaces him. He is mad all through, but
+     not as mad as his redoubtable aunt, who tells everybody that he's a
+     scribbling lunatic who doesn't know what he's writing, and that she
+     washes her fat and gem-laden hands of him henceforth.
+
+     "Poor Karl! He's already thirty-seven; he's written fifteen books,
+     no one of which, he tells me, ever before stirred up anybody's
+     interest. But this newest novel, 'The Real Thing,' has already gone
+     into three editions in two weeks--whatever that actually means--and
+     still the re-orders are pouring in, and his publishers are madly
+     booming it, and several indignant people are threatening Karl with
+     the law of libel, and Karl is partly furious, partly amused, and
+     entirely astonished at the whole affair.
+
+     "Because you see, the people who think they recognise portraits of
+     themselves or their friends in several of the unattractive
+     characters in the story--are as usual, in error. Karl's people are
+     always purely and synthetically composite. Besides everybody who
+     knows Karl Westguard ought to know that he's too decent a fellow,
+     and too good a workman to use models stupidly. Anybody can copy;
+     anybody can reproduce the obvious. Even photographers are artists
+     in these days. Good work is a synthesis founded on truth, and
+     carried logically to a conclusion.
+
+     "But it's useless to try to convince the Philistines. Once
+     possessed with the idea that they or their friends are 'meant,' as
+     they say, Archimedes's lever could not pry them loose from their
+     agreeably painful obsession.
+
+     "Then there are other sorts of humans who are already bothering
+     Karl. This species recognise in every 'hero' or 'heroine' a minute
+     mental and physical analysis of themselves and their own
+     particular, specific, and petty emotions. Proud, happy, flattered,
+     they permit nobody to mistake the supposed tribute which they are
+     entirely self-persuaded that the novelist has offered to them.
+
+     "And these phases of 'The Real Thing' are fretting and mortifying
+     Karl to the verge of distraction. He awakes to find himself not
+     famous but notorious--not criticised for his workmanship, good or
+     bad, but gabbled about because some ludicrous old Uncle Foozle
+     pretends to discover a similarity between Karl's episodes and
+     characters and certain doings of which Uncle F. is personally
+     cognisant.
+
+     "The great resource of stupidity is and has always been the
+     anagram; and as stupidity is almost invariably suspicious, the hunt
+     for hidden meanings preoccupies the majority of mankind.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Because I have ventured to send you Karl's new book is no reason
+     why I also should have presumed to write you a treatise in several
+     volumes.
+
+     "But I miss you, oddly enough--miss everything I never had of
+     you--your opinions on what interests us both; the delightful
+     discussions of things important, which have never taken place
+     between us. It's odd, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds, that I miss, long for,
+     and even remember so much that has never been?
+
+     "Molly Wycherly wrote to Mrs. Lannis that you were having a gay
+     time in Florida; that Sir Charles Mallison had joined your party;
+     that you'd had luncheons and dinners given you at the Club, at the
+     Inlet, at the Wiers's place, 'Coquina Castle'; and that Jim and Sir
+     Charles had bravely slain many ducks. Which is certainly glory
+     enough to go round. In a friendly little note to me you were good
+     enough to ask what I am doing, and to emphasise your request for an
+     answer by underlining your request.
+
+     "Proud and flattered by your generous interest I hasten to inform
+     you that I am leading the same useful, serious, profitable,
+     purposeful, ambitious, and ennobling life which I was leading when
+     I first met you. Such a laudable existence makes for one's
+     self-respect; and, happy in that consciousness, undisturbed by
+     journalistic accusations concerning marmosets and vulgarity, I
+     concentrate my entire intellectual efforts upon keeping my job,
+     which is to remain deaf, dumb, and blind, and at the same time be
+     ornamental, resourceful, good-tempered, and amusing to those who
+     are not invariably all of these things at the same time.
+
+     "Is it too much to expect another note from you?
+
+                               "Sincerely yours,
+
+                                         "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN."
+
+
+
+She answered him on the fourth week of her absence.
+
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN:
+
+     "Your letter interested me, but there was all through it an
+     undertone of cynicism which rang false--almost a dissonance to an
+     ear which has heard you strike a truer chord.
+
+     "I do not like what you say of yourself, or of your life. I have
+     talked very seriously with Molly, who adores you; and she evidently
+     thinks you capable of achieving anything you care to undertake.
+     Which is my own opinion--based on twenty-four hours of
+     acquaintance.
+
+     "I have read Mr. Westguard's novel. Everybody here is reading it.
+     I'd like to talk to you about it, some day. Mr. Westguard's intense
+     bitterness confuses me a little, and seems almost to paralyse any
+     critical judgment I may possess. A crusade in fiction has always
+     seemed to me but a sterile effort. To do a thing is fine; to talk
+     about it in fiction a far less admirable performance--like the
+     small boy, safe in the window, who defies his enemy with out-thrust
+     tongue.
+
+     "When I was young--a somewhat lonely child, with only a very few
+     books to companion me--I pored over Carlyle's 'French Revolution,'
+     and hated Philip Egalité. But that youthful hatred was a little
+     modified because Egalité did actually become personally active. If
+     he had only talked, my hatred would have become contempt for a
+     renegade who did not possess the courage of his convictions. But he
+     voted death to his own caste, facing the tribunal. He talked, but
+     he also acted.
+
+     "I do not mean this as a parallel between Mr. Westguard and the
+     sanguinary French iconoclast. Mr. Westguard, also, has the courage
+     of his convictions; he lives, I understand, the life which he
+     considers a proper one. It is the life which he preaches in 'The
+     Real Thing'--a somewhat solemn, self-respecting, self-supporting
+     existence, devoted to self-development; a life of upright thinking,
+     and the fulfilment of duty, civil and religious, incident to
+     dignified citizenship. Such a life may be a blameless one; I don't
+     know.
+
+     "Also it might even be admirable within its limits if Mr. Westguard
+     did not also appoint himself critic, disciplinarian, and prophet of
+     that particular section of society into which accident of birth has
+     dumped him.
+
+     "Probably there is no section of human society that does not need a
+     wholesome scourging now and then, but somehow, it seems to me, that
+     it could be done less bitterly and with better grace than Mr.
+     Westguard does it in his book. The lash, swung from within, and
+     applied with judgment and discrimination, ought to do a more
+     thorough and convincing piece of work than a knout allied with the
+     clubs of the proletariat, hitting at every head in sight.
+
+     "Let the prophets and sybils, the augurs and oracles of the _Hoi
+     polloi_ address themselves to them; and let ours talk to us, not
+     _about_ us to the world at large.
+
+     "A renegade from either side makes an unholy alliance, and, with
+     his first shout from the public pulpit, tightens the master knot
+     which he is trying to untie to the glory of God and for the sake of
+     peace and good will on earth. And the result is Donnybrook Fair.
+
+     "I hate to speak this way to you of your friend, and about a man I
+     like and, in a measure, really respect. But this is what I think.
+     And my inclination is to tell you the truth, always.
+
+     "Concerning the artistic value of Mr. Westguard's literary
+     performance, I know little. The simplicity of his language
+     recommends the pages to me. The book is easy to read. Perhaps
+     therein lies his art; I do not know.
+
+     "Now, as I am in an unaccountably serious mood amid all the
+     frivolity of this semi-tropical place, may I not say to you
+     something about yourself? How are you going to silence me?
+
+     "Well, then; you seem to reason illogically. You make little of
+     yourself, yet you offer me your friendship, by implication, every
+     time you write to me. You seek my society mentally. Do you really
+     believe that my mind is so easily satisfied with intellectual
+     rubbish, or that I am flattered by letters from a nobody?
+
+     "What do you suppose there is attractive about you, Mr. Quarren--if
+     you really do amount to as little as you pretend? I've seen
+     handsomer men, monsieur, wealthier men, more intelligent men; men
+     more experienced, men of far greater talents and attainments.
+
+     "Why do you suppose that I sit here in the Southern sunshine
+     writing to you when there are dozens of men perfectly ready to
+     amuse me?--and qualified to do it, too!
+
+     "For the sake of your _beaux-yeux_? _Non pas!_
+
+     "But there is a _something_ which the world recognises as a subtle
+     and nameless sympathy. And it stretches an invisible filament
+     between you and the girl who is writing to you.
+
+     "That tie is not founded on sentiment; I think you know that. And,
+     of things spiritual, you and I have never yet spoken.
+
+     "Therefore I conclude that the tie must be purely intellectual;
+     that mind calls to mind and finds contentment in the far response.
+
+     "So, when you pretend to me that you are of no intellectual
+     account, you pay me a scurvy compliment. _Quod erat demonstrandum._
+
+     "With this gentle reproof I seal my long, long letter, and go where
+     the jasmine twineth and the orchestra playeth; for it is tea-time,
+     my friend, and the Park of Peacocks is all a-glitter with plumage.
+     Soft eyes look wealth to eyes that ask again; and all is brazen as
+     a dinner bell!
+
+     "O friend! do you know that since I have been here I might have
+     attained to fortune, had I cared to select any one of several
+     generous gentlemen who have been good enough to thrust that
+     commodity at me?
+
+     "To be asked to marry a man no longer distresses me. I am all over
+     the romantic idea of being sorry for wealthy amateurs who make me a
+     plain business proposition, offering to invest a fortune in my
+     good looks. To amateurs, connoisseurs, and collectors, there is no
+     such thing as a fixed market value to anything. An object of art is
+     worth what it can be bought for. I don't yet know how much I am
+     worth. I may yet find out.
+
+     "There are nice men here, odious men, harmless men, colourless men,
+     worthy men, and the ever-present fool. He is really the happiest, I
+     suppose.
+
+     "Then, all in a class by himself, is an Englishman, one Sir Charles
+     Mallison. I don't know what to tell you about him except that I
+     feel exceedingly safe and comfortable when I am with him.
+
+     "He says very little; I say even less. But it is agreeable to be
+     with him.
+
+     "He is middle-aged, and, I imagine, very wise. Perhaps his
+     reticence makes me think so. He and Mr. Wycherly shoot ducks on the
+     lagoon--and politics into each other.
+
+     "I must go. You are not here to persuade me to stay and talk
+     nonsense to you against my better judgment. You're quite helpless,
+     you see. So I'm off.
+
+     "Will you write to me again?
+
+                                       "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+A week after Quarren had answered her letter O'Hara called his attention
+to a paragraph in a morning paper which hinted at an engagement between
+Sir Charles Mallison and Mrs. Leeds.
+
+Next day's paper denied it on excellent authority; so, naturally, the
+world at large believed the contrary.
+
+Southern news also revealed the interesting item that the yacht,
+_Yulan_, belonging to Mrs. Sprowl's hatchet-faced nephew, Langly Sprowl,
+had sailed from Miami for the West Indies with the owner and Mrs. Leeds
+and Sir Charles Mallison among the guests.
+
+The _Yulan_ had not as fragrant a reputation as its exotic name might
+signify, respectable parties being in the minority aboard her, but
+Langly Sprowl was Langly Sprowl, and few people declined any invitation
+of his.
+
+He was rather a remarkable young man, thin as a blade, with a voracious
+appetite and no morals. Nor did he care whether anybody else had any.
+What he wanted he went after with a cold and unsensitive directness that
+no newspapers had been courageous enough to characterise. He wouldn't
+have cared if they had.
+
+Among other things that he had wanted, recently, was another man's wife.
+The other man being of his own caste made no difference to him; he
+simply forced him to let his wife divorce him; which, it was understood,
+that pretty young matron was now doing as rapidly as the laws of Nevada
+allowed.
+
+Meanwhile Langly Sprowl had met Strelsa Leeds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sailing of the _Yulan_ for the West Indies became the topic of
+dinner and dance gossip; and Quarren heard every interpretation that
+curiosity and malice could put upon the episode.
+
+He had been feeling rather cheerful that day; a misguided man from
+Jersey City had suddenly developed a mania for a country home. Quarren
+personally conducted him all over Tappan-Zee Park on the Hudson, through
+mud and slush in a skidding touring car, with the result that the man
+had become a pioneer and had promised to purchase a building site.
+
+So Quarren came back to the Legation that afternoon feeling almost
+buoyant, and discovered Westguard in all kinds of temper, smoking a huge
+faïence pipe which he always did when angry, and which had become known
+as "The Weather-breeder."
+
+[Illustration: "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because I have a
+message to deliv--'"]
+
+"Jetzt geht das Wetter los!" quoted Quarren, dropping into a seat by the
+fire. "Where is this particular area of low depression centred, Karl?"
+
+"Over my damn book. The papers insist it's a _livre-à-clef_; and I am
+certain the thing is selling on that account! I tell you it's
+humiliating. I've done my best as honestly as I know how, and not one
+critic even mentions the philosophy of the thing; all they notice is the
+mere story and the supposed resemblance between my characters and living
+people! I'm cursed if I ever----"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Quarren tranquilly. "If you're a novelist you write
+to amuse people, and you ought to be thankful that you've succeeded."
+
+"Confound it!" roared Westguard, "I write to _instruct_ people! not to
+keep 'em from yawning!"
+
+"Then you've made a jolly fluke of it, that's all--because you have
+accidentally written a corking good story--good enough and interesting
+enough to make people stand for the cold chunks of philosophical
+admonition with which you've spread your sandwich--thinly, Heaven be
+praised!"
+
+"I write," said Westguard, furious, "because I've a message to
+deliv----"
+
+"Help!" moaned Quarren. "You write because it's in you to do it; because
+you've nothing more interesting to do; and because it enables you to
+make a decent and honourable living!"
+
+"Do those reasons prevent my having a message to deliver?" roared
+Westguard.
+
+"No, they exist in spite of it. You'd write anyway, whether or not you
+believed you had a message to deliver. You've written some fifteen
+novels, and fifteen times you have smothered your story with your
+message. This time, by accident, the story got its second breath, and
+romped home, with 'Message' a bad second, and that selling plater,
+'Philosophy,' left at the post----"
+
+"Go on!--you irreverent tout!" growled Westguard; "I want my novels
+read, of course. Any author does. But I wish to Heaven somebody would
+try to interpret the important lessons which I----"
+
+"Oh, preciousness and splash! Tell your story as well as you can, and if
+it's well done there'll be latent lessons enough in it."
+
+"Are you perhaps instructing me in my own profession?" asked the other,
+smiling.
+
+"Heaven knows I'm not venturing----"
+
+"Heaven knows you _are_! Also there is something In what you say--" He
+sat smoking, thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in the fire--"if I only
+_could_ manage that!--to arrest the public's attention by the rather
+cheap medium of the story, and then, cleverly, shoot a few moral pills
+into 'em.... That's one way, of course----"
+
+"Like the drums of the Salvation Army."
+
+Westguard looked around at him, suspiciously, but Quarren seemed to be
+serious enough.
+
+"I suppose it doesn't matter much how a fellow collects an audience, so
+that he does collect one."
+
+"Exactly," nodded Quarren. "Get your people, then keep 'em interested
+and unsuspecting while you inject 'em full of thinks."
+
+Westguard smoked and pondered; but presently his lips became stern and
+compressed.
+
+"I don't intend to trifle with my convictions or make any truce or any
+compromise with 'em," he announced. "I'm afraid that this last story of
+mine ran away with me."
+
+"It sure did, old Ironsides. Heaven protected her own this time. And in
+'The Real Thing' you have ridden farther out among the people with your
+Bible and your Sword than you ever have penetrated by brandishing both
+from the immemorial but immobile battlements of righteousness. Truth
+_is_ a citadel, old fellow; but its garrison should be raiders, not
+defenders. And they should ride far afield to carry its message. For few
+journey to that far citadel; you must go to them. And does it make any
+difference what vehicle you employ in the cause of Truth--so that the
+message arrives somewhere before your vehicle breaks down of its own
+heaviness? Novel or poem, sermon or holy writ--it's all one, Karl, so
+that they get there with their burden."
+
+Westguard sat silent a moment, then thumped the table, emphatically.
+
+"If I had your wasted talents," he said, "I could write anything!"
+
+"Rot!"
+
+"As you please. You use your ability rottenly--that's true enough."
+
+"My ability," mimicked Quarren.
+
+"Yes, your many, many talents, Rix. God knows why He gave them to you; I
+don't--for you use them ignobly, when you do not utterly neglect
+them----"
+
+"I've a light and superficial talent for entertaining people; I've
+nimble legs, and possess a low order of intelligence known as 'tact.'
+What more have I?"
+
+"You're the best amateur actor in New York, for example."
+
+"An _amateur_," sneered Quarren. "That is to say, a man who has the
+inclinations, but neither the courage, the self-respect, nor the
+ambition of the professional.... Well, I admit that. I lack
+something--courage, I think. I prefer what is easy. And I'm doing it."
+
+"What's your reward?" said Westguard bluntly.
+
+"Reward? Oh, I don't know. The inner temple. I have the run of the
+premises. People like me, trust me, depend upon me more or less. The
+intrigues and politics of my little world amuse me; now and then I act
+as ambassador, as envoy of peace, as herald, as secret diplomatic
+agent.... Reward? Oh, yes--you didn't suppose that my real-estate
+operations clothed and fed me, did you, Karl?"
+
+"What does?"
+
+"Diplomacy," explained Quarren gaily. "A successful embassy is rewarded.
+How? Why, now and then a pretty woman's husband makes an investment for
+me at his own risk; now and then, when my office is successfully
+accomplished, I have my fee as social attorney or arbiter
+elegantiarum.... There are, perhaps, fewer separations and divorces on
+account of me; fewer scandals.
+
+"I am sometimes called into consultation, _in extremis_; I listen, I
+advise--sometimes I plan and execute; even take the initiative and
+interfere--as when a foolish boy at the Cataract Club, last week, locked
+himself into the bath-room with an automatic revolver and a case of
+half-drunken fright. I had to be very careful; I expected to hear that
+drumming fusillade at any moment.
+
+"But I talked to him, through the keyhole: and at last he opened the
+door--to take a shot at me, first."
+
+Quarren shrugged and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Of course," he added, "his father was only too glad to pay his debts.
+But boys don't always see things in their true proportions. Neither do
+women."
+
+Westguard, silent, scowling, pulled at his pipe for a while, then:
+
+"Why should you play surgeon and nurse in such a loathsome hospital?"
+
+"Somebody must. I seem better fitted to do it than the next man."
+
+"Yes," said Westguard with a wry face, "I fancy somebody must do
+unpleasant things--even among the lepers of Molokai. But I'd prefer real
+lepers."
+
+"The social sort are sometimes sicker," laughed Quarren.
+
+"I don't agree with you.... By the way, it's all off between my aunt and
+me."
+
+"I'm sorry, Karl----"
+
+"I'm not! I don't want her money. She told me to go to the devil, and I
+said something similar. Do you know what she wants me to do?" he added
+angrily. "Give up writing, live on an allowance from her, and marry
+Chrysos Lacy! What do you think of that for a cold-blooded and
+impertinent proposition! We had a fearful family row," he continued with
+satisfaction--"my aunt bellowing so that her footmen actually fled, and
+I doing the cool and haughty, and letting her bellow her bally head
+off."
+
+"You and she have exchanged civilities before," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"Yes, but this is really serious. I'm damned if I give up writing."
+
+"Or marry Chrysos Lacy?"
+
+"Or that, either. Do you think I want a red-headed wife? And I've never
+spoken a dozen words to her, either. And I'll pick out my own wife. What
+does my aunt think I am? I wish I were in love with somebody's
+parlour-maid. B'jinks! I'd marry her, just to see my aunt's
+expression----"
+
+"Oh, stop your fulminations," said Quarren, laughing. "That's the way
+with you artistic people; you're a passionate pack of pups!"
+
+"I'm not as passionate as my aunt!" retorted Westguard wrathfully. "Do
+you consider her artistic? She's a meddlesome, malicious, domineering,
+insolent, evil old woman, and I told her so."
+
+Quarren managed to stifle his laughter for a moment, but his sense of
+the ludicrous was keen, and the scene his fancy evoked sent him off into
+mirth uncontrollable.
+
+Westguard eyed him gloomily; ominous clouds poured from "The
+Weather-breeder."
+
+"Perhaps it's funny," he said, "but she and I cannot stand each other,
+and this time it's all off for keeps. I told her if she sent me another
+check I'd send it back. That settles it, doesn't it?"
+
+"You're foolish, Karl----"
+
+"Never mind. If I can't keep myself alive in an untrammelled and
+self-respecting exercise of my profession--" His voice ended in a
+gurgling growl. Then, as though the recollections of his injuries at the
+hands of his aunt still stung him, he reared up in his chair:
+
+"Chrysos Lacy," he roared, "is a sweet, innocent girl--not a bale of
+fashionable merchandise! Besides," he added in a modified tone, "I was
+rather taken by--by Mrs. Leeds."
+
+Quarren slowly raised his eyes.
+
+"I was," insisted Westguard sulkily; "and I proved myself an ass by
+saying so to my aunt. Why in Heaven's name I was idiot enough to go and
+tell her, I don't know. Perhaps I had a vague idea that she would be so
+delighted that she'd give me several tons of helpful advice."
+
+"Did she?"
+
+"_Did_ she! She came back at me with Chrysos Lacy, I tell you! And when
+I merely smiled and attempted to waive away the suggestion, she flew
+into a passion, called me down, cursed me out--you know her language
+isn't always in good taste--and then she ordered me to keep away from
+Mrs. Leeds--as though I ever hung around any woman's skirts! I'm no
+Squire of Dames. I tell you, Rix, I was mad clear through. So I told her
+that I'd marry Mrs. Leeds the first chance I got----"
+
+"Don't talk about her that way," remonstrated Quarren pleasantly.
+
+"About who? My aunt?"
+
+"I didn't mean your aunt?"
+
+"Oh. About Mrs. Leeds. Why not? She's the most attractive woman I ever
+met----"
+
+"Very well. But don't talk about marrying her--as though you had merely
+to suggest it to her. You know, after all, Mrs. Leeds may have ideas of
+her own."
+
+"Probably she has," admitted Westguard, sulkily. "I don't imagine she'd
+care for a man of my sort. Why do you suppose she went off on that
+cruise with Langly Sprowl?"
+
+Quarren said, gravely: "I have no idea what reasons Mrs. Leeds has for
+doing anything."
+
+"You correspond."
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"My aunt."
+
+Quarren flushed up, but said nothing.
+
+Westguard, oblivious of his annoyance, and enveloped in a spreading
+cloud of tobacco, went on:
+
+"Of course if _you_ don't know, _I_ don't. But, by the same token, my
+aunt was in a towering rage when she heard that Langly had Mrs. Leeds
+aboard the _Yulan_."
+
+"What!" said the other, sharply.
+
+"She swore like a trooper, and called Langly all kinds of impolite
+names. Said she'd trim him if he ever tried any of his tricks around
+Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"What tricks? What does she mean by tricks?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose she meant any of his blackguardly philandering. There
+isn't a woman living on whom he is afraid to try his hatchet-faced
+blandishments."
+
+Quarren dropped back into the depths of his arm-chair. Presently his
+rigid muscles relaxed. He said coolly:
+
+"I don't think Langly Sprowl is likely to misunderstand Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"That depends," said Westguard. "He's a rotten specimen, even if he is
+my cousin. And he knows I think so."
+
+A few minutes later O'Hara sauntered in. He had been riding in the Park
+and his boots and spurs were shockingly muddy.
+
+"Who is this Sir Charles Mallison, anyway?" he asked, using the decanter
+and then squirting his glass full of carbonic. "Is it true that he's
+goin' to marry that charmin' Mrs. Leeds? I'll break his bally Sassenach
+head for him! I'll----"
+
+"The rumour was contradicted in this morning's paper," said Quarren
+coldly.
+
+O'Hara drank pensively: "I see that Langly Sprowl is messin' about, too.
+Mrs. Ledwith had better hurry up out there in Reno--or wherever she's
+gettin' her divorce. I saw Chet Ledwith ridin' in the Park. Dankmere was
+with him. Funny he doesn't seem to lose any caste by sellin' his wife to
+Sprowl."
+
+"The whole thing is a filthy mess," growled Westguard; "let it alone."
+
+"Why don't you make a novel about it?" inquired O'Hara.
+
+"Because, you dub! I don't use real episodes or living people!" roared
+Westguard; "newspapers and a few chumps to the contrary!"
+
+"So!--so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly--"whoa--steady, boy!" And he
+pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when
+currying.
+
+"Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of
+human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I
+have any desire to do it, but if I _should_ ever write a novel dealing
+with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved."
+
+"You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals
+only," said Quarren.
+
+"Why? Aren't there plenty of scandalous----"
+
+"Plenty. But no more than in any other set or coterie; not as many as
+there are among more ignorant people. Virtue far outbalances vice among
+us: a novel, properly proportioned, ought to show that. If it doesn't,
+it's misleading."
+
+"Supposing," said Westguard, "that I were indecent enough to show up my
+aunt in fiction. Nobody would believe her possible."
+
+"I sometimes doubt her even now," observed O'Hara, grinning.
+
+Quarren said: "Count up the unpleasant characters in your own social
+vicinity, Karl--just to prove to yourself that there are really very
+few."
+
+"There is Langly--and my aunt--and the Lester Calderas--and the
+Ledwiths----"
+
+"Go on!"
+
+Westguard laughed: "I guess that ends the list," he said.
+
+"It does. Also I dispute the list," said Quarren.
+
+"Cyrille Caldera is a pippin," remarked O'Hara, sentimentally.
+
+"What about Mary Ledwith? Is anybody here inclined to sit in judgment?"
+
+"I," said Westguard grimly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Divorce is a dirty business."
+
+"Oh. You'd rather she put up with Chester?--the sort of man who was weak
+enough to let her go?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Get out, you old Roundhead!" said Quarren, laughing. He rose, laid his
+hand lightly on Westguard's shoulder in passing, and went upstairs to
+his room, where he wrote a long letter to Strelsa; and then destroyed
+it. Then he lay down, covering his boyish head with his arms.
+
+When Lacy came in he saw him lying on the bed, and thought he was
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New
+York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm
+Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of
+change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the
+girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth.
+
+By daylight the fatigues of pleasure were faintly visible--that
+unmistakable imprint which may perhaps leave the eyes clear and calm,
+but which edges the hardened contour of the cheek under them with deeper
+violet shadow.
+
+Not that hers was as yet the battered beauty of exhaustion; she had
+merely lived every minute to the full all winter long, and had overtaxed
+her capacity; and the fire had consumed something of her freshness.
+
+Not yet inured, not yet crystallised to that experienced hardness which
+withstands the fierce flame of living too fast in a world where every
+minute is demanded and where sleep becomes a forgotten art, the girl was
+completely tired out, and while she herself did not realise it, her
+features showed it.
+
+But nervous exhaustion alone could not account for the subtle change in
+her expression. Eyes and lips were still sweet, even in repose, but
+there was now a jaded charm about them--something unspoiled had
+disappeared from them--something of that fearlessness which vanishes
+after too close and too constant contact with the world of men.
+
+Evidently her mind was quite as weary as her body, though even to
+herself she had not admitted fatigue; and a tired mind no longer defends
+itself. Hers had not; and the defence had been, day by day,
+imperceptibly weakening. So that things to which once she had been able
+at will to close her mind, and, mentally deaf, let pass unheard, she had
+heard, and had even thought about. And the effort to defend her ears and
+mind became less vigorous, less instinctive--partly through sheer
+weariness.
+
+The wisdom of woman and of man, and of what is called the world, the
+girl was now learning--unconsciously in the beginning and then with a
+kind of shamed indifference--but the creation of an artificial interest
+in anything is a subtle matter; and the ceaseless repetition of things
+unworthy at last awake that ignoble curiosity always latent in man.
+Because intelligence was born with it; and unwearied intelligence alone
+completely suppresses it.
+
+At first she had kept her head fairly level in the whirlwind of
+adulation. To glimpses of laxity she closed her eyes. Sir Charles was
+always refreshing to her; but she could see little more of him than of
+other men--less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that
+happened--and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly
+Sprowl.
+
+Again and again she found herself with him separated from the
+others--sometimes alone with him on deck--and never quite understood how
+it came about so constantly.
+
+As for Sprowl he made love to her from the first; and he was a trim,
+carefully groomed and volubly animated young man, full of information,
+and with a restless, ceaseless range of intelligence which at first
+dazzled with its false brilliancy.
+
+But it was only a kind of flash-light intelligence. It seemed to miss,
+occasionally; some cog, some screw somewhere was either absent or badly
+adjusted or over-strained.
+
+At first Strelsa found the young fellow fascinating. He had been
+everywhere and had seen everything; his mind was kaleidoscopic; his
+thought shifted, flashed, jerked, leaped like erratic lightning from one
+subject to another--from Japanese aeroplanes to a scheme for filling in
+the East River; from a plan to reconcile church and state in France to
+an idea for indefinitely prolonging human life. He had written several
+books about all kinds of things. Nobody read them.
+
+The first time he spoke to her of love was on a magnificent star-set
+night off Martinique; and she coolly reminded him of the gossip
+connecting him with a pretty woman in Reno. She could not have done it a
+month ago.
+
+He denied it so pleasantly, so frankly, that, astonished, she could
+scarcely choose but believe him.
+
+After that he made ardent, headlong love to her at every opportunity,
+with a flighty recklessness which began by amusing her. At first, also,
+she found wholesome laughter a good defence; but there was an
+under-current of intelligent, relentless vigour in his attack which
+presently sobered her. And she vaguely realised that he was a man who
+knew what he wanted. A talk with Molly Wycherly sobered her still more;
+and she avoided him as politely as she could. But, being her host, it
+was impossible to keep clear of him. Besides there was about him a
+certain unwholesome fascination, even for her. No matter how bad a man's
+record may be, few women doubt their ability to make it a better one.
+
+"You little goose," said Molly Wycherly, "everybody knows the kind of
+man he is. Could anything be more brazen than his attentions to you
+while Mary Ledwith is in Reno?"
+
+"He says that her being there has nothing to do with him."
+
+"Then he lies," said Molly, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"He doesn't speak as though he were trying to deceive anybody, Molly. He
+is perfectly frank to me. I can't believe that scandal. Besides he is
+quite open and manly about his unsavoury reputation; makes no excuses;
+simply says that there's good in every man, and that there is always one
+woman in the world who can bring it out----"
+
+"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell
+you----"
+
+"No man is!" insisted Strelsa.
+
+"What?"
+
+"No man is. The great masters of fiction always ascribe at least one
+virtue to their most infamous creations----"
+
+"Oh, Strelsa, you talk like a pan of fudge! _I_ tell you that Langly
+Sprowl is no good at all. I hope you won't have to marry him to find
+out."
+
+"I don't intend to.... How inconsistent you are, Molly. You--and
+everybody else--believe him to be the most magnificent match in----"
+
+"If position and wealth is all you care for, yes. I didn't suppose you'd
+come to that."
+
+Strelsa said candidly: "I care for both--I don't know how much."
+
+"As much as that?"
+
+"No; not enough to marry him. And if he is what you say, it's hopeless
+of course.... I don't think he is. Be decent, Molly; everybody is very
+horrid about him, and--and that is always a matter of sympathetic
+interest to a generous woman. When the whole world condemns a man it
+makes him interesting!"
+
+"That's a piffling and emotional thing to say! He may be attractive in
+an uncanny way, because he's agreeable to look at, amusing, and very
+dangerous--a perfectly cold-blooded, and I think, slightly unbalanced
+social marauder. And that's the fact about Langly Sprowl. And I wish we
+were on land, the _Yulan_ and her owner in--well, in the Erie Basin,
+perhaps."
+
+Whether or not Strelsa believed these things, there still remained in
+her that curious sense of fascination in Sprowl's presence, partly
+arising, no doubt, from an instinctive sympathy for a young man so
+universally damned; partly, because she thought that perhaps he really
+was damned. Therefore, deep in her heart she felt that he must be
+dangerous; and there is, in that one belief, every element of
+unwholesome fascination. And a mind fatigued is no longer wholesome.
+
+Then, too, there was always Sir Charles Mallison to turn to for a
+refreshing moral bath. Safety of soul lay in his vicinity; she felt
+confidence in the world wherever he traversed it. With him she relaxed
+and rested; there was repose for her in his silences; strength for her
+when he spoke; and a serene comradeship which no hint of sentiment had
+ever vexed.
+
+Perhaps only a few people realised how thoroughly a single winter was
+equipping Strelsa for the part she seemed destined to play in that
+narrow world with which she was already identified; and few realised how
+fast she was learning. Laxity of precept, easy morals, looseness of
+thought, idle and good-natured acquiescence in social conditions where
+all standards seemed alike, all ideals merely a matter of personal
+taste--this was the atmosphere into which she had stepped from two years
+of Western solitude after a nightmare of violence, cruelty, and
+depravity unutterable. And naturally it seemed heavenly to her; and each
+revelation inconsistent with her own fastidious instincts left her less
+and less surprised, less and less uneasy. And after a while she began to
+assimilate all that she saw and heard.
+
+A few unworldly instincts remained in her--gratitude for and quick
+response to any kindness offered from anybody; an inclination to make
+friends with stray wanderers into her circle, and to cultivate the
+socially useless.
+
+Taking four o'clock tea alone with Mrs. Sprowl the afternoon of her
+return to town--an honour vouchsafed to few--Strelsa was relating, at
+that masterful woman's request, her various exotic experiences. Mrs.
+Sprowl had commanded her attendance early. There were reasons. And now
+partly vexed, partly in unwilling admiration, the old lady sat smiling
+and all the while thinking to herself impatiently; "Baby! Fool! Little
+ninny! Imbecile!" while she listened, fat bejewelled hands folded, small
+green eyes shining in the expanse of powdered and painted fat.
+
+After a while she could endure it no longer, and she said with a wheeze
+of good-natured disdain:
+
+"It's like a school-girl's diary--all those rhapsodies over volcanoes,
+palm trees, and the colour of the Spanish Main. Never mind geography,
+child; tell me about the men!"
+
+"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly--"why there were shoals and shoals
+of them, of every description!"
+
+"I mean the _one_ man?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly.
+
+"Which, please?"
+
+"Nonsense! There _was_ one, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, I don't think so.... Your nephew, Langly, was exceedingly
+amiable----"
+
+"He's a plain beast," said his aunt, bluntly. "I didn't mean him."
+
+"He was very civil to me," insisted Strelsa, colouring.
+
+"Probably he didn't have a chance to be otherwise. He's a rotter, child.
+Ask anybody. I know perfectly well what he's been up to. I'm sorry you
+went on the _Yulan_. He had no business to ask you--or any other nice
+girl--or anybody at all until that Reno scandal is officially made
+respectable. If it were not for his money--" She stopped a moment,
+adding cynically--"and if it were not for mine--certain people wouldn't
+be tolerated anywhere, I suppose.... How did you like Sir Charles?"
+
+"Oh, he is charming!" she said warmly.
+
+"You like him?"
+
+"I almost adore him."
+
+"Why not adore him entirely?"
+
+[Illustration: "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the
+men!'"]
+
+Strelsa laughed frankly: "He hasn't asked me to, for one reason.
+Besides----"
+
+"No doubt he'll do it."
+
+The girl shook her head, still smiling:
+
+"You don't understand at all. There isn't the slightest sentiment
+between us. He's only thoroughly nice and agreeable, and he and I are
+most companionable. I hope nobody will be silly enough to hint anything
+of that sort to him. It would embarrass him dreadfully."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's smile was blandly tolerant:
+
+"The man's in love with you. Didn't you know it?"
+
+"But you are mistaken, dear Mrs. Sprowl. If it were true I would know
+it, I think."
+
+"Nonsense! He told me so."
+
+"Oh," said Strelsa in amazed consternation. She added: "If it _is_ so
+I'd rather not speak of it, please."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl eyed her with shifty but keen intelligence. "Little idiot,"
+she thought; but her smile remained bland and calmly patronising.
+
+For a second or two longer she studied the girl cautiously, trying to
+make up her mind whether there was really any character in Strelsa's
+soft beauty--anything firmer than material fastidiousness; anything more
+real than a natural and dainty reticence. Mrs. Sprowl could ride
+rough-shod over such details. But she was too wise to ride if there was
+any chance of a check from higher sources.
+
+"If you married him it would be very gratifying to me," she said
+pleasantly. "Come; let's discuss the matter like sensible women. Shall
+we?"
+
+Many people would not have disregarded such a wish. Strelsa flushed and
+lifted her purple-gray eyes to meet the little green ones scanning her
+slyly.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, "but I couldn't discuss such a thing, you see.
+Don't you see I can't, dear Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+"Pooh! Rubbish! Anybody can discuss anything," rejoined the old lady
+with impersonal and boisterous informality. "I'm fond of you. Everybody
+knows it. I'm fond of Sir Charles. He's a fine figure of a man. You
+match him in everything, except wealth. It's an ideal marriage----"
+
+"Please don't!--I simply cannot----"
+
+"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly--"an ideal marriage----"
+
+"But when there is no love----"
+
+"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you--crazy!----"
+
+"I--meant--on my part----"
+
+"Good God!" shouted the old lady, beating the air with pudgy
+hands--"isn't it luck enough to have love on one side? What does the
+present generation want! I tell you it's ideal, perfect. He's a good man
+as men go, and a devilish handsome----"
+
+"I know--but----"
+
+"And he's got money!" shouted the old lady--"plenty of it I
+tell you! And he has the entrée everywhere on the Continent--in
+England--everywhere!--which Dankmere has not!--if you're considering
+that little whelp!"
+
+Stunned, shrinking from the dreadful asthmatic noises in Mrs. Sprowl's
+voice, Strelsa sat dumb, wincing under the blows of sound, not knowing
+how to escape.
+
+"I'm fond of you!" shrieked the old lady--"I can be of use to you and I
+want to be. That's why I asked you to tea! I want to make you happy--and
+Sir Charles, too! What the devil do you suppose there is in it for me
+except to oblige hi--you both?"
+
+"Th-thank you, but----"
+
+"I'll bet a shilling that Molly Wycherly let you go about with any
+little spindle-shanked pill who came hanging around!--And I told her
+what were my wishes----"
+
+"Please--oh, _please_, Mrs. Sprowl----"
+
+"Yes, I did! It's a good match! I want you to consider it!--I insist
+that----"
+
+"Mrs. Sprowl!" exclaimed Strelsa, pink with confusion and resentment, "I
+am obliged to you for the interest you display, but it is a matter----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I am really--grateful--but----"
+
+"Answer me, child. Has that cursed nephew of mine made any impression on
+you? Answer me!"
+
+"Not the kind you evidently mean!" said Strelsa, helplessly.
+
+"Is there anybody else?"
+
+The outrageous question silenced the girl for a moment. Angry, she still
+tried to be gentle; tried to remember the age, and the excellent
+intentions of this excited old lady; and she answered in a low voice:
+
+"I care for no man in particular, unless it be Sir Charles--and----"
+
+"And who?"
+
+"Mr. Quarren, I think," she said.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's jowl grew purple with fury:
+
+"You--has that boy had the impudence--damn him----"
+
+Strelsa sprang to her feet.
+
+"I really cannot remain--" she said with decision, but the old lady only
+bawled:
+
+"Sit down! Sit down!"
+
+"I will not!"
+
+"Sit _down_!" she roared in a passion. "What the devil----"
+
+Strelsa, a little pale, started to pass her--then halted, astounded: for
+the old lady had burst into a passion of choking gasps. Whether the
+terrible sounds she made were due to impotent rage or asthma, Strelsa,
+confused, shocked, embarrassed, but still angry, had no notion; and
+while Mrs. Sprowl coughed fatly, she stood still, catching muffled
+fragments of reproaches directed at people who flouted friendship; who
+had no consideration for age, and no gratitude, no tenderness, no pity.
+
+"I--I _am_ grateful," faltered Strelsa, "only I cannot----"
+
+"I wanted to be a mother to you! I've tried to be," wheezed the old lady
+in a fresh paroxysm; and beat the air.
+
+For one swift instant the girl remembered what her real mother had been
+to her; and her heart hardened.
+
+"I care only for your friendship, Mrs. Sprowl; I do not wish you to do
+anything for me; can we not be friends on that basis?"
+
+Mrs. Sprowl swabbed her inflamed eyes and peered around the corner of
+the handkerchief.
+
+"Come here, my dear," she said.
+
+Strelsa went, slowly; and Mrs. Sprowl enveloped her like a fleshy squid,
+panting.
+
+"I only wanted to be good to you, Strelsa. I'm just an old fool I
+suppose----"
+
+"Oh, please don't----"
+
+"That's all I am, child, just a sentimental old fool. The poor man's
+adoration of you touched my heart--and you do like him a little, don't
+you?"
+
+"Very much.... Thank you for--for wishing happiness to me. I really
+don't mean to be ungrateful; I have a horror of ingratitude. It's only
+that--the idea never occurred to me; and I am incapable of doing such a
+thing for material reasons, unless--I also really cared for a man----"
+
+"Of course, child. Maybe you will care for him some day. I won't
+interfere any more.... Only--don't lose your heart to any of these young
+jackals fawning around your skirts. Every set is full of 'em. They're
+nothing but the capering chorus in this comic opera.... And--don't be
+angry--but I am an older and wiser woman than you, and I am fond of you,
+and it's my duty to tell you that any of the lesser breed--take young
+Quarren for example--are of no real account, even in the society which
+they amuse."
+
+"I would scarcely class Mr. Quarren with the sort you mention----"
+
+"Why not? He's of no importance."
+
+"Because he is kind, considerate, and unusually intelligent and
+interesting; and he is very capable of succeeding in whatever he
+undertakes," said Strelsa, slowly.
+
+"Ricky is a nice boy; but what does he undertake?" asked Mrs. Sprowl
+with good-natured contempt. "He undertakes the duties, obligations, and
+details of a useful man in the greater household, which make him
+acceptable to us; and I'm bound to say that he does 'em very well. But
+outside of that he's a nobody. And I'll tell you just what he'll turn
+into; shall I? Society's third chief bottlewasher in succession. We had
+one, who evolved us. He's dead. We have another. He's still talking.
+When he ultimately evaporates into infinity Ricky will be his natural
+successor. Do you want that kind of a husband?"
+
+"Did you suppose----"
+
+"Don't get angry, Strelsa? I didn't suppose anything. Ricky, like every
+other man, dangles his good-looking, good-humoured self in your
+vicinity. You're inclined to notice him. All I mean is that he isn't
+worth your pains.... Now you won't be offended by a plain-spoken old
+woman who wishes only your happiness, will you, my child?"
+
+"No," said Strelsa, wearily, beginning to feel the fatigue of the scene.
+
+She took her leave a few moments afterward, very unhappy because two of
+the pleasantest incidents in her life had been badly, if not hopelessly,
+marred. But Langly Sprowl was not one of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That hatchet-faced and immaculate gentleman, divining possibly that
+Strelsa might be with his aunt, arrived shortly after her departure;
+learned of it from a servant, and was turning on his heel without even
+asking for Mrs. Sprowl, when the thought occurred to him that possibly
+she might know Strelsa's destination.
+
+When a servant announced him he found his aunt quite herself, grim,
+ready for trouble, her small green eyes fairly snapping.
+
+They indulged in no formalities, being alone together, and caring
+nothing for servants' opinions. Their greeting was perfunctory; their
+inquiries civil. Then there ensued a short silence.
+
+"Which way did Mrs. Leeds go?" he asked, busily twisting his long
+moustache.
+
+"None of your business," rejoined his aunt.
+
+He looked up in slight surprise, recognised a condition of things which,
+on second thought, surprised him still more. Because his aunt had never
+before noticed his affairs--had not even commented on the Ledwith matter
+to him. He had always felt that she disliked him too thoroughly to care.
+
+"I don't think I understood you," he said, watching her out of shifting
+eyes which protruded a trifle.
+
+"I think you will understand me before I've done with you," returned his
+aunt, grimly. "It's a perfectly plain matter; you've the rest of the
+female community to chase if you choose. Go and chase 'em for all I
+care--hunt from here to Reno if you like!--but I have other plans for
+Strelsa Leeds. Do you understand? I've put my private mark on her.
+There's no room for yours."
+
+Langly's gaze which had not met hers--and never met anybody's for more
+than a fraction of a second--shifted. He continued his attentions to his
+moustache; his eyes roved; he looked at but did not see a hundred things
+in a second.
+
+"You don't know where she's gone?" he inquired with characteristic
+pertinacity and an indifference to what she had said, absolutely stony.
+
+"Do you mean trouble for that girl?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Do you want to marry her?"
+
+"I said that I was considering nothing in particular. We are friends."
+
+"Keep away from her! Do you understand?"
+
+"I really don't know whether I do or not. I suppose you mean Sir
+Charles."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl turned red:
+
+"Suppose what you like, you cold-blooded cad! But by God!--if you annoy
+that child I'll empty the family wash all over the sidewalk! And let the
+public pick it over!"
+
+He rested his pale, protuberant eyes on her for a brief second:
+
+"Will any of your finery figure in it? Any relics or rags once belonging
+to the late parent of Sir Charles?"
+
+Her features were livid; her lips twisted, tortured under the flood of
+injuries which choked her. Not a word came. Exhausted for a moment she
+sat there grasping the gilded arms of her chair, livid as the dead save
+for the hell blazing in her tiny green eyes.
+
+"I fancy that settles the laundry question," he said, while his restless
+glance ceaselessly swept the splendid room and his lean, sunburnt hand
+steadily caressed his moustache. Then, as though he had forgotten
+something, he rose and walked out. A footman invested him with hat and
+overcoat. A moment later the great doors clicked.
+
+In the silence of the huge house there was not a sound except the
+whispers of servants; and these ceased presently.
+
+All alone, amid the lighted magnificence of the vast room sat the old
+woman hunched in her chair, bloodless, motionless as a mass of dead
+flesh. Even the spark in her eyes was gone, the lids closed, the gross
+lower lip pendulous. Later two maids, being summoned, accompanied her
+to her boudoir, and were dismissed. Her social secretary, a pretty girl,
+came and left with instructions to cancel invitations for the evening.
+
+A maid arrived with a choice of headache remedies; then, with the aid of
+another, disrobed her mistress and got her into bed.
+
+Their offices accomplished, they were ordered to withdraw but to leave
+one light burning. It glimmered over an old-fashioned photograph on the
+wall--the portrait of a British officer taken in the days when whiskers,
+"pill-box," and frogged frock-tunic were cultivated in Her British
+Majesty's Service.
+
+From where she lay she looked at him; and Sir Weyward Mallison stared
+back at her through his monocle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Strelsa at home, unpinning her hat before the mirror, received word over
+the telephone that Mrs. Sprowl, being indisposed, regretfully recalled
+the invitations for the evening.
+
+The girl's first sensation was relief, then self-reproach, quite
+forgetting that if Mrs. Sprowl's violent emotions had made that
+redoubtable old woman ill, they had also thoroughly fatigued the victim
+of her ill-temper and made her very miserable.
+
+She wrote a perfunctory note of regret and civil inquiry and dispatched
+it, then surrendered herself to the ministrations of her maid.
+
+The luxury of dining alone for the first time in months, appealed to
+her. She decided that she was not to be at home to anybody.
+
+Langly Sprowl called about six, and was sent away. Strelsa, curled up on
+a divan, could hear the staccato racket that his powerful racing-car
+made in the street outside. The informality of her recent host aboard
+the _Yulan_ did not entirely please her. She listened to his departure
+with quiet satisfaction.
+
+Although it was not her day, several people came and went. Flowers from
+various smitten youths arrived; orchids from Sprowl; nothing from
+Quarren. Then for nearly two hours she slept where she lay and awakened
+laughing aloud at something Quarren had been saying in her dream. But
+what it was she could not recollect.
+
+At eight her maid came and hooked her into a comfortable and beloved
+second-year gown; dinner was announced; she descended the stairway in
+solitary state, still smiling to herself at Quarren's forgotten remark,
+and passed by the library just as the telephone rang there.
+
+It may have been a flash of clairvoyance--afterward she wondered exactly
+what it was that made her say to her maid very confidently:
+
+"That is Mr. Quarren. I'll speak to him."
+
+It was Mr. Quarren. The amusing coincidence of her dream and her
+clairvoyance still lingering in her mind, she went leisurely to the
+telephone and said:
+
+"I don't understand how I knew it was you. And I'm not sure why I came
+to the 'phone, because I'm not at home to anybody. But _what_ was it you
+said to me just now?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"A few minutes ago while I was asleep?"
+
+"About eight o'clock?"
+
+She laughed: "It happened to be a few minutes before eight. How did you
+know that? I believe you did speak to me in my dream. Did you?"
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his
+departure with quiet satisfaction."]
+
+"I did."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"I said something aloud to you about eight o'clock."
+
+"How odd! Did you know I was asleep? But you couldn't----"
+
+"No, of course not. I was merely thinking of you."
+
+"You were--you happened to be thinking of _me_? And you said something
+aloud about me?"
+
+"About you--and _to_ you."
+
+"How delightfully interesting! What was it, please?"
+
+"Oh, I was only talking nonsense."
+
+"Won't it bear repetition?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Mr. Quarren! How maddening! I'm dying with curiosity. I dreamed that
+you said something very amusing to me and I awoke, laughing; but now I
+simply cannot recollect what it was you said."
+
+"I'll tell you some day."
+
+"Soon? Would you tell me this evening?"
+
+"How can I?"
+
+"That's true. I'm not at home to anybody. So you can't drop in, can
+you?"
+
+"You are not logical; I could drop in because I'm not anybody----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I'm not anybody in particular----"
+
+"You know if you begin to talk that way, after all these days, I'll ring
+off in a rage. You are the only man in the world to whom I'm at home
+even over the telephone, and if that doesn't settle your status with me,
+what does?... Are you well, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Thank you, perfectly. I called you up to ask you about yourself."
+
+"I'm tired, somehow."
+
+"Oh, we are all that. Nothing more serious threatens you than impending
+slumber?"
+
+"I said I was tired, not sleepy. I'm wide awake but horribly lazy--and
+inclined to slump. Where are you; at the Legation?"
+
+"At the Founders' Club--foundered."
+
+"What are you doing there?"
+
+"Absolutely nothing. Reading the _Evening Post_."
+
+"You are dining out I suppose?"
+
+"No."
+
+She reflected until he spoke again, asking if she was still there.
+
+"Oh, yes; I'm trying to think whether I want you to come around and
+share a solitary dinner with me. Do I want you?"
+
+"Just a little--don't you?"
+
+"Do you want to come?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very much?"
+
+"I can't tell you how much--over the telephone."
+
+"That sounds both humble and dangerous. Which do you mean to be?"
+
+"Humble--and very, very grateful, dear lady. May I come?"
+
+"I--don't know. Dinner was announced a quarter of an hour ago."
+
+"It won't take me three minutes----"
+
+"If it takes you more you'll ring my door-bell in vain, young man."
+
+"I'll start now! Good----"
+
+[Illustration: "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked,
+smiling."]
+
+"Wait! I haven't decided. Really I'm simply stupid with the accumulated
+fatigues of two months' frivolity. Do you mind my being stupid?"
+
+"You know I don't----"
+
+"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your
+way over. _À bien tôt!_"
+
+She had been in the drawing-room only a few moments, looking at the huge
+white orchids that Langly Sprowl had sent and which her butler was
+arranging, when Quarren was announced; and she partly turned from the
+orchids, extending her hand behind her in a greeting more confident and
+intimate than she had ever before given him.
+
+"Look at these strange, pansy-shaped Brazilian flowers," she said.
+"Kindly observe that they are actually growing out of that ball of moss
+and fibre."
+
+She had retained his hand for a fraction of a second longer than
+conventional acquaintance required, giving it a frank and friendly
+pressure. Now, loosing it, she found her own fingers retained, and drew
+them away with a little laugh of self-consciousness.
+
+"Sentiment before dinner implies that you'll have no room for it after
+dinner. Here is your cocktail."
+
+"Do you remember our first toast?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"No."
+
+"The toast to friendship?"
+
+"Yes; I remember it."
+
+She touched her lips to her glass, not looking at him. He watched her.
+After a moment she raised her eyes, met his gaze, returned it with one
+quite as audacious:
+
+"I am drinking that same toast again--after many days," she said.
+
+"With all that it entails?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Its chances, hazards, consequences?"
+
+She laughed, then, looking at him, deliberately sipped from her glass,
+the defiant smile in her eyes still daring him and Chance and Destiny
+together.
+
+When he took her out she was saying: "I really can't account for my mood
+to-night. I believe that seeing you again is reviving me. I was beastly
+stupid."
+
+"My soporific society ought to calm, not exhilarate you."
+
+"It never did, particularly. What a long time it is since we have seen
+each other. I _am_ glad you came."
+
+Seated, she asked the butler to remove the flowers which interrupted her
+view of Quarren.
+
+"You haven't said anything about my personal appearance," she observed.
+"Am I very much battered by my merry bouts with pleasure?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"You wretch! Do you mean to say that I am marked at all?"
+
+"You look rather tired, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"I know I do. By daylight it's particularly visible.... But--do _you_
+mind?"
+
+Her charming head was bent over her grapefruit: she lifted her gray eyes
+under level brows, looking across the table at him.
+
+"I mind anything that concerns you," he said.
+
+"I mean--are you disappointed because I'm growing old and haggard?"
+
+"I think you are even more beautiful than you were."
+
+She laughed gaily and continued her dinner. "I _had_ to drag that out
+of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudence _is_
+stamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm
+beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. You _were_ one. Do
+you deny your guilt?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape.
+_Am_ I very much changed, Mr. Quarren?" she said a trifle wistfully.
+
+He did not answer immediately. After a few moments she glanced at him
+again and met his gaze.
+
+"Well?" she prompted him, laughing; "are you not neglecting your manners
+as a declared suitor?"
+
+"You _have_ changed."
+
+"What a perfect pill you are!" she exclaimed, vexed--"you're casting
+yourself for the rôle of the honest friend--and I simply hate it! Young
+sir, do you not understand that I've breakfasted, lunched and dined too
+long on flattery to endure anything more wholesome? If you can't lie to
+me like a gentleman and a suitor your usefulness in my entourage is
+ended."
+
+He said: "Do you want me to talk shop with you? I get rather tired of my
+trade, sometimes. It's my trade to lie, you know."
+
+She looked up, quickly, but he was smiling.
+
+They remained rather silent after that. Coffee was served at table; she
+lighted a cigarette for him and, later, one for herself, strolling off
+into the drawing-room with it between her fingers, one hand resting
+lightly on her hip.
+
+She seemed to have an inclination to wander about or linger before the
+marble fireplace and blow delicate rings of smoke at her own reflection
+in the mirror.
+
+He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded
+affably to him in the glass:
+
+"I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first
+knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless--I wasn't then....
+Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about
+the kind--as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting."
+
+"A cradle song is what you require."
+
+"How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same
+cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?"
+
+"I realise how tired you are."
+
+"And--I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her
+mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time....
+Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you
+know?"
+
+"Conscience?" he suggested, laughing.
+
+"Do you think so? I thought it was my heart."
+
+"Have you acquired one?"
+
+She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned
+around toward him, still smiling.
+
+"I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?"
+
+"I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?"
+
+"I really don't know. What do you think?"
+
+He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the
+fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her
+dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between
+forefinger and thumb.
+
+Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not
+the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was
+only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day
+was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became
+only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of
+experience.... I wonder whether my silly head _was_ turned a little....
+People said too much to me: there were too many of them--and they came
+too near.... And do you know--looking back at it now as I sit here
+talking to you--I--it seems absurd--but I believe that I was really a
+trifle lonely at times."
+
+She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them.
+
+"I thought of you on various occasions," she added.
+
+He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender.
+
+Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained
+fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his
+eyes from the bracket light.
+
+For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his
+silence and abstraction--in the set of his shoulders, and the
+unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it
+glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the
+forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again--agreeable to
+be with him--not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable--for
+even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was
+no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly
+conscious of a reserve force now awaking--of a growing sense of
+freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour.
+
+"Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last.
+
+He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move--scarcely an
+invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated
+himself on the arm of the lounge beside her.
+
+"Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me."
+
+"I wrote very few.... Did they really interest you?"
+
+"A lot."
+
+"How?"
+
+"They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back
+door of Eternity."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Otherwise he would never have stirred a step--until to-night."
+
+"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren--but a little
+sentimental--isn't it?"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment--being unaccustomed to
+it."
+
+"How many men made you declarations?"
+
+"Oh; is _that_ real sentiment? I thought it was merely love."
+
+He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become
+like the rest."
+
+She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I _have_ grown
+hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not
+even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"Do you, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"I think so.... A woman might as well know the worst truths about
+life--and about men."
+
+"Not about men."
+
+"Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?"
+
+"Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?"
+
+"By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You
+probably prefer your women screened and veiled."
+
+"We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film."
+
+"Mr. Quarren--are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing.
+But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale
+induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones.
+
+"What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked,
+curiously.
+
+"Working at my trade."
+
+"You seem thinner."
+
+"Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I
+must."
+
+"You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike--aren't
+you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"You make me very angry," she said; "I like you--I'm quite happy with
+you--and suddenly you try to tell me that my friendship is lavished on
+an unworthy man; that my taste is low, and that you're a kind of a
+social jackal--an upper servant----
+
+"I feed on what the pack leaves--and I wash their fragile plates for
+them," he said lightly.
+
+"What else?" she asked, furious.
+
+"I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I
+smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially
+injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother
+jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to
+sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and
+give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment's notice, acting as
+manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter."
+
+He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost
+control of herself and her fingers closed tight.
+
+"What are you saying!" she said, fiercely. "Are you telling me that this
+is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to--to think
+about--think about a great deal--care enough about to dine with in my
+own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are
+after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?"
+
+He said, slowly: "I could have been anything--I could be yet--if
+you----"
+
+"If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for
+anybody's!" she retorted.... "I refuse to believe that you are what you
+say, anyway. It hurts--it hurts----"
+
+"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"It hurts _me!_ I _do_ like you. I was glad to see you--you don't know
+how glad. Your letters to me were--were interesting. _You_ have always
+been interesting, from the very first--more so than many men--more than
+most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If
+I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?"
+
+Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest
+every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand
+tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted
+handkerchief.
+
+"I could stand anything!--my friendship for you could stand almost
+anything except what you pretend you are--and what other malicious
+tongues will say if you continue to repeat it!--And it _has_ been said
+already about you! Do you know that? People _do_ say that of you.
+People even say so to me--tell me you are worthless--warn me
+against--against----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Caring--taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit
+disrespect for yourself! A man--_any_ man is what he chooses to be, and
+people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in
+pretending to dignity and worth when--when you can be the peer of any
+man? What's the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of
+you with contempt. I denied what she said.... I'd rather they'd say
+anything else about you--that you had vices--a vigorous, wilful,
+unmanageable man's vices!--than to say _that_ of you!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"That you amount to nothing."
+
+"Do you care what they say, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"Of course! It strikes at my own self-respect!"
+
+"Do you care--otherwise?"
+
+"I care--as a friend, naturally----"
+
+"Otherwise still?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Could you ever care?"
+
+"No," she said, nervously.
+
+She sat breathing faster and more irregularly, watching him. He looked
+up and smiled at her, rested so, a moment, then rose to take his leave.
+
+She stretched out one arm toward the electric bell, but her fingers
+seemed to miss it, and remained resting against the silk-hung wall.
+
+"Are you going?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Must you?"
+
+"I think I'd better."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He waited, but she did not touch the bell button. She seemed to be
+waiting for him to go; so he offered his hand, pleasantly, and turned
+away toward the hall. And, rising leisurely, she descended the stairs
+with him in silence.
+
+"Good-night," he said again.
+
+"Good-night. I am sorry you are going."
+
+"Did you wish me to remain a little longer?"
+
+"I--don't know what I wish...."
+
+Her cheeks were deeply flushed; the hand he took into his again seemed
+burning.
+
+"It's fearfully hot in here," she said. "Please muffle up warmly because
+it's bitter weather out doors"--and she lifted the other hand as though
+unconsciously and passed her finger tips over his fur collar.
+
+"Do you feel feverish?"
+
+"A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?"
+
+"You haven't caught malaria in the tropics, have you?"
+
+"No, you funny man. I'm never ill. But it's odd how burning hot I seem
+to be----"
+
+She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his.
+
+They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as
+though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the
+quiet around her--a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a
+delicate mist--a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and
+thought.
+
+Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred;
+and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his.
+
+At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small
+head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch--a slight caress over her
+forehead--the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers,
+closer, never stirring.
+
+Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical
+currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless,
+non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to
+the sorcery.
+
+Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its
+fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her.
+
+She strove to turn her mouth from his--twisted away from him, straining,
+tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail,
+gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she
+shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even
+look at him, now.
+
+Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood
+there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and glass
+door; a flurry of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the
+spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes.
+
+Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and
+locked the door against her maid.
+
+Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat
+before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and
+lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange
+nerves signalling; stranger responses--of a subtle fragrance in her
+breath so strange that she became conscious of it.
+
+She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the glass while
+through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew
+tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the
+unknown.
+
+Unknown still!--for she crouched there shrinking from the
+revelation--from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf,
+blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of
+self-contempt.
+
+Then fear came--fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and
+defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already
+dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very
+patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes.
+
+So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one
+day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser
+passion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had
+sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her--out of a moment's
+lassitude, a touch of a man's hand, and his lips on hers! And now all
+her life was already behind her--childhood, girlhood, wifehood--all,
+all behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an
+unknown road; an unknown world before her.
+
+With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty,
+of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce
+humiliation born of self-knowledge--knowledge scornfully admitted and
+defied with every breath--but no longer denied.
+
+She _was_ as others were--fashioned of that same and common clay,
+capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of
+them--so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant,
+they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things
+of the mind.
+
+Was this the evolution that her winter's idleness and gaiety and the
+fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that
+strange moment, at the door, the moment that man's enemy had been
+awaiting, to find her unprepared?
+
+Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on
+her dresser--the fairest among the Philistines who had so long
+unconsciously thanked God that she was not like other women in the homes
+of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Strelsa was no longer at home to Quarren, even over the telephone. He
+called her up two or three times in as many days, ventured to present
+himself at her house twice without being received, and finally wrote her
+a note. But at the end of the month the note still remained unanswered.
+
+However, there was news of her, sometimes involving her with Langly
+Sprowl, but more often with Sir Charles Mallison. Also, had Quarren not
+dropped out of everything so completely, he might easily have met her
+dozens of times in dozens of places. But for a month now he had returned
+every day from his office to his room in the Legation, and even the
+members of that important diplomatic body found his door locked, after
+dinner, though his light sometimes brightened the transom until morning.
+
+Westguard, after the final rupture with his aunt, had become a soured
+hermit--sourer because of the low motives of the public which was buying
+his book by the thousands and reading it for the story, exclusively.
+
+His aunt had cast him off; to him she was the overfed embodiment of
+society, so it pleased him to consider the rupture as one between
+society and himself. It tasted of martyrdom, and now his own public had
+vulgarly gone back on him according to his ideals: nobody cared for his
+economics, his social evils, his moral philosophy; only what he
+considered the unworthy part of his book was eagerly absorbed and
+discussed. The proletariat had grossly betrayed him; a hermit's
+exemplary but embittered career was apparently all that remained for his
+declining years.
+
+So, after dinner, he, too, retired to seclusion behind bolted doors,
+pondering darkly on a philosophic novel which should be no novel at all
+but a dignified and crushing rebuke to mankind--a solid slice of moral
+cake thickly frosted with social economics, heavy with ethical plums,
+and without any story to it whatever.
+
+Meanwhile his book had passed into the abhorred class of best sellers.
+
+As for Lacy and O'Hara, both had remarked Quarren's abrupt retirement
+and his absence from that section of the social puddle which he was
+accustomed to embellish and splash in. O'Hara, inclining more toward
+sporting circles, noticed Quarren's absence less; but Lacy, after the
+first week, demanded an explanation at the dinner-table.
+
+"You spoiled a party for Mrs. Lannis," he said--"and Winnifred Miller
+was almost in tears over the charity tableaux----"
+
+"I wrote them both in plenty of time, Jack."
+
+"Yes. But who is there to take your place? Whatever you touch is
+successful. Barent Van Dyne made a dub of himself."
+
+"They must break in another pup," said Quarren, amused.
+
+"You mean that you're chucking the whole bally thing for keeps?"
+
+"Practically."
+
+"Why?" asked O'Hara, looking up blankly.
+
+"Oh," said Quarren laughing, "I'm curious to find out what business I
+really am in. Until this week I've never had time to discover that I was
+trying to be a broker in real estate. And I've just found out that I've
+been one for almost three years, and never knew it."
+
+"One's own company is the best," growled Westguard. "The monkey people
+sicken you and the public make you ill. Solitude is the only remedy."
+
+"Not for me," said Quarren; "I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and
+on the public; and I'm laying plans to do it."
+
+"They'll turn your stomach----"
+
+"Oh, dry up, Karl!" said O'Hara; "there's a medium between extremes
+where you can get a good sportin' chance at anythin'--horse, dog,
+girl--anythin' you fancy. You'd like some of my friends, now,
+Ricky!--they're a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin' as
+hell----"
+
+"_I_ don't want to meet any cock-fighters," growled Westguard.
+
+"They're all right, too--but there are all kinds of interestin' people
+in my circles--writers like Karl, huntin' people, a professional here
+and there--and then there's that fascinatin' Mrs. Wyland-Baily, the best
+trap-shot----"
+
+"Trap-shot," repeated Westguard in disgust, and took his cigar and
+himself into seclusion.
+
+Quarren also pushed back his chair, preparing to rise.
+
+"Doin' anythin'?" inquired O'Hara, desiring to be kind. "Young Calahan
+and the Harlem Mutt have it out at the Cataract Club to-night," he
+added persuasively.
+
+"Another time, thanks," said Quarren: "I've letters to write."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He wrote them--all the business letters he could think of, concentrating
+his thoughts as much as possible. Afterward he lay down on the lounge
+with a book, and remained there for an hour, although he changed books
+every few minutes. This was becoming a bad habit. But it was difficult
+reading although it ranged from Kipling to the Book of Common Prayer;
+and at last he gave it up and, turning over buried his head in the
+cushions.
+
+This wouldn't do either: he racked his brain for further employment,
+found excuses for other business letters, wrote them, then attacked a
+pile of social matters--notes and letters heretofore deliberately
+neglected to the ragged edge of decency.
+
+He replied to them all, and invariably in the negative.
+
+It gave him something to do to go out to the nearest lamp post and mail
+his letters. But when again he came back into his room the silence there
+left him hesitating on his threshold.
+
+But he went in and locked his door, and kept his back turned to the desk
+where pen and ink were tempting him as usual, and almost beyond
+endurance now. And at last he weakened, and wrote to her once more:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS--
+
+     "I feel sure that your failure to answer my note of last week was
+     unintentional.
+
+     "Some day, when you have a moment, would you write me a line saying
+     that you will be at home to me?
+
+                            "Very sincerely yours,
+
+                                      "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN."
+
+
+He took this note to the nearest District Messenger Office; then
+returned to his room.
+
+After an interminable time the messenger reported for the signature.
+Mrs. Leeds was not at home and he had left the note as directed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was a white one. He did not feel very well when he sat
+scanning the morning paper over his coffee. Recently he had formed the
+custom of reading two columns only in the paper--Real Estate News and
+Society. In the latter column Strelsa usually figured.
+
+She figured as usual this morning; and he read the fulsome stuff
+attentively. Also there was a flourish concerning an annual event at the
+Santa Regina.
+
+And Quarren read this very carefully; and made up his mind as he
+finished the paragraph.
+
+The conclusion he came to over his coffee and newspaper materialised
+that afternoon at a Charity Bazaar, where, as he intended, he met
+Strelsa Leeds face to face. She said, coolly amiable:
+
+"Have you been away? One never sees you these days."
+
+"I have been nowhere," he said, pleasantly.
+
+She shook her pretty head in reproof:
+
+"Is it good policy for a young man to drop out of sight? Our world
+forgets over-night."
+
+He laughed: "Something similar has been intimated to me by others--but
+less gently. I'm afraid I've offended some people."
+
+"Oh, so you have already been disciplined?"
+
+"Verbally trounced, admonished, and still smarting under the displeasure
+of the powers that reign. They seem to resent my Sunday out--yet even
+their other domestics have that. And it's the first I've taken in three
+years. I think I'll have to give notice to my Missus."
+
+"The spectre of servitude still seems to obsess your humour," she
+observed indifferently.
+
+"I _am_ that spectre, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"You certainly look pallid enough for any disembodied rôle. You have not
+been ill, by any chance?"--carelessly.
+
+"Not at all, thank you. Rude health and I continue to link arms."
+
+"Then it is not by chance that you absent yourself from the various
+festivities where your part is usually supposed to be a leading one?"
+
+"All cooks eventually develop a distaste for their own concoctions," he
+explained gravely.
+
+She lifted her eyebrows: "Yet you are here this afternoon."
+
+"Oh, yes. Charity has not yet palled on my palate--perhaps because I
+need so much myself."
+
+"I have never considered you an object of charity."
+
+"Then I must draw your kind attention to my pitiable case by doing a
+little begging.... Could I ask your forgiveness, for example? And
+perhaps obtain it?"
+
+Her face flushed. "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Quarren," she said
+with decision.
+
+"Do you mean that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I scarcely know how to take your--generosity."
+
+"I offer none. There is no occasion for generosity or for the exercise
+of any virtue, cardinal or otherwise. You have not offended me, nor I
+you--I trust.... Have I?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby
+groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren
+unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things.
+Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and
+Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman's advent as his own congé,
+took his leave of Strelsa and went his way--which chanced, also, to be
+the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat.
+
+Susanne Lannis, lips slightly curling, looked after them, touching
+Strelsa's elbow:
+
+"Cyrille simply cannot let Ricky alone," she said. "The bill-posters
+will find a fence for her if she doesn't come to her senses."
+
+"Who?" asked Strelsa, as one or two people laughed guardedly.
+
+"Why, Cyrille Caldera. _Elle s'affiche, ma chère!_"
+
+"Mrs. Caldera!" repeated the girl, surprised.
+
+"_And_ Ricky! Are you blind, Strelsa? It's been on for two weeks or
+more. And she'd better not play too confidently with Ricky. You can
+usually forecast what a wild animal will do, never how a trained one is
+going to behave."
+
+"Such scandal!" laughed Chrysos Lacy. "How many of us can afford to
+turn our backs to the rest of the cage even for an instant? Sir Charles,
+I simply don't dare to go away. Otherwise I'd purchase several of those
+glittering articles yonder--whatever they are. Do you happen to know?"
+
+"Automatic revolvers. The cartridges are charged with Japanese perfumes.
+Did you never see one?" he asked, turning to Strelsa. But she was not
+listening; and he transferred his attention to Chrysos.
+
+Several people moved forward to examine the pretty and apparently deadly
+little weapons; Sir Charles was called upon to explain the Japanese game
+of perfumes, and everybody began to purchase the paraphernalia, pistols,
+cartridges, targets, and counters.
+
+Sir Charles came back, presently, to where Strelsa still stood,
+listlessly examining laces.
+
+"All kinds of poor people have blinded themselves making these pretty
+things," she said, as Sir Charles came up beside her. "My only apparent
+usefulness is to buy them, I suppose."
+
+He offered her one of the automatic pistols.
+
+"It's loaded," he cautioned her, solemnly.
+
+"What an odd gift!" she said, surprised, taking it gingerly into her
+gloved hand. "Is it really for me? And why?"
+
+"Are you timid about firearms?" he asked, jestingly.
+
+"No.... I don't know anything about them--except to keep my finger away
+from the trigger. I know enough to do that."
+
+He supposed that she also was jesting, and her fastidious handling of
+the weapon amused him. And when she asked him if it was safe to carry in
+her muff, he assured her very gravely that she might venture to do so.
+"Turn it loose on the first burglar," he added, "and his regeneration
+will begin in all the forty-nine odours of sanctity."
+
+Strelsa smiled without comprehending. Cyrille Caldera was standing just
+beyond them, apparently interested in antique jewellery, trying the
+effect of various linked gems against her lilac gown, and inviting
+Quarren's opinion of the results. Their backs were turned; Ricky's blond
+head seemed to come unreasonably close to Cyrille's at moments. Once
+Mrs. Caldera thoughtlessly laid a pretty hand on his arm as though in
+emphasis. Their unheard conversation was evidently amusing them.
+
+Strelsa's smile remained unaltered; people were coming constantly to pay
+their respects to her; and they lingered, attracted and amused by her
+unusual gaiety, charm, and wit.
+
+Her mind seemed suddenly to have become crystal clear; her gay retorts
+to lively badinage, and her laughing epigrams were deliciously
+spontaneous. A slight exhilaration, without apparent reason, was
+transforming her, swiftly, into an incarnation entirely unknown even to
+herself.
+
+Conscious of a wonderful mood never before experienced, perfectly aware
+of her unusual brilliancy and beauty, surprised and interested in the
+sudden revelation of powers within her still unexercised, she felt
+herself, for the first time in her life, in contact with things
+heretofore impalpable--and, in spirit, with delicate fingers, she
+gathered up instinctively those intangible threads with which man is
+guided as surely as though driven in chains of steel.
+
+And all the while she was aware of Quarren's boyish head bending almost
+too near to Cyrille Caldera's over the trays of antique jewels; and all
+the while she was conscious of the transfiguration in process--that not
+only a new self was being evolved for her out of the débris of the old,
+but that the world itself was changing around her--and a new Heaven and
+a new earth were being born--and a new hell.
+
+That evening she fought it out with herself with a sort of deadly
+intelligence. Alone in her room, seated, and facing her mirrored gaze
+unflinchingly, she stated her case, minutely, to herself from beginning
+to end; then called the only witness for the prosecution--herself--and
+questioned that witness without mercy.
+
+Did she care for Quarren? Apparently. How much? A great deal. Was she in
+love with him? She could not answer. Wherein did he differ from other
+men she knew--Sir Charles, for example? She only knew that he _was_
+different. Perhaps he was nobler? No. More intelligent? No. Kinder? No.
+More admirable? No. More gentle, more sincere, less selfish? No. Did he,
+as a man, compare favorably with other men--Sir Charles for example? The
+comparison was not in Quarren's favor.
+
+Wherein, then, lay her interest in him? She could not answer. Was she
+perhaps sorry for him? Very. Why? Because she believed him capable of
+better things. Then the basis of her regard for him was founded on pity.
+No; because from the beginning--even before he had unmasked--she had
+been sensible of an interest in him different from any interest she had
+ever before felt for any man.
+
+This uncompromisingly honest answer silenced her mentally for some
+moments; then she lifted her resolute gray eyes to the eyes of the
+mirrored witness:
+
+If that is true, then the attraction was partly physical? She could not
+answer. Pressed for a statement she admitted that it might be that.
+
+Then the basis of her regard for him was ignoble? She found pleasure in
+his intellectual attractions. But the basis had not been intellectual?
+No. It had been material? Yes. And she had never forgotten the light
+pressure of that masked Harlequin's spangled arm around her while she
+desperately counted out the seconds of that magic minute forfeited to
+him? No; she had never forgotten. It was a sensation totally unknown to
+her before that moment? Yes. Had she experienced it since that time?
+Yes. When? When he first told her that he loved her. And afterward? Yes.
+When?
+
+In the cheeks of the mirrored witness a faint fire began to burn: her
+own face grew pink: but she answered, looking the shadowy witness
+steadily in the eyes:
+
+"When he took my hand at the door--and during--whatever
+happened--afterward."
+
+And she excused the witness and turned her back to the looking-glass.
+
+The only witness for the defence was the accused--unless her own heart
+were permitted to testify. Or--and there seemed to be some slight
+confusion here--_was_ Quarren on trial? Or was she herself?
+
+This threatened to become a serious question; she strove to think
+clearly, to reason; but only evoked the pale, amused face of Quarren
+from inner and chaotic consciousness until the visualisation remained
+fixed, defying obliteration. And she accepted the mental spectre for
+the witness box.
+
+"Ricky," she said, "do you really love me?"
+
+But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the
+smile she knew so well--so well, alas!
+
+"Why are you unworthy?" she said again--"you who surely are equipped for
+a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is
+so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth
+nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no
+better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many;
+and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor
+boy--poor boy."
+
+In vain she strove to visualise Sir Charles; she could not. All she
+could do was to mentally enumerate his qualities; and she did so, the
+amused face of Quarren looking on at her from out of empty space.
+
+"Ricky, Ricky," she said, "am I no better than that?--am I fit only for
+such a response?--to find the contact of your hand so wonderful?--to
+thrill with the consciousness of your nearness--to let my senses drift,
+contented merely by your touch--yielding to the charm of it--suffering
+even your lips' embrace----"
+
+She shuddered slightly, drawing one hand across her eyes, then sitting
+straight, she faced his smiling phantom, resolute to end it now forever.
+
+"If I am such a woman," she said, "and you are the kind of man I know
+you to be--then is it time for me to fast and pray, lest I enter into
+temptation.... Into the one temptation I have never before known,
+Ricky--and which, in my complacency and pride I never dreamed that I
+should encounter.
+
+"And it is coming to that!... A girl must be honest with herself or all
+life is only the same smiling lie. I'm ashamed to be honest, Ricky; but
+I must be. You are not very much of a man--otherwise I might find some
+reason for caring: and now there is none; and yet--I care--God knows
+why--or what it is in you that I care for!--But I do--I am beginning to
+care--and I don't know why; I--don't--know why----".
+
+She dropped her face in her hands, sitting there bowed low over her
+knees. And there, hour after hour she fought it out with herself and
+with the amused spectre ever at her elbow--so close at moments that some
+unaroused nerve fell a-trembling in its sleep, threatening to awaken
+those quiet senses that she already feared for their unknown powers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The season was approaching its end, still kicking now and then
+spasmodically, but pretty nearly done for. No particularly painful
+incidents marked its demise except the continued absence of Quarren from
+social purlieus accustomed to his gay presence and adroit executive
+abilities.
+
+After several demoralised cotillions had withstood the shock of his
+absence, and a dozen or more functions had become temporarily
+disorganised because he declined to occupy himself with their success;
+and after a number of hostesses had filled in his place at dinner, at
+theatres, at week-ends, on yachts and coaches; and after an
+unprecedented defiance of two summonses to the hazardous presence of
+Mrs. Sprowl, he obeyed a third subpœna, and presented himself with an
+air of cheerful confidence that instantly enraged her.
+
+The old lady lay abed with nothing more compromising than a toothache;
+Quarren was conducted to the inner shrine; she glared at him hideously
+from her pillows; and for one moment he felt seriously inclined to run.
+
+"Where have you been?" she wheezed.
+
+"Nowhere in particu----"
+
+"I know damn well you've been nowhere," she burst out. "Molly Wycherly's
+dance went to pieces because she was fool enough to trust things to you.
+Do you know who led? That great oaf, Barent Van Dyne! He led like a
+trick elephant, too!"
+
+Quarren looked politely distressed.
+
+"And there are a dozen hostesses perfectly furious with you," continued
+the old lady, pounding the pillows with a fat arm--"parties of all sorts
+spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank
+failures--what the devil possesses you to behave this way?"
+
+"I'm tired," he said, politely.
+
+"What!"
+
+He smiled:
+
+"Oh, the place suits, Mrs. Sprowl; I haven't any complaint; and the work
+and wages are easy; and it's comfortable below-stairs. But--I'm just
+tired."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"I'm talking _about_ my employers, and I'm talking _like_ the social
+upper-servant that I am--or was. I'm merely giving a respectable
+warning; that is the airy purport of my discourse, Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+"Do you know what you're saying?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," he said, wearily.
+
+"Well, then, what the devil _are_ you saying?"
+
+"Merely that I've dropped out of service to engage in trade."
+
+"You can't!" she yelled, sitting up in bed so suddenly that her unquiet
+tooth took the opportunity to assert itself.
+
+She clapped a pudgy hand to her cheek, squinting furiously at Quarren:
+
+"You _can't_ drop out," she shouted. "Don't you ever want to amount to
+anything?"
+
+"Yes, I do. That's why I'm doing it."
+
+"Don't act like a fool! Haven't you any ambition?"
+
+"That also is why," he said pleasantly. "I am ambitious to be out of
+livery and see what my own kind will do to me."
+
+"Well, you'll see!" she threatened--"you'll see what we'll do to
+you----"
+
+"_You're_ not my kind. I always supposed you were, but you all knew
+better from the day I took service with you----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"It is perfectly true, Mrs. Sprowl. My admittance included a livery and
+the perennial prerogative of amusing people. But I had no money, no
+family affiliations with the very amiable people who found me useful.
+Only, in common with them, I had the inherent taste for idleness and the
+genius for making it endurable to you all. So you welcomed me very
+warmly; and you have been very kind to me.... But, somewhere or
+other--in some forgotten corner of me--an odd and old-fashioned idea
+awoke the other day.... I think perhaps it awoke when you reminded me
+that to serve you was one thing and to marry among you something very
+different."
+
+"Ricky! Do you want to drive me to the yelling verge of distraction? I
+didn't say or intimate or dream any such thing! You know perfectly well
+you're not only with us but _of_ us. Nobody ever imagined otherwise. But
+you can't marry any girl you pick out. Sometimes she won't; sometimes
+her family won't. It's the same everywhere. You have no money. Of course
+I intend that you shall eventually marry money--What the devil are you
+laughing at?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"I said that you would marry well. Was that funny? I also said,
+once--and I repeat it now, that I have my own plans for one or two
+girls--Strelsa Leeds included. I merely asked you to respect my wishes
+in that single matter; and bang! you go off and blow up and maroon
+yourself and sulk until nobody knows what's the matter with you. Don't
+be a fool. Everybody likes you; every girl _can't_ love you--but I'll
+bet many of 'em do.... Pick one out and come to me--if that's your
+trouble. Go ahead and pick out what you fancy; and ten to one it will be
+all right, and between you and me we'll land the little lady!"
+
+"You're tremendously kind----"
+
+"I know I am. I'm always doing kindnesses--and nobody likes me, and
+they'd bite my head off, every one of 'em--if they weren't afraid it
+would disagree with them," she added grimly.
+
+Quarren rose and came over to the bedside.
+
+"Good-bye, Mrs. Sprowl," he said. "And--I like you--somehow--I really
+do."
+
+"The devil you do," said the old lady.
+
+"It's a curious fact," he insisted, smiling.
+
+"Get out with you, Ricky! And I want you to come----"
+
+"No--please."
+
+"What?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I want to see some real people again. I've forgotten what they
+resemble."
+
+"That's a damned insolent remark!" she gasped.
+
+"Not meant to be. _You_ are real enough, Heaven knows. But," and his
+smile faded--"I've taken a month off to think it out. And, do you know,
+thinking being an unaccustomed luxury, I've enjoyed it. Imagine my
+delight and surprise, Mrs. Sprowl, when I discovered that my leisurely
+reflections resulted in the discovery that I had a mind--a real
+one--capable of reason and conclusions. And so when I actually came to a
+conclusion my joy knew no bounds----"
+
+"Ricky! Stop those mental athletics! Do you hear? I've a toothache and a
+backache and I can't stand 'em!"
+
+Quarren was laughing now; and presently a grim concession to humour
+relaxed the old lady's lips till her fat face creased.
+
+"All right," she said; "go and play with the ragged boy around the
+corner, my son. Then when you're ready come home and get your face
+washed."
+
+"May I come occasionally to chat with you?"
+
+"As though you'd do that if you didn't have to!" she exclaimed
+incredulously.
+
+"I think you know better."
+
+"No, I don't!" she snapped. "I know men and women; that's all I know.
+And as you're one of the two species I don't expect anything celestial
+from you.... And you'd better go, now."
+
+She turned over on her pillow with a grunt: Quarren laughed, lifted one
+of her pudgy and heavily ringed hands from the coverlet, and, still
+smiling, touched the largest diamond with his lips.
+
+"I think," he said, "that you are one of the very few I really like in
+your funny unreal world.... You're so humanly bad."
+
+"What!" she shouted, floundering to a sitting posture.
+
+But, looking back at her from the door, he found her grinning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Premonitions of spring started the annual social exodus; because in the
+streets of Ascalon and in the busy ways of Gath spring becomes summer
+over night and all Philistia is smitten by the sun.
+
+And all the meanness and shabbiness and effrontery of the monstrous
+city, all its civic pretence and tarnished ostentation are suddenly
+revealed when the summer sun blazes over Ascalon. Wherefore the daintier
+among the Philistines flee--idler, courtier, dangler and squire of
+dames--not to return until the first snow-flakes fall and the gray veil
+of November descends once more over the sorry sham of Ascalon.
+
+Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the
+drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer
+sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and
+millions of them--and a real sky overhead edging far horizons.
+
+He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being
+hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of
+unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester
+Caldera was to finance for him.
+
+Recently, however, that suave young man had smilingly denied making any
+such promise to anybody; which surprised and disconcerted Quarren who
+had no money with which to build sewers, roads, and electric plants.
+And he began to realise how carelessly he had drifted into the
+enterprise--how carelessly he had drifted into everything and past
+everything for the last five years.
+
+After a hunt for a capitalist among and outside his circle of friends
+and acquaintances he began to appreciate his own lunacy even more
+thoroughly.
+
+Then Lester Caldera, good-naturedly, offered to take the property off
+his hands for less than a third of what he paid Sprowl for it; and as
+Quarren's adjoining options were rapidly expiring he was forced to
+accept. Which put the boy almost entirely out of business; so he closed
+his handsome office downtown and opened another in the front parlour of
+an old and rather dingy brown-stone house on the east side of Lexington
+Avenue near Fiftieth Street and hung out his sign once more over the
+busy streets of Ascalon.
+
+                   RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN
+                         Real Estate
+
+Also he gave up his quarters at the Irish Legation to the unfeigned
+grief of the diplomats domiciled there, and established himself in the
+back parlour and extension of the Lexington Avenue house, ready at all
+moments now for business or for sleep. Neither bothered him excessively.
+
+He wrote no more notes to Strelsa Leeds--that is, he posted no more,
+however many he may have composed. Rumours from the inner temple
+concerning her and Langly Sprowl and Sir Charles Mallison drifted out
+into the real world every day or so. But he never went back to the
+temple to verify them. That life was ended for him. Sometimes, sitting
+alone at his desk, he fancied that he could almost hear the far laughter
+of the temple revels, and the humming of the drones. But the roar of the
+street-car, rushing, grinding through the steel-ribbed streets of
+Ascalon always drowned it, and its far seen phantom glitter became a
+burning reality where the mid-day sun struck the office sign outside his
+open window.
+
+Fate, the ugly jade, was making faces at him, all kinds of faces. Just
+now she wore the gaunt mask of poverty, but Quarren continued to ignore
+her, because to him, there was no real menace in her skinny grin, no
+real tragedy in what she threatened.
+
+Real tragedy lay in something very different--perhaps in manhood awaking
+from ignoble lethargy to learn its own degeneracy in a young girl's
+scornful eyes.
+
+All day long he sat in his office attending to the trivial business that
+came into it--not enough so far to give him a living.
+
+In the still spring evenings he retired to his quarters in the back
+parlour, bathed, dressed, looking out at the cats on the back fences.
+Then he went forth to dine either at the Legation or with some one of
+the few friends he had cared to retain in that magic-lantern world which
+he at last had found uninhabitable--a world in which few virile men
+remain very long--fewer and fewer as the years pass on. For the gilding
+on the temple dome is peeling off; and the laughter is dying out, and
+the hum of the drones sounds drowsy like unreal voices heard in summer
+dreams.
+
+"It is the passing of an imbecile society," declaimed Westguard--"the
+dying sounds of its meaningless noise--the first omens of a silence
+which foretells annihilation. Out of chaos will gradually emerge the
+elements of a real society--the splendid social and intellectual
+brotherhood of the future----"
+
+"See my forthcoming novel," added Lacy, "$1.35 net, for sale at all
+booksellers or sent post-paid on receipt of----"
+
+"You little fashionable fop!" growled Westguard--"there's a winter
+coming for all butterflies!"
+
+"I've seen 'em dancing over the snow on a mild and sunny day," retorted
+Lacy. "Karl, my son, the nobly despairing writer with a grouch never yet
+convinced anybody."
+
+"I don't despair," retorted Westguard. "This country is getting what it
+wants and what it deserves, ladled out to it in unappetising gobs. Year
+after year great incoming waves of ignorance sweep us from ocean to
+ocean; but I don't forget that those very waves also carry a constantly
+growing and enlightened class higher and higher toward permanent
+solidity.
+
+"Every annual wave pushes the flotsam of the year before toward the
+solid land. The acquaintance with sordid things is the first real
+impulse toward education. Some day there will be no squalor in the
+land--neither the physical conditions in our slums nor the arid
+intellectual deserts within the social frontiers."
+
+"But the waves will accomplish that--not your very worthy novels," said
+Lacy, impudently.
+
+"If you call me 'worthy' I'll bat you on the head," roared Westguard,
+sitting up on the sofa where he had been sprawling; and laughter, loud
+and long, rattled the windows in the Irish Legation.
+
+The May night was hot; a sickly breeze stirred the curtains at the open
+windows of Westguard's living room where the Legation was entertaining
+informally.
+
+Quarren, Lacy, O'Hara, and Sir Charles Mallison sat by the window
+playing poker; the Earl of Dankmere, perched on the piano-stool, was
+mournfully rattling off a string of melodies acquired along Broadway;
+Westguard himself, flat on his back, occupied a leather lounge and
+dispensed philosophy when permitted.
+
+"You know," said Lacy, dealing rapidly, "you're only a tin-horn
+philosopher, Karl, but you really could write a good story if you tried.
+Get your people into action. That's the game."
+
+O'Hara nodded. "Interestin' people, in books and outside, are always
+doin' things, not talkin'," he said--"like Sir Charles quietly drawin'
+four cards to a kicker and sayin' nothin'."
+
+"--Like old Dankmere, yonder, playing 'Madame Sherry' and not trying to
+tell us why human beings enjoy certain sounds known as harmonies, but
+just keeping busy beating the box----"
+
+"--Like a pretty woman who is contented to be as attractive and cunnin'
+as she can be, and not stoppin' to explain the anatomy of romantic love
+and personal beauty," added O'Hara.
+
+"--Like----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake give me a stack of chips and shut up!" shouted
+Westguard, jumping to his feet and striding to the table. "Everybody on
+earth is competent to write a book except an author, but I defy anybody
+to play my poker hands for me! Come on, Dankmere! Let's clean out this
+complacent crowd!"
+
+Lord Dankmere complied, and seated himself at the table, anxiously
+remarking to Quarren that he had come to America to acquire capital, not
+to spend it. Sir Charles laughed and dealt; Westguard drew five cards,
+attempted to bluff Quarren's full hand, and was scandalously routed.
+
+Again the cards were dealt and O'Hara bet the limit; and the Earl of
+Dankmere came back with an agonised burst of chips that scared out Lacy
+and Sir Charles and left Quarren thinking.
+
+When finally the dust of combat blew clear of the scene Dankmere's
+stacks were nearly gone, and Quarren's had become symmetrical
+sky-scrapers.
+
+Lacy said to Dankmere: "Now that you've learned how to get poor quickly
+you're better prepared for the study of riches and how to acquire 'em.
+Kindly pass the buck unless your misfortunes have paralysed you."
+
+"The whole country," said his lordship, "is nothing but one gigantic
+poker game. I sail on the next steamer. I'm bluffed out."
+
+"Poor old Dankmere," purred Lacy, "won't the ladies love you?"
+
+"Their demonstrations," said the Earl, "are not keeping me awake
+nights."
+
+"Something keeps Quarren awake nights, judging by his transom light. Is
+it love, Ricky?"
+
+A slight colour mounted to Quarren's thin cheeks, but he answered
+carelessly: "I read late sometimes.... How many cards do you want?"
+
+Sir Charles Mallison turned his head after a moment and looked at
+Quarren; and meeting his eye, said pleasantly: "I only want one card,
+Quarren. Please give me the right one."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"The Queen of Hearts."
+
+"Dealer draws one also," said the young fellow.
+
+Sir Charles laid down his hand with a smile:
+
+"Did _you_ fill?" he asked Quarren as everybody else remained out.
+
+"I don't mind showing," said Quarren sorting out his cards, faces up.
+
+"Which end?" inquired O'Hara.
+
+"An interior." And he touched the Queen of Hearts, carelessly.
+
+"Crazy playing and lunatic's luck," commented Lacy. "Dankmere, and you,
+too, Sir Charles, you'd better cut and run for home as fast as your
+little legs can toddle. Quarren is on the loose."
+
+Sir Charles laughed, glanced at Quarren, then turned to Dankmere.
+
+"It's none of my business," he said, "but if you really are in the
+devilish financial straits you pretend to be, why don't you square up
+things and go into trade?"
+
+"Square things?" repeated the little Earl mournfully; "will somebody
+tell me how? Haven't I been trying out everything? Didn't I back a
+musical comedy of sorts? Didn't I even do a turn in it myself?"
+
+"That's what probably smashed it," observed O'Hara.
+
+"He did it very well," laughed Sir Charles.
+
+"Dankmere ought to have filled his show full of flossy flappers,"
+insisted Lacy. "Who wants to see an Earl dance and sing? Next time I'll
+manage the company for you, Dankmere----"
+
+"There'll be no next time," said Dankmere, scanning his cards. "I'm done
+for," he added, dramatically, letting his own ante go.
+
+"You've lost your nerve," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"And everything else, my boy!"
+
+"What's the matter with the heiresses, anyway?" inquired O'Hara
+sympathetically.
+
+"The matter is that I don't want the sort that want me. Somebody's
+ruined the business in the States. I suppose I might possibly induce a
+Broadway show-girl----"
+
+The little Earl got up and began to wander around, hands in his pockets,
+repeating:
+
+"I'd make a pretty good actor, in spite of what O'Hara said. It's the
+only thing I like anyway. I can improvise songs, too. Listen to this
+impromptu, you fellows":
+
+And he bent over the piano, still standing, and beat out a jingling
+accompaniment:
+
+    "I sigh for the maiden I never have seen,
+    I'll make her my countess whatever she's been--
+    Typewriter, manicure, heiress or queen,
+    Aged fifty or thirty or lovely eighteen,
+    Redundant and squatty, or scraggy and lean,
+    Generous spendthrift or miserly mean--
+    I sigh for the maiden I never have seen
+    Provided she's padded with wads of Long Green!"
+
+Still singing the air he picked up a silk hat and walking-stick and
+began to dance, rather lightly and gracefully, his sunken, heavy-lidded
+eyes fixed nonchalantly on space--his nimble little feet making no sound
+on the floor as he swung, swayed, and capered under the electric light
+timing his agile steps to his own singing.
+
+Loud applause greeted him; much hand-clapping and cries of "Good old
+Dankmere! Three cheers for the British peerage!"
+
+Sir Charles looked slightly bored, sitting back in his chair and waiting
+for the game to recommence. Which it did with the return of the Earl who
+had now relieved both his intellect and his legs of an accumulated and
+Terpischorean incubus.
+
+"If I was a bigger ass than I am," said the Earl, "I'd go into
+vaudeville and let my creditors howl."
+
+"Did they really send you over here?" asked O'Hara, knowing that his
+lordship made no bones about it.
+
+"They certainly did. And a fine mess I've made of it, haven't I? No
+decent girl wants me--though why, I don't know, because I'm decent
+enough as men go. But your newspapers make fun of me and my title--and I
+might as well cut away to Dankmere Tarns and let 'em pick my carcass
+clean."
+
+"What's Dankmere Tarns?" asked O'Hara.
+
+"Mine, except the mortgages on it."
+
+"Entailed?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"Kept up?"
+
+"No, shut up."
+
+"What sort of a gallery is that of yours at Dankmere Tarns?" inquired
+Sir Charles, turning around.
+
+"How the devil do I know," replied his lordship fretfully. "I don't know
+anything about pictures."
+
+"Are there not some very valuable ones there?"
+
+"There are a lot of very dirty ones."
+
+"Don't you know their value?"
+
+"No, I don't. But I fancy the good ones were sold off long ago--twenty
+years ago I believe. There was a sale--a lot of rubbish of sorts. I
+took it for granted that Lister's people cleaned out everything worth
+taking."
+
+"When you go back," said Sir Charles, "inspect that rubbish again.
+Perhaps Lister's people overlooked enough to get you out of your
+financial difficulties. Pictures that sold for £100 twenty years ago
+might bring £1,000 to-day. It's merely a suggestion, Dankmere--if you'll
+pardon it."
+
+"And a good one," added O'Hara. "I know a lot of interestin' people and
+they tell me that you can sell any rotten old picture over here for any
+amount of money. Sting 'em, Dankmere. Get to 'em!"
+
+"You might send for some of your pictures," said Lacy, "and have a shot
+at the auction-mad amateur. He's too easy."
+
+"And pay duty and storage and gallery hire and auction fees!--no,
+thanks," replied the little Earl, cautiously. "I've burnt my bally
+fingers too often in schemes."
+
+"I've a back room behind my office," said Quarren. "You can store them
+there if you like, without charge."
+
+"Besides, if they're genuine, there will be no duty to pay," explained
+Sir Charles.
+
+Dankmere sucked on his cigar but made no comment; and the game went on,
+disastrously for him.
+
+Quarren said casually to Sir Charles:
+
+"I suppose you will be off to Newport, soon."
+
+"To-morrow. When do you leave town?"
+
+"I expect to remain in town nearly all summer."
+
+"Isn't that rather hard?"
+
+"No; it doesn't matter much," said the boy indifferently.
+
+"Many people are already on the wing," observed Lacy.
+
+"The Calderas have gone, I hear, and the Vernons and Mrs. Sprowl," added
+O'Hara.
+
+"I suppose the Wycherlys will open Witch-Hollow in June," said Quarren
+carelessly.
+
+"Yes. Are you asked?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Doubtless you will be," said Sir Charles. "Jim Wycherly is mad about
+aviation and several men are going to send their biplanes up and try 'em
+out."
+
+"I'm goin'," announced O'Hara.
+
+Quarren drew one card, and filled his house. Sir Charles laid aside his
+useless hand with a smile and turned to Quarren:
+
+"Mrs. Leeds has spoken so often and so pleasantly of you that I have
+been rather hoping I might some day have the opportunity of knowing you
+better. I am very glad that the Legation asked me to-night."
+
+Quarren remained absolutely still for a few moments. Then he said:
+
+"Mrs. Leeds is very generous in her estimate of me."
+
+"She is a woman of rare qualities."
+
+"Of unusual qualities and rare charm," said Quarren coolly.... "I think,
+Karl, that I'll make it ten more to draw cards. Are you all staying in?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the party broke up--and it was an early one--Lord Dankmere turned
+to Quarren.
+
+"I'll drop in at your office, if I may, some morning," he said. "May I?"
+
+"It will give me both pleasure and diversion," said Quarren laughing.
+"There is not enough business in my office to afford me either. Also
+you are welcome to send for those pictures and store them in my back
+parlour until you can find a purchaser."
+
+"It's an idea, isn't it?" mused his lordship. "Now I don't suppose you
+happen to know anything about such rubbish, do you?--pictures and that
+sort. What?"
+
+"Why--yes--I do, in a way."
+
+"The devil you do! But then I've always been told that you know
+something about everything----"
+
+"Very, very little," said Quarren, laughing. "In an ignorant world
+smatterings are reverenced. But the fashionable Philistine of yesterday,
+who used to boast of his ignorance regarding things artistic and
+intellectual, is becoming a little ashamed of his ignorance----"
+
+Dankmere, reddening, said bluntly:
+
+"That applies to me; doesn't it?"
+
+"I beg your pardon!--I didn't mean it that way----"
+
+"You're right, anyway. I'm damnably ignorant.... See here, Quarren, if I
+send over for some of those pictures of mine, will you give me your
+opinion like a good fellow before I make a bally ass of myself by
+offering probable trash to educated people?"
+
+"I'll tell you all I know about your pictures, if that is what you
+mean," said Quarren, much amused.
+
+They shook hands as Sir Charles came up to make his adieux.
+
+"Good-bye," he said to Quarren. "I'm off to Newport to-morrow. And--I--I
+promised to ask you to come with me."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Mrs. Sprowl told me to bring you. You know how informal she is."
+
+Quarren, surprised, glanced sharply at Sir Charles. "I don't believe she
+really wants me," he said.
+
+"If she didn't she wouldn't have made me promise to bring you. She's
+that sort, you know. Won't you come? I am sure that Mrs. Leeds, also,
+would be glad to see you."
+
+Quarren looked him coolly and unpleasantly in the eyes.
+
+"Do you really believe that?" he asked, almost insolently.
+
+Sir Charles reddened:
+
+"She asked me to say so to you. I heard from her this morning; and I
+have fulfilled her request."
+
+"Thank her for me," returned Quarren, level-eyed and very white.
+
+"Which means?" insisted Sir Charles quietly.
+
+"Absolutely nothing," said Quarren in a voice which makes enemies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following day Sir Charles left for Newport where Mrs. Sprowl had
+opened "Skyland," her villa of pink Tennessee marble, to a lively party
+of young people of which Strelsa Leeds made one. And once more,
+according to the newspapers, her engagement to Sir Charles was expected
+to be announced at any moment.
+
+When Quarren picked up the newspapers from his office desk next morning
+he found the whole story there--a story to which he had become
+accustomed.
+
+But the next day, the papers repeated the news. And it remained, for the
+first time, uncontradicted by anybody. All that morning he sat at his
+desk staring at her picture, reproduced in half-tones on the first page
+of every newspaper in town--stared at it, and at the neighbouring
+likeness of Sir Charles in the uniform of his late regiment; read once
+more of Strelsa's first marriage with all its sequence of misery and
+degradation; read fulsome columns celebrating her beauty, her
+popularity, her expected engagement to one of the wealthiest Englishmen
+in the world.
+
+[Illustration: "Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement
+to Sir Charles was expected to be announced."]
+
+He read, also, all about Sir Charles Mallison, V.C.--the long record of
+his military service, his wealth and the dignified simplicity of his
+life. He read about his immense popularity in England, his vast but
+unostentatious charities, his political and social status.
+
+To Quarren it all meant nothing more definite than a stupid sequence of
+printed words; and he dropped his blond head into both hands and gazed
+out into the sunshine. And presently he remembered the golden dancer
+laughing at him from under her dainty mask--years and years ago: and
+then he thought of the woman whose smooth young hands once seemed to
+melt so sweetly against his--thought of her gray eyes tinged with
+violet, and her hair and mouth and throat--and her cheek faintly
+fragrant against his--a moment's miracle--and then, the end----
+
+He made a quick, aimless movement as though impatiently escaping sudden
+pain; cleared his sun-dazzled eyes and began, half blindly, to turn over
+his morning's letters--circulars, bills, business matters--and suddenly
+came upon a letter from her.
+
+For a while he merely gazed at it, incredulous of its reality.
+
+Then he opened the envelope very deliberately and still, scarcely
+convinced, unfolded the scented sheaf of note-paper:
+
+     "DEAR MR. QUARREN,
+
+     "At Mrs. Sprowl's suggestion I wrote to Sir Charles asking him to
+     be kind enough to bring you with him when he came to 'Skyland.'
+
+     "Somehow, I am afraid that my informality may have offended you;
+     and if this is so, I am sorry. We have been such good friends that
+     I supposed I might venture to send you such a message.
+
+     "But perhaps I ought to have written it to you instead--I don't
+     know. Lately it seems as though many things that I have done have
+     been entirely misunderstood.
+
+     "It's gray weather here, and the sea looks as though it were
+     bad-tempered; and I've been rather discontented, too, this
+     morning----
+
+     "I don't really mean that. There is a very jolly party here.... I
+     believe that I'm growing a little tired of parties.
+
+     "Molly has asked me to Witch-Hollow for a quiet week in June, and
+     I'm going. She would ask you if I suggested it. Shall I? Because,
+     since we last met, once or twice the thought has occurred to me
+     that perhaps an explanation was overdue. Not that I should make any
+     to you if you and I meet at Witch-Hollow. There isn't any to
+     make--except by my saying that I hope to see you again. Will you be
+     content with that admission of guilt?
+
+     "I meant to speak to you again that day at the Charity affair, only
+     there were so many people bothering--and you seemed to be so
+     delightfully preoccupied with that pretty Cyrille Caldera. I really
+     had no decent opportunity to speak to you again without making her
+     my mortal enemy--and you, too, perhaps.
+
+     "May I dare to be a little friendly now and say that I would like
+     to see you? Somehow I feel that even still I may venture to talk to
+     you on a different plane and footing from any which exists between
+     other men and me. You were once so friendly, so kind, so nice to
+     me. You have been nice--_always_. And if I seem to have acquired
+     any of the hardness, any of the cynical veneer, any of the
+     fashionable scepticism and unbelief which, perhaps, no woman
+     entirely escapes in my environment, it all softens and relaxes and
+     fades and seems to slip away as soon as I begin to talk to
+     you--even on this note-paper. Which is only one way of saying,
+     'Please be my friend again!'
+
+     "I sometimes hear about you from others. I am impressively informed
+     that you have given up all frivolous social activity and are now
+     most industriously devoting yourself to your real-estate business.
+     And I am wondering whether this rather bewildering _volte-face_ is
+     to be permanent.
+
+     "Because I see no reason for anybody going to extremes. Between the
+     hermit's cell and the Palace of Delights there is a quiet and happy
+     country. Don't you know that?
+
+     "Would you care to write to me and tell me a little about yourself?
+     Do you think it odd or capricious of me to write to you? And are
+     you perhaps irritated because of my manners which must have seemed
+     to you discourteous--perhaps rude?
+
+     "I know of course that you called on me; that you telephoned; that
+     you wrote to me; and that I made no response.
+
+     "And I am going to make no explanation. Can your friendship, or
+     what may remain of it, stand the strain?
+
+     "If it can, please write to me. And forgive me whatever injustice I
+     have seemed to do you. I ask it because, although you may not
+     believe it, my regard for you has never become less since the night
+     that a Harlequin and a golden dancer met in the noisy halls of old
+     King Carnival.... Only, the girl who writes you this was younger
+     and happier then than I think she ever will be again.
+
+                             "Your friend--if you wish--
+
+                                           "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+
+
+He wrote her by return mail:
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS,
+
+     "When a man has made up his mind to drown without any more fuss, it
+     hurts him to be hauled out and resuscitated and told that he is
+     still alive.
+
+     "If you mean, ultimately, to let me drown, do it now. I've been too
+     miserable over you. Also, I was insulting to Sir Charles. He's too
+     decent to have told you; but I was. And I can't ask his pardon
+     except by mending my manner toward him in future.
+
+     "I'm a nobody; I haven't any money; and I love you. That is how the
+     matter stands this day in May. Let me know the worst and I'll drown
+     this time for good and all.
+
+     "Are you engaged to marry Sir Charles?
+
+                                "R. S. QUARREN."
+
+
+
+By return mail came a note from her:
+
+     "Can you not care for me and still be kind to me, Mr. Quarren? If
+     what you say about your regard for me is true--but it is certainly
+     exaggerated, anyway--should not your attitude toward me include a
+     nobler sentiment? I mean friendship. And I know whereof I speak,
+     because I am conscious of a capacity for it--a desire for it--and
+     for you as the object of it. I believe that, if you cared for it, I
+     could give you the very best of me in a friendship of the highest
+     type.
+
+     "It is in me to give it--a pure, devoted, lofty, untroubled
+     friendship, absolutely free of lesser and material sentiments. Am I
+     sufficiently frank? I want such a friendship. I need it. I have
+     never before offered it to any man--the kind I mean to give you if
+     you wish.
+
+     "I believe it would satisfy you; I am convinced that yours would
+     satisfy me. You don't know how I have missed such a friendship in
+     you. I have wanted it from the very beginning of our acquaintance.
+     But I had--problems--to solve, first; and I had to let our
+     friendship lie dormant. Now I have solved my perplexities, and all
+     my leisure is for you again, if you will. Do you want it?
+
+     "Think over what I have written. Keep my letter for a week and then
+     write me. Does my offer not deserve a week's consideration?
+
+     "Meanwhile please keep away from deep water. I do not wish you to
+     drown.
+
+                               "STRELSA LEEDS.
+
+     "P. S.--Lord Dankmere is here. He is insufferable. He told Mrs.
+     Sprowl that you and he were going into the antique-picture
+     business. You wouldn't think of going into anything whatever with
+     a man of that sort, would you? Or was it merely a British jest?"
+
+He wrote at once:
+
+     "I have your letter and will keep it a week before replying.
+     But--are you engaged?"
+
+She answered:
+
+     "The papers have had me engaged to Barent Van Dyne, to Langly
+     Sprowl, to Sir Charles. You may take your choice if you are
+     determined to have me engaged to somebody. No doubt you think my
+     being engaged would make our future friendship safer. I'll attend
+     to it immediately if you wish me to."
+
+Evidently she was in a gay and contrary humour when she wrote so
+flippantly to him. And he replied in kind and quite as lightly. Then, at
+the week's end he wrote her again that he had considered her letter, and
+that he accepted the friendship she offered, and gave her his in return.
+
+She did not reply.
+
+He wrote her again a week later, but had no answer. Another week passed,
+and, slowly into his senses crept the dread of deep waters closing
+around him. And after another week he began to wonder, dully, how long
+it would take a man to drown if he made no struggle.
+
+Meanwhile several dozen crates and packing cases had arrived at the
+Custom House for the Earl of Dankmere; and, in process of time were
+delivered at the real-estate office of R. S. Quarren, littering his
+sleeping quarters and office and overflowing into the extension and
+backyard.
+
+[Illustration: "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded
+in amazement by the neighbours."]
+
+It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and
+Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and
+hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the
+back fences by several astonished cats.
+
+His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and
+some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the
+ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged
+from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their
+ancient un-keyed stretchers.
+
+There were primitives on panels, triptychs, huge canvases in frames
+carved out of solid wood; pictures in battered Italian frames--some
+floridly Florentine, some exquisitely inlaid on dull azure and
+rose--pictures in Spanish frames, Dutch frames, English frames, French
+frames of the last century; portraits, landscapes, genre, still
+life--battle pictures, religious subjects, allegorical canvases,
+mythological--all stacked up pell-mell in the backyard and regarded in
+amazement by the neighbours, and by two young men who alternately smoked
+and staunched their wounds under the summer sky.
+
+"Dankmere," said Quarren at last, "did your people send over your entire
+collection?"
+
+"No; but I thought it might be as well to have plenty of rubbish on hand
+in case a demand should spring up.... What do they look like to you,
+Quarren--I mean what's your first impression?"
+
+"They look all right."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Certainly. They seem to be genuine enough as far as I can see."
+
+"But are they otherwise any good?"
+
+"I think so. I'll go over each canvas very carefully and give you my
+opinion for what it's worth. But, for Heaven's sake, Dankmere, where are
+we going to put all these canvases?"
+
+"I suppose," said the Earl gloomily, "I'll be obliged to store what you
+haven't room for. And as I gradually grow poorer and poorer the day will
+arrive when I can't pay storage; and they'll sell 'em under my nose at
+auction, Quarren. And first I know the papers will blossom out with: 'A
+Wonderful Rembrandt discovered in a junk-shop! Ancient picture bought
+for five dollars and pronounced a gem by experts! Lucky purchaser
+refuses a hundred thousand dollars cash!'"
+
+Quarren laughed and turned away into the house; and Dankmere followed,
+gloomily predicting his own approaching financial annihilation.
+
+From his office Quarren telephoned a picture dealer to send men with
+heavy wire, hooks, ladders and other paraphernalia; then he and Dankmere
+made their toilets, resumed their coats, and returned to the sunny
+office to await events.
+
+After a few moments the Earl said abruptly:
+
+"Would you care to go into this venture with me, Quarren?"
+
+"I?" said Quarren, surprised.
+
+"Yes. Will you?"
+
+"Why, I have my own business, Dankmere----"
+
+"Is it enough to keep you busy?"
+
+"No--not yet--but I----"
+
+"Then, like a good fellow, help me sell these damned pictures. I haven't
+any money to offer you, Quarren, but if you'll be willing to hang the
+pictures around your office here and in the back parlour and the
+extension, and if you'll talk the merry talk to the lunatics who may
+come in to look at 'em and tell 'em what the bally pictures are and fix
+the proper prices--why--why, I'll make any arrangement with you that you
+please. Say a half interest, now. Would that be fair?"
+
+"Fair? Of course! It's far too liberal an offer--but I----"
+
+"It's worth that to me, Quarren--if you can see your way to helping me
+out----"
+
+"But my help isn't worth half what these pictures might very easily
+bring--even at public auction----"
+
+"Why not? I'd have to pay an auctioneer, an expert to appraise them--an
+art dealer to hang them in his gallery for a couple of weeks--either
+that or rent a place by the year. The only way I can recompense you for
+your wall space, for talking art talk to visitors, for fixing prices, is
+to offer you half of what we make. Why not? You pay a pretty stiff rent
+here, don't you? You also pay a servant. You pay for heat and light,
+don't you? So if you'll turn this floor into a combination gallery of
+sorts--art and real estate, you see--we'll go into business, egad! What?
+The Dankmere galleries! What? By gad I'll have a sign made to hang out
+there beside your shingle--only I'm afraid you'll have to pay for it,
+Quarren, and recompense yourself after we sell the first picture."
+
+"But, Dankmere," he protested, very much amused, "I don't want to become
+a picture dealer."
+
+"What's the harm? Take a shot at it, old chap! A young man can't collect
+too many kinds of experience. Take me for example!--I've sold dogs and
+hunters on commission, gone shares in about every rotten scheme anybody
+ever suggested to me, financed a show, and acted in it--as you
+know--and, by gad!--here I am now a dealer in old masters! Be a good
+fellow and come in with me. What?"
+
+"I don't really know enough about antique pictures to----"
+
+"What's the odds! Neither do I! My dear sir, we must lie like gentlemen
+for the honour of the Dankmere gallery! What? Along comes a chap walking
+slowly and painfully for the weight of the money in his pockets--'Ho!'
+says he--'a genuine Van Dyck!' 'Certainly,' you say, very coldly. And,
+'How much?' says he, shivering for fear he mayn't get it. 'Three hundred
+thousand dollars,' you say, trying not to yawn in his face----"
+
+Quarren could no longer control his laughter: Dankmere blinked at him
+amiably.
+
+"We'll hang them anyhow, Dankmere," he said. "As long as there is so
+little business in the office I don't mind looking after your pictures
+for you----"
+
+"Yours, too," urged the Earl.
+
+"No; I can't accept anything----"
+
+"Then it's all off!" exclaimed Dankmere, turning a bright red. "I'm
+blessed if I'll accept charity!--even if I am hunting heiresses. I'll
+marry money if I can, but I'm damned if I hold out a tin cup for
+coppers!"
+
+"If you feel that way," began Quarren, very much embarrassed, "I'll do
+whatever would make you feel comfortable----"
+
+"Half interest or it's all off! A Dankmere means what he says--now and
+then."
+
+"One-third interest, then----"
+
+"A half!--by gad! There's a good fellow!"
+
+"No; one-third is all I'll accept."
+
+"Oh, very well. It may amount to ten dollars--it may amount to ten
+thousand--and ten times that, perhaps. What?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Quarren, smiling. "And, if you're going out, Dankmere,
+perhaps you had better order a sign painted--anything you like, of
+course. Because I'm afraid I couldn't leave these pictures here
+indefinitely and we might as well make plans to get rid of some of them
+as soon as possible."
+
+"Right-o! I'm off to find a painter. Leave it to me, Quarren. And when
+the picture-hangers come, have them hung in a poor light--I mean the
+pictures--God knows they need it--the dimmer the light the better. What?
+Take care of yourself, old chap. There's money in sight, believe me!"
+
+And the lively little Earl trotted out, swinging his stick and setting
+his straw hat at an angle slightly rakish.
+
+No business came to the office that sunny afternoon; neither did the
+picture-hangers. And Quarren, uneasy, and not caring to leave Dankmere's
+ancestral collection of pictures in the back yard all night lest the
+cats and a possible shower knock a little superfluous antiquity into
+them, had just started to go out and hire somebody to help him carry the
+canvases into the basement, when the office door opened in his very face
+and Molly Wycherly came in, breezily.
+
+"Why, Molly!" he exclaimed, surprised; "this is exceedingly nice of
+you----"
+
+"Oh, Ricky, I'm glad to see you! But I don't want to buy a house or sell
+one or anything. I'm very unhappy--and I'm glad to see you----"
+
+She pressed his hand with both her gloved ones; he closed the door and
+returned to the office; and she seated herself on top of his desk.
+
+"You dear boy," she said; "you are thin and white and you don't look
+very happy either. Are you?"
+
+"Why, of course I'm happy----"
+
+"I don't believe it! Anyway, I was passing, and I saw your shingle
+swinging, and I made the chauffeur stop on the impulse of the moment....
+How are you, Ricky dear?"
+
+"First rate. You are even unusually pretty, Molly."
+
+"I don't feel so. Strelsa and I came into town for the afternoon--on the
+most horrid kind of business, Ricky."
+
+"I'm sorry----"
+
+"You will be sorrier when you hear that about all of Strelsa's money was
+in that miserable Adamant Trust Company which is causing so much
+scandal. You didn't know Strelsa's money was in it, did you?"
+
+"No," he said gravely.
+
+"Isn't it dreadful? The child doesn't know whether she will ever get a
+penny or not. Some of those disgusting men have run away, one shot
+himself--you read about it!--and now they are trying to pretend that the
+two creatures they have arrested are insane and irresponsible. I don't
+care whether they are or not; I'd like to kill them. How does their
+insanity concern Strelsa? For three weeks she hasn't known what to
+think, what to expect--and even her lawyers can't tell her. I hate
+lawyers. But _I_ think the chances are that her pretty house will be for
+sale before long.... Wouldn't it be too tragic if it came into your
+office----"
+
+"Don't say such things, Molly," he said, bending his head over the desk
+and fumbling with his pen.
+
+"Well, I knew you'd be sympathetic. It's a shame--a crime!--it's
+absolutely disgusting the way that men gamble with other people's money
+and cheat and lie and--and--oh, it's a perfectly rotten world and I'm
+tired of it!"
+
+"Where is Mrs. Leeds?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"At Witch-Hollow--in town for this afternoon to see her stupid lawyers.
+They don't do anything. They say they can't just yet. They're lazy
+or--something worse. That's my opinion. We go out on the five-three
+train--Strelsa and I----"
+
+"Is she--much affected?"
+
+"No; and that's the silly part of it. It would simply wreck me. But she
+hasn't wept a single tear.... I suppose she'll have to marry, now--"
+Mrs. Wycherly glanced askance at Quarren, but his face remained gravely
+expressionless.
+
+"Ricky dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I had a frightful row, on your account, with Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+"I'm sorry. Why?"
+
+"I told her I was going to ask you and Strelsa to Witch-Hollow."
+
+Quarren said calmly:
+
+"Don't do it then, Molly. There's no use of your getting in wrong with
+Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+Mrs. Wycherly laughed:
+
+"Oh, I found a way around. I asked Mrs. Sprowl and Sir Charles at the
+same time."
+
+"What do you mean?" he said, turning a colourless face to hers.
+
+"What I say. Ricky dear, I suppose that Strelsa _will_ have to marry a
+wealthy man, now--and I believe she realises it, too--but I--I _wanted_
+her to marry you, some day----"
+
+He swung around again, confronting her.
+
+"You darling!" he said under his breath.
+
+Mrs. Wycherly's lip trembled and she dabbed at her eyes.
+
+"I wish I could express my feelings like Mrs. Sprowl, but I can't," she
+said naïvely. "Sir Charles will marry her, now; I know perfectly well he
+will--unless Langly Sprowl----"
+
+Quarren drew his breath sharply.
+
+"Not that man," she said.
+
+"God knows, Ricky. He's after Strelsa every minute--and he can make
+himself agreeable. The worst of it is that Strelsa does not believe what
+she hears about him. Women are that way, often. The moment the whole
+world pitches into a man, women are inclined to believe him a
+martyr--and end by discrediting every unworthy story concerning him....
+I don't know, but I think it is already a little that way with
+Strelsa.... He's a clever brute--and oh! what a remorseless man!... I
+said that once to Strelsa, and she said very warmly that I entirely
+misjudged him.... I wish Mary Ledwith would come back and bring things
+to a crisis--I do, indeed."
+
+Quarren said, calmly;
+
+"You don't think Mrs. Leeds is engaged to Sprowl, do you?"
+
+"No.... I don't think so. Sometimes I don't know what to think of
+Strelsa. I'm certain that she was not engaged to him four weeks ago when
+she was at Newport."
+
+Quarren gazed out into the sunlit street. It was just four weeks ago
+that her letters ceased. Had she stopped writing because of worry over
+the Adamant Trust? Or was there another reason?
+
+"I suppose," said Molly, dabbing at her eyes, "that Strelsa can't pick
+and choose now. I suppose she's got to marry for sordid and sensible and
+material reasons. But if only she would choose Sir Charles--I think I
+could be almost reconciled to her losing you----"
+
+Quarren laughed harshly.
+
+"An irreparable loss to any woman," he said. "I doubt that Mrs. Leeds
+survives losing me."
+
+"Ricky! She cares a great deal for you! So do I. And Strelsa _does_ care
+for you----"
+
+"Not too rashly I hope," he said with another disagreeable laugh.
+
+"Oh, that isn't like you, Ricky! You're not the sneering, fleering nasty
+kind. If you are badly hurt, take it better than that----"
+
+"I can't!" he said between set teeth. "I care for her; she knows it. I
+guess she knows, too, that what she once said to me started me into what
+I'm doing now--working, waiting, living like a dog--doing my best to
+keep my self-respect and obtain hers--" He choked, regained his
+self-control, and went on quietly:
+
+"Why do you think I dropped out of everything? To try to develop
+whatever may be in me--so that I could speak to her as an equal and not
+as the court jester and favourite mountebank of the degenerate gang she
+travels with----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said sullenly.
+
+"I am not offended, you poor boy.... I hadn't realised that you were so
+much in love with her--so deeply concerned----"
+
+"I have always been.... She knows it...." He cleared his eyes and turned
+a dazed gaze on the sunny street once more.
+
+"If I could--" he stopped; a hopeless look came into his eyes. Then he
+slowly shook his head.
+
+"Oh, Ricky! Ricky! Can't you do something? Can't you make a lot of money
+very quickly? You see Strelsa has simply got to marry money. Be fair; be
+just to her. A girl can't exist without money, can she? You know that,
+don't you?"
+
+"I've heard your world say so."
+
+"You know it's true!"
+
+"I don't know what is true. I don't know truth from falsehood. I suppose
+that love requires money to keep it nourished--as roses require
+manure----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"I'm speaking of _your_ world----"
+
+"My world! The entire world knows that money is necessary--except
+perhaps a silly sentimentalist here and there----"
+
+"Yes, there are one or two--here and there," he said. "But they're all
+poor--and prejudiced."
+
+Molly applied her handkerchief to her eyes, viciously.
+
+"I hope _you_ are not one, Ricky. I'm sure I'm not fool enough to expect
+a girl who has been accustomed to everything to be contented without
+anything."
+
+"There's her husband as an asset."
+
+"Oh, my dear, don't talk slush!"
+
+"--And--children--perhaps."
+
+"And no money to educate them! You dear boy, there is nothing to
+do--absolutely nothing--unless it's based on money. You know it; I know
+it. People without it are intolerable--a nuisance to everybody and to
+themselves. What could Strelsa find in life without the means to enjoy
+it?"
+
+"Nothing--perhaps.... But I believe I'll ask her."
+
+"She'll tell you the truth, Ricky. She's an unusually truthful woman....
+I must go downtown. Strelsa and I are lunching"--she reddened--"with
+Langly.... His aunt would kill me if she heard of it.... I positively do
+not dare ask Langly to Witch-Hollow because I'm so deadly afraid of that
+fat old woman!... Besides, I don't want him there--although--if Strelsa
+_has_ to marry him----"
+
+She fell silent and thoughtful, reflecting, perhaps, that if Strelsa was
+going to take Langly Sprowl, her own country house might as well have
+the benefit of any fashionable and social glamour incident to the
+announcement.
+
+Then, glancing at Quarren, her heart smote her, and she flushed:
+
+"Come up to Witch-Hollow, Ricky dear, and get her to elope with you if
+you can! Will you?"
+
+"I'll come to Witch-Hollow if you ask me."
+
+"That's ducky of you. You _are_ a good sport, Ricky--and always were! Go
+on and marry her if you can. Other women have stood it.... And, I know
+it's vulgar and low and catty of me--but I'd love to see Mrs. Sprowl
+blow up--and see that hatchet-faced Langly disappointed--yes, I would,
+and I don't care what you think! Their ancestors were common people, and
+Heaven knows why a Wycherly of Wycherly should be afraid of the
+descendants of Dutch rum smugglers!"
+
+Quarren looked up with a weary smile.
+
+"But you are afraid," he said.
+
+"I am," admitted Molly, furiously; and marched out.
+
+As he put her into her car he said:
+
+"Write me if you don't change your mind about asking me to
+Witch-Hollow."
+
+"No fear," said the pretty little woman; "and," she added, "I hope you
+make mischief and raise the very dickens all around. I sincerely hope
+you do!"
+
+"I hope so, too," he said with the ghost of a smile.
+
+[Illustration: "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first
+time in nearly two months."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly
+two months.
+
+
+     "DEAR MR. QUARREN,
+
+     "Molly says that she saw you in town two weeks ago, and that she
+     told you how unexpectedly my worldly affairs have altered since I
+     last wrote to you.
+
+     "For me, somehow or other, life has been always a sequence of
+     abrupt experiences--a series of extremes--one grotesque
+     exaggeration after another, and all diametrically opposed. And it
+     seems odd that such radically material transformations should so
+     ruthlessly disturb and finally, now, end by completely altering the
+     character of a girl whose real nature is--or was--unaccented and
+     serene to the verge of indifference. For the woman writing this is
+     very different from the one you knew as Strelsa Leeds.
+
+     "I am not yet sure what the outcome of this Adamant affair will be.
+     Neither, apparently, are my attorneys. But it is absolutely certain
+     that if I ever recover anything at all, it will not amount to very
+     much--not nearly enough to live on.
+
+     "When they first brought the unpleasant news to me my instinct was
+     to sit down and write you about it. I was horribly scared, and
+     wanted you to know it.
+
+     "I didn't yield to the impulse as you know--I cannot give you the
+     reasons why. They were merely intuitions at first; later they
+     became reasons as my financial situation developed in all its
+     annoying proportions.
+
+     "I can tell you only this: before material disaster threatened me
+     out of a clear sky, supposing that matters would always remain with
+     me as they were--that I should never know any serious want, never
+     apprehend actual necessity--I had made up my mind to a course of
+     life which now has become impossible.
+
+     "It was not, perhaps, a very admirable plan of existence that I had
+     conceived for myself, nothing radical or original. I meant, merely,
+     _not_ to marry, to live well within my income, to divide my time
+     between my friends and myself--that is to give myself more leisure
+     for self-development, tranquil cultivation, and a wider and more
+     serious interest in things worthy.
+
+     "If by dividing my time between my friends and myself I was to lose
+     touch more or less with the lively and rather exacting society in
+     which I live, I had decided on the sacrifice.
+
+     "And that, Mr. Quarren, is how matters stood with me until a month
+     ago.
+
+     "Now everything is altered--even my own character I think. There is
+     in me very little courage--and, alas, much of that cowardice which
+     shrinks from pain and privation of any kind--which cringes the more
+     basely, perhaps, because there has been, in my life, so much of
+     sorrow, so little of material ease and tranquility of mind.
+
+     "I had been dreaming of a balanced and secure life with leisure to
+     develop mental resources hitherto neglected. And your
+     friendship--our new understanding--meant much of that part of life
+     for me--more than I realised--far more than you do. Can you
+     understand how deep the hurt is?--deeper because now you will learn
+     what a coward I really am and how selfishly I surrender to the
+     menace of material destruction. I am in dire terror of it; I simply
+     do not choose to endure it. That I need not submit to it, inspires
+     in me the low type of equanimity that enables me to face the future
+     with apparent courage. My world applauds it as pluck. I have
+     confessed to you what it really is.
+
+     "Now you know me, Mr. Quarren--a preacher of lofty ideals while
+     prosperous, a recreant in adversity.
+
+     "I thought once that the most ignoble sentiments ever entertained
+     by man were those lesser and physical emotions which, in the world,
+     masquerade as love--or as an essential part of it. To me they
+     always seemed intolerable as any part of love, material, unworthy,
+     base. To me love was intellectual--could be nothing less lofty--and
+     should aspire to the spiritual.
+
+     "I say this because you once tried to make me understand that you
+     loved me.
+
+     "Marriage of two minds with nothing material to sully an ideal
+     union was what I had dreamed of. I might have cared for you that
+     way when a marriage tainted with lesser emotions repelled me. And
+     now, like all iconoclasts, I end by shattering my own complacent
+     image, and the fragments have fallen to the lowest depth of all.
+
+     "For I contemplate a mariage de convenance--and I scarcely care
+     whom I marry as long as he removes from me this terror of a sordid
+     and needy future.
+
+     "All ideals, all desire for higher and better things--for a noble
+     leisure and the quiet pleasures of self-development, have
+     gone--vanished utterly. Fear sickens me night and day--the same
+     dull dread that I have known so many, many years in my life--a
+     blind horror of more unhappiness and pain after two years of
+     silence--that breathless stillness which frightened wounded things
+     know while they lie, panting, dazed listening for the coming
+     footsteps of that remorseless Fate which struck them down from
+     afar.
+
+     "I tell you this, Mr. Quarren, because it is due to you if you
+     really love me--or if you once did love me--because when you have
+     read this you will no longer care for me.
+
+     "One evening you made me understand that you cared for me; and I
+     replied to you only by a dazed silence that neither you nor I
+     entirely understood at the time. It was not contempt for you--yet,
+     perhaps, I could not really have cared very deeply for such a man
+     as you then seemed to be. It was not intellectual indifference that
+     silenced me.... And I can say no more about it--except
+     that--something--changed me radically from that moment--and ever
+     since I have been trying to understand myself--to learn something
+     about myself--and of the world I live in--and of men.
+
+     "When a crisis arrives self-revelation comes in a single flash. My
+     financial crisis arrived as you know; I suddenly saw myself as I
+     am--a woman astonishingly undeveloped and ignorant in many ways,
+     crude, unawakened, stupid--a woman half-blinded with an unreasoning
+     dread of more pain--pain which she thought had at last been left
+     behind her--and a coward all through; and selfish from head to
+     heel.
+
+     "This is what I _really_ am. And I shall prove it by marrying for
+     reasons entirely material, because I have no courage to ever again
+     face adversity and unhappiness.
+
+[Illustration: "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the
+battered party in black?'"]
+
+     "You will not care to write to me; and you will not care to see me
+     again.
+
+     "I am glad you once cared for me. If you should ever reply to this
+     letter, don't be very unkind to me. I know what I am--and I vaguely
+     surmise what I shall lose by being so. But I have no courage for
+     anything else.
+
+                                  "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+
+
+That was the letter she wrote to Quarren; and he read it standing by his
+desk while several noisy workmen were covering every available inch of
+his walls with Dankmere's family pictures, and the little Earl himself,
+whistling a lively air, trotted about superintending everything with all
+the cheerful self-confidence of a family dog regulating everything that
+goes on in his vicinity.
+
+"I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the battered party in
+black?" he demanded briskly.
+
+Quarren looked around; "Yes," he said, "they're both by Nicholas Maas
+according to your list."
+
+"_I_ think they're bally fakes," remarked the Earl, "don't you?"
+
+"We'll try to find out," said Quarren, absently.
+
+Dankmere puffed away on his cigar and consulted his list: "Reynolds (Sir
+Joshua). Portrait of Lady Dankmere," he read; "portrait of Sir Boggs
+Dankmere!--string 'em up aloft over that jolly little lady with no frock
+on!--Rembrandt (Van Rijn). Born near Leyden, July 15th, 1607--Oh, who
+cares as long as it _is_ a Rembrandt!--Is it, Quarren? It isn't a copy,
+is it?"
+
+"I hope not," said the young fellow absently.
+
+"Egad! So do I." And to the workmen--"Philemon and Baucis by Rembrandt!
+Hang 'em up next to that Romney--over the Jan Steen ... Quarren?"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Do you think that St. Michael's Mount is a real Turner?"
+
+"It looks like it. I can't express opinions off-hand, Dankmere."
+
+"I can," said the little Earl; "and I say that if that _is_ a Turner I
+can beat it myself working with tomato catsup, an underdone omelette,
+and a clothes-brush.... Hello! I like this picture. The list calls it a
+Watteau--'The Fête Champêtre.' What do you know about it, Quarren?"
+
+"Nothing yet. It seems to be genuine enough."
+
+"And this pretty girl by Boucher?"
+
+"I tell you, Dankmere, that I don't know. They all appear to be genuine,
+after a superficial examination. It takes time to be sure about any
+picture--and if we're going to be certain it will require confabs with
+authorities--restorers, dealers, experts, curators from various
+museums--all sorts and conditions of people must be approached and
+warily consulted--and paid," he added smiling. "And that has to be done
+with circumspection because some are not honest and we don't want
+anybody to get the impression that we are attempting to bribe anybody
+for a favourable verdict."
+
+A few minutes later he went across the street and telegraphed to Molly
+Wycherly:
+
+     "May I remind you that you asked me to Witch-Hollow?
+
+                                         QUARREN."
+
+The following morning after the workmen had departed, he and Dankmere
+stood contemplating the transformations wrought in the office, back
+parlour, and extension of Quarren's floor in the shabby old Lexington
+Avenue house.
+
+The transformation was complete; all woodwork had been painted white, a
+gray-green paper hung on the walls, the floor stained dark brown and
+covered with several antique rugs which had come with the pictures--a
+Fereghan, a Ladik, and an ancient Herez with rose and sapphire lights in
+it.
+
+At the end of the suite hung another relic of Dankmere Tarns--a Gobelins
+tapestry about ten by twelve, signed by Audran, the subject of which was
+Boucher's "Venus, Mars, and Vulcan" from the picture in the Wallace
+Collection. Opposite it was suspended an old Persian carpet of the
+sixteenth century--a magnificent Dankmere heirloom woven in the golden
+age of ancient Eastern art and displaying amid the soft splendour of its
+matchless hues the strange and exquisitely arched cloud-forms traced in
+forgotten dyes amid a wilderness of delicate flowers and vines.
+
+Between these two fabrics, filling the walls from base-board to ceiling,
+were ranged Dankmere's pictures. Few traces of the real-estate office
+remained--merely a desk, letter-file, a shelf piled up with maps, and
+Quarren's shingle outside; but this was now overshadowed by the severely
+magnificent sign:
+
+                     THE DANKMERE GALLERY
+                              OF
+                         OLD MASTERS
+
+             ALGERNON FAYRE, R. S. QUARREN & Co.
+
+For Lord Dankmere, otherwise Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, Earl of
+Dankmere, had decided to dedicate to trade only a portion of his
+aristocratic appellations. As for the company, it consisted of Quarren's
+cat, Daisy, and her litter of unweaned kittens.
+
+"Do you realise," said Quarren, dropping into the depths of a new
+easy-chair, "that you have almost put me out of business?"
+
+"Well, you weren't in very deeply, you know," commented Dankmere.
+
+"No; but last week I went to bed a broker in real estate; and this week
+I wake up a picture dealer and your partner. It's going to take most of
+my time. I can't sell a picture unless I know what it is. I've got to
+find out--or try to. Do you know what that means?"
+
+"I fancy it means chucking your real estate," said Dankmere,
+imperturbably. "Why not? This is a better gamble. And if we make
+anything we ought to make something worth while."
+
+"Do you propose that I shall simply drop my entire business--close up
+everything and go into this thing permanently?" demanded Quarren.
+
+"It will come to that, ultimately. Don't you want to?"
+
+From the beginning Quarren had felt, vaguely, that it would come to
+that--realised instinctively that in such an enterprise he would be on
+solid ground--that the idea was pleasant to him--that his tastes fitted
+him for such an occupation. Experience was lacking, but, somehow, his
+ignorance did not dismay him.
+
+All his life he had cared for such things, been familiar with them, been
+curious to learn more, had read enough to understand something of the
+fascinating problems now confronting him, had, in his hours of leisure,
+familiarised himself with the best of art in the public and private
+galleries of the city.
+
+More than that a natural inclination and curiosity had led him among
+dealers, restorers, brokers of pictures. He knew them all from Fifth
+Avenue to Lexington, the celebrated and the obscure; he had heard them
+talk, heard the gossip and scandal of their curious world, watched them
+buying, selling, restoring, relining, reframing; listened to their
+discussions concerning their art and the art in which they dealt. And it
+had always fascinated him although, until Dankmere arrived, it had never
+occurred to him to make a living out of a heterogeneous mass of partly
+assimilated knowledge acquired from the sheer love of the subject.
+
+Fortunate the man whose means of livelihood is also his pleasure! Deep
+in his heart lies the unconscious contentment of certainty.
+
+And somehow, with the advent of Dankmere's pictures, into Quarren's
+troubled heart had come a vague sensation of ease--a cessation of the
+old anxiety and unrest--a quiet that he had never before known.
+
+To learn what his wares really were seemed no formidable task; to
+appreciate and appraise each one only little labours of love. Every
+problem appeared to him as a separate attraction; the disposal of his
+stock a delightful and leisurely certainty because he himself would be
+certain of what he dealt in.
+
+Then, too, his mind had long since invaded a future which day by day
+grew more alluring in its suggestions. He himself would learn the
+practical and manual art of restoration--learn how to clean, reline,
+revarnish; how to identify, how to dissect. Every thread of an ancient
+canvas should tell him a true story; every grain in an old panel. He
+would be chief surgeon in his hospital for old and decrepit
+masterpieces; he would "cradle" with his own hands--clear the opacity
+from time-dimmed beauty with savant touch, knit up tenderly the wounds
+of ages----
+
+"Dankmere," he said, throwing away his cigarette, "I'm going into this
+business from this minute; and I would like to die in harness, at the
+end, the companion, surgeon, and friend of old-time pictures. Do you
+think I can make a living at it?"
+
+"God knows. Do you mean that you're really keen on it?"
+
+"Dead keen."
+
+Dankmere puffed on his cigar: "A chap usually makes out pretty well when
+he's a bit keen on anything of sorts. You'll be owning the gallery,
+next, you infernal Yankee!"
+
+Quarren laughed: "I won't forget that you gave me my first real chance
+in the world. You've done it, too; do you realise it, Dankmere?"
+
+"Very glad I'm sure."
+
+"So am I!" said Quarren with sudden emphasis. "I believe I'm on the
+right track now. I believe it's in me--in my heart--to work--to
+_work_!"--he laughed--"as the old chronicles say, 'To the glory of God
+and the happiness of self and mankind.' ... I'm grateful to you; do you
+understand?"
+
+"Awf'lly glad, old chap."
+
+"You funny Englishman--I believe you are.... And we'll make this thing
+go. Down comes my real-estate shingle; I'm a part of the Dankmere
+Galleries now. I'll rent the basement after our first sale and there
+you and I will fuss and tinker and doctor and nurse any poor old
+derelict of a picture back to its pristine beauty. What?"
+
+"Not I," said the little Earl. "All I'm good for is to furnish the
+initial stock. You may do what you please with it, and we'll share
+profits according to contract. Further than that, Quarren, you'll have
+to count me out."
+
+"Don't you care for pictures?"
+
+"I prefer horses," said the Earl drily--"and, after the stable and
+kennel, my taste inclines toward Vaudeville." And he cocked up one
+little leg over the other and whistled industriously at a waltz which he
+was attempting to compose. He possessed a high, maddening, soprano
+whistle which Quarren found painful to endure; and he was glad when his
+lordship departed, jauntily twirling his walking-stick and taking fancy
+dance steps as far as the front door.
+
+Left alone Quarren leaned back in his chair resting his head against the
+new olive-tinted velvet.
+
+He had nothing to do but sit there and gaze at the pictures and wait for
+an answer to his telegram.
+
+It came about dusk and he lighted the gas to read it:
+
+     "Come up to Witch-Hollow to-morrow.
+
+                             "MARIE WYCHERLY."
+
+
+
+He could not leave until he had planned for work to go on during his
+absence. First he arranged with Valasco to identify as nearly as
+possible, and to appraise, the French and Italian pictures. Then he made
+an arrangement with Van Boschoven for the Dutch and Flemish; secured
+Drayton-Quinn for the English; and warned Dankmere not to bother or
+interfere with these temperamental and irascible gentlemen while in
+exercise of their professional duties.
+
+"Don't whistle, don't do abrupt skirt-dances, don't sing comic songs,
+don't obscure the air with cigar smoke, don't go to sleep on the sofa
+and snore, don't drink fizzes and rattle the ice in your glass----"
+
+"My God!" faltered his lordship, "do you mind if I breathe now and
+then?"
+
+"I'll be away a few days--Valasco is slow, and the others take their
+time. Let anybody come in who wants to, but don't sell anything until
+the experts report to me in writing----"
+
+"Suppose some chap rushes in with ten thousand----"
+
+"No!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Certainly not. Chaps who rush in with any serious money at all will
+rush in again all the faster if you make them wait. Don't sell a
+picture--not even to Valasco or any of the experts----"
+
+"Suppose a charming lady----"
+
+"Now you understand, don't you? I wouldn't think of selling a single
+canvas until I have their reports and have made up my own mind that
+they're as nearly right as any expert can be who didn't actually see the
+artist paint the picture. The only trustworthy expert is the man who saw
+the picture painted--if you can believe his word."
+
+"But my dear Quarren," protested Dankmere, seriously bewildered--"how
+could any living expert ever have seen an artist, who died two hundred
+years ago, paint anything?"
+
+"Right," said Quarren solemnly; "the point is keenly taken. Ergo, there
+_are_ no real experts, only guessers. When Valasco _et al_ finish their
+guessing, I'll guess how near they have guessed correctly. Good-bye....
+You _will_ be good, won't you, Dankmere?"
+
+"No fear. I'll keep my weather eye on the shop. Do you want me to sleep
+here?"
+
+"You'd better, I think. But don't have rowdy parties here, will you? And
+don't wander away and leave the door open. By George! I believe I'd
+better stay----"
+
+"Rot! Go on and take your vacation, old chap! Back in a week?"
+
+"Yes; or any time you wire me----"
+
+"Not I. I'll have a jolly time by myself."
+
+"Don't have too many men here in the evening. The smoke will get into
+those new curtains----"
+
+Dankmere, in his trousers and undershirt, stretched on the divan,
+laughed and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. Then, reaching forth
+he took a palm-leaf fan in one hand, a tall, frosty glass in the other,
+and applied both in a manner from which he could extract the most
+benefit.
+
+"Bon voyage!" he nodded to Quarren. "My duties and compliments and all
+that--and pick me out an heiress of sorts--there's a good fellow----"
+
+As Quarren went out he heard his lordship burst forth into his
+distressing whistle; and he left him searching piercingly for
+inspiration to complete his "Coster's Hornpipe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the train Quarren bought the evening papers; and the first item that
+met his eye was a front-page column devoted to the Dankmere Galleries.
+Every paper had broken out into glaring scare-heads announcing the
+recent despoiling of Dankmere Tarns and the venture into trade of
+Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, tenth Earl of Dankmere. The majority of
+papers were facetious, one or two scathing, but the more respectable
+journals managed to repress a part of their characteristic antagonism
+and report the matter with a minimum of venom and a rather exhaustive
+historical accompaniment:
+
+
+             "POOR PEERS EAGER TO SELL HEIRLOOMS
+
+        "LORD DANKMERE'S CASE SAID TO BE ONE OF DOZENS
+                AMONG THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY
+
+                   "GAMBLING SPIRIT BLAMED
+
+      "OBSERVERS ASCRIBE POVERTY OF OLD BRITISH FAMILIES
+           TO THIS CAUSE--MANY RENT ROLLS DECLARED
+                       TO BE MORTGAGED
+
+     "The opening of the so-called Dankmere galleries on Lexington
+     Avenue will bring into the lime-light once more a sprightly though
+     somewhat world-battered little Peer recently and disastrously
+     connected with the stage and its feminine adjuncts.
+
+     "The Dankmere galleries blossom in a shabby old house flanked on
+     one side by a Chop-Suey restaurant haunted of celestials, and on
+     the other by an undertaker's establishment displaying the following
+     enterprising sign: Mortem's Popular $50 Funerals! Bury Your Family
+     at Attractive Prices!
+
+                      "GAMBLING DID IT!
+
+     "Gambling usually lands the British Peer on his aristocratic
+     uppers. But in this case gambolling behind the footlights is
+     responsible for the present display of the Dankmere family pictures
+     in the converted real-estate offices of young Mr. Quarren of
+     cotillion fame.
+
+     "Among supposedly well-to-do English nobles the need for ready cash
+     so frequently reaches the acute stage that all manner of schemes
+     are readily resorted to in an effort to 'raise the wind.'
+
+     "Lord Dankmere openly admits that had he supposed any valuable
+     'junk' lay concealed in the attics of his mansion, he would,
+     without hesitation, have converted it into ready money long before
+     this.
+
+     "Lord Dankmere's case is only one typical of dozens of others among
+     the exclusive and highly placed of Mayfair. It is a known fact that
+     since the sale of the Capri Madonna (Titian) for $350,000 to the
+     British Government, by special act of Parliament, Daffydill Palace
+     has gradually been unloaded of all treasures not tied by the entail
+     to the estate. For the same sum ($350,000) the late Earl of
+     Blitherington disposed of his famous Library and the sale of the
+     library was known to be necessary for the provision of living funds
+     for the incoming heir. Just recently the Duke of Putney, reputed to
+     be a man of vast wealth, had a difficulty with a dealer concerning
+     the sale of some of his treasures.
+
+     "Such cases may be justified by circumstances. The general public
+     hears, however, of only a few isolated cases. The number of private
+     deals that are executed, week in, week out, between impoverished
+     members of the highest nobility--some of them bound, like Lord
+     Blitherington and the Duke of Putney by close official ties to the
+     Court--and the agents of either new-rich Britishers or wealthy
+     Americans has reached its maximum, and by degrees unentailed
+     treasures and heirlooms are passing from owners of many centuries
+     to families that were unheard of a dozen years ago.
+
+                      "THE AWFUL YANKEE
+
+     "The American is given priority in the matter of purchase, not only
+     because he pays more, as a rule, but also for the reason that the
+     transfer of his prize to the United States removes the possibility
+     of noble sellers being pestered with awkward questions by the
+     inquisitive. For, however unostentatiously home deals are made and
+     transfers effected, society soon learns the facts. So hard up,
+     however, has the better-known aristocracy become, and so willing
+     are they to trade at fancy sums to anxious purchasers, that several
+     curio dealers in the St. James's quarter hold unlimited power of
+     attorney to act for plutocratic American principals either in the
+     United States or in this country.
+
+     "Those who are reasonably entitled to explain the cause of this
+     poverty among old families, whose landed estates are unimpaired in
+     acreage at least, and whose inheritance was of respectable
+     proportions, declare that not since the eighteenth century has the
+     gambling spirit so persistently invaded the inside coteries of high
+     society. The desire to acquire riches quickly seems to have taken
+     hold of the erstwhile staid and conventional upper ten, just as it
+     has seized upon the smart set. The recent booms in oil and rubber
+     have had the effect of transferring many a comfortable rent roll
+     from its owner's bankers--milady's just as often as milord's--to
+     the chartered mortgagors of the financial world. The panic in
+     America in 1907 showed to what extent the English nobility was
+     interested, not only in gilt-edged securities, but also to what
+     degree it was involved in wildcat finance. The directing geniuses
+     of many of the suspect ventures of to-day in London are often the
+     possessors of names that are writ rubric in the pages of Debrett
+     and Burke.
+
+     "According to a London radical paper, there are at present over a
+     score of estates in the auction mart which must soon pass from some
+     of the bluest-blooded nobles in Great Britain to men whose fortunes
+     have grown in the past few years from the humblest beginnings, a
+     fact which itself cannot fail to change both the tone and
+     constitution of town and country society."
+
+Quarren read every column, grimly, to the end, wincing when he
+encountered some casual reference to himself and his recent social
+activities. Then, lips compressed, boyish gaze fixed on the passing
+landscape, he sat brooding until at last the conductor opened the door
+and shouted the name of his station.
+
+The Wycherlys' new place, Witch-Hollow, a big rambling farm among the
+Connecticut hills, was only three hours from New York, and half an hour
+by automobile from the railroad. The buildings were wooden and not new;
+a fashionable architect had made the large house "colonially" endurable
+with furnaces and electricity as well as with fan-lights and fluted
+pilasters.
+
+Most of the land remained wild--weed-grown pastures, hard-wood ridges,
+neglected orchards planted seventy years ago. Molly Wycherly had ordered
+a brand new old-time garden to be made for her overlooking the wide,
+unruffled river; also a series of sylvan paths along the wooded shores
+of the hill-set lake which was inhabited by bass placed there by orders
+of her husband.
+
+"For Heaven's sake," he said to his wife, "don't try to knock any
+antiquity into the place; I'm sick of fine old ancestral halls put up by
+building-loan associations. Plenty of paint and varnish for mine, Molly,
+and a few durable iron fountains and bronze stags on the lawn----"
+
+"No, Jim," she said firmly.
+
+So he ordered an aeroplane, a herd of sheep, a shepherd, and two
+tailless sheep-dogs, and made plans to spend most of his vacation
+yachting, when he did not spend it in town.
+
+But he was restlessly domiciled at Witch-Hollow, now, and he met Quarren
+at the station in a bright purple runabout which he drove like
+lightning, one hand on the steering wheel, the other carelessly waving
+toward the streaky landscape in affable explanation of the various
+points of interest.
+
+"Quite a little colony of us up here, Quarren," he said. "I don't know
+why anybody picked out this silly country for estates, but Langly Sprowl
+started a stud farm over yonder, and then poor Chester Ledwith built a
+house for his wife in the middle of a thousand acres, over there where
+you see those maple woods!--and then people began to come and pick up
+worn-out farms and make 'em into fine old family places--Lester
+Caldera's model dairies are behind that hill; and that leather-headed
+O'Hara has a bungalow somewhere--and there's a sort of Hunt Club, too,
+and a bum pack of Kiyi's----"
+
+The wind tore most of his speech from his lips and whirled it out of
+earshot: Quarren caught a word now and then which interested him. It
+also interested him to observe how Wycherly shaved annihilation at every
+turn of the road.
+
+"I've asked some men to bring up their biplanes and have a few flies on
+me," continued his host--"I've a 'Stinger' monoplane and a Kent biplane
+myself. I can't get any more sensation out of motoring. I'd as soon
+wheel twins in a go-cart."
+
+Quarren saw him cleverly avoid death with one hand, and laughed.
+
+"Who is stopping with you up here?" he shouted close to Wycherly's ear.
+
+"Nobody--Mrs. Leeds, Chrysos Lacy, and Sir Charles. There are some few
+neighbours, too--Langly is mousing and prowling about; and that poor
+Ledwith man is all alone in his big house--fixing to get out of it so
+his wife can move in from Reno when she's ready for more mischief....
+Here we are, Quarren! Your stuff will be in your rooms in a few minutes.
+There's my wife, now----"
+
+He waved his hand to Molly but let Quarren go forward alone while he
+started across the fields toward his hangar where, in grotesque and
+vicious-looking immobility, reposed his new winged pet, the little
+Stinger monoplane, wings set as wickedly as an alert wasp's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged
+walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger
+across her lips conjuring caution.
+
+"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't
+suppose the child could possibly object."
+
+Quarren's features stiffened:
+
+"Does she?"
+
+"Why--this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and
+Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she
+had left."
+
+"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.
+
+"I really don't know, Ricky----"
+
+"Yes, you do. What has happened?"
+
+"You're certainly rude enough----"
+
+"What has happened, Molly?"
+
+"I don't know for certain, I tell you.... Langly Sprowl has been roving
+around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together
+nearly every day."
+
+"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?"
+
+"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles."
+
+"Do you believe that?"
+
+"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly has persuaded her into
+some sort of a tacit engagement.... I don't know what the child can be
+thinking of--unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has
+convinced her of his martyrdom.... There'll be a pretty situation when
+Mary Ledwith returns.... I could kill Langly--" She doubled both pretty
+hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she
+placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the
+top step deliberately kissed him.
+
+[Illustration: "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she
+whispered."]
+
+"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad
+you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and
+your new enterprise!--I laughed and laughed!--forgive me, but the papers
+were so funny--and I couldn't help laughing----"
+
+Quarren forced a smile.
+
+"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command
+a good deal of respect sooner or later."
+
+"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?"
+
+"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before
+you and Jim try to buy the entire collection."
+
+"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed
+Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly
+and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a
+bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache
+before your appearance adds another distressing jolt."
+
+"Has she had another shock recently?"
+
+"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for
+her."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and
+even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's
+a ghastly scandal--the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you
+suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!"
+
+They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived
+and a valet was busy unpacking for him.
+
+"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for
+tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it--except
+that little girl over there"--pointing along the corridor to a distant
+door.
+
+He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too
+soon."
+
+So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains,
+Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly,
+Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and
+headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of
+his guests.
+
+Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed
+setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to
+lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet.
+
+Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels
+and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break
+in--a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor
+blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair.
+
+"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his
+tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes.
+
+"We're out of the running, we two--aren't we?" he added. "You try very
+pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more
+hopeless race.... For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the
+race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy
+heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure
+and senseless gold."
+
+He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer
+was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear
+waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks.
+
+Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the
+Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions--among others the
+new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so
+marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any
+of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms
+resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him
+enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been
+so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that
+Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of
+strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or
+the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his
+heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea,
+syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where
+scores of frail and frivolous strangers nodded amid anæmic leaves, or
+where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun,
+seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per
+dozen.
+
+He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the
+sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered
+wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too
+closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions.
+
+Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering
+between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently
+rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the
+rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper
+which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks.
+There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she
+looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward
+the hand he offered.
+
+"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession.
+
+"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?"
+
+"Yes. Have you just arrived?"
+
+"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys'
+new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather
+pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?"
+
+She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he
+saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the
+lashes.
+
+[Illustration: "So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp
+curve."]
+
+He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on
+the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths;
+where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still
+waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass.
+
+No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled
+it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense
+calm.
+
+"Are you--offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the
+water.
+
+"Of course not!" he replied cordially.
+
+She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence.
+
+"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably.
+
+"Did you receive my letter?"
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"You did not answer it."
+
+"I didn't know how--then."
+
+His reply seemed to perplex her--so did his light and effortless
+good-humour.
+
+"I know how to answer it now," he added.
+
+She forced a smile:
+
+"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late
+seldom dares start.... I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me
+to be seated?"
+
+She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took
+the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter."
+
+"Really, Mr. Quarren----"
+
+"Don't you want me to?"
+
+"I--don't think--it matters, now----"
+
+"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing.
+
+She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been
+instantly conscious--he had changed since she had seen him--changed
+radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air
+suggesting assurance--an individuality which had not heretofore clearly
+distinguished him--a hidden hint of strength. Or was she
+mistaken--abashed--remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour
+of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing
+to him what she had written.
+
+She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain
+unanswered."
+
+"You think I'm too late?"
+
+She looked at him steadily:
+
+"Yes, you are too late--in every sense."
+
+"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying
+glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to
+nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never
+yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that
+letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are
+going to learn some day what tragedy really is."
+
+"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make
+me take you seriously?"
+
+"I certainly am."
+
+"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed.
+
+"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have
+_got_ to take me seriously."
+
+She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now
+gaily maintained the lighter vein:
+
+"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen
+and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I
+suppose."
+
+"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist
+rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!"--he held out to
+her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what _is_ it?"
+
+"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving
+picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent
+blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"
+
+The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given
+name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning
+silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so
+frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight
+sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain,
+inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean.
+
+"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.
+
+"How can I deny it?--with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll
+lend you some witch-hazel----"
+
+"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic,"
+he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."
+
+"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."
+
+"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a
+handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."
+
+She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."
+
+"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"
+
+"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray
+eyes--a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to
+her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched
+his shoulder.
+
+She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:
+
+"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it
+wants to?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+He went on: "I mean when _you_ want it to be. Because it's really up to
+you."
+
+"To _me_, my slangy friend?"
+
+"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."
+
+This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and
+she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.
+
+"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.
+
+"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"Is that a reason?"--very gravely.
+
+"You can make it so if you will."
+
+She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:
+
+"You say that you always think of me--that way. But I'm afraid that,
+even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed
+you to the use of it."
+
+"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"
+
+"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to
+give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of,
+don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation----"
+
+"Strelsa----"
+
+"No!--please."
+
+"When?"
+
+She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr.
+Quarren?"
+
+"Not unless you do."
+
+"I? What do you mean?"
+
+"Will you answer me honestly?"
+
+"Have you ever found me dishonest?"
+
+"Sometimes--with yourself."
+
+Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head
+abruptly. After a few moments' silence:
+
+"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.
+
+"Then--do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"
+
+She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to
+avoid it.
+
+"I think of my friends--and you among them."
+
+"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"
+
+"I--your friends--people are eternally dinning your name into my
+ears----"
+
+"Please answer."
+
+"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to
+know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick--whatever they call you?"
+
+"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in
+sheer exasperation.
+
+"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I
+made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you--when I happen
+to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you
+that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend----"
+
+"Won't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Some day?"
+
+"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like
+it. It would be forced, artificial--an effort--and I don't
+desire--wish--care----"
+
+"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child!
+Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the
+pronunciation of my name?"
+
+Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man
+beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes
+were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became
+acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in
+touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent
+impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these
+months, the same strange sensation passed through her--a thrilling
+consciousness of his nearness.
+
+Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his
+slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.
+
+He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her,
+then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she
+saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought
+might be.
+
+He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of
+individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite
+specimen known to you as _Mister_ Quarren?"
+
+She smiled, uncertainly:
+
+"But I _don't_ reject you, _Mister_ Quarren."
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."
+
+"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."
+
+"I've got to climb over it then----"
+
+"I don't wish you to!"
+
+"Strelsa?"
+
+"W-what?"
+
+"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"
+
+"I--I don't know what you mean."
+
+"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.
+
+"Please don't say such things----"
+
+"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that
+kind of a wall remain between us----"
+
+"I ask you not to talk about such----"
+
+"You _wouldn't_," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why
+such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you
+that he cares----"
+
+"Please--if you please--I had rather not----"
+
+"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather
+plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you--I don't know how much,
+yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap
+up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously
+he is in love with the unknown on the other side."
+
+He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite
+thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended
+along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every
+nerve in her body.
+
+"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other
+side of that barrier--your unknown self, Strelsa--undiscovered as yet by
+me----"
+
+Her lips moved mechanically:
+
+"I wrote you--_told_ you what I am."
+
+"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know
+yourself----"
+
+"I do. I _am_ what I wrote you."
+
+"Partly perhaps--partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a
+sequence of blows----"
+
+"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of
+my life!--But those would not count--if I were not selfish, dishonest,
+and a coward."
+
+His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure
+left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually
+the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange
+sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and
+motionless, looking down at the still lake below.
+
+"What _is_ the barrier?" he asked quietly.
+
+"There is no barrier to your friendship--if you care to offer it, now
+that you know me."
+
+"But I _don't_ know you. And I care for more than your friendship even
+after the glimpse I have had of you."
+
+"I--care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"_Could_ you ever care for more?"
+
+"No.... I don't wish to.... There _is_ nothing higher."
+
+"_Could_ you--if there were?"
+
+But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light
+weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new
+senses that his touch had discovered so long ago--and which had
+slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless
+relaxation, this lassitude which was becoming almost painful--or
+sweet--she did not understand which--was this also a part of friendship?
+Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy?--this
+deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening
+her pulses, her even breathing--menacing the delicate nerves in her hand
+so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering----
+
+She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a
+little quick indrawn breath.
+
+"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly--scarcely knowing
+what she was saying.
+
+"What, Strelsa?"
+
+"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would."
+
+Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face
+became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully:
+
+"I'm going to fight for you all the same."
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, crisply.
+
+"Fight hard, too," he added. "I'm on my mettle at last."
+
+"You have no chance, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"With--_him_?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at
+all----"
+
+"I don't care to hear you speak that way!" she said, hotly.
+
+"Oh, I won't. A man's an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn't even
+thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you--with your unknown self
+behind that barrier. _Garde à vous!_"
+
+"I decline the combat, Monsieur," she said, trying to speak lightly.
+
+"Oh, I'm not afraid of _you_--the _visible_ you that I'm looking at and
+which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will
+fight me openly, fairly--and I have an even chance to win----"
+
+"Do you think so?" she said, lip between her teeth.
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I do.... But it's your unknown self I'm afraid of, Strelsa. God alone
+knows what it may do to both of us."
+
+"There is no other self! What do you mean?"
+
+"There are _two_ others--not this intellectual, friendly, kindly,
+visible self that offers friendship and accepts it--not even the occult,
+aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray
+eyes----"
+
+"There _is_ no other!" she said, flushing and rising to her feet.
+
+"Is it dead?"
+
+"It never lived!"
+
+"Then," he said coolly, "it will be born as sure as I stand here!--born
+to complete the trinity." He glanced out over the lake, then swung
+around sharply: "You are wrong. It _has_ been born. And that unknown
+self is hostile to me; and I know it!"
+
+They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she
+said: "I think we have talked some nonsense. Don't you?"
+
+"_You_ haven't."
+
+"You're a generous boy; do you know it?"
+
+"You say so."
+
+"Oh, I'll cheerfully admit it. If you weren't you'd detest me--perhaps
+despise me."
+
+"Men don't detest or despise a hurt and frightened child."
+
+"But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of
+her?"
+
+"I don't know," he said. "Whatever you are I can't help loving you."
+
+She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a
+while when she could control her lips she said:
+
+"I want to talk some more to you--and I don't know how; I don't even
+know what I want to say except that--that----"
+
+"What, Strelsa?"
+
+"Please be--kind to me." She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered.
+
+He said after a moment: "I couldn't be anything else."
+
+"Are you very sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It means a great deal to me," she said.
+
+They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea
+was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for
+tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got
+them in chunks and bolted them, wagging.
+
+An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she
+wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke:
+
+"Ricky dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Am I an angel or otherwise?"
+
+"Angel always--but why particularly at this instant?"
+
+"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?"
+
+"Yes--you corker!"
+
+"Well, then!"
+
+"Molly, I worship you."
+
+"_Et après?_"
+
+"I'll double that! I adore you also!"
+
+"Content! What are you two doing?"
+
+"Strelsa and I have been taking tea."
+
+"Oh, is it 'Strelsa' already?"
+
+"Very unwillingly on her part."
+
+"It isn't 'Ricky,' too, is it?"
+
+"Alas! not yet!"
+
+"No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. _What_ do you
+think I've done, very cleverly?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the
+way to North Linden. We can't possibly get back until dinner. But that's
+not all."
+
+"What more, most wonderful of women?"
+
+"I've got _him_ with us," she said with satisfaction. "I made Jim stop
+and pick him up. I _knew_ he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I
+made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some
+fool horses at Acremont that he couldn't wriggle out of it particularly
+as Strelsa is my guest and he's rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky,
+make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I
+couldn't avoid asking him."
+
+"Very well," said Quarren grimly.
+
+He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in
+her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure.
+
+"What had Molly to say to _you_ all that time?" she asked.
+
+"Was I long away?"
+
+"Yes, you were!"
+
+"I'm delighted you found the time too long----"
+
+"I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly
+how time flies with you and Molly.... Oh, dear! _Is_ that a mosquito?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is," said Quarren.
+
+"Then indoors I go!" exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. "You may come with
+me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated."
+
+And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen
+door.
+
+Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window
+late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory.
+
+"I wonder if there's enough of this celestial radiance to make a new
+aureole for you?" he said.
+
+"So my old one is worn out, is it?"
+
+"I meant to offer you a _double_ halo."
+
+"You do say sweet things--for a rather obstinate young man," she said,
+flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through
+the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano.
+Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative:
+
+"Please lean on the piano." He did so, inquiringly.
+
+"Otherwise," she said, "you'd have attempted to seat yourself on this
+bench; and there isn't room for both of us without crowding."
+
+"If you moved a little----"
+
+"But I won't," she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the
+key-board.
+
+She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant,
+careless, but acceptable barytone.
+
+"The old ones are the best," she commented, running lightly through a
+medley ranging from "The Mikado" to "Erminie," the "Black Hussar," and
+"The Mascotte." They sang the "gobble duet" from the latter fairly well:
+
+                           _She._
+
+               "When on your manly form I gaze
+             A sense of pleasure passes o'er me";
+
+                            _He._
+
+              "The murmured music of your voice
+              Is sweeter far than liquid honey!"
+
+And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her
+turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing.
+
+[Illustration: "'The old ones are best.' she commented."]
+
+Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing "Johnny
+Schmoker" with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal
+refrain:
+
+                     "Kanst du spielen?"
+
+and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by
+that Teutonic musician.
+
+"I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless,
+pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things," she exclaimed; and did
+so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of
+sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the
+key-board with his own.
+
+She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise.
+
+"Very well," she said; "you'll have to match my performance with
+something equally imbecile"; and she composed herself to listen.
+
+"What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?" he asked gravely; "turn
+seven solemn handsprings?"
+
+"That isn't silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead."
+
+He prepared to do so but she wouldn't permit him:
+
+"No! I don't want to remember you doing such a thing.... All the same I
+believe _you_ could do it and not lose--lose----"
+
+"Dignity?"
+
+"No--I don't know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you
+to do something silly."
+
+"Shall I say it or do it?"
+
+"Either."
+
+"Then I'll recite something very, very precious--subtly, intricately,
+and psychologically precious."
+
+"Oh, please do!"
+
+"It's--it's about a lover."
+
+She blushed.
+
+"Do you mind?"
+
+"You _are_ the limit! Of course I don't!"
+
+"It's about a lady, too."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"And love--rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love."
+
+"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of
+malice in her smile.
+
+"All right. The title is: '_Oh, Love! Oh, Why?_'"
+
+"A perfectly good title," she said gravely. "I alway says 'why?' to
+Love."
+
+So he bowed to her and began very seriously:
+
+    "Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!
+    Wait for a moment while I relate
+    A harrowing tragedy up to date
+            Of innate Hate.
+
+    "A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair;
+    Her store-curls stirred in the summer air;
+    An amorous Fly espied her there,
+            So rare and fair.
+
+    "Before she knew where she was at,
+    He'd kissed the maiden where she sat,
+    And she batted him one which slapped him flat
+            Ker-spat! Like that!
+
+    "Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye!
+    Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By,
+    Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly.
+            Oh, Love! Oh, Why?"
+
+She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:
+
+"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can't endure the realism of that
+spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge
+headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?"
+
+Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood
+changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among
+the keys, striking vague harmonies.
+
+He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and
+after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.
+
+A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink,
+lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world
+outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which
+only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.
+
+She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the
+alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even
+when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a
+moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive
+lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.
+
+Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught
+her slender hand:
+
+"No!--please. Let me go! This is too serious--even if we did not mean
+it----"
+
+"You know I mean it," he said simply.
+
+"You must not! You understand why!... And don't--again! I am not--I do
+not choose to--to allow--endure--such--things----"
+
+He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking
+at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.
+
+"Please!" she repeated--and "please!" And she came toward him a step,
+and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.
+
+"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to
+me--and let me go."
+
+"Am I unkind?"
+
+"Yes--yes! You know--you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I
+_am_ going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me--not for one
+moment!"
+
+"Check you from what, Strelsa?"
+
+"From--what I want out of life!--tranquillity, ease, security,
+happiness----"
+
+"Happiness?"
+
+"Yes--yes! It _will_ be that! I don't need anything except what I shall
+have. I don't want anything else. Can't you understand? Do you think
+women feel as--as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men
+experience is also experienced by women? I don't want it; I don't
+require it! I've--I've always had a contempt for it--and I have
+still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any
+man--friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can't you
+take it--and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find
+security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my
+friendship--as long as I never swerve in it--as long as I hold you first
+among my friends--first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer
+you--I will not! Now let me go!"
+
+"Your _other_ self, fighting me," he said, half to himself.
+
+"No, _I_ am! What do you mean by my other self! There _is_ no other----"
+
+"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"
+
+She blushed scarlet:
+
+"Is _that_ what you mean!--the stupid, unworthy, material self----"
+
+"The trinity is incomplete without it."
+
+She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly
+as though frightened.
+
+After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat
+pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:
+
+"I'm not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is
+lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being
+poor makes no difference either. I simply don't care--I don't even care
+what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each
+other--whether you think so or not. And you evidently don't, but I can't
+help that. If I'm any good I'll make you think as I do----"
+
+He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms
+and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows
+slightly knitted.
+
+Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot
+in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened
+under his cheeks.
+
+"_Can't_ you care?" he said, half to himself.
+
+She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and
+almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely
+she felt that what had been there was now dead--that she never could
+respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free
+forever.
+
+"_Can't_ you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again,
+turning toward her.
+
+"Is _that_ your idea of love?"
+
+He shook his head, hopelessly:
+
+"Oh, it's everything else, too--everything on earth--and
+afterward--everything--mind, soul and body--birth, life, death--sky and
+land and sea--everything that is or was or will be----"
+
+His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked--looked up
+at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes.
+
+"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity--more than
+for love; do you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+"Yes. Because, unless you mean friendship, I care nothing for love."
+
+"That is your answer."
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then there _is_ something lacking in you."
+
+"Perhaps. I have never loved in the manner you mean. I do not wish to.
+Perhaps I am incapable of it.... I hope I am; I believe--I believe--"
+But she fell silent, standing with eyes lowered and the warm blood once
+more stinging her cheeks.
+
+Presently she looked up, calm, level-eyed:
+
+"I think you had better ask my forgiveness before you go."
+
+He shrugged:
+
+"Yes, I'll ask it if you like."
+
+To keep her composure became difficult:
+
+"It is your affair, Mr. Quarren--if you still care to preserve our
+friendship."
+
+"Would a kiss shatter it?"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"A look, a word, the quiver of an eyelash is enough."
+
+"It doesn't seem to be very solidly founded, does it?"
+
+"Friendship is the frailest thing in the world--and the mightiest.... I
+am waiting for your decision."
+
+He walked up to her again, and she steeled herself, not knowing what to
+expect.
+
+"Will you marry me, Strelsa?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I have told Mr. Sprowl that I will marry him."
+
+"Also because you don't love me; is that so?"
+
+She said tranquilly: "I can't afford to marry you. I wouldn't love you
+anyway."
+
+"Couldn't?"
+
+"Wouldn't," she said calmly; but her face was crimson.
+
+"Oh," he said under his breath--"you _are_ capable of love."
+
+"I think not, Mr. Quarren; but I am very capable of hate."
+
+And, looking up, he saw it for an instant, clear in her eyes. Then it
+died out; she turned a trifle pale, walked to the window and stood
+leaning against it, one hand on the curtain.
+
+She did not seem to hear him when he came up behind her, and he touched
+her lightly on the arm:
+
+"I ask your forgiveness," he said.
+
+"It is granted, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Have I ruined our friendship?"
+
+"I don't know what you have done," she said wearily.
+
+A few moments later the motor arrived; Quarren turned on the electric
+lights in the room; Strelsa walked across to the piano and seated
+herself.
+
+She was playing rag-time when the motor party entered; Quarren came
+forward and shook hands with Chrysos Lacy and Sir Charles; Langly Sprowl
+passed him with a short nod, saying "How are you, Quarren?"--and kept
+straight on to Strelsa.
+
+"Rotten luck," he said in his full, careless voice; "I'd meant to ride
+over and chance a gallop with you but Wycherly picked me up and started
+on one of his break-neck tears.... What have you been up to all day?"
+
+"Nothing--Mr. Quarren came."
+
+"I see--showed him about, I expect."
+
+"A--little."
+
+"Are you feeling fit, Strelsa?"
+
+"Perfectly.... Why?"
+
+"You look a bit streaky----"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"'Pon my word you do--a bit under the weather, you know----"
+
+"Woman's only friend and protector--a headache," she said, gaily
+rattling off more rag-time. "Where did you go, Langly?"
+
+"To look over some silly horses----"
+
+"They're fine nags!" remonstrated Molly--"and I was perfectly sure that
+Langly would buy half a dozen."
+
+"Not I," said that hatchet-faced young man; and into his sleek and
+restless features came a glimmer of shrewdness--the sly thrift that
+lurks in the faces of those who bargain much and wisely in petty wares.
+It must have been a momentary ancestral gleam from his rum-smuggling
+ancestors, for Langly Sprowl had never dealt in little things.
+
+Chrysos Lacy was saying: "It's adorable to see you again, Ricky. What
+_is_ this we hear about you and Lord Dankmere setting up shop?"
+
+"It's true," he laughed. "Come in and buy an old master, Chrysos, at
+bargain prices."
+
+"I shall insist on Jim buying several," said Molly.
+
+Her husband laughed derisively:
+
+"When I can buy a perfectly good Wright biplane for the same money? Come
+to earth, Molly!"
+
+"You'll come to earth if you go sky-skating around the clouds in that
+horrid little Stinger, Jim," she said. "Why couldn't _you_ take out the
+Stinger for a little exercise?"--turning to Sprowl.
+
+"I'm going to," said Sprowl in his full penetrating voice, not conscious
+that it required courage to risk a flight with the Stinger. Nobody had
+ever imputed any lack of that sort of courage to Langly Sprowl. He
+simply did not understand bodily fear.
+
+Strelsa glanced up at him from the piano:
+
+"It's rather risky, isn't it?"
+
+He merely stared at her out of his slightly protruding eyes as though
+she were speaking an unfamiliar language.
+
+"Jim," said Quarren, "would you mind taking me as a passenger?"
+
+Wycherly, reckless enough anyway, balked a little at the proposition:
+
+"That Stinger is too light and too tricky I'm afraid."
+
+"Isn't she built for two?"
+
+"Well, I suppose she _could_ get off the ground with you and me----"
+
+"All right; let's try her?"
+
+"Jim! I won't let you," said his wife.
+
+"Don't be silly, Molly. Rix and I are not going up if she won't take
+us----"
+
+"I forbid you to try! It's senseless!"
+
+Her husband laughed and finished his whisky and soda. Then twirling his
+motor goggles around his fingers he stood looking at Strelsa.
+
+"You're a pretty little peach," he said sentimentally, "and I'm sorry
+Molly is here or----"
+
+"Do _you_ care?" laughed Strelsa, looking around at him over her
+shoulder. "_I_ don't mind being adored by _you_, Jim."
+
+"Don't you, sweetness?"
+
+"Indeed I don't."
+
+Wycherly started toward her: Langly Sprowl, who neither indulged in
+badinage nor comprehended it in others, turned a perfectly
+expressionless face on his host, who said:
+
+"You old muffin head, did you ever smile in your life? You'd better try
+now because I'm going to take your best girl away from you!"
+
+Which bored Sprowl; and he turned his lean, narrow head away as a sleek
+and sinister dog turns when laughed at.
+
+Strelsa slipped clear of the piano and vanished, chased heavily by
+Wycherly.
+
+Molly said: "It's time to dress, good people. Langly, your man is
+upstairs with your outfit. Come, Chrysos, dear--Rix, have you everything
+you want?" she added in a low voice as he stood aside for her to pass:
+"Have you _everything_, Ricky?"
+
+"Nothing," he said.
+
+"The little minx! _Is_ it Langly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" And, aloud: "Jim! Do let Langly try out the
+Stinger to-morrow."
+
+Her husband, who had given up his search for Strelsa, said that Sprowl
+was welcome.
+
+People scattered to their respective quarters; Quarren walked slowly to
+his. Sprowl, passing with his mincing, nervous stride, said: "How's
+little Dankmere?"
+
+"All right," replied Quarren briefly.
+
+"Cheap little beggar," commented Sprowl.
+
+"He happens to be my partner," said the other.
+
+"He suits your business no doubt," said Sprowl with a contempt he took
+no pains to conceal--a contempt which very plainly included Quarren as
+well as the Earl and the picture business.
+
+Arrived at his door he glanced around to stare absently at Quarren. The
+latter said, pleasantly:
+
+"I don't suppose you meant to be offensive, Sprowl; you simply can't
+help it; can you?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean, you can't help being a bounder. It's just in you, isn't it?"
+
+For a moment Sprowl's hatchet face was ghastly; he opened his mouth to
+speak, twice, then jerked open his door and disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Quarren had been at Witch-Hollow three days when Dankmere called him on
+the long-distance telephone.
+
+"Do you want me to come back?" asked the young fellow. "I don't mind if
+you do; I'm quite ready to return----"
+
+"Not at all, my dear chap," said his lordship. "I fancied you might care
+to hear how matters are going in the Dankmere Galleries."
+
+"Of course I do, but I rather hoped nothing in particular would happen
+for a week or so----"
+
+"Plenty has. You know those experts of yours, Valasco, Drayton-Quinn,
+and that Hollander Van Boschoven. Well, they don't get on. Each has come
+to me privately, and in turn, and told me that the others were no
+good----"
+
+"Your rôle is to remain amiable and non-committal," said Quarren. "Let
+them talk----"
+
+"Valasco and Drayton-Quinn won't speak, and Van Boschoven has notified
+me that he declines to come to the house as long as either of the others
+are there."
+
+"Very well; arrange to have them there on different days."
+
+"I don't think Valasco will come back at all."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--the fact is--I believe I practically--so to speak--hit him."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Fact, old chap."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, he asked me if I knew more about anything than I did about
+pictures. I didn't catch his drift for about an hour--but then it came
+to me, and I got up out of my chair and walked over and punched his
+head. I don't think he'll come back, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't. What else have you been doing?" said Quarren angrily.
+
+"Nothing. One picture--the Raeburn portrait--has a bad hole in it."
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"Rather extraordinary thing, that! I was giving a most respectable card
+party--some ladies and gentlemen of sorts--from the Winter Garden I
+believe--and one of the ladies inadvertently shyed a glass at another
+lady----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Dankmere----"
+
+"Quite right old chap--my fault entirely--I won't do it again. But, do
+you know, the gallery already has become a most popular resort. People
+are coming and going all day--a lot of dealers among them I suspect--and
+there have been a number of theatrical people who want to hire pictures
+for certain productions to be staged next winter----"
+
+"We don't do that sort of thing!"
+
+"That's what I thought; but there was one very fetching girl who opens
+in 'Ancestors' next October----"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Right-o! I'll tell her at luncheon.... I say, Quarren: Karl Westguard
+wants the gallery to-night. May I let him have it?"
+
+"Certainly. What for?"
+
+"Oh, some idea of his--I've forgotten what he said."
+
+"I believe I'd better come down," said Quarren bluntly.
+
+"Don't dream of it, old fellow. Everything is doing nicely. My respects
+to the fair. By-the-bye--anything in my line up there?"
+
+Quarren laughed:
+
+"I'm afraid not, Dankmere."
+
+"_Very_ well," said the Earl, airily. "I'm not worrying now, you know.
+_Good_-bye, old sport!"
+
+And he rang off.
+
+Quarren meeting Molly in the hall said:
+
+"I think I'd better leave this afternoon. Dankmere is messing matters."
+
+"Are you going to run away?" she said in a low voice, glancing sideways
+at Strelsa who had just passed them wearing her riding habit.
+
+"Run away," he repeated, also lowering his voice. "From whom?"
+
+"From Langly Sprowl."
+
+He shrugged and looked out of the window.
+
+"It _is_ running away," insisted his pretty hostess. "You have a chance
+I think."
+
+"Not the slightest."
+
+"You are wrong. Strelsa wept in her sleep all night. How does that
+strike you?"
+
+"Not over me," he said grimly; but added: "How do you know she did?"
+
+"Her maid told mine," admitted Molly shamelessly. "Now if you are going
+to criticise my channels of information I'll remind you that Richelieu
+himself----"
+
+"Oh, Molly! Molly! What a funny girl you are!" he said, laughing.
+"You're a sweet, loyal little thing, too--but there's no use--" His face
+became expressionless, almost haggard--"there's no use," he repeated
+under his breath.
+
+Slowly, side by side, they walked out to the veranda, her hand resting
+lightly just within the crook of his arm, he, absent-mindedly filling
+his pipe.
+
+"Strelsa likes you," she said.
+
+"With all the ardour and devotion of a fish," he returned, coolly.
+
+"Rix?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Do you know," said Molly, thoughtfully, "she _is_ a sort of a fish. She
+has the emotions of a mollusc as far as your sex is concerned. Some
+women _are_ that way--more women than men would care to believe.... Do
+you know, Ricky, if you'll let us alone, it is quite natural for us to
+remain indifferent to considerations of that sort?"
+
+She stood watching the young fellow busy with his pipe.
+
+"It's only when you keep at us long enough that we respond," she said.
+"Some of us are quickly responsive; it takes many of us a long while to
+catch fire. Threatened emotion instinctively repels many of us--the more
+fastidious among us, the finer grained and more delicately nerved, are
+essentially reserved. Modesty, pride, a natural aloofness, are as much a
+part of many women as their noses and fingers----"
+
+"What becomes of modesty and pride when a girl marries for money?" he
+asked coolly.
+
+"Some women can give and accept in cold blood what it would be
+impossible for them to accord to a more intimate and emotional demand."
+
+"No doubt an ethical distinction," he said, "but not very clear to me."
+
+"I did not argue that such women are admirable or excusable.... But how
+many modern marriages in our particular vicinity are marriages of
+inclination, Ricky?"
+
+"You're a washed-out lot," he said--"you're satiated as schoolgirls. If
+you have any emotions left they're twisted ones by the time you are
+introduced. Most débutantes of your sort make their bow equipped for
+business, and with the experience of what, practically, has amounted to
+several seasons.
+
+"If any old-fashioned young girls remain in your orbit I don't know
+where to find them. Why, do you suppose any young girl, not yet out,
+would bother to go to a party of any sort where there was not champagne
+and a theatre-box and a supper in prospect? That's a fine comment on
+your children, Molly, but you know it's true and so does everybody who
+pretends to know anything about it."
+
+"You talk like Karl Westguard," she said, laughing. "Anyway, what has
+all this to do with you and Strelsa Leeds?"
+
+"Nothing." He shrugged. "She is part of your last word in social
+civilisation----"
+
+"She is a very normal, sensitive, proud girl, who has known little
+except unhappiness all her life, Rix--including two years of marital
+misery--two years of horror.--And you forget that those two years were
+the result of a demand purely and brutally emotional--to which, a
+novice, utterly ignorant, she yielded--pushed on by her mother....
+Please be fair to her; remember that her childhood was pinched with
+poverty, that her girlhood in school was a lonely one, embarrassed by
+lack of everything which her fashionable schoolmates had as matters of
+course.
+
+"She could not go to the homes of her schoolmates in vacation times,
+because she could not ask them, in turn, to her own. She was still in
+school when Reggie Leeds saw her--and misbehaved--and the poor little
+thing was sent home, guiltless but already half-damned. No wonder her
+mother chased Reggie Leeds half around the world dragging her daughter
+by the wrist!"
+
+"Did it make matters any better to force that drunken cad into a
+marriage?" asked Quarren coldly.
+
+"It makes another marriage possible for Strelsa."
+
+Quarren gazed out across the country where a fine misty rain was still
+falling. Acres of clover stretched away silvered with powdery moisture;
+robins and bluebirds covered the soaked lawns, and their excited
+call-notes prophesied blue skies.
+
+"It doesn't make any difference one way or the other," said Quarren,
+half to himself. "She will go on in the predestined orbit----"
+
+"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it."
+
+"There is nothing to which she responds--except what I have not."
+
+"Make what you do possess more powerful, then."
+
+"What do I possess?"
+
+"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?"
+
+"Perhaps so--now--after a fashion.... But I am not the man who could
+ever attract her----"
+
+"Wake her, and find out."
+
+"Wake her?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you that many of us are asleep, and that few of us awake
+easily? Didn't I tell you that nobody likes to be awakened from the warm
+comfort and idle security of emotionless slumber?--that it is the
+instinct of many of us to resist--just as I hear my maid speak to me in
+the morning and then turn over for another forty winks, hating her!"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"My maid has instructions to persist until I respond," said Molly.
+"Those are my instructions to you, also."
+
+"Suppose, after all, I were knocking at the door of an empty room?"
+
+"You must take your chances of course."
+
+There was a noise of horses on the gravel: Langly cantered up on a
+handsome hunter followed by a mounted groom leading Strelsa's mare.
+
+Sprowl dismounted and came up to pay his respects to Molly, scarcely
+troubling himself to recognise Quarren's presence, and turning his back
+to him immediately, although Molly twice attempted to include him in the
+conversation.
+
+Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a
+pantomime unmistakable; but her pretty lips merely pressed each other
+tighter, and she sauntered out, crop under one arm, with a careless
+greeting to Langly.
+
+He came up offering his hand and she took it, then stood a moment in
+desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren.
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was
+silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."]
+
+"I thought I overheard you say to Molly that you were going back to town
+this afternoon," she remarked, casting a brief glance in his direction.
+
+"I think I'd better go," he said, pleasantly.
+
+"A matter of business I suppose?" eyebrows slightly lifted.
+
+"In a way. Dankmere is alone, poor fellow."
+
+Molly laughed:
+
+"It is not good for man to be alone."
+
+Sprowl said:
+
+"There's a housemaid in my employ--she's saved something I understand.
+You might notify Dankmere--" he half wheeled toward Quarren, eyes
+slightly bulging without a shadow of expression on his sleek, narrow
+face.
+
+Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of
+a clear sky.
+
+"What?" he said slowly--then stepped back a pace as Strelsa passed close
+in front of him, apparently perfectly unconscious of any discord:
+
+"Will you get me a lump of sugar, Mr. Quarren? My mare must be pampered
+or she'll start that jiggling Kentucky amble and never walk one step."
+
+Quarren swung on his heel and entered the house; Molly, ignoring
+Strelsa, turned sharply on Sprowl:
+
+"If you are insolent to my guests you need not come here," she said
+briefly.
+
+Langly's restless eyes protruded; he glanced from Molly to Strelsa, then
+his indifferent gaze wandered over the landscape. It was plain that the
+rebuke had not made the slightest impression. Molly looked angrily at
+Strelsa, but the latter, eyes averted, was gazing at her horse. And when
+Quarren came back with a handful of sugar she took it and, descending
+the steps, fed it, lump by lump to the two horses.
+
+Langly put her up, shouldered aside the groom, and adjusted heel-loop
+and habit-loop. Then he mounted, saluted Molly and followed Strelsa at a
+canter without even noticing his bridle.
+
+"What have you done to Langly?" asked Molly.
+
+"Characterised his bad manners the other day. It wasn't worth while;
+there's no money in cursing.... And I think, Molly dear, that I'll take
+an afternoon train----"
+
+"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way
+under my roof----"
+
+"It was outdoors, dear lady," said Quarren, smiling. "It's only his
+rudeness before you that I mind. Where is Sir Charles?"
+
+"Off with Chrysos somewhere on the river--there's their motor-launch,
+now.... Ricky!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm angry all through.... Strelsa might have said something--showed her
+lack of sympathy for Langly's remark by being a little more cordial to
+you.... I don't like it in her. I don't know whether I am going to like
+that girl or not----"
+
+"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do----"
+
+"There was! She _is_ a fish!--unless she gives Langly the dickens this
+morning.... Will you motor with Jim and me, Ricky dear?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+She did like. So presently a racing car was brought around, Jim came
+reluctantly from the hangar, and away they tore into the dull weather
+now faintly illuminated by the prophecy of the sun.
+
+Everywhere the mist was turning golden; faint smears of blue appeared
+and disappeared through the vapours passing overhead. Then, all at once
+the sun's glaring lens played across the drenched meadows, and the
+shadows of tree and hedge and standing cattle streamed out across the
+herbage.
+
+In spite of the chains the car skidded dangerously at times; mud flew
+and so did water, and very soon Molly had enough. So they tore back
+again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters,
+her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair
+of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots--past
+woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny
+streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half
+immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird
+music--past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh
+above the soaking brown earth.
+
+Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds
+fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the
+kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud
+enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded
+with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million
+blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them.
+
+Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles
+and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. Once,
+across a distant hill, two horses and their riders passed outlined
+against the sky; but even the eyes of a lover and a hater could not
+identify anybody at such a distance.
+
+So he strolled on, taking roads when convenient, fields when it suited
+him, neither knowing nor caring where he was going.
+
+Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he
+turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a
+little foot-bridge over a stream.
+
+A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up.
+
+"Is that you, Quarren?" he said.
+
+The young fellow stopped and looked down curiously at the sunken,
+unhealthy face, then, shocked, came forward hastily and shook hands.
+
+"Why, Ledwith," he said, "what are you doing here?--Oh, I forgot; you
+live here, don't you?"
+
+"That's my house yonder--or was," said the man with a slight motion of
+his head. And, after a moment: "You didn't recognise me. Have I changed
+much?"
+
+Quarren said: "You seem to have been--ill."
+
+"Yes; I have been. I'm ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few
+minutes--unless you are going somewhere in particular--or don't care to
+talk to me----"
+
+"Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be
+gentle--even with such a man.
+
+"I haven't seen much of you, for a couple of years--I haven't seen much
+of anybody," said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking
+at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren:
+
+"You are stopping with----"
+
+"The Wycherlys."
+
+"Oh, yes.... I haven't seen them lately.... They are neighbours"--he
+waved his sickly coloured hand--"but I'm rather quiet--I read a good
+deal--as you see."--He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and
+his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually.
+
+"It's a pretty country," said Quarren.
+
+"Yes--I thought so once. I built that house.... There's no use in my
+keeping up social duties," he said with another slinking glance at
+Quarren. "So I'm giving up the house."
+
+"Really."
+
+"Hasn't--you have heard so, haven't you?"
+
+He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and
+his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or
+rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and
+continuously as he jerked about in his seat.
+
+"I suppose," he said slyly, "people talk about me, Quarren."
+
+"Do you know anybody immune to gossip?" inquired Quarren, smiling.
+
+"No; that's true. But I don't care anything for people.... I read, I
+have my horses and dogs--but I'm going to move away. I told you that,
+didn't I?"
+
+"I believe you did."
+
+Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost
+imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance:
+
+"There's no use pretending to _you_, Quarren; is there?"
+
+Quarren said nothing.
+
+"You know all the gossip--all the dirty little faits divers of your
+world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential----"
+
+"You're mistaken, Ledwith," he said pleasantly. "I'm done with it."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that I've gone into a better business and I'm too busy to be
+useful and amusing any longer."
+
+Ledwith's dead eyes stared:
+
+"I heard you had dropped out--were never seen about. Is that true?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Found the game too rotten?"
+
+"Oh, no. It's no different from any other game--a mixture of the same
+old good and bad, with good predominating. But there's more to be had
+out of life in other games."
+
+"Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working
+as side partner, isn't it?"
+
+Quarren said pleasantly: "If you're serious, Ledwith, you're a liar."
+
+After a silence Ledwith said: "Do you think there's enough left of me to
+care what anybody calls me?"
+
+Quarren turned: "I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make
+you such an answer."
+
+"Never mind.... In that last year--when I still knew people--and when
+they still knew me--you were very kind to me, Quarren."
+
+"Why not? You were always decent to me."
+
+Ledwith was now picking at his fingers, and Quarren saw that they were
+dreadfully scarred and maltreated.
+
+"You've always been kind to me," repeated Ledwith, his extinct eyes
+fixed on space. "Other people would have halted at sight of me and gone
+the other way--or passed by cutting me dead.... _You_ sat down beside
+me."
+
+"Am I anybody to refuse?"
+
+But Ledwith only blinked nervously down at his book, presently fell to
+twitching the uncut pages again.
+
+"Poems," he said--"scarcely what you'd think I'd wish to read,
+Quarren--poems of youth and love----"
+
+"You're young, Ledwith--if you cared to help yourself----"
+
+"Yes, if I cared--if I cared. In this book they all seem to care; youth
+and happiness care; sorrow and years still care. Listen to this:
+
+    "'You who look forward through the shining tears
+              Of April's showers
+    Into the sunrise of the coming years
+    Golden with unborn flowers--
+    I who look backward where the sunset lowers
+    Counting November's hours!'
+
+"But--I _don't_ care. I care no longer, Quarren."
+
+"_That's_ losing your grip."
+
+He raised his ashy visage: "I'm _trying_ to let go.... But it's
+slow--very slow--with a little pleasure--hell's own pleasure--" He
+turned his shoulder, fished something out of his pocket, and pulling
+back his cuff, bent over. After a few moments he turned around, calmly:
+
+"You've seen that on the stage I fancy."
+
+"Otherwise, also."
+
+"Quite likely. I've known a pretty woman--" He ended with a weary
+gesture and dropped his head between his hands.
+
+"Quarren," he said, "there's only one hurt left in it all. I have two
+little children."
+
+Quarren was silent.
+
+"I suppose--it won't last--that hurt. They're with my mother. It was
+agreed that they should remain with her.... But it's the only hurt I
+feel at all now--except--rarely--when those damned June roses are in
+bloom.... She wore them a good deal.... Quarren, I'm glad it came early
+to me if it had to come.... Like yellow dogs unsuccessful men are the
+fastest breeders. The man in permanent hard luck is always the most
+prolific.... I'm glad there are no more children."
+
+His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read
+what was not written there--
+
+    "Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
+      Froze my swift speech; she turning on my face
+    The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
+      Spoke slowly.
+
+    "'I had great beauty; ask thou not my name;
+      No one can be more wise than destiny.
+    Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came
+      I brought calamity.'"
+
+Quarren bit his lip and looked down at the sunlit brook dancing by under
+the bridge in amber beauty.
+
+Ledwith said musingly: "I don't know who it might have been if it had
+not been Sprowl. It would have been _somebody_!... The decree has been
+made absolute."
+
+Quarren looked up.
+
+"She's coming back here soon, now. I've had the place put in shape for
+her."
+
+After a silence Quarren rose and offered his hand.
+
+Ledwith took it: "I suppose I shall not see you again?"
+
+"I'm going to town this afternoon. Good-bye."
+
+Looking back at the turn of the path he saw Ledwith, bent nearly double,
+terribly intent on his half-bared arm.
+
+Returning in time for luncheon he encountered Sir Charles fresh from the
+river, and Chrysos prettily sun-burned, just entering the house.
+
+"We broke down," said the girl; "I thought we'd never get back, but Sir
+Charles is quite wonderful and he mended that very horrid machinery with
+the point of a file. Think of it, Ricky!--the point of a file!"
+
+Sir Charles laughed and explained the simplicity of the repairs; and
+Chrysos, not a whit less impressed, stared at him out of her pretty
+golden eyes with a gaze perilously resembling adoration.
+
+Afterward, by the bay-window upstairs, Quarren said lightly to Molly:
+
+"How about the little Lacy girl and the Baronet?"
+
+"She's an idiot," said Molly, shortly.
+
+"I'm afraid she is."
+
+"Of course she is. I wish I hadn't asked her. Why, she goes about like a
+creature in a trance when Sir Charles is away.... I don't know whether
+to say anything to her or whether to write to her mother. She's slated
+for Roger O'Hara."
+
+"I don't suppose her parents would object to Sir Charles," said Quarren,
+smiling.
+
+"That's why I hesitate to write. Sir Charles is in love with Strelsa;
+anybody can see that and everybody knows it. And it isn't likely that a
+child like Chrysos could swerve him."
+
+"Then you'd better send him or her away, hadn't you?"
+
+"I don't know what to do," said Molly, vexed. "June is to be quiet and
+peaceful at Witch-Hollow, and Sir Charles wanted to be here and Mrs.
+Lacy asked me to have Chrysos because she needed the quiet and calm. And
+_look_ what she's done!"
+
+"It's probably only a young girl's fancy."
+
+"Then it ought to be nipped in the bud. But her mother wants her here
+and Sir Charles wants to be here and if I write to her mother she'll let
+her remain anyway. I'm cross, Ricky. I'm tired, too--having dictated
+letters and signed checks until my head aches. Where have you been?"
+
+"Prowling."
+
+"Well, luncheon is nearly ready, and Strelsa isn't back. Are you going
+to New York this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Please don't."
+
+"I think it's better," he said lightly.
+
+"All right. Run away if you want to. Don't say another word to me; I'm
+irritated."
+
+Luncheon was not very gay; Chrysos adored Sir Charles in silence, but so
+sweetly and unobtrusively that the Baronet was totally unaware of it.
+Molly, frankly out of temper, made no effort of any sort; her husband in
+his usual rude health and spirits talked about the Stinger to everybody.
+Strelsa, who had arrived late, and whose toilet made her later still,
+seemed inclined to be rather cheerful and animated, but received little
+encouragement from Molly.
+
+However, she chatted gaily with Sir Charles and with Quarren, and after
+luncheon invited Sir Charles to read to her and Chrysos, which the grave
+and handsome Englishman did while they swung in old-fashioned hammocks
+under the maple trees, enjoying the rare treat of hearing their own
+language properly spoken.
+
+Molly had a book to herself on the veranda--the newest and wickedest of
+French yellow-covered fiction; her husband returned to the Stinger;
+Quarren listened to Sir Charles for a while, then without disturbing the
+reading, slipped quietly off and wandered toward the kennels.
+
+Here for a while he caressed the nervous, silky Blue Beltons, then
+strolled on toward the hemlock woods, a morning paper, still unread,
+sticking out of his pocket.
+
+When he came to the rustic seat which was his objective, he lighted his
+pipe, unfolded the paper, and forced his attention on the first column.
+
+How long he had been studying the print he did not know when, glancing
+up at the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, he saw Strelsa coming in
+his direction. He could see her very plainly through the hemlocks from
+where he sat but she could not as yet see him. Then the fat waddling dog
+ahead of her, barked; and he saw the girl stop short, probably divining
+that the rustic seat was occupied.
+
+For a few moments she stood there, perhaps waiting for her dog to
+return; but that fat sybarite had his chin on Quarren's knees; and,
+presently, Strelsa moved forward, slowly, already certain who it was
+ahead of her.
+
+Quarren rose as she came around the curve in the path:
+
+"If you don't want me here I'm quite willing to retire," he said,
+pleasantly.
+
+"That is a ridiculous thing to say," she commented. Then she seated
+herself and motioned him to resume his place.
+
+"I was rather wondering," she continued, "whether I'd see you before you
+leave."
+
+"Oh, are you driving this afternoon?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I should certainly have looked for you and made my adieux."
+
+"Would you have remembered to do it?"
+
+He laughed:
+
+"What a question! I might possibly forget my own name, but not anything
+concerning you."
+
+She looked down at the paper lying between them on the bench, and, still
+looking down, said slowly:
+
+"I am sorry for what Langly did this morning.... He has expressed his
+contrition to me----"
+
+"_That_ is all right as long as he doesn't express it to me,"
+interrupted Quarren, bluntly.
+
+"He means to speak to you----"
+
+"Please say to him that your report of his mental anguish is
+sufficient."
+
+"_Are_ you vindictive, Mr. Quarren?" she asked, reddening.
+
+"Not permanently. But I either like or I dislike. So let the incident
+close quietly."
+
+"Very well--if you care to humiliate me--him----"
+
+"Dear Mrs. Leeds, he isn't going to be humiliated, because he doesn't
+care. And you know I wouldn't humiliate you for all the world----"
+
+"You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you----"
+
+He looked up at her:
+
+"Would _that_ make it easier for you?"
+
+"I--perhaps--please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Very well," he said quietly.
+
+He caressed the dog's head where it lay across his knees, and looked out
+over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and
+wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart
+the sun.
+
+She said in a low voice: "I hope your new business venture will be
+successful."
+
+"I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care."
+
+"I care--greatly.... As much as I--dare."
+
+He laughed: "Don't you dare care about me?"
+
+She bit her lip: "I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two
+occasions."
+
+"So you don't really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I
+might again mistake it for something deeper." He was still laughing, and
+she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then:
+
+"There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you--if you
+will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out
+of it."
+
+"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face altering.
+
+"Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"I thought I spoiled that for both of us," he said.
+
+"I didn't say so. I told you that I didn't know what you had done. I've
+had time to reflect. It--our friendship isn't spoiled--if you still
+value it."
+
+"I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa."
+
+There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly
+reflected in hers.
+
+"Then let us have peace," she said unsteadily. "I have--been--not very
+happy since you--since we----"
+
+"I know. I've been utterly miserable, too." He lifted one of her hands
+and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in
+his.
+
+"Do you mind?" he asked.
+
+"N-no."
+
+He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested
+her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes.
+
+"I think--you had better not--touch me--any more--" she said faintly.
+
+"Is it disagreeable?"
+
+"Yes--n-no.... It is--it has nothing to do with friendship--" she looked
+up, flushed, curious: "Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Did you never caress a flower?"
+
+"Rix!"--she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first
+time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. "It was your
+nonsensical answer!--I--it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon
+for being stupid.... And--may I have my hand? I use it occasionally."
+
+He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her
+fingers.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "I'm coming back into the battle again."
+
+"Then I am sorry I forgave you."
+
+"_Are_ you?"
+
+"Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can't you be to me what I wish to be to
+you? Why can't you be what I want--what I need----"
+
+"Do you know what you need?"
+
+"Yes, I----"
+
+"No, you don't. You need to love--and to be loved. You don't know it,
+but you do!"
+
+"That is a--a perfectly brutal thing to say----"
+
+"Does it sound so to you?"
+
+"Yes, it does! It is brutal--common, unworthy of you and of me----"
+
+He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her:
+
+"_Can't_ you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't
+you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there
+anything to be ashamed of in it?--merely because nothing has ever yet
+awakened _you_ to it?"
+
+"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of
+me is more than love--cleaner, better, stronger----"
+
+"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to
+do!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!"
+
+She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves
+become irresponsible. I know nothing about it--I could not--I
+will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it--to me it is
+degrading--contemptible----"
+
+"What are you saying?"
+
+"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster.
+"I'm telling you what I know--what I have learned in a bitter
+school--during two dreadful years----"
+
+"_That!_"
+
+"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave
+friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to
+me? You are the one man I could ask it of--the only man I ever saw who
+seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could
+return what he gave me with all my heart--all my heart----"
+
+She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew
+her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his
+shoulder.
+
+"I won't _talk_ to you of love any more," he whispered. "You poor little
+girl--you poor little thing. I didn't realise--I don't want to think
+about it----"
+
+"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?"
+
+"Of course--of course--you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find
+fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or
+demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People
+are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn't love them if you
+don't want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you
+please--about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too."
+
+Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.
+
+"There," he whispered--"there, there--you little, little girl. That's
+all I want of you after all--only what you want of me. I don't wish to
+marry you if you don't wish it; I won't--I perhaps couldn't really love
+you very deeply if you didn't respond. I shall not bother you any
+more--or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am
+concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable
+to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly--look so, even, and
+I'll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?"
+
+"Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don't mean anything,
+do you by--by your arm around me----"
+
+"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled--"Which I
+suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me."
+
+"I--begin to.... Will you let me?"
+
+"Yes.... Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?"
+
+She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth
+curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless.
+
+"I believe you are worn out," he said.
+
+"I have not rested for weeks."
+
+"On account of that Trust business?"
+
+"Yes.... But I was tired before that--I had done too much--lived too
+much--and I've felt as though I were being hunted for so long.... And
+then--I was unhappy about you."
+
+"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said.
+
+"You were different, but--you made me feel that way, too--a little----"
+
+"I understand now."
+
+"Do you really?"
+
+"Yes. It's been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging,
+importuning you to consider their desires--to care for them in their
+own way--all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting,
+head-long and boisterous--all at you constantly to give them what is
+not in you to give--what has never been awakened--what lies stunned,
+crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep----"
+
+"Killed," she whispered.
+
+"Perhaps." He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the
+sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding
+the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a
+child's. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror,
+partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa
+lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she
+could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him
+was no longer there.
+
+"Do you--know about me?" she asked in a still, low voice.
+
+"About the past?"
+
+"About my marriage."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Some things."
+
+"You know what the papers said?"
+
+"Yes.... Don't speak of it--unless you care to, Strelsa."
+
+"I want to.... Do you know this is the first time?"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody.... As long as my
+mother lived I did not once speak of it to her."
+
+She rested in silence for a while, then:
+
+"Could I tell you?"
+
+"My dear, my dear!--of course you can."
+
+"I--it's been unsaid so long--there was nobody to tell it to. I've done
+my best to forget it--and for days I seem to forget it. But sometimes
+when I wake at night it is there--the horror of it--the terror sinking
+deeper into my breast.... I was very young. You knew that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You knew my mother had very slender means?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wouldn't have cared; I was an imaginative child--and could have lived
+quite happy with my fancies on very, very little.... I was a sensitive
+and affectionate child--inclined to be demonstrative. You wouldn't
+believe it, would you?"
+
+"I can understand it."
+
+"Can you? It's odd because I have changed so.... I was quite romantic
+about my mother--madly in love with her.... There is nothing more to
+say.... In boarding-school I was perfectly aware that I was being given
+the best grooming that we could afford. Even then romance persisted. I
+had the ideas of a coloured picture-book concerning men and love and
+marriage. I remember, as a very little child, that I had a picture-book
+showing Cinderella's wedding. It was a very golden sort of picture. It
+coloured my ideas long after I was grown up."
+
+She moved her head a little, looked up for an instant and smiled; but at
+his answering smile she turned her cheek to his shoulder, hastily, and
+lay silent for a while. Presently she continued in a low voice:
+
+"It was when we were returning for the April vacation--and the platform
+was crowded and some of the girls' brothers were there. There were two
+trains in--and much confusion--I don't know how I became separated from
+Miss Buckley and my schoolmates--I don't know to this day how I found
+myself on the Baltimore train, and Gladys Leeds's brother laughing and
+talking and the train moving faster and faster.... There is no use
+saying any more. I was as ignorant as I was innocent--a perfect little
+fool, frightened, excited, even amused by turns.... He had been
+attentive to me. We both were fools. Only finally I became badly scared
+and he talked such nonsense--and I managed to slip away from him and
+board the train at Baltimore as soon as we arrived there.... If he
+hadn't found me and returned to New York with me, it might not have been
+known. But we were recognised on the train and--it was a dreadful thing
+for me when I arrived home after midnight...."
+
+She fell silent; once or twice he looked down at her and saw that her
+eyes were closed. Then, with a quick, uneven breath:
+
+"I think you know the rest, don't you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+But she went on in a low, emotionless voice: "I was treated like a
+damaged gown--for which depreciation in value somebody was to be made
+responsible. I suffered; days and nights seemed unreal. There were
+lawyers; did you know it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes," she said wearily, "it was a bad dream--my mother, others--_his_
+family--many people strange and familiar passed through it. Then we
+travelled; I saw nothing, feeling half dead.... We were married in the
+Hawaiian Islands."
+
+"I know."
+
+"Then--the two years began."
+
+After a long while she said again: "That was the real nightmare. I
+passed through the depths as in a trance. There was nothing lower, not
+even hell.... We travelled in Europe, Africa, and India for two
+years.... I scarcely remember a soul I saw or one single object. And
+then--_that_ happened."
+
+"I know, dear."
+
+A slight shudder passed over her:
+
+"I've told you," she whispered--"I've told you at last. Shall I tell you
+more?"
+
+"Not unless----"
+
+"I don't know whether I want to--about the gendarmes--and that terrible
+woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs--and how ill
+I was----"
+
+She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren's arm tightened
+around her; and presently she became limp and motionless.
+
+"This--what I have told you--is a very close bond between us, isn't it?"
+she said.
+
+"Very close, Strelsa."
+
+"Was I much to blame?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"You should have left him long before."
+
+"Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and
+make the best of it."
+
+"Is that your idea?"
+
+"That was all I could see to do about it."
+
+"Don't you believe in divorce?"
+
+"Yes; but I thought he'd be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If
+he'd been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left
+him. But one can't abandon a helpless person."
+
+"Every word you utter," he said, "forges a new link in my love for you."
+
+"You don't mean--love?"
+
+"We mean the same I think--differing only in degree."
+
+"Thank you. That is nice of you."
+
+He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver:
+
+"Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?"
+
+"All gone--all of it."
+
+"I see.... And something has got to be done."
+
+"You know it has.... And I'm old before my time--tired, worn out. I
+can't work--I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were
+burnt out; I haven't the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure.
+What am I to do?"
+
+"Not what you plan to do."
+
+"Why not? As long as I need help--and the best is offered----"
+
+"Wouldn't you take less--and me?"
+
+"Oh, Rix! I couldn't _use you_!"
+
+She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from
+his arm.
+
+"I--I--you are my _friend_. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give
+anybody--not even you." She smiled, tremulously--"And I suspect that as
+far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But
+it's sweet of you. You _are_ generous, having so little and wishing to
+share it with me----"
+
+"Could you wait for me, Strelsa?"
+
+"Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can
+I?--even if it were a certainty."
+
+"Can't you hold on for a couple of years?"
+
+"Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my
+house."
+
+He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water.
+
+"Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't
+already given you----"
+
+"I ask no more."
+
+"Oh, but you _do_!"
+
+"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa--only what you have to offer of
+your own accord."
+
+They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote.
+
+"I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said.
+
+"If you could wait----"
+
+"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him."
+
+"Does that count?"
+
+"Yes--I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be.... I don't
+know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix--you don't realise--and
+I'm tired and sad--old before my time--perplexed, burnt out----"
+
+She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes.
+After a while she opened them with a weary smile.
+
+"I'll try to think--after you are gone.... What time does your train
+leave?"
+
+He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too:
+
+"_Have_ I kept you too long?"
+
+"No; I can make it. We'll have to walk rather fast----"
+
+"I'd rather you left me here."
+
+"Would you? Then--good-bye----"
+
+"Good-bye.... Will you come up again?"
+
+"I'll try."
+
+"Shall we write?"
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came.
+I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is
+enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and
+welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Then--I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her;
+she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek--a second's
+contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Quarren arrived in town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor
+he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up
+Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking
+with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him,
+freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the
+heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the
+avenue's lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms
+of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less
+wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew
+out of the night--"clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold"--and
+dissolved again into darkness.
+
+Still thrilled, almost buoyant, he walked on, passing the high-piled
+masonry of the branch Post-Office and the Central Palace on his left.
+Against high stars the twin Power-House chimneys stood outlined in
+steel; on the right endless blocks of brown-stone dwellings stretched
+northward, some already converted into shops where print-sellers,
+dealers in old books, and here and there antiquaries, had constructed
+show-windows.
+
+Firemen lounged outside the Eighth Battalion quarters; here and there a
+grocer's or wine-seller's windows remained illuminated where those who
+were neither well-to-do nor very poor passed to and fro with little
+packages which seemed a burden under the sultry skies.
+
+At last, ahead, the pseudo-oriental towers of a synagogue varied the
+flat skyline, and a moment later he could see the New Thought Laundry,
+the Tonsorial Drawing Rooms, the Undertaker's discreetly illuminated
+windows, and finally the bay-window of his own recent Real-Estate
+office, now transmogrified into the Dankmere Galleries of Old Masters,
+Fayre and Quarren, proprietors.
+
+The window appeared to be brilliantly illuminated behind the drawn
+curtains; and Quarren, surprised and vexed, concluded that the little
+Englishman was again entertaining. So it perplexed and astonished him to
+find the Earl sitting on the front steps, his straw hat on the back of
+his head, smoking. At the same moment from within the house a confused
+and indescribable murmur was wafted to his ears as though many people
+were applauding.
+
+"What on earth is going on inside?" he asked, bewildered.
+
+"You told me over the telephone that Karl Westguard might have the
+gallery for this evening," said the Englishman calmly. "So I let him
+have it."
+
+"What did he want of it? Who has he got in there?"--demanded Quarren as
+another ripple of applause sounded from within.
+
+Dankmere thought a moment: "I really don't know the audience,
+Quarren--they're not a very fragrant lot."
+
+"What audience? Who are they?"
+
+"You Americans would call them a 'tough-looking bunch--except
+Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera----"
+
+[Illustration: "A high and soulful tenor was singing 'Perfumes of
+Araby.'"]
+
+"Cyrille Caldera and De Groot! What's that silly old Dandy doing down
+here?"
+
+"Diffusing sweetness and light among the unwashed; telling them that
+there are no such things as classes, that wealth is no barrier to
+brotherhood, that the heart of Fifth Avenue beats as warmly and
+guilelessly as the heart of Essex Street, and that its wealth-burdened
+inhabitants have long desired to fraternise with the benchers in
+Paradise Park."
+
+"Who put Westguard up to this?" asked Quarren, aghast.
+
+"De Groot. Karl is writing a levelling novel calculated to annihilate
+caste. The Undertaker next door furnished the camp-chairs; the corner
+grocer the collation; Westguard, Mrs. Caldera, and Bleecker De Groot the
+mind-food. Go in and look 'em over."
+
+The front door was standing partly open; the notes of a piano floated
+through; a high and soulful tenor voice was singing "Perfumes of Araby,"
+but Quarren did not notice any as he stepped inside.
+
+Not daring to leave his suit-case in the hallway he kept on along the
+passage to the extension where the folding doors were locked. Here he
+deposited his luggage, locked the door, then walked back to the front
+parlour and, unobserved, slipped in, seating himself among the battered
+derelicts of the rear row.
+
+A thin, hirsute young man had just finished scattering the perfumes of
+Araby; other perfumes nearly finished Quarren; but he held his ground
+and gazed grimly at an improvised platform where sat in a half-circle
+and in full evening dress, Karl Westguard, Cyrille Caldera and Bleecker
+De Groot. Also there was a table supporting a Calla lily.
+
+Westguard was saying very earnestly: "The world calls me a novelist. I
+am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere
+scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message--a plain, simple,
+earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous
+indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between
+wealth and poverty----"
+
+"That's right," interrupted a hoarse voice; "it's all a con game, an'
+the perlice is into it, too!"
+
+"T'hell wit te bulls! Croak 'em!" observed another gentleman thickly.
+
+Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which
+greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old
+Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an
+artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side
+feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom.
+
+"Ah, my friends!" cried De Groot, "if you could only realise how great
+is the love for humanity within my breast!--If you could only know of
+the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the
+problems of the poor!
+
+"And I _have_ solved them--every one. And _this_ is the
+answer!"--grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it--"this!"
+seizing another--"and this, and this! And now I ask you, _what_ is this
+mute answer which I have given you?"
+
+"De merry mitt," said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with
+sweetness and indulgence.
+
+"I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacular," he said. "It _is_
+the 'merry mitt'--the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue
+clasps palms with Doyers Street----"
+
+"Ding!" said a weary voice, "yer in wrong, boss. It's nix f'r the Tongs
+wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A."
+
+Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. "The rich," he said, "are not
+really happy." His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a
+priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with
+a kind of noble pity for his own weakness.
+
+"Dear, dear friends," he said tremulously, "believe me--oh, believe me
+that the rich are not happy! Only the perspiring labourer knows what is
+true contentment. The question of poverty is a great social question.
+With me it is a religion. Oh, I could go on forever on this subject,
+dear friends, and talk on and on and on----"
+
+Emotion again checked him--or perhaps he had lost the thread of his
+discourse--or possibly he had attained its limit--but he filled it out
+by coming down from the platform and shaking hands so vigorously that
+the gardenia in his lapel presently fell out.
+
+Cyrille Caldera rose, fresh and dainty and smiling, and discoursed
+single-tax and duplex tenements, getting the two subjects mixed but not
+minding that. Also she pointed at the Calla lily and explained that the
+lily was the emblem of purity. Which may have had something to do with
+something or other.
+
+Then Westguard arose once more and told them all about the higher type
+of novel he was writing for humanity's sake, and became so interested
+and absorbed in his own business that the impatient shuffling of shabby
+feet on the floor alone interrupted him.
+
+"Has anybody," inquired De Groot, sweetly, "any vital question to
+ask--any burning inquiry of deeper, loftier import, which has perhaps
+long remained unanswered in his heart?"
+
+A gentleman known usually as "Mike the Mink" arose and indicated with
+derisive thumb a picture among the Dankmere collection, optimistically
+attributed to Correggio:
+
+"Is that Salome, mister?" he inquired with a leer.
+
+De Groot looked at the canvas, slightly startled.
+
+"No, my dear friend; that is a picture painted hundreds of years ago by
+a great Italian master. It is called 'Danaë.' Jupiter, you know, came to
+her in a shower of gold----"
+
+"They all have to come across with it," remarked the Mink.
+
+Somebody observed that if the police caught the dago who painted it
+they'd pinch him.
+
+To make a diversion, and with her own fair hands, Cyrille Caldera
+summoned the derelicts to sandwiches and ginger-ale; and De Groot,
+dashing more unmanly moisture from his monocle, went about resolutely
+shaking hands, while Westguard and the hirsute young man sang "Comrades"
+with much feeling.
+
+Quarren, still unrecognised, edged his way out and rejoined Dankmere on
+the front stoop. Neither made any comment on the proceedings.
+
+Later the derelicts, moodily replete, shuffled forth into the night,
+herded lovingly by De Groot, still shaking hands.
+
+From the corner of the street opposite, Quarren and Dankmere observed
+their departure, and, later, they beheld De Groot and Mrs. Caldera slip
+around the block and discreetly disappear into a 1912 touring-car with
+silver mountings and two men in livery on the box.
+
+Westguard, truer to his principles, took a tram and Quarren and the Earl
+returned to their gallery with mixed emotions, and opened every window
+top and bottom.
+
+"It's all right in its way, I suppose," said Quarren. "Probably De Groot
+means well, but there's no conversation possible between a man who has
+just dined rather heavily, and a man who has no chance of dining at
+all."
+
+"Like preaching Christ to the poor from a Fifth Avenue pulpit," said
+Dankmere, vaguely.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"A church on a side street would seem to serve the purpose. And the poor
+need the difference."
+
+"I don't know about those matters."
+
+"No; I don't either. It's easy, cheap, and popular to knock the
+clergy.... Still, somehow or other, I can't seem to forget that the
+disciples were poor--and it bothers me a lot, Quarren."
+
+Quarren said: "Haven't you and I enough to worry us concerning our own
+morals?"
+
+Dankmere, who had been closing up and piling together the Undertaker's
+camp-chairs, looked around at the younger man.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked.
+
+"I said that probably you and I would find no time left to criticise
+either De Groot or the clergy, if we used our leisure in
+self-examination."
+
+His lordship went on piling up chairs. When he finished he started
+wandering around, hands in his pockets. Then he turned out all the
+electric lamps, drew the bay-window curtains wide so that the silvery
+radiance from the arc-light opposite made the darkness dimly lustrous.
+
+A little breeze stirred the hair on Quarren's forehead; Dankmere dropped
+into the depths of an armchair near him. For a while they sat together
+in darkness and silence, then the Englishman said abruptly:
+
+"You've been very kind to me."
+
+Quarren glanced up surprised.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because nobody else has any decent words to say to me or of me."
+
+Quarren, amused, said: "How do you know that I have, Dankmere?"
+
+"A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an
+ass--they don't tell me so but I know it. And if they don't take me for
+an ass they assume that I'm something worse--because I have a title of
+sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a
+living out of it."
+
+"Also," Quarren reminded him, "you are looking for a wealthy wife."
+
+"God bless my soul! Am I the only chap in America who happens to be
+doing that?"
+
+"No; but you're doing it conspicuously."
+
+"You mean I'm honest about it?"
+
+Quarren laughed: "Anyway perhaps that's one reason why I like you. At
+first I also thought it was merely stupidity."
+
+Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe:
+
+"The majority of your better people have managed not to know me. I've
+met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home
+thresholds--most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives
+sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?"
+
+"Both, Dankmere--and then some."
+
+"Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was
+my first wife they shy at."
+
+Quarren remained silent.
+
+"She was a bar-maid," remarked the Earl. "We were quite happy--until she
+died."
+
+Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension.
+
+"Of course my marrying her damned us both," observed the Earl.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Quite so. People would have stood for anything else.... But she
+wouldn't--you may think it odd.... And I was in love--so there you are."
+
+For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further
+speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put
+on his hat.
+
+"You know," he said, "I'm not really an ass. My tastes and my caste
+don't happen to coincide--that's all, Quarren."
+
+They walked together to the front stoop.
+
+"When do we open shop?" asked the Earl, briskly.
+
+"As soon as I get the reports from our experts."
+
+"Won't business be dead all summer?"
+
+"We may do some business with agents and dealers."
+
+"I see. You and I are to alternate as salesmen?"
+
+"For a while. When things start I want to rent the basement and open a
+department for repairing, relining and cleaning; and I'd like to be
+able to do some of the work myself."
+
+"_You?_"
+
+"Surely. It interests me immensely."
+
+"You're welcome I'm sure," said Dankmere drily. "But who's to keep the
+books and attend to correspondence?"
+
+"We'll get somebody. A young woman, who says she is well recommended,
+advertised in Thursday's papers, and I wrote her from Witch-Hollow to
+come around Sunday morning."
+
+"That's to-morrow."
+
+Quarren nodded.
+
+So Dankmere trotted jauntily away into the night, and Quarren locked the
+gallery and went to bed, certain that he was destined to dream of
+Strelsa. But the sleek, narrow head and slightly protruding eyes of
+Langly Sprowl was the only vision that peered cautiously at him through
+his sleep.
+
+The heated silence of a Sunday morning in June awoke him from a somewhat
+restless night. Bathed and shaved, he crept forth limply to breakfast at
+the Founders' Club where he still retained a membership. There was not a
+soul there excepting himself and the servants--scarcely a person on the
+avenues and cross-streets which he traversed going and coming, only one
+or two old men selling Sunday papers at street-stands, an old hag
+gleaning in the gutters, and the sparrows.
+
+Clothing was a burden. He had some pongee garments which he put on,
+installed himself in the gallery with a Sunday paper, an iced lime
+julep, and a cigarette, and awaited the event of the young lady who
+had advertised that she knew all about book-keeping, stenography,
+and typewriting, and could prove it.
+
+[Illustration: "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her
+limp black gown."]
+
+She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black
+gown, and, at Quarren's invitation, seated herself at the newly
+purchased desk of the firm.
+
+Here, at his request she took a page or two of dictation from him and
+typed it rapidly and accurately.
+
+She had her own system of book-keeping which she explained to the young
+man who seemed to think it satisfactory. Then he asked her what salary
+she expected, and she told him, timidly.
+
+"All right," he said with a smile, "if it suits you it certainly suits
+me. Will you begin to-morrow?"
+
+"Whenever you wish, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Well, there won't be very much to do for a while," he said laughingly,
+"except to sit at that desk and look ornamental."
+
+She flushed, then smiled and thanked him for giving her the position,
+adding with another blush that she would do her best.
+
+"Your best," he said amiably, "will probably be exactly what we
+require.... Did you bring any letters?"
+
+She hesitated: "One," she said gravely. She searched in her reticule,
+found it, and handed it to Quarren who read it in silence, then returned
+it to her.
+
+"You were stenographer in Mr. Sprowl's private office?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This letter isn't signed by Mr. Sprowl."
+
+"No, by Mr. Kyte, his private secretary."
+
+"It seems you were there only six months."
+
+"Six months."
+
+"And before that where were you?"
+
+"At home."
+
+"Oh; Mr. Sprowl was your first employer!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you leave?"
+
+The girl hesitated so long that he thought she had not understood, and
+was about to repeat the question when something in her pallor and in her
+uplifted eyes checked him.
+
+"I don't know why I was sent away," she said in a colourless voice.
+
+He thought for a while, then, carelessly: "I take it that there was
+nothing irregular in _your_ conduct?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You'd tell me if there was, wouldn't you?"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes to his. "Yes," she said.
+
+How much of an expert he was at judging faces he did not know, but he
+was perfectly satisfied with himself when she took her leave.
+
+And when Dankmere came in after luncheon he said:
+
+"I've engaged a book-keeper. Her name is Jessie Vining. She's evidently
+unhappy, poor, underfed, and the prettiest thing you ever saw out of a
+business college. So, being unhappy, poor, underfed _and_ pretty, I take
+it that she's all to the good."
+
+"It's a generous world of men," said Dankmere--"so I guess she _is_
+good."
+
+"I'm sure of it. She was Sprowl's private stenographer--and he sent her
+away.... There are three reasons why he might have dismissed her. I've
+taken my choice of them."
+
+"Did he give her a letter?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh. Then I've taken my choice, too."
+
+"Kyte ventured to give her a letter," said Quarren. "I've heard that
+Kyte _could_ be decent sometimes."
+
+"I see."
+
+Nothing further was said about the new book-keeper. His lordship went
+into the back parlour and played the piano until satiated; then mixed
+himself a lime julep.
+
+That afternoon they went over the reports of the experts very carefully.
+From these reports and his own conclusions Quarren drafted a catalogue
+while Dankmere went about sticking adhesive labels on the frames, all
+numbered. And, as he trotted blithely about his work, he talked to
+himself and to the pictures:
+
+"Here's number nine for you, old lady! If I'd had a face like that I'd
+have killed the artist who transferred it to canvas!... Number sixteen
+for you there in your armour! Somebody in Springfield will buy you for
+an ancestor and that's what will happen to you.... And you, too, in a
+bag-wig!--_you'll_ be some rich Yankee's ancestor before you know it!
+That's the way you'll end, my smirking friend.... Hello! _Tiens!_ _In
+Gottes namen_--whom have we here? Why, it's Venus!... And hot weather is
+no excuse for going about _that_ way!... Listen to this, Quarren, for an
+impromptu patter-song--
+
+    "'Venus, dear, you ought to know
+      What the proper caper is--
+    Even Eve, who wasn't slow,
+      Robbed the neighbours' graperies!
+    Even Mænads on the go,
+    Fat Bacchantes in a row--
+    Even ladies in a show
+      Wear _some_ threads of naperies!
+    Through the heavens planet-strewn
+      Where a shred of vapour is
+    Quickly clothes herself the Moon!
+    Get you to a modiste soon
+      Where the tissue-paper is,
+    Cut in fashions fit for June--
+      Wear 'em, dear, for draperies----'"
+
+"_Good_ heavens!" protested Quarren--"how long can you run on like
+that?"
+
+"Years and years, my dear fellow. It's in me--born in me! Can you beat
+it? Though I appear to be a peer appearance is a liar; cast for a part
+apart from caste, departing I climb higher toward the boards to bore the
+hordes and lord it, sock and buskin dispensing sweetness, art, and light
+as per our old friend Ruskin----"
+
+"Dankmere!"
+
+"Heaven-born?"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+"I remain put.... What number do I stick on this gentleman with streaky
+features?"
+
+"Eighteen. That's a Franz Hals."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes; the records are all here, and the experts agree."
+
+His lordship got down nimbly from the step-ladder and came over to the
+desk:
+
+"Young sir," he said, "how much is that picture worth?"
+
+"All we can get for it. It's not a very good example."
+
+"Are you going to tell people that?"
+
+"If they ask me," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"What price are you going to put on it?"
+
+"Ten thousand."
+
+"And do you think any art-smitten ass will pay that sum for a thing like
+that?"
+
+"I think so. If it were only a decent example I'd ask ten times
+that--and probably get it in the end."
+
+Dankmere inspected the picture more respectfully for a few moments, then
+pasted a label on an exquisite head by Greuze.
+
+"She's a peach," he said. "What price is going to waft her from my
+roof-tree?"
+
+"The experts say it's not a Greuze but a contemporary copy. And there's
+no pedigree, either."
+
+"Oh," said the Earl blankly, "is that your opinion, too?"
+
+"I haven't any yet. But there's no such picture by Greuze extant."
+
+"You _don't_ think it a copy?"
+
+"I'm inclined not to. Under that thick blackish-yellow varnish I believe
+I'll find the pearl and rose texture of old Greuze himself. In the
+meantime it's not for sale."
+
+"I see. And this battle-scene?"
+
+"Wouverman's--ruined by restoring. It's not worth much."
+
+"And this Virgin?"
+
+"Pure as the Virgin Herself--not a mark--flawless. It's by 'The Master
+of the Death of Mary.' Isn't it a beauty? Do you notice St. John holding
+the three cherries and the Christ-child caressing the goldfinch? Did you
+ever see such colour?"
+
+"It's--er--pretty," said his lordship.
+
+And so during the entire afternoon they compiled the price-list and
+catalogue, marking copies for what they were, noting such pictures as
+had been ruined by restoring or repainted so completely as to almost
+obliterate the last original brush stroke. Also Quarren reserved for his
+own investigations such canvases as he doubted or of which he had
+hopes--a number that under their crocked, battered, darkened or
+discoloured surfaces hinted of by-gone glories that might still be
+living and only imprisoned beneath the thick opacity of dust, soot,
+varnish, and the repainting of many years ago.
+
+And that night he went to bed happier than he had ever been in all his
+life--unless his moments with Strelsa Leeds might be termed happy ones.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monday morning brought, among other things, a cloudless sun, and little
+Miss Vining quite as spotless and radiant; and within ten minutes the
+click of the typewriter made the silent picture-plastered rooms almost
+gay.
+
+In shirtwaist and cuffs she took her place behind the desk with a sort
+of silent decision which seemed at once to invest her with suzerainty
+over all that corner of the room; and Dankmere coming in a little later,
+whistling merrily and twirling his walking-stick, sheered off
+instinctively on his breezy progress through the rooms, skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain as though her private ensign flew above it and
+earthworks, cannon and trespass notices flanked her corner on every
+side.
+
+In the back parlour he said to Quarren: "So that is the girl?"
+
+"It sure is."
+
+"God bless my soul! she acts as though she had just bought in the whole
+place."
+
+"What's she doing?"
+
+"Just sitting there," admitted Dankmere.
+
+He seemed to have lost his spirits. Once, certain that he was unobserved
+except by Quarren, he ventured to balance his stick on his chin, but it
+was a half-hearted performance; and when he tossed up his straw hat and
+attempted to catch it on his head, he missed, and the corrugated brim
+sustained a dent.
+
+A number of people called that morning, quiet, well-dressed,
+cautious-eyed, soft-spoken gentlemen who moved about noiselessly over
+the carpets and, on encountering one another, nodded with silent
+familiarity and smiles scarcely perceptible.
+
+They seemed to require no information concerning the pictures which they
+swept with glances almost careless on their first rounds of the rooms.
+But the first leisurely tour always resulted in a second where one or
+two pictures seemed to claim their closer scrutiny.
+
+Now and then one of these gentlemen would screw a jeweller's glass into
+his eye and remain a few minutes nose almost touching a canvas. Several
+used the large reading-glass lying on a side table. Before they departed
+all glanced over the incomplete scale of prices which Jessie Vining had
+typed and bound in blue covers; but one and all took their leave in
+amiable silence, saying a non-committal word or two to Quarren in
+pleasantly modulated voices and passing Jessie's desk with a grave
+inclination of gravely preoccupied faces.
+
+When the last leisurely lingerer had taken his leave Quarren said to
+Jessie Vining:
+
+"Those are representatives of various first-class dealers--confidential
+buyers, sons--even dealers themselves--like that handsome gray-haired
+young-looking man who is Max Von Ebers, head of that great house."
+
+"But they didn't buy one single thing!" said Jessie.
+
+Quarren laughed: "People don't buy off-hand. Our triumph is to get them
+here at all. I wrote to each of them personally."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nobody else came for a long while; then one or two of the lesser dealers
+appeared, and now and then a man who might be an agent or a prowling and
+wealthy amateur or perhaps one of those curious haunters of all art
+marts who never buy but who never miss assisting at all inaugurations in
+person--like an ubiquitous and silent dog who turns up wherever more
+than two people assemble with any purpose in view--or without any.
+
+During the forenoon and early afternoon several women came into the
+galleries; and they seemed to be a little different from ordinary women,
+although it would be hard to say wherein they were different except in
+one instance--a tall, darkly handsome girl whose jewellery was as
+conspicuously oriental as her brilliant colour.
+
+Later Quarren told Jessie Vining that they were expert buyers on
+commission or brokers having clients among those very wealthy people who
+bought pictures now and then because it was fashionable to do so. Also,
+these same women-brokers represented a number of those unhappy old
+families who, incognito, were being forced by straitened circumstances
+to part secretly with heirlooms--family plate, portraits, miniatures,
+furniture--even with the antique mirrors on the walls and the very
+fire-dogs on the hearth amid the ashes of a burnt-out race almost
+extinct.
+
+A few Jews came--representing the extreme types of the most wonderful
+race of people in the world--one tall, handsome, immaculate young man
+whose cultivated accent, charming manners, and quiet bearing challenged
+exception--and one or two representing the other extreme, loud,
+restless, aggressive, and as impertinent as they dared be, discussing
+the canvases in noisy voices and with callous manners verging always on
+the offensive.
+
+These evinced a disposition for cash deals and bargain-wrangling,
+discouraged good-naturedly by Quarren who referred them to the
+catalogue; and presently they took themselves off.
+
+Dankmere sidled up to Quarren rather timidly toward the close of the
+afternoon.
+
+"I don't see what bally good _I_ am in this business," he said. "I don't
+mean to shirk, Quarren, but there doesn't seem to be anything for me to
+do. I think that all these beggars spot me for an ignoramus the moment
+they lay eyes on me, and the whole thing falls on you."
+
+Quarren said laughingly: "Well, didn't you furnish the stock?"
+
+"We ought to go halves," muttered Dankmere, shyly skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain where she was writing letters with the Social Register
+at her elbow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last days of June and the first of July were repetitions in a
+measure of the opening day at the Dankmere Galleries; people came and
+were received and entertained by Quarren; Dankmere sat about in various
+chairs or retired furtively to the backyard to smoke at intervals;
+Jessie Vining with more colour in her pale, oval face, ruled her corner
+of the room in a sort of sweet and silent dignity.
+
+Dankmere, who, innately, possessed the effrontery of a born comedian,
+for some reason utterly unknown to himself, was inclined to be afraid of
+her--afraid of the clear brown eyes indifferently lifted to his when he
+entered--afraid of the quiet "Good-morning, Lord Dankmere," with which
+she responded to his morning greeting--afraid of her cool skilful little
+hands busy with pencil, pen, or lettered key--afraid of everything about
+her from her rippling brown hair and snowy collar to the tips of her
+little tan shoes--even afraid of the back of her head when it presented
+only a slender neck and two little rosy, close-set ears. But he didn't
+mention his state of abasement to Quarren.
+
+A curious thing occurred, too: Jessie had evidently been gay on Sunday;
+and, Monday noon, while out for lunch, she had left on her desk two
+Coney Island postal cards decorated with her own photograph. When she
+returned, one card had vanished; and she searched quietly but thoroughly
+before she left for home that evening, but she did not find the card.
+But she said nothing about it.
+
+The dreadful part of the affair was that it was theft--the Earl of
+Dankmere's first crime.
+
+Why he had taken it he did not know. The awful impulse of kleptomania
+alone seemed to explain but scarcely palliate his first offence against
+society.
+
+It was only after he realised that the picture and Jessie Vining vaguely
+resembled his dead Countess that his lordship began to understand why he
+had committed a felony before he actually knew what he was doing.
+
+[Illustration: Jessie Vining.]
+
+And one day when Quarren was still out for lunch and Jessie had returned
+to her correspondence, the terrified Earl suddenly appeared before her
+holding out the photograph: and she took it, astonished, her lifted eyes
+mutely inquiring concerning the inwardness of this extraordinary
+episode.
+
+But Dankmere merely fled to the backyard and remained there all the
+afternoon smoking his head off; and it was several days before Jessie
+had an opportunity to find herself alone in his vicinity and to ask him
+with almost perfect self-possession where he had found the photograph.
+
+"I stole it," said Dankmere, turning bright red to his ear-tips.
+
+"All she could think of to say was: 'Why?'
+
+"It resembles my wife. So do you."
+
+"Really," she said coldly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Several days later she learned by the skilfully careless questioning of
+Quarren that the Countess of Dankmere had not existed on earth for the
+last ten years.
+
+This news extenuated the Earl's guilt in her eyes to a degree which
+permitted a slight emotion resembling pity to pervade her. And one day
+she said to him, casually pleasant--"Would you care for that post-card,
+Lord Dankmere? If it resembles your wife I would be very glad to return
+it to you."
+
+Dankmere, painfully red again, thanked her so nicely that the slight,
+instinctive distrust and aversion which, in the beginning, she had
+entertained for his lordship, suddenly disappeared so entirely that it
+surprised her when she had leisure to think it over afterward.
+
+So she gave him the post-card, and next day she found a rose in a glass
+of water on her desk; and that ended the incident for them both except
+that Dankmere was shyer of her than ever and she was beginning to
+realise that his aloof and expressionless deportment was due to
+shyness--which seemed to be inexplicable because otherwise timidity was
+scarcely the word to characterise his lively little lordship.
+
+Once, looking out of the rear windows, through the lace curtains she saw
+the Earl of Dankmere in the backyard, gravely turning handsprings on the
+grass while still smoking his pipe. Once, entering the gallery
+unexpectedly, she discovered the Earl standing at the piano, playing a
+rattling breakdown while his nimble little feet performed the same with
+miraculous agility and professional precision. She withdrew to the front
+door, hastily, and waited until the piano ceased from rumbling and the
+Oxfords were at rest, then returned with heightened colour and a stifled
+desire to laugh which she disguised under an absent-minded nod of
+greeting.
+
+Meanwhile one or two pictures had been sold to dealers--not important
+ones--but the sales were significant enough to justify the leasing of
+the basement. And here Quarren installed himself from morning to noon as
+apprentice to an old Englishman who, before the failure of his eyesight,
+had amassed a little fortune as surgeon, physician, and trained nurse to
+old and decrepit pictures.
+
+Not entirely unequipped in the beginning, Quarren now learned more about
+his trade--the guarded secrets of mediums and solvents, the composition
+of ancient and modern canvases, how old and modern colours were ground
+and prepared, how mixed, how applied.
+
+He learned how the old masters of the various schools of painting
+prepared a canvas or panel--how the snowy "veil" was spread and dried,
+how the under painting was executed in earth-red and bone-black, how the
+glaze was used and why, what was the medium, what the varnish.
+
+He learned about the "baths of sunlight," too--those clarifying
+immersions practised so openly yet until recently not understood. He
+comprehended the mechanics, physics, and simple chemistry of that
+splendid, mysterious "inward glow" which seemed to slumber under the
+colours of the old masters like the exquisite warmth in the heart of a
+gem.
+
+To him, little by little, was revealed the only real wonder of the old
+masters--their astonishing honesty. He began to understand that, first
+of all, they were self-respecting artisans, practising their trade of
+making pictures and painting each picture as well as they knew how;
+that, like other artisans, their pride was in knowing their trade, in a
+mastery of their tools, and in executing commissions as honestly as they
+knew how and leaving the "art" to take care of itself.
+
+Also he learned--for he was obliged to learn in self-protection--the
+tricks and deceptions and forgeries of the trade--all that was unworthy
+about it, all its shabby disguises and imitations and crude artifices
+and cunning falsehoods.
+
+He examined old canvases painted over with old-new pictures and then
+relined; canvases showing portions of original colour; old canvases and
+panels repainted and artificially darkened and cleverly covered with
+both paint and varnish cracks; canvases that almost defied detection by
+needle-point or glass or thumb friction or solvent, so ingenious was
+the forgery simulating age.
+
+Every known adjunct was provided to carry out deception--genuinely old
+canvases or panels, old stretchers really worm-eaten, aged frames of the
+period, half-obliterated seals bearing sometimes even the cross-keys of
+the Vatican. Even, in some cases, pretence that the pictures had been
+cut from the frame and presumably stolen was carried out by a
+knife-slashed and irregular ridge where the canvas had actually been so
+cut and then sewed to a modern _toile_.
+
+For forgery of art is as old as the Greeks and as new as to-day--the one
+sinister art that perhaps will never become a lost art; and Quarren and
+his aged mentor in the basement of the Dankmere Galleries discovered
+more than enough frauds among the Dankmere family pictures showing how
+the little Earl's forebears had once been gulled before his present
+lordship lay in his cradle.
+
+To Quarren the work was fascinating and, except for his increasing worry
+over Strelsa Leeds, would have been all-absorbing to the degree of
+happiness--or that interested contentment which passes for it on earth.
+
+To see the dull encasing armour of varnish disappear from some ancient
+masterpiece under the thumb, as the delicate thumb of the Orient
+polishes lacquer; to dare a solvent when needed, timing its strength to
+the second lest disaster tarnish forever the exquisite bloom of the
+shrouded glazing; to cautiously explore for suspected signatures, to
+brood and ponder over ancient records and alleged pedigrees; to compare
+prints and mezzotints, photographs and engravings in search for
+identities; to study threads of canvas, flakes of varnish, flinty
+globules of paint under the microscope; to learn, little by little, the
+technical manners and capricious mannerisms significant of the progress
+periods of each dead master; to pore over endless volumes, monographs,
+illustrated foreign catalogues of public and private collections--in
+these things and through them happiness came to Quarren.
+
+Never a summer sun rose over the streets of Ascalon arousing the
+Philistine to another day of toil but it awoke Quarren to the subdued
+excitement of another day. Eager, interested, content in his
+self-respect, he went forth to a daily business which he cared about for
+its own sake, and was fast learning to care about to the point of
+infatuation.
+
+He was never tired these days; but the summer heat and lack of air and
+exercise made him rather thin and pale. Close work with the magnifying
+glass had left his features slightly careworn, and had begun little
+converging lines at the outer corners of his eyes. Only one line in his
+face expressed anything less happy--the commencement of a short
+perpendicular crease between his eyebrows. Anxious pondering over old
+canvases was not deepening that faint signature of perplexity--or the
+forerunner of Care's signs manual nervously etched from the wing of
+either nostril.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Since Quarren had left Witch-Hollow, he and Strelsa had exchanged
+half-a-dozen letters of all sorts--gay, impersonal notes, sober epistles
+reflecting more subdued moods, then letters fairly sparkling with high
+spirits and the happy optimism of young people discovering that there is
+more of good than evil in a world still really almost new to them. Then
+there was a long letter of description and amusing narrative from her,
+in which, here and there, she became almost sentimental over phases of
+rural beauty; and he replied at equal length telling her about his new
+shop-work in detail.
+
+Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there came from her a short, dry, and
+deliberate letter mentioning once more her critical worldly
+circumstances and the necessity of confronting them promptly and with
+intelligence and decision.
+
+To which he answered vigorously, begging her to hold out--either fit
+herself for employment--or throw her fortunes in with his and take the
+chances.
+
+"Rix dear," she answered, "don't you suppose I have thought of that? But
+I can't do it. There is nothing left in me to go on with. I'm burnt
+out--deadly tired, wanting nothing more than I shall have by marrying as
+I must marry. For I shall have you, too, as I have always had you. You
+said so, didn't you?
+
+"What difference, then, does it make to you or me whether or not I am
+married?
+
+"If you were sufficiently equipped to take care of me, and if I married
+you, I could not give you anything more than I have given already--I
+would not wish to if I could. All that many other women consider part of
+love--all that lesser side of it and of marriage I could not give to you
+or to any man--could not endure; because it is not in me and never has
+been. It is foreign to me, unpleasant, distasteful--even hateful.
+
+"So as I can give you nothing more than I have given or ever shall give,
+and as you have given me all you can--anyway all I care for in you--let
+me feel free to seek my worldly salvation and find the quiet and rest
+and surcease from anxiety which comes only under such circumstances.
+
+"You won't think unkindly of me, will you, Rix? I don't know very much;
+I amount to very little. What ideals I had are dead. Why should anybody
+bother to agree or disagree with my very unaggressive opinions or
+criticise harshly a life which has been spent mainly in troubling the
+world as little as possible?
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There are a number of people here--among them several friends of Jim
+Wycherly, all of them aviation-mad. Jim took out the Stinger, smashed
+the planes and got a fall which was not very serious. Lester Caldera did
+the same thing to the Kent biplane except that he fell into the river
+and Sir Charles and Chrysos, in the launch, fished him out--swearing,
+they say.
+
+"Vincent Wier made a fine flight in his Delatour Dragon, sailing 'round
+and 'round like a big hawk for a quarter of an hour, but the wind came
+up and he couldn't land, and he finally came down thirty miles north of
+us in a swamp.
+
+"Langly took me for a short flight in his Owlet No. 3--only two miles
+and not very high, but the sensation was simply horrid. I never even
+cared for motoring, you see, so the experience left me most
+unenthusiastic, greatly to Langly's disgust. Really, all I care for is a
+decently gaited horse--and I prefer to walk him half the time. There is
+nothing speedy about me, Rix. If I ever had the inclination it's gone
+now.
+
+"To the evident displeasure of Sir Charles, Langly took up Chrysos Lacy;
+and the child adored it. I believe Sir Charles said something cutting to
+Langly in his quiet and dry way which has, apparently, infuriated my
+to-be-affianced, for he never goes near Sir Charles, now, and that
+cold-eyed gentleman completely ignores him. Which is _not_ very
+agreeable for me.
+
+"Oh, Rix, there seems to be so many misunderstandings in this
+exceedingly small world of ours--rows innumerable, heartburns,
+recriminations, quarrels secret and open, and endless misunderstandings.
+
+"Please don't let any come between us, will you? Somehow, lately, I find
+myself looking on you as a distant but solid and almost peaceful refuge
+for my harried thoughts. And I'm so very, very tired of being hunted.
+
+                                 "STRELSA."
+
+"If they hunt you too hard," he wrote to Strelsa, "the gateway of my
+friendship is open to you always: remember that, now and in the days to
+come.
+
+"What you have written leaves me with nothing to answer except this. To
+all it is given to endure according to their strength; beyond it no one
+can strive; but short of its limits it's a shame to show
+faint-heartedness.
+
+"About the man you are determined to marry I have no further word to
+say. You know in what repute he is held in your world, and you believe
+that its censure is unjust. There is good in every man, perhaps, and
+perhaps the good in this man may show itself only in response to the
+better qualities in you.
+
+"Somehow, without trying, you almost instantly evoke the better
+qualities in me. You changed my entire life; do you know it? I myself
+scarcely comprehended why. Perhaps the negative sweetness in you
+concentrated and brought out the positive strength so long dormant in
+me. All I know clearly is that you came into my life and found a fool
+wasting it, capering about in a costume half livery, half motley. My
+ambition was limited to my cap and bells; my aspirations never reached
+beyond the tip of my bauble. Then I saw you--and, all by themselves, my
+rags of motley fell from me, and something resembling a man stepped
+clear of them.
+
+"I am trying to make out of myself all that there is in me to develop.
+It is not much--scarcely more than the ability to earn a living.
+
+"I have come to care for nothing more than the right to look this sunny
+world straight in the face. Until I knew you I had scarcely seen it
+except through artificial light--scarce heard its voice; for the
+laughter of your world and the jingle of my cap and bells drowned it in
+my ass's ears.
+
+"I could tell you--for in dark moments I often believe it--that there is
+only one thing that counts in the world--one thing worth having, worth
+giving--love!
+
+"But in my heart I know it is not so; and the romancers are mistaken;
+and so is the heart denied.
+
+"Better and worth more than love of man or woman is the mind's silent
+approval--whether given in tranquillity or accorded in dumb anguish.
+
+"Strelsa dear, I shall always care for you; but I have discovered that
+love is another matter--higher or lower as you will--but different. And
+I do not think I shall be able to love the girl who does what you are
+decided to do. And that does not mean that I criticise you or blame you,
+or that my sympathy, affection, interest, in you will be less. On the
+contrary all these emotions may become keener; only one little part will
+die out, and that without changing the rest--merely that mysterious,
+curious, elusive and illogical atom in the unstable molecule, which we
+call love--and which, when separated, leaves the molecule changed only
+in name. We call it friendship, then.
+
+"And this is, I think, what you would most desire. So when you do what
+you have determined to do, I will really become toward you what you
+are--and have always been--toward me. And could either of us ask for
+more?
+
+"Only--forgive me--I wish it had been Sir Charles--or almost any other
+man. But that is for your decision. Strelsa governs and alone is
+responsible to Strelsa.
+
+"Meanwhile do not doubt my affection--do not fear unkindness, judgment,
+or criticism. I wish I were what you cared for most in the world--after
+the approval of your own mind. I wish you cared for me not only as you
+do but with all that has never been aroused in you. For without that I
+am helpless to fight for you.
+
+"So, in your own way, you will live life through, knowing that in me you
+will always have an unchanged friend--even though the lover died when
+you became a wife. Is all clear between us now?
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If you are ever in town, or passing through to Newport or Bar Harbour,
+stop and inspect our gallery.
+
+"It is really quite pretty and some of the pictures are excellent. You
+should see it now--sunlight slanting in through the dusty bay-window,
+Dankmere at a long polished table doing his level best to assemble
+certain old prints out of a portfolio containing nearly a thousand;
+pretty little Miss Vining, pencil in hand, checking off at her desk the
+reference books we require in our eternal hunt for information; I below
+stairs in overalls if you please, paint and varnish stained, a
+jeweller's glass screwed into my left eye, examining an ancient panel
+which I strongly hope may have been the work of a gentleman named
+Bronzino--for its mate is almost certainly the man in armour in the
+Metropolitan Museum.
+
+"Strelsa, it is the most exciting business I ever dreamed of. And the
+beauty of it is that it leads out into everything--stretches a
+thousand sensitive tentacles which grasp at knowledge of beauty
+everywhere--whether it lie in the sombre splendour of the tapestries of
+Bayeux, of Italy, of Flanders; or deep in the woven magnificence of some
+dead Sultan's palace rug; or in the beauty of the work of silversmiths,
+goldsmiths, of sculptors in ivory or in wood long dead; or in the
+untinted marbles of the immortal masters.
+
+"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are linked, how
+closely and eternally knit together in the vast fabric fashioned by man
+from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms of which lie buried
+all that man has ever thought and hoped.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five
+squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now
+open.
+
+"Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my knee,
+she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman cat begin
+an intermezzo on the back fence.
+
+"Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose,
+astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under the
+piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I supposed
+that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes and--Daisy's
+kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one in each pocket,
+Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional little exclamation of
+solicitude and pride.
+
+"Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries--not
+superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have tea
+in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her young
+ones--Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together in a basket
+which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk.
+
+"In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere
+and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl Westguard
+comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his novel--or perhaps
+Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for us--or, if the heat makes us
+feel particularly futile, I perform some of those highly intellectual
+tricks which once made me acceptable among people I now seldom or
+never see.
+
+[Illustration: "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines
+with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"]
+
+"Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a sweet,
+sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the ordinary yet
+blessed with a delicate sense of honour and incidentally of humour.
+
+"She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her mind
+about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our including her
+in our harmless informalities.
+
+"Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he informs me
+that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh; but Karl loves to
+take himself seriously.
+
+"Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world is out
+of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere Galleries need
+expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship usually fights shy
+of the frontiers of business. Old acquaintanceship is forgot very
+quickly when one side or the other has anything to sell. Only those
+thrifty imitations of friends venture near in quest of special
+privilege; and not getting it, go, never to return. _Ubi amici, ibi
+opes!_
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"When you pass through this furnace of Ascalon called New York will you
+stop among the Philistines long enough to take a cup of tea with
+us?--I'll show you the pictures; Dankmere will play 'Shannon Water' for
+you; Miss Vining will talk pretty platitudes to you, Daisy will purr for
+you, and the painted eyes of Dankmere's ancestors will look down
+approvingly at you from the wall; and all our little world will know
+that the loveliest and best of all the greater world is breaking bread
+with us under our roof, and that one for once, unlike man's dealings
+with your celestial sisters, our entertainment of you will not be wholly
+unawares.
+
+                                 "R. S. QUARREN."
+
+The basement workshop was aromatic with the odours of solvents, mediums,
+and varnishes when he returned from posting his letter to Strelsa. His
+old English mentor had departed for good, leaving him to go forward
+alone in his profession.
+
+And now, as he stood there, looking out into the sunny backyard, for the
+first time he felt the silence and isolation of the place, and his own
+loneliness. Doubt crept in whispering the uselessness of working, of
+saving, of self-denial, of laying by anything for a future that already
+meant nothing of happiness to him.
+
+For whom, after all, should he save, hoard, gather together, economise?
+Who was there to labour for? For whom should he endure?
+
+He cared nothing for women; he had really never cared for any woman
+excepting only this one. He would never marry and have a son. He had no
+near or distant relatives. For whose sake, then, was he standing here in
+workman's overalls? What business had he here in the basement of a
+shabby house in midsummer? Did there remain any vague hope of Strelsa?
+Perhaps. Hope is the last of one's friends to die. Or was it for himself
+that he was working now to provide against those evil days "when the
+keepers of the house shall tremble"? Perhaps he was unconsciously
+obeying nature's first law.
+
+And yet, slowly within him grew a certainty that these reasons were not
+the real ones--not the vital impulse that moved his hand steadily
+through critical and delicate moments as he bent, breathless, over the
+faded splendours of ancient canvases. No; somehow or other he had
+already begun to work for the sake of the work itself--whatever that
+really meant. That was the basic impulse--the occult motive; and,
+somehow he knew that, once aroused, the desire to strive could never
+again in him remain wholly quiescent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Both Dankmere and Miss Vining had gone to lunch, presumably in different
+directions; Daisy and her youngsters, having been nourished, were
+asleep; there was not a sound in the house except the soft rubbing of
+tissue-paper where Quarren was lightly removing the retouching varnish
+from a relined canvas. Presently the front door-bell rang.
+
+Quarren rinsed his hands and, still wearing overalls and painter's
+blouse, mounted the basement stairs and opened the front door. And Mrs.
+Sprowl supported by a footman waddled in, panting.
+
+"Tell your master I want to see him," she said--"I don't mean that fool
+of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar--Good Lord! Ricky, is that _you_?
+Here, get me a chair--those front steps nearly killed me. Long ago I
+swore I'd never enter a house which was not basement-built and had an
+elevator!... Hand me one of those fans. And if there's any water in the
+house not swarming with typhoid germs, get me a glass of it."
+
+He brought her a tumbler of spring water; she panted and gulped and
+fanned and panted, her little green eyes roaming around her.
+
+Presently she dismissed the footman, and turned her heavily flushed face
+on Quarren. The rolls of fat crowded the lace on her neck, perspiration
+glistened under her sparklike eyes.
+
+"How are you?" she inquired.
+
+He said, smilingly, that he was well.
+
+"You don't look it. You look gaunt.... Well, I never thought you'd come
+to this--that you had it in you to do anything useful."
+
+"I believe I've heard you say so now and then," he said with perfect
+good-humour.
+
+"Why not? Why should I have thought that your talents amounted to more
+than ornaments?"
+
+"No reason to suppose so," he admitted, amused.
+
+"Not the slightest. Talent usually damns people to an effortless
+existence. And yours was a pleasant one, too. You had a good time,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Oh, very."
+
+"There was nothing to do except to come in, kiss the girls all around,
+and make faces to amuse them, was there?"
+
+"Not much more," he admitted, laughing.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's little green eyes travelled all over the walls.
+
+"Umph," she snorted, "I suppose these are some of Dankmere's heirlooms.
+I never fancied that little bounder----"
+
+"Wait!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder----"
+
+"He _is_ one!"
+
+"Keep that opinion to yourself," he said bluntly.
+
+The old lady's eyes blazed. "I'm damned if I do!" she retorted--"I'll
+say what----"
+
+"Not here! You mustn't be uncivil here. You know well enough how to
+behave when necessary; and if you don't do it I'll call your carriage."
+
+For fully five minutes Mrs. Sprowl sat there attempting to digest what
+he had said. The process was awful to behold, but she accomplished it at
+last with a violent effort.
+
+"Ricky," she said, "I didn't come here to quarrel with you over an
+Englishman who--of whom I--have my personal opinion."
+
+He laughed, leaned over and deliberately patted her fat wrist; and she
+glared at him somewhat as a tigress inspects a favourite but overgrown
+and presuming cub.
+
+"I don't know why you came," he said, "but it was nice of you anyway and
+I am glad to see you."
+
+"If that's true," she said, "you're one of mighty few. The joy which
+people feel in my presence is usually exhibited when I'm safely out of
+their houses, or they are out of mine."
+
+She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water
+empty and refused more.
+
+"Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place
+of Molly's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what the devil is going on there?"
+
+"Aviation," he said blandly.
+
+"What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that
+little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't
+learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even
+answer my letters.
+
+"Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with
+Strelsa as I dare be--she's got to be led with sugar. I've almost
+ordered her to come to me at Newport--but she doesn't come."
+
+"She's resting," said Quarren coolly.
+
+"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And
+what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few
+brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting
+for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it
+something else that glues him there--with the _Yulan_ in the North
+River?"
+
+Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject.
+
+"If I thought," muttered the old lady--"if I imagined for one moment
+that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on
+Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself--I'd take the next train and tell
+that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!"
+
+Quarren was silent.
+
+"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know
+whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed--have you
+ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa
+Leeds?--any tacit understanding--any interest on her part in him?... Why
+don't you answer me?"
+
+"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."
+
+"Am I to take that impudence literally?"
+
+"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to
+remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."
+
+"Why can't you speak of Langly?"
+
+"Because what concerns him does not concern me."
+
+"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly.
+
+"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?"
+
+"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a
+damn sight worse! I'd--I'd rather see her your wife than his!--and God
+knows _what_ he wants of her at that--as Mary Ledwith has first call or
+the world will turn Langly out of doors!"
+
+Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence.
+
+"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her
+teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done
+to her and her husband."
+
+"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance
+against it."
+
+"You watch and see! Some things are _too_ rotten to be endured----"
+
+"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't
+concern me."
+
+"Don't you care for that girl?"
+
+"We are friends."
+
+"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a
+madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look
+ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"--she added with an
+abrupt change of feeling--"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you
+are impertinent to me--and you know I do! But I--my heart is set on her
+marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more
+suitable?--happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where
+Langly is a--a toad, a cold-blooded worm!--a--a thing!
+
+"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I
+think of nothing else, care for nothing else----"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard.
+
+"Why do you care for it so much?"
+
+"Why? That is an absurd question."
+
+"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the
+real one."
+
+"Ricky, you insolent----"
+
+"Never mind. Answer me; _why_ are you so absorbed in this marriage?"
+
+She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is
+deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both."
+
+"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on
+your part?"
+
+"That--and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly.
+
+"Just those three reasons?"
+
+"Certainly. Just those three."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded.
+
+"I am compelled to--knowing that never in all your life have you made
+the slightest effort in behalf of friendship--never inconvenienced
+yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth."
+
+She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh;
+but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though
+pain had cut mirth short.
+
+"What is the matter?" he said.
+
+"Nothing.... _You_ are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to
+take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to
+read us and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we
+look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't
+care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my
+features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it _is_ a friendly
+pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind
+thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were
+the receptacle for many--Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty,
+miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret
+kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you
+something."
+
+She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he
+placed his chair beside hers.
+
+"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at
+the time."
+
+"I know."
+
+"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never
+forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch
+he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what
+was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the
+girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to
+America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know
+these things, Rix?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Then you know them now."
+
+"Yes, I--" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a
+while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her
+features.
+
+"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated--a voice
+so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was
+she who had spoken.
+
+"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life
+friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix.
+In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship--the
+friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son."
+
+Quarren looked at her in silence.
+
+"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life
+and youth began early for me--and lasted a little more than a year--and
+then they both burnt out in my heart--leaving the rest of me alive--this
+dross!--" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and
+sat thinking for a while.
+
+Daisy walked into the room and seated herself in a bar of sunlight,
+pleasantly blinking her yellow eyes. Mrs. Sprowl glanced at her
+absently, and they eyed each other in silence.
+
+Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at
+Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features.
+
+"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have
+pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad
+when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up.
+I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that, in it, his
+father spoke--amiably--of me and said that in me his son would always
+find a friend.... That is all, Rix. Do you believe me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--should I go to Witch-Hollow?"
+
+"I can't answer you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--because I care for her too much. And I can do absolutely
+nothing for her. I could not swerve her or direct her. She alone knows
+what is in her heart and mind to do. I cannot alter it. She will act
+according to her strength; none can do otherwise.... And she is tired to
+the very soul.... You tell me that life and youth in you died within a
+year's space. I believe it.... But with her it took two years to die.
+And then it died.... Let her alone, in God's name! The child is weary of
+pursuit, deathly weary of importunity--tired, sad, frightened at the
+disaster to her fortune. Let her alone. If she marries it will be
+because of physical strength lacking--strength of character, of
+mind--perhaps moral, perhaps spiritual strength--I don't know. All I
+know is that no man or woman can help her, because the world has bruised
+her too long and she's afraid of it."
+
+For a long while Mrs. Sprowl sat there in silence; then:
+
+"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir
+Charles."
+
+"I don't think she is."
+
+"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!"
+
+Quarren looked at her oddly:
+
+"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so am I.... Friends do not
+make a convenience of one another."
+
+"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow."
+
+"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that
+there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make
+the convenience of a husband out of either of us."
+
+"What a twisted, ridiculous, morbid----"
+
+"Let her alone," he said gently.
+
+"Very well.... But I'll be hanged if I let Langly alone! He's still got
+me to deal with, thank God!--whatever he dares do to Mary
+Ledwith--whatever he has done to that wretched creature Chester
+Ledwith--he's still got a perfectly vigorous aunt to reckon with. And
+we'll see," she added--"we'll see what can be done----"
+
+The front door opened noisily.
+
+"That's Dankmere," he said. "If you are not going to be civil to him
+hadn't you better go?"
+
+"I'll be civil to him," she snorted, "but I'm going anyway. Good-bye,
+Ricky. I'll buy a picture of you when the weather's cooler....
+How-de-do!"--as his lordship entered looking rather hot and mussy--"Hope
+your venture into the realms of art will prove successful, Lord
+Dankmere. Really, Rix, I must be going--if you'll call my man----"
+
+"I'll take you down," he said, smilingly offering his support.
+
+So Mrs. Sprowl rolled away in her motor, and Quarren came back, wearied
+with the perplexities and strain of life, to face once more the lesser
+problems of the immediate present: one of them was an ancient panel in
+the basement, and he went downstairs to solve it, leaving Dankmere
+sorting out old prints and Jessie Vining, who had just returned, writing
+business letters on her machine.
+
+There were not many business letters to write--one to the Metropolitan
+Museum people declining to present them with a charming little picture
+by Netscher which they wanted but did not wish to pay for; one to the
+Worcester Museum advising that progressive institution that, at the
+request of their director, four canvases had been shipped to them for
+inspection; several letters enclosing photographs of pictures desired by
+foreign experts; and a notification to one or two local millionaires
+that the Dankmere Galleries never shaded prices or exchanged canvases.
+
+Having accomplished the last of the day's work remaining up to that
+particular minute, Jessie Vining leaned back in her chair, rubbed her
+pretty eyes, glanced partly around toward Lord Dankmere but checked
+herself, and, with her lips the slightest shade pursed up into a hint of
+primness, picked up the library novel which she had been reading during
+intervals of leisure.
+
+It was mainly about a British Peer. The Peer did not resemble Dankmere
+in any particular; she had already noticed that. And now, as she read
+on, and, naturally enough, compared the ideal peer with the real one,
+the difference became painfully plain to her.
+
+Could that short young man in rather mussy summer clothes, sorting
+prints over there, be a peer of the British realm? Was this young man,
+whom she had seen turning handsprings on the grass in the backyard, a
+belted Earl?
+
+In spite of herself her short upper lip curled slightly as she turned
+from her book to glance at him. He looked up at the same moment, and
+smiled on meeting her eye--such a kindly yet diffident smile that she
+blushed a trifle.
+
+"I say, Miss Vining, I've gone over all these prints and I can't find
+one that resembles the Hogarth portrait--if it is a Hogarth."
+
+"Mr. Quarren thinks it is."
+
+"I daresay he's quite right, but there's nothing here to prove it"; and
+he slapped the huge portfolio shut, laid his hands on the table, vaulted
+to the top of it, and sat down. Miss Vining resumed her reading.
+
+"Miss Vining?"
+
+"Yes?" very leisurely.
+
+"How _old_ do you think I am?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"How old do you think I am?"
+
+"Really I hadn't thought about it, Lord Dankmere."
+
+"Oh."
+
+Miss Vining resumed her reading.
+
+When the Earl had sat on top of the table long enough he got down and
+dropped into the depths of an armchair.
+
+"Miss Vining," he said.
+
+"Yes?" incuriously.
+
+"Have you thought it out yet?"
+
+"Thought out what, Lord Dankmere?"
+
+"How old I am."
+
+"Really," she retorted, half laughing, half vexed, "do you suppose that
+my mind is occupied in wondering what your age might be?"
+
+"Isn't it?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Don't you want to know?"
+
+She began to laugh again:
+
+"Why, if you wish to tell me of course it will interest me _most_
+profoundly." And she made him a graceful little bow.
+
+"I'm thirty-three," he said.
+
+"Thank you so much for telling me."
+
+"You are welcome," he returned gravely. "Do you think I'm too old?"
+
+"Too old for what?"
+
+"Oh, for anything interesting."
+
+"What do you mean by 'interesting'?"
+
+But Lord Dankmere apparently did not know what he did mean for he made
+no answer.
+
+After a little while he said: "Wouldn't it be odd if I ever have income
+enough to pay off my debts?"
+
+"What?"
+
+He repeated the observation.
+
+"I don't know what you mean. You naturally expect to pay them, don't
+you?"
+
+"I saw no chance of doing so before Mr. Quarren took hold of these
+pictures."
+
+She was sorry for him:
+
+"Are you very deeply in debt?"
+
+He named the total of his liabilities and she straightened her young
+shoulders, horrified.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "I know plenty of chaps in England who
+are far worse off."
+
+"But--that is terrible!" she faltered.
+
+Dankmere waved his hand:
+
+"It's not so bad. That show business let me in for a lot."
+
+"Why did you ever do it?"
+
+"I like it," he explained simply.
+
+She flushed: "It seems strange for a--a man of your kind to sing comic
+songs and dance before an audience."
+
+"Not at all. I've a friend, Exford by name--who goes about grinding a
+barrel-organ."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He likes to do it.... I've another pal of sorts who chucked the Guards
+to become a milliner. He always did like to crochet and trim hats. Why
+not?--if he likes it!"
+
+"It is not," said Jessie Vining, "my idea of a British peer."
+
+"But for Heaven's sake, consider the peer! Now and then they have an
+idea of what they'd like to do. Why not let them do it and be happy?"
+
+"Then they ought not to have been born to the peerage," she said firmly.
+
+"Many of them wouldn't have been had anybody consulted them."
+
+"You?"
+
+"It's brought me nothing but debt, ridicule, abuse, and summonses."
+
+"You couldn't resign, could you?" she said, smiling.
+
+"I _am_ resigned. Oh, well, I'd rather be what I am than anything else,
+I fancy.... If the Topeka Museum trustees purchase that Gainsborough
+I'll be out of debt fast enough."
+
+"And then?" she inquired, still smiling.
+
+"I don't know. I'd like to start another show."
+
+"And leave Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"What use am I? We'd share alike; he'd manage the business and I'd
+manage a musical comedy I'm writing after hours----"
+
+He jumped up and went to the piano where for the next ten minutes he
+rattled off some lively and very commonplace music which to Jessie
+Vining sounded like everything she had ever before heard.
+
+"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully, swinging around on his stool.
+
+"It's--lively."
+
+"You _don't_ like it!"
+
+"I--it seems--very entertaining," she said, reddening.
+
+The Earl sat looking at her in silence for a moment; then he said:
+
+"To care for anything and make a failure of it--can you beat it for
+straight misery, Miss Vining?"
+
+"Oh, please don't speak that way. I really am no judge of musical
+composition."
+
+He considered the key-board gloomily; and resting one well-shaped hand
+on it addressed empty space:
+
+"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the
+deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of
+accomplishment?"
+
+The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no
+words suitable for the particular moment.
+
+Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two
+softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water."
+
+His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the
+quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang
+"The Harp," and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago.
+
+When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes
+lowered.
+
+"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said--"not these Strausses
+and 'Girls from the Golden West.'"
+
+"Will you sing some more?"
+
+"Do you like my singing?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten
+melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age,
+can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days,
+the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world
+was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to
+inspire any maker of beautiful things.
+
+Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour
+of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days.
+
+Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard
+Dankmere open the door behind her and come out.
+
+They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north
+with a nod of good-night, when he said:
+
+"Are you walking?"
+
+She was, to save carfare.
+
+"May I go a little way?"
+
+"Yes--if----"
+
+Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had
+meant to say. Then, very slowly she turned northward, and he went, too,
+grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying
+himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking
+beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Strelsa had gone to town with her maid, remained there the entire
+afternoon, and returned to Witch-Hollow without seeing Quarren or even
+letting him know she was there.
+
+It was the beginning of the end for her and she knew it; and she had
+already begun to move doggedly toward the end through the blind
+confusion of things, no longer seeing, hearing, heeding; impelled
+mechanically toward the goal which meant to her only the relief of
+absolute rest.
+
+For her troubles were accumulating and she found in herself no resisting
+power--only the nervous strength left to get away from them. Troubles of
+every description were impending; some had already come upon her, like
+Quarren's last letter which she knew signified that the termination of
+their friendship was already in sight.
+
+But other things were in sight, too, so she spent the afternoon in town
+with her lawyers; which lengthy séance resulted in the advertising for
+immediate sale of her house in town and its contents, her town car,
+brougham, victoria and three horses.
+
+Through her lawyers, also, every jewel she possessed, all her wardrobe
+except what she had with her at Witch-Hollow, and her very beautiful
+collection of old lace, were placed in the hands of certain discreet
+people to dispose of privately.
+
+Every servant in her employment except her maid was paid and dismissed;
+her resignation from the Province Club was forwarded, all social
+engagements for the summer cancelled.
+
+There remained only two other matters to settle; and one of them could
+be put off--without hope of escape perhaps--but still it could be
+avoided for a little while longer.
+
+The other was to write to Quarren; and she wrote as follows:
+
+     "I have been in town; necessity drove me, and I was too unhappy to
+     see you. But this is the result: I can hold out a few months
+     longer--to no purpose, I know--yet, you asked it of me, and I am
+     trying to do it. Meanwhile the pressure never eases; I feel your
+     unhappiness deeply--deeply, Rix!--and it is steadily wearing me
+     out. And the pressure from Molly in your behalf, from Mrs. Sprowl
+     by daily letter in behalf of Sir Charles, from Langly in his own
+     interest never slackens for one moment.
+
+     "And that is not all; my late husband left no will, and I have
+     steadily refused to make any contest for more than my dower rights.
+
+     "That has been swept away, now; urgent need has compelled me to
+     offer for sale everything I possess except what wardrobe and
+     unimportant trinkets I have with me.
+
+     "So many suits have been threatened and even commenced against
+     me--you don't know, Rix--but while there remains any chance of
+     meeting my obligations dollar for dollar I have refused to go
+     through bankruptcy.
+
+     "I need not, now, I think. But the selling of everything will not
+     leave me very much; and in the end my cowardice will do what you
+     dread, and what I no longer fear, so utterly dead in me is every
+     emotion, every nerve, every moral. Men bound to the wheel have
+     slept; I want that sleep. I long for the insensibility, the endless
+     lethargy that the mortally bruised crave; and that is all I hope or
+     care for now.
+
+     "Love, as man professes it, would only hurt me--even yours. There
+     can be no response from a soul and body stunned. Nothing must
+     disturb their bruised coma.
+
+     "The man I intend to marry can evoke nothing in me, will demand
+     nothing of me. That is already mutually understood. It's merely a
+     bargain. He wants me as the ornament for the House of Sprowl. I can
+     carry out the pact without effort, figure as the mistress of his
+     domain, live life through unharassed as though I stood alone in a
+     vague, warm dream, safe from anything real.
+
+     "Meanwhile, without aim, without hope, without even desire to
+     escape my destiny, I am holding out because you ask it. To what
+     end, my friend? Can you tell me?"
+
+One morning Molly came into her room greatly perturbed, and Strelsa,
+still in bed, laid aside the New Testament which she had been reading,
+and looked up questioningly at her agitated hostess.
+
+"It's your fault," began Molly without preliminaries--"that old woman
+certainly suspects what you're up to with her nephew or she wouldn't
+bother to come up here----"
+
+"Who?" said Strelsa, sitting up. "Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+"Certainly, horse, foot, and dragoons! She's coming, I tell you, and
+there's only one motive for her advent!"
+
+"But where will she stop?" asked Strelsa, flushing with dismay.
+
+"Where do you suppose?"
+
+"With Langly?"
+
+"He wouldn't have her."
+
+"She is not to be your guest, is she?"
+
+"No. She wrote hinting that she'd come if asked. I pretended not to
+understand. I don't want her here. Every servant I have would leave--as
+a beginning. Besides I don't require the social prestige of such a
+visitation; and she knows that, too. So what do you think she's done?"
+
+"I can't imagine," said Strelsa wearily.
+
+"Well, she's manœuvred, somehow; and this morning's paper announces that
+she's to be entertained at South Linden by Mary Ledwith."
+
+Strelsa reddened.
+
+"Why should that concern me?" she asked calmly.
+
+"Concern you, child! How can it help concerning you? Do you see what
+she's done?--do you count all the birds she's knocked over with one
+stone. Mary Ledwith returns from Reno and Mrs. Sprowl fixes and secures
+her social status by visiting her at once. And it's a perfectly plain
+notice to Langly, too, and--forgive me, dear!--to you!"
+
+Strelsa scarlet and astonished, sat up rigid, her beautiful head thrown
+back.
+
+"If she means it that way, it is slanderous," she said. "The entire
+story is a base slander! Did _you_ believe it, Molly?"
+
+"Believe it? Of course I believe it----"
+
+"Why should you? Because a lot of vile newspapers have hinted at such a
+thing? I tell you it is an infamous story without one atom of truth in
+it----"
+
+"How do you know?" asked Molly bluntly.
+
+"Because Langly says so."
+
+"Oh. Did you ask him?"
+
+"No. He spoke of it himself."
+
+"He denied it?"
+
+"Absolutely on his word of honour."
+
+"Then why didn't he sue a few newspapers?"
+
+"He spoke of that, too. He said that his attorneys had advised him not
+to bring any actions because the papers had been too clever to lay
+themselves open to suits for libel."
+
+"Oh," said Molly softly.
+
+Strelsa, flushed, breathing rapidly and irregularly, sat there in bed
+watching her; but Molly avoided her brilliant, level gaze.
+
+"There's no use in talking to you," she said, "but why on earth you
+don't marry Sir Charles----"
+
+"Molly! Please don't----"
+
+"--Or Rix----"
+
+"Molly! Molly! _Can't_ you let me alone! Can't we be together for ten
+minutes unless you urge me to marry somebody? Why do you want me to
+marry anybody!--Why----"
+
+"But you're going to marry Langly, you say!"
+
+"Yes, I am! I am! But can't you let me forget it for a moment or two?
+I--I'm not very well----"
+
+"I can't help it," said Molly, grimly. "I'm sorry, darling, but the
+moment your engagement to Langly is announced there'll be a horrid
+smash and some people are going to be spattered----"
+
+"It _isn't_ announced!" said the girl hotly. "Only you and Rix know
+about it except Langly and myself!"
+
+Molly Wycherly rose from her chair, went over and seated herself on the
+foot of the bed:
+
+"Tell me something, will you, Strelsa?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why does Langly desire to keep your engagement to him a secret?"
+
+"He wishes it for the present."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For that very reason!" said Strelsa, fiercely--"because of the
+injustice the papers have done him in this miserable Ledwith matter. He
+chooses to wait until it is forgotten--in order to shield me, I suppose,
+from any libellous comment----"
+
+"You talk like a little idiot!" said Molly between her teeth. "Strelsa,
+I could shake you--if it would wake you up! Do you suppose for a moment
+that this Ledwith matter will be forgotten? Do you suppose if there were
+nothing in it but libel that he'd be afraid? You listen to me; that man
+is not apt to be afraid of anything, but he evidently _is_ afraid, now!
+Of what, then?"
+
+"Of my being annoyed by newspaper comment."
+
+"And you think it's merely that?"
+
+"Isn't it enough?"
+
+Molly laughed:
+
+"We're a hardened lot--some of us. But our most deadly fear is that the
+papers may _not_ notice us. No matter what they say if they'll only say
+something!--that's our necessity and our unadmitted prayer. Because
+we've neither brains nor culture nor any distinguishing virtue or
+ability--and we're nothing--absolutely nothing unless the papers create
+us! Don't tell me that any one among us is afraid of publicity!--not in
+the particular circle where you and I and Langly and his aunt pursue our
+eccentric orbits!
+
+"Plenty of wealthy and fashionable people dread publicity and shrink
+from it; plenty of them would gladly remain unchronicled and unsung. But
+it is not so among the fixed stars and planets and meteors and
+satellites of our particularly flamboyant constellation. I _know_. I
+also know that you don't really belong in it. But you'll either become
+accustomed to it or it will kill you if you don't drop--or soar, as you
+please--into some other section of eternal space."
+
+She sat swinging her foot, flushed, animated, her eyes and colour
+brilliant--a slim, exquisitely groomed woman with all the superficial
+smoothness of a girl save for the wisdom in her eyes and in her smile,
+alas!
+
+And the other's eyes reflected in their clear gray depths no such
+wisdom, only the haunting knowledge of sorrow and, vaguely, the
+inexplicable horror of man as he really is--or at least as she had only
+known him.
+
+Still swinging her pretty foot, a deliberate smile edging her lips,
+Molly said:
+
+"If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling."
+
+Strelsa stared at her without comprehension, then dropped her head back
+on the pillows.
+
+"If you'll let me stay with you a little while longer--that is all I
+ask," she said almost drowsily.
+
+Molly sprang up, came around and kissed her, lightly: "Of course. That
+was what I was going to ask of you."
+
+[Illustration: "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling.'"]
+
+Strelsa closed her eyes. "I'll stay," she murmured.
+
+Molly laid her own cool face down beside Strelsa's hot cheek, kneeling
+beside the bed.
+
+"Dear," she whispered, "let us wait and see what happens. There's just
+one thing that has distorted your view--a dreadful experience with one
+man--two years of hell's own horror with one of its wretched
+inhabitants. I don't believe the impression is going to last a lifetime.
+I don't believe it is indelible. I believe somehow, some time you will
+learn that a man's love does not mean horror and degradation; that it is
+no abuse of friendship which offers love also, to return it with
+friendship only.
+
+"Sir Charles offers that; and you refuse because you do not love him and
+will not use his friendship to aid yourself to material comfort.
+
+"And I suspect you have said the same thing to Rix. Have you?"
+
+The girl lay silent, eyes closed.
+
+"Never mind; don't answer. I know you well enough to know that you said
+some such thing to Rix.... And it's all right in its way. But the
+alternative is not what you think it is--not this bargain with Langly
+for a place to lay your tired head--not this deal to decorate his name
+and estates in return for personal immunity. You are wrong--I'm not
+immoral, only unmoral--as many of us are--but you've gone all to pieces,
+dear--morally, mentally, nervously--and it's not from cowardice, not
+from depravity. It is the direct result of the two years of terror and
+desperate self-control--two years of courage--high moral courage,
+determination, self-suppression--and of the startling and dreadful
+climax.
+
+"That is the blow you are now feeling--and the reaction even after two
+years more of half-stunned solitude. You are waking, darling; that is
+all. And it hurts."
+
+Strelsa's bare arm moved a little, moved, groping, and tightened around
+Molly's neck. And they remained that way for a long while, Molly
+kneeling on the floor beside her.
+
+"Don't you ever cry?" she whispered.
+
+"Not--now."
+
+"It would be better if you could."
+
+"There are no tears--I--I am burnt out--all burnt out----"
+
+"You need strength."
+
+"I haven't the desire for it any longer."
+
+"Not the desire to face things pluckily?"
+
+"No--no longer. Everything's dead in me except the longing for--quiet.
+I'll pay any price for it--except misuse of friends."
+
+"How could you misuse Rix by marrying him?"
+
+"By accepting what I could never return."
+
+"Love?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does he ask that?"
+
+"N-no--not now. But--he wants it. And I haven't it to give. So I can't
+take his--and let him work all his life for my comfort--I can't take it
+from Sir Charles and accept the position and fortune he offered me
+once----"
+
+She lay silent a moment, then unclosed her eyes.
+
+"Molly," she said, "I don't believe that Sir Charles is going to mind
+very much."
+
+Molly met her eyes for an instant, very near, and a pale flash of
+telepathy passed between them. Then Strelsa smiled.
+
+"You mean Chrysos," said Molly.
+
+"Yes.... Don't you think so?"
+
+"She's little more than a child.... I don't know. Men are that way--men
+of Sir Charles's age and experience are likely to drift that way.... But
+if you are done with Sir Charles, what he does no longer interests
+me--except that the Lacys will become insufferable if----"
+
+"Don't talk that way, dear."
+
+"I don't _like_ the family--except Chrysos."
+
+"Then be glad for her--if it comes true.... Sir Charles is a
+dear--almost too perfectly ideal to be a man.... I do wish it for his
+sake.... He was a little unhappy over me I think."
+
+"He adores you still, you little villain!" whispered Molly, fondling
+her. "But--let poets sing and romancers rave--there's nothing that
+starves as quickly as love. And Sir Charles has been long fasting--good
+luck to him and more shame on you!"
+
+Strelsa laughed, cleared her brow and eyes of the soft bright hair, and,
+flinging out both arms, took Molly to her heart in a swift, hard
+embrace.
+
+"There!" she said, breathless, "I adore you anyhow, Molly.... I feel
+better, too. I'm glad you talked to me.... Do you think I'll get
+anything for my house?"
+
+"Yes, when you sell it. That's the hopeless part of it just at this time
+of year----"
+
+"Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I've had an awful
+lot of the other kind all my life."
+
+They laughed.
+
+Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I'll have enough left
+over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and
+chickens and a cow!"
+
+"How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?"
+
+Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as
+though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a
+little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado
+Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for
+pleasure--crazy about anything that promised gaiety and
+amusement--anything to make me forget.
+
+"You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill--ill
+most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother--it's
+curious, but mother never said anything about her--and she cared for
+fashionable people.
+
+"So I came to New York last winter--and you know the rest--I got tired
+physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me--and so many women
+urged me to do so many things--and I was unhappy about Rix--and then
+came this awful financial crash----"
+
+"Stop thinking of it!"
+
+"Yes; I mean to. I only wanted you to understand how, one by one,
+emotions and desires have been killed in me during the last four
+years.... And even the desire for wealth and position--which I clung to
+up to yesterday--somehow, now--this morning--has become little more than
+a dreamy wish.... I'd rather have quiet if I could--if there's enough
+money left to let me rest somewhere----"
+
+"There will be," said Molly, watching her.
+
+"Do you think so? And--then there would be no necessity for--for----"
+
+"Langly!"
+
+Strelsa flushed. "I wonder," she mused. "I wonder whether--but it seems
+impossible that I should suddenly find I didn't care for everything I
+cared for this winter. Perhaps I'm too tired to care just now."
+
+"It might be," said Molly, "that something--for example your friendship
+with Rix--had made other matters seem less important."
+
+The girl looked up quickly, saw nothing in Molly's expression to disturb
+her, then turned her eyes away, and lay silent, considering.
+
+If her friendship for Quarren had imperceptibly filled her mind, even
+crowding aside other and most important matters, she did not realise it.
+She thought of it now, and of him--recalling the letter she had written.
+
+Vaguely she was aware of the difference in her attitude toward life
+since she wrote that letter only a few days before. To what was it due?
+To his letter in reply now lying between the leaves of her New Testament
+on the table beside her? This was his letter:
+
+     "Hold out, Strelsa! Matters are going well with me. Your tide, too,
+     will turn before you know it. But neither man nor woman is going to
+     aid you, only time, Strelsa, and--something that neither you nor I
+     have bothered about very much--something that has many names in
+     many tongues--but they all mean the same. And the symbol of what
+     they mean is Truth.
+
+     "Why not study it? We never have. All sages of all times have
+     studied it and found comfort; all saints in all ages have found in
+     it strength.
+
+     "I find its traces in every ancient picture that I touch. But there
+     are books still older that have lived because of it. And one man
+     died for it--man or God as you will--the former is more
+     fashionable.
+
+     "Lives that have been lived because of it, given for it, forgiven
+     for its sake, are worth our casual study.
+
+     "For they say there is no greater thing than Truth. I can imagine
+     no greater. And the search for it is interesting--fascinating--I
+     had no idea how absorbing until recently--until I first saw you,
+     who sent me out into the world to work.
+
+     "Hold out--and study this curious subject of Truth for a little
+     while. Will you?
+
+     "If you'll only study it a while I promise that it will interest
+     you--not in its formalisms, not in its petty rituals and
+     observances, nor in its endless nomenclature, nor its
+     orthodoxy--but just as you discover it for yourself in the
+     histories of men and women--of saint and sinner--and, above all, in
+     the matchless life of Him who understood them all.
+
+     "_Non tu corpus eras sine pectore!_"
+
+Lying there, remembering his letter almost word for word, and where it
+now lay among printed pages incomprehensible to her except by the
+mechanical processes of formal faith and superficial observance, she
+wondered how much that, and the scarcely scanned printed page, might
+have altered her views of life.
+
+Molly kissed her again and went away downstairs.
+
+When she was dressed in her habit she went out to the lawn's edge where
+Langly and the horses had already gathered: he put her up, and they
+cantered away down the wooded road that led to South Linden.
+
+After their first gallop they slowed to a walk on the farther hill
+slope, chatting of inconsequential things; and it seemed to her that he
+was in unusually good spirits--almost gay for him--and his short dry
+laugh rang out once or twice, which was more than she had heard from him
+in a week.
+
+From moment to moment she glanced sideways at him, curiously inspecting
+the sleek-headed symmetry of the man, noticing, as always, his perfectly
+groomed figure, his narrow head and the well-cut lines of the face and
+jaw. Once she had seen him--the very first time she had ever met him at
+Miami--eating a broiled lobster. And somehow his healthy appetite, the
+clean incision of his sun-bronzed jaw and the working muscles, chewing
+and swallowing, fascinated her; and she never saw him but she thought of
+him eating vigorously aboard the _Yulan_.
+
+"Langly," she said, "is it going to be disagreeable for you when Mrs.
+Ledwith returns to South Linden?"
+
+He looked at her leisurely, eyes, as always, slightly protruding:
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The newspapers."
+
+"Probably," he said.
+
+"Then--what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"About what?"
+
+"The papers."
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Or--about Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+"Be civil if I see her."
+
+"Of course," she said, reddening. "I was wondering whether gossip might
+be nipped in the bud if you left before she arrives and remained away
+until she leaves."
+
+His prominent eyes were searching her features all the while she was
+speaking; now they wandered restlessly over the landscape.
+
+"It's my fashion," he said, "to face things as they come."
+
+"If you don't mind I'd rather have you go," she said.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Anywhere you care to."
+
+He said: "I have told you a thousand times that the thing to do is to
+take Molly Wycherly 'board the _Yulan_, and----"
+
+"I do not care to do it until our engagement is announced."
+
+"Very well," he said, swinging around in his saddle, "I'll announce it
+to-day and we'll go aboard this evening and clear out."
+
+"Wh-what!" she faltered.
+
+"There's no use waiting any longer," he said. "Mrs. Ledwith and my fool
+of an aunt are coming to-morrow. Did you know that? Well, they are. And
+every dirty newspaper in town will make the matter insidiously
+significant! If my aunt hadn't taken it into her head to visit Mrs.
+Ledwith at this particular moment, there would have been few comments.
+As it is there'll be plenty--and I don't feel like putting up with
+them--I don't propose to for my own sake. The time comes, sooner or
+later, when a man has got to consider himself."
+
+After a short silence Strelsa raised her gray eyes:
+
+"Has it occurred to you to consider, me, Langly?"
+
+"What? Certainly. Haven't I been doing that ever since we've been
+engaged----"
+
+"I--wonder," she mused.
+
+"What else have I been doing?" he insisted--"denying myself the pleasure
+of you when I'm half crazy about you----"
+
+"What!"
+
+A dull flush settled under his prominent cheek-bones: he looked straight
+ahead of him between his horse's ears as he rode, sitting his saddle
+like the perfect horseman he was, although his mount felt the savage
+pain of a sudden and reasonless spurring and the wicked curb scarcely
+controlled him.
+
+Strelsa set her lips, not looking at either horse or man on her right,
+nor even noticing her own mare who was cutting up in sympathy with the
+outraged hunter at her withers.
+
+"Langly?"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you how painful such scandalous rumours must be
+for Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+"Can I help them?"
+
+Strelsa said, thoughtfully: "What a horrible thing for a woman! It was
+generous of your aunt to show people what _she_ thought of such cruel
+stories."
+
+"Do you think," he said sneeringly, "that my excellent aunt was inspired
+by any such motive? You might as well know--if you don't know already--"
+and his pale eyes rested a moment on the girl beside him--"that my aunt
+is visiting Mrs. Ledwith solely to embarrass me!"
+
+"How could it embarrass you?"
+
+"By giving colour to the lies told about me and the Ledwiths," he said
+in a hard voice--"by hinting that Mary Ledwith, free to marry, is
+accepted by my aunt; and the rest is up to me! That's what that female
+relative of mine has just done--" His big, white teeth closed with a
+click and he spurred his horse cruelly again and checked him until the
+slavering creature almost reared over backward.
+
+"If you maltreat that horse again, Langly, I'll leave you. Do you
+understand?" she said, exasperated.
+
+"I beg your pardon--" Again his jaw fairly snapped, but the horse did
+not suffer from his displeasure.
+
+"What has enraged you so?" she demanded.
+
+"This whole business. There isn't anything my aunt could have done more
+vicious, more contemptible, than to visit Mrs. Ledwith at this moment.
+I'll get it from every quarter, now."
+
+"I suppose she will, too."
+
+"My aunt? No such luck!"
+
+"I mean Mrs. Ledwith."
+
+"She? Oh, I suppose so."
+
+Strelsa said between tightening lips:
+
+"Is there nothing you can do, no kindness, no sacrifice you can make to
+shield Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+He stared at her, then his eyes roamed restlessly:
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know, Langly.... But if there is anything you could do----"
+
+"What? My aunt and the papers are determined that I shall marry her! I
+take it that you are not suggesting that, are you?"
+
+"I am suggesting nothing," she replied in a low voice.
+
+"Well, _I_ am. I'm suggesting that you and Molly and I go aboard the
+_Yulan_ and clear out to-night!"
+
+"You mean--to announce our engagement first?"
+
+"Just as you choose," he said without a shade of expression on his
+features.
+
+"You would scarcely propose that I sail with you under any other
+circumstances," she said sharply.
+
+"I leave it to you and Mrs. Wycherly. The main idea is to clear out and
+let them howl and tear things up."
+
+"Howl at Mrs. Ledwith and tear her to tatters while we start around the
+world on the _Yulan_?" nodded Strelsa. She was rather white, but she
+laughed; and he, hearing her, turned and laughed, too--a quick bark of a
+laugh that startled both horses who were unaccustomed to it.
+
+"Oh, I guess they won't put her out of business," he said. "She's young
+and handsome and there are plenty of her sort to marry her--even
+Dankmere would have a chance there or--" he hesitated, and decided to
+refrain. But she understood perfectly, and lost the remainder of her
+colour.
+
+"You mean Mr. Quarren," she said coolly.
+
+"I didn't," he replied, lying. And she was aware of his falsehood, too.
+
+"What started those rumours about Mrs. Ledwith and you, Langly?" she
+asked in the same pleasantly even tone, and turned her horse's head
+toward home at the same time. He made his mount pivot showily on his
+hocks and drew bridle beside her.
+
+"Oh, they started at Newport."
+
+"How?"
+
+"How do I know? Ledwith and I were connected in business matters; I saw
+more or less of them both--and he was too busy to be with his wife every
+time I happened to be with her. So--you know what they said."
+
+"Yes. When you and she were lunching at different tables at the Santa
+Regina you used to write notes to her, and everybody saw you."
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That is just it; there was nothing in it."
+
+"Except her reputation.... What a silly and careless girl! But a man
+doesn't think--doesn't care very much I fancy. And then everybody was
+offensively sorry for Chester Ledwith. But that was not your lookout,
+was it, Langly?"
+
+Sprowl turned his narrow face and looked at her in silence; and after a
+moment misjudged her.
+
+"It was not my fault," he said quietly. "I liked his wife and I was
+friendly with him until his gutter habits annoyed me."
+
+"He went to pieces, didn't he?"
+
+Once more Sprowl inspected her features, warily. Once more he misjudged
+her.
+
+"He's gone to smash," he said--"but what's that to us?"
+
+"I wonder," she smiled, but had to control the tremor of her lower lip
+by catching it between her teeth and looking away from the man beside
+her. Quickly the hint of tears dried out in her gray eyes--from whatever
+cause they sprang glimmering there to dim her eyesight. She bent her
+head, absently arranging, rearranging and shifting her bridle.
+
+"The thing to do," he said, curling his long moustache with powerful
+fingers--"is for the Wycherlys to stand by us now--and the others
+there--that little Lacy girl--and Sir Charles if he chooses. We'll have
+to take the whole lot of them aboard I suppose."
+
+"Suppose I go with you alone," she said in a low voice.
+
+He started in his saddle, turned on her a face that was reddening
+heavily. For an instant she scarcely recognised him, so thick his lips
+seemed, so congested the veins in forehead and neck. He seemed all mouth
+and eyes and sanguine colour--and big, even teeth, now, as the lips drew
+aside disclosing them.
+
+"Would you do that, Strelsa?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Would you do it--for me?"
+
+Her rapid breathing impeded speech; she said something inarticulate; he
+leaned from his saddle and caught her in his left arm.
+
+"By God," he stammered, "I knew it! You can have what you like from
+me--I don't care what it is!--take it--fill out your own checks--only
+let's get out of here before those damned women ruin us both!"
+
+She had strained back and aside from him, and was trying to guide her
+mare away, but his powerful arm crushed her and his hot breath fell on
+her face and neck.
+
+"You can have it your own way I tell you--I swear to God I'll marry
+you----"
+
+"What!"
+
+Almost strangled she wrenched herself free, panting, staring; and he
+realised his mistake.
+
+"We can't get a licence if we leave to-night," he said, breathing
+heavily. "But we can touch at any port and manage that."
+
+"You--you _would_ take me--permit me to go--in such a manner?" she
+breathed, still staring at him.
+
+"It's necessity, isn't it? Didn't you propose it? It makes no difference
+to me, Strelsa. I told you I'd do anything you wished."
+
+"What did you mean--what did you mean by--by--" But she could go no
+further in speech or thought.
+
+"The thing to do," he said calmly, "is not to fly off our heads or
+become panic-stricken. You're doing the latter; I lost control of
+myself--after what you gave me to hope--after what you said--showing
+your trust in me," he added, moistening his thick dry lips with his
+tongue. "I lost my self-command--because I _am_ crazy for you,
+Strelsa--there's no sense in pretending otherwise--and you knew it all
+the time, you little coquette!
+
+"What do you think a man's made of? You wanted a business arrangement
+and I humoured you; but you knew all the while, and I knew, that--that I
+am infatuated, absolutely mad about you." He added, boldly: "And I have
+reason to think it doesn't entirely displease you, haven't I?"
+
+She did not seem to hear him. He laid his gloved hand over hers, and
+recoiled before her eyes as from a blow.
+
+"Are you angry?" he asked.
+
+Her teeth were still working on her under lip. She made no answer.
+
+"Strelsa--if you really feel nothing for me--if you mean what you have
+said about a purely business agreement--I will hold to it. I thought for
+a moment--when you said--something in your smile made me think----"
+
+"You need not think any further," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I came with you this morning to tell you that I will not
+marry you."
+
+"That's nonsense! I've hurt you--made you angry----"
+
+"I came for that reason," she repeated. "I meant to do it as soon as I
+had the courage. I meant to do it gently. Now I don't care how I do it.
+It's enough for you to know that I will not marry you."
+
+"Is that final?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't believe it. I know perfectly well I was--was too impulsive, too
+ardent----"
+
+She turned her face away with a faint, sick look at the summer fields
+where scores of birds sang in the sunshine.
+
+"See here," he said, his manner changing, "I tell you I'm sorry. I ask
+your pardon. Whatever you wish shall be done. Tell me what to do."
+
+After a few moments she turned toward him again.
+
+"A few minutes ago I could have told you what to do. I would have told
+you to marry Mary Ledwith. Also I would have been wrong. Now, as you ask
+me, I tell you not to marry her."
+
+His eyes were deadly dangerous, but she met them carelessly.
+
+"No," she said, "don't marry any woman after your attentions have made
+her conspicuous. It will be pleasanter for her to be torn to pieces by
+her friends."
+
+"You are having your vengeance," he said. "Take it to the limit,
+Strelsa, and then let us be reconciled."
+
+"No, it is too late. It was too late even before we started out
+together. Why--I didn't realise it then--but it was too late long
+ago--from the day you spoke as you did in my presence to Mr. Quarren.
+That finished you, Langly--if, indeed, you ever really began to mean
+anything at all to me."
+
+He made a last effort and the veins stood out on his forehead:
+
+"I am sorry I spoke to Quarren as I did. I like him."
+
+She said coolly: "You hate him. You and Mr. Caldera almost ruined him in
+that acreage affair."
+
+"You are mistaken. Caldera squeezed him; I did not. I knew nothing about
+it. My agents attend to such petty matters. What motive have I for
+disliking Quarren?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully: "Perhaps because you thought he
+was devoted to me--and I to him.... And you were right," she added: "I
+am devoted to him because he is a man and a clean one."
+
+"Have you ended?"
+
+"Ended what?"
+
+"Punishing me."
+
+Her lips curled slightly: "I am afraid you are inclined to
+self-flattery, Langly. We chasten those whom we care for."
+
+"Are you silly enough to dismiss me through sheer pique?" he said
+between his teeth.
+
+"Pique? I don't understand. I've merely concluded that I don't need your
+fortune and I don't want your name. You, personally, never figured in
+the proposed arrangement."
+
+His visage altered alarmingly:
+
+"Who have you got on the string now!" he broke out--"you little
+adventuress! What damned fool is damned fool enough to marry you when
+anybody could get you for less if they care to spend the time on
+you----"
+
+Suddenly his arm shot out and he wrenched her bridle, dragging her horse
+around and holding him there.
+
+"Are you mad?" she whispered, white to the lips. "Take your hand off my
+bridle!"
+
+"For another word," he said between clinched teeth, "I'd ride you down
+and spoil that face of yours! Hold your tongue and listen to me. I've
+stood all I'm going to from you. I've done all the cringing and
+boot-licking that is going to be done. You're the sort that needs curb
+and spurs, and you'll get them if you cut up with me. Is that plain?"
+
+She had carried no crop that morning or she would have used it; her
+bridle was useless; spurring might have dragged them both down under the
+horses' feet.
+
+"For the last time," he said, "you listen to me. I love you. I want you.
+You haven't a cent; you could fill out any check you chose to draw over
+my signature. Now if you are not crazy, or a hopeless fool, behave
+yourself."
+
+A great sob choked her; she forced it back and sat, waiting, eyes almost
+closed.
+
+"Strelsa, answer me!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Answer me, for God's sake!"
+
+She opened her eyes.
+
+"Will you marry me?"
+
+"No."
+
+His eyes seemed starting from his head and the deep blood rushed to his
+face and neck, and he flung her bridle into her face with an
+inarticulate sound.
+
+Then, slowly, side by side they advanced along the road together. A
+groom met them at Witch-Hollow; Strelsa slipped from her saddle without
+aid and, leisurely, erect, smiling, walked up to the veranda where Molly
+stood reading the morning paper.
+
+"Hello dear," she said. "Am I very late for luncheon?"
+
+"It's over. Will you have a tray out here?"
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Don't you want to change, first?"
+
+"Yes, thanks."
+
+Molly glanced up from the paper:
+
+"Isn't Langly stopping for luncheon with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+Molly looked at her curiously:
+
+"Did you enjoy your gallop?"
+
+"We didn't gallop much."
+
+"Spooned?"
+
+Strelsa shuddered slightly. The elder woman dropped her paper and gazed
+at her.
+
+"You don't mean to say it's all off, Strelsa!"
+
+"Entirely. Please don't let's speak of it again--or of him--if you don't
+mind----"
+
+"I don't!--you darling!--you poor darling! What has that creature done
+to _you_?"
+
+"Don't speak of him, please."
+
+"No, I won't. Oh, I'm so glad, Strelsa!--I can't tell you how happy, how
+immensely relieved--and that cat of an aunt of his here to make
+mischief!--and poor Mary Ledwith----"
+
+[Illustration: "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she asked
+caressingly."]
+
+"Molly, I--I simply can't talk about it--any of it----"
+
+She turned abruptly, entered the house, and ran lightly up the stairs.
+Molly waited for her, grimly content with the elimination of Langly
+Sprowl and already planning separate campaigns in behalf of Sir Charles
+and Quarren.
+
+She was still absorbed in her scheming when Strelsa came down. There was
+not a trace of any emotion except pleasure in her face. In her heart it
+was the same; only an immense, immeasurable relief reigned there,
+calming and exciting her alternately. But her face was yet a trifle
+pale; her hands still unsteady; and every delicate nerve, slowly
+relaxing from the tension, was regaining its normal quiet by degrees.
+
+Her appetite was excellent, however. Afterward she and Molly chose
+neighbouring rockers, and Molly, lighting a cigarette, opened fire:
+
+"Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?" she asked caressingly.
+
+Strelsa laughed outright, then, astonished that she had not shrunk from
+a renewal of the eternal pressure, looked at Molly with wide gray eyes.
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me to-day," she said; "I seem to be
+able to laugh. I've not been very well physically; I've had a ghastly
+morning; I'm homeless and wretchedly poor--and I'm laughing at it
+all--the whole thing, Molly. What do you suppose is the matter with me?"
+
+"You're not in love, are you?" asked Molly with calm suspicion.
+
+"No, I'm not," said the girl with a quiet conviction that disconcerted
+the elder woman.
+
+"Then I don't see why you should be very happy," said Molly honestly.
+
+Strelsa considered: "Perhaps it's because to-day I feel unusually well.
+I slept--which I don't usually."
+
+"You're becoming devout, too," said Molly.
+
+"Devout? Oh, you saw me reading in my Testament.... It's an interesting
+book, Molly," she said naïvely. "You know, as children, and at school,
+and in church we don't read it with any intelligence--or listen to it in
+the right way.... People _are_ odd. We have our moments of contrition,
+abasement, fright, exaltation; but at bottom we know that our religion
+and a fair observance of it is a sound policy of insurance. We accept it
+as we take out insurance in view of eventualities and the chance of
+future fire----"
+
+"That's flippant," said Molly.
+
+"I really didn't mean it so.... I was wondering about it all. Recently,
+re-reading the New Testament, I was struck by finding so much in it that
+I had never noticed or understood.... You know, Molly, after all Truth
+is the greatest thing in the world."
+
+"So I've heard," observed Molly drily.
+
+"Oh, I've heard it, too, but never thought what it meant--until
+recently. You see Truth, to me, was just telling it as often as
+possible. I never thought much about it--that it is the basis of
+everything worthy and beautiful--such as old pictures--" she added
+vaguely--"and those things that silversmiths like Benvenuto Cellini
+did----"
+
+"What?"
+
+Strelsa coloured: "Everything worthy is founded on Truth," she said.
+
+"That sounds like Tupper or a copy-book," said Molly, laughing. "For
+surely those profound reflections never emanated originally from you or
+Rix--did they?"
+
+Strelsa, much annoyed, picked up the field glasses and levelled them on
+the river.
+
+Sir Charles was out there in a launch with Chrysos Lacy. Chrysos fished
+and Sir Charles baited her hook.
+
+"That's a touching sight," said Strelsa, laughing.
+
+Molly said crossly: "Well, if you don't want him, for goodness' sake say
+so!--and let me have some credit with the Lacys for engineering the
+thing."
+
+"Take it, darling!" laughed the girl, "take the credit and let the cash
+go--to Chrysos!"
+
+"How indelicate you _can_ be, Strelsa!"
+
+"Oh, I am. I'm in such rude health that it's almost vulgar. After all,
+Molly, there's an immense relief in getting rid of your last penny and
+knowing nothing worse can happen to you."
+
+"You might die."
+
+"I don't care."
+
+"Everybody cares whether they live or die."
+
+The girl looked at her, surprised.
+
+"I don't," she said, "--really."
+
+"Of course you do."
+
+"But why should I?"
+
+"Nonsense, Strelsa. No matter how they crack up Heaven, nobody is in a
+hurry to go there."
+
+"I wasn't thinking of Heaven.... I was just curious to see what else
+there is--I'm in no hurry, but it has always interested me.... I've had
+a theory that perhaps to everybody worthy is given, hereafter, exactly
+the kind of heaven they expect--to Buddhist, Brahman, Mohammedan,
+Christian--to the Shinto priest as well as to the Sagamore.... There's
+plenty of time--I'm in no hurry, nor would it be too soon to-morrow for
+me to find out how near I am to the truth."
+
+"You're morbid, child!"
+
+"Less this very moment than for years.... Molly, do you know that I am
+getting well? I wish you knew how well I feel."
+
+But Molly was no longer listening. High above the distant hangars where
+the men had gathered since early morning, a great hawk-like thing was
+soaring in circles. And already the distant racket of another huge
+winged thing came to her ears on the summer wind.
+
+"I hope Jim will be careful," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Into the long stables at South Linden, that afternoon, Langly Sprowl's
+trembling horse was led limping, his velvet flanks all torn by spurs and
+caked with mud, his tender mouth badly lacerated.
+
+As for his master, it seemed that the ruin of the expensive hunter and
+four hours' violent and capricious exercise in his reeking saddle had
+merely whetted his appetite for more violence; and he had been tramping
+for an hour up and down the length of the library in his big sprawling
+house when Mr. Kyte, his confidential secretary, came in without
+knocking.
+
+Sprowl hearing his step swung on him savagely, but Kyte coolly closed
+the door behind him and turned the key.
+
+"Ledwith is here," he said.
+
+"Ledwith," repeated Sprowl, mechanically.
+
+"Yes, he's on the veranda. They said you were not at home. He said he'd
+wait. I thought you ought to know. He acts queerly."
+
+Langly's protruding eyes became utterly expressionless.
+
+"All right," he said in dismissal.
+
+Kyte still lingered:
+
+"Is there anything I can say or do?"
+
+"If there was I'd tell you, wouldn't I?"
+
+Kyte's lowered gaze stole upward toward his employer, sustained his
+expressionless glare for a second, then shifted.
+
+"Very well," he said unlocking the library door; "I thought he might be
+armed, that's all."
+
+"Kyte!"
+
+Mr. Kyte turned on the door-sill.
+
+"What do you mean by saying that?"
+
+"Saying what?"
+
+"That you think this fellow Ledwith may be armed?"
+
+Kyte stood silent.
+
+"I ask you again," repeated Sprowl, "why you infer that this man might
+have armed himself to visit this house?"
+
+Kyte's eyes stole upward, were instantly lowered. Sprowl walked over to
+him.
+
+"You're paid to act, not think; do you understand?" he said in a husky,
+suppressed voice; but his long fingers were twitching.
+
+"I understand," said Kyte.
+
+Sprowl's lean head jerked; Kyte went; and the master of the house strode
+back into the library and resumed his pacing.
+
+Boots, spurs, the skirts of his riding coat, even his stock were stained
+with mud and lather; and there was a spot or two across his sun-tanned
+cheeks.
+
+Presently he walked to the bay-window which commanded part of the west
+veranda, and looking out through the lace curtains saw Ledwith sitting
+there, his sunken eyes fixed on the westering sun.
+
+The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at
+elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers
+and golf-stockings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of
+the muscles.
+
+The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into
+the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and
+down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the
+dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering
+mentally unsound.
+
+Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying
+his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still
+sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and
+strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors
+to the veranda.
+
+Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said.
+
+Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face.
+
+There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a
+crooked smile.
+
+"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he
+said.
+
+"When are you leaving?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I don't know--to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that--I don't
+know."
+
+Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out
+across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of
+tall trees lay like velvet on the grass; the crests of the woods beyond
+grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were
+noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged
+woodpeckers imitated them; in the late sunlight the grackles' necks
+were rainbow tinted.
+
+On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding,
+switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted
+hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded
+with sunshine and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and
+expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first
+grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond.
+
+"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoarse and
+painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in
+distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak.
+
+"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl.
+
+The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute.
+
+"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need
+exercise."
+
+"I've got to rest."
+
+"Well, then, what have you got to say?--because I'm going on. What's the
+matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?"
+
+"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment.
+
+"What else?"
+
+"Anxiety."
+
+"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?"
+
+Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting
+on his elbow against the tree-trunk:
+
+"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get
+it?"
+
+"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously.
+
+"Then--my wife has returned."
+
+"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice
+or features.
+
+"Yes," said Ledwith--"Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my
+way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I
+saw them from the hill."
+
+"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?"
+
+Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it,
+looking down at the grass.
+
+"You are going to marry her of course," he said.
+
+"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business."
+
+"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing
+possible. There is nothing else for her to do--for you to do. She knows
+it, you know it, and so do I."
+
+"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?"
+
+"Only your word to confirm what I have just said."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"Your marriage with Mary."
+
+"I think I told you that it was none of your business."
+
+"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business."
+
+"May I ask why?"
+
+"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently,
+there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the
+reason."
+
+Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and
+unclosing:
+
+"Is that all, Ledwith?"
+
+"That's all--when you have confirmed what I have said concerning the
+necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched."
+
+"You lie," said Langly.
+
+Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me."
+
+"That is another lie."
+
+"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared,
+after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body;
+she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as
+her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to
+effrontery.... It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at
+nothing--not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory
+characteristic of your sort.... I don't mean physical cowardice," he
+added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's
+powerful frame.
+
+"Have you finished?" asked the latter.
+
+"In a moment, Langly. I am merely reminding you of what has happened.
+Concerning myself I have nothing to say. Look at me. You know what I
+was; you see what I am. I'm not whining; it's all in a lifetime. And the
+man who is not fitted to take care of what is his, loses. That's all."
+
+Sprowl's head was averted after an involuntary glance at the man before
+him. His face was red--or it may have been the ruddy evening sun
+striking flat across it.
+
+Ledwith said: "You will marry her, of course. But I merely wish to hear
+you say so."
+
+Sprowl swung on him, his thick lips receding:
+
+"I'll marry whom I choose! Do you understand that?"
+
+"Of course. But you will choose to marry her."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Yes. Or--I'll kill you," he said seriously.
+
+Langly stared at him, every vein suddenly dark and swollen; then his
+bark of a laugh broke loose.
+
+"I suppose you've got it in your pocket," he said.
+
+Ledwith fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a dully blued weapon of
+heavy calibre; and Sprowl walked slowly up to him, slapped his face,
+took the revolver from him, and flung it into the woods.
+
+"Now go home and punch yourself full of dope," he said; swung on his
+heel, and sauntered off.
+
+Ledwith looked after him, one bloodless hand resting on the cheek which
+Sprowl had struck--watched him out of sight. Then, patiently, he started
+to search for the weapon, dropping on all-fours, crawling, peering,
+parting the ferns and bushes. But the sun was low and the woods dusky,
+and he could not find what he was looking for. So he sat up on the
+ground among the dead leaves of other years, drew from his pocket what
+he needed, and slowly bared his scarred arm to the shoulder.
+
+As for Sprowl, his vigorous tread lengthened to a swinging stride as he
+shouldered his way through a thicket and out again into the open.
+
+Already he scarcely remembered Ledwith at all, or his menace, or the
+blow; scarcely even recollected that Mary Ledwith had returned or that
+his aunt was within driving distance of his own quarters.
+
+A dull hot anguish, partly rage, possessed him, tormenting brain and
+heart incessantly and giving him no rest. His own clumsy madness in
+destroying what he believed had been a certainty--his stupidity, his
+loss of self-control, not only in betraying passion prematurely but in
+his subsequent violence and brutality, almost drove him insane.
+
+Never before in any affair with women had he forgotten caution in any
+crisis; his had been a patience unshakable when necessary, a dogged,
+driving persistence when the time came, the subtlety of absolute
+inertness when required. But above all and everything else he has been a
+master of patience, and so a master of himself; and so he had usually
+won.
+
+And now--now in this crisis--a crisis involving the loss of what he
+cared for enough to marry--if he must marry to have his way with
+her--what was to be done?
+
+He tried to think coolly, but the cinders of rage and passion seemed to
+stir and move with every breath he drew awaking the wild fire within.
+
+He would try to reason and think clearly--try to retrace matters to the
+beginning and find out why he had blundered when everything was in his
+own hands.
+
+It was his aunt's sudden policy that betrayed him into a premature
+move--Mary Ledwith's return, and his aunt's visit. Mary Ledwith was
+there to marry him; his aunt to make mischief unless he did what was
+expected of him.
+
+Leisurely but thoroughly he cursed them both as he walked back across
+his lawn. But he was already thinking of Strelsa again when, as he
+entered the wide hall, his aunt waddled across the rugs of the
+drawing-room, pronouncing his name with unmistakable decision. And,
+before the servants, he swallowed the greeting he had hoped to give her,
+and led her into the library.
+
+"Mercy on us, Langly!" she exclaimed, eyeing his reeking boots and
+riding-breeches; "do you live like a pig up here?"
+
+"I've been out," he said briefly. "What do you want?"
+
+Her little green eyes lighted up, and her smile, which was fading, she
+forced into a kind of fixed grin.
+
+"Your polished and thoughtful inquiry is characteristic of you," she
+said. "Mary is here, and I want you to come over to dinner."
+
+"I'm not up to it," he said.
+
+"I want you to come."
+
+"I tell you I'm not up to it," he said bluntly.
+
+"And I tell you that you'd better come."
+
+"_Better_ come?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes, _better_ come. More than that, Langly, you'd better behave
+yourself, or I'll make New York too hot to hold you."
+
+His prominent eyes were expressionless.
+
+"Ah?" he remarked.
+
+"Exactly, my friend. Your race is run. You've done one thing too
+publicly to squirm out of the consequences. The town has stood for a
+good deal from you. When that girl at the Frivolity Theatre shot
+herself, leaving a letter directed to you, the limit of public patience
+was nearly reached. You had to go abroad, didn't you? Well, you can't go
+abroad this time. Neither London nor Paris nor Vienna nor Budapest--no,
+nor St. Petersburg nor even Constantinople would stand you! Your course
+is finished. If you've an ounce of brains remaining you know that you're
+done for this time. So go and dress and come over to dinner.... And
+don't worry; I'll keep away from you after you're married."
+
+"You'll keep your distance before that," he said slowly.
+
+"You're mistaken. Many people are afraid of you, but I never was and
+never could be. You're no good; you never were. If you didn't lug my
+name about with you I'd let you go to hell. You'll go there anyway, but
+you'll go married first."
+
+"I expect to."
+
+"Married to Mary Ledwith," she said looking at him.
+
+He picked up a cigar, examined it, yawned, then glanced at her:
+
+"As I had--recently--occasion to tell Chester Ledwith, I'll marry whom I
+please. Now suppose you clear out."
+
+"Are you dining with us?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What time may we expect you to-morrow?"
+
+"At no time."
+
+"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is that final?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Do you expect to marry anybody else?"
+
+"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face
+distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at
+last? Do you understand clearly?--you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!"
+
+He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down
+the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and
+abuse--rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness
+and disintegration--his downfall from that silent citadel of
+self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for
+defiance or refuge.
+
+"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat
+nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the
+foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your
+business--I warn you now and for the last time, or else--" He swung
+around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work--"or else I'll supply
+the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father
+and yourself!"
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only
+the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive.
+
+"So _that_ fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you
+apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to
+understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my
+threshold. You _do_ understand, I guess."
+
+He continued his promenade but presently came back to her:
+
+"You know well enough who I want to marry. If you say or do one thing to
+interfere I'll see that you figure in the Yellows."
+
+He thought a moment; the colour slowly returned to her face. After a fit
+of coughing she struggled to rise from her chair. He let her pant and
+scuffle and kick for a while, then opened the door and summoned her
+footman.
+
+"I'm sorry I cannot drive with you this evening," he said quietly, as
+the footman supported Mrs. Sprowl to her feet, "but I've promised the
+Wycherlys. Pray offer my compliments and friendly wishes to Mrs.
+Ledwith."
+
+When she had gone he walked back into the library, picked up the
+telephone and finally got Molly Wycherly on the wire.
+
+"Won't you ask me to dinner?" he said. "I've an explanation to make to
+Mrs. Leeds and I'd be awfully obliged to you."
+
+There was a silence, then Molly said, deliberately:
+
+"You must be a very absent-minded young man. I saw your aunt for a
+moment this afternoon and she said that you are dining with her at Mrs.
+Ledwith's."
+
+"She was mistaken--" began Sprowl quietly, but Molly cut him short with
+a laughing "good-bye," and hung up the receiver.
+
+"That was Langly," she remarked, turning to Strelsa who was already
+dressed for dinner and who had come into Molly's boudoir to observe the
+hair-dressing and comprehensive embellishment of that young matron's
+person by a new maid on probation.
+
+Strelsa's upper lip curled faintly, then the happy expression returned,
+and she watched the decorating of Molly until the maid turned her out in
+the perfection of grooming from crown to toe.
+
+There was nobody in the music-room. Molly turned again to Strelsa as
+they entered:
+
+"What a brute he is!--asking me to invite him here for dinner when Mary
+Ledwith has just arrived."
+
+"Did he do that?"
+
+"Yes. And his excuse was that he had an explanation to make you. What a
+sneaking way of doing it!"
+
+Strelsa looked out of the dark window in silence.
+
+Molly said: "I wish he'd go away, I never can look at him without
+thinking of Chester Ledwith--and all that wretched affair.... Not that I
+am sniffy about Mary--the poor little fool.... Anyway," she added
+naïvely, "old lady Sprowl has fixed her status and now we all know how
+to behave toward her."
+
+Strelsa, arms clasped behind her back, came slowly forward from the
+window:
+
+"What a sorry civilisation," she said thoughtfully, "and what sorry
+codes we frame to govern it."
+
+"What?" sharply.
+
+Strelsa looked at her, absently.
+
+"Nobody seems to be ashamed of anything any more," she said, half to
+herself. "The only thing that embarrasses us is what the outside world
+may think of us. We don't seem to care what we think of each other."
+
+Molly, a trifle red, asked her warmly what she meant.
+
+"Oh, I was just realising what are the motives that govern us--the
+majority of us--and how primitive they are. So many among us seem to be
+moral throwbacks--types reappearing out of the mists of an ancient and
+unmoral past.... Echoes of primitive ages when nobody knew any
+better--when life was new, and was merely life and nothing
+else--fighting, treacherous, cringing life which knew of nothing else to
+do except to eat, sleep, and reproduce itself--bully the weaker, fawn on
+the stronger, lie, steal, and watch out that death should not interfere
+with the main chance."
+
+Molly, redder than ever, asked her again what she meant.
+
+"I don't know, dear.... How clean the woods and fields seem after a day
+indoors with many people."
+
+"You mean we all need moral baths?"
+
+"I do."
+
+Molly smiled: "For a moment I thought you meant that I do."
+
+Strelsa smiled, too:
+
+"You're a good wife, Molly; and a good friend.... I wish you had a
+baby."
+
+"I'm--going to."
+
+They looked at each other a moment; then Strelsa caught her in her arms.
+
+"Really?"
+
+Molly nodded:
+
+"That's why I worry about Jim taking chances in his aeroplane."
+
+"He mustn't! He's got to stop! What can he be thinking of!" cried
+Strelsa indignantly.
+
+"But he--doesn't know."
+
+"You haven't _told_ him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I--don't know how he'll take it."
+
+"What?"
+
+Molly flushed: "We didn't want one. I don't know what he'll say. We
+didn't care for them----"
+
+Strelsa's angry beauty checked her with its silent scorn; suddenly her
+pretty head fell forward on Strelsa's breast:
+
+"Don't look that way at me! I was a fool. How was I to know--anything?
+I'd never had one.... You can't know whether you want a baby or not
+until you have one.... I know now. I'm crazy about it.... I think it
+would--would kill me if Jim is annoyed----"
+
+"He won't be, darling!" whispered Strelsa. "Don't mind what he says
+anyway. He's only a man. He never even knew as much about it as you did.
+What do men know, anyway? Jim is a dear--just the regular sort of man
+interested in business and sport and probably afraid that a baby might
+interfere with both. What does he know about it?... Besides he's too
+decent to be annoyed----"
+
+"I'm afraid--I can't stand--even his indifference--" whimpered Molly.
+
+Strelsa, holding her clasped to her breast, started to speak, but a
+noise of men in the outer hall silenced her--the aviators returning from
+their hangars and gathering in the billiard-room for a long one before
+dressing.
+
+"Wait," whispered Strelsa, gently disengaging herself--"wait just a
+moment----"
+
+And she was out in the hall in an instant, just in time to touch Jim on
+the arm as he closed the file toward the billiard-room.
+
+"Hello, Sweetness!" he said, pivoting on his heels and seizing her
+hands. "Are you coming in to try a cocktail with us?"
+
+"Jim," she said, "I want to tell you something."
+
+"Shoot," he said. "And if you don't hurry I'll kiss you."
+
+"Listen, please. Molly is in the music-room. _Make_ her tell you."
+
+"Tell me what?"
+
+"Ask her, Jim.... And, if you care one atom for her--be happy at what
+she tells you--and tell her that you are. Will you?"
+
+He stared at her, then lost countenance. Then he looked at her in a
+panicky way and started to go, but she held on to him with
+determination:
+
+"Smile first!"
+
+"Thunder! I----"
+
+"Smile. Oh, Jim, isn't there any decency in men?"
+
+His mind was working like mad; he stared at her, then through the
+astonishment and consternation on his good-looking features a faint grin
+broke out.
+
+"All right," she whispered, and let him go.
+
+Molly, idling at the piano, heard his tread behind her, and looked up
+over her shoulder.
+
+"Hello, Jim," she said, faintly.
+
+"Hello, ducky. Strelsa says you have something to tell me."
+
+"I--Jim?"
+
+"So she said. So I cut out a long one to find out what it is. What's up,
+ducky?"
+
+Molly's gaze grew keener: "Did that child tell you?"
+
+"She said that you had something to tell me."
+
+"_Did_ she?"
+
+"No! Aren't you going to tell me either?"
+
+He dropped into a chair opposite her; she sat on the piano-stool
+considering him for a while in silence. Then, dropping her arms with a
+helpless little gesture:
+
+"We are going to have a baby. Are you--annoyed?"
+
+For a second he sat as though paralysed, and the next second he had her
+in his arms, the grin breaking out from utter blankness.
+
+"You're a corker, ducky!" he whispered. "You for me all the time!"
+
+"Jim!... Really?"
+
+"Surest thing you know! Which is it?--boy or--Oh, I beg your pardon,
+dear--I'm not accustomed to the etiquette. But I'm delighted, ducky,
+overwhelmed!"
+
+"Oh, Jim! I'm so glad. And I'm crazy about it--perfectly mad about
+it.... And you're a dear to care----"
+
+"Certainly I care! What do you take me for--a wooden Indian!" he
+exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate----"
+
+"But, Jim! We can't _tell_ people."
+
+"Oh--that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it
+of course. But I'll do anything you say----"
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Will I? Watch me!"
+
+"Then--then _don't_ take out the Stinger for a while. Do you mind,
+dear?"
+
+"What!" he said, jaw dropping.
+
+"I can't bear it, Jim. I was a good sport before; you know I was. But my
+nerve has gone. I can't take chances now; I _want_ you to see--it----"
+
+After a moment he nodded.
+
+"Sure," he said. "It's like Lent. You've got to offer up something....
+If you feel that way--" he sighed unconsciously--"I'll lock up the
+hangar until----"
+
+"Oh, darling! Will you?"
+
+"Yes," said that desolate young man, and kissed his wife without a
+scowl. He had behaved pretty well--about like the majority of husbands
+outside of popular romances.
+
+The amateur aeronauts left in the morning before anybody was stirring
+except the servants--Vincent Wier, Lester Caldera, the Van Dynes and the
+rest, bag, baggage, and, later, two aeroplanes packed and destined for
+Barent Van Dyne's Long Island estate where there was to be some serious
+flying attempted over the flat and dusty plains of that salubrious
+island.
+
+Sir Charles Mallison was leaving that same day, later; and there were to
+be no more of Jim's noisy parties; and now under the circumstances, no
+parties of Molly's, either; because Molly was becoming nervous and
+despondent and a mania for her husband possessed her--the pretty
+resurgence of earlier sentiment which, if not more than comfortably
+dormant, buds charmingly again at a time like this.
+
+Also she wanted Strelsa, and nobody beside these two; and although she
+liked parties of all sorts including Jim's sporting ones, and although
+she liked Sir Charles immensely, she was looking forward to comfort of
+an empty house with only her husband to decorate the landscape and
+Strelsa to whisper to in morbid moments.
+
+For Chrysos was going to Newport, Sir Charles and her maid accompanying
+her as far as New York from where the Baronet meant to sail the next
+day.
+
+His luggage had already gone; his man was packing when Sir Charles
+sauntered out over the dew-wet lawn, a sprig of sweet-william in his
+lapel, tall, clear-skinned, nice to look upon.
+
+What he really thought of what he had seen in America, of the sort of
+people who had entertained him, of the grotesque imitation of exotic
+society--or of a certain sort of it--nobody really knew. Doubtless his
+estimate was inclined to be a kindly one, for he was essentially that--a
+philosophical, chivalrous, and modest man; and if his lines had fallen
+in places where vulgarity, extravagance, and ostentation
+predominated--if he had encountered little real cultivation, less
+erudition, and almost nothing worthy of sympathetic interest, he never
+betrayed either impatience or contempt.
+
+He had come for one reason only--the same reason that had brought him to
+America for the first time--to ask Strelsa Leeds to marry him.
+
+He was man enough to understand that she did not care for him that way,
+soldier enough to face his fate, keen enough, long since, to understand
+that Quarren meant more to the woman he cared for than any other man.
+
+Cool, self-controlled, he watched every chance for an opening in his own
+behalf. No good chance presented itself. So he made one and offered
+himself with a dignity and simplicity that won Strelsa's esteem but not
+her heart.
+
+After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her.
+Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be
+on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he
+was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also
+he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for
+it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and
+words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious.
+
+Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding
+furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa;
+and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough.
+
+So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted
+to get back to his own kind--into real life again, among people of real
+position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live
+things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material
+or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well.
+
+There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there--except a
+warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom
+he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow.
+
+Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her
+fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a
+cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite
+and delightful.
+
+The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming
+surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made
+few demands on his intellect--that is, at first she had made very few.
+Later--within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find
+how much there really was to the young girl--and that perhaps her age
+and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between
+them.
+
+Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a
+while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that
+a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to
+present himself at so early an hour.
+
+A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not
+yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him.
+
+Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a
+dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the
+colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered
+up in a big cane-backed chair.
+
+"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night--sitting here
+because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down."
+
+He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down
+compassionately:
+
+"Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it.
+
+The old lady peered up at him:
+
+"You're sailing to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, gravely.
+
+"When do you return?"
+
+"I have made no plans to return."
+
+"You mean to say that you've given up the fight?"
+
+"There was never any fight," he said.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl scowled:
+
+"Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?"
+
+"Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better
+than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can
+scarcely question her decision."
+
+"Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew
+of mine?" she demanded.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Then--do you mean young Quarren?"
+
+"I think I do," he said smiling.
+
+"I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad
+that it may be Rix. It--it would have killed me to see her fall into
+Langly's hands.... I'm ill on account of him--his shocking treatment of
+me last evening. It was a brutal scene--one of those terrible family
+scenes!--and he threatened me--cursed me----"
+
+She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they
+snapped open again with the old fire undiminished:
+
+"Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him....
+But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"You are going back into everything, I suppose."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To forget her, I suppose."
+
+He said pleasantly:
+
+"I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman
+as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a
+privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not--painful."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of
+the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in
+her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of
+phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat.
+
+"I did my best," she said hoarsely. "I'm not defeated if you're not. Say
+the word and I'll start something--" And suddenly she remembered
+Langly's threat involving the memory of a dead man whose only son now
+stood before her.
+
+She knew that her words were vain, her boast empty; she knew there was
+nothing more for her to do--nothing even that Sir Charles might do
+toward winning Strelsa without also doing the only thing in the world
+which could really terrify herself. Even at the mere thought of it she
+trembled again, and fear forced her to speech born of fear:
+
+"Perhaps it is best for you to go," she faltered. "Absence is a last
+resort.... It may be well to try it----"
+
+He bent over and took her hand:
+
+"There is no longer even a last resort," he said kindly. "I am quite
+reconciled. She is different from any other woman; ours was and is a
+high type of friendship.... Sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether
+it ever could have been any more than that to either of us."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl looked up at him, her face so altered and softened that his
+own grew graver.
+
+"You are like your father," she said unsteadily. "It was my privilege to
+share his friendship.... And his friendship was of that
+kind--high-minded, generous, pure--asking no more than it gave--no more
+than it gave----"
+
+She laid her cheek against Sir Charles's hands, let it rest there an
+instant, then averting her face motioned his dismissal.
+
+He went with a pleasant and gentle word or two; she sat bolt upright
+among her silken pillows, lips grimly compressed, but on her tightly
+closed eyelids tears trembled.
+
+Sir Charles drew a long deep breath in the outer sunshine, filling his
+lungs with the fragrant morning air. Hedges still glistened with
+spiders' tapestry; the birds which sulked all day in their early
+moulting-fever still sang a little in the cool of the morning, and he
+listened to them as he walked while his quiet, impartial eye ranged
+over the lovely rolling country, dew-washed and exquisite under a
+cloudless sky.
+
+Far away he saw the chimneys of Langly Sprowl's sprawling country-seat,
+smoke rising from two, but he saw nothing of the angry horseman of the
+day before. Once, in the distance on the edge of a copse, he saw a man
+creeping about on all-fours, evidently searching for some lost object in
+the thicket. Looking back from a long way off he saw him still searching
+on his hands and knees, and wondered at his patience, half inclined to
+go back and aid him.
+
+But about that time one of Sprowl's young bulls came walking over toward
+him with such menacing observations and deportment that Sir Charles
+promptly looked about him for an advance to the rear-front--a manœuvre
+he had been obliged to learn in the late Transvaal unpleasantness.
+
+And at the same moment he saw Chrysos Lacy.
+
+There was no time for explanations; clearly she was too frightened to
+stir; so he quietly picked her up on his advance to the rear-front,
+carrying her in the first-aid style approved by the H. B. M. medical
+staff, and scaled the five-bar fence as no barrier had ever been scaled
+at Aldershot or Olympia by any warrior in khaki or scarlet tunic.
+
+"Th-thank you," said Chrysos, unwinding her arms from the baronet's neck
+as the bull came trotting up on the other side of the fence and bellowed
+at them. Not the slightest atom of fright remained, only a wild-rose
+tint in her cheeks. She considered the bull, absently, patted a tendril
+of hair into symmetry; but the breeze loosened it again, and she let it
+blow across her cheek.
+
+"We should have been in South Africa together," said Sir Charles.
+"We manœuvre beautifully as a unit."
+
+[Illustration: "'And it is to be your last breakfast.'"]
+
+The girl laughed, then spying more wild strawberries--the quest of which
+had beguiled her into hostile territory--dropped on her knees and began
+to explore.
+
+The berries were big and ripe--huge drops of crimson honey hanging
+heavily, five to a stalk. The meadow-grass was red with them, and Sir
+Charles, without more ado, got down on all-fours and started to gather
+them with all the serious and thorough determination characteristic of
+that warrior.
+
+"You're not to eat any, yet," said Chrysos.
+
+"Of course not; they're for your breakfast I take it," he said.
+
+"For yours."
+
+He straightened up on his knees: "For mine?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You didn't go wandering afield at this hour to pick wild strawberries
+for _my_ breakfast!" he said incredulously.
+
+"Yes, I did," said the girl; and continued exploring, parting the high
+grass-stems to feel for and detach some berry-loaded stem.
+
+"Do you know," he said, returning to his labours, "that I am quite
+overcome by your thought of me?"
+
+"Why? We are friends.... And it is to be your last breakfast."
+
+There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, but her pretty face was
+carefully turned away so that if there was to be anything to notice in
+the features he could not notice it.
+
+"I'll miss you a lot," he said.
+
+"And I you, Sir Charles."
+
+"You'll be over, I suppose."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"That will be jolly," he said, sitting back on his heels to rest, and to
+watch her--to find pleasure in her youth and beauty as she moved
+gracefully amid the fragrant grasses, one little sun-tanned hand
+clasping a great bouquet of the crimson fruit which nodded heavily amid
+tufts of trefoil leaves.
+
+In the barred shadow of the pasture-fence they rested from their
+exertions, she rearranging their bouquets of berries and tying them fast
+with grass-stems.
+
+"It has been a pleasant comradeship," he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have found it so, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She appeared to be so intent, so absorbed on her bouquet tying that he
+involuntarily leaned nearer to watch her. A fragrance faintly fresh
+seemed to grow in the air around him as the hill-breeze stirred her
+hair. If it came from the waving grass-tops, or the honeyed fruit or
+from her hair, or perhaps from those small, smooth hands, he did not
+know.
+
+For a long while they sat there without speaking, she steadily intent on
+her tying. Then, while still busy with a cluster, her slim fingers
+hesitated, wavered, relaxed; her hands fell to her lap, and she remained
+so, head bent, motionless.
+
+After a moment he spoke, but she made no answer.
+
+Through and through him shot the thrilling comprehension of that
+exquisite avowal, childlike in its silent directness, charming in its
+surprise. A wave of tenderness and awe mounted within him, touching his
+bronzed cheeks with a deeper colour.
+
+"If you will, Chrysos," he said in a still voice.
+
+She lifted her head and looked directly at him, and in her questioning
+gaze there was nothing of fear--merely the question.
+
+"I can't bear to have you go," she said.
+
+"I can't go--alone."
+
+"Could you--care for me?"
+
+"I love you, Chrysos."
+
+Her eyes widened in wonder:
+
+"You--you don't _love_ me--do you?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I do. Will you marry me, Chrysos?"
+
+Her fascinated gaze met his in silence. He drew her close to his
+shoulder; she laid her cheek against it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Toward the end of the first week in August Strelsa wrote to Quarren:
+
+     "Sometimes I wonder whether you realise how my attitude toward
+     everything is altering. Things which seemed important no longer
+     appear so in the sunlit tranquillity of this lovely place. Whatever
+     it is that seems to be changing me in various ways is doing it so
+     subtly, yet so inexorably, that I scarcely notice any difference in
+     myself until some morning I awake with such a delicious sense of
+     physical well-being and such a mental happiness apropos of nothing
+     at all except the mere awaking into the world again, that, thinking
+     it over, I cannot logically account for it.
+
+     "Because, Rix, my worldly affairs seem to be going from bad to
+     worse. I know it perfectly well, yet where is that deadly
+     fear?--where is the dismay, the alternate hours of panic and dull
+     lethargy--the shrinking from a future which only yesterday seemed
+     to threaten me with more than I had strength to endure--menace me
+     with what I had neither the will nor the desire to resist?
+
+     "Gone, my friend! And I am either a fool or a philosopher, but
+     whichever I am, I am a happy one.
+
+     "I wish to tell you something. Last winter when they fished me out
+     of my morbid seclusion, I thought that the life I then entered upon
+     was the only panacea for the past, the only oblivion, the only
+     guarantee for the future.
+
+     "Now I suppose I have gone to the other extreme, because, let me
+     tell you what I've done. Will you laugh? I can't help it if you do;
+     I've bought a house! What do you think of that?
+
+     "The owner took back a mortgage, but I don't care. I paid so _very_
+     little for it, and thirty acres of woods and fields--and it is a
+     darling house!--built in the eighteenth century and not in good
+     repair, but it's mine! mine! mine!--and it may need paint and
+     plumbing and all sorts of things which perhaps make for human
+     happiness and perhaps do not. But I tell you I really don't care.
+
+     "And how I did it was this: I took what they offered for my laces
+     and jewels--about a third of their value--but it paid every debt
+     and left me with enough to buy my sweet old house up here.
+
+     "But that's not all! I've rented my town house furnished for a term
+     of five years at seven thousand dollars a year! Isn't it wonderful?
+
+     "And _that_ is not all, either. I am going into business, Rix!
+     Don't dare laugh. Jim has made an arrangement with an independent
+     New York florist, and I'm going to grow flowers under glass for the
+     Metropolitan market.
+
+     "And, if I succeed, I _may_ try fruits outdoors and in. My small
+     brain is humming with schemes, millions of them. Isn't it heavenly?
+
+     "Besides, from my second-story windows I shall be able to see
+     Molly's chimneys above the elms. And Molly is going to remain here
+     all winter, because, Rix--and this is a close secret--a little heir
+     or heiress is coming to make _this_ House of Wycherly 'an
+     habitation enforced'--and a happier habitation than it has been
+     since they bought it.
+
+     "So you see I shall have neighbours all winter--two neighbours, for
+     Mrs. Ledwith is wretchedly ill and her physicians have advised her
+     to remain here all winter. Poor child--for she is nothing else,
+     Rix--I met her for the first time when I went to call on Mrs.
+     Sprowl. She's so young and so empty-headed, just a shallow,
+     hare-brained, little thing who had no more moral idea of sin than a
+     humming-bird--nor perhaps has she any now except that the world has
+     hurt her and broken her wings and damaged her plumage; and the
+     sunlight in which she sparkled for a summer has faded to a chill
+     gray twilight!--Oh, Rix, it is really pitiful; and somehow I can't
+     seem to remember whether she was guilty or not, because she's so
+     ill, so broken--lying here amid the splendour of her huge house----
+
+     "You know Mrs. Sprowl is on her way to Carlsbad. You haven't
+     written me what took place in your last interview with her; and
+     I've asked you, twice. Won't you tell me?
+
+     "Langly, thank goodness, never disturbs us. And, Rix, do you know
+     that he has never been to call on Mary Ledwith? He keeps to his own
+     estate and nobody even sees him. Which is all I ask at any rate.
+
+     "So Sir Charles called on you and told you about Chrysos? Isn't Sir
+     Charles the most darling man you ever knew? _I_ never knew such a
+     man. There is not one atom of anything small or unworthy in his
+     character. And I tell you very frankly that, thinking about him at
+     times, I am amazed at myself for not falling in love with him.
+
+[Illustration: Strelsa Leeds.]
+
+     "Which is proof sufficient that if I couldn't care for him I cannot
+     ever care for any man. Don't you think so?
+
+     "Now all this letter has been devoted to matters concerning myself
+     and not one line to you and the exciting success you and Lord
+     Dankmere are making of your new business.
+
+     "Oh, Rix, I am not indifferent; all the time I have been writing to
+     you, that has been surging and laughing in my heart--like some
+     delicious aria that charmingly occupies your mind while you go
+     happily about other matters--happy because the ceaseless melody
+     that enchants you makes you so.
+
+     "I have read your letter so many times, over and over; and always
+     the same thrill of excitement begins when I come to the part where
+     you begin to suspect that under the daubed surface of that canvas
+     there may be something worth while.
+
+     "Is it really and truly a Van Dyck? Is there any chance that it is
+     not? Is it possible that all these years none of Dankmere's people
+     suspected what was hidden under the aged paint and varnish of that
+     tiresome old British landscape?
+
+     "And it remained for you to suspect it!--for _you_ to discover it?
+     Oh, Rix, I am proud of you!
+
+     "And how perfectly wonderful it is that now you know its history,
+     when it was supposed to have disappeared, where it has remained
+     ever since under its ignoble integument of foolish paint.
+
+     "No, I promise not to say one word about it until I have your
+     permission. I understand quite well why you desire to keep the
+     matter from the newspapers for the present. But--won't it make you
+     and Lord Dankmere rich? Tell me--please tell me. I don't want
+     money for myself any more, but I do want it for you. You need it;
+     you can do so much with it, use it so intelligently, so gloriously,
+     make the world better with it,--make it more beautiful, and people
+     happier.
+
+     "What a chasm, Rix, between what we were a year ago, and what we
+     care to be--what we are trying to be to-day! Sometimes I think of
+     it, not unhappily, merely wondering.
+
+     "Toward what goal were we moving a year ago? What was there to be
+     of such lives?--what at the end? Why, there was, for us, no more
+     significance in living than there is to any overfed animal!--not as
+     much!
+
+     "Oh, this glorious country of high clouds and far horizons!--and
+     alas! for the Streets of Ascalon where such as I once was go to and
+     fro--'clad delicately in scarlet and ornaments of gold.'
+
+     "'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Streets of
+     Ascalon'--that the pavements of the Philistines have bruised my
+     feet, and their Five Cities weary me, and Philistia's high towers
+     are become a burden to my soul. For their gods are too many and too
+     strange for me. So I am decided to remain here--ere 'they that look
+     out of their windows be darkened' and 'the doors be shut in the
+     Streets'--'and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.'
+
+     "My poor comrade! Must you remain a prisoner in the Streets of
+     Ascalon? Yet, through your soul I know as free and fresh a breeze
+     is blowing as stirs the curtains at my open window!--You wonderful
+     man to evoke in imagery--to visualise and conceive all that had to
+     be concrete to cure me soul and body of my hurts!
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "I have been reading Karl Westguard's new novel. Rix, there is no
+     story in it, nothing at all that I can discover except a very
+     earnest warming over of several modern philosophers' views and
+     conclusions concerning social problems.
+
+     "I hate to speak unkindly of it; I wanted to like it because I like
+     Karl Westguard. But it isn't fiction and it isn't philosophy, and
+     its treatment of social problems seems to follow methods already
+     obsolete.
+
+     "Do you think people will buy it? But I don't suppose Karl cares
+     since he's made up his quarrel with his aunt.
+
+     "Poor old lady! Did you ever see anybody so subdued and forlorn?
+     Something has gone wrong with her. She told me that she had had a
+     most dreadful scene with Langly and that she had not been well
+     since.
+
+     "I'm afraid that sounds like gossip, but I wanted you to know. _Is_
+     it gossip for me to tell you so much? I tell you about everything.
+     If it's gossip, make me stop.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "And now--when are you coming to see me? I am still at Molly's, you
+     know. My house is being cleaned and sweetened and papered and
+     chintzed and made livable and lovable.
+
+     "When?--please.
+
+                            "Your friend and comrade,
+
+                                        STRELSA."
+
+Quarren telegraphed:
+
+     "I'll come the moment I can. Look for me any day this week. Letter
+     follows."
+
+Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining
+went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled
+out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody's suspicions by hurrying,
+so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs
+began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway--and
+probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the
+repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to
+furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently
+Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a
+coincidence utterly unfathomable.
+
+Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to
+his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his
+attention.
+
+And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang
+and he had to go up and open.
+
+At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the
+glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand
+with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it;
+and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting
+nervously the next second.
+
+"Come in," said Quarren, pleasantly. "It's very nice of you to think of
+me, Ledwith."
+
+The man's hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the
+gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them.
+Inside his loose summer clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting
+continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of
+the gallery.
+
+For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases,
+meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things;
+then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct,
+the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he
+moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring
+into space and twitching his scarred fingers.
+
+"You're busy, I suppose," he said.
+
+"Yes, I am," said Quarren, frankly. "But that needn't make any
+difference if you'd care to come to the basement and talk to me while
+I'm at work."
+
+Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly:
+
+"You're _always_ kind to me, Quarren."
+
+"Get over that idea," laughed the younger man. "Strange as it may seem
+my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs."
+
+In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his
+visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work,
+explaining it as it progressed:
+
+"Here's an old picture by some Italian gink--impossible to tell by whom
+it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and
+school.... See what I'm doing, Ledwith?
+
+"That's what we call 'rabbit glue' because it's made out of rabbits'
+bones--or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue.
+
+"Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water--then I glue over the face
+of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the
+other--so!
+
+"Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a
+new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and
+now it's dry and tight.
+
+"Now I'm going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It's already
+been relined--perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old
+relining canvas--with hot water--this way--cleaning off all the old
+paste or glue from it with alcohol....
+
+"Now here's a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening;
+and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very
+gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher.
+
+"Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then--just watch
+me do laundry work!"
+
+He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined
+picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and
+precaution of an expert laundress doing frills.
+
+Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest.
+
+"In three days," said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, "I'll
+soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you
+see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no
+air get in to blister the surface."
+
+He picked up another picture and displayed it:
+
+"Here's a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have
+already relined it and it's fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is
+thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin."
+
+He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution of alcohol, and
+very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it.
+Then he gave it a coat of varnish.
+
+"Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like
+this, doesn't it, Ledwith? But I'll tell you why. When that varnish
+dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin
+very cautiously but steadily to rub the varnished surface with my
+fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has
+partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and
+dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and
+will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh--very
+often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted.
+
+"Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can
+remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But
+sooner or later I get it clean.
+
+"Then I dig out any old patches or restorations and fill in with a
+composition of putty, white lead, and a drier, and smooth this with a
+cork. Then when it is sunned for an hour a day for three weeks or
+more--or less, sometimes--I'm ready to grind my pure colours, mix them,
+set my palette, and do as honest a piece of restoring as a study of that
+particular master's methods permits. And that, Ledwith, is only a little
+part of my fascinating profession.
+
+"Sometimes I lift the entire skin of paint from a canvas--picking out
+the ancient threads from the rotten texture--and transfer it to a new
+canvas or panel. Sometimes I cross-saw a panel, then chisel to the
+plaster that lies beneath the painting, and so transfer it to a new and
+sound support. Sometimes--" he laughed--"but there are a hundred
+delicate and interesting surgical operations which I attempt--a thousand
+exciting problems to solve--experiments without end that tempt me,
+innovations that allure me----"
+
+He laughed again:
+
+"_You_ ought to take up some fad and make a business and even an art out
+of it!"
+
+"I?" said Ledwith, dully.
+
+"Why not? Man, you're young yet, if--if----"
+
+"Yes, I know, Quarren.... But my mind is too old--very old and very
+infirm--dying in me of age--the age that comes through those centuries
+of pain that men sometimes live through in a few months."
+
+Quarren looked at him hopelessly.
+
+"Yet," he said, "if only a man wills it, the world is new again."
+
+"But--if the will fails?"
+
+"I don't know, Ledwith."
+
+"I do." He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on
+Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars.
+
+"Even that can be cured," said the younger man.
+
+"If there is a will to cure it, perhaps."
+
+"Even a desire is enough."
+
+"I have not that desire. Why cure it?"
+
+"Because, Ledwith, you haven't gone your limit yet. There's more of
+life; and you're cheating yourself out of it."
+
+"Yes, perhaps. But what kind of life?" he asked, staring vaguely out
+into the sunshine of the backyard. "Life in hell has no attractions for
+me."
+
+"We make our own hells."
+
+"I didn't make mine. They dug the pit and I fell into it--Hell's own
+pit, Quarren----"
+
+"You are wrong! You fell into a pit which hurt so much that you supposed
+it was the pit of hell. And, taking it for granted, you burrowed deeper
+in blind fury, until it became a real hell. But _you_ dug it. There _is_
+no hell that a man does not dig for himself!"
+
+In Ledwith's dull eyes a smouldering spark seemed to flash, go out, then
+glimmer palely.
+
+"Quarren," he said, "I am not going to live in hell alone. I'm going
+there, shortly, but not alone."
+
+Something new and sinister in his eyes arrested the other's attention.
+He considered the man for a few moments, then, coolly:
+
+"I wouldn't, Ledwith."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"He isn't worth it--even as company in hell."
+
+"Do you think I'm going to let him live on?"
+
+"Do you care to sink to his level?"
+
+"Sink! Can I sink any lower than I am?"
+
+Quarren shrugged:
+
+"Easily, if you commit murder."
+
+"That isn't murder----"
+
+But Quarren cut him short continuing:
+
+"Sink lower, you ask? What have you done, anyway--except to commit this
+crime against yourself?"--touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of
+any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you
+stand--except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself!
+Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites
+itself. Is that why you are doing it?--to arouse the amusement and
+contempt of your hunter?"
+
+"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me----"
+
+"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to
+see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?"
+
+Ledwith's sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing
+step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Listen to me," he said; "has it never occurred to you that you could
+deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face
+to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own
+vitals?"
+
+He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man:
+
+"If you say the word _I'll_ stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do
+is to punish him, murder isn't the way. What does a dead man care? Cut
+your own throat and the crime might haunt him--and might not. But
+_kill_!--Nonsense. It's all over then--except for the murderer."
+
+He slid his hand quietly to Ledwith's arm, patted it.
+
+"To punish him you need a doctor.... It's only a week under the new
+treatment. You know that, don't you? After that a few months to get back
+nerve and muscle and common sense."
+
+"And then?" motioned Ledwith with dry lips.
+
+"Then? Oh, anything that you fancy. It's according to a man's personal
+taste. You can take him by the neck and beat him up in public if you
+like--or knock him down in the club as often as he gets up. It all
+depends, Ledwith. Some of us maintain self-respect without violence;
+some of us seem to require it. It's up to you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Quarren said carelessly: "If I were you, I think that I'd face the world
+as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough--the real world I
+mean, Ledwith--either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.
+
+"A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty.
+And--personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that.
+But men's ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you
+are, will go ultimately with the world. Beat him up if you like; but,
+personally, I never even wished to kick a cur. Some men kick 'em to
+their satisfaction; it's a matter of taste I tell you. Besides----"
+
+He stopped short; and presently Ledwith looked up.
+
+"Shall I say it?"
+
+"Yes. You are kind to me, always."
+
+"Then--Ledwith, I don't know exactly how matters stand. I can only try
+to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do,
+having arrived where you have landed.... And, do you know, if I were
+you, and if I listened to my better self, I don't think that I'd lay a
+finger on Langly Sprowl."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For the sake of the woman who betrayed me--and who is now betrayed in
+turn by the man who betrayed us both."
+
+Ledwith said through his set teeth: "Do you think I care for her? If I
+nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about
+her?"
+
+"You are generous enough to care, Ledwith."
+
+"I am not!" he said, hoarsely. "I don't care a damn!"
+
+"Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares
+with her a coat of social whitewash?"
+
+"I--she is only a little fool--alone to face the world now----"
+
+"You're quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First
+offenders are given it by law.... But even if that chance lay in his
+marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won't do it? Or
+by battering him with a dog-whip?
+
+"It isn't really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than
+the social viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman
+who marries such a man?"
+
+He smiled: "Because," he continued, "my viewpoint has changed. Things
+that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and
+do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me
+than social absolution."
+
+Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something
+indistinctly.
+
+"Wait a moment," said Quarren, throwing aside his painter's blouse and
+pulling on his coat. "I'll ring up a taxi in a second!... You _mean_ it,
+Ledwith?"
+
+The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded.
+
+"You're on!" said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone.
+
+While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren's sleeve
+and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab,
+whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone building
+composed of several old-time private residences thrown together.
+
+"Stand by me, Quarren," he whispered brokenly--"you won't go away, will
+you? You wouldn't leave me to face this all--all alone. You've been kind
+to me. I--I can do it--I can try to do it just at this moment--if you'll
+stay close to me--if you'll let me keep hold of you----"
+
+"Sure thing!" said Quarren cheerfully. "I'll stay as long as you like.
+Don't worry about your clothes; I'll send for plenty of linen and things
+for us both. You're all right, Ledwith--you've got the nerve. I----"
+
+The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered
+them in.
+
+"Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment," she said, singling out Ledwith at
+a glance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not
+return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere
+promised to observe to the letter.
+
+Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:
+
+     "Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to
+     see your house and its new owner.
+
+     R. S. Q."
+
+Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked
+carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the
+basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for
+Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.
+
+The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful when paying tribute
+to Terpsichore; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the
+back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the
+tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a
+ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick
+or two at the ceiling.
+
+And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly,
+discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently
+enamoured of his own grace and agility.
+
+When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly
+and came back to find her at her desk, laughing.
+
+For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the
+fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all
+alone--exclusive of intrusive customers--for a day or more, assuaged a
+slight chagrin.
+
+"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I
+am, Miss Vining--with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Why?" asked Miss Vining.
+
+"Why--what?" repeated the Earl, confused.
+
+"Why _should_ I know all your imperfections?"
+
+He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason.
+
+"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you
+suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to
+see those people at Witch-Hollow."
+
+"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and
+rewriting the blank spaces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine
+at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such
+peculiar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse
+himself and take his eyes elsewhere.
+
+"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly.
+
+"I am not going to take one."
+
+"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop--er--and all that, you
+know!"
+
+"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I
+don't expect to droop--er--and all that, you know."
+
+He laughed, after a moment, and so did she--a sweet, fearless, little
+laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it--a pretty,
+frank tribute to what had become a friendship--an accord born of
+confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord
+Dankmere.
+
+It had been of slow growth at first--imperceptibly their relations had
+grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost
+cordial--but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he
+with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was
+moody, too, at intervals.
+
+"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked.
+
+"Don't I laugh as though I like it?"
+
+She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a
+British peer--which is really a very wonderful thing----"
+
+"Oh, come," he said: "it really _is_ rather a wonderful thing, but you
+don't believe it."
+
+"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to
+hear trumpets sounding in the far distance----"
+
+"My boots squeak----"
+
+"Nonsense! I _do_ hear a sort of a fairy fanfare playing 'Hail to the
+Belted Earl!'"
+
+"I wear braces----"
+
+"How common of you to distort my meaning! I don't care, you may do as
+you like--dance break-downs and hammer the piano, but to me you will
+ever remain a British peer--poor but noble----"
+
+"Wait until we hear from that Van Dyck! You can't call me poor then!"
+
+She laughed, then, looking at him earnestly, involuntarily clasped her
+hands.
+
+"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," she breathed with a happy, satisfied
+sigh.
+
+"Are you really very happy about it, Miss Vining?"
+
+"I? Why shouldn't I be!" she said indignantly. "I'm so proud that our
+gallery has such a picture. I'm so proud of Mr. Quarren for discovering
+it--and--" she laughed--"I'm proud of you for possessing it. You see I
+am very impartial; I'm proud of the gallery, of everybody connected with
+it including myself. Shouldn't I be?"
+
+"We are three very perfect people," he said gravely.
+
+"Do you know that we really are? Mr. Quarren is wonderful, and you
+are--agreeable, and as for me, why when I rise in the morning and look
+into the glass I say to myself, 'Who is that rather clever-looking girl
+who smiles at me every morning in such friendly fashion?' And, would you
+believe it!--she turns out to be Jessie Vining every time!"
+
+She was in a gay mood; she rattled away at her machine, glancing over it
+mischievously at him from time to time. He, having nothing to do except
+to look at her, did so as often as he dared.
+
+And so they kept the light conversational shuttle-cock flying through
+the sunny afternoon until it drew near to tea-time. Jessie said very
+seriously:
+
+"No Englishman can exist without tea. Tea is as essential to him as it
+is to British fiction. A microscopic examination of any novel made by a
+British subject will show traces of tea-leaves and curates although, as
+the text-books on chemistry have it, otherwise the substance of the work
+may be colourless, tasteless, odourless, and gaseous to the verge of the
+fourth dimension----"
+
+"If you don't cease making game of things British and sacred," he
+threatened, "I'll try to stop you in a way that will astonish you."
+
+"What will you try to do?" she asked, much interested.
+
+He looked her steadily in the eyes:
+
+"I'll try to turn you into a British subject. One can't slam one's own
+country."
+
+"How could you turn me into such an object, Lord Dankmere?"
+
+"There's only one way."
+
+Innocent for a few moments of his meaning she smilingly and derisively
+defied him. Then, of a sudden, startled into immobility, the smile froze
+on her lips.
+
+At the swift change in her expression his own features were slowly and
+not unbecomingly suffused.
+
+Then, incredulous, and a little nervous, she rose to prepare the tea;
+and he sprang up to bring the folding table.
+
+The ceremony passed almost in silence; neither he nor she made the
+effort to return to the lighter, gayer vein. When they spoke at all it
+was on some matter connected with business; and her voice seemed to him
+listless, almost tired.
+
+Which was natural enough, for the heat had been trying, and, in spite of
+the open windows, no breath of coolness stirred the curtains.
+
+So the last minutes of the afternoon passed but the sunshine still
+reddened the cornices of the houses across the street when she rose to
+put away the tea-things.
+
+A little later she pinned on her hat and moved toward the front door
+with a friendly nod to him in silent adieu.
+
+"Will you let me walk home with you?" he said.
+
+"I--think--not, this evening."
+
+"Were you going anywhere?"
+
+She paused, her gloved hand on the knob, and he came up to her, slowly.
+
+"_Were_ you?" he repeated.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then--don't you care to let me walk with you?"
+
+She seemed to be thinking; her head was a trifle lowered.
+
+He said: "Before you go there is something I wanted to tell you"--she
+made an involuntary movement and the door opened and hung ajar letting
+in the lively music of a street-organ. Then he leaned over and quietly
+closed the door.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm taking an unwarrantable liberty by
+interfering in your affairs without consulting you."
+
+She looked up at him, surprised.
+
+"It happened yesterday about this hour," he said.
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"Do you remember that you went home about three o'clock instead of
+waiting until this hour as usual?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, this is what occurred. I left the gallery at this same hour.
+Ahead of me descending the steps was a young girl who had just delivered
+a business letter to Mr. Quarren. As she set foot on the pavement a
+footman attached to an automobile drawn up across the street touched his
+cap to her and said: 'Beg pardon, Miss Vining, I am Mr. Sprowl's man.
+Mr. Sprowl would like to see you at the Café Cammargue. The car is
+waiting.'"
+
+Miss Vining's colour faded; she stared at Dankmere with widening eyes,
+and he dropped his hands into his coat-pockets and returned her gaze.
+
+"I don't understand you," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Neither did the young girl addressed by the footman. Neither did I. But
+I was interested. So I said to the footman: 'Bring around your car. I
+shall have to explain about Miss Vining to Mr. Sprowl.'"
+
+"What!" she said breathlessly.
+
+"That's where I interfered, Miss Vining. And the footman looked
+doubtful, too, but he signalled the chauffeur.... And so I went to the
+Café Cammargue----"
+
+He hesitated, looking at her white and distressed face, then continued
+coolly:
+
+"Sprowl seemed surprised to see me. He was waiting in a private room....
+He's looking rather badly these days.... We talked a few minutes----"
+
+Pale, angry, every sense of modesty and reserve outraged, the girl faced
+him, small head erect:
+
+"You went there to--to discuss _me_ with _that_ man!"
+
+He was silent. She turned suddenly and tried to open the door, but he
+held it closed.
+
+"I did it because I cared for you enough to do it," he said. "Don't you
+understand? Don't you suppose I know that kind of man?"
+
+"It--it was not your business--" she faltered, twisting blindly at the
+door-knob. "Let me go--please----"
+
+"I made it my business.... And that man understood that I was making it
+my business. And he won't attempt to annoy you again.... Can you forgive
+me?"
+
+She turned on him excitedly, her eyes flashing with tears, but the
+impetuous words of protest died on her lips as her eyes encountered his.
+
+"It was because I love you," he said. And, as he spoke, there was about
+the man a quiet dignity and distinction that silenced her--something of
+which she may have had vague glimpses at wide intervals in their
+acquaintances--something which at times she suspected might lie latent
+in unknown corners of his character. Now it suddenly confronted her; and
+she recognised it and stood before him without a word to say.
+
+It mended matters a little when he smiled, and the familiar friend
+reappeared beside her; but she still felt strange and shy; and
+wondering, half fearfully, she let him lift her gloved hands and stand,
+holding them, looking into her eyes.
+
+"You know what I am," he said. "I have nothing to say about myself. But
+I love you very dearly.... I loved before, once, and married. And she
+died.... After that I didn't behave very well--until I knew you.... It
+is really in me to be a decent husband--if you can care for me.... And I
+don't think we're likely to starve----"
+
+"I--it isn't that," she said, flushing scarlet.
+
+"What?"
+
+"What you _have_ ... I could only care for--what you are."
+
+"Can you do that?"
+
+But her calm had vanished, and, head bent and averted, she was
+attempting to withdraw her hands--and might have freed herself entirely
+if it had not been for his arm around her.
+
+This new and disconcerting phase of the case brought her so suddenly
+face to face with him that it frightened her; and he let her go, and
+followed her back to the empty gallery where she sank down at her desk,
+resting her arms on the covered type-machine, and buried her quivering
+face in them.
+
+It was excusable. Such things don't usually happen to typewriters and
+stenographers although they have happened to barmaids.
+
+When he had been talking eloquently and otherwise for a long time Jessie
+Vining lifted her pale, tear-stained face from her arms; and his
+lordship dropped rather gracefully on his knees beside her, and she
+looked down at him very solemnly and wistfully.
+
+It was shockingly late when they closed the gallery that evening. And
+their mode of homeward progress was stranger still, for instead of a
+tram or of the taxi which Lord Dankmere occasionally prevailed upon her
+to accept, they drifted homeward on a pink cloud through the light-shot
+streets of Ascalon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+To the solitary and replete pike, lying motionless in shadow, no
+still-bait within reach is interesting. But the slightest movement in
+his vicinity of anything helpless instantly rivets his attention; any
+creature apparently in distress arouses him to direct and lightning
+action whether he be gorged or not--even, perhaps, while he is still
+gashed raw with the punishment for his last attempt.
+
+So it was with Langly Sprowl. He had come into town, sullen, restless,
+still fretting with checked desire. Within him a dull rage burned; he
+was ready to injure, ready for anything to distract his mind which,
+however, had not given up for a moment the dogged determination to
+recover the ground he had lost with perhaps the only woman in the world
+he had ever really cared for.
+
+Yet, he was the kind of man who does not know what real love is. That
+understanding had not been born in him, and he had not acquired it. He
+was totally incapable of anything except that fierce passion which is
+aroused by obstacles when in pursuit of whatever evinces a desire to
+escape.
+
+It was that way with him when, by accident, he saw and recognised Jessie
+Vining one evening leaving the Dankmere Galleries. And Langly Sprowl
+never denied himself anything that seemed incapable of self-defence.
+
+He stopped his car and got out and spoke to her, very civilly, and with
+a sort of kindly frankness which he sometimes used with convincing
+effect. She refused the proffered car to take her to her destination,
+but could not very well avoid his escort; and their encounter ended by
+her accepting his explanations and his extended hand, perplexed,
+unwilling to misjudge him, but thankful when he departed.
+
+After that he continued to meet her occasionally and walk home with her.
+
+Then he sent his footman and the car for her; and drew Lord Dankmere out
+of the grab-bag, to his infinite annoyance. Worse, Dankmere had struck
+him with an impact so terrific that it had knocked him senseless across
+the table in a private dining-room of the Café Cammargue, where he
+presently woke up with a most amazing eye to find the terrified
+proprietor and staff playing Samaritan.
+
+In various papers annoying paragraphs concerning him had begun to
+appear--hints of how matters stood between him and Mary Ledwith, ugly
+innuendo, veiled rumours of the breach between him and his aunt
+consequent upon his untenable position _vis-à-vis_ Mrs. Ledwith.
+
+Until Dankmere had inconvenienced his features he had walked downtown to
+his office every day, lank, long-legged, sleek head held erect, hatchet
+face pointed straight in front of him, his restless eyes encountering
+everybody's but seeing nobody unless directly saluted.
+
+Now, his right eye rivalling a thunder-cloud in tints, he drove one of
+his racing cars as fast as he dared, swinging through Westchester or
+scurrying about Long Island. Occasionally he went aboard the _Yulan_,
+but a burning restlessness kept him moving; and at last he returned to
+South Linden in a cold but deadly rage, determined to win back the
+chances which he supposed he had thrown away in the very moment of
+victory.
+
+Strelsa Leeds had now taken up her abode in her quaint little house; he
+learned that immediately; and that evening he went over and came upon
+her moving about in the dusky garden, so intent on inspecting her
+flowers that he was within a pace of her before she turned her head and
+saw him.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "can we not be friends again? I ask no more than
+that."
+
+Too surprised and annoyed to reply she merely gazed at him. And,
+because, for the first time in his life, perhaps, he really felt every
+word he uttered, he spoke now with a certain simplicity and self-control
+that sounded unusual to her ears--so noticeably unlike what she knew of
+him that it commanded her unwilling attention.
+
+For his unpardonable brutality and violence he asked forgiveness,
+promising to serve her faithfully and in friendship for the privilege of
+attempting to win back her respect and regard. He asked only that.
+
+He said that he scarcely knew what to do with his life without the hope
+of recovering her respect and esteem; he asked for a beggar's chance,
+begged for it with a candour and naïveté almost boyish--so directly to
+the point tended every instinct in him to recover through caution and
+patience what he had lost through carelessness and a violence which
+still astonished him.
+
+The Bermuda lilies were in bloom and Strelsa stood near them, listening
+to him, touching the tall stalks absently at intervals. And while she
+listened she became more conscious still of the great change in
+herself--of her altered attitude toward so much in life that once had
+seemed to her important. After he had ceased she still stood pensively
+among the lilies, gray eyes brooding. At length, looking up, she said
+very quietly:
+
+"Why do you care for my friendship, Langly? I am not the kind of woman
+you think me--not even the kind I once thought myself. To me friendship
+is no light thing either to ask for or to give. It means more to me than
+it once did; and I give it very seldom, and sparingly, and to very, very
+few. But toward everybody I am gently disposed--because, I am much
+happier than I ever have been in all my life.... Is not my good will
+sufficient for any possible relation between you and me?"
+
+"Then you are no longer angry with me?"
+
+"No--no longer angry."
+
+"Can we be friends again? Can you really forgive me, Strelsa?"
+
+"Why--yes, I could do that.... But, Langly, what have you and I in
+common as a basis for friendship? What have we ever had in common?
+Except when we encounter each other by hazard, why should we ever meet
+at all?"
+
+"You have not pardoned me, Strelsa," he said patiently.
+
+"Does that really make any difference to you? It doesn't to me. It is
+only because I never think of you that it would be an effort to forgive
+you. I'll make that effort if you wish, but really, Langly, I never
+think about you at all."
+
+"If that is true, let me be with you sometimes, Strelsa," he said in a
+low voice.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I am wretchedly unhappy. And I care for you--more than you
+realise."
+
+She said seriously: "You have no right to speak that way to me, Langly."
+
+"Could you ever again give me the right to say I love you?"
+
+A quick flush of displeasure touched her cheeks; he saw it in the dusk
+of the garden, and mistook it utterly:
+
+"Strelsa--listen to me, dear! I have not slept since our quarrel. I must
+have been stark mad to say and do what I did.... Don't leave me! Don't
+go! I beg you to listen a moment----"
+
+She had started to move away from him and his first forward step broke a
+blossom from its stalk where it hung white in the dusk.
+
+"I ask you to go," she said under her breath. "There are people here--on
+the veranda----"
+
+Every sense within him told him to go, pretending resignation. That was
+his policy. He had come here for martyrdom, cuirassed in patience. Every
+atom of common sense warned him to go.
+
+But also every physical sense in him was now fully aroused--the silvery
+star-dusk, the scent of lilies, a slender woman within arm's reach--this
+woman who had once been so nearly his--who was still rightfully
+his!--these circumstances were arousing him once more to a temerity
+which his better senses warned him to subdue. Yet if he could only get
+nearer to her--if he could once get her into his arms--overwhelm her
+with the storm of passion rising so swiftly within him, almost choking
+him--so that his voice and limbs already trembled in its furious
+surge----
+
+"Strelsa--I love you! For God's sake show me some mercy!" he stammered.
+"I come to you half crazed by the solitude to which your anger has
+consigned me. I cannot endure it--I need you--I want you--I ask for your
+compassion----"
+
+"Hush!" she pleaded, hastily retreating before him through the snowy
+banks of rockets--"I have asked you not to speak to me that way! I ask
+you to go--to go now!--because----"
+
+"Will you listen to me! Will you wait a moment! I am only trying to tell
+you that I love you, dear----"
+
+He almost caught her, but she sprang aside, frightened, still retreating
+before him.
+
+"I cannot go until you listen to me!--" he said thickly, trampling
+through the flowers to intercept her. "You've got to listen!--do you
+hear?"
+
+She had almost reached the terrace; the shadowy veranda opened widely
+beyond.
+
+"There are people here! Don't you understand?" she said once more in a
+choking voice; but he only advanced, and she fell back before him to the
+very edge of the porch lattice.
+
+"Now listen to me!" he said between his teeth. "I love you and I'll
+never give you up----"
+
+Suddenly she turned on him, hands tightly clenched:
+
+"Be silent!" she whispered fiercely. "I tell you what you say is
+indecent, revolting! If there were a man here he'd kill you! Do you
+understand?"
+
+At the same instant his eyes became fixed on a figure in white which
+took shadowy shape on the dark veranda, rising and coming slowly
+forward.
+
+Ghostlike as it was he knew it instantly, stood rooted in his tracks
+while Strelsa stole away from him through the star-lit gloom, farther,
+farther, slipping forever from him now--he knew that as he stood there
+staring like a damned man upon that other dim shape in the darkness
+beyond.
+
+It was his first glimpse of her since her return from Reno. And now,
+unbidden, memories half strangled were already in full resurrection,
+gasping in his ears of things that had been--of forgotten passion, of
+pleasure promised; and, because never tasted, it had been the true and
+only pleasure for such a man as he--the pleasure of anticipation. But
+the world had never, would never believe that. Only he, and the phantom
+there in the dusk before him, knew it to be true.
+
+Slightly reeling he turned away in the darkness. In his haunted ears
+sounded a young wife's voice, promising, caressing; through and through
+him shot a thrill of the old excitement, the old desire, urging him
+again toward belated consummation.
+
+And again the old impatience seized him, the old ruthlessness, the old
+anger at finding her weak in every way except one, the old contempt
+which had turned to sullen amazement when she wrote him that she had
+gone to Reno and that they must wait for their happiness until the
+courts decreed it legal.
+
+Now as he swung along under the high stars he was thinking of these
+things. And he felt that he had not tried her enough, had not really
+exerted himself--that women who are fools require closer watching than
+clever ones; that he could have overcome her scruples with any real
+effort and saved her from giving him the slip and sowing a wind in Reno
+which already had become enough of a breeze to bother him.
+
+With her, for a while, he might be able to distract his mind from this
+recent obsession tormenting him. To overcome her would interest him;
+and he had no doubt it could be done--for she was a little fool--silly
+enough to slap the world in the face and brave public opinion at Reno.
+No--it was not necessary to marry such a woman. She might think so, but
+it wasn't.
+
+He had behaved unwisely, too. Why should he not have gone to see her
+when she returned? By doing so, and acting cleverly, he could have
+avoided trouble with his aunt, and also these annoying newspaper
+paragraphs. Also he could have avoided the scene with Ledwith--and the
+aborted reconciliation just now with Strelsa, where he had stood staring
+at the apparition of Mary Ledwith as lost souls stand transfixed before
+the pallid shades of those whom they have destroyed.
+
+At his lodge-gate a half-cowering dog fawned on him and he kicked it
+aside. The bruised creature fled, and Sprowl turned in at his gates and
+walked slowly up the cypress-bordered drive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He thought it all out that night, studied it carefully. What he needed
+was distraction from the present torment. Mary Ledwith could give that
+to him. What a fool she had been ever to imagine that she could be
+anything more than his temporary mistress.
+
+"The damned little idiot," he mused--"cutting away to Reno before I knew
+what she was up to--and involving us both in all that talk! What did she
+flatter herself I wanted, anyway.... But I ought to have called on her
+at once; now it's going to be difficult."
+
+Yet he sullenly welcomed the difficulty--hoped that she'd hold out. That
+was what he wanted, the excitement of it to take his mind from
+Strelsa--keep him interested and employed until the moment arrived once
+more when he might venture to see her again. He was, by habit, a patient
+man. Only in the case of Strelsa Leeds had passion ever prematurely
+betrayed him; and, pacing his porch there in the darkness, he set his
+teeth and wondered at himself and cursed himself, unable to reconcile
+what he knew of himself with what he had done to the only woman he had
+ever wished to marry as a last resort.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For two weeks Sprowl kept to himself. Few men understood better than he
+what was the medicinal value of time. Only once had he dared ignore it.
+
+So one evening, late in August, still dressed in knickerbockers and
+heather-spats, he walked from his lawn across country to make the first
+move in a new game with Mary Ledwith.
+
+Interested, confident, already amused, and in far better spirits than he
+had been for many a day, he strode out across the fields, swinging his
+walking-stick, his restless eyes seeing everything and looking directly
+at nothing.
+
+Which was a mistake on his part for once, because, crossing a pasture
+corner, his own bull, advancing silently from a clump of willows, nearly
+caught him; but Sprowl went over the fence and, turning, brought down
+his heavy stick across the brute's ringed nose; and the animal bellowed
+at him and tore up the sod and followed along inside the fence
+thundering his baffled fury as long as Sprowl remained in sight.
+
+It was not all bad disposition. Sprowl, who cared nothing for animals,
+hated the bull, and, when nothing more attractive offered, was
+accustomed to come to the fence, irritate the animal, lure him within
+range, and strike him. He had done it many times; and, some day, he
+meant to go into the pasture with a rifle, stand the animal's charge,
+and shoot him.
+
+It was a calm, primrose-tinted sunset where trees and hills and a
+distant spire loomed golden-black against the yellow west. No trees had
+yet turned, although, here and there on wooded hills, single discoloured
+branches broke the green monotony.
+
+No buckwheat had yet been cut, but above the ruddy fields of stalks the
+snow of the blossoms had become tarnished in promise of maturity--the
+first premonition of autumn except for a few harvest apples yellow amid
+green leaves.
+
+He had started without any definite plan, a confident but patient
+opportunist; and as he approached the Ledwith property and finally
+sighted the chimneys of the house above the trees, something--some
+errant thought seemed to amuse him, for he smiled slightly. His smile
+was as rare as his laughter--and as brief; and there remained no trace
+of it as he swung up the last hill and stood there gazing ahead.
+
+The sun had set. A delicate purple haze already dimmed distances; and
+the twilight which falls more swiftly as summer deepens into autumn was
+already stealing into every hollow and ravine, darkening the alders
+where the stream stole swampwards. A few laggard crows were still
+winging toward the woods; a few flocks of blackbirds passed overhead
+almost unseen against the sky. Somewhere some gardener had been burning
+leaves and refuse, and the odour made the dusk more autumn-like.
+
+As he crossed the line separating his land from the Ledwith estate he
+nodded to the daughter of one of his own gardeners who was passing with
+a collie; and then he turned to look again at the child whose slender
+grace and freshness interested him.
+
+"Look out for that bull, Europa," he said, staring after her as she
+walked on.
+
+She looked back at him, laughingly, and thanked him and went on quite
+happily, the collie plodding at her heels. Recently Sprowl had been very
+pleasant to her.
+
+When she was out of sight he started forward, climbed the fence into the
+road, followed it to the drive-way, and followed that among the elms
+and Norway firs to the porch.
+
+It was so dark here among the trees that only the lighted transom guided
+him up the steps.
+
+To the maid who came to the door he said coolly: "Say to Mrs. Ledwith
+that Mr. Sprowl wishes to see her for a moment on a very important
+matter."
+
+"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home, sir."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home."
+
+"Where is she; out?"
+
+"Y-yes, sir."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don't know, sir----"
+
+"Yes, you do. Mrs. Ledwith is at home but has given you instructions
+concerning me. Isn't that so?"
+
+The maid, crimson and embarrassed, made no answer, and he walked past
+her into the drawing-room.
+
+"Light up here," he said.
+
+"Please, sir----"
+
+"Do as I tell you, my good girl. Here--where's that button?--there!--"
+as the pretty room sprang into light--"Now never mind your instructions
+but go and say to Mrs. Ledwith that I _must_ see her."
+
+He calmly unfolded a flat packet of fresh bank-notes, selected one,
+changed it on reflection for another of higher denomination, and handed
+it to her. The girl hesitated, still irresolute until he lifted his
+narrow head and stared at her. Then she went away hurriedly.
+
+When she returned to say that Mrs. Ledwith was not at home to Mr. Sprowl
+he shrugged and bade her inform her mistress that their meeting was not
+a matter of choice but of necessity, and that he would remain where he
+was until she received him.
+
+Again the maid went away, evidently frightened, and Sprowl lighted a
+cigarette and began to saunter about. When he had examined everything in
+the room he strolled into the farther room. It was unlighted and suited
+him to sit in; and he installed himself in a comfortable chair and,
+throwing his cigarette into the fire-place, lighted a cigar.
+
+This was a game he understood--a waiting game. The game was traditional
+with his forefathers; every one of them had played it; their endless
+patience had made a fortune to which each in turn had added before he
+died. Patience and courage--courage of the sort known as personal
+bravery--had distinguished all his race. He himself had inherited
+patience, and had used it wisely except in that one inexplicable
+case!--and personal courage in him had never been lacking, nor had what
+often accompanies it, coolness, obstinacy, and effrontery.
+
+He had decided to wait until his cigar had been leisurely finished.
+Then, other measures--perhaps walking upstairs, unannounced, perhaps an
+unresentful withdrawal, a note by messenger, and another attempt to see
+her to-morrow--he did not yet know--had arrived at no conclusion--but
+would make up his mind when he finished his cigar and then do whatever
+caution dictated.
+
+Once a servant came to the door to look around for him, and when she
+discovered him in the half-light of the music-room she departed hastily
+for regions above. This amused Sprowl.
+
+As he lounged there, thoroughly comfortable, he could hear an occasional
+stir in distant regions of the house, servants moving perhaps, a door
+opened or closed, faint creaks from the stairs. Once the distant sounds
+indicated that somebody was using a telephone; once, as he neared the
+end of his cigar, a gray cat stole in, caught sight of him, halted, her
+startled eyes fixed on him, then turned and scuttled out into the hall.
+
+Finally he rose, flicked his cigar ashes into the fireplace, stretched
+his powerful frame, yawned, and glanced at his watch.
+
+And at the same instant somebody entered the front door with a
+latch-key.
+
+Sprowl stood perfectly still, interested, waiting: and two men,
+bare-headed and in evening dress, came swiftly but silently into the
+drawing-room. One was Quarren, the other Chester Ledwith. Quarren took
+hold of Ledwith's arm and tried to draw him out of the room. Then
+Ledwith caught sight of Sprowl and started toward him, but Quarren again
+seized his companion by the shoulder and dragged him back.
+
+"I tell you to keep quiet," he said in a low voice--"Keep out of
+this!--go out of the house!"
+
+"I can't, Quarren! I----"
+
+"You promised not to come in until that man had left----"
+
+"I know it. I meant to--but, good God! Quarren! I can't stand there----"
+
+He was struggling toward Sprowl and Quarren was trying to push him back
+into the hall.
+
+"You said that you had given up any idea of personal vengeance!" he
+panted. "Let me deal with him quietly----"
+
+"I didn't know what I was saying," retorted Ledwith, straining away from
+the man who held him, his eyes fixed on Sprowl. "I tell you I can't
+remain quiet and see that blackguard in this house----"
+
+"But he's going I tell you! He's going without a row--without any noise.
+Can't you let me manage it----"
+
+He could not drag Ledwith to the door, so he forced him into a chair and
+stood guard, glancing back across his shoulder at Sprowl.
+
+"You'd better go," he said in a low but perfectly distinct voice.
+
+Sprowl, still holding his cigar, sauntered forward into the
+drawing-room.
+
+"I suppose you are armed," he said contemptuously. "If you threaten me
+I'll take away your guns and slap both your faces--ask the other pup how
+it feels, Quarren."
+
+Ledwith struggled to rise but Quarren had him fast.
+
+"Get out of here, Sprowl," he said. "You'll have a bad time of it if he
+gets away from me."
+
+Sprowl stared, hands in his pockets, puffing his cigar.
+
+"I've a notion to kick you both out," he drawled.
+
+"It would be a mistake," panted Quarren. "Can't you go while there's
+time, Sprowl! I tell you he'll kill you in this room if you don't."
+
+"I won't--_kill_ him!--Let go of me, Quarren," gasped Ledwith. "I--I
+won't do murder; I've promised you that--for _her_ sake----"
+
+"Let him loose, Quarren," said Sprowl.
+
+He waited for a full minute, watching the struggling men in silent
+contempt. Then with a shrug he went out into the hall, leisurely put on
+his hat, picked up his stick, opened the door, and sauntered out into
+the darkness.
+
+"Now," breathed Quarren fiercely, "you play the man or I'm through with
+you! He's gone and he won't come back--I'll see to that! And it's up to
+you to show what you're made of!"
+
+Ledwith, freed, stood white and breathing hard for a few moments. Then a
+dull flush suffused his thin face; he looked down, stood with hanging
+head, until Quarren laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"It's up to you, Ledwith," he said quietly. "I don't blame you for
+losing your head a moment, but if you mean what you said, I should say
+that this is your chance.... And if I were you I'd simply go upstairs
+and speak to her.... She's been through hell.... She's in it still. But
+_you're_ out; and you can stay out if you choose. There's no need to
+wallow if you don't want to. You're not in very good shape yet, but
+you're a man. And now, if you do care for her, I really believe it's up
+to you.... Will you go upstairs?"
+
+Ledwith turned and went out into the familiar hall. Then, as though
+dazed, resting one thin hand on the rail, he mounted the stairway, head
+hanging, feeling his way blindly back toward all that life had ever
+held for him, but which he had been too weak to keep or even to defend.
+
+[Illustration: "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl."]
+
+Quarren waited for a while; Ledwith did not return. After a few minutes
+an excited maid came down, stared at him, then, reassured, opened the
+door for him with a smile. And he went out into the starlight.
+
+He had been walking for only a few moments when he overtook Sprowl
+sauntering down a lane; and the latter glanced around and, recognising
+him, halted.
+
+"Where's the other hero?" he asked.
+
+"Probably discussing you with the woman he is likely to remarry."
+
+Sprowl shrugged:
+
+"That's what that kind of a man is made for--to marry what others don't
+have to marry."
+
+"You lie," said Quarren quietly.
+
+Sprowl stared at him: then the long-pent fury overwhelmed his common
+sense again, and again it was in regard to the woman he had lost by his
+violence.
+
+"You know," he said, measuring his words, "that you're the same kind of
+a man, too. And some day, if you're good, you can marry what I don't
+have to marry----"
+
+He reeled under Quarren's blow, then struck at him blindly with his
+walking-stick, leaping at him savagely but recoiling, dizzy, half
+senseless under another blow so terrific that it almost nauseated him.
+
+He stood for a time, supporting himself against a tree; then as his wits
+returned he lifted his bruised face and stared murderously about him.
+Quarren was walking toward Witch-Hollow--half way there already and out
+of earshot as well as sight.
+
+Against the stars something moved on a near hill-top, and Sprowl reeled
+forward in pursuit, breaking into a heavy and steady run as the thing
+disappeared in the darkness. But he had seen it move, just beyond that
+fence, and he seized the top rail and got over and ran forward in the
+darkness, clutching his stick and calling to Quarren by name.
+
+Where had he gone? He halted to listen, peering around with swollen
+eyes. Blood dripped from his lips and cheek; he passed his hand over
+them, glaring, listening. Suddenly he heard a dull sound close behind
+him in the night; whirled to confront what was coming with an unseen
+rush, thundering down on him, shaking the very ground.
+
+He made no outcry; there was no escape, nothing to do but to strike; and
+he struck with every atom of his strength; and went crashing down into
+darkness. And over his battered body bellowed and raged the bull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even the men who found them there in the morning could scarcely drive
+away the half-crazed brute. And the little daughter of the gardener, who
+had discovered what was there in the pasture, cowered in the fence
+corner, crying her heart out for her father's dead master who had spoken
+kindly to her since she had grown up and who had even taken her into his
+arms and kissed her the day before when she had brought him a rare
+orchid from the greenhouse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every newspaper in America gave up the right-hand columns to huge
+headlines and an account of the tragedy at South Linden. Every paper in
+the world chronicled it. There were few richer men in the world than
+Langly Sprowl. The tragedy moved everybody in various ways; stocks,
+however, did not move either way to the surprise of everybody. On second
+thoughts, however, the world realised that his wealth had been too
+solidly invested to cause a flurry. Besides he had a younger brother
+financing something or other for the Emperor of China. Now he would
+return. The great race would not become extinct.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night Quarren went back to the Wycherlys and found Molly waiting
+for him in the library.
+
+"What on earth did Mary Ledwith want of Jim this evening?" she asked.
+
+"Sprowl was in the house."
+
+"What!"
+
+"That's why the poor child telephoned. She was probably afraid of him,
+and wanted Jim there."
+
+Molly's teeth clicked:
+
+"Jim would have half-killed him. It's probably a good thing he was in
+town. What did you do?"
+
+"Nothing. Sprowl went all right."
+
+"What did Mary say to you?"
+
+"I didn't see her."
+
+"You didn't _see_ her?"
+
+"No."
+
+Molly's eyes grew rounder:
+
+"Where is Chester Ledwith? He didn't go with you into the house, did
+he?"
+
+"Yes, he did."
+
+"But where is he? You--you don't mean to say----"
+
+"Yes, I do. He went upstairs and didn't return.... So I waited for a
+while and then--came back."
+
+They sat silent for a while, then Molly lifted her eyes to his and they
+were brimming with curiosity.
+
+"If they become reconciled," she said, "how are people going to take it,
+Rix?"
+
+"Characteristically I suppose."
+
+"You mean that some will be nasty about it?"
+
+"Some."
+
+"But then----"
+
+"Oh, Molly, Molly," he said, smiling, "there are more important things
+than what a few people are likely to think or say. The girl made a fool
+of herself, and the man weakened and nearly went to pieces. He's found
+himself again; he's disposed to help her find herself. It was only one
+of those messes that the papers report every day. Few get out of such
+pickles, but I believe these two are going to.... And somehow, do you
+know--from something Sprowl said to-night, I don't believe that she went
+the entire limit--took the last ditch."
+
+Molly reddened: "Why?"
+
+"Because, although they do it in popular fiction, men like Sprowl never
+really boast of their successes. His sort keep silent--when there's
+anything to conceal."
+
+"Did he boast?"
+
+"He did. I was sure he was lying, and I--" he shrugged.
+
+"Told him so?"
+
+"Well, something of that sort."
+
+"I believe he was lying, too.... It was just like that romantic little
+fool to run off to Reno after nothing worse than the imprudence of
+infatuation. I've known her a long while, Rix. She's too shallow for
+real passion, too selfish to indulge it anyway. His name and fortune did
+the business for her--little idiot. Really she annoys me."
+
+Quarren smiled: "Her late husband seems to like her. Fools feminine have
+made many a man happy. You'll be nice to her I'm sure."
+
+"Of course.... Everybody will on Mrs. Sprowl's account."
+
+Quarren laughed again, then:
+
+"Meanwhile this Ledwith business has prevented my talking to Strelsa
+over the telephone," he said.
+
+"Oh, Rix! You _said_ you were going to surprise her in the morning!"
+
+"But I want to see her, Molly. I don't want to wait----"
+
+"It's after ten and Strelsa has probably retired. She's a perfect
+farmer, I tell you--yawns horribly every evening at nine. Why, I can't
+keep her awake long enough to play a hand at Chinese Khan! Be
+reasonable, Rix. You had planned to surprise her in the morning....
+And--I'm lonely without Jim.... Besides, if you are clever enough to
+burst upon Strelsa's view in the morning when the day is young and all
+before her, and when she's looking her very best, nobody can tell what
+might happen.... And I'll whisper in your ear that the child has really
+missed you.... But don't be in a hurry with her, will you, Rix?"
+
+"No," he said absently.
+
+Molly picked up her knitting.
+
+"If Chester Ledwith doesn't return by twelve I'm going to have the house
+locked," she said, stifling a yawn.
+
+At twelve o'clock the house was accordingly locked for the night.
+
+"It's enough to compromise her," said Molly, crossly. "What a pair of
+fools they are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Strelsa, a pink apron pinned about her, a trowel in her gloved hand,
+stood superintending the transplanting of some purple asters which not
+very difficult exploit was being attempted by a local yokel acting as
+her "hired man."
+
+The garden, a big one with a wall fronting the road, ran back all the
+way to the terrace in the rear of the house beyond which stretched the
+western veranda.
+
+And it was out on this veranda that Quarren stepped in the wake of
+Strelsa's maid, and from there he caught his first view of Strelsa's
+garden, and of Strelsa herself, fully armed and caparisoned for the
+perennial fray with old Dame Nature.
+
+"You need not go down there to announce me," he said; "I'll speak to
+Mrs. Leeds myself."
+
+But before he could move, Strelsa, happening to turn around, saw him on
+the veranda, gazed at him incredulously for a moment, then brandished
+her trowel with a clear, distant cry of greeting, and came toward him,
+laughing in her excitement and surprise. They met midway, and she
+whipped off her glove and gave him her hand in a firm, cool clasp.
+
+"Why the dickens didn't you wire!" she said. "You're a fraud, Rix! I
+might easily have been away!--You might have missed me--we might have
+missed each other.... Is _that_ all you care about seeing me?--after all
+these weeks!"
+
+"I wanted to surprise you," he explained feebly.
+
+"Well, you didn't! That is--not much. I'd been thinking of you--and I
+glanced up and saw you. You're stopping at Molly's I suppose."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When did you arrive?"
+
+"L-last night," he admitted.
+
+"What! And didn't call me up! I refuse to believe it of you!"
+
+She really seemed indignant, and he followed her into the pretty house
+where presently she became slightly mollified by his exuberant
+admiration of the place.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" she said. "Do you really think it so pretty? If
+you do I'll take you upstairs and show you my room, and the three
+beautiful spick and span guest rooms. But _you'll_ never occupy one!"
+she added, still wrathful at his apparent neglect of her. "I don't want
+anybody here who isn't perfectly devoted to me. And it's very plain that
+you are not."
+
+He mildly insisted that he was but she denied it, hotly.
+
+"And I shall _never_ get over it," she added. "But you may come upstairs
+and see what you have missed."
+
+They went over the renovated house thoroughly; she, secretly enchanted
+at his admiration and praise of everything, pointed out any object that
+seemed to have escaped his attention merely to hear him approve it.
+Finally she relented.
+
+"You _are_ satisfactory," she said as they returned to the front veranda
+and seated themselves. "And really, Rix, I'm so terribly glad to see you
+that I forgive your neglect.... Are you well? You don't look very
+well," she added earnestly. "Why are you so white?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."]
+
+"I'm in fine shape, thank you."
+
+"I didn't mean your figure," she laughed--"Oh, that _was_ a common kind
+of a joke, wasn't it? But I'm only a farmer, Rix. You must expect the
+ruder and simpler forms of speech from a lady of the woodshed!... Why
+are you so pale?"
+
+"Do I seem particularly underdone?"
+
+"That's horrid, too. Are you and I going to degenerate just because you
+work for a living? You _are_ unusually thin, anyway; and the New York
+pallor is very noticeable. Will you stay and get sun-burnt?"
+
+"I _could_ stay a few days."
+
+"How many?"
+
+"How many do you want me? Two whole days, Strelsa?"
+
+She laughed at him, then looked at him a trifle shyly, but laughed again
+as she answered:
+
+"I want you to stay always, of course. Don't pretend that you don't know
+it, because you are perfectly aware that I never tire of you. But if you
+can stay only two days don't let us waste any time----"
+
+"We're not wasting it here together, are we?"
+
+"Don't you want to walk? I haven't a horse yet, except for agricultural
+purposes. I'll rinse my hands and take off this apron--" She stood
+unpinning and untying it, her gray eyes never leaving him in their
+unabashed delight in him.
+
+Then she disappeared for a few minutes only to reappear wearing a pair
+of stout little shoes and carrying a walking-stick which she said she
+used in rough country.
+
+And first they visited her garden where all the old-fashioned autumn
+flowers were in riotous bloom--scarlet sage, rockets, thickets of
+gladiolus, heavy borders of asters, marigolds, and coreopsis; and here
+she gave a few verbal directions to the yokel who gaped toothlessly in
+reply.
+
+After that, side by side, they swung off together across the hill, she,
+lithe and slender, setting the springy pace and twirling her
+walking-stick, he, less accustomed to the open and more so to the smooth
+hot streets of the city, slackening pace first.
+
+She chided and derided him and bantered him scornfully, then with sudden
+sweet concern halted, reproaching herself for setting too hot a pace for
+a city-worn and work-worn man.
+
+But the cool shadows of the woods were near, and she made him rest on
+the little footbridge--the same bridge where he had encountered Ledwith
+for the first time in years. He recognised the spot.
+
+After they had seated themselves and Strelsa, resting on the back of the
+bridge seat, was contentedly dabbling in the stream with her cane,
+Quarren said, slowly:
+
+"Shall I tell you why I did not disturb you last night, Strelsa?"
+
+"You can't excuse it----"
+
+"You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though----"
+
+"I am listening."
+
+"Then, it has to do with Ledwith. He's not very well but he's better
+than he was. You see he wanted to take a course of treatment to regain
+his health, and there seemed to be nobody else, so--I offered to see
+him through."
+
+"That's like you, Rix," she said, looking at him.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't anything--I had nothing to do----"
+
+"That's like you, too. Did you pull him through?"
+
+"He pulled himself through.... It was strenuous for two or three
+days--and hot as the devil in that sanitarium." ... He laughed. "We both
+were wrecks when we came out two weeks later--oh, a bit groggy, that's
+really all.... And he had no place to go--and seemed to be inclined to
+keep hold of my sleeve--so I telephoned Molly. And she said to bring him
+up. That was nice of her, wasn't it?"
+
+"Everybody is wonderful except you," she said.
+
+"Nonsense," he said, "it wasn't I who went through a modified hell. He's
+got a lot of backbone, Ledwith.... And so we came up last night....
+And--now here's the interesting part, Strelsa! We strolled over to call
+on Mrs. Ledwith----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Certainly. I myself didn't see her but--" he laughed--"she seemed to be
+at home to her ex-husband."
+
+"Rix!"
+
+"It's a fact. He went back there for breakfast this morning after he'd
+changed his clothes."
+
+"After--_what_?"
+
+"Yes. It seems that they started out in a canoe about midnight and he
+didn't turn up at Witch-Hollow until just before breakfast--and then he
+only stayed long enough to change to boating flannels.... You should see
+him; he's twenty years younger.... I fancy they'll get along together in
+future."
+
+"Oh, Rix!" she said, "that was darling of you! You _are_ wonderful even
+if you don't seem to know it!... And to think--to _think_ that Mary
+Ledwith is going to be happy again!... Oh, you don't know how it has
+been with her--the silly, unhappy little thing!
+
+"Why, after Mrs. Sprowl left, the girl went all to pieces. Molly and I
+did what we could--but Molly isn't strong and Mrs. Ledwith was at my
+house almost all the time--Oh, it was quite dreadful, and I'm sure she
+was really losing her senses--because--I think I'll tell you--I tell you
+everything--" She hesitated, and then, lowering her voice:
+
+"She had come to see me, and she was lying on the lounge in my
+dressing-room, crying; and I was doing my hair. And first I knew she
+sobbed out that she had killed her husband and wanted to die, and she
+caught up that pistol that Sir Charles gave me at the Bazaar last
+winter--it looked like a real one--and the next thing I knew she had
+fired a charge of Japanese perfume at her temple, and it was all over
+her face and hair!... Don't laugh, Rix; she thought she had killed
+herself, and I had a horrid, messy time of it reviving her."
+
+"You poor child," he exclaimed trying not to laugh--"she had no brains
+to blow out anyway.... That's a low thing to say. Ledwith likes her....
+I really believe she's been scared into life-long good behaviour."
+
+"She wasn't--really--horrid," said Strelsa in a low voice. "She told me
+so."
+
+"I don't doubt it," he said. "But one way or the other you might as well
+reproach a humming-bird for its morals. There are such people."
+
+After a short silence she said:
+
+"Tell me about people in town."
+
+"There are few there. Besides," he added smilingly, "I don't see much of
+your sort of people."
+
+"_My_ sort?" she repeated, lifting her gray eyes. "Am I not your sort,
+Rix?"
+
+"Are you? You should see me in my overalls and shirt-sleeves, stained
+with solvents and varnish, sticky with glue and reeking turpentine,
+ironing out a canvas with a warm flat-iron!... Am I your kind, Strelsa?"
+
+"Yes.... Am I _your_ kind?"
+
+"You always were. You know that."
+
+"Yes, I do know it, now." She sat very still, hands folded, considering
+him with gray and speculative eyes.
+
+"From the very beginning," she said, "you have never once disappointed
+me."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.
+
+"Never," she repeated.
+
+"Why--why, I got in wrong the very first time!" he said.
+
+"You mean that wager we made?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you behaved like a good sportsman."
+
+"Well, I wasn't exactly a bounder. But you were annoyed."
+
+She smiled: "Was I?"
+
+"You seemed to be."
+
+"Yet I sat in a corner behind some palms with you until daylight."
+
+They looked at each other and laughed over the reminiscence. Then he
+said:
+
+"I _did_ disappoint you when you found out what sort of a man I was."
+
+"No, you didn't."
+
+"I proved it, too," he said under his breath.
+
+Her lips were set firmly, almost primly, but she blushed.
+
+"You meant to be nice to me," she said. "You meant to do me honour."
+
+"The honour of offering you such a man as I was," he said with smiling
+bitterness.
+
+"Rix! _I_ was the fool--the silly little prig! I have blushed and
+blushed to remember how I behaved; how I snubbed you and--good
+heavens!--even lectured and admonished you!--How I ran away from you
+with all the self-possession and _savoir-faire_ of a country schoolgirl!
+What on earth you thought of me in those days I dread to surmise----"
+
+"But Strelsa, what was there to do except what you did?"
+
+"If I'd known anything I could have thanked you for caring that way for
+me and dismissed you as a friend instead of fleeing as though you had
+affronted me----"
+
+"I _did_ affront you."
+
+"You didn't intend to.... It would have been easy enough to tell you
+that I liked you--but not that way.... And all those miserable, lonely,
+unhappy months could have been spared me----"
+
+"Were _you_ unhappy?"
+
+"Didn't you know it?"
+
+"I never dreamed you were."
+
+"Well, I was--thinking of what I had done to you.... And all those men
+bothering me, every moment, and everybody at me to marry everybody
+else--and all I wanted was to be friends with _you_!... I wasn't sure
+of what I wanted from the very beginning, of course, but I knew it as
+soon as I saw you at the Bazaar again.... I was _so_ lonely, Rix----"
+
+She looked up out of clear, fearless eyes; he leaned forward and took
+her hands in his.
+
+"I know what you want," he said quietly. "You want my friendship and you
+have it--every atom of it, Strelsa. I will never overstep the borders
+again; I understand you thoroughly.... You know what you have done for
+me--what I was when you came into my life. My gratitude is a living
+thing. Through you, because of you, the whole unknown world--all of real
+life--has opened before me. You did it for me, Strelsa."
+
+"You did it for yourself and for me," she said in a low voice. "What are
+you trying to tell me, Rix? That _I_ did this for _you_? When it is
+you--it was you from the first--it has always been you who led, who
+awakened first, who showed courage and common sense and patience and the
+cheerful wisdom which--which saved me----"
+
+The emotion in her voice stirred him thrillingly; her hands lay
+confidently in his; her gray eyes met his so sweetly, so honestly, that
+hope awoke for a moment.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "however it was with us--however it is now, I think
+that together we amount to more than we ever could have amounted to
+apart."
+
+"I know it," she said fervently. "I was nothing until I began to
+comprehend you."
+
+"What was I before you awoke me?"
+
+"A man neglecting his nobler self.... But it could not have lasted; your
+real self could not have long endured that harlequinade we once thought
+was real life.... I'm glad if you think that I--something about
+me--aroused you.... But if I had not, somebody or some circumstance
+would have very soon served the same purpose."
+
+"Do you think so?" he said, stooping to kiss her hands. She looked at
+him while he did so, confused by the quick pleasure of the contact, then
+schooled herself to endure it, setting her lips in a grave, firm line.
+
+And it was a most serious face he lifted his eyes to as she quietly
+withdrew her fingers from his.
+
+"You always played the courtier to perfection," she said, trying to
+speak lightly. "Tell me about that accomplished and noble peer, Lord
+Dankmere. Are you still inclined to like him?"
+
+He accepted her light and careless change of tone instantly, and spoke
+laughingly of Dankmere:
+
+"He's really a mighty nice fellow, Strelsa. Anyway, I like him. And
+_what_ do you think his lordship has been and gone and done?"
+
+"Has he become a Russian dancer, Rix?"
+
+"No, bless his heart! He's fallen head over ears in love and is engaged
+and is going to marry!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Our stenographer!"
+
+"Rix!"
+
+"Certainly.... She's pretty and sweet and good and _most_ worthy; and
+she's as crazy about Dankmere as he is about her.... Really, Strelsa,
+she's a charming young girl, and she'll make as pretty a countess as any
+of the Dankmeres have married in many a generation."
+
+Strelsa's lip curled: "I don't doubt that. They were always a horrid
+cock-fighting, prize-fighting, dissolute lot, weren't they?"
+
+"Something like that. But the present Dankmere is a good sort--really he
+is, Strelsa. And as for Jessie Vining, she's sweet. You'll be nice to
+them, won't you?"
+
+She said: "I'd be nice to them anyway. But now that you ask me to I'll
+be whatever you wish."
+
+"You _are_ a corker," he said almost tenderly; but with a slight smile
+she kept her hands out of his reach.
+
+"We mustn't degenerate into sentimentalism just because we're glad to
+see each other," she said so calmly that he did not notice the tremor in
+her voice. "And by the way, how is Mr. Westguard?"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Speaking of sentiment," said Quarren, "Karl now exudes it daily. He and
+Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera--to Lester's rage--have started a
+weekly paper called _Brotherhood_, consisting of pabulum for the
+horny-handed.
+
+"I couldn't do anything with Karl. Just look at him! He's really a good
+story-teller if he chooses. He could write jolly-good novels if he
+would. But the spectacle of De Groot weeping over a Bowery audience has
+finished him; and he's hard at work on a volume called 'The World's
+Woe,' and means to publish it himself because no publisher will take
+it."
+
+"Poor Karl," she said, smiling.
+
+"No," said Quarren, "that's the worst of it. His aunt has settled a
+million on him.... I tell you, Strelsa, the rich convert has less honour
+among the poor than the dingiest little 'dip' among the gorgeous
+corsairs of Wall Street.
+
+"I don't know how it happens, but Christ was never yet successfully
+preached from Fifth Avenue, and the millionaire whose heart bleeds for
+the poor needs a sterner surgeon than a complacent conscience to really
+stop the hemorrhage."
+
+"Rich men do good, Rix," she said thoughtfully.
+
+"But not by teaching or practising the thrift of celestial
+insurance--not by admonition to orthodoxy and exhortation to worship a
+Creator who sees to it that no two people are created equal. There is
+only one thing the rich can give to the poor for Christ's sake; and even
+that will always be taken with suspicion and distrust. No; there are
+only two ways to live: one is the life of self-discipline; the other is
+to actually imitate the militant Son of Man whose faith we pretend to
+profess--but whose life-history we merely parody, turning His crusade
+into a grotesque carnival. I know of no third course consistent."
+
+"To lead an upright life within bounds where your lines have fallen, or
+to strip and go forth militant," she mused. "There is no third course,
+as you say.... Do you know, Rix, that I have become a wonderfully happy
+sort of person?"
+
+"So have I," he said, laughingly.
+
+"It's just because we have something to do, isn't it?"
+
+"That--and the leisure which the idle never have. It seems like a
+paradox, doesn't it?--to say that the idle never have any time to
+themselves."
+
+"I know what you mean. I expect to work rather hard the rest of my
+life," she said seriously, "and yet I can foresee lots and lots of most
+delicious leisure awaiting me."
+
+"Do you foresee anything else, pretty prophetess?"
+
+"What else do you mean?"
+
+"Well, for example, you will be alone here all winter."
+
+"Do you mean loneliness?" she asked, smiling. "I don't expect to suffer
+from that. Molly will be here all winter and--you will write to me--"
+she turned to him--"won't you, Rix?"
+
+"Certainly. Besides I'm coming up to see you every week."
+
+"Every week!" she repeated, taken a little aback but smiling her sweet,
+confused smile. "Do you realise what you are so gaily engaging to do?"
+
+"Perfectly. I'm going to build up here."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"A--a house?"
+
+He looked at her, hesitated, then looking away:
+
+"Either a house or--an addition."
+
+"An _addition_?"
+
+"If you'll let me, Strelsa--some day."
+
+She understood him then. The painful colour stole into her cheeks,
+faintly burning, and she closed her eyes for a moment to endure it,
+sitting silent, motionless, her little sun-tanned hands tightly clasped
+on her knees.
+
+Then, unclosing her eyes she looked at him, delicate lips tightening.
+
+"I thought our relations were to remain on a higher plane," she said
+steadily.
+
+"Our relations are to remain what you desire them to be, dear."
+
+"I desire them to be what they are--_always_."
+
+"Then that is my wish also," he said with a smile so genuine and gay
+that, a little confused by his acquiescence, her own response was slow.
+But presently her smile dawned, a little tremulous and uncertain, and
+her gray eyes remained wistful though the lips curled deliciously.
+
+"I would do anything in the world for you, Rix, except--that," she said
+in a low voice.
+
+"I know you would, you dear girl."
+
+"Don't you really believe it?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+"But--I _can't_ do that--_ever_. It would--would spoil you for me....
+What in the world would I do if you were spoiled for me, Rix? I haven't
+anybody else.... What would I do here--all alone? I couldn't stay--I
+wouldn't know what to do--where to go in the world.... It would be
+lonely--lonely----"
+
+She bent her head, and remained so, gray eyes fixed on her clasped
+fingers. For a long while she sat bowed over, thinking; once or twice
+she lifted her eyes to look at him, but her gaze always became confused
+and remote; and he did not offer to break the silence.
+
+At last she looked up with a movement of decision, her face clearing.
+
+"You understand, don't you, Rix?" she said, rising.
+
+He nodded, rising also; and they descended the steps together and walked
+slowly away toward Witch-Hollow.
+
+From the hill-top they noticed one of Sprowl's farm-waggons slowly
+entering the drive, followed on foot by several men and a little girl.
+Her blond hair and apron fluttered in the breeze. She was too far away
+for them to see that she was weeping.
+
+"I wonder what they've got in that waggon?" said Quarren, curiously.
+
+Strelsa's gaze became indifferent, then passed on and rested on the blue
+range of hills beyond.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful about Chrysos," she said.
+
+"The quaint little thing," he said almost tenderly. "She told Molly what
+happened--how she sat down under a fence to tie wild strawberries for
+Sir Charles, and how, all at once, she realised what his going out of
+her life meant to her--and how the tears choked her to silence until she
+suddenly found herself in his arms.... Can you see it as it happened,
+Strelsa?--as pretty a pastoral as ever the older poets--" He broke off
+abruptly, and she looked up, but he was still smiling as though the
+scene of another man's happiness, so lightly evoked, were a
+visualisation of his own. And again her gray eyes grew wistful as though
+shyly pleading for his indulgence and silently asking his pardon for all
+that she could never be to him or to any man.
+
+So they came across fields and down through fragrant lanes to
+Witch-Hollow, where the fat setter gambolled ponderously around them
+with fat barkings and waggings, and where Molly, sewing on the porch,
+smoothed the frail and tiny garment over her knee and raised her pretty
+head to survey them with a smiling intelligence that made Strelsa blush.
+
+"It _isn't_ so!" she found an opportunity to whisper into Molly's ear.
+"If you look at us that way you'll simply make him miserable and break
+my heart."
+
+Molly glanced after Quarren who had wandered indoors to find a cigarette
+in the smoking-room.
+
+"If you don't marry that delectable young man," she said, "I'll take a
+stick and beat you, Strelsa."
+
+"I don't want to--I don't _want_ to!" protested the girl, getting
+possession of Molly's hands and covering them with caresses. And,
+resting her soft lips on Molly's fingers, she looked at her; and the
+young matron saw tears glimmering under the soft, dark lashes.
+
+"I _can't_ love him--that way," whispered the girl. "I would if I
+could.... I couldn't care for him more than I do.... And--and it
+terrifies me to think of losing him."
+
+"Losing him?"
+
+"Yes--by doing what you--what he--wishes."
+
+"You think you'll lose him if you marry him?"
+
+"I--yes. It would spoil him for me--spoil everything for me in the
+world----"
+
+"Well, you listen to me," said Molly, exasperated. "When he has stood a
+certain amount of this silliness from you he'll really and actually turn
+into the sexless comrade you think you want. But he'll go elsewhere for
+a mate. There are plenty suitable in the world. If you'd never been born
+there would have been another for him. If you passed out of his life
+there would some day be another.
+
+"Will we women never learn the truth?--that at best we are incidental to
+man, but that, when we love, man is the whole bally thing to us?
+
+"Let him escape and you'll see, Strelsa. You'll get, perhaps, what
+you're asking for now, but he'll get what he is asking for, too--if not
+from you, from some girl of whom you and I and he perhaps have never
+heard.
+
+"But she exists; don't worry. And any man worth his title is certain to
+encounter her sooner or later."
+
+The girl, flushed, dumb, watched her out of wide gray eyes in which the
+unshed tears had dried. The pretty matron slowly shook her head:
+
+"Because you once bit into tainted fruit you laid the axe to the entire
+orchard. What nonsense! Rottenness is the exception; soundness the rule.
+But you concluded that the hazard of bad fortune--that the unhappy
+chance of your first and only experience--was not an exception but the
+universal rule.... Very well; think it! He'll get over it some time, but
+you never will, Strelsa. You'll remember it all your life.
+
+"For I tell you that we women who go to our graves without having missed
+a single pang--we who die having known happiness and its shadow which is
+sorrow--the happiness and sorrow which come through love of man
+alone--die as we should die, in deep content of destiny fulfilled--which
+is the only peace beyond all understanding."
+
+The girl lowered her head and, resting her cheek on Molly's shoulder,
+looked down at the baby garment on her knees.
+
+"That also?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes.... Unless we pass that way, also, we can never die content.... But
+until a month ago I did not know it.... Strelsa--Strelsa! Are you never
+going to know what love can be?"
+
+The girl rose slowly, flushing and whitening by turns, and stood a
+moment, her hands covering her eyes.
+
+And standing so:
+
+"Do you think he will go away--from me--some day?"
+
+"Yes; he will go--unless----"
+
+"Must it be--that way?"
+
+"It will be that way, Strelsa."
+
+"I had never thought of that."
+
+"Think of it as the truth. It will be so unless you love him in his own
+fashion--and for his own sake. Try--if you care for him enough to
+try.... And if you do, you will love him for your own sake, too."
+
+"I--I had thought of--of giving myself--for his sake--because he wishes
+it.... I don't believe I'll be--much afraid--of him. Do you?"
+
+Molly's wise sweet eyes sparkled with silent laughter. Then without
+another glance at the tall, young girl before her she picked up her
+sewing, drew the needle from the hem, and smoothed out the lace
+embroidery on her knees.
+
+After a while she said:
+
+"Jim's returning on the noon train. Will you and Rix be here to
+luncheon?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, ask him; I have my orders to give if you'll stay."
+
+Strelsa walked into the house; Quarren, still hunting about for a
+cigarette, looked up as she entered the smoking-room.
+
+"Where the dickens does Jim keep his cigarettes?" he asked. "Do you
+know, Strelsa?"
+
+"You poor boy!" she exclaimed laughingly, "have you been searching all
+this time? The wonder is that you haven't perished. Why didn't you ask
+me for one when we were at--our house?"
+
+"_Your_ house?" he corrected, smiling.
+
+Her gray eyes met his with a frightened sort of courage.
+
+"_Our house_--if you wish--" But her lips had begun to tremble and she
+could not control them or force from them another word for all her
+courage.
+
+He came over to where she stood, one slim hand resting against the wall;
+and she looked back bravely into his keen eyes--the clear, direct,
+questioning eyes of a boy.
+
+"I--I will--marry you," she said.
+
+A swift flush touched his face to the temples.
+
+"Don't you--want me?" she said, tremulously.
+
+"If you love me, Strelsa."
+
+"Isn't it enough--that you--love----"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+She lost her colour.
+
+"Rix! Don't you want me?" she faltered.
+
+"Not unless you want me, Strelsa."
+
+She drew a long unsteady breath. Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes,
+and she held out both hands to him, blindly.
+
+"I--do love you," she whispered.... "I'll give what you give.... Only
+you must teach me--not to be--afraid."
+
+Her cheek lay close to his shoulder; his arms drew her nearer. And,
+after he had waited a long while, her gray eyes, which had been watching
+his face, slowly closed, and she lifted her lips toward his.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Hyphenation has been standardized. Nonstandard spellings have been
+maintained, e.g. "barytone", but clear spelling errors have been
+corrected ("hynotised" replaced with "hypnotised", "f" replaced with
+"of"). Missing periods have been added at ends of sentences. Missing
+close quotes have been added.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
+
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diff --git a/35233-0.zip b/35233-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Streets of Ascalon
+       Episodes in the Unfinished Career of Richard Quarren, Esqre.
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Illustrator: Charles Dana Gibson
+
+Release Date: February 10, 2011 [EBook #35233]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STREETS OF ASCALON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STREETS OF ASCALON
+
+
+Works of Robert W. Chambers
+
+  The Streets of Ascalon
+  Blue-Bird Weather
+  Japonette
+  The Adventures of a Modest Man
+  The Danger Mark
+  Special Messenger
+  The Firing Line
+  The Younger Set
+  The Fighting Chance
+  Some Ladies in Haste
+  The Tree of Heaven
+  The Tracer of Lost Persons
+  A Young Man in a Hurry
+  Lorraine
+  Maids of Paradise
+  Ashes of Empire
+  The Red Republic
+  Outsiders
+  The Common Law
+  Ailsa Paige
+  The Green Mouse
+  Iole
+  The Reckoning
+  The Maid-at-Arms
+  Cardigan
+  The Haunts of Men
+  The Mystery of Choice
+  The Cambric Mask
+  The Maker of Moons
+  The King in Yellow
+  In Search of the Unknown
+  The Conspirators
+  A King and a Few Dukes
+  In the Quarter
+
+For Children
+
+  Garden-Land
+  Forest-Land
+  River-Land
+  Mountain-Land
+  Orchard-Land
+  Outdoor-Land
+  Hide and Seek in Forest-Land
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK
+
+[Illustration: "She excused the witness and turned her back to the
+looking-glass."]
+
+
+
+
+_The_ STREETS
+OF ASCALON
+
+_Episodes in the Unfinished Career of
+Richard Quarren, Esq._
+
+BY
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+CHARLES DANA GIBSON
+
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+1912
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+Copyright, 1912, by The International Magazine Company
+
+
+_Published, September, 1912_
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+EULALIE ASHMORE
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                       BETWEEN
+                                                         PAGES
+
+  "She excused the witness and turned her back
+  to the looking-glass"                         _Frontispiece_
+
+  "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed
+  gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle"             24-25
+
+  "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically,
+  the Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers,
+  deftly evaded their pressing gallantries"              30-31
+
+  "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!'
+  she said lightly"                                      52-53
+
+  "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent
+  on her newspapers"                                     60-61
+
+  "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those
+  young men give there!'"                                78-79
+
+  "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length,
+  reddening again"                                       86-87
+
+  "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because
+  I have a message to deliver--'"                        98-99
+
+  "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about
+  the men!'"                                           116-117
+
+  "Strelsa, curled up on a divan ... listened to
+  his departure with quiet satisfaction"               126-127
+
+  "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked,
+  smiling"                                             128-129
+
+  "Once more, according to the newspapers, her
+  engagement to Sir Charles was expected
+  to be announced"                                     172-173
+
+  "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and
+  regarded in amazement by the neighbors"              178-179
+
+  "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for
+  the first time in nearly two months"                 190-191
+
+  "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next
+  to the battered party in black?'"                    194-195
+
+  "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,'
+  she whispered"                                       210-211
+
+  "So he took the lake path and presently
+  rounded a sharp curve"                               214-215
+
+  "'The old ones are the best,' she commented"         228-229
+
+  "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves,
+  was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable"      246-247
+
+  "A high and soulful tenor voice was singing
+  'Perfumes of Araby'"                                 272-273
+
+  "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very
+  slim in her limp black gown"                         280-281
+
+  Jessie Vining                                        290-291
+
+  "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains
+  and dines with Dankmere and myself
+  at some near restaurant'"                            302-303
+
+  "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling'"     328-329
+
+  "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she
+  asked caressingly"                                   346-347
+
+  "'And it is to be your last breakfast'"              374-375
+
+  Strelsa Leeds                                        380-381
+
+  "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl"              416-417
+
+  "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained
+  feebly"                                              424-425
+
+
+"_Tell it not in Gath, publish it not
+in the streets of Ascalon._"
+
+
+
+
+THE STREETS OF ASCALON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It being rent day, and Saturday, the staff of the "Irish Legation," with
+the exception of Westguard, began to migrate uptown for the monthly
+conference, returning one by one from that mysterious financial jungle
+popularly known as "Downtown." As for Westguard, he had been in his
+apartment all day as usual. He worked where he resided.
+
+A little before five o'clock John Desmond Lacy, Jr., came in, went
+directly to his rooms on the top floor, fished out a check-book, and
+tried to persuade himself that he had a pleasing balance at the
+bank--not because he was likely to have any balance either there or in
+his youthful brain, but because he _had_ to have one somewhere. God
+being good to the Irish he found he had not overdrawn his account.
+
+Roger O'Hara knocked on his door, later, and receiving no response
+called out: "Are you in there, Jack?"
+
+"No," said Lacy, scratching away with his pen in passionate hopes of
+discovering a still bigger balance.
+
+"Sportin' your oak, old Skeezicks?" inquired O'Hara, affectionately,
+delivering a kick at the door.
+
+"Let me alone, you wild Irishman!" shouted Lacy. "If I can't dig out an
+extra hundred somewhere the State Superintendent is likely to sport my
+oak for keeps!"
+
+A big, lumbering, broad-shouldered young fellow was coming up the stairs
+behind O'Hara, a blank book and some papers tucked under his arm, and
+O'Hara nodded to him and opened Mr. Lacy's door without further
+parleying.
+
+"Here's Westguard, now," he said; "and as we can't shoot landlords in
+the close season we'll have to make arrangements to pay for bed and
+board, Jack."
+
+Lacy glanced up from the sheet of figures before him, then waved his
+guests to seats and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Hooray," he remarked to Westguard; "I can draw you a check, Karl, and
+live to tell the tale." And he rose and gave his place at the desk to
+the man addressed, who seated himself heavily, as though tired.
+
+"Before we go over the accounts," he began, "I want to say a word or
+two----"
+
+"Hadn't you better wait till Quarren comes in?" interrupted O'Hara,
+smoking and stretching out his long legs.
+
+"No; I want to talk to you two fellows first. And I'll tell you at once
+what's the matter: Quarren's check came back marked 'no funds.' This is
+the third time; and one of us ought to talk to him."
+
+"It's only a slip," said Lacy--"it's the tendency in him that considers
+the lilies of the field----"
+
+"It isn't square," said Westguard doggedly.
+
+"Nonsense, Karl, Rix means to be square----"
+
+"That's all right, too, but he isn't succeeding. It humiliates me; it
+hurts like hell to have to call his attention to such oversights."
+
+"Oh, he's the gay tra-la-la," said O'Hara, indulgently; "do you think he
+bothers his elegant noddle about such trifles as checks? Besides he's
+almost as Irish as I am--God bless his mother and damn all landlords,
+Lester Caldera included."
+
+"What does Quarren do with all his money, then?" mused Lacy--"soaking
+the public in Tappan-Zee Park and sitting up so close and snug to the
+rich and great!"
+
+"It's his business," said Westguard, "to see that any check he draws is
+properly covered. Overdrafts may be funny in a woman, and in novels, but
+once is too often for any man. And this makes three times for Rix."
+
+"Ah, thin, lave the poor la-ad be! ye could-blooded Sassenach!" said
+Lacy, pretending to the brogue. "Phwat the divil!--'tis the cashier ye
+should blame whin Rix tells him to pay, an' he refuses to projuice the
+long-green wad!"
+
+But Westguard, unsmiling, consulted his memoranda, then, holding up his
+sheet of figures:
+
+"There's a quorum here," he said. "Rix can read this over when he comes
+in, if he likes. Here's the situation." And he read off the items of
+liabilities and assets, showing exactly, and to a penny, how the house
+had been run for the past month.
+
+Everything was there, rent, servants' wages, repairs, provisions, bills
+for heating and lighting, extras, incidentals--all disbursements and
+receipts; then, pausing for comments, and hearing none, he closed the
+ledger with a sharp slap.
+
+"The roof's leakin'," observed O'Hara without particular interest.
+
+"Write to the landlord," said Lacy--"the stingy millionaire."
+
+"He won't fix it," returned the other. "Did you ever hear of Lester
+Caldera spendin' a cent?"
+
+"On himself, yes."
+
+"That's not spendin'; it all goes inside or outside of him somewhere."
+He stretched his legs, crossed them, sucked on his empty pipe, and
+looked around at Westguard, who was still fussing over the figures.
+
+"Are you goin' to the Wycherlys', Karl?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"What costume?"
+
+"None of your business," retorted Westguard pleasantly.
+
+"I'm going as the family Banshee," observed Lacy.
+
+"Did you ever hear me screech, Karl?" And, pointing his nose skyward and
+ruffling up his auburn hair he emitted a yell so unendurable that it
+brought Westguard to his feet, protesting.
+
+"Shut up!" he said. "Do you want to have this house pinched, you crazy
+Milesian?"
+
+"Get out of my rooms if you don't like it," said Lacy. "If I'm going to
+a masked dance as a Banshee I've got to practice screaming, haven't I?"
+
+"I," said O'Hara, "am goin' as a bingle."
+
+"What's a bingle?"
+
+"Nobody knows. Neither do I; and it's killin' me to think up a
+costume.... Dick Quarren's goin', isn't he?"
+
+"Does he ever miss anything?" said Lacy.
+
+"He's missing most of his life," said Westguard so sharply that the
+others opened their eyes.
+
+A flush had settled under Westguard's cheek-bones; he was still jotting
+down figures with a flat silver pencil, but presently he looked up.
+
+"It's the cold and uncomplimentary truth about Ricky," he said. "That
+set he runs with is making an utter fool of him."
+
+"That set," repeated Lacy, grinning. "Why, we all have wealthy relatives
+in it--wealthy, charming, and respectable--h'm!"
+
+"Which is why we're at liberty to curse it out," observed O'Hara,
+complacently. "We all know what it is. Karl is right. If a man is goin'
+to make anythin' of himself he can't run with that expensive pack. One
+may venture to visit the kennels now and then, and look over the new
+litters--perhaps do a little huntin' once in a while--just enough--so
+that the M. F. H. recognises your coat tails when you come a cropper.
+But nix for wire or water! Me for the gate, please. Ah, do you think a
+_man_ can stand what the papers call 'the realm of society' very long?"
+
+"Rix is doing well."
+
+Westguard said: "They've gradually been getting a strangle-hold on him.
+Women are crazy about that sort of man--with his good looks and good
+humour and his infernally easy way of obliging a hundred people at
+once.... Look back a few years! Before he joined that whipper-snapper
+junior club he was full of decent ambition, full of go, unspoiled, fresh
+from college and as promising a youngster as anybody ever met. Where is
+his ambition now? What future has he?--except possibly to marry a
+million at forty-five and settle down with a comfortable grunt in the
+trough. It's coming, I tell you. Look what he was four years ago--a boy
+with clear eyes and a clear skin, frank, clean set, clean minded. Look
+at him now--sallow, wiry, unprofitably wise, rangé, disillusioned--oh,
+hell! they've mauled him to a shadow of a rag!"
+
+Lacy lighted another cigarette and winked at O'Hara. "Karl's off again,"
+he said. "Now we're going to get the Bible and the Sword for fair!"
+
+"Doesn't everybody need them both!" said Westguard, smiling. Then his
+heavy features altered: "I care a good deal for Dick Quarren," he said.
+"That's why his loose and careless financial methods make me mad--that's
+why this loose and careless transformation of a decent, sincere,
+innocent boy into an experienced, easy-going, cynical man makes me
+tired. I've got to stand for it, I suppose, but I don't want to. He's a
+gifted, clever, lovable fellow, but he hasn't any money and any right to
+leisure, and these people are turning him into one of those dancing
+things that leads cotillions and arranges tableaux, and plays social
+diplomat and forgets secrets and has his pockets full of boudoir
+keys--good Lord! I hate to say it, but they're making a tame cat of
+him--they're using him ignobly, I tell you--and that's the truth--if he
+had a friend with courage enough to tell him! I've tried, but I can't
+talk this way to him."
+
+There was a silence: then O'Hara crossed one lank leg over the other,
+gingerly, and contemplated his left shoe.
+
+"Karl," he said, "character never really changes; it only develops.
+What's born in the cradle is lowered into the grave, as some Russian guy
+said. You're a writer, and you know what I say is true."
+
+"Granted. But Quarren's character isn't developing; it's being stifled,
+strangled. He could have been a professional man--a lawyer, and a
+brilliant one--or an engineer, or a physician--any old thing. He's in
+real estate--if you can call it that. All right; why doesn't he _do_
+something in it? I'll tell you why," he added, angrily answering his own
+question; "these silly women are turning Quarren's ambition into
+laziness, his ideals into mockery, his convictions into cynicism----"
+
+He stopped short. The door opened, and Quarren sauntered in.
+
+"Couldn't help hearing part of your sermon, Karl," he said laughing. "Go
+ahead; I don't mind the Bible and the Sword--it's good for Jack Lacy,
+too--and that scoundrel O'Hara. Hit us again, old Ironsides. We're no
+good." And he sat down on the edge of Lacy's bed, and presently
+stretched out on it, gracefully, arms under his blond head.
+
+"You've been catchin' it, Ricky," said O'Hara with a grin. "Karl says
+that fashionable society is a bally wampire a-gorgin' of hisself at the
+expense of bright young men like you. What's the come-back to that,
+sonny?"
+
+"Thanks old fellow," said Quarren laughing and slightly lifting his head
+to look across at Westguard. "Go ahead and talk hell and brimstone. A
+fight is the only free luxury in the Irish Legation. I'll swat you with
+a pillow when I get mad enough."
+
+Westguard bent his heavy head and looked down at the yellow check on the
+table.
+
+"Rix," he said, "I've got to tell you that you have forgotten to make a
+deposit at your bank."
+
+"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Quarren with weary but amiable vexation--"that is
+the third time. What are you fellows going to do? Put me out of the
+Legation?"
+
+"Why the devil are you so careless?" growled Westguard.
+
+"I honestly don't know. I didn't suppose I was so short. I thought I had
+a balance."
+
+"Rot! The minute a man begins to _think_ he has a balance he knows damn
+well that he hasn't! I don't care, Rix--but, take it from me, you'll
+have a mortifying experience one of these days."
+
+"I guess that's right," said Quarren with a kind of careless contrition.
+"I never seem to be more than a lap or two ahead of old lady Ruin. And I
+break the speed-laws, too."
+
+"No youngster ever beat that old woman in a foot-race," observed Lacy.
+"Pay up and give her enough carfare to travel the other way; that's your
+only chance, Ricky."
+
+"Oh, certainly. No fellow need be in debt if he pays up, you Hibernian
+idiot!"
+
+"Do you want some money?" asked Westguard bluntly.
+
+"Sure, Karl, oodles of it! But not from you, old chap."
+
+"You know you can have it from me, too, don't you?" said O'Hara.
+
+Quarren nodded cordially: "I'll get it; no fear. I'm terribly sorry
+about that check. But it will be all right to-morrow, Karl."
+
+Lacy thought to himself with a grin: "He'll kill somebody at Auction to
+square himself--that's what Ricky means to do. God be good to the
+wealthy this winter night!"
+
+O'Hara, lank, carefully scrubbed, carefully turned out as one of his own
+hunters, stood up with a yawn and glanced at his watch.
+
+"Didn't somebody say somebody was comin' in to tea?" he asked generally.
+
+"My cousin, Mrs. Wycherly," said Westguard--"and a friend of hers--I've
+forgotten----"
+
+"Mrs. Leeds," observed Lacy. "And she is reputed to be a radiant peach.
+Did any of you fellows ever meet her in the old days?"
+
+Nobody there had ever seen her.
+
+"Did Mrs. Wycherly say she is a looker?" asked O'Hara, sceptically.
+
+Westguard shrugged: "You know what to expect when one woman tells you
+that another woman is good-looking. Probably she has a face that would
+kill a caterpillar."
+
+Quarren laughed lazily from the bed:
+
+"I hear she's pretty. She's come out of the West. You know, of course,
+who she was."
+
+"Reggie Leeds's wife," said O'Hara, slowly.
+
+There was a silence. Perhaps the men were thinking of the late Reginald
+Leeds, and of the deep damnation of his taking off.
+
+"Have you never seen her?" asked Lacy.
+
+"Nobody ever has. She's never before been here," said Quarren, yawning.
+
+"Then come down and set the kettle on, Ricky. She may be the peachiest
+kind of a peach in a special crate directed to your address and marked
+'Perishable! Rush! With care!' So we'll have to be very careful in
+rushing her----"
+
+"Oh, for Heaven's sake stop that lady-patter," protested O'Hara,
+linking his arm in Lacy's and sauntering toward the door. "That sort of
+conversation is Ricky's line of tea-talk. You'll reduce him to a
+pitiable silence if you take away his only asset."
+
+Westguard gathered up his papers, pausing a moment at the doorway:
+
+"Coming?" he asked briefly of Quarren who was laughing.
+
+"Certainly he's coming," said Lacy returning and attempting to drag him
+from the bed. "Come on, you tea-cup-rattling, macaroon-crunching,
+caste-smitten, fashion-bitten Arbiter Elegantiarum!"
+
+They fought for a moment, then Lacy staggered back under repeated
+wallops from one of his own pillows, and presently retired to his
+bath-room to brush his thick red hair. This hair was his pride and
+sorrow: it defied him in a brilliant cowlick until plastered flat with
+water. However, well soaked, his hair darkened to what he considered a
+chestnut colour. And that made him very proud.
+
+When he had soaked and subdued his ruddy locks he came out to where
+Westguard still stood.
+
+"Are you coming, Rix?" demanded the latter again.
+
+"Not unless you particularly want me," returned Quarren, yawning
+amiably. "I could take a nap if that red-headed Mick would get out of
+here."
+
+Westguard said: "Suit yourself," and followed Lacy and O'Hara down the
+stairs.
+
+The two latter young fellows turned aside into O'Hara's apartments to
+further remake a killing and deadly toilet. Westguard continued on to
+the first floor which he inhabited, and where he found a Japanese
+servant already preparing the tea paraphernalia. A few minutes later
+Mrs. Wycherly arrived with Mrs. Leeds.
+
+All women, experienced or otherwise, never quite lose their curiosity
+concerning a bachelor's quarters. The haunts of men interest woman,
+fascinating the married as well as the unwedded. Deep in their gentle
+souls they know that the most luxurious masculine abode could easily be
+made twice as comfortable by the kindly advice of any woman. Toleration,
+curiosity, sympathy are the emotions which stir feminine hearts when
+inspecting the solitary lair of the human male.
+
+"So these are the new rooms," said Molly Wycherly, patronisingly, after
+O'Hara and Lacy had appeared and everybody had been presented to
+everybody else. "Strelsa, do look at those early Edwards prints! It's
+utterly impossible to find any of them now for sale anywhere."
+
+Strelsa Leeds looked up at the Botticelli Madonna and at Madame Royale;
+and the three men looked at her as though hypnotised.
+
+So this was Reginald Leeds's wife--this distractingly pretty woman--even
+yet scarcely more than a girl--with her delicate colour and vivid lips
+and unspoiled eyes--dark eyes--a kind of purplish gray, very purely and
+exquisitely shaped. But in their grayish-violet depths there was murder.
+And the assassination of Lacy and O'Hara had already been accomplished.
+
+Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black--as though the tragic shadow of
+two years ago still fell across her slender body.
+
+She looked around at the room; Molly Wycherly, pouring tea, nodded to
+Westguard, and he handed the cup to Mrs. Leeds.
+
+She said, smilingly: "And--do you three unprotected men live in this big
+house all by yourselves?"
+
+"There are four of us in the Legation," said Lacy, "and several servants
+to beat off the suffragettes who become enamoured of us."
+
+"The--_legation_?" she repeated, amused at the term.
+
+"Our friends call this house the Irish Legation," he explained. "We're
+all Irish by descent except Westguard who's a Sassenach--and Dick
+Quarren, who is only half Irish.'
+
+"And who is Dick Quarren?" she asked innocently.
+
+"Oh, Strelsa!" cautioned Molly Wycherly--"you really mustn't argue
+yourself unknown."
+
+"But I am unknown," insisted the girl, laughing and looking at the men
+in turn with an engaging candour that bowled them over again, one by
+one. "I _don't_ know who Mr. Quarren is, so why not admit it? _Is_ he
+such a very wonderful personage, Mr. Lacy?"
+
+"Not at all, Mrs. Leeds. He and I share the top floor of the Legation.
+We are, as a matter of record, the two financial wrecks of this
+establishment, so naturally we go to the garret. Poverty is my only
+distinction; Mr. Quarren, however, also leads the grand march at Lyric
+Hall now and then I believe----"
+
+"What is Lyric Hall? Ought I to know?"
+
+Everybody was laughing, and Molly Wycherly said:
+
+"Richard Quarren, known variously as Rix, Ricky, and Dick Quarren, is an
+exceedingly popular and indispensable young man in this town. You'll
+meet him, Strelsa, and probably adore him. We all do."
+
+"Must I wait very long?" asked Strelsa, laughing. "I'd like to have the
+adoration begin."
+
+Lacy said to O'Hara: "Go up and pull that pitiable dub off the bed,
+Roger. The lady wishes to inspect him."
+
+"That's not very civil of Rix," said Mrs. Wycherly; "but I fancy I know
+why he requires slumber." She added, glancing around mischievously at
+the three men who were all looking languishingly at Mrs. Leeds: "He'll
+be sorry when you three gentlemen describe Strelsa to him. I can
+prophesy that much."
+
+"Certainly," said Lacy, airily; "we're all at Mrs. Leeds's feet! Even
+the blind bat of Drumgool could see that! So why deny it?"
+
+"You're not denying it, Mr. Lacy," said Strelsa, laughing. "But I
+realise perfectly that I am in the Irish Legation. So I shall carefully
+salt everything you say to me."
+
+"If you think _I've_ kissed the blessed pebble you ought to listen to
+that other bankrupt upstairs," said Lacy.
+
+"As far as pretty speeches are concerned you seem to be perfectly
+solvent," said Strelsa gaily, looking around her at the various
+adornments of this masculine abode. "I wonder where you dine," she added
+with curiosity unabashed.
+
+"We've a fine dining-room below," he said proudly, "haven't we, Roger?
+And as soon as Dick Quarren and I are sufficiently solvent to warrant
+it, the Legation is going to give a series of brilliant banquets; will
+you come, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"When you are solvent, perhaps," said Strelsa, smiling.
+
+"Westguard and I will give you a banquet at an hour's notice," said
+O'Hara, eagerly. "Will you accept?"
+
+"Such overwhelming offers of hospitality!" she protested. "I had
+believed the contrary about New Yorkers. You see I've just emerged from
+the West, and I don't really know what to think of such bewildering
+cordiality."
+
+"Karl," said Mrs. Wycherly, "are you going to show us over the house? If
+you are we must hurry, as Strelsa and I are to decorate the Calderas'
+box this evening, and it takes me an hour to paint my face." She turned
+a fresh, winsome countenance to Westguard, who laughed, rose, and took
+his pretty cousin by the hand.
+
+Under triple escort Mrs. Wycherly and Mrs. Leeds examined the Legation
+from kitchen to garret--and Strelsa, inadvertently glancing in at a room
+just as Westguard started to close the door, caught sight of a recumbent
+shape on a bed--just a glimpse of a blond, symmetrical head and a
+well-coupled figure, graceful even in the careless relaxation of sleep.
+
+Westguard asked her pardon: "That's Quarren. He was probably up till
+daylight."
+
+"He was," said Molly Wycherly; "and by the same token so was I. Thank
+you so much, Karl.... Thank you, Mr. O'Hara--and you, too,
+Jack!"--offering her hand--"We've had a splendid party.... Strelsa, we
+really ought to go at once----"
+
+"Will you come again?"
+
+"We will come again if you ask us," said Strelsa; "we're perfectly
+fascinated by the Legation."
+
+"And its personnel?" hinted Lacy. "Do you like us, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"I've only seen three of you," parried Strelsa, much amused.
+
+"We refuse to commit ourselves," said Molly. "Good-bye. I suppose you
+all are coming to my house-warming."
+
+They all looked at Mrs. Leeds and said that they were coming--said so
+fervently.
+
+Molly laughed: she had no envy in her make-up, perhaps because she was
+too pretty herself.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, replying to their unasked questions, "Mrs. Leeds
+will be there--and I plainly see _my_ miserable fate. But what can a
+wretched woman expect from the Irish? Not constancy. Strelsa, take
+warning. They loved me once!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Westguard had put them in their limousine, he came back to find
+Quarren in his sitting-room, wearing a dressing-gown, and Lacy madly
+detailing to him the charms of Strelsa Leeds:
+
+"Take it from me, Dicky, she's some queen! You didn't miss a thing but
+the prettiest woman in town! And there's a _something_ about her--a kind
+of a sort of a something----"
+
+"You appear to be in love, dear friend," observed Quarren kindly.
+
+"I am. So's every man here who met her. We don't deny it! We glory in
+our fall! What was that costume of hers, Karl? Mourning?"
+
+"Fancy a glorious creature like her wearin' black for that nasty little
+cad," observed O'Hara disgustedly.
+
+"It's probably fashion, not grief," remarked Westguard.
+
+"I guess it's nix for the weeps," said O'Hara--"after all she probably
+went through with Reggie Leeds, I fancy she had no tears left over."
+
+"I want to talk," cried Lacy; "I want to tell Rix what he missed. I'd
+got as far as her gown, I think----"
+
+"Go on," smiled Quarren.
+
+"Anyway," said Lacy, "she wore a sort of mourning as far as her veil
+went, and her furs and gown and gloves were black, and her purse was
+gun-metal and black opals--rather brisk? Yes?--And all the dingles on
+her were gun-metal--everything black and sober--and that ruddy gold
+head--and--those eyes!--a kind of a purple-gray, Ricky, slanting a
+little, with long black lashes--I noticed 'em--and her lips were very
+vivid--not paint, but a kind of noticeably healthy scarlet--and that
+straight nose--and the fresh fragrant youth of her----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Jack----"
+
+"Sure. I'm through with 'em all. I'm wise to the sex. That was merely a
+word picture. I'm talking like a writer, that's all. That's how you
+boobs talk, isn't it, Karl?"
+
+"Always," said Westguard gravely.
+
+"Me for Mrs. Leeds," remarked O'Hara frankly. "I'd ask her to marry me
+on the drop of a hat."
+
+"Well, I'll drop no hat for _you_!" said Lacy. "And there'll be plenty
+of lunatics in this town who'll go madder than you or me before they
+forget Mrs. Leeds. Wait! Town is going to sit up and take notice when
+this new planet swims into its social ken. How's that epigram, Karl?"
+
+Westguard said thoughtfully: "There'll be notoriety, too, I'm afraid. If
+nobody knows her everybody knows about that wretched boy she married."
+
+Quarren added: "I have always understood that the girl did not want to
+marry him. It was her mother's doings."
+
+O'Hara scowled. "I also have heard that the mother engineered it....
+What was Mrs. Leeds's name? I forget----"
+
+"Strelsa Lanark," said Quarren who never forgot anything.
+
+"Ugh," grunted Westguard. "Fancy a mother throwing her daughter at the
+head of a boy like Reggie Leeds!--as vicious and unclean a little whelp
+as ever--Oh, what's the use?--and _de mortius nihil_--et cetera,
+cock-a-doodle-do!"
+
+"That poor girl had two entire years of him," observed Lacy. "She
+doesn't look more than twenty now--and he's been in--been dead two
+years. Good Heavens! What a child she must have been when she married
+him!"
+
+Westguard nodded: "She had two years of him--and I suppose he seldom
+drew a perfectly sober breath.... He dragged her all over the world with
+him--she standing for his rotten behaviour, trying to play the game with
+the cards hopelessly stacked against her. Vincent Wier met them in
+Naples; Mallison ran across them in Egypt; so did Lydon in Vienna.
+They said it was heartbreaking to see her trying to keep up
+appearances--trying to smile under his nagging or his drunken insults
+in public places. Lydon told me that she behaved like a brick--stuck to
+Reggie, tried to shield him, excuse him, make something out of the
+miserable pup who was doing his best to drag her to his own level and
+deprave her. But I guess she was too young or too unhappy or something,
+because there's no depravity in the girl who was here a few minutes ago.
+I'll swear to that."
+
+After a moment Lacy said: "Well, he got his at last!"
+
+"What was comin' to him," added O'Hara, with satisfaction.
+
+Lacy added, curiously: "_How_ can a man misbehave when he has such a
+woman for a wife?"
+
+"I wonder," observed Quarren, "how many solid citizens read the account
+in the papers and remained scared longer than six weeks?"
+
+"Lord help the wives of men," growled Westguard.... "If any of you
+fellows are dressing for dinner you'd better be about it.... Wait a
+moment, Rix!"--as Quarren, the last to leave, was already passing the
+threshold.
+
+The young fellow turned, smiling: the others went on; Westguard stood
+silent for a moment, then:
+
+"You're about the only man I care for very much," he said bluntly. "If I
+am continually giving you the Bible and the Sword it's the best I have
+to give."
+
+Quarren replied laughingly.
+
+"Don't worry, old fellow. I take what you say all right. And I really
+mean to cut out a lot of fussing and begin to hustle.... Only, isn't it
+a wise thing to keep next to possible clients?"
+
+"The people you train with don't buy lots in Tappan-Zee Park."
+
+"But I may induce them to go into more fashionable enterprises----"
+
+"Not they! The eagle yells on every dollar they finger. If there's any
+bleeding to be done they'll do it, my son."
+
+"Lester Caldera has already asked me about acreage in Westchester."
+
+"Did he do more than ask?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did you charge him for the consultation?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Then he got your professional opinion for nothing."
+
+"But he, or others, may try to assemble several farms----"
+
+"Why don't they then?--instead of dragging you about at their heels from
+house to house, from card-room to ball-room, from café to opera, from
+one week-end to the next!--robbing you of time, of leisure, of
+opportunity, of ambition--spoiling you--making a bally monkey of you!
+You're always in some fat woman's opera box or on some fat man's yacht
+or coach, or doing some damn thing--with your name figuring in
+everything from Newport to Hot Springs--and--and how can you ever turn
+into anything except a tame cat!"
+
+Quarren's face reddened slightly.
+
+"I'd be perfectly willing to sit in an office all day and all night if
+anybody would give me any business. But what's the use of chewing
+pencils and watching traffic on Forty-second Street?"
+
+"Then go into another business!"
+
+"I haven't any money."
+
+"I'll lend it to you!"
+
+"I can't risk _your_ money, Karl. I'm too uncertain of myself. If
+anybody else offered to stake me I'd try the gamble." ... He looked up
+at Westguard, ashamed, troubled, and showing it like a boy. "I'm afraid
+I don't amount to anything, Karl. I'm afraid I'm no good except in the
+kind of thing I seem to have a talent for."
+
+"Fetching and carrying for the fashionable and wealthy," sneered
+Westguard.
+
+Quarren's face flushed again: "I suppose that's it."
+
+Westguard glared at him: "I wish I could shake it out of you!"
+
+"I guess the poison's there," said Quarren in a low voice. "The worst of
+it is I like it--except when I understand your contempt."
+
+"You _like_ to fetch and carry and go about with your pocket full of
+boudoir keys!"
+
+"People give me as much as I give them."
+
+"They don't!" said the other angrily. "They've taken a decent fellow and
+put him in livery!"
+
+Quarren bit his lip as the blood leaped to his face.
+
+"Don't talk that way, Karl," he said quietly. "Even you have no business
+to take that tone with me."
+
+There was a silence. After a few moments Westguard came over and held
+out his hand. Quarren took it, looked at him.
+
+"I tell you," he said, "there's nothing to me. It's your kindness, Karl,
+that sees in me possibilities that never were."
+
+"They're there. I'll do my duty almost to the point of breaking our
+friendship. But--I'll have to stop short of that point."
+
+A quick smile came over Quarren's face, gay, affectionate:
+
+"You couldn't do that, Karl.... And don't worry. I'll cut out a lot of
+frills and try to do things that are worth while. I mean it, really.
+Don't worry, old fellow."
+
+"All right," said Westguard, smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+A masked dance, which for so long has been out of fashion in the world
+that pretends to it, was the experiment selected by Molly Wycherly for
+the warming up of her new house on Park Avenue.
+
+The snowy avenue for blocks was a mass of motors and carriages; a
+platoon of police took charge of the vehicular mess. Outside of the
+storm-coated lines the penniless world of shreds and patches craned a
+thousand necks as the glittering costumes passed from brougham and
+limousine under the awnings into the great house.
+
+Already in the new ball-room, along the edges of the whirl, masqueraders
+in tumultuous throngs were crowding forward to watch the dancers or
+drifting into the eddies and set-backs where ranks of overloaded gilt
+chairs creaked under jewelled dowagers, and where rickety old beaux
+impersonated tinselled courtiers on wavering but devoted legs.
+
+Aloft in their rococo sky gallery a popular orchestra fiddled
+frenziedly; the great curtains of living green set with thousands of
+gardenias swayed in the air currents like Chinese tapestries; a
+harmonious tumult swept the big new ball-room from end to end--a
+composite uproar in which were mingled the rushing noise of silk,
+clatter of sole and heel, laughter and cries of capering maskers
+gathered from the four quarters of fashionable Gath to grace the
+opening of the House of Wycherly. They were all there, dowager, matron,
+débutante, old beaux, young gallant, dancing, laughing, coquetting,
+flirting. Young eyes mocked the masked eyes that wooed them; adolescence
+tormented maturity; the toothless ogled the toothsome. Unmasking alone
+could set right this topsy-turvy world of carnival.
+
+A sinuous Harlequin, his skin-tight lozenge-patterned dress shimmering
+like the red and gold skin of a Malay snake, came weaving his way
+through the edges of the maelstrom, his eyes under the black half-mask
+glittering maliciously at the victims of his lathe-sword. With it he
+recklessly slapped whatever tempted him, patting gently the rounded arms
+and shoulders of nymph and shepherdess, using more vigour on the plump
+contours of fat and elderly courtiers, spinning on the points of his
+pump-toes, his limber lathe-sword curved in both hands above his head,
+leaping lithely over a chair here and there, and landing always as
+lightly as a cat on silent feet--a wiry, symmetrical figure under the
+rakish bi-corne, instinct with mischief and grace infernal.
+
+Encountering a burly masker dressed like one of Cromwell's ponderous
+Ironsides, he hit him a resounding whack over his aluminum cuirass, and
+whispered:
+
+"That Ironside rig doesn't conceal you: it reveals you, Karl! Out with
+your Bible and your Sword and preach the wrath to come!"
+
+"It will come all right," said Westguard. "Do you know how many hundred
+thousand dollars are wasted here to-night?... And yesterday a woman died
+of hunger in Carmine Street. Don't worry about the wrath of God as long
+as people die of cold and hunger in the streets of Ascalon."
+
+"That's not as bad as dying of inanition--which would happen to the
+majority here if they didn't have things like this to amuse 'em. For
+decency's sake, Karl, pity the perplexities of the rich for a change!"
+
+Westguard grunted something under his casque; then, adjusting his
+aluminum mask:
+
+"Are you having a good time, Dicky? I suppose you are."
+
+"Oh, _I'm_ gay enough," returned the Harlequin airily--"but there's
+never much genuine gaiety among the overfed." And he slapped a passing
+gallant with his wooden sword, spun around on his toes, bent over
+gracefully and stood on his hands, legs twinkling above him in the air.
+Then, with a bound he was on his nimble feet again, and, linking his arm
+in the arm of the Cromwellian trooper, strolled along the ranks of
+fanning dowagers, glancing amiably into their masked faces.
+
+"Same old battle-line," he observed to his companion--"their jewels give
+them away. Same old tiaras, same old ladies--all fat, all fifty, all
+fanning away like the damned. Your aunt has on about a ton of emeralds.
+I think she does it for the purpose of banting, don't you, Karl----"
+
+The uproar drowned his voice: Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed
+gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle for which his cousin Molly
+Wycherly was responsible.
+
+"It's monkey-shines like this that breed anarchists," he growled. "Did
+you notice that rubbering crowd outside the police lines in the snow?
+Molly and Jim ought to see it."
+
+[Illustration: "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around
+at the gorgeous spectacle."]
+
+"Oh, cut it out, Karl," retorted the Harlequin gaily; "there'll be rich
+and poor in the world as long as the bally old show runs--there'll be
+reserved seats and gallery seats and standing room only, and ninety-nine
+percent of the world cooling its shabby heels outside."
+
+"I don't care to discuss the problem with _you_," observed Westguard.
+After a moment he added: "I'm going to dance once or twice and get
+out.... I suppose you'll flit about doing the agreeable and fashionable
+until daylight."
+
+"I suppose so," said the Harlequin, tranquilly. "Why not? Also _you_
+ought to find material here for one of your novels."
+
+"A man doesn't have to hunt for material. It's in his bedroom when he
+wakes; it's all around him all day long. There's no more here than there
+is outside in the snow; and no less.... But dancing all night isn't
+going to help _your_ business, Ricky."
+
+"It won't hurt any business I'm likely to do."
+
+"Isn't your Tappan-Zee Park panning out?"
+
+"Fizzling out. Nobody's bought any building sites."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"How the deuce do I know, Karl! I don't want to talk business, here----"
+
+He ceased speaking as three or four white masked Bacchantes in
+fluttering raiment came dancing by to the wild music of Philemon and
+Baucis. Shaking their be-ribboned tambourines, flowery garlands and
+lynx-skins flying from their shoulders, they sped away on fleet little
+feet, hotly pursued by adorers.
+
+"Come on," said the Harlequin briskly; "I think one of those skylarkers
+ought to prove amusing! Shall I catch you one?"
+
+But he found no encouragement in the swift courtship he attempted; for
+the Bacchantes, loudly protesting at his interference, banged him over
+his head and shoulders with their resounding tambourines and danced away
+unheeding his blandishments.
+
+"Flappers," observed a painted and powdered clown whose voice betrayed
+him as O'Hara; "this town is overstocked with fudge-fed broilers.
+They're always playin' about under foot, spoilin' your huntin'; and if
+you touch 'em they ki-yi no end."
+
+"I suppose you're looking for Mrs. Leeds," said Westguard, smiling.
+
+"I fancy every man here is doin' the same thing," replied the clown.
+"What's her costume? Do you know, Ironsides?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell you if I did," said Westguard frankly.
+
+The Harlequin shrugged.
+
+"This world," he remarked, "is principally encumbered with women, and
+naturally a man supposes the choice is unlimited. But as you live to
+drift from girl to girl you'll discover that there are just two kinds;
+the kind you can kiss and the kind you can't. So finally you marry the
+latter. Does Mrs. Leeds flirt?"
+
+"Will a fish swim?" rejoined the clown. "You bet she will flirt. Haven't
+you met her?"
+
+"I? No," said the Harlequin carelessly. Which secretly amused both
+Westguard and O'Hara, for it had been whispered about that the new
+beauty not only had taken no pains to meet Quarren, but had pointedly
+ignored an opportunity when the choice lay with her, remarking that
+dancing men were one of the social necessities which everybody took for
+granted--like flowers and champagne. And the comment had been carried
+straight to Quarren, who had laughed at the time--and had never
+forgotten it, nor the apparently causeless contempt that evidently had
+inspired it.
+
+The clown brandished his bunch of toy balloons, and gazed about him:
+
+"Anybody who likes can go and tell Mrs. Leeds that I'm her declared
+suitor. I don't care who knows it. I'm foolish about her. She's
+different from any woman I ever saw. And if I don't find her pretty soon
+I'll smash every balloon over your head, Ricky!"
+
+The Harlequin laughed. "Women," he said, "are cut out in various and
+amusing patterns like animal crackers, but the fundamental paste never
+varies, and the same pastry cook seasoned it."
+
+"That's a sickly and degenerate sentiment," observed Westguard.
+
+"You might say that about the unfledged," added O'Hara--"like those
+kittenish Bacchantes. Winifred Miller and the youngest Vernon girl were
+two of those Flappers, I think. But there's no real jollity among the
+satiated," he added despondently. "A mask, a hungry stomach, and empty
+pockets are the proper ingredients for gaiety--take it from me, Karl."
+And he wandered off, beating everybody with his bunch of toy balloons.
+
+Quarren leaped to the seat of a chair and squatted there drawing his
+shimmering legs up under him like a great jewelled spider.
+
+"Bet you ten that the voluminous domino yonder envelops my aunt, Mrs.
+Sprowl," whispered Westguard.
+
+"You're betting on a certainty and a fat ankle."
+
+"Sure. I've seen her ankles going upstairs too often.... What the devil
+is the old lady wearing under that domino?"
+
+"Wait till you see her later," said Quarren, delightedly. "She has come
+as Brunhilda."
+
+"I don't want to see three hundred pounds of relative as Brunhilda,"
+growled Westguard.
+
+"You will, to-morrow. She's given her photograph to a _Herald_ man."
+
+"What did you let her do it for?" demanded Westguard wrathfully.
+
+"Could I help it?"
+
+"You could have stopped her. She thinks your opinion is the last lisp in
+fashionable art problems."
+
+"There are some things you can't tell a woman," said Quarren. "One of
+'em concerns her weight."
+
+"Are you afraid of Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+The Harlequin laughed:
+
+"Where would I be if I incurred your aunt's displeasure, dear friend?"
+
+"Out of the monkey house for good I suppose," admitted Westguard. "Lord,
+Ricky, what a lot you have had to swallow for the sake of staying put
+among these people!"
+
+Quarren sat meditating under his mask, cross-legged, twirling his
+sword, the crash of the floor orchestra dinning in his close-set ears.
+
+"Yes," he said without resentment, "I've endured my share. That's one
+reason why I don't want to let several years of humiliation go for
+nothing. I've earned whatever place I have. And I mean to keep it."
+
+Westguard turned on him half angrily, hesitated, then remained silent.
+What was the use? If Quarren had not been guilty of actually fawning,
+toadying, currying favour, he had certainly permitted himself to be
+rudely used. He had learned very thoroughly his art in the school of the
+courtier--learned how and when to be blind, silent, deaf; how to offer,
+how to yield, when and how to demand and exact. Which, to Westguard,
+meant the prostitution of intelligence. And he loathed the game like a
+man who is free to play it if he cares to. Of those who are denied
+participation, few really hate it.
+
+But he said nothing more; and the Harlequin, indolently stretching his
+glittering limbs, dropped a light hand on Westguard's cuirassed
+shoulder:
+
+"Don't be forever spoiling things for me, Karl. I really do enjoy the
+game as it lies."
+
+"It _does_ lie--that is the trouble, Rix."
+
+"I can't afford to criticise it.... Listen; I'm a mediocre man; I'd
+never count among real men. I count in the set which I amuse and which
+accepts me. Let me enjoy it, can't you?"
+
+An aged dandy, masked, painted, wizened, and dressed like Henri II,
+tottered by with a young girl on his arm, his shrill, falsetto giggle
+piercing the racket around them.
+
+"Do you wish to live to be like that?" asked Westguard sharply.
+
+"Oh, I'll die long before that," said Quarren cheerfully, and leaped
+lightly to his feet. "I shall now accomplish a little dancing," he said,
+pointing with his wooden sword at the tossing throng. "Venus send me a
+pretty married woman who really loves her husband.... By Bacchus! Those
+dancers are going it! Come on, Karl. Leave us foot it!"
+
+Many maskers were throwing confetti now: multi-tinted serpents shot out
+across the clamorous gulf; bunches of roses flung high, rising in swift
+arcs of flight, crossed and recrossed. All along the edges of the dance,
+like froth and autumn leaves cast up from a whirlpool, fluffy feminine
+derelicts and gorgeous masculine escorts were flung pell-mell out of the
+maelstrom and left stranded or drifting breathless among the eddies
+setting in toward the supper-room.
+
+Suddenly, as the Harlequin bent forward to plunge into the crush, the
+very centre of the whirlpool parted, and out of it floated a fluttering,
+jingling, dazzling figure all gold--slender, bare-armed and bare of
+throat and shoulders, auriferous, scintillating from crown to ankle--for
+her sleeveless tabard was cloth-of-gold, and her mask was gold; so were
+her jewelled shoes and the gemmed fillet that bound her locks; and her
+thick hair clustering against her cheeks had the lustre of precious
+metal.
+
+Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the Byzantine dancer,
+besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing gallantries--evaded
+the Harlequin, too, with laughing mockery, skilfully disengaging herself
+from the throng of suitors stumbling around her, crowded and buffeted on
+every side.
+
+After her like a flash sped Harlequin: for an instant, just ahead of
+him, she appeared in plain sight, glimmering brightly against the green
+and swaying tapestry of living leaves and flowers, then even as her
+pursuers looked at her, she vanished before their very eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the
+Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing
+gallantries."]
+
+They ran about distractedly hunting for her, Turk, Drum Major, Indian
+Chief, and Charles the First, then reluctantly gave up the quest and
+drifted off to seek for another ideal. All women are ideal under the
+piquant promise of the mask.
+
+A pretty shepherdess, lingering near, whispered close to Quarren's
+shoulder behind her fan:
+
+"Check to you, Harlequin! That golden dancer was the only girl in town
+who hasn't taken any pains to meet you!"
+
+He turned his head, warily, divining Molly Wycherly under the disguise,
+realising, too, that she recognised him.
+
+"You'll never find her now," laughed the shepherdess. "Besides she does
+not care a rap about meeting a mere Harlequin. It's refreshing to see
+you so thoroughly snubbed once in a while." And she danced gaily away,
+arms akimbo, her garlanded crook over her shoulder; and her taunting
+laughter floated back to him where he stood irresolute, wondering how
+the golden dancer could have so completely vanished.
+
+Suddenly he recollected going over the house before its completion with
+Jim Wycherly, who had been his own architect, and the memory of a
+certain peculiarity in the construction of the ball-room flashed into
+his mind. The only possible explanation for her disappearance was that
+somebody had pointed out to her the low door behind the third pillar,
+and she was now in the gilded swallow's-nest aloft.
+
+It was a whim of Wycherly--this concealed stair--he recalled it
+perfectly now--and, parting the living tapestry of blossoms, he laid
+his hand on the ivory and gilded paneling, pressing the heart of one
+carved rose after another, until with a click! a tiny door swung inward,
+revealing a narrow spiral of stairs, lighted rosily by electricity.
+
+He stepped inside, closed the door, and listened, then mounted
+noiselessly. Half way up he caught the aroma of a cigarette; and, a
+second later he stepped out onto a tiny latticed balcony, completely
+screened.
+
+The golden dancer, who evidently had been gazing down on the carnival
+scene below from behind the lattice, whirled around to confront him in a
+little flurry of cigarette smoke.
+
+For a moment they faced each other, then:
+
+"How did you know where to find me, Harlequin?"
+
+"I'd have died if I hadn't found you, fairest, loveliest----"
+
+"That is no answer! Answer me!"
+
+"Why did you flee?" he asked. "Answer that, first."
+
+She glanced at her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"You see why I fled, don't you? Now answer me."
+
+The Harlequin presented the hilt of his sword which was set with a tiny
+mirror.
+
+"You see why I fled after you," he said, "don't you?"
+
+"All the same," she insisted, smilingly, "I have been informed on
+excellent authority that I am the only one, except the family, who knows
+of this balcony. And here comes a Harlequin blundering in! _You_ are not
+Mr. Wycherly; and you're certainly not Molly."
+
+"Alas! My ultimate ends are not as shapely."
+
+"Then who are you?" She added, laughing: "They're shapely enough, too."
+
+"I am only a poor wandering, love-smitten Harlequin--" he said,
+"scorned, despised, and mocked by beauty----"
+
+"Love-smitten?" she repeated.
+
+"Can you doubt it, now?"
+
+She laughed gaily and leaned back against the balcony's velvet rail:
+
+"You lose no time in declaring yourself, do you, Harlequin?--that is, if
+you are hinting that _I_ have smitten you with the pretty passion."
+
+"Through and through, beautiful dancer----"
+
+"How do you know that I am beautiful under this mask?"
+
+"I know many things. That's my compensation for being only a poor
+mountebank of a Harlequin--magic penetration--the clairvoyance of
+radium."
+
+"Did you expect to find _me_ at the top of those cork-screw stairs?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Inference. Every toad hides a jewel in its head. So I argued that
+somewhere in the ugliness of darkest Philistia a gem must be hidden; and
+I've searched for years--up and down throughout the haunts of men from
+Gath to Ascalon. And--behold! My quest is ended at your pretty
+feet!--Rose-Diamond of the World!"
+
+He sank lithely on one knee; she laughed deliciously, looking down at
+his masked face.
+
+"Who are you, Harlequin?--whose wits and legs seem to be equally supple
+and symmetrical?"
+
+"Tell it not in Gath; Publish it not in the streets of Ascalon; I am
+that man for whom you were destined before either you or I were born.
+Are you frightened?"
+
+The Byzantine dancer laughed and shook her head till all the golden
+metal on her was set chiming.
+
+He said, still on one knee at her feet:
+
+"Exquisite phantom of an Empire dead, from what emblazoned sarcophagus
+have you danced forth across our modern oceans to bewitch the Philistia
+of to-day? Who clothed you in scarlet delicately? Who put ornaments of
+gold upon your apparel----"
+
+"You court me with Scripture as smoothly as Heaven's great Enemy," she
+said--"and to your own ends, as does he. Are you leagued with him, O
+agile and intrusive Harlequin, to steal away my peace of mind?"
+
+Lithely, silently he leaped up to the balustrade and, gathering his
+ankles under him, squatted there, cross-legged, peering sideways at her
+through the slanting eye-holes.
+
+"If that screen behind you gives way," she warned him, "you will have
+accomplished your last harlequinade."
+
+He glanced coolly over his shoulder:
+
+"How far is it to the floor below, do you suppose?"
+
+"Far enough to make a good harlequin out of a live one," she said....
+"Please be careful; I really mean it."
+
+"Child," he said solemnly, "do you suppose that I mind falling a hundred
+feet or so on my head? I've already fallen infinitely farther than that
+this evening."
+
+"And it didn't kill you?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
+dramatically.
+
+"No. Because our destiny must first be accomplished before I die."
+
+"Ours?"
+
+"Yours and mine, pretty dancer! I've already fulfilled _my_ destiny by
+falling in love with you at first sight. That was a long fall, wasn't
+it?"
+
+"Very. Am I to fulfil mine in a similar manner?"
+
+"You are."
+
+"Will it--kill me, do you think?"
+
+"I don't think so. Try it."
+
+"Will it hurt?--this terrible fall? And how far must I descend to fall
+in love with you?"
+
+"Sometimes falling in love does hurt," he said gravely, "when the fall
+is a long one."
+
+"Is this to be a long one?"
+
+"You may think so."
+
+"Then I decline to tumble. Please go somewhere about your business,
+Master Harlequin. I'm inclined to like you."
+
+"Dancer, my life's business is wherever you happen to be."
+
+"Why are you so sure?"
+
+"Magic," he said seriously. "I deal in it."
+
+"Wonderful! Your accomplishments overwhelm me. Perhaps, through the aid
+of magic, you can even tell me who I am!"
+
+"I think I can."
+
+"Is that another threat of magic?"
+
+"It's a bet, too, if you like."
+
+"Are you offering to bet me that, before I unmask, you will be able to
+discover who I am?"
+
+"Yes. Will you make it a wager?" She stood, silent, irresolute,
+cautious but curious; then:
+
+"Do you mean that you can find out who _I am_? Now? Here in this
+balcony?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"That is sheer nonsense," she said with decision. "I'll bet you anything
+you like."
+
+"What stakes?"
+
+"Why there's nothing to bet except the usual, is there?"
+
+"You mean flowers, gloves, stockings, bon-bons?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The Harlequin, smiling at her askance, drew from the hilt of his
+lathe-sword a fresh cigarette, lighted it, looked across at the level
+chandelier, and sent a ring of smoke toward the twinkling wilderness of
+prisms hanging in mid-air.
+
+"Let's be original or perish," he said. "I'll bet you a day out of my
+life against a day out of yours that I discover who you are in ten
+minutes."
+
+"I won't accept such a silly wager! What would you do with me for a
+day?"
+
+The Harlequin bent his masked head. Over his body the lozenges of
+scarlet and gold slid crinkling as though with suppressed and serpentine
+mirth.
+
+"_What_ are you laughing at?" she demanded half vexed, half amused.
+
+"Your fears, pretty dancer."
+
+"I am _not_ afraid!"
+
+"Very well. Prove it! I have offered to bet you a day out of my life
+that I'll tell you who you are. Are you afraid to wager a day out of
+yours that I can't do it?"
+
+She shook her head so that the burnished locks clustered against her
+cheeks, and all over her slim figure the jingling gold rang melodiously.
+
+"I haven't long to live," she observed. "A day out of life is too much
+to risk."
+
+"Why don't you think that you have long to live?"
+
+"I haven't. I know it."
+
+"_How_ do you know?"
+
+"I just know.... Besides, I don't wish to live very long."
+
+"You don't wish to live long?"
+
+"Only as long as I'm young enough to be forgetful. Old age is a
+horror--in some cases. I don't desire ever to be forty. After forty they
+say one lives on memory. I don't wish to."
+
+Through the slits of his mask his curious eyes watched her steadily.
+
+"You're not yet twenty-four," he said.
+
+"Not quite. That is a good guess, Harlequin."
+
+"And you don't want to live to be old?"
+
+"No, I don't wish to."
+
+"But you are rather keen on living while you're young."
+
+"I've never thought much about it. If I live, it's all right; if I die,
+I don't think I'll mind it.... I'm sure I shouldn't."
+
+Her cigarette had gone out. She tossed it aside and daintily consented
+to exchange cigarettes with him, offering her little gold case.
+
+"You're carefully inspecting my initials, aren't you?" she observed,
+amused. "But that monogram will not help you, Master Harlequin."
+
+"Marriage alters only the final initial. Are you, by any unhappy
+chance----"
+
+"That's for you to find out! I didn't say I was! I believe you _are_
+making me tell you things!"
+
+She threw back the lustrous hair that shadowed her cheeks and leaned
+forward, her shadowed eyes fixed intently upon him through the apertures
+of her golden mask.
+
+"I'm beginning to wonder uneasily who _you_ may be, Monsieur Harlequin!
+You alarm me a little."
+
+"Aha!" he said. "I've told you I deal in magic! That you don't know who
+I am, even after that confession, makes me reasonably certain who _you_
+are."
+
+"You're trying to scare me," she said, disdainfully.
+
+"I'll do it, yet."
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"You'll wonder more than ever in a few moments.... I'm going to tell you
+who you are. But first of all I want you to fix the forfeit----"
+
+"Why--I don't know.... What do you want of me?" she asked, mockingly.
+
+"Whatever you care to risk."
+
+"Then you'll have to name it. Because I don't particularly care to offer
+you anything.... And please hasten--I'll be missed presently----"
+
+"Won't you bet one day out of your life?"
+
+"No, I won't. I told you I wouldn't."
+
+"Then--one hour. Just a single hour?"
+
+"An hour?"
+
+"Yes, sixty minutes, payable on demand: If I win, you will place at my
+disposal one entire hour out of your life. Will you dare that much,
+pretty dancer?"
+
+She laughed, looked up at him; then readjusting her mask, she nodded
+disdainfully. "Because," she observed, "it is quite impossible for you
+ever to guess who I am. So do your very worst."
+
+He sprang from the balustrade, landing lightly, his left hand spread
+over his heart, his bi-corne flourished in the other.
+
+"You are Strelsa Leeds!" he said in a low voice.
+
+The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a
+bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge.
+
+"It--it is impossible that you should know--" she began, exasperated.
+"How _could_ you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night!
+I came by myself with my maid. It--it _is_ magic! It is
+infernal--abominable magic----"
+
+She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous,
+blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the
+fillet that bound her hair.
+
+After a silence:
+
+"How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed
+chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you--anyhow----"
+
+Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence,
+striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask--trying to
+interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it--or,
+perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two
+strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow.
+
+"Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful
+emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her
+under lip.
+
+"It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!"
+
+"First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit."
+
+"The--the forfeit!" she faltered.
+
+"Did you not lose your wager?"
+
+She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in
+vain for a clew to his identity. Then, a trifle uneasily:
+
+"Yes, of course I lost my wager. But--I did not clearly understand what
+you meant by an hour out of my life."
+
+"It is to be an hour at my disposal," he explained with another
+grotesque bow. "I think that was the wager?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Unless," he remarked carelessly, "you desire the--ah--privilege and
+indisputable prerogative of your delightful sex."
+
+"The privilege of my sex? What is that?" she asked, dangerously polite.
+
+"Why, to change your divine mind--repudiate the obligation----"
+
+"Harlequin!"
+
+"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow.
+
+"I pay what I owe--always.... _Always!_ Do you understand?"
+
+The Harlequin bowed again in arabesques, very low, yet with a singular
+and almost devilish grace:
+
+"Madame concedes that the poor Harlequin has won his wager?"
+
+"Yes, I do--and you don't appear to be particularly humble, either."
+
+"Madame insists on paying?" he inquired suavely.
+
+"Yes, of course I do!" she said, uneasily. "I promised you an hour out
+of my life. Am I to pay it now?"
+
+"You pay by the minute--one minute a day for sixty days. I am going to
+take the first minute now. _Perhaps_ I may ask for the other fifty-nine,
+also."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Shall I show you how?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"A magic pass or two, first," he said gaily, crooking one spangled knee
+and spinning around. Then he whipped out his lathe-sword, held it above
+his head, coolly passed a glittering arm around her waist, and looked
+down into her flushed face.
+
+"You will have to count out the sixty seconds," he said. "I shall be
+otherwise occupied, and I can't trust myself to do two things at once."
+
+"_What_ are you about to do? Sink through a trap-door with me?"
+
+"I am about to salute you with the magic kiss. After that you'll be my
+Columbine forever."
+
+"That is not included in the bet! Is it?" she asked in real
+consternation.
+
+"I may do as I please with my hour, may I not?"
+
+"Was it the bet that you were to be at liberty to--to kiss me?"
+
+"I control absolutely an hour out of your life, do I not? I may use it
+as I please. You had better count out sixty seconds."
+
+She looked down, biting her lip, and touched one hand against her
+cheeks, alternately, as though to cool them with the snowy contact.
+
+He waited in silence for her reply.
+
+"Very well," she said resolutely, "if you elect to use the first minute
+of your hour as frivolously as that, I must submit, I suppose."
+
+And she began to count aloud, rapidly: "One, two, three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight, ni----"
+
+Her face was averted; he could see the tip of one small ear all aflame.
+Presently she ventured a swift glance around at him and saw that he was
+laughing.
+
+"Ten, eleven, twelve," she counted nervously, still watching him;
+"thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--" panic threatened her; she doubled both
+hands in the effort of self-control and timed her counting as though the
+rapid beating of the tempo could hasten her immunity--"sixteen,
+seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, one, two, three----"
+
+"Play fair!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I am trying to. Can't I say it that way up to ten, and then say
+thirty?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. I've still half a minute. You'd better hurry! I may
+begin at any moment."
+
+"Four--five--six--seven--m-m-m--thirty!" she cried, and the swift
+numbers fled from her lips fairly stumbling over one another, tumbling
+the sequence of hurrying numerals into one breathless gasp of: "Forty!"
+
+His arm slid away from her waist; he stepped backward, and stood,
+watching her, one finger crooked, supporting his chin, the ironical
+smile hovering ever on his lips.
+
+"Fifty!" she counted excitedly, her hands beating time to the counting;
+"--fifty-one--two--three--four--m-m-m--sixty!"--and she whirled around
+to face him with an impulsively triumphant gesture which terminated in
+a swift curtsey, arms flung wide apart.
+
+"_Voila!_" she said, breathlessly, "I've paid my bet! Am I not a good
+sport, Harlequin? Own that I am and I will forgive your outrageous
+impudence!"
+
+"You are a most excellent sport, madame!" he conceded, grinning.
+
+Relief from the tension cooled her cheeks; she laughed bewitchingly and
+looked at him, exultant, unafraid.
+
+"I frightened you well with my desperate counting, didn't I? You
+completely forgot to do--anything, didn't you? Voyons! Admit it!"
+
+"You completely terrorized me," he admitted.
+
+"Besides," she said, "while I was so busily counting the seconds aloud
+you couldn't very well have kissed me, could you? _That_ was strategy.
+You couldn't have managed it, could you?"
+
+"Not very easily."
+
+"I really _did_ nonplus you, didn't I?" she insisted, aware of his
+amusement.
+
+"Oh, entirely," he said. "I became an abject idiot."
+
+She stood breathing more evenly now, the pretty colour coming and going
+in her cheeks. Considering him, looking alternately at his masked eyes
+and at his expressive lips where a kind of silent and infernal mirth
+still flickered, a sudden doubt assailed her. And presently, with a
+dainty shrug, she turned and glanced down through the gilt lattice
+toward the floor below.
+
+"I suppose," she said, tauntingly, "you hope I'll believe that you
+refrained from kissing me out of some belated consideration for decency.
+But I know perfectly well that I perplexed you, and confused you and
+intimidated you."
+
+"This is, of course, the true solution of my motives in not kissing
+you."
+
+She turned toward him:
+
+"What motive?"
+
+"My motive for not kissing you. My only motive was consideration for
+you, and for the sacred conventions of Sainte Grundy."
+
+"I believe," she said scornfully, "you are really trying to make me
+think that you _could_ have done it, and didn't!"
+
+"You are too clever to believe me a martyr to principle, madame!"
+
+She looked at him, stamped her foot till the bangles clashed.
+
+"Why _didn't_ you kiss me, then?--if you wish to spoil my victory?"
+
+"You yourself have told me why."
+
+"Am I wrong? Could you--didn't I surprise you--in fact, paralyse
+you--with astonishment?"
+
+He laughed delighted; and she stamped her ringing foot again.
+
+"I see," she said; "I am supposed to be doubly in your debt, now. I'd
+rather you _had_ kissed me and we were quits!"
+
+"It isn't too late you know."
+
+"It _is_ too late. It's all over."
+
+"Madame, I have fifty-nine other minutes in which to meet your kindly
+expressed wishes. Did you forget?"
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, aghast.
+
+"One hour less one minute is still coming to me."
+
+"Am I--have I--is this ridiculous performance going to happen again?"
+she asked, appalled.
+
+"Fifty-nine times," he laughed, doubling one spangled leg under the
+other and whirling on his toe till he resembled a kaleidoscopic
+teetotum. Then he drew his sword, cut right and left, slapped it back
+into its sheath, and bowed his wriggling bow, one hand over his heart.
+
+"Don't look so troubled, madame," he said. "I release you from your
+debt. You need never pay me what you owe me."
+
+Up went her small head, fiercely, under its flashing hair:
+
+"Thank you. I pay my debts!" she said crisply.
+
+"You decline to accept your release?"
+
+"Yes, I do!--from _you!"_
+
+"You'll see this thing through!--if it takes all winter?"
+
+"Of course;" trying to smile, and not succeeding.
+
+He touched her arm and pointed out across the hot, perfumed gulf to the
+gilded clock on high:
+
+"You _have_ seen it through! It is now one minute to midnight. We have
+been here exactly one hour, lacking a minute, since our bet was on....
+And I've wanted to kiss you all the while."
+
+Confused, she looked at the clock under its elaborate azure and ormolu
+foliations, then turned toward him, still uncertain of her immunity.
+
+"Do you mean that you have really used the hour as you saw fit?" she
+asked. "Have I done my part honestly?--Like a good sportsman? Have I
+really?"
+
+He bowed, laughingly:
+
+"I cheerfully concede it. You are a good sport."
+
+"And--all that time--" she began--"all that time----"
+
+"I had my chances--sixty of them."
+
+"And didn't take them?"
+
+"Only wanted to--but didn't."
+
+"You think that I----"
+
+"A woman never forgets a man who has kissed her. I took the rather
+hopeless chance that you might remember me without that. But it's a long
+shot. I expect that you'll forget me."
+
+"Do you _want_ me to remember you?" she asked, curiously.
+
+"Yes. But you won't."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I know--from the expression of your mouth, perhaps. You are too pretty,
+too popular to remember a poor Harlequin."
+
+"But you never have seen my face? Have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why do you continually say that I am pretty?"
+
+"I can divine what you must be."
+
+"Then--how--why did you refrain from--" She laughed lightly, and looked
+up at him, mockingly. "Really, Harlequin, you _are_ funny. Do you
+realise it?"
+
+She laughed again and the slight flush came back into her cheeks.
+
+"But you're nice, anyway.... Perhaps if you _had_ seen my face you might
+have let me go unkissed all the quicker.... Masks cover horrible
+surprises.... And, then again, if you _had_ seen it, _perhaps_ you might
+_never_ have let me go at all!" she added, audaciously.
+
+In the gilded balcony opposite, the orchestra had now ceased playing;
+the whirl and noise of the dancers filled the immense momentary quiet.
+Then soft chimes from the great clock sounded midnight amid cries of,
+"Unmask! masks off, everybody!"
+
+The Harlequin turned and drawing the black vizard from his face, bent
+low and saluted her hand; and she, responding gaily with a curtsey,
+looked up into the features of an utter stranger.
+
+She stood silent a moment, the surprised smile stamped on her lips;
+then, in her turn, she slipped the mask from her eyes.
+
+"_Voila!_" she cried. "_C'est moi!_"
+
+After a moment he said, half to himself;
+
+"I knew well enough that you must be unusual. But I hadn't any
+idea--any--idea----"
+
+"Then--you are _not_ disappointed in me, monsieur?"
+
+"My only regret is that I had my hour, and wasted it. Those hours never
+sound twice for wandering harlequins."
+
+"Poor Harlequin!" she said saucily--"I'm sorry, but even _your_ magic
+can't recall a vanished hour! Poor, poor Harlequin! You were too
+generous to me!"
+
+"And now you are going to forget me," he said. "That is to be my
+reward."
+
+"Why--I don't think--I don't expect to forget you. I suppose I am likely
+to know you some day.... _Who_ are you, please? Somebody very grand in
+New York?"
+
+"My name is Quarren."
+
+There was a silence; she glanced down at the ball-room floor through
+the lattice screen, then slowly turned around to look at him again.
+
+"Have you ever heard of me?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you disappointed?"
+
+"Y-es. Pleasantly.... I supposed you to be--different."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Has the world been knocking me very dreadfully to you, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"No.... One's impressions form without any reason--and
+vaguely--from--nothing in particular.--I thought you were a very
+different sort of man.--I am glad you are not."
+
+"That is charming of you."
+
+"It's honest. I had no desire to meet the type of man I supposed you to
+be. Am I too frank?"
+
+"No, indeed," he said, laughing, "but I'm horribly afraid that I really
+am the kind of man you imagined me."
+
+"You are not."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"No," she said, shaking her pretty head, "you can't be."
+
+He said, quoting her own words amiably: "I'm merely one of the necessary
+incidents of any social environment--like flowers and champagne----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren!"
+
+In her distress she laid an impulsive hand on his sleeve; he lifted it,
+laid it across the back of his own hand, and bowing, saluted it lightly,
+gaily.
+
+"I am not offended," he said; "--I am what you supposed me."
+
+"Please don't say it! You are not. I didn't know you; I
+was--prejudiced----"
+
+"You'll find me out sooner or later," he said laughing, "so I might as
+well admit that your cap fitted me."
+
+"It doesn't fit!" she retorted; "I was a perfect fool to say that!"
+
+"As long as you like me," he returned, "does it make any difference what
+I am?"
+
+"Of course it does! I'm not likely to find a man agreeable unless he's
+worth noticing."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"Oh, gentle angler, I refuse to nibble. Be content that an hour out of
+my life has sped very swiftly in your company!"
+
+She turned and laid her hand on the little gilt door. He opened it for
+her.
+
+"You've been very nice to me," she said. "I won't forget you."
+
+"You'll certainly forget me for that very reason. If I hadn't been nice
+I'd have been the exception. And you would have remembered."
+
+She said with an odd smile:
+
+"Do you suppose that pleasant things have been so common in my life that
+only the unpleasant episode makes any impression on my memory?"
+
+"To really remember me as I want you to, you ought to have had something
+unpardonable to forgive me."
+
+"Perhaps I have!" she said, daringly; and slipped past him and down the
+narrow stairs, her loup-mask fluttering from her elbow.
+
+At the foot of the stairs she turned, looking back at him over her bare
+shoulder:
+
+"I've mortally offended at least three important men by hiding up there
+with you. That is conceding _something_ to your attractions, isn't it?"
+
+"Everything. Will you let me find you some supper--and let the mortally
+offended suitors sit and whistle a bit longer?"
+
+"Poor suitors--they've probably been performing heel-tattoos for an
+hour.... Very well, then--I feel unusually shameless to-night--and I'll
+go with you. But don't be disagreeable to me if a neglected and
+glowering young man rushes up and drags me away by the back hair."
+
+"Who for example?"
+
+"Barent Van Dyne, for instance."
+
+"Oh, we'll side-step that youthful Knickerbocker," said Quarren, gaily.
+"Leave it to me, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"To behave so outrageously to Mr. Van Dyne is peculiarly horrid and
+wicked of me," she said. "But you don't realise that--and--the fact
+remains that you did _not_ take your forfeit. And I've a lot to make up
+for that, haven't I?" she added so naïvely that they both gave way to
+laughter unrestrained.
+
+The light touch of her arm on his, now guiding him amid the noisy,
+rollicking throngs, now yielding to his guidance, ceased as he threaded
+a way through the crush to a corner, and seated her at a table for two.
+
+In a few moments he came back with all kinds of delectable things; went
+for more, returned laden, shamelessly pulled several palms between them
+and the noisy outer world, and seated himself beside her.
+
+With napkin and plate on the low table beside her, she permitted him to
+serve her. As he filled her champagne glass she lifted it and looked
+across it at him:
+
+"How did you discover my identity?" she asked. "I'm devoured by
+curiosity."
+
+"Shall I tell you?"
+
+"Please."
+
+"I'll take a tumble in your estimation if I tell you."
+
+"I don't think you will. Try it anyway."
+
+"Very well then. Somebody told me."
+
+"And you let me bet with you! And _you_ bet on a _certainty!_"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "is that good sportsmanship, Mr.
+Quarren?"
+
+"No; very bad. And _that_ was why I didn't take the forfeit. Now you
+understand."
+
+She sat considering him, the champagne breaking in her glass.
+
+"Yes, I do understand now. A good sportsman couldn't take a forfeit
+which he won betting on a certainty.... That wasn't a real wager, was
+it?"
+
+"No, it wasn't."
+
+"If it had been, I--I don't suppose you'd have let me go."
+
+"Indeed not!"
+
+They laughed, watching each other, curiously.
+
+"Which ought to teach me never again to make any such highly original
+and sporting wagers," she said. "Anyway, you were perfectly nice about
+it. Of course you couldn't very well have been otherwise. Tell me, did
+you really suppose me to be attractive? You couldn't judge. How could
+you--under that mask?"
+
+"Do you think that your mouth could have possibly belonged to any other
+kind of a face except your own?" he said coolly.
+
+"Is my mouth unusual?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"How is it unusual?"
+
+"I haven't analysed the matter, but it is somehow so indescribable that
+I guessed very easily what the other features must be."
+
+"Oh, flattery! Oh, impudence! Do you remember when Falstaff said that
+the lion could always recognise the true prince? Shame on you, Mr.
+Quarren. You are not only a very adroit flatterer but a perfectly good
+sportsman after all--and the most gifted tormentor I ever knew in all my
+life. And I like you fine!" She laughed, and made a quick little
+gesture, partly arrested as he met her more than half way, touching the
+rim of his glass to hers. "To our friendship," he said.
+
+"Our friendship," she repeated, gaily, "if the gods speed it."
+
+"--And--its consequences," he added. "Don't forget those."
+
+"What are they likely to be?"
+
+"Who knows? That's the gamble! But let us recognise all kinds of
+possibilities, and drink to them, too. Shall we?"
+
+"What do you mean by the consequences of friendship?" she repeated,
+hesitating.
+
+"That is the interesting thing about a new friendship," he explained.
+"Nobody can ever predict what the consequences are to be. Are you afraid
+to drink to the sporting chances, hazards, accidents, and possibilities
+of our new friendship, Mrs. Leeds? _That_ is a perfectly good sporting
+proposition."
+
+She considered him, interested, her eyes full of smiling curiosity,
+perfectly conscious of the swift challenge of his lifted glass.
+
+[Illustration: "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' she said
+lightly."]
+
+After a few seconds' hesitation she struck the ringing rim of her glass
+against his:
+
+"To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!" she said lightly--"with
+every sporting chance, worldly hazard, and heavenly possibility in it!"
+
+For the first time the smile faded from his face, and something in his
+altered features arrested her glass at her very lips.
+
+"How suddenly serious you seem," she said. "Have I said anything?"
+
+He drained his glass; after a second she tasted hers, looked at him,
+finished it, still watching him.
+
+"Really," she said; "you made me feel for a moment as though you and I
+were performing a solemn rite. That was a new phase of you to me--that
+exceedingly sudden and youthful gravity."
+
+He remained silent. Into his mind, just for a second, and while in the
+act of setting the glass to his lips, there had flashed a flicker of
+pale clairvoyance. It seemed to illumine something within him which he
+had never believed in--another self.
+
+For that single instant he caught a glimpse of it, then it faded like a
+spark in a confused dream.
+
+He raised his head and looked gravely across at Strelsa Leeds; and
+level-eyed, smiling, inquisitive, she returned his gaze.
+
+Could this brief contact with her have evoked in him a far-buried
+something which had never before given sign of existence? And could it
+have been anything resembling aspiration that had glimmered so palely
+out of an ordered and sordid commonplace personality which, with all
+its talent for frivolity, he had accepted as his own?
+
+Without reason a slight flush came into his cheeks.
+
+"Why do you regard me so owlishly?" she asked, amused. "I repeat that
+you made me feel as though we were performing a sort of solemn rite when
+we drank our toast."
+
+"You couldn't feel that way with such a thoroughly frivolous man as I
+am. Could you?"
+
+"I'm rather frivolous myself," she admitted, laughing. "I really can't
+imagine why you made me feel so serious--or why you looked as though you
+were. I've no talent for solemnity. Have you?"
+
+"I don't think so," he said. "What a terrible din everybody is making!
+How hot and stifling it is here--with all those cloying gardenias.... A
+man said, this evening, that this sort of thing makes for anarchy....
+It's rather beastly of me to sit here criticising my host's
+magnificence.... Do you know--it's curious, too--but I wish that, for
+the next hour or two, you and I were somewhere alone under a good wide
+sky--where there was no noise. It's an odd idea, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds.
+And probably you don't share it with me."
+
+She remained silent, thoughtful, her violet-gray eyes humorously
+considering him.
+
+"How do you know I don't?" she said at last. "I'm not enamoured of
+noise, either."
+
+"There's another thing," he went on, smiling--"it's rather curious,
+too--but somehow I've a sort of a vague idea that I've a lot of things
+to talk to you about. It's odd, isn't it?"
+
+"Well you know," she reminded him, "you couldn't very well have a lot
+of things to talk to me about considering the fact that we've known each
+other only an hour or so."
+
+"It doesn't seem logical.... And yet, there's that inexplicable
+sensation of being on the verge of fairly bursting into millions of
+words for your benefit--words which all my life have been bottled up in
+me, accumulating, waiting for this opportunity."
+
+They both were laughing, yet already a slight tension threatened
+both--had menaced them, vaguely, from the very first. It seemed to
+impend ever so slightly, like a margin of faintest shadow edging
+sunlight; yet it was always there.
+
+"I haven't time for millions of words this evening," she said. "Won't
+some remain fresh and sparkling and epigrammatic until--until----"
+
+"To-morrow? They'll possibly keep that long."
+
+"I didn't say to-morrow."
+
+"I did."
+
+"I'm perfectly aware of the subtle suggestion and subtler flattery, Mr.
+Quarren."
+
+"Then, may I see you to-morrow?"
+
+"Utterly impossible--pitiably hopeless. You see I am frank about the
+heart-rending disappointment it is to me--and must be to you. But after
+I am awake I am in the hands of Mrs. Lannis. And there's no room for you
+in that pretty cradle."
+
+"The next day, then?"
+
+"We're going to Florida for three weeks."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Molly and Jim and I."
+
+"Palm Beach?"
+
+"Ultimately."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Oh! Have you the effrontery to tell me to my face that you'll be in the
+same mind about me three weeks hence?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Do you expect me to believe you?"
+
+"I don't know--what to expect--of you, of myself," he said so quietly
+that she looked up quickly.
+
+"Mr. Quarren! _Are_ you a sentimental man? I had mentally absolved you
+from _that_ preconception of mine--among other apparently unmerited
+ideas concerning you."
+
+"I suppose you'll arise and flee if I tell you that you're different
+from other women," he said.
+
+"You wouldn't be such an idiot as to tell me that, would you?"
+
+"I might be. I'm just beginning to realise my capacity for imbecility.
+You're different in this way anyhow; no woman ever before induced me to
+pull a solemn countenance."
+
+"I _don't_ induce you! I ask you not to."
+
+"I _try_ not to; but, somehow, there's something so--so real about
+_you_----"
+
+"Are you accustomed to foregather with the disembodied?"
+
+"I'm beginning to think that my world is rather thickly populated with
+ghosts--phantoms of a more real world."
+
+He looked at her soberly; she had thought him younger than he now
+seemed. A slight irritation silenced her for a moment, then,
+impatiently:
+
+"You speak cynically and I dislike it. What reason have you to express
+world-weary sentiments?--you who are young, who probably have never
+known real sorrow, deep unhappiness! I have little patience with a
+morbid view of anything, Mr. Quarren. I merely warn you--in the event of
+your ever desiring to obtain my good graces."
+
+"I do desire them."
+
+"Then be yourself."
+
+"I don't know what I am. I thought I knew. Your advent has disorganised
+both my complacency and my resignation."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Must I answer?"
+
+"Of course!" she said, laughing.
+
+"Then--the Harlequin who followed you up those stairs, never came down
+again."
+
+"Oh!" she said, unenlightened.
+
+"I'm wondering who it was who came down out of that balcony in the wake
+of the golden dancer," he added.
+
+"You and I--you very absurd young man. What are you trying to say?"
+
+"I--wonder," he said, smiling, "what I am trying to say."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Sunshine illuminated the rose-silk curtains of Mrs. Leeds's bedroom with
+parallel slats of light and cast a frail and tremulous net of gold
+across her bed. The sparrows in the Japanese ivy seemed to be unusually
+boisterous, and their persistent metallic chatter disturbed Strelsa who
+presently unclosed her gray eyes upon her own reflected features in the
+wall-glass opposite.
+
+Face still flushed with slumber, she lay there considering her mirrored
+features with humorous, sleepy eyes; then she sat up, stretched her
+arms, yawned, patted her red lips with her palm, pressed her knuckles
+over her eyelids, and presently slipped out of bed. Her bath was ready;
+so was her maid.
+
+A little later, cross-legged on the bed once more, she sat sipping her
+chocolate and studying the morning papers with an interest and
+satisfaction unjaded.
+
+Coupled with the naïve curiosity of a kitten remained her unspoiled
+capacity for pleasure, and the interest of a child in a world unfolding
+daily in a sequence of miracles under her intent and delighted eyes.
+
+Bare of throat and arm and shoulder, the lustrous hair shadowing her
+face, she now appeared unexpectedly frail, even thin, as though the
+fuller curves of the mould in which she was being formed had not yet
+been filled up.
+
+Fully dressed, gown and furs lent to her something of a youthful
+maturity which was entirely deceptive; for here, in bed, the golden
+daylight revealed childish contours accented so delicately that they
+seemed almost sexless. And in her intent gray eyes and in her
+undeveloped mind was all that completed the bodily and mental
+harmony--youth unawakened as yet except to a confused memory of
+pain--and the dreamy and passionless unconsciousness of an unusually
+late adolescence.
+
+At twenty-four Strelsa still looked upon her morning chocolate with a
+healthy appetite; and the excitement of seeing her own name and picture
+in the daily press had as yet lost none of its delightful thrill.
+
+All the morning papers reported the Wycherlys' house-warming with
+cloying detail. And she adored it. What paragraphs particularly
+concerned herself, her capable maid had enclosed in inky brackets. These
+Strelsa read first of all, warm with pleasure at every stereotyped
+tribute to her loveliness.
+
+The comments she perused were of all sorts, even the ungrammatical sort,
+but she read them all with profound interest, and loved every one, even
+the most fulsome. For life, and its kinder experience, was just
+beginning for her after a shabby childhood, a lonely girlhood, and a
+marriage unspeakable, the memory of which already had become to her as
+vaguely poignant as the dull recollection of a nightmare.
+
+So her appetite for kindness, even the newspaper variety, was keen and
+not at all discriminating; and the reaction from two years'
+solitude--two years of endurance, of shrinking from public comment--had
+developed in her a fierce longing for pleasure and for play-fellows.
+Her fellow-men had responded with an enthusiasm which still surprised
+her delightfully at moments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clever Swedish maid now removed the four-legged tray from her knees;
+Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her newspapers,
+satisfying a natural curiosity concerning what the world thought about
+her costume of the night before, her beauty, herself, and the people she
+knew. At last, agreeably satiated, she lowered the newspaper and lay
+back, dreamy-eyed, faintly smiling, lost in pleasant retrospection.
+
+Had she really appeared as charming last night as these exceedingly kind
+New York newspapers pretended? Did this jolly world really consider her
+so beautiful? She wished to believe it. She tried to. Perhaps it was
+really true--because all these daily paragraphs, which had begun with
+her advent into certain New York sets, must really have been founded on
+something unusual about her.
+
+And it could not be her fortune which continued to inspire such
+journalistic loyalty and devotion, because she had none--scarcely enough
+money in fact to manage with, dress with, pay her servants, and maintain
+her pretty little house in the East Eighties.
+
+It could not be her wit; she had no more than the average American girl.
+Nor was there anything else in her--neither her cultivation,
+attainments, nor talents--to entitle her to distinction. So apparently
+it must be her beauty that evoked paragraphs which had already made her
+a fashion in the metropolis--was making her a cult--even perhaps a
+notoriety.
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her
+newspapers."]
+
+Because those people who had personally known Reginald Leeds, were
+exceedingly curious concerning this young girl who had been a nobody, as
+far as New York was concerned, until her name became legally coupled
+with the name of one of the richest and most dissipated scions of an old
+and honourable New York family.
+
+The public which had read with characteristic eagerness all about the
+miserable finish of Reginald Leeds, found its abominable curiosity
+piqued by his youthful widow's appearance in town.
+
+It is the newspapers' business to give the public what it wants--at
+least that appears to be the popular impression; and so they gave the
+public all it wanted about Strelsa Leeds, in daily chunks. And then
+some. Which, in the beginning, she shrank from, horrified, frightened,
+astonished--because, in the beginning, every mention of her name was
+coupled with a glossary in full explanation of who she was, entailing a
+condensed review of a sordid story which, for two years, she had striven
+to obliterate from her mind. But these post-mortems lasted only a week
+or so. Except for a sporadic eruption of the case in a provincial paper
+now and then, which somebody always thoughtfully sent to her, the press
+finally let the tragedy alone, contenting its intellectual public with
+daily chronicles of young Mrs. Leeds's social activities.
+
+A million boarding houses throughout the land, read about her beauty
+with avidity; and fat old women in soiled pink wrappers began to mention
+her intimately to each other as "Strelsa Leeds"--the first hall-mark of
+social fame--and there was loud discussion, in a million humble homes,
+about the fashionable men who were paying her marked attention; and the
+chances she had for bagging earls and dukes were maintained and
+combated, below stairs and above, with an eagerness, envy, and
+back-stairs knowledge truly and profoundly democratic.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her morning mail had begun to assume almost fashionable proportions, but
+she could not yet reconcile herself to the idea of even such a clever
+maid as her own assuming power of social secretary. So she still read
+and answered all her letters--or rather neglected to notice the
+majority, which invested her with a kind of awe to some and made others
+furious and unwillingly respectful.
+
+Letters, bills, notes, invitations, advertisements were scattered over
+the bedclothes as she lay there, thinking over the pleasures and
+excitement of last night's folly--thinking of Quarren, among others, and
+of the swift intimacy that had sprung up between them--like a
+witch-flower over night--thinking of her imprudence, and of the cold
+displeasure of Barent Van Dyne who, toward daylight, had found her
+almost nose to nose with Quarren, absorbed in exchanging with that young
+man ideas and perfectly futile notions about everything on top, inside,
+and underneath the habitable globe.
+
+She blushed as she remembered her flimsy excuses to Van Dyne--she had
+the grace to blush over that memory--and how any of the dignity incident
+to the occasion had been all Van Dyne's--and how, as she took his
+irreproachable arm and parted ceremoniously with Quarren, she had
+imprudently extended her hand behind her as her escort bore her away--a
+childish impulse--the innocent coquetry of a village belle--she
+flushed again at the recollection--and at the memory of Quarren's lips
+on her finger-tips--and how her hand had closed on the gardenia he
+pressed into it----
+
+She turned her head on the pillow; the flower she had taken from him lay
+beside her on her night table, limp, discoloured, malodorous; and she
+picked it up, daintily, and flung it into the fireplace.
+
+At the same moment the telephone rang downstairs in the library.
+Presently her maid knocked, announcing Mr. Quarren on the wire.
+
+"I'm not at home," said Strelsa, surprised, or rather trying to feel a
+certain astonishment. What really surprised her was that she felt none.
+
+Her maid was already closing the door behind her when Strelsa said:
+
+"Wait a moment, Freda." And, after thinking, she smiled to herself and
+added: "You may set my transmitter on the table beside me, and hang up
+the receiver in the library.... Be sure to hang it up at once."
+
+Then, sitting up in bed, she unhooked the receiver and set it to her
+ear.
+
+"Mr. Quarren," she began coldly, and without preliminary amenities,
+"have you any possible excuse for awaking me at such an unearthly hour
+as mid-day?"
+
+"Good Lord," he exclaimed contritely, "did I do that?"
+
+She had no more passion for the exact truth than the average woman, and
+she quibbled:
+
+"Do you think I would say so if it were not true?" she demanded.
+
+"No, of course not----"
+
+"Well, then!" An indignant pause. "But," she added honestly, "I was not
+exactly what you might call asleep, although it practically amounts to
+the same thing. I was reposing.... Are _you_ feeling quite fit this
+morning?" she added demurely.
+
+"I'd be all right if I could see you----"
+
+"You can't! What an idea!"
+
+"Why not? What are you going to do?"
+
+"There's no particular reason why I should detail my daily duties,
+obligations, and engagements to you; is there?--But I'm an unusually
+kind-hearted person, and not easily offended by people's
+inquisitiveness. So I'll overlook your bad manners. First, then, I am
+lunching at the Province Club, then I am going to a matinée at the
+Casino, afterward dropping in for tea at the Sprowls, dining at the
+Calderas, going to the Opera with the Vernons, and afterward, with them,
+to a dance at the Van Dynes.... So, will you kindly inform me where
+_you_ enter the scene?"
+
+She could hear him laugh over the telephone.
+
+"What are you doing just now?" he asked.
+
+"I am seated upon my innocent nocturnal couch, draped in exceedingly
+intimate attire, conversing over the telephone with the original Paul
+Pry."
+
+"Could anything induce you to array yourself more conventionally,
+receive me, and let me take you to your luncheon at the Province Club?"
+
+"But I don't _wish_ to see you."
+
+"Is that perfectly true?"
+
+"Perfectly. I've just thrown your gardenia into the fireplace. Doesn't
+that prove it?"
+
+"Oh, no. Because it's too early, yet, for either of us to treasure such
+things----"
+
+"What horrid impertinence!"
+
+"Isn't it! But your heavenly gift of humour will transform my impudence
+into a harmless and diverting sincerity. Please let me see you, Mrs.
+Leeds--just for a few moments."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are going South and there are three restless weeks ahead of
+me----"
+
+This time he could hear her clear, far laughter:
+
+"What has _my_ going to Florida to do with _your_ restlessness?"
+
+"Your very question irrevocably links cause and effect----"
+
+"Don't be absurd, Mr. Quarren!"
+
+"Absurdity is the badge of all our Guild----"
+
+"What Guild do _you_ belong to?"
+
+"The associated order of ardent suitors----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren! You are becoming ridiculous; do you know it?"
+
+"No, _I_ don't realise it, but they say all the rest of the world
+considers suitors ridiculous----"
+
+"Do you expect me to listen to such nonsense at such an hour in the
+morning?"
+
+"It's half past twelve; and my weak solution of nonsense is suitable to
+the time of day----"
+
+"Am I to understand that the solution becomes stronger as the day
+advances?"
+
+"Exactly; the solution becomes so concentrated and powerful that traces
+of common-sense begin to appear----"
+
+"I didn't notice any last night."
+
+"Van Dyne interfered."
+
+"Poor Mr. Van Dyne. If you'd been civil to him he might have asked you
+to the dance to-night--if I had suggested it. But you were horridly
+rude."
+
+"I? Rude?"
+
+"You're not going to be rude enough to say it was I who behaved badly to
+him, are you? Oh, the shocking vanity of man! No doubt you are thinking
+that it was I who, serpent-like, whispered temptation into your innocent
+ear, and drew you away into a corner, and shoved palms in front of us,
+and brought silver and fine linen, and rare fruits and sparkling wines;
+and paid shameless court with an intelligent weather-eye always on the
+watch for a flouted and justly indignant cavalier!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "you did all those things. And now you're trying to
+evade the results."
+
+"What are the results?"
+
+"A partly demented young man clamouring to see you at high-noon while
+the cold cruel cause of his lunacy looks on and laughs."
+
+"I'm afraid that young man must continue to clamour," she said,
+immensely amused at the picture he drew. "How far away is he at this
+moment?"
+
+"In the Legation, a blithering wreck."
+
+"Why not in his office frantically immersed in vast business enterprises
+and cataclysmic speculations?"
+
+"I'm rather afraid that if business immerses him too completely he will
+be found drowned some day."
+
+"You promised--_said_ that you were going to begin a vigorous campaign,"
+she reminded him reproachfully. "I asked it of you; and you agreed."
+
+"I am beginning life anew--or trying to--by seeking the perennial source
+of daily spiritual and mundane inspiration----"
+
+"Why won't you be serious?"
+
+"I am. Were you not the source of my new inspiration? Last night did
+something or other to me--I am not yet perfectly sure what it was. I
+want to see you to be sure--if only for a--moment--merely to satisfy
+myself that you are real----"
+
+"Will one moment be enough?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"One second--or half a one?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"Very well--if you promise not to expect or ask for more than that----"
+
+"That is terribly nice of you!"
+
+"It is, overwhelmingly. But really I don't know whether I am nice or
+merely weak-minded. Because I've lingered here gossiping so long with
+you that I've simply got to fly like a mad creature about my dressing.
+Good-bye----"
+
+"Shall I come up immediately?"
+
+"Of course not! I expect to be dressing for hours and
+hours--figuratively speaking.... Perhaps you might start in ten minutes
+if you are coming in a taxi."
+
+"You are an angel----"
+
+"That is not telephone vernacular.... And perhaps you had better be
+prompt, because Mrs. Lannis is coming for me--that is, if you have
+anything to--to say--that----"
+
+She flushed up, annoyed at her own stupidity, then felt grateful to him
+as he answered lightly:
+
+"Of course; she might misunderstand our informality. Shall I see you in
+half an hour?"
+
+"If I can manage it," she said.
+
+She managed it, somehow. At first, really indifferent, and not very
+much amused, the talk with him had gradually aroused in her the same
+interest and pleasurable curiosity that she had experienced in
+exchanging badinage with him the night before. Now she really wanted to
+see him, and she took enough trouble about it to set her deft maid
+flying about her offices.
+
+First a fragrant precursor of his advent arrived in the shape of a great
+bunch of winter violets; and her maid fastened them to her black fox
+muff. Then the distant door-bell sounded; and in an extraordinarily
+short space of time, wearing her pretty fur hat, her boa, and carrying a
+muff that matched both, with his violets pinned to it, she entered the
+dim drawing-room, halting just beyond the threshold.
+
+"Are you not ashamed," she said, severely, "to come battering at my door
+at this hour of the day?"
+
+"Abjectly."
+
+They exchanged a brief handshake; she seated herself on the arm of a
+sofa; he stood before the unlighted fireplace, looking at her with a
+half smiling half curious air which made her laugh outright.
+
+"Bien! C'est moi, monsieur," she said. "Me voici! C'est moi-même!"
+
+"I believe you _are_ real after all," he admitted.
+
+"Do I seem different?"
+
+"Yes--and no."
+
+"How am I different?"
+
+"Well, somehow, last night, I got the notion that you were younger,
+thinner--and not very real----"
+
+"Are you presuming to criticise my appearance last night?" she asked
+with mock indignation. "Because if you are, I proudly refer you to the
+enlightened metropolitan morning press."
+
+"I read all about you," he said, smiling.
+
+"I am glad you did. You will doubtless now be inclined to treat me with
+the respect due to my years and experience."
+
+"I believe," he said, "that your gown and hat and furs make a charming
+difference----"
+
+"How perfectly horrid of you! I thought you admired my costume last
+night!"
+
+"Oh, Lord," he said--"you were sufficiently charming last night. But
+now, in your fluffy furs, you seem rather taller--less slender
+perhaps--and tremendously fetching----"
+
+"Say that my clothes improve me, and that in reality I'm a horrid, thin
+little beast!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I know I am, but I haven't
+finished growing yet. Really that's the truth, Mr. Quarren. Would you
+believe that I have grown an inch since last spring?"
+
+"I believe it," he said, "but would you mind stopping now? You are
+exactly right."
+
+"You _know_ I'm thin and flat as a board!"
+
+"You're perfect!"
+
+"It's too late to say that to me----"
+
+"It is too early to say more."
+
+"Let's don't talk about myself, please."
+
+"It has become the only subject in the world that interests me----"
+
+"Please, Mr. Quarren! Are you actually attempting to be silly at this
+hour of the day? The wise inanities of midnight sound perilously flat in
+the sunshine--flatter than the flattest champagne, which no
+bread-crumbs can galvanise into a single bubble. Tell me, why did you
+wish to see me this morning. I mean the real reason? Was it merely to
+find out whether I was weak-minded enough to receive you?"
+
+He looked at her, smiling:
+
+"I wanted to see whether you were as real and genuine and wholesome and
+unspoiled and--and friendly as I thought you were last night."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"More so."
+
+"Are you so sure about my friendliness?"
+
+"I want to believe in it," he said. "It means a lot to me already."
+
+"Believe in it then, you very badly spoiled young man," she said,
+stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "I do like you.... And now I
+think you had better go--unless you want to see Mrs. Lannis."
+
+Retaining her hand for a second he said:
+
+"Before you leave town will you let me ask you a question?"
+
+"I am leaving to-morrow. You'll have to ask it now."
+
+Their hands fell apart; he seemed doubtful, and she awaited his
+question, smilingly. And as he made no sign of asking she said:
+
+"You have my permission to ask it. Is it a very impertinent question?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"How impertinent is it?" she inquired curiously.
+
+"Unpardonably personal."
+
+After a silence she laughed.
+
+"Last night," she said, "you told me that I would probably forget you
+unless I had something unpardonable to forgive you. Isn't this a good
+opportunity to leave your unpardonable imprint upon my insulted
+memory?"
+
+"Excellent," he said. "This is my outrageous question: are you engaged
+to be married?"
+
+For a full minute she remained silent in her intense displeasure. After
+the first swift glance of surprise her gray eyes had dropped, and she
+sat on the gilded arm of the sofa, studying the floor covering--an
+ancient Saraband rug, with the inevitable and monotonous river-loop
+symbol covering its old-rose ground in uninteresting repetition. After a
+while she lifted her head and met his gaze, quietly.
+
+"I am trying to believe that you did not mean to be offensive," she
+said. "And now that I have a shadow of a reason to pardon you, I shall
+probably do so, ultimately."
+
+"But you won't answer me?" he said, reddening.
+
+"Of course not. Are we on any such footing of intimacy--even of
+friendship, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"No. But you are going away--and my reason for speaking--" He checked
+himself; his reasons were impossible; there was no extenuation to be
+found in them, no adequate explanation for them, or for his attitude
+toward this young girl which had crystallised over night--over a
+sleepless, thrilling night--dazzling him with its wonder and its truth
+and its purity in the clean rays of the morning sun.
+
+She watched his expression as it changed, troubled, uncertain how to
+regard him, now.
+
+"It isn't very much like you, to ask me such a question," she said.
+
+"Before I met you, you thought me one kind of a man; after I met you,
+you thought me another. Have I turned out to be a third kind?"
+
+"N-no."
+
+"Would I turn into the first kind if I ask you again to answer my
+question?"
+
+She gave him a swift, expressionless glance:
+
+"I want to like you; I'm trying to, Mr. Quarren. Won't you let me?"
+
+"I want to have the right to like _you_, too--perhaps more than you will
+care to have me----"
+
+"Please don't speak that way--I don't know what you mean, anyway----"
+
+"That is why I asked you the question--to find out whether I had a right
+to----"
+
+"Right!" she repeated. "What right? What do you mean? What have you
+misinterpreted in me that has given you any rights as far as I am
+concerned? Did you misunderstand our few hours of masked acquaintance--a
+few moments of perfectly innocent imprudence?--my overlooking certain
+conventions and listening to you at the telephone this morning--my
+receiving you here at this silly hour? What has given you any right to
+say anything to me, Mr. Quarren--to hint of the possibility of anything
+serious--for the future--or at any time whatever?"
+
+"I have no right," he said, wincing.
+
+"Indeed you have not!" she rejoined warmly, flushed and affronted. "I am
+glad that is perfectly clear to you."
+
+"No right at all," he repeated--"except the personal privilege of
+recognising what is cleanest and sweetest and most admirable and most
+unspoiled in life; the right to care for it without knowing exactly
+why--the desire to be part of it--as have all men who are awakened
+out of trivial dreams when such a woman as you crosses their limited and
+foolish horizon."
+
+She sat staring at him, struggling to comprehend what he was saying,
+perfectly unable to believe, nor even wishing to, yet painfully
+attentive to his every word.
+
+"Mr. Quarren," she said, "I was hurt. I imagined presumption where there
+was none. But I am afraid you are romantic and impulsive to an amazing
+degree. Yet, both romance and impulse have a place and a reason, not
+undignified, in human intercourse."--She felt rather superior in turning
+this phrase, and looked on him a little more kindly----
+
+"If the compliment which you have left me to infer is purely a romantic
+one, it is nevertheless unwarranted--and, forgive me, unacceptable. The
+trouble is----"
+
+She paused to recover her wits and her breath; but he took the latter
+away again as he said:
+
+"I am in love with you; that is the trouble, Mrs. Leeds. And I really
+have no business to say so until I amount to something."
+
+"You have no business to say so anyway after one single evening's
+acquaintance!" she retorted hotly.
+
+"Oh, that! If love were a matter of time and convention--like five
+o'clock tea!--but it isn't, you know. It isn't the brevity of our
+acquaintance that worries me; it's what _I_ am--and what _you_
+are--and--and the long, long road I have to travel before I am worth
+your lightest consideration--I never was in love before. Forgive my
+crudeness. I'm only conscious of the--hopelessness of it all."
+
+Breathless, confused, incredulous, she sat there staring at
+him--listening to and watching this tall, quiet, cool young fellow who
+was telling her such incomprehensible things in a manner that began to
+fascinate her. With an effort she collected herself, shook off the
+almost eerie interest that was already beginning to obsess her, and
+stood up, flushed but composed.
+
+"Shall we not say any more about it?" she said quietly. "Because there
+is nothing more to say, Mr. Quarren--except--thank you for--for feeling
+so amiably toward me--for believing me more than I really am.... And I
+would like to have your friendship still, if I may----"
+
+"You have it."
+
+"Even yet?"
+
+"Why not?... It's selfish of me to say it--but I wish you--could have
+saved me," he said almost carelessly.
+
+"From what, Mr. Quarren? I really do not understand you."
+
+"From being what I am--the sort of man you first divined me to be."
+
+"What do you mean by 'saving' you?" she asked, coldly.
+
+"I don't know!--giving me a glimmer of hope I suppose--something to
+strive for."
+
+"One saves one's self," she said.
+
+He turned an altered face toward her: and she looked at him intently.
+
+"I guess you are right," he said with a short laugh. "If there is
+anything worth saving, one saves one's self."
+
+"I think that is true," she said.... "And--if my friendship--if you
+really care for it----"
+
+He met her gaze:
+
+"I honestly don't know. I've been carried off my feet by you,
+completely. A man, under such conditions, doesn't know anything--not
+even enough to hold his tongue--as you may have noticed. I am in love
+with you. As I am to-day, my love for you would do you no good--I don't
+know whether yours would do me any good--or your friendship, either. It
+ought to if I amounted to anything; but I don't--and I don't know."
+
+"I wish you would not speak so bitterly--please----"
+
+"All right. It wasn't bitterness; it was just whine. ... I'll go, now.
+You will comprehend, after you think it over, that there is at least
+nothing of impertinence in my loving you--only a blind unreason--a
+deadly fear lest the other man in me, suddenly revealed, vanish before I
+could understand him. Because when I saw you, life's meaning broke out
+suddenly--like a star--and that's another stale simile. But one has to
+climb very far before one can touch even the nearest of the stars.... So
+forgive my one lucid interval.... I shall probably never have
+another.... May I take you to your carriage?"
+
+"Mrs. Lannis is calling for me."
+
+"Then--I will take my leave--and the tatters of my reputation--any song
+can buy it, now----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I don't want you to go--like this. I want you to go away knowing in
+your heart that you have been very--nice--agreeable--to a young girl who
+hasn't perhaps had as much experience as you think----"
+
+"Thank God," he said, smiling.
+
+"I want you to like me, always," she said. "Will you?"
+
+"I promise," he replied so blithely that for a moment his light irony
+deceived her. Then something in his eyes left her silent, concerned,
+unresponsive--only her heart seemed to repeat persistently in childish
+reiteration, the endless question, Why? Why? Why? And she heard it but
+found no answer where love was not, and had never been.
+
+"I--am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I--I try to understand you--but
+I don't seem to.... I am so _very_ sorry that you--care for me."
+
+He took her gloved hand, and she let him.
+
+"I guess I'm nothing but a harlequin after all," he said, "and they're
+legitimate objects for pity. Good-bye, Mrs. Leeds. You've been very
+patient and sweet with a blithering lunatic.... I've committed only
+another harlequinade of a brand-new sort. But the fall from that balcony
+would have been less destructive."
+
+She looked at him out of her gray eyes.
+
+"One thing," she said, with a tremulous smile, "you may be certain that
+I am not going to forget you very easily."
+
+"Another thing," he said, "I shall never forget you as long as I live;
+and--you have my violets, I see. Are they to follow the gardenia?"
+
+"Only when their time comes," she said, trying to laugh.
+
+So he wished her a happy trip and sojourn in the South, and went away
+into the city--downtown, by the way to drop into an office chair in an
+empty office and listen to the click of a typewriter in the outer room,
+and sit there hour after hour with his chin in his hand staring at
+nothing out of the clear blue eyes of a boy.
+
+And she went away to her luncheon at the Province Club with Susanne
+Lannis who wished her to meet some of the governors--very grand
+ladies--upon whose good will depended Strelsa's election to the most
+aristocratic, comfortable, wisely managed, and thriftiest of all
+metropolitan clubs.
+
+After luncheon she, with Mrs. Lannis and Chrysos Lacy--a pretty
+red-haired edition of her brother--went to see "Sumurun."
+
+And after they had tea at the redoubtable Mrs. Sprowl's, where there
+were more footmen than guests, more magnificence than comfort, and more
+wickedness in the gossip than lemon in the tea or Irish in the more
+popular high-ball.
+
+The old lady, fat, pink, enormous, looked about her out of her little
+glittering green eyes with a pleased conviction that everybody on earth
+was mortally afraid of her. And everybody, who happened to be anybody in
+New York, was exactly that--with a few eccentric exceptions like her
+nephew, Karl Westguard, and half a dozen heavily upholstered matrons
+whose social altitude left them nothing to be afraid of except lack of
+deference and death.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl had a fat, wheezy, and misleading laugh; and it took time
+for Strelsa to understand that there was anything really venomous in the
+old lady; but the gossip there that afternoon, and the wheezy delight in
+driving a last nail into the coffin of some moribund reputation, made
+plain to her why her hostess was held in such respectful terror.
+
+The talk finally swerved from Molly Wycherly's ball to the Irish
+Legation, and Mrs. Sprowl leaned toward Strelsa, and panted behind her
+fan:
+
+"A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men give there!
+Orgies, I understand! No pretty actress in town is kept sighing long for
+invitations. Even"--she whispered the name of a lovely and respectable
+prima-donna with a perfectly good husband and progeny--and nodded so
+violently that it set her coughing.
+
+"Oh," cried Strelsa, distressed, "surely you have been misinformed!"
+
+"Not in the least," wheezed the old lady. "She is no better than the
+rest of 'em! And I sent for my nephew Karl, and I brought him up
+roundly. 'Karl!' said I, 'what the devil do you mean! Do you want that
+husband of hers dragging you all into court?' And, do you know, my dear,
+he appeared perfectly astounded--said it wasn't so--just as you said a
+moment ago. But I can put two and two together, yet; I'm not too old and
+witless to do that! And I warrant you I gave him a tongue trouncing
+which he won't forget. ... Probably he retailed it to that O'Hara man,
+and to young Quarren, too. If he did it won't hurt 'em, either."
+
+She was speaking now so generally that everybody heard her, and Cyrille
+Caldera said:
+
+"Ricky is certainly innocuous, anyway."
+
+"Oh, _is_ he!" said Mrs. Sprowl with another wheezy laugh. "I fancy I
+know that boy. Did you say 'harmless,' Susanne? Well, _you_ ought to
+know, of course----"
+
+Cyrille Caldera blushed brightly although her affair with Quarren had
+been of the most innocent description.
+
+[Illustration: "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men
+give there!'"]
+
+"There's probably as much ground for indicting Ricky as there is for
+indicting me," she protested. "He's merely a nice, useful boy----"
+
+"Rather vapid, don't you think?" observed a thin young woman in sables
+and an abundance of front teeth.
+
+"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and
+a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination."
+
+"He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell
+me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly
+harmless."
+
+"Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to.
+
+"Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde--whose husband must have been
+an idiot--and Cynthia Challis--she married Prince Sarnoff, you
+remember----"
+
+"The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy.
+
+"I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl.
+"How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar----"
+
+"Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis.
+
+"Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em
+marry him. Poor Ricky."
+
+"Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is _so_ nice, and nobody is likely to
+marry him."
+
+"Why?" asked Strelsa.
+
+"Because he's--why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't
+you know it?"
+
+"No," said Strelsa.
+
+"That's the trouble--partly. Then there's no social advantage for any
+girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out
+of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky--unless he
+marries a lame duck."
+
+"Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained
+Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed.
+
+"Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight."
+
+"The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's
+intelligent otherwise I fancy."
+
+"Yes, but not intellectual."
+
+"I think you are possibly mistaken."
+
+The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis
+laughed.
+
+"Are _you_ his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night
+for the first time."
+
+"Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet
+Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But
+you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison
+arrives." At which sally everybody laughed.
+
+Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the
+coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British
+officer's arrival.
+
+Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew,
+because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was
+understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning
+people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa
+Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of
+fashionable banter.
+
+"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles
+you'll forget Ricky."
+
+"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl,
+why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy."
+
+"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the
+eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are
+pretty."
+
+"I have enough--almost----"
+
+"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!"
+laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa--you'll need
+them."
+
+"You are mistaken. I _have_ enough. I'd like to be happy for a while."
+
+The naïve inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and
+happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of
+the past which had unconsciously evoked it.
+
+After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in,
+one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of
+Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in
+kennel parlance.
+
+To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed
+loud and long.
+
+"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves
+as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular
+among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby
+agape. But your man of the world has other tastes."
+
+"Jaded tastes," said somebody.
+
+"Maybe they're jaded and vicious--but they're his. And maybe that girl
+has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But
+it's the last shriek among people who know."
+
+"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French
+sculptor who did the Merode?"
+
+"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else.
+
+"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds
+needs padding--to suit my notions."
+
+"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl
+will be scandalous when she fills out a little more.... If she only had
+the wits to match what she is going to be!--But there's a streak of
+something silly in her--I suspect latent sentiment--which is likely to
+finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels
+for Ricky, now!--a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except
+in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little
+minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky."
+
+"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing.
+
+"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks
+in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that
+girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind
+about Strelsa Leeds, and"--she glared around her, fanning vigorously--"I
+_think_ nobody is likely to interfere."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid
+down the law of limits to him so decisively that, taken aback,
+astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment.
+
+When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly
+that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned.
+
+But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who
+had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders.
+
+When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had
+taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his
+conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her.
+
+He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing
+sponsor for Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old
+lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?"
+
+He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at
+Strelsa.
+
+Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very
+bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals.
+
+"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass.
+
+"What?" he asked sullenly.
+
+"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix--and also amass a little
+common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to
+start things for her. Which I shan't--in that direction."
+
+"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with
+an unpleasant laugh.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically.
+
+"I understand the Earl of Dankmere, perfectly," she said--"also other
+people, including young, and sulky boys. So if you clearly understand my
+wishes, and the girl doesn't make a fool of herself over you or any
+other callow ineligible, her future will give me something agreeable to
+occupy me."
+
+The blood stung his face as he stood up--a tall graceful figure among
+the others in the box--a clean-cut, wholesome boy to all appearances,
+with that easy and amiable presence which is not distinction but which
+sometimes is even more agreeable.
+
+Lips compressed, the flush still hot on his face, he stood silent,
+tasting all the bitterness that his career had stored up for him--sick
+with contempt for a self that could accept and swallow such things. For
+he had been well schooled, but scarcely to that contemptible point.
+
+"Of course," he said, pleasantly, "you understand that I shall do as I
+please."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl laughed:
+
+"I'll see to that, too, Ricky."
+
+Chrysos Lacy leaned forward and began to talk to him, and his training
+reacted mechanically, for he seemed at once to become his gay and
+engaging self.
+
+He did not return to the Vernons' box nor did he see Strelsa again
+before she went South.
+
+The next night a note was delivered to him, written from the Wycherlys'
+car, "Wind-Flower."
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN:
+
+     "Why did you not come back to say good-bye? You spoke of doing so.
+     I'm afraid Chrysos Lacy is responsible.
+
+     "The dance at the Van Dynes was very jolly. I am exceedingly sorry
+     you were not there. Thank you for the flowers and bon-bons that
+     were delivered to me in my state-room. My violets are not yet
+     entirely faded, so they have not yet joined your gardenia in the
+     limbo of useless things.
+
+     "Mr. Westguard came to the train. He _is_ nice.
+
+     "Mr. O'Hara and Chrysos and Jack Lacy were there, so in spite of
+     your conspicuous absence the Legation maintained its gay reputation
+     and covered itself with immortal blarney.
+
+     "This letter was started as a note to thank you for your gifts, but
+     it is becoming a serial as Molly and Jim and I sit here watching
+     the North Carolina landscape fly past our windows like streaks of
+     brown lightened only by the occasional delicious and sunny green of
+     some long-leafed pine.
+
+     "There's nothing to see from horizon to horizon except the
+     monotonous repetition of mules and niggers and evil-looking cypress
+     swamps and a few razor-backs and a buzzard flying very high in the
+     blue.
+
+     "Thank you again for my flowers.... I wonder if you understand that
+     my instinct is to be friends with you?
+
+     "It was from the very beginning.
+
+     "And please don't be absurd enough to think that I am going to
+     forget you--or our jolly escapade at the Wycherly ball. You behaved
+     very handsomely once. I know I can count on your kindness to me.
+
+     "Good-bye, and many many thanks--as Jack Lacy says--'f'r the manny
+     booggy-rides, an' th' goom-candy, an' the boonches av malagy
+     grrapes'!
+
+                                  "Sincerely your friend,
+
+                                             "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+That same day Sir Charles Mallison arrived in New York and went directly
+to Mrs. Sprowl's house. Their interview was rather brief but loudly
+cordial on the old lady's part:
+
+"How's my sister and Foxy?" she asked--meaning Sir Renard and Lady
+Spinney.
+
+Sir Charles regretted he had not seen them.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Quite fit, thanks." And he gravely trusted that her own health was
+satisfactory.
+
+"You haven't changed your mind?" she asked with a smile which the
+profane might consider more like a grin.
+
+Sir Charles said he had not, and a healthy colour showed under the tan.
+
+"All these years," commented the old lady, ironically.
+
+"Four," said Sir Charles.
+
+"Was it four years ago when you saw her in Egypt?"
+
+"Four years--last month--the tenth."
+
+"And never saw her again?"
+
+"Never."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl shook with asthmatic mirth:
+
+"Such story-book constancy! Why didn't you ask your friend the late
+Sirdar to have Leeds pitched into the Nile. It would have saved you
+those four years' waiting? You know you haven't many years to waste, Sir
+Charles."
+
+"I'm forty-five," he said, colouring painfully.
+
+"Four years gone to hell," said the old lady with that delicate candour
+which sometimes characterised her.... "And now what do you propose to do
+with the rest of 'em? Dawdle away your time?"
+
+[Illustration: "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length, reddening
+again."]
+
+"Face my fate," he admitted touching his moustache and fearfully
+embarrassed.
+
+"Well, if you're in a hurry, you'll have to go down South to face it.
+She's at Palm Beach for the next three weeks."
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+She looked up at him, her little opaque green eyes a trifle softened.
+
+"I am trying to get you the prettiest woman in America," she said. "I'm
+ready to fight off everybody else--beat 'em to death," she added, her
+eyes snapping, then suddenly kind again--"because, Sir Charles, I like
+you. And for no other reason on earth!"
+
+Which was not the exact truth. It was for another man's sake she was
+kind to him. And the other man had been dead many years.
+
+Sir Charles thanked her, awkwardly, and fell silent again, pulling his
+moustache.
+
+"Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?" he ventured, at length, reddening again.
+
+"Perfectly. She's a bit wiry just now--thin--leggy, y' know. Some
+fanciers prefer 'em weedy. But she'll plump up. I know the breed."
+
+He shrank from her loud voice and the vulgarity of her comments, and she
+was aware of it and didn't care a rap. There were plenty of noble ladies
+as vulgar as she, and more so--and anyway it was not this well-built,
+sober-faced man of forty-five whom she was serving with all the craft
+and insolence and brutality and generosity that was in her--it was the
+son of a dead man who had been much to her. How much nobody in these
+days gossiped about any longer, for it was a long time ago, a long, long
+time ago that she had made her curtsey to a young queen and a prince
+consort. And Sir Charles's father had died at Majuba Hill.
+
+"There's a wretched little knock-kneed peer on the cards," she observed;
+"Dankmere. He seems to think she has money or something. If he comes
+over here, as my sister writes, I'll set him straighter than his own
+legs. And I've written Foxy to tell him so."
+
+"Dankmere is a very good chap," said Sir Charles, terribly embarrassed.
+
+"But not good enough. His level is the Quartier d'Europe. He'll find it;
+no fear.... When do you go South?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, so honestly that she grinned again.
+
+"Then I'll give you a letter to Molly Wycherly. Her husband is Jim
+Wycherly--one of your sort--eternally lumbering after something to kill.
+He has a bungalow on some lagoon where he murders ducks, and no doubt
+he'll go there. But his wife will be stopping at Palm Beach. I'll send
+you a letter to her in the morning."
+
+"Many thanks," said Sir Charles, shyly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Strelsa remained South longer than she had expected to remain, and at
+the end of the third week Quarren wrote her.
+
+
+     "DEAR MRS. LEEDS:
+
+     "Will you accept from me a copy of Karl's new book? And are you
+     ever coming back? You are missing an unusually diverting winter;
+     the opera is exceptional, there are some really interesting plays
+     in town and several new and amusing people--Prince and Princess
+     Sarnoff for example; and the Earl of Dankmere, an anxious, and
+     perplexed little man, sadly hard up, and simple-minded enough to
+     say so; which amuses everybody immensely.
+
+     "He's pathetically original; plebeian on his mother's side; very
+     good-natured; nothing at all of a sportsman; and painfully short of
+     both intellect and cash--a funny, harmless, distracted little man
+     who runs about asking everybody the best and quickest methods of
+     amassing a comfortable fortune in America. And I must say that
+     people have jollied him rather cruelly.
+
+     "The Sarnoffs on the other hand are modest and nice people--the
+     Prince is a yellow, dried-up Asiatic who is making a collection of
+     parasites--a shrewd, kindly, and clever little scientist. His wife
+     is a charming girl, intellectual but deliciously feminine. She was
+     Cynthia Challis before her marriage, and always a most attractive
+     and engaging personality. They dined with us at the Legation on
+     Thursday.
+
+     "Afterward there was a dance at Mrs. Sprowl's. I led from one end,
+     Lester Caldera from the other. One or two newspapers criticised the
+     decorations and favours as vulgarly expensive; spoke of a 'monkey
+     figure'--purely imaginary--which they said I introduced into the
+     cotillion, and that the favours were marmosets!--who probably were
+     the intellectual peers of anybody present.
+
+     "The old lady is in a terrific temper. I'm afraid some poor
+     scribblers are going to catch it. I thought it very funny.
+
+     "Speaking of scribblers and temper reminds me that Karl Westguard's
+     new book is stirring up a toy tempest. He has succeeded in
+     offending a dozen people who pretend to recognise themselves or
+     their relatives among the various characters. I don't know whether
+     the novel is really any good, or not. We, who know Karl so
+     intimately, find it hard to realise that perhaps he may be a writer
+     of some importance.
+
+     "There appears to be considerable excitement about this new book.
+     People seem inclined to discuss it at dinners; Karl's publishers
+     are delighted. Karl, on the contrary, is not at all flattered by
+     the kind of a success that menaces him. He is mad all through, but
+     not as mad as his redoubtable aunt, who tells everybody that he's a
+     scribbling lunatic who doesn't know what he's writing, and that she
+     washes her fat and gem-laden hands of him henceforth.
+
+     "Poor Karl! He's already thirty-seven; he's written fifteen books,
+     no one of which, he tells me, ever before stirred up anybody's
+     interest. But this newest novel, 'The Real Thing,' has already gone
+     into three editions in two weeks--whatever that actually means--and
+     still the re-orders are pouring in, and his publishers are madly
+     booming it, and several indignant people are threatening Karl with
+     the law of libel, and Karl is partly furious, partly amused, and
+     entirely astonished at the whole affair.
+
+     "Because you see, the people who think they recognise portraits of
+     themselves or their friends in several of the unattractive
+     characters in the story--are as usual, in error. Karl's people are
+     always purely and synthetically composite. Besides everybody who
+     knows Karl Westguard ought to know that he's too decent a fellow,
+     and too good a workman to use models stupidly. Anybody can copy;
+     anybody can reproduce the obvious. Even photographers are artists
+     in these days. Good work is a synthesis founded on truth, and
+     carried logically to a conclusion.
+
+     "But it's useless to try to convince the Philistines. Once
+     possessed with the idea that they or their friends are 'meant,' as
+     they say, Archimedes's lever could not pry them loose from their
+     agreeably painful obsession.
+
+     "Then there are other sorts of humans who are already bothering
+     Karl. This species recognise in every 'hero' or 'heroine' a minute
+     mental and physical analysis of themselves and their own
+     particular, specific, and petty emotions. Proud, happy, flattered,
+     they permit nobody to mistake the supposed tribute which they are
+     entirely self-persuaded that the novelist has offered to them.
+
+     "And these phases of 'The Real Thing' are fretting and mortifying
+     Karl to the verge of distraction. He awakes to find himself not
+     famous but notorious--not criticised for his workmanship, good or
+     bad, but gabbled about because some ludicrous old Uncle Foozle
+     pretends to discover a similarity between Karl's episodes and
+     characters and certain doings of which Uncle F. is personally
+     cognisant.
+
+     "The great resource of stupidity is and has always been the
+     anagram; and as stupidity is almost invariably suspicious, the hunt
+     for hidden meanings preoccupies the majority of mankind.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Because I have ventured to send you Karl's new book is no reason
+     why I also should have presumed to write you a treatise in several
+     volumes.
+
+     "But I miss you, oddly enough--miss everything I never had of
+     you--your opinions on what interests us both; the delightful
+     discussions of things important, which have never taken place
+     between us. It's odd, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds, that I miss, long for,
+     and even remember so much that has never been?
+
+     "Molly Wycherly wrote to Mrs. Lannis that you were having a gay
+     time in Florida; that Sir Charles Mallison had joined your party;
+     that you'd had luncheons and dinners given you at the Club, at the
+     Inlet, at the Wiers's place, 'Coquina Castle'; and that Jim and Sir
+     Charles had bravely slain many ducks. Which is certainly glory
+     enough to go round. In a friendly little note to me you were good
+     enough to ask what I am doing, and to emphasise your request for an
+     answer by underlining your request.
+
+     "Proud and flattered by your generous interest I hasten to inform
+     you that I am leading the same useful, serious, profitable,
+     purposeful, ambitious, and ennobling life which I was leading when
+     I first met you. Such a laudable existence makes for one's
+     self-respect; and, happy in that consciousness, undisturbed by
+     journalistic accusations concerning marmosets and vulgarity, I
+     concentrate my entire intellectual efforts upon keeping my job,
+     which is to remain deaf, dumb, and blind, and at the same time be
+     ornamental, resourceful, good-tempered, and amusing to those who
+     are not invariably all of these things at the same time.
+
+     "Is it too much to expect another note from you?
+
+                               "Sincerely yours,
+
+                                         "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN."
+
+
+
+She answered him on the fourth week of her absence.
+
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN:
+
+     "Your letter interested me, but there was all through it an
+     undertone of cynicism which rang false--almost a dissonance to an
+     ear which has heard you strike a truer chord.
+
+     "I do not like what you say of yourself, or of your life. I have
+     talked very seriously with Molly, who adores you; and she evidently
+     thinks you capable of achieving anything you care to undertake.
+     Which is my own opinion--based on twenty-four hours of
+     acquaintance.
+
+     "I have read Mr. Westguard's novel. Everybody here is reading it.
+     I'd like to talk to you about it, some day. Mr. Westguard's intense
+     bitterness confuses me a little, and seems almost to paralyse any
+     critical judgment I may possess. A crusade in fiction has always
+     seemed to me but a sterile effort. To do a thing is fine; to talk
+     about it in fiction a far less admirable performance--like the
+     small boy, safe in the window, who defies his enemy with out-thrust
+     tongue.
+
+     "When I was young--a somewhat lonely child, with only a very few
+     books to companion me--I pored over Carlyle's 'French Revolution,'
+     and hated Philip Egalité. But that youthful hatred was a little
+     modified because Egalité did actually become personally active. If
+     he had only talked, my hatred would have become contempt for a
+     renegade who did not possess the courage of his convictions. But he
+     voted death to his own caste, facing the tribunal. He talked, but
+     he also acted.
+
+     "I do not mean this as a parallel between Mr. Westguard and the
+     sanguinary French iconoclast. Mr. Westguard, also, has the courage
+     of his convictions; he lives, I understand, the life which he
+     considers a proper one. It is the life which he preaches in 'The
+     Real Thing'--a somewhat solemn, self-respecting, self-supporting
+     existence, devoted to self-development; a life of upright thinking,
+     and the fulfilment of duty, civil and religious, incident to
+     dignified citizenship. Such a life may be a blameless one; I don't
+     know.
+
+     "Also it might even be admirable within its limits if Mr. Westguard
+     did not also appoint himself critic, disciplinarian, and prophet of
+     that particular section of society into which accident of birth has
+     dumped him.
+
+     "Probably there is no section of human society that does not need a
+     wholesome scourging now and then, but somehow, it seems to me, that
+     it could be done less bitterly and with better grace than Mr.
+     Westguard does it in his book. The lash, swung from within, and
+     applied with judgment and discrimination, ought to do a more
+     thorough and convincing piece of work than a knout allied with the
+     clubs of the proletariat, hitting at every head in sight.
+
+     "Let the prophets and sybils, the augurs and oracles of the _Hoi
+     polloi_ address themselves to them; and let ours talk to us, not
+     _about_ us to the world at large.
+
+     "A renegade from either side makes an unholy alliance, and, with
+     his first shout from the public pulpit, tightens the master knot
+     which he is trying to untie to the glory of God and for the sake of
+     peace and good will on earth. And the result is Donnybrook Fair.
+
+     "I hate to speak this way to you of your friend, and about a man I
+     like and, in a measure, really respect. But this is what I think.
+     And my inclination is to tell you the truth, always.
+
+     "Concerning the artistic value of Mr. Westguard's literary
+     performance, I know little. The simplicity of his language
+     recommends the pages to me. The book is easy to read. Perhaps
+     therein lies his art; I do not know.
+
+     "Now, as I am in an unaccountably serious mood amid all the
+     frivolity of this semi-tropical place, may I not say to you
+     something about yourself? How are you going to silence me?
+
+     "Well, then; you seem to reason illogically. You make little of
+     yourself, yet you offer me your friendship, by implication, every
+     time you write to me. You seek my society mentally. Do you really
+     believe that my mind is so easily satisfied with intellectual
+     rubbish, or that I am flattered by letters from a nobody?
+
+     "What do you suppose there is attractive about you, Mr. Quarren--if
+     you really do amount to as little as you pretend? I've seen
+     handsomer men, monsieur, wealthier men, more intelligent men; men
+     more experienced, men of far greater talents and attainments.
+
+     "Why do you suppose that I sit here in the Southern sunshine
+     writing to you when there are dozens of men perfectly ready to
+     amuse me?--and qualified to do it, too!
+
+     "For the sake of your _beaux-yeux_? _Non pas!_
+
+     "But there is a _something_ which the world recognises as a subtle
+     and nameless sympathy. And it stretches an invisible filament
+     between you and the girl who is writing to you.
+
+     "That tie is not founded on sentiment; I think you know that. And,
+     of things spiritual, you and I have never yet spoken.
+
+     "Therefore I conclude that the tie must be purely intellectual;
+     that mind calls to mind and finds contentment in the far response.
+
+     "So, when you pretend to me that you are of no intellectual
+     account, you pay me a scurvy compliment. _Quod erat demonstrandum._
+
+     "With this gentle reproof I seal my long, long letter, and go where
+     the jasmine twineth and the orchestra playeth; for it is tea-time,
+     my friend, and the Park of Peacocks is all a-glitter with plumage.
+     Soft eyes look wealth to eyes that ask again; and all is brazen as
+     a dinner bell!
+
+     "O friend! do you know that since I have been here I might have
+     attained to fortune, had I cared to select any one of several
+     generous gentlemen who have been good enough to thrust that
+     commodity at me?
+
+     "To be asked to marry a man no longer distresses me. I am all over
+     the romantic idea of being sorry for wealthy amateurs who make me a
+     plain business proposition, offering to invest a fortune in my
+     good looks. To amateurs, connoisseurs, and collectors, there is no
+     such thing as a fixed market value to anything. An object of art is
+     worth what it can be bought for. I don't yet know how much I am
+     worth. I may yet find out.
+
+     "There are nice men here, odious men, harmless men, colourless men,
+     worthy men, and the ever-present fool. He is really the happiest, I
+     suppose.
+
+     "Then, all in a class by himself, is an Englishman, one Sir Charles
+     Mallison. I don't know what to tell you about him except that I
+     feel exceedingly safe and comfortable when I am with him.
+
+     "He says very little; I say even less. But it is agreeable to be
+     with him.
+
+     "He is middle-aged, and, I imagine, very wise. Perhaps his
+     reticence makes me think so. He and Mr. Wycherly shoot ducks on the
+     lagoon--and politics into each other.
+
+     "I must go. You are not here to persuade me to stay and talk
+     nonsense to you against my better judgment. You're quite helpless,
+     you see. So I'm off.
+
+     "Will you write to me again?
+
+                                       "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+A week after Quarren had answered her letter O'Hara called his attention
+to a paragraph in a morning paper which hinted at an engagement between
+Sir Charles Mallison and Mrs. Leeds.
+
+Next day's paper denied it on excellent authority; so, naturally, the
+world at large believed the contrary.
+
+Southern news also revealed the interesting item that the yacht,
+_Yulan_, belonging to Mrs. Sprowl's hatchet-faced nephew, Langly Sprowl,
+had sailed from Miami for the West Indies with the owner and Mrs. Leeds
+and Sir Charles Mallison among the guests.
+
+The _Yulan_ had not as fragrant a reputation as its exotic name might
+signify, respectable parties being in the minority aboard her, but
+Langly Sprowl was Langly Sprowl, and few people declined any invitation
+of his.
+
+He was rather a remarkable young man, thin as a blade, with a voracious
+appetite and no morals. Nor did he care whether anybody else had any.
+What he wanted he went after with a cold and unsensitive directness that
+no newspapers had been courageous enough to characterise. He wouldn't
+have cared if they had.
+
+Among other things that he had wanted, recently, was another man's wife.
+The other man being of his own caste made no difference to him; he
+simply forced him to let his wife divorce him; which, it was understood,
+that pretty young matron was now doing as rapidly as the laws of Nevada
+allowed.
+
+Meanwhile Langly Sprowl had met Strelsa Leeds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sailing of the _Yulan_ for the West Indies became the topic of
+dinner and dance gossip; and Quarren heard every interpretation that
+curiosity and malice could put upon the episode.
+
+He had been feeling rather cheerful that day; a misguided man from
+Jersey City had suddenly developed a mania for a country home. Quarren
+personally conducted him all over Tappan-Zee Park on the Hudson, through
+mud and slush in a skidding touring car, with the result that the man
+had become a pioneer and had promised to purchase a building site.
+
+So Quarren came back to the Legation that afternoon feeling almost
+buoyant, and discovered Westguard in all kinds of temper, smoking a huge
+faïence pipe which he always did when angry, and which had become known
+as "The Weather-breeder."
+
+[Illustration: "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because I have a
+message to deliv--'"]
+
+"Jetzt geht das Wetter los!" quoted Quarren, dropping into a seat by the
+fire. "Where is this particular area of low depression centred, Karl?"
+
+"Over my damn book. The papers insist it's a _livre-à-clef_; and I am
+certain the thing is selling on that account! I tell you it's
+humiliating. I've done my best as honestly as I know how, and not one
+critic even mentions the philosophy of the thing; all they notice is the
+mere story and the supposed resemblance between my characters and living
+people! I'm cursed if I ever----"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Quarren tranquilly. "If you're a novelist you write
+to amuse people, and you ought to be thankful that you've succeeded."
+
+"Confound it!" roared Westguard, "I write to _instruct_ people! not to
+keep 'em from yawning!"
+
+"Then you've made a jolly fluke of it, that's all--because you have
+accidentally written a corking good story--good enough and interesting
+enough to make people stand for the cold chunks of philosophical
+admonition with which you've spread your sandwich--thinly, Heaven be
+praised!"
+
+"I write," said Westguard, furious, "because I've a message to
+deliv----"
+
+"Help!" moaned Quarren. "You write because it's in you to do it; because
+you've nothing more interesting to do; and because it enables you to
+make a decent and honourable living!"
+
+"Do those reasons prevent my having a message to deliver?" roared
+Westguard.
+
+"No, they exist in spite of it. You'd write anyway, whether or not you
+believed you had a message to deliver. You've written some fifteen
+novels, and fifteen times you have smothered your story with your
+message. This time, by accident, the story got its second breath, and
+romped home, with 'Message' a bad second, and that selling plater,
+'Philosophy,' left at the post----"
+
+"Go on!--you irreverent tout!" growled Westguard; "I want my novels
+read, of course. Any author does. But I wish to Heaven somebody would
+try to interpret the important lessons which I----"
+
+"Oh, preciousness and splash! Tell your story as well as you can, and if
+it's well done there'll be latent lessons enough in it."
+
+"Are you perhaps instructing me in my own profession?" asked the other,
+smiling.
+
+"Heaven knows I'm not venturing----"
+
+"Heaven knows you _are_! Also there is something In what you say--" He
+sat smoking, thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in the fire--"if I only
+_could_ manage that!--to arrest the public's attention by the rather
+cheap medium of the story, and then, cleverly, shoot a few moral pills
+into 'em.... That's one way, of course----"
+
+"Like the drums of the Salvation Army."
+
+Westguard looked around at him, suspiciously, but Quarren seemed to be
+serious enough.
+
+"I suppose it doesn't matter much how a fellow collects an audience, so
+that he does collect one."
+
+"Exactly," nodded Quarren. "Get your people, then keep 'em interested
+and unsuspecting while you inject 'em full of thinks."
+
+Westguard smoked and pondered; but presently his lips became stern and
+compressed.
+
+"I don't intend to trifle with my convictions or make any truce or any
+compromise with 'em," he announced. "I'm afraid that this last story of
+mine ran away with me."
+
+"It sure did, old Ironsides. Heaven protected her own this time. And in
+'The Real Thing' you have ridden farther out among the people with your
+Bible and your Sword than you ever have penetrated by brandishing both
+from the immemorial but immobile battlements of righteousness. Truth
+_is_ a citadel, old fellow; but its garrison should be raiders, not
+defenders. And they should ride far afield to carry its message. For few
+journey to that far citadel; you must go to them. And does it make any
+difference what vehicle you employ in the cause of Truth--so that the
+message arrives somewhere before your vehicle breaks down of its own
+heaviness? Novel or poem, sermon or holy writ--it's all one, Karl, so
+that they get there with their burden."
+
+Westguard sat silent a moment, then thumped the table, emphatically.
+
+"If I had your wasted talents," he said, "I could write anything!"
+
+"Rot!"
+
+"As you please. You use your ability rottenly--that's true enough."
+
+"My ability," mimicked Quarren.
+
+"Yes, your many, many talents, Rix. God knows why He gave them to you; I
+don't--for you use them ignobly, when you do not utterly neglect
+them----"
+
+"I've a light and superficial talent for entertaining people; I've
+nimble legs, and possess a low order of intelligence known as 'tact.'
+What more have I?"
+
+"You're the best amateur actor in New York, for example."
+
+"An _amateur_," sneered Quarren. "That is to say, a man who has the
+inclinations, but neither the courage, the self-respect, nor the
+ambition of the professional.... Well, I admit that. I lack
+something--courage, I think. I prefer what is easy. And I'm doing it."
+
+"What's your reward?" said Westguard bluntly.
+
+"Reward? Oh, I don't know. The inner temple. I have the run of the
+premises. People like me, trust me, depend upon me more or less. The
+intrigues and politics of my little world amuse me; now and then I act
+as ambassador, as envoy of peace, as herald, as secret diplomatic
+agent.... Reward? Oh, yes--you didn't suppose that my real-estate
+operations clothed and fed me, did you, Karl?"
+
+"What does?"
+
+"Diplomacy," explained Quarren gaily. "A successful embassy is rewarded.
+How? Why, now and then a pretty woman's husband makes an investment for
+me at his own risk; now and then, when my office is successfully
+accomplished, I have my fee as social attorney or arbiter
+elegantiarum.... There are, perhaps, fewer separations and divorces on
+account of me; fewer scandals.
+
+"I am sometimes called into consultation, _in extremis_; I listen, I
+advise--sometimes I plan and execute; even take the initiative and
+interfere--as when a foolish boy at the Cataract Club, last week, locked
+himself into the bath-room with an automatic revolver and a case of
+half-drunken fright. I had to be very careful; I expected to hear that
+drumming fusillade at any moment.
+
+"But I talked to him, through the keyhole: and at last he opened the
+door--to take a shot at me, first."
+
+Quarren shrugged and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Of course," he added, "his father was only too glad to pay his debts.
+But boys don't always see things in their true proportions. Neither do
+women."
+
+Westguard, silent, scowling, pulled at his pipe for a while, then:
+
+"Why should you play surgeon and nurse in such a loathsome hospital?"
+
+"Somebody must. I seem better fitted to do it than the next man."
+
+"Yes," said Westguard with a wry face, "I fancy somebody must do
+unpleasant things--even among the lepers of Molokai. But I'd prefer real
+lepers."
+
+"The social sort are sometimes sicker," laughed Quarren.
+
+"I don't agree with you.... By the way, it's all off between my aunt and
+me."
+
+"I'm sorry, Karl----"
+
+"I'm not! I don't want her money. She told me to go to the devil, and I
+said something similar. Do you know what she wants me to do?" he added
+angrily. "Give up writing, live on an allowance from her, and marry
+Chrysos Lacy! What do you think of that for a cold-blooded and
+impertinent proposition! We had a fearful family row," he continued with
+satisfaction--"my aunt bellowing so that her footmen actually fled, and
+I doing the cool and haughty, and letting her bellow her bally head
+off."
+
+"You and she have exchanged civilities before," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"Yes, but this is really serious. I'm damned if I give up writing."
+
+"Or marry Chrysos Lacy?"
+
+"Or that, either. Do you think I want a red-headed wife? And I've never
+spoken a dozen words to her, either. And I'll pick out my own wife. What
+does my aunt think I am? I wish I were in love with somebody's
+parlour-maid. B'jinks! I'd marry her, just to see my aunt's
+expression----"
+
+"Oh, stop your fulminations," said Quarren, laughing. "That's the way
+with you artistic people; you're a passionate pack of pups!"
+
+"I'm not as passionate as my aunt!" retorted Westguard wrathfully. "Do
+you consider her artistic? She's a meddlesome, malicious, domineering,
+insolent, evil old woman, and I told her so."
+
+Quarren managed to stifle his laughter for a moment, but his sense of
+the ludicrous was keen, and the scene his fancy evoked sent him off into
+mirth uncontrollable.
+
+Westguard eyed him gloomily; ominous clouds poured from "The
+Weather-breeder."
+
+"Perhaps it's funny," he said, "but she and I cannot stand each other,
+and this time it's all off for keeps. I told her if she sent me another
+check I'd send it back. That settles it, doesn't it?"
+
+"You're foolish, Karl----"
+
+"Never mind. If I can't keep myself alive in an untrammelled and
+self-respecting exercise of my profession--" His voice ended in a
+gurgling growl. Then, as though the recollections of his injuries at the
+hands of his aunt still stung him, he reared up in his chair:
+
+"Chrysos Lacy," he roared, "is a sweet, innocent girl--not a bale of
+fashionable merchandise! Besides," he added in a modified tone, "I was
+rather taken by--by Mrs. Leeds."
+
+Quarren slowly raised his eyes.
+
+"I was," insisted Westguard sulkily; "and I proved myself an ass by
+saying so to my aunt. Why in Heaven's name I was idiot enough to go and
+tell her, I don't know. Perhaps I had a vague idea that she would be so
+delighted that she'd give me several tons of helpful advice."
+
+"Did she?"
+
+"_Did_ she! She came back at me with Chrysos Lacy, I tell you! And when
+I merely smiled and attempted to waive away the suggestion, she flew
+into a passion, called me down, cursed me out--you know her language
+isn't always in good taste--and then she ordered me to keep away from
+Mrs. Leeds--as though I ever hung around any woman's skirts! I'm no
+Squire of Dames. I tell you, Rix, I was mad clear through. So I told her
+that I'd marry Mrs. Leeds the first chance I got----"
+
+"Don't talk about her that way," remonstrated Quarren pleasantly.
+
+"About who? My aunt?"
+
+"I didn't mean your aunt?"
+
+"Oh. About Mrs. Leeds. Why not? She's the most attractive woman I ever
+met----"
+
+"Very well. But don't talk about marrying her--as though you had merely
+to suggest it to her. You know, after all, Mrs. Leeds may have ideas of
+her own."
+
+"Probably she has," admitted Westguard, sulkily. "I don't imagine she'd
+care for a man of my sort. Why do you suppose she went off on that
+cruise with Langly Sprowl?"
+
+Quarren said, gravely: "I have no idea what reasons Mrs. Leeds has for
+doing anything."
+
+"You correspond."
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"My aunt."
+
+Quarren flushed up, but said nothing.
+
+Westguard, oblivious of his annoyance, and enveloped in a spreading
+cloud of tobacco, went on:
+
+"Of course if _you_ don't know, _I_ don't. But, by the same token, my
+aunt was in a towering rage when she heard that Langly had Mrs. Leeds
+aboard the _Yulan_."
+
+"What!" said the other, sharply.
+
+"She swore like a trooper, and called Langly all kinds of impolite
+names. Said she'd trim him if he ever tried any of his tricks around
+Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"What tricks? What does she mean by tricks?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose she meant any of his blackguardly philandering. There
+isn't a woman living on whom he is afraid to try his hatchet-faced
+blandishments."
+
+Quarren dropped back into the depths of his arm-chair. Presently his
+rigid muscles relaxed. He said coolly:
+
+"I don't think Langly Sprowl is likely to misunderstand Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"That depends," said Westguard. "He's a rotten specimen, even if he is
+my cousin. And he knows I think so."
+
+A few minutes later O'Hara sauntered in. He had been riding in the Park
+and his boots and spurs were shockingly muddy.
+
+"Who is this Sir Charles Mallison, anyway?" he asked, using the decanter
+and then squirting his glass full of carbonic. "Is it true that he's
+goin' to marry that charmin' Mrs. Leeds? I'll break his bally Sassenach
+head for him! I'll----"
+
+"The rumour was contradicted in this morning's paper," said Quarren
+coldly.
+
+O'Hara drank pensively: "I see that Langly Sprowl is messin' about, too.
+Mrs. Ledwith had better hurry up out there in Reno--or wherever she's
+gettin' her divorce. I saw Chet Ledwith ridin' in the Park. Dankmere was
+with him. Funny he doesn't seem to lose any caste by sellin' his wife to
+Sprowl."
+
+"The whole thing is a filthy mess," growled Westguard; "let it alone."
+
+"Why don't you make a novel about it?" inquired O'Hara.
+
+"Because, you dub! I don't use real episodes or living people!" roared
+Westguard; "newspapers and a few chumps to the contrary!"
+
+"So!--so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly--"whoa--steady, boy!" And he
+pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when
+currying.
+
+"Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of
+human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I
+have any desire to do it, but if I _should_ ever write a novel dealing
+with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved."
+
+"You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals
+only," said Quarren.
+
+"Why? Aren't there plenty of scandalous----"
+
+"Plenty. But no more than in any other set or coterie; not as many as
+there are among more ignorant people. Virtue far outbalances vice among
+us: a novel, properly proportioned, ought to show that. If it doesn't,
+it's misleading."
+
+"Supposing," said Westguard, "that I were indecent enough to show up my
+aunt in fiction. Nobody would believe her possible."
+
+"I sometimes doubt her even now," observed O'Hara, grinning.
+
+Quarren said: "Count up the unpleasant characters in your own social
+vicinity, Karl--just to prove to yourself that there are really very
+few."
+
+"There is Langly--and my aunt--and the Lester Calderas--and the
+Ledwiths----"
+
+"Go on!"
+
+Westguard laughed: "I guess that ends the list," he said.
+
+"It does. Also I dispute the list," said Quarren.
+
+"Cyrille Caldera is a pippin," remarked O'Hara, sentimentally.
+
+"What about Mary Ledwith? Is anybody here inclined to sit in judgment?"
+
+"I," said Westguard grimly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Divorce is a dirty business."
+
+"Oh. You'd rather she put up with Chester?--the sort of man who was weak
+enough to let her go?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Get out, you old Roundhead!" said Quarren, laughing. He rose, laid his
+hand lightly on Westguard's shoulder in passing, and went upstairs to
+his room, where he wrote a long letter to Strelsa; and then destroyed
+it. Then he lay down, covering his boyish head with his arms.
+
+When Lacy came in he saw him lying on the bed, and thought he was
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New
+York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm
+Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of
+change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the
+girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth.
+
+By daylight the fatigues of pleasure were faintly visible--that
+unmistakable imprint which may perhaps leave the eyes clear and calm,
+but which edges the hardened contour of the cheek under them with deeper
+violet shadow.
+
+Not that hers was as yet the battered beauty of exhaustion; she had
+merely lived every minute to the full all winter long, and had overtaxed
+her capacity; and the fire had consumed something of her freshness.
+
+Not yet inured, not yet crystallised to that experienced hardness which
+withstands the fierce flame of living too fast in a world where every
+minute is demanded and where sleep becomes a forgotten art, the girl was
+completely tired out, and while she herself did not realise it, her
+features showed it.
+
+But nervous exhaustion alone could not account for the subtle change in
+her expression. Eyes and lips were still sweet, even in repose, but
+there was now a jaded charm about them--something unspoiled had
+disappeared from them--something of that fearlessness which vanishes
+after too close and too constant contact with the world of men.
+
+Evidently her mind was quite as weary as her body, though even to
+herself she had not admitted fatigue; and a tired mind no longer defends
+itself. Hers had not; and the defence had been, day by day,
+imperceptibly weakening. So that things to which once she had been able
+at will to close her mind, and, mentally deaf, let pass unheard, she had
+heard, and had even thought about. And the effort to defend her ears and
+mind became less vigorous, less instinctive--partly through sheer
+weariness.
+
+The wisdom of woman and of man, and of what is called the world, the
+girl was now learning--unconsciously in the beginning and then with a
+kind of shamed indifference--but the creation of an artificial interest
+in anything is a subtle matter; and the ceaseless repetition of things
+unworthy at last awake that ignoble curiosity always latent in man.
+Because intelligence was born with it; and unwearied intelligence alone
+completely suppresses it.
+
+At first she had kept her head fairly level in the whirlwind of
+adulation. To glimpses of laxity she closed her eyes. Sir Charles was
+always refreshing to her; but she could see little more of him than of
+other men--less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that
+happened--and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly
+Sprowl.
+
+Again and again she found herself with him separated from the
+others--sometimes alone with him on deck--and never quite understood how
+it came about so constantly.
+
+As for Sprowl he made love to her from the first; and he was a trim,
+carefully groomed and volubly animated young man, full of information,
+and with a restless, ceaseless range of intelligence which at first
+dazzled with its false brilliancy.
+
+But it was only a kind of flash-light intelligence. It seemed to miss,
+occasionally; some cog, some screw somewhere was either absent or badly
+adjusted or over-strained.
+
+At first Strelsa found the young fellow fascinating. He had been
+everywhere and had seen everything; his mind was kaleidoscopic; his
+thought shifted, flashed, jerked, leaped like erratic lightning from one
+subject to another--from Japanese aeroplanes to a scheme for filling in
+the East River; from a plan to reconcile church and state in France to
+an idea for indefinitely prolonging human life. He had written several
+books about all kinds of things. Nobody read them.
+
+The first time he spoke to her of love was on a magnificent star-set
+night off Martinique; and she coolly reminded him of the gossip
+connecting him with a pretty woman in Reno. She could not have done it a
+month ago.
+
+He denied it so pleasantly, so frankly, that, astonished, she could
+scarcely choose but believe him.
+
+After that he made ardent, headlong love to her at every opportunity,
+with a flighty recklessness which began by amusing her. At first, also,
+she found wholesome laughter a good defence; but there was an
+under-current of intelligent, relentless vigour in his attack which
+presently sobered her. And she vaguely realised that he was a man who
+knew what he wanted. A talk with Molly Wycherly sobered her still more;
+and she avoided him as politely as she could. But, being her host, it
+was impossible to keep clear of him. Besides there was about him a
+certain unwholesome fascination, even for her. No matter how bad a man's
+record may be, few women doubt their ability to make it a better one.
+
+"You little goose," said Molly Wycherly, "everybody knows the kind of
+man he is. Could anything be more brazen than his attentions to you
+while Mary Ledwith is in Reno?"
+
+"He says that her being there has nothing to do with him."
+
+"Then he lies," said Molly, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"He doesn't speak as though he were trying to deceive anybody, Molly. He
+is perfectly frank to me. I can't believe that scandal. Besides he is
+quite open and manly about his unsavoury reputation; makes no excuses;
+simply says that there's good in every man, and that there is always one
+woman in the world who can bring it out----"
+
+"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell
+you----"
+
+"No man is!" insisted Strelsa.
+
+"What?"
+
+"No man is. The great masters of fiction always ascribe at least one
+virtue to their most infamous creations----"
+
+"Oh, Strelsa, you talk like a pan of fudge! _I_ tell you that Langly
+Sprowl is no good at all. I hope you won't have to marry him to find
+out."
+
+"I don't intend to.... How inconsistent you are, Molly. You--and
+everybody else--believe him to be the most magnificent match in----"
+
+"If position and wealth is all you care for, yes. I didn't suppose you'd
+come to that."
+
+Strelsa said candidly: "I care for both--I don't know how much."
+
+"As much as that?"
+
+"No; not enough to marry him. And if he is what you say, it's hopeless
+of course.... I don't think he is. Be decent, Molly; everybody is very
+horrid about him, and--and that is always a matter of sympathetic
+interest to a generous woman. When the whole world condemns a man it
+makes him interesting!"
+
+"That's a piffling and emotional thing to say! He may be attractive in
+an uncanny way, because he's agreeable to look at, amusing, and very
+dangerous--a perfectly cold-blooded, and I think, slightly unbalanced
+social marauder. And that's the fact about Langly Sprowl. And I wish we
+were on land, the _Yulan_ and her owner in--well, in the Erie Basin,
+perhaps."
+
+Whether or not Strelsa believed these things, there still remained in
+her that curious sense of fascination in Sprowl's presence, partly
+arising, no doubt, from an instinctive sympathy for a young man so
+universally damned; partly, because she thought that perhaps he really
+was damned. Therefore, deep in her heart she felt that he must be
+dangerous; and there is, in that one belief, every element of
+unwholesome fascination. And a mind fatigued is no longer wholesome.
+
+Then, too, there was always Sir Charles Mallison to turn to for a
+refreshing moral bath. Safety of soul lay in his vicinity; she felt
+confidence in the world wherever he traversed it. With him she relaxed
+and rested; there was repose for her in his silences; strength for her
+when he spoke; and a serene comradeship which no hint of sentiment had
+ever vexed.
+
+Perhaps only a few people realised how thoroughly a single winter was
+equipping Strelsa for the part she seemed destined to play in that
+narrow world with which she was already identified; and few realised how
+fast she was learning. Laxity of precept, easy morals, looseness of
+thought, idle and good-natured acquiescence in social conditions where
+all standards seemed alike, all ideals merely a matter of personal
+taste--this was the atmosphere into which she had stepped from two years
+of Western solitude after a nightmare of violence, cruelty, and
+depravity unutterable. And naturally it seemed heavenly to her; and each
+revelation inconsistent with her own fastidious instincts left her less
+and less surprised, less and less uneasy. And after a while she began to
+assimilate all that she saw and heard.
+
+A few unworldly instincts remained in her--gratitude for and quick
+response to any kindness offered from anybody; an inclination to make
+friends with stray wanderers into her circle, and to cultivate the
+socially useless.
+
+Taking four o'clock tea alone with Mrs. Sprowl the afternoon of her
+return to town--an honour vouchsafed to few--Strelsa was relating, at
+that masterful woman's request, her various exotic experiences. Mrs.
+Sprowl had commanded her attendance early. There were reasons. And now
+partly vexed, partly in unwilling admiration, the old lady sat smiling
+and all the while thinking to herself impatiently; "Baby! Fool! Little
+ninny! Imbecile!" while she listened, fat bejewelled hands folded, small
+green eyes shining in the expanse of powdered and painted fat.
+
+After a while she could endure it no longer, and she said with a wheeze
+of good-natured disdain:
+
+"It's like a school-girl's diary--all those rhapsodies over volcanoes,
+palm trees, and the colour of the Spanish Main. Never mind geography,
+child; tell me about the men!"
+
+"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly--"why there were shoals and shoals
+of them, of every description!"
+
+"I mean the _one_ man?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly.
+
+"Which, please?"
+
+"Nonsense! There _was_ one, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, I don't think so.... Your nephew, Langly, was exceedingly
+amiable----"
+
+"He's a plain beast," said his aunt, bluntly. "I didn't mean him."
+
+"He was very civil to me," insisted Strelsa, colouring.
+
+"Probably he didn't have a chance to be otherwise. He's a rotter, child.
+Ask anybody. I know perfectly well what he's been up to. I'm sorry you
+went on the _Yulan_. He had no business to ask you--or any other nice
+girl--or anybody at all until that Reno scandal is officially made
+respectable. If it were not for his money--" She stopped a moment,
+adding cynically--"and if it were not for mine--certain people wouldn't
+be tolerated anywhere, I suppose.... How did you like Sir Charles?"
+
+"Oh, he is charming!" she said warmly.
+
+"You like him?"
+
+"I almost adore him."
+
+"Why not adore him entirely?"
+
+[Illustration: "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the
+men!'"]
+
+Strelsa laughed frankly: "He hasn't asked me to, for one reason.
+Besides----"
+
+"No doubt he'll do it."
+
+The girl shook her head, still smiling:
+
+"You don't understand at all. There isn't the slightest sentiment
+between us. He's only thoroughly nice and agreeable, and he and I are
+most companionable. I hope nobody will be silly enough to hint anything
+of that sort to him. It would embarrass him dreadfully."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's smile was blandly tolerant:
+
+"The man's in love with you. Didn't you know it?"
+
+"But you are mistaken, dear Mrs. Sprowl. If it were true I would know
+it, I think."
+
+"Nonsense! He told me so."
+
+"Oh," said Strelsa in amazed consternation. She added: "If it _is_ so
+I'd rather not speak of it, please."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl eyed her with shifty but keen intelligence. "Little idiot,"
+she thought; but her smile remained bland and calmly patronising.
+
+For a second or two longer she studied the girl cautiously, trying to
+make up her mind whether there was really any character in Strelsa's
+soft beauty--anything firmer than material fastidiousness; anything more
+real than a natural and dainty reticence. Mrs. Sprowl could ride
+rough-shod over such details. But she was too wise to ride if there was
+any chance of a check from higher sources.
+
+"If you married him it would be very gratifying to me," she said
+pleasantly. "Come; let's discuss the matter like sensible women. Shall
+we?"
+
+Many people would not have disregarded such a wish. Strelsa flushed and
+lifted her purple-gray eyes to meet the little green ones scanning her
+slyly.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, "but I couldn't discuss such a thing, you see.
+Don't you see I can't, dear Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+"Pooh! Rubbish! Anybody can discuss anything," rejoined the old lady
+with impersonal and boisterous informality. "I'm fond of you. Everybody
+knows it. I'm fond of Sir Charles. He's a fine figure of a man. You
+match him in everything, except wealth. It's an ideal marriage----"
+
+"Please don't!--I simply cannot----"
+
+"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly--"an ideal marriage----"
+
+"But when there is no love----"
+
+"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you--crazy!----"
+
+"I--meant--on my part----"
+
+"Good God!" shouted the old lady, beating the air with pudgy
+hands--"isn't it luck enough to have love on one side? What does the
+present generation want! I tell you it's ideal, perfect. He's a good man
+as men go, and a devilish handsome----"
+
+"I know--but----"
+
+"And he's got money!" shouted the old lady--"plenty of it I
+tell you! And he has the entrée everywhere on the Continent--in
+England--everywhere!--which Dankmere has not!--if you're considering
+that little whelp!"
+
+Stunned, shrinking from the dreadful asthmatic noises in Mrs. Sprowl's
+voice, Strelsa sat dumb, wincing under the blows of sound, not knowing
+how to escape.
+
+"I'm fond of you!" shrieked the old lady--"I can be of use to you and I
+want to be. That's why I asked you to tea! I want to make you happy--and
+Sir Charles, too! What the devil do you suppose there is in it for me
+except to oblige hi--you both?"
+
+"Th-thank you, but----"
+
+"I'll bet a shilling that Molly Wycherly let you go about with any
+little spindle-shanked pill who came hanging around!--And I told her
+what were my wishes----"
+
+"Please--oh, _please_, Mrs. Sprowl----"
+
+"Yes, I did! It's a good match! I want you to consider it!--I insist
+that----"
+
+"Mrs. Sprowl!" exclaimed Strelsa, pink with confusion and resentment, "I
+am obliged to you for the interest you display, but it is a matter----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I am really--grateful--but----"
+
+"Answer me, child. Has that cursed nephew of mine made any impression on
+you? Answer me!"
+
+"Not the kind you evidently mean!" said Strelsa, helplessly.
+
+"Is there anybody else?"
+
+The outrageous question silenced the girl for a moment. Angry, she still
+tried to be gentle; tried to remember the age, and the excellent
+intentions of this excited old lady; and she answered in a low voice:
+
+"I care for no man in particular, unless it be Sir Charles--and----"
+
+"And who?"
+
+"Mr. Quarren, I think," she said.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's jowl grew purple with fury:
+
+"You--has that boy had the impudence--damn him----"
+
+Strelsa sprang to her feet.
+
+"I really cannot remain--" she said with decision, but the old lady only
+bawled:
+
+"Sit down! Sit down!"
+
+"I will not!"
+
+"Sit _down_!" she roared in a passion. "What the devil----"
+
+Strelsa, a little pale, started to pass her--then halted, astounded: for
+the old lady had burst into a passion of choking gasps. Whether the
+terrible sounds she made were due to impotent rage or asthma, Strelsa,
+confused, shocked, embarrassed, but still angry, had no notion; and
+while Mrs. Sprowl coughed fatly, she stood still, catching muffled
+fragments of reproaches directed at people who flouted friendship; who
+had no consideration for age, and no gratitude, no tenderness, no pity.
+
+"I--I _am_ grateful," faltered Strelsa, "only I cannot----"
+
+"I wanted to be a mother to you! I've tried to be," wheezed the old lady
+in a fresh paroxysm; and beat the air.
+
+For one swift instant the girl remembered what her real mother had been
+to her; and her heart hardened.
+
+"I care only for your friendship, Mrs. Sprowl; I do not wish you to do
+anything for me; can we not be friends on that basis?"
+
+Mrs. Sprowl swabbed her inflamed eyes and peered around the corner of
+the handkerchief.
+
+"Come here, my dear," she said.
+
+Strelsa went, slowly; and Mrs. Sprowl enveloped her like a fleshy squid,
+panting.
+
+"I only wanted to be good to you, Strelsa. I'm just an old fool I
+suppose----"
+
+"Oh, please don't----"
+
+"That's all I am, child, just a sentimental old fool. The poor man's
+adoration of you touched my heart--and you do like him a little, don't
+you?"
+
+"Very much.... Thank you for--for wishing happiness to me. I really
+don't mean to be ungrateful; I have a horror of ingratitude. It's only
+that--the idea never occurred to me; and I am incapable of doing such a
+thing for material reasons, unless--I also really cared for a man----"
+
+"Of course, child. Maybe you will care for him some day. I won't
+interfere any more.... Only--don't lose your heart to any of these young
+jackals fawning around your skirts. Every set is full of 'em. They're
+nothing but the capering chorus in this comic opera.... And--don't be
+angry--but I am an older and wiser woman than you, and I am fond of you,
+and it's my duty to tell you that any of the lesser breed--take young
+Quarren for example--are of no real account, even in the society which
+they amuse."
+
+"I would scarcely class Mr. Quarren with the sort you mention----"
+
+"Why not? He's of no importance."
+
+"Because he is kind, considerate, and unusually intelligent and
+interesting; and he is very capable of succeeding in whatever he
+undertakes," said Strelsa, slowly.
+
+"Ricky is a nice boy; but what does he undertake?" asked Mrs. Sprowl
+with good-natured contempt. "He undertakes the duties, obligations, and
+details of a useful man in the greater household, which make him
+acceptable to us; and I'm bound to say that he does 'em very well. But
+outside of that he's a nobody. And I'll tell you just what he'll turn
+into; shall I? Society's third chief bottlewasher in succession. We had
+one, who evolved us. He's dead. We have another. He's still talking.
+When he ultimately evaporates into infinity Ricky will be his natural
+successor. Do you want that kind of a husband?"
+
+"Did you suppose----"
+
+"Don't get angry, Strelsa? I didn't suppose anything. Ricky, like every
+other man, dangles his good-looking, good-humoured self in your
+vicinity. You're inclined to notice him. All I mean is that he isn't
+worth your pains.... Now you won't be offended by a plain-spoken old
+woman who wishes only your happiness, will you, my child?"
+
+"No," said Strelsa, wearily, beginning to feel the fatigue of the scene.
+
+She took her leave a few moments afterward, very unhappy because two of
+the pleasantest incidents in her life had been badly, if not hopelessly,
+marred. But Langly Sprowl was not one of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That hatchet-faced and immaculate gentleman, divining possibly that
+Strelsa might be with his aunt, arrived shortly after her departure;
+learned of it from a servant, and was turning on his heel without even
+asking for Mrs. Sprowl, when the thought occurred to him that possibly
+she might know Strelsa's destination.
+
+When a servant announced him he found his aunt quite herself, grim,
+ready for trouble, her small green eyes fairly snapping.
+
+They indulged in no formalities, being alone together, and caring
+nothing for servants' opinions. Their greeting was perfunctory; their
+inquiries civil. Then there ensued a short silence.
+
+"Which way did Mrs. Leeds go?" he asked, busily twisting his long
+moustache.
+
+"None of your business," rejoined his aunt.
+
+He looked up in slight surprise, recognised a condition of things which,
+on second thought, surprised him still more. Because his aunt had never
+before noticed his affairs--had not even commented on the Ledwith matter
+to him. He had always felt that she disliked him too thoroughly to care.
+
+"I don't think I understood you," he said, watching her out of shifting
+eyes which protruded a trifle.
+
+"I think you will understand me before I've done with you," returned his
+aunt, grimly. "It's a perfectly plain matter; you've the rest of the
+female community to chase if you choose. Go and chase 'em for all I
+care--hunt from here to Reno if you like!--but I have other plans for
+Strelsa Leeds. Do you understand? I've put my private mark on her.
+There's no room for yours."
+
+Langly's gaze which had not met hers--and never met anybody's for more
+than a fraction of a second--shifted. He continued his attentions to his
+moustache; his eyes roved; he looked at but did not see a hundred things
+in a second.
+
+"You don't know where she's gone?" he inquired with characteristic
+pertinacity and an indifference to what she had said, absolutely stony.
+
+"Do you mean trouble for that girl?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Do you want to marry her?"
+
+"I said that I was considering nothing in particular. We are friends."
+
+"Keep away from her! Do you understand?"
+
+"I really don't know whether I do or not. I suppose you mean Sir
+Charles."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl turned red:
+
+"Suppose what you like, you cold-blooded cad! But by God!--if you annoy
+that child I'll empty the family wash all over the sidewalk! And let the
+public pick it over!"
+
+He rested his pale, protuberant eyes on her for a brief second:
+
+"Will any of your finery figure in it? Any relics or rags once belonging
+to the late parent of Sir Charles?"
+
+Her features were livid; her lips twisted, tortured under the flood of
+injuries which choked her. Not a word came. Exhausted for a moment she
+sat there grasping the gilded arms of her chair, livid as the dead save
+for the hell blazing in her tiny green eyes.
+
+"I fancy that settles the laundry question," he said, while his restless
+glance ceaselessly swept the splendid room and his lean, sunburnt hand
+steadily caressed his moustache. Then, as though he had forgotten
+something, he rose and walked out. A footman invested him with hat and
+overcoat. A moment later the great doors clicked.
+
+In the silence of the huge house there was not a sound except the
+whispers of servants; and these ceased presently.
+
+All alone, amid the lighted magnificence of the vast room sat the old
+woman hunched in her chair, bloodless, motionless as a mass of dead
+flesh. Even the spark in her eyes was gone, the lids closed, the gross
+lower lip pendulous. Later two maids, being summoned, accompanied her
+to her boudoir, and were dismissed. Her social secretary, a pretty girl,
+came and left with instructions to cancel invitations for the evening.
+
+A maid arrived with a choice of headache remedies; then, with the aid of
+another, disrobed her mistress and got her into bed.
+
+Their offices accomplished, they were ordered to withdraw but to leave
+one light burning. It glimmered over an old-fashioned photograph on the
+wall--the portrait of a British officer taken in the days when whiskers,
+"pill-box," and frogged frock-tunic were cultivated in Her British
+Majesty's Service.
+
+From where she lay she looked at him; and Sir Weyward Mallison stared
+back at her through his monocle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Strelsa at home, unpinning her hat before the mirror, received word over
+the telephone that Mrs. Sprowl, being indisposed, regretfully recalled
+the invitations for the evening.
+
+The girl's first sensation was relief, then self-reproach, quite
+forgetting that if Mrs. Sprowl's violent emotions had made that
+redoubtable old woman ill, they had also thoroughly fatigued the victim
+of her ill-temper and made her very miserable.
+
+She wrote a perfunctory note of regret and civil inquiry and dispatched
+it, then surrendered herself to the ministrations of her maid.
+
+The luxury of dining alone for the first time in months, appealed to
+her. She decided that she was not to be at home to anybody.
+
+Langly Sprowl called about six, and was sent away. Strelsa, curled up on
+a divan, could hear the staccato racket that his powerful racing-car
+made in the street outside. The informality of her recent host aboard
+the _Yulan_ did not entirely please her. She listened to his departure
+with quiet satisfaction.
+
+Although it was not her day, several people came and went. Flowers from
+various smitten youths arrived; orchids from Sprowl; nothing from
+Quarren. Then for nearly two hours she slept where she lay and awakened
+laughing aloud at something Quarren had been saying in her dream. But
+what it was she could not recollect.
+
+At eight her maid came and hooked her into a comfortable and beloved
+second-year gown; dinner was announced; she descended the stairway in
+solitary state, still smiling to herself at Quarren's forgotten remark,
+and passed by the library just as the telephone rang there.
+
+It may have been a flash of clairvoyance--afterward she wondered exactly
+what it was that made her say to her maid very confidently:
+
+"That is Mr. Quarren. I'll speak to him."
+
+It was Mr. Quarren. The amusing coincidence of her dream and her
+clairvoyance still lingering in her mind, she went leisurely to the
+telephone and said:
+
+"I don't understand how I knew it was you. And I'm not sure why I came
+to the 'phone, because I'm not at home to anybody. But _what_ was it you
+said to me just now?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"A few minutes ago while I was asleep?"
+
+"About eight o'clock?"
+
+She laughed: "It happened to be a few minutes before eight. How did you
+know that? I believe you did speak to me in my dream. Did you?"
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his
+departure with quiet satisfaction."]
+
+"I did."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"I said something aloud to you about eight o'clock."
+
+"How odd! Did you know I was asleep? But you couldn't----"
+
+"No, of course not. I was merely thinking of you."
+
+"You were--you happened to be thinking of _me_? And you said something
+aloud about me?"
+
+"About you--and _to_ you."
+
+"How delightfully interesting! What was it, please?"
+
+"Oh, I was only talking nonsense."
+
+"Won't it bear repetition?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Mr. Quarren! How maddening! I'm dying with curiosity. I dreamed that
+you said something very amusing to me and I awoke, laughing; but now I
+simply cannot recollect what it was you said."
+
+"I'll tell you some day."
+
+"Soon? Would you tell me this evening?"
+
+"How can I?"
+
+"That's true. I'm not at home to anybody. So you can't drop in, can
+you?"
+
+"You are not logical; I could drop in because I'm not anybody----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I'm not anybody in particular----"
+
+"You know if you begin to talk that way, after all these days, I'll ring
+off in a rage. You are the only man in the world to whom I'm at home
+even over the telephone, and if that doesn't settle your status with me,
+what does?... Are you well, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Thank you, perfectly. I called you up to ask you about yourself."
+
+"I'm tired, somehow."
+
+"Oh, we are all that. Nothing more serious threatens you than impending
+slumber?"
+
+"I said I was tired, not sleepy. I'm wide awake but horribly lazy--and
+inclined to slump. Where are you; at the Legation?"
+
+"At the Founders' Club--foundered."
+
+"What are you doing there?"
+
+"Absolutely nothing. Reading the _Evening Post_."
+
+"You are dining out I suppose?"
+
+"No."
+
+She reflected until he spoke again, asking if she was still there.
+
+"Oh, yes; I'm trying to think whether I want you to come around and
+share a solitary dinner with me. Do I want you?"
+
+"Just a little--don't you?"
+
+"Do you want to come?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very much?"
+
+"I can't tell you how much--over the telephone."
+
+"That sounds both humble and dangerous. Which do you mean to be?"
+
+"Humble--and very, very grateful, dear lady. May I come?"
+
+"I--don't know. Dinner was announced a quarter of an hour ago."
+
+"It won't take me three minutes----"
+
+"If it takes you more you'll ring my door-bell in vain, young man."
+
+"I'll start now! Good----"
+
+[Illustration: "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked,
+smiling."]
+
+"Wait! I haven't decided. Really I'm simply stupid with the accumulated
+fatigues of two months' frivolity. Do you mind my being stupid?"
+
+"You know I don't----"
+
+"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your
+way over. _À bien tôt!_"
+
+She had been in the drawing-room only a few moments, looking at the huge
+white orchids that Langly Sprowl had sent and which her butler was
+arranging, when Quarren was announced; and she partly turned from the
+orchids, extending her hand behind her in a greeting more confident and
+intimate than she had ever before given him.
+
+"Look at these strange, pansy-shaped Brazilian flowers," she said.
+"Kindly observe that they are actually growing out of that ball of moss
+and fibre."
+
+She had retained his hand for a fraction of a second longer than
+conventional acquaintance required, giving it a frank and friendly
+pressure. Now, loosing it, she found her own fingers retained, and drew
+them away with a little laugh of self-consciousness.
+
+"Sentiment before dinner implies that you'll have no room for it after
+dinner. Here is your cocktail."
+
+"Do you remember our first toast?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"No."
+
+"The toast to friendship?"
+
+"Yes; I remember it."
+
+She touched her lips to her glass, not looking at him. He watched her.
+After a moment she raised her eyes, met his gaze, returned it with one
+quite as audacious:
+
+"I am drinking that same toast again--after many days," she said.
+
+"With all that it entails?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Its chances, hazards, consequences?"
+
+She laughed, then, looking at him, deliberately sipped from her glass,
+the defiant smile in her eyes still daring him and Chance and Destiny
+together.
+
+When he took her out she was saying: "I really can't account for my mood
+to-night. I believe that seeing you again is reviving me. I was beastly
+stupid."
+
+"My soporific society ought to calm, not exhilarate you."
+
+"It never did, particularly. What a long time it is since we have seen
+each other. I _am_ glad you came."
+
+Seated, she asked the butler to remove the flowers which interrupted her
+view of Quarren.
+
+"You haven't said anything about my personal appearance," she observed.
+"Am I very much battered by my merry bouts with pleasure?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"You wretch! Do you mean to say that I am marked at all?"
+
+"You look rather tired, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"I know I do. By daylight it's particularly visible.... But--do _you_
+mind?"
+
+Her charming head was bent over her grapefruit: she lifted her gray eyes
+under level brows, looking across the table at him.
+
+"I mind anything that concerns you," he said.
+
+"I mean--are you disappointed because I'm growing old and haggard?"
+
+"I think you are even more beautiful than you were."
+
+She laughed gaily and continued her dinner. "I _had_ to drag that out
+of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudence _is_
+stamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm
+beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. You _were_ one. Do
+you deny your guilt?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape.
+_Am_ I very much changed, Mr. Quarren?" she said a trifle wistfully.
+
+He did not answer immediately. After a few moments she glanced at him
+again and met his gaze.
+
+"Well?" she prompted him, laughing; "are you not neglecting your manners
+as a declared suitor?"
+
+"You _have_ changed."
+
+"What a perfect pill you are!" she exclaimed, vexed--"you're casting
+yourself for the rôle of the honest friend--and I simply hate it! Young
+sir, do you not understand that I've breakfasted, lunched and dined too
+long on flattery to endure anything more wholesome? If you can't lie to
+me like a gentleman and a suitor your usefulness in my entourage is
+ended."
+
+He said: "Do you want me to talk shop with you? I get rather tired of my
+trade, sometimes. It's my trade to lie, you know."
+
+She looked up, quickly, but he was smiling.
+
+They remained rather silent after that. Coffee was served at table; she
+lighted a cigarette for him and, later, one for herself, strolling off
+into the drawing-room with it between her fingers, one hand resting
+lightly on her hip.
+
+She seemed to have an inclination to wander about or linger before the
+marble fireplace and blow delicate rings of smoke at her own reflection
+in the mirror.
+
+He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded
+affably to him in the glass:
+
+"I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first
+knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless--I wasn't then....
+Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about
+the kind--as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting."
+
+"A cradle song is what you require."
+
+"How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same
+cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?"
+
+"I realise how tired you are."
+
+"And--I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her
+mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time....
+Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you
+know?"
+
+"Conscience?" he suggested, laughing.
+
+"Do you think so? I thought it was my heart."
+
+"Have you acquired one?"
+
+She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned
+around toward him, still smiling.
+
+"I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?"
+
+"I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?"
+
+"I really don't know. What do you think?"
+
+He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the
+fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her
+dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between
+forefinger and thumb.
+
+Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not
+the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was
+only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day
+was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became
+only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of
+experience.... I wonder whether my silly head _was_ turned a little....
+People said too much to me: there were too many of them--and they came
+too near.... And do you know--looking back at it now as I sit here
+talking to you--I--it seems absurd--but I believe that I was really a
+trifle lonely at times."
+
+She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them.
+
+"I thought of you on various occasions," she added.
+
+He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender.
+
+Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained
+fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his
+eyes from the bracket light.
+
+For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his
+silence and abstraction--in the set of his shoulders, and the
+unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it
+glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the
+forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again--agreeable to
+be with him--not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable--for
+even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was
+no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly
+conscious of a reserve force now awaking--of a growing sense of
+freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour.
+
+"Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last.
+
+He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move--scarcely an
+invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated
+himself on the arm of the lounge beside her.
+
+"Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me."
+
+"I wrote very few.... Did they really interest you?"
+
+"A lot."
+
+"How?"
+
+"They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back
+door of Eternity."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Otherwise he would never have stirred a step--until to-night."
+
+"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren--but a little
+sentimental--isn't it?"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment--being unaccustomed to
+it."
+
+"How many men made you declarations?"
+
+"Oh; is _that_ real sentiment? I thought it was merely love."
+
+He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become
+like the rest."
+
+She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I _have_ grown
+hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not
+even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"Do you, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"I think so.... A woman might as well know the worst truths about
+life--and about men."
+
+"Not about men."
+
+"Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?"
+
+"Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?"
+
+"By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You
+probably prefer your women screened and veiled."
+
+"We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film."
+
+"Mr. Quarren--are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing.
+But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale
+induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones.
+
+"What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked,
+curiously.
+
+"Working at my trade."
+
+"You seem thinner."
+
+"Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I
+must."
+
+"You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike--aren't
+you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"You make me very angry," she said; "I like you--I'm quite happy with
+you--and suddenly you try to tell me that my friendship is lavished on
+an unworthy man; that my taste is low, and that you're a kind of a
+social jackal--an upper servant----
+
+"I feed on what the pack leaves--and I wash their fragile plates for
+them," he said lightly.
+
+"What else?" she asked, furious.
+
+"I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I
+smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially
+injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother
+jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to
+sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and
+give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment's notice, acting as
+manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter."
+
+He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost
+control of herself and her fingers closed tight.
+
+"What are you saying!" she said, fiercely. "Are you telling me that this
+is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to--to think
+about--think about a great deal--care enough about to dine with in my
+own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are
+after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?"
+
+He said, slowly: "I could have been anything--I could be yet--if
+you----"
+
+"If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for
+anybody's!" she retorted.... "I refuse to believe that you are what you
+say, anyway. It hurts--it hurts----"
+
+"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"It hurts _me!_ I _do_ like you. I was glad to see you--you don't know
+how glad. Your letters to me were--were interesting. _You_ have always
+been interesting, from the very first--more so than many men--more than
+most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If
+I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?"
+
+Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest
+every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand
+tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted
+handkerchief.
+
+"I could stand anything!--my friendship for you could stand almost
+anything except what you pretend you are--and what other malicious
+tongues will say if you continue to repeat it!--And it _has_ been said
+already about you! Do you know that? People _do_ say that of you.
+People even say so to me--tell me you are worthless--warn me
+against--against----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Caring--taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit
+disrespect for yourself! A man--_any_ man is what he chooses to be, and
+people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in
+pretending to dignity and worth when--when you can be the peer of any
+man? What's the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of
+you with contempt. I denied what she said.... I'd rather they'd say
+anything else about you--that you had vices--a vigorous, wilful,
+unmanageable man's vices!--than to say _that_ of you!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"That you amount to nothing."
+
+"Do you care what they say, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"Of course! It strikes at my own self-respect!"
+
+"Do you care--otherwise?"
+
+"I care--as a friend, naturally----"
+
+"Otherwise still?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Could you ever care?"
+
+"No," she said, nervously.
+
+She sat breathing faster and more irregularly, watching him. He looked
+up and smiled at her, rested so, a moment, then rose to take his leave.
+
+She stretched out one arm toward the electric bell, but her fingers
+seemed to miss it, and remained resting against the silk-hung wall.
+
+"Are you going?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Must you?"
+
+"I think I'd better."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He waited, but she did not touch the bell button. She seemed to be
+waiting for him to go; so he offered his hand, pleasantly, and turned
+away toward the hall. And, rising leisurely, she descended the stairs
+with him in silence.
+
+"Good-night," he said again.
+
+"Good-night. I am sorry you are going."
+
+"Did you wish me to remain a little longer?"
+
+"I--don't know what I wish...."
+
+Her cheeks were deeply flushed; the hand he took into his again seemed
+burning.
+
+"It's fearfully hot in here," she said. "Please muffle up warmly because
+it's bitter weather out doors"--and she lifted the other hand as though
+unconsciously and passed her finger tips over his fur collar.
+
+"Do you feel feverish?"
+
+"A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?"
+
+"You haven't caught malaria in the tropics, have you?"
+
+"No, you funny man. I'm never ill. But it's odd how burning hot I seem
+to be----"
+
+She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his.
+
+They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as
+though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the
+quiet around her--a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a
+delicate mist--a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and
+thought.
+
+Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred;
+and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his.
+
+At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small
+head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch--a slight caress over her
+forehead--the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers,
+closer, never stirring.
+
+Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical
+currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless,
+non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to
+the sorcery.
+
+Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its
+fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her.
+
+She strove to turn her mouth from his--twisted away from him, straining,
+tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail,
+gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she
+shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even
+look at him, now.
+
+Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood
+there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and glass
+door; a flurry of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the
+spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes.
+
+Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and
+locked the door against her maid.
+
+Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat
+before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and
+lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange
+nerves signalling; stranger responses--of a subtle fragrance in her
+breath so strange that she became conscious of it.
+
+She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the glass while
+through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew
+tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the
+unknown.
+
+Unknown still!--for she crouched there shrinking from the
+revelation--from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf,
+blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of
+self-contempt.
+
+Then fear came--fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and
+defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already
+dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very
+patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes.
+
+So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one
+day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser
+passion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had
+sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her--out of a moment's
+lassitude, a touch of a man's hand, and his lips on hers! And now all
+her life was already behind her--childhood, girlhood, wifehood--all,
+all behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an
+unknown road; an unknown world before her.
+
+With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty,
+of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce
+humiliation born of self-knowledge--knowledge scornfully admitted and
+defied with every breath--but no longer denied.
+
+She _was_ as others were--fashioned of that same and common clay,
+capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of
+them--so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant,
+they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things
+of the mind.
+
+Was this the evolution that her winter's idleness and gaiety and the
+fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that
+strange moment, at the door, the moment that man's enemy had been
+awaiting, to find her unprepared?
+
+Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on
+her dresser--the fairest among the Philistines who had so long
+unconsciously thanked God that she was not like other women in the homes
+of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Strelsa was no longer at home to Quarren, even over the telephone. He
+called her up two or three times in as many days, ventured to present
+himself at her house twice without being received, and finally wrote her
+a note. But at the end of the month the note still remained unanswered.
+
+However, there was news of her, sometimes involving her with Langly
+Sprowl, but more often with Sir Charles Mallison. Also, had Quarren not
+dropped out of everything so completely, he might easily have met her
+dozens of times in dozens of places. But for a month now he had returned
+every day from his office to his room in the Legation, and even the
+members of that important diplomatic body found his door locked, after
+dinner, though his light sometimes brightened the transom until morning.
+
+Westguard, after the final rupture with his aunt, had become a soured
+hermit--sourer because of the low motives of the public which was buying
+his book by the thousands and reading it for the story, exclusively.
+
+His aunt had cast him off; to him she was the overfed embodiment of
+society, so it pleased him to consider the rupture as one between
+society and himself. It tasted of martyrdom, and now his own public had
+vulgarly gone back on him according to his ideals: nobody cared for his
+economics, his social evils, his moral philosophy; only what he
+considered the unworthy part of his book was eagerly absorbed and
+discussed. The proletariat had grossly betrayed him; a hermit's
+exemplary but embittered career was apparently all that remained for his
+declining years.
+
+So, after dinner, he, too, retired to seclusion behind bolted doors,
+pondering darkly on a philosophic novel which should be no novel at all
+but a dignified and crushing rebuke to mankind--a solid slice of moral
+cake thickly frosted with social economics, heavy with ethical plums,
+and without any story to it whatever.
+
+Meanwhile his book had passed into the abhorred class of best sellers.
+
+As for Lacy and O'Hara, both had remarked Quarren's abrupt retirement
+and his absence from that section of the social puddle which he was
+accustomed to embellish and splash in. O'Hara, inclining more toward
+sporting circles, noticed Quarren's absence less; but Lacy, after the
+first week, demanded an explanation at the dinner-table.
+
+"You spoiled a party for Mrs. Lannis," he said--"and Winnifred Miller
+was almost in tears over the charity tableaux----"
+
+"I wrote them both in plenty of time, Jack."
+
+"Yes. But who is there to take your place? Whatever you touch is
+successful. Barent Van Dyne made a dub of himself."
+
+"They must break in another pup," said Quarren, amused.
+
+"You mean that you're chucking the whole bally thing for keeps?"
+
+"Practically."
+
+"Why?" asked O'Hara, looking up blankly.
+
+"Oh," said Quarren laughing, "I'm curious to find out what business I
+really am in. Until this week I've never had time to discover that I was
+trying to be a broker in real estate. And I've just found out that I've
+been one for almost three years, and never knew it."
+
+"One's own company is the best," growled Westguard. "The monkey people
+sicken you and the public make you ill. Solitude is the only remedy."
+
+"Not for me," said Quarren; "I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and
+on the public; and I'm laying plans to do it."
+
+"They'll turn your stomach----"
+
+"Oh, dry up, Karl!" said O'Hara; "there's a medium between extremes
+where you can get a good sportin' chance at anythin'--horse, dog,
+girl--anythin' you fancy. You'd like some of my friends, now,
+Ricky!--they're a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin' as
+hell----"
+
+"_I_ don't want to meet any cock-fighters," growled Westguard.
+
+"They're all right, too--but there are all kinds of interestin' people
+in my circles--writers like Karl, huntin' people, a professional here
+and there--and then there's that fascinatin' Mrs. Wyland-Baily, the best
+trap-shot----"
+
+"Trap-shot," repeated Westguard in disgust, and took his cigar and
+himself into seclusion.
+
+Quarren also pushed back his chair, preparing to rise.
+
+"Doin' anythin'?" inquired O'Hara, desiring to be kind. "Young Calahan
+and the Harlem Mutt have it out at the Cataract Club to-night," he
+added persuasively.
+
+"Another time, thanks," said Quarren: "I've letters to write."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He wrote them--all the business letters he could think of, concentrating
+his thoughts as much as possible. Afterward he lay down on the lounge
+with a book, and remained there for an hour, although he changed books
+every few minutes. This was becoming a bad habit. But it was difficult
+reading although it ranged from Kipling to the Book of Common Prayer;
+and at last he gave it up and, turning over buried his head in the
+cushions.
+
+This wouldn't do either: he racked his brain for further employment,
+found excuses for other business letters, wrote them, then attacked a
+pile of social matters--notes and letters heretofore deliberately
+neglected to the ragged edge of decency.
+
+He replied to them all, and invariably in the negative.
+
+It gave him something to do to go out to the nearest lamp post and mail
+his letters. But when again he came back into his room the silence there
+left him hesitating on his threshold.
+
+But he went in and locked his door, and kept his back turned to the desk
+where pen and ink were tempting him as usual, and almost beyond
+endurance now. And at last he weakened, and wrote to her once more:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS--
+
+     "I feel sure that your failure to answer my note of last week was
+     unintentional.
+
+     "Some day, when you have a moment, would you write me a line saying
+     that you will be at home to me?
+
+                            "Very sincerely yours,
+
+                                      "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN."
+
+
+He took this note to the nearest District Messenger Office; then
+returned to his room.
+
+After an interminable time the messenger reported for the signature.
+Mrs. Leeds was not at home and he had left the note as directed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was a white one. He did not feel very well when he sat
+scanning the morning paper over his coffee. Recently he had formed the
+custom of reading two columns only in the paper--Real Estate News and
+Society. In the latter column Strelsa usually figured.
+
+She figured as usual this morning; and he read the fulsome stuff
+attentively. Also there was a flourish concerning an annual event at the
+Santa Regina.
+
+And Quarren read this very carefully; and made up his mind as he
+finished the paragraph.
+
+The conclusion he came to over his coffee and newspaper materialised
+that afternoon at a Charity Bazaar, where, as he intended, he met
+Strelsa Leeds face to face. She said, coolly amiable:
+
+"Have you been away? One never sees you these days."
+
+"I have been nowhere," he said, pleasantly.
+
+She shook her pretty head in reproof:
+
+"Is it good policy for a young man to drop out of sight? Our world
+forgets over-night."
+
+He laughed: "Something similar has been intimated to me by others--but
+less gently. I'm afraid I've offended some people."
+
+"Oh, so you have already been disciplined?"
+
+"Verbally trounced, admonished, and still smarting under the displeasure
+of the powers that reign. They seem to resent my Sunday out--yet even
+their other domestics have that. And it's the first I've taken in three
+years. I think I'll have to give notice to my Missus."
+
+"The spectre of servitude still seems to obsess your humour," she
+observed indifferently.
+
+"I _am_ that spectre, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"You certainly look pallid enough for any disembodied rôle. You have not
+been ill, by any chance?"--carelessly.
+
+"Not at all, thank you. Rude health and I continue to link arms."
+
+"Then it is not by chance that you absent yourself from the various
+festivities where your part is usually supposed to be a leading one?"
+
+"All cooks eventually develop a distaste for their own concoctions," he
+explained gravely.
+
+She lifted her eyebrows: "Yet you are here this afternoon."
+
+"Oh, yes. Charity has not yet palled on my palate--perhaps because I
+need so much myself."
+
+"I have never considered you an object of charity."
+
+"Then I must draw your kind attention to my pitiable case by doing a
+little begging.... Could I ask your forgiveness, for example? And
+perhaps obtain it?"
+
+Her face flushed. "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Quarren," she said
+with decision.
+
+"Do you mean that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I scarcely know how to take your--generosity."
+
+"I offer none. There is no occasion for generosity or for the exercise
+of any virtue, cardinal or otherwise. You have not offended me, nor I
+you--I trust.... Have I?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby
+groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren
+unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things.
+Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and
+Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman's advent as his own congé,
+took his leave of Strelsa and went his way--which chanced, also, to be
+the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat.
+
+Susanne Lannis, lips slightly curling, looked after them, touching
+Strelsa's elbow:
+
+"Cyrille simply cannot let Ricky alone," she said. "The bill-posters
+will find a fence for her if she doesn't come to her senses."
+
+"Who?" asked Strelsa, as one or two people laughed guardedly.
+
+"Why, Cyrille Caldera. _Elle s'affiche, ma chère!_"
+
+"Mrs. Caldera!" repeated the girl, surprised.
+
+"_And_ Ricky! Are you blind, Strelsa? It's been on for two weeks or
+more. And she'd better not play too confidently with Ricky. You can
+usually forecast what a wild animal will do, never how a trained one is
+going to behave."
+
+"Such scandal!" laughed Chrysos Lacy. "How many of us can afford to
+turn our backs to the rest of the cage even for an instant? Sir Charles,
+I simply don't dare to go away. Otherwise I'd purchase several of those
+glittering articles yonder--whatever they are. Do you happen to know?"
+
+"Automatic revolvers. The cartridges are charged with Japanese perfumes.
+Did you never see one?" he asked, turning to Strelsa. But she was not
+listening; and he transferred his attention to Chrysos.
+
+Several people moved forward to examine the pretty and apparently deadly
+little weapons; Sir Charles was called upon to explain the Japanese game
+of perfumes, and everybody began to purchase the paraphernalia, pistols,
+cartridges, targets, and counters.
+
+Sir Charles came back, presently, to where Strelsa still stood,
+listlessly examining laces.
+
+"All kinds of poor people have blinded themselves making these pretty
+things," she said, as Sir Charles came up beside her. "My only apparent
+usefulness is to buy them, I suppose."
+
+He offered her one of the automatic pistols.
+
+"It's loaded," he cautioned her, solemnly.
+
+"What an odd gift!" she said, surprised, taking it gingerly into her
+gloved hand. "Is it really for me? And why?"
+
+"Are you timid about firearms?" he asked, jestingly.
+
+"No.... I don't know anything about them--except to keep my finger away
+from the trigger. I know enough to do that."
+
+He supposed that she also was jesting, and her fastidious handling of
+the weapon amused him. And when she asked him if it was safe to carry in
+her muff, he assured her very gravely that she might venture to do so.
+"Turn it loose on the first burglar," he added, "and his regeneration
+will begin in all the forty-nine odours of sanctity."
+
+Strelsa smiled without comprehending. Cyrille Caldera was standing just
+beyond them, apparently interested in antique jewellery, trying the
+effect of various linked gems against her lilac gown, and inviting
+Quarren's opinion of the results. Their backs were turned; Ricky's blond
+head seemed to come unreasonably close to Cyrille's at moments. Once
+Mrs. Caldera thoughtlessly laid a pretty hand on his arm as though in
+emphasis. Their unheard conversation was evidently amusing them.
+
+Strelsa's smile remained unaltered; people were coming constantly to pay
+their respects to her; and they lingered, attracted and amused by her
+unusual gaiety, charm, and wit.
+
+Her mind seemed suddenly to have become crystal clear; her gay retorts
+to lively badinage, and her laughing epigrams were deliciously
+spontaneous. A slight exhilaration, without apparent reason, was
+transforming her, swiftly, into an incarnation entirely unknown even to
+herself.
+
+Conscious of a wonderful mood never before experienced, perfectly aware
+of her unusual brilliancy and beauty, surprised and interested in the
+sudden revelation of powers within her still unexercised, she felt
+herself, for the first time in her life, in contact with things
+heretofore impalpable--and, in spirit, with delicate fingers, she
+gathered up instinctively those intangible threads with which man is
+guided as surely as though driven in chains of steel.
+
+And all the while she was aware of Quarren's boyish head bending almost
+too near to Cyrille Caldera's over the trays of antique jewels; and all
+the while she was conscious of the transfiguration in process--that not
+only a new self was being evolved for her out of the débris of the old,
+but that the world itself was changing around her--and a new Heaven and
+a new earth were being born--and a new hell.
+
+That evening she fought it out with herself with a sort of deadly
+intelligence. Alone in her room, seated, and facing her mirrored gaze
+unflinchingly, she stated her case, minutely, to herself from beginning
+to end; then called the only witness for the prosecution--herself--and
+questioned that witness without mercy.
+
+Did she care for Quarren? Apparently. How much? A great deal. Was she in
+love with him? She could not answer. Wherein did he differ from other
+men she knew--Sir Charles, for example? She only knew that he _was_
+different. Perhaps he was nobler? No. More intelligent? No. Kinder? No.
+More admirable? No. More gentle, more sincere, less selfish? No. Did he,
+as a man, compare favorably with other men--Sir Charles for example? The
+comparison was not in Quarren's favor.
+
+Wherein, then, lay her interest in him? She could not answer. Was she
+perhaps sorry for him? Very. Why? Because she believed him capable of
+better things. Then the basis of her regard for him was founded on pity.
+No; because from the beginning--even before he had unmasked--she had
+been sensible of an interest in him different from any interest she had
+ever before felt for any man.
+
+This uncompromisingly honest answer silenced her mentally for some
+moments; then she lifted her resolute gray eyes to the eyes of the
+mirrored witness:
+
+If that is true, then the attraction was partly physical? She could not
+answer. Pressed for a statement she admitted that it might be that.
+
+Then the basis of her regard for him was ignoble? She found pleasure in
+his intellectual attractions. But the basis had not been intellectual?
+No. It had been material? Yes. And she had never forgotten the light
+pressure of that masked Harlequin's spangled arm around her while she
+desperately counted out the seconds of that magic minute forfeited to
+him? No; she had never forgotten. It was a sensation totally unknown to
+her before that moment? Yes. Had she experienced it since that time?
+Yes. When? When he first told her that he loved her. And afterward? Yes.
+When?
+
+In the cheeks of the mirrored witness a faint fire began to burn: her
+own face grew pink: but she answered, looking the shadowy witness
+steadily in the eyes:
+
+"When he took my hand at the door--and during--whatever
+happened--afterward."
+
+And she excused the witness and turned her back to the looking-glass.
+
+The only witness for the defence was the accused--unless her own heart
+were permitted to testify. Or--and there seemed to be some slight
+confusion here--_was_ Quarren on trial? Or was she herself?
+
+This threatened to become a serious question; she strove to think
+clearly, to reason; but only evoked the pale, amused face of Quarren
+from inner and chaotic consciousness until the visualisation remained
+fixed, defying obliteration. And she accepted the mental spectre for
+the witness box.
+
+"Ricky," she said, "do you really love me?"
+
+But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the
+smile she knew so well--so well, alas!
+
+"Why are you unworthy?" she said again--"you who surely are equipped for
+a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is
+so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth
+nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no
+better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many;
+and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor
+boy--poor boy."
+
+In vain she strove to visualise Sir Charles; she could not. All she
+could do was to mentally enumerate his qualities; and she did so, the
+amused face of Quarren looking on at her from out of empty space.
+
+"Ricky, Ricky," she said, "am I no better than that?--am I fit only for
+such a response?--to find the contact of your hand so wonderful?--to
+thrill with the consciousness of your nearness--to let my senses drift,
+contented merely by your touch--yielding to the charm of it--suffering
+even your lips' embrace----"
+
+She shuddered slightly, drawing one hand across her eyes, then sitting
+straight, she faced his smiling phantom, resolute to end it now forever.
+
+"If I am such a woman," she said, "and you are the kind of man I know
+you to be--then is it time for me to fast and pray, lest I enter into
+temptation.... Into the one temptation I have never before known,
+Ricky--and which, in my complacency and pride I never dreamed that I
+should encounter.
+
+"And it is coming to that!... A girl must be honest with herself or all
+life is only the same smiling lie. I'm ashamed to be honest, Ricky; but
+I must be. You are not very much of a man--otherwise I might find some
+reason for caring: and now there is none; and yet--I care--God knows
+why--or what it is in you that I care for!--But I do--I am beginning to
+care--and I don't know why; I--don't--know why----".
+
+She dropped her face in her hands, sitting there bowed low over her
+knees. And there, hour after hour she fought it out with herself and
+with the amused spectre ever at her elbow--so close at moments that some
+unaroused nerve fell a-trembling in its sleep, threatening to awaken
+those quiet senses that she already feared for their unknown powers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The season was approaching its end, still kicking now and then
+spasmodically, but pretty nearly done for. No particularly painful
+incidents marked its demise except the continued absence of Quarren from
+social purlieus accustomed to his gay presence and adroit executive
+abilities.
+
+After several demoralised cotillions had withstood the shock of his
+absence, and a dozen or more functions had become temporarily
+disorganised because he declined to occupy himself with their success;
+and after a number of hostesses had filled in his place at dinner, at
+theatres, at week-ends, on yachts and coaches; and after an
+unprecedented defiance of two summonses to the hazardous presence of
+Mrs. Sprowl, he obeyed a third subpoena, and presented himself with an
+air of cheerful confidence that instantly enraged her.
+
+The old lady lay abed with nothing more compromising than a toothache;
+Quarren was conducted to the inner shrine; she glared at him hideously
+from her pillows; and for one moment he felt seriously inclined to run.
+
+"Where have you been?" she wheezed.
+
+"Nowhere in particu----"
+
+"I know damn well you've been nowhere," she burst out. "Molly Wycherly's
+dance went to pieces because she was fool enough to trust things to you.
+Do you know who led? That great oaf, Barent Van Dyne! He led like a
+trick elephant, too!"
+
+Quarren looked politely distressed.
+
+"And there are a dozen hostesses perfectly furious with you," continued
+the old lady, pounding the pillows with a fat arm--"parties of all sorts
+spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank
+failures--what the devil possesses you to behave this way?"
+
+"I'm tired," he said, politely.
+
+"What!"
+
+He smiled:
+
+"Oh, the place suits, Mrs. Sprowl; I haven't any complaint; and the work
+and wages are easy; and it's comfortable below-stairs. But--I'm just
+tired."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"I'm talking _about_ my employers, and I'm talking _like_ the social
+upper-servant that I am--or was. I'm merely giving a respectable
+warning; that is the airy purport of my discourse, Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+"Do you know what you're saying?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," he said, wearily.
+
+"Well, then, what the devil _are_ you saying?"
+
+"Merely that I've dropped out of service to engage in trade."
+
+"You can't!" she yelled, sitting up in bed so suddenly that her unquiet
+tooth took the opportunity to assert itself.
+
+She clapped a pudgy hand to her cheek, squinting furiously at Quarren:
+
+"You _can't_ drop out," she shouted. "Don't you ever want to amount to
+anything?"
+
+"Yes, I do. That's why I'm doing it."
+
+"Don't act like a fool! Haven't you any ambition?"
+
+"That also is why," he said pleasantly. "I am ambitious to be out of
+livery and see what my own kind will do to me."
+
+"Well, you'll see!" she threatened--"you'll see what we'll do to
+you----"
+
+"_You're_ not my kind. I always supposed you were, but you all knew
+better from the day I took service with you----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"It is perfectly true, Mrs. Sprowl. My admittance included a livery and
+the perennial prerogative of amusing people. But I had no money, no
+family affiliations with the very amiable people who found me useful.
+Only, in common with them, I had the inherent taste for idleness and the
+genius for making it endurable to you all. So you welcomed me very
+warmly; and you have been very kind to me.... But, somewhere or
+other--in some forgotten corner of me--an odd and old-fashioned idea
+awoke the other day.... I think perhaps it awoke when you reminded me
+that to serve you was one thing and to marry among you something very
+different."
+
+"Ricky! Do you want to drive me to the yelling verge of distraction? I
+didn't say or intimate or dream any such thing! You know perfectly well
+you're not only with us but _of_ us. Nobody ever imagined otherwise. But
+you can't marry any girl you pick out. Sometimes she won't; sometimes
+her family won't. It's the same everywhere. You have no money. Of course
+I intend that you shall eventually marry money--What the devil are you
+laughing at?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"I said that you would marry well. Was that funny? I also said,
+once--and I repeat it now, that I have my own plans for one or two
+girls--Strelsa Leeds included. I merely asked you to respect my wishes
+in that single matter; and bang! you go off and blow up and maroon
+yourself and sulk until nobody knows what's the matter with you. Don't
+be a fool. Everybody likes you; every girl _can't_ love you--but I'll
+bet many of 'em do.... Pick one out and come to me--if that's your
+trouble. Go ahead and pick out what you fancy; and ten to one it will be
+all right, and between you and me we'll land the little lady!"
+
+"You're tremendously kind----"
+
+"I know I am. I'm always doing kindnesses--and nobody likes me, and
+they'd bite my head off, every one of 'em--if they weren't afraid it
+would disagree with them," she added grimly.
+
+Quarren rose and came over to the bedside.
+
+"Good-bye, Mrs. Sprowl," he said. "And--I like you--somehow--I really
+do."
+
+"The devil you do," said the old lady.
+
+"It's a curious fact," he insisted, smiling.
+
+"Get out with you, Ricky! And I want you to come----"
+
+"No--please."
+
+"What?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I want to see some real people again. I've forgotten what they
+resemble."
+
+"That's a damned insolent remark!" she gasped.
+
+"Not meant to be. _You_ are real enough, Heaven knows. But," and his
+smile faded--"I've taken a month off to think it out. And, do you know,
+thinking being an unaccustomed luxury, I've enjoyed it. Imagine my
+delight and surprise, Mrs. Sprowl, when I discovered that my leisurely
+reflections resulted in the discovery that I had a mind--a real
+one--capable of reason and conclusions. And so when I actually came to a
+conclusion my joy knew no bounds----"
+
+"Ricky! Stop those mental athletics! Do you hear? I've a toothache and a
+backache and I can't stand 'em!"
+
+Quarren was laughing now; and presently a grim concession to humour
+relaxed the old lady's lips till her fat face creased.
+
+"All right," she said; "go and play with the ragged boy around the
+corner, my son. Then when you're ready come home and get your face
+washed."
+
+"May I come occasionally to chat with you?"
+
+"As though you'd do that if you didn't have to!" she exclaimed
+incredulously.
+
+"I think you know better."
+
+"No, I don't!" she snapped. "I know men and women; that's all I know.
+And as you're one of the two species I don't expect anything celestial
+from you.... And you'd better go, now."
+
+She turned over on her pillow with a grunt: Quarren laughed, lifted one
+of her pudgy and heavily ringed hands from the coverlet, and, still
+smiling, touched the largest diamond with his lips.
+
+"I think," he said, "that you are one of the very few I really like in
+your funny unreal world.... You're so humanly bad."
+
+"What!" she shouted, floundering to a sitting posture.
+
+But, looking back at her from the door, he found her grinning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Premonitions of spring started the annual social exodus; because in the
+streets of Ascalon and in the busy ways of Gath spring becomes summer
+over night and all Philistia is smitten by the sun.
+
+And all the meanness and shabbiness and effrontery of the monstrous
+city, all its civic pretence and tarnished ostentation are suddenly
+revealed when the summer sun blazes over Ascalon. Wherefore the daintier
+among the Philistines flee--idler, courtier, dangler and squire of
+dames--not to return until the first snow-flakes fall and the gray veil
+of November descends once more over the sorry sham of Ascalon.
+
+Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the
+drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer
+sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and
+millions of them--and a real sky overhead edging far horizons.
+
+He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being
+hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of
+unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester
+Caldera was to finance for him.
+
+Recently, however, that suave young man had smilingly denied making any
+such promise to anybody; which surprised and disconcerted Quarren who
+had no money with which to build sewers, roads, and electric plants.
+And he began to realise how carelessly he had drifted into the
+enterprise--how carelessly he had drifted into everything and past
+everything for the last five years.
+
+After a hunt for a capitalist among and outside his circle of friends
+and acquaintances he began to appreciate his own lunacy even more
+thoroughly.
+
+Then Lester Caldera, good-naturedly, offered to take the property off
+his hands for less than a third of what he paid Sprowl for it; and as
+Quarren's adjoining options were rapidly expiring he was forced to
+accept. Which put the boy almost entirely out of business; so he closed
+his handsome office downtown and opened another in the front parlour of
+an old and rather dingy brown-stone house on the east side of Lexington
+Avenue near Fiftieth Street and hung out his sign once more over the
+busy streets of Ascalon.
+
+                   RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN
+                         Real Estate
+
+Also he gave up his quarters at the Irish Legation to the unfeigned
+grief of the diplomats domiciled there, and established himself in the
+back parlour and extension of the Lexington Avenue house, ready at all
+moments now for business or for sleep. Neither bothered him excessively.
+
+He wrote no more notes to Strelsa Leeds--that is, he posted no more,
+however many he may have composed. Rumours from the inner temple
+concerning her and Langly Sprowl and Sir Charles Mallison drifted out
+into the real world every day or so. But he never went back to the
+temple to verify them. That life was ended for him. Sometimes, sitting
+alone at his desk, he fancied that he could almost hear the far laughter
+of the temple revels, and the humming of the drones. But the roar of the
+street-car, rushing, grinding through the steel-ribbed streets of
+Ascalon always drowned it, and its far seen phantom glitter became a
+burning reality where the mid-day sun struck the office sign outside his
+open window.
+
+Fate, the ugly jade, was making faces at him, all kinds of faces. Just
+now she wore the gaunt mask of poverty, but Quarren continued to ignore
+her, because to him, there was no real menace in her skinny grin, no
+real tragedy in what she threatened.
+
+Real tragedy lay in something very different--perhaps in manhood awaking
+from ignoble lethargy to learn its own degeneracy in a young girl's
+scornful eyes.
+
+All day long he sat in his office attending to the trivial business that
+came into it--not enough so far to give him a living.
+
+In the still spring evenings he retired to his quarters in the back
+parlour, bathed, dressed, looking out at the cats on the back fences.
+Then he went forth to dine either at the Legation or with some one of
+the few friends he had cared to retain in that magic-lantern world which
+he at last had found uninhabitable--a world in which few virile men
+remain very long--fewer and fewer as the years pass on. For the gilding
+on the temple dome is peeling off; and the laughter is dying out, and
+the hum of the drones sounds drowsy like unreal voices heard in summer
+dreams.
+
+"It is the passing of an imbecile society," declaimed Westguard--"the
+dying sounds of its meaningless noise--the first omens of a silence
+which foretells annihilation. Out of chaos will gradually emerge the
+elements of a real society--the splendid social and intellectual
+brotherhood of the future----"
+
+"See my forthcoming novel," added Lacy, "$1.35 net, for sale at all
+booksellers or sent post-paid on receipt of----"
+
+"You little fashionable fop!" growled Westguard--"there's a winter
+coming for all butterflies!"
+
+"I've seen 'em dancing over the snow on a mild and sunny day," retorted
+Lacy. "Karl, my son, the nobly despairing writer with a grouch never yet
+convinced anybody."
+
+"I don't despair," retorted Westguard. "This country is getting what it
+wants and what it deserves, ladled out to it in unappetising gobs. Year
+after year great incoming waves of ignorance sweep us from ocean to
+ocean; but I don't forget that those very waves also carry a constantly
+growing and enlightened class higher and higher toward permanent
+solidity.
+
+"Every annual wave pushes the flotsam of the year before toward the
+solid land. The acquaintance with sordid things is the first real
+impulse toward education. Some day there will be no squalor in the
+land--neither the physical conditions in our slums nor the arid
+intellectual deserts within the social frontiers."
+
+"But the waves will accomplish that--not your very worthy novels," said
+Lacy, impudently.
+
+"If you call me 'worthy' I'll bat you on the head," roared Westguard,
+sitting up on the sofa where he had been sprawling; and laughter, loud
+and long, rattled the windows in the Irish Legation.
+
+The May night was hot; a sickly breeze stirred the curtains at the open
+windows of Westguard's living room where the Legation was entertaining
+informally.
+
+Quarren, Lacy, O'Hara, and Sir Charles Mallison sat by the window
+playing poker; the Earl of Dankmere, perched on the piano-stool, was
+mournfully rattling off a string of melodies acquired along Broadway;
+Westguard himself, flat on his back, occupied a leather lounge and
+dispensed philosophy when permitted.
+
+"You know," said Lacy, dealing rapidly, "you're only a tin-horn
+philosopher, Karl, but you really could write a good story if you tried.
+Get your people into action. That's the game."
+
+O'Hara nodded. "Interestin' people, in books and outside, are always
+doin' things, not talkin'," he said--"like Sir Charles quietly drawin'
+four cards to a kicker and sayin' nothin'."
+
+"--Like old Dankmere, yonder, playing 'Madame Sherry' and not trying to
+tell us why human beings enjoy certain sounds known as harmonies, but
+just keeping busy beating the box----"
+
+"--Like a pretty woman who is contented to be as attractive and cunnin'
+as she can be, and not stoppin' to explain the anatomy of romantic love
+and personal beauty," added O'Hara.
+
+"--Like----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake give me a stack of chips and shut up!" shouted
+Westguard, jumping to his feet and striding to the table. "Everybody on
+earth is competent to write a book except an author, but I defy anybody
+to play my poker hands for me! Come on, Dankmere! Let's clean out this
+complacent crowd!"
+
+Lord Dankmere complied, and seated himself at the table, anxiously
+remarking to Quarren that he had come to America to acquire capital, not
+to spend it. Sir Charles laughed and dealt; Westguard drew five cards,
+attempted to bluff Quarren's full hand, and was scandalously routed.
+
+Again the cards were dealt and O'Hara bet the limit; and the Earl of
+Dankmere came back with an agonised burst of chips that scared out Lacy
+and Sir Charles and left Quarren thinking.
+
+When finally the dust of combat blew clear of the scene Dankmere's
+stacks were nearly gone, and Quarren's had become symmetrical
+sky-scrapers.
+
+Lacy said to Dankmere: "Now that you've learned how to get poor quickly
+you're better prepared for the study of riches and how to acquire 'em.
+Kindly pass the buck unless your misfortunes have paralysed you."
+
+"The whole country," said his lordship, "is nothing but one gigantic
+poker game. I sail on the next steamer. I'm bluffed out."
+
+"Poor old Dankmere," purred Lacy, "won't the ladies love you?"
+
+"Their demonstrations," said the Earl, "are not keeping me awake
+nights."
+
+"Something keeps Quarren awake nights, judging by his transom light. Is
+it love, Ricky?"
+
+A slight colour mounted to Quarren's thin cheeks, but he answered
+carelessly: "I read late sometimes.... How many cards do you want?"
+
+Sir Charles Mallison turned his head after a moment and looked at
+Quarren; and meeting his eye, said pleasantly: "I only want one card,
+Quarren. Please give me the right one."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"The Queen of Hearts."
+
+"Dealer draws one also," said the young fellow.
+
+Sir Charles laid down his hand with a smile:
+
+"Did _you_ fill?" he asked Quarren as everybody else remained out.
+
+"I don't mind showing," said Quarren sorting out his cards, faces up.
+
+"Which end?" inquired O'Hara.
+
+"An interior." And he touched the Queen of Hearts, carelessly.
+
+"Crazy playing and lunatic's luck," commented Lacy. "Dankmere, and you,
+too, Sir Charles, you'd better cut and run for home as fast as your
+little legs can toddle. Quarren is on the loose."
+
+Sir Charles laughed, glanced at Quarren, then turned to Dankmere.
+
+"It's none of my business," he said, "but if you really are in the
+devilish financial straits you pretend to be, why don't you square up
+things and go into trade?"
+
+"Square things?" repeated the little Earl mournfully; "will somebody
+tell me how? Haven't I been trying out everything? Didn't I back a
+musical comedy of sorts? Didn't I even do a turn in it myself?"
+
+"That's what probably smashed it," observed O'Hara.
+
+"He did it very well," laughed Sir Charles.
+
+"Dankmere ought to have filled his show full of flossy flappers,"
+insisted Lacy. "Who wants to see an Earl dance and sing? Next time I'll
+manage the company for you, Dankmere----"
+
+"There'll be no next time," said Dankmere, scanning his cards. "I'm done
+for," he added, dramatically, letting his own ante go.
+
+"You've lost your nerve," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"And everything else, my boy!"
+
+"What's the matter with the heiresses, anyway?" inquired O'Hara
+sympathetically.
+
+"The matter is that I don't want the sort that want me. Somebody's
+ruined the business in the States. I suppose I might possibly induce a
+Broadway show-girl----"
+
+The little Earl got up and began to wander around, hands in his pockets,
+repeating:
+
+"I'd make a pretty good actor, in spite of what O'Hara said. It's the
+only thing I like anyway. I can improvise songs, too. Listen to this
+impromptu, you fellows":
+
+And he bent over the piano, still standing, and beat out a jingling
+accompaniment:
+
+    "I sigh for the maiden I never have seen,
+    I'll make her my countess whatever she's been--
+    Typewriter, manicure, heiress or queen,
+    Aged fifty or thirty or lovely eighteen,
+    Redundant and squatty, or scraggy and lean,
+    Generous spendthrift or miserly mean--
+    I sigh for the maiden I never have seen
+    Provided she's padded with wads of Long Green!"
+
+Still singing the air he picked up a silk hat and walking-stick and
+began to dance, rather lightly and gracefully, his sunken, heavy-lidded
+eyes fixed nonchalantly on space--his nimble little feet making no sound
+on the floor as he swung, swayed, and capered under the electric light
+timing his agile steps to his own singing.
+
+Loud applause greeted him; much hand-clapping and cries of "Good old
+Dankmere! Three cheers for the British peerage!"
+
+Sir Charles looked slightly bored, sitting back in his chair and waiting
+for the game to recommence. Which it did with the return of the Earl who
+had now relieved both his intellect and his legs of an accumulated and
+Terpischorean incubus.
+
+"If I was a bigger ass than I am," said the Earl, "I'd go into
+vaudeville and let my creditors howl."
+
+"Did they really send you over here?" asked O'Hara, knowing that his
+lordship made no bones about it.
+
+"They certainly did. And a fine mess I've made of it, haven't I? No
+decent girl wants me--though why, I don't know, because I'm decent
+enough as men go. But your newspapers make fun of me and my title--and I
+might as well cut away to Dankmere Tarns and let 'em pick my carcass
+clean."
+
+"What's Dankmere Tarns?" asked O'Hara.
+
+"Mine, except the mortgages on it."
+
+"Entailed?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"Kept up?"
+
+"No, shut up."
+
+"What sort of a gallery is that of yours at Dankmere Tarns?" inquired
+Sir Charles, turning around.
+
+"How the devil do I know," replied his lordship fretfully. "I don't know
+anything about pictures."
+
+"Are there not some very valuable ones there?"
+
+"There are a lot of very dirty ones."
+
+"Don't you know their value?"
+
+"No, I don't. But I fancy the good ones were sold off long ago--twenty
+years ago I believe. There was a sale--a lot of rubbish of sorts. I
+took it for granted that Lister's people cleaned out everything worth
+taking."
+
+"When you go back," said Sir Charles, "inspect that rubbish again.
+Perhaps Lister's people overlooked enough to get you out of your
+financial difficulties. Pictures that sold for £100 twenty years ago
+might bring £1,000 to-day. It's merely a suggestion, Dankmere--if you'll
+pardon it."
+
+"And a good one," added O'Hara. "I know a lot of interestin' people and
+they tell me that you can sell any rotten old picture over here for any
+amount of money. Sting 'em, Dankmere. Get to 'em!"
+
+"You might send for some of your pictures," said Lacy, "and have a shot
+at the auction-mad amateur. He's too easy."
+
+"And pay duty and storage and gallery hire and auction fees!--no,
+thanks," replied the little Earl, cautiously. "I've burnt my bally
+fingers too often in schemes."
+
+"I've a back room behind my office," said Quarren. "You can store them
+there if you like, without charge."
+
+"Besides, if they're genuine, there will be no duty to pay," explained
+Sir Charles.
+
+Dankmere sucked on his cigar but made no comment; and the game went on,
+disastrously for him.
+
+Quarren said casually to Sir Charles:
+
+"I suppose you will be off to Newport, soon."
+
+"To-morrow. When do you leave town?"
+
+"I expect to remain in town nearly all summer."
+
+"Isn't that rather hard?"
+
+"No; it doesn't matter much," said the boy indifferently.
+
+"Many people are already on the wing," observed Lacy.
+
+"The Calderas have gone, I hear, and the Vernons and Mrs. Sprowl," added
+O'Hara.
+
+"I suppose the Wycherlys will open Witch-Hollow in June," said Quarren
+carelessly.
+
+"Yes. Are you asked?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Doubtless you will be," said Sir Charles. "Jim Wycherly is mad about
+aviation and several men are going to send their biplanes up and try 'em
+out."
+
+"I'm goin'," announced O'Hara.
+
+Quarren drew one card, and filled his house. Sir Charles laid aside his
+useless hand with a smile and turned to Quarren:
+
+"Mrs. Leeds has spoken so often and so pleasantly of you that I have
+been rather hoping I might some day have the opportunity of knowing you
+better. I am very glad that the Legation asked me to-night."
+
+Quarren remained absolutely still for a few moments. Then he said:
+
+"Mrs. Leeds is very generous in her estimate of me."
+
+"She is a woman of rare qualities."
+
+"Of unusual qualities and rare charm," said Quarren coolly.... "I think,
+Karl, that I'll make it ten more to draw cards. Are you all staying in?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the party broke up--and it was an early one--Lord Dankmere turned
+to Quarren.
+
+"I'll drop in at your office, if I may, some morning," he said. "May I?"
+
+"It will give me both pleasure and diversion," said Quarren laughing.
+"There is not enough business in my office to afford me either. Also
+you are welcome to send for those pictures and store them in my back
+parlour until you can find a purchaser."
+
+"It's an idea, isn't it?" mused his lordship. "Now I don't suppose you
+happen to know anything about such rubbish, do you?--pictures and that
+sort. What?"
+
+"Why--yes--I do, in a way."
+
+"The devil you do! But then I've always been told that you know
+something about everything----"
+
+"Very, very little," said Quarren, laughing. "In an ignorant world
+smatterings are reverenced. But the fashionable Philistine of yesterday,
+who used to boast of his ignorance regarding things artistic and
+intellectual, is becoming a little ashamed of his ignorance----"
+
+Dankmere, reddening, said bluntly:
+
+"That applies to me; doesn't it?"
+
+"I beg your pardon!--I didn't mean it that way----"
+
+"You're right, anyway. I'm damnably ignorant.... See here, Quarren, if I
+send over for some of those pictures of mine, will you give me your
+opinion like a good fellow before I make a bally ass of myself by
+offering probable trash to educated people?"
+
+"I'll tell you all I know about your pictures, if that is what you
+mean," said Quarren, much amused.
+
+They shook hands as Sir Charles came up to make his adieux.
+
+"Good-bye," he said to Quarren. "I'm off to Newport to-morrow. And--I--I
+promised to ask you to come with me."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Mrs. Sprowl told me to bring you. You know how informal she is."
+
+Quarren, surprised, glanced sharply at Sir Charles. "I don't believe she
+really wants me," he said.
+
+"If she didn't she wouldn't have made me promise to bring you. She's
+that sort, you know. Won't you come? I am sure that Mrs. Leeds, also,
+would be glad to see you."
+
+Quarren looked him coolly and unpleasantly in the eyes.
+
+"Do you really believe that?" he asked, almost insolently.
+
+Sir Charles reddened:
+
+"She asked me to say so to you. I heard from her this morning; and I
+have fulfilled her request."
+
+"Thank her for me," returned Quarren, level-eyed and very white.
+
+"Which means?" insisted Sir Charles quietly.
+
+"Absolutely nothing," said Quarren in a voice which makes enemies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following day Sir Charles left for Newport where Mrs. Sprowl had
+opened "Skyland," her villa of pink Tennessee marble, to a lively party
+of young people of which Strelsa Leeds made one. And once more,
+according to the newspapers, her engagement to Sir Charles was expected
+to be announced at any moment.
+
+When Quarren picked up the newspapers from his office desk next morning
+he found the whole story there--a story to which he had become
+accustomed.
+
+But the next day, the papers repeated the news. And it remained, for the
+first time, uncontradicted by anybody. All that morning he sat at his
+desk staring at her picture, reproduced in half-tones on the first page
+of every newspaper in town--stared at it, and at the neighbouring
+likeness of Sir Charles in the uniform of his late regiment; read once
+more of Strelsa's first marriage with all its sequence of misery and
+degradation; read fulsome columns celebrating her beauty, her
+popularity, her expected engagement to one of the wealthiest Englishmen
+in the world.
+
+[Illustration: "Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement
+to Sir Charles was expected to be announced."]
+
+He read, also, all about Sir Charles Mallison, V.C.--the long record of
+his military service, his wealth and the dignified simplicity of his
+life. He read about his immense popularity in England, his vast but
+unostentatious charities, his political and social status.
+
+To Quarren it all meant nothing more definite than a stupid sequence of
+printed words; and he dropped his blond head into both hands and gazed
+out into the sunshine. And presently he remembered the golden dancer
+laughing at him from under her dainty mask--years and years ago: and
+then he thought of the woman whose smooth young hands once seemed to
+melt so sweetly against his--thought of her gray eyes tinged with
+violet, and her hair and mouth and throat--and her cheek faintly
+fragrant against his--a moment's miracle--and then, the end----
+
+He made a quick, aimless movement as though impatiently escaping sudden
+pain; cleared his sun-dazzled eyes and began, half blindly, to turn over
+his morning's letters--circulars, bills, business matters--and suddenly
+came upon a letter from her.
+
+For a while he merely gazed at it, incredulous of its reality.
+
+Then he opened the envelope very deliberately and still, scarcely
+convinced, unfolded the scented sheaf of note-paper:
+
+     "DEAR MR. QUARREN,
+
+     "At Mrs. Sprowl's suggestion I wrote to Sir Charles asking him to
+     be kind enough to bring you with him when he came to 'Skyland.'
+
+     "Somehow, I am afraid that my informality may have offended you;
+     and if this is so, I am sorry. We have been such good friends that
+     I supposed I might venture to send you such a message.
+
+     "But perhaps I ought to have written it to you instead--I don't
+     know. Lately it seems as though many things that I have done have
+     been entirely misunderstood.
+
+     "It's gray weather here, and the sea looks as though it were
+     bad-tempered; and I've been rather discontented, too, this
+     morning----
+
+     "I don't really mean that. There is a very jolly party here.... I
+     believe that I'm growing a little tired of parties.
+
+     "Molly has asked me to Witch-Hollow for a quiet week in June, and
+     I'm going. She would ask you if I suggested it. Shall I? Because,
+     since we last met, once or twice the thought has occurred to me
+     that perhaps an explanation was overdue. Not that I should make any
+     to you if you and I meet at Witch-Hollow. There isn't any to
+     make--except by my saying that I hope to see you again. Will you be
+     content with that admission of guilt?
+
+     "I meant to speak to you again that day at the Charity affair, only
+     there were so many people bothering--and you seemed to be so
+     delightfully preoccupied with that pretty Cyrille Caldera. I really
+     had no decent opportunity to speak to you again without making her
+     my mortal enemy--and you, too, perhaps.
+
+     "May I dare to be a little friendly now and say that I would like
+     to see you? Somehow I feel that even still I may venture to talk to
+     you on a different plane and footing from any which exists between
+     other men and me. You were once so friendly, so kind, so nice to
+     me. You have been nice--_always_. And if I seem to have acquired
+     any of the hardness, any of the cynical veneer, any of the
+     fashionable scepticism and unbelief which, perhaps, no woman
+     entirely escapes in my environment, it all softens and relaxes and
+     fades and seems to slip away as soon as I begin to talk to
+     you--even on this note-paper. Which is only one way of saying,
+     'Please be my friend again!'
+
+     "I sometimes hear about you from others. I am impressively informed
+     that you have given up all frivolous social activity and are now
+     most industriously devoting yourself to your real-estate business.
+     And I am wondering whether this rather bewildering _volte-face_ is
+     to be permanent.
+
+     "Because I see no reason for anybody going to extremes. Between the
+     hermit's cell and the Palace of Delights there is a quiet and happy
+     country. Don't you know that?
+
+     "Would you care to write to me and tell me a little about yourself?
+     Do you think it odd or capricious of me to write to you? And are
+     you perhaps irritated because of my manners which must have seemed
+     to you discourteous--perhaps rude?
+
+     "I know of course that you called on me; that you telephoned; that
+     you wrote to me; and that I made no response.
+
+     "And I am going to make no explanation. Can your friendship, or
+     what may remain of it, stand the strain?
+
+     "If it can, please write to me. And forgive me whatever injustice I
+     have seemed to do you. I ask it because, although you may not
+     believe it, my regard for you has never become less since the night
+     that a Harlequin and a golden dancer met in the noisy halls of old
+     King Carnival.... Only, the girl who writes you this was younger
+     and happier then than I think she ever will be again.
+
+                             "Your friend--if you wish--
+
+                                           "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+
+
+He wrote her by return mail:
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS,
+
+     "When a man has made up his mind to drown without any more fuss, it
+     hurts him to be hauled out and resuscitated and told that he is
+     still alive.
+
+     "If you mean, ultimately, to let me drown, do it now. I've been too
+     miserable over you. Also, I was insulting to Sir Charles. He's too
+     decent to have told you; but I was. And I can't ask his pardon
+     except by mending my manner toward him in future.
+
+     "I'm a nobody; I haven't any money; and I love you. That is how the
+     matter stands this day in May. Let me know the worst and I'll drown
+     this time for good and all.
+
+     "Are you engaged to marry Sir Charles?
+
+                                "R. S. QUARREN."
+
+
+
+By return mail came a note from her:
+
+     "Can you not care for me and still be kind to me, Mr. Quarren? If
+     what you say about your regard for me is true--but it is certainly
+     exaggerated, anyway--should not your attitude toward me include a
+     nobler sentiment? I mean friendship. And I know whereof I speak,
+     because I am conscious of a capacity for it--a desire for it--and
+     for you as the object of it. I believe that, if you cared for it, I
+     could give you the very best of me in a friendship of the highest
+     type.
+
+     "It is in me to give it--a pure, devoted, lofty, untroubled
+     friendship, absolutely free of lesser and material sentiments. Am I
+     sufficiently frank? I want such a friendship. I need it. I have
+     never before offered it to any man--the kind I mean to give you if
+     you wish.
+
+     "I believe it would satisfy you; I am convinced that yours would
+     satisfy me. You don't know how I have missed such a friendship in
+     you. I have wanted it from the very beginning of our acquaintance.
+     But I had--problems--to solve, first; and I had to let our
+     friendship lie dormant. Now I have solved my perplexities, and all
+     my leisure is for you again, if you will. Do you want it?
+
+     "Think over what I have written. Keep my letter for a week and then
+     write me. Does my offer not deserve a week's consideration?
+
+     "Meanwhile please keep away from deep water. I do not wish you to
+     drown.
+
+                               "STRELSA LEEDS.
+
+     "P. S.--Lord Dankmere is here. He is insufferable. He told Mrs.
+     Sprowl that you and he were going into the antique-picture
+     business. You wouldn't think of going into anything whatever with
+     a man of that sort, would you? Or was it merely a British jest?"
+
+He wrote at once:
+
+     "I have your letter and will keep it a week before replying.
+     But--are you engaged?"
+
+She answered:
+
+     "The papers have had me engaged to Barent Van Dyne, to Langly
+     Sprowl, to Sir Charles. You may take your choice if you are
+     determined to have me engaged to somebody. No doubt you think my
+     being engaged would make our future friendship safer. I'll attend
+     to it immediately if you wish me to."
+
+Evidently she was in a gay and contrary humour when she wrote so
+flippantly to him. And he replied in kind and quite as lightly. Then, at
+the week's end he wrote her again that he had considered her letter, and
+that he accepted the friendship she offered, and gave her his in return.
+
+She did not reply.
+
+He wrote her again a week later, but had no answer. Another week passed,
+and, slowly into his senses crept the dread of deep waters closing
+around him. And after another week he began to wonder, dully, how long
+it would take a man to drown if he made no struggle.
+
+Meanwhile several dozen crates and packing cases had arrived at the
+Custom House for the Earl of Dankmere; and, in process of time were
+delivered at the real-estate office of R. S. Quarren, littering his
+sleeping quarters and office and overflowing into the extension and
+backyard.
+
+[Illustration: "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded
+in amazement by the neighbours."]
+
+It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and
+Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and
+hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the
+back fences by several astonished cats.
+
+His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and
+some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the
+ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged
+from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their
+ancient un-keyed stretchers.
+
+There were primitives on panels, triptychs, huge canvases in frames
+carved out of solid wood; pictures in battered Italian frames--some
+floridly Florentine, some exquisitely inlaid on dull azure and
+rose--pictures in Spanish frames, Dutch frames, English frames, French
+frames of the last century; portraits, landscapes, genre, still
+life--battle pictures, religious subjects, allegorical canvases,
+mythological--all stacked up pell-mell in the backyard and regarded in
+amazement by the neighbours, and by two young men who alternately smoked
+and staunched their wounds under the summer sky.
+
+"Dankmere," said Quarren at last, "did your people send over your entire
+collection?"
+
+"No; but I thought it might be as well to have plenty of rubbish on hand
+in case a demand should spring up.... What do they look like to you,
+Quarren--I mean what's your first impression?"
+
+"They look all right."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Certainly. They seem to be genuine enough as far as I can see."
+
+"But are they otherwise any good?"
+
+"I think so. I'll go over each canvas very carefully and give you my
+opinion for what it's worth. But, for Heaven's sake, Dankmere, where are
+we going to put all these canvases?"
+
+"I suppose," said the Earl gloomily, "I'll be obliged to store what you
+haven't room for. And as I gradually grow poorer and poorer the day will
+arrive when I can't pay storage; and they'll sell 'em under my nose at
+auction, Quarren. And first I know the papers will blossom out with: 'A
+Wonderful Rembrandt discovered in a junk-shop! Ancient picture bought
+for five dollars and pronounced a gem by experts! Lucky purchaser
+refuses a hundred thousand dollars cash!'"
+
+Quarren laughed and turned away into the house; and Dankmere followed,
+gloomily predicting his own approaching financial annihilation.
+
+From his office Quarren telephoned a picture dealer to send men with
+heavy wire, hooks, ladders and other paraphernalia; then he and Dankmere
+made their toilets, resumed their coats, and returned to the sunny
+office to await events.
+
+After a few moments the Earl said abruptly:
+
+"Would you care to go into this venture with me, Quarren?"
+
+"I?" said Quarren, surprised.
+
+"Yes. Will you?"
+
+"Why, I have my own business, Dankmere----"
+
+"Is it enough to keep you busy?"
+
+"No--not yet--but I----"
+
+"Then, like a good fellow, help me sell these damned pictures. I haven't
+any money to offer you, Quarren, but if you'll be willing to hang the
+pictures around your office here and in the back parlour and the
+extension, and if you'll talk the merry talk to the lunatics who may
+come in to look at 'em and tell 'em what the bally pictures are and fix
+the proper prices--why--why, I'll make any arrangement with you that you
+please. Say a half interest, now. Would that be fair?"
+
+"Fair? Of course! It's far too liberal an offer--but I----"
+
+"It's worth that to me, Quarren--if you can see your way to helping me
+out----"
+
+"But my help isn't worth half what these pictures might very easily
+bring--even at public auction----"
+
+"Why not? I'd have to pay an auctioneer, an expert to appraise them--an
+art dealer to hang them in his gallery for a couple of weeks--either
+that or rent a place by the year. The only way I can recompense you for
+your wall space, for talking art talk to visitors, for fixing prices, is
+to offer you half of what we make. Why not? You pay a pretty stiff rent
+here, don't you? You also pay a servant. You pay for heat and light,
+don't you? So if you'll turn this floor into a combination gallery of
+sorts--art and real estate, you see--we'll go into business, egad! What?
+The Dankmere galleries! What? By gad I'll have a sign made to hang out
+there beside your shingle--only I'm afraid you'll have to pay for it,
+Quarren, and recompense yourself after we sell the first picture."
+
+"But, Dankmere," he protested, very much amused, "I don't want to become
+a picture dealer."
+
+"What's the harm? Take a shot at it, old chap! A young man can't collect
+too many kinds of experience. Take me for example!--I've sold dogs and
+hunters on commission, gone shares in about every rotten scheme anybody
+ever suggested to me, financed a show, and acted in it--as you
+know--and, by gad!--here I am now a dealer in old masters! Be a good
+fellow and come in with me. What?"
+
+"I don't really know enough about antique pictures to----"
+
+"What's the odds! Neither do I! My dear sir, we must lie like gentlemen
+for the honour of the Dankmere gallery! What? Along comes a chap walking
+slowly and painfully for the weight of the money in his pockets--'Ho!'
+says he--'a genuine Van Dyck!' 'Certainly,' you say, very coldly. And,
+'How much?' says he, shivering for fear he mayn't get it. 'Three hundred
+thousand dollars,' you say, trying not to yawn in his face----"
+
+Quarren could no longer control his laughter: Dankmere blinked at him
+amiably.
+
+"We'll hang them anyhow, Dankmere," he said. "As long as there is so
+little business in the office I don't mind looking after your pictures
+for you----"
+
+"Yours, too," urged the Earl.
+
+"No; I can't accept anything----"
+
+"Then it's all off!" exclaimed Dankmere, turning a bright red. "I'm
+blessed if I'll accept charity!--even if I am hunting heiresses. I'll
+marry money if I can, but I'm damned if I hold out a tin cup for
+coppers!"
+
+"If you feel that way," began Quarren, very much embarrassed, "I'll do
+whatever would make you feel comfortable----"
+
+"Half interest or it's all off! A Dankmere means what he says--now and
+then."
+
+"One-third interest, then----"
+
+"A half!--by gad! There's a good fellow!"
+
+"No; one-third is all I'll accept."
+
+"Oh, very well. It may amount to ten dollars--it may amount to ten
+thousand--and ten times that, perhaps. What?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Quarren, smiling. "And, if you're going out, Dankmere,
+perhaps you had better order a sign painted--anything you like, of
+course. Because I'm afraid I couldn't leave these pictures here
+indefinitely and we might as well make plans to get rid of some of them
+as soon as possible."
+
+"Right-o! I'm off to find a painter. Leave it to me, Quarren. And when
+the picture-hangers come, have them hung in a poor light--I mean the
+pictures--God knows they need it--the dimmer the light the better. What?
+Take care of yourself, old chap. There's money in sight, believe me!"
+
+And the lively little Earl trotted out, swinging his stick and setting
+his straw hat at an angle slightly rakish.
+
+No business came to the office that sunny afternoon; neither did the
+picture-hangers. And Quarren, uneasy, and not caring to leave Dankmere's
+ancestral collection of pictures in the back yard all night lest the
+cats and a possible shower knock a little superfluous antiquity into
+them, had just started to go out and hire somebody to help him carry the
+canvases into the basement, when the office door opened in his very face
+and Molly Wycherly came in, breezily.
+
+"Why, Molly!" he exclaimed, surprised; "this is exceedingly nice of
+you----"
+
+"Oh, Ricky, I'm glad to see you! But I don't want to buy a house or sell
+one or anything. I'm very unhappy--and I'm glad to see you----"
+
+She pressed his hand with both her gloved ones; he closed the door and
+returned to the office; and she seated herself on top of his desk.
+
+"You dear boy," she said; "you are thin and white and you don't look
+very happy either. Are you?"
+
+"Why, of course I'm happy----"
+
+"I don't believe it! Anyway, I was passing, and I saw your shingle
+swinging, and I made the chauffeur stop on the impulse of the moment....
+How are you, Ricky dear?"
+
+"First rate. You are even unusually pretty, Molly."
+
+"I don't feel so. Strelsa and I came into town for the afternoon--on the
+most horrid kind of business, Ricky."
+
+"I'm sorry----"
+
+"You will be sorrier when you hear that about all of Strelsa's money was
+in that miserable Adamant Trust Company which is causing so much
+scandal. You didn't know Strelsa's money was in it, did you?"
+
+"No," he said gravely.
+
+"Isn't it dreadful? The child doesn't know whether she will ever get a
+penny or not. Some of those disgusting men have run away, one shot
+himself--you read about it!--and now they are trying to pretend that the
+two creatures they have arrested are insane and irresponsible. I don't
+care whether they are or not; I'd like to kill them. How does their
+insanity concern Strelsa? For three weeks she hasn't known what to
+think, what to expect--and even her lawyers can't tell her. I hate
+lawyers. But _I_ think the chances are that her pretty house will be for
+sale before long.... Wouldn't it be too tragic if it came into your
+office----"
+
+"Don't say such things, Molly," he said, bending his head over the desk
+and fumbling with his pen.
+
+"Well, I knew you'd be sympathetic. It's a shame--a crime!--it's
+absolutely disgusting the way that men gamble with other people's money
+and cheat and lie and--and--oh, it's a perfectly rotten world and I'm
+tired of it!"
+
+"Where is Mrs. Leeds?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"At Witch-Hollow--in town for this afternoon to see her stupid lawyers.
+They don't do anything. They say they can't just yet. They're lazy
+or--something worse. That's my opinion. We go out on the five-three
+train--Strelsa and I----"
+
+"Is she--much affected?"
+
+"No; and that's the silly part of it. It would simply wreck me. But she
+hasn't wept a single tear.... I suppose she'll have to marry, now--"
+Mrs. Wycherly glanced askance at Quarren, but his face remained gravely
+expressionless.
+
+"Ricky dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I had a frightful row, on your account, with Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+"I'm sorry. Why?"
+
+"I told her I was going to ask you and Strelsa to Witch-Hollow."
+
+Quarren said calmly:
+
+"Don't do it then, Molly. There's no use of your getting in wrong with
+Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+Mrs. Wycherly laughed:
+
+"Oh, I found a way around. I asked Mrs. Sprowl and Sir Charles at the
+same time."
+
+"What do you mean?" he said, turning a colourless face to hers.
+
+"What I say. Ricky dear, I suppose that Strelsa _will_ have to marry a
+wealthy man, now--and I believe she realises it, too--but I--I _wanted_
+her to marry you, some day----"
+
+He swung around again, confronting her.
+
+"You darling!" he said under his breath.
+
+Mrs. Wycherly's lip trembled and she dabbed at her eyes.
+
+"I wish I could express my feelings like Mrs. Sprowl, but I can't," she
+said naïvely. "Sir Charles will marry her, now; I know perfectly well he
+will--unless Langly Sprowl----"
+
+Quarren drew his breath sharply.
+
+"Not that man," she said.
+
+"God knows, Ricky. He's after Strelsa every minute--and he can make
+himself agreeable. The worst of it is that Strelsa does not believe what
+she hears about him. Women are that way, often. The moment the whole
+world pitches into a man, women are inclined to believe him a
+martyr--and end by discrediting every unworthy story concerning him....
+I don't know, but I think it is already a little that way with
+Strelsa.... He's a clever brute--and oh! what a remorseless man!... I
+said that once to Strelsa, and she said very warmly that I entirely
+misjudged him.... I wish Mary Ledwith would come back and bring things
+to a crisis--I do, indeed."
+
+Quarren said, calmly;
+
+"You don't think Mrs. Leeds is engaged to Sprowl, do you?"
+
+"No.... I don't think so. Sometimes I don't know what to think of
+Strelsa. I'm certain that she was not engaged to him four weeks ago when
+she was at Newport."
+
+Quarren gazed out into the sunlit street. It was just four weeks ago
+that her letters ceased. Had she stopped writing because of worry over
+the Adamant Trust? Or was there another reason?
+
+"I suppose," said Molly, dabbing at her eyes, "that Strelsa can't pick
+and choose now. I suppose she's got to marry for sordid and sensible and
+material reasons. But if only she would choose Sir Charles--I think I
+could be almost reconciled to her losing you----"
+
+Quarren laughed harshly.
+
+"An irreparable loss to any woman," he said. "I doubt that Mrs. Leeds
+survives losing me."
+
+"Ricky! She cares a great deal for you! So do I. And Strelsa _does_ care
+for you----"
+
+"Not too rashly I hope," he said with another disagreeable laugh.
+
+"Oh, that isn't like you, Ricky! You're not the sneering, fleering nasty
+kind. If you are badly hurt, take it better than that----"
+
+"I can't!" he said between set teeth. "I care for her; she knows it. I
+guess she knows, too, that what she once said to me started me into what
+I'm doing now--working, waiting, living like a dog--doing my best to
+keep my self-respect and obtain hers--" He choked, regained his
+self-control, and went on quietly:
+
+"Why do you think I dropped out of everything? To try to develop
+whatever may be in me--so that I could speak to her as an equal and not
+as the court jester and favourite mountebank of the degenerate gang she
+travels with----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said sullenly.
+
+"I am not offended, you poor boy.... I hadn't realised that you were so
+much in love with her--so deeply concerned----"
+
+"I have always been.... She knows it...." He cleared his eyes and turned
+a dazed gaze on the sunny street once more.
+
+"If I could--" he stopped; a hopeless look came into his eyes. Then he
+slowly shook his head.
+
+"Oh, Ricky! Ricky! Can't you do something? Can't you make a lot of money
+very quickly? You see Strelsa has simply got to marry money. Be fair; be
+just to her. A girl can't exist without money, can she? You know that,
+don't you?"
+
+"I've heard your world say so."
+
+"You know it's true!"
+
+"I don't know what is true. I don't know truth from falsehood. I suppose
+that love requires money to keep it nourished--as roses require
+manure----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"I'm speaking of _your_ world----"
+
+"My world! The entire world knows that money is necessary--except
+perhaps a silly sentimentalist here and there----"
+
+"Yes, there are one or two--here and there," he said. "But they're all
+poor--and prejudiced."
+
+Molly applied her handkerchief to her eyes, viciously.
+
+"I hope _you_ are not one, Ricky. I'm sure I'm not fool enough to expect
+a girl who has been accustomed to everything to be contented without
+anything."
+
+"There's her husband as an asset."
+
+"Oh, my dear, don't talk slush!"
+
+"--And--children--perhaps."
+
+"And no money to educate them! You dear boy, there is nothing to
+do--absolutely nothing--unless it's based on money. You know it; I know
+it. People without it are intolerable--a nuisance to everybody and to
+themselves. What could Strelsa find in life without the means to enjoy
+it?"
+
+"Nothing--perhaps.... But I believe I'll ask her."
+
+"She'll tell you the truth, Ricky. She's an unusually truthful woman....
+I must go downtown. Strelsa and I are lunching"--she reddened--"with
+Langly.... His aunt would kill me if she heard of it.... I positively do
+not dare ask Langly to Witch-Hollow because I'm so deadly afraid of that
+fat old woman!... Besides, I don't want him there--although--if Strelsa
+_has_ to marry him----"
+
+She fell silent and thoughtful, reflecting, perhaps, that if Strelsa was
+going to take Langly Sprowl, her own country house might as well have
+the benefit of any fashionable and social glamour incident to the
+announcement.
+
+Then, glancing at Quarren, her heart smote her, and she flushed:
+
+"Come up to Witch-Hollow, Ricky dear, and get her to elope with you if
+you can! Will you?"
+
+"I'll come to Witch-Hollow if you ask me."
+
+"That's ducky of you. You _are_ a good sport, Ricky--and always were! Go
+on and marry her if you can. Other women have stood it.... And, I know
+it's vulgar and low and catty of me--but I'd love to see Mrs. Sprowl
+blow up--and see that hatchet-faced Langly disappointed--yes, I would,
+and I don't care what you think! Their ancestors were common people, and
+Heaven knows why a Wycherly of Wycherly should be afraid of the
+descendants of Dutch rum smugglers!"
+
+Quarren looked up with a weary smile.
+
+"But you are afraid," he said.
+
+"I am," admitted Molly, furiously; and marched out.
+
+As he put her into her car he said:
+
+"Write me if you don't change your mind about asking me to
+Witch-Hollow."
+
+"No fear," said the pretty little woman; "and," she added, "I hope you
+make mischief and raise the very dickens all around. I sincerely hope
+you do!"
+
+"I hope so, too," he said with the ghost of a smile.
+
+[Illustration: "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first
+time in nearly two months."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly
+two months.
+
+
+     "DEAR MR. QUARREN,
+
+     "Molly says that she saw you in town two weeks ago, and that she
+     told you how unexpectedly my worldly affairs have altered since I
+     last wrote to you.
+
+     "For me, somehow or other, life has been always a sequence of
+     abrupt experiences--a series of extremes--one grotesque
+     exaggeration after another, and all diametrically opposed. And it
+     seems odd that such radically material transformations should so
+     ruthlessly disturb and finally, now, end by completely altering the
+     character of a girl whose real nature is--or was--unaccented and
+     serene to the verge of indifference. For the woman writing this is
+     very different from the one you knew as Strelsa Leeds.
+
+     "I am not yet sure what the outcome of this Adamant affair will be.
+     Neither, apparently, are my attorneys. But it is absolutely certain
+     that if I ever recover anything at all, it will not amount to very
+     much--not nearly enough to live on.
+
+     "When they first brought the unpleasant news to me my instinct was
+     to sit down and write you about it. I was horribly scared, and
+     wanted you to know it.
+
+     "I didn't yield to the impulse as you know--I cannot give you the
+     reasons why. They were merely intuitions at first; later they
+     became reasons as my financial situation developed in all its
+     annoying proportions.
+
+     "I can tell you only this: before material disaster threatened me
+     out of a clear sky, supposing that matters would always remain with
+     me as they were--that I should never know any serious want, never
+     apprehend actual necessity--I had made up my mind to a course of
+     life which now has become impossible.
+
+     "It was not, perhaps, a very admirable plan of existence that I had
+     conceived for myself, nothing radical or original. I meant, merely,
+     _not_ to marry, to live well within my income, to divide my time
+     between my friends and myself--that is to give myself more leisure
+     for self-development, tranquil cultivation, and a wider and more
+     serious interest in things worthy.
+
+     "If by dividing my time between my friends and myself I was to lose
+     touch more or less with the lively and rather exacting society in
+     which I live, I had decided on the sacrifice.
+
+     "And that, Mr. Quarren, is how matters stood with me until a month
+     ago.
+
+     "Now everything is altered--even my own character I think. There is
+     in me very little courage--and, alas, much of that cowardice which
+     shrinks from pain and privation of any kind--which cringes the more
+     basely, perhaps, because there has been, in my life, so much of
+     sorrow, so little of material ease and tranquility of mind.
+
+     "I had been dreaming of a balanced and secure life with leisure to
+     develop mental resources hitherto neglected. And your
+     friendship--our new understanding--meant much of that part of life
+     for me--more than I realised--far more than you do. Can you
+     understand how deep the hurt is?--deeper because now you will learn
+     what a coward I really am and how selfishly I surrender to the
+     menace of material destruction. I am in dire terror of it; I simply
+     do not choose to endure it. That I need not submit to it, inspires
+     in me the low type of equanimity that enables me to face the future
+     with apparent courage. My world applauds it as pluck. I have
+     confessed to you what it really is.
+
+     "Now you know me, Mr. Quarren--a preacher of lofty ideals while
+     prosperous, a recreant in adversity.
+
+     "I thought once that the most ignoble sentiments ever entertained
+     by man were those lesser and physical emotions which, in the world,
+     masquerade as love--or as an essential part of it. To me they
+     always seemed intolerable as any part of love, material, unworthy,
+     base. To me love was intellectual--could be nothing less lofty--and
+     should aspire to the spiritual.
+
+     "I say this because you once tried to make me understand that you
+     loved me.
+
+     "Marriage of two minds with nothing material to sully an ideal
+     union was what I had dreamed of. I might have cared for you that
+     way when a marriage tainted with lesser emotions repelled me. And
+     now, like all iconoclasts, I end by shattering my own complacent
+     image, and the fragments have fallen to the lowest depth of all.
+
+     "For I contemplate a mariage de convenance--and I scarcely care
+     whom I marry as long as he removes from me this terror of a sordid
+     and needy future.
+
+     "All ideals, all desire for higher and better things--for a noble
+     leisure and the quiet pleasures of self-development, have
+     gone--vanished utterly. Fear sickens me night and day--the same
+     dull dread that I have known so many, many years in my life--a
+     blind horror of more unhappiness and pain after two years of
+     silence--that breathless stillness which frightened wounded things
+     know while they lie, panting, dazed listening for the coming
+     footsteps of that remorseless Fate which struck them down from
+     afar.
+
+     "I tell you this, Mr. Quarren, because it is due to you if you
+     really love me--or if you once did love me--because when you have
+     read this you will no longer care for me.
+
+     "One evening you made me understand that you cared for me; and I
+     replied to you only by a dazed silence that neither you nor I
+     entirely understood at the time. It was not contempt for you--yet,
+     perhaps, I could not really have cared very deeply for such a man
+     as you then seemed to be. It was not intellectual indifference that
+     silenced me.... And I can say no more about it--except
+     that--something--changed me radically from that moment--and ever
+     since I have been trying to understand myself--to learn something
+     about myself--and of the world I live in--and of men.
+
+     "When a crisis arrives self-revelation comes in a single flash. My
+     financial crisis arrived as you know; I suddenly saw myself as I
+     am--a woman astonishingly undeveloped and ignorant in many ways,
+     crude, unawakened, stupid--a woman half-blinded with an unreasoning
+     dread of more pain--pain which she thought had at last been left
+     behind her--and a coward all through; and selfish from head to
+     heel.
+
+     "This is what I _really_ am. And I shall prove it by marrying for
+     reasons entirely material, because I have no courage to ever again
+     face adversity and unhappiness.
+
+[Illustration: "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the
+battered party in black?'"]
+
+     "You will not care to write to me; and you will not care to see me
+     again.
+
+     "I am glad you once cared for me. If you should ever reply to this
+     letter, don't be very unkind to me. I know what I am--and I vaguely
+     surmise what I shall lose by being so. But I have no courage for
+     anything else.
+
+                                  "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+
+
+That was the letter she wrote to Quarren; and he read it standing by his
+desk while several noisy workmen were covering every available inch of
+his walls with Dankmere's family pictures, and the little Earl himself,
+whistling a lively air, trotted about superintending everything with all
+the cheerful self-confidence of a family dog regulating everything that
+goes on in his vicinity.
+
+"I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the battered party in
+black?" he demanded briskly.
+
+Quarren looked around; "Yes," he said, "they're both by Nicholas Maas
+according to your list."
+
+"_I_ think they're bally fakes," remarked the Earl, "don't you?"
+
+"We'll try to find out," said Quarren, absently.
+
+Dankmere puffed away on his cigar and consulted his list: "Reynolds (Sir
+Joshua). Portrait of Lady Dankmere," he read; "portrait of Sir Boggs
+Dankmere!--string 'em up aloft over that jolly little lady with no frock
+on!--Rembrandt (Van Rijn). Born near Leyden, July 15th, 1607--Oh, who
+cares as long as it _is_ a Rembrandt!--Is it, Quarren? It isn't a copy,
+is it?"
+
+"I hope not," said the young fellow absently.
+
+"Egad! So do I." And to the workmen--"Philemon and Baucis by Rembrandt!
+Hang 'em up next to that Romney--over the Jan Steen ... Quarren?"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Do you think that St. Michael's Mount is a real Turner?"
+
+"It looks like it. I can't express opinions off-hand, Dankmere."
+
+"I can," said the little Earl; "and I say that if that _is_ a Turner I
+can beat it myself working with tomato catsup, an underdone omelette,
+and a clothes-brush.... Hello! I like this picture. The list calls it a
+Watteau--'The Fête Champêtre.' What do you know about it, Quarren?"
+
+"Nothing yet. It seems to be genuine enough."
+
+"And this pretty girl by Boucher?"
+
+"I tell you, Dankmere, that I don't know. They all appear to be genuine,
+after a superficial examination. It takes time to be sure about any
+picture--and if we're going to be certain it will require confabs with
+authorities--restorers, dealers, experts, curators from various
+museums--all sorts and conditions of people must be approached and
+warily consulted--and paid," he added smiling. "And that has to be done
+with circumspection because some are not honest and we don't want
+anybody to get the impression that we are attempting to bribe anybody
+for a favourable verdict."
+
+A few minutes later he went across the street and telegraphed to Molly
+Wycherly:
+
+     "May I remind you that you asked me to Witch-Hollow?
+
+                                         QUARREN."
+
+The following morning after the workmen had departed, he and Dankmere
+stood contemplating the transformations wrought in the office, back
+parlour, and extension of Quarren's floor in the shabby old Lexington
+Avenue house.
+
+The transformation was complete; all woodwork had been painted white, a
+gray-green paper hung on the walls, the floor stained dark brown and
+covered with several antique rugs which had come with the pictures--a
+Fereghan, a Ladik, and an ancient Herez with rose and sapphire lights in
+it.
+
+At the end of the suite hung another relic of Dankmere Tarns--a Gobelins
+tapestry about ten by twelve, signed by Audran, the subject of which was
+Boucher's "Venus, Mars, and Vulcan" from the picture in the Wallace
+Collection. Opposite it was suspended an old Persian carpet of the
+sixteenth century--a magnificent Dankmere heirloom woven in the golden
+age of ancient Eastern art and displaying amid the soft splendour of its
+matchless hues the strange and exquisitely arched cloud-forms traced in
+forgotten dyes amid a wilderness of delicate flowers and vines.
+
+Between these two fabrics, filling the walls from base-board to ceiling,
+were ranged Dankmere's pictures. Few traces of the real-estate office
+remained--merely a desk, letter-file, a shelf piled up with maps, and
+Quarren's shingle outside; but this was now overshadowed by the severely
+magnificent sign:
+
+                     THE DANKMERE GALLERY
+                              OF
+                         OLD MASTERS
+
+             ALGERNON FAYRE, R. S. QUARREN & Co.
+
+For Lord Dankmere, otherwise Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, Earl of
+Dankmere, had decided to dedicate to trade only a portion of his
+aristocratic appellations. As for the company, it consisted of Quarren's
+cat, Daisy, and her litter of unweaned kittens.
+
+"Do you realise," said Quarren, dropping into the depths of a new
+easy-chair, "that you have almost put me out of business?"
+
+"Well, you weren't in very deeply, you know," commented Dankmere.
+
+"No; but last week I went to bed a broker in real estate; and this week
+I wake up a picture dealer and your partner. It's going to take most of
+my time. I can't sell a picture unless I know what it is. I've got to
+find out--or try to. Do you know what that means?"
+
+"I fancy it means chucking your real estate," said Dankmere,
+imperturbably. "Why not? This is a better gamble. And if we make
+anything we ought to make something worth while."
+
+"Do you propose that I shall simply drop my entire business--close up
+everything and go into this thing permanently?" demanded Quarren.
+
+"It will come to that, ultimately. Don't you want to?"
+
+From the beginning Quarren had felt, vaguely, that it would come to
+that--realised instinctively that in such an enterprise he would be on
+solid ground--that the idea was pleasant to him--that his tastes fitted
+him for such an occupation. Experience was lacking, but, somehow, his
+ignorance did not dismay him.
+
+All his life he had cared for such things, been familiar with them, been
+curious to learn more, had read enough to understand something of the
+fascinating problems now confronting him, had, in his hours of leisure,
+familiarised himself with the best of art in the public and private
+galleries of the city.
+
+More than that a natural inclination and curiosity had led him among
+dealers, restorers, brokers of pictures. He knew them all from Fifth
+Avenue to Lexington, the celebrated and the obscure; he had heard them
+talk, heard the gossip and scandal of their curious world, watched them
+buying, selling, restoring, relining, reframing; listened to their
+discussions concerning their art and the art in which they dealt. And it
+had always fascinated him although, until Dankmere arrived, it had never
+occurred to him to make a living out of a heterogeneous mass of partly
+assimilated knowledge acquired from the sheer love of the subject.
+
+Fortunate the man whose means of livelihood is also his pleasure! Deep
+in his heart lies the unconscious contentment of certainty.
+
+And somehow, with the advent of Dankmere's pictures, into Quarren's
+troubled heart had come a vague sensation of ease--a cessation of the
+old anxiety and unrest--a quiet that he had never before known.
+
+To learn what his wares really were seemed no formidable task; to
+appreciate and appraise each one only little labours of love. Every
+problem appeared to him as a separate attraction; the disposal of his
+stock a delightful and leisurely certainty because he himself would be
+certain of what he dealt in.
+
+Then, too, his mind had long since invaded a future which day by day
+grew more alluring in its suggestions. He himself would learn the
+practical and manual art of restoration--learn how to clean, reline,
+revarnish; how to identify, how to dissect. Every thread of an ancient
+canvas should tell him a true story; every grain in an old panel. He
+would be chief surgeon in his hospital for old and decrepit
+masterpieces; he would "cradle" with his own hands--clear the opacity
+from time-dimmed beauty with savant touch, knit up tenderly the wounds
+of ages----
+
+"Dankmere," he said, throwing away his cigarette, "I'm going into this
+business from this minute; and I would like to die in harness, at the
+end, the companion, surgeon, and friend of old-time pictures. Do you
+think I can make a living at it?"
+
+"God knows. Do you mean that you're really keen on it?"
+
+"Dead keen."
+
+Dankmere puffed on his cigar: "A chap usually makes out pretty well when
+he's a bit keen on anything of sorts. You'll be owning the gallery,
+next, you infernal Yankee!"
+
+Quarren laughed: "I won't forget that you gave me my first real chance
+in the world. You've done it, too; do you realise it, Dankmere?"
+
+"Very glad I'm sure."
+
+"So am I!" said Quarren with sudden emphasis. "I believe I'm on the
+right track now. I believe it's in me--in my heart--to work--to
+_work_!"--he laughed--"as the old chronicles say, 'To the glory of God
+and the happiness of self and mankind.' ... I'm grateful to you; do you
+understand?"
+
+"Awf'lly glad, old chap."
+
+"You funny Englishman--I believe you are.... And we'll make this thing
+go. Down comes my real-estate shingle; I'm a part of the Dankmere
+Galleries now. I'll rent the basement after our first sale and there
+you and I will fuss and tinker and doctor and nurse any poor old
+derelict of a picture back to its pristine beauty. What?"
+
+"Not I," said the little Earl. "All I'm good for is to furnish the
+initial stock. You may do what you please with it, and we'll share
+profits according to contract. Further than that, Quarren, you'll have
+to count me out."
+
+"Don't you care for pictures?"
+
+"I prefer horses," said the Earl drily--"and, after the stable and
+kennel, my taste inclines toward Vaudeville." And he cocked up one
+little leg over the other and whistled industriously at a waltz which he
+was attempting to compose. He possessed a high, maddening, soprano
+whistle which Quarren found painful to endure; and he was glad when his
+lordship departed, jauntily twirling his walking-stick and taking fancy
+dance steps as far as the front door.
+
+Left alone Quarren leaned back in his chair resting his head against the
+new olive-tinted velvet.
+
+He had nothing to do but sit there and gaze at the pictures and wait for
+an answer to his telegram.
+
+It came about dusk and he lighted the gas to read it:
+
+     "Come up to Witch-Hollow to-morrow.
+
+                             "MARIE WYCHERLY."
+
+
+
+He could not leave until he had planned for work to go on during his
+absence. First he arranged with Valasco to identify as nearly as
+possible, and to appraise, the French and Italian pictures. Then he made
+an arrangement with Van Boschoven for the Dutch and Flemish; secured
+Drayton-Quinn for the English; and warned Dankmere not to bother or
+interfere with these temperamental and irascible gentlemen while in
+exercise of their professional duties.
+
+"Don't whistle, don't do abrupt skirt-dances, don't sing comic songs,
+don't obscure the air with cigar smoke, don't go to sleep on the sofa
+and snore, don't drink fizzes and rattle the ice in your glass----"
+
+"My God!" faltered his lordship, "do you mind if I breathe now and
+then?"
+
+"I'll be away a few days--Valasco is slow, and the others take their
+time. Let anybody come in who wants to, but don't sell anything until
+the experts report to me in writing----"
+
+"Suppose some chap rushes in with ten thousand----"
+
+"No!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Certainly not. Chaps who rush in with any serious money at all will
+rush in again all the faster if you make them wait. Don't sell a
+picture--not even to Valasco or any of the experts----"
+
+"Suppose a charming lady----"
+
+"Now you understand, don't you? I wouldn't think of selling a single
+canvas until I have their reports and have made up my own mind that
+they're as nearly right as any expert can be who didn't actually see the
+artist paint the picture. The only trustworthy expert is the man who saw
+the picture painted--if you can believe his word."
+
+"But my dear Quarren," protested Dankmere, seriously bewildered--"how
+could any living expert ever have seen an artist, who died two hundred
+years ago, paint anything?"
+
+"Right," said Quarren solemnly; "the point is keenly taken. Ergo, there
+_are_ no real experts, only guessers. When Valasco _et al_ finish their
+guessing, I'll guess how near they have guessed correctly. Good-bye....
+You _will_ be good, won't you, Dankmere?"
+
+"No fear. I'll keep my weather eye on the shop. Do you want me to sleep
+here?"
+
+"You'd better, I think. But don't have rowdy parties here, will you? And
+don't wander away and leave the door open. By George! I believe I'd
+better stay----"
+
+"Rot! Go on and take your vacation, old chap! Back in a week?"
+
+"Yes; or any time you wire me----"
+
+"Not I. I'll have a jolly time by myself."
+
+"Don't have too many men here in the evening. The smoke will get into
+those new curtains----"
+
+Dankmere, in his trousers and undershirt, stretched on the divan,
+laughed and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. Then, reaching forth
+he took a palm-leaf fan in one hand, a tall, frosty glass in the other,
+and applied both in a manner from which he could extract the most
+benefit.
+
+"Bon voyage!" he nodded to Quarren. "My duties and compliments and all
+that--and pick me out an heiress of sorts--there's a good fellow----"
+
+As Quarren went out he heard his lordship burst forth into his
+distressing whistle; and he left him searching piercingly for
+inspiration to complete his "Coster's Hornpipe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the train Quarren bought the evening papers; and the first item that
+met his eye was a front-page column devoted to the Dankmere Galleries.
+Every paper had broken out into glaring scare-heads announcing the
+recent despoiling of Dankmere Tarns and the venture into trade of
+Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, tenth Earl of Dankmere. The majority of
+papers were facetious, one or two scathing, but the more respectable
+journals managed to repress a part of their characteristic antagonism
+and report the matter with a minimum of venom and a rather exhaustive
+historical accompaniment:
+
+
+             "POOR PEERS EAGER TO SELL HEIRLOOMS
+
+        "LORD DANKMERE'S CASE SAID TO BE ONE OF DOZENS
+                AMONG THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY
+
+                   "GAMBLING SPIRIT BLAMED
+
+      "OBSERVERS ASCRIBE POVERTY OF OLD BRITISH FAMILIES
+           TO THIS CAUSE--MANY RENT ROLLS DECLARED
+                       TO BE MORTGAGED
+
+     "The opening of the so-called Dankmere galleries on Lexington
+     Avenue will bring into the lime-light once more a sprightly though
+     somewhat world-battered little Peer recently and disastrously
+     connected with the stage and its feminine adjuncts.
+
+     "The Dankmere galleries blossom in a shabby old house flanked on
+     one side by a Chop-Suey restaurant haunted of celestials, and on
+     the other by an undertaker's establishment displaying the following
+     enterprising sign: Mortem's Popular $50 Funerals! Bury Your Family
+     at Attractive Prices!
+
+                      "GAMBLING DID IT!
+
+     "Gambling usually lands the British Peer on his aristocratic
+     uppers. But in this case gambolling behind the footlights is
+     responsible for the present display of the Dankmere family pictures
+     in the converted real-estate offices of young Mr. Quarren of
+     cotillion fame.
+
+     "Among supposedly well-to-do English nobles the need for ready cash
+     so frequently reaches the acute stage that all manner of schemes
+     are readily resorted to in an effort to 'raise the wind.'
+
+     "Lord Dankmere openly admits that had he supposed any valuable
+     'junk' lay concealed in the attics of his mansion, he would,
+     without hesitation, have converted it into ready money long before
+     this.
+
+     "Lord Dankmere's case is only one typical of dozens of others among
+     the exclusive and highly placed of Mayfair. It is a known fact that
+     since the sale of the Capri Madonna (Titian) for $350,000 to the
+     British Government, by special act of Parliament, Daffydill Palace
+     has gradually been unloaded of all treasures not tied by the entail
+     to the estate. For the same sum ($350,000) the late Earl of
+     Blitherington disposed of his famous Library and the sale of the
+     library was known to be necessary for the provision of living funds
+     for the incoming heir. Just recently the Duke of Putney, reputed to
+     be a man of vast wealth, had a difficulty with a dealer concerning
+     the sale of some of his treasures.
+
+     "Such cases may be justified by circumstances. The general public
+     hears, however, of only a few isolated cases. The number of private
+     deals that are executed, week in, week out, between impoverished
+     members of the highest nobility--some of them bound, like Lord
+     Blitherington and the Duke of Putney by close official ties to the
+     Court--and the agents of either new-rich Britishers or wealthy
+     Americans has reached its maximum, and by degrees unentailed
+     treasures and heirlooms are passing from owners of many centuries
+     to families that were unheard of a dozen years ago.
+
+                      "THE AWFUL YANKEE
+
+     "The American is given priority in the matter of purchase, not only
+     because he pays more, as a rule, but also for the reason that the
+     transfer of his prize to the United States removes the possibility
+     of noble sellers being pestered with awkward questions by the
+     inquisitive. For, however unostentatiously home deals are made and
+     transfers effected, society soon learns the facts. So hard up,
+     however, has the better-known aristocracy become, and so willing
+     are they to trade at fancy sums to anxious purchasers, that several
+     curio dealers in the St. James's quarter hold unlimited power of
+     attorney to act for plutocratic American principals either in the
+     United States or in this country.
+
+     "Those who are reasonably entitled to explain the cause of this
+     poverty among old families, whose landed estates are unimpaired in
+     acreage at least, and whose inheritance was of respectable
+     proportions, declare that not since the eighteenth century has the
+     gambling spirit so persistently invaded the inside coteries of high
+     society. The desire to acquire riches quickly seems to have taken
+     hold of the erstwhile staid and conventional upper ten, just as it
+     has seized upon the smart set. The recent booms in oil and rubber
+     have had the effect of transferring many a comfortable rent roll
+     from its owner's bankers--milady's just as often as milord's--to
+     the chartered mortgagors of the financial world. The panic in
+     America in 1907 showed to what extent the English nobility was
+     interested, not only in gilt-edged securities, but also to what
+     degree it was involved in wildcat finance. The directing geniuses
+     of many of the suspect ventures of to-day in London are often the
+     possessors of names that are writ rubric in the pages of Debrett
+     and Burke.
+
+     "According to a London radical paper, there are at present over a
+     score of estates in the auction mart which must soon pass from some
+     of the bluest-blooded nobles in Great Britain to men whose fortunes
+     have grown in the past few years from the humblest beginnings, a
+     fact which itself cannot fail to change both the tone and
+     constitution of town and country society."
+
+Quarren read every column, grimly, to the end, wincing when he
+encountered some casual reference to himself and his recent social
+activities. Then, lips compressed, boyish gaze fixed on the passing
+landscape, he sat brooding until at last the conductor opened the door
+and shouted the name of his station.
+
+The Wycherlys' new place, Witch-Hollow, a big rambling farm among the
+Connecticut hills, was only three hours from New York, and half an hour
+by automobile from the railroad. The buildings were wooden and not new;
+a fashionable architect had made the large house "colonially" endurable
+with furnaces and electricity as well as with fan-lights and fluted
+pilasters.
+
+Most of the land remained wild--weed-grown pastures, hard-wood ridges,
+neglected orchards planted seventy years ago. Molly Wycherly had ordered
+a brand new old-time garden to be made for her overlooking the wide,
+unruffled river; also a series of sylvan paths along the wooded shores
+of the hill-set lake which was inhabited by bass placed there by orders
+of her husband.
+
+"For Heaven's sake," he said to his wife, "don't try to knock any
+antiquity into the place; I'm sick of fine old ancestral halls put up by
+building-loan associations. Plenty of paint and varnish for mine, Molly,
+and a few durable iron fountains and bronze stags on the lawn----"
+
+"No, Jim," she said firmly.
+
+So he ordered an aeroplane, a herd of sheep, a shepherd, and two
+tailless sheep-dogs, and made plans to spend most of his vacation
+yachting, when he did not spend it in town.
+
+But he was restlessly domiciled at Witch-Hollow, now, and he met Quarren
+at the station in a bright purple runabout which he drove like
+lightning, one hand on the steering wheel, the other carelessly waving
+toward the streaky landscape in affable explanation of the various
+points of interest.
+
+"Quite a little colony of us up here, Quarren," he said. "I don't know
+why anybody picked out this silly country for estates, but Langly Sprowl
+started a stud farm over yonder, and then poor Chester Ledwith built a
+house for his wife in the middle of a thousand acres, over there where
+you see those maple woods!--and then people began to come and pick up
+worn-out farms and make 'em into fine old family places--Lester
+Caldera's model dairies are behind that hill; and that leather-headed
+O'Hara has a bungalow somewhere--and there's a sort of Hunt Club, too,
+and a bum pack of Kiyi's----"
+
+The wind tore most of his speech from his lips and whirled it out of
+earshot: Quarren caught a word now and then which interested him. It
+also interested him to observe how Wycherly shaved annihilation at every
+turn of the road.
+
+"I've asked some men to bring up their biplanes and have a few flies on
+me," continued his host--"I've a 'Stinger' monoplane and a Kent biplane
+myself. I can't get any more sensation out of motoring. I'd as soon
+wheel twins in a go-cart."
+
+Quarren saw him cleverly avoid death with one hand, and laughed.
+
+"Who is stopping with you up here?" he shouted close to Wycherly's ear.
+
+"Nobody--Mrs. Leeds, Chrysos Lacy, and Sir Charles. There are some few
+neighbours, too--Langly is mousing and prowling about; and that poor
+Ledwith man is all alone in his big house--fixing to get out of it so
+his wife can move in from Reno when she's ready for more mischief....
+Here we are, Quarren! Your stuff will be in your rooms in a few minutes.
+There's my wife, now----"
+
+He waved his hand to Molly but let Quarren go forward alone while he
+started across the fields toward his hangar where, in grotesque and
+vicious-looking immobility, reposed his new winged pet, the little
+Stinger monoplane, wings set as wickedly as an alert wasp's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged
+walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger
+across her lips conjuring caution.
+
+"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't
+suppose the child could possibly object."
+
+Quarren's features stiffened:
+
+"Does she?"
+
+"Why--this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and
+Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she
+had left."
+
+"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.
+
+"I really don't know, Ricky----"
+
+"Yes, you do. What has happened?"
+
+"You're certainly rude enough----"
+
+"What has happened, Molly?"
+
+"I don't know for certain, I tell you.... Langly Sprowl has been roving
+around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together
+nearly every day."
+
+"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?"
+
+"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles."
+
+"Do you believe that?"
+
+"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly has persuaded her into
+some sort of a tacit engagement.... I don't know what the child can be
+thinking of--unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has
+convinced her of his martyrdom.... There'll be a pretty situation when
+Mary Ledwith returns.... I could kill Langly--" She doubled both pretty
+hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she
+placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the
+top step deliberately kissed him.
+
+[Illustration: "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she
+whispered."]
+
+"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad
+you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and
+your new enterprise!--I laughed and laughed!--forgive me, but the papers
+were so funny--and I couldn't help laughing----"
+
+Quarren forced a smile.
+
+"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command
+a good deal of respect sooner or later."
+
+"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?"
+
+"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before
+you and Jim try to buy the entire collection."
+
+"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed
+Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly
+and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a
+bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache
+before your appearance adds another distressing jolt."
+
+"Has she had another shock recently?"
+
+"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for
+her."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and
+even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's
+a ghastly scandal--the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you
+suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!"
+
+They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived
+and a valet was busy unpacking for him.
+
+"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for
+tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it--except
+that little girl over there"--pointing along the corridor to a distant
+door.
+
+He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too
+soon."
+
+So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains,
+Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly,
+Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and
+headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of
+his guests.
+
+Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed
+setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to
+lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet.
+
+Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels
+and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break
+in--a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor
+blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair.
+
+"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his
+tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes.
+
+"We're out of the running, we two--aren't we?" he added. "You try very
+pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more
+hopeless race.... For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the
+race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy
+heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure
+and senseless gold."
+
+He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer
+was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear
+waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks.
+
+Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the
+Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions--among others the
+new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so
+marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any
+of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms
+resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him
+enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been
+so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that
+Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of
+strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or
+the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his
+heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea,
+syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where
+scores of frail and frivolous strangers nodded amid anæmic leaves, or
+where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun,
+seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per
+dozen.
+
+He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the
+sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered
+wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too
+closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions.
+
+Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering
+between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently
+rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the
+rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper
+which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks.
+There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she
+looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward
+the hand he offered.
+
+"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession.
+
+"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?"
+
+"Yes. Have you just arrived?"
+
+"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys'
+new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather
+pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?"
+
+She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he
+saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the
+lashes.
+
+[Illustration: "So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp
+curve."]
+
+He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on
+the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths;
+where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still
+waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass.
+
+No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled
+it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense
+calm.
+
+"Are you--offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the
+water.
+
+"Of course not!" he replied cordially.
+
+She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence.
+
+"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably.
+
+"Did you receive my letter?"
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"You did not answer it."
+
+"I didn't know how--then."
+
+His reply seemed to perplex her--so did his light and effortless
+good-humour.
+
+"I know how to answer it now," he added.
+
+She forced a smile:
+
+"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late
+seldom dares start.... I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me
+to be seated?"
+
+She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took
+the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter."
+
+"Really, Mr. Quarren----"
+
+"Don't you want me to?"
+
+"I--don't think--it matters, now----"
+
+"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing.
+
+She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been
+instantly conscious--he had changed since she had seen him--changed
+radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air
+suggesting assurance--an individuality which had not heretofore clearly
+distinguished him--a hidden hint of strength. Or was she
+mistaken--abashed--remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour
+of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing
+to him what she had written.
+
+She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain
+unanswered."
+
+"You think I'm too late?"
+
+She looked at him steadily:
+
+"Yes, you are too late--in every sense."
+
+"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying
+glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to
+nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never
+yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that
+letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are
+going to learn some day what tragedy really is."
+
+"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make
+me take you seriously?"
+
+"I certainly am."
+
+"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed.
+
+"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have
+_got_ to take me seriously."
+
+She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now
+gaily maintained the lighter vein:
+
+"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen
+and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I
+suppose."
+
+"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist
+rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!"--he held out to
+her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what _is_ it?"
+
+"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving
+picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent
+blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"
+
+The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given
+name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning
+silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so
+frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight
+sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain,
+inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean.
+
+"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.
+
+"How can I deny it?--with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll
+lend you some witch-hazel----"
+
+"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic,"
+he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."
+
+"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."
+
+"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a
+handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."
+
+She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."
+
+"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"
+
+"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray
+eyes--a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to
+her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched
+his shoulder.
+
+She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:
+
+"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it
+wants to?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+He went on: "I mean when _you_ want it to be. Because it's really up to
+you."
+
+"To _me_, my slangy friend?"
+
+"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."
+
+This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and
+she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.
+
+"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.
+
+"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"Is that a reason?"--very gravely.
+
+"You can make it so if you will."
+
+She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:
+
+"You say that you always think of me--that way. But I'm afraid that,
+even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed
+you to the use of it."
+
+"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"
+
+"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to
+give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of,
+don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation----"
+
+"Strelsa----"
+
+"No!--please."
+
+"When?"
+
+She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr.
+Quarren?"
+
+"Not unless you do."
+
+"I? What do you mean?"
+
+"Will you answer me honestly?"
+
+"Have you ever found me dishonest?"
+
+"Sometimes--with yourself."
+
+Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head
+abruptly. After a few moments' silence:
+
+"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.
+
+"Then--do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"
+
+She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to
+avoid it.
+
+"I think of my friends--and you among them."
+
+"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"
+
+"I--your friends--people are eternally dinning your name into my
+ears----"
+
+"Please answer."
+
+"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to
+know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick--whatever they call you?"
+
+"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in
+sheer exasperation.
+
+"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I
+made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you--when I happen
+to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you
+that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend----"
+
+"Won't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Some day?"
+
+"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like
+it. It would be forced, artificial--an effort--and I don't
+desire--wish--care----"
+
+"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child!
+Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the
+pronunciation of my name?"
+
+Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man
+beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes
+were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became
+acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in
+touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent
+impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these
+months, the same strange sensation passed through her--a thrilling
+consciousness of his nearness.
+
+Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his
+slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.
+
+He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her,
+then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she
+saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought
+might be.
+
+He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of
+individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite
+specimen known to you as _Mister_ Quarren?"
+
+She smiled, uncertainly:
+
+"But I _don't_ reject you, _Mister_ Quarren."
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."
+
+"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."
+
+"I've got to climb over it then----"
+
+"I don't wish you to!"
+
+"Strelsa?"
+
+"W-what?"
+
+"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"
+
+"I--I don't know what you mean."
+
+"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.
+
+"Please don't say such things----"
+
+"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that
+kind of a wall remain between us----"
+
+"I ask you not to talk about such----"
+
+"You _wouldn't_," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why
+such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you
+that he cares----"
+
+"Please--if you please--I had rather not----"
+
+"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather
+plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you--I don't know how much,
+yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap
+up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously
+he is in love with the unknown on the other side."
+
+He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite
+thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended
+along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every
+nerve in her body.
+
+"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other
+side of that barrier--your unknown self, Strelsa--undiscovered as yet by
+me----"
+
+Her lips moved mechanically:
+
+"I wrote you--_told_ you what I am."
+
+"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know
+yourself----"
+
+"I do. I _am_ what I wrote you."
+
+"Partly perhaps--partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a
+sequence of blows----"
+
+"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of
+my life!--But those would not count--if I were not selfish, dishonest,
+and a coward."
+
+His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure
+left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually
+the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange
+sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and
+motionless, looking down at the still lake below.
+
+"What _is_ the barrier?" he asked quietly.
+
+"There is no barrier to your friendship--if you care to offer it, now
+that you know me."
+
+"But I _don't_ know you. And I care for more than your friendship even
+after the glimpse I have had of you."
+
+"I--care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"_Could_ you ever care for more?"
+
+"No.... I don't wish to.... There _is_ nothing higher."
+
+"_Could_ you--if there were?"
+
+But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light
+weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new
+senses that his touch had discovered so long ago--and which had
+slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless
+relaxation, this lassitude which was becoming almost painful--or
+sweet--she did not understand which--was this also a part of friendship?
+Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy?--this
+deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening
+her pulses, her even breathing--menacing the delicate nerves in her hand
+so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering----
+
+She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a
+little quick indrawn breath.
+
+"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly--scarcely knowing
+what she was saying.
+
+"What, Strelsa?"
+
+"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would."
+
+Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face
+became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully:
+
+"I'm going to fight for you all the same."
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, crisply.
+
+"Fight hard, too," he added. "I'm on my mettle at last."
+
+"You have no chance, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"With--_him_?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at
+all----"
+
+"I don't care to hear you speak that way!" she said, hotly.
+
+"Oh, I won't. A man's an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn't even
+thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you--with your unknown self
+behind that barrier. _Garde à vous!_"
+
+"I decline the combat, Monsieur," she said, trying to speak lightly.
+
+"Oh, I'm not afraid of _you_--the _visible_ you that I'm looking at and
+which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will
+fight me openly, fairly--and I have an even chance to win----"
+
+"Do you think so?" she said, lip between her teeth.
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I do.... But it's your unknown self I'm afraid of, Strelsa. God alone
+knows what it may do to both of us."
+
+"There is no other self! What do you mean?"
+
+"There are _two_ others--not this intellectual, friendly, kindly,
+visible self that offers friendship and accepts it--not even the occult,
+aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray
+eyes----"
+
+"There _is_ no other!" she said, flushing and rising to her feet.
+
+"Is it dead?"
+
+"It never lived!"
+
+"Then," he said coolly, "it will be born as sure as I stand here!--born
+to complete the trinity." He glanced out over the lake, then swung
+around sharply: "You are wrong. It _has_ been born. And that unknown
+self is hostile to me; and I know it!"
+
+They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she
+said: "I think we have talked some nonsense. Don't you?"
+
+"_You_ haven't."
+
+"You're a generous boy; do you know it?"
+
+"You say so."
+
+"Oh, I'll cheerfully admit it. If you weren't you'd detest me--perhaps
+despise me."
+
+"Men don't detest or despise a hurt and frightened child."
+
+"But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of
+her?"
+
+"I don't know," he said. "Whatever you are I can't help loving you."
+
+She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a
+while when she could control her lips she said:
+
+"I want to talk some more to you--and I don't know how; I don't even
+know what I want to say except that--that----"
+
+"What, Strelsa?"
+
+"Please be--kind to me." She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered.
+
+He said after a moment: "I couldn't be anything else."
+
+"Are you very sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It means a great deal to me," she said.
+
+They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea
+was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for
+tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got
+them in chunks and bolted them, wagging.
+
+An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she
+wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke:
+
+"Ricky dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Am I an angel or otherwise?"
+
+"Angel always--but why particularly at this instant?"
+
+"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?"
+
+"Yes--you corker!"
+
+"Well, then!"
+
+"Molly, I worship you."
+
+"_Et après?_"
+
+"I'll double that! I adore you also!"
+
+"Content! What are you two doing?"
+
+"Strelsa and I have been taking tea."
+
+"Oh, is it 'Strelsa' already?"
+
+"Very unwillingly on her part."
+
+"It isn't 'Ricky,' too, is it?"
+
+"Alas! not yet!"
+
+"No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. _What_ do you
+think I've done, very cleverly?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the
+way to North Linden. We can't possibly get back until dinner. But that's
+not all."
+
+"What more, most wonderful of women?"
+
+"I've got _him_ with us," she said with satisfaction. "I made Jim stop
+and pick him up. I _knew_ he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I
+made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some
+fool horses at Acremont that he couldn't wriggle out of it particularly
+as Strelsa is my guest and he's rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky,
+make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I
+couldn't avoid asking him."
+
+"Very well," said Quarren grimly.
+
+He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in
+her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure.
+
+"What had Molly to say to _you_ all that time?" she asked.
+
+"Was I long away?"
+
+"Yes, you were!"
+
+"I'm delighted you found the time too long----"
+
+"I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly
+how time flies with you and Molly.... Oh, dear! _Is_ that a mosquito?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is," said Quarren.
+
+"Then indoors I go!" exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. "You may come with
+me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated."
+
+And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen
+door.
+
+Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window
+late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory.
+
+"I wonder if there's enough of this celestial radiance to make a new
+aureole for you?" he said.
+
+"So my old one is worn out, is it?"
+
+"I meant to offer you a _double_ halo."
+
+"You do say sweet things--for a rather obstinate young man," she said,
+flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through
+the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano.
+Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative:
+
+"Please lean on the piano." He did so, inquiringly.
+
+"Otherwise," she said, "you'd have attempted to seat yourself on this
+bench; and there isn't room for both of us without crowding."
+
+"If you moved a little----"
+
+"But I won't," she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the
+key-board.
+
+She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant,
+careless, but acceptable barytone.
+
+"The old ones are the best," she commented, running lightly through a
+medley ranging from "The Mikado" to "Erminie," the "Black Hussar," and
+"The Mascotte." They sang the "gobble duet" from the latter fairly well:
+
+                           _She._
+
+               "When on your manly form I gaze
+             A sense of pleasure passes o'er me";
+
+                            _He._
+
+              "The murmured music of your voice
+              Is sweeter far than liquid honey!"
+
+And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her
+turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing.
+
+[Illustration: "'The old ones are best.' she commented."]
+
+Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing "Johnny
+Schmoker" with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal
+refrain:
+
+                     "Kanst du spielen?"
+
+and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by
+that Teutonic musician.
+
+"I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless,
+pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things," she exclaimed; and did
+so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of
+sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the
+key-board with his own.
+
+She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise.
+
+"Very well," she said; "you'll have to match my performance with
+something equally imbecile"; and she composed herself to listen.
+
+"What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?" he asked gravely; "turn
+seven solemn handsprings?"
+
+"That isn't silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead."
+
+He prepared to do so but she wouldn't permit him:
+
+"No! I don't want to remember you doing such a thing.... All the same I
+believe _you_ could do it and not lose--lose----"
+
+"Dignity?"
+
+"No--I don't know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you
+to do something silly."
+
+"Shall I say it or do it?"
+
+"Either."
+
+"Then I'll recite something very, very precious--subtly, intricately,
+and psychologically precious."
+
+"Oh, please do!"
+
+"It's--it's about a lover."
+
+She blushed.
+
+"Do you mind?"
+
+"You _are_ the limit! Of course I don't!"
+
+"It's about a lady, too."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"And love--rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love."
+
+"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of
+malice in her smile.
+
+"All right. The title is: '_Oh, Love! Oh, Why?_'"
+
+"A perfectly good title," she said gravely. "I alway says 'why?' to
+Love."
+
+So he bowed to her and began very seriously:
+
+    "Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!
+    Wait for a moment while I relate
+    A harrowing tragedy up to date
+            Of innate Hate.
+
+    "A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair;
+    Her store-curls stirred in the summer air;
+    An amorous Fly espied her there,
+            So rare and fair.
+
+    "Before she knew where she was at,
+    He'd kissed the maiden where she sat,
+    And she batted him one which slapped him flat
+            Ker-spat! Like that!
+
+    "Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye!
+    Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By,
+    Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly.
+            Oh, Love! Oh, Why?"
+
+She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:
+
+"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can't endure the realism of that
+spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge
+headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?"
+
+Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood
+changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among
+the keys, striking vague harmonies.
+
+He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and
+after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.
+
+A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink,
+lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world
+outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which
+only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.
+
+She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the
+alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even
+when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a
+moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive
+lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.
+
+Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught
+her slender hand:
+
+"No!--please. Let me go! This is too serious--even if we did not mean
+it----"
+
+"You know I mean it," he said simply.
+
+"You must not! You understand why!... And don't--again! I am not--I do
+not choose to--to allow--endure--such--things----"
+
+He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking
+at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.
+
+"Please!" she repeated--and "please!" And she came toward him a step,
+and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.
+
+"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to
+me--and let me go."
+
+"Am I unkind?"
+
+"Yes--yes! You know--you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I
+_am_ going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me--not for one
+moment!"
+
+"Check you from what, Strelsa?"
+
+"From--what I want out of life!--tranquillity, ease, security,
+happiness----"
+
+"Happiness?"
+
+"Yes--yes! It _will_ be that! I don't need anything except what I shall
+have. I don't want anything else. Can't you understand? Do you think
+women feel as--as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men
+experience is also experienced by women? I don't want it; I don't
+require it! I've--I've always had a contempt for it--and I have
+still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any
+man--friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can't you
+take it--and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find
+security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my
+friendship--as long as I never swerve in it--as long as I hold you first
+among my friends--first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer
+you--I will not! Now let me go!"
+
+"Your _other_ self, fighting me," he said, half to himself.
+
+"No, _I_ am! What do you mean by my other self! There _is_ no other----"
+
+"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"
+
+She blushed scarlet:
+
+"Is _that_ what you mean!--the stupid, unworthy, material self----"
+
+"The trinity is incomplete without it."
+
+She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly
+as though frightened.
+
+After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat
+pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:
+
+"I'm not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is
+lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being
+poor makes no difference either. I simply don't care--I don't even care
+what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each
+other--whether you think so or not. And you evidently don't, but I can't
+help that. If I'm any good I'll make you think as I do----"
+
+He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms
+and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows
+slightly knitted.
+
+Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot
+in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened
+under his cheeks.
+
+"_Can't_ you care?" he said, half to himself.
+
+She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and
+almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely
+she felt that what had been there was now dead--that she never could
+respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free
+forever.
+
+"_Can't_ you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again,
+turning toward her.
+
+"Is _that_ your idea of love?"
+
+He shook his head, hopelessly:
+
+"Oh, it's everything else, too--everything on earth--and
+afterward--everything--mind, soul and body--birth, life, death--sky and
+land and sea--everything that is or was or will be----"
+
+His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked--looked up
+at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes.
+
+"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity--more than
+for love; do you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+"Yes. Because, unless you mean friendship, I care nothing for love."
+
+"That is your answer."
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then there _is_ something lacking in you."
+
+"Perhaps. I have never loved in the manner you mean. I do not wish to.
+Perhaps I am incapable of it.... I hope I am; I believe--I believe--"
+But she fell silent, standing with eyes lowered and the warm blood once
+more stinging her cheeks.
+
+Presently she looked up, calm, level-eyed:
+
+"I think you had better ask my forgiveness before you go."
+
+He shrugged:
+
+"Yes, I'll ask it if you like."
+
+To keep her composure became difficult:
+
+"It is your affair, Mr. Quarren--if you still care to preserve our
+friendship."
+
+"Would a kiss shatter it?"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"A look, a word, the quiver of an eyelash is enough."
+
+"It doesn't seem to be very solidly founded, does it?"
+
+"Friendship is the frailest thing in the world--and the mightiest.... I
+am waiting for your decision."
+
+He walked up to her again, and she steeled herself, not knowing what to
+expect.
+
+"Will you marry me, Strelsa?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I have told Mr. Sprowl that I will marry him."
+
+"Also because you don't love me; is that so?"
+
+She said tranquilly: "I can't afford to marry you. I wouldn't love you
+anyway."
+
+"Couldn't?"
+
+"Wouldn't," she said calmly; but her face was crimson.
+
+"Oh," he said under his breath--"you _are_ capable of love."
+
+"I think not, Mr. Quarren; but I am very capable of hate."
+
+And, looking up, he saw it for an instant, clear in her eyes. Then it
+died out; she turned a trifle pale, walked to the window and stood
+leaning against it, one hand on the curtain.
+
+She did not seem to hear him when he came up behind her, and he touched
+her lightly on the arm:
+
+"I ask your forgiveness," he said.
+
+"It is granted, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Have I ruined our friendship?"
+
+"I don't know what you have done," she said wearily.
+
+A few moments later the motor arrived; Quarren turned on the electric
+lights in the room; Strelsa walked across to the piano and seated
+herself.
+
+She was playing rag-time when the motor party entered; Quarren came
+forward and shook hands with Chrysos Lacy and Sir Charles; Langly Sprowl
+passed him with a short nod, saying "How are you, Quarren?"--and kept
+straight on to Strelsa.
+
+"Rotten luck," he said in his full, careless voice; "I'd meant to ride
+over and chance a gallop with you but Wycherly picked me up and started
+on one of his break-neck tears.... What have you been up to all day?"
+
+"Nothing--Mr. Quarren came."
+
+"I see--showed him about, I expect."
+
+"A--little."
+
+"Are you feeling fit, Strelsa?"
+
+"Perfectly.... Why?"
+
+"You look a bit streaky----"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"'Pon my word you do--a bit under the weather, you know----"
+
+"Woman's only friend and protector--a headache," she said, gaily
+rattling off more rag-time. "Where did you go, Langly?"
+
+"To look over some silly horses----"
+
+"They're fine nags!" remonstrated Molly--"and I was perfectly sure that
+Langly would buy half a dozen."
+
+"Not I," said that hatchet-faced young man; and into his sleek and
+restless features came a glimmer of shrewdness--the sly thrift that
+lurks in the faces of those who bargain much and wisely in petty wares.
+It must have been a momentary ancestral gleam from his rum-smuggling
+ancestors, for Langly Sprowl had never dealt in little things.
+
+Chrysos Lacy was saying: "It's adorable to see you again, Ricky. What
+_is_ this we hear about you and Lord Dankmere setting up shop?"
+
+"It's true," he laughed. "Come in and buy an old master, Chrysos, at
+bargain prices."
+
+"I shall insist on Jim buying several," said Molly.
+
+Her husband laughed derisively:
+
+"When I can buy a perfectly good Wright biplane for the same money? Come
+to earth, Molly!"
+
+"You'll come to earth if you go sky-skating around the clouds in that
+horrid little Stinger, Jim," she said. "Why couldn't _you_ take out the
+Stinger for a little exercise?"--turning to Sprowl.
+
+"I'm going to," said Sprowl in his full penetrating voice, not conscious
+that it required courage to risk a flight with the Stinger. Nobody had
+ever imputed any lack of that sort of courage to Langly Sprowl. He
+simply did not understand bodily fear.
+
+Strelsa glanced up at him from the piano:
+
+"It's rather risky, isn't it?"
+
+He merely stared at her out of his slightly protruding eyes as though
+she were speaking an unfamiliar language.
+
+"Jim," said Quarren, "would you mind taking me as a passenger?"
+
+Wycherly, reckless enough anyway, balked a little at the proposition:
+
+"That Stinger is too light and too tricky I'm afraid."
+
+"Isn't she built for two?"
+
+"Well, I suppose she _could_ get off the ground with you and me----"
+
+"All right; let's try her?"
+
+"Jim! I won't let you," said his wife.
+
+"Don't be silly, Molly. Rix and I are not going up if she won't take
+us----"
+
+"I forbid you to try! It's senseless!"
+
+Her husband laughed and finished his whisky and soda. Then twirling his
+motor goggles around his fingers he stood looking at Strelsa.
+
+"You're a pretty little peach," he said sentimentally, "and I'm sorry
+Molly is here or----"
+
+"Do _you_ care?" laughed Strelsa, looking around at him over her
+shoulder. "_I_ don't mind being adored by _you_, Jim."
+
+"Don't you, sweetness?"
+
+"Indeed I don't."
+
+Wycherly started toward her: Langly Sprowl, who neither indulged in
+badinage nor comprehended it in others, turned a perfectly
+expressionless face on his host, who said:
+
+"You old muffin head, did you ever smile in your life? You'd better try
+now because I'm going to take your best girl away from you!"
+
+Which bored Sprowl; and he turned his lean, narrow head away as a sleek
+and sinister dog turns when laughed at.
+
+Strelsa slipped clear of the piano and vanished, chased heavily by
+Wycherly.
+
+Molly said: "It's time to dress, good people. Langly, your man is
+upstairs with your outfit. Come, Chrysos, dear--Rix, have you everything
+you want?" she added in a low voice as he stood aside for her to pass:
+"Have you _everything_, Ricky?"
+
+"Nothing," he said.
+
+"The little minx! _Is_ it Langly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" And, aloud: "Jim! Do let Langly try out the
+Stinger to-morrow."
+
+Her husband, who had given up his search for Strelsa, said that Sprowl
+was welcome.
+
+People scattered to their respective quarters; Quarren walked slowly to
+his. Sprowl, passing with his mincing, nervous stride, said: "How's
+little Dankmere?"
+
+"All right," replied Quarren briefly.
+
+"Cheap little beggar," commented Sprowl.
+
+"He happens to be my partner," said the other.
+
+"He suits your business no doubt," said Sprowl with a contempt he took
+no pains to conceal--a contempt which very plainly included Quarren as
+well as the Earl and the picture business.
+
+Arrived at his door he glanced around to stare absently at Quarren. The
+latter said, pleasantly:
+
+"I don't suppose you meant to be offensive, Sprowl; you simply can't
+help it; can you?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean, you can't help being a bounder. It's just in you, isn't it?"
+
+For a moment Sprowl's hatchet face was ghastly; he opened his mouth to
+speak, twice, then jerked open his door and disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Quarren had been at Witch-Hollow three days when Dankmere called him on
+the long-distance telephone.
+
+"Do you want me to come back?" asked the young fellow. "I don't mind if
+you do; I'm quite ready to return----"
+
+"Not at all, my dear chap," said his lordship. "I fancied you might care
+to hear how matters are going in the Dankmere Galleries."
+
+"Of course I do, but I rather hoped nothing in particular would happen
+for a week or so----"
+
+"Plenty has. You know those experts of yours, Valasco, Drayton-Quinn,
+and that Hollander Van Boschoven. Well, they don't get on. Each has come
+to me privately, and in turn, and told me that the others were no
+good----"
+
+"Your rôle is to remain amiable and non-committal," said Quarren. "Let
+them talk----"
+
+"Valasco and Drayton-Quinn won't speak, and Van Boschoven has notified
+me that he declines to come to the house as long as either of the others
+are there."
+
+"Very well; arrange to have them there on different days."
+
+"I don't think Valasco will come back at all."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--the fact is--I believe I practically--so to speak--hit him."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Fact, old chap."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, he asked me if I knew more about anything than I did about
+pictures. I didn't catch his drift for about an hour--but then it came
+to me, and I got up out of my chair and walked over and punched his
+head. I don't think he'll come back, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't. What else have you been doing?" said Quarren angrily.
+
+"Nothing. One picture--the Raeburn portrait--has a bad hole in it."
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"Rather extraordinary thing, that! I was giving a most respectable card
+party--some ladies and gentlemen of sorts--from the Winter Garden I
+believe--and one of the ladies inadvertently shyed a glass at another
+lady----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Dankmere----"
+
+"Quite right old chap--my fault entirely--I won't do it again. But, do
+you know, the gallery already has become a most popular resort. People
+are coming and going all day--a lot of dealers among them I suspect--and
+there have been a number of theatrical people who want to hire pictures
+for certain productions to be staged next winter----"
+
+"We don't do that sort of thing!"
+
+"That's what I thought; but there was one very fetching girl who opens
+in 'Ancestors' next October----"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Right-o! I'll tell her at luncheon.... I say, Quarren: Karl Westguard
+wants the gallery to-night. May I let him have it?"
+
+"Certainly. What for?"
+
+"Oh, some idea of his--I've forgotten what he said."
+
+"I believe I'd better come down," said Quarren bluntly.
+
+"Don't dream of it, old fellow. Everything is doing nicely. My respects
+to the fair. By-the-bye--anything in my line up there?"
+
+Quarren laughed:
+
+"I'm afraid not, Dankmere."
+
+"_Very_ well," said the Earl, airily. "I'm not worrying now, you know.
+_Good_-bye, old sport!"
+
+And he rang off.
+
+Quarren meeting Molly in the hall said:
+
+"I think I'd better leave this afternoon. Dankmere is messing matters."
+
+"Are you going to run away?" she said in a low voice, glancing sideways
+at Strelsa who had just passed them wearing her riding habit.
+
+"Run away," he repeated, also lowering his voice. "From whom?"
+
+"From Langly Sprowl."
+
+He shrugged and looked out of the window.
+
+"It _is_ running away," insisted his pretty hostess. "You have a chance
+I think."
+
+"Not the slightest."
+
+"You are wrong. Strelsa wept in her sleep all night. How does that
+strike you?"
+
+"Not over me," he said grimly; but added: "How do you know she did?"
+
+"Her maid told mine," admitted Molly shamelessly. "Now if you are going
+to criticise my channels of information I'll remind you that Richelieu
+himself----"
+
+"Oh, Molly! Molly! What a funny girl you are!" he said, laughing.
+"You're a sweet, loyal little thing, too--but there's no use--" His face
+became expressionless, almost haggard--"there's no use," he repeated
+under his breath.
+
+Slowly, side by side, they walked out to the veranda, her hand resting
+lightly just within the crook of his arm, he, absent-mindedly filling
+his pipe.
+
+"Strelsa likes you," she said.
+
+"With all the ardour and devotion of a fish," he returned, coolly.
+
+"Rix?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Do you know," said Molly, thoughtfully, "she _is_ a sort of a fish. She
+has the emotions of a mollusc as far as your sex is concerned. Some
+women _are_ that way--more women than men would care to believe.... Do
+you know, Ricky, if you'll let us alone, it is quite natural for us to
+remain indifferent to considerations of that sort?"
+
+She stood watching the young fellow busy with his pipe.
+
+"It's only when you keep at us long enough that we respond," she said.
+"Some of us are quickly responsive; it takes many of us a long while to
+catch fire. Threatened emotion instinctively repels many of us--the more
+fastidious among us, the finer grained and more delicately nerved, are
+essentially reserved. Modesty, pride, a natural aloofness, are as much a
+part of many women as their noses and fingers----"
+
+"What becomes of modesty and pride when a girl marries for money?" he
+asked coolly.
+
+"Some women can give and accept in cold blood what it would be
+impossible for them to accord to a more intimate and emotional demand."
+
+"No doubt an ethical distinction," he said, "but not very clear to me."
+
+"I did not argue that such women are admirable or excusable.... But how
+many modern marriages in our particular vicinity are marriages of
+inclination, Ricky?"
+
+"You're a washed-out lot," he said--"you're satiated as schoolgirls. If
+you have any emotions left they're twisted ones by the time you are
+introduced. Most débutantes of your sort make their bow equipped for
+business, and with the experience of what, practically, has amounted to
+several seasons.
+
+"If any old-fashioned young girls remain in your orbit I don't know
+where to find them. Why, do you suppose any young girl, not yet out,
+would bother to go to a party of any sort where there was not champagne
+and a theatre-box and a supper in prospect? That's a fine comment on
+your children, Molly, but you know it's true and so does everybody who
+pretends to know anything about it."
+
+"You talk like Karl Westguard," she said, laughing. "Anyway, what has
+all this to do with you and Strelsa Leeds?"
+
+"Nothing." He shrugged. "She is part of your last word in social
+civilisation----"
+
+"She is a very normal, sensitive, proud girl, who has known little
+except unhappiness all her life, Rix--including two years of marital
+misery--two years of horror.--And you forget that those two years were
+the result of a demand purely and brutally emotional--to which, a
+novice, utterly ignorant, she yielded--pushed on by her mother....
+Please be fair to her; remember that her childhood was pinched with
+poverty, that her girlhood in school was a lonely one, embarrassed by
+lack of everything which her fashionable schoolmates had as matters of
+course.
+
+"She could not go to the homes of her schoolmates in vacation times,
+because she could not ask them, in turn, to her own. She was still in
+school when Reggie Leeds saw her--and misbehaved--and the poor little
+thing was sent home, guiltless but already half-damned. No wonder her
+mother chased Reggie Leeds half around the world dragging her daughter
+by the wrist!"
+
+"Did it make matters any better to force that drunken cad into a
+marriage?" asked Quarren coldly.
+
+"It makes another marriage possible for Strelsa."
+
+Quarren gazed out across the country where a fine misty rain was still
+falling. Acres of clover stretched away silvered with powdery moisture;
+robins and bluebirds covered the soaked lawns, and their excited
+call-notes prophesied blue skies.
+
+"It doesn't make any difference one way or the other," said Quarren,
+half to himself. "She will go on in the predestined orbit----"
+
+"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it."
+
+"There is nothing to which she responds--except what I have not."
+
+"Make what you do possess more powerful, then."
+
+"What do I possess?"
+
+"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?"
+
+"Perhaps so--now--after a fashion.... But I am not the man who could
+ever attract her----"
+
+"Wake her, and find out."
+
+"Wake her?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you that many of us are asleep, and that few of us awake
+easily? Didn't I tell you that nobody likes to be awakened from the warm
+comfort and idle security of emotionless slumber?--that it is the
+instinct of many of us to resist--just as I hear my maid speak to me in
+the morning and then turn over for another forty winks, hating her!"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"My maid has instructions to persist until I respond," said Molly.
+"Those are my instructions to you, also."
+
+"Suppose, after all, I were knocking at the door of an empty room?"
+
+"You must take your chances of course."
+
+There was a noise of horses on the gravel: Langly cantered up on a
+handsome hunter followed by a mounted groom leading Strelsa's mare.
+
+Sprowl dismounted and came up to pay his respects to Molly, scarcely
+troubling himself to recognise Quarren's presence, and turning his back
+to him immediately, although Molly twice attempted to include him in the
+conversation.
+
+Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a
+pantomime unmistakable; but her pretty lips merely pressed each other
+tighter, and she sauntered out, crop under one arm, with a careless
+greeting to Langly.
+
+He came up offering his hand and she took it, then stood a moment in
+desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren.
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was
+silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."]
+
+"I thought I overheard you say to Molly that you were going back to town
+this afternoon," she remarked, casting a brief glance in his direction.
+
+"I think I'd better go," he said, pleasantly.
+
+"A matter of business I suppose?" eyebrows slightly lifted.
+
+"In a way. Dankmere is alone, poor fellow."
+
+Molly laughed:
+
+"It is not good for man to be alone."
+
+Sprowl said:
+
+"There's a housemaid in my employ--she's saved something I understand.
+You might notify Dankmere--" he half wheeled toward Quarren, eyes
+slightly bulging without a shadow of expression on his sleek, narrow
+face.
+
+Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of
+a clear sky.
+
+"What?" he said slowly--then stepped back a pace as Strelsa passed close
+in front of him, apparently perfectly unconscious of any discord:
+
+"Will you get me a lump of sugar, Mr. Quarren? My mare must be pampered
+or she'll start that jiggling Kentucky amble and never walk one step."
+
+Quarren swung on his heel and entered the house; Molly, ignoring
+Strelsa, turned sharply on Sprowl:
+
+"If you are insolent to my guests you need not come here," she said
+briefly.
+
+Langly's restless eyes protruded; he glanced from Molly to Strelsa, then
+his indifferent gaze wandered over the landscape. It was plain that the
+rebuke had not made the slightest impression. Molly looked angrily at
+Strelsa, but the latter, eyes averted, was gazing at her horse. And when
+Quarren came back with a handful of sugar she took it and, descending
+the steps, fed it, lump by lump to the two horses.
+
+Langly put her up, shouldered aside the groom, and adjusted heel-loop
+and habit-loop. Then he mounted, saluted Molly and followed Strelsa at a
+canter without even noticing his bridle.
+
+"What have you done to Langly?" asked Molly.
+
+"Characterised his bad manners the other day. It wasn't worth while;
+there's no money in cursing.... And I think, Molly dear, that I'll take
+an afternoon train----"
+
+"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way
+under my roof----"
+
+"It was outdoors, dear lady," said Quarren, smiling. "It's only his
+rudeness before you that I mind. Where is Sir Charles?"
+
+"Off with Chrysos somewhere on the river--there's their motor-launch,
+now.... Ricky!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm angry all through.... Strelsa might have said something--showed her
+lack of sympathy for Langly's remark by being a little more cordial to
+you.... I don't like it in her. I don't know whether I am going to like
+that girl or not----"
+
+"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do----"
+
+"There was! She _is_ a fish!--unless she gives Langly the dickens this
+morning.... Will you motor with Jim and me, Ricky dear?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+She did like. So presently a racing car was brought around, Jim came
+reluctantly from the hangar, and away they tore into the dull weather
+now faintly illuminated by the prophecy of the sun.
+
+Everywhere the mist was turning golden; faint smears of blue appeared
+and disappeared through the vapours passing overhead. Then, all at once
+the sun's glaring lens played across the drenched meadows, and the
+shadows of tree and hedge and standing cattle streamed out across the
+herbage.
+
+In spite of the chains the car skidded dangerously at times; mud flew
+and so did water, and very soon Molly had enough. So they tore back
+again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters,
+her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair
+of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots--past
+woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny
+streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half
+immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird
+music--past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh
+above the soaking brown earth.
+
+Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds
+fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the
+kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud
+enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded
+with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million
+blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them.
+
+Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles
+and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. Once,
+across a distant hill, two horses and their riders passed outlined
+against the sky; but even the eyes of a lover and a hater could not
+identify anybody at such a distance.
+
+So he strolled on, taking roads when convenient, fields when it suited
+him, neither knowing nor caring where he was going.
+
+Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he
+turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a
+little foot-bridge over a stream.
+
+A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up.
+
+"Is that you, Quarren?" he said.
+
+The young fellow stopped and looked down curiously at the sunken,
+unhealthy face, then, shocked, came forward hastily and shook hands.
+
+"Why, Ledwith," he said, "what are you doing here?--Oh, I forgot; you
+live here, don't you?"
+
+"That's my house yonder--or was," said the man with a slight motion of
+his head. And, after a moment: "You didn't recognise me. Have I changed
+much?"
+
+Quarren said: "You seem to have been--ill."
+
+"Yes; I have been. I'm ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few
+minutes--unless you are going somewhere in particular--or don't care to
+talk to me----"
+
+"Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be
+gentle--even with such a man.
+
+"I haven't seen much of you, for a couple of years--I haven't seen much
+of anybody," said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking
+at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren:
+
+"You are stopping with----"
+
+"The Wycherlys."
+
+"Oh, yes.... I haven't seen them lately.... They are neighbours"--he
+waved his sickly coloured hand--"but I'm rather quiet--I read a good
+deal--as you see."--He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and
+his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually.
+
+"It's a pretty country," said Quarren.
+
+"Yes--I thought so once. I built that house.... There's no use in my
+keeping up social duties," he said with another slinking glance at
+Quarren. "So I'm giving up the house."
+
+"Really."
+
+"Hasn't--you have heard so, haven't you?"
+
+He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and
+his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or
+rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and
+continuously as he jerked about in his seat.
+
+"I suppose," he said slyly, "people talk about me, Quarren."
+
+"Do you know anybody immune to gossip?" inquired Quarren, smiling.
+
+"No; that's true. But I don't care anything for people.... I read, I
+have my horses and dogs--but I'm going to move away. I told you that,
+didn't I?"
+
+"I believe you did."
+
+Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost
+imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance:
+
+"There's no use pretending to _you_, Quarren; is there?"
+
+Quarren said nothing.
+
+"You know all the gossip--all the dirty little faits divers of your
+world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential----"
+
+"You're mistaken, Ledwith," he said pleasantly. "I'm done with it."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that I've gone into a better business and I'm too busy to be
+useful and amusing any longer."
+
+Ledwith's dead eyes stared:
+
+"I heard you had dropped out--were never seen about. Is that true?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Found the game too rotten?"
+
+"Oh, no. It's no different from any other game--a mixture of the same
+old good and bad, with good predominating. But there's more to be had
+out of life in other games."
+
+"Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working
+as side partner, isn't it?"
+
+Quarren said pleasantly: "If you're serious, Ledwith, you're a liar."
+
+After a silence Ledwith said: "Do you think there's enough left of me to
+care what anybody calls me?"
+
+Quarren turned: "I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make
+you such an answer."
+
+"Never mind.... In that last year--when I still knew people--and when
+they still knew me--you were very kind to me, Quarren."
+
+"Why not? You were always decent to me."
+
+Ledwith was now picking at his fingers, and Quarren saw that they were
+dreadfully scarred and maltreated.
+
+"You've always been kind to me," repeated Ledwith, his extinct eyes
+fixed on space. "Other people would have halted at sight of me and gone
+the other way--or passed by cutting me dead.... _You_ sat down beside
+me."
+
+"Am I anybody to refuse?"
+
+But Ledwith only blinked nervously down at his book, presently fell to
+twitching the uncut pages again.
+
+"Poems," he said--"scarcely what you'd think I'd wish to read,
+Quarren--poems of youth and love----"
+
+"You're young, Ledwith--if you cared to help yourself----"
+
+"Yes, if I cared--if I cared. In this book they all seem to care; youth
+and happiness care; sorrow and years still care. Listen to this:
+
+    "'You who look forward through the shining tears
+              Of April's showers
+    Into the sunrise of the coming years
+    Golden with unborn flowers--
+    I who look backward where the sunset lowers
+    Counting November's hours!'
+
+"But--I _don't_ care. I care no longer, Quarren."
+
+"_That's_ losing your grip."
+
+He raised his ashy visage: "I'm _trying_ to let go.... But it's
+slow--very slow--with a little pleasure--hell's own pleasure--" He
+turned his shoulder, fished something out of his pocket, and pulling
+back his cuff, bent over. After a few moments he turned around, calmly:
+
+"You've seen that on the stage I fancy."
+
+"Otherwise, also."
+
+"Quite likely. I've known a pretty woman--" He ended with a weary
+gesture and dropped his head between his hands.
+
+"Quarren," he said, "there's only one hurt left in it all. I have two
+little children."
+
+Quarren was silent.
+
+"I suppose--it won't last--that hurt. They're with my mother. It was
+agreed that they should remain with her.... But it's the only hurt I
+feel at all now--except--rarely--when those damned June roses are in
+bloom.... She wore them a good deal.... Quarren, I'm glad it came early
+to me if it had to come.... Like yellow dogs unsuccessful men are the
+fastest breeders. The man in permanent hard luck is always the most
+prolific.... I'm glad there are no more children."
+
+His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read
+what was not written there--
+
+    "Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
+      Froze my swift speech; she turning on my face
+    The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
+      Spoke slowly.
+
+    "'I had great beauty; ask thou not my name;
+      No one can be more wise than destiny.
+    Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came
+      I brought calamity.'"
+
+Quarren bit his lip and looked down at the sunlit brook dancing by under
+the bridge in amber beauty.
+
+Ledwith said musingly: "I don't know who it might have been if it had
+not been Sprowl. It would have been _somebody_!... The decree has been
+made absolute."
+
+Quarren looked up.
+
+"She's coming back here soon, now. I've had the place put in shape for
+her."
+
+After a silence Quarren rose and offered his hand.
+
+Ledwith took it: "I suppose I shall not see you again?"
+
+"I'm going to town this afternoon. Good-bye."
+
+Looking back at the turn of the path he saw Ledwith, bent nearly double,
+terribly intent on his half-bared arm.
+
+Returning in time for luncheon he encountered Sir Charles fresh from the
+river, and Chrysos prettily sun-burned, just entering the house.
+
+"We broke down," said the girl; "I thought we'd never get back, but Sir
+Charles is quite wonderful and he mended that very horrid machinery with
+the point of a file. Think of it, Ricky!--the point of a file!"
+
+Sir Charles laughed and explained the simplicity of the repairs; and
+Chrysos, not a whit less impressed, stared at him out of her pretty
+golden eyes with a gaze perilously resembling adoration.
+
+Afterward, by the bay-window upstairs, Quarren said lightly to Molly:
+
+"How about the little Lacy girl and the Baronet?"
+
+"She's an idiot," said Molly, shortly.
+
+"I'm afraid she is."
+
+"Of course she is. I wish I hadn't asked her. Why, she goes about like a
+creature in a trance when Sir Charles is away.... I don't know whether
+to say anything to her or whether to write to her mother. She's slated
+for Roger O'Hara."
+
+"I don't suppose her parents would object to Sir Charles," said Quarren,
+smiling.
+
+"That's why I hesitate to write. Sir Charles is in love with Strelsa;
+anybody can see that and everybody knows it. And it isn't likely that a
+child like Chrysos could swerve him."
+
+"Then you'd better send him or her away, hadn't you?"
+
+"I don't know what to do," said Molly, vexed. "June is to be quiet and
+peaceful at Witch-Hollow, and Sir Charles wanted to be here and Mrs.
+Lacy asked me to have Chrysos because she needed the quiet and calm. And
+_look_ what she's done!"
+
+"It's probably only a young girl's fancy."
+
+"Then it ought to be nipped in the bud. But her mother wants her here
+and Sir Charles wants to be here and if I write to her mother she'll let
+her remain anyway. I'm cross, Ricky. I'm tired, too--having dictated
+letters and signed checks until my head aches. Where have you been?"
+
+"Prowling."
+
+"Well, luncheon is nearly ready, and Strelsa isn't back. Are you going
+to New York this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Please don't."
+
+"I think it's better," he said lightly.
+
+"All right. Run away if you want to. Don't say another word to me; I'm
+irritated."
+
+Luncheon was not very gay; Chrysos adored Sir Charles in silence, but so
+sweetly and unobtrusively that the Baronet was totally unaware of it.
+Molly, frankly out of temper, made no effort of any sort; her husband in
+his usual rude health and spirits talked about the Stinger to everybody.
+Strelsa, who had arrived late, and whose toilet made her later still,
+seemed inclined to be rather cheerful and animated, but received little
+encouragement from Molly.
+
+However, she chatted gaily with Sir Charles and with Quarren, and after
+luncheon invited Sir Charles to read to her and Chrysos, which the grave
+and handsome Englishman did while they swung in old-fashioned hammocks
+under the maple trees, enjoying the rare treat of hearing their own
+language properly spoken.
+
+Molly had a book to herself on the veranda--the newest and wickedest of
+French yellow-covered fiction; her husband returned to the Stinger;
+Quarren listened to Sir Charles for a while, then without disturbing the
+reading, slipped quietly off and wandered toward the kennels.
+
+Here for a while he caressed the nervous, silky Blue Beltons, then
+strolled on toward the hemlock woods, a morning paper, still unread,
+sticking out of his pocket.
+
+When he came to the rustic seat which was his objective, he lighted his
+pipe, unfolded the paper, and forced his attention on the first column.
+
+How long he had been studying the print he did not know when, glancing
+up at the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, he saw Strelsa coming in
+his direction. He could see her very plainly through the hemlocks from
+where he sat but she could not as yet see him. Then the fat waddling dog
+ahead of her, barked; and he saw the girl stop short, probably divining
+that the rustic seat was occupied.
+
+For a few moments she stood there, perhaps waiting for her dog to
+return; but that fat sybarite had his chin on Quarren's knees; and,
+presently, Strelsa moved forward, slowly, already certain who it was
+ahead of her.
+
+Quarren rose as she came around the curve in the path:
+
+"If you don't want me here I'm quite willing to retire," he said,
+pleasantly.
+
+"That is a ridiculous thing to say," she commented. Then she seated
+herself and motioned him to resume his place.
+
+"I was rather wondering," she continued, "whether I'd see you before you
+leave."
+
+"Oh, are you driving this afternoon?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I should certainly have looked for you and made my adieux."
+
+"Would you have remembered to do it?"
+
+He laughed:
+
+"What a question! I might possibly forget my own name, but not anything
+concerning you."
+
+She looked down at the paper lying between them on the bench, and, still
+looking down, said slowly:
+
+"I am sorry for what Langly did this morning.... He has expressed his
+contrition to me----"
+
+"_That_ is all right as long as he doesn't express it to me,"
+interrupted Quarren, bluntly.
+
+"He means to speak to you----"
+
+"Please say to him that your report of his mental anguish is
+sufficient."
+
+"_Are_ you vindictive, Mr. Quarren?" she asked, reddening.
+
+"Not permanently. But I either like or I dislike. So let the incident
+close quietly."
+
+"Very well--if you care to humiliate me--him----"
+
+"Dear Mrs. Leeds, he isn't going to be humiliated, because he doesn't
+care. And you know I wouldn't humiliate you for all the world----"
+
+"You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you----"
+
+He looked up at her:
+
+"Would _that_ make it easier for you?"
+
+"I--perhaps--please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Very well," he said quietly.
+
+He caressed the dog's head where it lay across his knees, and looked out
+over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and
+wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart
+the sun.
+
+She said in a low voice: "I hope your new business venture will be
+successful."
+
+"I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care."
+
+"I care--greatly.... As much as I--dare."
+
+He laughed: "Don't you dare care about me?"
+
+She bit her lip: "I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two
+occasions."
+
+"So you don't really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I
+might again mistake it for something deeper." He was still laughing, and
+she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then:
+
+"There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you--if you
+will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out
+of it."
+
+"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face altering.
+
+"Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"I thought I spoiled that for both of us," he said.
+
+"I didn't say so. I told you that I didn't know what you had done. I've
+had time to reflect. It--our friendship isn't spoiled--if you still
+value it."
+
+"I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa."
+
+There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly
+reflected in hers.
+
+"Then let us have peace," she said unsteadily. "I have--been--not very
+happy since you--since we----"
+
+"I know. I've been utterly miserable, too." He lifted one of her hands
+and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in
+his.
+
+"Do you mind?" he asked.
+
+"N-no."
+
+He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested
+her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes.
+
+"I think--you had better not--touch me--any more--" she said faintly.
+
+"Is it disagreeable?"
+
+"Yes--n-no.... It is--it has nothing to do with friendship--" she looked
+up, flushed, curious: "Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Did you never caress a flower?"
+
+"Rix!"--she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first
+time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. "It was your
+nonsensical answer!--I--it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon
+for being stupid.... And--may I have my hand? I use it occasionally."
+
+He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her
+fingers.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "I'm coming back into the battle again."
+
+"Then I am sorry I forgave you."
+
+"_Are_ you?"
+
+"Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can't you be to me what I wish to be to
+you? Why can't you be what I want--what I need----"
+
+"Do you know what you need?"
+
+"Yes, I----"
+
+"No, you don't. You need to love--and to be loved. You don't know it,
+but you do!"
+
+"That is a--a perfectly brutal thing to say----"
+
+"Does it sound so to you?"
+
+"Yes, it does! It is brutal--common, unworthy of you and of me----"
+
+He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her:
+
+"_Can't_ you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't
+you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there
+anything to be ashamed of in it?--merely because nothing has ever yet
+awakened _you_ to it?"
+
+"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of
+me is more than love--cleaner, better, stronger----"
+
+"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to
+do!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!"
+
+She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves
+become irresponsible. I know nothing about it--I could not--I
+will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it--to me it is
+degrading--contemptible----"
+
+"What are you saying?"
+
+"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster.
+"I'm telling you what I know--what I have learned in a bitter
+school--during two dreadful years----"
+
+"_That!_"
+
+"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave
+friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to
+me? You are the one man I could ask it of--the only man I ever saw who
+seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could
+return what he gave me with all my heart--all my heart----"
+
+She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew
+her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his
+shoulder.
+
+"I won't _talk_ to you of love any more," he whispered. "You poor little
+girl--you poor little thing. I didn't realise--I don't want to think
+about it----"
+
+"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?"
+
+"Of course--of course--you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find
+fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or
+demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People
+are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn't love them if you
+don't want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you
+please--about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too."
+
+Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.
+
+"There," he whispered--"there, there--you little, little girl. That's
+all I want of you after all--only what you want of me. I don't wish to
+marry you if you don't wish it; I won't--I perhaps couldn't really love
+you very deeply if you didn't respond. I shall not bother you any
+more--or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am
+concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable
+to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly--look so, even, and
+I'll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?"
+
+"Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don't mean anything,
+do you by--by your arm around me----"
+
+"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled--"Which I
+suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me."
+
+"I--begin to.... Will you let me?"
+
+"Yes.... Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?"
+
+She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth
+curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless.
+
+"I believe you are worn out," he said.
+
+"I have not rested for weeks."
+
+"On account of that Trust business?"
+
+"Yes.... But I was tired before that--I had done too much--lived too
+much--and I've felt as though I were being hunted for so long.... And
+then--I was unhappy about you."
+
+"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said.
+
+"You were different, but--you made me feel that way, too--a little----"
+
+"I understand now."
+
+"Do you really?"
+
+"Yes. It's been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging,
+importuning you to consider their desires--to care for them in their
+own way--all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting,
+head-long and boisterous--all at you constantly to give them what is
+not in you to give--what has never been awakened--what lies stunned,
+crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep----"
+
+"Killed," she whispered.
+
+"Perhaps." He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the
+sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding
+the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a
+child's. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror,
+partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa
+lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she
+could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him
+was no longer there.
+
+"Do you--know about me?" she asked in a still, low voice.
+
+"About the past?"
+
+"About my marriage."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Some things."
+
+"You know what the papers said?"
+
+"Yes.... Don't speak of it--unless you care to, Strelsa."
+
+"I want to.... Do you know this is the first time?"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody.... As long as my
+mother lived I did not once speak of it to her."
+
+She rested in silence for a while, then:
+
+"Could I tell you?"
+
+"My dear, my dear!--of course you can."
+
+"I--it's been unsaid so long--there was nobody to tell it to. I've done
+my best to forget it--and for days I seem to forget it. But sometimes
+when I wake at night it is there--the horror of it--the terror sinking
+deeper into my breast.... I was very young. You knew that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You knew my mother had very slender means?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wouldn't have cared; I was an imaginative child--and could have lived
+quite happy with my fancies on very, very little.... I was a sensitive
+and affectionate child--inclined to be demonstrative. You wouldn't
+believe it, would you?"
+
+"I can understand it."
+
+"Can you? It's odd because I have changed so.... I was quite romantic
+about my mother--madly in love with her.... There is nothing more to
+say.... In boarding-school I was perfectly aware that I was being given
+the best grooming that we could afford. Even then romance persisted. I
+had the ideas of a coloured picture-book concerning men and love and
+marriage. I remember, as a very little child, that I had a picture-book
+showing Cinderella's wedding. It was a very golden sort of picture. It
+coloured my ideas long after I was grown up."
+
+She moved her head a little, looked up for an instant and smiled; but at
+his answering smile she turned her cheek to his shoulder, hastily, and
+lay silent for a while. Presently she continued in a low voice:
+
+"It was when we were returning for the April vacation--and the platform
+was crowded and some of the girls' brothers were there. There were two
+trains in--and much confusion--I don't know how I became separated from
+Miss Buckley and my schoolmates--I don't know to this day how I found
+myself on the Baltimore train, and Gladys Leeds's brother laughing and
+talking and the train moving faster and faster.... There is no use
+saying any more. I was as ignorant as I was innocent--a perfect little
+fool, frightened, excited, even amused by turns.... He had been
+attentive to me. We both were fools. Only finally I became badly scared
+and he talked such nonsense--and I managed to slip away from him and
+board the train at Baltimore as soon as we arrived there.... If he
+hadn't found me and returned to New York with me, it might not have been
+known. But we were recognised on the train and--it was a dreadful thing
+for me when I arrived home after midnight...."
+
+She fell silent; once or twice he looked down at her and saw that her
+eyes were closed. Then, with a quick, uneven breath:
+
+"I think you know the rest, don't you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+But she went on in a low, emotionless voice: "I was treated like a
+damaged gown--for which depreciation in value somebody was to be made
+responsible. I suffered; days and nights seemed unreal. There were
+lawyers; did you know it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes," she said wearily, "it was a bad dream--my mother, others--_his_
+family--many people strange and familiar passed through it. Then we
+travelled; I saw nothing, feeling half dead.... We were married in the
+Hawaiian Islands."
+
+"I know."
+
+"Then--the two years began."
+
+After a long while she said again: "That was the real nightmare. I
+passed through the depths as in a trance. There was nothing lower, not
+even hell.... We travelled in Europe, Africa, and India for two
+years.... I scarcely remember a soul I saw or one single object. And
+then--_that_ happened."
+
+"I know, dear."
+
+A slight shudder passed over her:
+
+"I've told you," she whispered--"I've told you at last. Shall I tell you
+more?"
+
+"Not unless----"
+
+"I don't know whether I want to--about the gendarmes--and that terrible
+woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs--and how ill
+I was----"
+
+She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren's arm tightened
+around her; and presently she became limp and motionless.
+
+"This--what I have told you--is a very close bond between us, isn't it?"
+she said.
+
+"Very close, Strelsa."
+
+"Was I much to blame?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"You should have left him long before."
+
+"Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and
+make the best of it."
+
+"Is that your idea?"
+
+"That was all I could see to do about it."
+
+"Don't you believe in divorce?"
+
+"Yes; but I thought he'd be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If
+he'd been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left
+him. But one can't abandon a helpless person."
+
+"Every word you utter," he said, "forges a new link in my love for you."
+
+"You don't mean--love?"
+
+"We mean the same I think--differing only in degree."
+
+"Thank you. That is nice of you."
+
+He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver:
+
+"Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?"
+
+"All gone--all of it."
+
+"I see.... And something has got to be done."
+
+"You know it has.... And I'm old before my time--tired, worn out. I
+can't work--I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were
+burnt out; I haven't the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure.
+What am I to do?"
+
+"Not what you plan to do."
+
+"Why not? As long as I need help--and the best is offered----"
+
+"Wouldn't you take less--and me?"
+
+"Oh, Rix! I couldn't _use you_!"
+
+She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from
+his arm.
+
+"I--I--you are my _friend_. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give
+anybody--not even you." She smiled, tremulously--"And I suspect that as
+far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But
+it's sweet of you. You _are_ generous, having so little and wishing to
+share it with me----"
+
+"Could you wait for me, Strelsa?"
+
+"Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can
+I?--even if it were a certainty."
+
+"Can't you hold on for a couple of years?"
+
+"Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my
+house."
+
+He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water.
+
+"Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't
+already given you----"
+
+"I ask no more."
+
+"Oh, but you _do_!"
+
+"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa--only what you have to offer of
+your own accord."
+
+They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote.
+
+"I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said.
+
+"If you could wait----"
+
+"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him."
+
+"Does that count?"
+
+"Yes--I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be.... I don't
+know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix--you don't realise--and
+I'm tired and sad--old before my time--perplexed, burnt out----"
+
+She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes.
+After a while she opened them with a weary smile.
+
+"I'll try to think--after you are gone.... What time does your train
+leave?"
+
+He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too:
+
+"_Have_ I kept you too long?"
+
+"No; I can make it. We'll have to walk rather fast----"
+
+"I'd rather you left me here."
+
+"Would you? Then--good-bye----"
+
+"Good-bye.... Will you come up again?"
+
+"I'll try."
+
+"Shall we write?"
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came.
+I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is
+enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and
+welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Then--I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her;
+she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek--a second's
+contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Quarren arrived in town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor
+he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up
+Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking
+with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him,
+freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the
+heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the
+avenue's lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms
+of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less
+wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew
+out of the night--"clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold"--and
+dissolved again into darkness.
+
+Still thrilled, almost buoyant, he walked on, passing the high-piled
+masonry of the branch Post-Office and the Central Palace on his left.
+Against high stars the twin Power-House chimneys stood outlined in
+steel; on the right endless blocks of brown-stone dwellings stretched
+northward, some already converted into shops where print-sellers,
+dealers in old books, and here and there antiquaries, had constructed
+show-windows.
+
+Firemen lounged outside the Eighth Battalion quarters; here and there a
+grocer's or wine-seller's windows remained illuminated where those who
+were neither well-to-do nor very poor passed to and fro with little
+packages which seemed a burden under the sultry skies.
+
+At last, ahead, the pseudo-oriental towers of a synagogue varied the
+flat skyline, and a moment later he could see the New Thought Laundry,
+the Tonsorial Drawing Rooms, the Undertaker's discreetly illuminated
+windows, and finally the bay-window of his own recent Real-Estate
+office, now transmogrified into the Dankmere Galleries of Old Masters,
+Fayre and Quarren, proprietors.
+
+The window appeared to be brilliantly illuminated behind the drawn
+curtains; and Quarren, surprised and vexed, concluded that the little
+Englishman was again entertaining. So it perplexed and astonished him to
+find the Earl sitting on the front steps, his straw hat on the back of
+his head, smoking. At the same moment from within the house a confused
+and indescribable murmur was wafted to his ears as though many people
+were applauding.
+
+"What on earth is going on inside?" he asked, bewildered.
+
+"You told me over the telephone that Karl Westguard might have the
+gallery for this evening," said the Englishman calmly. "So I let him
+have it."
+
+"What did he want of it? Who has he got in there?"--demanded Quarren as
+another ripple of applause sounded from within.
+
+Dankmere thought a moment: "I really don't know the audience,
+Quarren--they're not a very fragrant lot."
+
+"What audience? Who are they?"
+
+"You Americans would call them a 'tough-looking bunch--except
+Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera----"
+
+[Illustration: "A high and soulful tenor was singing 'Perfumes of
+Araby.'"]
+
+"Cyrille Caldera and De Groot! What's that silly old Dandy doing down
+here?"
+
+"Diffusing sweetness and light among the unwashed; telling them that
+there are no such things as classes, that wealth is no barrier to
+brotherhood, that the heart of Fifth Avenue beats as warmly and
+guilelessly as the heart of Essex Street, and that its wealth-burdened
+inhabitants have long desired to fraternise with the benchers in
+Paradise Park."
+
+"Who put Westguard up to this?" asked Quarren, aghast.
+
+"De Groot. Karl is writing a levelling novel calculated to annihilate
+caste. The Undertaker next door furnished the camp-chairs; the corner
+grocer the collation; Westguard, Mrs. Caldera, and Bleecker De Groot the
+mind-food. Go in and look 'em over."
+
+The front door was standing partly open; the notes of a piano floated
+through; a high and soulful tenor voice was singing "Perfumes of Araby,"
+but Quarren did not notice any as he stepped inside.
+
+Not daring to leave his suit-case in the hallway he kept on along the
+passage to the extension where the folding doors were locked. Here he
+deposited his luggage, locked the door, then walked back to the front
+parlour and, unobserved, slipped in, seating himself among the battered
+derelicts of the rear row.
+
+A thin, hirsute young man had just finished scattering the perfumes of
+Araby; other perfumes nearly finished Quarren; but he held his ground
+and gazed grimly at an improvised platform where sat in a half-circle
+and in full evening dress, Karl Westguard, Cyrille Caldera and Bleecker
+De Groot. Also there was a table supporting a Calla lily.
+
+Westguard was saying very earnestly: "The world calls me a novelist. I
+am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere
+scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message--a plain, simple,
+earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous
+indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between
+wealth and poverty----"
+
+"That's right," interrupted a hoarse voice; "it's all a con game, an'
+the perlice is into it, too!"
+
+"T'hell wit te bulls! Croak 'em!" observed another gentleman thickly.
+
+Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which
+greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old
+Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an
+artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side
+feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom.
+
+"Ah, my friends!" cried De Groot, "if you could only realise how great
+is the love for humanity within my breast!--If you could only know of
+the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the
+problems of the poor!
+
+"And I _have_ solved them--every one. And _this_ is the
+answer!"--grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it--"this!"
+seizing another--"and this, and this! And now I ask you, _what_ is this
+mute answer which I have given you?"
+
+"De merry mitt," said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with
+sweetness and indulgence.
+
+"I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacular," he said. "It _is_
+the 'merry mitt'--the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue
+clasps palms with Doyers Street----"
+
+"Ding!" said a weary voice, "yer in wrong, boss. It's nix f'r the Tongs
+wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A."
+
+Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. "The rich," he said, "are not
+really happy." His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a
+priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with
+a kind of noble pity for his own weakness.
+
+"Dear, dear friends," he said tremulously, "believe me--oh, believe me
+that the rich are not happy! Only the perspiring labourer knows what is
+true contentment. The question of poverty is a great social question.
+With me it is a religion. Oh, I could go on forever on this subject,
+dear friends, and talk on and on and on----"
+
+Emotion again checked him--or perhaps he had lost the thread of his
+discourse--or possibly he had attained its limit--but he filled it out
+by coming down from the platform and shaking hands so vigorously that
+the gardenia in his lapel presently fell out.
+
+Cyrille Caldera rose, fresh and dainty and smiling, and discoursed
+single-tax and duplex tenements, getting the two subjects mixed but not
+minding that. Also she pointed at the Calla lily and explained that the
+lily was the emblem of purity. Which may have had something to do with
+something or other.
+
+Then Westguard arose once more and told them all about the higher type
+of novel he was writing for humanity's sake, and became so interested
+and absorbed in his own business that the impatient shuffling of shabby
+feet on the floor alone interrupted him.
+
+"Has anybody," inquired De Groot, sweetly, "any vital question to
+ask--any burning inquiry of deeper, loftier import, which has perhaps
+long remained unanswered in his heart?"
+
+A gentleman known usually as "Mike the Mink" arose and indicated with
+derisive thumb a picture among the Dankmere collection, optimistically
+attributed to Correggio:
+
+"Is that Salome, mister?" he inquired with a leer.
+
+De Groot looked at the canvas, slightly startled.
+
+"No, my dear friend; that is a picture painted hundreds of years ago by
+a great Italian master. It is called 'Danaë.' Jupiter, you know, came to
+her in a shower of gold----"
+
+"They all have to come across with it," remarked the Mink.
+
+Somebody observed that if the police caught the dago who painted it
+they'd pinch him.
+
+To make a diversion, and with her own fair hands, Cyrille Caldera
+summoned the derelicts to sandwiches and ginger-ale; and De Groot,
+dashing more unmanly moisture from his monocle, went about resolutely
+shaking hands, while Westguard and the hirsute young man sang "Comrades"
+with much feeling.
+
+Quarren, still unrecognised, edged his way out and rejoined Dankmere on
+the front stoop. Neither made any comment on the proceedings.
+
+Later the derelicts, moodily replete, shuffled forth into the night,
+herded lovingly by De Groot, still shaking hands.
+
+From the corner of the street opposite, Quarren and Dankmere observed
+their departure, and, later, they beheld De Groot and Mrs. Caldera slip
+around the block and discreetly disappear into a 1912 touring-car with
+silver mountings and two men in livery on the box.
+
+Westguard, truer to his principles, took a tram and Quarren and the Earl
+returned to their gallery with mixed emotions, and opened every window
+top and bottom.
+
+"It's all right in its way, I suppose," said Quarren. "Probably De Groot
+means well, but there's no conversation possible between a man who has
+just dined rather heavily, and a man who has no chance of dining at
+all."
+
+"Like preaching Christ to the poor from a Fifth Avenue pulpit," said
+Dankmere, vaguely.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"A church on a side street would seem to serve the purpose. And the poor
+need the difference."
+
+"I don't know about those matters."
+
+"No; I don't either. It's easy, cheap, and popular to knock the
+clergy.... Still, somehow or other, I can't seem to forget that the
+disciples were poor--and it bothers me a lot, Quarren."
+
+Quarren said: "Haven't you and I enough to worry us concerning our own
+morals?"
+
+Dankmere, who had been closing up and piling together the Undertaker's
+camp-chairs, looked around at the younger man.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked.
+
+"I said that probably you and I would find no time left to criticise
+either De Groot or the clergy, if we used our leisure in
+self-examination."
+
+His lordship went on piling up chairs. When he finished he started
+wandering around, hands in his pockets. Then he turned out all the
+electric lamps, drew the bay-window curtains wide so that the silvery
+radiance from the arc-light opposite made the darkness dimly lustrous.
+
+A little breeze stirred the hair on Quarren's forehead; Dankmere dropped
+into the depths of an armchair near him. For a while they sat together
+in darkness and silence, then the Englishman said abruptly:
+
+"You've been very kind to me."
+
+Quarren glanced up surprised.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because nobody else has any decent words to say to me or of me."
+
+Quarren, amused, said: "How do you know that I have, Dankmere?"
+
+"A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an
+ass--they don't tell me so but I know it. And if they don't take me for
+an ass they assume that I'm something worse--because I have a title of
+sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a
+living out of it."
+
+"Also," Quarren reminded him, "you are looking for a wealthy wife."
+
+"God bless my soul! Am I the only chap in America who happens to be
+doing that?"
+
+"No; but you're doing it conspicuously."
+
+"You mean I'm honest about it?"
+
+Quarren laughed: "Anyway perhaps that's one reason why I like you. At
+first I also thought it was merely stupidity."
+
+Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe:
+
+"The majority of your better people have managed not to know me. I've
+met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home
+thresholds--most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives
+sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?"
+
+"Both, Dankmere--and then some."
+
+"Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was
+my first wife they shy at."
+
+Quarren remained silent.
+
+"She was a bar-maid," remarked the Earl. "We were quite happy--until she
+died."
+
+Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension.
+
+"Of course my marrying her damned us both," observed the Earl.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Quite so. People would have stood for anything else.... But she
+wouldn't--you may think it odd.... And I was in love--so there you are."
+
+For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further
+speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put
+on his hat.
+
+"You know," he said, "I'm not really an ass. My tastes and my caste
+don't happen to coincide--that's all, Quarren."
+
+They walked together to the front stoop.
+
+"When do we open shop?" asked the Earl, briskly.
+
+"As soon as I get the reports from our experts."
+
+"Won't business be dead all summer?"
+
+"We may do some business with agents and dealers."
+
+"I see. You and I are to alternate as salesmen?"
+
+"For a while. When things start I want to rent the basement and open a
+department for repairing, relining and cleaning; and I'd like to be
+able to do some of the work myself."
+
+"_You?_"
+
+"Surely. It interests me immensely."
+
+"You're welcome I'm sure," said Dankmere drily. "But who's to keep the
+books and attend to correspondence?"
+
+"We'll get somebody. A young woman, who says she is well recommended,
+advertised in Thursday's papers, and I wrote her from Witch-Hollow to
+come around Sunday morning."
+
+"That's to-morrow."
+
+Quarren nodded.
+
+So Dankmere trotted jauntily away into the night, and Quarren locked the
+gallery and went to bed, certain that he was destined to dream of
+Strelsa. But the sleek, narrow head and slightly protruding eyes of
+Langly Sprowl was the only vision that peered cautiously at him through
+his sleep.
+
+The heated silence of a Sunday morning in June awoke him from a somewhat
+restless night. Bathed and shaved, he crept forth limply to breakfast at
+the Founders' Club where he still retained a membership. There was not a
+soul there excepting himself and the servants--scarcely a person on the
+avenues and cross-streets which he traversed going and coming, only one
+or two old men selling Sunday papers at street-stands, an old hag
+gleaning in the gutters, and the sparrows.
+
+Clothing was a burden. He had some pongee garments which he put on,
+installed himself in the gallery with a Sunday paper, an iced lime
+julep, and a cigarette, and awaited the event of the young lady who
+had advertised that she knew all about book-keeping, stenography,
+and typewriting, and could prove it.
+
+[Illustration: "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her
+limp black gown."]
+
+She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black
+gown, and, at Quarren's invitation, seated herself at the newly
+purchased desk of the firm.
+
+Here, at his request she took a page or two of dictation from him and
+typed it rapidly and accurately.
+
+She had her own system of book-keeping which she explained to the young
+man who seemed to think it satisfactory. Then he asked her what salary
+she expected, and she told him, timidly.
+
+"All right," he said with a smile, "if it suits you it certainly suits
+me. Will you begin to-morrow?"
+
+"Whenever you wish, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Well, there won't be very much to do for a while," he said laughingly,
+"except to sit at that desk and look ornamental."
+
+She flushed, then smiled and thanked him for giving her the position,
+adding with another blush that she would do her best.
+
+"Your best," he said amiably, "will probably be exactly what we
+require.... Did you bring any letters?"
+
+She hesitated: "One," she said gravely. She searched in her reticule,
+found it, and handed it to Quarren who read it in silence, then returned
+it to her.
+
+"You were stenographer in Mr. Sprowl's private office?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This letter isn't signed by Mr. Sprowl."
+
+"No, by Mr. Kyte, his private secretary."
+
+"It seems you were there only six months."
+
+"Six months."
+
+"And before that where were you?"
+
+"At home."
+
+"Oh; Mr. Sprowl was your first employer!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you leave?"
+
+The girl hesitated so long that he thought she had not understood, and
+was about to repeat the question when something in her pallor and in her
+uplifted eyes checked him.
+
+"I don't know why I was sent away," she said in a colourless voice.
+
+He thought for a while, then, carelessly: "I take it that there was
+nothing irregular in _your_ conduct?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You'd tell me if there was, wouldn't you?"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes to his. "Yes," she said.
+
+How much of an expert he was at judging faces he did not know, but he
+was perfectly satisfied with himself when she took her leave.
+
+And when Dankmere came in after luncheon he said:
+
+"I've engaged a book-keeper. Her name is Jessie Vining. She's evidently
+unhappy, poor, underfed, and the prettiest thing you ever saw out of a
+business college. So, being unhappy, poor, underfed _and_ pretty, I take
+it that she's all to the good."
+
+"It's a generous world of men," said Dankmere--"so I guess she _is_
+good."
+
+"I'm sure of it. She was Sprowl's private stenographer--and he sent her
+away.... There are three reasons why he might have dismissed her. I've
+taken my choice of them."
+
+"Did he give her a letter?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh. Then I've taken my choice, too."
+
+"Kyte ventured to give her a letter," said Quarren. "I've heard that
+Kyte _could_ be decent sometimes."
+
+"I see."
+
+Nothing further was said about the new book-keeper. His lordship went
+into the back parlour and played the piano until satiated; then mixed
+himself a lime julep.
+
+That afternoon they went over the reports of the experts very carefully.
+From these reports and his own conclusions Quarren drafted a catalogue
+while Dankmere went about sticking adhesive labels on the frames, all
+numbered. And, as he trotted blithely about his work, he talked to
+himself and to the pictures:
+
+"Here's number nine for you, old lady! If I'd had a face like that I'd
+have killed the artist who transferred it to canvas!... Number sixteen
+for you there in your armour! Somebody in Springfield will buy you for
+an ancestor and that's what will happen to you.... And you, too, in a
+bag-wig!--_you'll_ be some rich Yankee's ancestor before you know it!
+That's the way you'll end, my smirking friend.... Hello! _Tiens!_ _In
+Gottes namen_--whom have we here? Why, it's Venus!... And hot weather is
+no excuse for going about _that_ way!... Listen to this, Quarren, for an
+impromptu patter-song--
+
+    "'Venus, dear, you ought to know
+      What the proper caper is--
+    Even Eve, who wasn't slow,
+      Robbed the neighbours' graperies!
+    Even Mænads on the go,
+    Fat Bacchantes in a row--
+    Even ladies in a show
+      Wear _some_ threads of naperies!
+    Through the heavens planet-strewn
+      Where a shred of vapour is
+    Quickly clothes herself the Moon!
+    Get you to a modiste soon
+      Where the tissue-paper is,
+    Cut in fashions fit for June--
+      Wear 'em, dear, for draperies----'"
+
+"_Good_ heavens!" protested Quarren--"how long can you run on like
+that?"
+
+"Years and years, my dear fellow. It's in me--born in me! Can you beat
+it? Though I appear to be a peer appearance is a liar; cast for a part
+apart from caste, departing I climb higher toward the boards to bore the
+hordes and lord it, sock and buskin dispensing sweetness, art, and light
+as per our old friend Ruskin----"
+
+"Dankmere!"
+
+"Heaven-born?"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+"I remain put.... What number do I stick on this gentleman with streaky
+features?"
+
+"Eighteen. That's a Franz Hals."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes; the records are all here, and the experts agree."
+
+His lordship got down nimbly from the step-ladder and came over to the
+desk:
+
+"Young sir," he said, "how much is that picture worth?"
+
+"All we can get for it. It's not a very good example."
+
+"Are you going to tell people that?"
+
+"If they ask me," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"What price are you going to put on it?"
+
+"Ten thousand."
+
+"And do you think any art-smitten ass will pay that sum for a thing like
+that?"
+
+"I think so. If it were only a decent example I'd ask ten times
+that--and probably get it in the end."
+
+Dankmere inspected the picture more respectfully for a few moments, then
+pasted a label on an exquisite head by Greuze.
+
+"She's a peach," he said. "What price is going to waft her from my
+roof-tree?"
+
+"The experts say it's not a Greuze but a contemporary copy. And there's
+no pedigree, either."
+
+"Oh," said the Earl blankly, "is that your opinion, too?"
+
+"I haven't any yet. But there's no such picture by Greuze extant."
+
+"You _don't_ think it a copy?"
+
+"I'm inclined not to. Under that thick blackish-yellow varnish I believe
+I'll find the pearl and rose texture of old Greuze himself. In the
+meantime it's not for sale."
+
+"I see. And this battle-scene?"
+
+"Wouverman's--ruined by restoring. It's not worth much."
+
+"And this Virgin?"
+
+"Pure as the Virgin Herself--not a mark--flawless. It's by 'The Master
+of the Death of Mary.' Isn't it a beauty? Do you notice St. John holding
+the three cherries and the Christ-child caressing the goldfinch? Did you
+ever see such colour?"
+
+"It's--er--pretty," said his lordship.
+
+And so during the entire afternoon they compiled the price-list and
+catalogue, marking copies for what they were, noting such pictures as
+had been ruined by restoring or repainted so completely as to almost
+obliterate the last original brush stroke. Also Quarren reserved for his
+own investigations such canvases as he doubted or of which he had
+hopes--a number that under their crocked, battered, darkened or
+discoloured surfaces hinted of by-gone glories that might still be
+living and only imprisoned beneath the thick opacity of dust, soot,
+varnish, and the repainting of many years ago.
+
+And that night he went to bed happier than he had ever been in all his
+life--unless his moments with Strelsa Leeds might be termed happy ones.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monday morning brought, among other things, a cloudless sun, and little
+Miss Vining quite as spotless and radiant; and within ten minutes the
+click of the typewriter made the silent picture-plastered rooms almost
+gay.
+
+In shirtwaist and cuffs she took her place behind the desk with a sort
+of silent decision which seemed at once to invest her with suzerainty
+over all that corner of the room; and Dankmere coming in a little later,
+whistling merrily and twirling his walking-stick, sheered off
+instinctively on his breezy progress through the rooms, skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain as though her private ensign flew above it and
+earthworks, cannon and trespass notices flanked her corner on every
+side.
+
+In the back parlour he said to Quarren: "So that is the girl?"
+
+"It sure is."
+
+"God bless my soul! she acts as though she had just bought in the whole
+place."
+
+"What's she doing?"
+
+"Just sitting there," admitted Dankmere.
+
+He seemed to have lost his spirits. Once, certain that he was unobserved
+except by Quarren, he ventured to balance his stick on his chin, but it
+was a half-hearted performance; and when he tossed up his straw hat and
+attempted to catch it on his head, he missed, and the corrugated brim
+sustained a dent.
+
+A number of people called that morning, quiet, well-dressed,
+cautious-eyed, soft-spoken gentlemen who moved about noiselessly over
+the carpets and, on encountering one another, nodded with silent
+familiarity and smiles scarcely perceptible.
+
+They seemed to require no information concerning the pictures which they
+swept with glances almost careless on their first rounds of the rooms.
+But the first leisurely tour always resulted in a second where one or
+two pictures seemed to claim their closer scrutiny.
+
+Now and then one of these gentlemen would screw a jeweller's glass into
+his eye and remain a few minutes nose almost touching a canvas. Several
+used the large reading-glass lying on a side table. Before they departed
+all glanced over the incomplete scale of prices which Jessie Vining had
+typed and bound in blue covers; but one and all took their leave in
+amiable silence, saying a non-committal word or two to Quarren in
+pleasantly modulated voices and passing Jessie's desk with a grave
+inclination of gravely preoccupied faces.
+
+When the last leisurely lingerer had taken his leave Quarren said to
+Jessie Vining:
+
+"Those are representatives of various first-class dealers--confidential
+buyers, sons--even dealers themselves--like that handsome gray-haired
+young-looking man who is Max Von Ebers, head of that great house."
+
+"But they didn't buy one single thing!" said Jessie.
+
+Quarren laughed: "People don't buy off-hand. Our triumph is to get them
+here at all. I wrote to each of them personally."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nobody else came for a long while; then one or two of the lesser dealers
+appeared, and now and then a man who might be an agent or a prowling and
+wealthy amateur or perhaps one of those curious haunters of all art
+marts who never buy but who never miss assisting at all inaugurations in
+person--like an ubiquitous and silent dog who turns up wherever more
+than two people assemble with any purpose in view--or without any.
+
+During the forenoon and early afternoon several women came into the
+galleries; and they seemed to be a little different from ordinary women,
+although it would be hard to say wherein they were different except in
+one instance--a tall, darkly handsome girl whose jewellery was as
+conspicuously oriental as her brilliant colour.
+
+Later Quarren told Jessie Vining that they were expert buyers on
+commission or brokers having clients among those very wealthy people who
+bought pictures now and then because it was fashionable to do so. Also,
+these same women-brokers represented a number of those unhappy old
+families who, incognito, were being forced by straitened circumstances
+to part secretly with heirlooms--family plate, portraits, miniatures,
+furniture--even with the antique mirrors on the walls and the very
+fire-dogs on the hearth amid the ashes of a burnt-out race almost
+extinct.
+
+A few Jews came--representing the extreme types of the most wonderful
+race of people in the world--one tall, handsome, immaculate young man
+whose cultivated accent, charming manners, and quiet bearing challenged
+exception--and one or two representing the other extreme, loud,
+restless, aggressive, and as impertinent as they dared be, discussing
+the canvases in noisy voices and with callous manners verging always on
+the offensive.
+
+These evinced a disposition for cash deals and bargain-wrangling,
+discouraged good-naturedly by Quarren who referred them to the
+catalogue; and presently they took themselves off.
+
+Dankmere sidled up to Quarren rather timidly toward the close of the
+afternoon.
+
+"I don't see what bally good _I_ am in this business," he said. "I don't
+mean to shirk, Quarren, but there doesn't seem to be anything for me to
+do. I think that all these beggars spot me for an ignoramus the moment
+they lay eyes on me, and the whole thing falls on you."
+
+Quarren said laughingly: "Well, didn't you furnish the stock?"
+
+"We ought to go halves," muttered Dankmere, shyly skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain where she was writing letters with the Social Register
+at her elbow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last days of June and the first of July were repetitions in a
+measure of the opening day at the Dankmere Galleries; people came and
+were received and entertained by Quarren; Dankmere sat about in various
+chairs or retired furtively to the backyard to smoke at intervals;
+Jessie Vining with more colour in her pale, oval face, ruled her corner
+of the room in a sort of sweet and silent dignity.
+
+Dankmere, who, innately, possessed the effrontery of a born comedian,
+for some reason utterly unknown to himself, was inclined to be afraid of
+her--afraid of the clear brown eyes indifferently lifted to his when he
+entered--afraid of the quiet "Good-morning, Lord Dankmere," with which
+she responded to his morning greeting--afraid of her cool skilful little
+hands busy with pencil, pen, or lettered key--afraid of everything about
+her from her rippling brown hair and snowy collar to the tips of her
+little tan shoes--even afraid of the back of her head when it presented
+only a slender neck and two little rosy, close-set ears. But he didn't
+mention his state of abasement to Quarren.
+
+A curious thing occurred, too: Jessie had evidently been gay on Sunday;
+and, Monday noon, while out for lunch, she had left on her desk two
+Coney Island postal cards decorated with her own photograph. When she
+returned, one card had vanished; and she searched quietly but thoroughly
+before she left for home that evening, but she did not find the card.
+But she said nothing about it.
+
+The dreadful part of the affair was that it was theft--the Earl of
+Dankmere's first crime.
+
+Why he had taken it he did not know. The awful impulse of kleptomania
+alone seemed to explain but scarcely palliate his first offence against
+society.
+
+It was only after he realised that the picture and Jessie Vining vaguely
+resembled his dead Countess that his lordship began to understand why he
+had committed a felony before he actually knew what he was doing.
+
+[Illustration: Jessie Vining.]
+
+And one day when Quarren was still out for lunch and Jessie had returned
+to her correspondence, the terrified Earl suddenly appeared before her
+holding out the photograph: and she took it, astonished, her lifted eyes
+mutely inquiring concerning the inwardness of this extraordinary
+episode.
+
+But Dankmere merely fled to the backyard and remained there all the
+afternoon smoking his head off; and it was several days before Jessie
+had an opportunity to find herself alone in his vicinity and to ask him
+with almost perfect self-possession where he had found the photograph.
+
+"I stole it," said Dankmere, turning bright red to his ear-tips.
+
+"All she could think of to say was: 'Why?'
+
+"It resembles my wife. So do you."
+
+"Really," she said coldly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Several days later she learned by the skilfully careless questioning of
+Quarren that the Countess of Dankmere had not existed on earth for the
+last ten years.
+
+This news extenuated the Earl's guilt in her eyes to a degree which
+permitted a slight emotion resembling pity to pervade her. And one day
+she said to him, casually pleasant--"Would you care for that post-card,
+Lord Dankmere? If it resembles your wife I would be very glad to return
+it to you."
+
+Dankmere, painfully red again, thanked her so nicely that the slight,
+instinctive distrust and aversion which, in the beginning, she had
+entertained for his lordship, suddenly disappeared so entirely that it
+surprised her when she had leisure to think it over afterward.
+
+So she gave him the post-card, and next day she found a rose in a glass
+of water on her desk; and that ended the incident for them both except
+that Dankmere was shyer of her than ever and she was beginning to
+realise that his aloof and expressionless deportment was due to
+shyness--which seemed to be inexplicable because otherwise timidity was
+scarcely the word to characterise his lively little lordship.
+
+Once, looking out of the rear windows, through the lace curtains she saw
+the Earl of Dankmere in the backyard, gravely turning handsprings on the
+grass while still smoking his pipe. Once, entering the gallery
+unexpectedly, she discovered the Earl standing at the piano, playing a
+rattling breakdown while his nimble little feet performed the same with
+miraculous agility and professional precision. She withdrew to the front
+door, hastily, and waited until the piano ceased from rumbling and the
+Oxfords were at rest, then returned with heightened colour and a stifled
+desire to laugh which she disguised under an absent-minded nod of
+greeting.
+
+Meanwhile one or two pictures had been sold to dealers--not important
+ones--but the sales were significant enough to justify the leasing of
+the basement. And here Quarren installed himself from morning to noon as
+apprentice to an old Englishman who, before the failure of his eyesight,
+had amassed a little fortune as surgeon, physician, and trained nurse to
+old and decrepit pictures.
+
+Not entirely unequipped in the beginning, Quarren now learned more about
+his trade--the guarded secrets of mediums and solvents, the composition
+of ancient and modern canvases, how old and modern colours were ground
+and prepared, how mixed, how applied.
+
+He learned how the old masters of the various schools of painting
+prepared a canvas or panel--how the snowy "veil" was spread and dried,
+how the under painting was executed in earth-red and bone-black, how the
+glaze was used and why, what was the medium, what the varnish.
+
+He learned about the "baths of sunlight," too--those clarifying
+immersions practised so openly yet until recently not understood. He
+comprehended the mechanics, physics, and simple chemistry of that
+splendid, mysterious "inward glow" which seemed to slumber under the
+colours of the old masters like the exquisite warmth in the heart of a
+gem.
+
+To him, little by little, was revealed the only real wonder of the old
+masters--their astonishing honesty. He began to understand that, first
+of all, they were self-respecting artisans, practising their trade of
+making pictures and painting each picture as well as they knew how;
+that, like other artisans, their pride was in knowing their trade, in a
+mastery of their tools, and in executing commissions as honestly as they
+knew how and leaving the "art" to take care of itself.
+
+Also he learned--for he was obliged to learn in self-protection--the
+tricks and deceptions and forgeries of the trade--all that was unworthy
+about it, all its shabby disguises and imitations and crude artifices
+and cunning falsehoods.
+
+He examined old canvases painted over with old-new pictures and then
+relined; canvases showing portions of original colour; old canvases and
+panels repainted and artificially darkened and cleverly covered with
+both paint and varnish cracks; canvases that almost defied detection by
+needle-point or glass or thumb friction or solvent, so ingenious was
+the forgery simulating age.
+
+Every known adjunct was provided to carry out deception--genuinely old
+canvases or panels, old stretchers really worm-eaten, aged frames of the
+period, half-obliterated seals bearing sometimes even the cross-keys of
+the Vatican. Even, in some cases, pretence that the pictures had been
+cut from the frame and presumably stolen was carried out by a
+knife-slashed and irregular ridge where the canvas had actually been so
+cut and then sewed to a modern _toile_.
+
+For forgery of art is as old as the Greeks and as new as to-day--the one
+sinister art that perhaps will never become a lost art; and Quarren and
+his aged mentor in the basement of the Dankmere Galleries discovered
+more than enough frauds among the Dankmere family pictures showing how
+the little Earl's forebears had once been gulled before his present
+lordship lay in his cradle.
+
+To Quarren the work was fascinating and, except for his increasing worry
+over Strelsa Leeds, would have been all-absorbing to the degree of
+happiness--or that interested contentment which passes for it on earth.
+
+To see the dull encasing armour of varnish disappear from some ancient
+masterpiece under the thumb, as the delicate thumb of the Orient
+polishes lacquer; to dare a solvent when needed, timing its strength to
+the second lest disaster tarnish forever the exquisite bloom of the
+shrouded glazing; to cautiously explore for suspected signatures, to
+brood and ponder over ancient records and alleged pedigrees; to compare
+prints and mezzotints, photographs and engravings in search for
+identities; to study threads of canvas, flakes of varnish, flinty
+globules of paint under the microscope; to learn, little by little, the
+technical manners and capricious mannerisms significant of the progress
+periods of each dead master; to pore over endless volumes, monographs,
+illustrated foreign catalogues of public and private collections--in
+these things and through them happiness came to Quarren.
+
+Never a summer sun rose over the streets of Ascalon arousing the
+Philistine to another day of toil but it awoke Quarren to the subdued
+excitement of another day. Eager, interested, content in his
+self-respect, he went forth to a daily business which he cared about for
+its own sake, and was fast learning to care about to the point of
+infatuation.
+
+He was never tired these days; but the summer heat and lack of air and
+exercise made him rather thin and pale. Close work with the magnifying
+glass had left his features slightly careworn, and had begun little
+converging lines at the outer corners of his eyes. Only one line in his
+face expressed anything less happy--the commencement of a short
+perpendicular crease between his eyebrows. Anxious pondering over old
+canvases was not deepening that faint signature of perplexity--or the
+forerunner of Care's signs manual nervously etched from the wing of
+either nostril.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Since Quarren had left Witch-Hollow, he and Strelsa had exchanged
+half-a-dozen letters of all sorts--gay, impersonal notes, sober epistles
+reflecting more subdued moods, then letters fairly sparkling with high
+spirits and the happy optimism of young people discovering that there is
+more of good than evil in a world still really almost new to them. Then
+there was a long letter of description and amusing narrative from her,
+in which, here and there, she became almost sentimental over phases of
+rural beauty; and he replied at equal length telling her about his new
+shop-work in detail.
+
+Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there came from her a short, dry, and
+deliberate letter mentioning once more her critical worldly
+circumstances and the necessity of confronting them promptly and with
+intelligence and decision.
+
+To which he answered vigorously, begging her to hold out--either fit
+herself for employment--or throw her fortunes in with his and take the
+chances.
+
+"Rix dear," she answered, "don't you suppose I have thought of that? But
+I can't do it. There is nothing left in me to go on with. I'm burnt
+out--deadly tired, wanting nothing more than I shall have by marrying as
+I must marry. For I shall have you, too, as I have always had you. You
+said so, didn't you?
+
+"What difference, then, does it make to you or me whether or not I am
+married?
+
+"If you were sufficiently equipped to take care of me, and if I married
+you, I could not give you anything more than I have given already--I
+would not wish to if I could. All that many other women consider part of
+love--all that lesser side of it and of marriage I could not give to you
+or to any man--could not endure; because it is not in me and never has
+been. It is foreign to me, unpleasant, distasteful--even hateful.
+
+"So as I can give you nothing more than I have given or ever shall give,
+and as you have given me all you can--anyway all I care for in you--let
+me feel free to seek my worldly salvation and find the quiet and rest
+and surcease from anxiety which comes only under such circumstances.
+
+"You won't think unkindly of me, will you, Rix? I don't know very much;
+I amount to very little. What ideals I had are dead. Why should anybody
+bother to agree or disagree with my very unaggressive opinions or
+criticise harshly a life which has been spent mainly in troubling the
+world as little as possible?
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There are a number of people here--among them several friends of Jim
+Wycherly, all of them aviation-mad. Jim took out the Stinger, smashed
+the planes and got a fall which was not very serious. Lester Caldera did
+the same thing to the Kent biplane except that he fell into the river
+and Sir Charles and Chrysos, in the launch, fished him out--swearing,
+they say.
+
+"Vincent Wier made a fine flight in his Delatour Dragon, sailing 'round
+and 'round like a big hawk for a quarter of an hour, but the wind came
+up and he couldn't land, and he finally came down thirty miles north of
+us in a swamp.
+
+"Langly took me for a short flight in his Owlet No. 3--only two miles
+and not very high, but the sensation was simply horrid. I never even
+cared for motoring, you see, so the experience left me most
+unenthusiastic, greatly to Langly's disgust. Really, all I care for is a
+decently gaited horse--and I prefer to walk him half the time. There is
+nothing speedy about me, Rix. If I ever had the inclination it's gone
+now.
+
+"To the evident displeasure of Sir Charles, Langly took up Chrysos Lacy;
+and the child adored it. I believe Sir Charles said something cutting to
+Langly in his quiet and dry way which has, apparently, infuriated my
+to-be-affianced, for he never goes near Sir Charles, now, and that
+cold-eyed gentleman completely ignores him. Which is _not_ very
+agreeable for me.
+
+"Oh, Rix, there seems to be so many misunderstandings in this
+exceedingly small world of ours--rows innumerable, heartburns,
+recriminations, quarrels secret and open, and endless misunderstandings.
+
+"Please don't let any come between us, will you? Somehow, lately, I find
+myself looking on you as a distant but solid and almost peaceful refuge
+for my harried thoughts. And I'm so very, very tired of being hunted.
+
+                                 "STRELSA."
+
+"If they hunt you too hard," he wrote to Strelsa, "the gateway of my
+friendship is open to you always: remember that, now and in the days to
+come.
+
+"What you have written leaves me with nothing to answer except this. To
+all it is given to endure according to their strength; beyond it no one
+can strive; but short of its limits it's a shame to show
+faint-heartedness.
+
+"About the man you are determined to marry I have no further word to
+say. You know in what repute he is held in your world, and you believe
+that its censure is unjust. There is good in every man, perhaps, and
+perhaps the good in this man may show itself only in response to the
+better qualities in you.
+
+"Somehow, without trying, you almost instantly evoke the better
+qualities in me. You changed my entire life; do you know it? I myself
+scarcely comprehended why. Perhaps the negative sweetness in you
+concentrated and brought out the positive strength so long dormant in
+me. All I know clearly is that you came into my life and found a fool
+wasting it, capering about in a costume half livery, half motley. My
+ambition was limited to my cap and bells; my aspirations never reached
+beyond the tip of my bauble. Then I saw you--and, all by themselves, my
+rags of motley fell from me, and something resembling a man stepped
+clear of them.
+
+"I am trying to make out of myself all that there is in me to develop.
+It is not much--scarcely more than the ability to earn a living.
+
+"I have come to care for nothing more than the right to look this sunny
+world straight in the face. Until I knew you I had scarcely seen it
+except through artificial light--scarce heard its voice; for the
+laughter of your world and the jingle of my cap and bells drowned it in
+my ass's ears.
+
+"I could tell you--for in dark moments I often believe it--that there is
+only one thing that counts in the world--one thing worth having, worth
+giving--love!
+
+"But in my heart I know it is not so; and the romancers are mistaken;
+and so is the heart denied.
+
+"Better and worth more than love of man or woman is the mind's silent
+approval--whether given in tranquillity or accorded in dumb anguish.
+
+"Strelsa dear, I shall always care for you; but I have discovered that
+love is another matter--higher or lower as you will--but different. And
+I do not think I shall be able to love the girl who does what you are
+decided to do. And that does not mean that I criticise you or blame you,
+or that my sympathy, affection, interest, in you will be less. On the
+contrary all these emotions may become keener; only one little part will
+die out, and that without changing the rest--merely that mysterious,
+curious, elusive and illogical atom in the unstable molecule, which we
+call love--and which, when separated, leaves the molecule changed only
+in name. We call it friendship, then.
+
+"And this is, I think, what you would most desire. So when you do what
+you have determined to do, I will really become toward you what you
+are--and have always been--toward me. And could either of us ask for
+more?
+
+"Only--forgive me--I wish it had been Sir Charles--or almost any other
+man. But that is for your decision. Strelsa governs and alone is
+responsible to Strelsa.
+
+"Meanwhile do not doubt my affection--do not fear unkindness, judgment,
+or criticism. I wish I were what you cared for most in the world--after
+the approval of your own mind. I wish you cared for me not only as you
+do but with all that has never been aroused in you. For without that I
+am helpless to fight for you.
+
+"So, in your own way, you will live life through, knowing that in me you
+will always have an unchanged friend--even though the lover died when
+you became a wife. Is all clear between us now?
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If you are ever in town, or passing through to Newport or Bar Harbour,
+stop and inspect our gallery.
+
+"It is really quite pretty and some of the pictures are excellent. You
+should see it now--sunlight slanting in through the dusty bay-window,
+Dankmere at a long polished table doing his level best to assemble
+certain old prints out of a portfolio containing nearly a thousand;
+pretty little Miss Vining, pencil in hand, checking off at her desk the
+reference books we require in our eternal hunt for information; I below
+stairs in overalls if you please, paint and varnish stained, a
+jeweller's glass screwed into my left eye, examining an ancient panel
+which I strongly hope may have been the work of a gentleman named
+Bronzino--for its mate is almost certainly the man in armour in the
+Metropolitan Museum.
+
+"Strelsa, it is the most exciting business I ever dreamed of. And the
+beauty of it is that it leads out into everything--stretches a
+thousand sensitive tentacles which grasp at knowledge of beauty
+everywhere--whether it lie in the sombre splendour of the tapestries of
+Bayeux, of Italy, of Flanders; or deep in the woven magnificence of some
+dead Sultan's palace rug; or in the beauty of the work of silversmiths,
+goldsmiths, of sculptors in ivory or in wood long dead; or in the
+untinted marbles of the immortal masters.
+
+"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are linked, how
+closely and eternally knit together in the vast fabric fashioned by man
+from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms of which lie buried
+all that man has ever thought and hoped.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five
+squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now
+open.
+
+"Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my knee,
+she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman cat begin
+an intermezzo on the back fence.
+
+"Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose,
+astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under the
+piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I supposed
+that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes and--Daisy's
+kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one in each pocket,
+Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional little exclamation of
+solicitude and pride.
+
+"Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries--not
+superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have tea
+in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her young
+ones--Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together in a basket
+which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk.
+
+"In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere
+and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl Westguard
+comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his novel--or perhaps
+Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for us--or, if the heat makes us
+feel particularly futile, I perform some of those highly intellectual
+tricks which once made me acceptable among people I now seldom or
+never see.
+
+[Illustration: "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines
+with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"]
+
+"Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a sweet,
+sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the ordinary yet
+blessed with a delicate sense of honour and incidentally of humour.
+
+"She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her mind
+about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our including her
+in our harmless informalities.
+
+"Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he informs me
+that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh; but Karl loves to
+take himself seriously.
+
+"Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world is out
+of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere Galleries need
+expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship usually fights shy
+of the frontiers of business. Old acquaintanceship is forgot very
+quickly when one side or the other has anything to sell. Only those
+thrifty imitations of friends venture near in quest of special
+privilege; and not getting it, go, never to return. _Ubi amici, ibi
+opes!_
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"When you pass through this furnace of Ascalon called New York will you
+stop among the Philistines long enough to take a cup of tea with
+us?--I'll show you the pictures; Dankmere will play 'Shannon Water' for
+you; Miss Vining will talk pretty platitudes to you, Daisy will purr for
+you, and the painted eyes of Dankmere's ancestors will look down
+approvingly at you from the wall; and all our little world will know
+that the loveliest and best of all the greater world is breaking bread
+with us under our roof, and that one for once, unlike man's dealings
+with your celestial sisters, our entertainment of you will not be wholly
+unawares.
+
+                                 "R. S. QUARREN."
+
+The basement workshop was aromatic with the odours of solvents, mediums,
+and varnishes when he returned from posting his letter to Strelsa. His
+old English mentor had departed for good, leaving him to go forward
+alone in his profession.
+
+And now, as he stood there, looking out into the sunny backyard, for the
+first time he felt the silence and isolation of the place, and his own
+loneliness. Doubt crept in whispering the uselessness of working, of
+saving, of self-denial, of laying by anything for a future that already
+meant nothing of happiness to him.
+
+For whom, after all, should he save, hoard, gather together, economise?
+Who was there to labour for? For whom should he endure?
+
+He cared nothing for women; he had really never cared for any woman
+excepting only this one. He would never marry and have a son. He had no
+near or distant relatives. For whose sake, then, was he standing here in
+workman's overalls? What business had he here in the basement of a
+shabby house in midsummer? Did there remain any vague hope of Strelsa?
+Perhaps. Hope is the last of one's friends to die. Or was it for himself
+that he was working now to provide against those evil days "when the
+keepers of the house shall tremble"? Perhaps he was unconsciously
+obeying nature's first law.
+
+And yet, slowly within him grew a certainty that these reasons were not
+the real ones--not the vital impulse that moved his hand steadily
+through critical and delicate moments as he bent, breathless, over the
+faded splendours of ancient canvases. No; somehow or other he had
+already begun to work for the sake of the work itself--whatever that
+really meant. That was the basic impulse--the occult motive; and,
+somehow he knew that, once aroused, the desire to strive could never
+again in him remain wholly quiescent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Both Dankmere and Miss Vining had gone to lunch, presumably in different
+directions; Daisy and her youngsters, having been nourished, were
+asleep; there was not a sound in the house except the soft rubbing of
+tissue-paper where Quarren was lightly removing the retouching varnish
+from a relined canvas. Presently the front door-bell rang.
+
+Quarren rinsed his hands and, still wearing overalls and painter's
+blouse, mounted the basement stairs and opened the front door. And Mrs.
+Sprowl supported by a footman waddled in, panting.
+
+"Tell your master I want to see him," she said--"I don't mean that fool
+of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar--Good Lord! Ricky, is that _you_?
+Here, get me a chair--those front steps nearly killed me. Long ago I
+swore I'd never enter a house which was not basement-built and had an
+elevator!... Hand me one of those fans. And if there's any water in the
+house not swarming with typhoid germs, get me a glass of it."
+
+He brought her a tumbler of spring water; she panted and gulped and
+fanned and panted, her little green eyes roaming around her.
+
+Presently she dismissed the footman, and turned her heavily flushed face
+on Quarren. The rolls of fat crowded the lace on her neck, perspiration
+glistened under her sparklike eyes.
+
+"How are you?" she inquired.
+
+He said, smilingly, that he was well.
+
+"You don't look it. You look gaunt.... Well, I never thought you'd come
+to this--that you had it in you to do anything useful."
+
+"I believe I've heard you say so now and then," he said with perfect
+good-humour.
+
+"Why not? Why should I have thought that your talents amounted to more
+than ornaments?"
+
+"No reason to suppose so," he admitted, amused.
+
+"Not the slightest. Talent usually damns people to an effortless
+existence. And yours was a pleasant one, too. You had a good time,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Oh, very."
+
+"There was nothing to do except to come in, kiss the girls all around,
+and make faces to amuse them, was there?"
+
+"Not much more," he admitted, laughing.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's little green eyes travelled all over the walls.
+
+"Umph," she snorted, "I suppose these are some of Dankmere's heirlooms.
+I never fancied that little bounder----"
+
+"Wait!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder----"
+
+"He _is_ one!"
+
+"Keep that opinion to yourself," he said bluntly.
+
+The old lady's eyes blazed. "I'm damned if I do!" she retorted--"I'll
+say what----"
+
+"Not here! You mustn't be uncivil here. You know well enough how to
+behave when necessary; and if you don't do it I'll call your carriage."
+
+For fully five minutes Mrs. Sprowl sat there attempting to digest what
+he had said. The process was awful to behold, but she accomplished it at
+last with a violent effort.
+
+"Ricky," she said, "I didn't come here to quarrel with you over an
+Englishman who--of whom I--have my personal opinion."
+
+He laughed, leaned over and deliberately patted her fat wrist; and she
+glared at him somewhat as a tigress inspects a favourite but overgrown
+and presuming cub.
+
+"I don't know why you came," he said, "but it was nice of you anyway and
+I am glad to see you."
+
+"If that's true," she said, "you're one of mighty few. The joy which
+people feel in my presence is usually exhibited when I'm safely out of
+their houses, or they are out of mine."
+
+She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water
+empty and refused more.
+
+"Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place
+of Molly's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what the devil is going on there?"
+
+"Aviation," he said blandly.
+
+"What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that
+little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't
+learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even
+answer my letters.
+
+"Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with
+Strelsa as I dare be--she's got to be led with sugar. I've almost
+ordered her to come to me at Newport--but she doesn't come."
+
+"She's resting," said Quarren coolly.
+
+"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And
+what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few
+brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting
+for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it
+something else that glues him there--with the _Yulan_ in the North
+River?"
+
+Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject.
+
+"If I thought," muttered the old lady--"if I imagined for one moment
+that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on
+Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself--I'd take the next train and tell
+that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!"
+
+Quarren was silent.
+
+"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know
+whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed--have you
+ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa
+Leeds?--any tacit understanding--any interest on her part in him?... Why
+don't you answer me?"
+
+"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."
+
+"Am I to take that impudence literally?"
+
+"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to
+remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."
+
+"Why can't you speak of Langly?"
+
+"Because what concerns him does not concern me."
+
+"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly.
+
+"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?"
+
+"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a
+damn sight worse! I'd--I'd rather see her your wife than his!--and God
+knows _what_ he wants of her at that--as Mary Ledwith has first call or
+the world will turn Langly out of doors!"
+
+Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence.
+
+"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her
+teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done
+to her and her husband."
+
+"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance
+against it."
+
+"You watch and see! Some things are _too_ rotten to be endured----"
+
+"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't
+concern me."
+
+"Don't you care for that girl?"
+
+"We are friends."
+
+"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a
+madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look
+ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"--she added with an
+abrupt change of feeling--"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you
+are impertinent to me--and you know I do! But I--my heart is set on her
+marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more
+suitable?--happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where
+Langly is a--a toad, a cold-blooded worm!--a--a thing!
+
+"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I
+think of nothing else, care for nothing else----"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard.
+
+"Why do you care for it so much?"
+
+"Why? That is an absurd question."
+
+"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the
+real one."
+
+"Ricky, you insolent----"
+
+"Never mind. Answer me; _why_ are you so absorbed in this marriage?"
+
+She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is
+deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both."
+
+"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on
+your part?"
+
+"That--and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly.
+
+"Just those three reasons?"
+
+"Certainly. Just those three."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded.
+
+"I am compelled to--knowing that never in all your life have you made
+the slightest effort in behalf of friendship--never inconvenienced
+yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth."
+
+She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh;
+but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though
+pain had cut mirth short.
+
+"What is the matter?" he said.
+
+"Nothing.... _You_ are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to
+take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to
+read us and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we
+look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't
+care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my
+features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it _is_ a friendly
+pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind
+thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were
+the receptacle for many--Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty,
+miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret
+kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you
+something."
+
+She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he
+placed his chair beside hers.
+
+"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at
+the time."
+
+"I know."
+
+"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never
+forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch
+he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what
+was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the
+girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to
+America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know
+these things, Rix?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Then you know them now."
+
+"Yes, I--" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a
+while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her
+features.
+
+"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated--a voice
+so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was
+she who had spoken.
+
+"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life
+friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix.
+In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship--the
+friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son."
+
+Quarren looked at her in silence.
+
+"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life
+and youth began early for me--and lasted a little more than a year--and
+then they both burnt out in my heart--leaving the rest of me alive--this
+dross!--" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and
+sat thinking for a while.
+
+Daisy walked into the room and seated herself in a bar of sunlight,
+pleasantly blinking her yellow eyes. Mrs. Sprowl glanced at her
+absently, and they eyed each other in silence.
+
+Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at
+Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features.
+
+"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have
+pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad
+when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up.
+I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that, in it, his
+father spoke--amiably--of me and said that in me his son would always
+find a friend.... That is all, Rix. Do you believe me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--should I go to Witch-Hollow?"
+
+"I can't answer you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--because I care for her too much. And I can do absolutely
+nothing for her. I could not swerve her or direct her. She alone knows
+what is in her heart and mind to do. I cannot alter it. She will act
+according to her strength; none can do otherwise.... And she is tired to
+the very soul.... You tell me that life and youth in you died within a
+year's space. I believe it.... But with her it took two years to die.
+And then it died.... Let her alone, in God's name! The child is weary of
+pursuit, deathly weary of importunity--tired, sad, frightened at the
+disaster to her fortune. Let her alone. If she marries it will be
+because of physical strength lacking--strength of character, of
+mind--perhaps moral, perhaps spiritual strength--I don't know. All I
+know is that no man or woman can help her, because the world has bruised
+her too long and she's afraid of it."
+
+For a long while Mrs. Sprowl sat there in silence; then:
+
+"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir
+Charles."
+
+"I don't think she is."
+
+"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!"
+
+Quarren looked at her oddly:
+
+"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so am I.... Friends do not
+make a convenience of one another."
+
+"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow."
+
+"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that
+there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make
+the convenience of a husband out of either of us."
+
+"What a twisted, ridiculous, morbid----"
+
+"Let her alone," he said gently.
+
+"Very well.... But I'll be hanged if I let Langly alone! He's still got
+me to deal with, thank God!--whatever he dares do to Mary
+Ledwith--whatever he has done to that wretched creature Chester
+Ledwith--he's still got a perfectly vigorous aunt to reckon with. And
+we'll see," she added--"we'll see what can be done----"
+
+The front door opened noisily.
+
+"That's Dankmere," he said. "If you are not going to be civil to him
+hadn't you better go?"
+
+"I'll be civil to him," she snorted, "but I'm going anyway. Good-bye,
+Ricky. I'll buy a picture of you when the weather's cooler....
+How-de-do!"--as his lordship entered looking rather hot and mussy--"Hope
+your venture into the realms of art will prove successful, Lord
+Dankmere. Really, Rix, I must be going--if you'll call my man----"
+
+"I'll take you down," he said, smilingly offering his support.
+
+So Mrs. Sprowl rolled away in her motor, and Quarren came back, wearied
+with the perplexities and strain of life, to face once more the lesser
+problems of the immediate present: one of them was an ancient panel in
+the basement, and he went downstairs to solve it, leaving Dankmere
+sorting out old prints and Jessie Vining, who had just returned, writing
+business letters on her machine.
+
+There were not many business letters to write--one to the Metropolitan
+Museum people declining to present them with a charming little picture
+by Netscher which they wanted but did not wish to pay for; one to the
+Worcester Museum advising that progressive institution that, at the
+request of their director, four canvases had been shipped to them for
+inspection; several letters enclosing photographs of pictures desired by
+foreign experts; and a notification to one or two local millionaires
+that the Dankmere Galleries never shaded prices or exchanged canvases.
+
+Having accomplished the last of the day's work remaining up to that
+particular minute, Jessie Vining leaned back in her chair, rubbed her
+pretty eyes, glanced partly around toward Lord Dankmere but checked
+herself, and, with her lips the slightest shade pursed up into a hint of
+primness, picked up the library novel which she had been reading during
+intervals of leisure.
+
+It was mainly about a British Peer. The Peer did not resemble Dankmere
+in any particular; she had already noticed that. And now, as she read
+on, and, naturally enough, compared the ideal peer with the real one,
+the difference became painfully plain to her.
+
+Could that short young man in rather mussy summer clothes, sorting
+prints over there, be a peer of the British realm? Was this young man,
+whom she had seen turning handsprings on the grass in the backyard, a
+belted Earl?
+
+In spite of herself her short upper lip curled slightly as she turned
+from her book to glance at him. He looked up at the same moment, and
+smiled on meeting her eye--such a kindly yet diffident smile that she
+blushed a trifle.
+
+"I say, Miss Vining, I've gone over all these prints and I can't find
+one that resembles the Hogarth portrait--if it is a Hogarth."
+
+"Mr. Quarren thinks it is."
+
+"I daresay he's quite right, but there's nothing here to prove it"; and
+he slapped the huge portfolio shut, laid his hands on the table, vaulted
+to the top of it, and sat down. Miss Vining resumed her reading.
+
+"Miss Vining?"
+
+"Yes?" very leisurely.
+
+"How _old_ do you think I am?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"How old do you think I am?"
+
+"Really I hadn't thought about it, Lord Dankmere."
+
+"Oh."
+
+Miss Vining resumed her reading.
+
+When the Earl had sat on top of the table long enough he got down and
+dropped into the depths of an armchair.
+
+"Miss Vining," he said.
+
+"Yes?" incuriously.
+
+"Have you thought it out yet?"
+
+"Thought out what, Lord Dankmere?"
+
+"How old I am."
+
+"Really," she retorted, half laughing, half vexed, "do you suppose that
+my mind is occupied in wondering what your age might be?"
+
+"Isn't it?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Don't you want to know?"
+
+She began to laugh again:
+
+"Why, if you wish to tell me of course it will interest me _most_
+profoundly." And she made him a graceful little bow.
+
+"I'm thirty-three," he said.
+
+"Thank you so much for telling me."
+
+"You are welcome," he returned gravely. "Do you think I'm too old?"
+
+"Too old for what?"
+
+"Oh, for anything interesting."
+
+"What do you mean by 'interesting'?"
+
+But Lord Dankmere apparently did not know what he did mean for he made
+no answer.
+
+After a little while he said: "Wouldn't it be odd if I ever have income
+enough to pay off my debts?"
+
+"What?"
+
+He repeated the observation.
+
+"I don't know what you mean. You naturally expect to pay them, don't
+you?"
+
+"I saw no chance of doing so before Mr. Quarren took hold of these
+pictures."
+
+She was sorry for him:
+
+"Are you very deeply in debt?"
+
+He named the total of his liabilities and she straightened her young
+shoulders, horrified.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "I know plenty of chaps in England who
+are far worse off."
+
+"But--that is terrible!" she faltered.
+
+Dankmere waved his hand:
+
+"It's not so bad. That show business let me in for a lot."
+
+"Why did you ever do it?"
+
+"I like it," he explained simply.
+
+She flushed: "It seems strange for a--a man of your kind to sing comic
+songs and dance before an audience."
+
+"Not at all. I've a friend, Exford by name--who goes about grinding a
+barrel-organ."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He likes to do it.... I've another pal of sorts who chucked the Guards
+to become a milliner. He always did like to crochet and trim hats. Why
+not?--if he likes it!"
+
+"It is not," said Jessie Vining, "my idea of a British peer."
+
+"But for Heaven's sake, consider the peer! Now and then they have an
+idea of what they'd like to do. Why not let them do it and be happy?"
+
+"Then they ought not to have been born to the peerage," she said firmly.
+
+"Many of them wouldn't have been had anybody consulted them."
+
+"You?"
+
+"It's brought me nothing but debt, ridicule, abuse, and summonses."
+
+"You couldn't resign, could you?" she said, smiling.
+
+"I _am_ resigned. Oh, well, I'd rather be what I am than anything else,
+I fancy.... If the Topeka Museum trustees purchase that Gainsborough
+I'll be out of debt fast enough."
+
+"And then?" she inquired, still smiling.
+
+"I don't know. I'd like to start another show."
+
+"And leave Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"What use am I? We'd share alike; he'd manage the business and I'd
+manage a musical comedy I'm writing after hours----"
+
+He jumped up and went to the piano where for the next ten minutes he
+rattled off some lively and very commonplace music which to Jessie
+Vining sounded like everything she had ever before heard.
+
+"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully, swinging around on his stool.
+
+"It's--lively."
+
+"You _don't_ like it!"
+
+"I--it seems--very entertaining," she said, reddening.
+
+The Earl sat looking at her in silence for a moment; then he said:
+
+"To care for anything and make a failure of it--can you beat it for
+straight misery, Miss Vining?"
+
+"Oh, please don't speak that way. I really am no judge of musical
+composition."
+
+He considered the key-board gloomily; and resting one well-shaped hand
+on it addressed empty space:
+
+"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the
+deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of
+accomplishment?"
+
+The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no
+words suitable for the particular moment.
+
+Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two
+softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water."
+
+His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the
+quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang
+"The Harp," and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago.
+
+When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes
+lowered.
+
+"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said--"not these Strausses
+and 'Girls from the Golden West.'"
+
+"Will you sing some more?"
+
+"Do you like my singing?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten
+melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age,
+can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days,
+the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world
+was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to
+inspire any maker of beautiful things.
+
+Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour
+of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days.
+
+Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard
+Dankmere open the door behind her and come out.
+
+They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north
+with a nod of good-night, when he said:
+
+"Are you walking?"
+
+She was, to save carfare.
+
+"May I go a little way?"
+
+"Yes--if----"
+
+Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had
+meant to say. Then, very slowly she turned northward, and he went, too,
+grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying
+himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking
+beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Strelsa had gone to town with her maid, remained there the entire
+afternoon, and returned to Witch-Hollow without seeing Quarren or even
+letting him know she was there.
+
+It was the beginning of the end for her and she knew it; and she had
+already begun to move doggedly toward the end through the blind
+confusion of things, no longer seeing, hearing, heeding; impelled
+mechanically toward the goal which meant to her only the relief of
+absolute rest.
+
+For her troubles were accumulating and she found in herself no resisting
+power--only the nervous strength left to get away from them. Troubles of
+every description were impending; some had already come upon her, like
+Quarren's last letter which she knew signified that the termination of
+their friendship was already in sight.
+
+But other things were in sight, too, so she spent the afternoon in town
+with her lawyers; which lengthy séance resulted in the advertising for
+immediate sale of her house in town and its contents, her town car,
+brougham, victoria and three horses.
+
+Through her lawyers, also, every jewel she possessed, all her wardrobe
+except what she had with her at Witch-Hollow, and her very beautiful
+collection of old lace, were placed in the hands of certain discreet
+people to dispose of privately.
+
+Every servant in her employment except her maid was paid and dismissed;
+her resignation from the Province Club was forwarded, all social
+engagements for the summer cancelled.
+
+There remained only two other matters to settle; and one of them could
+be put off--without hope of escape perhaps--but still it could be
+avoided for a little while longer.
+
+The other was to write to Quarren; and she wrote as follows:
+
+     "I have been in town; necessity drove me, and I was too unhappy to
+     see you. But this is the result: I can hold out a few months
+     longer--to no purpose, I know--yet, you asked it of me, and I am
+     trying to do it. Meanwhile the pressure never eases; I feel your
+     unhappiness deeply--deeply, Rix!--and it is steadily wearing me
+     out. And the pressure from Molly in your behalf, from Mrs. Sprowl
+     by daily letter in behalf of Sir Charles, from Langly in his own
+     interest never slackens for one moment.
+
+     "And that is not all; my late husband left no will, and I have
+     steadily refused to make any contest for more than my dower rights.
+
+     "That has been swept away, now; urgent need has compelled me to
+     offer for sale everything I possess except what wardrobe and
+     unimportant trinkets I have with me.
+
+     "So many suits have been threatened and even commenced against
+     me--you don't know, Rix--but while there remains any chance of
+     meeting my obligations dollar for dollar I have refused to go
+     through bankruptcy.
+
+     "I need not, now, I think. But the selling of everything will not
+     leave me very much; and in the end my cowardice will do what you
+     dread, and what I no longer fear, so utterly dead in me is every
+     emotion, every nerve, every moral. Men bound to the wheel have
+     slept; I want that sleep. I long for the insensibility, the endless
+     lethargy that the mortally bruised crave; and that is all I hope or
+     care for now.
+
+     "Love, as man professes it, would only hurt me--even yours. There
+     can be no response from a soul and body stunned. Nothing must
+     disturb their bruised coma.
+
+     "The man I intend to marry can evoke nothing in me, will demand
+     nothing of me. That is already mutually understood. It's merely a
+     bargain. He wants me as the ornament for the House of Sprowl. I can
+     carry out the pact without effort, figure as the mistress of his
+     domain, live life through unharassed as though I stood alone in a
+     vague, warm dream, safe from anything real.
+
+     "Meanwhile, without aim, without hope, without even desire to
+     escape my destiny, I am holding out because you ask it. To what
+     end, my friend? Can you tell me?"
+
+One morning Molly came into her room greatly perturbed, and Strelsa,
+still in bed, laid aside the New Testament which she had been reading,
+and looked up questioningly at her agitated hostess.
+
+"It's your fault," began Molly without preliminaries--"that old woman
+certainly suspects what you're up to with her nephew or she wouldn't
+bother to come up here----"
+
+"Who?" said Strelsa, sitting up. "Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+"Certainly, horse, foot, and dragoons! She's coming, I tell you, and
+there's only one motive for her advent!"
+
+"But where will she stop?" asked Strelsa, flushing with dismay.
+
+"Where do you suppose?"
+
+"With Langly?"
+
+"He wouldn't have her."
+
+"She is not to be your guest, is she?"
+
+"No. She wrote hinting that she'd come if asked. I pretended not to
+understand. I don't want her here. Every servant I have would leave--as
+a beginning. Besides I don't require the social prestige of such a
+visitation; and she knows that, too. So what do you think she's done?"
+
+"I can't imagine," said Strelsa wearily.
+
+"Well, she's manoeuvred, somehow; and this morning's paper announces that
+she's to be entertained at South Linden by Mary Ledwith."
+
+Strelsa reddened.
+
+"Why should that concern me?" she asked calmly.
+
+"Concern you, child! How can it help concerning you? Do you see what
+she's done?--do you count all the birds she's knocked over with one
+stone. Mary Ledwith returns from Reno and Mrs. Sprowl fixes and secures
+her social status by visiting her at once. And it's a perfectly plain
+notice to Langly, too, and--forgive me, dear!--to you!"
+
+Strelsa scarlet and astonished, sat up rigid, her beautiful head thrown
+back.
+
+"If she means it that way, it is slanderous," she said. "The entire
+story is a base slander! Did _you_ believe it, Molly?"
+
+"Believe it? Of course I believe it----"
+
+"Why should you? Because a lot of vile newspapers have hinted at such a
+thing? I tell you it is an infamous story without one atom of truth in
+it----"
+
+"How do you know?" asked Molly bluntly.
+
+"Because Langly says so."
+
+"Oh. Did you ask him?"
+
+"No. He spoke of it himself."
+
+"He denied it?"
+
+"Absolutely on his word of honour."
+
+"Then why didn't he sue a few newspapers?"
+
+"He spoke of that, too. He said that his attorneys had advised him not
+to bring any actions because the papers had been too clever to lay
+themselves open to suits for libel."
+
+"Oh," said Molly softly.
+
+Strelsa, flushed, breathing rapidly and irregularly, sat there in bed
+watching her; but Molly avoided her brilliant, level gaze.
+
+"There's no use in talking to you," she said, "but why on earth you
+don't marry Sir Charles----"
+
+"Molly! Please don't----"
+
+"--Or Rix----"
+
+"Molly! Molly! _Can't_ you let me alone! Can't we be together for ten
+minutes unless you urge me to marry somebody? Why do you want me to
+marry anybody!--Why----"
+
+"But you're going to marry Langly, you say!"
+
+"Yes, I am! I am! But can't you let me forget it for a moment or two?
+I--I'm not very well----"
+
+"I can't help it," said Molly, grimly. "I'm sorry, darling, but the
+moment your engagement to Langly is announced there'll be a horrid
+smash and some people are going to be spattered----"
+
+"It _isn't_ announced!" said the girl hotly. "Only you and Rix know
+about it except Langly and myself!"
+
+Molly Wycherly rose from her chair, went over and seated herself on the
+foot of the bed:
+
+"Tell me something, will you, Strelsa?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why does Langly desire to keep your engagement to him a secret?"
+
+"He wishes it for the present."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For that very reason!" said Strelsa, fiercely--"because of the
+injustice the papers have done him in this miserable Ledwith matter. He
+chooses to wait until it is forgotten--in order to shield me, I suppose,
+from any libellous comment----"
+
+"You talk like a little idiot!" said Molly between her teeth. "Strelsa,
+I could shake you--if it would wake you up! Do you suppose for a moment
+that this Ledwith matter will be forgotten? Do you suppose if there were
+nothing in it but libel that he'd be afraid? You listen to me; that man
+is not apt to be afraid of anything, but he evidently _is_ afraid, now!
+Of what, then?"
+
+"Of my being annoyed by newspaper comment."
+
+"And you think it's merely that?"
+
+"Isn't it enough?"
+
+Molly laughed:
+
+"We're a hardened lot--some of us. But our most deadly fear is that the
+papers may _not_ notice us. No matter what they say if they'll only say
+something!--that's our necessity and our unadmitted prayer. Because
+we've neither brains nor culture nor any distinguishing virtue or
+ability--and we're nothing--absolutely nothing unless the papers create
+us! Don't tell me that any one among us is afraid of publicity!--not in
+the particular circle where you and I and Langly and his aunt pursue our
+eccentric orbits!
+
+"Plenty of wealthy and fashionable people dread publicity and shrink
+from it; plenty of them would gladly remain unchronicled and unsung. But
+it is not so among the fixed stars and planets and meteors and
+satellites of our particularly flamboyant constellation. I _know_. I
+also know that you don't really belong in it. But you'll either become
+accustomed to it or it will kill you if you don't drop--or soar, as you
+please--into some other section of eternal space."
+
+She sat swinging her foot, flushed, animated, her eyes and colour
+brilliant--a slim, exquisitely groomed woman with all the superficial
+smoothness of a girl save for the wisdom in her eyes and in her smile,
+alas!
+
+And the other's eyes reflected in their clear gray depths no such
+wisdom, only the haunting knowledge of sorrow and, vaguely, the
+inexplicable horror of man as he really is--or at least as she had only
+known him.
+
+Still swinging her pretty foot, a deliberate smile edging her lips,
+Molly said:
+
+"If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling."
+
+Strelsa stared at her without comprehension, then dropped her head back
+on the pillows.
+
+"If you'll let me stay with you a little while longer--that is all I
+ask," she said almost drowsily.
+
+Molly sprang up, came around and kissed her, lightly: "Of course. That
+was what I was going to ask of you."
+
+[Illustration: "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling.'"]
+
+Strelsa closed her eyes. "I'll stay," she murmured.
+
+Molly laid her own cool face down beside Strelsa's hot cheek, kneeling
+beside the bed.
+
+"Dear," she whispered, "let us wait and see what happens. There's just
+one thing that has distorted your view--a dreadful experience with one
+man--two years of hell's own horror with one of its wretched
+inhabitants. I don't believe the impression is going to last a lifetime.
+I don't believe it is indelible. I believe somehow, some time you will
+learn that a man's love does not mean horror and degradation; that it is
+no abuse of friendship which offers love also, to return it with
+friendship only.
+
+"Sir Charles offers that; and you refuse because you do not love him and
+will not use his friendship to aid yourself to material comfort.
+
+"And I suspect you have said the same thing to Rix. Have you?"
+
+The girl lay silent, eyes closed.
+
+"Never mind; don't answer. I know you well enough to know that you said
+some such thing to Rix.... And it's all right in its way. But the
+alternative is not what you think it is--not this bargain with Langly
+for a place to lay your tired head--not this deal to decorate his name
+and estates in return for personal immunity. You are wrong--I'm not
+immoral, only unmoral--as many of us are--but you've gone all to pieces,
+dear--morally, mentally, nervously--and it's not from cowardice, not
+from depravity. It is the direct result of the two years of terror and
+desperate self-control--two years of courage--high moral courage,
+determination, self-suppression--and of the startling and dreadful
+climax.
+
+"That is the blow you are now feeling--and the reaction even after two
+years more of half-stunned solitude. You are waking, darling; that is
+all. And it hurts."
+
+Strelsa's bare arm moved a little, moved, groping, and tightened around
+Molly's neck. And they remained that way for a long while, Molly
+kneeling on the floor beside her.
+
+"Don't you ever cry?" she whispered.
+
+"Not--now."
+
+"It would be better if you could."
+
+"There are no tears--I--I am burnt out--all burnt out----"
+
+"You need strength."
+
+"I haven't the desire for it any longer."
+
+"Not the desire to face things pluckily?"
+
+"No--no longer. Everything's dead in me except the longing for--quiet.
+I'll pay any price for it--except misuse of friends."
+
+"How could you misuse Rix by marrying him?"
+
+"By accepting what I could never return."
+
+"Love?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does he ask that?"
+
+"N-no--not now. But--he wants it. And I haven't it to give. So I can't
+take his--and let him work all his life for my comfort--I can't take it
+from Sir Charles and accept the position and fortune he offered me
+once----"
+
+She lay silent a moment, then unclosed her eyes.
+
+"Molly," she said, "I don't believe that Sir Charles is going to mind
+very much."
+
+Molly met her eyes for an instant, very near, and a pale flash of
+telepathy passed between them. Then Strelsa smiled.
+
+"You mean Chrysos," said Molly.
+
+"Yes.... Don't you think so?"
+
+"She's little more than a child.... I don't know. Men are that way--men
+of Sir Charles's age and experience are likely to drift that way.... But
+if you are done with Sir Charles, what he does no longer interests
+me--except that the Lacys will become insufferable if----"
+
+"Don't talk that way, dear."
+
+"I don't _like_ the family--except Chrysos."
+
+"Then be glad for her--if it comes true.... Sir Charles is a
+dear--almost too perfectly ideal to be a man.... I do wish it for his
+sake.... He was a little unhappy over me I think."
+
+"He adores you still, you little villain!" whispered Molly, fondling
+her. "But--let poets sing and romancers rave--there's nothing that
+starves as quickly as love. And Sir Charles has been long fasting--good
+luck to him and more shame on you!"
+
+Strelsa laughed, cleared her brow and eyes of the soft bright hair, and,
+flinging out both arms, took Molly to her heart in a swift, hard
+embrace.
+
+"There!" she said, breathless, "I adore you anyhow, Molly.... I feel
+better, too. I'm glad you talked to me.... Do you think I'll get
+anything for my house?"
+
+"Yes, when you sell it. That's the hopeless part of it just at this time
+of year----"
+
+"Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I've had an awful
+lot of the other kind all my life."
+
+They laughed.
+
+Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I'll have enough left
+over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and
+chickens and a cow!"
+
+"How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?"
+
+Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as
+though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a
+little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado
+Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for
+pleasure--crazy about anything that promised gaiety and
+amusement--anything to make me forget.
+
+"You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill--ill
+most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother--it's
+curious, but mother never said anything about her--and she cared for
+fashionable people.
+
+"So I came to New York last winter--and you know the rest--I got tired
+physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me--and so many women
+urged me to do so many things--and I was unhappy about Rix--and then
+came this awful financial crash----"
+
+"Stop thinking of it!"
+
+"Yes; I mean to. I only wanted you to understand how, one by one,
+emotions and desires have been killed in me during the last four
+years.... And even the desire for wealth and position--which I clung to
+up to yesterday--somehow, now--this morning--has become little more than
+a dreamy wish.... I'd rather have quiet if I could--if there's enough
+money left to let me rest somewhere----"
+
+"There will be," said Molly, watching her.
+
+"Do you think so? And--then there would be no necessity for--for----"
+
+"Langly!"
+
+Strelsa flushed. "I wonder," she mused. "I wonder whether--but it seems
+impossible that I should suddenly find I didn't care for everything I
+cared for this winter. Perhaps I'm too tired to care just now."
+
+"It might be," said Molly, "that something--for example your friendship
+with Rix--had made other matters seem less important."
+
+The girl looked up quickly, saw nothing in Molly's expression to disturb
+her, then turned her eyes away, and lay silent, considering.
+
+If her friendship for Quarren had imperceptibly filled her mind, even
+crowding aside other and most important matters, she did not realise it.
+She thought of it now, and of him--recalling the letter she had written.
+
+Vaguely she was aware of the difference in her attitude toward life
+since she wrote that letter only a few days before. To what was it due?
+To his letter in reply now lying between the leaves of her New Testament
+on the table beside her? This was his letter:
+
+     "Hold out, Strelsa! Matters are going well with me. Your tide, too,
+     will turn before you know it. But neither man nor woman is going to
+     aid you, only time, Strelsa, and--something that neither you nor I
+     have bothered about very much--something that has many names in
+     many tongues--but they all mean the same. And the symbol of what
+     they mean is Truth.
+
+     "Why not study it? We never have. All sages of all times have
+     studied it and found comfort; all saints in all ages have found in
+     it strength.
+
+     "I find its traces in every ancient picture that I touch. But there
+     are books still older that have lived because of it. And one man
+     died for it--man or God as you will--the former is more
+     fashionable.
+
+     "Lives that have been lived because of it, given for it, forgiven
+     for its sake, are worth our casual study.
+
+     "For they say there is no greater thing than Truth. I can imagine
+     no greater. And the search for it is interesting--fascinating--I
+     had no idea how absorbing until recently--until I first saw you,
+     who sent me out into the world to work.
+
+     "Hold out--and study this curious subject of Truth for a little
+     while. Will you?
+
+     "If you'll only study it a while I promise that it will interest
+     you--not in its formalisms, not in its petty rituals and
+     observances, nor in its endless nomenclature, nor its
+     orthodoxy--but just as you discover it for yourself in the
+     histories of men and women--of saint and sinner--and, above all, in
+     the matchless life of Him who understood them all.
+
+     "_Non tu corpus eras sine pectore!_"
+
+Lying there, remembering his letter almost word for word, and where it
+now lay among printed pages incomprehensible to her except by the
+mechanical processes of formal faith and superficial observance, she
+wondered how much that, and the scarcely scanned printed page, might
+have altered her views of life.
+
+Molly kissed her again and went away downstairs.
+
+When she was dressed in her habit she went out to the lawn's edge where
+Langly and the horses had already gathered: he put her up, and they
+cantered away down the wooded road that led to South Linden.
+
+After their first gallop they slowed to a walk on the farther hill
+slope, chatting of inconsequential things; and it seemed to her that he
+was in unusually good spirits--almost gay for him--and his short dry
+laugh rang out once or twice, which was more than she had heard from him
+in a week.
+
+From moment to moment she glanced sideways at him, curiously inspecting
+the sleek-headed symmetry of the man, noticing, as always, his perfectly
+groomed figure, his narrow head and the well-cut lines of the face and
+jaw. Once she had seen him--the very first time she had ever met him at
+Miami--eating a broiled lobster. And somehow his healthy appetite, the
+clean incision of his sun-bronzed jaw and the working muscles, chewing
+and swallowing, fascinated her; and she never saw him but she thought of
+him eating vigorously aboard the _Yulan_.
+
+"Langly," she said, "is it going to be disagreeable for you when Mrs.
+Ledwith returns to South Linden?"
+
+He looked at her leisurely, eyes, as always, slightly protruding:
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The newspapers."
+
+"Probably," he said.
+
+"Then--what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"About what?"
+
+"The papers."
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Or--about Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+"Be civil if I see her."
+
+"Of course," she said, reddening. "I was wondering whether gossip might
+be nipped in the bud if you left before she arrives and remained away
+until she leaves."
+
+His prominent eyes were searching her features all the while she was
+speaking; now they wandered restlessly over the landscape.
+
+"It's my fashion," he said, "to face things as they come."
+
+"If you don't mind I'd rather have you go," she said.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Anywhere you care to."
+
+He said: "I have told you a thousand times that the thing to do is to
+take Molly Wycherly 'board the _Yulan_, and----"
+
+"I do not care to do it until our engagement is announced."
+
+"Very well," he said, swinging around in his saddle, "I'll announce it
+to-day and we'll go aboard this evening and clear out."
+
+"Wh-what!" she faltered.
+
+"There's no use waiting any longer," he said. "Mrs. Ledwith and my fool
+of an aunt are coming to-morrow. Did you know that? Well, they are. And
+every dirty newspaper in town will make the matter insidiously
+significant! If my aunt hadn't taken it into her head to visit Mrs.
+Ledwith at this particular moment, there would have been few comments.
+As it is there'll be plenty--and I don't feel like putting up with
+them--I don't propose to for my own sake. The time comes, sooner or
+later, when a man has got to consider himself."
+
+After a short silence Strelsa raised her gray eyes:
+
+"Has it occurred to you to consider, me, Langly?"
+
+"What? Certainly. Haven't I been doing that ever since we've been
+engaged----"
+
+"I--wonder," she mused.
+
+"What else have I been doing?" he insisted--"denying myself the pleasure
+of you when I'm half crazy about you----"
+
+"What!"
+
+A dull flush settled under his prominent cheek-bones: he looked straight
+ahead of him between his horse's ears as he rode, sitting his saddle
+like the perfect horseman he was, although his mount felt the savage
+pain of a sudden and reasonless spurring and the wicked curb scarcely
+controlled him.
+
+Strelsa set her lips, not looking at either horse or man on her right,
+nor even noticing her own mare who was cutting up in sympathy with the
+outraged hunter at her withers.
+
+"Langly?"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you how painful such scandalous rumours must be
+for Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+"Can I help them?"
+
+Strelsa said, thoughtfully: "What a horrible thing for a woman! It was
+generous of your aunt to show people what _she_ thought of such cruel
+stories."
+
+"Do you think," he said sneeringly, "that my excellent aunt was inspired
+by any such motive? You might as well know--if you don't know already--"
+and his pale eyes rested a moment on the girl beside him--"that my aunt
+is visiting Mrs. Ledwith solely to embarrass me!"
+
+"How could it embarrass you?"
+
+"By giving colour to the lies told about me and the Ledwiths," he said
+in a hard voice--"by hinting that Mary Ledwith, free to marry, is
+accepted by my aunt; and the rest is up to me! That's what that female
+relative of mine has just done--" His big, white teeth closed with a
+click and he spurred his horse cruelly again and checked him until the
+slavering creature almost reared over backward.
+
+"If you maltreat that horse again, Langly, I'll leave you. Do you
+understand?" she said, exasperated.
+
+"I beg your pardon--" Again his jaw fairly snapped, but the horse did
+not suffer from his displeasure.
+
+"What has enraged you so?" she demanded.
+
+"This whole business. There isn't anything my aunt could have done more
+vicious, more contemptible, than to visit Mrs. Ledwith at this moment.
+I'll get it from every quarter, now."
+
+"I suppose she will, too."
+
+"My aunt? No such luck!"
+
+"I mean Mrs. Ledwith."
+
+"She? Oh, I suppose so."
+
+Strelsa said between tightening lips:
+
+"Is there nothing you can do, no kindness, no sacrifice you can make to
+shield Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+He stared at her, then his eyes roamed restlessly:
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know, Langly.... But if there is anything you could do----"
+
+"What? My aunt and the papers are determined that I shall marry her! I
+take it that you are not suggesting that, are you?"
+
+"I am suggesting nothing," she replied in a low voice.
+
+"Well, _I_ am. I'm suggesting that you and Molly and I go aboard the
+_Yulan_ and clear out to-night!"
+
+"You mean--to announce our engagement first?"
+
+"Just as you choose," he said without a shade of expression on his
+features.
+
+"You would scarcely propose that I sail with you under any other
+circumstances," she said sharply.
+
+"I leave it to you and Mrs. Wycherly. The main idea is to clear out and
+let them howl and tear things up."
+
+"Howl at Mrs. Ledwith and tear her to tatters while we start around the
+world on the _Yulan_?" nodded Strelsa. She was rather white, but she
+laughed; and he, hearing her, turned and laughed, too--a quick bark of a
+laugh that startled both horses who were unaccustomed to it.
+
+"Oh, I guess they won't put her out of business," he said. "She's young
+and handsome and there are plenty of her sort to marry her--even
+Dankmere would have a chance there or--" he hesitated, and decided to
+refrain. But she understood perfectly, and lost the remainder of her
+colour.
+
+"You mean Mr. Quarren," she said coolly.
+
+"I didn't," he replied, lying. And she was aware of his falsehood, too.
+
+"What started those rumours about Mrs. Ledwith and you, Langly?" she
+asked in the same pleasantly even tone, and turned her horse's head
+toward home at the same time. He made his mount pivot showily on his
+hocks and drew bridle beside her.
+
+"Oh, they started at Newport."
+
+"How?"
+
+"How do I know? Ledwith and I were connected in business matters; I saw
+more or less of them both--and he was too busy to be with his wife every
+time I happened to be with her. So--you know what they said."
+
+"Yes. When you and she were lunching at different tables at the Santa
+Regina you used to write notes to her, and everybody saw you."
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That is just it; there was nothing in it."
+
+"Except her reputation.... What a silly and careless girl! But a man
+doesn't think--doesn't care very much I fancy. And then everybody was
+offensively sorry for Chester Ledwith. But that was not your lookout,
+was it, Langly?"
+
+Sprowl turned his narrow face and looked at her in silence; and after a
+moment misjudged her.
+
+"It was not my fault," he said quietly. "I liked his wife and I was
+friendly with him until his gutter habits annoyed me."
+
+"He went to pieces, didn't he?"
+
+Once more Sprowl inspected her features, warily. Once more he misjudged
+her.
+
+"He's gone to smash," he said--"but what's that to us?"
+
+"I wonder," she smiled, but had to control the tremor of her lower lip
+by catching it between her teeth and looking away from the man beside
+her. Quickly the hint of tears dried out in her gray eyes--from whatever
+cause they sprang glimmering there to dim her eyesight. She bent her
+head, absently arranging, rearranging and shifting her bridle.
+
+"The thing to do," he said, curling his long moustache with powerful
+fingers--"is for the Wycherlys to stand by us now--and the others
+there--that little Lacy girl--and Sir Charles if he chooses. We'll have
+to take the whole lot of them aboard I suppose."
+
+"Suppose I go with you alone," she said in a low voice.
+
+He started in his saddle, turned on her a face that was reddening
+heavily. For an instant she scarcely recognised him, so thick his lips
+seemed, so congested the veins in forehead and neck. He seemed all mouth
+and eyes and sanguine colour--and big, even teeth, now, as the lips drew
+aside disclosing them.
+
+"Would you do that, Strelsa?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Would you do it--for me?"
+
+Her rapid breathing impeded speech; she said something inarticulate; he
+leaned from his saddle and caught her in his left arm.
+
+"By God," he stammered, "I knew it! You can have what you like from
+me--I don't care what it is!--take it--fill out your own checks--only
+let's get out of here before those damned women ruin us both!"
+
+She had strained back and aside from him, and was trying to guide her
+mare away, but his powerful arm crushed her and his hot breath fell on
+her face and neck.
+
+"You can have it your own way I tell you--I swear to God I'll marry
+you----"
+
+"What!"
+
+Almost strangled she wrenched herself free, panting, staring; and he
+realised his mistake.
+
+"We can't get a licence if we leave to-night," he said, breathing
+heavily. "But we can touch at any port and manage that."
+
+"You--you _would_ take me--permit me to go--in such a manner?" she
+breathed, still staring at him.
+
+"It's necessity, isn't it? Didn't you propose it? It makes no difference
+to me, Strelsa. I told you I'd do anything you wished."
+
+"What did you mean--what did you mean by--by--" But she could go no
+further in speech or thought.
+
+"The thing to do," he said calmly, "is not to fly off our heads or
+become panic-stricken. You're doing the latter; I lost control of
+myself--after what you gave me to hope--after what you said--showing
+your trust in me," he added, moistening his thick dry lips with his
+tongue. "I lost my self-command--because I _am_ crazy for you,
+Strelsa--there's no sense in pretending otherwise--and you knew it all
+the time, you little coquette!
+
+"What do you think a man's made of? You wanted a business arrangement
+and I humoured you; but you knew all the while, and I knew, that--that I
+am infatuated, absolutely mad about you." He added, boldly: "And I have
+reason to think it doesn't entirely displease you, haven't I?"
+
+She did not seem to hear him. He laid his gloved hand over hers, and
+recoiled before her eyes as from a blow.
+
+"Are you angry?" he asked.
+
+Her teeth were still working on her under lip. She made no answer.
+
+"Strelsa--if you really feel nothing for me--if you mean what you have
+said about a purely business agreement--I will hold to it. I thought for
+a moment--when you said--something in your smile made me think----"
+
+"You need not think any further," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I came with you this morning to tell you that I will not
+marry you."
+
+"That's nonsense! I've hurt you--made you angry----"
+
+"I came for that reason," she repeated. "I meant to do it as soon as I
+had the courage. I meant to do it gently. Now I don't care how I do it.
+It's enough for you to know that I will not marry you."
+
+"Is that final?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't believe it. I know perfectly well I was--was too impulsive, too
+ardent----"
+
+She turned her face away with a faint, sick look at the summer fields
+where scores of birds sang in the sunshine.
+
+"See here," he said, his manner changing, "I tell you I'm sorry. I ask
+your pardon. Whatever you wish shall be done. Tell me what to do."
+
+After a few moments she turned toward him again.
+
+"A few minutes ago I could have told you what to do. I would have told
+you to marry Mary Ledwith. Also I would have been wrong. Now, as you ask
+me, I tell you not to marry her."
+
+His eyes were deadly dangerous, but she met them carelessly.
+
+"No," she said, "don't marry any woman after your attentions have made
+her conspicuous. It will be pleasanter for her to be torn to pieces by
+her friends."
+
+"You are having your vengeance," he said. "Take it to the limit,
+Strelsa, and then let us be reconciled."
+
+"No, it is too late. It was too late even before we started out
+together. Why--I didn't realise it then--but it was too late long
+ago--from the day you spoke as you did in my presence to Mr. Quarren.
+That finished you, Langly--if, indeed, you ever really began to mean
+anything at all to me."
+
+He made a last effort and the veins stood out on his forehead:
+
+"I am sorry I spoke to Quarren as I did. I like him."
+
+She said coolly: "You hate him. You and Mr. Caldera almost ruined him in
+that acreage affair."
+
+"You are mistaken. Caldera squeezed him; I did not. I knew nothing about
+it. My agents attend to such petty matters. What motive have I for
+disliking Quarren?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully: "Perhaps because you thought he
+was devoted to me--and I to him.... And you were right," she added: "I
+am devoted to him because he is a man and a clean one."
+
+"Have you ended?"
+
+"Ended what?"
+
+"Punishing me."
+
+Her lips curled slightly: "I am afraid you are inclined to
+self-flattery, Langly. We chasten those whom we care for."
+
+"Are you silly enough to dismiss me through sheer pique?" he said
+between his teeth.
+
+"Pique? I don't understand. I've merely concluded that I don't need your
+fortune and I don't want your name. You, personally, never figured in
+the proposed arrangement."
+
+His visage altered alarmingly:
+
+"Who have you got on the string now!" he broke out--"you little
+adventuress! What damned fool is damned fool enough to marry you when
+anybody could get you for less if they care to spend the time on
+you----"
+
+Suddenly his arm shot out and he wrenched her bridle, dragging her horse
+around and holding him there.
+
+"Are you mad?" she whispered, white to the lips. "Take your hand off my
+bridle!"
+
+"For another word," he said between clinched teeth, "I'd ride you down
+and spoil that face of yours! Hold your tongue and listen to me. I've
+stood all I'm going to from you. I've done all the cringing and
+boot-licking that is going to be done. You're the sort that needs curb
+and spurs, and you'll get them if you cut up with me. Is that plain?"
+
+She had carried no crop that morning or she would have used it; her
+bridle was useless; spurring might have dragged them both down under the
+horses' feet.
+
+"For the last time," he said, "you listen to me. I love you. I want you.
+You haven't a cent; you could fill out any check you chose to draw over
+my signature. Now if you are not crazy, or a hopeless fool, behave
+yourself."
+
+A great sob choked her; she forced it back and sat, waiting, eyes almost
+closed.
+
+"Strelsa, answer me!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Answer me, for God's sake!"
+
+She opened her eyes.
+
+"Will you marry me?"
+
+"No."
+
+His eyes seemed starting from his head and the deep blood rushed to his
+face and neck, and he flung her bridle into her face with an
+inarticulate sound.
+
+Then, slowly, side by side they advanced along the road together. A
+groom met them at Witch-Hollow; Strelsa slipped from her saddle without
+aid and, leisurely, erect, smiling, walked up to the veranda where Molly
+stood reading the morning paper.
+
+"Hello dear," she said. "Am I very late for luncheon?"
+
+"It's over. Will you have a tray out here?"
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Don't you want to change, first?"
+
+"Yes, thanks."
+
+Molly glanced up from the paper:
+
+"Isn't Langly stopping for luncheon with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+Molly looked at her curiously:
+
+"Did you enjoy your gallop?"
+
+"We didn't gallop much."
+
+"Spooned?"
+
+Strelsa shuddered slightly. The elder woman dropped her paper and gazed
+at her.
+
+"You don't mean to say it's all off, Strelsa!"
+
+"Entirely. Please don't let's speak of it again--or of him--if you don't
+mind----"
+
+"I don't!--you darling!--you poor darling! What has that creature done
+to _you_?"
+
+"Don't speak of him, please."
+
+"No, I won't. Oh, I'm so glad, Strelsa!--I can't tell you how happy, how
+immensely relieved--and that cat of an aunt of his here to make
+mischief!--and poor Mary Ledwith----"
+
+[Illustration: "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she asked
+caressingly."]
+
+"Molly, I--I simply can't talk about it--any of it----"
+
+She turned abruptly, entered the house, and ran lightly up the stairs.
+Molly waited for her, grimly content with the elimination of Langly
+Sprowl and already planning separate campaigns in behalf of Sir Charles
+and Quarren.
+
+She was still absorbed in her scheming when Strelsa came down. There was
+not a trace of any emotion except pleasure in her face. In her heart it
+was the same; only an immense, immeasurable relief reigned there,
+calming and exciting her alternately. But her face was yet a trifle
+pale; her hands still unsteady; and every delicate nerve, slowly
+relaxing from the tension, was regaining its normal quiet by degrees.
+
+Her appetite was excellent, however. Afterward she and Molly chose
+neighbouring rockers, and Molly, lighting a cigarette, opened fire:
+
+"Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?" she asked caressingly.
+
+Strelsa laughed outright, then, astonished that she had not shrunk from
+a renewal of the eternal pressure, looked at Molly with wide gray eyes.
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me to-day," she said; "I seem to be
+able to laugh. I've not been very well physically; I've had a ghastly
+morning; I'm homeless and wretchedly poor--and I'm laughing at it
+all--the whole thing, Molly. What do you suppose is the matter with me?"
+
+"You're not in love, are you?" asked Molly with calm suspicion.
+
+"No, I'm not," said the girl with a quiet conviction that disconcerted
+the elder woman.
+
+"Then I don't see why you should be very happy," said Molly honestly.
+
+Strelsa considered: "Perhaps it's because to-day I feel unusually well.
+I slept--which I don't usually."
+
+"You're becoming devout, too," said Molly.
+
+"Devout? Oh, you saw me reading in my Testament.... It's an interesting
+book, Molly," she said naïvely. "You know, as children, and at school,
+and in church we don't read it with any intelligence--or listen to it in
+the right way.... People _are_ odd. We have our moments of contrition,
+abasement, fright, exaltation; but at bottom we know that our religion
+and a fair observance of it is a sound policy of insurance. We accept it
+as we take out insurance in view of eventualities and the chance of
+future fire----"
+
+"That's flippant," said Molly.
+
+"I really didn't mean it so.... I was wondering about it all. Recently,
+re-reading the New Testament, I was struck by finding so much in it that
+I had never noticed or understood.... You know, Molly, after all Truth
+is the greatest thing in the world."
+
+"So I've heard," observed Molly drily.
+
+"Oh, I've heard it, too, but never thought what it meant--until
+recently. You see Truth, to me, was just telling it as often as
+possible. I never thought much about it--that it is the basis of
+everything worthy and beautiful--such as old pictures--" she added
+vaguely--"and those things that silversmiths like Benvenuto Cellini
+did----"
+
+"What?"
+
+Strelsa coloured: "Everything worthy is founded on Truth," she said.
+
+"That sounds like Tupper or a copy-book," said Molly, laughing. "For
+surely those profound reflections never emanated originally from you or
+Rix--did they?"
+
+Strelsa, much annoyed, picked up the field glasses and levelled them on
+the river.
+
+Sir Charles was out there in a launch with Chrysos Lacy. Chrysos fished
+and Sir Charles baited her hook.
+
+"That's a touching sight," said Strelsa, laughing.
+
+Molly said crossly: "Well, if you don't want him, for goodness' sake say
+so!--and let me have some credit with the Lacys for engineering the
+thing."
+
+"Take it, darling!" laughed the girl, "take the credit and let the cash
+go--to Chrysos!"
+
+"How indelicate you _can_ be, Strelsa!"
+
+"Oh, I am. I'm in such rude health that it's almost vulgar. After all,
+Molly, there's an immense relief in getting rid of your last penny and
+knowing nothing worse can happen to you."
+
+"You might die."
+
+"I don't care."
+
+"Everybody cares whether they live or die."
+
+The girl looked at her, surprised.
+
+"I don't," she said, "--really."
+
+"Of course you do."
+
+"But why should I?"
+
+"Nonsense, Strelsa. No matter how they crack up Heaven, nobody is in a
+hurry to go there."
+
+"I wasn't thinking of Heaven.... I was just curious to see what else
+there is--I'm in no hurry, but it has always interested me.... I've had
+a theory that perhaps to everybody worthy is given, hereafter, exactly
+the kind of heaven they expect--to Buddhist, Brahman, Mohammedan,
+Christian--to the Shinto priest as well as to the Sagamore.... There's
+plenty of time--I'm in no hurry, nor would it be too soon to-morrow for
+me to find out how near I am to the truth."
+
+"You're morbid, child!"
+
+"Less this very moment than for years.... Molly, do you know that I am
+getting well? I wish you knew how well I feel."
+
+But Molly was no longer listening. High above the distant hangars where
+the men had gathered since early morning, a great hawk-like thing was
+soaring in circles. And already the distant racket of another huge
+winged thing came to her ears on the summer wind.
+
+"I hope Jim will be careful," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Into the long stables at South Linden, that afternoon, Langly Sprowl's
+trembling horse was led limping, his velvet flanks all torn by spurs and
+caked with mud, his tender mouth badly lacerated.
+
+As for his master, it seemed that the ruin of the expensive hunter and
+four hours' violent and capricious exercise in his reeking saddle had
+merely whetted his appetite for more violence; and he had been tramping
+for an hour up and down the length of the library in his big sprawling
+house when Mr. Kyte, his confidential secretary, came in without
+knocking.
+
+Sprowl hearing his step swung on him savagely, but Kyte coolly closed
+the door behind him and turned the key.
+
+"Ledwith is here," he said.
+
+"Ledwith," repeated Sprowl, mechanically.
+
+"Yes, he's on the veranda. They said you were not at home. He said he'd
+wait. I thought you ought to know. He acts queerly."
+
+Langly's protruding eyes became utterly expressionless.
+
+"All right," he said in dismissal.
+
+Kyte still lingered:
+
+"Is there anything I can say or do?"
+
+"If there was I'd tell you, wouldn't I?"
+
+Kyte's lowered gaze stole upward toward his employer, sustained his
+expressionless glare for a second, then shifted.
+
+"Very well," he said unlocking the library door; "I thought he might be
+armed, that's all."
+
+"Kyte!"
+
+Mr. Kyte turned on the door-sill.
+
+"What do you mean by saying that?"
+
+"Saying what?"
+
+"That you think this fellow Ledwith may be armed?"
+
+Kyte stood silent.
+
+"I ask you again," repeated Sprowl, "why you infer that this man might
+have armed himself to visit this house?"
+
+Kyte's eyes stole upward, were instantly lowered. Sprowl walked over to
+him.
+
+"You're paid to act, not think; do you understand?" he said in a husky,
+suppressed voice; but his long fingers were twitching.
+
+"I understand," said Kyte.
+
+Sprowl's lean head jerked; Kyte went; and the master of the house strode
+back into the library and resumed his pacing.
+
+Boots, spurs, the skirts of his riding coat, even his stock were stained
+with mud and lather; and there was a spot or two across his sun-tanned
+cheeks.
+
+Presently he walked to the bay-window which commanded part of the west
+veranda, and looking out through the lace curtains saw Ledwith sitting
+there, his sunken eyes fixed on the westering sun.
+
+The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at
+elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers
+and golf-stockings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of
+the muscles.
+
+The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into
+the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and
+down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the
+dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering
+mentally unsound.
+
+Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying
+his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still
+sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and
+strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors
+to the veranda.
+
+Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said.
+
+Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face.
+
+There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a
+crooked smile.
+
+"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he
+said.
+
+"When are you leaving?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I don't know--to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that--I don't
+know."
+
+Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out
+across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of
+tall trees lay like velvet on the grass; the crests of the woods beyond
+grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were
+noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged
+woodpeckers imitated them; in the late sunlight the grackles' necks
+were rainbow tinted.
+
+On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding,
+switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted
+hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded
+with sunshine and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and
+expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first
+grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond.
+
+"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoarse and
+painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in
+distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak.
+
+"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl.
+
+The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute.
+
+"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need
+exercise."
+
+"I've got to rest."
+
+"Well, then, what have you got to say?--because I'm going on. What's the
+matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?"
+
+"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment.
+
+"What else?"
+
+"Anxiety."
+
+"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?"
+
+Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting
+on his elbow against the tree-trunk:
+
+"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get
+it?"
+
+"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously.
+
+"Then--my wife has returned."
+
+"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice
+or features.
+
+"Yes," said Ledwith--"Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my
+way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I
+saw them from the hill."
+
+"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?"
+
+Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it,
+looking down at the grass.
+
+"You are going to marry her of course," he said.
+
+"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business."
+
+"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing
+possible. There is nothing else for her to do--for you to do. She knows
+it, you know it, and so do I."
+
+"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?"
+
+"Only your word to confirm what I have just said."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"Your marriage with Mary."
+
+"I think I told you that it was none of your business."
+
+"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business."
+
+"May I ask why?"
+
+"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently,
+there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the
+reason."
+
+Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and
+unclosing:
+
+"Is that all, Ledwith?"
+
+"That's all--when you have confirmed what I have said concerning the
+necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched."
+
+"You lie," said Langly.
+
+Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me."
+
+"That is another lie."
+
+"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared,
+after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body;
+she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as
+her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to
+effrontery.... It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at
+nothing--not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory
+characteristic of your sort.... I don't mean physical cowardice," he
+added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's
+powerful frame.
+
+"Have you finished?" asked the latter.
+
+"In a moment, Langly. I am merely reminding you of what has happened.
+Concerning myself I have nothing to say. Look at me. You know what I
+was; you see what I am. I'm not whining; it's all in a lifetime. And the
+man who is not fitted to take care of what is his, loses. That's all."
+
+Sprowl's head was averted after an involuntary glance at the man before
+him. His face was red--or it may have been the ruddy evening sun
+striking flat across it.
+
+Ledwith said: "You will marry her, of course. But I merely wish to hear
+you say so."
+
+Sprowl swung on him, his thick lips receding:
+
+"I'll marry whom I choose! Do you understand that?"
+
+"Of course. But you will choose to marry her."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Yes. Or--I'll kill you," he said seriously.
+
+Langly stared at him, every vein suddenly dark and swollen; then his
+bark of a laugh broke loose.
+
+"I suppose you've got it in your pocket," he said.
+
+Ledwith fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a dully blued weapon of
+heavy calibre; and Sprowl walked slowly up to him, slapped his face,
+took the revolver from him, and flung it into the woods.
+
+"Now go home and punch yourself full of dope," he said; swung on his
+heel, and sauntered off.
+
+Ledwith looked after him, one bloodless hand resting on the cheek which
+Sprowl had struck--watched him out of sight. Then, patiently, he started
+to search for the weapon, dropping on all-fours, crawling, peering,
+parting the ferns and bushes. But the sun was low and the woods dusky,
+and he could not find what he was looking for. So he sat up on the
+ground among the dead leaves of other years, drew from his pocket what
+he needed, and slowly bared his scarred arm to the shoulder.
+
+As for Sprowl, his vigorous tread lengthened to a swinging stride as he
+shouldered his way through a thicket and out again into the open.
+
+Already he scarcely remembered Ledwith at all, or his menace, or the
+blow; scarcely even recollected that Mary Ledwith had returned or that
+his aunt was within driving distance of his own quarters.
+
+A dull hot anguish, partly rage, possessed him, tormenting brain and
+heart incessantly and giving him no rest. His own clumsy madness in
+destroying what he believed had been a certainty--his stupidity, his
+loss of self-control, not only in betraying passion prematurely but in
+his subsequent violence and brutality, almost drove him insane.
+
+Never before in any affair with women had he forgotten caution in any
+crisis; his had been a patience unshakable when necessary, a dogged,
+driving persistence when the time came, the subtlety of absolute
+inertness when required. But above all and everything else he has been a
+master of patience, and so a master of himself; and so he had usually
+won.
+
+And now--now in this crisis--a crisis involving the loss of what he
+cared for enough to marry--if he must marry to have his way with
+her--what was to be done?
+
+He tried to think coolly, but the cinders of rage and passion seemed to
+stir and move with every breath he drew awaking the wild fire within.
+
+He would try to reason and think clearly--try to retrace matters to the
+beginning and find out why he had blundered when everything was in his
+own hands.
+
+It was his aunt's sudden policy that betrayed him into a premature
+move--Mary Ledwith's return, and his aunt's visit. Mary Ledwith was
+there to marry him; his aunt to make mischief unless he did what was
+expected of him.
+
+Leisurely but thoroughly he cursed them both as he walked back across
+his lawn. But he was already thinking of Strelsa again when, as he
+entered the wide hall, his aunt waddled across the rugs of the
+drawing-room, pronouncing his name with unmistakable decision. And,
+before the servants, he swallowed the greeting he had hoped to give her,
+and led her into the library.
+
+"Mercy on us, Langly!" she exclaimed, eyeing his reeking boots and
+riding-breeches; "do you live like a pig up here?"
+
+"I've been out," he said briefly. "What do you want?"
+
+Her little green eyes lighted up, and her smile, which was fading, she
+forced into a kind of fixed grin.
+
+"Your polished and thoughtful inquiry is characteristic of you," she
+said. "Mary is here, and I want you to come over to dinner."
+
+"I'm not up to it," he said.
+
+"I want you to come."
+
+"I tell you I'm not up to it," he said bluntly.
+
+"And I tell you that you'd better come."
+
+"_Better_ come?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes, _better_ come. More than that, Langly, you'd better behave
+yourself, or I'll make New York too hot to hold you."
+
+His prominent eyes were expressionless.
+
+"Ah?" he remarked.
+
+"Exactly, my friend. Your race is run. You've done one thing too
+publicly to squirm out of the consequences. The town has stood for a
+good deal from you. When that girl at the Frivolity Theatre shot
+herself, leaving a letter directed to you, the limit of public patience
+was nearly reached. You had to go abroad, didn't you? Well, you can't go
+abroad this time. Neither London nor Paris nor Vienna nor Budapest--no,
+nor St. Petersburg nor even Constantinople would stand you! Your course
+is finished. If you've an ounce of brains remaining you know that you're
+done for this time. So go and dress and come over to dinner.... And
+don't worry; I'll keep away from you after you're married."
+
+"You'll keep your distance before that," he said slowly.
+
+"You're mistaken. Many people are afraid of you, but I never was and
+never could be. You're no good; you never were. If you didn't lug my
+name about with you I'd let you go to hell. You'll go there anyway, but
+you'll go married first."
+
+"I expect to."
+
+"Married to Mary Ledwith," she said looking at him.
+
+He picked up a cigar, examined it, yawned, then glanced at her:
+
+"As I had--recently--occasion to tell Chester Ledwith, I'll marry whom I
+please. Now suppose you clear out."
+
+"Are you dining with us?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What time may we expect you to-morrow?"
+
+"At no time."
+
+"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is that final?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Do you expect to marry anybody else?"
+
+"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face
+distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at
+last? Do you understand clearly?--you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!"
+
+He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down
+the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and
+abuse--rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness
+and disintegration--his downfall from that silent citadel of
+self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for
+defiance or refuge.
+
+"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat
+nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the
+foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your
+business--I warn you now and for the last time, or else--" He swung
+around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work--"or else I'll supply
+the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father
+and yourself!"
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only
+the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive.
+
+"So _that_ fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you
+apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to
+understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my
+threshold. You _do_ understand, I guess."
+
+He continued his promenade but presently came back to her:
+
+"You know well enough who I want to marry. If you say or do one thing to
+interfere I'll see that you figure in the Yellows."
+
+He thought a moment; the colour slowly returned to her face. After a fit
+of coughing she struggled to rise from her chair. He let her pant and
+scuffle and kick for a while, then opened the door and summoned her
+footman.
+
+"I'm sorry I cannot drive with you this evening," he said quietly, as
+the footman supported Mrs. Sprowl to her feet, "but I've promised the
+Wycherlys. Pray offer my compliments and friendly wishes to Mrs.
+Ledwith."
+
+When she had gone he walked back into the library, picked up the
+telephone and finally got Molly Wycherly on the wire.
+
+"Won't you ask me to dinner?" he said. "I've an explanation to make to
+Mrs. Leeds and I'd be awfully obliged to you."
+
+There was a silence, then Molly said, deliberately:
+
+"You must be a very absent-minded young man. I saw your aunt for a
+moment this afternoon and she said that you are dining with her at Mrs.
+Ledwith's."
+
+"She was mistaken--" began Sprowl quietly, but Molly cut him short with
+a laughing "good-bye," and hung up the receiver.
+
+"That was Langly," she remarked, turning to Strelsa who was already
+dressed for dinner and who had come into Molly's boudoir to observe the
+hair-dressing and comprehensive embellishment of that young matron's
+person by a new maid on probation.
+
+Strelsa's upper lip curled faintly, then the happy expression returned,
+and she watched the decorating of Molly until the maid turned her out in
+the perfection of grooming from crown to toe.
+
+There was nobody in the music-room. Molly turned again to Strelsa as
+they entered:
+
+"What a brute he is!--asking me to invite him here for dinner when Mary
+Ledwith has just arrived."
+
+"Did he do that?"
+
+"Yes. And his excuse was that he had an explanation to make you. What a
+sneaking way of doing it!"
+
+Strelsa looked out of the dark window in silence.
+
+Molly said: "I wish he'd go away, I never can look at him without
+thinking of Chester Ledwith--and all that wretched affair.... Not that I
+am sniffy about Mary--the poor little fool.... Anyway," she added
+naïvely, "old lady Sprowl has fixed her status and now we all know how
+to behave toward her."
+
+Strelsa, arms clasped behind her back, came slowly forward from the
+window:
+
+"What a sorry civilisation," she said thoughtfully, "and what sorry
+codes we frame to govern it."
+
+"What?" sharply.
+
+Strelsa looked at her, absently.
+
+"Nobody seems to be ashamed of anything any more," she said, half to
+herself. "The only thing that embarrasses us is what the outside world
+may think of us. We don't seem to care what we think of each other."
+
+Molly, a trifle red, asked her warmly what she meant.
+
+"Oh, I was just realising what are the motives that govern us--the
+majority of us--and how primitive they are. So many among us seem to be
+moral throwbacks--types reappearing out of the mists of an ancient and
+unmoral past.... Echoes of primitive ages when nobody knew any
+better--when life was new, and was merely life and nothing
+else--fighting, treacherous, cringing life which knew of nothing else to
+do except to eat, sleep, and reproduce itself--bully the weaker, fawn on
+the stronger, lie, steal, and watch out that death should not interfere
+with the main chance."
+
+Molly, redder than ever, asked her again what she meant.
+
+"I don't know, dear.... How clean the woods and fields seem after a day
+indoors with many people."
+
+"You mean we all need moral baths?"
+
+"I do."
+
+Molly smiled: "For a moment I thought you meant that I do."
+
+Strelsa smiled, too:
+
+"You're a good wife, Molly; and a good friend.... I wish you had a
+baby."
+
+"I'm--going to."
+
+They looked at each other a moment; then Strelsa caught her in her arms.
+
+"Really?"
+
+Molly nodded:
+
+"That's why I worry about Jim taking chances in his aeroplane."
+
+"He mustn't! He's got to stop! What can he be thinking of!" cried
+Strelsa indignantly.
+
+"But he--doesn't know."
+
+"You haven't _told_ him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I--don't know how he'll take it."
+
+"What?"
+
+Molly flushed: "We didn't want one. I don't know what he'll say. We
+didn't care for them----"
+
+Strelsa's angry beauty checked her with its silent scorn; suddenly her
+pretty head fell forward on Strelsa's breast:
+
+"Don't look that way at me! I was a fool. How was I to know--anything?
+I'd never had one.... You can't know whether you want a baby or not
+until you have one.... I know now. I'm crazy about it.... I think it
+would--would kill me if Jim is annoyed----"
+
+"He won't be, darling!" whispered Strelsa. "Don't mind what he says
+anyway. He's only a man. He never even knew as much about it as you did.
+What do men know, anyway? Jim is a dear--just the regular sort of man
+interested in business and sport and probably afraid that a baby might
+interfere with both. What does he know about it?... Besides he's too
+decent to be annoyed----"
+
+"I'm afraid--I can't stand--even his indifference--" whimpered Molly.
+
+Strelsa, holding her clasped to her breast, started to speak, but a
+noise of men in the outer hall silenced her--the aviators returning from
+their hangars and gathering in the billiard-room for a long one before
+dressing.
+
+"Wait," whispered Strelsa, gently disengaging herself--"wait just a
+moment----"
+
+And she was out in the hall in an instant, just in time to touch Jim on
+the arm as he closed the file toward the billiard-room.
+
+"Hello, Sweetness!" he said, pivoting on his heels and seizing her
+hands. "Are you coming in to try a cocktail with us?"
+
+"Jim," she said, "I want to tell you something."
+
+"Shoot," he said. "And if you don't hurry I'll kiss you."
+
+"Listen, please. Molly is in the music-room. _Make_ her tell you."
+
+"Tell me what?"
+
+"Ask her, Jim.... And, if you care one atom for her--be happy at what
+she tells you--and tell her that you are. Will you?"
+
+He stared at her, then lost countenance. Then he looked at her in a
+panicky way and started to go, but she held on to him with
+determination:
+
+"Smile first!"
+
+"Thunder! I----"
+
+"Smile. Oh, Jim, isn't there any decency in men?"
+
+His mind was working like mad; he stared at her, then through the
+astonishment and consternation on his good-looking features a faint grin
+broke out.
+
+"All right," she whispered, and let him go.
+
+Molly, idling at the piano, heard his tread behind her, and looked up
+over her shoulder.
+
+"Hello, Jim," she said, faintly.
+
+"Hello, ducky. Strelsa says you have something to tell me."
+
+"I--Jim?"
+
+"So she said. So I cut out a long one to find out what it is. What's up,
+ducky?"
+
+Molly's gaze grew keener: "Did that child tell you?"
+
+"She said that you had something to tell me."
+
+"_Did_ she?"
+
+"No! Aren't you going to tell me either?"
+
+He dropped into a chair opposite her; she sat on the piano-stool
+considering him for a while in silence. Then, dropping her arms with a
+helpless little gesture:
+
+"We are going to have a baby. Are you--annoyed?"
+
+For a second he sat as though paralysed, and the next second he had her
+in his arms, the grin breaking out from utter blankness.
+
+"You're a corker, ducky!" he whispered. "You for me all the time!"
+
+"Jim!... Really?"
+
+"Surest thing you know! Which is it?--boy or--Oh, I beg your pardon,
+dear--I'm not accustomed to the etiquette. But I'm delighted, ducky,
+overwhelmed!"
+
+"Oh, Jim! I'm so glad. And I'm crazy about it--perfectly mad about
+it.... And you're a dear to care----"
+
+"Certainly I care! What do you take me for--a wooden Indian!" he
+exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate----"
+
+"But, Jim! We can't _tell_ people."
+
+"Oh--that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it
+of course. But I'll do anything you say----"
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Will I? Watch me!"
+
+"Then--then _don't_ take out the Stinger for a while. Do you mind,
+dear?"
+
+"What!" he said, jaw dropping.
+
+"I can't bear it, Jim. I was a good sport before; you know I was. But my
+nerve has gone. I can't take chances now; I _want_ you to see--it----"
+
+After a moment he nodded.
+
+"Sure," he said. "It's like Lent. You've got to offer up something....
+If you feel that way--" he sighed unconsciously--"I'll lock up the
+hangar until----"
+
+"Oh, darling! Will you?"
+
+"Yes," said that desolate young man, and kissed his wife without a
+scowl. He had behaved pretty well--about like the majority of husbands
+outside of popular romances.
+
+The amateur aeronauts left in the morning before anybody was stirring
+except the servants--Vincent Wier, Lester Caldera, the Van Dynes and the
+rest, bag, baggage, and, later, two aeroplanes packed and destined for
+Barent Van Dyne's Long Island estate where there was to be some serious
+flying attempted over the flat and dusty plains of that salubrious
+island.
+
+Sir Charles Mallison was leaving that same day, later; and there were to
+be no more of Jim's noisy parties; and now under the circumstances, no
+parties of Molly's, either; because Molly was becoming nervous and
+despondent and a mania for her husband possessed her--the pretty
+resurgence of earlier sentiment which, if not more than comfortably
+dormant, buds charmingly again at a time like this.
+
+Also she wanted Strelsa, and nobody beside these two; and although she
+liked parties of all sorts including Jim's sporting ones, and although
+she liked Sir Charles immensely, she was looking forward to comfort of
+an empty house with only her husband to decorate the landscape and
+Strelsa to whisper to in morbid moments.
+
+For Chrysos was going to Newport, Sir Charles and her maid accompanying
+her as far as New York from where the Baronet meant to sail the next
+day.
+
+His luggage had already gone; his man was packing when Sir Charles
+sauntered out over the dew-wet lawn, a sprig of sweet-william in his
+lapel, tall, clear-skinned, nice to look upon.
+
+What he really thought of what he had seen in America, of the sort of
+people who had entertained him, of the grotesque imitation of exotic
+society--or of a certain sort of it--nobody really knew. Doubtless his
+estimate was inclined to be a kindly one, for he was essentially that--a
+philosophical, chivalrous, and modest man; and if his lines had fallen
+in places where vulgarity, extravagance, and ostentation
+predominated--if he had encountered little real cultivation, less
+erudition, and almost nothing worthy of sympathetic interest, he never
+betrayed either impatience or contempt.
+
+He had come for one reason only--the same reason that had brought him to
+America for the first time--to ask Strelsa Leeds to marry him.
+
+He was man enough to understand that she did not care for him that way,
+soldier enough to face his fate, keen enough, long since, to understand
+that Quarren meant more to the woman he cared for than any other man.
+
+Cool, self-controlled, he watched every chance for an opening in his own
+behalf. No good chance presented itself. So he made one and offered
+himself with a dignity and simplicity that won Strelsa's esteem but not
+her heart.
+
+After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her.
+Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be
+on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he
+was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also
+he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for
+it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and
+words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious.
+
+Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding
+furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa;
+and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough.
+
+So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted
+to get back to his own kind--into real life again, among people of real
+position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live
+things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material
+or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well.
+
+There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there--except a
+warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom
+he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow.
+
+Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her
+fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a
+cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite
+and delightful.
+
+The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming
+surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made
+few demands on his intellect--that is, at first she had made very few.
+Later--within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find
+how much there really was to the young girl--and that perhaps her age
+and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between
+them.
+
+Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a
+while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that
+a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to
+present himself at so early an hour.
+
+A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not
+yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him.
+
+Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a
+dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the
+colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered
+up in a big cane-backed chair.
+
+"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night--sitting here
+because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down."
+
+He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down
+compassionately:
+
+"Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it.
+
+The old lady peered up at him:
+
+"You're sailing to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, gravely.
+
+"When do you return?"
+
+"I have made no plans to return."
+
+"You mean to say that you've given up the fight?"
+
+"There was never any fight," he said.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl scowled:
+
+"Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?"
+
+"Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better
+than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can
+scarcely question her decision."
+
+"Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew
+of mine?" she demanded.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Then--do you mean young Quarren?"
+
+"I think I do," he said smiling.
+
+"I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad
+that it may be Rix. It--it would have killed me to see her fall into
+Langly's hands.... I'm ill on account of him--his shocking treatment of
+me last evening. It was a brutal scene--one of those terrible family
+scenes!--and he threatened me--cursed me----"
+
+She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they
+snapped open again with the old fire undiminished:
+
+"Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him....
+But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"You are going back into everything, I suppose."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To forget her, I suppose."
+
+He said pleasantly:
+
+"I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman
+as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a
+privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not--painful."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of
+the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in
+her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of
+phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat.
+
+"I did my best," she said hoarsely. "I'm not defeated if you're not. Say
+the word and I'll start something--" And suddenly she remembered
+Langly's threat involving the memory of a dead man whose only son now
+stood before her.
+
+She knew that her words were vain, her boast empty; she knew there was
+nothing more for her to do--nothing even that Sir Charles might do
+toward winning Strelsa without also doing the only thing in the world
+which could really terrify herself. Even at the mere thought of it she
+trembled again, and fear forced her to speech born of fear:
+
+"Perhaps it is best for you to go," she faltered. "Absence is a last
+resort.... It may be well to try it----"
+
+He bent over and took her hand:
+
+"There is no longer even a last resort," he said kindly. "I am quite
+reconciled. She is different from any other woman; ours was and is a
+high type of friendship.... Sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether
+it ever could have been any more than that to either of us."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl looked up at him, her face so altered and softened that his
+own grew graver.
+
+"You are like your father," she said unsteadily. "It was my privilege to
+share his friendship.... And his friendship was of that
+kind--high-minded, generous, pure--asking no more than it gave--no more
+than it gave----"
+
+She laid her cheek against Sir Charles's hands, let it rest there an
+instant, then averting her face motioned his dismissal.
+
+He went with a pleasant and gentle word or two; she sat bolt upright
+among her silken pillows, lips grimly compressed, but on her tightly
+closed eyelids tears trembled.
+
+Sir Charles drew a long deep breath in the outer sunshine, filling his
+lungs with the fragrant morning air. Hedges still glistened with
+spiders' tapestry; the birds which sulked all day in their early
+moulting-fever still sang a little in the cool of the morning, and he
+listened to them as he walked while his quiet, impartial eye ranged
+over the lovely rolling country, dew-washed and exquisite under a
+cloudless sky.
+
+Far away he saw the chimneys of Langly Sprowl's sprawling country-seat,
+smoke rising from two, but he saw nothing of the angry horseman of the
+day before. Once, in the distance on the edge of a copse, he saw a man
+creeping about on all-fours, evidently searching for some lost object in
+the thicket. Looking back from a long way off he saw him still searching
+on his hands and knees, and wondered at his patience, half inclined to
+go back and aid him.
+
+But about that time one of Sprowl's young bulls came walking over toward
+him with such menacing observations and deportment that Sir Charles
+promptly looked about him for an advance to the rear-front--a manoeuvre
+he had been obliged to learn in the late Transvaal unpleasantness.
+
+And at the same moment he saw Chrysos Lacy.
+
+There was no time for explanations; clearly she was too frightened to
+stir; so he quietly picked her up on his advance to the rear-front,
+carrying her in the first-aid style approved by the H. B. M. medical
+staff, and scaled the five-bar fence as no barrier had ever been scaled
+at Aldershot or Olympia by any warrior in khaki or scarlet tunic.
+
+"Th-thank you," said Chrysos, unwinding her arms from the baronet's neck
+as the bull came trotting up on the other side of the fence and bellowed
+at them. Not the slightest atom of fright remained, only a wild-rose
+tint in her cheeks. She considered the bull, absently, patted a tendril
+of hair into symmetry; but the breeze loosened it again, and she let it
+blow across her cheek.
+
+"We should have been in South Africa together," said Sir Charles.
+"We manoeuvre beautifully as a unit."
+
+[Illustration: "'And it is to be your last breakfast.'"]
+
+The girl laughed, then spying more wild strawberries--the quest of which
+had beguiled her into hostile territory--dropped on her knees and began
+to explore.
+
+The berries were big and ripe--huge drops of crimson honey hanging
+heavily, five to a stalk. The meadow-grass was red with them, and Sir
+Charles, without more ado, got down on all-fours and started to gather
+them with all the serious and thorough determination characteristic of
+that warrior.
+
+"You're not to eat any, yet," said Chrysos.
+
+"Of course not; they're for your breakfast I take it," he said.
+
+"For yours."
+
+He straightened up on his knees: "For mine?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You didn't go wandering afield at this hour to pick wild strawberries
+for _my_ breakfast!" he said incredulously.
+
+"Yes, I did," said the girl; and continued exploring, parting the high
+grass-stems to feel for and detach some berry-loaded stem.
+
+"Do you know," he said, returning to his labours, "that I am quite
+overcome by your thought of me?"
+
+"Why? We are friends.... And it is to be your last breakfast."
+
+There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, but her pretty face was
+carefully turned away so that if there was to be anything to notice in
+the features he could not notice it.
+
+"I'll miss you a lot," he said.
+
+"And I you, Sir Charles."
+
+"You'll be over, I suppose."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"That will be jolly," he said, sitting back on his heels to rest, and to
+watch her--to find pleasure in her youth and beauty as she moved
+gracefully amid the fragrant grasses, one little sun-tanned hand
+clasping a great bouquet of the crimson fruit which nodded heavily amid
+tufts of trefoil leaves.
+
+In the barred shadow of the pasture-fence they rested from their
+exertions, she rearranging their bouquets of berries and tying them fast
+with grass-stems.
+
+"It has been a pleasant comradeship," he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have found it so, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She appeared to be so intent, so absorbed on her bouquet tying that he
+involuntarily leaned nearer to watch her. A fragrance faintly fresh
+seemed to grow in the air around him as the hill-breeze stirred her
+hair. If it came from the waving grass-tops, or the honeyed fruit or
+from her hair, or perhaps from those small, smooth hands, he did not
+know.
+
+For a long while they sat there without speaking, she steadily intent on
+her tying. Then, while still busy with a cluster, her slim fingers
+hesitated, wavered, relaxed; her hands fell to her lap, and she remained
+so, head bent, motionless.
+
+After a moment he spoke, but she made no answer.
+
+Through and through him shot the thrilling comprehension of that
+exquisite avowal, childlike in its silent directness, charming in its
+surprise. A wave of tenderness and awe mounted within him, touching his
+bronzed cheeks with a deeper colour.
+
+"If you will, Chrysos," he said in a still voice.
+
+She lifted her head and looked directly at him, and in her questioning
+gaze there was nothing of fear--merely the question.
+
+"I can't bear to have you go," she said.
+
+"I can't go--alone."
+
+"Could you--care for me?"
+
+"I love you, Chrysos."
+
+Her eyes widened in wonder:
+
+"You--you don't _love_ me--do you?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I do. Will you marry me, Chrysos?"
+
+Her fascinated gaze met his in silence. He drew her close to his
+shoulder; she laid her cheek against it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Toward the end of the first week in August Strelsa wrote to Quarren:
+
+     "Sometimes I wonder whether you realise how my attitude toward
+     everything is altering. Things which seemed important no longer
+     appear so in the sunlit tranquillity of this lovely place. Whatever
+     it is that seems to be changing me in various ways is doing it so
+     subtly, yet so inexorably, that I scarcely notice any difference in
+     myself until some morning I awake with such a delicious sense of
+     physical well-being and such a mental happiness apropos of nothing
+     at all except the mere awaking into the world again, that, thinking
+     it over, I cannot logically account for it.
+
+     "Because, Rix, my worldly affairs seem to be going from bad to
+     worse. I know it perfectly well, yet where is that deadly
+     fear?--where is the dismay, the alternate hours of panic and dull
+     lethargy--the shrinking from a future which only yesterday seemed
+     to threaten me with more than I had strength to endure--menace me
+     with what I had neither the will nor the desire to resist?
+
+     "Gone, my friend! And I am either a fool or a philosopher, but
+     whichever I am, I am a happy one.
+
+     "I wish to tell you something. Last winter when they fished me out
+     of my morbid seclusion, I thought that the life I then entered upon
+     was the only panacea for the past, the only oblivion, the only
+     guarantee for the future.
+
+     "Now I suppose I have gone to the other extreme, because, let me
+     tell you what I've done. Will you laugh? I can't help it if you do;
+     I've bought a house! What do you think of that?
+
+     "The owner took back a mortgage, but I don't care. I paid so _very_
+     little for it, and thirty acres of woods and fields--and it is a
+     darling house!--built in the eighteenth century and not in good
+     repair, but it's mine! mine! mine!--and it may need paint and
+     plumbing and all sorts of things which perhaps make for human
+     happiness and perhaps do not. But I tell you I really don't care.
+
+     "And how I did it was this: I took what they offered for my laces
+     and jewels--about a third of their value--but it paid every debt
+     and left me with enough to buy my sweet old house up here.
+
+     "But that's not all! I've rented my town house furnished for a term
+     of five years at seven thousand dollars a year! Isn't it wonderful?
+
+     "And _that_ is not all, either. I am going into business, Rix!
+     Don't dare laugh. Jim has made an arrangement with an independent
+     New York florist, and I'm going to grow flowers under glass for the
+     Metropolitan market.
+
+     "And, if I succeed, I _may_ try fruits outdoors and in. My small
+     brain is humming with schemes, millions of them. Isn't it heavenly?
+
+     "Besides, from my second-story windows I shall be able to see
+     Molly's chimneys above the elms. And Molly is going to remain here
+     all winter, because, Rix--and this is a close secret--a little heir
+     or heiress is coming to make _this_ House of Wycherly 'an
+     habitation enforced'--and a happier habitation than it has been
+     since they bought it.
+
+     "So you see I shall have neighbours all winter--two neighbours, for
+     Mrs. Ledwith is wretchedly ill and her physicians have advised her
+     to remain here all winter. Poor child--for she is nothing else,
+     Rix--I met her for the first time when I went to call on Mrs.
+     Sprowl. She's so young and so empty-headed, just a shallow,
+     hare-brained, little thing who had no more moral idea of sin than a
+     humming-bird--nor perhaps has she any now except that the world has
+     hurt her and broken her wings and damaged her plumage; and the
+     sunlight in which she sparkled for a summer has faded to a chill
+     gray twilight!--Oh, Rix, it is really pitiful; and somehow I can't
+     seem to remember whether she was guilty or not, because she's so
+     ill, so broken--lying here amid the splendour of her huge house----
+
+     "You know Mrs. Sprowl is on her way to Carlsbad. You haven't
+     written me what took place in your last interview with her; and
+     I've asked you, twice. Won't you tell me?
+
+     "Langly, thank goodness, never disturbs us. And, Rix, do you know
+     that he has never been to call on Mary Ledwith? He keeps to his own
+     estate and nobody even sees him. Which is all I ask at any rate.
+
+     "So Sir Charles called on you and told you about Chrysos? Isn't Sir
+     Charles the most darling man you ever knew? _I_ never knew such a
+     man. There is not one atom of anything small or unworthy in his
+     character. And I tell you very frankly that, thinking about him at
+     times, I am amazed at myself for not falling in love with him.
+
+[Illustration: Strelsa Leeds.]
+
+     "Which is proof sufficient that if I couldn't care for him I cannot
+     ever care for any man. Don't you think so?
+
+     "Now all this letter has been devoted to matters concerning myself
+     and not one line to you and the exciting success you and Lord
+     Dankmere are making of your new business.
+
+     "Oh, Rix, I am not indifferent; all the time I have been writing to
+     you, that has been surging and laughing in my heart--like some
+     delicious aria that charmingly occupies your mind while you go
+     happily about other matters--happy because the ceaseless melody
+     that enchants you makes you so.
+
+     "I have read your letter so many times, over and over; and always
+     the same thrill of excitement begins when I come to the part where
+     you begin to suspect that under the daubed surface of that canvas
+     there may be something worth while.
+
+     "Is it really and truly a Van Dyck? Is there any chance that it is
+     not? Is it possible that all these years none of Dankmere's people
+     suspected what was hidden under the aged paint and varnish of that
+     tiresome old British landscape?
+
+     "And it remained for you to suspect it!--for _you_ to discover it?
+     Oh, Rix, I am proud of you!
+
+     "And how perfectly wonderful it is that now you know its history,
+     when it was supposed to have disappeared, where it has remained
+     ever since under its ignoble integument of foolish paint.
+
+     "No, I promise not to say one word about it until I have your
+     permission. I understand quite well why you desire to keep the
+     matter from the newspapers for the present. But--won't it make you
+     and Lord Dankmere rich? Tell me--please tell me. I don't want
+     money for myself any more, but I do want it for you. You need it;
+     you can do so much with it, use it so intelligently, so gloriously,
+     make the world better with it,--make it more beautiful, and people
+     happier.
+
+     "What a chasm, Rix, between what we were a year ago, and what we
+     care to be--what we are trying to be to-day! Sometimes I think of
+     it, not unhappily, merely wondering.
+
+     "Toward what goal were we moving a year ago? What was there to be
+     of such lives?--what at the end? Why, there was, for us, no more
+     significance in living than there is to any overfed animal!--not as
+     much!
+
+     "Oh, this glorious country of high clouds and far horizons!--and
+     alas! for the Streets of Ascalon where such as I once was go to and
+     fro--'clad delicately in scarlet and ornaments of gold.'
+
+     "'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Streets of
+     Ascalon'--that the pavements of the Philistines have bruised my
+     feet, and their Five Cities weary me, and Philistia's high towers
+     are become a burden to my soul. For their gods are too many and too
+     strange for me. So I am decided to remain here--ere 'they that look
+     out of their windows be darkened' and 'the doors be shut in the
+     Streets'--'and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.'
+
+     "My poor comrade! Must you remain a prisoner in the Streets of
+     Ascalon? Yet, through your soul I know as free and fresh a breeze
+     is blowing as stirs the curtains at my open window!--You wonderful
+     man to evoke in imagery--to visualise and conceive all that had to
+     be concrete to cure me soul and body of my hurts!
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "I have been reading Karl Westguard's new novel. Rix, there is no
+     story in it, nothing at all that I can discover except a very
+     earnest warming over of several modern philosophers' views and
+     conclusions concerning social problems.
+
+     "I hate to speak unkindly of it; I wanted to like it because I like
+     Karl Westguard. But it isn't fiction and it isn't philosophy, and
+     its treatment of social problems seems to follow methods already
+     obsolete.
+
+     "Do you think people will buy it? But I don't suppose Karl cares
+     since he's made up his quarrel with his aunt.
+
+     "Poor old lady! Did you ever see anybody so subdued and forlorn?
+     Something has gone wrong with her. She told me that she had had a
+     most dreadful scene with Langly and that she had not been well
+     since.
+
+     "I'm afraid that sounds like gossip, but I wanted you to know. _Is_
+     it gossip for me to tell you so much? I tell you about everything.
+     If it's gossip, make me stop.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "And now--when are you coming to see me? I am still at Molly's, you
+     know. My house is being cleaned and sweetened and papered and
+     chintzed and made livable and lovable.
+
+     "When?--please.
+
+                            "Your friend and comrade,
+
+                                        STRELSA."
+
+Quarren telegraphed:
+
+     "I'll come the moment I can. Look for me any day this week. Letter
+     follows."
+
+Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining
+went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled
+out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody's suspicions by hurrying,
+so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs
+began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway--and
+probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the
+repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to
+furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently
+Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a
+coincidence utterly unfathomable.
+
+Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to
+his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his
+attention.
+
+And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang
+and he had to go up and open.
+
+At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the
+glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand
+with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it;
+and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting
+nervously the next second.
+
+"Come in," said Quarren, pleasantly. "It's very nice of you to think of
+me, Ledwith."
+
+The man's hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the
+gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them.
+Inside his loose summer clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting
+continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of
+the gallery.
+
+For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases,
+meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things;
+then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct,
+the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he
+moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring
+into space and twitching his scarred fingers.
+
+"You're busy, I suppose," he said.
+
+"Yes, I am," said Quarren, frankly. "But that needn't make any
+difference if you'd care to come to the basement and talk to me while
+I'm at work."
+
+Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly:
+
+"You're _always_ kind to me, Quarren."
+
+"Get over that idea," laughed the younger man. "Strange as it may seem
+my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs."
+
+In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his
+visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work,
+explaining it as it progressed:
+
+"Here's an old picture by some Italian gink--impossible to tell by whom
+it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and
+school.... See what I'm doing, Ledwith?
+
+"That's what we call 'rabbit glue' because it's made out of rabbits'
+bones--or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue.
+
+"Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water--then I glue over the face
+of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the
+other--so!
+
+"Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a
+new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and
+now it's dry and tight.
+
+"Now I'm going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It's already
+been relined--perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old
+relining canvas--with hot water--this way--cleaning off all the old
+paste or glue from it with alcohol....
+
+"Now here's a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening;
+and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very
+gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher.
+
+"Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then--just watch
+me do laundry work!"
+
+He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined
+picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and
+precaution of an expert laundress doing frills.
+
+Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest.
+
+"In three days," said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, "I'll
+soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you
+see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no
+air get in to blister the surface."
+
+He picked up another picture and displayed it:
+
+"Here's a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have
+already relined it and it's fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is
+thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin."
+
+He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution of alcohol, and
+very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it.
+Then he gave it a coat of varnish.
+
+"Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like
+this, doesn't it, Ledwith? But I'll tell you why. When that varnish
+dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin
+very cautiously but steadily to rub the varnished surface with my
+fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has
+partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and
+dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and
+will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh--very
+often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted.
+
+"Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can
+remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But
+sooner or later I get it clean.
+
+"Then I dig out any old patches or restorations and fill in with a
+composition of putty, white lead, and a drier, and smooth this with a
+cork. Then when it is sunned for an hour a day for three weeks or
+more--or less, sometimes--I'm ready to grind my pure colours, mix them,
+set my palette, and do as honest a piece of restoring as a study of that
+particular master's methods permits. And that, Ledwith, is only a little
+part of my fascinating profession.
+
+"Sometimes I lift the entire skin of paint from a canvas--picking out
+the ancient threads from the rotten texture--and transfer it to a new
+canvas or panel. Sometimes I cross-saw a panel, then chisel to the
+plaster that lies beneath the painting, and so transfer it to a new and
+sound support. Sometimes--" he laughed--"but there are a hundred
+delicate and interesting surgical operations which I attempt--a thousand
+exciting problems to solve--experiments without end that tempt me,
+innovations that allure me----"
+
+He laughed again:
+
+"_You_ ought to take up some fad and make a business and even an art out
+of it!"
+
+"I?" said Ledwith, dully.
+
+"Why not? Man, you're young yet, if--if----"
+
+"Yes, I know, Quarren.... But my mind is too old--very old and very
+infirm--dying in me of age--the age that comes through those centuries
+of pain that men sometimes live through in a few months."
+
+Quarren looked at him hopelessly.
+
+"Yet," he said, "if only a man wills it, the world is new again."
+
+"But--if the will fails?"
+
+"I don't know, Ledwith."
+
+"I do." He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on
+Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars.
+
+"Even that can be cured," said the younger man.
+
+"If there is a will to cure it, perhaps."
+
+"Even a desire is enough."
+
+"I have not that desire. Why cure it?"
+
+"Because, Ledwith, you haven't gone your limit yet. There's more of
+life; and you're cheating yourself out of it."
+
+"Yes, perhaps. But what kind of life?" he asked, staring vaguely out
+into the sunshine of the backyard. "Life in hell has no attractions for
+me."
+
+"We make our own hells."
+
+"I didn't make mine. They dug the pit and I fell into it--Hell's own
+pit, Quarren----"
+
+"You are wrong! You fell into a pit which hurt so much that you supposed
+it was the pit of hell. And, taking it for granted, you burrowed deeper
+in blind fury, until it became a real hell. But _you_ dug it. There _is_
+no hell that a man does not dig for himself!"
+
+In Ledwith's dull eyes a smouldering spark seemed to flash, go out, then
+glimmer palely.
+
+"Quarren," he said, "I am not going to live in hell alone. I'm going
+there, shortly, but not alone."
+
+Something new and sinister in his eyes arrested the other's attention.
+He considered the man for a few moments, then, coolly:
+
+"I wouldn't, Ledwith."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"He isn't worth it--even as company in hell."
+
+"Do you think I'm going to let him live on?"
+
+"Do you care to sink to his level?"
+
+"Sink! Can I sink any lower than I am?"
+
+Quarren shrugged:
+
+"Easily, if you commit murder."
+
+"That isn't murder----"
+
+But Quarren cut him short continuing:
+
+"Sink lower, you ask? What have you done, anyway--except to commit this
+crime against yourself?"--touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of
+any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you
+stand--except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself!
+Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites
+itself. Is that why you are doing it?--to arouse the amusement and
+contempt of your hunter?"
+
+"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me----"
+
+"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to
+see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?"
+
+Ledwith's sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing
+step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Listen to me," he said; "has it never occurred to you that you could
+deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face
+to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own
+vitals?"
+
+He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man:
+
+"If you say the word _I'll_ stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do
+is to punish him, murder isn't the way. What does a dead man care? Cut
+your own throat and the crime might haunt him--and might not. But
+_kill_!--Nonsense. It's all over then--except for the murderer."
+
+He slid his hand quietly to Ledwith's arm, patted it.
+
+"To punish him you need a doctor.... It's only a week under the new
+treatment. You know that, don't you? After that a few months to get back
+nerve and muscle and common sense."
+
+"And then?" motioned Ledwith with dry lips.
+
+"Then? Oh, anything that you fancy. It's according to a man's personal
+taste. You can take him by the neck and beat him up in public if you
+like--or knock him down in the club as often as he gets up. It all
+depends, Ledwith. Some of us maintain self-respect without violence;
+some of us seem to require it. It's up to you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Quarren said carelessly: "If I were you, I think that I'd face the world
+as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough--the real world I
+mean, Ledwith--either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.
+
+"A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty.
+And--personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that.
+But men's ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you
+are, will go ultimately with the world. Beat him up if you like; but,
+personally, I never even wished to kick a cur. Some men kick 'em to
+their satisfaction; it's a matter of taste I tell you. Besides----"
+
+He stopped short; and presently Ledwith looked up.
+
+"Shall I say it?"
+
+"Yes. You are kind to me, always."
+
+"Then--Ledwith, I don't know exactly how matters stand. I can only try
+to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do,
+having arrived where you have landed.... And, do you know, if I were
+you, and if I listened to my better self, I don't think that I'd lay a
+finger on Langly Sprowl."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For the sake of the woman who betrayed me--and who is now betrayed in
+turn by the man who betrayed us both."
+
+Ledwith said through his set teeth: "Do you think I care for her? If I
+nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about
+her?"
+
+"You are generous enough to care, Ledwith."
+
+"I am not!" he said, hoarsely. "I don't care a damn!"
+
+"Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares
+with her a coat of social whitewash?"
+
+"I--she is only a little fool--alone to face the world now----"
+
+"You're quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First
+offenders are given it by law.... But even if that chance lay in his
+marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won't do it? Or
+by battering him with a dog-whip?
+
+"It isn't really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than
+the social viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman
+who marries such a man?"
+
+He smiled: "Because," he continued, "my viewpoint has changed. Things
+that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and
+do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me
+than social absolution."
+
+Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something
+indistinctly.
+
+"Wait a moment," said Quarren, throwing aside his painter's blouse and
+pulling on his coat. "I'll ring up a taxi in a second!... You _mean_ it,
+Ledwith?"
+
+The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded.
+
+"You're on!" said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone.
+
+While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren's sleeve
+and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab,
+whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone building
+composed of several old-time private residences thrown together.
+
+"Stand by me, Quarren," he whispered brokenly--"you won't go away, will
+you? You wouldn't leave me to face this all--all alone. You've been kind
+to me. I--I can do it--I can try to do it just at this moment--if you'll
+stay close to me--if you'll let me keep hold of you----"
+
+"Sure thing!" said Quarren cheerfully. "I'll stay as long as you like.
+Don't worry about your clothes; I'll send for plenty of linen and things
+for us both. You're all right, Ledwith--you've got the nerve. I----"
+
+The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered
+them in.
+
+"Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment," she said, singling out Ledwith at
+a glance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not
+return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere
+promised to observe to the letter.
+
+Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:
+
+     "Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to
+     see your house and its new owner.
+
+     R. S. Q."
+
+Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked
+carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the
+basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for
+Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.
+
+The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful when paying tribute
+to Terpsichore; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the
+back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the
+tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a
+ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick
+or two at the ceiling.
+
+And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly,
+discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently
+enamoured of his own grace and agility.
+
+When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly
+and came back to find her at her desk, laughing.
+
+For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the
+fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all
+alone--exclusive of intrusive customers--for a day or more, assuaged a
+slight chagrin.
+
+"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I
+am, Miss Vining--with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Why?" asked Miss Vining.
+
+"Why--what?" repeated the Earl, confused.
+
+"Why _should_ I know all your imperfections?"
+
+He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason.
+
+"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you
+suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to
+see those people at Witch-Hollow."
+
+"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and
+rewriting the blank spaces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine
+at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such
+peculiar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse
+himself and take his eyes elsewhere.
+
+"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly.
+
+"I am not going to take one."
+
+"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop--er--and all that, you
+know!"
+
+"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I
+don't expect to droop--er--and all that, you know."
+
+He laughed, after a moment, and so did she--a sweet, fearless, little
+laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it--a pretty,
+frank tribute to what had become a friendship--an accord born of
+confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord
+Dankmere.
+
+It had been of slow growth at first--imperceptibly their relations had
+grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost
+cordial--but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he
+with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was
+moody, too, at intervals.
+
+"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked.
+
+"Don't I laugh as though I like it?"
+
+She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a
+British peer--which is really a very wonderful thing----"
+
+"Oh, come," he said: "it really _is_ rather a wonderful thing, but you
+don't believe it."
+
+"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to
+hear trumpets sounding in the far distance----"
+
+"My boots squeak----"
+
+"Nonsense! I _do_ hear a sort of a fairy fanfare playing 'Hail to the
+Belted Earl!'"
+
+"I wear braces----"
+
+"How common of you to distort my meaning! I don't care, you may do as
+you like--dance break-downs and hammer the piano, but to me you will
+ever remain a British peer--poor but noble----"
+
+"Wait until we hear from that Van Dyck! You can't call me poor then!"
+
+She laughed, then, looking at him earnestly, involuntarily clasped her
+hands.
+
+"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," she breathed with a happy, satisfied
+sigh.
+
+"Are you really very happy about it, Miss Vining?"
+
+"I? Why shouldn't I be!" she said indignantly. "I'm so proud that our
+gallery has such a picture. I'm so proud of Mr. Quarren for discovering
+it--and--" she laughed--"I'm proud of you for possessing it. You see I
+am very impartial; I'm proud of the gallery, of everybody connected with
+it including myself. Shouldn't I be?"
+
+"We are three very perfect people," he said gravely.
+
+"Do you know that we really are? Mr. Quarren is wonderful, and you
+are--agreeable, and as for me, why when I rise in the morning and look
+into the glass I say to myself, 'Who is that rather clever-looking girl
+who smiles at me every morning in such friendly fashion?' And, would you
+believe it!--she turns out to be Jessie Vining every time!"
+
+She was in a gay mood; she rattled away at her machine, glancing over it
+mischievously at him from time to time. He, having nothing to do except
+to look at her, did so as often as he dared.
+
+And so they kept the light conversational shuttle-cock flying through
+the sunny afternoon until it drew near to tea-time. Jessie said very
+seriously:
+
+"No Englishman can exist without tea. Tea is as essential to him as it
+is to British fiction. A microscopic examination of any novel made by a
+British subject will show traces of tea-leaves and curates although, as
+the text-books on chemistry have it, otherwise the substance of the work
+may be colourless, tasteless, odourless, and gaseous to the verge of the
+fourth dimension----"
+
+"If you don't cease making game of things British and sacred," he
+threatened, "I'll try to stop you in a way that will astonish you."
+
+"What will you try to do?" she asked, much interested.
+
+He looked her steadily in the eyes:
+
+"I'll try to turn you into a British subject. One can't slam one's own
+country."
+
+"How could you turn me into such an object, Lord Dankmere?"
+
+"There's only one way."
+
+Innocent for a few moments of his meaning she smilingly and derisively
+defied him. Then, of a sudden, startled into immobility, the smile froze
+on her lips.
+
+At the swift change in her expression his own features were slowly and
+not unbecomingly suffused.
+
+Then, incredulous, and a little nervous, she rose to prepare the tea;
+and he sprang up to bring the folding table.
+
+The ceremony passed almost in silence; neither he nor she made the
+effort to return to the lighter, gayer vein. When they spoke at all it
+was on some matter connected with business; and her voice seemed to him
+listless, almost tired.
+
+Which was natural enough, for the heat had been trying, and, in spite of
+the open windows, no breath of coolness stirred the curtains.
+
+So the last minutes of the afternoon passed but the sunshine still
+reddened the cornices of the houses across the street when she rose to
+put away the tea-things.
+
+A little later she pinned on her hat and moved toward the front door
+with a friendly nod to him in silent adieu.
+
+"Will you let me walk home with you?" he said.
+
+"I--think--not, this evening."
+
+"Were you going anywhere?"
+
+She paused, her gloved hand on the knob, and he came up to her, slowly.
+
+"_Were_ you?" he repeated.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then--don't you care to let me walk with you?"
+
+She seemed to be thinking; her head was a trifle lowered.
+
+He said: "Before you go there is something I wanted to tell you"--she
+made an involuntary movement and the door opened and hung ajar letting
+in the lively music of a street-organ. Then he leaned over and quietly
+closed the door.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm taking an unwarrantable liberty by
+interfering in your affairs without consulting you."
+
+She looked up at him, surprised.
+
+"It happened yesterday about this hour," he said.
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"Do you remember that you went home about three o'clock instead of
+waiting until this hour as usual?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, this is what occurred. I left the gallery at this same hour.
+Ahead of me descending the steps was a young girl who had just delivered
+a business letter to Mr. Quarren. As she set foot on the pavement a
+footman attached to an automobile drawn up across the street touched his
+cap to her and said: 'Beg pardon, Miss Vining, I am Mr. Sprowl's man.
+Mr. Sprowl would like to see you at the Café Cammargue. The car is
+waiting.'"
+
+Miss Vining's colour faded; she stared at Dankmere with widening eyes,
+and he dropped his hands into his coat-pockets and returned her gaze.
+
+"I don't understand you," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Neither did the young girl addressed by the footman. Neither did I. But
+I was interested. So I said to the footman: 'Bring around your car. I
+shall have to explain about Miss Vining to Mr. Sprowl.'"
+
+"What!" she said breathlessly.
+
+"That's where I interfered, Miss Vining. And the footman looked
+doubtful, too, but he signalled the chauffeur.... And so I went to the
+Café Cammargue----"
+
+He hesitated, looking at her white and distressed face, then continued
+coolly:
+
+"Sprowl seemed surprised to see me. He was waiting in a private room....
+He's looking rather badly these days.... We talked a few minutes----"
+
+Pale, angry, every sense of modesty and reserve outraged, the girl faced
+him, small head erect:
+
+"You went there to--to discuss _me_ with _that_ man!"
+
+He was silent. She turned suddenly and tried to open the door, but he
+held it closed.
+
+"I did it because I cared for you enough to do it," he said. "Don't you
+understand? Don't you suppose I know that kind of man?"
+
+"It--it was not your business--" she faltered, twisting blindly at the
+door-knob. "Let me go--please----"
+
+"I made it my business.... And that man understood that I was making it
+my business. And he won't attempt to annoy you again.... Can you forgive
+me?"
+
+She turned on him excitedly, her eyes flashing with tears, but the
+impetuous words of protest died on her lips as her eyes encountered his.
+
+"It was because I love you," he said. And, as he spoke, there was about
+the man a quiet dignity and distinction that silenced her--something of
+which she may have had vague glimpses at wide intervals in their
+acquaintances--something which at times she suspected might lie latent
+in unknown corners of his character. Now it suddenly confronted her; and
+she recognised it and stood before him without a word to say.
+
+It mended matters a little when he smiled, and the familiar friend
+reappeared beside her; but she still felt strange and shy; and
+wondering, half fearfully, she let him lift her gloved hands and stand,
+holding them, looking into her eyes.
+
+"You know what I am," he said. "I have nothing to say about myself. But
+I love you very dearly.... I loved before, once, and married. And she
+died.... After that I didn't behave very well--until I knew you.... It
+is really in me to be a decent husband--if you can care for me.... And I
+don't think we're likely to starve----"
+
+"I--it isn't that," she said, flushing scarlet.
+
+"What?"
+
+"What you _have_ ... I could only care for--what you are."
+
+"Can you do that?"
+
+But her calm had vanished, and, head bent and averted, she was
+attempting to withdraw her hands--and might have freed herself entirely
+if it had not been for his arm around her.
+
+This new and disconcerting phase of the case brought her so suddenly
+face to face with him that it frightened her; and he let her go, and
+followed her back to the empty gallery where she sank down at her desk,
+resting her arms on the covered type-machine, and buried her quivering
+face in them.
+
+It was excusable. Such things don't usually happen to typewriters and
+stenographers although they have happened to barmaids.
+
+When he had been talking eloquently and otherwise for a long time Jessie
+Vining lifted her pale, tear-stained face from her arms; and his
+lordship dropped rather gracefully on his knees beside her, and she
+looked down at him very solemnly and wistfully.
+
+It was shockingly late when they closed the gallery that evening. And
+their mode of homeward progress was stranger still, for instead of a
+tram or of the taxi which Lord Dankmere occasionally prevailed upon her
+to accept, they drifted homeward on a pink cloud through the light-shot
+streets of Ascalon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+To the solitary and replete pike, lying motionless in shadow, no
+still-bait within reach is interesting. But the slightest movement in
+his vicinity of anything helpless instantly rivets his attention; any
+creature apparently in distress arouses him to direct and lightning
+action whether he be gorged or not--even, perhaps, while he is still
+gashed raw with the punishment for his last attempt.
+
+So it was with Langly Sprowl. He had come into town, sullen, restless,
+still fretting with checked desire. Within him a dull rage burned; he
+was ready to injure, ready for anything to distract his mind which,
+however, had not given up for a moment the dogged determination to
+recover the ground he had lost with perhaps the only woman in the world
+he had ever really cared for.
+
+Yet, he was the kind of man who does not know what real love is. That
+understanding had not been born in him, and he had not acquired it. He
+was totally incapable of anything except that fierce passion which is
+aroused by obstacles when in pursuit of whatever evinces a desire to
+escape.
+
+It was that way with him when, by accident, he saw and recognised Jessie
+Vining one evening leaving the Dankmere Galleries. And Langly Sprowl
+never denied himself anything that seemed incapable of self-defence.
+
+He stopped his car and got out and spoke to her, very civilly, and with
+a sort of kindly frankness which he sometimes used with convincing
+effect. She refused the proffered car to take her to her destination,
+but could not very well avoid his escort; and their encounter ended by
+her accepting his explanations and his extended hand, perplexed,
+unwilling to misjudge him, but thankful when he departed.
+
+After that he continued to meet her occasionally and walk home with her.
+
+Then he sent his footman and the car for her; and drew Lord Dankmere out
+of the grab-bag, to his infinite annoyance. Worse, Dankmere had struck
+him with an impact so terrific that it had knocked him senseless across
+the table in a private dining-room of the Café Cammargue, where he
+presently woke up with a most amazing eye to find the terrified
+proprietor and staff playing Samaritan.
+
+In various papers annoying paragraphs concerning him had begun to
+appear--hints of how matters stood between him and Mary Ledwith, ugly
+innuendo, veiled rumours of the breach between him and his aunt
+consequent upon his untenable position _vis-à-vis_ Mrs. Ledwith.
+
+Until Dankmere had inconvenienced his features he had walked downtown to
+his office every day, lank, long-legged, sleek head held erect, hatchet
+face pointed straight in front of him, his restless eyes encountering
+everybody's but seeing nobody unless directly saluted.
+
+Now, his right eye rivalling a thunder-cloud in tints, he drove one of
+his racing cars as fast as he dared, swinging through Westchester or
+scurrying about Long Island. Occasionally he went aboard the _Yulan_,
+but a burning restlessness kept him moving; and at last he returned to
+South Linden in a cold but deadly rage, determined to win back the
+chances which he supposed he had thrown away in the very moment of
+victory.
+
+Strelsa Leeds had now taken up her abode in her quaint little house; he
+learned that immediately; and that evening he went over and came upon
+her moving about in the dusky garden, so intent on inspecting her
+flowers that he was within a pace of her before she turned her head and
+saw him.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "can we not be friends again? I ask no more than
+that."
+
+Too surprised and annoyed to reply she merely gazed at him. And,
+because, for the first time in his life, perhaps, he really felt every
+word he uttered, he spoke now with a certain simplicity and self-control
+that sounded unusual to her ears--so noticeably unlike what she knew of
+him that it commanded her unwilling attention.
+
+For his unpardonable brutality and violence he asked forgiveness,
+promising to serve her faithfully and in friendship for the privilege of
+attempting to win back her respect and regard. He asked only that.
+
+He said that he scarcely knew what to do with his life without the hope
+of recovering her respect and esteem; he asked for a beggar's chance,
+begged for it with a candour and naïveté almost boyish--so directly to
+the point tended every instinct in him to recover through caution and
+patience what he had lost through carelessness and a violence which
+still astonished him.
+
+The Bermuda lilies were in bloom and Strelsa stood near them, listening
+to him, touching the tall stalks absently at intervals. And while she
+listened she became more conscious still of the great change in
+herself--of her altered attitude toward so much in life that once had
+seemed to her important. After he had ceased she still stood pensively
+among the lilies, gray eyes brooding. At length, looking up, she said
+very quietly:
+
+"Why do you care for my friendship, Langly? I am not the kind of woman
+you think me--not even the kind I once thought myself. To me friendship
+is no light thing either to ask for or to give. It means more to me than
+it once did; and I give it very seldom, and sparingly, and to very, very
+few. But toward everybody I am gently disposed--because, I am much
+happier than I ever have been in all my life.... Is not my good will
+sufficient for any possible relation between you and me?"
+
+"Then you are no longer angry with me?"
+
+"No--no longer angry."
+
+"Can we be friends again? Can you really forgive me, Strelsa?"
+
+"Why--yes, I could do that.... But, Langly, what have you and I in
+common as a basis for friendship? What have we ever had in common?
+Except when we encounter each other by hazard, why should we ever meet
+at all?"
+
+"You have not pardoned me, Strelsa," he said patiently.
+
+"Does that really make any difference to you? It doesn't to me. It is
+only because I never think of you that it would be an effort to forgive
+you. I'll make that effort if you wish, but really, Langly, I never
+think about you at all."
+
+"If that is true, let me be with you sometimes, Strelsa," he said in a
+low voice.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I am wretchedly unhappy. And I care for you--more than you
+realise."
+
+She said seriously: "You have no right to speak that way to me, Langly."
+
+"Could you ever again give me the right to say I love you?"
+
+A quick flush of displeasure touched her cheeks; he saw it in the dusk
+of the garden, and mistook it utterly:
+
+"Strelsa--listen to me, dear! I have not slept since our quarrel. I must
+have been stark mad to say and do what I did.... Don't leave me! Don't
+go! I beg you to listen a moment----"
+
+She had started to move away from him and his first forward step broke a
+blossom from its stalk where it hung white in the dusk.
+
+"I ask you to go," she said under her breath. "There are people here--on
+the veranda----"
+
+Every sense within him told him to go, pretending resignation. That was
+his policy. He had come here for martyrdom, cuirassed in patience. Every
+atom of common sense warned him to go.
+
+But also every physical sense in him was now fully aroused--the silvery
+star-dusk, the scent of lilies, a slender woman within arm's reach--this
+woman who had once been so nearly his--who was still rightfully
+his!--these circumstances were arousing him once more to a temerity
+which his better senses warned him to subdue. Yet if he could only get
+nearer to her--if he could once get her into his arms--overwhelm her
+with the storm of passion rising so swiftly within him, almost choking
+him--so that his voice and limbs already trembled in its furious
+surge----
+
+"Strelsa--I love you! For God's sake show me some mercy!" he stammered.
+"I come to you half crazed by the solitude to which your anger has
+consigned me. I cannot endure it--I need you--I want you--I ask for your
+compassion----"
+
+"Hush!" she pleaded, hastily retreating before him through the snowy
+banks of rockets--"I have asked you not to speak to me that way! I ask
+you to go--to go now!--because----"
+
+"Will you listen to me! Will you wait a moment! I am only trying to tell
+you that I love you, dear----"
+
+He almost caught her, but she sprang aside, frightened, still retreating
+before him.
+
+"I cannot go until you listen to me!--" he said thickly, trampling
+through the flowers to intercept her. "You've got to listen!--do you
+hear?"
+
+She had almost reached the terrace; the shadowy veranda opened widely
+beyond.
+
+"There are people here! Don't you understand?" she said once more in a
+choking voice; but he only advanced, and she fell back before him to the
+very edge of the porch lattice.
+
+"Now listen to me!" he said between his teeth. "I love you and I'll
+never give you up----"
+
+Suddenly she turned on him, hands tightly clenched:
+
+"Be silent!" she whispered fiercely. "I tell you what you say is
+indecent, revolting! If there were a man here he'd kill you! Do you
+understand?"
+
+At the same instant his eyes became fixed on a figure in white which
+took shadowy shape on the dark veranda, rising and coming slowly
+forward.
+
+Ghostlike as it was he knew it instantly, stood rooted in his tracks
+while Strelsa stole away from him through the star-lit gloom, farther,
+farther, slipping forever from him now--he knew that as he stood there
+staring like a damned man upon that other dim shape in the darkness
+beyond.
+
+It was his first glimpse of her since her return from Reno. And now,
+unbidden, memories half strangled were already in full resurrection,
+gasping in his ears of things that had been--of forgotten passion, of
+pleasure promised; and, because never tasted, it had been the true and
+only pleasure for such a man as he--the pleasure of anticipation. But
+the world had never, would never believe that. Only he, and the phantom
+there in the dusk before him, knew it to be true.
+
+Slightly reeling he turned away in the darkness. In his haunted ears
+sounded a young wife's voice, promising, caressing; through and through
+him shot a thrill of the old excitement, the old desire, urging him
+again toward belated consummation.
+
+And again the old impatience seized him, the old ruthlessness, the old
+anger at finding her weak in every way except one, the old contempt
+which had turned to sullen amazement when she wrote him that she had
+gone to Reno and that they must wait for their happiness until the
+courts decreed it legal.
+
+Now as he swung along under the high stars he was thinking of these
+things. And he felt that he had not tried her enough, had not really
+exerted himself--that women who are fools require closer watching than
+clever ones; that he could have overcome her scruples with any real
+effort and saved her from giving him the slip and sowing a wind in Reno
+which already had become enough of a breeze to bother him.
+
+With her, for a while, he might be able to distract his mind from this
+recent obsession tormenting him. To overcome her would interest him;
+and he had no doubt it could be done--for she was a little fool--silly
+enough to slap the world in the face and brave public opinion at Reno.
+No--it was not necessary to marry such a woman. She might think so, but
+it wasn't.
+
+He had behaved unwisely, too. Why should he not have gone to see her
+when she returned? By doing so, and acting cleverly, he could have
+avoided trouble with his aunt, and also these annoying newspaper
+paragraphs. Also he could have avoided the scene with Ledwith--and the
+aborted reconciliation just now with Strelsa, where he had stood staring
+at the apparition of Mary Ledwith as lost souls stand transfixed before
+the pallid shades of those whom they have destroyed.
+
+At his lodge-gate a half-cowering dog fawned on him and he kicked it
+aside. The bruised creature fled, and Sprowl turned in at his gates and
+walked slowly up the cypress-bordered drive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He thought it all out that night, studied it carefully. What he needed
+was distraction from the present torment. Mary Ledwith could give that
+to him. What a fool she had been ever to imagine that she could be
+anything more than his temporary mistress.
+
+"The damned little idiot," he mused--"cutting away to Reno before I knew
+what she was up to--and involving us both in all that talk! What did she
+flatter herself I wanted, anyway.... But I ought to have called on her
+at once; now it's going to be difficult."
+
+Yet he sullenly welcomed the difficulty--hoped that she'd hold out. That
+was what he wanted, the excitement of it to take his mind from
+Strelsa--keep him interested and employed until the moment arrived once
+more when he might venture to see her again. He was, by habit, a patient
+man. Only in the case of Strelsa Leeds had passion ever prematurely
+betrayed him; and, pacing his porch there in the darkness, he set his
+teeth and wondered at himself and cursed himself, unable to reconcile
+what he knew of himself with what he had done to the only woman he had
+ever wished to marry as a last resort.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For two weeks Sprowl kept to himself. Few men understood better than he
+what was the medicinal value of time. Only once had he dared ignore it.
+
+So one evening, late in August, still dressed in knickerbockers and
+heather-spats, he walked from his lawn across country to make the first
+move in a new game with Mary Ledwith.
+
+Interested, confident, already amused, and in far better spirits than he
+had been for many a day, he strode out across the fields, swinging his
+walking-stick, his restless eyes seeing everything and looking directly
+at nothing.
+
+Which was a mistake on his part for once, because, crossing a pasture
+corner, his own bull, advancing silently from a clump of willows, nearly
+caught him; but Sprowl went over the fence and, turning, brought down
+his heavy stick across the brute's ringed nose; and the animal bellowed
+at him and tore up the sod and followed along inside the fence
+thundering his baffled fury as long as Sprowl remained in sight.
+
+It was not all bad disposition. Sprowl, who cared nothing for animals,
+hated the bull, and, when nothing more attractive offered, was
+accustomed to come to the fence, irritate the animal, lure him within
+range, and strike him. He had done it many times; and, some day, he
+meant to go into the pasture with a rifle, stand the animal's charge,
+and shoot him.
+
+It was a calm, primrose-tinted sunset where trees and hills and a
+distant spire loomed golden-black against the yellow west. No trees had
+yet turned, although, here and there on wooded hills, single discoloured
+branches broke the green monotony.
+
+No buckwheat had yet been cut, but above the ruddy fields of stalks the
+snow of the blossoms had become tarnished in promise of maturity--the
+first premonition of autumn except for a few harvest apples yellow amid
+green leaves.
+
+He had started without any definite plan, a confident but patient
+opportunist; and as he approached the Ledwith property and finally
+sighted the chimneys of the house above the trees, something--some
+errant thought seemed to amuse him, for he smiled slightly. His smile
+was as rare as his laughter--and as brief; and there remained no trace
+of it as he swung up the last hill and stood there gazing ahead.
+
+The sun had set. A delicate purple haze already dimmed distances; and
+the twilight which falls more swiftly as summer deepens into autumn was
+already stealing into every hollow and ravine, darkening the alders
+where the stream stole swampwards. A few laggard crows were still
+winging toward the woods; a few flocks of blackbirds passed overhead
+almost unseen against the sky. Somewhere some gardener had been burning
+leaves and refuse, and the odour made the dusk more autumn-like.
+
+As he crossed the line separating his land from the Ledwith estate he
+nodded to the daughter of one of his own gardeners who was passing with
+a collie; and then he turned to look again at the child whose slender
+grace and freshness interested him.
+
+"Look out for that bull, Europa," he said, staring after her as she
+walked on.
+
+She looked back at him, laughingly, and thanked him and went on quite
+happily, the collie plodding at her heels. Recently Sprowl had been very
+pleasant to her.
+
+When she was out of sight he started forward, climbed the fence into the
+road, followed it to the drive-way, and followed that among the elms
+and Norway firs to the porch.
+
+It was so dark here among the trees that only the lighted transom guided
+him up the steps.
+
+To the maid who came to the door he said coolly: "Say to Mrs. Ledwith
+that Mr. Sprowl wishes to see her for a moment on a very important
+matter."
+
+"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home, sir."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home."
+
+"Where is she; out?"
+
+"Y-yes, sir."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don't know, sir----"
+
+"Yes, you do. Mrs. Ledwith is at home but has given you instructions
+concerning me. Isn't that so?"
+
+The maid, crimson and embarrassed, made no answer, and he walked past
+her into the drawing-room.
+
+"Light up here," he said.
+
+"Please, sir----"
+
+"Do as I tell you, my good girl. Here--where's that button?--there!--"
+as the pretty room sprang into light--"Now never mind your instructions
+but go and say to Mrs. Ledwith that I _must_ see her."
+
+He calmly unfolded a flat packet of fresh bank-notes, selected one,
+changed it on reflection for another of higher denomination, and handed
+it to her. The girl hesitated, still irresolute until he lifted his
+narrow head and stared at her. Then she went away hurriedly.
+
+When she returned to say that Mrs. Ledwith was not at home to Mr. Sprowl
+he shrugged and bade her inform her mistress that their meeting was not
+a matter of choice but of necessity, and that he would remain where he
+was until she received him.
+
+Again the maid went away, evidently frightened, and Sprowl lighted a
+cigarette and began to saunter about. When he had examined everything in
+the room he strolled into the farther room. It was unlighted and suited
+him to sit in; and he installed himself in a comfortable chair and,
+throwing his cigarette into the fire-place, lighted a cigar.
+
+This was a game he understood--a waiting game. The game was traditional
+with his forefathers; every one of them had played it; their endless
+patience had made a fortune to which each in turn had added before he
+died. Patience and courage--courage of the sort known as personal
+bravery--had distinguished all his race. He himself had inherited
+patience, and had used it wisely except in that one inexplicable
+case!--and personal courage in him had never been lacking, nor had what
+often accompanies it, coolness, obstinacy, and effrontery.
+
+He had decided to wait until his cigar had been leisurely finished.
+Then, other measures--perhaps walking upstairs, unannounced, perhaps an
+unresentful withdrawal, a note by messenger, and another attempt to see
+her to-morrow--he did not yet know--had arrived at no conclusion--but
+would make up his mind when he finished his cigar and then do whatever
+caution dictated.
+
+Once a servant came to the door to look around for him, and when she
+discovered him in the half-light of the music-room she departed hastily
+for regions above. This amused Sprowl.
+
+As he lounged there, thoroughly comfortable, he could hear an occasional
+stir in distant regions of the house, servants moving perhaps, a door
+opened or closed, faint creaks from the stairs. Once the distant sounds
+indicated that somebody was using a telephone; once, as he neared the
+end of his cigar, a gray cat stole in, caught sight of him, halted, her
+startled eyes fixed on him, then turned and scuttled out into the hall.
+
+Finally he rose, flicked his cigar ashes into the fireplace, stretched
+his powerful frame, yawned, and glanced at his watch.
+
+And at the same instant somebody entered the front door with a
+latch-key.
+
+Sprowl stood perfectly still, interested, waiting: and two men,
+bare-headed and in evening dress, came swiftly but silently into the
+drawing-room. One was Quarren, the other Chester Ledwith. Quarren took
+hold of Ledwith's arm and tried to draw him out of the room. Then
+Ledwith caught sight of Sprowl and started toward him, but Quarren again
+seized his companion by the shoulder and dragged him back.
+
+"I tell you to keep quiet," he said in a low voice--"Keep out of
+this!--go out of the house!"
+
+"I can't, Quarren! I----"
+
+"You promised not to come in until that man had left----"
+
+"I know it. I meant to--but, good God! Quarren! I can't stand there----"
+
+He was struggling toward Sprowl and Quarren was trying to push him back
+into the hall.
+
+"You said that you had given up any idea of personal vengeance!" he
+panted. "Let me deal with him quietly----"
+
+"I didn't know what I was saying," retorted Ledwith, straining away from
+the man who held him, his eyes fixed on Sprowl. "I tell you I can't
+remain quiet and see that blackguard in this house----"
+
+"But he's going I tell you! He's going without a row--without any noise.
+Can't you let me manage it----"
+
+He could not drag Ledwith to the door, so he forced him into a chair and
+stood guard, glancing back across his shoulder at Sprowl.
+
+"You'd better go," he said in a low but perfectly distinct voice.
+
+Sprowl, still holding his cigar, sauntered forward into the
+drawing-room.
+
+"I suppose you are armed," he said contemptuously. "If you threaten me
+I'll take away your guns and slap both your faces--ask the other pup how
+it feels, Quarren."
+
+Ledwith struggled to rise but Quarren had him fast.
+
+"Get out of here, Sprowl," he said. "You'll have a bad time of it if he
+gets away from me."
+
+Sprowl stared, hands in his pockets, puffing his cigar.
+
+"I've a notion to kick you both out," he drawled.
+
+"It would be a mistake," panted Quarren. "Can't you go while there's
+time, Sprowl! I tell you he'll kill you in this room if you don't."
+
+"I won't--_kill_ him!--Let go of me, Quarren," gasped Ledwith. "I--I
+won't do murder; I've promised you that--for _her_ sake----"
+
+"Let him loose, Quarren," said Sprowl.
+
+He waited for a full minute, watching the struggling men in silent
+contempt. Then with a shrug he went out into the hall, leisurely put on
+his hat, picked up his stick, opened the door, and sauntered out into
+the darkness.
+
+"Now," breathed Quarren fiercely, "you play the man or I'm through with
+you! He's gone and he won't come back--I'll see to that! And it's up to
+you to show what you're made of!"
+
+Ledwith, freed, stood white and breathing hard for a few moments. Then a
+dull flush suffused his thin face; he looked down, stood with hanging
+head, until Quarren laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"It's up to you, Ledwith," he said quietly. "I don't blame you for
+losing your head a moment, but if you mean what you said, I should say
+that this is your chance.... And if I were you I'd simply go upstairs
+and speak to her.... She's been through hell.... She's in it still. But
+_you're_ out; and you can stay out if you choose. There's no need to
+wallow if you don't want to. You're not in very good shape yet, but
+you're a man. And now, if you do care for her, I really believe it's up
+to you.... Will you go upstairs?"
+
+Ledwith turned and went out into the familiar hall. Then, as though
+dazed, resting one thin hand on the rail, he mounted the stairway, head
+hanging, feeling his way blindly back toward all that life had ever
+held for him, but which he had been too weak to keep or even to defend.
+
+[Illustration: "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl."]
+
+Quarren waited for a while; Ledwith did not return. After a few minutes
+an excited maid came down, stared at him, then, reassured, opened the
+door for him with a smile. And he went out into the starlight.
+
+He had been walking for only a few moments when he overtook Sprowl
+sauntering down a lane; and the latter glanced around and, recognising
+him, halted.
+
+"Where's the other hero?" he asked.
+
+"Probably discussing you with the woman he is likely to remarry."
+
+Sprowl shrugged:
+
+"That's what that kind of a man is made for--to marry what others don't
+have to marry."
+
+"You lie," said Quarren quietly.
+
+Sprowl stared at him: then the long-pent fury overwhelmed his common
+sense again, and again it was in regard to the woman he had lost by his
+violence.
+
+"You know," he said, measuring his words, "that you're the same kind of
+a man, too. And some day, if you're good, you can marry what I don't
+have to marry----"
+
+He reeled under Quarren's blow, then struck at him blindly with his
+walking-stick, leaping at him savagely but recoiling, dizzy, half
+senseless under another blow so terrific that it almost nauseated him.
+
+He stood for a time, supporting himself against a tree; then as his wits
+returned he lifted his bruised face and stared murderously about him.
+Quarren was walking toward Witch-Hollow--half way there already and out
+of earshot as well as sight.
+
+Against the stars something moved on a near hill-top, and Sprowl reeled
+forward in pursuit, breaking into a heavy and steady run as the thing
+disappeared in the darkness. But he had seen it move, just beyond that
+fence, and he seized the top rail and got over and ran forward in the
+darkness, clutching his stick and calling to Quarren by name.
+
+Where had he gone? He halted to listen, peering around with swollen
+eyes. Blood dripped from his lips and cheek; he passed his hand over
+them, glaring, listening. Suddenly he heard a dull sound close behind
+him in the night; whirled to confront what was coming with an unseen
+rush, thundering down on him, shaking the very ground.
+
+He made no outcry; there was no escape, nothing to do but to strike; and
+he struck with every atom of his strength; and went crashing down into
+darkness. And over his battered body bellowed and raged the bull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even the men who found them there in the morning could scarcely drive
+away the half-crazed brute. And the little daughter of the gardener, who
+had discovered what was there in the pasture, cowered in the fence
+corner, crying her heart out for her father's dead master who had spoken
+kindly to her since she had grown up and who had even taken her into his
+arms and kissed her the day before when she had brought him a rare
+orchid from the greenhouse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every newspaper in America gave up the right-hand columns to huge
+headlines and an account of the tragedy at South Linden. Every paper in
+the world chronicled it. There were few richer men in the world than
+Langly Sprowl. The tragedy moved everybody in various ways; stocks,
+however, did not move either way to the surprise of everybody. On second
+thoughts, however, the world realised that his wealth had been too
+solidly invested to cause a flurry. Besides he had a younger brother
+financing something or other for the Emperor of China. Now he would
+return. The great race would not become extinct.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night Quarren went back to the Wycherlys and found Molly waiting
+for him in the library.
+
+"What on earth did Mary Ledwith want of Jim this evening?" she asked.
+
+"Sprowl was in the house."
+
+"What!"
+
+"That's why the poor child telephoned. She was probably afraid of him,
+and wanted Jim there."
+
+Molly's teeth clicked:
+
+"Jim would have half-killed him. It's probably a good thing he was in
+town. What did you do?"
+
+"Nothing. Sprowl went all right."
+
+"What did Mary say to you?"
+
+"I didn't see her."
+
+"You didn't _see_ her?"
+
+"No."
+
+Molly's eyes grew rounder:
+
+"Where is Chester Ledwith? He didn't go with you into the house, did
+he?"
+
+"Yes, he did."
+
+"But where is he? You--you don't mean to say----"
+
+"Yes, I do. He went upstairs and didn't return.... So I waited for a
+while and then--came back."
+
+They sat silent for a while, then Molly lifted her eyes to his and they
+were brimming with curiosity.
+
+"If they become reconciled," she said, "how are people going to take it,
+Rix?"
+
+"Characteristically I suppose."
+
+"You mean that some will be nasty about it?"
+
+"Some."
+
+"But then----"
+
+"Oh, Molly, Molly," he said, smiling, "there are more important things
+than what a few people are likely to think or say. The girl made a fool
+of herself, and the man weakened and nearly went to pieces. He's found
+himself again; he's disposed to help her find herself. It was only one
+of those messes that the papers report every day. Few get out of such
+pickles, but I believe these two are going to.... And somehow, do you
+know--from something Sprowl said to-night, I don't believe that she went
+the entire limit--took the last ditch."
+
+Molly reddened: "Why?"
+
+"Because, although they do it in popular fiction, men like Sprowl never
+really boast of their successes. His sort keep silent--when there's
+anything to conceal."
+
+"Did he boast?"
+
+"He did. I was sure he was lying, and I--" he shrugged.
+
+"Told him so?"
+
+"Well, something of that sort."
+
+"I believe he was lying, too.... It was just like that romantic little
+fool to run off to Reno after nothing worse than the imprudence of
+infatuation. I've known her a long while, Rix. She's too shallow for
+real passion, too selfish to indulge it anyway. His name and fortune did
+the business for her--little idiot. Really she annoys me."
+
+Quarren smiled: "Her late husband seems to like her. Fools feminine have
+made many a man happy. You'll be nice to her I'm sure."
+
+"Of course.... Everybody will on Mrs. Sprowl's account."
+
+Quarren laughed again, then:
+
+"Meanwhile this Ledwith business has prevented my talking to Strelsa
+over the telephone," he said.
+
+"Oh, Rix! You _said_ you were going to surprise her in the morning!"
+
+"But I want to see her, Molly. I don't want to wait----"
+
+"It's after ten and Strelsa has probably retired. She's a perfect
+farmer, I tell you--yawns horribly every evening at nine. Why, I can't
+keep her awake long enough to play a hand at Chinese Khan! Be
+reasonable, Rix. You had planned to surprise her in the morning....
+And--I'm lonely without Jim.... Besides, if you are clever enough to
+burst upon Strelsa's view in the morning when the day is young and all
+before her, and when she's looking her very best, nobody can tell what
+might happen.... And I'll whisper in your ear that the child has really
+missed you.... But don't be in a hurry with her, will you, Rix?"
+
+"No," he said absently.
+
+Molly picked up her knitting.
+
+"If Chester Ledwith doesn't return by twelve I'm going to have the house
+locked," she said, stifling a yawn.
+
+At twelve o'clock the house was accordingly locked for the night.
+
+"It's enough to compromise her," said Molly, crossly. "What a pair of
+fools they are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Strelsa, a pink apron pinned about her, a trowel in her gloved hand,
+stood superintending the transplanting of some purple asters which not
+very difficult exploit was being attempted by a local yokel acting as
+her "hired man."
+
+The garden, a big one with a wall fronting the road, ran back all the
+way to the terrace in the rear of the house beyond which stretched the
+western veranda.
+
+And it was out on this veranda that Quarren stepped in the wake of
+Strelsa's maid, and from there he caught his first view of Strelsa's
+garden, and of Strelsa herself, fully armed and caparisoned for the
+perennial fray with old Dame Nature.
+
+"You need not go down there to announce me," he said; "I'll speak to
+Mrs. Leeds myself."
+
+But before he could move, Strelsa, happening to turn around, saw him on
+the veranda, gazed at him incredulously for a moment, then brandished
+her trowel with a clear, distant cry of greeting, and came toward him,
+laughing in her excitement and surprise. They met midway, and she
+whipped off her glove and gave him her hand in a firm, cool clasp.
+
+"Why the dickens didn't you wire!" she said. "You're a fraud, Rix! I
+might easily have been away!--You might have missed me--we might have
+missed each other.... Is _that_ all you care about seeing me?--after all
+these weeks!"
+
+"I wanted to surprise you," he explained feebly.
+
+"Well, you didn't! That is--not much. I'd been thinking of you--and I
+glanced up and saw you. You're stopping at Molly's I suppose."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When did you arrive?"
+
+"L-last night," he admitted.
+
+"What! And didn't call me up! I refuse to believe it of you!"
+
+She really seemed indignant, and he followed her into the pretty house
+where presently she became slightly mollified by his exuberant
+admiration of the place.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" she said. "Do you really think it so pretty? If
+you do I'll take you upstairs and show you my room, and the three
+beautiful spick and span guest rooms. But _you'll_ never occupy one!"
+she added, still wrathful at his apparent neglect of her. "I don't want
+anybody here who isn't perfectly devoted to me. And it's very plain that
+you are not."
+
+He mildly insisted that he was but she denied it, hotly.
+
+"And I shall _never_ get over it," she added. "But you may come upstairs
+and see what you have missed."
+
+They went over the renovated house thoroughly; she, secretly enchanted
+at his admiration and praise of everything, pointed out any object that
+seemed to have escaped his attention merely to hear him approve it.
+Finally she relented.
+
+"You _are_ satisfactory," she said as they returned to the front veranda
+and seated themselves. "And really, Rix, I'm so terribly glad to see you
+that I forgive your neglect.... Are you well? You don't look very
+well," she added earnestly. "Why are you so white?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."]
+
+"I'm in fine shape, thank you."
+
+"I didn't mean your figure," she laughed--"Oh, that _was_ a common kind
+of a joke, wasn't it? But I'm only a farmer, Rix. You must expect the
+ruder and simpler forms of speech from a lady of the woodshed!... Why
+are you so pale?"
+
+"Do I seem particularly underdone?"
+
+"That's horrid, too. Are you and I going to degenerate just because you
+work for a living? You _are_ unusually thin, anyway; and the New York
+pallor is very noticeable. Will you stay and get sun-burnt?"
+
+"I _could_ stay a few days."
+
+"How many?"
+
+"How many do you want me? Two whole days, Strelsa?"
+
+She laughed at him, then looked at him a trifle shyly, but laughed again
+as she answered:
+
+"I want you to stay always, of course. Don't pretend that you don't know
+it, because you are perfectly aware that I never tire of you. But if you
+can stay only two days don't let us waste any time----"
+
+"We're not wasting it here together, are we?"
+
+"Don't you want to walk? I haven't a horse yet, except for agricultural
+purposes. I'll rinse my hands and take off this apron--" She stood
+unpinning and untying it, her gray eyes never leaving him in their
+unabashed delight in him.
+
+Then she disappeared for a few minutes only to reappear wearing a pair
+of stout little shoes and carrying a walking-stick which she said she
+used in rough country.
+
+And first they visited her garden where all the old-fashioned autumn
+flowers were in riotous bloom--scarlet sage, rockets, thickets of
+gladiolus, heavy borders of asters, marigolds, and coreopsis; and here
+she gave a few verbal directions to the yokel who gaped toothlessly in
+reply.
+
+After that, side by side, they swung off together across the hill, she,
+lithe and slender, setting the springy pace and twirling her
+walking-stick, he, less accustomed to the open and more so to the smooth
+hot streets of the city, slackening pace first.
+
+She chided and derided him and bantered him scornfully, then with sudden
+sweet concern halted, reproaching herself for setting too hot a pace for
+a city-worn and work-worn man.
+
+But the cool shadows of the woods were near, and she made him rest on
+the little footbridge--the same bridge where he had encountered Ledwith
+for the first time in years. He recognised the spot.
+
+After they had seated themselves and Strelsa, resting on the back of the
+bridge seat, was contentedly dabbling in the stream with her cane,
+Quarren said, slowly:
+
+"Shall I tell you why I did not disturb you last night, Strelsa?"
+
+"You can't excuse it----"
+
+"You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though----"
+
+"I am listening."
+
+"Then, it has to do with Ledwith. He's not very well but he's better
+than he was. You see he wanted to take a course of treatment to regain
+his health, and there seemed to be nobody else, so--I offered to see
+him through."
+
+"That's like you, Rix," she said, looking at him.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't anything--I had nothing to do----"
+
+"That's like you, too. Did you pull him through?"
+
+"He pulled himself through.... It was strenuous for two or three
+days--and hot as the devil in that sanitarium." ... He laughed. "We both
+were wrecks when we came out two weeks later--oh, a bit groggy, that's
+really all.... And he had no place to go--and seemed to be inclined to
+keep hold of my sleeve--so I telephoned Molly. And she said to bring him
+up. That was nice of her, wasn't it?"
+
+"Everybody is wonderful except you," she said.
+
+"Nonsense," he said, "it wasn't I who went through a modified hell. He's
+got a lot of backbone, Ledwith.... And so we came up last night....
+And--now here's the interesting part, Strelsa! We strolled over to call
+on Mrs. Ledwith----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Certainly. I myself didn't see her but--" he laughed--"she seemed to be
+at home to her ex-husband."
+
+"Rix!"
+
+"It's a fact. He went back there for breakfast this morning after he'd
+changed his clothes."
+
+"After--_what_?"
+
+"Yes. It seems that they started out in a canoe about midnight and he
+didn't turn up at Witch-Hollow until just before breakfast--and then he
+only stayed long enough to change to boating flannels.... You should see
+him; he's twenty years younger.... I fancy they'll get along together in
+future."
+
+"Oh, Rix!" she said, "that was darling of you! You _are_ wonderful even
+if you don't seem to know it!... And to think--to _think_ that Mary
+Ledwith is going to be happy again!... Oh, you don't know how it has
+been with her--the silly, unhappy little thing!
+
+"Why, after Mrs. Sprowl left, the girl went all to pieces. Molly and I
+did what we could--but Molly isn't strong and Mrs. Ledwith was at my
+house almost all the time--Oh, it was quite dreadful, and I'm sure she
+was really losing her senses--because--I think I'll tell you--I tell you
+everything--" She hesitated, and then, lowering her voice:
+
+"She had come to see me, and she was lying on the lounge in my
+dressing-room, crying; and I was doing my hair. And first I knew she
+sobbed out that she had killed her husband and wanted to die, and she
+caught up that pistol that Sir Charles gave me at the Bazaar last
+winter--it looked like a real one--and the next thing I knew she had
+fired a charge of Japanese perfume at her temple, and it was all over
+her face and hair!... Don't laugh, Rix; she thought she had killed
+herself, and I had a horrid, messy time of it reviving her."
+
+"You poor child," he exclaimed trying not to laugh--"she had no brains
+to blow out anyway.... That's a low thing to say. Ledwith likes her....
+I really believe she's been scared into life-long good behaviour."
+
+"She wasn't--really--horrid," said Strelsa in a low voice. "She told me
+so."
+
+"I don't doubt it," he said. "But one way or the other you might as well
+reproach a humming-bird for its morals. There are such people."
+
+After a short silence she said:
+
+"Tell me about people in town."
+
+"There are few there. Besides," he added smilingly, "I don't see much of
+your sort of people."
+
+"_My_ sort?" she repeated, lifting her gray eyes. "Am I not your sort,
+Rix?"
+
+"Are you? You should see me in my overalls and shirt-sleeves, stained
+with solvents and varnish, sticky with glue and reeking turpentine,
+ironing out a canvas with a warm flat-iron!... Am I your kind, Strelsa?"
+
+"Yes.... Am I _your_ kind?"
+
+"You always were. You know that."
+
+"Yes, I do know it, now." She sat very still, hands folded, considering
+him with gray and speculative eyes.
+
+"From the very beginning," she said, "you have never once disappointed
+me."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.
+
+"Never," she repeated.
+
+"Why--why, I got in wrong the very first time!" he said.
+
+"You mean that wager we made?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you behaved like a good sportsman."
+
+"Well, I wasn't exactly a bounder. But you were annoyed."
+
+She smiled: "Was I?"
+
+"You seemed to be."
+
+"Yet I sat in a corner behind some palms with you until daylight."
+
+They looked at each other and laughed over the reminiscence. Then he
+said:
+
+"I _did_ disappoint you when you found out what sort of a man I was."
+
+"No, you didn't."
+
+"I proved it, too," he said under his breath.
+
+Her lips were set firmly, almost primly, but she blushed.
+
+"You meant to be nice to me," she said. "You meant to do me honour."
+
+"The honour of offering you such a man as I was," he said with smiling
+bitterness.
+
+"Rix! _I_ was the fool--the silly little prig! I have blushed and
+blushed to remember how I behaved; how I snubbed you and--good
+heavens!--even lectured and admonished you!--How I ran away from you
+with all the self-possession and _savoir-faire_ of a country schoolgirl!
+What on earth you thought of me in those days I dread to surmise----"
+
+"But Strelsa, what was there to do except what you did?"
+
+"If I'd known anything I could have thanked you for caring that way for
+me and dismissed you as a friend instead of fleeing as though you had
+affronted me----"
+
+"I _did_ affront you."
+
+"You didn't intend to.... It would have been easy enough to tell you
+that I liked you--but not that way.... And all those miserable, lonely,
+unhappy months could have been spared me----"
+
+"Were _you_ unhappy?"
+
+"Didn't you know it?"
+
+"I never dreamed you were."
+
+"Well, I was--thinking of what I had done to you.... And all those men
+bothering me, every moment, and everybody at me to marry everybody
+else--and all I wanted was to be friends with _you_!... I wasn't sure
+of what I wanted from the very beginning, of course, but I knew it as
+soon as I saw you at the Bazaar again.... I was _so_ lonely, Rix----"
+
+She looked up out of clear, fearless eyes; he leaned forward and took
+her hands in his.
+
+"I know what you want," he said quietly. "You want my friendship and you
+have it--every atom of it, Strelsa. I will never overstep the borders
+again; I understand you thoroughly.... You know what you have done for
+me--what I was when you came into my life. My gratitude is a living
+thing. Through you, because of you, the whole unknown world--all of real
+life--has opened before me. You did it for me, Strelsa."
+
+"You did it for yourself and for me," she said in a low voice. "What are
+you trying to tell me, Rix? That _I_ did this for _you_? When it is
+you--it was you from the first--it has always been you who led, who
+awakened first, who showed courage and common sense and patience and the
+cheerful wisdom which--which saved me----"
+
+The emotion in her voice stirred him thrillingly; her hands lay
+confidently in his; her gray eyes met his so sweetly, so honestly, that
+hope awoke for a moment.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "however it was with us--however it is now, I think
+that together we amount to more than we ever could have amounted to
+apart."
+
+"I know it," she said fervently. "I was nothing until I began to
+comprehend you."
+
+"What was I before you awoke me?"
+
+"A man neglecting his nobler self.... But it could not have lasted; your
+real self could not have long endured that harlequinade we once thought
+was real life.... I'm glad if you think that I--something about
+me--aroused you.... But if I had not, somebody or some circumstance
+would have very soon served the same purpose."
+
+"Do you think so?" he said, stooping to kiss her hands. She looked at
+him while he did so, confused by the quick pleasure of the contact, then
+schooled herself to endure it, setting her lips in a grave, firm line.
+
+And it was a most serious face he lifted his eyes to as she quietly
+withdrew her fingers from his.
+
+"You always played the courtier to perfection," she said, trying to
+speak lightly. "Tell me about that accomplished and noble peer, Lord
+Dankmere. Are you still inclined to like him?"
+
+He accepted her light and careless change of tone instantly, and spoke
+laughingly of Dankmere:
+
+"He's really a mighty nice fellow, Strelsa. Anyway, I like him. And
+_what_ do you think his lordship has been and gone and done?"
+
+"Has he become a Russian dancer, Rix?"
+
+"No, bless his heart! He's fallen head over ears in love and is engaged
+and is going to marry!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Our stenographer!"
+
+"Rix!"
+
+"Certainly.... She's pretty and sweet and good and _most_ worthy; and
+she's as crazy about Dankmere as he is about her.... Really, Strelsa,
+she's a charming young girl, and she'll make as pretty a countess as any
+of the Dankmeres have married in many a generation."
+
+Strelsa's lip curled: "I don't doubt that. They were always a horrid
+cock-fighting, prize-fighting, dissolute lot, weren't they?"
+
+"Something like that. But the present Dankmere is a good sort--really he
+is, Strelsa. And as for Jessie Vining, she's sweet. You'll be nice to
+them, won't you?"
+
+She said: "I'd be nice to them anyway. But now that you ask me to I'll
+be whatever you wish."
+
+"You _are_ a corker," he said almost tenderly; but with a slight smile
+she kept her hands out of his reach.
+
+"We mustn't degenerate into sentimentalism just because we're glad to
+see each other," she said so calmly that he did not notice the tremor in
+her voice. "And by the way, how is Mr. Westguard?"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Speaking of sentiment," said Quarren, "Karl now exudes it daily. He and
+Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera--to Lester's rage--have started a
+weekly paper called _Brotherhood_, consisting of pabulum for the
+horny-handed.
+
+"I couldn't do anything with Karl. Just look at him! He's really a good
+story-teller if he chooses. He could write jolly-good novels if he
+would. But the spectacle of De Groot weeping over a Bowery audience has
+finished him; and he's hard at work on a volume called 'The World's
+Woe,' and means to publish it himself because no publisher will take
+it."
+
+"Poor Karl," she said, smiling.
+
+"No," said Quarren, "that's the worst of it. His aunt has settled a
+million on him.... I tell you, Strelsa, the rich convert has less honour
+among the poor than the dingiest little 'dip' among the gorgeous
+corsairs of Wall Street.
+
+"I don't know how it happens, but Christ was never yet successfully
+preached from Fifth Avenue, and the millionaire whose heart bleeds for
+the poor needs a sterner surgeon than a complacent conscience to really
+stop the hemorrhage."
+
+"Rich men do good, Rix," she said thoughtfully.
+
+"But not by teaching or practising the thrift of celestial
+insurance--not by admonition to orthodoxy and exhortation to worship a
+Creator who sees to it that no two people are created equal. There is
+only one thing the rich can give to the poor for Christ's sake; and even
+that will always be taken with suspicion and distrust. No; there are
+only two ways to live: one is the life of self-discipline; the other is
+to actually imitate the militant Son of Man whose faith we pretend to
+profess--but whose life-history we merely parody, turning His crusade
+into a grotesque carnival. I know of no third course consistent."
+
+"To lead an upright life within bounds where your lines have fallen, or
+to strip and go forth militant," she mused. "There is no third course,
+as you say.... Do you know, Rix, that I have become a wonderfully happy
+sort of person?"
+
+"So have I," he said, laughingly.
+
+"It's just because we have something to do, isn't it?"
+
+"That--and the leisure which the idle never have. It seems like a
+paradox, doesn't it?--to say that the idle never have any time to
+themselves."
+
+"I know what you mean. I expect to work rather hard the rest of my
+life," she said seriously, "and yet I can foresee lots and lots of most
+delicious leisure awaiting me."
+
+"Do you foresee anything else, pretty prophetess?"
+
+"What else do you mean?"
+
+"Well, for example, you will be alone here all winter."
+
+"Do you mean loneliness?" she asked, smiling. "I don't expect to suffer
+from that. Molly will be here all winter and--you will write to me--"
+she turned to him--"won't you, Rix?"
+
+"Certainly. Besides I'm coming up to see you every week."
+
+"Every week!" she repeated, taken a little aback but smiling her sweet,
+confused smile. "Do you realise what you are so gaily engaging to do?"
+
+"Perfectly. I'm going to build up here."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"A--a house?"
+
+He looked at her, hesitated, then looking away:
+
+"Either a house or--an addition."
+
+"An _addition_?"
+
+"If you'll let me, Strelsa--some day."
+
+She understood him then. The painful colour stole into her cheeks,
+faintly burning, and she closed her eyes for a moment to endure it,
+sitting silent, motionless, her little sun-tanned hands tightly clasped
+on her knees.
+
+Then, unclosing her eyes she looked at him, delicate lips tightening.
+
+"I thought our relations were to remain on a higher plane," she said
+steadily.
+
+"Our relations are to remain what you desire them to be, dear."
+
+"I desire them to be what they are--_always_."
+
+"Then that is my wish also," he said with a smile so genuine and gay
+that, a little confused by his acquiescence, her own response was slow.
+But presently her smile dawned, a little tremulous and uncertain, and
+her gray eyes remained wistful though the lips curled deliciously.
+
+"I would do anything in the world for you, Rix, except--that," she said
+in a low voice.
+
+"I know you would, you dear girl."
+
+"Don't you really believe it?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+"But--I _can't_ do that--_ever_. It would--would spoil you for me....
+What in the world would I do if you were spoiled for me, Rix? I haven't
+anybody else.... What would I do here--all alone? I couldn't stay--I
+wouldn't know what to do--where to go in the world.... It would be
+lonely--lonely----"
+
+She bent her head, and remained so, gray eyes fixed on her clasped
+fingers. For a long while she sat bowed over, thinking; once or twice
+she lifted her eyes to look at him, but her gaze always became confused
+and remote; and he did not offer to break the silence.
+
+At last she looked up with a movement of decision, her face clearing.
+
+"You understand, don't you, Rix?" she said, rising.
+
+He nodded, rising also; and they descended the steps together and walked
+slowly away toward Witch-Hollow.
+
+From the hill-top they noticed one of Sprowl's farm-waggons slowly
+entering the drive, followed on foot by several men and a little girl.
+Her blond hair and apron fluttered in the breeze. She was too far away
+for them to see that she was weeping.
+
+"I wonder what they've got in that waggon?" said Quarren, curiously.
+
+Strelsa's gaze became indifferent, then passed on and rested on the blue
+range of hills beyond.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful about Chrysos," she said.
+
+"The quaint little thing," he said almost tenderly. "She told Molly what
+happened--how she sat down under a fence to tie wild strawberries for
+Sir Charles, and how, all at once, she realised what his going out of
+her life meant to her--and how the tears choked her to silence until she
+suddenly found herself in his arms.... Can you see it as it happened,
+Strelsa?--as pretty a pastoral as ever the older poets--" He broke off
+abruptly, and she looked up, but he was still smiling as though the
+scene of another man's happiness, so lightly evoked, were a
+visualisation of his own. And again her gray eyes grew wistful as though
+shyly pleading for his indulgence and silently asking his pardon for all
+that she could never be to him or to any man.
+
+So they came across fields and down through fragrant lanes to
+Witch-Hollow, where the fat setter gambolled ponderously around them
+with fat barkings and waggings, and where Molly, sewing on the porch,
+smoothed the frail and tiny garment over her knee and raised her pretty
+head to survey them with a smiling intelligence that made Strelsa blush.
+
+"It _isn't_ so!" she found an opportunity to whisper into Molly's ear.
+"If you look at us that way you'll simply make him miserable and break
+my heart."
+
+Molly glanced after Quarren who had wandered indoors to find a cigarette
+in the smoking-room.
+
+"If you don't marry that delectable young man," she said, "I'll take a
+stick and beat you, Strelsa."
+
+"I don't want to--I don't _want_ to!" protested the girl, getting
+possession of Molly's hands and covering them with caresses. And,
+resting her soft lips on Molly's fingers, she looked at her; and the
+young matron saw tears glimmering under the soft, dark lashes.
+
+"I _can't_ love him--that way," whispered the girl. "I would if I
+could.... I couldn't care for him more than I do.... And--and it
+terrifies me to think of losing him."
+
+"Losing him?"
+
+"Yes--by doing what you--what he--wishes."
+
+"You think you'll lose him if you marry him?"
+
+"I--yes. It would spoil him for me--spoil everything for me in the
+world----"
+
+"Well, you listen to me," said Molly, exasperated. "When he has stood a
+certain amount of this silliness from you he'll really and actually turn
+into the sexless comrade you think you want. But he'll go elsewhere for
+a mate. There are plenty suitable in the world. If you'd never been born
+there would have been another for him. If you passed out of his life
+there would some day be another.
+
+"Will we women never learn the truth?--that at best we are incidental to
+man, but that, when we love, man is the whole bally thing to us?
+
+"Let him escape and you'll see, Strelsa. You'll get, perhaps, what
+you're asking for now, but he'll get what he is asking for, too--if not
+from you, from some girl of whom you and I and he perhaps have never
+heard.
+
+"But she exists; don't worry. And any man worth his title is certain to
+encounter her sooner or later."
+
+The girl, flushed, dumb, watched her out of wide gray eyes in which the
+unshed tears had dried. The pretty matron slowly shook her head:
+
+"Because you once bit into tainted fruit you laid the axe to the entire
+orchard. What nonsense! Rottenness is the exception; soundness the rule.
+But you concluded that the hazard of bad fortune--that the unhappy
+chance of your first and only experience--was not an exception but the
+universal rule.... Very well; think it! He'll get over it some time, but
+you never will, Strelsa. You'll remember it all your life.
+
+"For I tell you that we women who go to our graves without having missed
+a single pang--we who die having known happiness and its shadow which is
+sorrow--the happiness and sorrow which come through love of man
+alone--die as we should die, in deep content of destiny fulfilled--which
+is the only peace beyond all understanding."
+
+The girl lowered her head and, resting her cheek on Molly's shoulder,
+looked down at the baby garment on her knees.
+
+"That also?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes.... Unless we pass that way, also, we can never die content.... But
+until a month ago I did not know it.... Strelsa--Strelsa! Are you never
+going to know what love can be?"
+
+The girl rose slowly, flushing and whitening by turns, and stood a
+moment, her hands covering her eyes.
+
+And standing so:
+
+"Do you think he will go away--from me--some day?"
+
+"Yes; he will go--unless----"
+
+"Must it be--that way?"
+
+"It will be that way, Strelsa."
+
+"I had never thought of that."
+
+"Think of it as the truth. It will be so unless you love him in his own
+fashion--and for his own sake. Try--if you care for him enough to
+try.... And if you do, you will love him for your own sake, too."
+
+"I--I had thought of--of giving myself--for his sake--because he wishes
+it.... I don't believe I'll be--much afraid--of him. Do you?"
+
+Molly's wise sweet eyes sparkled with silent laughter. Then without
+another glance at the tall, young girl before her she picked up her
+sewing, drew the needle from the hem, and smoothed out the lace
+embroidery on her knees.
+
+After a while she said:
+
+"Jim's returning on the noon train. Will you and Rix be here to
+luncheon?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, ask him; I have my orders to give if you'll stay."
+
+Strelsa walked into the house; Quarren, still hunting about for a
+cigarette, looked up as she entered the smoking-room.
+
+"Where the dickens does Jim keep his cigarettes?" he asked. "Do you
+know, Strelsa?"
+
+"You poor boy!" she exclaimed laughingly, "have you been searching all
+this time? The wonder is that you haven't perished. Why didn't you ask
+me for one when we were at--our house?"
+
+"_Your_ house?" he corrected, smiling.
+
+Her gray eyes met his with a frightened sort of courage.
+
+"_Our house_--if you wish--" But her lips had begun to tremble and she
+could not control them or force from them another word for all her
+courage.
+
+He came over to where she stood, one slim hand resting against the wall;
+and she looked back bravely into his keen eyes--the clear, direct,
+questioning eyes of a boy.
+
+"I--I will--marry you," she said.
+
+A swift flush touched his face to the temples.
+
+"Don't you--want me?" she said, tremulously.
+
+"If you love me, Strelsa."
+
+"Isn't it enough--that you--love----"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+She lost her colour.
+
+"Rix! Don't you want me?" she faltered.
+
+"Not unless you want me, Strelsa."
+
+She drew a long unsteady breath. Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes,
+and she held out both hands to him, blindly.
+
+"I--do love you," she whispered.... "I'll give what you give.... Only
+you must teach me--not to be--afraid."
+
+Her cheek lay close to his shoulder; his arms drew her nearer. And,
+after he had waited a long while, her gray eyes, which had been watching
+his face, slowly closed, and she lifted her lips toward his.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Hyphenation has been standardized. Nonstandard spellings have been
+maintained, e.g. "barytone", but clear spelling errors have been
+corrected ("hynotised" replaced with "hypnotised", "f" replaced with
+"of"). Missing periods have been added at ends of sentences. Missing
+close quotes have been added.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Streets of Ascalon
+       Episodes in the Unfinished Career of Richard Quarren, Esqre.
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Illustrator: Charles Dana Gibson
+
+Release Date: February 10, 2011 [EBook #35233]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STREETS OF ASCALON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<img src="images/cover01.jpg" width="320" height="475" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h1>THE STREETS OF ASCALON</h1>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>Works of Robert W. Chambers</h3>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left">Works of Robert W. Chambers</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Streets of Ascalon</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Blue-Bird Weather</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Japonette</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Adventures of a Modest Man</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Danger Mark</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Special Messenger</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Firing Line</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Younger Set</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Fighting Chance</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Some Ladies in Haste</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Tree of Heaven</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Tracer of Lost Persons</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A Young Man in a Hurry</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Lorraine</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Maids of Paradise</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ashes of Empire</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Red Republic</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Outsiders</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Common Law</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Ailsa Paige</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Green Mouse</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Iole</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Reckoning</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Maid-at-Arms</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Cardigan</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Haunts of Men</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Mystery of Choice</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Cambric Mask</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Maker of Moons</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The King in Yellow</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">In Search of the Unknown</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Conspirators</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A King and a Few Dukes</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">In the Quarter</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<h3>For Children</h3>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left">For Children</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Garden-Land</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Forest-Land</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">River-Land</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Mountain-Land</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Orchard-Land</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Outdoor-Land</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Hide and Seek in Forest-Land</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, New York</span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs01" id="gs01"></a><img src="images/gs01.jpg" width="320" height="481" alt="&quot;She excused the witness and turned her back to the
+looking-glass.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;She excused the witness and turned her back to the
+looking-glass.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<img src="images/tp01.png" width="320" height="474" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+<h1><i>The</i> STREETS
+OF ASCALON</h1>
+
+<h2><i>Episodes in the Unfinished Career of
+Richard Quarren, Esq<sup>&#7771;&#7865;</sup></i></h2>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">CHARLES DANA GIBSON</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK AND LONDON</p>
+
+<p class="center">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">1912</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1912, by</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</p>
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1912, by The International Magazine Company</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Published, September, 1912</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">Printed in the United States of America
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="center">TO</p>
+
+<p class="center">EULALIE ASHMORE</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">BETWEEN</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">PAGES</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"She excused the witness and turned her back to the looking-glass"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs01"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs02">24</a>-25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing gallantries"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs03">30-</a>31</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' she said lightly"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs04">52-</a>53</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her newspapers"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs05">60-</a>61</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men give there!'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs06">78-</a>79</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'Is&mdash;Mrs. Leeds&mdash;well?' he ventured at length, reddening again"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs07">86-</a>87</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because I have a message to deliver&mdash;'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs08">98-</a>99</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the men!'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs09">116-</a>117</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Strelsa, curled up on a divan ... listened to his departure with quiet satisfaction"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs10">126-</a>127</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked, smiling"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs11">128-</a>129</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement to Sir Charles was expected to be announced"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs12">172-</a>173</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded in amazement by the neighbors"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs13">178-</a>179</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly two months"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs14">190-</a>191</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'I say, Quarren&mdash;does this old lady hang next to the battered party in black?'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs15">194-</a>195</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she whispered"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs16">210-</a>211</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp curve"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs17">214-</a>215</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'The old ones are the best,' she commented"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs18">228-</a>229</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs19">246-</a>247</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"A high and soulful tenor voice was singing 'Perfumes of Araby'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs20">272-</a>273</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"She came about noon&mdash;a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black gown"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs21">280-</a>281</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Jessie Vining</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs22">290-</a>291</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs23">302-</a>303</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs24">328-</a>329</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she asked caressingly"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs25">346-</a>347</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'And it is to be your last breakfast'"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs26">374-</a>375</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Strelsa Leeds</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs27">380-</a>381</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs28">416-</a>417</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly"</td><td align="right"> <a href="#gs29">424-</a>425</td></tr>
+
+</table></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="center">"<i>Tell it not in Gath, publish it not
+in the streets of Ascalon.</i>"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>THE STREETS OF ASCALON</h1>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+
+<p>It being rent day, and Saturday, the staff of the "Irish Legation," with
+the exception of Westguard, began to migrate uptown for the monthly
+conference, returning one by one from that mysterious financial jungle
+popularly known as "Downtown." As for Westguard, he had been in his
+apartment all day as usual. He worked where he resided.</p>
+
+<p>A little before five o'clock John Desmond Lacy, Jr., came in, went
+directly to his rooms on the top floor, fished out a check-book, and
+tried to persuade himself that he had a pleasing balance at the
+bank&mdash;not because he was likely to have any balance either there or in
+his youthful brain, but because he <i>had</i> to have one somewhere. God
+being good to the Irish he found he had not overdrawn his account.</p>
+
+<p>Roger O'Hara knocked on his door, later, and receiving no response
+called out: "Are you in there, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Lacy, scratching away with his pen in passionate hopes of
+discovering a still bigger balance.</p>
+
+<p>"Sportin' your oak, old Skeezicks?" inquired O'Hara, affectionately,
+delivering a kick at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me alone, you wild Irishman!" shouted Lacy. "If I can't dig out an
+extra hundred somewhere the State Superintendent is likely to sport my
+oak for keeps!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A big, lumbering, broad-shouldered young fellow was coming up the stairs
+behind O'Hara, a blank book and some papers tucked under his arm, and
+O'Hara nodded to him and opened Mr. Lacy's door without further
+parleying.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's Westguard, now," he said; "and as we can't shoot landlords in
+the close season we'll have to make arrangements to pay for bed and
+board, Jack."</p>
+
+<p>Lacy glanced up from the sheet of figures before him, then waved his
+guests to seats and lighted a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Hooray," he remarked to Westguard; "I can draw you a check, Karl, and
+live to tell the tale." And he rose and gave his place at the desk to
+the man addressed, who seated himself heavily, as though tired.</p>
+
+<p>"Before we go over the accounts," he began, "I want to say a word or
+two&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hadn't you better wait till Quarren comes in?" interrupted O'Hara,
+smoking and stretching out his long legs.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I want to talk to you two fellows first. And I'll tell you at once
+what's the matter: Quarren's check came back marked 'no funds.' This is
+the third time; and one of us ought to talk to him."</p>
+
+<p>"It's only a slip," said Lacy&mdash;"it's the tendency in him that considers
+the lilies of the field&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't square," said Westguard doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Karl, Rix means to be square&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, too, but he isn't succeeding. It humiliates me; it
+hurts like hell to have to call his attention to such oversights."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's the gay tra-la-la," said O'Hara, indulgently; "do you think he
+bothers his elegant noddle about such trifles as checks? Besides he's
+almost as Irish as I am&mdash;God bless his mother and damn all landlords,
+Lester Caldera included."</p>
+
+<p>"What does Quarren do with all his money, then?" mused Lacy&mdash;"soaking
+the public in Tappan-Zee Park and sitting up so close and snug to the
+rich and great!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's his business," said Westguard, "to see that any check he draws is
+properly covered. Overdrafts may be funny in a woman, and in novels, but
+once is too often for any man. And this makes three times for Rix."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, thin, lave the poor la-ad be! ye could-blooded Sassenach!" said
+Lacy, pretending to the brogue. "Phwat the divil!&mdash;'tis the cashier ye
+should blame whin Rix tells him to pay, an' he refuses to projuice the
+long-green wad!"</p>
+
+<p>But Westguard, unsmiling, consulted his memoranda, then, holding up his
+sheet of figures:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a quorum here," he said. "Rix can read this over when he comes
+in, if he likes. Here's the situation." And he read off the items of
+liabilities and assets, showing exactly, and to a penny, how the house
+had been run for the past month.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was there, rent, servants' wages, repairs, provisions, bills
+for heating and lighting, extras, incidentals&mdash;all disbursements and
+receipts; then, pausing for comments, and hearing none, he closed the
+ledger with a sharp slap.</p>
+
+<p>"The roof's leakin'," observed O'Hara without particular interest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Write to the landlord," said Lacy&mdash;"the stingy millionaire."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't fix it," returned the other. "Did you ever hear of Lester
+Caldera spendin' a cent?"</p>
+
+<p>"On himself, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not spendin'; it all goes inside or outside of him somewhere."
+He stretched his legs, crossed them, sucked on his empty pipe, and
+looked around at Westguard, who was still fussing over the figures.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you goin' to the Wycherlys', Karl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"What costume?"</p>
+
+<p>"None of your business," retorted Westguard pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going as the family Banshee," observed Lacy.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear me screech, Karl?" And, pointing his nose skyward and
+ruffling up his auburn hair he emitted a yell so unendurable that it
+brought Westguard to his feet, protesting.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up!" he said. "Do you want to have this house pinched, you crazy
+Milesian?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of my rooms if you don't like it," said Lacy. "If I'm going to
+a masked dance as a Banshee I've got to practice screaming, haven't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"I," said O'Hara, "am goin' as a bingle."</p>
+
+<p>"What's a bingle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows. Neither do I; and it's killin' me to think up a
+costume.... Dick Quarren's goin', isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he ever miss anything?" said Lacy.</p>
+
+<p>"He's missing most of his life," said Westguard so sharply that the
+others opened their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A flush had settled under Westguard's cheek-bones;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> he was still jotting
+down figures with a flat silver pencil, but presently he looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the cold and uncomplimentary truth about Ricky," he said. "That
+set he runs with is making an utter fool of him."</p>
+
+<p>"That set," repeated Lacy, grinning. "Why, we all have wealthy relatives
+in it&mdash;wealthy, charming, and respectable&mdash;h'm!"</p>
+
+<p>"Which is why we're at liberty to curse it out," observed O'Hara,
+complacently. "We all know what it is. Karl is right. If a man is goin'
+to make anythin' of himself he can't run with that expensive pack. One
+may venture to visit the kennels now and then, and look over the new
+litters&mdash;perhaps do a little huntin' once in a while&mdash;just enough&mdash;so
+that the M. F. H. recognises your coat tails when you come a cropper.
+But nix for wire or water! Me for the gate, please. Ah, do you think a
+<i>man</i> can stand what the papers call 'the realm of society' very long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rix is doing well."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard said: "They've gradually been getting a strangle-hold on him.
+Women are crazy about that sort of man&mdash;with his good looks and good
+humour and his infernally easy way of obliging a hundred people at
+once.... Look back a few years! Before he joined that whipper-snapper
+junior club he was full of decent ambition, full of go, unspoiled, fresh
+from college and as promising a youngster as anybody ever met. Where is
+his ambition now? What future has he?&mdash;except possibly to marry a
+million at forty-five and settle down with a comfortable grunt in the
+trough. It's coming, I tell you. Look what he was four years ago&mdash;a boy
+with clear eyes and a clear skin, frank, clean set,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> clean minded. Look
+at him now&mdash;sallow, wiry, unprofitably wise, rangé, disillusioned&mdash;oh,
+hell! they've mauled him to a shadow of a rag!"</p>
+
+<p>Lacy lighted another cigarette and winked at O'Hara. "Karl's off again,"
+he said. "Now we're going to get the Bible and the Sword for fair!"</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't everybody need them both!" said Westguard, smiling. Then his
+heavy features altered: "I care a good deal for Dick Quarren," he said.
+"That's why his loose and careless financial methods make me mad&mdash;that's
+why this loose and careless transformation of a decent, sincere,
+innocent boy into an experienced, easy-going, cynical man makes me
+tired. I've got to stand for it, I suppose, but I don't want to. He's a
+gifted, clever, lovable fellow, but he hasn't any money and any right to
+leisure, and these people are turning him into one of those dancing
+things that leads cotillions and arranges tableaux, and plays social
+diplomat and forgets secrets and has his pockets full of boudoir
+keys&mdash;good Lord! I hate to say it, but they're making a tame cat of
+him&mdash;they're using him ignobly, I tell you&mdash;and that's the truth&mdash;if he
+had a friend with courage enough to tell him! I've tried, but I can't
+talk this way to him."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence: then O'Hara crossed one lank leg over the other,
+gingerly, and contemplated his left shoe.</p>
+
+<p>"Karl," he said, "character never really changes; it only develops.
+What's born in the cradle is lowered into the grave, as some Russian guy
+said. You're a writer, and you know what I say is true."</p>
+
+<p>"Granted. But Quarren's character isn't developing; it's being stifled,
+strangled. He could have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> a professional man&mdash;a lawyer, and a
+brilliant one&mdash;or an engineer, or a physician&mdash;any old thing. He's in
+real estate&mdash;if you can call it that. All right; why doesn't he <i>do</i>
+something in it? I'll tell you why," he added, angrily answering his own
+question; "these silly women are turning Quarren's ambition into
+laziness, his ideals into mockery, his convictions into cynicism&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short. The door opened, and Quarren sauntered in.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't help hearing part of your sermon, Karl," he said laughing. "Go
+ahead; I don't mind the Bible and the Sword&mdash;it's good for Jack Lacy,
+too&mdash;and that scoundrel O'Hara. Hit us again, old Ironsides. We're no
+good." And he sat down on the edge of Lacy's bed, and presently
+stretched out on it, gracefully, arms under his blond head.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been catchin' it, Ricky," said O'Hara with a grin. "Karl says
+that fashionable society is a bally wampire a-gorgin' of hisself at the
+expense of bright young men like you. What's the come-back to that,
+sonny?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks old fellow," said Quarren laughing and slightly lifting his head
+to look across at Westguard. "Go ahead and talk hell and brimstone. A
+fight is the only free luxury in the Irish Legation. I'll swat you with
+a pillow when I get mad enough."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard bent his heavy head and looked down at the yellow check on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"Rix," he said, "I've got to tell you that you have forgotten to make a
+deposit at your bank."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Quarren with weary but amiable vexation&mdash;"that is
+the third time. What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> are you fellows going to do? Put me out of the
+Legation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why the devil are you so careless?" growled Westguard.</p>
+
+<p>"I honestly don't know. I didn't suppose I was so short. I thought I had
+a balance."</p>
+
+<p>"Rot! The minute a man begins to <i>think</i> he has a balance he knows damn
+well that he hasn't! I don't care, Rix&mdash;but, take it from me, you'll
+have a mortifying experience one of these days."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess that's right," said Quarren with a kind of careless contrition.
+"I never seem to be more than a lap or two ahead of old lady Ruin. And I
+break the speed-laws, too."</p>
+
+<p>"No youngster ever beat that old woman in a foot-race," observed Lacy.
+"Pay up and give her enough carfare to travel the other way; that's your
+only chance, Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly. No fellow need be in debt if he pays up, you Hibernian
+idiot!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want some money?" asked Westguard bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, Karl, oodles of it! But not from you, old chap."</p>
+
+<p>"You know you can have it from me, too, don't you?" said O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren nodded cordially: "I'll get it; no fear. I'm terribly sorry
+about that check. But it will be all right to-morrow, Karl."</p>
+
+<p>Lacy thought to himself with a grin: "He'll kill somebody at Auction to
+square himself&mdash;that's what Ricky means to do. God be good to the
+wealthy this winter night!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>O'Hara, lank, carefully scrubbed, carefully turned out as one of his own
+hunters, stood up with a yawn and glanced at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't somebody say somebody was comin' in to tea?" he asked generally.</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin, Mrs. Wycherly," said Westguard&mdash;"and a friend of hers&mdash;I've
+forgotten&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Leeds," observed Lacy. "And she is reputed to be a radiant peach.
+Did any of you fellows ever meet her in the old days?"</p>
+
+<p>Nobody there had ever seen her.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Mrs. Wycherly say she is a looker?" asked O'Hara, sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard shrugged: "You know what to expect when one woman tells you
+that another woman is good-looking. Probably she has a face that would
+kill a caterpillar."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed lazily from the bed:</p>
+
+<p>"I hear she's pretty. She's come out of the West. You know, of course,
+who she was."</p>
+
+<p>"Reggie Leeds's wife," said O'Hara, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Perhaps the men were thinking of the late Reginald
+Leeds, and of the deep damnation of his taking off.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never seen her?" asked Lacy.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody ever has. She's never before been here," said Quarren, yawning.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come down and set the kettle on, Ricky. She may be the peachiest
+kind of a peach in a special crate directed to your address and marked
+'Perishable! Rush! With care!' So we'll have to be very careful in
+rushing her&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for Heaven's sake stop that lady-patter,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> protested O'Hara,
+linking his arm in Lacy's and sauntering toward the door. "That sort of
+conversation is Ricky's line of tea-talk. You'll reduce him to a
+pitiable silence if you take away his only asset."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard gathered up his papers, pausing a moment at the doorway:</p>
+
+<p>"Coming?" he asked briefly of Quarren who was laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly he's coming," said Lacy returning and attempting to drag him
+from the bed. "Come on, you tea-cup-rattling, macaroon-crunching,
+caste-smitten, fashion-bitten Arbiter Elegantiarum!"</p>
+
+<p>They fought for a moment, then Lacy staggered back under repeated
+wallops from one of his own pillows, and presently retired to his
+bath-room to brush his thick red hair. This hair was his pride and
+sorrow: it defied him in a brilliant cowlick until plastered flat with
+water. However, well soaked, his hair darkened to what he considered a
+chestnut colour. And that made him very proud.</p>
+
+<p>When he had soaked and subdued his ruddy locks he came out to where
+Westguard still stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you coming, Rix?" demanded the latter again.</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless you particularly want me," returned Quarren, yawning
+amiably. "I could take a nap if that red-headed Mick would get out of
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard said: "Suit yourself," and followed Lacy and O'Hara down the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p>The two latter young fellows turned aside into O'Hara's apartments to
+further remake a killing and deadly toilet. Westguard continued on to
+the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> floor which he inhabited, and where he found a Japanese
+servant already preparing the tea paraphernalia. A few minutes later
+Mrs. Wycherly arrived with Mrs. Leeds.</p>
+
+<p>All women, experienced or otherwise, never quite lose their curiosity
+concerning a bachelor's quarters. The haunts of men interest woman,
+fascinating the married as well as the unwedded. Deep in their gentle
+souls they know that the most luxurious masculine abode could easily be
+made twice as comfortable by the kindly advice of any woman. Toleration,
+curiosity, sympathy are the emotions which stir feminine hearts when
+inspecting the solitary lair of the human male.</p>
+
+<p>"So these are the new rooms," said Molly Wycherly, patronisingly, after
+O'Hara and Lacy had appeared and everybody had been presented to
+everybody else. "Strelsa, do look at those early Edwards prints! It's
+utterly impossible to find any of them now for sale anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa Leeds looked up at the Botticelli Madonna and at Madame Royale;
+and the three men looked at her as though hypnotised.</p>
+
+<p>So this was Reginald Leeds's wife&mdash;this distractingly pretty woman&mdash;even
+yet scarcely more than a girl&mdash;with her delicate colour and vivid lips
+and unspoiled eyes&mdash;dark eyes&mdash;a kind of purplish gray, very purely and
+exquisitely shaped. But in their grayish-violet depths there was murder.
+And the assassination of Lacy and O'Hara had already been accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black&mdash;as though the tragic shadow of
+two years ago still fell across her slender body.</p>
+
+<p>She looked around at the room; Molly Wycherly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> pouring tea, nodded to
+Westguard, and he handed the cup to Mrs. Leeds.</p>
+
+<p>She said, smilingly: "And&mdash;do you three unprotected men live in this big
+house all by yourselves?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are four of us in the Legation," said Lacy, "and several servants
+to beat off the suffragettes who become enamoured of us."</p>
+
+<p>"The&mdash;<i>legation</i>?" she repeated, amused at the term.</p>
+
+<p>"Our friends call this house the Irish Legation," he explained. "We're
+all Irish by descent except Westguard who's a Sassenach&mdash;and Dick
+Quarren, who is only half Irish.'</p>
+
+<p>"And who is Dick Quarren?" she asked innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Strelsa!" cautioned Molly Wycherly&mdash;"you really mustn't argue
+yourself unknown."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am unknown," insisted the girl, laughing and looking at the men
+in turn with an engaging candour that bowled them over again, one by
+one. "I <i>don't</i> know who Mr. Quarren is, so why not admit it? <i>Is</i> he
+such a very wonderful personage, Mr. Lacy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Mrs. Leeds. He and I share the top floor of the Legation.
+We are, as a matter of record, the two financial wrecks of this
+establishment, so naturally we go to the garret. Poverty is my only
+distinction; Mr. Quarren, however, also leads the grand march at Lyric
+Hall now and then I believe&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is Lyric Hall? Ought I to know?"</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was laughing, and Molly Wycherly said:</p>
+
+<p>"Richard Quarren, known variously as Rix, Ricky, and Dick Quarren, is an
+exceedingly popular and indis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>pensable young man in this town. You'll
+meet him, Strelsa, and probably adore him. We all do."</p>
+
+<p>"Must I wait very long?" asked Strelsa, laughing. "I'd like to have the
+adoration begin."</p>
+
+<p>Lacy said to O'Hara: "Go up and pull that pitiable dub off the bed,
+Roger. The lady wishes to inspect him."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not very civil of Rix," said Mrs. Wycherly; "but I fancy I know
+why he requires slumber." She added, glancing around mischievously at
+the three men who were all looking languishingly at Mrs. Leeds: "He'll
+be sorry when you three gentlemen describe Strelsa to him. I can
+prophesy that much."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Lacy, airily; "we're all at Mrs. Leeds's feet! Even
+the blind bat of Drumgool could see that! So why deny it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not denying it, Mr. Lacy," said Strelsa, laughing. "But I
+realise perfectly that I am in the Irish Legation. So I shall carefully
+salt everything you say to me."</p>
+
+<p>"If you think <i>I've</i> kissed the blessed pebble you ought to listen to
+that other bankrupt upstairs," said Lacy.</p>
+
+<p>"As far as pretty speeches are concerned you seem to be perfectly
+solvent," said Strelsa gaily, looking around her at the various
+adornments of this masculine abode. "I wonder where you dine," she added
+with curiosity unabashed.</p>
+
+<p>"We've a fine dining-room below," he said proudly, "haven't we, Roger?
+And as soon as Dick Quarren and I are sufficiently solvent to warrant
+it, the Legation is going to give a series of brilliant banquets; will
+you come, Mrs. Leeds?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When you are solvent, perhaps," said Strelsa, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Westguard and I will give you a banquet at an hour's notice," said
+O'Hara, eagerly. "Will you accept?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such overwhelming offers of hospitality!" she protested. "I had
+believed the contrary about New Yorkers. You see I've just emerged from
+the West, and I don't really know what to think of such bewildering
+cordiality."</p>
+
+<p>"Karl," said Mrs. Wycherly, "are you going to show us over the house? If
+you are we must hurry, as Strelsa and I are to decorate the Calderas'
+box this evening, and it takes me an hour to paint my face." She turned
+a fresh, winsome countenance to Westguard, who laughed, rose, and took
+his pretty cousin by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Under triple escort Mrs. Wycherly and Mrs. Leeds examined the Legation
+from kitchen to garret&mdash;and Strelsa, inadvertently glancing in at a room
+just as Westguard started to close the door, caught sight of a recumbent
+shape on a bed&mdash;just a glimpse of a blond, symmetrical head and a
+well-coupled figure, graceful even in the careless relaxation of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard asked her pardon: "That's Quarren. He was probably up till
+daylight."</p>
+
+<p>"He was," said Molly Wycherly; "and by the same token so was I. Thank
+you so much, Karl.... Thank you, Mr. O'Hara&mdash;and you, too,
+Jack!"&mdash;offering her hand&mdash;"We've had a splendid party.... Strelsa, we
+really ought to go at once&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come again?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We will come again if you ask us," said Strelsa; "we're perfectly
+fascinated by the Legation."</p>
+
+<p>"And its personnel?" hinted Lacy. "Do you like us, Mrs. Leeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've only seen three of you," parried Strelsa, much amused.</p>
+
+<p>"We refuse to commit ourselves," said Molly. "Good-bye. I suppose you
+all are coming to my house-warming."</p>
+
+<p>They all looked at Mrs. Leeds and said that they were coming&mdash;said so
+fervently.</p>
+
+<p>Molly laughed: she had no envy in her make-up, perhaps because she was
+too pretty herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," she said, replying to their unasked questions, "Mrs. Leeds
+will be there&mdash;and I plainly see <i>my</i> miserable fate. But what can a
+wretched woman expect from the Irish? Not constancy. Strelsa, take
+warning. They loved me once!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>After Westguard had put them in their limousine, he came back to find
+Quarren in his sitting-room, wearing a dressing-gown, and Lacy madly
+detailing to him the charms of Strelsa Leeds:</p>
+
+<p>"Take it from me, Dicky, she's some queen! You didn't miss a thing but
+the prettiest woman in town! And there's a <i>something</i> about her&mdash;a kind
+of a sort of a something&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You appear to be in love, dear friend," observed Quarren kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am. So's every man here who met her. We don't deny it! We glory in
+our fall! What was that costume of hers, Karl? Mourning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy a glorious creature like her wearin' black<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> for that nasty little
+cad," observed O'Hara disgustedly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's probably fashion, not grief," remarked Westguard.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it's nix for the weeps," said O'Hara&mdash;"after all she probably
+went through with Reggie Leeds, I fancy she had no tears left over."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to talk," cried Lacy; "I want to tell Rix what he missed. I'd
+got as far as her gown, I think&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," smiled Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyway," said Lacy, "she wore a sort of mourning as far as her veil
+went, and her furs and gown and gloves were black, and her purse was
+gun-metal and black opals&mdash;rather brisk? Yes?&mdash;And all the dingles on
+her were gun-metal&mdash;everything black and sober&mdash;and that ruddy gold
+head&mdash;and&mdash;those eyes!&mdash;a kind of a purple-gray, Ricky, slanting a
+little, with long black lashes&mdash;I noticed 'em&mdash;and her lips were very
+vivid&mdash;not paint, but a kind of noticeably healthy scarlet&mdash;and that
+straight nose&mdash;and the fresh fragrant youth of her&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, Jack&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. I'm through with 'em all. I'm wise to the sex. That was merely a
+word picture. I'm talking like a writer, that's all. That's how you
+boobs talk, isn't it, Karl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always," said Westguard gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Me for Mrs. Leeds," remarked O'Hara frankly. "I'd ask her to marry me
+on the drop of a hat."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll drop no hat for <i>you</i>!" said Lacy. "And there'll be plenty
+of lunatics in this town who'll go madder than you or me before they
+forget Mrs. Leeds.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Wait! Town is going to sit up and take notice when
+this new planet swims into its social ken. How's that epigram, Karl?"</p>
+
+<p>Westguard said thoughtfully: "There'll be notoriety, too, I'm afraid. If
+nobody knows her everybody knows about that wretched boy she married."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren added: "I have always understood that the girl did not want to
+marry him. It was her mother's doings."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara scowled. "I also have heard that the mother engineered it....
+What was Mrs. Leeds's name? I forget&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa Lanark," said Quarren who never forgot anything.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh," grunted Westguard. "Fancy a mother throwing her daughter at the
+head of a boy like Reggie Leeds!&mdash;as vicious and unclean a little whelp
+as ever&mdash;Oh, what's the use?&mdash;and <i>de mortius nihil</i>&mdash;et cetera,
+cock-a-doodle-do!"</p>
+
+<p>"That poor girl had two entire years of him," observed Lacy. "She
+doesn't look more than twenty now&mdash;and he's been in&mdash;been dead two
+years. Good Heavens! What a child she must have been when she married
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>Westguard nodded: "She had two years of him&mdash;and I suppose he seldom
+drew a perfectly sober breath.... He dragged her all over the world with
+him&mdash;she standing for his rotten behaviour, trying to play the game with
+the cards hopelessly stacked against her. Vincent Wier met them in
+Naples; Mallison ran across them in Egypt; so did Lydon in Vienna.
+They said it was heartbreaking to see her trying to keep up
+appear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>ances&mdash;trying to smile under his nagging or his drunken insults
+in public places. Lydon told me that she behaved like a brick&mdash;stuck to
+Reggie, tried to shield him, excuse him, make something out of the
+miserable pup who was doing his best to drag her to his own level and
+deprave her. But I guess she was too young or too unhappy or something,
+because there's no depravity in the girl who was here a few minutes ago.
+I'll swear to that."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment Lacy said: "Well, he got his at last!"</p>
+
+<p>"What was comin' to him," added O'Hara, with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Lacy added, curiously: "<i>How</i> can a man misbehave when he has such a
+woman for a wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," observed Quarren, "how many solid citizens read the account
+in the papers and remained scared longer than six weeks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord help the wives of men," growled Westguard.... "If any of you
+fellows are dressing for dinner you'd better be about it.... Wait a
+moment, Rix!"&mdash;as Quarren, the last to leave, was already passing the
+threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow turned, smiling: the others went on; Westguard stood
+silent for a moment, then:</p>
+
+<p>"You're about the only man I care for very much," he said bluntly. "If I
+am continually giving you the Bible and the Sword it's the best I have
+to give."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren replied laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, old fellow. I take what you say all right. And I really
+mean to cut out a lot of fussing and begin to hustle.... Only, isn't it
+a wise thing to keep next to possible clients?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The people you train with don't buy lots in Tappan-Zee Park."</p>
+
+<p>"But I may induce them to go into more fashionable enterprises&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not they! The eagle yells on every dollar they finger. If there's any
+bleeding to be done they'll do it, my son."</p>
+
+<p>"Lester Caldera has already asked me about acreage in Westchester."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he do more than ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you charge him for the consultation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he got your professional opinion for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"But he, or others, may try to assemble several farms&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't they then?&mdash;instead of dragging you about at their heels from
+house to house, from card-room to ball-room, from café to opera, from
+one week-end to the next!&mdash;robbing you of time, of leisure, of
+opportunity, of ambition&mdash;spoiling you&mdash;making a bally monkey of you!
+You're always in some fat woman's opera box or on some fat man's yacht
+or coach, or doing some damn thing&mdash;with your name figuring in
+everything from Newport to Hot Springs&mdash;and&mdash;and how can you ever turn
+into anything except a tame cat!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren's face reddened slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be perfectly willing to sit in an office all day and all night if
+anybody would give me any business. But what's the use of chewing
+pencils and watching traffic on Forty-second Street?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then go into another business!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I haven't any money."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll lend it to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't risk <i>your</i> money, Karl. I'm too uncertain of myself. If
+anybody else offered to stake me I'd try the gamble." ... He looked up
+at Westguard, ashamed, troubled, and showing it like a boy. "I'm afraid
+I don't amount to anything, Karl. I'm afraid I'm no good except in the
+kind of thing I seem to have a talent for."</p>
+
+<p>"Fetching and carrying for the fashionable and wealthy," sneered
+Westguard.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren's face flushed again: "I suppose that's it."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard glared at him: "I wish I could shake it out of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess the poison's there," said Quarren in a low voice. "The worst of
+it is I like it&mdash;except when I understand your contempt."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>like</i> to fetch and carry and go about with your pocket full of
+boudoir keys!"</p>
+
+<p>"People give me as much as I give them."</p>
+
+<p>"They don't!" said the other angrily. "They've taken a decent fellow and
+put him in livery!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren bit his lip as the blood leaped to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk that way, Karl," he said quietly. "Even you have no business
+to take that tone with me."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. After a few moments Westguard came over and held
+out his hand. Quarren took it, looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," he said, "there's nothing to me. It's your kindness, Karl,
+that sees in me possibilities that never were."</p>
+
+<p>"They're there. I'll do my duty almost to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> point of breaking our
+friendship. But&mdash;I'll have to stop short of that point."</p>
+
+<p>A quick smile came over Quarren's face, gay, affectionate:</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't do that, Karl.... And don't worry. I'll cut out a lot of
+frills and try to do things that are worth while. I mean it, really.
+Don't worry, old fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Westguard, smiling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+
+<p>A masked dance, which for so long has been out of fashion in the world
+that pretends to it, was the experiment selected by Molly Wycherly for
+the warming up of her new house on Park Avenue.</p>
+
+<p>The snowy avenue for blocks was a mass of motors and carriages; a
+platoon of police took charge of the vehicular mess. Outside of the
+storm-coated lines the penniless world of shreds and patches craned a
+thousand necks as the glittering costumes passed from brougham and
+limousine under the awnings into the great house.</p>
+
+<p>Already in the new ball-room, along the edges of the whirl, masqueraders
+in tumultuous throngs were crowding forward to watch the dancers or
+drifting into the eddies and set-backs where ranks of overloaded gilt
+chairs creaked under jewelled dowagers, and where rickety old beaux
+impersonated tinselled courtiers on wavering but devoted legs.</p>
+
+<p>Aloft in their rococo sky gallery a popular orchestra fiddled
+frenziedly; the great curtains of living green set with thousands of
+gardenias swayed in the air currents like Chinese tapestries; a
+harmonious tumult swept the big new ball-room from end to end&mdash;a
+composite uproar in which were mingled the rushing noise of silk,
+clatter of sole and heel, laughter and cries of capering maskers
+gathered from the four quarters of fashionable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Gath to grace the
+opening of the House of Wycherly. They were all there, dowager, matron,
+débutante, old beaux, young gallant, dancing, laughing, coquetting,
+flirting. Young eyes mocked the masked eyes that wooed them; adolescence
+tormented maturity; the toothless ogled the toothsome. Unmasking alone
+could set right this topsy-turvy world of carnival.</p>
+
+<p>A sinuous Harlequin, his skin-tight lozenge-patterned dress shimmering
+like the red and gold skin of a Malay snake, came weaving his way
+through the edges of the maelstrom, his eyes under the black half-mask
+glittering maliciously at the victims of his lathe-sword. With it he
+recklessly slapped whatever tempted him, patting gently the rounded arms
+and shoulders of nymph and shepherdess, using more vigour on the plump
+contours of fat and elderly courtiers, spinning on the points of his
+pump-toes, his limber lathe-sword curved in both hands above his head,
+leaping lithely over a chair here and there, and landing always as
+lightly as a cat on silent feet&mdash;a wiry, symmetrical figure under the
+rakish bi-corne, instinct with mischief and grace infernal.</p>
+
+<p>Encountering a burly masker dressed like one of Cromwell's ponderous
+Ironsides, he hit him a resounding whack over his aluminum cuirass, and
+whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"That Ironside rig doesn't conceal you: it reveals you, Karl! Out with
+your Bible and your Sword and preach the wrath to come!"</p>
+
+<p>"It will come all right," said Westguard. "Do you know how many hundred
+thousand dollars are wasted here to-night?... And yesterday a woman died
+of hunger in Carmine Street. Don't worry about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> the wrath of God as long
+as people die of cold and hunger in the streets of Ascalon."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not as bad as dying of inanition&mdash;which would happen to the
+majority here if they didn't have things like this to amuse 'em. For
+decency's sake, Karl, pity the perplexities of the rich for a change!"</p>
+
+<p>Westguard grunted something under his casque; then, adjusting his
+aluminum mask:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you having a good time, Dicky? I suppose you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>I'm</i> gay enough," returned the Harlequin airily&mdash;"but there's
+never much genuine gaiety among the overfed." And he slapped a passing
+gallant with his wooden sword, spun around on his toes, bent over
+gracefully and stood on his hands, legs twinkling above him in the air.
+Then, with a bound he was on his nimble feet again, and, linking his arm
+in the arm of the Cromwellian trooper, strolled along the ranks of
+fanning dowagers, glancing amiably into their masked faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Same old battle-line," he observed to his companion&mdash;"their jewels give
+them away. Same old tiaras, same old ladies&mdash;all fat, all fifty, all
+fanning away like the damned. Your aunt has on about a ton of emeralds.
+I think she does it for the purpose of banting, don't you, Karl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The uproar drowned his voice: Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed
+gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle for which his cousin Molly
+Wycherly was responsible.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs02" id="gs02"></a><img src="images/gs02.jpg" width="320" height="439" alt="&quot;Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around
+at the gorgeous spectacle.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around
+at the gorgeous spectacle.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"It's monkey-shines like this that breed anarchists," he growled. "Did
+you notice that rubbering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> crowd outside the police lines in the snow?
+Molly and Jim ought to see it."</p>
+
+
+<p>"Oh, cut it out, Karl," retorted the Harlequin gaily; "there'll be rich
+and poor in the world as long as the bally old show runs&mdash;there'll be
+reserved seats and gallery seats and standing room only, and ninety-nine
+percent of the world cooling its shabby heels outside."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care to discuss the problem with <i>you</i>," observed Westguard.
+After a moment he added: "I'm going to dance once or twice and get
+out.... I suppose you'll flit about doing the agreeable and fashionable
+until daylight."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," said the Harlequin, tranquilly. "Why not? Also <i>you</i>
+ought to find material here for one of your novels."</p>
+
+<p>"A man doesn't have to hunt for material. It's in his bedroom when he
+wakes; it's all around him all day long. There's no more here than there
+is outside in the snow; and no less.... But dancing all night isn't
+going to help <i>your</i> business, Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"It won't hurt any business I'm likely to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't your Tappan-Zee Park panning out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fizzling out. Nobody's bought any building sites."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"How the deuce do I know, Karl! I don't want to talk business, here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He ceased speaking as three or four white masked Bacchantes in
+fluttering raiment came dancing by to the wild music of Philemon and
+Baucis. Shaking their be-ribboned tambourines, flowery garlands and
+lynx-skins flying from their shoulders, they sped away on fleet little
+feet, hotly pursued by adorers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come on," said the Harlequin briskly; "I think one of those skylarkers
+ought to prove amusing! Shall I catch you one?"</p>
+
+<p>But he found no encouragement in the swift courtship he attempted; for
+the Bacchantes, loudly protesting at his interference, banged him over
+his head and shoulders with their resounding tambourines and danced away
+unheeding his blandishments.</p>
+
+<p>"Flappers," observed a painted and powdered clown whose voice betrayed
+him as O'Hara; "this town is overstocked with fudge-fed broilers.
+They're always playin' about under foot, spoilin' your huntin'; and if
+you touch 'em they ki-yi no end."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you're looking for Mrs. Leeds," said Westguard, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy every man here is doin' the same thing," replied the clown.
+"What's her costume? Do you know, Ironsides?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't tell you if I did," said Westguard frankly.</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"This world," he remarked, "is principally encumbered with women, and
+naturally a man supposes the choice is unlimited. But as you live to
+drift from girl to girl you'll discover that there are just two kinds;
+the kind you can kiss and the kind you can't. So finally you marry the
+latter. Does Mrs. Leeds flirt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will a fish swim?" rejoined the clown. "You bet she will flirt. Haven't
+you met her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I? No," said the Harlequin carelessly. Which secretly amused both
+Westguard and O'Hara, for it had been whispered about that the new
+beauty not only had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> taken no pains to meet Quarren, but had pointedly
+ignored an opportunity when the choice lay with her, remarking that
+dancing men were one of the social necessities which everybody took for
+granted&mdash;like flowers and champagne. And the comment had been carried
+straight to Quarren, who had laughed at the time&mdash;and had never
+forgotten it, nor the apparently causeless contempt that evidently had
+inspired it.</p>
+
+<p>The clown brandished his bunch of toy balloons, and gazed about him:</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody who likes can go and tell Mrs. Leeds that I'm her declared
+suitor. I don't care who knows it. I'm foolish about her. She's
+different from any woman I ever saw. And if I don't find her pretty soon
+I'll smash every balloon over your head, Ricky!"</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin laughed. "Women," he said, "are cut out in various and
+amusing patterns like animal crackers, but the fundamental paste never
+varies, and the same pastry cook seasoned it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a sickly and degenerate sentiment," observed Westguard.</p>
+
+<p>"You might say that about the unfledged," added O'Hara&mdash;"like those
+kittenish Bacchantes. Winifred Miller and the youngest Vernon girl were
+two of those Flappers, I think. But there's no real jollity among the
+satiated," he added despondently. "A mask, a hungry stomach, and empty
+pockets are the proper ingredients for gaiety&mdash;take it from me, Karl."
+And he wandered off, beating everybody with his bunch of toy balloons.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren leaped to the seat of a chair and squatted there drawing his
+shimmering legs up under him like a great jewelled spider.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Bet you ten that the voluminous domino yonder envelops my aunt, Mrs.
+Sprowl," whispered Westguard.</p>
+
+<p>"You're betting on a certainty and a fat ankle."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. I've seen her ankles going upstairs too often.... What the devil
+is the old lady wearing under that domino?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you see her later," said Quarren, delightedly. "She has come
+as Brunhilda."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to see three hundred pounds of relative as Brunhilda,"
+growled Westguard.</p>
+
+<p>"You will, to-morrow. She's given her photograph to a <i>Herald</i> man."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you let her do it for?" demanded Westguard wrathfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Could I help it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could have stopped her. She thinks your opinion is the last lisp in
+fashionable art problems."</p>
+
+<p>"There are some things you can't tell a woman," said Quarren. "One of
+'em concerns her weight."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you afraid of Mrs. Sprowl?"</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"Where would I be if I incurred your aunt's displeasure, dear friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Out of the monkey house for good I suppose," admitted Westguard. "Lord,
+Ricky, what a lot you have had to swallow for the sake of staying put
+among these people!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren sat meditating under his mask, cross-legged, twirling his
+sword, the crash of the floor orchestra dinning in his close-set ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said without resentment, "I've endured my share. That's one
+reason why I don't want to let<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> several years of humiliation go for
+nothing. I've earned whatever place I have. And I mean to keep it."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard turned on him half angrily, hesitated, then remained silent.
+What was the use? If Quarren had not been guilty of actually fawning,
+toadying, currying favour, he had certainly permitted himself to be
+rudely used. He had learned very thoroughly his art in the school of the
+courtier&mdash;learned how and when to be blind, silent, deaf; how to offer,
+how to yield, when and how to demand and exact. Which, to Westguard,
+meant the prostitution of intelligence. And he loathed the game like a
+man who is free to play it if he cares to. Of those who are denied
+participation, few really hate it.</p>
+
+<p>But he said nothing more; and the Harlequin, indolently stretching his
+glittering limbs, dropped a light hand on Westguard's cuirassed
+shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be forever spoiling things for me, Karl. I really do enjoy the
+game as it lies."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>does</i> lie&mdash;that is the trouble, Rix."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't afford to criticise it.... Listen; I'm a mediocre man; I'd
+never count among real men. I count in the set which I amuse and which
+accepts me. Let me enjoy it, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>An aged dandy, masked, painted, wizened, and dressed like Henri II,
+tottered by with a young girl on his arm, his shrill, falsetto giggle
+piercing the racket around them.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish to live to be like that?" asked Westguard sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll die long before that," said Quarren cheerfully, and leaped
+lightly to his feet. "I shall now accomplish a little dancing," he said,
+pointing with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> wooden sword at the tossing throng. "Venus send me a
+pretty married woman who really loves her husband.... By Bacchus! Those
+dancers are going it! Come on, Karl. Leave us foot it!"</p>
+
+<p>Many maskers were throwing confetti now: multi-tinted serpents shot out
+across the clamorous gulf; bunches of roses flung high, rising in swift
+arcs of flight, crossed and recrossed. All along the edges of the dance,
+like froth and autumn leaves cast up from a whirlpool, fluffy feminine
+derelicts and gorgeous masculine escorts were flung pell-mell out of the
+maelstrom and left stranded or drifting breathless among the eddies
+setting in toward the supper-room.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as the Harlequin bent forward to plunge into the crush, the
+very centre of the whirlpool parted, and out of it floated a fluttering,
+jingling, dazzling figure all gold&mdash;slender, bare-armed and bare of
+throat and shoulders, auriferous, scintillating from crown to ankle&mdash;for
+her sleeveless tabard was cloth-of-gold, and her mask was gold; so were
+her jewelled shoes and the gemmed fillet that bound her locks; and her
+thick hair clustering against her cheeks had the lustre of precious
+metal.</p>
+
+<p>Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the Byzantine dancer,
+besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing gallantries&mdash;evaded
+the Harlequin, too, with laughing mockery, skilfully disengaging herself
+from the throng of suitors stumbling around her, crowded and buffeted on
+every side.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs03" id="gs03"></a><img src="images/gs03.jpg" width="640" height="436" alt="&quot;Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the
+Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing
+gallantries.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the
+Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing
+gallantries.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>After her like a flash sped Harlequin: for an instant, just ahead of
+him, she appeared in plain sight, glimmering brightly against the green
+and swaying tapestry of living leaves and flowers, then even as her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+pursuers looked at her, she vanished before their very eyes.</p>
+
+
+<p>They ran about distractedly hunting for her, Turk, Drum Major, Indian
+Chief, and Charles the First, then reluctantly gave up the quest and
+drifted off to seek for another ideal. All women are ideal under the
+piquant promise of the mask.</p>
+
+<p>A pretty shepherdess, lingering near, whispered close to Quarren's
+shoulder behind her fan:</p>
+
+<p>"Check to you, Harlequin! That golden dancer was the only girl in town
+who hasn't taken any pains to meet you!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned his head, warily, divining Molly Wycherly under the disguise,
+realising, too, that she recognised him.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll never find her now," laughed the shepherdess. "Besides she does
+not care a rap about meeting a mere Harlequin. It's refreshing to see
+you so thoroughly snubbed once in a while." And she danced gaily away,
+arms akimbo, her garlanded crook over her shoulder; and her taunting
+laughter floated back to him where he stood irresolute, wondering how
+the golden dancer could have so completely vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he recollected going over the house before its completion with
+Jim Wycherly, who had been his own architect, and the memory of a
+certain peculiarity in the construction of the ball-room flashed into
+his mind. The only possible explanation for her disappearance was that
+somebody had pointed out to her the low door behind the third pillar,
+and she was now in the gilded swallow's-nest aloft.</p>
+
+<p>It was a whim of Wycherly&mdash;this concealed stair&mdash;he recalled it
+perfectly now&mdash;and, parting the living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> tapestry of blossoms, he laid
+his hand on the ivory and gilded paneling, pressing the heart of one
+carved rose after another, until with a click! a tiny door swung inward,
+revealing a narrow spiral of stairs, lighted rosily by electricity.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped inside, closed the door, and listened, then mounted
+noiselessly. Half way up he caught the aroma of a cigarette; and, a
+second later he stepped out onto a tiny latticed balcony, completely
+screened.</p>
+
+<p>The golden dancer, who evidently had been gazing down on the carnival
+scene below from behind the lattice, whirled around to confront him in a
+little flurry of cigarette smoke.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment they faced each other, then:</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know where to find me, Harlequin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have died if I hadn't found you, fairest, loveliest&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is no answer! Answer me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you flee?" he asked. "Answer that, first."</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders:</p>
+
+<p>"You see why I fled, don't you? Now answer me."</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin presented the hilt of his sword which was set with a tiny
+mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"You see why I fled after you," he said, "don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," she insisted, smilingly, "I have been informed on
+excellent authority that I am the only one, except the family, who knows
+of this balcony. And here comes a Harlequin blundering in! <i>You</i> are not
+Mr. Wycherly; and you're certainly not Molly."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! My ultimate ends are not as shapely."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then who are you?" She added, laughing: "They're shapely enough, too."</p>
+
+<p>"I am only a poor wandering, love-smitten Harlequin&mdash;" he said,
+"scorned, despised, and mocked by beauty&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Love-smitten?" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you doubt it, now?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed gaily and leaned back against the balcony's velvet rail:</p>
+
+<p>"You lose no time in declaring yourself, do you, Harlequin?&mdash;that is, if
+you are hinting that <i>I</i> have smitten you with the pretty passion."</p>
+
+<p>"Through and through, beautiful dancer&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that I am beautiful under this mask?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know many things. That's my compensation for being only a poor
+mountebank of a Harlequin&mdash;magic penetration&mdash;the clairvoyance of
+radium."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you expect to find <i>me</i> at the top of those cork-screw stairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Inference. Every toad hides a jewel in its head. So I argued that
+somewhere in the ugliness of darkest Philistia a gem must be hidden; and
+I've searched for years&mdash;up and down throughout the haunts of men from
+Gath to Ascalon. And&mdash;behold! My quest is ended at your pretty
+feet!&mdash;Rose-Diamond of the World!"</p>
+
+<p>He sank lithely on one knee; she laughed deliciously, looking down at
+his masked face.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you, Harlequin?&mdash;whose wits and legs seem to be equally supple
+and symmetrical?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tell it not in Gath; Publish it not in the streets of Ascalon; I am
+that man for whom you were destined before either you or I were born.
+Are you frightened?"</p>
+
+<p>The Byzantine dancer laughed and shook her head till all the golden
+metal on her was set chiming.</p>
+
+<p>He said, still on one knee at her feet:</p>
+
+<p>"Exquisite phantom of an Empire dead, from what emblazoned sarcophagus
+have you danced forth across our modern oceans to bewitch the Philistia
+of to-day? Who clothed you in scarlet delicately? Who put ornaments of
+gold upon your apparel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You court me with Scripture as smoothly as Heaven's great Enemy," she
+said&mdash;"and to your own ends, as does he. Are you leagued with him, O
+agile and intrusive Harlequin, to steal away my peace of mind?"</p>
+
+<p>Lithely, silently he leaped up to the balustrade and, gathering his
+ankles under him, squatted there, cross-legged, peering sideways at her
+through the slanting eye-holes.</p>
+
+<p>"If that screen behind you gives way," she warned him, "you will have
+accomplished your last harlequinade."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced coolly over his shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"How far is it to the floor below, do you suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Far enough to make a good harlequin out of a live one," she said....
+"Please be careful; I really mean it."</p>
+
+<p>"Child," he said solemnly, "do you suppose that I mind falling a hundred
+feet or so on my head? I've already fallen infinitely farther than that
+this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"And it didn't kill you?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
+dramatically.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No. Because our destiny must first be accomplished before I die."</p>
+
+<p>"Ours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yours and mine, pretty dancer! I've already fulfilled <i>my</i> destiny by
+falling in love with you at first sight. That was a long fall, wasn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very. Am I to fulfil mine in a similar manner?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are."</p>
+
+<p>"Will it&mdash;kill me, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. Try it."</p>
+
+<p>"Will it hurt?&mdash;this terrible fall? And how far must I descend to fall
+in love with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes falling in love does hurt," he said gravely, "when the fall
+is a long one."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this to be a long one?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I decline to tumble. Please go somewhere about your business,
+Master Harlequin. I'm inclined to like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Dancer, my life's business is wherever you happen to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you so sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Magic," he said seriously. "I deal in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful! Your accomplishments overwhelm me. Perhaps, through the aid
+of magic, you can even tell me who I am!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that another threat of magic?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bet, too, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you offering to bet me that, before I unmask, you will be able to
+discover who I am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Will you make it a wager?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> She stood, silent, irresolute,
+cautious but curious; then:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that you can find out who <i>I am</i>? Now? Here in this
+balcony?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"That is sheer nonsense," she said with decision. "I'll bet you anything
+you like."</p>
+
+<p>"What stakes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why there's nothing to bet except the usual, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean flowers, gloves, stockings, bon-bons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin, smiling at her askance, drew from the hilt of his
+lathe-sword a fresh cigarette, lighted it, looked across at the level
+chandelier, and sent a ring of smoke toward the twinkling wilderness of
+prisms hanging in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's be original or perish," he said. "I'll bet you a day out of my
+life against a day out of yours that I discover who you are in ten
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't accept such a silly wager! What would you do with me for a
+day?"</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin bent his masked head. Over his body the lozenges of
+scarlet and gold slid crinkling as though with suppressed and serpentine
+mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What</i> are you laughing at?" she demanded half vexed, half amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Your fears, pretty dancer."</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>not</i> afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Prove it! I have offered to bet you a day out of my life
+that I'll tell you who you are. Are you afraid to wager a day out of
+yours that I can't do it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She shook her head so that the burnished locks clustered against her
+cheeks, and all over her slim figure the jingling gold rang melodiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't long to live," she observed. "A day out of life is too much
+to risk."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you think that you have long to live?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't. I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>How</i> do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I just know.... Besides, I don't wish to live very long."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't wish to live long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only as long as I'm young enough to be forgetful. Old age is a
+horror&mdash;in some cases. I don't desire ever to be forty. After forty they
+say one lives on memory. I don't wish to."</p>
+
+<p>Through the slits of his mask his curious eyes watched her steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not yet twenty-four," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite. That is a good guess, Harlequin."</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't want to live to be old?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't wish to."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are rather keen on living while you're young."</p>
+
+<p>"I've never thought much about it. If I live, it's all right; if I die,
+I don't think I'll mind it.... I'm sure I shouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>Her cigarette had gone out. She tossed it aside and daintily consented
+to exchange cigarettes with him, offering her little gold case.</p>
+
+<p>"You're carefully inspecting my initials, aren't you?" she observed,
+amused. "But that monogram will not help you, Master Harlequin."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Marriage alters only the final initial. Are you, by any unhappy
+chance&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's for you to find out! I didn't say I was! I believe you <i>are</i>
+making me tell you things!"</p>
+
+<p>She threw back the lustrous hair that shadowed her cheeks and leaned
+forward, her shadowed eyes fixed intently upon him through the apertures
+of her golden mask.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm beginning to wonder uneasily who <i>you</i> may be, Monsieur Harlequin!
+You alarm me a little."</p>
+
+<p>"Aha!" he said. "I've told you I deal in magic! That you don't know who
+I am, even after that confession, makes me reasonably certain who <i>you</i>
+are."</p>
+
+<p>"You're trying to scare me," she said, disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do it, yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll wonder more than ever in a few moments.... I'm going to tell you
+who you are. But first of all I want you to fix the forfeit&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;I don't know.... What do you want of me?" she asked, mockingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever you care to risk."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll have to name it. Because I don't particularly care to offer
+you anything.... And please hasten&mdash;I'll be missed presently&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you bet one day out of your life?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't. I told you I wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;one hour. Just a single hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"An hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sixty minutes, payable on demand: If I win, you will place at my
+disposal one entire hour out of your life. Will you dare that much,
+pretty dancer?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, looked up at him; then readjusting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> her mask, she nodded
+disdainfully. "Because," she observed, "it is quite impossible for you
+ever to guess who I am. So do your very worst."</p>
+
+<p>He sprang from the balustrade, landing lightly, his left hand spread
+over his heart, his bi-corne flourished in the other.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Strelsa Leeds!" he said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a
+bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge.</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it is impossible that you should know&mdash;" she began, exasperated.
+"How <i>could</i> you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night! I
+came by myself with my maid. It&mdash;it <i>is</i> magic! It is
+infernal&mdash;abominable magic&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous,
+blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the
+fillet that bound her hair.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence:</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed
+chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you&mdash;anyhow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence,
+striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask&mdash;trying to
+interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it&mdash;or,
+perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two
+strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful
+emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her
+under lip.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit."</p>
+
+<p>"The&mdash;the forfeit!" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not lose your wager?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in
+vain for a clew to his identity. Then, a trifle uneasily:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course I lost my wager. But&mdash;I did not clearly understand what
+you meant by an hour out of my life."</p>
+
+<p>"It is to be an hour at my disposal," he explained with another
+grotesque bow. "I think that was the wager?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Unless," he remarked carelessly, "you desire the&mdash;ah&mdash;privilege and
+indisputable prerogative of your delightful sex."</p>
+
+<p>"The privilege of my sex? What is that?" she asked, dangerously polite.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to change your divine mind&mdash;repudiate the obligation&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Harlequin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow.</p>
+
+<p>"I pay what I owe&mdash;always.... <i>Always!</i> Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin bowed again in arabesques, very low, yet with a singular
+and almost devilish grace:</p>
+
+<p>"Madame concedes that the poor Harlequin has won his wager?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do&mdash;and you don't appear to be particularly humble, either."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Madame insists on paying?" he inquired suavely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course I do!" she said, uneasily. "I promised you an hour out
+of my life. Am I to pay it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"You pay by the minute&mdash;one minute a day for sixty days. I am going to
+take the first minute now. <i>Perhaps</i> I may ask for the other fifty-nine,
+also."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I show you how?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well."</p>
+
+<p>"A magic pass or two, first," he said gaily, crooking one spangled knee
+and spinning around. Then he whipped out his lathe-sword, held it above
+his head, coolly passed a glittering arm around her waist, and looked
+down into her flushed face.</p>
+
+<p>"You will have to count out the sixty seconds," he said. "I shall be
+otherwise occupied, and I can't trust myself to do two things at once."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What</i> are you about to do? Sink through a trap-door with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am about to salute you with the magic kiss. After that you'll be my
+Columbine forever."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not included in the bet! Is it?" she asked in real
+consternation.</p>
+
+<p>"I may do as I please with my hour, may I not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was it the bet that you were to be at liberty to&mdash;to kiss me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I control absolutely an hour out of your life, do I not? I may use it
+as I please. You had better count out sixty seconds."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down, biting her lip, and touched one hand against her
+cheeks, alternately, as though to cool them with the snowy contact.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He waited in silence for her reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she said resolutely, "if you elect to use the first minute
+of your hour as frivolously as that, I must submit, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>And she began to count aloud, rapidly: "One, two, three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight, ni&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her face was averted; he could see the tip of one small ear all aflame.
+Presently she ventured a swift glance around at him and saw that he was
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten, eleven, twelve," she counted nervously, still watching him;
+"thirteen, fourteen, fifteen&mdash;" panic threatened her; she doubled both
+hands in the effort of self-control and timed her counting as though the
+rapid beating of the tempo could hasten her immunity&mdash;"sixteen,
+seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, one, two, three&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Play fair!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to. Can't I say it that way up to ten, and then say
+thirty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly. I've still half a minute. You'd better hurry! I may
+begin at any moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Four&mdash;five&mdash;six&mdash;seven&mdash;m-m-m&mdash;thirty!" she cried, and the swift
+numbers fled from her lips fairly stumbling over one another, tumbling
+the sequence of hurrying numerals into one breathless gasp of: "Forty!"</p>
+
+<p>His arm slid away from her waist; he stepped backward, and stood,
+watching her, one finger crooked, supporting his chin, the ironical
+smile hovering ever on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty!" she counted excitedly, her hands beating time to the counting;
+"&mdash;fifty-one&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;four&mdash;m-m-m&mdash;sixty!"&mdash;and she whirled around
+to face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> him with an impulsively triumphant gesture which terminated in
+a swift curtsey, arms flung wide apart.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Voila!</i>" she said, breathlessly, "I've paid my bet! Am I not a good
+sport, Harlequin? Own that I am and I will forgive your outrageous
+impudence!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a most excellent sport, madame!" he conceded, grinning.</p>
+
+<p>Relief from the tension cooled her cheeks; she laughed bewitchingly and
+looked at him, exultant, unafraid.</p>
+
+<p>"I frightened you well with my desperate counting, didn't I? You
+completely forgot to do&mdash;anything, didn't you? Voyons! Admit it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You completely terrorized me," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," she said, "while I was so busily counting the seconds aloud
+you couldn't very well have kissed me, could you? <i>That</i> was strategy.
+You couldn't have managed it, could you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very easily."</p>
+
+<p>"I really <i>did</i> nonplus you, didn't I?" she insisted, aware of his
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, entirely," he said. "I became an abject idiot."</p>
+
+<p>She stood breathing more evenly now, the pretty colour coming and going
+in her cheeks. Considering him, looking alternately at his masked eyes
+and at his expressive lips where a kind of silent and infernal mirth
+still flickered, a sudden doubt assailed her. And presently, with a
+dainty shrug, she turned and glanced down through the gilt lattice
+toward the floor below.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," she said, tauntingly, "you hope I'll believe that you
+refrained from kissing me out of some belated consideration for decency.
+But I know per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>fectly well that I perplexed you, and confused you and
+intimidated you."</p>
+
+<p>"This is, of course, the true solution of my motives in not kissing
+you."</p>
+
+<p>She turned toward him:</p>
+
+<p>"What motive?"</p>
+
+<p>"My motive for not kissing you. My only motive was consideration for
+you, and for the sacred conventions of Sainte Grundy."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," she said scornfully, "you are really trying to make me
+think that you <i>could</i> have done it, and didn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are too clever to believe me a martyr to principle, madame!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, stamped her foot till the bangles clashed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why <i>didn't</i> you kiss me, then?&mdash;if you wish to spoil my victory?"</p>
+
+<p>"You yourself have told me why."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I wrong? Could you&mdash;didn't I surprise you&mdash;in fact, paralyse
+you&mdash;with astonishment?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed delighted; and she stamped her ringing foot again.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she said; "I am supposed to be doubly in your debt, now. I'd
+rather you <i>had</i> kissed me and we were quits!"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't too late you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> too late. It's all over."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, I have fifty-nine other minutes in which to meet your kindly
+expressed wishes. Did you forget?"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" she exclaimed, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"One hour less one minute is still coming to me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Am I&mdash;have I&mdash;is this ridiculous performance going to happen again?"
+she asked, appalled.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty-nine times," he laughed, doubling one spangled leg under the
+other and whirling on his toe till he resembled a kaleidoscopic
+teetotum. Then he drew his sword, cut right and left, slapped it back
+into its sheath, and bowed his wriggling bow, one hand over his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look so troubled, madame," he said. "I release you from your
+debt. You need never pay me what you owe me."</p>
+
+<p>Up went her small head, fiercely, under its flashing hair:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I pay my debts!" she said crisply.</p>
+
+<p>"You decline to accept your release?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do!&mdash;from <i>you!"</i></p>
+
+<p>"You'll see this thing through!&mdash;if it takes all winter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course;" trying to smile, and not succeeding.</p>
+
+<p>He touched her arm and pointed out across the hot, perfumed gulf to the
+gilded clock on high:</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>have</i> seen it through! It is now one minute to midnight. We have
+been here exactly one hour, lacking a minute, since our bet was on....
+And I've wanted to kiss you all the while."</p>
+
+<p>Confused, she looked at the clock under its elaborate azure and ormolu
+foliations, then turned toward him, still uncertain of her immunity.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that you have really used the hour as you saw fit?" she
+asked. "Have I done my part honestly?&mdash;Like a good sportsman? Have I
+really?"</p>
+
+<p>He bowed, laughingly:</p>
+
+<p>"I cheerfully concede it. You are a good sport."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;all that time&mdash;" she began&mdash;"all that time&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I had my chances&mdash;sixty of them."</p>
+
+<p>"And didn't take them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only wanted to&mdash;but didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"You think that I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A woman never forgets a man who has kissed her. I took the rather
+hopeless chance that you might remember me without that. But it's a long
+shot. I expect that you'll forget me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you <i>want</i> me to remember you?" she asked, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But you won't."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;from the expression of your mouth, perhaps. You are too pretty,
+too popular to remember a poor Harlequin."</p>
+
+<p>"But you never have seen my face? Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you continually say that I am pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can divine what you must be."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;how&mdash;why did you refrain from&mdash;" She laughed lightly, and looked
+up at him, mockingly. "Really, Harlequin, you <i>are</i> funny. Do you
+realise it?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again and the slight flush came back into her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're nice, anyway.... Perhaps if you <i>had</i> seen my face you might
+have let me go unkissed all the quicker.... Masks cover horrible
+surprises.... And, then again, if you <i>had</i> seen it, <i>perhaps</i> you might
+<i>never</i> have let me go at all!" she added, audaciously.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the gilded balcony opposite, the orchestra had now ceased playing;
+the whirl and noise of the dancers filled the immense momentary quiet.
+Then soft chimes from the great clock sounded midnight amid cries of,
+"Unmask! masks off, everybody!"</p>
+
+<p>The Harlequin turned and drawing the black vizard from his face, bent
+low and saluted her hand; and she, responding gaily with a curtsey,
+looked up into the features of an utter stranger.</p>
+
+<p>She stood silent a moment, the surprised smile stamped on her lips;
+then, in her turn, she slipped the mask from her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Voila!</i>" she cried. "<i>C'est moi!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he said, half to himself;</p>
+
+<p>"I knew well enough that you must be unusual. But I hadn't any
+idea&mdash;any&mdash;idea&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;you are <i>not</i> disappointed in me, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"My only regret is that I had my hour, and wasted it. Those hours never
+sound twice for wandering harlequins."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Harlequin!" she said saucily&mdash;"I'm sorry, but even <i>your</i> magic
+can't recall a vanished hour! Poor, poor Harlequin! You were too
+generous to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"And now you are going to forget me," he said. "That is to be my
+reward."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;I don't think&mdash;I don't expect to forget you. I suppose I am likely
+to know you some day.... <i>Who</i> are you, please? Somebody very grand in
+New York?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence; she glanced down at the ball<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>-room floor through
+the lattice screen, then slowly turned around to look at him again.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever heard of me?" he asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you disappointed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-es. Pleasantly.... I supposed you to be&mdash;different."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"Has the world been knocking me very dreadfully to you, Mrs. Leeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"No.... One's impressions form without any reason&mdash;and
+vaguely&mdash;from&mdash;nothing in particular.&mdash;I thought you were a very
+different sort of man.&mdash;I am glad you are not."</p>
+
+<p>"That is charming of you."</p>
+
+<p>"It's honest. I had no desire to meet the type of man I supposed you to
+be. Am I too frank?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," he said, laughing, "but I'm horribly afraid that I really
+am the kind of man you imagined me."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, shaking her pretty head, "you can't be."</p>
+
+<p>He said, quoting her own words amiably: "I'm merely one of the necessary
+incidents of any social environment&mdash;like flowers and champagne&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren!"</p>
+
+<p>In her distress she laid an impulsive hand on his sleeve; he lifted it,
+laid it across the back of his own hand, and bowing, saluted it lightly,
+gaily.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not offended," he said; "&mdash;I am what you supposed me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Please don't say it! You are not. I didn't know you; I
+was&mdash;prejudiced&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll find me out sooner or later," he said laughing, "so I might as
+well admit that your cap fitted me."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't fit!" she retorted; "I was a perfect fool to say that!"</p>
+
+<p>"As long as you like me," he returned, "does it make any difference what
+I am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it does! I'm not likely to find a man agreeable unless he's
+worth noticing."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, gentle angler, I refuse to nibble. Be content that an hour out of
+my life has sped very swiftly in your company!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned and laid her hand on the little gilt door. He opened it for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been very nice to me," she said. "I won't forget you."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll certainly forget me for that very reason. If I hadn't been nice
+I'd have been the exception. And you would have remembered."</p>
+
+<p>She said with an odd smile:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose that pleasant things have been so common in my life that
+only the unpleasant episode makes any impression on my memory?"</p>
+
+<p>"To really remember me as I want you to, you ought to have had something
+unpardonable to forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I have!" she said, daringly; and slipped past him and down the
+narrow stairs, her loup-mask fluttering from her elbow.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the stairs she turned, looking back at him over her bare
+shoulder:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've mortally offended at least three important men by hiding up there
+with you. That is conceding <i>something</i> to your attractions, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything. Will you let me find you some supper&mdash;and let the mortally
+offended suitors sit and whistle a bit longer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor suitors&mdash;they've probably been performing heel-tattoos for an
+hour.... Very well, then&mdash;I feel unusually shameless to-night&mdash;and I'll
+go with you. But don't be disagreeable to me if a neglected and
+glowering young man rushes up and drags me away by the back hair."</p>
+
+<p>"Who for example?"</p>
+
+<p>"Barent Van Dyne, for instance."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we'll side-step that youthful Knickerbocker," said Quarren, gaily.
+"Leave it to me, Mrs. Leeds."</p>
+
+<p>"To behave so outrageously to Mr. Van Dyne is peculiarly horrid and
+wicked of me," she said. "But you don't realise that&mdash;and&mdash;the fact
+remains that you did <i>not</i> take your forfeit. And I've a lot to make up
+for that, haven't I?" she added so naïvely that they both gave way to
+laughter unrestrained.</p>
+
+<p>The light touch of her arm on his, now guiding him amid the noisy,
+rollicking throngs, now yielding to his guidance, ceased as he threaded
+a way through the crush to a corner, and seated her at a table for two.</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments he came back with all kinds of delectable things; went
+for more, returned laden, shamelessly pulled several palms between them
+and the noisy outer world, and seated himself beside her.</p>
+
+<p>With napkin and plate on the low table beside her, she permitted him to
+serve her. As he filled her champagne glass she lifted it and looked
+across it at him:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How did you discover my identity?" she asked. "I'm devoured by
+curiosity."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take a tumble in your estimation if I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you will. Try it anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well then. Somebody told me."</p>
+
+<p>"And you let me bet with you! And <i>you</i> bet on a <i>certainty!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "is that good sportsmanship, Mr.
+Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; very bad. And <i>that</i> was why I didn't take the forfeit. Now you
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>She sat considering him, the champagne breaking in her glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do understand now. A good sportsman couldn't take a forfeit
+which he won betting on a certainty.... That wasn't a real wager, was
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it wasn't."</p>
+
+<p>"If it had been, I&mdash;I don't suppose you'd have let me go."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed not!"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed, watching each other, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Which ought to teach me never again to make any such highly original
+and sporting wagers," she said. "Anyway, you were perfectly nice about
+it. Of course you couldn't very well have been otherwise. Tell me, did
+you really suppose me to be attractive? You couldn't judge. How could
+you&mdash;under that mask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think that your mouth could have possibly belonged to any other
+kind of a face except your own?" he said coolly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is my mouth unusual?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"How is it unusual?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't analysed the matter, but it is somehow so indescribable that
+I guessed very easily what the other features must be."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, flattery! Oh, impudence! Do you remember when Falstaff said that
+the lion could always recognise the true prince? Shame on you, Mr.
+Quarren. You are not only a very adroit flatterer but a perfectly good
+sportsman after all&mdash;and the most gifted tormentor I ever knew in all my
+life. And I like you fine!" She laughed, and made a quick little
+gesture, partly arrested as he met her more than half way, touching the
+rim of his glass to hers. "To our friendship," he said.</p>
+
+
+<p>"Our friendship," she repeated, gaily, "if the gods speed it."</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And&mdash;its consequences," he added. "Don't forget those."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they likely to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows? That's the gamble! But let us recognise all kinds of
+possibilities, and drink to them, too. Shall we?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by the consequences of friendship?" she repeated,
+hesitating.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the interesting thing about a new friendship," he explained.
+"Nobody can ever predict what the consequences are to be. Are you afraid
+to drink to the sporting chances, hazards, accidents, and possibilities
+of our new friendship, Mrs. Leeds? <i>That</i> is a perfectly good sporting
+proposition."</p>
+
+<p>She considered him, interested, her eyes full of smil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>ing curiosity,
+perfectly conscious of the swift challenge of his lifted glass.</p>
+
+<p>After a few seconds' hesitation she struck the ringing rim of her glass
+against his:</p>
+
+<p>"To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!" she said lightly&mdash;"with
+every sporting chance, worldly hazard, and heavenly possibility in it!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs04" id="gs04"></a><img src="images/gs04.jpg" width="640" height="436" alt="&quot;&#39;To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!&#39; she said
+lightly.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!&#39; she said
+lightly.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>For the first time the smile faded from his face, and something in his
+altered features arrested her glass at her very lips.</p>
+
+<p>"How suddenly serious you seem," she said. "Have I said anything?"</p>
+
+<p>He drained his glass; after a second she tasted hers, looked at him,
+finished it, still watching him.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," she said; "you made me feel for a moment as though you and I
+were performing a solemn rite. That was a new phase of you to me&mdash;that
+exceedingly sudden and youthful gravity."</p>
+
+<p>He remained silent. Into his mind, just for a second, and while in the
+act of setting the glass to his lips, there had flashed a flicker of
+pale clairvoyance. It seemed to illumine something within him which he
+had never believed in&mdash;another self.</p>
+
+<p>For that single instant he caught a glimpse of it, then it faded like a
+spark in a confused dream.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head and looked gravely across at Strelsa Leeds; and
+level-eyed, smiling, inquisitive, she returned his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Could this brief contact with her have evoked in him a far-buried
+something which had never before given sign of existence? And could it
+have been anything resembling aspiration that had glimmered so palely
+out of an ordered and sordid commonplace personality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> which, with all
+its talent for frivolity, he had accepted as his own?</p>
+
+<p>Without reason a slight flush came into his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you regard me so owlishly?" she asked, amused. "I repeat that
+you made me feel as though we were performing a sort of solemn rite when
+we drank our toast."</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't feel that way with such a thoroughly frivolous man as I
+am. Could you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm rather frivolous myself," she admitted, laughing. "I really can't
+imagine why you made me feel so serious&mdash;or why you looked as though you
+were. I've no talent for solemnity. Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," he said. "What a terrible din everybody is making!
+How hot and stifling it is here&mdash;with all those cloying gardenias.... A
+man said, this evening, that this sort of thing makes for anarchy....
+It's rather beastly of me to sit here criticising my host's
+magnificence.... Do you know&mdash;it's curious, too&mdash;but I wish that, for
+the next hour or two, you and I were somewhere alone under a good wide
+sky&mdash;where there was no noise. It's an odd idea, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds.
+And probably you don't share it with me."</p>
+
+<p>She remained silent, thoughtful, her violet-gray eyes humorously
+considering him.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know I don't?" she said at last. "I'm not enamoured of
+noise, either."</p>
+
+<p>"There's another thing," he went on, smiling&mdash;"it's rather curious,
+too&mdash;but somehow I've a sort of a vague idea that I've a lot of things
+to talk to you about. It's odd, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well you know," she reminded him, "you couldn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> very well have a lot
+of things to talk to me about considering the fact that we've known each
+other only an hour or so."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't seem logical.... And yet, there's that inexplicable
+sensation of being on the verge of fairly bursting into millions of
+words for your benefit&mdash;words which all my life have been bottled up in
+me, accumulating, waiting for this opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>They both were laughing, yet already a slight tension threatened
+both&mdash;had menaced them, vaguely, from the very first. It seemed to
+impend ever so slightly, like a margin of faintest shadow edging
+sunlight; yet it was always there.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't time for millions of words this evening," she said. "Won't
+some remain fresh and sparkling and epigrammatic until&mdash;until&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow? They'll possibly keep that long."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm perfectly aware of the subtle suggestion and subtler flattery, Mr.
+Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, may I see you to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Utterly impossible&mdash;pitiably hopeless. You see I am frank about the
+heart-rending disappointment it is to me&mdash;and must be to you. But after
+I am awake I am in the hands of Mrs. Lannis. And there's no room for you
+in that pretty cradle."</p>
+
+<p>"The next day, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're going to Florida for three weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly and Jim and I."</p>
+
+<p>"Palm Beach?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ultimately."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Have you the effrontery to tell me to my face that you'll be in the
+same mind about me three weeks hence?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you expect me to believe you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;what to expect&mdash;of you, of myself," he said so quietly
+that she looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren! <i>Are</i> you a sentimental man? I had mentally absolved you
+from <i>that</i> preconception of mine&mdash;among other apparently unmerited
+ideas concerning you."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you'll arise and flee if I tell you that you're different
+from other women," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't be such an idiot as to tell me that, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I might be. I'm just beginning to realise my capacity for imbecility.
+You're different in this way anyhow; no woman ever before induced me to
+pull a solemn countenance."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>don't</i> induce you! I ask you not to."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>try</i> not to; but, somehow, there's something so&mdash;so real about
+<i>you</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you accustomed to foregather with the disembodied?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm beginning to think that my world is rather thickly populated with
+ghosts&mdash;phantoms of a more real world."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her soberly; she had thought him younger than he now
+seemed. A slight irritation silenced her for a moment, then,
+impatiently:</p>
+
+<p>"You speak cynically and I dislike it. What reason have you to express
+world-weary sentiments?&mdash;you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> who are young, who probably have never
+known real sorrow, deep unhappiness! I have little patience with a
+morbid view of anything, Mr. Quarren. I merely warn you&mdash;in the event of
+your ever desiring to obtain my good graces."</p>
+
+<p>"I do desire them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then be yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what I am. I thought I knew. Your advent has disorganised
+both my complacency and my resignation."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Must I answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" she said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;the Harlequin who followed you up those stairs, never came down
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she said, unenlightened.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wondering who it was who came down out of that balcony in the wake
+of the golden dancer," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"You and I&mdash;you very absurd young man. What are you trying to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;wonder," he said, smiling, "what I am trying to say."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sunshine illuminated the rose-silk curtains of Mrs. Leeds's bedroom with
+parallel slats of light and cast a frail and tremulous net of gold
+across her bed. The sparrows in the Japanese ivy seemed to be unusually
+boisterous, and their persistent metallic chatter disturbed Strelsa who
+presently unclosed her gray eyes upon her own reflected features in the
+wall-glass opposite.</p>
+
+<p>Face still flushed with slumber, she lay there considering her mirrored
+features with humorous, sleepy eyes; then she sat up, stretched her
+arms, yawned, patted her red lips with her palm, pressed her knuckles
+over her eyelids, and presently slipped out of bed. Her bath was ready;
+so was her maid.</p>
+
+<p>A little later, cross-legged on the bed once more, she sat sipping her
+chocolate and studying the morning papers with an interest and
+satisfaction unjaded.</p>
+
+<p>Coupled with the naïve curiosity of a kitten remained her unspoiled
+capacity for pleasure, and the interest of a child in a world unfolding
+daily in a sequence of miracles under her intent and delighted eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Bare of throat and arm and shoulder, the lustrous hair shadowing her
+face, she now appeared unexpectedly frail, even thin, as though the
+fuller curves of the mould in which she was being formed had not yet
+been filled up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Fully dressed, gown and furs lent to her something of a youthful
+maturity which was entirely deceptive; for here, in bed, the golden
+daylight revealed childish contours accented so delicately that they
+seemed almost sexless. And in her intent gray eyes and in her
+undeveloped mind was all that completed the bodily and mental
+harmony&mdash;youth unawakened as yet except to a confused memory of
+pain&mdash;and the dreamy and passionless unconsciousness of an unusually
+late adolescence.</p>
+
+<p>At twenty-four Strelsa still looked upon her morning chocolate with a
+healthy appetite; and the excitement of seeing her own name and picture
+in the daily press had as yet lost none of its delightful thrill.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning papers reported the Wycherlys' house-warming with
+cloying detail. And she adored it. What paragraphs particularly
+concerned herself, her capable maid had enclosed in inky brackets. These
+Strelsa read first of all, warm with pleasure at every stereotyped
+tribute to her loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>The comments she perused were of all sorts, even the ungrammatical sort,
+but she read them all with profound interest, and loved every one, even
+the most fulsome. For life, and its kinder experience, was just
+beginning for her after a shabby childhood, a lonely girlhood, and a
+marriage unspeakable, the memory of which already had become to her as
+vaguely poignant as the dull recollection of a nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>So her appetite for kindness, even the newspaper variety, was keen and
+not at all discriminating; and the reaction from two years'
+solitude&mdash;two years of endurance, of shrinking from public comment&mdash;had
+developed in her a fierce longing for pleasure and for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> play-fellows.
+Her fellow-men had responded with an enthusiasm which still surprised
+her delightfully at moments.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The clever Swedish maid now removed the four-legged tray from her knees;
+Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her newspapers,
+satisfying a natural curiosity concerning what the world thought about
+her costume of the night before, her beauty, herself, and the people she
+knew. At last, agreeably satiated, she lowered the newspaper and lay
+back, dreamy-eyed, faintly smiling, lost in pleasant retrospection.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs05" id="gs05"></a><img src="images/gs05.jpg" width="640" height="455" alt="&quot;Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her
+newspapers.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her
+newspapers.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Had she really appeared as charming last night as these exceedingly kind
+New York newspapers pretended? Did this jolly world really consider her
+so beautiful? She wished to believe it. She tried to. Perhaps it was
+really true&mdash;because all these daily paragraphs, which had begun with
+her advent into certain New York sets, must really have been founded on
+something unusual about her.</p>
+
+<p>And it could not be her fortune which continued to inspire such
+journalistic loyalty and devotion, because she had none&mdash;scarcely enough
+money in fact to manage with, dress with, pay her servants, and maintain
+her pretty little house in the East Eighties.</p>
+
+<p>It could not be her wit; she had no more than the average American girl.
+Nor was there anything else in her&mdash;neither her cultivation,
+attainments, nor talents&mdash;to entitle her to distinction. So apparently
+it must be her beauty that evoked paragraphs which had already made her
+a fashion in the metropolis&mdash;was making her a cult&mdash;even perhaps a
+notoriety.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Because those people who had personally known Reginald Leeds, were
+exceedingly curious concerning this young girl who had been a nobody, as
+far as New York was concerned, until her name became legally coupled
+with the name of one of the richest and most dissipated scions of an old
+and honourable New York family.</p>
+
+<p>The public which had read with characteristic eagerness all about the
+miserable finish of Reginald Leeds, found its abominable curiosity
+piqued by his youthful widow's appearance in town.</p>
+
+<p>It is the newspapers' business to give the public what it wants&mdash;at
+least that appears to be the popular impression; and so they gave the
+public all it wanted about Strelsa Leeds, in daily chunks. And then
+some. Which, in the beginning, she shrank from, horrified, frightened,
+astonished&mdash;because, in the beginning, every mention of her name was
+coupled with a glossary in full explanation of who she was, entailing a
+condensed review of a sordid story which, for two years, she had striven
+to obliterate from her mind. But these post-mortems lasted only a week
+or so. Except for a sporadic eruption of the case in a provincial paper
+now and then, which somebody always thoughtfully sent to her, the press
+finally let the tragedy alone, contenting its intellectual public with
+daily chronicles of young Mrs. Leeds's social activities.</p>
+
+<p>A million boarding houses throughout the land, read about her beauty
+with avidity; and fat old women in soiled pink wrappers began to mention
+her intimately to each other as "Strelsa Leeds"&mdash;the first hall-mark of
+social fame&mdash;and there was loud discussion, in a million humble homes,
+about the fashionable men who were pay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>ing her marked attention; and the
+chances she had for bagging earls and dukes were maintained and
+combated, below stairs and above, with an eagerness, envy, and
+back-stairs knowledge truly and profoundly democratic.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Her morning mail had begun to assume almost fashionable proportions, but
+she could not yet reconcile herself to the idea of even such a clever
+maid as her own assuming power of social secretary. So she still read
+and answered all her letters&mdash;or rather neglected to notice the
+majority, which invested her with a kind of awe to some and made others
+furious and unwillingly respectful.</p>
+
+<p>Letters, bills, notes, invitations, advertisements were scattered over
+the bedclothes as she lay there, thinking over the pleasures and
+excitement of last night's folly&mdash;thinking of Quarren, among others, and
+of the swift intimacy that had sprung up between them&mdash;like a
+witch-flower over night&mdash;thinking of her imprudence, and of the cold
+displeasure of Barent Van Dyne who, toward daylight, had found her
+almost nose to nose with Quarren, absorbed in exchanging with that young
+man ideas and perfectly futile notions about everything on top, inside,
+and underneath the habitable globe.</p>
+
+<p>She blushed as she remembered her flimsy excuses to Van Dyne&mdash;she had
+the grace to blush over that memory&mdash;and how any of the dignity incident
+to the occasion had been all Van Dyne's&mdash;and how, as she took his
+irreproachable arm and parted ceremoniously with Quarren, she had
+imprudently extended her hand behind her as her escort bore her away&mdash;a
+childish impulse&mdash;the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> innocent coquetry of a village belle&mdash;she
+flushed again at the recollection&mdash;and at the memory of Quarren's lips
+on her finger-tips&mdash;and how her hand had closed on the gardenia he
+pressed into it&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head on the pillow; the flower she had taken from him lay
+beside her on her night table, limp, discoloured, malodorous; and she
+picked it up, daintily, and flung it into the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment the telephone rang downstairs in the library.
+Presently her maid knocked, announcing Mr. Quarren on the wire.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not at home," said Strelsa, surprised, or rather trying to feel a
+certain astonishment. What really surprised her was that she felt none.</p>
+
+<p>Her maid was already closing the door behind her when Strelsa said:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment, Freda." And, after thinking, she smiled to herself and
+added: "You may set my transmitter on the table beside me, and hang up
+the receiver in the library.... Be sure to hang it up at once."</p>
+
+<p>Then, sitting up in bed, she unhooked the receiver and set it to her
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren," she began coldly, and without preliminary amenities,
+"have you any possible excuse for awaking me at such an unearthly hour
+as mid-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord," he exclaimed contritely, "did I do that?"</p>
+
+<p>She had no more passion for the exact truth than the average woman, and
+she quibbled:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I would say so if it were not true?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, then!" An indignant pause. "But," she added honestly, "I was not
+exactly what you might call asleep, although it practically amounts to
+the same thing. I was reposing.... Are <i>you</i> feeling quite fit this
+morning?" she added demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be all right if I could see you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You can't! What an idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? What are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no particular reason why I should detail my daily duties,
+obligations, and engagements to you; is there?&mdash;But I'm an unusually
+kind-hearted person, and not easily offended by people's
+inquisitiveness. So I'll overlook your bad manners. First, then, I am
+lunching at the Province Club, then I am going to a matinée at the
+Casino, afterward dropping in for tea at the Sprowls, dining at the
+Calderas, going to the Opera with the Vernons, and afterward, with them,
+to a dance at the Van Dynes.... So, will you kindly inform me where
+<i>you</i> enter the scene?"</p>
+
+<p>She could hear him laugh over the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing just now?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am seated upon my innocent nocturnal couch, draped in exceedingly
+intimate attire, conversing over the telephone with the original Paul
+Pry."</p>
+
+<p>"Could anything induce you to array yourself more conventionally,
+receive me, and let me take you to your luncheon at the Province Club?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't <i>wish</i> to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that perfectly true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly. I've just thrown your gardenia into the fireplace. Doesn't
+that prove it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. Because it's too early, yet, for either of us to treasure such
+things&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What horrid impertinence!"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it! But your heavenly gift of humour will transform my impudence
+into a harmless and diverting sincerity. Please let me see you, Mrs.
+Leeds&mdash;just for a few moments."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are going South and there are three restless weeks ahead of
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This time he could hear her clear, far laughter:</p>
+
+<p>"What has <i>my</i> going to Florida to do with <i>your</i> restlessness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your very question irrevocably links cause and effect&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be absurd, Mr. Quarren!"</p>
+
+<p>"Absurdity is the badge of all our Guild&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What Guild do <i>you</i> belong to?"</p>
+
+<p>"The associated order of ardent suitors&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren! You are becoming ridiculous; do you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, <i>I</i> don't realise it, but they say all the rest of the world
+considers suitors ridiculous&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you expect me to listen to such nonsense at such an hour in the
+morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's half past twelve; and my weak solution of nonsense is suitable to
+the time of day&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to understand that the solution becomes stronger as the day
+advances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; the solution becomes so concentrated and powerful that traces
+of common-sense begin to appear&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't notice any last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Van Dyne interfered."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Mr. Van Dyne. If you'd been civil to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> he might have asked you
+to the dance to-night&mdash;if I had suggested it. But you were horridly
+rude."</p>
+
+<p>"I? Rude?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going to be rude enough to say it was I who behaved badly to
+him, are you? Oh, the shocking vanity of man! No doubt you are thinking
+that it was I who, serpent-like, whispered temptation into your innocent
+ear, and drew you away into a corner, and shoved palms in front of us,
+and brought silver and fine linen, and rare fruits and sparkling wines;
+and paid shameless court with an intelligent weather-eye always on the
+watch for a flouted and justly indignant cavalier!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "you did all those things. And now you're trying to
+evade the results."</p>
+
+<p>"What are the results?"</p>
+
+<p>"A partly demented young man clamouring to see you at high-noon while
+the cold cruel cause of his lunacy looks on and laughs."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid that young man must continue to clamour," she said,
+immensely amused at the picture he drew. "How far away is he at this
+moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the Legation, a blithering wreck."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not in his office frantically immersed in vast business enterprises
+and cataclysmic speculations?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm rather afraid that if business immerses him too completely he will
+be found drowned some day."</p>
+
+<p>"You promised&mdash;<i>said</i> that you were going to begin a vigorous campaign,"
+she reminded him reproachfully. "I asked it of you; and you agreed."</p>
+
+<p>"I am beginning life anew&mdash;or trying to&mdash;by seeking the perennial source
+of daily spiritual and mundane inspiration&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why won't you be serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am. Were you not the source of my new inspiration? Last night did
+something or other to me&mdash;I am not yet perfectly sure what it was. I
+want to see you to be sure&mdash;if only for a&mdash;moment&mdash;merely to satisfy
+myself that you are real&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will one moment be enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"One second&mdash;or half a one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well&mdash;if you promise not to expect or ask for more than that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is terribly nice of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is, overwhelmingly. But really I don't know whether I am nice or
+merely weak-minded. Because I've lingered here gossiping so long with
+you that I've simply got to fly like a mad creature about my dressing.
+Good-bye&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I come up immediately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not! I expect to be dressing for hours and
+hours&mdash;figuratively speaking.... Perhaps you might start in ten minutes
+if you are coming in a taxi."</p>
+
+<p>"You are an angel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is not telephone vernacular.... And perhaps you had better be
+prompt, because Mrs. Lannis is coming for me&mdash;that is, if you have
+anything to&mdash;to say&mdash;that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed up, annoyed at her own stupidity, then felt grateful to him
+as he answered lightly:</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; she might misunderstand our informality. Shall I see you in
+half an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I can manage it," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She managed it, somehow. At first, really indiffer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>ent, and not very
+much amused, the talk with him had gradually aroused in her the same
+interest and pleasurable curiosity that she had experienced in
+exchanging badinage with him the night before. Now she really wanted to
+see him, and she took enough trouble about it to set her deft maid
+flying about her offices.</p>
+
+<p>First a fragrant precursor of his advent arrived in the shape of a great
+bunch of winter violets; and her maid fastened them to her black fox
+muff. Then the distant door-bell sounded; and in an extraordinarily
+short space of time, wearing her pretty fur hat, her boa, and carrying a
+muff that matched both, with his violets pinned to it, she entered the
+dim drawing-room, halting just beyond the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not ashamed," she said, severely, "to come battering at my door
+at this hour of the day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Abjectly."</p>
+
+<p>They exchanged a brief handshake; she seated herself on the arm of a
+sofa; he stood before the unlighted fireplace, looking at her with a
+half smiling half curious air which made her laugh outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Bien! C'est moi, monsieur," she said. "Me voici! C'est moi-même!"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you <i>are</i> real after all," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I seem different?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;and no."</p>
+
+<p>"How am I different?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, somehow, last night, I got the notion that you were younger,
+thinner&mdash;and not very real&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you presuming to criticise my appearance last night?" she asked
+with mock indignation. "Because if you are, I proudly refer you to the
+enlightened metropolitan morning press."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I read all about you," he said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you did. You will doubtless now be inclined to treat me with
+the respect due to my years and experience."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," he said, "that your gown and hat and furs make a charming
+difference&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How perfectly horrid of you! I thought you admired my costume last
+night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord," he said&mdash;"you were sufficiently charming last night. But
+now, in your fluffy furs, you seem rather taller&mdash;less slender
+perhaps&mdash;and tremendously fetching&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Say that my clothes improve me, and that in reality I'm a horrid, thin
+little beast!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I know I am, but I haven't
+finished growing yet. Really that's the truth, Mr. Quarren. Would you
+believe that I have grown an inch since last spring?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it," he said, "but would you mind stopping now? You are
+exactly right."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>know</i> I'm thin and flat as a board!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're perfect!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too late to say that to me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is too early to say more."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's don't talk about myself, please."</p>
+
+<p>"It has become the only subject in the world that interests me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Mr. Quarren! Are you actually attempting to be silly at this
+hour of the day? The wise inanities of midnight sound perilously flat in
+the sunshine&mdash;flatter than the flattest champagne, which no
+bread-crumbs can galvanise into a single bubble. Tell me, why did you
+wish to see me this morning. I mean the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> real reason? Was it merely to
+find out whether I was weak-minded enough to receive you?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her, smiling:</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to see whether you were as real and genuine and wholesome and
+unspoiled and&mdash;and friendly as I thought you were last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"More so."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you so sure about my friendliness?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to believe in it," he said. "It means a lot to me already."</p>
+
+<p>"Believe in it then, you very badly spoiled young man," she said,
+stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "I do like you.... And now I
+think you had better go&mdash;unless you want to see Mrs. Lannis."</p>
+
+<p>Retaining her hand for a second he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Before you leave town will you let me ask you a question?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am leaving to-morrow. You'll have to ask it now."</p>
+
+<p>Their hands fell apart; he seemed doubtful, and she awaited his
+question, smilingly. And as he made no sign of asking she said:</p>
+
+<p>"You have my permission to ask it. Is it a very impertinent question?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"How impertinent is it?" she inquired curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Unpardonably personal."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Last night," she said, "you told me that I would probably forget you
+unless I had something unpardonable to forgive you. Isn't this a good
+opportunity to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> leave your unpardonable imprint upon my insulted
+memory?"</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent," he said. "This is my outrageous question: are you engaged
+to be married?"</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute she remained silent in her intense displeasure. After
+the first swift glance of surprise her gray eyes had dropped, and she
+sat on the gilded arm of the sofa, studying the floor covering&mdash;an
+ancient Saraband rug, with the inevitable and monotonous river-loop
+symbol covering its old-rose ground in uninteresting repetition. After a
+while she lifted her head and met his gaze, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to believe that you did not mean to be offensive," she
+said. "And now that I have a shadow of a reason to pardon you, I shall
+probably do so, ultimately."</p>
+
+<p>"But you won't answer me?" he said, reddening.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. Are we on any such footing of intimacy&mdash;even of
+friendship, Mr. Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But you are going away&mdash;and my reason for speaking&mdash;" He checked
+himself; his reasons were impossible; there was no extenuation to be
+found in them, no adequate explanation for them, or for his attitude
+toward this young girl which had crystallised over night&mdash;over a
+sleepless, thrilling night&mdash;dazzling him with its wonder and its truth
+and its purity in the clean rays of the morning sun.</p>
+
+<p>She watched his expression as it changed, troubled, uncertain how to
+regard him, now.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't very much like you, to ask me such a question," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Before I met you, you thought me one kind of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> man; after I met you,
+you thought me another. Have I turned out to be a third kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no."</p>
+
+<p>"Would I turn into the first kind if I ask you again to answer my
+question?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a swift, expressionless glance:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to like you; I'm trying to, Mr. Quarren. Won't you let me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to have the right to like <i>you</i>, too&mdash;perhaps more than you will
+care to have me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't speak that way&mdash;I don't know what you mean, anyway&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is why I asked you the question&mdash;to find out whether I had a right
+to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Right!" she repeated. "What right? What do you mean? What have you
+misinterpreted in me that has given you any rights as far as I am
+concerned? Did you misunderstand our few hours of masked acquaintance&mdash;a
+few moments of perfectly innocent imprudence?&mdash;my overlooking certain
+conventions and listening to you at the telephone this morning&mdash;my
+receiving you here at this silly hour? What has given you any right to
+say anything to me, Mr. Quarren&mdash;to hint of the possibility of anything
+serious&mdash;for the future&mdash;or at any time whatever?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no right," he said, wincing.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you have not!" she rejoined warmly, flushed and affronted. "I am
+glad that is perfectly clear to you."</p>
+
+<p>"No right at all," he repeated&mdash;"except the personal privilege of
+recognising what is cleanest and sweetest and most admirable and most
+unspoiled in life; the right to care for it without knowing exactly
+why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>&mdash;the desire to be part of it&mdash;as have all men who are awakened
+out of trivial dreams when such a woman as you crosses their limited and
+foolish horizon."</p>
+
+<p>She sat staring at him, struggling to comprehend what he was saying,
+perfectly unable to believe, nor even wishing to, yet painfully
+attentive to his every word.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren," she said, "I was hurt. I imagined presumption where there
+was none. But I am afraid you are romantic and impulsive to an amazing
+degree. Yet, both romance and impulse have a place and a reason, not
+undignified, in human intercourse."&mdash;She felt rather superior in turning
+this phrase, and looked on him a little more kindly&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If the compliment which you have left me to infer is purely a romantic
+one, it is nevertheless unwarranted&mdash;and, forgive me, unacceptable. The
+trouble is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She paused to recover her wits and her breath; but he took the latter
+away again as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am in love with you; that is the trouble, Mrs. Leeds. And I really
+have no business to say so until I amount to something."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no business to say so anyway after one single evening's
+acquaintance!" she retorted hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that! If love were a matter of time and convention&mdash;like five
+o'clock tea!&mdash;but it isn't, you know. It isn't the brevity of our
+acquaintance that worries me; it's what <i>I</i> am&mdash;and what <i>you</i>
+are&mdash;and&mdash;and the long, long road I have to travel before I am worth
+your lightest consideration&mdash;I never was in love before. Forgive my
+crudeness. I'm only conscious of the&mdash;hopelessness of it all."</p>
+
+<p>Breathless, confused, incredulous, she sat there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> staring at
+him&mdash;listening to and watching this tall, quiet, cool young fellow who
+was telling her such incomprehensible things in a manner that began to
+fascinate her. With an effort she collected herself, shook off the
+almost eerie interest that was already beginning to obsess her, and
+stood up, flushed but composed.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we not say any more about it?" she said quietly. "Because there
+is nothing more to say, Mr. Quarren&mdash;except&mdash;thank you for&mdash;for feeling
+so amiably toward me&mdash;for believing me more than I really am.... And I
+would like to have your friendship still, if I may&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You have it."</p>
+
+<p>"Even yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?... It's selfish of me to say it&mdash;but I wish you&mdash;could have
+saved me," he said almost carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"From what, Mr. Quarren? I really do not understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"From being what I am&mdash;the sort of man you first divined me to be."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by 'saving' you?" she asked, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know!&mdash;giving me a glimmer of hope I suppose&mdash;something to
+strive for."</p>
+
+<p>"One saves one's self," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He turned an altered face toward her: and she looked at him intently.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you are right," he said with a short laugh. "If there is
+anything worth saving, one saves one's self."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that is true," she said.... "And&mdash;if my friendship&mdash;if you
+really care for it&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He met her gaze:</p>
+
+<p>"I honestly don't know. I've been carried off my feet by you,
+completely. A man, under such conditions, doesn't know anything&mdash;not
+even enough to hold his tongue&mdash;as you may have noticed. I am in love
+with you. As I am to-day, my love for you would do you no good&mdash;I don't
+know whether yours would do me any good&mdash;or your friendship, either. It
+ought to if I amounted to anything; but I don't&mdash;and I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would not speak so bitterly&mdash;please&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All right. It wasn't bitterness; it was just whine. ... I'll go, now.
+You will comprehend, after you think it over, that there is at least
+nothing of impertinence in my loving you&mdash;only a blind unreason&mdash;a
+deadly fear lest the other man in me, suddenly revealed, vanish before I
+could understand him. Because when I saw you, life's meaning broke out
+suddenly&mdash;like a star&mdash;and that's another stale simile. But one has to
+climb very far before one can touch even the nearest of the stars.... So
+forgive my one lucid interval.... I shall probably never have
+another.... May I take you to your carriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Lannis is calling for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;I will take my leave&mdash;and the tatters of my reputation&mdash;any song
+can buy it, now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to go&mdash;like this. I want you to go away knowing in
+your heart that you have been very&mdash;nice&mdash;agreeable&mdash;to a young girl who
+hasn't perhaps had as much experience as you think&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God," he said, smiling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I want you to like me, always," she said. "Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I promise," he replied so blithely that for a moment his light irony
+deceived her. Then something in his eyes left her silent, concerned,
+unresponsive&mdash;only her heart seemed to repeat persistently in childish
+reiteration, the endless question, Why? Why? Why? And she heard it but
+found no answer where love was not, and had never been.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I&mdash;I try to understand you&mdash;but
+I don't seem to.... I am so <i>very</i> sorry that you&mdash;care for me."</p>
+
+<p>He took her gloved hand, and she let him.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'm nothing but a harlequin after all," he said, "and they're
+legitimate objects for pity. Good-bye, Mrs. Leeds. You've been very
+patient and sweet with a blithering lunatic.... I've committed only
+another harlequinade of a brand-new sort. But the fall from that balcony
+would have been less destructive."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him out of her gray eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing," she said, with a tremulous smile, "you may be certain that
+I am not going to forget you very easily."</p>
+
+<p>"Another thing," he said, "I shall never forget you as long as I live;
+and&mdash;you have my violets, I see. Are they to follow the gardenia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only when their time comes," she said, trying to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>So he wished her a happy trip and sojourn in the South, and went away
+into the city&mdash;downtown, by the way to drop into an office chair in an
+empty office and listen to the click of a typewriter in the outer room,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> sit there hour after hour with his chin in his hand staring at
+nothing out of the clear blue eyes of a boy.</p>
+
+<p>And she went away to her luncheon at the Province Club with Susanne
+Lannis who wished her to meet some of the governors&mdash;very grand
+ladies&mdash;upon whose good will depended Strelsa's election to the most
+aristocratic, comfortable, wisely managed, and thriftiest of all
+metropolitan clubs.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon she, with Mrs. Lannis and Chrysos Lacy&mdash;a pretty
+red-haired edition of her brother&mdash;went to see "Sumurun."</p>
+
+<p>And after they had tea at the redoubtable Mrs. Sprowl's, where there
+were more footmen than guests, more magnificence than comfort, and more
+wickedness in the gossip than lemon in the tea or Irish in the more
+popular high-ball.</p>
+
+<p>The old lady, fat, pink, enormous, looked about her out of her little
+glittering green eyes with a pleased conviction that everybody on earth
+was mortally afraid of her. And everybody, who happened to be anybody in
+New York, was exactly that&mdash;with a few eccentric exceptions like her
+nephew, Karl Westguard, and half a dozen heavily upholstered matrons
+whose social altitude left them nothing to be afraid of except lack of
+deference and death.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl had a fat, wheezy, and misleading laugh; and it took time
+for Strelsa to understand that there was anything really venomous in the
+old lady; but the gossip there that afternoon, and the wheezy delight in
+driving a last nail into the coffin of some moribund reputation, made
+plain to her why her hostess was held in such respectful terror.</p>
+
+<p>The talk finally swerved from Molly Wycherly's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> ball to the Irish
+Legation, and Mrs. Sprowl leaned toward Strelsa, and panted behind her
+fan:</p>
+
+<p>"A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men give there!
+Orgies, I understand! No pretty actress in town is kept sighing long for
+invitations. Even"&mdash;she whispered the name of a lovely and respectable
+prima-donna with a perfectly good husband and progeny&mdash;and nodded so
+violently that it set her coughing.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs06" id="gs06"></a><img src="images/gs06.jpg" width="640" height="456" alt="&quot;&#39;A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men
+give there!&#39;&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men
+give there!&#39;&quot;</span>
+</div>
+<p>"Oh," cried Strelsa, distressed, "surely you have been misinformed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least," wheezed the old lady. "She is no better than the
+rest of 'em! And I sent for my nephew Karl, and I brought him up
+roundly. 'Karl!' said I, 'what the devil do you mean! Do you want that
+husband of hers dragging you all into court?' And, do you know, my dear,
+he appeared perfectly astounded&mdash;said it wasn't so&mdash;just as you said a
+moment ago. But I can put two and two together, yet; I'm not too old and
+witless to do that! And I warrant you I gave him a tongue trouncing
+which he won't forget. ... Probably he retailed it to that O'Hara man,
+and to young Quarren, too. If he did it won't hurt 'em, either."</p>
+
+<p>She was speaking now so generally that everybody heard her, and Cyrille
+Caldera said:</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky is certainly innocuous, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>is</i> he!" said Mrs. Sprowl with another wheezy laugh. "I fancy I
+know that boy. Did you say 'harmless,' Susanne? Well, <i>you</i> ought to
+know, of course&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Cyrille Caldera blushed brightly although her affair with Quarren had
+been of the most innocent description.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's probably as much ground for indicting Ricky as there is for
+indicting me," she protested. "He's merely a nice, useful boy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather vapid, don't you think?" observed a thin young woman in sables
+and an abundance of front teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and
+a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination."</p>
+
+<p>"He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell
+me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly
+harmless."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to.</p>
+
+<p>"Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde&mdash;whose husband must have been
+an idiot&mdash;and Cynthia Challis&mdash;she married Prince Sarnoff, you
+remember&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl.
+"How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis.</p>
+
+<p>"Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em
+marry him. Poor Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is <i>so</i> nice, and nobody is likely to
+marry him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked Strelsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Because he's&mdash;why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't
+you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Strelsa.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's the trouble&mdash;partly. Then there's no social advantage for any
+girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out
+of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky&mdash;unless he
+marries a lame duck."</p>
+
+<p>"Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained
+Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight."</p>
+
+<p>"The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's
+intelligent otherwise I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not intellectual."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are possibly mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Are <i>you</i> his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night
+for the first time."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet
+Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But
+you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison
+arrives." At which sally everybody laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the
+coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British
+officer's arrival.</p>
+
+<p>Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew,
+because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was
+understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning
+people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa
+Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of
+fashionable banter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles
+you'll forget Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl,
+why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy."</p>
+
+<p>"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the
+eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are
+pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"I have enough&mdash;almost&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!"
+laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa&mdash;you'll need
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken. I <i>have</i> enough. I'd like to be happy for a while."</p>
+
+<p>The naïve inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and
+happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of
+the past which had unconsciously evoked it.</p>
+
+<p>After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in,
+one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of
+Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in
+kennel parlance.</p>
+
+<p>To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed
+loud and long.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves
+as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular
+among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby
+agape. But your man of the world has other tastes."</p>
+
+<p>"Jaded tastes," said somebody.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe they're jaded and vicious&mdash;but they're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> his. And maybe that girl
+has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But
+it's the last shriek among people who know."</p>
+
+<p>"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French
+sculptor who did the Merode?"</p>
+
+<p>"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else.</p>
+
+<p>"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds
+needs padding&mdash;to suit my notions."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl
+will be scandalous when she fills out a little more.... If she only had
+the wits to match what she is going to be!&mdash;But there's a streak of
+something silly in her&mdash;I suspect latent sentiment&mdash;which is likely to
+finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels
+for Ricky, now!&mdash;a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except
+in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little
+minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks
+in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that
+girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind
+about Strelsa Leeds, and"&mdash;she glared around her, fanning vigorously&mdash;"I
+<i>think</i> nobody is likely to interfere."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid
+down the law of limits to him so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> decisively that, taken aback,
+astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment.</p>
+
+<p>When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly
+that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who
+had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had
+taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his
+conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her.</p>
+
+<p>He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing
+sponsor for Mrs. Leeds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old
+lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?"</p>
+
+<p>He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at
+Strelsa.</p>
+
+<p>Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very
+bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he asked sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix&mdash;and also amass a little
+common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to
+start things for her. Which I shan't&mdash;in that direction."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with
+an unpleasant laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I understand the Earl of Dankmere, perfectly," she said&mdash;"also other
+people, including young, and sulky boys. So if you clearly understand my
+wishes, and the girl doesn't make a fool of herself over you or any
+other callow ineligible, her future will give me something agreeable to
+occupy me."</p>
+
+<p>The blood stung his face as he stood up&mdash;a tall graceful figure among
+the others in the box&mdash;a clean-cut, wholesome boy to all appearances,
+with that easy and amiable presence which is not distinction but which
+sometimes is even more agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>Lips compressed, the flush still hot on his face, he stood silent,
+tasting all the bitterness that his career had stored up for him&mdash;sick
+with contempt for a self that could accept and swallow such things. For
+he had been well schooled, but scarcely to that contemptible point.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he said, pleasantly, "you understand that I shall do as I
+please."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see to that, too, Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>Chrysos Lacy leaned forward and began to talk to him, and his training
+reacted mechanically, for he seemed at once to become his gay and
+engaging self.</p>
+
+<p>He did not return to the Vernons' box nor did he see Strelsa again
+before she went South.</p>
+
+<p>The next night a note was delivered to him, written from the Wycherlys'
+car, "Wind-Flower."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Quarren</span>:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not come back to say good-bye? You spoke of doing so.
+I'm afraid Chrysos Lacy is responsible.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The dance at the Van Dynes was very jolly. I am exceedingly sorry
+you were not there. Thank you for the flowers and bon-bons that
+were delivered to me in my state-room. My violets are not yet
+entirely faded, so they have not yet joined your gardenia in the
+limbo of useless things.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Westguard came to the train. He <i>is</i> nice.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. O'Hara and Chrysos and Jack Lacy were there, so in spite of
+your conspicuous absence the Legation maintained its gay reputation
+and covered itself with immortal blarney.</p>
+
+<p>"This letter was started as a note to thank you for your gifts, but
+it is becoming a serial as Molly and Jim and I sit here watching
+the North Carolina landscape fly past our windows like streaks of
+brown lightened only by the occasional delicious and sunny green of
+some long-leafed pine.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to see from horizon to horizon except the
+monotonous repetition of mules and niggers and evil-looking cypress
+swamps and a few razor-backs and a buzzard flying very high in the
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you again for my flowers.... I wonder if you understand that
+my instinct is to be friends with you?</p>
+
+<p>"It was from the very beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"And please don't be absurd enough to think that I am going to
+forget you&mdash;or our jolly escapade at the Wycherly ball. You behaved
+very handsomely once. I know I can count on your kindness to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, and many many thanks&mdash;as Jack Lacy says&mdash;'f'r the manny
+booggy-rides, an' th' goom-candy, an' the boonches av malagy
+grrapes'!</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"Sincerely your friend,<br /></span>
+<br />
+<span class="i10">"<span class="smcap">Strelsa Leeds</span>."<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></div>
+
+
+<p>That same day Sir Charles Mallison arrived in New York and went directly
+to Mrs. Sprowl's house. Their interview was rather brief but loudly
+cordial on the old lady's part:</p>
+
+<p>"How's my sister and Foxy?" she asked&mdash;meaning Sir Renard and Lady
+Spinney.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles regretted he had not seen them.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite fit, thanks." And he gravely trusted that her own health was
+satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't changed your mind?" she asked with a smile which the
+profane might consider more like a grin.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles said he had not, and a healthy colour showed under the tan.</p>
+
+<p>"All these years," commented the old lady, ironically.</p>
+
+<p>"Four," said Sir Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it four years ago when you saw her in Egypt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Four years&mdash;last month&mdash;the tenth."</p>
+
+<p>"And never saw her again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl shook with asthmatic mirth:</p>
+
+<p>"Such story-book constancy! Why didn't you ask your friend the late
+Sirdar to have Leeds pitched into the Nile. It would have saved you
+those four years' waiting? You know you haven't many years to waste, Sir
+Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm forty-five," he said, colouring painfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Four years gone to hell," said the old lady with that delicate candour
+which sometimes characterised her.... "And now what do you propose to do
+with the rest of 'em? Dawdle away your time?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Face my fate," he admitted touching his moustache and fearfully
+embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you're in a hurry, you'll have to go down South to face it.
+She's at Palm Beach for the next three weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him, her little opaque green eyes a trifle softened.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to get you the prettiest woman in America," she said. "I'm
+ready to fight off everybody else&mdash;beat 'em to death," she added, her
+eyes snapping, then suddenly kind again&mdash;"because, Sir Charles, I like
+you. And for no other reason on earth!"</p>
+
+<p>Which was not the exact truth. It was for another man's sake she was
+kind to him. And the other man had been dead many years.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles thanked her, awkwardly, and fell silent again, pulling his
+moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"Is&mdash;Mrs. Leeds&mdash;well?" he ventured, at length, reddening again.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs07" id="gs07"></a><img src="images/gs07.jpg" width="640" height="462" alt="&quot;&#39;Is&mdash;Mrs. Leeds&mdash;well?&#39; he ventured at length, reddening
+again.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;Is&mdash;Mrs. Leeds&mdash;well?&#39; he ventured at length, reddening
+again.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Perfectly. She's a bit wiry just now&mdash;thin&mdash;leggy, y' know. Some
+fanciers prefer 'em weedy. But she'll plump up. I know the breed."</p>
+
+<p>He shrank from her loud voice and the vulgarity of her comments, and she
+was aware of it and didn't care a rap. There were plenty of noble ladies
+as vulgar as she, and more so&mdash;and anyway it was not this well-built,
+sober-faced man of forty-five whom she was serving with all the craft
+and insolence and brutality and generosity that was in her&mdash;it was the
+son of a dead man who had been much to her. How much nobody in these
+days gossiped about any longer, for it was a long time ago, a long, long
+time ago that she had made her curtsey to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> a young queen and a prince
+consort. And Sir Charles's father had died at Majuba Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a wretched little knock-kneed peer on the cards," she observed;
+"Dankmere. He seems to think she has money or something. If he comes
+over here, as my sister writes, I'll set him straighter than his own
+legs. And I've written Foxy to tell him so."</p>
+
+<p>"Dankmere is a very good chap," said Sir Charles, terribly embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"But not good enough. His level is the Quartier d'Europe. He'll find it;
+no fear.... When do you go South?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," he said, so honestly that she grinned again.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll give you a letter to Molly Wycherly. Her husband is Jim
+Wycherly&mdash;one of your sort&mdash;eternally lumbering after something to kill.
+He has a bungalow on some lagoon where he murders ducks, and no doubt
+he'll go there. But his wife will be stopping at Palm Beach. I'll send
+you a letter to her in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Many thanks," said Sir Charles, shyly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>Strelsa remained South longer than she had expected to remain, and at
+the end of the third week Quarren wrote her.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Leeds</span>:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Will you accept from me a copy of Karl's new book? And are you
+ever coming back? You are missing an unusually diverting winter;
+the opera is exceptional, there are some really interesting plays
+in town and several new and amusing people&mdash;Prince and Princess
+Sarnoff for example; and the Earl of Dankmere, an anxious, and
+perplexed little man, sadly hard up, and simple-minded enough to
+say so; which amuses everybody immensely.</p>
+
+<p>"He's pathetically original; plebeian on his mother's side; very
+good-natured; nothing at all of a sportsman; and painfully short of
+both intellect and cash&mdash;a funny, harmless, distracted little man
+who runs about asking everybody the best and quickest methods of
+amassing a comfortable fortune in America. And I must say that
+people have jollied him rather cruelly.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sarnoffs on the other hand are modest and nice people&mdash;the
+Prince is a yellow, dried-up Asiatic who is making a collection of
+parasites&mdash;a shrewd, kindly, and clever little scientist. His wife
+is a charming girl, intellectual but deliciously feminine. She was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+Cynthia Challis before her marriage, and always a most attractive
+and engaging personality. They dined with us at the Legation on
+Thursday.</p>
+
+<p>"Afterward there was a dance at Mrs. Sprowl's. I led from one end,
+Lester Caldera from the other. One or two newspapers criticised the
+decorations and favours as vulgarly expensive; spoke of a 'monkey
+figure'&mdash;purely imaginary&mdash;which they said I introduced into the
+cotillion, and that the favours were marmosets!&mdash;who probably were
+the intellectual peers of anybody present.</p>
+
+<p>"The old lady is in a terrific temper. I'm afraid some poor
+scribblers are going to catch it. I thought it very funny.</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of scribblers and temper reminds me that Karl Westguard's
+new book is stirring up a toy tempest. He has succeeded in
+offending a dozen people who pretend to recognise themselves or
+their relatives among the various characters. I don't know whether
+the novel is really any good, or not. We, who know Karl so
+intimately, find it hard to realise that perhaps he may be a writer
+of some importance.</p>
+
+<p>"There appears to be considerable excitement about this new book.
+People seem inclined to discuss it at dinners; Karl's publishers
+are delighted. Karl, on the contrary, is not at all flattered by
+the kind of a success that menaces him. He is mad all through, but
+not as mad as his redoubtable aunt, who tells everybody that he's a
+scribbling lunatic who doesn't know what he's writing, and that she
+washes her fat and gem-laden hands of him henceforth.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Karl! He's already thirty-seven; he's written fifteen books,
+no one of which, he tells me, ever before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> stirred up anybody's
+interest. But this newest novel, 'The Real Thing,' has already gone
+into three editions in two weeks&mdash;whatever that actually means&mdash;and
+still the re-orders are pouring in, and his publishers are madly
+booming it, and several indignant people are threatening Karl with
+the law of libel, and Karl is partly furious, partly amused, and
+entirely astonished at the whole affair.</p>
+
+<p>"Because you see, the people who think they recognise portraits of
+themselves or their friends in several of the unattractive
+characters in the story&mdash;are as usual, in error. Karl's people are
+always purely and synthetically composite. Besides everybody who
+knows Karl Westguard ought to know that he's too decent a fellow,
+and too good a workman to use models stupidly. Anybody can copy;
+anybody can reproduce the obvious. Even photographers are artists
+in these days. Good work is a synthesis founded on truth, and
+carried logically to a conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's useless to try to convince the Philistines. Once
+possessed with the idea that they or their friends are 'meant,' as
+they say, Archimedes's lever could not pry them loose from their
+agreeably painful obsession.</p>
+
+<p>"Then there are other sorts of humans who are already bothering
+Karl. This species recognise in every 'hero' or 'heroine' a minute
+mental and physical analysis of themselves and their own
+particular, specific, and petty emotions. Proud, happy, flattered,
+they permit nobody to mistake the supposed tribute which they are
+entirely self-persuaded that the novelist has offered to them.</p>
+
+<p>"And these phases of 'The Real Thing' are fretting and mortifying
+Karl to the verge of distraction. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> awakes to find himself not
+famous but notorious&mdash;not criticised for his workmanship, good or
+bad, but gabbled about because some ludicrous old Uncle Foozle
+pretends to discover a similarity between Karl's episodes and
+characters and certain doings of which Uncle F. is personally
+cognisant.</p>
+
+<p>"The great resource of stupidity is and has always been the
+anagram; and as stupidity is almost invariably suspicious, the hunt
+for hidden meanings preoccupies the majority of mankind.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Because I have ventured to send you Karl's new book is no reason
+why I also should have presumed to write you a treatise in several
+volumes.</p>
+
+<p>"But I miss you, oddly enough&mdash;miss everything I never had of
+you&mdash;your opinions on what interests us both; the delightful
+discussions of things important, which have never taken place
+between us. It's odd, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds, that I miss, long for,
+and even remember so much that has never been?</p>
+
+<p>"Molly Wycherly wrote to Mrs. Lannis that you were having a gay
+time in Florida; that Sir Charles Mallison had joined your party;
+that you'd had luncheons and dinners given you at the Club, at the
+Inlet, at the Wiers's place, 'Coquina Castle'; and that Jim and Sir
+Charles had bravely slain many ducks. Which is certainly glory
+enough to go round. In a friendly little note to me you were good
+enough to ask what I am doing, and to emphasise your request for an
+answer by underlining your request.</p>
+
+<p>"Proud and flattered by your generous interest I hasten to inform
+you that I am leading the same useful, serious, profitable,
+purposeful, ambitious, and en<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>nobling life which I was leading when
+I first met you. Such a laudable existence makes for one's
+self-respect; and, happy in that consciousness, undisturbed by
+journalistic accusations concerning marmosets and vulgarity, I
+concentrate my entire intellectual efforts upon keeping my job,
+which is to remain deaf, dumb, and blind, and at the same time be
+ornamental, resourceful, good-tempered, and amusing to those who
+are not invariably all of these things at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it too much to expect another note from you?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"Sincerely yours,<br /></span>
+<br />
+<span class="i10">"<span class="smcap">Richard Stanley Quarren</span>."<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>She answered him on the fourth week of her absence.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Quarren</span>:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Your letter interested me, but there was all through it an
+undertone of cynicism which rang false&mdash;almost a dissonance to an
+ear which has heard you strike a truer chord.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not like what you say of yourself, or of your life. I have
+talked very seriously with Molly, who adores you; and she evidently
+thinks you capable of achieving anything you care to undertake.
+Which is my own opinion&mdash;based on twenty-four hours of
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>"I have read Mr. Westguard's novel. Everybody here is reading it.
+I'd like to talk to you about it, some day. Mr. Westguard's intense
+bitterness confuses me a little, and seems almost to paralyse any
+critical judgment I may possess. A crusade in fiction has always
+seemed to me but a sterile effort. To do a thing is fine;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> to talk
+about it in fiction a far less admirable performance&mdash;like the
+small boy, safe in the window, who defies his enemy with out-thrust
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was young&mdash;a somewhat lonely child, with only a very few
+books to companion me&mdash;I pored over Carlyle's 'French Revolution,'
+and hated Philip Egalité. But that youthful hatred was a little
+modified because Egalité did actually become personally active. If
+he had only talked, my hatred would have become contempt for a
+renegade who did not possess the courage of his convictions. But he
+voted death to his own caste, facing the tribunal. He talked, but
+he also acted.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mean this as a parallel between Mr. Westguard and the
+sanguinary French iconoclast. Mr. Westguard, also, has the courage
+of his convictions; he lives, I understand, the life which he
+considers a proper one. It is the life which he preaches in 'The
+Real Thing'&mdash;a somewhat solemn, self-respecting, self-supporting
+existence, devoted to self-development; a life of upright thinking,
+and the fulfilment of duty, civil and religious, incident to
+dignified citizenship. Such a life may be a blameless one; I don't
+know.</p>
+
+<p>"Also it might even be admirable within its limits if Mr. Westguard
+did not also appoint himself critic, disciplinarian, and prophet of
+that particular section of society into which accident of birth has
+dumped him.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably there is no section of human society that does not need a
+wholesome scourging now and then, but somehow, it seems to me, that
+it could be done less bitterly and with better grace than Mr.
+Westguard does it in his book. The lash, swung from within, and
+applied with judgment and discrimination, ought to do a more
+thorough and convincing piece of work than a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> knout allied with the
+clubs of the proletariat, hitting at every head in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the prophets and sybils, the augurs and oracles of the <i>Hoi
+polloi</i> address themselves to them; and let ours talk to us, not
+<i>about</i> us to the world at large.</p>
+
+<p>"A renegade from either side makes an unholy alliance, and, with
+his first shout from the public pulpit, tightens the master knot
+which he is trying to untie to the glory of God and for the sake of
+peace and good will on earth. And the result is Donnybrook Fair.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to speak this way to you of your friend, and about a man I
+like and, in a measure, really respect. But this is what I think.
+And my inclination is to tell you the truth, always.</p>
+
+<p>"Concerning the artistic value of Mr. Westguard's literary
+performance, I know little. The simplicity of his language
+recommends the pages to me. The book is easy to read. Perhaps
+therein lies his art; I do not know.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, as I am in an unaccountably serious mood amid all the
+frivolity of this semi-tropical place, may I not say to you
+something about yourself? How are you going to silence me?</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then; you seem to reason illogically. You make little of
+yourself, yet you offer me your friendship, by implication, every
+time you write to me. You seek my society mentally. Do you really
+believe that my mind is so easily satisfied with intellectual
+rubbish, or that I am flattered by letters from a nobody?</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose there is attractive about you, Mr. Quarren&mdash;if
+you really do amount to as little as you pretend? I've seen
+handsomer men, monsieur,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> wealthier men, more intelligent men; men
+more experienced, men of far greater talents and attainments.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you suppose that I sit here in the Southern sunshine
+writing to you when there are dozens of men perfectly ready to
+amuse me?&mdash;and qualified to do it, too!</p>
+
+<p>"For the sake of your <i>beaux-yeux</i>? <i>Non pas!</i></p>
+
+<p>"But there is a <i>something</i> which the world recognises as a subtle
+and nameless sympathy. And it stretches an invisible filament
+between you and the girl who is writing to you.</p>
+
+<p>"That tie is not founded on sentiment; I think you know that. And,
+of things spiritual, you and I have never yet spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore I conclude that the tie must be purely intellectual;
+that mind calls to mind and finds contentment in the far response.</p>
+
+<p>"So, when you pretend to me that you are of no intellectual
+account, you pay me a scurvy compliment. <i>Quod erat demonstrandum.</i></p>
+
+<p>"With this gentle reproof I seal my long, long letter, and go where
+the jasmine twineth and the orchestra playeth; for it is tea-time,
+my friend, and the Park of Peacocks is all a-glitter with plumage.
+Soft eyes look wealth to eyes that ask again; and all is brazen as
+a dinner bell!</p>
+
+<p>"O friend! do you know that since I have been here I might have
+attained to fortune, had I cared to select any one of several
+generous gentlemen who have been good enough to thrust that
+commodity at me?</p>
+
+<p>"To be asked to marry a man no longer distresses me. I am all over
+the romantic idea of being sorry for wealthy amateurs who make me a
+plain business propo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>sition, offering to invest a fortune in my
+good looks. To amateurs, connoisseurs, and collectors, there is no
+such thing as a fixed market value to anything. An object of art is
+worth what it can be bought for. I don't yet know how much I am
+worth. I may yet find out.</p>
+
+<p>"There are nice men here, odious men, harmless men, colourless men,
+worthy men, and the ever-present fool. He is really the happiest, I
+suppose.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, all in a class by himself, is an Englishman, one Sir Charles
+Mallison. I don't know what to tell you about him except that I
+feel exceedingly safe and comfortable when I am with him.</p>
+
+<p>"He says very little; I say even less. But it is agreeable to be
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"He is middle-aged, and, I imagine, very wise. Perhaps his
+reticence makes me think so. He and Mr. Wycherly shoot ducks on the
+lagoon&mdash;and politics into each other.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go. You are not here to persuade me to stay and talk
+nonsense to you against my better judgment. You're quite helpless,
+you see. So I'm off.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you write to me again?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">Strelsa Leeds</span>."<br /></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>A week after Quarren had answered her letter O'Hara called his attention
+to a paragraph in a morning paper which hinted at an engagement between
+Sir Charles Mallison and Mrs. Leeds.</p>
+
+<p>Next day's paper denied it on excellent authority; so, naturally, the
+world at large believed the contrary.</p>
+
+<p>Southern news also revealed the interesting item that the yacht,
+<i>Yulan</i>, belonging to Mrs. Sprowl's hatchet-faced nephew, Langly Sprowl,
+had sailed from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> Miami for the West Indies with the owner and Mrs. Leeds
+and Sir Charles Mallison among the guests.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Yulan</i> had not as fragrant a reputation as its exotic name might
+signify, respectable parties being in the minority aboard her, but
+Langly Sprowl was Langly Sprowl, and few people declined any invitation
+of his.</p>
+
+<p>He was rather a remarkable young man, thin as a blade, with a voracious
+appetite and no morals. Nor did he care whether anybody else had any.
+What he wanted he went after with a cold and unsensitive directness that
+no newspapers had been courageous enough to characterise. He wouldn't
+have cared if they had.</p>
+
+<p>Among other things that he had wanted, recently, was another man's wife.
+The other man being of his own caste made no difference to him; he
+simply forced him to let his wife divorce him; which, it was understood,
+that pretty young matron was now doing as rapidly as the laws of Nevada
+allowed.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Langly Sprowl had met Strelsa Leeds.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The sailing of the <i>Yulan</i> for the West Indies became the topic of
+dinner and dance gossip; and Quarren heard every interpretation that
+curiosity and malice could put upon the episode.</p>
+
+<p>He had been feeling rather cheerful that day; a misguided man from
+Jersey City had suddenly developed a mania for a country home. Quarren
+personally conducted him all over Tappan-Zee Park on the Hudson, through
+mud and slush in a skidding touring car, with the result that the man
+had become a pioneer and had promised to purchase a building site.</p>
+
+<p>So Quarren came back to the Legation that after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>noon feeling almost
+buoyant, and discovered Westguard in all kinds of temper, smoking a huge
+faïence pipe which he always did when angry, and which had become known
+as "The Weather-breeder."</p>
+
+
+<p>"Jetzt geht das Wetter los!" quoted Quarren, dropping into a seat by the
+fire. "Where is this particular area of low depression centred, Karl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Over my damn book. The papers insist it's a <i>livre-à-clef</i>; and I am
+certain the thing is selling on that account! I tell you it's
+humiliating. I've done my best as honestly as I know how, and not one
+critic even mentions the philosophy of the thing; all they notice is the
+mere story and the supposed resemblance between my characters and living
+people! I'm cursed if I ever&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up!" said Quarren tranquilly. "If you're a novelist you write
+to amuse people, and you ought to be thankful that you've succeeded."</p>
+
+<p>"Confound it!" roared Westguard, "I write to <i>instruct</i> people! not to
+keep 'em from yawning!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you've made a jolly fluke of it, that's all&mdash;because you have
+accidentally written a corking good story&mdash;good enough and interesting
+enough to make people stand for the cold chunks of philosophical
+admonition with which you've spread your sandwich&mdash;thinly, Heaven be
+praised!"</p>
+
+<p>"I write," said Westguard, furious, "because I've a message to
+deliv&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs08" id="gs08"></a><img src="images/gs08.jpg" width="320" height="470" alt="&quot;&#39;I write,&#39; said Westguard, furious, &#39;because I have a
+message to deliv&mdash;&#39;&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;I write,&#39; said Westguard, furious, &#39;because I have a
+message to deliv&mdash;&#39;&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Help!" moaned Quarren. "You write because it's in you to do it; because
+you've nothing more interesting to do; and because it enables you to
+make a decent and honourable living!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do those reasons prevent my having a message to deliver?" roared
+Westguard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, they exist in spite of it. You'd write anyway, whether or not you
+believed you had a message to deliver. You've written some fifteen
+novels, and fifteen times you have smothered your story with your
+message. This time, by accident, the story got its second breath, and
+romped home, with 'Message' a bad second, and that selling plater,
+'Philosophy,' left at the post&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!&mdash;you irreverent tout!" growled Westguard; "I want my novels
+read, of course. Any author does. But I wish to Heaven somebody would
+try to interpret the important lessons which I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, preciousness and splash! Tell your story as well as you can, and if
+it's well done there'll be latent lessons enough in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you perhaps instructing me in my own profession?" asked the other,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven knows I'm not venturing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven knows you <i>are</i>! Also there is something In what you say&mdash;" He
+sat smoking, thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in the fire&mdash;"if I only
+<i>could</i> manage that!&mdash;to arrest the public's attention by the rather
+cheap medium of the story, and then, cleverly, shoot a few moral pills
+into 'em.... That's one way, of course&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Like the drums of the Salvation Army."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard looked around at him, suspiciously, but Quarren seemed to be
+serious enough.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it doesn't matter much how a fellow collects an audience, so
+that he does collect one."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," nodded Quarren. "Get your people, then keep 'em interested
+and unsuspecting while you inject 'em full of thinks."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Westguard smoked and pondered; but presently his lips became stern and
+compressed.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't intend to trifle with my convictions or make any truce or any
+compromise with 'em," he announced. "I'm afraid that this last story of
+mine ran away with me."</p>
+
+<p>"It sure did, old Ironsides. Heaven protected her own this time. And in
+'The Real Thing' you have ridden farther out among the people with your
+Bible and your Sword than you ever have penetrated by brandishing both
+from the immemorial but immobile battlements of righteousness. Truth
+<i>is</i> a citadel, old fellow; but its garrison should be raiders, not
+defenders. And they should ride far afield to carry its message. For few
+journey to that far citadel; you must go to them. And does it make any
+difference what vehicle you employ in the cause of Truth&mdash;so that the
+message arrives somewhere before your vehicle breaks down of its own
+heaviness? Novel or poem, sermon or holy writ&mdash;it's all one, Karl, so
+that they get there with their burden."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard sat silent a moment, then thumped the table, emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had your wasted talents," he said, "I could write anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rot!"</p>
+
+<p>"As you please. You use your ability rottenly&mdash;that's true enough."</p>
+
+<p>"My ability," mimicked Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, your many, many talents, Rix. God knows why He gave them to you; I
+don't&mdash;for you use them ignobly, when you do not utterly neglect
+them&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I've a light and superficial talent for entertaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> people; I've
+nimble legs, and possess a low order of intelligence known as 'tact.'
+What more have I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're the best amateur actor in New York, for example."</p>
+
+<p>"An <i>amateur</i>," sneered Quarren. "That is to say, a man who has the
+inclinations, but neither the courage, the self-respect, nor the
+ambition of the professional.... Well, I admit that. I lack
+something&mdash;courage, I think. I prefer what is easy. And I'm doing it."</p>
+
+<p>"What's your reward?" said Westguard bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Reward? Oh, I don't know. The inner temple. I have the run of the
+premises. People like me, trust me, depend upon me more or less. The
+intrigues and politics of my little world amuse me; now and then I act
+as ambassador, as envoy of peace, as herald, as secret diplomatic
+agent.... Reward? Oh, yes&mdash;you didn't suppose that my real-estate
+operations clothed and fed me, did you, Karl?"</p>
+
+<p>"What does?"</p>
+
+<p>"Diplomacy," explained Quarren gaily. "A successful embassy is rewarded.
+How? Why, now and then a pretty woman's husband makes an investment for
+me at his own risk; now and then, when my office is successfully
+accomplished, I have my fee as social attorney or arbiter
+elegantiarum.... There are, perhaps, fewer separations and divorces on
+account of me; fewer scandals.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sometimes called into consultation, <i>in extremis</i>; I listen, I
+advise&mdash;sometimes I plan and execute; even take the initiative and
+interfere&mdash;as when a foolish boy at the Cataract Club, last week, locked
+himself into the bath-room with an automatic revolver and a case of
+half-drunken fright. I had to be very careful;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> I expected to hear that
+drumming fusillade at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>"But I talked to him, through the keyhole: and at last he opened the
+door&mdash;to take a shot at me, first."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren shrugged and lighted a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he added, "his father was only too glad to pay his debts.
+But boys don't always see things in their true proportions. Neither do
+women."</p>
+
+<p>Westguard, silent, scowling, pulled at his pipe for a while, then:</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you play surgeon and nurse in such a loathsome hospital?"</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody must. I seem better fitted to do it than the next man."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Westguard with a wry face, "I fancy somebody must do
+unpleasant things&mdash;even among the lepers of Molokai. But I'd prefer real
+lepers."</p>
+
+<p>"The social sort are sometimes sicker," laughed Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't agree with you.... By the way, it's all off between my aunt and
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Karl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not! I don't want her money. She told me to go to the devil, and I
+said something similar. Do you know what she wants me to do?" he added
+angrily. "Give up writing, live on an allowance from her, and marry
+Chrysos Lacy! What do you think of that for a cold-blooded and
+impertinent proposition! We had a fearful family row," he continued with
+satisfaction&mdash;"my aunt bellowing so that her footmen actually fled, and
+I doing the cool and haughty, and letting her bellow her bally head
+off."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You and she have exchanged civilities before," said Quarren, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but this is really serious. I'm damned if I give up writing."</p>
+
+<p>"Or marry Chrysos Lacy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or that, either. Do you think I want a red-headed wife? And I've never
+spoken a dozen words to her, either. And I'll pick out my own wife. What
+does my aunt think I am? I wish I were in love with somebody's
+parlour-maid. B'jinks! I'd marry her, just to see my aunt's
+expression&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, stop your fulminations," said Quarren, laughing. "That's the way
+with you artistic people; you're a passionate pack of pups!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not as passionate as my aunt!" retorted Westguard wrathfully. "Do
+you consider her artistic? She's a meddlesome, malicious, domineering,
+insolent, evil old woman, and I told her so."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren managed to stifle his laughter for a moment, but his sense of
+the ludicrous was keen, and the scene his fancy evoked sent him off into
+mirth uncontrollable.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard eyed him gloomily; ominous clouds poured from "The
+Weather-breeder."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it's funny," he said, "but she and I cannot stand each other,
+and this time it's all off for keeps. I told her if she sent me another
+check I'd send it back. That settles it, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're foolish, Karl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. If I can't keep myself alive in an untrammelled and
+self-respecting exercise of my profession&mdash;" His voice ended in a
+gurgling growl. Then, as though the recollections of his injuries at the
+hands of his aunt still stung him, he reared up in his chair:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Chrysos Lacy," he roared, "is a sweet, innocent girl&mdash;not a bale of
+fashionable merchandise! Besides," he added in a modified tone, "I was
+rather taken by&mdash;by Mrs. Leeds."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren slowly raised his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I was," insisted Westguard sulkily; "and I proved myself an ass by
+saying so to my aunt. Why in Heaven's name I was idiot enough to go and
+tell her, I don't know. Perhaps I had a vague idea that she would be so
+delighted that she'd give me several tons of helpful advice."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Did</i> she! She came back at me with Chrysos Lacy, I tell you! And when
+I merely smiled and attempted to waive away the suggestion, she flew
+into a passion, called me down, cursed me out&mdash;you know her language
+isn't always in good taste&mdash;and then she ordered me to keep away from
+Mrs. Leeds&mdash;as though I ever hung around any woman's skirts! I'm no
+Squire of Dames. I tell you, Rix, I was mad clear through. So I told her
+that I'd marry Mrs. Leeds the first chance I got&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk about her that way," remonstrated Quarren pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"About who? My aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean your aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh. About Mrs. Leeds. Why not? She's the most attractive woman I ever
+met&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. But don't talk about marrying her&mdash;as though you had merely
+to suggest it to her. You know, after all, Mrs. Leeds may have ideas of
+her own."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably she has," admitted Westguard, sulkily. "I don't imagine she'd
+care for a man of my sort. Why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> do you suppose she went off on that
+cruise with Langly Sprowl?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said, gravely: "I have no idea what reasons Mrs. Leeds has for
+doing anything."</p>
+
+<p>"You correspond."</p>
+
+<p>"Who said so?"</p>
+
+<p>"My aunt."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren flushed up, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard, oblivious of his annoyance, and enveloped in a spreading
+cloud of tobacco, went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Of course if <i>you</i> don't know, <i>I</i> don't. But, by the same token, my
+aunt was in a towering rage when she heard that Langly had Mrs. Leeds
+aboard the <i>Yulan</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" said the other, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"She swore like a trooper, and called Langly all kinds of impolite
+names. Said she'd trim him if he ever tried any of his tricks around
+Mrs. Leeds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What tricks? What does she mean by tricks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I suppose she meant any of his blackguardly philandering. There
+isn't a woman living on whom he is afraid to try his hatchet-faced
+blandishments."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren dropped back into the depths of his arm-chair. Presently his
+rigid muscles relaxed. He said coolly:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Langly Sprowl is likely to misunderstand Mrs. Leeds."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends," said Westguard. "He's a rotten specimen, even if he is
+my cousin. And he knows I think so."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later O'Hara sauntered in. He had been riding in the Park
+and his boots and spurs were shockingly muddy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who is this Sir Charles Mallison, anyway?" he asked, using the decanter
+and then squirting his glass full of carbonic. "Is it true that he's
+goin' to marry that charmin' Mrs. Leeds? I'll break his bally Sassenach
+head for him! I'll&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The rumour was contradicted in this morning's paper," said Quarren
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara drank pensively: "I see that Langly Sprowl is messin' about, too.
+Mrs. Ledwith had better hurry up out there in Reno&mdash;or wherever she's
+gettin' her divorce. I saw Chet Ledwith ridin' in the Park. Dankmere was
+with him. Funny he doesn't seem to lose any caste by sellin' his wife to
+Sprowl."</p>
+
+<p>"The whole thing is a filthy mess," growled Westguard; "let it alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you make a novel about it?" inquired O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>"Because, you dub! I don't use real episodes or living people!" roared
+Westguard; "newspapers and a few chumps to the contrary!"</p>
+
+<p>"So!&mdash;so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly&mdash;"whoa&mdash;steady, boy!" And he
+pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when
+currying.</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of
+human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I
+have any desire to do it, but if I <i>should</i> ever write a novel dealing
+with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved."</p>
+
+<p>"You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals
+only," said Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Aren't there plenty of scandalous&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Plenty. But no more than in any other set or coterie; not as many as
+there are among more ignorant people. Virtue far outbalances vice among
+us: a novel, properly proportioned, ought to show that. If it doesn't,
+it's misleading."</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing," said Westguard, "that I were indecent enough to show up my
+aunt in fiction. Nobody would believe her possible."</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes doubt her even now," observed O'Hara, grinning.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said: "Count up the unpleasant characters in your own social
+vicinity, Karl&mdash;just to prove to yourself that there are really very
+few."</p>
+
+<p>"There is Langly&mdash;and my aunt&mdash;and the Lester Calderas&mdash;and the
+Ledwiths&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!"</p>
+
+<p>Westguard laughed: "I guess that ends the list," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It does. Also I dispute the list," said Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"Cyrille Caldera is a pippin," remarked O'Hara, sentimentally.</p>
+
+<p>"What about Mary Ledwith? Is anybody here inclined to sit in judgment?"</p>
+
+<p>"I," said Westguard grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Divorce is a dirty business."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh. You'd rather she put up with Chester?&mdash;the sort of man who was weak
+enough to let her go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Get out, you old Roundhead!" said Quarren, laughing. He rose, laid his
+hand lightly on Westguard's shoulder in passing, and went upstairs to
+his room, where he wrote a long letter to Strelsa; and then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> destroyed
+it. Then he lay down, covering his boyish head with his arms.</p>
+
+<p>When Lacy came in he saw him lying on the bed, and thought he was
+asleep.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+
+<p>Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New
+York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm
+Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of
+change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the
+girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>By daylight the fatigues of pleasure were faintly visible&mdash;that
+unmistakable imprint which may perhaps leave the eyes clear and calm,
+but which edges the hardened contour of the cheek under them with deeper
+violet shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Not that hers was as yet the battered beauty of exhaustion; she had
+merely lived every minute to the full all winter long, and had overtaxed
+her capacity; and the fire had consumed something of her freshness.</p>
+
+<p>Not yet inured, not yet crystallised to that experienced hardness which
+withstands the fierce flame of living too fast in a world where every
+minute is demanded and where sleep becomes a forgotten art, the girl was
+completely tired out, and while she herself did not realise it, her
+features showed it.</p>
+
+<p>But nervous exhaustion alone could not account for the subtle change in
+her expression. Eyes and lips were still sweet, even in repose, but
+there was now a jaded charm about them&mdash;something unspoiled had
+dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>appeared from them&mdash;something of that fearlessness which vanishes
+after too close and too constant contact with the world of men.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently her mind was quite as weary as her body, though even to
+herself she had not admitted fatigue; and a tired mind no longer defends
+itself. Hers had not; and the defence had been, day by day,
+imperceptibly weakening. So that things to which once she had been able
+at will to close her mind, and, mentally deaf, let pass unheard, she had
+heard, and had even thought about. And the effort to defend her ears and
+mind became less vigorous, less instinctive&mdash;partly through sheer
+weariness.</p>
+
+<p>The wisdom of woman and of man, and of what is called the world, the
+girl was now learning&mdash;unconsciously in the beginning and then with a
+kind of shamed indifference&mdash;but the creation of an artificial interest
+in anything is a subtle matter; and the ceaseless repetition of things
+unworthy at last awake that ignoble curiosity always latent in man.
+Because intelligence was born with it; and unwearied intelligence alone
+completely suppresses it.</p>
+
+<p>At first she had kept her head fairly level in the whirlwind of
+adulation. To glimpses of laxity she closed her eyes. Sir Charles was
+always refreshing to her; but she could see little more of him than of
+other men&mdash;less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that
+happened&mdash;and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly
+Sprowl.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again she found herself with him separated from the
+others&mdash;sometimes alone with him on deck&mdash;and never quite understood how
+it came about so constantly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As for Sprowl he made love to her from the first; and he was a trim,
+carefully groomed and volubly animated young man, full of information,
+and with a restless, ceaseless range of intelligence which at first
+dazzled with its false brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>But it was only a kind of flash-light intelligence. It seemed to miss,
+occasionally; some cog, some screw somewhere was either absent or badly
+adjusted or over-strained.</p>
+
+<p>At first Strelsa found the young fellow fascinating. He had been
+everywhere and had seen everything; his mind was kaleidoscopic; his
+thought shifted, flashed, jerked, leaped like erratic lightning from one
+subject to another&mdash;from Japanese aeroplanes to a scheme for filling in
+the East River; from a plan to reconcile church and state in France to
+an idea for indefinitely prolonging human life. He had written several
+books about all kinds of things. Nobody read them.</p>
+
+<p>The first time he spoke to her of love was on a magnificent star-set
+night off Martinique; and she coolly reminded him of the gossip
+connecting him with a pretty woman in Reno. She could not have done it a
+month ago.</p>
+
+<p>He denied it so pleasantly, so frankly, that, astonished, she could
+scarcely choose but believe him.</p>
+
+<p>After that he made ardent, headlong love to her at every opportunity,
+with a flighty recklessness which began by amusing her. At first, also,
+she found wholesome laughter a good defence; but there was an
+under-current of intelligent, relentless vigour in his attack which
+presently sobered her. And she vaguely realised that he was a man who
+knew what he wanted. A talk with Molly Wycherly sobered her still more;
+and she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> avoided him as politely as she could. But, being her host, it
+was impossible to keep clear of him. Besides there was about him a
+certain unwholesome fascination, even for her. No matter how bad a man's
+record may be, few women doubt their ability to make it a better one.</p>
+
+<p>"You little goose," said Molly Wycherly, "everybody knows the kind of
+man he is. Could anything be more brazen than his attentions to you
+while Mary Ledwith is in Reno?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says that her being there has nothing to do with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he lies," said Molly, shrugging her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't speak as though he were trying to deceive anybody, Molly. He
+is perfectly frank to me. I can't believe that scandal. Besides he is
+quite open and manly about his unsavoury reputation; makes no excuses;
+simply says that there's good in every man, and that there is always one
+woman in the world who can bring it out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No man is!" insisted Strelsa.</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"No man is. The great masters of fiction always ascribe at least one
+virtue to their most infamous creations&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Strelsa, you talk like a pan of fudge! <i>I</i> tell you that Langly
+Sprowl is no good at all. I hope you won't have to marry him to find
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't intend to.... How inconsistent you are, Molly. You&mdash;and
+everybody else&mdash;believe him to be the most magnificent match in&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If position and wealth is all you care for, yes. I didn't suppose you'd
+come to that."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa said candidly: "I care for both&mdash;I don't know how much."</p>
+
+<p>"As much as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; not enough to marry him. And if he is what you say, it's hopeless
+of course.... I don't think he is. Be decent, Molly; everybody is very
+horrid about him, and&mdash;and that is always a matter of sympathetic
+interest to a generous woman. When the whole world condemns a man it
+makes him interesting!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a piffling and emotional thing to say! He may be attractive in
+an uncanny way, because he's agreeable to look at, amusing, and very
+dangerous&mdash;a perfectly cold-blooded, and I think, slightly unbalanced
+social marauder. And that's the fact about Langly Sprowl. And I wish we
+were on land, the <i>Yulan</i> and her owner in&mdash;well, in the Erie Basin,
+perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>Whether or not Strelsa believed these things, there still remained in
+her that curious sense of fascination in Sprowl's presence, partly
+arising, no doubt, from an instinctive sympathy for a young man so
+universally damned; partly, because she thought that perhaps he really
+was damned. Therefore, deep in her heart she felt that he must be
+dangerous; and there is, in that one belief, every element of
+unwholesome fascination. And a mind fatigued is no longer wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, there was always Sir Charles Mallison to turn to for a
+refreshing moral bath. Safety of soul lay in his vicinity; she felt
+confidence in the world wherever he traversed it. With him she relaxed
+and rested; there was repose for her in his silences; strength<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> for her
+when he spoke; and a serene comradeship which no hint of sentiment had
+ever vexed.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps only a few people realised how thoroughly a single winter was
+equipping Strelsa for the part she seemed destined to play in that
+narrow world with which she was already identified; and few realised how
+fast she was learning. Laxity of precept, easy morals, looseness of
+thought, idle and good-natured acquiescence in social conditions where
+all standards seemed alike, all ideals merely a matter of personal
+taste&mdash;this was the atmosphere into which she had stepped from two years
+of Western solitude after a nightmare of violence, cruelty, and
+depravity unutterable. And naturally it seemed heavenly to her; and each
+revelation inconsistent with her own fastidious instincts left her less
+and less surprised, less and less uneasy. And after a while she began to
+assimilate all that she saw and heard.</p>
+
+<p>A few unworldly instincts remained in her&mdash;gratitude for and quick
+response to any kindness offered from anybody; an inclination to make
+friends with stray wanderers into her circle, and to cultivate the
+socially useless.</p>
+
+<p>Taking four o'clock tea alone with Mrs. Sprowl the afternoon of her
+return to town&mdash;an honour vouchsafed to few&mdash;Strelsa was relating, at
+that masterful woman's request, her various exotic experiences. Mrs.
+Sprowl had commanded her attendance early. There were reasons. And now
+partly vexed, partly in unwilling admiration, the old lady sat smiling
+and all the while thinking to herself impatiently; "Baby! Fool! Little
+ninny! Imbecile!" while she listened, fat bejewelled hands folded, small
+green eyes shining in the expanse of powdered and painted fat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After a while she could endure it no longer, and she said with a wheeze
+of good-natured disdain:</p>
+
+<p>"It's like a school-girl's diary&mdash;all those rhapsodies over volcanoes,
+palm trees, and the colour of the Spanish Main. Never mind geography,
+child; tell me about the men!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs09" id="gs09"></a><img src="images/gs09.jpg" width="640" height="453" alt="&quot;&#39;Never mind geography, child; tell me about the
+men!&#39;&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;Never mind geography, child; tell me about the
+men!&#39;&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly&mdash;"why there were shoals and shoals
+of them, of every description!"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean the <i>one</i> man?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Which, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! There <i>was</i> one, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't think so.... Your nephew, Langly, was exceedingly
+amiable&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a plain beast," said his aunt, bluntly. "I didn't mean him."</p>
+
+<p>"He was very civil to me," insisted Strelsa, colouring.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably he didn't have a chance to be otherwise. He's a rotter, child.
+Ask anybody. I know perfectly well what he's been up to. I'm sorry you
+went on the <i>Yulan</i>. He had no business to ask you&mdash;or any other nice
+girl&mdash;or anybody at all until that Reno scandal is officially made
+respectable. If it were not for his money&mdash;" She stopped a moment,
+adding cynically&mdash;"and if it were not for mine&mdash;certain people wouldn't
+be tolerated anywhere, I suppose.... How did you like Sir Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he is charming!" she said warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"You like him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I almost adore him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not adore him entirely?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Strelsa laughed frankly: "He hasn't asked me to, for one reason.
+Besides&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt he'll do it."</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head, still smiling:</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand at all. There isn't the slightest sentiment
+between us. He's only thoroughly nice and agreeable, and he and I are
+most companionable. I hope nobody will be silly enough to hint anything
+of that sort to him. It would embarrass him dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl's smile was blandly tolerant:</p>
+
+<p>"The man's in love with you. Didn't you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you are mistaken, dear Mrs. Sprowl. If it were true I would know
+it, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! He told me so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Strelsa in amazed consternation. She added: "If it <i>is</i> so
+I'd rather not speak of it, please."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl eyed her with shifty but keen intelligence. "Little idiot,"
+she thought; but her smile remained bland and calmly patronising.</p>
+
+<p>For a second or two longer she studied the girl cautiously, trying to
+make up her mind whether there was really any character in Strelsa's
+soft beauty&mdash;anything firmer than material fastidiousness; anything more
+real than a natural and dainty reticence. Mrs. Sprowl could ride
+rough-shod over such details. But she was too wise to ride if there was
+any chance of a check from higher sources.</p>
+
+<p>"If you married him it would be very gratifying to me," she said
+pleasantly. "Come; let's discuss the matter like sensible women. Shall
+we?"</p>
+
+<p>Many people would not have disregarded such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> wish. Strelsa flushed and
+lifted her purple-gray eyes to meet the little green ones scanning her
+slyly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," she said, "but I couldn't discuss such a thing, you see.
+Don't you see I can't, dear Mrs. Sprowl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! Rubbish! Anybody can discuss anything," rejoined the old lady
+with impersonal and boisterous informality. "I'm fond of you. Everybody
+knows it. I'm fond of Sir Charles. He's a fine figure of a man. You
+match him in everything, except wealth. It's an ideal marriage&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't!&mdash;I simply cannot&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly&mdash;"an ideal marriage&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But when there is no love&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you&mdash;crazy!&mdash;--"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;meant&mdash;on my part&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" shouted the old lady, beating the air with pudgy
+hands&mdash;"isn't it luck enough to have love on one side? What does the
+present generation want! I tell you it's ideal, perfect. He's a good man
+as men go, and a devilish handsome&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And he's got money!" shouted the old lady&mdash;"plenty of it I tell you!
+And he has the entrée everywhere on the Continent&mdash;in
+England&mdash;everywhere!&mdash;which Dankmere has not!&mdash;if you're considering
+that little whelp!"</p>
+
+<p>Stunned, shrinking from the dreadful asthmatic noises in Mrs. Sprowl's
+voice, Strelsa sat dumb, wincing under the blows of sound, not knowing
+how to escape.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm fond of you!" shrieked the old lady&mdash;"I can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> be of use to you and I
+want to be. That's why I asked you to tea! I want to make you happy&mdash;and
+Sir Charles, too! What the devil do you suppose there is in it for me
+except to oblige hi&mdash;you both?"</p>
+
+<p>"Th-thank you, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet a shilling that Molly Wycherly let you go about with any
+little spindle-shanked pill who came hanging around!&mdash;And I told her
+what were my wishes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please&mdash;oh, <i>please</i>, Mrs. Sprowl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did! It's a good match! I want you to consider it!&mdash;I insist
+that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sprowl!" exclaimed Strelsa, pink with confusion and resentment, "I
+am obliged to you for the interest you display, but it is a matter&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am really&mdash;grateful&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Answer me, child. Has that cursed nephew of mine made any impression on
+you? Answer me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the kind you evidently mean!" said Strelsa, helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anybody else?"</p>
+
+<p>The outrageous question silenced the girl for a moment. Angry, she still
+tried to be gentle; tried to remember the age, and the excellent
+intentions of this excited old lady; and she answered in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I care for no man in particular, unless it be Sir Charles&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren, I think," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl's jowl grew purple with fury:</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;has that boy had the impudence&mdash;damn him&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Strelsa sprang to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I really cannot remain&mdash;" she said with decision, but the old lady only
+bawled:</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down! Sit down!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit <i>down</i>!" she roared in a passion. "What the devil&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa, a little pale, started to pass her&mdash;then halted, astounded: for
+the old lady had burst into a passion of choking gasps. Whether the
+terrible sounds she made were due to impotent rage or asthma, Strelsa,
+confused, shocked, embarrassed, but still angry, had no notion; and
+while Mrs. Sprowl coughed fatly, she stood still, catching muffled
+fragments of reproaches directed at people who flouted friendship; who
+had no consideration for age, and no gratitude, no tenderness, no pity.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I <i>am</i> grateful," faltered Strelsa, "only I cannot&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to be a mother to you! I've tried to be," wheezed the old lady
+in a fresh paroxysm; and beat the air.</p>
+
+<p>For one swift instant the girl remembered what her real mother had been
+to her; and her heart hardened.</p>
+
+<p>"I care only for your friendship, Mrs. Sprowl; I do not wish you to do
+anything for me; can we not be friends on that basis?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl swabbed her inflamed eyes and peered around the corner of
+the handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, my dear," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa went, slowly; and Mrs. Sprowl enveloped her like a fleshy squid,
+panting.</p>
+
+<p>"I only wanted to be good to you, Strelsa. I'm just an old fool I
+suppose&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please don't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all I am, child, just a sentimental old fool. The poor man's
+adoration of you touched my heart&mdash;and you do like him a little, don't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much.... Thank you for&mdash;for wishing happiness to me. I really
+don't mean to be ungrateful; I have a horror of ingratitude. It's only
+that&mdash;the idea never occurred to me; and I am incapable of doing such a
+thing for material reasons, unless&mdash;I also really cared for a man&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, child. Maybe you will care for him some day. I won't
+interfere any more.... Only&mdash;don't lose your heart to any of these young
+jackals fawning around your skirts. Every set is full of 'em. They're
+nothing but the capering chorus in this comic opera.... And&mdash;don't be
+angry&mdash;but I am an older and wiser woman than you, and I am fond of you,
+and it's my duty to tell you that any of the lesser breed&mdash;take young
+Quarren for example&mdash;are of no real account, even in the society which
+they amuse."</p>
+
+<p>"I would scarcely class Mr. Quarren with the sort you mention&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? He's of no importance."</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is kind, considerate, and unusually intelligent and
+interesting; and he is very capable of succeeding in whatever he
+undertakes," said Strelsa, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky is a nice boy; but what does he undertake?" asked Mrs. Sprowl
+with good-natured contempt. "He undertakes the duties, obligations, and
+details of a useful man in the greater household, which make him
+acceptable to us; and I'm bound to say that he does 'em very well. But
+outside of that he's a nobody. And I'll tell you just what he'll turn
+into; shall I? Society's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> third chief bottlewasher in succession. We had
+one, who evolved us. He's dead. We have another. He's still talking.
+When he ultimately evaporates into infinity Ricky will be his natural
+successor. Do you want that kind of a husband?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you suppose&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't get angry, Strelsa? I didn't suppose anything. Ricky, like every
+other man, dangles his good-looking, good-humoured self in your
+vicinity. You're inclined to notice him. All I mean is that he isn't
+worth your pains.... Now you won't be offended by a plain-spoken old
+woman who wishes only your happiness, will you, my child?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Strelsa, wearily, beginning to feel the fatigue of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>She took her leave a few moments afterward, very unhappy because two of
+the pleasantest incidents in her life had been badly, if not hopelessly,
+marred. But Langly Sprowl was not one of them.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>That hatchet-faced and immaculate gentleman, divining possibly that
+Strelsa might be with his aunt, arrived shortly after her departure;
+learned of it from a servant, and was turning on his heel without even
+asking for Mrs. Sprowl, when the thought occurred to him that possibly
+she might know Strelsa's destination.</p>
+
+<p>When a servant announced him he found his aunt quite herself, grim,
+ready for trouble, her small green eyes fairly snapping.</p>
+
+<p>They indulged in no formalities, being alone together, and caring
+nothing for servants' opinions. Their greeting was perfunctory; their
+inquiries civil. Then there ensued a short silence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Which way did Mrs. Leeds go?" he asked, busily twisting his long
+moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"None of your business," rejoined his aunt.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up in slight surprise, recognised a condition of things which,
+on second thought, surprised him still more. Because his aunt had never
+before noticed his affairs&mdash;had not even commented on the Ledwith matter
+to him. He had always felt that she disliked him too thoroughly to care.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I understood you," he said, watching her out of shifting
+eyes which protruded a trifle.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will understand me before I've done with you," returned his
+aunt, grimly. "It's a perfectly plain matter; you've the rest of the
+female community to chase if you choose. Go and chase 'em for all I
+care&mdash;hunt from here to Reno if you like!&mdash;but I have other plans for
+Strelsa Leeds. Do you understand? I've put my private mark on her.
+There's no room for yours."</p>
+
+<p>Langly's gaze which had not met hers&mdash;and never met anybody's for more
+than a fraction of a second&mdash;shifted. He continued his attentions to his
+moustache; his eyes roved; he looked at but did not see a hundred things
+in a second.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know where she's gone?" he inquired with characteristic
+pertinacity and an indifference to what she had said, absolutely stony.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean trouble for that girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to marry her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said that I was considering nothing in particular. We are friends."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Keep away from her! Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know whether I do or not. I suppose you mean Sir
+Charles."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl turned red:</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose what you like, you cold-blooded cad! But by God!&mdash;if you annoy
+that child I'll empty the family wash all over the sidewalk! And let the
+public pick it over!"</p>
+
+<p>He rested his pale, protuberant eyes on her for a brief second:</p>
+
+<p>"Will any of your finery figure in it? Any relics or rags once belonging
+to the late parent of Sir Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>Her features were livid; her lips twisted, tortured under the flood of
+injuries which choked her. Not a word came. Exhausted for a moment she
+sat there grasping the gilded arms of her chair, livid as the dead save
+for the hell blazing in her tiny green eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy that settles the laundry question," he said, while his restless
+glance ceaselessly swept the splendid room and his lean, sunburnt hand
+steadily caressed his moustache. Then, as though he had forgotten
+something, he rose and walked out. A footman invested him with hat and
+overcoat. A moment later the great doors clicked.</p>
+
+<p>In the silence of the huge house there was not a sound except the
+whispers of servants; and these ceased presently.</p>
+
+<p>All alone, amid the lighted magnificence of the vast room sat the old
+woman hunched in her chair, bloodless, motionless as a mass of dead
+flesh. Even the spark in her eyes was gone, the lids closed, the gross
+lower lip pendulous. Later two maids, being summoned, accom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>panied her
+to her boudoir, and were dismissed. Her social secretary, a pretty girl,
+came and left with instructions to cancel invitations for the evening.</p>
+
+<p>A maid arrived with a choice of headache remedies; then, with the aid of
+another, disrobed her mistress and got her into bed.</p>
+
+<p>Their offices accomplished, they were ordered to withdraw but to leave
+one light burning. It glimmered over an old-fashioned photograph on the
+wall&mdash;the portrait of a British officer taken in the days when whiskers,
+"pill-box," and frogged frock-tunic were cultivated in Her British
+Majesty's Service.</p>
+
+<p>From where she lay she looked at him; and Sir Weyward Mallison stared
+back at her through his monocle.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Strelsa at home, unpinning her hat before the mirror, received word over
+the telephone that Mrs. Sprowl, being indisposed, regretfully recalled
+the invitations for the evening.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's first sensation was relief, then self-reproach, quite
+forgetting that if Mrs. Sprowl's violent emotions had made that
+redoubtable old woman ill, they had also thoroughly fatigued the victim
+of her ill-temper and made her very miserable.</p>
+
+<p>She wrote a perfunctory note of regret and civil inquiry and dispatched
+it, then surrendered herself to the ministrations of her maid.</p>
+
+<p>The luxury of dining alone for the first time in months, appealed to
+her. She decided that she was not to be at home to anybody.</p>
+
+<p>Langly Sprowl called about six, and was sent away. Strelsa, curled up on
+a divan, could hear the staccato racket that his powerful racing-car
+made in the street<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> outside. The informality of her recent host aboard
+the <i>Yulan</i> did not entirely please her. She listened to his departure
+with quiet satisfaction.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs10" id="gs10"></a><img src="images/gs10.jpg" width="320" height="458" alt="&quot;Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his
+departure with quiet satisfaction.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his
+departure with quiet satisfaction.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Although it was not her day, several people came and went. Flowers from
+various smitten youths arrived; orchids from Sprowl; nothing from
+Quarren. Then for nearly two hours she slept where she lay and awakened
+laughing aloud at something Quarren had been saying in her dream. But
+what it was she could not recollect.</p>
+
+<p>At eight her maid came and hooked her into a comfortable and beloved
+second-year gown; dinner was announced; she descended the stairway in
+solitary state, still smiling to herself at Quarren's forgotten remark,
+and passed by the library just as the telephone rang there.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been a flash of clairvoyance&mdash;afterward she wondered exactly
+what it was that made her say to her maid very confidently:</p>
+
+<p>"That is Mr. Quarren. I'll speak to him."</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Quarren. The amusing coincidence of her dream and her
+clairvoyance still lingering in her mind, she went leisurely to the
+telephone and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand how I knew it was you. And I'm not sure why I came
+to the 'phone, because I'm not at home to anybody. But <i>what</i> was it you
+said to me just now?"</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"A few minutes ago while I was asleep?"</p>
+
+<p>"About eight o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed: "It happened to be a few minutes before eight. How did you
+know that? I believe you did speak to me in my dream. Did you?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said something aloud to you about eight o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"How odd! Did you know I was asleep? But you couldn't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not. I was merely thinking of you."</p>
+
+<p>"You were&mdash;you happened to be thinking of <i>me</i>? And you said something
+aloud about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"About you&mdash;and <i>to</i> you."</p>
+
+<p>"How delightfully interesting! What was it, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I was only talking nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't it bear repetition?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren! How maddening! I'm dying with curiosity. I dreamed that
+you said something very amusing to me and I awoke, laughing; but now I
+simply cannot recollect what it was you said."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you some day."</p>
+
+<p>"Soon? Would you tell me this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true. I'm not at home to anybody. So you can't drop in, can
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not logical; I could drop in because I'm not anybody&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not anybody in particular&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You know if you begin to talk that way, after all these days, I'll ring
+off in a rage. You are the only man in the world to whom I'm at home
+even over the telephone, and if that doesn't settle your status with me,
+what does?... Are you well, Mr. Quarren?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, perfectly. I called you up to ask you about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm tired, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we are all that. Nothing more serious threatens you than impending
+slumber?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said I was tired, not sleepy. I'm wide awake but horribly lazy&mdash;and
+inclined to slump. Where are you; at the Legation?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the Founders' Club&mdash;foundered."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely nothing. Reading the <i>Evening Post</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You are dining out I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>She reflected until he spoke again, asking if she was still there.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I'm trying to think whether I want you to come around and
+share a solitary dinner with me. Do I want you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a little&mdash;don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Very much?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you how much&mdash;over the telephone."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds both humble and dangerous. Which do you mean to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Humble&mdash;and very, very grateful, dear lady. May I come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;don't know. Dinner was announced a quarter of an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"It won't take me three minutes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If it takes you more you'll ring my door-bell in vain, young man."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll start now! Good&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs11" id="gs11"></a><img src="images/gs11.jpg" width="640" height="478" alt="&quot;&#39;Do you remember our first toast?&#39; he asked,
+smiling.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;Do you remember our first toast?&#39; he asked,
+smiling.&quot;</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wait! I haven't decided. Really I'm simply stupid with the accumulated
+fatigues of two months' frivolity. Do you mind my being stupid?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know I don't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your
+way over. <i>À bien tôt!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She had been in the drawing-room only a few moments, looking at the huge
+white orchids that Langly Sprowl had sent and which her butler was
+arranging, when Quarren was announced; and she partly turned from the
+orchids, extending her hand behind her in a greeting more confident and
+intimate than she had ever before given him.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at these strange, pansy-shaped Brazilian flowers," she said.
+"Kindly observe that they are actually growing out of that ball of moss
+and fibre."</p>
+
+<p>She had retained his hand for a fraction of a second longer than
+conventional acquaintance required, giving it a frank and friendly
+pressure. Now, loosing it, she found her own fingers retained, and drew
+them away with a little laugh of self-consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>"Sentiment before dinner implies that you'll have no room for it after
+dinner. Here is your cocktail."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember our first toast?" he asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"The toast to friendship?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I remember it."</p>
+
+<p>She touched her lips to her glass, not looking at him. He watched her.
+After a moment she raised her eyes, met his gaze, returned it with one
+quite as audacious:</p>
+
+<p>"I am drinking that same toast again&mdash;after many days," she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"With all that it entails?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Its chances, hazards, consequences?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, then, looking at him, deliberately sipped from her glass,
+the defiant smile in her eyes still daring him and Chance and Destiny
+together.</p>
+
+<p>When he took her out she was saying: "I really can't account for my mood
+to-night. I believe that seeing you again is reviving me. I was beastly
+stupid."</p>
+
+<p>"My soporific society ought to calm, not exhilarate you."</p>
+
+<p>"It never did, particularly. What a long time it is since we have seen
+each other. I <i>am</i> glad you came."</p>
+
+<p>Seated, she asked the butler to remove the flowers which interrupted her
+view of Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't said anything about my personal appearance," she observed.
+"Am I very much battered by my merry bouts with pleasure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much."</p>
+
+<p>"You wretch! Do you mean to say that I am marked at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"You look rather tired, Mrs. Leeds."</p>
+
+<p>"I know I do. By daylight it's particularly visible.... But&mdash;do <i>you</i>
+mind?"</p>
+
+<p>Her charming head was bent over her grapefruit: she lifted her gray eyes
+under level brows, looking across the table at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I mind anything that concerns you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean&mdash;are you disappointed because I'm growing old and haggard?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are even more beautiful than you were."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed gaily and continued her dinner. "I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> <i>had</i> to drag that out
+of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudence <i>is</i>
+stamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm
+beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. You <i>were</i> one. Do
+you deny your guilt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape.
+<i>Am</i> I very much changed, Mr. Quarren?" she said a trifle wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer immediately. After a few moments she glanced at him
+again and met his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she prompted him, laughing; "are you not neglecting your manners
+as a declared suitor?"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>have</i> changed."</p>
+
+<p>"What a perfect pill you are!" she exclaimed, vexed&mdash;"you're casting
+yourself for the rôle of the honest friend&mdash;and I simply hate it! Young
+sir, do you not understand that I've breakfasted, lunched and dined too
+long on flattery to endure anything more wholesome? If you can't lie to
+me like a gentleman and a suitor your usefulness in my entourage is
+ended."</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Do you want me to talk shop with you? I get rather tired of my
+trade, sometimes. It's my trade to lie, you know."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, quickly, but he was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>They remained rather silent after that. Coffee was served at table; she
+lighted a cigarette for him and, later, one for herself, strolling off
+into the drawing-room with it between her fingers, one hand resting
+lightly on her hip.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to have an inclination to wander about or linger before the
+marble fireplace and blow delicate rings of smoke at her own reflection
+in the mirror.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded
+affably to him in the glass:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first
+knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless&mdash;I wasn't then....
+Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about
+the kind&mdash;as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting."</p>
+
+<p>"A cradle song is what you require."</p>
+
+<p>"How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same
+cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I realise how tired you are."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her
+mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time....
+Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Conscience?" he suggested, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so? I thought it was my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you acquired one?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned
+around toward him, still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know. What do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the
+fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her
+dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between
+forefinger and thumb.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not
+the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was
+only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day
+was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became
+only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of
+experience.... I wonder whether my silly head <i>was</i> turned a little....
+People said too much to me: there were too many of them&mdash;and they came
+too near.... And do you know&mdash;looking back at it now as I sit here
+talking to you&mdash;I&mdash;it seems absurd&mdash;but I believe that I was really a
+trifle lonely at times."</p>
+
+<p>She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought of you on various occasions," she added.</p>
+
+<p>He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained
+fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his
+eyes from the bracket light.</p>
+
+<p>For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his
+silence and abstraction&mdash;in the set of his shoulders, and the
+unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it
+glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the
+forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again&mdash;agreeable to
+be with him&mdash;not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable&mdash;for
+even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was
+no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly
+conscious of a reserve force now awaking&mdash;of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> a growing sense of
+freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move&mdash;scarcely an
+invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated
+himself on the arm of the lounge beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote very few.... Did they really interest you?"</p>
+
+<p>"A lot."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back
+door of Eternity."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Otherwise he would never have stirred a step&mdash;until to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren&mdash;but a little
+sentimental&mdash;isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment&mdash;being unaccustomed to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"How many men made you declarations?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh; is <i>that</i> real sentiment? I thought it was merely love."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become
+like the rest."</p>
+
+<p>She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I <i>have</i> grown
+hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not
+even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you
+think so?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you, Mrs. Leeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so.... A woman might as well know the worst truths about
+life&mdash;and about men."</p>
+
+<p>"Not about men."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?"</p>
+
+<p>"By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You
+probably prefer your women screened and veiled."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren&mdash;are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing.
+But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale
+induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked,
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Working at my trade."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem thinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I
+must."</p>
+
+<p>"You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike&mdash;aren't
+you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You make me very angry," she said; "I like you&mdash;I'm quite happy with
+you&mdash;and suddenly you try to tell me that my friendship is lavished on
+an unworthy man; that my taste is low, and that you're a kind of a
+social jackal&mdash;an upper servant&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I feed on what the pack leaves&mdash;and I wash their fragile plates for
+them," he said lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"What else?" she asked, furious.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I
+smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially
+injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother
+jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to
+sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and
+give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment's notice, acting as
+manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost
+control of herself and her fingers closed tight.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you saying!" she said, fiercely. "Are you telling me that this
+is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to&mdash;to think
+about&mdash;think about a great deal&mdash;care enough about to dine with in my
+own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are
+after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?"</p>
+
+<p>He said, slowly: "I could have been anything&mdash;I could be yet&mdash;if
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for
+anybody's!" she retorted.... "I refuse to believe that you are what you
+say, anyway. It hurts&mdash;it hurts&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It hurts <i>me!</i> I <i>do</i> like you. I was glad to see you&mdash;you don't know
+how glad. Your letters to me were&mdash;were interesting. <i>You</i> have always
+been interesting, from the very first&mdash;more so than many men&mdash;more than
+most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If
+I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest
+every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand
+tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted
+handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"I could stand anything!&mdash;my friendship for you could stand almost
+anything except what you pretend you are&mdash;and what other malicious
+tongues will say if you continue to repeat it!&mdash;And it <i>has</i> been said
+already about you! Do you know that? People <i>do</i> say that of you. People
+even say so to me&mdash;tell me you are worthless&mdash;warn me
+against&mdash;against&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Caring&mdash;taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit
+disrespect for yourself! A man&mdash;<i>any</i> man is what he chooses to be, and
+people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in
+pretending to dignity and worth when&mdash;when you can be the peer of any
+man? What's the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of
+you with contempt. I denied what she said.... I'd rather they'd say
+anything else about you&mdash;that you had vices&mdash;a vigorous, wilful,
+unmanageable man's vices!&mdash;than to say <i>that</i> of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you amount to nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care what they say, Mrs. Leeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! It strikes at my own self-respect!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care&mdash;otherwise?"</p>
+
+<p>"I care&mdash;as a friend, naturally&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Otherwise still?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Could you ever care?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, nervously.</p>
+
+<p>She sat breathing faster and more irregularly, watching him. He looked
+up and smiled at her, rested so, a moment, then rose to take his leave.</p>
+
+<p>She stretched out one arm toward the electric bell, but her fingers
+seemed to miss it, and remained resting against the silk-hung wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Must you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd better."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well."</p>
+
+<p>He waited, but she did not touch the bell button. She seemed to be
+waiting for him to go; so he offered his hand, pleasantly, and turned
+away toward the hall. And, rising leisurely, she descended the stairs
+with him in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night," he said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night. I am sorry you are going."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you wish me to remain a little longer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;don't know what I wish...."</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks were deeply flushed; the hand he took into his again seemed
+burning.</p>
+
+<p>"It's fearfully hot in here," she said. "Please muffle up warmly because
+it's bitter weather out doors"&mdash;and she lifted the other hand as though
+unconsciously and passed her finger tips over his fur collar.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you feel feverish?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?"</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't caught malaria in the tropics, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you funny man. I'm never ill. But it's odd how burning hot I seem
+to be&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his.</p>
+
+<p>They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as
+though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the
+quiet around her&mdash;a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a
+delicate mist&mdash;a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred;
+and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his.</p>
+
+<p>At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small
+head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch&mdash;a slight caress over her
+forehead&mdash;the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers,
+closer, never stirring.</p>
+
+<p>Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical
+currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless,
+non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to
+the sorcery.</p>
+
+<p>Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its
+fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her.</p>
+
+<p>She strove to turn her mouth from his&mdash;twisted away from him, straining,
+tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail,
+gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she
+shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even
+look at him, now.</p>
+
+<p>Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood
+there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and glass
+door; a flurry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the
+spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and
+locked the door against her maid.</p>
+
+<p>Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat
+before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and
+lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange
+nerves signalling; stranger responses&mdash;of a subtle fragrance in her
+breath so strange that she became conscious of it.</p>
+
+<p>She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the glass while
+through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew
+tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the
+unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Unknown still!&mdash;for she crouched there shrinking from the
+revelation&mdash;from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf,
+blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of
+self-contempt.</p>
+
+<p>Then fear came&mdash;fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and
+defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already
+dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very
+patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one
+day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser
+passion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had
+sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her&mdash;out of a moment's
+lassitude, a touch of a man's hand, and his lips on hers! And now all
+her life was already behind her&mdash;childhood, girlhood, wifehood&mdash;all,
+all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an
+unknown road; an unknown world before her.</p>
+
+<p>With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty,
+of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce
+humiliation born of self-knowledge&mdash;knowledge scornfully admitted and
+defied with every breath&mdash;but no longer denied.</p>
+
+<p>She <i>was</i> as others were&mdash;fashioned of that same and common clay,
+capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of
+them&mdash;so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant,
+they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things
+of the mind.</p>
+
+<p>Was this the evolution that her winter's idleness and gaiety and the
+fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that
+strange moment, at the door, the moment that man's enemy had been
+awaiting, to find her unprepared?</p>
+
+<p>Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on
+her dresser&mdash;the fairest among the Philistines who had so long
+unconsciously thanked God that she was not like other women in the homes
+of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+
+<p>Strelsa was no longer at home to Quarren, even over the telephone. He
+called her up two or three times in as many days, ventured to present
+himself at her house twice without being received, and finally wrote her
+a note. But at the end of the month the note still remained unanswered.</p>
+
+<p>However, there was news of her, sometimes involving her with Langly
+Sprowl, but more often with Sir Charles Mallison. Also, had Quarren not
+dropped out of everything so completely, he might easily have met her
+dozens of times in dozens of places. But for a month now he had returned
+every day from his office to his room in the Legation, and even the
+members of that important diplomatic body found his door locked, after
+dinner, though his light sometimes brightened the transom until morning.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard, after the final rupture with his aunt, had become a soured
+hermit&mdash;sourer because of the low motives of the public which was buying
+his book by the thousands and reading it for the story, exclusively.</p>
+
+<p>His aunt had cast him off; to him she was the overfed embodiment of
+society, so it pleased him to consider the rupture as one between
+society and himself. It tasted of martyrdom, and now his own public had
+vulgarly gone back on him according to his ideals: nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> cared for his
+economics, his social evils, his moral philosophy; only what he
+considered the unworthy part of his book was eagerly absorbed and
+discussed. The proletariat had grossly betrayed him; a hermit's
+exemplary but embittered career was apparently all that remained for his
+declining years.</p>
+
+<p>So, after dinner, he, too, retired to seclusion behind bolted doors,
+pondering darkly on a philosophic novel which should be no novel at all
+but a dignified and crushing rebuke to mankind&mdash;a solid slice of moral
+cake thickly frosted with social economics, heavy with ethical plums,
+and without any story to it whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile his book had passed into the abhorred class of best sellers.</p>
+
+<p>As for Lacy and O'Hara, both had remarked Quarren's abrupt retirement
+and his absence from that section of the social puddle which he was
+accustomed to embellish and splash in. O'Hara, inclining more toward
+sporting circles, noticed Quarren's absence less; but Lacy, after the
+first week, demanded an explanation at the dinner-table.</p>
+
+<p>"You spoiled a party for Mrs. Lannis," he said&mdash;"and Winnifred Miller
+was almost in tears over the charity tableaux&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote them both in plenty of time, Jack."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But who is there to take your place? Whatever you touch is
+successful. Barent Van Dyne made a dub of himself."</p>
+
+<p>"They must break in another pup," said Quarren, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you're chucking the whole bally thing for keeps?"</p>
+
+<p>"Practically."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked O'Hara, looking up blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Quarren laughing, "I'm curious to find out what business I
+really am in. Until this week I've never had time to discover that I was
+trying to be a broker in real estate. And I've just found out that I've
+been one for almost three years, and never knew it."</p>
+
+<p>"One's own company is the best," growled Westguard. "The monkey people
+sicken you and the public make you ill. Solitude is the only remedy."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for me," said Quarren; "I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and
+on the public; and I'm laying plans to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll turn your stomach&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dry up, Karl!" said O'Hara; "there's a medium between extremes
+where you can get a good sportin' chance at anythin'&mdash;horse, dog,
+girl&mdash;anythin' you fancy. You'd like some of my friends, now,
+Ricky!&mdash;they're a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin' as
+hell&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> don't want to meet any cock-fighters," growled Westguard.</p>
+
+<p>"They're all right, too&mdash;but there are all kinds of interestin' people
+in my circles&mdash;writers like Karl, huntin' people, a professional here
+and there&mdash;and then there's that fascinatin' Mrs. Wyland-Baily, the best
+trap-shot&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Trap-shot," repeated Westguard in disgust, and took his cigar and
+himself into seclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren also pushed back his chair, preparing to rise.</p>
+
+<p>"Doin' anythin'?" inquired O'Hara, desiring to be kind. "Young Calahan
+and the Harlem Mutt have it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> out at the Cataract Club to-night," he
+added persuasively.</p>
+
+<p>"Another time, thanks," said Quarren: "I've letters to write."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>He wrote them&mdash;all the business letters he could think of, concentrating
+his thoughts as much as possible. Afterward he lay down on the lounge
+with a book, and remained there for an hour, although he changed books
+every few minutes. This was becoming a bad habit. But it was difficult
+reading although it ranged from Kipling to the Book of Common Prayer;
+and at last he gave it up and, turning over buried his head in the
+cushions.</p>
+
+<p>This wouldn't do either: he racked his brain for further employment,
+found excuses for other business letters, wrote them, then attacked a
+pile of social matters&mdash;notes and letters heretofore deliberately
+neglected to the ragged edge of decency.</p>
+
+<p>He replied to them all, and invariably in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>It gave him something to do to go out to the nearest lamp post and mail
+his letters. But when again he came back into his room the silence there
+left him hesitating on his threshold.</p>
+
+<p>But he went in and locked his door, and kept his back turned to the desk
+where pen and ink were tempting him as usual, and almost beyond
+endurance now. And at last he weakened, and wrote to her once more:</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Leeds</span>&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"I feel sure that your failure to answer my note of last week was
+unintentional.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Some day, when you have a moment, would you write me a line saying
+that you will be at home to me?</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"Very sincerely yours,<br /></span>
+<br />
+<span class="i10">"<span class="smcap">Richard Stanley Quarren</span>."<br /></span></div>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+<p>He took this note to the nearest District Messenger Office; then
+returned to his room.</p>
+
+<p>After an interminable time the messenger reported for the signature.
+Mrs. Leeds was not at home and he had left the note as directed.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The night was a white one. He did not feel very well when he sat
+scanning the morning paper over his coffee. Recently he had formed the
+custom of reading two columns only in the paper&mdash;Real Estate News and
+Society. In the latter column Strelsa usually figured.</p>
+
+<p>She figured as usual this morning; and he read the fulsome stuff
+attentively. Also there was a flourish concerning an annual event at the
+Santa Regina.</p>
+
+<p>And Quarren read this very carefully; and made up his mind as he
+finished the paragraph.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion he came to over his coffee and newspaper materialised
+that afternoon at a Charity Bazaar, where, as he intended, he met
+Strelsa Leeds face to face. She said, coolly amiable:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been away? One never sees you these days."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been nowhere," he said, pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her pretty head in reproof:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it good policy for a young man to drop out of sight? Our world
+forgets over-night."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed: "Something similar has been intimated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> to me by others&mdash;but
+less gently. I'm afraid I've offended some people."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so you have already been disciplined?"</p>
+
+<p>"Verbally trounced, admonished, and still smarting under the displeasure
+of the powers that reign. They seem to resent my Sunday out&mdash;yet even
+their other domestics have that. And it's the first I've taken in three
+years. I think I'll have to give notice to my Missus."</p>
+
+<p>"The spectre of servitude still seems to obsess your humour," she
+observed indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> that spectre, Mrs. Leeds."</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly look pallid enough for any disembodied rôle. You have not
+been ill, by any chance?"&mdash;carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, thank you. Rude health and I continue to link arms."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is not by chance that you absent yourself from the various
+festivities where your part is usually supposed to be a leading one?"</p>
+
+<p>"All cooks eventually develop a distaste for their own concoctions," he
+explained gravely.</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her eyebrows: "Yet you are here this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. Charity has not yet palled on my palate&mdash;perhaps because I
+need so much myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never considered you an object of charity."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must draw your kind attention to my pitiable case by doing a
+little begging.... Could I ask your forgiveness, for example? And
+perhaps obtain it?"</p>
+
+<p>Her face flushed. "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Quarren," she said
+with decision.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"I scarcely know how to take your&mdash;generosity."</p>
+
+<p>"I offer none. There is no occasion for generosity or for the exercise
+of any virtue, cardinal or otherwise. You have not offended me, nor I
+you&mdash;I trust.... Have I?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby
+groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren
+unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things.
+Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and
+Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman's advent as his own congé,
+took his leave of Strelsa and went his way&mdash;which chanced, also, to be
+the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat.</p>
+
+<p>Susanne Lannis, lips slightly curling, looked after them, touching
+Strelsa's elbow:</p>
+
+<p>"Cyrille simply cannot let Ricky alone," she said. "The bill-posters
+will find a fence for her if she doesn't come to her senses."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" asked Strelsa, as one or two people laughed guardedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cyrille Caldera. <i>Elle s'affiche, ma chère!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Caldera!" repeated the girl, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>And</i> Ricky! Are you blind, Strelsa? It's been on for two weeks or
+more. And she'd better not play too confidently with Ricky. You can
+usually forecast what a wild animal will do, never how a trained one is
+going to behave."</p>
+
+<p>"Such scandal!" laughed Chrysos Lacy. "How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> many of us can afford to
+turn our backs to the rest of the cage even for an instant? Sir Charles,
+I simply don't dare to go away. Otherwise I'd purchase several of those
+glittering articles yonder&mdash;whatever they are. Do you happen to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Automatic revolvers. The cartridges are charged with Japanese perfumes.
+Did you never see one?" he asked, turning to Strelsa. But she was not
+listening; and he transferred his attention to Chrysos.</p>
+
+<p>Several people moved forward to examine the pretty and apparently deadly
+little weapons; Sir Charles was called upon to explain the Japanese game
+of perfumes, and everybody began to purchase the paraphernalia, pistols,
+cartridges, targets, and counters.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles came back, presently, to where Strelsa still stood,
+listlessly examining laces.</p>
+
+<p>"All kinds of poor people have blinded themselves making these pretty
+things," she said, as Sir Charles came up beside her. "My only apparent
+usefulness is to buy them, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>He offered her one of the automatic pistols.</p>
+
+<p>"It's loaded," he cautioned her, solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"What an odd gift!" she said, surprised, taking it gingerly into her
+gloved hand. "Is it really for me? And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you timid about firearms?" he asked, jestingly.</p>
+
+<p>"No.... I don't know anything about them&mdash;except to keep my finger away
+from the trigger. I know enough to do that."</p>
+
+<p>He supposed that she also was jesting, and her fastidious handling of
+the weapon amused him. And when she asked him if it was safe to carry in
+her muff, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> assured her very gravely that she might venture to do so.
+"Turn it loose on the first burglar," he added, "and his regeneration
+will begin in all the forty-nine odours of sanctity."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa smiled without comprehending. Cyrille Caldera was standing just
+beyond them, apparently interested in antique jewellery, trying the
+effect of various linked gems against her lilac gown, and inviting
+Quarren's opinion of the results. Their backs were turned; Ricky's blond
+head seemed to come unreasonably close to Cyrille's at moments. Once
+Mrs. Caldera thoughtlessly laid a pretty hand on his arm as though in
+emphasis. Their unheard conversation was evidently amusing them.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa's smile remained unaltered; people were coming constantly to pay
+their respects to her; and they lingered, attracted and amused by her
+unusual gaiety, charm, and wit.</p>
+
+<p>Her mind seemed suddenly to have become crystal clear; her gay retorts
+to lively badinage, and her laughing epigrams were deliciously
+spontaneous. A slight exhilaration, without apparent reason, was
+transforming her, swiftly, into an incarnation entirely unknown even to
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>Conscious of a wonderful mood never before experienced, perfectly aware
+of her unusual brilliancy and beauty, surprised and interested in the
+sudden revelation of powers within her still unexercised, she felt
+herself, for the first time in her life, in contact with things
+heretofore impalpable&mdash;and, in spirit, with delicate fingers, she
+gathered up instinctively those intangible threads with which man is
+guided as surely as though driven in chains of steel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And all the while she was aware of Quarren's boyish head bending almost
+too near to Cyrille Caldera's over the trays of antique jewels; and all
+the while she was conscious of the transfiguration in process&mdash;that not
+only a new self was being evolved for her out of the débris of the old,
+but that the world itself was changing around her&mdash;and a new Heaven and
+a new earth were being born&mdash;and a new hell.</p>
+
+<p>That evening she fought it out with herself with a sort of deadly
+intelligence. Alone in her room, seated, and facing her mirrored gaze
+unflinchingly, she stated her case, minutely, to herself from beginning
+to end; then called the only witness for the prosecution&mdash;herself&mdash;and
+questioned that witness without mercy.</p>
+
+<p>Did she care for Quarren? Apparently. How much? A great deal. Was she in
+love with him? She could not answer. Wherein did he differ from other
+men she knew&mdash;Sir Charles, for example? She only knew that he <i>was</i>
+different. Perhaps he was nobler? No. More intelligent? No. Kinder? No.
+More admirable? No. More gentle, more sincere, less selfish? No. Did he,
+as a man, compare favorably with other men&mdash;Sir Charles for example? The
+comparison was not in Quarren's favor.</p>
+
+<p>Wherein, then, lay her interest in him? She could not answer. Was she
+perhaps sorry for him? Very. Why? Because she believed him capable of
+better things. Then the basis of her regard for him was founded on pity.
+No; because from the beginning&mdash;even before he had unmasked&mdash;she had
+been sensible of an interest in him different from any interest she had
+ever before felt for any man.</p>
+
+<p>This uncompromisingly honest answer silenced her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> mentally for some
+moments; then she lifted her resolute gray eyes to the eyes of the
+mirrored witness:</p>
+
+<p>If that is true, then the attraction was partly physical? She could not
+answer. Pressed for a statement she admitted that it might be that.</p>
+
+<p>Then the basis of her regard for him was ignoble? She found pleasure in
+his intellectual attractions. But the basis had not been intellectual?
+No. It had been material? Yes. And she had never forgotten the light
+pressure of that masked Harlequin's spangled arm around her while she
+desperately counted out the seconds of that magic minute forfeited to
+him? No; she had never forgotten. It was a sensation totally unknown to
+her before that moment? Yes. Had she experienced it since that time?
+Yes. When? When he first told her that he loved her. And afterward? Yes.
+When?</p>
+
+<p>In the cheeks of the mirrored witness a faint fire began to burn: her
+own face grew pink: but she answered, looking the shadowy witness
+steadily in the eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"When he took my hand at the door&mdash;and during&mdash;whatever
+happened&mdash;afterward."</p>
+
+<p>And she excused the witness and turned her back to the looking-glass.</p>
+
+<p>The only witness for the defence was the accused&mdash;unless her own heart
+were permitted to testify. Or&mdash;and there seemed to be some slight
+confusion here&mdash;<i>was</i> Quarren on trial? Or was she herself?</p>
+
+<p>This threatened to become a serious question; she strove to think
+clearly, to reason; but only evoked the pale, amused face of Quarren
+from inner and chaotic consciousness until the visualisation remained
+fixed, de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>fying obliteration. And she accepted the mental spectre for
+the witness box.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky," she said, "do you really love me?"</p>
+
+<p>But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the
+smile she knew so well&mdash;so well, alas!</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you unworthy?" she said again&mdash;"you who surely are equipped for
+a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is
+so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth
+nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no
+better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many;
+and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor
+boy&mdash;poor boy."</p>
+
+<p>In vain she strove to visualise Sir Charles; she could not. All she
+could do was to mentally enumerate his qualities; and she did so, the
+amused face of Quarren looking on at her from out of empty space.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky, Ricky," she said, "am I no better than that?&mdash;am I fit only for
+such a response?&mdash;to find the contact of your hand so wonderful?&mdash;to
+thrill with the consciousness of your nearness&mdash;to let my senses drift,
+contented merely by your touch&mdash;yielding to the charm of it&mdash;suffering
+even your lips' embrace&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered slightly, drawing one hand across her eyes, then sitting
+straight, she faced his smiling phantom, resolute to end it now forever.</p>
+
+<p>"If I am such a woman," she said, "and you are the kind of man I know
+you to be&mdash;then is it time for me to fast and pray, lest I enter into
+temptation.... Into the one temptation I have never before known,
+Ricky&mdash;and which, in my complacency and pride I never dreamed that I
+should encounter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And it is coming to that!... A girl must be honest with herself or all
+life is only the same smiling lie. I'm ashamed to be honest, Ricky; but
+I must be. You are not very much of a man&mdash;otherwise I might find some
+reason for caring: and now there is none; and yet&mdash;I care&mdash;God knows
+why&mdash;or what it is in you that I care for!&mdash;But I do&mdash;I am beginning to
+care&mdash;and I don't know why; I&mdash;don't&mdash;know why&mdash;&mdash;".</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her face in her hands, sitting there bowed low over her
+knees. And there, hour after hour she fought it out with herself and
+with the amused spectre ever at her elbow&mdash;so close at moments that some
+unaroused nerve fell a-trembling in its sleep, threatening to awaken
+those quiet senses that she already feared for their unknown powers.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The season was approaching its end, still kicking now and then
+spasmodically, but pretty nearly done for. No particularly painful
+incidents marked its demise except the continued absence of Quarren from
+social purlieus accustomed to his gay presence and adroit executive
+abilities.</p>
+
+<p>After several demoralised cotillions had withstood the shock of his
+absence, and a dozen or more functions had become temporarily
+disorganised because he declined to occupy himself with their success;
+and after a number of hostesses had filled in his place at dinner, at
+theatres, at week-ends, on yachts and coaches; and after an
+unprecedented defiance of two summonses to the hazardous presence of
+Mrs. Sprowl, he obeyed a third subp&#339;na, and presented himself with an
+air of cheerful confidence that instantly enraged her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old lady lay abed with nothing more compromising than a toothache;
+Quarren was conducted to the inner shrine; she glared at him hideously
+from her pillows; and for one moment he felt seriously inclined to run.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have you been?" she wheezed.</p>
+
+<p>"Nowhere in particu&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know damn well you've been nowhere," she burst out. "Molly Wycherly's
+dance went to pieces because she was fool enough to trust things to you.
+Do you know who led? That great oaf, Barent Van Dyne! He led like a
+trick elephant, too!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked politely distressed.</p>
+
+<p>"And there are a dozen hostesses perfectly furious with you," continued
+the old lady, pounding the pillows with a fat arm&mdash;"parties of all sorts
+spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank
+failures&mdash;what the devil possesses you to behave this way?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm tired," he said, politely.</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the place suits, Mrs. Sprowl; I haven't any complaint; and the work
+and wages are easy; and it's comfortable below-stairs. But&mdash;I'm just
+tired."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm talking <i>about</i> my employers, and I'm talking <i>like</i> the social
+upper-servant that I am&mdash;or was. I'm merely giving a respectable
+warning; that is the airy purport of my discourse, Mrs. Sprowl."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what you're saying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think so," he said, wearily.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, what the devil <i>are</i> you saying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Merely that I've dropped out of service to engage in trade."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't!" she yelled, sitting up in bed so suddenly that her unquiet
+tooth took the opportunity to assert itself.</p>
+
+<p>She clapped a pudgy hand to her cheek, squinting furiously at Quarren:</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>can't</i> drop out," she shouted. "Don't you ever want to amount to
+anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. That's why I'm doing it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't act like a fool! Haven't you any ambition?"</p>
+
+<p>"That also is why," he said pleasantly. "I am ambitious to be out of
+livery and see what my own kind will do to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'll see!" she threatened&mdash;"you'll see what we'll do to
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You're</i> not my kind. I always supposed you were, but you all knew
+better from the day I took service with you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is perfectly true, Mrs. Sprowl. My admittance included a livery and
+the perennial prerogative of amusing people. But I had no money, no
+family affiliations with the very amiable people who found me useful.
+Only, in common with them, I had the inherent taste for idleness and the
+genius for making it endurable to you all. So you welcomed me very
+warmly; and you have been very kind to me.... But, somewhere or
+other&mdash;in some forgotten corner of me&mdash;an odd and old-fashioned idea
+awoke the other day.... I think perhaps it awoke when you reminded me
+that to serve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> you was one thing and to marry among you something very
+different."</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky! Do you want to drive me to the yelling verge of distraction? I
+didn't say or intimate or dream any such thing! You know perfectly well
+you're not only with us but <i>of</i> us. Nobody ever imagined otherwise. But
+you can't marry any girl you pick out. Sometimes she won't; sometimes
+her family won't. It's the same everywhere. You have no money. Of course
+I intend that you shall eventually marry money&mdash;What the devil are you
+laughing at?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I said that you would marry well. Was that funny? I also said,
+once&mdash;and I repeat it now, that I have my own plans for one or two
+girls&mdash;Strelsa Leeds included. I merely asked you to respect my wishes
+in that single matter; and bang! you go off and blow up and maroon
+yourself and sulk until nobody knows what's the matter with you. Don't
+be a fool. Everybody likes you; every girl <i>can't</i> love you&mdash;but I'll
+bet many of 'em do.... Pick one out and come to me&mdash;if that's your
+trouble. Go ahead and pick out what you fancy; and ten to one it will be
+all right, and between you and me we'll land the little lady!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're tremendously kind&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I am. I'm always doing kindnesses&mdash;and nobody likes me, and
+they'd bite my head off, every one of 'em&mdash;if they weren't afraid it
+would disagree with them," she added grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren rose and came over to the bedside.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Mrs. Sprowl," he said. "And&mdash;I like you&mdash;somehow&mdash;I really
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil you do," said the old lady.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's a curious fact," he insisted, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out with you, Ricky! And I want you to come&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;please."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see some real people again. I've forgotten what they
+resemble."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a damned insolent remark!" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Not meant to be. <i>You</i> are real enough, Heaven knows. But," and his
+smile faded&mdash;"I've taken a month off to think it out. And, do you know,
+thinking being an unaccustomed luxury, I've enjoyed it. Imagine my
+delight and surprise, Mrs. Sprowl, when I discovered that my leisurely
+reflections resulted in the discovery that I had a mind&mdash;a real
+one&mdash;capable of reason and conclusions. And so when I actually came to a
+conclusion my joy knew no bounds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky! Stop those mental athletics! Do you hear? I've a toothache and a
+backache and I can't stand 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren was laughing now; and presently a grim concession to humour
+relaxed the old lady's lips till her fat face creased.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," she said; "go and play with the ragged boy around the
+corner, my son. Then when you're ready come home and get your face
+washed."</p>
+
+<p>"May I come occasionally to chat with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"As though you'd do that if you didn't have to!" she exclaimed
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you know better."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't!" she snapped. "I know men and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> women; that's all I know.
+And as you're one of the two species I don't expect anything celestial
+from you.... And you'd better go, now."</p>
+
+<p>She turned over on her pillow with a grunt: Quarren laughed, lifted one
+of her pudgy and heavily ringed hands from the coverlet, and, still
+smiling, touched the largest diamond with his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said, "that you are one of the very few I really like in
+your funny unreal world.... You're so humanly bad."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" she shouted, floundering to a sitting posture.</p>
+
+<p>But, looking back at her from the door, he found her grinning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Premonitions of spring started the annual social exodus; because in the
+streets of Ascalon and in the busy ways of Gath spring becomes summer
+over night and all Philistia is smitten by the sun.</p>
+
+<p>And all the meanness and shabbiness and effrontery of the monstrous
+city, all its civic pretence and tarnished ostentation are suddenly
+revealed when the summer sun blazes over Ascalon. Wherefore the daintier
+among the Philistines flee&mdash;idler, courtier, dangler and squire of
+dames&mdash;not to return until the first snow-flakes fall and the gray veil
+of November descends once more over the sorry sham of Ascalon.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the
+drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer
+sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and
+millions of them&mdash;and a real sky overhead edging far horizons.</p>
+
+<p>He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being
+hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of
+unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester
+Caldera was to finance for him.</p>
+
+<p>Recently, however, that suave young man had smilingly denied making any
+such promise to anybody; which surprised and disconcerted Quarren who
+had no money with which to build sewers, roads, and electric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> plants.
+And he began to realise how carelessly he had drifted into the
+enterprise&mdash;how carelessly he had drifted into everything and past
+everything for the last five years.</p>
+
+<p>After a hunt for a capitalist among and outside his circle of friends
+and acquaintances he began to appreciate his own lunacy even more
+thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lester Caldera, good-naturedly, offered to take the property off
+his hands for less than a third of what he paid Sprowl for it; and as
+Quarren's adjoining options were rapidly expiring he was forced to
+accept. Which put the boy almost entirely out of business; so he closed
+his handsome office downtown and opened another in the front parlour of
+an old and rather dingy brown-stone house on the east side of Lexington
+Avenue near Fiftieth Street and hung out his sign once more over the
+busy streets of Ascalon.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Richard Stanley Quarren</span><br />
+Real Estate<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Also he gave up his quarters at the Irish Legation to the unfeigned
+grief of the diplomats domiciled there, and established himself in the
+back parlour and extension of the Lexington Avenue house, ready at all
+moments now for business or for sleep. Neither bothered him excessively.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote no more notes to Strelsa Leeds&mdash;that is, he posted no more,
+however many he may have composed. Rumours from the inner temple
+concerning her and Langly Sprowl and Sir Charles Mallison drifted out
+into the real world every day or so. But he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> never went back to the
+temple to verify them. That life was ended for him. Sometimes, sitting
+alone at his desk, he fancied that he could almost hear the far laughter
+of the temple revels, and the humming of the drones. But the roar of the
+street-car, rushing, grinding through the steel-ribbed streets of
+Ascalon always drowned it, and its far seen phantom glitter became a
+burning reality where the mid-day sun struck the office sign outside his
+open window.</p>
+
+<p>Fate, the ugly jade, was making faces at him, all kinds of faces. Just
+now she wore the gaunt mask of poverty, but Quarren continued to ignore
+her, because to him, there was no real menace in her skinny grin, no
+real tragedy in what she threatened.</p>
+
+<p>Real tragedy lay in something very different&mdash;perhaps in manhood awaking
+from ignoble lethargy to learn its own degeneracy in a young girl's
+scornful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>All day long he sat in his office attending to the trivial business that
+came into it&mdash;not enough so far to give him a living.</p>
+
+<p>In the still spring evenings he retired to his quarters in the back
+parlour, bathed, dressed, looking out at the cats on the back fences.
+Then he went forth to dine either at the Legation or with some one of
+the few friends he had cared to retain in that magic-lantern world which
+he at last had found uninhabitable&mdash;a world in which few virile men
+remain very long&mdash;fewer and fewer as the years pass on. For the gilding
+on the temple dome is peeling off; and the laughter is dying out, and
+the hum of the drones sounds drowsy like unreal voices heard in summer
+dreams.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the passing of an imbecile society," declaimed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Westguard&mdash;"the
+dying sounds of its meaningless noise&mdash;the first omens of a silence
+which foretells annihilation. Out of chaos will gradually emerge the
+elements of a real society&mdash;the splendid social and intellectual
+brotherhood of the future&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"See my forthcoming novel," added Lacy, "$1.35 net, for sale at all
+booksellers or sent post-paid on receipt of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You little fashionable fop!" growled Westguard&mdash;"there's a winter
+coming for all butterflies!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen 'em dancing over the snow on a mild and sunny day," retorted
+Lacy. "Karl, my son, the nobly despairing writer with a grouch never yet
+convinced anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't despair," retorted Westguard. "This country is getting what it
+wants and what it deserves, ladled out to it in unappetising gobs. Year
+after year great incoming waves of ignorance sweep us from ocean to
+ocean; but I don't forget that those very waves also carry a constantly
+growing and enlightened class higher and higher toward permanent
+solidity.</p>
+
+<p>"Every annual wave pushes the flotsam of the year before toward the
+solid land. The acquaintance with sordid things is the first real
+impulse toward education. Some day there will be no squalor in the
+land&mdash;neither the physical conditions in our slums nor the arid
+intellectual deserts within the social frontiers."</p>
+
+<p>"But the waves will accomplish that&mdash;not your very worthy novels," said
+Lacy, impudently.</p>
+
+<p>"If you call me 'worthy' I'll bat you on the head," roared Westguard,
+sitting up on the sofa where he had been sprawling; and laughter, loud
+and long, rattled the windows in the Irish Legation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The May night was hot; a sickly breeze stirred the curtains at the open
+windows of Westguard's living room where the Legation was entertaining
+informally.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren, Lacy, O'Hara, and Sir Charles Mallison sat by the window
+playing poker; the Earl of Dankmere, perched on the piano-stool, was
+mournfully rattling off a string of melodies acquired along Broadway;
+Westguard himself, flat on his back, occupied a leather lounge and
+dispensed philosophy when permitted.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," said Lacy, dealing rapidly, "you're only a tin-horn
+philosopher, Karl, but you really could write a good story if you tried.
+Get your people into action. That's the game."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara nodded. "Interestin' people, in books and outside, are always
+doin' things, not talkin'," he said&mdash;"like Sir Charles quietly drawin'
+four cards to a kicker and sayin' nothin'."</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Like old Dankmere, yonder, playing 'Madame Sherry' and not trying to
+tell us why human beings enjoy certain sounds known as harmonies, but
+just keeping busy beating the box&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Like a pretty woman who is contented to be as attractive and cunnin'
+as she can be, and not stoppin' to explain the anatomy of romantic love
+and personal beauty," added O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Like&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake give me a stack of chips and shut up!" shouted
+Westguard, jumping to his feet and striding to the table. "Everybody on
+earth is competent to write a book except an author, but I defy anybody
+to play my poker hands for me! Come on, Dankmere! Let's clean out this
+complacent crowd!"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Dankmere complied, and seated himself at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> table, anxiously
+remarking to Quarren that he had come to America to acquire capital, not
+to spend it. Sir Charles laughed and dealt; Westguard drew five cards,
+attempted to bluff Quarren's full hand, and was scandalously routed.</p>
+
+<p>Again the cards were dealt and O'Hara bet the limit; and the Earl of
+Dankmere came back with an agonised burst of chips that scared out Lacy
+and Sir Charles and left Quarren thinking.</p>
+
+<p>When finally the dust of combat blew clear of the scene Dankmere's
+stacks were nearly gone, and Quarren's had become symmetrical
+sky-scrapers.</p>
+
+<p>Lacy said to Dankmere: "Now that you've learned how to get poor quickly
+you're better prepared for the study of riches and how to acquire 'em.
+Kindly pass the buck unless your misfortunes have paralysed you."</p>
+
+<p>"The whole country," said his lordship, "is nothing but one gigantic
+poker game. I sail on the next steamer. I'm bluffed out."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Dankmere," purred Lacy, "won't the ladies love you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Their demonstrations," said the Earl, "are not keeping me awake
+nights."</p>
+
+<p>"Something keeps Quarren awake nights, judging by his transom light. Is
+it love, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>A slight colour mounted to Quarren's thin cheeks, but he answered
+carelessly: "I read late sometimes.... How many cards do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles Mallison turned his head after a moment and looked at
+Quarren; and meeting his eye, said pleasantly: "I only want one card,
+Quarren. Please give me the right one."</p>
+
+<p>"Which?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Queen of Hearts."</p>
+
+<p>"Dealer draws one also," said the young fellow.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles laid down his hand with a smile:</p>
+
+<p>"Did <i>you</i> fill?" he asked Quarren as everybody else remained out.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind showing," said Quarren sorting out his cards, faces up.</p>
+
+<p>"Which end?" inquired O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>"An interior." And he touched the Queen of Hearts, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Crazy playing and lunatic's luck," commented Lacy. "Dankmere, and you,
+too, Sir Charles, you'd better cut and run for home as fast as your
+little legs can toddle. Quarren is on the loose."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles laughed, glanced at Quarren, then turned to Dankmere.</p>
+
+<p>"It's none of my business," he said, "but if you really are in the
+devilish financial straits you pretend to be, why don't you square up
+things and go into trade?"</p>
+
+<p>"Square things?" repeated the little Earl mournfully; "will somebody
+tell me how? Haven't I been trying out everything? Didn't I back a
+musical comedy of sorts? Didn't I even do a turn in it myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what probably smashed it," observed O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>"He did it very well," laughed Sir Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Dankmere ought to have filled his show full of flossy flappers,"
+insisted Lacy. "Who wants to see an Earl dance and sing? Next time I'll
+manage the company for you, Dankmere&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be no next time," said Dankmere, scanning his cards. "I'm done
+for," he added, dramatically, letting his own ante go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You've lost your nerve," said Quarren, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And everything else, my boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with the heiresses, anyway?" inquired O'Hara
+sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"The matter is that I don't want the sort that want me. Somebody's
+ruined the business in the States. I suppose I might possibly induce a
+Broadway show-girl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The little Earl got up and began to wander around, hands in his pockets,
+repeating:</p>
+
+<p>"I'd make a pretty good actor, in spite of what O'Hara said. It's the
+only thing I like anyway. I can improvise songs, too. Listen to this
+impromptu, you fellows":</p>
+
+<p>And he bent over the piano, still standing, and beat out a jingling
+accompaniment:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I sigh for the maiden I never have seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll make her my countess whatever she's been&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Typewriter, manicure, heiress or queen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aged fifty or thirty or lovely eighteen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Redundant and squatty, or scraggy and lean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Generous spendthrift or miserly mean&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I sigh for the maiden I never have seen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Provided she's padded with wads of Long Green!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Still singing the air he picked up a silk hat and walking-stick and
+began to dance, rather lightly and gracefully, his sunken, heavy-lidded
+eyes fixed nonchalantly on space&mdash;his nimble little feet making no sound
+on the floor as he swung, swayed, and capered under the electric light
+timing his agile steps to his own singing.</p>
+
+<p>Loud applause greeted him; much hand-clapping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> and cries of "Good old
+Dankmere! Three cheers for the British peerage!"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles looked slightly bored, sitting back in his chair and waiting
+for the game to recommence. Which it did with the return of the Earl who
+had now relieved both his intellect and his legs of an accumulated and
+Terpischorean incubus.</p>
+
+<p>"If I was a bigger ass than I am," said the Earl, "I'd go into
+vaudeville and let my creditors howl."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they really send you over here?" asked O'Hara, knowing that his
+lordship made no bones about it.</p>
+
+<p>"They certainly did. And a fine mess I've made of it, haven't I? No
+decent girl wants me&mdash;though why, I don't know, because I'm decent
+enough as men go. But your newspapers make fun of me and my title&mdash;and I
+might as well cut away to Dankmere Tarns and let 'em pick my carcass
+clean."</p>
+
+<p>"What's Dankmere Tarns?" asked O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>"Mine, except the mortgages on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Entailed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"Kept up?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, shut up."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a gallery is that of yours at Dankmere Tarns?" inquired
+Sir Charles, turning around.</p>
+
+<p>"How the devil do I know," replied his lordship fretfully. "I don't know
+anything about pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there not some very valuable ones there?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are a lot of very dirty ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know their value?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't. But I fancy the good ones were sold off long ago&mdash;twenty
+years ago I believe. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> a sale&mdash;a lot of rubbish of sorts. I
+took it for granted that Lister's people cleaned out everything worth
+taking."</p>
+
+<p>"When you go back," said Sir Charles, "inspect that rubbish again.
+Perhaps Lister's people overlooked enough to get you out of your
+financial difficulties. Pictures that sold for £100 twenty years ago
+might bring £1,000 to-day. It's merely a suggestion, Dankmere&mdash;if you'll
+pardon it."</p>
+
+<p>"And a good one," added O'Hara. "I know a lot of interestin' people and
+they tell me that you can sell any rotten old picture over here for any
+amount of money. Sting 'em, Dankmere. Get to 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>"You might send for some of your pictures," said Lacy, "and have a shot
+at the auction-mad amateur. He's too easy."</p>
+
+<p>"And pay duty and storage and gallery hire and auction fees!&mdash;no,
+thanks," replied the little Earl, cautiously. "I've burnt my bally
+fingers too often in schemes."</p>
+
+<p>"I've a back room behind my office," said Quarren. "You can store them
+there if you like, without charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, if they're genuine, there will be no duty to pay," explained
+Sir Charles.</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere sucked on his cigar but made no comment; and the game went on,
+disastrously for him.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said casually to Sir Charles:</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you will be off to Newport, soon."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow. When do you leave town?"</p>
+
+<p>"I expect to remain in town nearly all summer."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that rather hard?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; it doesn't matter much," said the boy indifferently.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Many people are already on the wing," observed Lacy.</p>
+
+<p>"The Calderas have gone, I hear, and the Vernons and Mrs. Sprowl," added
+O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose the Wycherlys will open Witch-Hollow in June," said Quarren
+carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Are you asked?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless you will be," said Sir Charles. "Jim Wycherly is mad about
+aviation and several men are going to send their biplanes up and try 'em
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm goin'," announced O'Hara.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren drew one card, and filled his house. Sir Charles laid aside his
+useless hand with a smile and turned to Quarren:</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Leeds has spoken so often and so pleasantly of you that I have
+been rather hoping I might some day have the opportunity of knowing you
+better. I am very glad that the Legation asked me to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren remained absolutely still for a few moments. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Leeds is very generous in her estimate of me."</p>
+
+<p>"She is a woman of rare qualities."</p>
+
+<p>"Of unusual qualities and rare charm," said Quarren coolly.... "I think,
+Karl, that I'll make it ten more to draw cards. Are you all staying in?"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Before the party broke up&mdash;and it was an early one&mdash;Lord Dankmere turned
+to Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll drop in at your office, if I may, some morning," he said. "May I?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will give me both pleasure and diversion," said Quarren laughing.
+"There is not enough business in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> my office to afford me either. Also
+you are welcome to send for those pictures and store them in my back
+parlour until you can find a purchaser."</p>
+
+<p>"It's an idea, isn't it?" mused his lordship. "Now I don't suppose you
+happen to know anything about such rubbish, do you?&mdash;pictures and that
+sort. What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;yes&mdash;I do, in a way."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil you do! But then I've always been told that you know
+something about everything&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very, very little," said Quarren, laughing. "In an ignorant world
+smatterings are reverenced. But the fashionable Philistine of yesterday,
+who used to boast of his ignorance regarding things artistic and
+intellectual, is becoming a little ashamed of his ignorance&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere, reddening, said bluntly:</p>
+
+<p>"That applies to me; doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon!&mdash;I didn't mean it that way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're right, anyway. I'm damnably ignorant.... See here, Quarren, if I
+send over for some of those pictures of mine, will you give me your
+opinion like a good fellow before I make a bally ass of myself by
+offering probable trash to educated people?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you all I know about your pictures, if that is what you
+mean," said Quarren, much amused.</p>
+
+<p>They shook hands as Sir Charles came up to make his adieux.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," he said to Quarren. "I'm off to Newport to-morrow. And&mdash;I&mdash;I
+promised to ask you to come with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sprowl told me to bring you. You know how informal she is."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren, surprised, glanced sharply at Sir Charles. "I don't believe she
+really wants me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"If she didn't she wouldn't have made me promise to bring you. She's
+that sort, you know. Won't you come? I am sure that Mrs. Leeds, also,
+would be glad to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked him coolly and unpleasantly in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really believe that?" he asked, almost insolently.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles reddened:</p>
+
+<p>"She asked me to say so to you. I heard from her this morning; and I
+have fulfilled her request."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank her for me," returned Quarren, level-eyed and very white.</p>
+
+<p>"Which means?" insisted Sir Charles quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely nothing," said Quarren in a voice which makes enemies.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The following day Sir Charles left for Newport where Mrs. Sprowl had
+opened "Skyland," her villa of pink Tennessee marble, to a lively party
+of young people of which Strelsa Leeds made one. And once more,
+according to the newspapers, her engagement to Sir Charles was expected
+to be announced at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>When Quarren picked up the newspapers from his office desk next morning
+he found the whole story there&mdash;a story to which he had become
+accustomed.</p>
+
+<p>But the next day, the papers repeated the news. And it remained, for the
+first time, uncontradicted by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> anybody. All that morning he sat at his
+desk staring at her picture, reproduced in half-tones on the first page
+of every newspaper in town&mdash;stared at it, and at the neighbouring
+likeness of Sir Charles in the uniform of his late regiment; read once
+more of Strelsa's first marriage with all its sequence of misery and
+degradation; read fulsome columns celebrating her beauty, her
+popularity, her expected engagement to one of the wealthiest Englishmen
+in the world.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs12" id="gs12"></a><img src="images/gs12.jpg" width="320" height="466" alt="&quot;Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement
+to Sir Charles was expected to be announced.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement
+to Sir Charles was expected to be announced.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>He read, also, all about Sir Charles Mallison, V.C.&mdash;the long record of
+his military service, his wealth and the dignified simplicity of his
+life. He read about his immense popularity in England, his vast but
+unostentatious charities, his political and social status.</p>
+
+<p>To Quarren it all meant nothing more definite than a stupid sequence of
+printed words; and he dropped his blond head into both hands and gazed
+out into the sunshine. And presently he remembered the golden dancer
+laughing at him from under her dainty mask&mdash;years and years ago: and
+then he thought of the woman whose smooth young hands once seemed to
+melt so sweetly against his&mdash;thought of her gray eyes tinged with
+violet, and her hair and mouth and throat&mdash;and her cheek faintly
+fragrant against his&mdash;a moment's miracle&mdash;and then, the end&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He made a quick, aimless movement as though impatiently escaping sudden
+pain; cleared his sun-dazzled eyes and began, half blindly, to turn over
+his morning's letters&mdash;circulars, bills, business matters&mdash;and suddenly
+came upon a letter from her.</p>
+
+<p>For a while he merely gazed at it, incredulous of its reality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then he opened the envelope very deliberately and still, scarcely
+convinced, unfolded the scented sheaf of note-paper:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Quarren</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"At Mrs. Sprowl's suggestion I wrote to Sir Charles asking him to
+be kind enough to bring you with him when he came to 'Skyland.'</p>
+
+<p>"Somehow, I am afraid that my informality may have offended you;
+and if this is so, I am sorry. We have been such good friends that
+I supposed I might venture to send you such a message.</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps I ought to have written it to you instead&mdash;I don't
+know. Lately it seems as though many things that I have done have
+been entirely misunderstood.</p>
+
+<p>"It's gray weather here, and the sea looks as though it were
+bad-tempered; and I've been rather discontented, too, this
+morning&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't really mean that. There is a very jolly party here.... I
+believe that I'm growing a little tired of parties.</p>
+
+<p>"Molly has asked me to Witch-Hollow for a quiet week in June, and
+I'm going. She would ask you if I suggested it. Shall I? Because,
+since we last met, once or twice the thought has occurred to me
+that perhaps an explanation was overdue. Not that I should make any
+to you if you and I meet at Witch-Hollow. There isn't any to
+make&mdash;except by my saying that I hope to see you again. Will you be
+content with that admission of guilt?</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to speak to you again that day at the Charity affair, only
+there were so many people bother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>ing&mdash;and you seemed to be so
+delightfully preoccupied with that pretty Cyrille Caldera. I really
+had no decent opportunity to speak to you again without making her
+my mortal enemy&mdash;and you, too, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>"May I dare to be a little friendly now and say that I would like
+to see you? Somehow I feel that even still I may venture to talk to
+you on a different plane and footing from any which exists between
+other men and me. You were once so friendly, so kind, so nice to
+me. You have been nice&mdash;<i>always</i>. And if I seem to have acquired
+any of the hardness, any of the cynical veneer, any of the
+fashionable scepticism and unbelief which, perhaps, no woman
+entirely escapes in my environment, it all softens and relaxes and
+fades and seems to slip away as soon as I begin to talk to
+you&mdash;even on this note-paper. Which is only one way of saying,
+'Please be my friend again!'</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes hear about you from others. I am impressively informed
+that you have given up all frivolous social activity and are now
+most industriously devoting yourself to your real-estate business.
+And I am wondering whether this rather bewildering <i>volte-face</i> is
+to be permanent.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I see no reason for anybody going to extremes. Between the
+hermit's cell and the Palace of Delights there is a quiet and happy
+country. Don't you know that?</p>
+
+<p>"Would you care to write to me and tell me a little about yourself?
+Do you think it odd or capricious of me to write to you? And are
+you perhaps irritated because of my manners which must have seemed
+to you discourteous&mdash;perhaps rude?</p>
+
+<p>"I know of course that you called on me; that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> telephoned; that
+you wrote to me; and that I made no response.</p>
+
+<p>"And I am going to make no explanation. Can your friendship, or
+what may remain of it, stand the strain?</p>
+
+<p>"If it can, please write to me. And forgive me whatever injustice I
+have seemed to do you. I ask it because, although you may not
+believe it, my regard for you has never become less since the night
+that a Harlequin and a golden dancer met in the noisy halls of old
+King Carnival.... Only, the girl who writes you this was younger
+and happier then than I think she ever will be again.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"Your friend&mdash;if you wish&mdash;<br /></span>
+<br />
+<span class="i10">"<span class="smcap">Strelsa Leeds.</span>"<br /></span></div>
+
+
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+<p>He wrote her by return mail:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Leeds</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"When a man has made up his mind to drown without any more fuss, it
+hurts him to be hauled out and resuscitated and told that he is
+still alive.</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean, ultimately, to let me drown, do it now. I've been too
+miserable over you. Also, I was insulting to Sir Charles. He's too
+decent to have told you; but I was. And I can't ask his pardon
+except by mending my manner toward him in future.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a nobody; I haven't any money; and I love you. That is how the
+matter stands this day in May. Let me know the worst and I'll drown
+this time for good and all.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you engaged to marry Sir Charles?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">R. S. Quarren.</span>"<br /></span></div>
+
+
+</blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<p>By return mail came a note from her:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Can you not care for me and still be kind to me, Mr. Quarren? If
+what you say about your regard for me is true&mdash;but it is certainly
+exaggerated, anyway&mdash;should not your attitude toward me include a
+nobler sentiment? I mean friendship. And I know whereof I speak,
+because I am conscious of a capacity for it&mdash;a desire for it&mdash;and
+for you as the object of it. I believe that, if you cared for it, I
+could give you the very best of me in a friendship of the highest
+type.</p>
+
+<p>"It is in me to give it&mdash;a pure, devoted, lofty, untroubled
+friendship, absolutely free of lesser and material sentiments. Am I
+sufficiently frank? I want such a friendship. I need it. I have
+never before offered it to any man&mdash;the kind I mean to give you if
+you wish.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it would satisfy you; I am convinced that yours would
+satisfy me. You don't know how I have missed such a friendship in
+you. I have wanted it from the very beginning of our acquaintance.
+But I had&mdash;problems&mdash;to solve, first; and I had to let our
+friendship lie dormant. Now I have solved my perplexities, and all
+my leisure is for you again, if you will. Do you want it?</p>
+
+<p>"Think over what I have written. Keep my letter for a week and then
+write me. Does my offer not deserve a week's consideration?</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile please keep away from deep water. I do not wish you to
+drown.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">Strelsa Leeds.</span><br /></span></div>
+
+
+<p>"P. S.&mdash;Lord Dankmere is here. He is insufferable. He told Mrs.
+Sprowl that you and he were going into the antique-picture
+business. You wouldn't think of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> going into anything whatever with
+a man of that sort, would you? Or was it merely a British jest?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He wrote at once:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have your letter and will keep it a week before replying.
+But&mdash;are you engaged?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>She answered:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The papers have had me engaged to Barent Van Dyne, to Langly
+Sprowl, to Sir Charles. You may take your choice if you are
+determined to have me engaged to somebody. No doubt you think my
+being engaged would make our future friendship safer. I'll attend
+to it immediately if you wish me to."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Evidently she was in a gay and contrary humour when she wrote so
+flippantly to him. And he replied in kind and quite as lightly. Then, at
+the week's end he wrote her again that he had considered her letter, and
+that he accepted the friendship she offered, and gave her his in return.</p>
+
+<p>She did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote her again a week later, but had no answer. Another week passed,
+and, slowly into his senses crept the dread of deep waters closing
+around him. And after another week he began to wonder, dully, how long
+it would take a man to drown if he made no struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile several dozen crates and packing cases had arrived at the
+Custom House for the Earl of Dankmere; and, in process of time were
+delivered at the real-estate office of R. S. Quarren, littering his
+sleeping quarters and office and overflowing into the extension and
+backyard.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs13" id="gs13"></a><img src="images/gs13.jpg" width="320" height="474" alt="&quot;All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded
+in amazement by the neighbours.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded
+in amazement by the neighbours.&quot;</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and
+Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and
+hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the
+back fences by several astonished cats.</p>
+
+<p>His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and
+some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the
+ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged
+from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their
+ancient un-keyed stretchers.</p>
+
+<p>There were primitives on panels, triptychs, huge canvases in frames
+carved out of solid wood; pictures in battered Italian frames&mdash;some
+floridly Florentine, some exquisitely inlaid on dull azure and
+rose&mdash;pictures in Spanish frames, Dutch frames, English frames, French
+frames of the last century; portraits, landscapes, genre, still
+life&mdash;battle pictures, religious subjects, allegorical canvases,
+mythological&mdash;all stacked up pell-mell in the backyard and regarded in
+amazement by the neighbours, and by two young men who alternately smoked
+and staunched their wounds under the summer sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Dankmere," said Quarren at last, "did your people send over your entire
+collection?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but I thought it might be as well to have plenty of rubbish on hand
+in case a demand should spring up.... What do they look like to you,
+Quarren&mdash;I mean what's your first impression?"</p>
+
+<p>"They look all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. They seem to be genuine enough as far as I can see."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But are they otherwise any good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. I'll go over each canvas very carefully and give you my
+opinion for what it's worth. But, for Heaven's sake, Dankmere, where are
+we going to put all these canvases?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said the Earl gloomily, "I'll be obliged to store what you
+haven't room for. And as I gradually grow poorer and poorer the day will
+arrive when I can't pay storage; and they'll sell 'em under my nose at
+auction, Quarren. And first I know the papers will blossom out with: 'A
+Wonderful Rembrandt discovered in a junk-shop! Ancient picture bought
+for five dollars and pronounced a gem by experts! Lucky purchaser
+refuses a hundred thousand dollars cash!'"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed and turned away into the house; and Dankmere followed,
+gloomily predicting his own approaching financial annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>From his office Quarren telephoned a picture dealer to send men with
+heavy wire, hooks, ladders and other paraphernalia; then he and Dankmere
+made their toilets, resumed their coats, and returned to the sunny
+office to await events.</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments the Earl said abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Would you care to go into this venture with me, Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" said Quarren, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I have my own business, Dankmere&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it enough to keep you busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not yet&mdash;but I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, like a good fellow, help me sell these damned pictures. I haven't
+any money to offer you, Quarren, but if you'll be willing to hang the
+pictures around your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> office here and in the back parlour and the
+extension, and if you'll talk the merry talk to the lunatics who may
+come in to look at 'em and tell 'em what the bally pictures are and fix
+the proper prices&mdash;why&mdash;why, I'll make any arrangement with you that you
+please. Say a half interest, now. Would that be fair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fair? Of course! It's far too liberal an offer&mdash;but I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's worth that to me, Quarren&mdash;if you can see your way to helping me
+out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But my help isn't worth half what these pictures might very easily
+bring&mdash;even at public auction&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? I'd have to pay an auctioneer, an expert to appraise them&mdash;an
+art dealer to hang them in his gallery for a couple of weeks&mdash;either
+that or rent a place by the year. The only way I can recompense you for
+your wall space, for talking art talk to visitors, for fixing prices, is
+to offer you half of what we make. Why not? You pay a pretty stiff rent
+here, don't you? You also pay a servant. You pay for heat and light,
+don't you? So if you'll turn this floor into a combination gallery of
+sorts&mdash;art and real estate, you see&mdash;we'll go into business, egad! What?
+The Dankmere galleries! What? By gad I'll have a sign made to hang out
+there beside your shingle&mdash;only I'm afraid you'll have to pay for it,
+Quarren, and recompense yourself after we sell the first picture."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Dankmere," he protested, very much amused, "I don't want to become
+a picture dealer."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the harm? Take a shot at it, old chap! A young man can't collect
+too many kinds of experience. Take me for example!&mdash;I've sold dogs and
+hunters on commission, gone shares in about every rotten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> scheme anybody
+ever suggested to me, financed a show, and acted in it&mdash;as you
+know&mdash;and, by gad!&mdash;here I am now a dealer in old masters! Be a good
+fellow and come in with me. What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't really know enough about antique pictures to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the odds! Neither do I! My dear sir, we must lie like gentlemen
+for the honour of the Dankmere gallery! What? Along comes a chap walking
+slowly and painfully for the weight of the money in his pockets&mdash;'Ho!'
+says he&mdash;'a genuine Van Dyck!' 'Certainly,' you say, very coldly. And,
+'How much?' says he, shivering for fear he mayn't get it. 'Three hundred
+thousand dollars,' you say, trying not to yawn in his face&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren could no longer control his laughter: Dankmere blinked at him
+amiably.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll hang them anyhow, Dankmere," he said. "As long as there is so
+little business in the office I don't mind looking after your pictures
+for you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yours, too," urged the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I can't accept anything&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's all off!" exclaimed Dankmere, turning a bright red. "I'm
+blessed if I'll accept charity!&mdash;even if I am hunting heiresses. I'll
+marry money if I can, but I'm damned if I hold out a tin cup for
+coppers!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you feel that way," began Quarren, very much embarrassed, "I'll do
+whatever would make you feel comfortable&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Half interest or it's all off! A Dankmere means what he says&mdash;now and
+then."</p>
+
+<p>"One-third interest, then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A half!&mdash;by gad! There's a good fellow!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No; one-third is all I'll accept."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well. It may amount to ten dollars&mdash;it may amount to ten
+thousand&mdash;and ten times that, perhaps. What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said Quarren, smiling. "And, if you're going out, Dankmere,
+perhaps you had better order a sign painted&mdash;anything you like, of
+course. Because I'm afraid I couldn't leave these pictures here
+indefinitely and we might as well make plans to get rid of some of them
+as soon as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Right-o! I'm off to find a painter. Leave it to me, Quarren. And when
+the picture-hangers come, have them hung in a poor light&mdash;I mean the
+pictures&mdash;God knows they need it&mdash;the dimmer the light the better. What?
+Take care of yourself, old chap. There's money in sight, believe me!"</p>
+
+<p>And the lively little Earl trotted out, swinging his stick and setting
+his straw hat at an angle slightly rakish.</p>
+
+<p>No business came to the office that sunny afternoon; neither did the
+picture-hangers. And Quarren, uneasy, and not caring to leave Dankmere's
+ancestral collection of pictures in the back yard all night lest the
+cats and a possible shower knock a little superfluous antiquity into
+them, had just started to go out and hire somebody to help him carry the
+canvases into the basement, when the office door opened in his very face
+and Molly Wycherly came in, breezily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Molly!" he exclaimed, surprised; "this is exceedingly nice of
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ricky, I'm glad to see you! But I don't want to buy a house or sell
+one or anything. I'm very unhappy&mdash;and I'm glad to see you&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She pressed his hand with both her gloved ones; he closed the door and
+returned to the office; and she seated herself on top of his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"You dear boy," she said; "you are thin and white and you don't look
+very happy either. Are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I'm happy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it! Anyway, I was passing, and I saw your shingle
+swinging, and I made the chauffeur stop on the impulse of the moment....
+How are you, Ricky dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"First rate. You are even unusually pretty, Molly."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel so. Strelsa and I came into town for the afternoon&mdash;on the
+most horrid kind of business, Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You will be sorrier when you hear that about all of Strelsa's money was
+in that miserable Adamant Trust Company which is causing so much
+scandal. You didn't know Strelsa's money was in it, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it dreadful? The child doesn't know whether she will ever get a
+penny or not. Some of those disgusting men have run away, one shot
+himself&mdash;you read about it!&mdash;and now they are trying to pretend that the
+two creatures they have arrested are insane and irresponsible. I don't
+care whether they are or not; I'd like to kill them. How does their
+insanity concern Strelsa? For three weeks she hasn't known what to
+think, what to expect&mdash;and even her lawyers can't tell her. I hate
+lawyers. But <i>I</i> think the chances are that her pretty house will be for
+sale before long.... Wouldn't it be too tragic if it came into your
+office&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't say such things, Molly," he said, bending his head over the desk
+and fumbling with his pen.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I knew you'd be sympathetic. It's a shame&mdash;a crime!&mdash;it's
+absolutely disgusting the way that men gamble with other people's money
+and cheat and lie and&mdash;and&mdash;oh, it's a perfectly rotten world and I'm
+tired of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mrs. Leeds?" he asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"At Witch-Hollow&mdash;in town for this afternoon to see her stupid lawyers.
+They don't do anything. They say they can't just yet. They're lazy
+or&mdash;something worse. That's my opinion. We go out on the five-three
+train&mdash;Strelsa and I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she&mdash;much affected?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; and that's the silly part of it. It would simply wreck me. But she
+hasn't wept a single tear.... I suppose she'll have to marry, now&mdash;"
+Mrs. Wycherly glanced askance at Quarren, but his face remained gravely
+expressionless.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I had a frightful row, on your account, with Mrs. Sprowl."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told her I was going to ask you and Strelsa to Witch-Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do it then, Molly. There's no use of your getting in wrong with
+Mrs. Sprowl."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wycherly laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I found a way around. I asked Mrs. Sprowl and Sir Charles at the
+same time."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" he said, turning a colourless face to hers.</p>
+
+<p>"What I say. Ricky dear, I suppose that Strelsa <i>will</i> have to marry a
+wealthy man, now&mdash;and I believe she realises it, too&mdash;but I&mdash;I <i>wanted</i>
+her to marry you, some day&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He swung around again, confronting her.</p>
+
+<p>"You darling!" he said under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wycherly's lip trembled and she dabbed at her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could express my feelings like Mrs. Sprowl, but I can't," she
+said naïvely. "Sir Charles will marry her, now; I know perfectly well he
+will&mdash;unless Langly Sprowl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren drew his breath sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that man," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"God knows, Ricky. He's after Strelsa every minute&mdash;and he can make
+himself agreeable. The worst of it is that Strelsa does not believe what
+she hears about him. Women are that way, often. The moment the whole
+world pitches into a man, women are inclined to believe him a
+martyr&mdash;and end by discrediting every unworthy story concerning him....
+I don't know, but I think it is already a little that way with
+Strelsa.... He's a clever brute&mdash;and oh! what a remorseless man!... I
+said that once to Strelsa, and she said very warmly that I entirely
+misjudged him.... I wish Mary Ledwith would come back and bring things
+to a crisis&mdash;I do, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said, calmly;</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think Mrs. Leeds is engaged to Sprowl, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No.... I don't think so. Sometimes I don't know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> what to think of
+Strelsa. I'm certain that she was not engaged to him four weeks ago when
+she was at Newport."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren gazed out into the sunlit street. It was just four weeks ago
+that her letters ceased. Had she stopped writing because of worry over
+the Adamant Trust? Or was there another reason?</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said Molly, dabbing at her eyes, "that Strelsa can't pick
+and choose now. I suppose she's got to marry for sordid and sensible and
+material reasons. But if only she would choose Sir Charles&mdash;I think I
+could be almost reconciled to her losing you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"An irreparable loss to any woman," he said. "I doubt that Mrs. Leeds
+survives losing me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky! She cares a great deal for you! So do I. And Strelsa <i>does</i> care
+for you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not too rashly I hope," he said with another disagreeable laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that isn't like you, Ricky! You're not the sneering, fleering nasty
+kind. If you are badly hurt, take it better than that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't!" he said between set teeth. "I care for her; she knows it. I
+guess she knows, too, that what she once said to me started me into what
+I'm doing now&mdash;working, waiting, living like a dog&mdash;doing my best to
+keep my self-respect and obtain hers&mdash;" He choked, regained his
+self-control, and went on quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you think I dropped out of everything? To try to develop
+whatever may be in me&mdash;so that I could speak to her as an equal and not
+as the court jester and favourite mountebank of the degenerate gang she
+travels with&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ricky!"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not offended, you poor boy.... I hadn't realised that you were so
+much in love with her&mdash;so deeply concerned&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have always been.... She knows it...." He cleared his eyes and turned
+a dazed gaze on the sunny street once more.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could&mdash;" he stopped; a hopeless look came into his eyes. Then he
+slowly shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ricky! Ricky! Can't you do something? Can't you make a lot of money
+very quickly? You see Strelsa has simply got to marry money. Be fair; be
+just to her. A girl can't exist without money, can she? You know that,
+don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard your world say so."</p>
+
+<p>"You know it's true!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what is true. I don't know truth from falsehood. I suppose
+that love requires money to keep it nourished&mdash;as roses require
+manure&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm speaking of <i>your</i> world&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My world! The entire world knows that money is necessary&mdash;except
+perhaps a silly sentimentalist here and there&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there are one or two&mdash;here and there," he said. "But they're all
+poor&mdash;and prejudiced."</p>
+
+<p>Molly applied her handkerchief to her eyes, viciously.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope <i>you</i> are not one, Ricky. I'm sure I'm not fool enough to expect
+a girl who has been accustomed to everything to be contented without
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"There's her husband as an asset."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, don't talk slush!"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And&mdash;children&mdash;perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"And no money to educate them! You dear boy, there is nothing to
+do&mdash;absolutely nothing&mdash;unless it's based on money. You know it; I know
+it. People without it are intolerable&mdash;a nuisance to everybody and to
+themselves. What could Strelsa find in life without the means to enjoy
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;perhaps.... But I believe I'll ask her."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll tell you the truth, Ricky. She's an unusually truthful woman....
+I must go downtown. Strelsa and I are lunching"&mdash;she reddened&mdash;"with
+Langly.... His aunt would kill me if she heard of it.... I positively do
+not dare ask Langly to Witch-Hollow because I'm so deadly afraid of that
+fat old woman!... Besides, I don't want him there&mdash;although&mdash;if Strelsa
+<i>has</i> to marry him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She fell silent and thoughtful, reflecting, perhaps, that if Strelsa was
+going to take Langly Sprowl, her own country house might as well have
+the benefit of any fashionable and social glamour incident to the
+announcement.</p>
+
+<p>Then, glancing at Quarren, her heart smote her, and she flushed:</p>
+
+<p>"Come up to Witch-Hollow, Ricky dear, and get her to elope with you if
+you can! Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come to Witch-Hollow if you ask me."</p>
+
+<p>"That's ducky of you. You <i>are</i> a good sport, Ricky&mdash;and always were! Go
+on and marry her if you can. Other women have stood it.... And, I know
+it's vulgar and low and catty of me&mdash;but I'd love to see Mrs. Sprowl
+blow up&mdash;and see that hatchet-faced Langly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> disappointed&mdash;yes, I would,
+and I don't care what you think! Their ancestors were common people, and
+Heaven knows why a Wycherly of Wycherly should be afraid of the
+descendants of Dutch rum smugglers!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked up with a weary smile.</p>
+
+<p>"But you are afraid," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," admitted Molly, furiously; and marched out.</p>
+
+<p>As he put her into her car he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Write me if you don't change your mind about asking me to
+Witch-Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>"No fear," said the pretty little woman; "and," she added, "I hope you
+make mischief and raise the very dickens all around. I sincerely hope
+you do!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, too," he said with the ghost of a smile.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs14" id="gs14"></a><img src="images/gs14.jpg" width="320" height="463" alt="&quot;A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first
+time in nearly two months.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first
+time in nearly two months.&quot;</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly
+two months.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Quarren</span>,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Molly says that she saw you in town two weeks ago, and that she
+told you how unexpectedly my worldly affairs have altered since I
+last wrote to you.</p>
+
+<p>"For me, somehow or other, life has been always a sequence of
+abrupt experiences&mdash;a series of extremes&mdash;one grotesque
+exaggeration after another, and all diametrically opposed. And it
+seems odd that such radically material transformations should so
+ruthlessly disturb and finally, now, end by completely altering the
+character of a girl whose real nature is&mdash;or was&mdash;unaccented and
+serene to the verge of indifference. For the woman writing this is
+very different from the one you knew as Strelsa Leeds.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not yet sure what the outcome of this Adamant affair will be.
+Neither, apparently, are my attorneys. But it is absolutely certain
+that if I ever recover anything at all, it will not amount to very
+much&mdash;not nearly enough to live on.</p>
+
+<p>"When they first brought the unpleasant news to me my instinct was
+to sit down and write you about it. I was horribly scared, and
+wanted you to know it.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't yield to the impulse as you know&mdash;I can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>not give you the
+reasons why. They were merely intuitions at first; later they
+became reasons as my financial situation developed in all its
+annoying proportions.</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you only this: before material disaster threatened me
+out of a clear sky, supposing that matters would always remain with
+me as they were&mdash;that I should never know any serious want, never
+apprehend actual necessity&mdash;I had made up my mind to a course of
+life which now has become impossible.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not, perhaps, a very admirable plan of existence that I had
+conceived for myself, nothing radical or original. I meant, merely,
+<i>not</i> to marry, to live well within my income, to divide my time
+between my friends and myself&mdash;that is to give myself more leisure
+for self-development, tranquil cultivation, and a wider and more
+serious interest in things worthy.</p>
+
+<p>"If by dividing my time between my friends and myself I was to lose
+touch more or less with the lively and rather exacting society in
+which I live, I had decided on the sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"And that, Mr. Quarren, is how matters stood with me until a month
+ago.</p>
+
+<p>"Now everything is altered&mdash;even my own character I think. There is
+in me very little courage&mdash;and, alas, much of that cowardice which
+shrinks from pain and privation of any kind&mdash;which cringes the more
+basely, perhaps, because there has been, in my life, so much of
+sorrow, so little of material ease and tranquility of mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I had been dreaming of a balanced and secure life with leisure to
+develop mental resources hitherto neglected. And your
+friendship&mdash;our new understanding&mdash;meant much of that part of life
+for me&mdash;more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> than I realised&mdash;far more than you do. Can you
+understand how deep the hurt is?&mdash;deeper because now you will learn
+what a coward I really am and how selfishly I surrender to the
+menace of material destruction. I am in dire terror of it; I simply
+do not choose to endure it. That I need not submit to it, inspires
+in me the low type of equanimity that enables me to face the future
+with apparent courage. My world applauds it as pluck. I have
+confessed to you what it really is.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you know me, Mr. Quarren&mdash;a preacher of lofty ideals while
+prosperous, a recreant in adversity.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought once that the most ignoble sentiments ever entertained
+by man were those lesser and physical emotions which, in the world,
+masquerade as love&mdash;or as an essential part of it. To me they
+always seemed intolerable as any part of love, material, unworthy,
+base. To me love was intellectual&mdash;could be nothing less lofty&mdash;and
+should aspire to the spiritual.</p>
+
+<p>"I say this because you once tried to make me understand that you
+loved me.</p>
+
+<p>"Marriage of two minds with nothing material to sully an ideal
+union was what I had dreamed of. I might have cared for you that
+way when a marriage tainted with lesser emotions repelled me. And
+now, like all iconoclasts, I end by shattering my own complacent
+image, and the fragments have fallen to the lowest depth of all.</p>
+
+<p>"For I contemplate a mariage de convenance&mdash;and I scarcely care
+whom I marry as long as he removes from me this terror of a sordid
+and needy future.</p>
+
+<p>"All ideals, all desire for higher and better things&mdash;for a noble
+leisure and the quiet pleasures of self-development, have
+gone&mdash;vanished utterly. Fear sickens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> me night and day&mdash;the same
+dull dread that I have known so many, many years in my life&mdash;a
+blind horror of more unhappiness and pain after two years of
+silence&mdash;that breathless stillness which frightened wounded things
+know while they lie, panting, dazed listening for the coming
+footsteps of that remorseless Fate which struck them down from
+afar.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you this, Mr. Quarren, because it is due to you if you
+really love me&mdash;or if you once did love me&mdash;because when you have
+read this you will no longer care for me.</p>
+
+<p>"One evening you made me understand that you cared for me; and I
+replied to you only by a dazed silence that neither you nor I
+entirely understood at the time. It was not contempt for you&mdash;yet,
+perhaps, I could not really have cared very deeply for such a man
+as you then seemed to be. It was not intellectual indifference that
+silenced me.... And I can say no more about it&mdash;except
+that&mdash;something&mdash;changed me radically from that moment&mdash;and ever
+since I have been trying to understand myself&mdash;to learn something
+about myself&mdash;and of the world I live in&mdash;and of men.</p>
+
+<p>"When a crisis arrives self-revelation comes in a single flash. My
+financial crisis arrived as you know; I suddenly saw myself as I
+am&mdash;a woman astonishingly undeveloped and ignorant in many ways,
+crude, unawakened, stupid&mdash;a woman half-blinded with an unreasoning
+dread of more pain&mdash;pain which she thought had at last been left
+behind her&mdash;and a coward all through; and selfish from head to
+heel.</p>
+
+<p>"This is what I <i>really</i> am. And I shall prove it by marrying for
+reasons entirely material, because I have no courage to ever again
+face adversity and unhappiness.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs15" id="gs15"></a><img src="images/gs15.jpg" width="640" height="446" alt="&quot;&#39;I say, Quarren&mdash;does this old lady hang next to
+the battered party in black?&#39;&quot;" title="" /> <span class="caption">&quot;&#39;I say, Quarren&mdash;does this old lady hang next to
+the battered party in black?&#39;&quot;</span></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>"You will not care to write to me; and you will not care to see me
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you once cared for me. If you should ever reply to this
+letter, don't be very unkind to me. I know what I am&mdash;and I vaguely
+surmise what I shall lose by being so. But I have no courage for
+anything else.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">Strelsa Leeds.</span>"<br /></span></div>
+
+
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>That was the letter she wrote to Quarren; and he read it standing by his
+desk while several noisy workmen were covering every available inch of
+his walls with Dankmere's family pictures, and the little Earl himself,
+whistling a lively air, trotted about superintending everything with all
+the cheerful self-confidence of a family dog regulating everything that
+goes on in his vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Quarren&mdash;does this old lady hang next to the battered party in
+black?" he demanded briskly.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked around; "Yes," he said, "they're both by Nicholas Maas
+according to your list."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> think they're bally fakes," remarked the Earl, "don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try to find out," said Quarren, absently.</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere puffed away on his cigar and consulted his list: "Reynolds (Sir
+Joshua). Portrait of Lady Dankmere," he read; "portrait of Sir Boggs
+Dankmere!&mdash;string 'em up aloft over that jolly little lady with no frock
+on!&mdash;Rembrandt (Van Rijn). Born near Leyden, July 15th, 1607&mdash;Oh, who
+cares as long as it <i>is</i> a Rembrandt!&mdash;Is it, Quarren? It isn't a copy,
+is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not," said the young fellow absently.</p>
+
+<p>"Egad! So do I." And to the workmen&mdash;"Phile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>mon and Baucis by Rembrandt!
+Hang 'em up next to that Romney&mdash;over the Jan Steen ... Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think that St. Michael's Mount is a real Turner?"</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like it. I can't express opinions off-hand, Dankmere."</p>
+
+<p>"I can," said the little Earl; "and I say that if that <i>is</i> a Turner I
+can beat it myself working with tomato catsup, an underdone omelette,
+and a clothes-brush.... Hello! I like this picture. The list calls it a
+Watteau&mdash;'The Fête Champêtre.' What do you know about it, Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing yet. It seems to be genuine enough."</p>
+
+<p>"And this pretty girl by Boucher?"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Dankmere, that I don't know. They all appear to be genuine,
+after a superficial examination. It takes time to be sure about any
+picture&mdash;and if we're going to be certain it will require confabs with
+authorities&mdash;restorers, dealers, experts, curators from various
+museums&mdash;all sorts and conditions of people must be approached and
+warily consulted&mdash;and paid," he added smiling. "And that has to be done
+with circumspection because some are not honest and we don't want
+anybody to get the impression that we are attempting to bribe anybody
+for a favourable verdict."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later he went across the street and telegraphed to Molly
+Wycherly:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"May I remind you that you asked me to Witch-Hollow?</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4"><span class="smcap">Quarren.</span>"<br /></span></div>
+
+
+
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The following morning after the workmen had departed, he and Dankmere
+stood contemplating the trans<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>formations wrought in the office, back
+parlour, and extension of Quarren's floor in the shabby old Lexington
+Avenue house.</p>
+
+<p>The transformation was complete; all woodwork had been painted white, a
+gray-green paper hung on the walls, the floor stained dark brown and
+covered with several antique rugs which had come with the pictures&mdash;a
+Fereghan, a Ladik, and an ancient Herez with rose and sapphire lights in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the suite hung another relic of Dankmere Tarns&mdash;a Gobelins
+tapestry about ten by twelve, signed by Audran, the subject of which was
+Boucher's "Venus, Mars, and Vulcan" from the picture in the Wallace
+Collection. Opposite it was suspended an old Persian carpet of the
+sixteenth century&mdash;a magnificent Dankmere heirloom woven in the golden
+age of ancient Eastern art and displaying amid the soft splendour of its
+matchless hues the strange and exquisitely arched cloud-forms traced in
+forgotten dyes amid a wilderness of delicate flowers and vines.</p>
+
+<p>Between these two fabrics, filling the walls from base-board to ceiling,
+were ranged Dankmere's pictures. Few traces of the real-estate office
+remained&mdash;merely a desk, letter-file, a shelf piled up with maps, and
+Quarren's shingle outside; but this was now overshadowed by the severely
+magnificent sign:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE DANKMERE GALLERY<br />
+OF<br />
+OLD MASTERS<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Algernon Fayre, R. S. Quarren</span> &amp; Co.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For Lord Dankmere, otherwise Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, Earl of
+Dankmere, had decided to dedicate to trade only a portion of his
+aristocratic appellations. As for the company, it consisted of Quarren's
+cat, Daisy, and her litter of unweaned kittens.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you realise," said Quarren, dropping into the depths of a new
+easy-chair, "that you have almost put me out of business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you weren't in very deeply, you know," commented Dankmere.</p>
+
+<p>"No; but last week I went to bed a broker in real estate; and this week
+I wake up a picture dealer and your partner. It's going to take most of
+my time. I can't sell a picture unless I know what it is. I've got to
+find out&mdash;or try to. Do you know what that means?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy it means chucking your real estate," said Dankmere,
+imperturbably. "Why not? This is a better gamble. And if we make
+anything we ought to make something worth while."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you propose that I shall simply drop my entire business&mdash;close up
+everything and go into this thing permanently?" demanded Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"It will come to that, ultimately. Don't you want to?"</p>
+
+<p>From the beginning Quarren had felt, vaguely, that it would come to
+that&mdash;realised instinctively that in such an enterprise he would be on
+solid ground&mdash;that the idea was pleasant to him&mdash;that his tastes fitted
+him for such an occupation. Experience was lacking, but, somehow, his
+ignorance did not dismay him.</p>
+
+<p>All his life he had cared for such things, been familiar with them, been
+curious to learn more, had read enough to understand something of the
+fascinating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> problems now confronting him, had, in his hours of leisure,
+familiarised himself with the best of art in the public and private
+galleries of the city.</p>
+
+<p>More than that a natural inclination and curiosity had led him among
+dealers, restorers, brokers of pictures. He knew them all from Fifth
+Avenue to Lexington, the celebrated and the obscure; he had heard them
+talk, heard the gossip and scandal of their curious world, watched them
+buying, selling, restoring, relining, reframing; listened to their
+discussions concerning their art and the art in which they dealt. And it
+had always fascinated him although, until Dankmere arrived, it had never
+occurred to him to make a living out of a heterogeneous mass of partly
+assimilated knowledge acquired from the sheer love of the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunate the man whose means of livelihood is also his pleasure! Deep
+in his heart lies the unconscious contentment of certainty.</p>
+
+<p>And somehow, with the advent of Dankmere's pictures, into Quarren's
+troubled heart had come a vague sensation of ease&mdash;a cessation of the
+old anxiety and unrest&mdash;a quiet that he had never before known.</p>
+
+<p>To learn what his wares really were seemed no formidable task; to
+appreciate and appraise each one only little labours of love. Every
+problem appeared to him as a separate attraction; the disposal of his
+stock a delightful and leisurely certainty because he himself would be
+certain of what he dealt in.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, his mind had long since invaded a future which day by day
+grew more alluring in its suggestions. He himself would learn the
+practical and manual art of restoration&mdash;learn how to clean, reline,
+revarnish; how to identify, how to dissect. Every thread of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> ancient
+canvas should tell him a true story; every grain in an old panel. He
+would be chief surgeon in his hospital for old and decrepit
+masterpieces; he would "cradle" with his own hands&mdash;clear the opacity
+from time-dimmed beauty with savant touch, knit up tenderly the wounds
+of ages&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dankmere," he said, throwing away his cigarette, "I'm going into this
+business from this minute; and I would like to die in harness, at the
+end, the companion, surgeon, and friend of old-time pictures. Do you
+think I can make a living at it?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows. Do you mean that you're really keen on it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead keen."</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere puffed on his cigar: "A chap usually makes out pretty well when
+he's a bit keen on anything of sorts. You'll be owning the gallery,
+next, you infernal Yankee!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed: "I won't forget that you gave me my first real chance
+in the world. You've done it, too; do you realise it, Dankmere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very glad I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I!" said Quarren with sudden emphasis. "I believe I'm on the
+right track now. I believe it's in me&mdash;in my heart&mdash;to work&mdash;to
+<i>work</i>!"&mdash;he laughed&mdash;"as the old chronicles say, 'To the glory of God
+and the happiness of self and mankind.' ... I'm grateful to you; do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Awf'lly glad, old chap."</p>
+
+<p>"You funny Englishman&mdash;I believe you are.... And we'll make this thing
+go. Down comes my real-estate shingle; I'm a part of the Dankmere
+Galleries now. I'll rent the basement after our first sale and there
+you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> and I will fuss and tinker and doctor and nurse any poor old
+derelict of a picture back to its pristine beauty. What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," said the little Earl. "All I'm good for is to furnish the
+initial stock. You may do what you please with it, and we'll share
+profits according to contract. Further than that, Quarren, you'll have
+to count me out."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you care for pictures?"</p>
+
+<p>"I prefer horses," said the Earl drily&mdash;"and, after the stable and
+kennel, my taste inclines toward Vaudeville." And he cocked up one
+little leg over the other and whistled industriously at a waltz which he
+was attempting to compose. He possessed a high, maddening, soprano
+whistle which Quarren found painful to endure; and he was glad when his
+lordship departed, jauntily twirling his walking-stick and taking fancy
+dance steps as far as the front door.</p>
+
+<p>Left alone Quarren leaned back in his chair resting his head against the
+new olive-tinted velvet.</p>
+
+<p>He had nothing to do but sit there and gaze at the pictures and wait for
+an answer to his telegram.</p>
+
+<p>It came about dusk and he lighted the gas to read it:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Come up to Witch-Hollow to-morrow.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">Marie Wycherly.</span>"<br /></span></div>
+
+
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>He could not leave until he had planned for work to go on during his
+absence. First he arranged with Valasco to identify as nearly as
+possible, and to appraise, the French and Italian pictures. Then he made
+an arrangement with Van Boschoven for the Dutch and Flemish; secured
+Drayton-Quinn for the English; and warned Dankmere not to bother or
+interfere with these tempera<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>mental and irascible gentlemen while in
+exercise of their professional duties.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't whistle, don't do abrupt skirt-dances, don't sing comic songs,
+don't obscure the air with cigar smoke, don't go to sleep on the sofa
+and snore, don't drink fizzes and rattle the ice in your glass&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" faltered his lordship, "do you mind if I breathe now and
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be away a few days&mdash;Valasco is slow, and the others take their
+time. Let anybody come in who wants to, but don't sell anything until
+the experts report to me in writing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose some chap rushes in with ten thousand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. Chaps who rush in with any serious money at all will
+rush in again all the faster if you make them wait. Don't sell a
+picture&mdash;not even to Valasco or any of the experts&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose a charming lady&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now you understand, don't you? I wouldn't think of selling a single
+canvas until I have their reports and have made up my own mind that
+they're as nearly right as any expert can be who didn't actually see the
+artist paint the picture. The only trustworthy expert is the man who saw
+the picture painted&mdash;if you can believe his word."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear Quarren," protested Dankmere, seriously bewildered&mdash;"how
+could any living expert ever have seen an artist, who died two hundred
+years ago, paint anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right," said Quarren solemnly; "the point is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> keenly taken. Ergo, there
+<i>are</i> no real experts, only guessers. When Valasco <i>et al</i> finish their
+guessing, I'll guess how near they have guessed correctly. Good-bye....
+You <i>will</i> be good, won't you, Dankmere?"</p>
+
+<p>"No fear. I'll keep my weather eye on the shop. Do you want me to sleep
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better, I think. But don't have rowdy parties here, will you? And
+don't wander away and leave the door open. By George! I believe I'd
+better stay&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rot! Go on and take your vacation, old chap! Back in a week?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; or any time you wire me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I. I'll have a jolly time by myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't have too many men here in the evening. The smoke will get into
+those new curtains&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere, in his trousers and undershirt, stretched on the divan,
+laughed and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. Then, reaching forth
+he took a palm-leaf fan in one hand, a tall, frosty glass in the other,
+and applied both in a manner from which he could extract the most
+benefit.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon voyage!" he nodded to Quarren. "My duties and compliments and all
+that&mdash;and pick me out an heiress of sorts&mdash;there's a good fellow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>As Quarren went out he heard his lordship burst forth into his
+distressing whistle; and he left him searching piercingly for
+inspiration to complete his "Coster's Hornpipe."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>On the train Quarren bought the evening papers; and the first item that
+met his eye was a front-page column devoted to the Dankmere Galleries.
+Every paper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> had broken out into glaring scare-heads announcing the
+recent despoiling of Dankmere Tarns and the venture into trade of
+Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, tenth Earl of Dankmere. The majority of
+papers were facetious, one or two scathing, but the more respectable
+journals managed to repress a part of their characteristic antagonism
+and report the matter with a minimum of venom and a rather exhaustive
+historical accompaniment:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">
+"POOR PEERS EAGER TO SELL HEIRLOOMS<br />
+<br />
+"LORD DANKMERE'S CASE SAID TO BE ONE OF DOZENS<br />
+AMONG THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY<br />
+<br />
+"GAMBLING SPIRIT BLAMED<br />
+<br />
+"OBSERVERS ASCRIBE POVERTY OF OLD BRITISH FAMILIES<br />
+TO THIS CAUSE&mdash;MANY RENT ROLLS DECLARED<br />
+TO BE MORTGAGED<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"The opening of the so-called Dankmere galleries on Lexington
+Avenue will bring into the lime-light once more a sprightly though
+somewhat world-battered little Peer recently and disastrously
+connected with the stage and its feminine adjuncts.</p>
+
+<p>"The Dankmere galleries blossom in a shabby old house flanked on
+one side by a Chop-Suey restaurant haunted of celestials, and on
+the other by an undertaker's establishment displaying the following
+enterprising sign: Mortem's Popular $50 Funerals! Bury Your Family
+at Attractive Prices!</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"GAMBLING DID IT!<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Gambling usually lands the British Peer on his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> aristocratic
+uppers. But in this case gambolling behind the footlights is
+responsible for the present display of the Dankmere family pictures
+in the converted real-estate offices of young Mr. Quarren of
+cotillion fame.</p>
+
+<p>"Among supposedly well-to-do English nobles the need for ready cash
+so frequently reaches the acute stage that all manner of schemes
+are readily resorted to in an effort to 'raise the wind.'</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Dankmere openly admits that had he supposed any valuable
+'junk' lay concealed in the attics of his mansion, he would,
+without hesitation, have converted it into ready money long before
+this.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Dankmere's case is only one typical of dozens of others among
+the exclusive and highly placed of Mayfair. It is a known fact that
+since the sale of the Capri Madonna (Titian) for $350,000 to the
+British Government, by special act of Parliament, Daffydill Palace
+has gradually been unloaded of all treasures not tied by the entail
+to the estate. For the same sum ($350,000) the late Earl of
+Blitherington disposed of his famous Library and the sale of the
+library was known to be necessary for the provision of living funds
+for the incoming heir. Just recently the Duke of Putney, reputed to
+be a man of vast wealth, had a difficulty with a dealer concerning
+the sale of some of his treasures.</p>
+
+<p>"Such cases may be justified by circumstances. The general public
+hears, however, of only a few isolated cases. The number of private
+deals that are executed, week in, week out, between impoverished
+members of the highest nobility&mdash;some of them bound, like Lord
+Blith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>erington and the Duke of Putney by close official ties to the
+Court&mdash;and the agents of either new-rich Britishers or wealthy
+Americans has reached its maximum, and by degrees unentailed
+treasures and heirlooms are passing from owners of many centuries
+to families that were unheard of a dozen years ago.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"THE AWFUL YANKEE<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"The American is given priority in the matter of purchase, not only
+because he pays more, as a rule, but also for the reason that the
+transfer of his prize to the United States removes the possibility
+of noble sellers being pestered with awkward questions by the
+inquisitive. For, however unostentatiously home deals are made and
+transfers effected, society soon learns the facts. So hard up,
+however, has the better-known aristocracy become, and so willing
+are they to trade at fancy sums to anxious purchasers, that several
+curio dealers in the St. James's quarter hold unlimited power of
+attorney to act for plutocratic American principals either in the
+United States or in this country.</p>
+
+<p>"Those who are reasonably entitled to explain the cause of this
+poverty among old families, whose landed estates are unimpaired in
+acreage at least, and whose inheritance was of respectable
+proportions, declare that not since the eighteenth century has the
+gambling spirit so persistently invaded the inside coteries of high
+society. The desire to acquire riches quickly seems to have taken
+hold of the erstwhile staid and conventional upper ten, just as it
+has seized upon the smart set. The recent booms in oil and rubber
+have had the effect of transferring many a comfortable rent roll
+from its own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>er's bankers&mdash;milady's just as often as milord's&mdash;to
+the chartered mortgagors of the financial world. The panic in
+America in 1907 showed to what extent the English nobility was
+interested, not only in gilt-edged securities, but also to what
+degree it was involved in wildcat finance. The directing geniuses
+of many of the suspect ventures of to-day in London are often the
+possessors of names that are writ rubric in the pages of Debrett
+and Burke.</p>
+
+<p>"According to a London radical paper, there are at present over a
+score of estates in the auction mart which must soon pass from some
+of the bluest-blooded nobles in Great Britain to men whose fortunes
+have grown in the past few years from the humblest beginnings, a
+fact which itself cannot fail to change both the tone and
+constitution of town and country society."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Quarren read every column, grimly, to the end, wincing when he
+encountered some casual reference to himself and his recent social
+activities. Then, lips compressed, boyish gaze fixed on the passing
+landscape, he sat brooding until at last the conductor opened the door
+and shouted the name of his station.</p>
+
+<p>The Wycherlys' new place, Witch-Hollow, a big rambling farm among the
+Connecticut hills, was only three hours from New York, and half an hour
+by automobile from the railroad. The buildings were wooden and not new;
+a fashionable architect had made the large house "colonially" endurable
+with furnaces and electricity as well as with fan-lights and fluted
+pilasters.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the land remained wild&mdash;weed-grown pastures, hard-wood ridges,
+neglected orchards planted seventy years ago. Molly Wycherly had ordered
+a brand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> new old-time garden to be made for her overlooking the wide,
+unruffled river; also a series of sylvan paths along the wooded shores
+of the hill-set lake which was inhabited by bass placed there by orders
+of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake," he said to his wife, "don't try to knock any
+antiquity into the place; I'm sick of fine old ancestral halls put up by
+building-loan associations. Plenty of paint and varnish for mine, Molly,
+and a few durable iron fountains and bronze stags on the lawn&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jim," she said firmly.</p>
+
+<p>So he ordered an aeroplane, a herd of sheep, a shepherd, and two
+tailless sheep-dogs, and made plans to spend most of his vacation
+yachting, when he did not spend it in town.</p>
+
+<p>But he was restlessly domiciled at Witch-Hollow, now, and he met Quarren
+at the station in a bright purple runabout which he drove like
+lightning, one hand on the steering wheel, the other carelessly waving
+toward the streaky landscape in affable explanation of the various
+points of interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite a little colony of us up here, Quarren," he said. "I don't know
+why anybody picked out this silly country for estates, but Langly Sprowl
+started a stud farm over yonder, and then poor Chester Ledwith built a
+house for his wife in the middle of a thousand acres, over there where
+you see those maple woods!&mdash;and then people began to come and pick up
+worn-out farms and make 'em into fine old family places&mdash;Lester
+Caldera's model dairies are behind that hill; and that leather-headed
+O'Hara has a bungalow somewhere&mdash;and there's a sort of Hunt Club, too,
+and a bum pack of Kiyi's&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The wind tore most of his speech from his lips and whirled it out of
+earshot: Quarren caught a word now and then which interested him. It
+also interested him to observe how Wycherly shaved annihilation at every
+turn of the road.</p>
+
+<p>"I've asked some men to bring up their biplanes and have a few flies on
+me," continued his host&mdash;"I've a 'Stinger' monoplane and a Kent biplane
+myself. I can't get any more sensation out of motoring. I'd as soon
+wheel twins in a go-cart."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren saw him cleverly avoid death with one hand, and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is stopping with you up here?" he shouted close to Wycherly's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody&mdash;Mrs. Leeds, Chrysos Lacy, and Sir Charles. There are some few
+neighbours, too&mdash;Langly is mousing and prowling about; and that poor
+Ledwith man is all alone in his big house&mdash;fixing to get out of it so
+his wife can move in from Reno when she's ready for more mischief....
+Here we are, Quarren! Your stuff will be in your rooms in a few minutes.
+There's my wife, now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand to Molly but let Quarren go forward alone while he
+started across the fields toward his hangar where, in grotesque and
+vicious-looking immobility, reposed his new winged pet, the little
+Stinger monoplane, wings set as wickedly as an alert wasp's.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+
+<p>As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged
+walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger
+across her lips conjuring caution.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't
+suppose the child could possibly object."</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs16" id="gs16"></a><img src="images/gs16.jpg" width="320" height="448" alt="&quot;&#39;I didn&#39;t tell Strelsa that you were coming,&#39; she
+whispered.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;I didn&#39;t tell Strelsa that you were coming,&#39; she
+whispered.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Quarren's features stiffened:</p>
+
+<p>"Does she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and
+Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she
+had left."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know, Ricky&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do. What has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're certainly rude enough&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened, Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know for certain, I tell you.... Langly Sprowl has been roving
+around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together
+nearly every day."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> has persuaded her into
+some sort of a tacit engagement.... I don't know what the child can be
+thinking of&mdash;unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has
+convinced her of his martyrdom.... There'll be a pretty situation when
+Mary Ledwith returns.... I could kill Langly&mdash;" She doubled both pretty
+hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she
+placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the
+top step deliberately kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad
+you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and
+your new enterprise!&mdash;I laughed and laughed!&mdash;forgive me, but the papers
+were so funny&mdash;and I couldn't help laughing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren forced a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command
+a good deal of respect sooner or later."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before
+you and Jim try to buy the entire collection."</p>
+
+<p>"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed
+Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly
+and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a
+bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache
+before your appearance adds another distressing jolt."</p>
+
+<p>"Has she had another shock recently?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and
+even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's
+a ghastly scandal&mdash;the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you
+suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!"</p>
+
+<p>They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived
+and a valet was busy unpacking for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for
+tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it&mdash;except
+that little girl over there"&mdash;pointing along the corridor to a distant
+door.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too
+soon."</p>
+
+<p>So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains,
+Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly,
+Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and
+headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of
+his guests.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed
+setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to
+lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels
+and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break
+in&mdash;a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his
+tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"We're out of the running, we two&mdash;aren't we?" he added. "You try very
+pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more
+hopeless race.... For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the
+race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy
+heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure
+and senseless gold."</p>
+
+<p>He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer
+was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear
+waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks.</p>
+
+<p>Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the
+Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions&mdash;among others the
+new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so
+marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any
+of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms
+resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him
+enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been
+so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that
+Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of
+strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or
+the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his
+heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea,
+syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where
+scores of frail and frivo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>lous strangers nodded amid anæmic leaves, or
+where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun,
+seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per
+dozen.</p>
+
+<p>He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the
+sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered
+wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too
+closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering
+between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently
+rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the
+rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper
+which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks.
+There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she
+looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward
+the hand he offered.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs17" id="gs17"></a><img src="images/gs17.jpg" width="640" height="446" alt="&quot;So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp
+curve.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp
+curve.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+<p>"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Have you just arrived?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys'
+new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather
+pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he
+saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the
+lashes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on
+the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths;
+where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still
+waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass.</p>
+
+<p>No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled
+it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense
+calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you&mdash;offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the
+water.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!" he replied cordially.</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you receive my letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did."</p>
+
+<p>"You did not answer it."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know how&mdash;then."</p>
+
+<p>His reply seemed to perplex her&mdash;so did his light and effortless
+good-humour.</p>
+
+<p>"I know how to answer it now," he added.</p>
+
+<p>She forced a smile:</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late
+seldom dares start.... I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me
+to be seated?"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took
+the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Mr. Quarren&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want me to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;don't think&mdash;it matters, now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been
+instantly conscious&mdash;he had changed since she had seen him&mdash;changed
+radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air
+suggesting assurance&mdash;an individuality which had not heretofore clearly
+distinguished him&mdash;a hidden hint of strength. Or was she
+mistaken&mdash;abashed&mdash;remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour
+of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing
+to him what she had written.</p>
+
+<p>She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain
+unanswered."</p>
+
+<p>"You think I'm too late?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him steadily:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are too late&mdash;in every sense."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying
+glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to
+nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never
+yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that
+letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are
+going to learn some day what tragedy really is."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make
+me take you seriously?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly am."</p>
+
+<p>"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have
+<i>got</i> to take me seriously."</p>
+
+<p>She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now
+gaily maintained the lighter vein:</p>
+
+<p>"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen
+and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist
+rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!"&mdash;he held out to
+her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what <i>is</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving
+picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent
+blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"</p>
+
+<p>The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given
+name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning
+silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so
+frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight
+sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain,
+inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I deny it?&mdash;with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll
+lend you some witch-hazel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic,"
+he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a
+handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray
+eyes&mdash;a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to
+her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched
+his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it
+wants to?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>He went on: "I mean when <i>you</i> want it to be. Because it's really up to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"To <i>me</i>, my slangy friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and
+she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a reason?"&mdash;very gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"You can make it so if you will."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You say that you always think of me&mdash;that way. But I'm afraid that,
+even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed
+you to the use of it."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to
+give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of,
+don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No!&mdash;please."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr.
+Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I? What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you answer me honestly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever found me dishonest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes&mdash;with yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head
+abruptly. After a few moments' silence:</p>
+
+<p>"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"</p>
+
+<p>She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to
+avoid it.</p>
+
+<p>"I think of my friends&mdash;and you among them."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;your friends&mdash;people are eternally dinning your name into my
+ears&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Please answer."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to
+know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick&mdash;whatever they call you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in
+sheer exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I
+made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you&mdash;when I happen
+to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you
+that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Some day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like
+it. It would be forced, artificial&mdash;an effort&mdash;and I don't
+desire&mdash;wish&mdash;care&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child!
+Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the
+pronunciation of my name?"</p>
+
+<p>Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man
+beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes
+were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became
+acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in
+touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent
+impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these
+months, the same strange sensation passed through her&mdash;a thrilling
+consciousness of his nearness.</p>
+
+<p>Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> alert to his
+slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.</p>
+
+<p>He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her,
+then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she
+saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought
+might be.</p>
+
+<p>He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of
+individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite
+specimen known to you as <i>Mister</i> Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, uncertainly:</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>don't</i> reject you, <i>Mister</i> Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."</p>
+
+<p>"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to climb over it then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wish you to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"W-what?"</p>
+
+<p>"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't say such things&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that
+kind of a wall remain between us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you not to talk about such&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>wouldn't</i>," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why
+such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you
+that he cares&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Please&mdash;if you please&mdash;I had rather not&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather
+plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you&mdash;I don't know how much,
+yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap
+up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously
+he is in love with the unknown on the other side."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite
+thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended
+along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every
+nerve in her body.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other
+side of that barrier&mdash;your unknown self, Strelsa&mdash;undiscovered as yet by
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her lips moved mechanically:</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote you&mdash;<i>told</i> you what I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know
+yourself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do. I <i>am</i> what I wrote you."</p>
+
+<p>"Partly perhaps&mdash;partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a
+sequence of blows&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of
+my life!&mdash;But those would not count&mdash;if I were not selfish, dishonest,
+and a coward."</p>
+
+<p>His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure
+left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually
+the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange
+sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and
+motionless, looking down at the still lake below.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>is</i> the barrier?" he asked quietly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is no barrier to your friendship&mdash;if you care to offer it, now
+that you know me."</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>don't</i> know you. And I care for more than your friendship even
+after the glimpse I have had of you."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Could</i> you ever care for more?"</p>
+
+<p>"No.... I don't wish to.... There <i>is</i> nothing higher."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Could</i> you&mdash;if there were?"</p>
+
+<p>But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light
+weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new
+senses that his touch had discovered so long ago&mdash;and which had
+slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless
+relaxation, this lassitude which was becoming almost painful&mdash;or
+sweet&mdash;she did not understand which&mdash;was this also a part of friendship?
+Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy?&mdash;this
+deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening
+her pulses, her even breathing&mdash;menacing the delicate nerves in her hand
+so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a
+little quick indrawn breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly&mdash;scarcely knowing
+what she was saying.</p>
+
+<p>"What, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face
+became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to fight for you all the same."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" she exclaimed, crisply.</p>
+
+<p>"Fight hard, too," he added. "I'm on my mettle at last."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no chance, Mr. Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"With&mdash;<i>him</i>?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at
+all&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care to hear you speak that way!" she said, hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I won't. A man's an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn't even
+thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you&mdash;with your unknown self
+behind that barrier. <i>Garde à vous!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I decline the combat, Monsieur," she said, trying to speak lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not afraid of <i>you</i>&mdash;the <i>visible</i> you that I'm looking at and
+which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will
+fight me openly, fairly&mdash;and I have an even chance to win&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" she said, lip between her teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I do.... But it's your unknown self I'm afraid of, Strelsa. God alone
+knows what it may do to both of us."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no other self! What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are <i>two</i> others&mdash;not this intellectual, friendly, kindly,
+visible self that offers friendship and accepts it&mdash;not even the occult,
+aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray
+eyes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There <i>is</i> no other!" she said, flushing and rising to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it dead?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It never lived!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he said coolly, "it will be born as sure as I stand here!&mdash;born
+to complete the trinity." He glanced out over the lake, then swung
+around sharply: "You are wrong. It <i>has</i> been born. And that unknown
+self is hostile to me; and I know it!"</p>
+
+<p>They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she
+said: "I think we have talked some nonsense. Don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> haven't."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a generous boy; do you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll cheerfully admit it. If you weren't you'd detest me&mdash;perhaps
+despise me."</p>
+
+<p>"Men don't detest or despise a hurt and frightened child."</p>
+
+<p>"But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said. "Whatever you are I can't help loving you."</p>
+
+<p>She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a
+while when she could control her lips she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to talk some more to you&mdash;and I don't know how; I don't even
+know what I want to say except that&mdash;that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please be&mdash;kind to me." She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered.</p>
+
+<p>He said after a moment: "I couldn't be anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you very sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It means a great deal to me," she said.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea
+was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for
+tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got
+them in chunks and bolted them, wagging.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she
+wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I an angel or otherwise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Angel always&mdash;but why particularly at this instant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;you corker!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then!"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly, I worship you."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Et après?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll double that! I adore you also!"</p>
+
+<p>"Content! What are you two doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa and I have been taking tea."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, is it 'Strelsa' already?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very unwillingly on her part."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't 'Ricky,' too, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! not yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. <i>What</i> do you
+think I've done, very cleverly?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the
+way to North Linden. We can't possibly get back until dinner. But that's
+not all."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What more, most wonderful of women?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've got <i>him</i> with us," she said with satisfaction. "I made Jim stop
+and pick him up. I <i>knew</i> he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I
+made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some
+fool horses at Acremont that he couldn't wriggle out of it particularly
+as Strelsa is my guest and he's rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky,
+make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I
+couldn't avoid asking him."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Quarren grimly.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in
+her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure.</p>
+
+<p>"What had Molly to say to <i>you</i> all that time?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Was I long away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you were!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm delighted you found the time too long&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly
+how time flies with you and Molly.... Oh, dear! <i>Is</i> that a mosquito?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it is," said Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"Then indoors I go!" exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. "You may come with
+me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated."</p>
+
+<p>And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window
+late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if there's enough of this celestial radiance to make a new
+aureole for you?" he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So my old one is worn out, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to offer you a <i>double</i> halo."</p>
+
+<p>"You do say sweet things&mdash;for a rather obstinate young man," she said,
+flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through
+the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano.
+Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative:</p>
+
+<p>"Please lean on the piano." He did so, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Otherwise," she said, "you'd have attempted to seat yourself on this
+bench; and there isn't room for both of us without crowding."</p>
+
+<p>"If you moved a little&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But I won't," she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the
+key-board.</p>
+
+<p>She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant,
+careless, but acceptable barytone.</p>
+
+<p>"The old ones are the best," she commented, running lightly through a
+medley ranging from "The Mikado" to "Erminie," the "Black Hussar," and
+"The Mascotte." They sang the "gobble duet" from the latter fairly well:</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs18" id="gs18"></a><img src="images/gs18.jpg" width="640" height="446" alt="&quot;&#39;The old ones are best.&#39; she commented.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;The old ones are best.&#39; she commented.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+<p class="center">
+<i>She.</i><br />
+<br />
+"When on your manly form I gaze<br />
+A sense of pleasure passes o'er me";<br />
+<br />
+<i>He.</i><br />
+<br />
+"The murmured music of your voice<br />
+Is sweeter far than liquid honey!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her
+turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing "Johnny
+Schmoker" with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal
+refrain:</p>
+
+<p>
+"Kanst du spielen?"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by
+that Teutonic musician.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless,
+pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things," she exclaimed; and did
+so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of
+sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the
+key-board with his own.</p>
+
+<p>She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she said; "you'll have to match my performance with
+something equally imbecile"; and she composed herself to listen.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?" he asked gravely; "turn
+seven solemn handsprings?"</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead."</p>
+
+<p>He prepared to do so but she wouldn't permit him:</p>
+
+<p>"No! I don't want to remember you doing such a thing.... All the same I
+believe <i>you</i> could do it and not lose&mdash;lose&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dignity?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I don't know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you
+to do something silly."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I say it or do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Either."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll recite something very, very precious&mdash;subtly, intricately,
+and psychologically precious."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please do!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;it's about a lover."</p>
+
+<p>She blushed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> the limit! Of course I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's about a lady, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"And love&mdash;rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love."</p>
+
+<p>"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of
+malice in her smile.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. The title is: '<i>Oh, Love! Oh, Why?</i>'"</p>
+
+<p>"A perfectly good title," she said gravely. "I alway says 'why?' to
+Love."</p>
+
+<p>So he bowed to her and began very seriously:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wait for a moment while I relate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A harrowing tragedy up to date<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Of innate Hate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her store-curls stirred in the summer air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An amorous Fly espied her there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">So rare and fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Before she knew where she was at,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He'd kissed the maiden where she sat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she batted him one which slapped him flat<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Ker-spat! Like that!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Oh, Love! Oh, Why?"<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can't endure the realism of that
+spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge
+headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?"</p>
+
+<p>Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood
+changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among
+the keys, striking vague harmonies.</p>
+
+<p>He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and
+after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.</p>
+
+<p>A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink,
+lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world
+outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which
+only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.</p>
+
+<p>She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the
+alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even
+when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a
+moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive
+lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.</p>
+
+<p>Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught
+her slender hand:</p>
+
+<p>"No!&mdash;please. Let me go! This is too serious&mdash;even if we did not mean
+it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You know I mean it," he said simply.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not! You understand why!... And don't&mdash;again! I am not&mdash;I do
+not choose to&mdash;to allow&mdash;endure&mdash;such&mdash;things&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking
+at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Please!" she repeated&mdash;and "please!" And she came toward him a step,
+and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to
+me&mdash;and let me go."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I unkind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes! You know&mdash;you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I
+<i>am</i> going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me&mdash;not for one
+moment!"</p>
+
+<p>"Check you from what, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"From&mdash;what I want out of life!&mdash;tranquillity, ease, security,
+happiness&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes! It <i>will</i> be that! I don't need anything except what I shall
+have. I don't want anything else. Can't you understand? Do you think
+women feel as&mdash;as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men
+experience is also experienced by women? I don't want it; I don't
+require it! I've&mdash;I've always had a contempt for it&mdash;and I have
+still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any
+man&mdash;friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can't you
+take it&mdash;and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find
+security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my
+friendship&mdash;as long as I never swerve in it&mdash;as long as I hold you first
+among my friends&mdash;first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer
+you&mdash;I will not! Now let me go!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your <i>other</i> self, fighting me," he said, half to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"No, <i>I</i> am! What do you mean by my other self! There <i>is</i> no other&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"</p>
+
+<p>She blushed scarlet:</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>that</i> what you mean!&mdash;the stupid, unworthy, material self&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The trinity is incomplete without it."</p>
+
+<p>She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly
+as though frightened.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat
+pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is
+lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being
+poor makes no difference either. I simply don't care&mdash;I don't even care
+what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each
+other&mdash;whether you think so or not. And you evidently don't, but I can't
+help that. If I'm any good I'll make you think as I do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms
+and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows
+slightly knitted.</p>
+
+<p>Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot
+in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened
+under his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Can't</i> you care?" he said, half to himself.</p>
+
+<p>She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and
+almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely
+she felt that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> what had been there was now dead&mdash;that she never could
+respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Can't</i> you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again,
+turning toward her.</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>that</i> your idea of love?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, hopelessly:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's everything else, too&mdash;everything on earth&mdash;and
+afterward&mdash;everything&mdash;mind, soul and body&mdash;birth, life, death&mdash;sky and
+land and sea&mdash;everything that is or was or will be&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked&mdash;looked up
+at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity&mdash;more than
+for love; do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Because, unless you mean friendship, I care nothing for love."</p>
+
+<p>"That is your answer."</p>
+
+<p>"It is."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there <i>is</i> something lacking in you."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. I have never loved in the manner you mean. I do not wish to.
+Perhaps I am incapable of it.... I hope I am; I believe&mdash;I believe&mdash;"
+But she fell silent, standing with eyes lowered and the warm blood once
+more stinging her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she looked up, calm, level-eyed:</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had better ask my forgiveness before you go."</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll ask it if you like."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To keep her composure became difficult:</p>
+
+<p>"It is your affair, Mr. Quarren&mdash;if you still care to preserve our
+friendship."</p>
+
+<p>"Would a kiss shatter it?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled:</p>
+
+<p>"A look, a word, the quiver of an eyelash is enough."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't seem to be very solidly founded, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Friendship is the frailest thing in the world&mdash;and the mightiest.... I
+am waiting for your decision."</p>
+
+<p>He walked up to her again, and she steeled herself, not knowing what to
+expect.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you marry me, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I have told Mr. Sprowl that I will marry him."</p>
+
+<p>"Also because you don't love me; is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>She said tranquilly: "I can't afford to marry you. I wouldn't love you
+anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't," she said calmly; but her face was crimson.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said under his breath&mdash;"you <i>are</i> capable of love."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not, Mr. Quarren; but I am very capable of hate."</p>
+
+<p>And, looking up, he saw it for an instant, clear in her eyes. Then it
+died out; she turned a trifle pale, walked to the window and stood
+leaning against it, one hand on the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>She did not seem to hear him when he came up behind her, and he touched
+her lightly on the arm:</p>
+
+<p>"I ask your forgiveness," he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is granted, Mr. Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I ruined our friendship?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you have done," she said wearily.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later the motor arrived; Quarren turned on the electric
+lights in the room; Strelsa walked across to the piano and seated
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>She was playing rag-time when the motor party entered; Quarren came
+forward and shook hands with Chrysos Lacy and Sir Charles; Langly Sprowl
+passed him with a short nod, saying "How are you, Quarren?"&mdash;and kept
+straight on to Strelsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Rotten luck," he said in his full, careless voice; "I'd meant to ride
+over and chance a gallop with you but Wycherly picked me up and started
+on one of his break-neck tears.... What have you been up to all day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;Mr. Quarren came."</p>
+
+<p>"I see&mdash;showed him about, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"A&mdash;little."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you feeling fit, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly.... Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"You look a bit streaky&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Pon my word you do&mdash;a bit under the weather, you know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Woman's only friend and protector&mdash;a headache," she said, gaily
+rattling off more rag-time. "Where did you go, Langly?"</p>
+
+<p>"To look over some silly horses&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They're fine nags!" remonstrated Molly&mdash;"and I was perfectly sure that
+Langly would buy half a dozen."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," said that hatchet-faced young man; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> into his sleek and
+restless features came a glimmer of shrewdness&mdash;the sly thrift that
+lurks in the faces of those who bargain much and wisely in petty wares.
+It must have been a momentary ancestral gleam from his rum-smuggling
+ancestors, for Langly Sprowl had never dealt in little things.</p>
+
+<p>Chrysos Lacy was saying: "It's adorable to see you again, Ricky. What
+<i>is</i> this we hear about you and Lord Dankmere setting up shop?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's true," he laughed. "Come in and buy an old master, Chrysos, at
+bargain prices."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall insist on Jim buying several," said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband laughed derisively:</p>
+
+<p>"When I can buy a perfectly good Wright biplane for the same money? Come
+to earth, Molly!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll come to earth if you go sky-skating around the clouds in that
+horrid little Stinger, Jim," she said. "Why couldn't <i>you</i> take out the
+Stinger for a little exercise?"&mdash;turning to Sprowl.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to," said Sprowl in his full penetrating voice, not conscious
+that it required courage to risk a flight with the Stinger. Nobody had
+ever imputed any lack of that sort of courage to Langly Sprowl. He
+simply did not understand bodily fear.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa glanced up at him from the piano:</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather risky, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He merely stared at her out of his slightly protruding eyes as though
+she were speaking an unfamiliar language.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim," said Quarren, "would you mind taking me as a passenger?"</p>
+
+<p>Wycherly, reckless enough anyway, balked a little at the proposition:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That Stinger is too light and too tricky I'm afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she built for two?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose she <i>could</i> get off the ground with you and me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All right; let's try her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jim! I won't let you," said his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be silly, Molly. Rix and I are not going up if she won't take
+us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I forbid you to try! It's senseless!"</p>
+
+<p>Her husband laughed and finished his whisky and soda. Then twirling his
+motor goggles around his fingers he stood looking at Strelsa.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a pretty little peach," he said sentimentally, "and I'm sorry
+Molly is here or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do <i>you</i> care?" laughed Strelsa, looking around at him over her
+shoulder. "<i>I</i> don't mind being adored by <i>you</i>, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you, sweetness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I don't."</p>
+
+<p>Wycherly started toward her: Langly Sprowl, who neither indulged in
+badinage nor comprehended it in others, turned a perfectly
+expressionless face on his host, who said:</p>
+
+<p>"You old muffin head, did you ever smile in your life? You'd better try
+now because I'm going to take your best girl away from you!"</p>
+
+<p>Which bored Sprowl; and he turned his lean, narrow head away as a sleek
+and sinister dog turns when laughed at.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa slipped clear of the piano and vanished, chased heavily by
+Wycherly.</p>
+
+<p>Molly said: "It's time to dress, good people.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> Langly, your man is
+upstairs with your outfit. Come, Chrysos, dear&mdash;Rix, have you everything
+you want?" she added in a low voice as he stood aside for her to pass:
+"Have you <i>everything</i>, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"The little minx! <i>Is</i> it Langly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" And, aloud: "Jim! Do let Langly try out the
+Stinger to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Her husband, who had given up his search for Strelsa, said that Sprowl
+was welcome.</p>
+
+<p>People scattered to their respective quarters; Quarren walked slowly to
+his. Sprowl, passing with his mincing, nervous stride, said: "How's
+little Dankmere?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," replied Quarren briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheap little beggar," commented Sprowl.</p>
+
+<p>"He happens to be my partner," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"He suits your business no doubt," said Sprowl with a contempt he took
+no pains to conceal&mdash;a contempt which very plainly included Quarren as
+well as the Earl and the picture business.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at his door he glanced around to stare absently at Quarren. The
+latter said, pleasantly:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose you meant to be offensive, Sprowl; you simply can't
+help it; can you?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, you can't help being a bounder. It's just in you, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Sprowl's hatchet face was ghastly; he opened his mouth to
+speak, twice, then jerked open his door and disappeared.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+
+<p>Quarren had been at Witch-Hollow three days when Dankmere called him on
+the long-distance telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want me to come back?" asked the young fellow. "I don't mind if
+you do; I'm quite ready to return&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, my dear chap," said his lordship. "I fancied you might care
+to hear how matters are going in the Dankmere Galleries."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do, but I rather hoped nothing in particular would happen
+for a week or so&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty has. You know those experts of yours, Valasco, Drayton-Quinn,
+and that Hollander Van Boschoven. Well, they don't get on. Each has come
+to me privately, and in turn, and told me that the others were no
+good&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Your rôle is to remain amiable and non-committal," said Quarren. "Let
+them talk&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Valasco and Drayton-Quinn won't speak, and Van Boschoven has notified
+me that he declines to come to the house as long as either of the others
+are there."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; arrange to have them there on different days."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Valasco will come back at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;the fact is&mdash;I believe I practically&mdash;so to speak&mdash;hit him."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fact, old chap."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he asked me if I knew more about anything than I did about
+pictures. I didn't catch his drift for about an hour&mdash;but then it came
+to me, and I got up out of my chair and walked over and punched his
+head. I don't think he'll come back, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't. What else have you been doing?" said Quarren angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. One picture&mdash;the Raeburn portrait&mdash;has a bad hole in it."</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather extraordinary thing, that! I was giving a most respectable card
+party&mdash;some ladies and gentlemen of sorts&mdash;from the Winter Garden I
+believe&mdash;and one of the ladies inadvertently shyed a glass at another
+lady&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, Dankmere&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right old chap&mdash;my fault entirely&mdash;I won't do it again. But, do
+you know, the gallery already has become a most popular resort. People
+are coming and going all day&mdash;a lot of dealers among them I suspect&mdash;and
+there have been a number of theatrical people who want to hire pictures
+for certain productions to be staged next winter&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't do that sort of thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I thought; but there was one very fetching girl who opens
+in 'Ancestors' next October&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Right-o! I'll tell her at luncheon.... I say, Quarren: Karl Westguard
+wants the gallery to-night. May I let him have it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, some idea of his&mdash;I've forgotten what he said."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I'd better come down," said Quarren bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't dream of it, old fellow. Everything is doing nicely. My respects
+to the fair. By-the-bye&mdash;anything in my line up there?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not, Dankmere."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Very</i> well," said the Earl, airily. "I'm not worrying now, you know.
+<i>Good</i>-bye, old sport!"</p>
+
+<p>And he rang off.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren meeting Molly in the hall said:</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd better leave this afternoon. Dankmere is messing matters."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to run away?" she said in a low voice, glancing sideways
+at Strelsa who had just passed them wearing her riding habit.</p>
+
+<p>"Run away," he repeated, also lowering his voice. "From whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"From Langly Sprowl."</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged and looked out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> running away," insisted his pretty hostess. "You have a chance
+I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the slightest."</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong. Strelsa wept in her sleep all night. How does that
+strike you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not over me," he said grimly; but added: "How do you know she did?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her maid told mine," admitted Molly shame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>lessly. "Now if you are going
+to criticise my channels of information I'll remind you that Richelieu
+himself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Molly! Molly! What a funny girl you are!" he said, laughing.
+"You're a sweet, loyal little thing, too&mdash;but there's no use&mdash;" His face
+became expressionless, almost haggard&mdash;"there's no use," he repeated
+under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, side by side, they walked out to the veranda, her hand resting
+lightly just within the crook of his arm, he, absent-mindedly filling
+his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa likes you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"With all the ardour and devotion of a fish," he returned, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Rix?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," said Molly, thoughtfully, "she <i>is</i> a sort of a fish. She
+has the emotions of a mollusc as far as your sex is concerned. Some
+women <i>are</i> that way&mdash;more women than men would care to believe.... Do
+you know, Ricky, if you'll let us alone, it is quite natural for us to
+remain indifferent to considerations of that sort?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood watching the young fellow busy with his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only when you keep at us long enough that we respond," she said.
+"Some of us are quickly responsive; it takes many of us a long while to
+catch fire. Threatened emotion instinctively repels many of us&mdash;the more
+fastidious among us, the finer grained and more delicately nerved, are
+essentially reserved. Modesty, pride, a natural aloofness, are as much a
+part of many women as their noses and fingers&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What becomes of modesty and pride when a girl marries for money?" he
+asked coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Some women can give and accept in cold blood what it would be
+impossible for them to accord to a more intimate and emotional demand."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt an ethical distinction," he said, "but not very clear to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not argue that such women are admirable or excusable.... But how
+many modern marriages in our particular vicinity are marriages of
+inclination, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're a washed-out lot," he said&mdash;"you're satiated as schoolgirls. If
+you have any emotions left they're twisted ones by the time you are
+introduced. Most débutantes of your sort make their bow equipped for
+business, and with the experience of what, practically, has amounted to
+several seasons.</p>
+
+<p>"If any old-fashioned young girls remain in your orbit I don't know
+where to find them. Why, do you suppose any young girl, not yet out,
+would bother to go to a party of any sort where there was not champagne
+and a theatre-box and a supper in prospect? That's a fine comment on
+your children, Molly, but you know it's true and so does everybody who
+pretends to know anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk like Karl Westguard," she said, laughing. "Anyway, what has
+all this to do with you and Strelsa Leeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing." He shrugged. "She is part of your last word in social
+civilisation&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She is a very normal, sensitive, proud girl, who has known little
+except unhappiness all her life, Rix&mdash;including two years of marital
+misery&mdash;two years of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> horror.&mdash;And you forget that those two years were
+the result of a demand purely and brutally emotional&mdash;to which, a
+novice, utterly ignorant, she yielded&mdash;pushed on by her mother....
+Please be fair to her; remember that her childhood was pinched with
+poverty, that her girlhood in school was a lonely one, embarrassed by
+lack of everything which her fashionable schoolmates had as matters of
+course.</p>
+
+<p>"She could not go to the homes of her schoolmates in vacation times,
+because she could not ask them, in turn, to her own. She was still in
+school when Reggie Leeds saw her&mdash;and misbehaved&mdash;and the poor little
+thing was sent home, guiltless but already half-damned. No wonder her
+mother chased Reggie Leeds half around the world dragging her daughter
+by the wrist!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did it make matters any better to force that drunken cad into a
+marriage?" asked Quarren coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes another marriage possible for Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren gazed out across the country where a fine misty rain was still
+falling. Acres of clover stretched away silvered with powdery moisture;
+robins and bluebirds covered the soaked lawns, and their excited
+call-notes prophesied blue skies.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't make any difference one way or the other," said Quarren,
+half to himself. "She will go on in the predestined orbit&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to which she responds&mdash;except what I have not."</p>
+
+<p>"Make what you do possess more powerful, then."</p>
+
+<p>"What do I possess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so&mdash;now&mdash;after a fashion.... But I am not the man who could
+ever attract her&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wake her, and find out."</p>
+
+<p>"Wake her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell you that many of us are asleep, and that few of us awake
+easily? Didn't I tell you that nobody likes to be awakened from the warm
+comfort and idle security of emotionless slumber?&mdash;that it is the
+instinct of many of us to resist&mdash;just as I hear my maid speak to me in
+the morning and then turn over for another forty winks, hating her!"</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"My maid has instructions to persist until I respond," said Molly.
+"Those are my instructions to you, also."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose, after all, I were knocking at the door of an empty room?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must take your chances of course."</p>
+
+<p>There was a noise of horses on the gravel: Langly cantered up on a
+handsome hunter followed by a mounted groom leading Strelsa's mare.</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl dismounted and came up to pay his respects to Molly, scarcely
+troubling himself to recognise Quarren's presence, and turning his back
+to him immediately, although Molly twice attempted to include him in the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a
+pantomime unmistakable; but her pretty lips merely pressed each other
+tighter, and she sauntered out, crop under one arm, with a careless
+greeting to Langly.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs19" id="gs19"></a><img src="images/gs19.jpg" width="320" height="519" alt="&quot;Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was
+silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was
+silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>He came up offering his hand and she took it, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> stood a moment in
+desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I overheard you say to Molly that you were going back to town
+this afternoon," she remarked, casting a brief glance in his direction.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd better go," he said, pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"A matter of business I suppose?" eyebrows slightly lifted.</p>
+
+<p>"In a way. Dankmere is alone, poor fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Molly laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not good for man to be alone."</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl said:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a housemaid in my employ&mdash;she's saved something I understand.
+You might notify Dankmere&mdash;" he half wheeled toward Quarren, eyes
+slightly bulging without a shadow of expression on his sleek, narrow
+face.</p>
+
+<p>Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of
+a clear sky.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he said slowly&mdash;then stepped back a pace as Strelsa passed close
+in front of him, apparently perfectly unconscious of any discord:</p>
+
+<p>"Will you get me a lump of sugar, Mr. Quarren? My mare must be pampered
+or she'll start that jiggling Kentucky amble and never walk one step."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren swung on his heel and entered the house; Molly, ignoring
+Strelsa, turned sharply on Sprowl:</p>
+
+<p>"If you are insolent to my guests you need not come here," she said
+briefly.</p>
+
+<p>Langly's restless eyes protruded; he glanced from Molly to Strelsa, then
+his indifferent gaze wandered over the landscape. It was plain that the
+rebuke had not made the slightest impression. Molly looked angrily at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+Strelsa, but the latter, eyes averted, was gazing at her horse. And when
+Quarren came back with a handful of sugar she took it and, descending
+the steps, fed it, lump by lump to the two horses.</p>
+
+<p>Langly put her up, shouldered aside the groom, and adjusted heel-loop
+and habit-loop. Then he mounted, saluted Molly and followed Strelsa at a
+canter without even noticing his bridle.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done to Langly?" asked Molly.</p>
+
+<p>"Characterised his bad manners the other day. It wasn't worth while;
+there's no money in cursing.... And I think, Molly dear, that I'll take
+an afternoon train&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way
+under my roof&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was outdoors, dear lady," said Quarren, smiling. "It's only his
+rudeness before you that I mind. Where is Sir Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Off with Chrysos somewhere on the river&mdash;there's their motor-launch,
+now.... Ricky!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm angry all through.... Strelsa might have said something&mdash;showed her
+lack of sympathy for Langly's remark by being a little more cordial to
+you.... I don't like it in her. I don't know whether I am going to like
+that girl or not&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There was! She <i>is</i> a fish!&mdash;unless she gives Langly the dickens this
+morning.... Will you motor with Jim and me, Ricky dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you like."</p>
+
+<p>She did like. So presently a racing car was brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> around, Jim came
+reluctantly from the hangar, and away they tore into the dull weather
+now faintly illuminated by the prophecy of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere the mist was turning golden; faint smears of blue appeared
+and disappeared through the vapours passing overhead. Then, all at once
+the sun's glaring lens played across the drenched meadows, and the
+shadows of tree and hedge and standing cattle streamed out across the
+herbage.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the chains the car skidded dangerously at times; mud flew
+and so did water, and very soon Molly had enough. So they tore back
+again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters,
+her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair
+of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots&mdash;past
+woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny
+streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half
+immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird
+music&mdash;past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh
+above the soaking brown earth.</p>
+
+<p>Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds
+fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the
+kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud
+enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded
+with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million
+blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them.</p>
+
+<p>Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles
+and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. Once,
+across a distant hill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> two horses and their riders passed outlined
+against the sky; but even the eyes of a lover and a hater could not
+identify anybody at such a distance.</p>
+
+<p>So he strolled on, taking roads when convenient, fields when it suited
+him, neither knowing nor caring where he was going.</p>
+
+<p>Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he
+turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a
+little foot-bridge over a stream.</p>
+
+<p>A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that you, Quarren?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow stopped and looked down curiously at the sunken,
+unhealthy face, then, shocked, came forward hastily and shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ledwith," he said, "what are you doing here?&mdash;Oh, I forgot; you
+live here, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's my house yonder&mdash;or was," said the man with a slight motion of
+his head. And, after a moment: "You didn't recognise me. Have I changed
+much?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said: "You seem to have been&mdash;ill."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have been. I'm ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few
+minutes&mdash;unless you are going somewhere in particular&mdash;or don't care to
+talk to me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be
+gentle&mdash;even with such a man.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't seen much of you, for a couple of years&mdash;I haven't seen much
+of anybody," said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking
+at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are stopping with&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Wycherlys."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes.... I haven't seen them lately.... They are neighbours"&mdash;he
+waved his sickly coloured hand&mdash;"but I'm rather quiet&mdash;I read a good
+deal&mdash;as you see."&mdash;He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and
+his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pretty country," said Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I thought so once. I built that house.... There's no use in my
+keeping up social duties," he said with another slinking glance at
+Quarren. "So I'm giving up the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Really."</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't&mdash;you have heard so, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and
+his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or
+rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and
+continuously as he jerked about in his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he said slyly, "people talk about me, Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know anybody immune to gossip?" inquired Quarren, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"No; that's true. But I don't care anything for people.... I read, I
+have my horses and dogs&mdash;but I'm going to move away. I told you that,
+didn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you did."</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost
+imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance:</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use pretending to <i>you</i>, Quarren; is there?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Quarren said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"You know all the gossip&mdash;all the dirty little faits divers of your
+world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're mistaken, Ledwith," he said pleasantly. "I'm done with it."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that I've gone into a better business and I'm too busy to be
+useful and amusing any longer."</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith's dead eyes stared:</p>
+
+<p>"I heard you had dropped out&mdash;were never seen about. Is that true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Found the game too rotten?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. It's no different from any other game&mdash;a mixture of the same
+old good and bad, with good predominating. But there's more to be had
+out of life in other games."</p>
+
+<p>"Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working
+as side partner, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said pleasantly: "If you're serious, Ledwith, you're a liar."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence Ledwith said: "Do you think there's enough left of me to
+care what anybody calls me?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren turned: "I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make
+you such an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind.... In that last year&mdash;when I still knew people&mdash;and when
+they still knew me&mdash;you were very kind to me, Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? You were always decent to me."</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith was now picking at his fingers, and Quarren saw that they were
+dreadfully scarred and maltreated.</p>
+
+<p>"You've always been kind to me," repeated Led<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>with, his extinct eyes
+fixed on space. "Other people would have halted at sight of me and gone
+the other way&mdash;or passed by cutting me dead.... <i>You</i> sat down beside
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I anybody to refuse?"</p>
+
+<p>But Ledwith only blinked nervously down at his book, presently fell to
+twitching the uncut pages again.</p>
+
+<p>"Poems," he said&mdash;"scarcely what you'd think I'd wish to read,
+Quarren&mdash;poems of youth and love&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're young, Ledwith&mdash;if you cared to help yourself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if I cared&mdash;if I cared. In this book they all seem to care; youth
+and happiness care; sorrow and years still care. Listen to this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'You who look forward through the shining tears<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Of April's showers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the sunrise of the coming years<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Golden with unborn flowers&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I who look backward where the sunset lowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Counting November's hours!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;I <i>don't</i> care. I care no longer, Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That's</i> losing your grip."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his ashy visage: "I'm <i>trying</i> to let go.... But it's
+slow&mdash;very slow&mdash;with a little pleasure&mdash;hell's own pleasure&mdash;" He
+turned his shoulder, fished something out of his pocket, and pulling
+back his cuff, bent over. After a few moments he turned around, calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen that on the stage I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"Otherwise, also."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite likely. I've known a pretty woman&mdash;" He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> ended with a weary
+gesture and dropped his head between his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Quarren," he said, "there's only one hurt left in it all. I have two
+little children."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose&mdash;it won't last&mdash;that hurt. They're with my mother. It was
+agreed that they should remain with her.... But it's the only hurt I
+feel at all now&mdash;except&mdash;rarely&mdash;when those damned June roses are in
+bloom.... She wore them a good deal.... Quarren, I'm glad it came early
+to me if it had to come.... Like yellow dogs unsuccessful men are the
+fastest breeders. The man in permanent hard luck is always the most
+prolific.... I'm glad there are no more children."</p>
+
+<p>His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read
+what was not written there&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Her loveliness with shame and with surprise<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Froze my swift speech; she turning on my face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Spoke slowly.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'I had great beauty; ask thou not my name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No one can be more wise than destiny.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I brought calamity.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Quarren bit his lip and looked down at the sunlit brook dancing by under
+the bridge in amber beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith said musingly: "I don't know who it might have been if it had
+not been Sprowl. It would have been <i>somebody</i>!... The decree has been
+made absolute."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She's coming back here soon, now. I've had the place put in shape for
+her."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence Quarren rose and offered his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith took it: "I suppose I shall not see you again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to town this afternoon. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Looking back at the turn of the path he saw Ledwith, bent nearly double,
+terribly intent on his half-bared arm.</p>
+
+<p>Returning in time for luncheon he encountered Sir Charles fresh from the
+river, and Chrysos prettily sun-burned, just entering the house.</p>
+
+<p>"We broke down," said the girl; "I thought we'd never get back, but Sir
+Charles is quite wonderful and he mended that very horrid machinery with
+the point of a file. Think of it, Ricky!&mdash;the point of a file!"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles laughed and explained the simplicity of the repairs; and
+Chrysos, not a whit less impressed, stared at him out of her pretty
+golden eyes with a gaze perilously resembling adoration.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward, by the bay-window upstairs, Quarren said lightly to Molly:</p>
+
+<p>"How about the little Lacy girl and the Baronet?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's an idiot," said Molly, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid she is."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she is. I wish I hadn't asked her. Why, she goes about like a
+creature in a trance when Sir Charles is away.... I don't know whether
+to say anything to her or whether to write to her mother. She's slated
+for Roger O'Hara."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose her parents would object to Sir Charles," said Quarren,
+smiling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's why I hesitate to write. Sir Charles is in love with Strelsa;
+anybody can see that and everybody knows it. And it isn't likely that a
+child like Chrysos could swerve him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'd better send him or her away, hadn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to do," said Molly, vexed. "June is to be quiet and
+peaceful at Witch-Hollow, and Sir Charles wanted to be here and Mrs.
+Lacy asked me to have Chrysos because she needed the quiet and calm. And
+<i>look</i> what she's done!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's probably only a young girl's fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it ought to be nipped in the bud. But her mother wants her here
+and Sir Charles wants to be here and if I write to her mother she'll let
+her remain anyway. I'm cross, Ricky. I'm tired, too&mdash;having dictated
+letters and signed checks until my head aches. Where have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Prowling."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, luncheon is nearly ready, and Strelsa isn't back. Are you going
+to New York this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's better," he said lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Run away if you want to. Don't say another word to me; I'm
+irritated."</p>
+
+<p>Luncheon was not very gay; Chrysos adored Sir Charles in silence, but so
+sweetly and unobtrusively that the Baronet was totally unaware of it.
+Molly, frankly out of temper, made no effort of any sort; her husband in
+his usual rude health and spirits talked about the Stinger to everybody.
+Strelsa, who had arrived late, and whose toilet made her later still,
+seemed inclined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> to be rather cheerful and animated, but received little
+encouragement from Molly.</p>
+
+<p>However, she chatted gaily with Sir Charles and with Quarren, and after
+luncheon invited Sir Charles to read to her and Chrysos, which the grave
+and handsome Englishman did while they swung in old-fashioned hammocks
+under the maple trees, enjoying the rare treat of hearing their own
+language properly spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Molly had a book to herself on the veranda&mdash;the newest and wickedest of
+French yellow-covered fiction; her husband returned to the Stinger;
+Quarren listened to Sir Charles for a while, then without disturbing the
+reading, slipped quietly off and wandered toward the kennels.</p>
+
+<p>Here for a while he caressed the nervous, silky Blue Beltons, then
+strolled on toward the hemlock woods, a morning paper, still unread,
+sticking out of his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to the rustic seat which was his objective, he lighted his
+pipe, unfolded the paper, and forced his attention on the first column.</p>
+
+<p>How long he had been studying the print he did not know when, glancing
+up at the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, he saw Strelsa coming in
+his direction. He could see her very plainly through the hemlocks from
+where he sat but she could not as yet see him. Then the fat waddling dog
+ahead of her, barked; and he saw the girl stop short, probably divining
+that the rustic seat was occupied.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments she stood there, perhaps waiting for her dog to
+return; but that fat sybarite had his chin on Quarren's knees; and,
+presently, Strelsa moved forward, slowly, already certain who it was
+ahead of her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Quarren rose as she came around the curve in the path:</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't want me here I'm quite willing to retire," he said,
+pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a ridiculous thing to say," she commented. Then she seated
+herself and motioned him to resume his place.</p>
+
+<p>"I was rather wondering," she continued, "whether I'd see you before you
+leave."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, are you driving this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I should certainly have looked for you and made my adieux."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have remembered to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"What a question! I might possibly forget my own name, but not anything
+concerning you."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down at the paper lying between them on the bench, and, still
+looking down, said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for what Langly did this morning.... He has expressed his
+contrition to me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That</i> is all right as long as he doesn't express it to me,"
+interrupted Quarren, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"He means to speak to you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please say to him that your report of his mental anguish is
+sufficient."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Are</i> you vindictive, Mr. Quarren?" she asked, reddening.</p>
+
+<p>"Not permanently. But I either like or I dislike. So let the incident
+close quietly."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well&mdash;if you care to humiliate me&mdash;him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mrs. Leeds, he isn't going to be humiliated,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> because he doesn't
+care. And you know I wouldn't humiliate you for all the world&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at her:</p>
+
+<p>"Would <i>that</i> make it easier for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;perhaps&mdash;please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>He caressed the dog's head where it lay across his knees, and looked out
+over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and
+wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart
+the sun.</p>
+
+<p>She said in a low voice: "I hope your new business venture will be
+successful."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care."</p>
+
+<p>"I care&mdash;greatly.... As much as I&mdash;dare."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed: "Don't you dare care about me?"</p>
+
+<p>She bit her lip: "I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two
+occasions."</p>
+
+<p>"So you don't really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I
+might again mistake it for something deeper." He was still laughing, and
+she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then:</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you&mdash;if you
+will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face altering.</p>
+
+<p>"Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I spoiled that for both of us," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say so. I told you that I didn't know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> what you had done. I've
+had time to reflect. It&mdash;our friendship isn't spoiled&mdash;if you still
+value it."</p>
+
+<p>"I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly
+reflected in hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us have peace," she said unsteadily. "I have&mdash;been&mdash;not very
+happy since you&mdash;since we&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know. I've been utterly miserable, too." He lifted one of her hands
+and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in
+his.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mind?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"N-no."</p>
+
+<p>He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested
+her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I think&mdash;you had better not&mdash;touch me&mdash;any more&mdash;" she said faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it disagreeable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;n-no.... It is&mdash;it has nothing to do with friendship&mdash;" she looked
+up, flushed, curious: "Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you never caress a flower?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rix!"&mdash;she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first
+time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. "It was your
+nonsensical answer!&mdash;I&mdash;it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon
+for being stupid.... And&mdash;may I have my hand? I use it occasionally."</p>
+
+<p>He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa," he said, "I'm coming back into the battle again."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I am sorry I forgave you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Are</i> you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can't you be to me what I wish to be to
+you? Why can't you be what I want&mdash;what I need&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what you need?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you don't. You need to love&mdash;and to be loved. You don't know it,
+but you do!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a&mdash;a perfectly brutal thing to say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it sound so to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it does! It is brutal&mdash;common, unworthy of you and of me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Can't</i> you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't
+you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there
+anything to be ashamed of in it?&mdash;merely because nothing has ever yet
+awakened <i>you</i> to it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of
+me is more than love&mdash;cleaner, better, stronger&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to
+do!"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!"</p>
+
+<p>She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves
+become irresponsible. I know nothing about it&mdash;I could not&mdash;I
+will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it&mdash;to me it is
+degrading&mdash;contemptible&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you saying?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster.
+"I'm telling you what I know&mdash;what I have learned in a bitter
+school&mdash;during two dreadful years&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave
+friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to
+me? You are the one man I could ask it of&mdash;the only man I ever saw who
+seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could
+return what he gave me with all my heart&mdash;all my heart&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew
+her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't <i>talk</i> to you of love any more," he whispered. "You poor little
+girl&mdash;you poor little thing. I didn't realise&mdash;I don't want to think
+about it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;of course&mdash;you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find
+fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or
+demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People
+are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn't love them if you
+don't want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you
+please&mdash;about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too."</p>
+
+<p>Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he whispered&mdash;"there, there&mdash;you little, little girl. That's
+all I want of you after all&mdash;only what you want of me. I don't wish to
+marry you if you don't wish it; I won't&mdash;I perhaps couldn't really love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+you very deeply if you didn't respond. I shall not bother you any
+more&mdash;or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am
+concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable
+to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly&mdash;look so, even, and
+I'll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don't mean anything,
+do you by&mdash;by your arm around me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled&mdash;"Which I
+suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;begin to.... Will you let me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?"</p>
+
+<p>She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth
+curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are worn out," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not rested for weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"On account of that Trust business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... But I was tired before that&mdash;I had done too much&mdash;lived too
+much&mdash;and I've felt as though I were being hunted for so long.... And
+then&mdash;I was unhappy about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You were different, but&mdash;you made me feel that way, too&mdash;a little&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand now."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It's been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging,
+importuning you to consider their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> desires&mdash;to care for them in their
+own way&mdash;all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting,
+head-long and boisterous&mdash;all at you constantly to give them what is
+not in you to give&mdash;what has never been awakened&mdash;what lies stunned,
+crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Killed," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps." He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the
+sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding
+the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a
+child's. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror,
+partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa
+lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she
+could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him
+was no longer there.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you&mdash;know about me?" she asked in a still, low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"About the past?"</p>
+
+<p>"About my marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some things."</p>
+
+<p>"You know what the papers said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Don't speak of it&mdash;unless you care to, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to.... Do you know this is the first time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody.... As long as my
+mother lived I did not once speak of it to her."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She rested in silence for a while, then:</p>
+
+<p>"Could I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, my dear!&mdash;of course you can."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;it's been unsaid so long&mdash;there was nobody to tell it to. I've done
+my best to forget it&mdash;and for days I seem to forget it. But sometimes
+when I wake at night it is there&mdash;the horror of it&mdash;the terror sinking
+deeper into my breast.... I was very young. You knew that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew my mother had very slender means?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have cared; I was an imaginative child&mdash;and could have lived
+quite happy with my fancies on very, very little.... I was a sensitive
+and affectionate child&mdash;inclined to be demonstrative. You wouldn't
+believe it, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can understand it."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you? It's odd because I have changed so.... I was quite romantic
+about my mother&mdash;madly in love with her.... There is nothing more to
+say.... In boarding-school I was perfectly aware that I was being given
+the best grooming that we could afford. Even then romance persisted. I
+had the ideas of a coloured picture-book concerning men and love and
+marriage. I remember, as a very little child, that I had a picture-book
+showing Cinderella's wedding. It was a very golden sort of picture. It
+coloured my ideas long after I was grown up."</p>
+
+<p>She moved her head a little, looked up for an instant and smiled; but at
+his answering smile she turned her cheek to his shoulder, hastily, and
+lay silent for a while. Presently she continued in a low voice:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It was when we were returning for the April vacation&mdash;and the platform
+was crowded and some of the girls' brothers were there. There were two
+trains in&mdash;and much confusion&mdash;I don't know how I became separated from
+Miss Buckley and my schoolmates&mdash;I don't know to this day how I found
+myself on the Baltimore train, and Gladys Leeds's brother laughing and
+talking and the train moving faster and faster.... There is no use
+saying any more. I was as ignorant as I was innocent&mdash;a perfect little
+fool, frightened, excited, even amused by turns.... He had been
+attentive to me. We both were fools. Only finally I became badly scared
+and he talked such nonsense&mdash;and I managed to slip away from him and
+board the train at Baltimore as soon as we arrived there.... If he
+hadn't found me and returned to New York with me, it might not have been
+known. But we were recognised on the train and&mdash;it was a dreadful thing
+for me when I arrived home after midnight...."</p>
+
+<p>She fell silent; once or twice he looked down at her and saw that her
+eyes were closed. Then, with a quick, uneven breath:</p>
+
+<p>"I think you know the rest, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>But she went on in a low, emotionless voice: "I was treated like a
+damaged gown&mdash;for which depreciation in value somebody was to be made
+responsible. I suffered; days and nights seemed unreal. There were
+lawyers; did you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said wearily, "it was a bad dream&mdash;my mother, others&mdash;<i>his</i>
+family&mdash;many people strange and familiar passed through it. Then we
+travelled; I saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> nothing, feeling half dead.... We were married in the
+Hawaiian Islands."</p>
+
+<p>"I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;the two years began."</p>
+
+<p>After a long while she said again: "That was the real nightmare. I
+passed through the depths as in a trance. There was nothing lower, not
+even hell.... We travelled in Europe, Africa, and India for two
+years.... I scarcely remember a soul I saw or one single object. And
+then&mdash;<i>that</i> happened."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, dear."</p>
+
+<p>A slight shudder passed over her:</p>
+
+<p>"I've told you," she whispered&mdash;"I've told you at last. Shall I tell you
+more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether I want to&mdash;about the gendarmes&mdash;and that terrible
+woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs&mdash;and how ill
+I was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren's arm tightened
+around her; and presently she became limp and motionless.</p>
+
+<p>"This&mdash;what I have told you&mdash;is a very close bond between us, isn't it?"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Very close, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>"Was I much to blame?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"How much?"</p>
+
+<p>"You should have left him long before."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and
+make the best of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was all I could see to do about it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe in divorce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I thought he'd be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If
+he'd been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left
+him. But one can't abandon a helpless person."</p>
+
+<p>"Every word you utter," he said, "forges a new link in my love for you."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean&mdash;love?"</p>
+
+<p>"We mean the same I think&mdash;differing only in degree."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. That is nice of you."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver:</p>
+
+<p>"Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"All gone&mdash;all of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I see.... And something has got to be done."</p>
+
+<p>"You know it has.... And I'm old before my time&mdash;tired, worn out. I
+can't work&mdash;I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were
+burnt out; I haven't the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure.
+What am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not what you plan to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? As long as I need help&mdash;and the best is offered&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you take less&mdash;and me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rix! I couldn't <i>use you</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from
+his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;you are my <i>friend</i>. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give
+anybody&mdash;not even you." She smiled, tremulously&mdash;"And I suspect that as
+far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But
+it's sweet of you. You <i>are</i> generous, having so little and wishing to
+share it with me&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Could you wait for me, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can
+I?&mdash;even if it were a certainty."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you hold on for a couple of years?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my
+house."</p>
+
+<p>He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't
+already given you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask no more."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you <i>do</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa&mdash;only what you have to offer of
+your own accord."</p>
+
+<p>They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"If you could wait&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him."</p>
+
+<p>"Does that count?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be.... I don't
+know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix&mdash;you don't realise&mdash;and
+I'm tired and sad&mdash;old before my time&mdash;perplexed, burnt out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes.
+After a while she opened them with a weary smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try to think&mdash;after you are gone.... What time does your train
+leave?"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Have</i> I kept you too long?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No; I can make it. We'll have to walk rather fast&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather you left me here."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you? Then&mdash;good-bye&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye.... Will you come up again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we write?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came.
+I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is
+enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and
+welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her;
+she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek&mdash;a second's
+contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+
+<p>Quarren arrived in town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor
+he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up
+Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking
+with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him,
+freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the
+heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the
+avenue's lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms
+of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less
+wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew
+out of the night&mdash;"clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold"&mdash;and
+dissolved again into darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Still thrilled, almost buoyant, he walked on, passing the high-piled
+masonry of the branch Post-Office and the Central Palace on his left.
+Against high stars the twin Power-House chimneys stood outlined in
+steel; on the right endless blocks of brown-stone dwellings stretched
+northward, some already converted into shops where print-sellers,
+dealers in old books, and here and there antiquaries, had constructed
+show-windows.</p>
+
+<p>Firemen lounged outside the Eighth Battalion quarters; here and there a
+grocer's or wine-seller's windows remained illuminated where those who
+were neither well-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>to-do nor very poor passed to and fro with little
+packages which seemed a burden under the sultry skies.</p>
+
+<p>At last, ahead, the pseudo-oriental towers of a synagogue varied the
+flat skyline, and a moment later he could see the New Thought Laundry,
+the Tonsorial Drawing Rooms, the Undertaker's discreetly illuminated
+windows, and finally the bay-window of his own recent Real-Estate
+office, now transmogrified into the Dankmere Galleries of Old Masters,
+Fayre and Quarren, proprietors.</p>
+
+<p>The window appeared to be brilliantly illuminated behind the drawn
+curtains; and Quarren, surprised and vexed, concluded that the little
+Englishman was again entertaining. So it perplexed and astonished him to
+find the Earl sitting on the front steps, his straw hat on the back of
+his head, smoking. At the same moment from within the house a confused
+and indescribable murmur was wafted to his ears as though many people
+were applauding.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is going on inside?" he asked, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"You told me over the telephone that Karl Westguard might have the
+gallery for this evening," said the Englishman calmly. "So I let him
+have it."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he want of it? Who has he got in there?"&mdash;demanded Quarren as
+another ripple of applause sounded from within.</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere thought a moment: "I really don't know the audience,
+Quarren&mdash;they're not a very fragrant lot."</p>
+
+<p>"What audience? Who are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"You Americans would call them a 'tough-looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> bunch&mdash;except
+Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cyrille Caldera and De Groot! What's that silly old Dandy doing down
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Diffusing sweetness and light among the unwashed; telling them that
+there are no such things as classes, that wealth is no barrier to
+brotherhood, that the heart of Fifth Avenue beats as warmly and
+guilelessly as the heart of Essex Street, and that its wealth-burdened
+inhabitants have long desired to fraternise with the benchers in
+Paradise Park."</p>
+
+<p>"Who put Westguard up to this?" asked Quarren, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"De Groot. Karl is writing a levelling novel calculated to annihilate
+caste. The Undertaker next door furnished the camp-chairs; the corner
+grocer the collation; Westguard, Mrs. Caldera, and Bleecker De Groot the
+mind-food. Go in and look 'em over."</p>
+
+<p>The front door was standing partly open; the notes of a piano floated
+through; a high and soulful tenor voice was singing "Perfumes of Araby,"
+but Quarren did not notice any as he stepped inside.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs20" id="gs20"></a><img src="images/gs20.jpg" width="640" height="434" alt="&quot;A high and soulful tenor was singing &#39;Perfumes of
+Araby.&#39;&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;A high and soulful tenor was singing &#39;Perfumes of
+Araby.&#39;&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Not daring to leave his suit-case in the hallway he kept on along the
+passage to the extension where the folding doors were locked. Here he
+deposited his luggage, locked the door, then walked back to the front
+parlour and, unobserved, slipped in, seating himself among the battered
+derelicts of the rear row.</p>
+
+<p>A thin, hirsute young man had just finished scattering the perfumes of
+Araby; other perfumes nearly finished Quarren; but he held his ground
+and gazed grimly at an improvised platform where sat in a half-circle
+and in full evening dress, Karl Westguard, Cyrille Caldera<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> and Bleecker
+De Groot. Also there was a table supporting a Calla lily.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard was saying very earnestly: "The world calls me a novelist. I
+am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere
+scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message&mdash;a plain, simple,
+earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous
+indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between
+wealth and poverty&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," interrupted a hoarse voice; "it's all a con game, an'
+the perlice is into it, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"T'hell wit te bulls! Croak 'em!" observed another gentleman thickly.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which
+greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old
+Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an
+artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side
+feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my friends!" cried De Groot, "if you could only realise how great
+is the love for humanity within my breast!&mdash;If you could only know of
+the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the
+problems of the poor!</p>
+
+<p>"And I <i>have</i> solved them&mdash;every one. And <i>this</i> is the
+answer!"&mdash;grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it&mdash;"this!"
+seizing another&mdash;"and this, and this! And now I ask you, <i>what</i> is this
+mute answer which I have given you?"</p>
+
+<p>"De merry mitt," said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with
+sweetness and indulgence.</p>
+
+<p>"I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>lar," he said. "It <i>is</i>
+the 'merry mitt'&mdash;the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue
+clasps palms with Doyers Street&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ding!" said a weary voice, "yer in wrong, boss. It's nix f'r the Tongs
+wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. "The rich," he said, "are not
+really happy." His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a
+priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with
+a kind of noble pity for his own weakness.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear friends," he said tremulously, "believe me&mdash;oh, believe me
+that the rich are not happy! Only the perspiring labourer knows what is
+true contentment. The question of poverty is a great social question.
+With me it is a religion. Oh, I could go on forever on this subject,
+dear friends, and talk on and on and on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Emotion again checked him&mdash;or perhaps he had lost the thread of his
+discourse&mdash;or possibly he had attained its limit&mdash;but he filled it out
+by coming down from the platform and shaking hands so vigorously that
+the gardenia in his lapel presently fell out.</p>
+
+<p>Cyrille Caldera rose, fresh and dainty and smiling, and discoursed
+single-tax and duplex tenements, getting the two subjects mixed but not
+minding that. Also she pointed at the Calla lily and explained that the
+lily was the emblem of purity. Which may have had something to do with
+something or other.</p>
+
+<p>Then Westguard arose once more and told them all about the higher type
+of novel he was writing for humanity's sake, and became so interested
+and absorbed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> his own business that the impatient shuffling of shabby
+feet on the floor alone interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Has anybody," inquired De Groot, sweetly, "any vital question to
+ask&mdash;any burning inquiry of deeper, loftier import, which has perhaps
+long remained unanswered in his heart?"</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman known usually as "Mike the Mink" arose and indicated with
+derisive thumb a picture among the Dankmere collection, optimistically
+attributed to Correggio:</p>
+
+<p>"Is that Salome, mister?" he inquired with a leer.</p>
+
+<p>De Groot looked at the canvas, slightly startled.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear friend; that is a picture painted hundreds of years ago by
+a great Italian master. It is called 'Danaë.' Jupiter, you know, came to
+her in a shower of gold&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They all have to come across with it," remarked the Mink.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody observed that if the police caught the dago who painted it
+they'd pinch him.</p>
+
+<p>To make a diversion, and with her own fair hands, Cyrille Caldera
+summoned the derelicts to sandwiches and ginger-ale; and De Groot,
+dashing more unmanly moisture from his monocle, went about resolutely
+shaking hands, while Westguard and the hirsute young man sang "Comrades"
+with much feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren, still unrecognised, edged his way out and rejoined Dankmere on
+the front stoop. Neither made any comment on the proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>Later the derelicts, moodily replete, shuffled forth into the night,
+herded lovingly by De Groot, still shaking hands.</p>
+
+<p>From the corner of the street opposite, Quarren and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> Dankmere observed
+their departure, and, later, they beheld De Groot and Mrs. Caldera slip
+around the block and discreetly disappear into a 1912 touring-car with
+silver mountings and two men in livery on the box.</p>
+
+<p>Westguard, truer to his principles, took a tram and Quarren and the Earl
+returned to their gallery with mixed emotions, and opened every window
+top and bottom.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right in its way, I suppose," said Quarren. "Probably De Groot
+means well, but there's no conversation possible between a man who has
+just dined rather heavily, and a man who has no chance of dining at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Like preaching Christ to the poor from a Fifth Avenue pulpit," said
+Dankmere, vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"A church on a side street would seem to serve the purpose. And the poor
+need the difference."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about those matters."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I don't either. It's easy, cheap, and popular to knock the
+clergy.... Still, somehow or other, I can't seem to forget that the
+disciples were poor&mdash;and it bothers me a lot, Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said: "Haven't you and I enough to worry us concerning our own
+morals?"</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere, who had been closing up and piling together the Undertaker's
+camp-chairs, looked around at the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I said that probably you and I would find no time left to criticise
+either De Groot or the clergy, if we used our leisure in
+self-examination."</p>
+
+<p>His lordship went on piling up chairs. When he finished he started
+wandering around, hands in his pock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>ets. Then he turned out all the
+electric lamps, drew the bay-window curtains wide so that the silvery
+radiance from the arc-light opposite made the darkness dimly lustrous.</p>
+
+<p>A little breeze stirred the hair on Quarren's forehead; Dankmere dropped
+into the depths of an armchair near him. For a while they sat together
+in darkness and silence, then the Englishman said abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"You've been very kind to me."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren glanced up surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because nobody else has any decent words to say to me or of me."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren, amused, said: "How do you know that I have, Dankmere?"</p>
+
+<p>"A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an
+ass&mdash;they don't tell me so but I know it. And if they don't take me for
+an ass they assume that I'm something worse&mdash;because I have a title of
+sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a
+living out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Also," Quarren reminded him, "you are looking for a wealthy wife."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless my soul! Am I the only chap in America who happens to be
+doing that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but you're doing it conspicuously."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean I'm honest about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed: "Anyway perhaps that's one reason why I like you. At
+first I also thought it was merely stupidity."</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe:</p>
+
+<p>"The majority of your better people have managed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> not to know me. I've
+met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home
+thresholds&mdash;most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives
+sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both, Dankmere&mdash;and then some."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was
+my first wife they shy at."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"She was a bar-maid," remarked the Earl. "We were quite happy&mdash;until she
+died."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course my marrying her damned us both," observed the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so. People would have stood for anything else.... But she
+wouldn't&mdash;you may think it odd.... And I was in love&mdash;so there you are."</p>
+
+<p>For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further
+speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put
+on his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," he said, "I'm not really an ass. My tastes and my caste
+don't happen to coincide&mdash;that's all, Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>They walked together to the front stoop.</p>
+
+<p>"When do we open shop?" asked the Earl, briskly.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as I get the reports from our experts."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't business be dead all summer?"</p>
+
+<p>"We may do some business with agents and dealers."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. You and I are to alternate as salesmen?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a while. When things start I want to rent the basement and open a
+department for repairing, relining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> and cleaning; and I'd like to be
+able to do some of the work myself."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely. It interests me immensely."</p>
+
+<p>"You're welcome I'm sure," said Dankmere drily. "But who's to keep the
+books and attend to correspondence?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get somebody. A young woman, who says she is well recommended,
+advertised in Thursday's papers, and I wrote her from Witch-Hollow to
+come around Sunday morning."</p>
+
+<p>"That's to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren nodded.</p>
+
+<p>So Dankmere trotted jauntily away into the night, and Quarren locked the
+gallery and went to bed, certain that he was destined to dream of
+Strelsa. But the sleek, narrow head and slightly protruding eyes of
+Langly Sprowl was the only vision that peered cautiously at him through
+his sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The heated silence of a Sunday morning in June awoke him from a somewhat
+restless night. Bathed and shaved, he crept forth limply to breakfast at
+the Founders' Club where he still retained a membership. There was not a
+soul there excepting himself and the servants&mdash;scarcely a person on the
+avenues and cross-streets which he traversed going and coming, only one
+or two old men selling Sunday papers at street-stands, an old hag
+gleaning in the gutters, and the sparrows.</p>
+
+<p>Clothing was a burden. He had some pongee garments which he put on,
+installed himself in the gallery with a Sunday paper, an iced lime
+julep, and a cigarette, and awaited the event of the young lady who
+had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> advertised that she knew all about book-keeping, stenography,
+and typewriting, and could prove it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs21" id="gs21"></a><img src="images/gs21.jpg" width="640" height="452" alt="&quot;She came about noon&mdash;a pale young girl, very slim in her
+limp black gown.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;She came about noon&mdash;a pale young girl, very slim in her
+limp black gown.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>She came about noon&mdash;a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black
+gown, and, at Quarren's invitation, seated herself at the newly
+purchased desk of the firm.</p>
+
+<p>Here, at his request she took a page or two of dictation from him and
+typed it rapidly and accurately.</p>
+
+<p>She had her own system of book-keeping which she explained to the young
+man who seemed to think it satisfactory. Then he asked her what salary
+she expected, and she told him, timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said with a smile, "if it suits you it certainly suits
+me. Will you begin to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever you wish, Mr. Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there won't be very much to do for a while," he said laughingly,
+"except to sit at that desk and look ornamental."</p>
+
+<p>She flushed, then smiled and thanked him for giving her the position,
+adding with another blush that she would do her best.</p>
+
+<p>"Your best," he said amiably, "will probably be exactly what we
+require.... Did you bring any letters?"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated: "One," she said gravely. She searched in her reticule,
+found it, and handed it to Quarren who read it in silence, then returned
+it to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You were stenographer in Mr. Sprowl's private office?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"This letter isn't signed by Mr. Sprowl."</p>
+
+<p>"No, by Mr. Kyte, his private secretary."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems you were there only six months."</p>
+
+<p>"Six months."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And before that where were you?"</p>
+
+<p>"At home."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh; Mr. Sprowl was your first employer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you leave?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl hesitated so long that he thought she had not understood, and
+was about to repeat the question when something in her pallor and in her
+uplifted eyes checked him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why I was sent away," she said in a colourless voice.</p>
+
+<p>He thought for a while, then, carelessly: "I take it that there was
+nothing irregular in <i>your</i> conduct?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd tell me if there was, wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her dark eyes to his. "Yes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>How much of an expert he was at judging faces he did not know, but he
+was perfectly satisfied with himself when she took her leave.</p>
+
+<p>And when Dankmere came in after luncheon he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I've engaged a book-keeper. Her name is Jessie Vining. She's evidently
+unhappy, poor, underfed, and the prettiest thing you ever saw out of a
+business college. So, being unhappy, poor, underfed <i>and</i> pretty, I take
+it that she's all to the good."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a generous world of men," said Dankmere&mdash;"so I guess she <i>is</i>
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure of it. She was Sprowl's private stenographer&mdash;and he sent her
+away.... There are three reasons why he might have dismissed her. I've
+taken my choice of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he give her a letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh. Then I've taken my choice, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Kyte ventured to give her a letter," said Quarren. "I've heard that
+Kyte <i>could</i> be decent sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"I see."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing further was said about the new book-keeper. His lordship went
+into the back parlour and played the piano until satiated; then mixed
+himself a lime julep.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon they went over the reports of the experts very carefully.
+From these reports and his own conclusions Quarren drafted a catalogue
+while Dankmere went about sticking adhesive labels on the frames, all
+numbered. And, as he trotted blithely about his work, he talked to
+himself and to the pictures:</p>
+
+<p>"Here's number nine for you, old lady! If I'd had a face like that I'd
+have killed the artist who transferred it to canvas!... Number sixteen
+for you there in your armour! Somebody in Springfield will buy you for
+an ancestor and that's what will happen to you.... And you, too, in a
+bag-wig!&mdash;<i>you'll</i> be some rich Yankee's ancestor before you know it!
+That's the way you'll end, my smirking friend.... Hello! <i>Tiens!</i> <i>In
+Gottes namen</i>&mdash;whom have we here? Why, it's Venus!... And hot weather is
+no excuse for going about <i>that</i> way!... Listen to this, Quarren, for an
+impromptu patter-song&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Venus, dear, you ought to know<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What the proper caper is&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even Eve, who wasn't slow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Robbed the neighbours' graperies!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even Mænads on the go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fat Bacchantes in a row&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even ladies in a show<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wear <i>some</i> threads of naperies!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the heavens planet-strewn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where a shred of vapour is<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quickly clothes herself the Moon!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Get you to a modiste soon<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where the tissue-paper is,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cut in fashions fit for June&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wear 'em, dear, for draperies&mdash;&mdash; '"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"<i>Good</i> heavens!" protested Quarren&mdash;"how long can you run on like
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Years and years, my dear fellow. It's in me&mdash;born in me! Can you beat
+it? Though I appear to be a peer appearance is a liar; cast for a part
+apart from caste, departing I climb higher toward the boards to bore the
+hordes and lord it, sock and buskin dispensing sweetness, art, and light
+as per our old friend Ruskin&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dankmere!"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven-born?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!"</p>
+
+<p>"I remain put.... What number do I stick on this gentleman with streaky
+features?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen. That's a Franz Hals."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; the records are all here, and the experts agree."</p>
+
+<p>His lordship got down nimbly from the step-ladder and came over to the
+desk:</p>
+
+<p>"Young sir," he said, "how much is that picture worth?"</p>
+
+<p>"All we can get for it. It's not a very good example."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to tell people that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If they ask me," said Quarren, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"What price are you going to put on it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you think any art-smitten ass will pay that sum for a thing like
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. If it were only a decent example I'd ask ten times
+that&mdash;and probably get it in the end."</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere inspected the picture more respectfully for a few moments, then
+pasted a label on an exquisite head by Greuze.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a peach," he said. "What price is going to waft her from my
+roof-tree?"</p>
+
+<p>"The experts say it's not a Greuze but a contemporary copy. And there's
+no pedigree, either."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said the Earl blankly, "is that your opinion, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't any yet. But there's no such picture by Greuze extant."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>don't</i> think it a copy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm inclined not to. Under that thick blackish-yellow varnish I believe
+I'll find the pearl and rose texture of old Greuze himself. In the
+meantime it's not for sale."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. And this battle-scene?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wouverman's&mdash;ruined by restoring. It's not worth much."</p>
+
+<p>"And this Virgin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pure as the Virgin Herself&mdash;not a mark&mdash;flawless. It's by 'The Master
+of the Death of Mary.' Isn't it a beauty? Do you notice St. John holding
+the three cherries and the Christ-child caressing the goldfinch? Did you
+ever see such colour?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;er&mdash;pretty," said his lordship.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And so during the entire afternoon they compiled the price-list and
+catalogue, marking copies for what they were, noting such pictures as
+had been ruined by restoring or repainted so completely as to almost
+obliterate the last original brush stroke. Also Quarren reserved for his
+own investigations such canvases as he doubted or of which he had
+hopes&mdash;a number that under their crocked, battered, darkened or
+discoloured surfaces hinted of by-gone glories that might still be
+living and only imprisoned beneath the thick opacity of dust, soot,
+varnish, and the repainting of many years ago.</p>
+
+<p>And that night he went to bed happier than he had ever been in all his
+life&mdash;unless his moments with Strelsa Leeds might be termed happy ones.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Monday morning brought, among other things, a cloudless sun, and little
+Miss Vining quite as spotless and radiant; and within ten minutes the
+click of the typewriter made the silent picture-plastered rooms almost
+gay.</p>
+
+<p>In shirtwaist and cuffs she took her place behind the desk with a sort
+of silent decision which seemed at once to invest her with suzerainty
+over all that corner of the room; and Dankmere coming in a little later,
+whistling merrily and twirling his walking-stick, sheered off
+instinctively on his breezy progress through the rooms, skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain as though her private ensign flew above it and
+earthworks, cannon and trespass notices flanked her corner on every
+side.</p>
+
+<p>In the back parlour he said to Quarren: "So that is the girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"It sure is."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"God bless my soul! she acts as though she had just bought in the whole
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"What's she doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just sitting there," admitted Dankmere.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to have lost his spirits. Once, certain that he was unobserved
+except by Quarren, he ventured to balance his stick on his chin, but it
+was a half-hearted performance; and when he tossed up his straw hat and
+attempted to catch it on his head, he missed, and the corrugated brim
+sustained a dent.</p>
+
+<p>A number of people called that morning, quiet, well-dressed,
+cautious-eyed, soft-spoken gentlemen who moved about noiselessly over
+the carpets and, on encountering one another, nodded with silent
+familiarity and smiles scarcely perceptible.</p>
+
+<p>They seemed to require no information concerning the pictures which they
+swept with glances almost careless on their first rounds of the rooms.
+But the first leisurely tour always resulted in a second where one or
+two pictures seemed to claim their closer scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then one of these gentlemen would screw a jeweller's glass into
+his eye and remain a few minutes nose almost touching a canvas. Several
+used the large reading-glass lying on a side table. Before they departed
+all glanced over the incomplete scale of prices which Jessie Vining had
+typed and bound in blue covers; but one and all took their leave in
+amiable silence, saying a non-committal word or two to Quarren in
+pleasantly modulated voices and passing Jessie's desk with a grave
+inclination of gravely preoccupied faces.</p>
+
+<p>When the last leisurely lingerer had taken his leave Quarren said to
+Jessie Vining:</p>
+
+<p>"Those are representatives of various first-class<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> dealers&mdash;confidential
+buyers, sons&mdash;even dealers themselves&mdash;like that handsome gray-haired
+young-looking man who is Max Von Ebers, head of that great house."</p>
+
+<p>"But they didn't buy one single thing!" said Jessie.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed: "People don't buy off-hand. Our triumph is to get them
+here at all. I wrote to each of them personally."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Nobody else came for a long while; then one or two of the lesser dealers
+appeared, and now and then a man who might be an agent or a prowling and
+wealthy amateur or perhaps one of those curious haunters of all art
+marts who never buy but who never miss assisting at all inaugurations in
+person&mdash;like an ubiquitous and silent dog who turns up wherever more
+than two people assemble with any purpose in view&mdash;or without any.</p>
+
+<p>During the forenoon and early afternoon several women came into the
+galleries; and they seemed to be a little different from ordinary women,
+although it would be hard to say wherein they were different except in
+one instance&mdash;a tall, darkly handsome girl whose jewellery was as
+conspicuously oriental as her brilliant colour.</p>
+
+<p>Later Quarren told Jessie Vining that they were expert buyers on
+commission or brokers having clients among those very wealthy people who
+bought pictures now and then because it was fashionable to do so. Also,
+these same women-brokers represented a number of those unhappy old
+families who, incognito, were being forced by straitened circumstances
+to part secretly with heirlooms&mdash;family plate, portraits, miniatures,
+furniture&mdash;even with the antique mirrors on the walls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> and the very
+fire-dogs on the hearth amid the ashes of a burnt-out race almost
+extinct.</p>
+
+<p>A few Jews came&mdash;representing the extreme types of the most wonderful
+race of people in the world&mdash;one tall, handsome, immaculate young man
+whose cultivated accent, charming manners, and quiet bearing challenged
+exception&mdash;and one or two representing the other extreme, loud,
+restless, aggressive, and as impertinent as they dared be, discussing
+the canvases in noisy voices and with callous manners verging always on
+the offensive.</p>
+
+<p>These evinced a disposition for cash deals and bargain-wrangling,
+discouraged good-naturedly by Quarren who referred them to the
+catalogue; and presently they took themselves off.</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere sidled up to Quarren rather timidly toward the close of the
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what bally good <i>I</i> am in this business," he said. "I don't
+mean to shirk, Quarren, but there doesn't seem to be anything for me to
+do. I think that all these beggars spot me for an ignoramus the moment
+they lay eyes on me, and the whole thing falls on you."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said laughingly: "Well, didn't you furnish the stock?"</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to go halves," muttered Dankmere, shyly skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain where she was writing letters with the Social Register
+at her elbow.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The last days of June and the first of July were repetitions in a
+measure of the opening day at the Dankmere Galleries; people came and
+were received and entertained by Quarren; Dankmere sat about in various
+chairs or retired furtively to the backyard to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> smoke at intervals;
+Jessie Vining with more colour in her pale, oval face, ruled her corner
+of the room in a sort of sweet and silent dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere, who, innately, possessed the effrontery of a born comedian,
+for some reason utterly unknown to himself, was inclined to be afraid of
+her&mdash;afraid of the clear brown eyes indifferently lifted to his when he
+entered&mdash;afraid of the quiet "Good-morning, Lord Dankmere," with which
+she responded to his morning greeting&mdash;afraid of her cool skilful little
+hands busy with pencil, pen, or lettered key&mdash;afraid of everything about
+her from her rippling brown hair and snowy collar to the tips of her
+little tan shoes&mdash;even afraid of the back of her head when it presented
+only a slender neck and two little rosy, close-set ears. But he didn't
+mention his state of abasement to Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>A curious thing occurred, too: Jessie had evidently been gay on Sunday;
+and, Monday noon, while out for lunch, she had left on her desk two
+Coney Island postal cards decorated with her own photograph. When she
+returned, one card had vanished; and she searched quietly but thoroughly
+before she left for home that evening, but she did not find the card.
+But she said nothing about it.</p>
+
+<p>The dreadful part of the affair was that it was theft&mdash;the Earl of
+Dankmere's first crime.</p>
+
+<p>Why he had taken it he did not know. The awful impulse of kleptomania
+alone seemed to explain but scarcely palliate his first offence against
+society.</p>
+
+<p>It was only after he realised that the picture and Jessie Vining vaguely
+resembled his dead Countess that his lordship began to understand why he
+had committed a felony before he actually knew what he was doing.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs22" id="gs22"></a><img src="images/gs22.jpg" width="320" height="446" alt="Jessie Vining." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Jessie Vining.</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And one day when Quarren was still out for lunch and Jessie had returned
+to her correspondence, the terrified Earl suddenly appeared before her
+holding out the photograph: and she took it, astonished, her lifted eyes
+mutely inquiring concerning the inwardness of this extraordinary
+episode.</p>
+
+<p>But Dankmere merely fled to the backyard and remained there all the
+afternoon smoking his head off; and it was several days before Jessie
+had an opportunity to find herself alone in his vicinity and to ask him
+with almost perfect self-possession where he had found the photograph.</p>
+
+<p>"I stole it," said Dankmere, turning bright red to his ear-tips.</p>
+
+<p>"All she could think of to say was: 'Why?'</p>
+
+<p>"It resembles my wife. So do you."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," she said coldly.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Several days later she learned by the skilfully careless questioning of
+Quarren that the Countess of Dankmere had not existed on earth for the
+last ten years.</p>
+
+<p>This news extenuated the Earl's guilt in her eyes to a degree which
+permitted a slight emotion resembling pity to pervade her. And one day
+she said to him, casually pleasant&mdash;"Would you care for that post-card,
+Lord Dankmere? If it resembles your wife I would be very glad to return
+it to you."</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere, painfully red again, thanked her so nicely that the slight,
+instinctive distrust and aversion which, in the beginning, she had
+entertained for his lordship, suddenly disappeared so entirely that it
+surprised her when she had leisure to think it over afterward.</p>
+
+<p>So she gave him the post-card, and next day she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> found a rose in a glass
+of water on her desk; and that ended the incident for them both except
+that Dankmere was shyer of her than ever and she was beginning to
+realise that his aloof and expressionless deportment was due to
+shyness&mdash;which seemed to be inexplicable because otherwise timidity was
+scarcely the word to characterise his lively little lordship.</p>
+
+<p>Once, looking out of the rear windows, through the lace curtains she saw
+the Earl of Dankmere in the backyard, gravely turning handsprings on the
+grass while still smoking his pipe. Once, entering the gallery
+unexpectedly, she discovered the Earl standing at the piano, playing a
+rattling breakdown while his nimble little feet performed the same with
+miraculous agility and professional precision. She withdrew to the front
+door, hastily, and waited until the piano ceased from rumbling and the
+Oxfords were at rest, then returned with heightened colour and a stifled
+desire to laugh which she disguised under an absent-minded nod of
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile one or two pictures had been sold to dealers&mdash;not important
+ones&mdash;but the sales were significant enough to justify the leasing of
+the basement. And here Quarren installed himself from morning to noon as
+apprentice to an old Englishman who, before the failure of his eyesight,
+had amassed a little fortune as surgeon, physician, and trained nurse to
+old and decrepit pictures.</p>
+
+<p>Not entirely unequipped in the beginning, Quarren now learned more about
+his trade&mdash;the guarded secrets of mediums and solvents, the composition
+of ancient and modern canvases, how old and modern colours were ground
+and prepared, how mixed, how applied.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He learned how the old masters of the various schools of painting
+prepared a canvas or panel&mdash;how the snowy "veil" was spread and dried,
+how the under painting was executed in earth-red and bone-black, how the
+glaze was used and why, what was the medium, what the varnish.</p>
+
+<p>He learned about the "baths of sunlight," too&mdash;those clarifying
+immersions practised so openly yet until recently not understood. He
+comprehended the mechanics, physics, and simple chemistry of that
+splendid, mysterious "inward glow" which seemed to slumber under the
+colours of the old masters like the exquisite warmth in the heart of a
+gem.</p>
+
+<p>To him, little by little, was revealed the only real wonder of the old
+masters&mdash;their astonishing honesty. He began to understand that, first
+of all, they were self-respecting artisans, practising their trade of
+making pictures and painting each picture as well as they knew how;
+that, like other artisans, their pride was in knowing their trade, in a
+mastery of their tools, and in executing commissions as honestly as they
+knew how and leaving the "art" to take care of itself.</p>
+
+<p>Also he learned&mdash;for he was obliged to learn in self-protection&mdash;the
+tricks and deceptions and forgeries of the trade&mdash;all that was unworthy
+about it, all its shabby disguises and imitations and crude artifices
+and cunning falsehoods.</p>
+
+<p>He examined old canvases painted over with old-new pictures and then
+relined; canvases showing portions of original colour; old canvases and
+panels repainted and artificially darkened and cleverly covered with
+both paint and varnish cracks; canvases that almost defied detection by
+needle-point or glass or thumb fric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>tion or solvent, so ingenious was
+the forgery simulating age.</p>
+
+<p>Every known adjunct was provided to carry out deception&mdash;genuinely old
+canvases or panels, old stretchers really worm-eaten, aged frames of the
+period, half-obliterated seals bearing sometimes even the cross-keys of
+the Vatican. Even, in some cases, pretence that the pictures had been
+cut from the frame and presumably stolen was carried out by a
+knife-slashed and irregular ridge where the canvas had actually been so
+cut and then sewed to a modern <i>toile</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For forgery of art is as old as the Greeks and as new as to-day&mdash;the one
+sinister art that perhaps will never become a lost art; and Quarren and
+his aged mentor in the basement of the Dankmere Galleries discovered
+more than enough frauds among the Dankmere family pictures showing how
+the little Earl's forebears had once been gulled before his present
+lordship lay in his cradle.</p>
+
+<p>To Quarren the work was fascinating and, except for his increasing worry
+over Strelsa Leeds, would have been all-absorbing to the degree of
+happiness&mdash;or that interested contentment which passes for it on earth.</p>
+
+<p>To see the dull encasing armour of varnish disappear from some ancient
+masterpiece under the thumb, as the delicate thumb of the Orient
+polishes lacquer; to dare a solvent when needed, timing its strength to
+the second lest disaster tarnish forever the exquisite bloom of the
+shrouded glazing; to cautiously explore for suspected signatures, to
+brood and ponder over ancient records and alleged pedigrees; to compare
+prints and mezzotints, photographs and engravings in search for
+identities; to study threads of canvas, flakes of varnish,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> flinty
+globules of paint under the microscope; to learn, little by little, the
+technical manners and capricious mannerisms significant of the progress
+periods of each dead master; to pore over endless volumes, monographs,
+illustrated foreign catalogues of public and private collections&mdash;in
+these things and through them happiness came to Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>Never a summer sun rose over the streets of Ascalon arousing the
+Philistine to another day of toil but it awoke Quarren to the subdued
+excitement of another day. Eager, interested, content in his
+self-respect, he went forth to a daily business which he cared about for
+its own sake, and was fast learning to care about to the point of
+infatuation.</p>
+
+<p>He was never tired these days; but the summer heat and lack of air and
+exercise made him rather thin and pale. Close work with the magnifying
+glass had left his features slightly careworn, and had begun little
+converging lines at the outer corners of his eyes. Only one line in his
+face expressed anything less happy&mdash;the commencement of a short
+perpendicular crease between his eyebrows. Anxious pondering over old
+canvases was not deepening that faint signature of perplexity&mdash;or the
+forerunner of Care's signs manual nervously etched from the wing of
+either nostril.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Since Quarren had left Witch-Hollow, he and Strelsa had exchanged
+half-a-dozen letters of all sorts&mdash;gay, impersonal notes, sober epistles
+reflecting more subdued moods, then letters fairly sparkling with high
+spirits and the happy optimism of young people discovering that there is
+more of good than evil in a world still really almost new to them. Then
+there was a long letter of description and amusing narrative from her,
+in which, here and there, she became almost sentimental over phases of
+rural beauty; and he replied at equal length telling her about his new
+shop-work in detail.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there came from her a short, dry, and
+deliberate letter mentioning once more her critical worldly
+circumstances and the necessity of confronting them promptly and with
+intelligence and decision.</p>
+
+<p>To which he answered vigorously, begging her to hold out&mdash;either fit
+herself for employment&mdash;or throw her fortunes in with his and take the
+chances.</p>
+
+<p>"Rix dear," she answered, "don't you suppose I have thought of
+that? But I can't do it. There is nothing left in me to go on with.
+I'm burnt out&mdash;deadly tired, wanting nothing more than I shall have
+by marrying as I must marry. For I shall have you, too, as I have
+always had you. You said so, didn't you?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What difference, then, does it make to you or me whether or not I
+am married?</p>
+
+<p>"If you were sufficiently equipped to take care of me, and if I
+married you, I could not give you anything more than I have given
+already&mdash;I would not wish to if I could. All that many other women
+consider part of love&mdash;all that lesser side of it and of marriage I
+could not give to you or to any man&mdash;could not endure; because it
+is not in me and never has been. It is foreign to me, unpleasant,
+distasteful&mdash;even hateful.</p>
+
+<p>"So as I can give you nothing more than I have given or ever shall
+give, and as you have given me all you can&mdash;anyway all I care for
+in you&mdash;let me feel free to seek my worldly salvation and find the
+quiet and rest and surcease from anxiety which comes only under
+such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't think unkindly of me, will you, Rix? I don't know very
+much; I amount to very little. What ideals I had are dead. Why
+should anybody bother to agree or disagree with my very
+unaggressive opinions or criticise harshly a life which has been
+spent mainly in troubling the world as little as possible?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"There are a number of people here&mdash;among them several friends of
+Jim Wycherly, all of them aviation-mad. Jim took out the Stinger,
+smashed the planes and got a fall which was not very serious.
+Lester Caldera did the same thing to the Kent biplane except that
+he fell into the river and Sir Charles and Chrysos, in the launch,
+fished him out&mdash;swearing, they say.</p>
+
+<p>"Vincent Wier made a fine flight in his Delatour Dragon, sailing
+'round and 'round like a big hawk for a quarter of an hour, but the
+wind came up and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> couldn't land, and he finally came down thirty
+miles north of us in a swamp.</p>
+
+<p>"Langly took me for a short flight in his Owlet No. 3&mdash;only two
+miles and not very high, but the sensation was simply horrid. I
+never even cared for motoring, you see, so the experience left me
+most unenthusiastic, greatly to Langly's disgust. Really, all I
+care for is a decently gaited horse&mdash;and I prefer to walk him half
+the time. There is nothing speedy about me, Rix. If I ever had the
+inclination it's gone now.</p>
+
+<p>"To the evident displeasure of Sir Charles, Langly took up Chrysos
+Lacy; and the child adored it. I believe Sir Charles said something
+cutting to Langly in his quiet and dry way which has, apparently,
+infuriated my to-be-affianced, for he never goes near Sir Charles,
+now, and that cold-eyed gentleman completely ignores him. Which is
+<i>not</i> very agreeable for me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rix, there seems to be so many misunderstandings in this
+exceedingly small world of ours&mdash;rows innumerable, heartburns,
+recriminations, quarrels secret and open, and endless
+misunderstandings.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't let any come between us, will you? Somehow, lately, I
+find myself looking on you as a distant but solid and almost
+peaceful refuge for my harried thoughts. And I'm so very, very
+tired of being hunted.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">Strelsa.</span>"<br /></span></div>
+
+
+
+<p>"If they hunt you too hard," he wrote to Strelsa, "the gateway of
+my friendship is open to you always: remember that, now and in the
+days to come.</p>
+
+<p>"What you have written leaves me with nothing to answer except
+this. To all it is given to endure according to their strength;
+beyond it no one can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> strive; but short of its limits it's a shame
+to show faint-heartedness.</p>
+
+<p>"About the man you are determined to marry I have no further word
+to say. You know in what repute he is held in your world, and you
+believe that its censure is unjust. There is good in every man,
+perhaps, and perhaps the good in this man may show itself only in
+response to the better qualities in you.</p>
+
+<p>"Somehow, without trying, you almost instantly evoke the better
+qualities in me. You changed my entire life; do you know it? I
+myself scarcely comprehended why. Perhaps the negative sweetness in
+you concentrated and brought out the positive strength so long
+dormant in me. All I know clearly is that you came into my life and
+found a fool wasting it, capering about in a costume half livery,
+half motley. My ambition was limited to my cap and bells; my
+aspirations never reached beyond the tip of my bauble. Then I saw
+you&mdash;and, all by themselves, my rags of motley fell from me, and
+something resembling a man stepped clear of them.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to make out of myself all that there is in me to
+develop. It is not much&mdash;scarcely more than the ability to earn a
+living.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come to care for nothing more than the right to look this
+sunny world straight in the face. Until I knew you I had scarcely
+seen it except through artificial light&mdash;scarce heard its voice;
+for the laughter of your world and the jingle of my cap and bells
+drowned it in my ass's ears.</p>
+
+<p>"I could tell you&mdash;for in dark moments I often believe it&mdash;that
+there is only one thing that counts in the world&mdash;one thing worth
+having, worth giving&mdash;love!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But in my heart I know it is not so; and the romancers are
+mistaken; and so is the heart denied.</p>
+
+<p>"Better and worth more than love of man or woman is the mind's
+silent approval&mdash;whether given in tranquillity or accorded in dumb
+anguish.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa dear, I shall always care for you; but I have discovered
+that love is another matter&mdash;higher or lower as you will&mdash;but
+different. And I do not think I shall be able to love the girl who
+does what you are decided to do. And that does not mean that I
+criticise you or blame you, or that my sympathy, affection,
+interest, in you will be less. On the contrary all these emotions
+may become keener; only one little part will die out, and that
+without changing the rest&mdash;merely that mysterious, curious, elusive
+and illogical atom in the unstable molecule, which we call
+love&mdash;and which, when separated, leaves the molecule changed only
+in name. We call it friendship, then.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is, I think, what you would most desire. So when you do
+what you have determined to do, I will really become toward you
+what you are&mdash;and have always been&mdash;toward me. And could either of
+us ask for more?</p>
+
+<p>"Only&mdash;forgive me&mdash;I wish it had been Sir Charles&mdash;or almost any
+other man. But that is for your decision. Strelsa governs and alone
+is responsible to Strelsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile do not doubt my affection&mdash;do not fear unkindness,
+judgment, or criticism. I wish I were what you cared for most in
+the world&mdash;after the approval of your own mind. I wish you cared
+for me not only as you do but with all that has never been aroused
+in you. For without that I am helpless to fight for you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So, in your own way, you will live life through, knowing that in
+me you will always have an unchanged friend&mdash;even though the lover
+died when you became a wife. Is all clear between us now?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"If you are ever in town, or passing through to Newport or Bar
+Harbour, stop and inspect our gallery.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really quite pretty and some of the pictures are excellent.
+You should see it now&mdash;sunlight slanting in through the dusty
+bay-window, Dankmere at a long polished table doing his level best
+to assemble certain old prints out of a portfolio containing nearly
+a thousand; pretty little Miss Vining, pencil in hand, checking off
+at her desk the reference books we require in our eternal hunt for
+information; I below stairs in overalls if you please, paint and
+varnish stained, a jeweller's glass screwed into my left eye,
+examining an ancient panel which I strongly hope may have been the
+work of a gentleman named Bronzino&mdash;for its mate is almost
+certainly the man in armour in the Metropolitan Museum.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa, it is the most exciting business I ever dreamed of. And
+the beauty of it is that it leads out into everything&mdash;stretches a
+thousand sensitive tentacles which grasp at knowledge of beauty
+everywhere&mdash;whether it lie in the sombre splendour of the
+tapestries of Bayeux, of Italy, of Flanders; or deep in the woven
+magnificence of some dead Sultan's palace rug; or in the beauty of
+the work of silversmiths, goldsmiths, of sculptors in ivory or in
+wood long dead; or in the untinted marbles of the immortal masters.</p>
+
+<p>"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are
+linked, how closely and eternally knit to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>gether in the vast fabric
+fashioned by man from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms
+of which lie buried all that man has ever thought and hoped.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five
+squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now
+open.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my
+knee, she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman
+cat begin an intermezzo on the back fence.</p>
+
+<p>"Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose,
+astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under
+the piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I
+supposed that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes
+and&mdash;Daisy's kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one
+in each pocket, Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional
+little exclamation of solicitude and pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries&mdash;not
+superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have
+tea in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her
+young ones&mdash;Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together
+in a basket which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk.</p>
+
+<p>"In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with
+Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl
+Westguard comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his
+novel&mdash;or perhaps Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for
+us&mdash;or, if the heat makes us feel particularly futile, I perform
+some of those highly intellectual tricks which once made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> me
+acceptable among people I now seldom or never see.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs23" id="gs23"></a><img src="images/gs23.jpg" width="640" height="468" alt="&quot;&#39;In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and
+dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.&#39;&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and
+dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.&#39;&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a
+sweet, sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the
+ordinary yet blessed with a delicate sense of honour and
+incidentally of humour.</p>
+
+<p>"She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her
+mind about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our
+including her in our harmless informalities.</p>
+
+<p>"Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he
+informs me that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh;
+but Karl loves to take himself seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world
+is out of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere
+Galleries need expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship
+usually fights shy of the frontiers of business. Old
+acquaintanceship is forgot very quickly when one side or the other
+has anything to sell. Only those thrifty imitations of friends
+venture near in quest of special privilege; and not getting it, go,
+never to return. <i>Ubi amici, ibi opes!</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"When you pass through this furnace of Ascalon called New York will
+you stop among the Philistines long enough to take a cup of tea
+with us?&mdash;I'll show you the pictures; Dankmere will play 'Shannon
+Water' for you; Miss Vining will talk pretty platitudes to you,
+Daisy will purr for you, and the painted eyes of Dankmere's
+ancestors will look down approvingly at you from the wall; and all
+our little world will know that the loveliest and best of all the
+greater world is break<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>ing bread with us under our roof, and that
+one for once, unlike man's dealings with your celestial sisters,
+our entertainment of you will not be wholly unawares.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">R. S. Quarren.</span>"<br /></span></div>
+
+
+<p>The basement workshop was aromatic with the odours of solvents, mediums,
+and varnishes when he returned from posting his letter to Strelsa. His
+old English mentor had departed for good, leaving him to go forward
+alone in his profession.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as he stood there, looking out into the sunny backyard, for the
+first time he felt the silence and isolation of the place, and his own
+loneliness. Doubt crept in whispering the uselessness of working, of
+saving, of self-denial, of laying by anything for a future that already
+meant nothing of happiness to him.</p>
+
+<p>For whom, after all, should he save, hoard, gather together, economise?
+Who was there to labour for? For whom should he endure?</p>
+
+<p>He cared nothing for women; he had really never cared for any woman
+excepting only this one. He would never marry and have a son. He had no
+near or distant relatives. For whose sake, then, was he standing here in
+workman's overalls? What business had he here in the basement of a
+shabby house in midsummer? Did there remain any vague hope of Strelsa?
+Perhaps. Hope is the last of one's friends to die. Or was it for himself
+that he was working now to provide against those evil days "when the
+keepers of the house shall tremble"? Perhaps he was unconsciously
+obeying nature's first law.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, slowly within him grew a certainty that these reasons were not
+the real ones&mdash;not the vital im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>pulse that moved his hand steadily
+through critical and delicate moments as he bent, breathless, over the
+faded splendours of ancient canvases. No; somehow or other he had
+already begun to work for the sake of the work itself&mdash;whatever that
+really meant. That was the basic impulse&mdash;the occult motive; and,
+somehow he knew that, once aroused, the desire to strive could never
+again in him remain wholly quiescent.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Both Dankmere and Miss Vining had gone to lunch, presumably in different
+directions; Daisy and her youngsters, having been nourished, were
+asleep; there was not a sound in the house except the soft rubbing of
+tissue-paper where Quarren was lightly removing the retouching varnish
+from a relined canvas. Presently the front door-bell rang.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren rinsed his hands and, still wearing overalls and painter's
+blouse, mounted the basement stairs and opened the front door. And Mrs.
+Sprowl supported by a footman waddled in, panting.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell your master I want to see him," she said&mdash;"I don't mean that fool
+of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar&mdash;Good Lord! Ricky, is that <i>you</i>?
+Here, get me a chair&mdash;those front steps nearly killed me. Long ago I
+swore I'd never enter a house which was not basement-built and had an
+elevator!... Hand me one of those fans. And if there's any water in the
+house not swarming with typhoid germs, get me a glass of it."</p>
+
+<p>He brought her a tumbler of spring water; she panted and gulped and
+fanned and panted, her little green eyes roaming around her.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she dismissed the footman, and turned her heavily flushed face
+on Quarren. The rolls of fat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> crowded the lace on her neck, perspiration
+glistened under her sparklike eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you?" she inquired.</p>
+
+<p>He said, smilingly, that he was well.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't look it. You look gaunt.... Well, I never thought you'd come
+to this&mdash;that you had it in you to do anything useful."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I've heard you say so now and then," he said with perfect
+good-humour.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Why should I have thought that your talents amounted to more
+than ornaments?"</p>
+
+<p>"No reason to suppose so," he admitted, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Not the slightest. Talent usually damns people to an effortless
+existence. And yours was a pleasant one, too. You had a good time,
+didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very."</p>
+
+<p>"There was nothing to do except to come in, kiss the girls all around,
+and make faces to amuse them, was there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much more," he admitted, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl's little green eyes travelled all over the walls.</p>
+
+<p>"Umph," she snorted, "I suppose these are some of Dankmere's heirlooms.
+I never fancied that little bounder&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>is</i> one!"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep that opinion to yourself," he said bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>The old lady's eyes blazed. "I'm damned if I do!" she retorted&mdash;"I'll
+say what&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not here! You mustn't be uncivil here. You know well enough how to
+behave when necessary; and if you don't do it I'll call your carriage."</p>
+
+<p>For fully five minutes Mrs. Sprowl sat there attempting to digest what
+he had said. The process was awful to behold, but she accomplished it at
+last with a violent effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky," she said, "I didn't come here to quarrel with you over an
+Englishman who&mdash;of whom I&mdash;have my personal opinion."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, leaned over and deliberately patted her fat wrist; and she
+glared at him somewhat as a tigress inspects a favourite but overgrown
+and presuming cub.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why you came," he said, "but it was nice of you anyway and
+I am glad to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"If that's true," she said, "you're one of mighty few. The joy which
+people feel in my presence is usually exhibited when I'm safely out of
+their houses, or they are out of mine."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water
+empty and refused more.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place
+of Molly's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what the devil is going on there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aviation," he said blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that
+little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't
+learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even
+answer my letters.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with
+Strelsa as I dare be&mdash;she's got to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> led with sugar. I've almost
+ordered her to come to me at Newport&mdash;but she doesn't come."</p>
+
+<p>"She's resting," said Quarren coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And
+what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few
+brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting
+for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it
+something else that glues him there&mdash;with the <i>Yulan</i> in the North
+River?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought," muttered the old lady&mdash;"if I imagined for one moment
+that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on
+Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself&mdash;I'd take the next train and tell
+that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know
+whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed&mdash;have you
+ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa
+Leeds?&mdash;any tacit understanding&mdash;any interest on her part in him?... Why
+don't you answer me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to take that impudence literally?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to
+remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't you speak of Langly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because what concerns him does not concern me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a
+damn sight worse! I'd&mdash;I'd rather see her your wife than his!&mdash;and God
+knows <i>what</i> he wants of her at that&mdash;as Mary Ledwith has first call or
+the world will turn Langly out of doors!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her
+teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done
+to her and her husband."</p>
+
+<p>"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance
+against it."</p>
+
+<p>"You watch and see! Some things are <i>too</i> rotten to be endured&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't
+concern me."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you care for that girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a
+madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look
+ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"&mdash;she added with an
+abrupt change of feeling&mdash;"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you
+are impertinent to me&mdash;and you know I do! But I&mdash;my heart is set on her
+marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more
+suitable?&mdash;happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where
+Langly is a&mdash;a toad, a cold-blooded worm!&mdash;a&mdash;a thing!</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> interests me; I
+think of nothing else, care for nothing else&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you care for it so much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why? That is an absurd question."</p>
+
+<p>"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the
+real one."</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky, you insolent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. Answer me; <i>why</i> are you so absorbed in this marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is
+deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on
+your part?"</p>
+
+<p>"That&mdash;and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just those three reasons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. Just those three."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I am compelled to&mdash;knowing that never in all your life have you made
+the slightest effort in behalf of friendship&mdash;never inconvenienced
+yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth."</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh;
+but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though
+pain had cut mirth short.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing.... <i>You</i> are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to
+take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to
+read us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we
+look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't
+care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my
+features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it <i>is</i> a friendly
+pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind
+thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were
+the receptacle for many&mdash;Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty,
+miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret
+kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you
+something."</p>
+
+<p>She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he
+placed his chair beside hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at
+the time."</p>
+
+<p>"I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never
+forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch
+he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what
+was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the
+girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to
+America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know
+these things, Rix?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you know them now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I&mdash;" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a
+while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her
+features.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated&mdash;a voice
+so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was
+she who had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life
+friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix.
+In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship&mdash;the
+friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked at her in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life
+and youth began early for me&mdash;and lasted a little more than a year&mdash;and
+then they both burnt out in my heart&mdash;leaving the rest of me alive&mdash;this
+dross!&mdash;" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and
+sat thinking for a while.</p>
+
+<p>Daisy walked into the room and seated herself in a bar of sunlight,
+pleasantly blinking her yellow eyes. Mrs. Sprowl glanced at her
+absently, and they eyed each other in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at
+Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features.</p>
+
+<p>"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have
+pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad
+when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up.
+I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> in it, his
+father spoke&mdash;amiably&mdash;of me and said that in me his son would always
+find a friend.... That is all, Rix. Do you believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;should I go to Witch-Hollow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't answer you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;because I care for her too much. And I can do absolutely
+nothing for her. I could not swerve her or direct her. She alone knows
+what is in her heart and mind to do. I cannot alter it. She will act
+according to her strength; none can do otherwise.... And she is tired to
+the very soul.... You tell me that life and youth in you died within a
+year's space. I believe it.... But with her it took two years to die.
+And then it died.... Let her alone, in God's name! The child is weary of
+pursuit, deathly weary of importunity&mdash;tired, sad, frightened at the
+disaster to her fortune. Let her alone. If she marries it will be
+because of physical strength lacking&mdash;strength of character, of
+mind&mdash;perhaps moral, perhaps spiritual strength&mdash;I don't know. All I
+know is that no man or woman can help her, because the world has bruised
+her too long and she's afraid of it."</p>
+
+<p>For a long while Mrs. Sprowl sat there in silence; then:</p>
+
+<p>"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir
+Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think she is."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked at her oddly:</p>
+
+<p>"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> am I.... Friends do not
+make a convenience of one another."</p>
+
+<p>"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that
+there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make
+the convenience of a husband out of either of us."</p>
+
+<p>"What a twisted, ridiculous, morbid&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let her alone," he said gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well.... But I'll be hanged if I let Langly alone! He's still got
+me to deal with, thank God!&mdash;whatever he dares do to Mary
+Ledwith&mdash;whatever he has done to that wretched creature Chester
+Ledwith&mdash;he's still got a perfectly vigorous aunt to reckon with. And
+we'll see," she added&mdash;"we'll see what can be done&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The front door opened noisily.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Dankmere," he said. "If you are not going to be civil to him
+hadn't you better go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be civil to him," she snorted, "but I'm going anyway. Good-bye,
+Ricky. I'll buy a picture of you when the weather's cooler....
+How-de-do!"&mdash;as his lordship entered looking rather hot and mussy&mdash;"Hope
+your venture into the realms of art will prove successful, Lord
+Dankmere. Really, Rix, I must be going&mdash;if you'll call my man&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you down," he said, smilingly offering his support.</p>
+
+<p>So Mrs. Sprowl rolled away in her motor, and Quarren came back, wearied
+with the perplexities and strain of life, to face once more the lesser
+problems of the immediate present: one of them was an ancient panel in
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> basement, and he went downstairs to solve it, leaving Dankmere
+sorting out old prints and Jessie Vining, who had just returned, writing
+business letters on her machine.</p>
+
+<p>There were not many business letters to write&mdash;one to the Metropolitan
+Museum people declining to present them with a charming little picture
+by Netscher which they wanted but did not wish to pay for; one to the
+Worcester Museum advising that progressive institution that, at the
+request of their director, four canvases had been shipped to them for
+inspection; several letters enclosing photographs of pictures desired by
+foreign experts; and a notification to one or two local millionaires
+that the Dankmere Galleries never shaded prices or exchanged canvases.</p>
+
+<p>Having accomplished the last of the day's work remaining up to that
+particular minute, Jessie Vining leaned back in her chair, rubbed her
+pretty eyes, glanced partly around toward Lord Dankmere but checked
+herself, and, with her lips the slightest shade pursed up into a hint of
+primness, picked up the library novel which she had been reading during
+intervals of leisure.</p>
+
+<p>It was mainly about a British Peer. The Peer did not resemble Dankmere
+in any particular; she had already noticed that. And now, as she read
+on, and, naturally enough, compared the ideal peer with the real one,
+the difference became painfully plain to her.</p>
+
+<p>Could that short young man in rather mussy summer clothes, sorting
+prints over there, be a peer of the British realm? Was this young man,
+whom she had seen turning handsprings on the grass in the backyard, a
+belted Earl?</p>
+
+<p>In spite of herself her short upper lip curled slightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> as she turned
+from her book to glance at him. He looked up at the same moment, and
+smiled on meeting her eye&mdash;such a kindly yet diffident smile that she
+blushed a trifle.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Miss Vining, I've gone over all these prints and I can't find
+one that resembles the Hogarth portrait&mdash;if it is a Hogarth."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Quarren thinks it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay he's quite right, but there's nothing here to prove it"; and
+he slapped the huge portfolio shut, laid his hands on the table, vaulted
+to the top of it, and sat down. Miss Vining resumed her reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Vining?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" very leisurely.</p>
+
+<p>"How <i>old</i> do you think I am?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How old do you think I am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really I hadn't thought about it, Lord Dankmere."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Vining resumed her reading.</p>
+
+<p>When the Earl had sat on top of the table long enough he got down and
+dropped into the depths of an armchair.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Vining," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" incuriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you thought it out yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thought out what, Lord Dankmere?"</p>
+
+<p>"How old I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," she retorted, half laughing, half vexed, "do you suppose that
+my mind is occupied in wondering what your age might be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want to know?"</p>
+
+<p>She began to laugh again:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, if you wish to tell me of course it will interest me <i>most</i>
+profoundly." And she made him a graceful little bow.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm thirty-three," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you so much for telling me."</p>
+
+<p>"You are welcome," he returned gravely. "Do you think I'm too old?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too old for what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for anything interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by 'interesting'?"</p>
+
+<p>But Lord Dankmere apparently did not know what he did mean for he made
+no answer.</p>
+
+<p>After a little while he said: "Wouldn't it be odd if I ever have income
+enough to pay off my debts?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>He repeated the observation.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean. You naturally expect to pay them, don't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw no chance of doing so before Mr. Quarren took hold of these
+pictures."</p>
+
+<p>She was sorry for him:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you very deeply in debt?"</p>
+
+<p>He named the total of his liabilities and she straightened her young
+shoulders, horrified.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "I know plenty of chaps in England who
+are far worse off."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;that is terrible!" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere waved his hand:</p>
+
+<p>"It's not so bad. That show business let me in for a lot."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why did you ever do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I like it," he explained simply.</p>
+
+<p>She flushed: "It seems strange for a&mdash;a man of your kind to sing comic
+songs and dance before an audience."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I've a friend, Exford by name&mdash;who goes about grinding a
+barrel-organ."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"He likes to do it.... I've another pal of sorts who chucked the Guards
+to become a milliner. He always did like to crochet and trim hats. Why
+not?&mdash;if he likes it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not," said Jessie Vining, "my idea of a British peer."</p>
+
+<p>"But for Heaven's sake, consider the peer! Now and then they have an
+idea of what they'd like to do. Why not let them do it and be happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then they ought not to have been born to the peerage," she said firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Many of them wouldn't have been had anybody consulted them."</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's brought me nothing but debt, ridicule, abuse, and summonses."</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't resign, could you?" she said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> resigned. Oh, well, I'd rather be what I am than anything else,
+I fancy.... If the Topeka Museum trustees purchase that Gainsborough
+I'll be out of debt fast enough."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" she inquired, still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I'd like to start another show."</p>
+
+<p>"And leave Mr. Quarren?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What use am I? We'd share alike; he'd manage the business and I'd
+manage a musical comedy I'm writing after hours&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He jumped up and went to the piano where for the next ten minutes he
+rattled off some lively and very commonplace music which to Jessie
+Vining sounded like everything she had ever before heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully, swinging around on his stool.</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;lively."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>don't</i> like it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;it seems&mdash;very entertaining," she said, reddening.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl sat looking at her in silence for a moment; then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"To care for anything and make a failure of it&mdash;can you beat it for
+straight misery, Miss Vining?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please don't speak that way. I really am no judge of musical
+composition."</p>
+
+<p>He considered the key-board gloomily; and resting one well-shaped hand
+on it addressed empty space:</p>
+
+<p>"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the
+deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of
+accomplishment?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no
+words suitable for the particular moment.</p>
+
+<p>Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two
+softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the
+quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang
+"The Harp,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes
+lowered.</p>
+
+<p>"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said&mdash;"not these Strausses
+and 'Girls from the Golden West.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sing some more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like my singing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much."</p>
+
+<p>So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten
+melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age,
+can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days,
+the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world
+was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to
+inspire any maker of beautiful things.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour
+of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days.</p>
+
+<p>Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard
+Dankmere open the door behind her and come out.</p>
+
+<p>They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north
+with a nod of good-night, when he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you walking?"</p>
+
+<p>She was, to save carfare.</p>
+
+<p>"May I go a little way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had
+meant to say. Then, very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> slowly she turned northward, and he went, too,
+grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying
+himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking
+beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Strelsa had gone to town with her maid, remained there the entire
+afternoon, and returned to Witch-Hollow without seeing Quarren or even
+letting him know she was there.</p>
+
+<p>It was the beginning of the end for her and she knew it; and she had
+already begun to move doggedly toward the end through the blind
+confusion of things, no longer seeing, hearing, heeding; impelled
+mechanically toward the goal which meant to her only the relief of
+absolute rest.</p>
+
+<p>For her troubles were accumulating and she found in herself no resisting
+power&mdash;only the nervous strength left to get away from them. Troubles of
+every description were impending; some had already come upon her, like
+Quarren's last letter which she knew signified that the termination of
+their friendship was already in sight.</p>
+
+<p>But other things were in sight, too, so she spent the afternoon in town
+with her lawyers; which lengthy séance resulted in the advertising for
+immediate sale of her house in town and its contents, her town car,
+brougham, victoria and three horses.</p>
+
+<p>Through her lawyers, also, every jewel she possessed, all her wardrobe
+except what she had with her at Witch-Hollow, and her very beautiful
+collection of old lace, were placed in the hands of certain discreet
+people to dispose of privately.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Every servant in her employment except her maid was paid and dismissed;
+her resignation from the Province Club was forwarded, all social
+engagements for the summer cancelled.</p>
+
+<p>There remained only two other matters to settle; and one of them could
+be put off&mdash;without hope of escape perhaps&mdash;but still it could be
+avoided for a little while longer.</p>
+
+<p>The other was to write to Quarren; and she wrote as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have been in town; necessity drove me, and I was too unhappy to
+see you. But this is the result: I can hold out a few months
+longer&mdash;to no purpose, I know&mdash;yet, you asked it of me, and I am
+trying to do it. Meanwhile the pressure never eases; I feel your
+unhappiness deeply&mdash;deeply, Rix!&mdash;and it is steadily wearing me
+out. And the pressure from Molly in your behalf, from Mrs. Sprowl
+by daily letter in behalf of Sir Charles, from Langly in his own
+interest never slackens for one moment.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is not all; my late husband left no will, and I have
+steadily refused to make any contest for more than my dower rights.</p>
+
+<p>"That has been swept away, now; urgent need has compelled me to
+offer for sale everything I possess except what wardrobe and
+unimportant trinkets I have with me.</p>
+
+<p>"So many suits have been threatened and even commenced against
+me&mdash;you don't know, Rix&mdash;but while there remains any chance of
+meeting my obligations dollar for dollar I have refused to go
+through bankruptcy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I need not, now, I think. But the selling of everything will not
+leave me very much; and in the end my cowardice will do what you
+dread, and what I no longer fear, so utterly dead in me is every
+emotion, every nerve, every moral. Men bound to the wheel have
+slept; I want that sleep. I long for the insensibility, the endless
+lethargy that the mortally bruised crave; and that is all I hope or
+care for now.</p>
+
+<p>"Love, as man professes it, would only hurt me&mdash;even yours. There
+can be no response from a soul and body stunned. Nothing must
+disturb their bruised coma.</p>
+
+<p>"The man I intend to marry can evoke nothing in me, will demand
+nothing of me. That is already mutually understood. It's merely a
+bargain. He wants me as the ornament for the House of Sprowl. I can
+carry out the pact without effort, figure as the mistress of his
+domain, live life through unharassed as though I stood alone in a
+vague, warm dream, safe from anything real.</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile, without aim, without hope, without even desire to
+escape my destiny, I am holding out because you ask it. To what
+end, my friend? Can you tell me?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>One morning Molly came into her room greatly perturbed, and Strelsa,
+still in bed, laid aside the New Testament which she had been reading,
+and looked up questioningly at her agitated hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"It's your fault," began Molly without preliminaries&mdash;"that old woman
+certainly suspects what you're up to with her nephew or she wouldn't
+bother to come up here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" said Strelsa, sitting up. "Mrs. Sprowl?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, horse, foot, and dragoons! She's coming, I tell you, and
+there's only one motive for her advent!"</p>
+
+<p>"But where will she stop?" asked Strelsa, flushing with dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"With Langly?"</p>
+
+<p>"He wouldn't have her."</p>
+
+<p>"She is not to be your guest, is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. She wrote hinting that she'd come if asked. I pretended not to
+understand. I don't want her here. Every servant I have would leave&mdash;as
+a beginning. Besides I don't require the social prestige of such a
+visitation; and she knows that, too. So what do you think she's done?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't imagine," said Strelsa wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she's man&#339;uvred, somehow; and this morning's paper announces that
+she's to be entertained at South Linden by Mary Ledwith."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa reddened.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should that concern me?" she asked calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Concern you, child! How can it help concerning you? Do you see what
+she's done?&mdash;do you count all the birds she's knocked over with one
+stone. Mary Ledwith returns from Reno and Mrs. Sprowl fixes and secures
+her social status by visiting her at once. And it's a perfectly plain
+notice to Langly, too, and&mdash;forgive me, dear!&mdash;to you!"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa scarlet and astonished, sat up rigid, her beautiful head thrown
+back.</p>
+
+<p>"If she means it that way, it is slanderous," she said. "The entire
+story is a base slander! Did <i>you</i> believe it, Molly?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Believe it? Of course I believe it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you? Because a lot of vile newspapers have hinted at such a
+thing? I tell you it is an infamous story without one atom of truth in
+it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" asked Molly bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Because Langly says so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh. Did you ask him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. He spoke of it himself."</p>
+
+<p>"He denied it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely on his word of honour."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why didn't he sue a few newspapers?"</p>
+
+<p>"He spoke of that, too. He said that his attorneys had advised him not
+to bring any actions because the papers had been too clever to lay
+themselves open to suits for libel."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Molly softly.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa, flushed, breathing rapidly and irregularly, sat there in bed
+watching her; but Molly avoided her brilliant, level gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use in talking to you," she said, "but why on earth you
+don't marry Sir Charles&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly! Please don't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Or Rix&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly! Molly! <i>Can't</i> you let me alone! Can't we be together for ten
+minutes unless you urge me to marry somebody? Why do you want me to
+marry anybody!&mdash;Why&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But you're going to marry Langly, you say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am! I am! But can't you let me forget it for a moment or two?
+I&mdash;I'm not very well&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," said Molly, grimly. "I'm sorry, darling, but the
+moment your engagement to Langly is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> announced there'll be a horrid
+smash and some people are going to be spattered&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>isn't</i> announced!" said the girl hotly. "Only you and Rix know
+about it except Langly and myself!"</p>
+
+<p>Molly Wycherly rose from her chair, went over and seated herself on the
+foot of the bed:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me something, will you, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why does Langly desire to keep your engagement to him a secret?"</p>
+
+<p>"He wishes it for the present."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"For that very reason!" said Strelsa, fiercely&mdash;"because of the
+injustice the papers have done him in this miserable Ledwith matter. He
+chooses to wait until it is forgotten&mdash;in order to shield me, I suppose,
+from any libellous comment&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You talk like a little idiot!" said Molly between her teeth. "Strelsa,
+I could shake you&mdash;if it would wake you up! Do you suppose for a moment
+that this Ledwith matter will be forgotten? Do you suppose if there were
+nothing in it but libel that he'd be afraid? You listen to me; that man
+is not apt to be afraid of anything, but he evidently <i>is</i> afraid, now!
+Of what, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of my being annoyed by newspaper comment."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think it's merely that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it enough?"</p>
+
+<p>Molly laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"We're a hardened lot&mdash;some of us. But our most deadly fear is that the
+papers may <i>not</i> notice us. No matter what they say if they'll only say
+something!&mdash;that's our necessity and our unadmitted prayer. Be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>cause
+we've neither brains nor culture nor any distinguishing virtue or
+ability&mdash;and we're nothing&mdash;absolutely nothing unless the papers create
+us! Don't tell me that any one among us is afraid of publicity!&mdash;not in
+the particular circle where you and I and Langly and his aunt pursue our
+eccentric orbits!</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty of wealthy and fashionable people dread publicity and shrink
+from it; plenty of them would gladly remain unchronicled and unsung. But
+it is not so among the fixed stars and planets and meteors and
+satellites of our particularly flamboyant constellation. I <i>know</i>. I
+also know that you don't really belong in it. But you'll either become
+accustomed to it or it will kill you if you don't drop&mdash;or soar, as you
+please&mdash;into some other section of eternal space."</p>
+
+<p>She sat swinging her foot, flushed, animated, her eyes and colour
+brilliant&mdash;a slim, exquisitely groomed woman with all the superficial
+smoothness of a girl save for the wisdom in her eyes and in her smile,
+alas!</p>
+
+<p>And the other's eyes reflected in their clear gray depths no such
+wisdom, only the haunting knowledge of sorrow and, vaguely, the
+inexplicable horror of man as he really is&mdash;or at least as she had only
+known him.</p>
+
+<p>Still swinging her pretty foot, a deliberate smile edging her lips,
+Molly said:</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling."</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs24" id="gs24"></a><img src="images/gs24.jpg" width="640" height="481" alt="&quot;&#39;If you&#39;ll let me, I&#39;ll stand by you, darling.&#39;&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;If you&#39;ll let me, I&#39;ll stand by you, darling.&#39;&quot;</span>
+</div>
+<p>Strelsa stared at her without comprehension, then dropped her head back
+on the pillows.</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll let me stay with you a little while longer&mdash;that is all I
+ask," she said almost drowsily.</p>
+
+<p>Molly sprang up, came around and kissed her, lightly: "Of course. That
+was what I was going to ask of you."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Strelsa closed her eyes. "I'll stay," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Molly laid her own cool face down beside Strelsa's hot cheek, kneeling
+beside the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear," she whispered, "let us wait and see what happens. There's just
+one thing that has distorted your view&mdash;a dreadful experience with one
+man&mdash;two years of hell's own horror with one of its wretched
+inhabitants. I don't believe the impression is going to last a lifetime.
+I don't believe it is indelible. I believe somehow, some time you will
+learn that a man's love does not mean horror and degradation; that it is
+no abuse of friendship which offers love also, to return it with
+friendship only.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Charles offers that; and you refuse because you do not love him and
+will not use his friendship to aid yourself to material comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"And I suspect you have said the same thing to Rix. Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl lay silent, eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind; don't answer. I know you well enough to know that you said
+some such thing to Rix.... And it's all right in its way. But the
+alternative is not what you think it is&mdash;not this bargain with Langly
+for a place to lay your tired head&mdash;not this deal to decorate his name
+and estates in return for personal immunity. You are wrong&mdash;I'm not
+immoral, only unmoral&mdash;as many of us are&mdash;but you've gone all to pieces,
+dear&mdash;morally, mentally, nervously&mdash;and it's not from cowardice, not
+from depravity. It is the direct result of the two years of terror and
+desperate self-control&mdash;two years of courage&mdash;high moral courage,
+determination, self-suppression&mdash;and of the startling and dreadful
+climax.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That is the blow you are now feeling&mdash;and the reaction even after two
+years more of half-stunned solitude. You are waking, darling; that is
+all. And it hurts."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa's bare arm moved a little, moved, groping, and tightened around
+Molly's neck. And they remained that way for a long while, Molly
+kneeling on the floor beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you ever cry?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Not&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be better if you could."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no tears&mdash;I&mdash;I am burnt out&mdash;all burnt out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You need strength."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't the desire for it any longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the desire to face things pluckily?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no longer. Everything's dead in me except the longing for&mdash;quiet.
+I'll pay any price for it&mdash;except misuse of friends."</p>
+
+<p>"How could you misuse Rix by marrying him?"</p>
+
+<p>"By accepting what I could never return."</p>
+
+<p>"Love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he ask that?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no&mdash;not now. But&mdash;he wants it. And I haven't it to give. So I can't
+take his&mdash;and let him work all his life for my comfort&mdash;I can't take it
+from Sir Charles and accept the position and fortune he offered me
+once&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She lay silent a moment, then unclosed her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Molly," she said, "I don't believe that Sir Charles is going to mind
+very much."</p>
+
+<p>Molly met her eyes for an instant, very near, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> pale flash of
+telepathy passed between them. Then Strelsa smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Chrysos," said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's little more than a child.... I don't know. Men are that way&mdash;men
+of Sir Charles's age and experience are likely to drift that way.... But
+if you are done with Sir Charles, what he does no longer interests
+me&mdash;except that the Lacys will become insufferable if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk that way, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't <i>like</i> the family&mdash;except Chrysos."</p>
+
+<p>"Then be glad for her&mdash;if it comes true.... Sir Charles is a
+dear&mdash;almost too perfectly ideal to be a man.... I do wish it for his
+sake.... He was a little unhappy over me I think."</p>
+
+<p>"He adores you still, you little villain!" whispered Molly, fondling
+her. "But&mdash;let poets sing and romancers rave&mdash;there's nothing that
+starves as quickly as love. And Sir Charles has been long fasting&mdash;good
+luck to him and more shame on you!"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa laughed, cleared her brow and eyes of the soft bright hair, and,
+flinging out both arms, took Molly to her heart in a swift, hard
+embrace.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" she said, breathless, "I adore you anyhow, Molly.... I feel
+better, too. I'm glad you talked to me.... Do you think I'll get
+anything for my house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, when you sell it. That's the hopeless part of it just at this time
+of year&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I've had an awful
+lot of the other kind all my life."</p>
+
+<p>They laughed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I'll have enough left
+over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and
+chickens and a cow!"</p>
+
+<p>"How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as
+though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a
+little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado
+Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for
+pleasure&mdash;crazy about anything that promised gaiety and
+amusement&mdash;anything to make me forget.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill&mdash;ill
+most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother&mdash;it's
+curious, but mother never said anything about her&mdash;and she cared for
+fashionable people.</p>
+
+<p>"So I came to New York last winter&mdash;and you know the rest&mdash;I got tired
+physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me&mdash;and so many women
+urged me to do so many things&mdash;and I was unhappy about Rix&mdash;and then
+came this awful financial crash&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop thinking of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I mean to. I only wanted you to understand how, one by one,
+emotions and desires have been killed in me during the last four
+years.... And even the desire for wealth and position&mdash;which I clung to
+up to yesterday&mdash;somehow, now&mdash;this morning&mdash;has become little more than
+a dreamy wish.... I'd rather have quiet if I could&mdash;if there's enough
+money left to let me rest somewhere&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There will be," said Molly, watching her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so? And&mdash;then there would be no necessity for&mdash;for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Langly!"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa flushed. "I wonder," she mused. "I wonder whether&mdash;but it seems
+impossible that I should suddenly find I didn't care for everything I
+cared for this winter. Perhaps I'm too tired to care just now."</p>
+
+<p>"It might be," said Molly, "that something&mdash;for example your friendship
+with Rix&mdash;had made other matters seem less important."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up quickly, saw nothing in Molly's expression to disturb
+her, then turned her eyes away, and lay silent, considering.</p>
+
+<p>If her friendship for Quarren had imperceptibly filled her mind, even
+crowding aside other and most important matters, she did not realise it.
+She thought of it now, and of him&mdash;recalling the letter she had written.</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely she was aware of the difference in her attitude toward life
+since she wrote that letter only a few days before. To what was it due?
+To his letter in reply now lying between the leaves of her New Testament
+on the table beside her? This was his letter:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Hold out, Strelsa! Matters are going well with me. Your tide, too,
+will turn before you know it. But neither man nor woman is going to
+aid you, only time, Strelsa, and&mdash;something that neither you nor I
+have bothered about very much&mdash;something that has many names in
+many tongues&mdash;but they all mean the same. And the symbol of what
+they mean is Truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not study it? We never have. All sages of all times have
+studied it and found comfort; all saints in all ages have found in
+it strength.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I find its traces in every ancient picture that I touch. But there
+are books still older that have lived because of it. And one man
+died for it&mdash;man or God as you will&mdash;the former is more
+fashionable.</p>
+
+<p>"Lives that have been lived because of it, given for it, forgiven
+for its sake, are worth our casual study.</p>
+
+<p>"For they say there is no greater thing than Truth. I can imagine
+no greater. And the search for it is interesting&mdash;fascinating&mdash;I
+had no idea how absorbing until recently&mdash;until I first saw you,
+who sent me out into the world to work.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold out&mdash;and study this curious subject of Truth for a little
+while. Will you?</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll only study it a while I promise that it will interest
+you&mdash;not in its formalisms, not in its petty rituals and
+observances, nor in its endless nomenclature, nor its
+orthodoxy&mdash;but just as you discover it for yourself in the
+histories of men and women&mdash;of saint and sinner&mdash;and, above all, in
+the matchless life of Him who understood them all.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Non tu corpus eras sine pectore!</i>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Lying there, remembering his letter almost word for word, and where it
+now lay among printed pages incomprehensible to her except by the
+mechanical processes of formal faith and superficial observance, she
+wondered how much that, and the scarcely scanned printed page, might
+have altered her views of life.</p>
+
+<p>Molly kissed her again and went away downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>When she was dressed in her habit she went out to the lawn's edge where
+Langly and the horses had already gathered: he put her up, and they
+cantered away down the wooded road that led to South Linden.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After their first gallop they slowed to a walk on the farther hill
+slope, chatting of inconsequential things; and it seemed to her that he
+was in unusually good spirits&mdash;almost gay for him&mdash;and his short dry
+laugh rang out once or twice, which was more than she had heard from him
+in a week.</p>
+
+<p>From moment to moment she glanced sideways at him, curiously inspecting
+the sleek-headed symmetry of the man, noticing, as always, his perfectly
+groomed figure, his narrow head and the well-cut lines of the face and
+jaw. Once she had seen him&mdash;the very first time she had ever met him at
+Miami&mdash;eating a broiled lobster. And somehow his healthy appetite, the
+clean incision of his sun-bronzed jaw and the working muscles, chewing
+and swallowing, fascinated her; and she never saw him but she thought of
+him eating vigorously aboard the <i>Yulan</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Langly," she said, "is it going to be disagreeable for you when Mrs.
+Ledwith returns to South Linden?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her leisurely, eyes, as always, slightly protruding:</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"The newspapers."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;what are you going to do about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"About what?"</p>
+
+<p>"The papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Or&mdash;about Mrs. Ledwith?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be civil if I see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," she said, reddening. "I was wondering whether gossip might
+be nipped in the bud if you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> left before she arrives and remained away
+until she leaves."</p>
+
+<p>His prominent eyes were searching her features all the while she was
+speaking; now they wandered restlessly over the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>"It's my fashion," he said, "to face things as they come."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind I'd rather have you go," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere you care to."</p>
+
+<p>He said: "I have told you a thousand times that the thing to do is to
+take Molly Wycherly 'board the <i>Yulan</i>, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not care to do it until our engagement is announced."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, swinging around in his saddle, "I'll announce it
+to-day and we'll go aboard this evening and clear out."</p>
+
+<p>"Wh-what!" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use waiting any longer," he said. "Mrs. Ledwith and my fool
+of an aunt are coming to-morrow. Did you know that? Well, they are. And
+every dirty newspaper in town will make the matter insidiously
+significant! If my aunt hadn't taken it into her head to visit Mrs.
+Ledwith at this particular moment, there would have been few comments.
+As it is there'll be plenty&mdash;and I don't feel like putting up with
+them&mdash;I don't propose to for my own sake. The time comes, sooner or
+later, when a man has got to consider himself."</p>
+
+<p>After a short silence Strelsa raised her gray eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"Has it occurred to you to consider, me, Langly?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What? Certainly. Haven't I been doing that ever since we've been
+engaged&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;wonder," she mused.</p>
+
+<p>"What else have I been doing?" he insisted&mdash;"denying myself the pleasure
+of you when I'm half crazy about you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>A dull flush settled under his prominent cheek-bones: he looked straight
+ahead of him between his horse's ears as he rode, sitting his saddle
+like the perfect horseman he was, although his mount felt the savage
+pain of a sudden and reasonless spurring and the wicked curb scarcely
+controlled him.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa set her lips, not looking at either horse or man on her right,
+nor even noticing her own mare who was cutting up in sympathy with the
+outraged hunter at her withers.</p>
+
+<p>"Langly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has it ever occurred to you how painful such scandalous rumours must be
+for Mrs. Ledwith?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can I help them?"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa said, thoughtfully: "What a horrible thing for a woman! It was
+generous of your aunt to show people what <i>she</i> thought of such cruel
+stories."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think," he said sneeringly, "that my excellent aunt was inspired
+by any such motive? You might as well know&mdash;if you don't know already&mdash;"
+and his pale eyes rested a moment on the girl beside him&mdash;"that my aunt
+is visiting Mrs. Ledwith solely to embarrass me!"</p>
+
+<p>"How could it embarrass you?"</p>
+
+<p>"By giving colour to the lies told about me and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> Ledwiths," he said
+in a hard voice&mdash;"by hinting that Mary Ledwith, free to marry, is
+accepted by my aunt; and the rest is up to me! That's what that female
+relative of mine has just done&mdash;" His big, white teeth closed with a
+click and he spurred his horse cruelly again and checked him until the
+slavering creature almost reared over backward.</p>
+
+<p>"If you maltreat that horse again, Langly, I'll leave you. Do you
+understand?" she said, exasperated.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon&mdash;" Again his jaw fairly snapped, but the horse did
+not suffer from his displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"What has enraged you so?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"This whole business. There isn't anything my aunt could have done more
+vicious, more contemptible, than to visit Mrs. Ledwith at this moment.
+I'll get it from every quarter, now."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she will, too."</p>
+
+<p>"My aunt? No such luck!"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean Mrs. Ledwith."</p>
+
+<p>"She? Oh, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa said between tightening lips:</p>
+
+<p>"Is there nothing you can do, no kindness, no sacrifice you can make to
+shield Mrs. Ledwith?"</p>
+
+<p>He stared at her, then his eyes roamed restlessly:</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Langly.... But if there is anything you could do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What? My aunt and the papers are determined that I shall marry her! I
+take it that you are not suggesting that, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am suggesting nothing," she replied in a low voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>I</i> am. I'm suggesting that you and Molly and I go aboard the
+<i>Yulan</i> and clear out to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;to announce our engagement first?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you choose," he said without a shade of expression on his
+features.</p>
+
+<p>"You would scarcely propose that I sail with you under any other
+circumstances," she said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"I leave it to you and Mrs. Wycherly. The main idea is to clear out and
+let them howl and tear things up."</p>
+
+<p>"Howl at Mrs. Ledwith and tear her to tatters while we start around the
+world on the <i>Yulan</i>?" nodded Strelsa. She was rather white, but she
+laughed; and he, hearing her, turned and laughed, too&mdash;a quick bark of a
+laugh that startled both horses who were unaccustomed to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I guess they won't put her out of business," he said. "She's young
+and handsome and there are plenty of her sort to marry her&mdash;even
+Dankmere would have a chance there or&mdash;" he hesitated, and decided to
+refrain. But she understood perfectly, and lost the remainder of her
+colour.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Mr. Quarren," she said coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't," he replied, lying. And she was aware of his falsehood, too.</p>
+
+<p>"What started those rumours about Mrs. Ledwith and you, Langly?" she
+asked in the same pleasantly even tone, and turned her horse's head
+toward home at the same time. He made his mount pivot showily on his
+hocks and drew bridle beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they started at Newport."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know? Ledwith and I were connected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> in business matters; I saw
+more or less of them both&mdash;and he was too busy to be with his wife every
+time I happened to be with her. So&mdash;you know what they said."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. When you and she were lunching at different tables at the Santa
+Regina you used to write notes to her, and everybody saw you."</p>
+
+<p>"What of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just it; there was nothing in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Except her reputation.... What a silly and careless girl! But a man
+doesn't think&mdash;doesn't care very much I fancy. And then everybody was
+offensively sorry for Chester Ledwith. But that was not your lookout,
+was it, Langly?"</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl turned his narrow face and looked at her in silence; and after a
+moment misjudged her.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not my fault," he said quietly. "I liked his wife and I was
+friendly with him until his gutter habits annoyed me."</p>
+
+<p>"He went to pieces, didn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Once more Sprowl inspected her features, warily. Once more he misjudged
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone to smash," he said&mdash;"but what's that to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," she smiled, but had to control the tremor of her lower lip
+by catching it between her teeth and looking away from the man beside
+her. Quickly the hint of tears dried out in her gray eyes&mdash;from whatever
+cause they sprang glimmering there to dim her eyesight. She bent her
+head, absently arranging, rearranging and shifting her bridle.</p>
+
+<p>"The thing to do," he said, curling his long mous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>tache with powerful
+fingers&mdash;"is for the Wycherlys to stand by us now&mdash;and the others
+there&mdash;that little Lacy girl&mdash;and Sir Charles if he chooses. We'll have
+to take the whole lot of them aboard I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I go with you alone," she said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>He started in his saddle, turned on her a face that was reddening
+heavily. For an instant she scarcely recognised him, so thick his lips
+seemed, so congested the veins in forehead and neck. He seemed all mouth
+and eyes and sanguine colour&mdash;and big, even teeth, now, as the lips drew
+aside disclosing them.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you do that, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you do it&mdash;for me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her rapid breathing impeded speech; she said something inarticulate; he
+leaned from his saddle and caught her in his left arm.</p>
+
+<p>"By God," he stammered, "I knew it! You can have what you like from
+me&mdash;I don't care what it is!&mdash;take it&mdash;fill out your own checks&mdash;only
+let's get out of here before those damned women ruin us both!"</p>
+
+<p>She had strained back and aside from him, and was trying to guide her
+mare away, but his powerful arm crushed her and his hot breath fell on
+her face and neck.</p>
+
+<p>"You can have it your own way I tell you&mdash;I swear to God I'll marry
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>Almost strangled she wrenched herself free, panting, staring; and he
+realised his mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't get a licence if we leave to-night," he said, breathing
+heavily. "But we can touch at any port and manage that."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you <i>would</i> take me&mdash;permit me to go&mdash;in such a manner?" she
+breathed, still staring at him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's necessity, isn't it? Didn't you propose it? It makes no difference
+to me, Strelsa. I told you I'd do anything you wished."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you mean&mdash;what did you mean by&mdash;by&mdash;" But she could go no
+further in speech or thought.</p>
+
+<p>"The thing to do," he said calmly, "is not to fly off our heads or
+become panic-stricken. You're doing the latter; I lost control of
+myself&mdash;after what you gave me to hope&mdash;after what you said&mdash;showing
+your trust in me," he added, moistening his thick dry lips with his
+tongue. "I lost my self-command&mdash;because I <i>am</i> crazy for you,
+Strelsa&mdash;there's no sense in pretending otherwise&mdash;and you knew it all
+the time, you little coquette!</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think a man's made of? You wanted a business arrangement
+and I humoured you; but you knew all the while, and I knew, that&mdash;that I
+am infatuated, absolutely mad about you." He added, boldly: "And I have
+reason to think it doesn't entirely displease you, haven't I?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not seem to hear him. He laid his gloved hand over hers, and
+recoiled before her eyes as from a blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you angry?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Her teeth were still working on her under lip. She made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa&mdash;if you really feel nothing for me&mdash;if you mean what you have
+said about a purely business agreement&mdash;I will hold to it. I thought for
+a moment&mdash;when you said&mdash;something in your smile made me think&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You need not think any further," she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that I came with you this morning to tell you that I will not
+marry you."</p>
+
+<p>"That's nonsense! I've hurt you&mdash;made you angry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I came for that reason," she repeated. "I meant to do it as soon as I
+had the courage. I meant to do it gently. Now I don't care how I do it.
+It's enough for you to know that I will not marry you."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that final?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it. I know perfectly well I was&mdash;was too impulsive, too
+ardent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her face away with a faint, sick look at the summer fields
+where scores of birds sang in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"See here," he said, his manner changing, "I tell you I'm sorry. I ask
+your pardon. Whatever you wish shall be done. Tell me what to do."</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments she turned toward him again.</p>
+
+<p>"A few minutes ago I could have told you what to do. I would have told
+you to marry Mary Ledwith. Also I would have been wrong. Now, as you ask
+me, I tell you not to marry her."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were deadly dangerous, but she met them carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, "don't marry any woman after your attentions have made
+her conspicuous. It will be pleasanter for her to be torn to pieces by
+her friends."</p>
+
+<p>"You are having your vengeance," he said. "Take it to the limit,
+Strelsa, and then let us be reconciled."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is too late. It was too late even before we started out
+together. Why&mdash;I didn't realise it then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>&mdash;but it was too late long
+ago&mdash;from the day you spoke as you did in my presence to Mr. Quarren.
+That finished you, Langly&mdash;if, indeed, you ever really began to mean
+anything at all to me."</p>
+
+<p>He made a last effort and the veins stood out on his forehead:</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry I spoke to Quarren as I did. I like him."</p>
+
+<p>She said coolly: "You hate him. You and Mr. Caldera almost ruined him in
+that acreage affair."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken. Caldera squeezed him; I did not. I knew nothing about
+it. My agents attend to such petty matters. What motive have I for
+disliking Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully: "Perhaps because you thought he
+was devoted to me&mdash;and I to him.... And you were right," she added: "I
+am devoted to him because he is a man and a clean one."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ended?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ended what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Punishing me."</p>
+
+<p>Her lips curled slightly: "I am afraid you are inclined to
+self-flattery, Langly. We chasten those whom we care for."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you silly enough to dismiss me through sheer pique?" he said
+between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Pique? I don't understand. I've merely concluded that I don't need your
+fortune and I don't want your name. You, personally, never figured in
+the proposed arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>His visage altered alarmingly:</p>
+
+<p>"Who have you got on the string now!" he broke out&mdash;"you little
+adventuress! What damned fool is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> damned fool enough to marry you when
+anybody could get you for less if they care to spend the time on
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly his arm shot out and he wrenched her bridle, dragging her horse
+around and holding him there.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad?" she whispered, white to the lips. "Take your hand off my
+bridle!"</p>
+
+<p>"For another word," he said between clinched teeth, "I'd ride you down
+and spoil that face of yours! Hold your tongue and listen to me. I've
+stood all I'm going to from you. I've done all the cringing and
+boot-licking that is going to be done. You're the sort that needs curb
+and spurs, and you'll get them if you cut up with me. Is that plain?"</p>
+
+<p>She had carried no crop that morning or she would have used it; her
+bridle was useless; spurring might have dragged them both down under the
+horses' feet.</p>
+
+<p>"For the last time," he said, "you listen to me. I love you. I want you.
+You haven't a cent; you could fill out any check you chose to draw over
+my signature. Now if you are not crazy, or a hopeless fool, behave
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>A great sob choked her; she forced it back and sat, waiting, eyes almost
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa, answer me!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer me, for God's sake!"</p>
+
+<p>She opened her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes seemed starting from his head and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> deep blood rushed to his
+face and neck, and he flung her bridle into her face with an
+inarticulate sound.</p>
+
+<p>Then, slowly, side by side they advanced along the road together. A
+groom met them at Witch-Hollow; Strelsa slipped from her saddle without
+aid and, leisurely, erect, smiling, walked up to the veranda where Molly
+stood reading the morning paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello dear," she said. "Am I very late for luncheon?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's over. Will you have a tray out here?"</p>
+
+<p>"May I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want to change, first?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thanks."</p>
+
+<p>Molly glanced up from the paper:</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't Langly stopping for luncheon with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Molly looked at her curiously:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you enjoy your gallop?"</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't gallop much."</p>
+
+<p>"Spooned?"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa shuddered slightly. The elder woman dropped her paper and gazed
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say it's all off, Strelsa!"</p>
+
+<p>"Entirely. Please don't let's speak of it again&mdash;or of him&mdash;if you don't
+mind&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't!&mdash;you darling!&mdash;you poor darling! What has that creature done
+to <i>you</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak of him, please."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't. Oh, I'm so glad, Strelsa!&mdash;I can't tell you how happy, how
+immensely relieved&mdash;and that cat of an aunt of his here to make
+mischief!&mdash;and poor Mary Ledwith&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Molly, I&mdash;I simply can't talk about it&mdash;any of it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She turned abruptly, entered the house, and ran lightly up the stairs.
+Molly waited for her, grimly content with the elimination of Langly
+Sprowl and already planning separate campaigns in behalf of Sir Charles
+and Quarren.</p>
+
+<p>She was still absorbed in her scheming when Strelsa came down. There was
+not a trace of any emotion except pleasure in her face. In her heart it
+was the same; only an immense, immeasurable relief reigned there,
+calming and exciting her alternately. But her face was yet a trifle
+pale; her hands still unsteady; and every delicate nerve, slowly
+relaxing from the tension, was regaining its normal quiet by degrees.</p>
+
+<p>Her appetite was excellent, however. Afterward she and Molly chose
+neighbouring rockers, and Molly, lighting a cigarette, opened fire:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?" she asked caressingly.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs25" id="gs25"></a><img src="images/gs25.jpg" width="640" height="456" alt="&quot;&#39;Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?&#39; she asked
+caressingly.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?&#39; she asked
+caressingly.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+<p>Strelsa laughed outright, then, astonished that she had not shrunk from
+a renewal of the eternal pressure, looked at Molly with wide gray eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what's the matter with me to-day," she said; "I seem to be
+able to laugh. I've not been very well physically; I've had a ghastly
+morning; I'm homeless and wretchedly poor&mdash;and I'm laughing at it
+all&mdash;the whole thing, Molly. What do you suppose is the matter with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not in love, are you?" asked Molly with calm suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not," said the girl with a quiet conviction that disconcerted
+the elder woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then I don't see why you should be very happy," said Molly honestly.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa considered: "Perhaps it's because to-day I feel unusually well.
+I slept&mdash;which I don't usually."</p>
+
+<p>"You're becoming devout, too," said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>"Devout? Oh, you saw me reading in my Testament.... It's an interesting
+book, Molly," she said naïvely. "You know, as children, and at school,
+and in church we don't read it with any intelligence&mdash;or listen to it in
+the right way.... People <i>are</i> odd. We have our moments of contrition,
+abasement, fright, exaltation; but at bottom we know that our religion
+and a fair observance of it is a sound policy of insurance. We accept it
+as we take out insurance in view of eventualities and the chance of
+future fire&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's flippant," said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>"I really didn't mean it so.... I was wondering about it all. Recently,
+re-reading the New Testament, I was struck by finding so much in it that
+I had never noticed or understood.... You know, Molly, after all Truth
+is the greatest thing in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"So I've heard," observed Molly drily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've heard it, too, but never thought what it meant&mdash;until
+recently. You see Truth, to me, was just telling it as often as
+possible. I never thought much about it&mdash;that it is the basis of
+everything worthy and beautiful&mdash;such as old pictures&mdash;" she added
+vaguely&mdash;"and those things that silversmiths like Benvenuto Cellini
+did&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa coloured: "Everything worthy is founded on Truth," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds like Tupper or a copy-book," said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> Molly, laughing. "For
+surely those profound reflections never emanated originally from you or
+Rix&mdash;did they?"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa, much annoyed, picked up the field glasses and levelled them on
+the river.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles was out there in a launch with Chrysos Lacy. Chrysos fished
+and Sir Charles baited her hook.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a touching sight," said Strelsa, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Molly said crossly: "Well, if you don't want him, for goodness' sake say
+so!&mdash;and let me have some credit with the Lacys for engineering the
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Take it, darling!" laughed the girl, "take the credit and let the cash
+go&mdash;to Chrysos!"</p>
+
+<p>"How indelicate you <i>can</i> be, Strelsa!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am. I'm in such rude health that it's almost vulgar. After all,
+Molly, there's an immense relief in getting rid of your last penny and
+knowing nothing worse can happen to you."</p>
+
+<p>"You might die."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody cares whether they live or die."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at her, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," she said, "&mdash;really."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you do."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Strelsa. No matter how they crack up Heaven, nobody is in a
+hurry to go there."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't thinking of Heaven.... I was just curious to see what else
+there is&mdash;I'm in no hurry, but it has always interested me.... I've had
+a theory that perhaps to everybody worthy is given, hereafter, exactly
+the kind of heaven they expect&mdash;to Buddhist, Brahman, Mohammedan,
+Christian&mdash;to the Shinto priest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> as well as to the Sagamore.... There's
+plenty of time&mdash;I'm in no hurry, nor would it be too soon to-morrow for
+me to find out how near I am to the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"You're morbid, child!"</p>
+
+<p>"Less this very moment than for years.... Molly, do you know that I am
+getting well? I wish you knew how well I feel."</p>
+
+<p>But Molly was no longer listening. High above the distant hangars where
+the men had gathered since early morning, a great hawk-like thing was
+soaring in circles. And already the distant racket of another huge
+winged thing came to her ears on the summer wind.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Jim will be careful," she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>Into the long stables at South Linden, that afternoon, Langly Sprowl's
+trembling horse was led limping, his velvet flanks all torn by spurs and
+caked with mud, his tender mouth badly lacerated.</p>
+
+<p>As for his master, it seemed that the ruin of the expensive hunter and
+four hours' violent and capricious exercise in his reeking saddle had
+merely whetted his appetite for more violence; and he had been tramping
+for an hour up and down the length of the library in his big sprawling
+house when Mr. Kyte, his confidential secretary, came in without
+knocking.</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl hearing his step swung on him savagely, but Kyte coolly closed
+the door behind him and turned the key.</p>
+
+<p>"Ledwith is here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ledwith," repeated Sprowl, mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's on the veranda. They said you were not at home. He said he'd
+wait. I thought you ought to know. He acts queerly."</p>
+
+<p>Langly's protruding eyes became utterly expressionless.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said in dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>Kyte still lingered:</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything I can say or do?"</p>
+
+<p>"If there was I'd tell you, wouldn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>Kyte's lowered gaze stole upward toward his em<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>ployer, sustained his
+expressionless glare for a second, then shifted.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said unlocking the library door; "I thought he might be
+armed, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Kyte!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kyte turned on the door-sill.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by saying that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Saying what?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you think this fellow Ledwith may be armed?"</p>
+
+<p>Kyte stood silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you again," repeated Sprowl, "why you infer that this man might
+have armed himself to visit this house?"</p>
+
+<p>Kyte's eyes stole upward, were instantly lowered. Sprowl walked over to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're paid to act, not think; do you understand?" he said in a husky,
+suppressed voice; but his long fingers were twitching.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," said Kyte.</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl's lean head jerked; Kyte went; and the master of the house strode
+back into the library and resumed his pacing.</p>
+
+<p>Boots, spurs, the skirts of his riding coat, even his stock were stained
+with mud and lather; and there was a spot or two across his sun-tanned
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he walked to the bay-window which commanded part of the west
+veranda, and looking out through the lace curtains saw Ledwith sitting
+there, his sunken eyes fixed on the westering sun.</p>
+
+<p>The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at
+elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers
+and golf-stock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>ings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of
+the muscles.</p>
+
+<p>The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into
+the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and
+down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the
+dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering
+mentally unsound.</p>
+
+<p>Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying
+his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still
+sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and
+strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors
+to the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a
+crooked smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"When are you leaving?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that&mdash;I don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out
+across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of
+tall trees lay like velvet on the grass; the crests of the woods beyond
+grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were
+noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged
+woodpeckers imitated them;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> in the late sunlight the grackles' necks
+were rainbow tinted.</p>
+
+<p>On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding,
+switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted
+hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded
+with sunshine and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and
+expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first
+grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoarse and
+painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in
+distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need
+exercise."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, what have you got to say?&mdash;because I'm going on. What's the
+matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment.</p>
+
+<p>"What else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anxiety."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?"</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting
+on his elbow against the tree-trunk:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;my wife has returned."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice
+or features.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ledwith&mdash;"Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my
+way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I
+saw them from the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it,
+looking down at the grass.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to marry her of course," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business."</p>
+
+<p>"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing
+possible. There is nothing else for her to do&mdash;for you to do. She knows
+it, you know it, and so do I."</p>
+
+<p>"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only your word to confirm what I have just said."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your marriage with Mary."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I told you that it was none of your business."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business."</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently,
+there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the
+reason."</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and
+unclosing:</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all, Ledwith?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all&mdash;when you have confirmed what I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> said concerning the
+necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched."</p>
+
+<p>"You lie," said Langly.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"That is another lie."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared,
+after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body;
+she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as
+her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to
+effrontery.... It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at
+nothing&mdash;not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory
+characteristic of your sort.... I don't mean physical cowardice," he
+added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's
+powerful frame.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you finished?" asked the latter.</p>
+
+<p>"In a moment, Langly. I am merely reminding you of what has happened.
+Concerning myself I have nothing to say. Look at me. You know what I
+was; you see what I am. I'm not whining; it's all in a lifetime. And the
+man who is not fitted to take care of what is his, loses. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl's head was averted after an involuntary glance at the man before
+him. His face was red&mdash;or it may have been the ruddy evening sun
+striking flat across it.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith said: "You will marry her, of course. But I merely wish to hear
+you say so."</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl swung on him, his thick lips receding:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll marry whom I choose! Do you understand that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course. But you will choose to marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Or&mdash;I'll kill you," he said seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Langly stared at him, every vein suddenly dark and swollen; then his
+bark of a laugh broke loose.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you've got it in your pocket," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a dully blued weapon of
+heavy calibre; and Sprowl walked slowly up to him, slapped his face,
+took the revolver from him, and flung it into the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"Now go home and punch yourself full of dope," he said; swung on his
+heel, and sauntered off.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith looked after him, one bloodless hand resting on the cheek which
+Sprowl had struck&mdash;watched him out of sight. Then, patiently, he started
+to search for the weapon, dropping on all-fours, crawling, peering,
+parting the ferns and bushes. But the sun was low and the woods dusky,
+and he could not find what he was looking for. So he sat up on the
+ground among the dead leaves of other years, drew from his pocket what
+he needed, and slowly bared his scarred arm to the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>As for Sprowl, his vigorous tread lengthened to a swinging stride as he
+shouldered his way through a thicket and out again into the open.</p>
+
+<p>Already he scarcely remembered Ledwith at all, or his menace, or the
+blow; scarcely even recollected that Mary Ledwith had returned or that
+his aunt was within driving distance of his own quarters.</p>
+
+<p>A dull hot anguish, partly rage, possessed him, tormenting brain and
+heart incessantly and giving him no rest. His own clumsy madness in
+destroying what he believed had been a certainty&mdash;his stupidity, his
+loss of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> self-control, not only in betraying passion prematurely but in
+his subsequent violence and brutality, almost drove him insane.</p>
+
+<p>Never before in any affair with women had he forgotten caution in any
+crisis; his had been a patience unshakable when necessary, a dogged,
+driving persistence when the time came, the subtlety of absolute
+inertness when required. But above all and everything else he has been a
+master of patience, and so a master of himself; and so he had usually
+won.</p>
+
+<p>And now&mdash;now in this crisis&mdash;a crisis involving the loss of what he
+cared for enough to marry&mdash;if he must marry to have his way with
+her&mdash;what was to be done?</p>
+
+<p>He tried to think coolly, but the cinders of rage and passion seemed to
+stir and move with every breath he drew awaking the wild fire within.</p>
+
+<p>He would try to reason and think clearly&mdash;try to retrace matters to the
+beginning and find out why he had blundered when everything was in his
+own hands.</p>
+
+<p>It was his aunt's sudden policy that betrayed him into a premature
+move&mdash;Mary Ledwith's return, and his aunt's visit. Mary Ledwith was
+there to marry him; his aunt to make mischief unless he did what was
+expected of him.</p>
+
+<p>Leisurely but thoroughly he cursed them both as he walked back across
+his lawn. But he was already thinking of Strelsa again when, as he
+entered the wide hall, his aunt waddled across the rugs of the
+drawing-room, pronouncing his name with unmistakable decision. And,
+before the servants, he swallowed the greeting he had hoped to give her,
+and led her into the library.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on us, Langly!" she exclaimed, eyeing his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> reeking boots and
+riding-breeches; "do you live like a pig up here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been out," he said briefly. "What do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>Her little green eyes lighted up, and her smile, which was fading, she
+forced into a kind of fixed grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Your polished and thoughtful inquiry is characteristic of you," she
+said. "Mary is here, and I want you to come over to dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not up to it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to come."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I'm not up to it," he said bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I tell you that you'd better come."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Better</i> come?" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>better</i> come. More than that, Langly, you'd better behave
+yourself, or I'll make New York too hot to hold you."</p>
+
+<p>His prominent eyes were expressionless.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah?" he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, my friend. Your race is run. You've done one thing too
+publicly to squirm out of the consequences. The town has stood for a
+good deal from you. When that girl at the Frivolity Theatre shot
+herself, leaving a letter directed to you, the limit of public patience
+was nearly reached. You had to go abroad, didn't you? Well, you can't go
+abroad this time. Neither London nor Paris nor Vienna nor Budapest&mdash;no,
+nor St. Petersburg nor even Constantinople would stand you! Your course
+is finished. If you've an ounce of brains remaining you know that you're
+done for this time. So go and dress and come over to dinner.... And
+don't worry; I'll keep away from you after you're married."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You'll keep your distance before that," he said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're mistaken. Many people are afraid of you, but I never was and
+never could be. You're no good; you never were. If you didn't lug my
+name about with you I'd let you go to hell. You'll go there anyway, but
+you'll go married first."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect to."</p>
+
+<p>"Married to Mary Ledwith," she said looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>He picked up a cigar, examined it, yawned, then glanced at her:</p>
+
+<p>"As I had&mdash;recently&mdash;occasion to tell Chester Ledwith, I'll marry whom I
+please. Now suppose you clear out."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you dining with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"What time may we expect you to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"At no time."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that final?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you expect to marry anybody else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face
+distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at
+last? Do you understand clearly?&mdash;you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!"</p>
+
+<p>He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down
+the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and
+abuse&mdash;rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness
+and dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>integration&mdash;his downfall from that silent citadel of
+self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for
+defiance or refuge.</p>
+
+<p>"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat
+nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the
+foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your
+business&mdash;I warn you now and for the last time, or else&mdash;" He swung
+around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work&mdash;"or else I'll supply
+the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father
+and yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only
+the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive.</p>
+
+<p>"So <i>that</i> fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you
+apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to
+understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my
+threshold. You <i>do</i> understand, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>He continued his promenade but presently came back to her:</p>
+
+<p>"You know well enough who I want to marry. If you say or do one thing to
+interfere I'll see that you figure in the Yellows."</p>
+
+<p>He thought a moment; the colour slowly returned to her face. After a fit
+of coughing she struggled to rise from her chair. He let her pant and
+scuffle and kick for a while, then opened the door and summoned her
+footman.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry I cannot drive with you this evening," he said quietly, as
+the footman supported Mrs. Sprowl to her feet, "but I've promised the
+Wycherlys. Pray<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> offer my compliments and friendly wishes to Mrs.
+Ledwith."</p>
+
+<p>When she had gone he walked back into the library, picked up the
+telephone and finally got Molly Wycherly on the wire.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you ask me to dinner?" he said. "I've an explanation to make to
+Mrs. Leeds and I'd be awfully obliged to you."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, then Molly said, deliberately:</p>
+
+<p>"You must be a very absent-minded young man. I saw your aunt for a
+moment this afternoon and she said that you are dining with her at Mrs.
+Ledwith's."</p>
+
+<p>"She was mistaken&mdash;" began Sprowl quietly, but Molly cut him short with
+a laughing "good-bye," and hung up the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"That was Langly," she remarked, turning to Strelsa who was already
+dressed for dinner and who had come into Molly's boudoir to observe the
+hair-dressing and comprehensive embellishment of that young matron's
+person by a new maid on probation.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa's upper lip curled faintly, then the happy expression returned,
+and she watched the decorating of Molly until the maid turned her out in
+the perfection of grooming from crown to toe.</p>
+
+<p>There was nobody in the music-room. Molly turned again to Strelsa as
+they entered:</p>
+
+<p>"What a brute he is!&mdash;asking me to invite him here for dinner when Mary
+Ledwith has just arrived."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And his excuse was that he had an explanation to make you. What a
+sneaking way of doing it!"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa looked out of the dark window in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Molly said: "I wish he'd go away, I never can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> look at him without
+thinking of Chester Ledwith&mdash;and all that wretched affair.... Not that I
+am sniffy about Mary&mdash;the poor little fool.... Anyway," she added
+naïvely, "old lady Sprowl has fixed her status and now we all know how
+to behave toward her."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa, arms clasped behind her back, came slowly forward from the
+window:</p>
+
+<p>"What a sorry civilisation," she said thoughtfully, "and what sorry
+codes we frame to govern it."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa looked at her, absently.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody seems to be ashamed of anything any more," she said, half to
+herself. "The only thing that embarrasses us is what the outside world
+may think of us. We don't seem to care what we think of each other."</p>
+
+<p>Molly, a trifle red, asked her warmly what she meant.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I was just realising what are the motives that govern us&mdash;the
+majority of us&mdash;and how primitive they are. So many among us seem to be
+moral throwbacks&mdash;types reappearing out of the mists of an ancient and
+unmoral past.... Echoes of primitive ages when nobody knew any
+better&mdash;when life was new, and was merely life and nothing
+else&mdash;fighting, treacherous, cringing life which knew of nothing else to
+do except to eat, sleep, and reproduce itself&mdash;bully the weaker, fawn on
+the stronger, lie, steal, and watch out that death should not interfere
+with the main chance."</p>
+
+<p>Molly, redder than ever, asked her again what she meant.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, dear.... How clean the woods and fields seem after a day
+indoors with many people."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You mean we all need moral baths?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>Molly smiled: "For a moment I thought you meant that I do."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa smiled, too:</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good wife, Molly; and a good friend.... I wish you had a
+baby."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm&mdash;going to."</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other a moment; then Strelsa caught her in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>Molly nodded:</p>
+
+<p>"That's why I worry about Jim taking chances in his aeroplane."</p>
+
+<p>"He mustn't! He's got to stop! What can he be thinking of!" cried
+Strelsa indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"But he&mdash;doesn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't <i>told</i> him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;don't know how he'll take it."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>Molly flushed: "We didn't want one. I don't know what he'll say. We
+didn't care for them&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa's angry beauty checked her with its silent scorn; suddenly her
+pretty head fell forward on Strelsa's breast:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look that way at me! I was a fool. How was I to know&mdash;anything?
+I'd never had one.... You can't know whether you want a baby or not
+until you have one.... I know now. I'm crazy about it.... I think it
+would&mdash;would kill me if Jim is annoyed&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He won't be, darling!" whispered Strelsa. "Don't mind what he says
+anyway. He's only a man. He never even knew as much about it as you did.
+What do men know, anyway? Jim is a dear&mdash;just the regular sort of man
+interested in business and sport and probably afraid that a baby might
+interfere with both. What does he know about it?... Besides he's too
+decent to be annoyed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid&mdash;I can't stand&mdash;even his indifference&mdash;" whimpered Molly.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa, holding her clasped to her breast, started to speak, but a
+noise of men in the outer hall silenced her&mdash;the aviators returning from
+their hangars and gathering in the billiard-room for a long one before
+dressing.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," whispered Strelsa, gently disengaging herself&mdash;"wait just a
+moment&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And she was out in the hall in an instant, just in time to touch Jim on
+the arm as he closed the file toward the billiard-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Sweetness!" he said, pivoting on his heels and seizing her
+hands. "Are you coming in to try a cocktail with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jim," she said, "I want to tell you something."</p>
+
+<p>"Shoot," he said. "And if you don't hurry I'll kiss you."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, please. Molly is in the music-room. <i>Make</i> her tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask her, Jim.... And, if you care one atom for her&mdash;be happy at what
+she tells you&mdash;and tell her that you are. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>He stared at her, then lost countenance. Then he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> looked at her in a
+panicky way and started to go, but she held on to him with
+determination:</p>
+
+<p>"Smile first!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thunder! I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Smile. Oh, Jim, isn't there any decency in men?"</p>
+
+<p>His mind was working like mad; he stared at her, then through the
+astonishment and consternation on his good-looking features a faint grin
+broke out.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," she whispered, and let him go.</p>
+
+<p>Molly, idling at the piano, heard his tread behind her, and looked up
+over her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Jim," she said, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, ducky. Strelsa says you have something to tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"So she said. So I cut out a long one to find out what it is. What's up,
+ducky?"</p>
+
+<p>Molly's gaze grew keener: "Did that child tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"She said that you had something to tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Did</i> she?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Aren't you going to tell me either?"</p>
+
+<p>He dropped into a chair opposite her; she sat on the piano-stool
+considering him for a while in silence. Then, dropping her arms with a
+helpless little gesture:</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to have a baby. Are you&mdash;annoyed?"</p>
+
+<p>For a second he sat as though paralysed, and the next second he had her
+in his arms, the grin breaking out from utter blankness.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a corker, ducky!" he whispered. "You for me all the time!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Jim!... Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surest thing you know! Which is it?&mdash;boy or&mdash;Oh, I beg your pardon,
+dear&mdash;I'm not accustomed to the etiquette. But I'm delighted, ducky,
+overwhelmed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jim! I'm so glad. And I'm crazy about it&mdash;perfectly mad about
+it.... And you're a dear to care&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I care! What do you take me for&mdash;a wooden Indian!" he
+exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Jim! We can't <i>tell</i> people."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it
+of course. But I'll do anything you say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will I? Watch me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;then <i>don't</i> take out the Stinger for a while. Do you mind,
+dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he said, jaw dropping.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't bear it, Jim. I was a good sport before; you know I was. But my
+nerve has gone. I can't take chances now; I <i>want</i> you to see&mdash;it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," he said. "It's like Lent. You've got to offer up something....
+If you feel that way&mdash;" he sighed unconsciously&mdash;"I'll lock up the
+hangar until&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, darling! Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said that desolate young man, and kissed his wife without a
+scowl. He had behaved pretty well&mdash;about like the majority of husbands
+outside of popular romances.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The amateur aeronauts left in the morning before anybody was stirring
+except the servants&mdash;Vincent Wier, Lester Caldera, the Van Dynes and the
+rest, bag, baggage, and, later, two aeroplanes packed and destined for
+Barent Van Dyne's Long Island estate where there was to be some serious
+flying attempted over the flat and dusty plains of that salubrious
+island.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles Mallison was leaving that same day, later; and there were to
+be no more of Jim's noisy parties; and now under the circumstances, no
+parties of Molly's, either; because Molly was becoming nervous and
+despondent and a mania for her husband possessed her&mdash;the pretty
+resurgence of earlier sentiment which, if not more than comfortably
+dormant, buds charmingly again at a time like this.</p>
+
+<p>Also she wanted Strelsa, and nobody beside these two; and although she
+liked parties of all sorts including Jim's sporting ones, and although
+she liked Sir Charles immensely, she was looking forward to comfort of
+an empty house with only her husband to decorate the landscape and
+Strelsa to whisper to in morbid moments.</p>
+
+<p>For Chrysos was going to Newport, Sir Charles and her maid accompanying
+her as far as New York from where the Baronet meant to sail the next
+day.</p>
+
+<p>His luggage had already gone; his man was packing when Sir Charles
+sauntered out over the dew-wet lawn, a sprig of sweet-william in his
+lapel, tall, clear-skinned, nice to look upon.</p>
+
+<p>What he really thought of what he had seen in America, of the sort of
+people who had entertained him, of the grotesque imitation of exotic
+society&mdash;or of a certain sort of it&mdash;nobody really knew. Doubtless his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>
+estimate was inclined to be a kindly one, for he was essentially that&mdash;a
+philosophical, chivalrous, and modest man; and if his lines had fallen
+in places where vulgarity, extravagance, and ostentation
+predominated&mdash;if he had encountered little real cultivation, less
+erudition, and almost nothing worthy of sympathetic interest, he never
+betrayed either impatience or contempt.</p>
+
+<p>He had come for one reason only&mdash;the same reason that had brought him to
+America for the first time&mdash;to ask Strelsa Leeds to marry him.</p>
+
+<p>He was man enough to understand that she did not care for him that way,
+soldier enough to face his fate, keen enough, long since, to understand
+that Quarren meant more to the woman he cared for than any other man.</p>
+
+<p>Cool, self-controlled, he watched every chance for an opening in his own
+behalf. No good chance presented itself. So he made one and offered
+himself with a dignity and simplicity that won Strelsa's esteem but not
+her heart.</p>
+
+<p>After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her.
+Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be
+on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he
+was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also
+he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for
+it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and
+words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding
+furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa;
+and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted
+to get back to his own kind&mdash;into real life again, among people of real
+position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live
+things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material
+or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well.</p>
+
+<p>There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there&mdash;except a
+warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom
+he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow.</p>
+
+<p>Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her
+fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a
+cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite
+and delightful.</p>
+
+<p>The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming
+surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made
+few demands on his intellect&mdash;that is, at first she had made very few.
+Later&mdash;within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find
+how much there really was to the young girl&mdash;and that perhaps her age
+and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a
+while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that
+a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to
+present himself at so early an hour.</p>
+
+<p>A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not
+yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a
+dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the
+colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered
+up in a big cane-backed chair.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night&mdash;sitting here
+because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down."</p>
+
+<p>He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down
+compassionately:</p>
+
+<p>"Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it.</p>
+
+<p>The old lady peered up at him:</p>
+
+<p>"You're sailing to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," he said, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"When do you return?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have made no plans to return."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say that you've given up the fight?"</p>
+
+<p>"There was never any fight," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl scowled:</p>
+
+<p>"Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better
+than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can
+scarcely question her decision."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew
+of mine?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;do you mean young Quarren?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I do," he said smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad
+that it may be Rix. It&mdash;it would have killed me to see her fall into
+Langly's hands....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> I'm ill on account of him&mdash;his shocking treatment of
+me last evening. It was a brutal scene&mdash;one of those terrible family
+scenes!&mdash;and he threatened me&mdash;cursed me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they
+snapped open again with the old fire undiminished:</p>
+
+<p>"Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him....
+But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going back into everything, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"To forget her, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>He said pleasantly:</p>
+
+<p>"I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman
+as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a
+privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not&mdash;painful."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of
+the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in
+her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of
+phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat.</p>
+
+<p>"I did my best," she said hoarsely. "I'm not defeated if you're not. Say
+the word and I'll start something&mdash;" And suddenly she remembered
+Langly's threat involving the memory of a dead man whose only son now
+stood before her.</p>
+
+<p>She knew that her words were vain, her boast empty; she knew there was
+nothing more for her to do&mdash;nothing even that Sir Charles might do
+toward winning Strelsa without also doing the only thing in the world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>
+which could really terrify herself. Even at the mere thought of it she
+trembled again, and fear forced her to speech born of fear:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is best for you to go," she faltered. "Absence is a last
+resort.... It may be well to try it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He bent over and took her hand:</p>
+
+<p>"There is no longer even a last resort," he said kindly. "I am quite
+reconciled. She is different from any other woman; ours was and is a
+high type of friendship.... Sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether
+it ever could have been any more than that to either of us."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprowl looked up at him, her face so altered and softened that his
+own grew graver.</p>
+
+<p>"You are like your father," she said unsteadily. "It was my privilege to
+share his friendship.... And his friendship was of that
+kind&mdash;high-minded, generous, pure&mdash;asking no more than it gave&mdash;no more
+than it gave&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She laid her cheek against Sir Charles's hands, let it rest there an
+instant, then averting her face motioned his dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>He went with a pleasant and gentle word or two; she sat bolt upright
+among her silken pillows, lips grimly compressed, but on her tightly
+closed eyelids tears trembled.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles drew a long deep breath in the outer sunshine, filling his
+lungs with the fragrant morning air. Hedges still glistened with
+spiders' tapestry; the birds which sulked all day in their early
+moulting-fever still sang a little in the cool of the morning, and he
+listened to them as he walked while his quiet, impartial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> eye ranged
+over the lovely rolling country, dew-washed and exquisite under a
+cloudless sky.</p>
+
+<p>Far away he saw the chimneys of Langly Sprowl's sprawling country-seat,
+smoke rising from two, but he saw nothing of the angry horseman of the
+day before. Once, in the distance on the edge of a copse, he saw a man
+creeping about on all-fours, evidently searching for some lost object in
+the thicket. Looking back from a long way off he saw him still searching
+on his hands and knees, and wondered at his patience, half inclined to
+go back and aid him.</p>
+
+<p>But about that time one of Sprowl's young bulls came walking over toward
+him with such menacing observations and deportment that Sir Charles
+promptly looked about him for an advance to the rear-front&mdash;a man&#339;uvre
+he had been obliged to learn in the late Transvaal unpleasantness.</p>
+
+<p>And at the same moment he saw Chrysos Lacy.</p>
+
+<p>There was no time for explanations; clearly she was too frightened to
+stir; so he quietly picked her up on his advance to the rear-front,
+carrying her in the first-aid style approved by the H. B. M. medical
+staff, and scaled the five-bar fence as no barrier had ever been scaled
+at Aldershot or Olympia by any warrior in khaki or scarlet tunic.</p>
+
+<p>"Th-thank you," said Chrysos, unwinding her arms from the baronet's neck
+as the bull came trotting up on the other side of the fence and bellowed
+at them. Not the slightest atom of fright remained, only a wild-rose
+tint in her cheeks. She considered the bull, absently, patted a tendril
+of hair into symmetry; but the breeze loosened it again, and she let it
+blow across her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"We should have been in South Africa together,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> said Sir Charles.
+"We man&#339;uvre beautifully as a unit."</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed, then spying more wild strawberries&mdash;the quest of which
+had beguiled her into hostile territory&mdash;dropped on her knees and began
+to explore.</p>
+
+<p>The berries were big and ripe&mdash;huge drops of crimson honey hanging
+heavily, five to a stalk. The meadow-grass was red with them, and Sir
+Charles, without more ado, got down on all-fours and started to gather
+them with all the serious and thorough determination characteristic of
+that warrior.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not to eat any, yet," said Chrysos.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not; they're for your breakfast I take it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"For yours."</p>
+
+<p>He straightened up on his knees: "For mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't go wandering afield at this hour to pick wild strawberries
+for <i>my</i> breakfast!" he said incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did," said the girl; and continued exploring, parting the high
+grass-stems to feel for and detach some berry-loaded stem.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," he said, returning to his labours, "that I am quite
+overcome by your thought of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why? We are friends.... And it is to be your last breakfast."</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs26" id="gs26"></a><img src="images/gs26.jpg" width="640" height="440" alt="&quot;&#39;And it is to be your last breakfast.&#39;&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;And it is to be your last breakfast.&#39;&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, but her pretty face was
+carefully turned away so that if there was to be anything to notice in
+the features he could not notice it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll miss you a lot," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"And I you, Sir Charles."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You'll be over, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be jolly," he said, sitting back on his heels to rest, and to
+watch her&mdash;to find pleasure in her youth and beauty as she moved
+gracefully amid the fragrant grasses, one little sun-tanned hand
+clasping a great bouquet of the crimson fruit which nodded heavily amid
+tufts of trefoil leaves.</p>
+
+<p>In the barred shadow of the pasture-fence they rested from their
+exertions, she rearranging their bouquets of berries and tying them fast
+with grass-stems.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been a pleasant comradeship," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You have found it so, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>She appeared to be so intent, so absorbed on her bouquet tying that he
+involuntarily leaned nearer to watch her. A fragrance faintly fresh
+seemed to grow in the air around him as the hill-breeze stirred her
+hair. If it came from the waving grass-tops, or the honeyed fruit or
+from her hair, or perhaps from those small, smooth hands, he did not
+know.</p>
+
+<p>For a long while they sat there without speaking, she steadily intent on
+her tying. Then, while still busy with a cluster, her slim fingers
+hesitated, wavered, relaxed; her hands fell to her lap, and she remained
+so, head bent, motionless.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he spoke, but she made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>Through and through him shot the thrilling comprehension of that
+exquisite avowal, childlike in its silent directness, charming in its
+surprise. A wave of tenderness and awe mounted within him, touching his
+bronzed cheeks with a deeper colour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you will, Chrysos," he said in a still voice.</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her head and looked directly at him, and in her questioning
+gaze there was nothing of fear&mdash;merely the question.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't bear to have you go," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go&mdash;alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you&mdash;care for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I love you, Chrysos."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes widened in wonder:</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you don't <i>love</i> me&mdash;do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I do. Will you marry me, Chrysos?"</p>
+
+<p>Her fascinated gaze met his in silence. He drew her close to his
+shoulder; she laid her cheek against it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>Toward the end of the first week in August Strelsa wrote to Quarren:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Sometimes I wonder whether you realise how my attitude toward
+everything is altering. Things which seemed important no longer
+appear so in the sunlit tranquillity of this lovely place. Whatever
+it is that seems to be changing me in various ways is doing it so
+subtly, yet so inexorably, that I scarcely notice any difference in
+myself until some morning I awake with such a delicious sense of
+physical well-being and such a mental happiness apropos of nothing
+at all except the mere awaking into the world again, that, thinking
+it over, I cannot logically account for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Because, Rix, my worldly affairs seem to be going from bad to
+worse. I know it perfectly well, yet where is that deadly
+fear?&mdash;where is the dismay, the alternate hours of panic and dull
+lethargy&mdash;the shrinking from a future which only yesterday seemed
+to threaten me with more than I had strength to endure&mdash;menace me
+with what I had neither the will nor the desire to resist?</p>
+
+<p>"Gone, my friend! And I am either a fool or a philosopher, but
+whichever I am, I am a happy one.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to tell you something. Last winter when they fished me out
+of my morbid seclusion, I thought that the life I then entered upon
+was the only panacea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> for the past, the only oblivion, the only
+guarantee for the future.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I suppose I have gone to the other extreme, because, let me
+tell you what I've done. Will you laugh? I can't help it if you do;
+I've bought a house! What do you think of that?</p>
+
+<p>"The owner took back a mortgage, but I don't care. I paid so <i>very</i>
+little for it, and thirty acres of woods and fields&mdash;and it is a
+darling house!&mdash;built in the eighteenth century and not in good
+repair, but it's mine! mine! mine!&mdash;and it may need paint and
+plumbing and all sorts of things which perhaps make for human
+happiness and perhaps do not. But I tell you I really don't care.</p>
+
+<p>"And how I did it was this: I took what they offered for my laces
+and jewels&mdash;about a third of their value&mdash;but it paid every debt
+and left me with enough to buy my sweet old house up here.</p>
+
+<p>"But that's not all! I've rented my town house furnished for a term
+of five years at seven thousand dollars a year! Isn't it wonderful?</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>that</i> is not all, either. I am going into business, Rix!
+Don't dare laugh. Jim has made an arrangement with an independent
+New York florist, and I'm going to grow flowers under glass for the
+Metropolitan market.</p>
+
+<p>"And, if I succeed, I <i>may</i> try fruits outdoors and in. My small
+brain is humming with schemes, millions of them. Isn't it heavenly?</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, from my second-story windows I shall be able to see
+Molly's chimneys above the elms. And Molly is going to remain here
+all winter, because, Rix&mdash;and this is a close secret&mdash;a little heir
+or heiress is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> coming to make <i>this</i> House of Wycherly 'an
+habitation enforced'&mdash;and a happier habitation than it has been
+since they bought it.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see I shall have neighbours all winter&mdash;two neighbours, for
+Mrs. Ledwith is wretchedly ill and her physicians have advised her
+to remain here all winter. Poor child&mdash;for she is nothing else,
+Rix&mdash;I met her for the first time when I went to call on Mrs.
+Sprowl. She's so young and so empty-headed, just a shallow,
+hare-brained, little thing who had no more moral idea of sin than a
+humming-bird&mdash;nor perhaps has she any now except that the world has
+hurt her and broken her wings and damaged her plumage; and the
+sunlight in which she sparkled for a summer has faded to a chill
+gray twilight!&mdash;Oh, Rix, it is really pitiful; and somehow I can't
+seem to remember whether she was guilty or not, because she's so
+ill, so broken&mdash;lying here amid the splendour of her huge house&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know Mrs. Sprowl is on her way to Carlsbad. You haven't
+written me what took place in your last interview with her; and
+I've asked you, twice. Won't you tell me?</p>
+
+<p>"Langly, thank goodness, never disturbs us. And, Rix, do you know
+that he has never been to call on Mary Ledwith? He keeps to his own
+estate and nobody even sees him. Which is all I ask at any rate.</p>
+
+<p>"So Sir Charles called on you and told you about Chrysos? Isn't Sir
+Charles the most darling man you ever knew? <i>I</i> never knew such a
+man. There is not one atom of anything small or unworthy in his
+character. And I tell you very frankly that, thinking about him at
+times, I am amazed at myself for not falling in love with him.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs27" id="gs27"></a><img src="images/gs27.jpg" width="320" height="460" alt="Strelsa Leeds." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Strelsa Leeds.</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Which is proof sufficient that if I couldn't care for him I cannot
+ever care for any man. Don't you think so?</p>
+
+<p>"Now all this letter has been devoted to matters concerning myself
+and not one line to you and the exciting success you and Lord
+Dankmere are making of your new business.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rix, I am not indifferent; all the time I have been writing to
+you, that has been surging and laughing in my heart&mdash;like some
+delicious aria that charmingly occupies your mind while you go
+happily about other matters&mdash;happy because the ceaseless melody
+that enchants you makes you so.</p>
+
+<p>"I have read your letter so many times, over and over; and always
+the same thrill of excitement begins when I come to the part where
+you begin to suspect that under the daubed surface of that canvas
+there may be something worth while.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it really and truly a Van Dyck? Is there any chance that it is
+not? Is it possible that all these years none of Dankmere's people
+suspected what was hidden under the aged paint and varnish of that
+tiresome old British landscape?</p>
+
+<p>"And it remained for you to suspect it!&mdash;for <i>you</i> to discover it?
+Oh, Rix, I am proud of you!</p>
+
+<p>"And how perfectly wonderful it is that now you know its history,
+when it was supposed to have disappeared, where it has remained
+ever since under its ignoble integument of foolish paint.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I promise not to say one word about it until I have your
+permission. I understand quite well why you desire to keep the
+matter from the newspapers for the present. But&mdash;won't it make you
+and Lord Dank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>mere rich? Tell me&mdash;please tell me. I don't want
+money for myself any more, but I do want it for you. You need it;
+you can do so much with it, use it so intelligently, so gloriously,
+make the world better with it,&mdash;make it more beautiful, and people
+happier.</p>
+
+<p>"What a chasm, Rix, between what we were a year ago, and what we
+care to be&mdash;what we are trying to be to-day! Sometimes I think of
+it, not unhappily, merely wondering.</p>
+
+<p>"Toward what goal were we moving a year ago? What was there to be
+of such lives?&mdash;what at the end? Why, there was, for us, no more
+significance in living than there is to any overfed animal!&mdash;not as
+much!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, this glorious country of high clouds and far horizons!&mdash;and
+alas! for the Streets of Ascalon where such as I once was go to and
+fro&mdash;'clad delicately in scarlet and ornaments of gold.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Streets of
+Ascalon'&mdash;that the pavements of the Philistines have bruised my
+feet, and their Five Cities weary me, and Philistia's high towers
+are become a burden to my soul. For their gods are too many and too
+strange for me. So I am decided to remain here&mdash;ere 'they that look
+out of their windows be darkened' and 'the doors be shut in the
+Streets'&mdash;'and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.'</p>
+
+<p>"My poor comrade! Must you remain a prisoner in the Streets of
+Ascalon? Yet, through your soul I know as free and fresh a breeze
+is blowing as stirs the curtains at my open window!&mdash;You wonderful
+man to evoke in imagery&mdash;to visualise and conceive all that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> had to
+be concrete to cure me soul and body of my hurts!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"I have been reading Karl Westguard's new novel. Rix, there is no
+story in it, nothing at all that I can discover except a very
+earnest warming over of several modern philosophers' views and
+conclusions concerning social problems.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to speak unkindly of it; I wanted to like it because I like
+Karl Westguard. But it isn't fiction and it isn't philosophy, and
+its treatment of social problems seems to follow methods already
+obsolete.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think people will buy it? But I don't suppose Karl cares
+since he's made up his quarrel with his aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old lady! Did you ever see anybody so subdued and forlorn?
+Something has gone wrong with her. She told me that she had had a
+most dreadful scene with Langly and that she had not been well
+since.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid that sounds like gossip, but I wanted you to know. <i>Is</i>
+it gossip for me to tell you so much? I tell you about everything.
+If it's gossip, make me stop.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"And now&mdash;when are you coming to see me? I am still at Molly's, you
+know. My house is being cleaned and sweetened and papered and
+chintzed and made livable and lovable.</p>
+
+<p>"When?&mdash;please.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i4">"Your friend and comrade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Strelsa</span>."<br /></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>Quarren telegraphed:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I'll come the moment I can. Look for me any day this week. Letter
+follows."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining
+went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled
+out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody's suspicions by hurrying,
+so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs
+began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway&mdash;and
+probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the
+repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to
+furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently
+Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a
+coincidence utterly unfathomable.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to
+his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang
+and he had to go up and open.</p>
+
+<p>At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the
+glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand
+with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it;
+and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting
+nervously the next second.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," said Quarren, pleasantly. "It's very nice of you to think of
+me, Ledwith."</p>
+
+<p>The man's hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the
+gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them.
+Inside his loose summer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting
+continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of
+the gallery.</p>
+
+<p>For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases,
+meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things;
+then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct,
+the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he
+moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring
+into space and twitching his scarred fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"You're busy, I suppose," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am," said Quarren, frankly. "But that needn't make any
+difference if you'd care to come to the basement and talk to me while
+I'm at work."</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"You're <i>always</i> kind to me, Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>"Get over that idea," laughed the younger man. "Strange as it may seem
+my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs."</p>
+
+<p>In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his
+visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work,
+explaining it as it progressed:</p>
+
+<p>"Here's an old picture by some Italian gink&mdash;impossible to tell by whom
+it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and
+school.... See what I'm doing, Ledwith?</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we call 'rabbit glue' because it's made out of rabbits'
+bones&mdash;or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water&mdash;then I glue over the face
+of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the
+other&mdash;so!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a
+new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and
+now it's dry and tight.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'm going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It's already
+been relined&mdash;perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old
+relining canvas&mdash;with hot water&mdash;this way&mdash;cleaning off all the old
+paste or glue from it with alcohol....</p>
+
+<p>"Now here's a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening;
+and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very
+gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then&mdash;just watch
+me do laundry work!"</p>
+
+<p>He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined
+picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and
+precaution of an expert laundress doing frills.</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest.</p>
+
+<p>"In three days," said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, "I'll
+soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you
+see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no
+air get in to blister the surface."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up another picture and displayed it:</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have
+already relined it and it's fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is
+thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin."</p>
+
+<p>He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> of alcohol, and
+very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it.
+Then he gave it a coat of varnish.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like
+this, doesn't it, Ledwith? But I'll tell you why. When that varnish
+dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin
+very cautiously but steadily to rub the varnished surface with my
+fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has
+partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and
+dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and
+will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh&mdash;very
+often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can
+remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But
+sooner or later I get it clean.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I dig out any old patches or restorations and fill in with a
+composition of putty, white lead, and a drier, and smooth this with a
+cork. Then when it is sunned for an hour a day for three weeks or
+more&mdash;or less, sometimes&mdash;I'm ready to grind my pure colours, mix them,
+set my palette, and do as honest a piece of restoring as a study of that
+particular master's methods permits. And that, Ledwith, is only a little
+part of my fascinating profession.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I lift the entire skin of paint from a canvas&mdash;picking out
+the ancient threads from the rotten texture&mdash;and transfer it to a new
+canvas or panel. Sometimes I cross-saw a panel, then chisel to the
+plaster that lies beneath the painting, and so transfer it to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> new and
+sound support. Sometimes&mdash;" he laughed&mdash;"but there are a hundred
+delicate and interesting surgical operations which I attempt&mdash;a thousand
+exciting problems to solve&mdash;experiments without end that tempt me,
+innovations that allure me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> ought to take up some fad and make a business and even an art out
+of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" said Ledwith, dully.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Man, you're young yet, if&mdash;if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know, Quarren.... But my mind is too old&mdash;very old and very
+infirm&mdash;dying in me of age&mdash;the age that comes through those centuries
+of pain that men sometimes live through in a few months."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren looked at him hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet," he said, "if only a man wills it, the world is new again."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;if the will fails?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Ledwith."</p>
+
+<p>"I do." He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on
+Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars.</p>
+
+<p>"Even that can be cured," said the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"If there is a will to cure it, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Even a desire is enough."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not that desire. Why cure it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because, Ledwith, you haven't gone your limit yet. There's more of
+life; and you're cheating yourself out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, perhaps. But what kind of life?" he asked, staring vaguely out
+into the sunshine of the backyard. "Life in hell has no attractions for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"We make our own hells."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I didn't make mine. They dug the pit and I fell into it&mdash;Hell's own
+pit, Quarren&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong! You fell into a pit which hurt so much that you supposed
+it was the pit of hell. And, taking it for granted, you burrowed deeper
+in blind fury, until it became a real hell. But <i>you</i> dug it. There <i>is</i>
+no hell that a man does not dig for himself!"</p>
+
+<p>In Ledwith's dull eyes a smouldering spark seemed to flash, go out, then
+glimmer palely.</p>
+
+<p>"Quarren," he said, "I am not going to live in hell alone. I'm going
+there, shortly, but not alone."</p>
+
+<p>Something new and sinister in his eyes arrested the other's attention.
+He considered the man for a few moments, then, coolly:</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't, Ledwith."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't worth it&mdash;even as company in hell."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I'm going to let him live on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care to sink to his level?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sink! Can I sink any lower than I am?"</p>
+
+<p>Quarren shrugged:</p>
+
+<p>"Easily, if you commit murder."</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't murder&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Quarren cut him short continuing:</p>
+
+<p>"Sink lower, you ask? What have you done, anyway&mdash;except to commit this
+crime against yourself?"&mdash;touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of
+any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you
+stand&mdash;except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself!
+Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites
+itself. Is that why you are doing it?&mdash;to arouse the amusement and
+contempt of your hunter?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to
+see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?"</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith's sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing
+step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to me," he said; "has it never occurred to you that you could
+deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face
+to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own
+vitals?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man:</p>
+
+<p>"If you say the word <i>I'll</i> stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do
+is to punish him, murder isn't the way. What does a dead man care? Cut
+your own throat and the crime might haunt him&mdash;and might not. But
+<i>kill</i>!&mdash;Nonsense. It's all over then&mdash;except for the murderer."</p>
+
+<p>He slid his hand quietly to Ledwith's arm, patted it.</p>
+
+<p>"To punish him you need a doctor.... It's only a week under the new
+treatment. You know that, don't you? After that a few months to get back
+nerve and muscle and common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" motioned Ledwith with dry lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Then? Oh, anything that you fancy. It's according to a man's personal
+taste. You can take him by the neck and beat him up in public if you
+like&mdash;or knock him down in the club as often as he gets up. It all
+depends, Ledwith. Some of us maintain self-respect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> without violence;
+some of us seem to require it. It's up to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren said carelessly: "If I were you, I think that I'd face the world
+as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough&mdash;the real world I
+mean, Ledwith&mdash;either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.</p>
+
+<p>"A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty.
+And&mdash;personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that.
+But men's ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you
+are, will go ultimately with the world. Beat him up if you like; but,
+personally, I never even wished to kick a cur. Some men kick 'em to
+their satisfaction; it's a matter of taste I tell you. Besides&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short; and presently Ledwith looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I say it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You are kind to me, always."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;Ledwith, I don't know exactly how matters stand. I can only try
+to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do,
+having arrived where you have landed.... And, do you know, if I were
+you, and if I listened to my better self, I don't think that I'd lay a
+finger on Langly Sprowl."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"For the sake of the woman who betrayed me&mdash;and who is now betrayed in
+turn by the man who betrayed us both."</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith said through his set teeth: "Do you think I care for her? If I
+nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are generous enough to care, Ledwith."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am not!" he said, hoarsely. "I don't care a damn!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares
+with her a coat of social whitewash?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;she is only a little fool&mdash;alone to face the world now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First
+offenders are given it by law.... But even if that chance lay in his
+marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won't do it? Or
+by battering him with a dog-whip?</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than
+the social viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman
+who marries such a man?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled: "Because," he continued, "my viewpoint has changed. Things
+that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and
+do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me
+than social absolution."</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something
+indistinctly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment," said Quarren, throwing aside his painter's blouse and
+pulling on his coat. "I'll ring up a taxi in a second!... You <i>mean</i> it,
+Ledwith?"</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You're on!" said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren's sleeve
+and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab,
+whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> building
+composed of several old-time private residences thrown together.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand by me, Quarren," he whispered brokenly&mdash;"you won't go away, will
+you? You wouldn't leave me to face this all&mdash;all alone. You've been kind
+to me. I&mdash;I can do it&mdash;I can try to do it just at this moment&mdash;if you'll
+stay close to me&mdash;if you'll let me keep hold of you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing!" said Quarren cheerfully. "I'll stay as long as you like.
+Don't worry about your clothes; I'll send for plenty of linen and things
+for us both. You're all right, Ledwith&mdash;you've got the nerve. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered
+them in.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment," she said, singling out Ledwith at
+a glance.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not
+return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere
+promised to observe to the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to
+see your house and its new owner.</p>
+
+<p>R. S. Q."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked
+carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the
+basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for
+Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> when paying tribute
+to Terpsichore; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the
+back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the
+tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a
+ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick
+or two at the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly,
+discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently
+enamoured of his own grace and agility.</p>
+
+<p>When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly
+and came back to find her at her desk, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the
+fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all
+alone&mdash;exclusive of intrusive customers&mdash;for a day or more, assuaged a
+slight chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I
+am, Miss Vining&mdash;with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked Miss Vining.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;what?" repeated the Earl, confused.</p>
+
+<p>"Why <i>should</i> I know all your imperfections?"</p>
+
+<p>He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you
+suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to
+see those people at Witch-Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and
+rewriting the blank spaces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine
+at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such
+pecu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>liar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse
+himself and take his eyes elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to take one."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop&mdash;er&mdash;and all that, you
+know!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I
+don't expect to droop&mdash;er&mdash;and all that, you know."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, after a moment, and so did she&mdash;a sweet, fearless, little
+laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it&mdash;a pretty,
+frank tribute to what had become a friendship&mdash;an accord born of
+confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord
+Dankmere.</p>
+
+<p>It had been of slow growth at first&mdash;imperceptibly their relations had
+grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost
+cordial&mdash;but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he
+with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was
+moody, too, at intervals.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I laugh as though I like it?"</p>
+
+<p>She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a
+British peer&mdash;which is really a very wonderful thing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come," he said: "it really <i>is</i> rather a wonderful thing, but you
+don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to
+hear trumpets sounding in the far distance&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My boots squeak&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! I <i>do</i> hear a sort of a fairy fanfare playing 'Hail to the
+Belted Earl!'"</p>
+
+<p>"I wear braces&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How common of you to distort my meaning! I don't care, you may do as
+you like&mdash;dance break-downs and hammer the piano, but to me you will
+ever remain a British peer&mdash;poor but noble&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait until we hear from that Van Dyck! You can't call me poor then!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, then, looking at him earnestly, involuntarily clasped her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," she breathed with a happy, satisfied
+sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you really very happy about it, Miss Vining?"</p>
+
+<p>"I? Why shouldn't I be!" she said indignantly. "I'm so proud that our
+gallery has such a picture. I'm so proud of Mr. Quarren for discovering
+it&mdash;and&mdash;" she laughed&mdash;"I'm proud of you for possessing it. You see I
+am very impartial; I'm proud of the gallery, of everybody connected with
+it including myself. Shouldn't I be?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are three very perfect people," he said gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that we really are? Mr. Quarren is wonderful, and you
+are&mdash;agreeable, and as for me, why when I rise in the morning and look
+into the glass I say to myself, 'Who is that rather clever-looking girl
+who smiles at me every morning in such friendly fashion?' And, would you
+believe it!&mdash;she turns out to be Jessie Vining every time!"</p>
+
+<p>She was in a gay mood; she rattled away at her machine, glancing over it
+mischievously at him from time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> to time. He, having nothing to do except
+to look at her, did so as often as he dared.</p>
+
+<p>And so they kept the light conversational shuttle-cock flying through
+the sunny afternoon until it drew near to tea-time. Jessie said very
+seriously:</p>
+
+<p>"No Englishman can exist without tea. Tea is as essential to him as it
+is to British fiction. A microscopic examination of any novel made by a
+British subject will show traces of tea-leaves and curates although, as
+the text-books on chemistry have it, otherwise the substance of the work
+may be colourless, tasteless, odourless, and gaseous to the verge of the
+fourth dimension&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't cease making game of things British and sacred," he
+threatened, "I'll try to stop you in a way that will astonish you."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you try to do?" she asked, much interested.</p>
+
+<p>He looked her steadily in the eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try to turn you into a British subject. One can't slam one's own
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"How could you turn me into such an object, Lord Dankmere?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's only one way."</p>
+
+<p>Innocent for a few moments of his meaning she smilingly and derisively
+defied him. Then, of a sudden, startled into immobility, the smile froze
+on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>At the swift change in her expression his own features were slowly and
+not unbecomingly suffused.</p>
+
+<p>Then, incredulous, and a little nervous, she rose to prepare the tea;
+and he sprang up to bring the folding table.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony passed almost in silence; neither he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> nor she made the
+effort to return to the lighter, gayer vein. When they spoke at all it
+was on some matter connected with business; and her voice seemed to him
+listless, almost tired.</p>
+
+<p>Which was natural enough, for the heat had been trying, and, in spite of
+the open windows, no breath of coolness stirred the curtains.</p>
+
+<p>So the last minutes of the afternoon passed but the sunshine still
+reddened the cornices of the houses across the street when she rose to
+put away the tea-things.</p>
+
+<p>A little later she pinned on her hat and moved toward the front door
+with a friendly nod to him in silent adieu.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you let me walk home with you?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;think&mdash;not, this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you going anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>She paused, her gloved hand on the knob, and he came up to her, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Were</i> you?" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;don't you care to let me walk with you?"</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to be thinking; her head was a trifle lowered.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Before you go there is something I wanted to tell you"&mdash;she
+made an involuntary movement and the door opened and hung ajar letting
+in the lively music of a street-organ. Then he leaned over and quietly
+closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm taking an unwarrantable liberty by
+interfering in your affairs without consulting you."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"It happened yesterday about this hour," he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember that you went home about three o'clock instead of
+waiting until this hour as usual?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this is what occurred. I left the gallery at this same hour.
+Ahead of me descending the steps was a young girl who had just delivered
+a business letter to Mr. Quarren. As she set foot on the pavement a
+footman attached to an automobile drawn up across the street touched his
+cap to her and said: 'Beg pardon, Miss Vining, I am Mr. Sprowl's man.
+Mr. Sprowl would like to see you at the Café Cammargue. The car is
+waiting.'"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Vining's colour faded; she stared at Dankmere with widening eyes,
+and he dropped his hands into his coat-pockets and returned her gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you," she said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither did the young girl addressed by the footman. Neither did I. But
+I was interested. So I said to the footman: 'Bring around your car. I
+shall have to explain about Miss Vining to Mr. Sprowl.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" she said breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's where I interfered, Miss Vining. And the footman looked
+doubtful, too, but he signalled the chauffeur.... And so I went to the
+Café Cammargue&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, looking at her white and distressed face, then continued
+coolly:</p>
+
+<p>"Sprowl seemed surprised to see me. He was waiting in a private room....
+He's looking rather badly these days.... We talked a few minutes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Pale, angry, every sense of modesty and reserve outraged, the girl faced
+him, small head erect:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You went there to&mdash;to discuss <i>me</i> with <i>that</i> man!"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent. She turned suddenly and tried to open the door, but he
+held it closed.</p>
+
+<p>"I did it because I cared for you enough to do it," he said. "Don't you
+understand? Don't you suppose I know that kind of man?"</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it was not your business&mdash;" she faltered, twisting blindly at the
+door-knob. "Let me go&mdash;please&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I made it my business.... And that man understood that I was making it
+my business. And he won't attempt to annoy you again.... Can you forgive
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned on him excitedly, her eyes flashing with tears, but the
+impetuous words of protest died on her lips as her eyes encountered his.</p>
+
+<p>"It was because I love you," he said. And, as he spoke, there was about
+the man a quiet dignity and distinction that silenced her&mdash;something of
+which she may have had vague glimpses at wide intervals in their
+acquaintances&mdash;something which at times she suspected might lie latent
+in unknown corners of his character. Now it suddenly confronted her; and
+she recognised it and stood before him without a word to say.</p>
+
+<p>It mended matters a little when he smiled, and the familiar friend
+reappeared beside her; but she still felt strange and shy; and
+wondering, half fearfully, she let him lift her gloved hands and stand,
+holding them, looking into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I am," he said. "I have nothing to say about myself. But
+I love you very dearly.... I loved before, once, and married. And she
+died.... After that I didn't behave very well&mdash;until I knew you.... It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>
+is really in me to be a decent husband&mdash;if you can care for me.... And I
+don't think we're likely to starve&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;it isn't that," she said, flushing scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you <i>have</i> ... I could only care for&mdash;what you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you do that?"</p>
+
+<p>But her calm had vanished, and, head bent and averted, she was
+attempting to withdraw her hands&mdash;and might have freed herself entirely
+if it had not been for his arm around her.</p>
+
+<p>This new and disconcerting phase of the case brought her so suddenly
+face to face with him that it frightened her; and he let her go, and
+followed her back to the empty gallery where she sank down at her desk,
+resting her arms on the covered type-machine, and buried her quivering
+face in them.</p>
+
+<p>It was excusable. Such things don't usually happen to typewriters and
+stenographers although they have happened to barmaids.</p>
+
+<p>When he had been talking eloquently and otherwise for a long time Jessie
+Vining lifted her pale, tear-stained face from her arms; and his
+lordship dropped rather gracefully on his knees beside her, and she
+looked down at him very solemnly and wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>It was shockingly late when they closed the gallery that evening. And
+their mode of homeward progress was stranger still, for instead of a
+tram or of the taxi which Lord Dankmere occasionally prevailed upon her
+to accept, they drifted homeward on a pink cloud through the light-shot
+streets of Ascalon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>To the solitary and replete pike, lying motionless in shadow, no
+still-bait within reach is interesting. But the slightest movement in
+his vicinity of anything helpless instantly rivets his attention; any
+creature apparently in distress arouses him to direct and lightning
+action whether he be gorged or not&mdash;even, perhaps, while he is still
+gashed raw with the punishment for his last attempt.</p>
+
+<p>So it was with Langly Sprowl. He had come into town, sullen, restless,
+still fretting with checked desire. Within him a dull rage burned; he
+was ready to injure, ready for anything to distract his mind which,
+however, had not given up for a moment the dogged determination to
+recover the ground he had lost with perhaps the only woman in the world
+he had ever really cared for.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, he was the kind of man who does not know what real love is. That
+understanding had not been born in him, and he had not acquired it. He
+was totally incapable of anything except that fierce passion which is
+aroused by obstacles when in pursuit of whatever evinces a desire to
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>It was that way with him when, by accident, he saw and recognised Jessie
+Vining one evening leaving the Dankmere Galleries. And Langly Sprowl
+never denied himself anything that seemed incapable of self-defence.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped his car and got out and spoke to her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> very civilly, and with
+a sort of kindly frankness which he sometimes used with convincing
+effect. She refused the proffered car to take her to her destination,
+but could not very well avoid his escort; and their encounter ended by
+her accepting his explanations and his extended hand, perplexed,
+unwilling to misjudge him, but thankful when he departed.</p>
+
+<p>After that he continued to meet her occasionally and walk home with her.</p>
+
+<p>Then he sent his footman and the car for her; and drew Lord Dankmere out
+of the grab-bag, to his infinite annoyance. Worse, Dankmere had struck
+him with an impact so terrific that it had knocked him senseless across
+the table in a private dining-room of the Café Cammargue, where he
+presently woke up with a most amazing eye to find the terrified
+proprietor and staff playing Samaritan.</p>
+
+<p>In various papers annoying paragraphs concerning him had begun to
+appear&mdash;hints of how matters stood between him and Mary Ledwith, ugly
+innuendo, veiled rumours of the breach between him and his aunt
+consequent upon his untenable position <i>vis-à-vis</i> Mrs. Ledwith.</p>
+
+<p>Until Dankmere had inconvenienced his features he had walked downtown to
+his office every day, lank, long-legged, sleek head held erect, hatchet
+face pointed straight in front of him, his restless eyes encountering
+everybody's but seeing nobody unless directly saluted.</p>
+
+<p>Now, his right eye rivalling a thunder-cloud in tints, he drove one of
+his racing cars as fast as he dared, swinging through Westchester or
+scurrying about Long Island. Occasionally he went aboard the <i>Yulan</i>,
+but a burning restlessness kept him moving; and at last he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> returned to
+South Linden in a cold but deadly rage, determined to win back the
+chances which he supposed he had thrown away in the very moment of
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa Leeds had now taken up her abode in her quaint little house; he
+learned that immediately; and that evening he went over and came upon
+her moving about in the dusky garden, so intent on inspecting her
+flowers that he was within a pace of her before she turned her head and
+saw him.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa," he said, "can we not be friends again? I ask no more than
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Too surprised and annoyed to reply she merely gazed at him. And,
+because, for the first time in his life, perhaps, he really felt every
+word he uttered, he spoke now with a certain simplicity and self-control
+that sounded unusual to her ears&mdash;so noticeably unlike what she knew of
+him that it commanded her unwilling attention.</p>
+
+<p>For his unpardonable brutality and violence he asked forgiveness,
+promising to serve her faithfully and in friendship for the privilege of
+attempting to win back her respect and regard. He asked only that.</p>
+
+<p>He said that he scarcely knew what to do with his life without the hope
+of recovering her respect and esteem; he asked for a beggar's chance,
+begged for it with a candour and naïveté almost boyish&mdash;so directly to
+the point tended every instinct in him to recover through caution and
+patience what he had lost through carelessness and a violence which
+still astonished him.</p>
+
+<p>The Bermuda lilies were in bloom and Strelsa stood near them, listening
+to him, touching the tall stalks absently at intervals. And while she
+listened she became more conscious still of the great change in
+herself&mdash;of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> her altered attitude toward so much in life that once had
+seemed to her important. After he had ceased she still stood pensively
+among the lilies, gray eyes brooding. At length, looking up, she said
+very quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you care for my friendship, Langly? I am not the kind of woman
+you think me&mdash;not even the kind I once thought myself. To me friendship
+is no light thing either to ask for or to give. It means more to me than
+it once did; and I give it very seldom, and sparingly, and to very, very
+few. But toward everybody I am gently disposed&mdash;because, I am much
+happier than I ever have been in all my life.... Is not my good will
+sufficient for any possible relation between you and me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are no longer angry with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no longer angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Can we be friends again? Can you really forgive me, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;yes, I could do that.... But, Langly, what have you and I in
+common as a basis for friendship? What have we ever had in common?
+Except when we encounter each other by hazard, why should we ever meet
+at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have not pardoned me, Strelsa," he said patiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Does that really make any difference to you? It doesn't to me. It is
+only because I never think of you that it would be an effort to forgive
+you. I'll make that effort if you wish, but really, Langly, I never
+think about you at all."</p>
+
+<p>"If that is true, let me be with you sometimes, Strelsa," he said in a
+low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Because I am wretchedly unhappy. And I care for you&mdash;more than you
+realise."</p>
+
+<p>She said seriously: "You have no right to speak that way to me, Langly."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you ever again give me the right to say I love you?"</p>
+
+<p>A quick flush of displeasure touched her cheeks; he saw it in the dusk
+of the garden, and mistook it utterly:</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa&mdash;listen to me, dear! I have not slept since our quarrel. I must
+have been stark mad to say and do what I did.... Don't leave me! Don't
+go! I beg you to listen a moment&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had started to move away from him and his first forward step broke a
+blossom from its stalk where it hung white in the dusk.</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you to go," she said under her breath. "There are people here&mdash;on
+the veranda&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Every sense within him told him to go, pretending resignation. That was
+his policy. He had come here for martyrdom, cuirassed in patience. Every
+atom of common sense warned him to go.</p>
+
+<p>But also every physical sense in him was now fully aroused&mdash;the silvery
+star-dusk, the scent of lilies, a slender woman within arm's reach&mdash;this
+woman who had once been so nearly his&mdash;who was still rightfully
+his!&mdash;these circumstances were arousing him once more to a temerity
+which his better senses warned him to subdue. Yet if he could only get
+nearer to her&mdash;if he could once get her into his arms&mdash;overwhelm her
+with the storm of passion rising so swiftly within him, almost choking
+him&mdash;so that his voice and limbs already trembled in its furious
+surge&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa&mdash;I love you! For God's sake show me some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> mercy!" he stammered.
+"I come to you half crazed by the solitude to which your anger has
+consigned me. I cannot endure it&mdash;I need you&mdash;I want you&mdash;I ask for your
+compassion&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" she pleaded, hastily retreating before him through the snowy
+banks of rockets&mdash;"I have asked you not to speak to me that way! I ask
+you to go&mdash;to go now!&mdash;because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you listen to me! Will you wait a moment! I am only trying to tell
+you that I love you, dear&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He almost caught her, but she sprang aside, frightened, still retreating
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot go until you listen to me!&mdash;" he said thickly, trampling
+through the flowers to intercept her. "You've got to listen!&mdash;do you
+hear?"</p>
+
+<p>She had almost reached the terrace; the shadowy veranda opened widely
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"There are people here! Don't you understand?" she said once more in a
+choking voice; but he only advanced, and she fell back before him to the
+very edge of the porch lattice.</p>
+
+<p>"Now listen to me!" he said between his teeth. "I love you and I'll
+never give you up&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she turned on him, hands tightly clenched:</p>
+
+<p>"Be silent!" she whispered fiercely. "I tell you what you say is
+indecent, revolting! If there were a man here he'd kill you! Do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant his eyes became fixed on a figure in white which
+took shadowy shape on the dark veranda, rising and coming slowly
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>Ghostlike as it was he knew it instantly, stood rooted in his tracks
+while Strelsa stole away from him through the star-lit gloom, farther,
+farther, slipping forever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> from him now&mdash;he knew that as he stood there
+staring like a damned man upon that other dim shape in the darkness
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>It was his first glimpse of her since her return from Reno. And now,
+unbidden, memories half strangled were already in full resurrection,
+gasping in his ears of things that had been&mdash;of forgotten passion, of
+pleasure promised; and, because never tasted, it had been the true and
+only pleasure for such a man as he&mdash;the pleasure of anticipation. But
+the world had never, would never believe that. Only he, and the phantom
+there in the dusk before him, knew it to be true.</p>
+
+<p>Slightly reeling he turned away in the darkness. In his haunted ears
+sounded a young wife's voice, promising, caressing; through and through
+him shot a thrill of the old excitement, the old desire, urging him
+again toward belated consummation.</p>
+
+<p>And again the old impatience seized him, the old ruthlessness, the old
+anger at finding her weak in every way except one, the old contempt
+which had turned to sullen amazement when she wrote him that she had
+gone to Reno and that they must wait for their happiness until the
+courts decreed it legal.</p>
+
+<p>Now as he swung along under the high stars he was thinking of these
+things. And he felt that he had not tried her enough, had not really
+exerted himself&mdash;that women who are fools require closer watching than
+clever ones; that he could have overcome her scruples with any real
+effort and saved her from giving him the slip and sowing a wind in Reno
+which already had become enough of a breeze to bother him.</p>
+
+<p>With her, for a while, he might be able to distract his mind from this
+recent obsession tormenting him. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> overcome her would interest him;
+and he had no doubt it could be done&mdash;for she was a little fool&mdash;silly
+enough to slap the world in the face and brave public opinion at Reno.
+No&mdash;it was not necessary to marry such a woman. She might think so, but
+it wasn't.</p>
+
+<p>He had behaved unwisely, too. Why should he not have gone to see her
+when she returned? By doing so, and acting cleverly, he could have
+avoided trouble with his aunt, and also these annoying newspaper
+paragraphs. Also he could have avoided the scene with Ledwith&mdash;and the
+aborted reconciliation just now with Strelsa, where he had stood staring
+at the apparition of Mary Ledwith as lost souls stand transfixed before
+the pallid shades of those whom they have destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>At his lodge-gate a half-cowering dog fawned on him and he kicked it
+aside. The bruised creature fled, and Sprowl turned in at his gates and
+walked slowly up the cypress-bordered drive.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>He thought it all out that night, studied it carefully. What he needed
+was distraction from the present torment. Mary Ledwith could give that
+to him. What a fool she had been ever to imagine that she could be
+anything more than his temporary mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"The damned little idiot," he mused&mdash;"cutting away to Reno before I knew
+what she was up to&mdash;and involving us both in all that talk! What did she
+flatter herself I wanted, anyway.... But I ought to have called on her
+at once; now it's going to be difficult."</p>
+
+<p>Yet he sullenly welcomed the difficulty&mdash;hoped that she'd hold out. That
+was what he wanted, the excitement of it to take his mind from
+Strelsa&mdash;keep him interested and employed until the moment arrived once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>
+more when he might venture to see her again. He was, by habit, a patient
+man. Only in the case of Strelsa Leeds had passion ever prematurely
+betrayed him; and, pacing his porch there in the darkness, he set his
+teeth and wondered at himself and cursed himself, unable to reconcile
+what he knew of himself with what he had done to the only woman he had
+ever wished to marry as a last resort.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>For two weeks Sprowl kept to himself. Few men understood better than he
+what was the medicinal value of time. Only once had he dared ignore it.</p>
+
+<p>So one evening, late in August, still dressed in knickerbockers and
+heather-spats, he walked from his lawn across country to make the first
+move in a new game with Mary Ledwith.</p>
+
+<p>Interested, confident, already amused, and in far better spirits than he
+had been for many a day, he strode out across the fields, swinging his
+walking-stick, his restless eyes seeing everything and looking directly
+at nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Which was a mistake on his part for once, because, crossing a pasture
+corner, his own bull, advancing silently from a clump of willows, nearly
+caught him; but Sprowl went over the fence and, turning, brought down
+his heavy stick across the brute's ringed nose; and the animal bellowed
+at him and tore up the sod and followed along inside the fence
+thundering his baffled fury as long as Sprowl remained in sight.</p>
+
+<p>It was not all bad disposition. Sprowl, who cared nothing for animals,
+hated the bull, and, when nothing more attractive offered, was
+accustomed to come to the fence, irritate the animal, lure him within
+range, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> strike him. He had done it many times; and, some day, he
+meant to go into the pasture with a rifle, stand the animal's charge,
+and shoot him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a calm, primrose-tinted sunset where trees and hills and a
+distant spire loomed golden-black against the yellow west. No trees had
+yet turned, although, here and there on wooded hills, single discoloured
+branches broke the green monotony.</p>
+
+<p>No buckwheat had yet been cut, but above the ruddy fields of stalks the
+snow of the blossoms had become tarnished in promise of maturity&mdash;the
+first premonition of autumn except for a few harvest apples yellow amid
+green leaves.</p>
+
+<p>He had started without any definite plan, a confident but patient
+opportunist; and as he approached the Ledwith property and finally
+sighted the chimneys of the house above the trees, something&mdash;some
+errant thought seemed to amuse him, for he smiled slightly. His smile
+was as rare as his laughter&mdash;and as brief; and there remained no trace
+of it as he swung up the last hill and stood there gazing ahead.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had set. A delicate purple haze already dimmed distances; and
+the twilight which falls more swiftly as summer deepens into autumn was
+already stealing into every hollow and ravine, darkening the alders
+where the stream stole swampwards. A few laggard crows were still
+winging toward the woods; a few flocks of blackbirds passed overhead
+almost unseen against the sky. Somewhere some gardener had been burning
+leaves and refuse, and the odour made the dusk more autumn-like.</p>
+
+<p>As he crossed the line separating his land from the Ledwith estate he
+nodded to the daughter of one of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> own gardeners who was passing with
+a collie; and then he turned to look again at the child whose slender
+grace and freshness interested him.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out for that bull, Europa," he said, staring after her as she
+walked on.</p>
+
+<p>She looked back at him, laughingly, and thanked him and went on quite
+happily, the collie plodding at her heels. Recently Sprowl had been very
+pleasant to her.</p>
+
+<p>When she was out of sight he started forward, climbed the fence into the
+road, followed it to the drive-way, and followed that among the elms
+and Norway firs to the porch.</p>
+
+<p>It was so dark here among the trees that only the lighted transom guided
+him up the steps.</p>
+
+<p>To the maid who came to the door he said coolly: "Say to Mrs. Ledwith
+that Mr. Sprowl wishes to see her for a moment on a very important
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is she; out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, sir&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do. Mrs. Ledwith is at home but has given you instructions
+concerning me. Isn't that so?"</p>
+
+<p>The maid, crimson and embarrassed, made no answer, and he walked past
+her into the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Light up here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, sir&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do as I tell you, my good girl. Here&mdash;where's that button?&mdash;there!&mdash;"
+as the pretty room sprang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> into light&mdash;"Now never mind your instructions
+but go and say to Mrs. Ledwith that I <i>must</i> see her."</p>
+
+<p>He calmly unfolded a flat packet of fresh bank-notes, selected one,
+changed it on reflection for another of higher denomination, and handed
+it to her. The girl hesitated, still irresolute until he lifted his
+narrow head and stared at her. Then she went away hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned to say that Mrs. Ledwith was not at home to Mr. Sprowl
+he shrugged and bade her inform her mistress that their meeting was not
+a matter of choice but of necessity, and that he would remain where he
+was until she received him.</p>
+
+<p>Again the maid went away, evidently frightened, and Sprowl lighted a
+cigarette and began to saunter about. When he had examined everything in
+the room he strolled into the farther room. It was unlighted and suited
+him to sit in; and he installed himself in a comfortable chair and,
+throwing his cigarette into the fire-place, lighted a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>This was a game he understood&mdash;a waiting game. The game was traditional
+with his forefathers; every one of them had played it; their endless
+patience had made a fortune to which each in turn had added before he
+died. Patience and courage&mdash;courage of the sort known as personal
+bravery&mdash;had distinguished all his race. He himself had inherited
+patience, and had used it wisely except in that one inexplicable
+case!&mdash;and personal courage in him had never been lacking, nor had what
+often accompanies it, coolness, obstinacy, and effrontery.</p>
+
+<p>He had decided to wait until his cigar had been leisurely finished.
+Then, other measures&mdash;perhaps walking upstairs, unannounced, perhaps an
+unresentful with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>drawal, a note by messenger, and another attempt to see
+her to-morrow&mdash;he did not yet know&mdash;had arrived at no conclusion&mdash;but
+would make up his mind when he finished his cigar and then do whatever
+caution dictated.</p>
+
+<p>Once a servant came to the door to look around for him, and when she
+discovered him in the half-light of the music-room she departed hastily
+for regions above. This amused Sprowl.</p>
+
+<p>As he lounged there, thoroughly comfortable, he could hear an occasional
+stir in distant regions of the house, servants moving perhaps, a door
+opened or closed, faint creaks from the stairs. Once the distant sounds
+indicated that somebody was using a telephone; once, as he neared the
+end of his cigar, a gray cat stole in, caught sight of him, halted, her
+startled eyes fixed on him, then turned and scuttled out into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Finally he rose, flicked his cigar ashes into the fireplace, stretched
+his powerful frame, yawned, and glanced at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>And at the same instant somebody entered the front door with a
+latch-key.</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl stood perfectly still, interested, waiting: and two men,
+bare-headed and in evening dress, came swiftly but silently into the
+drawing-room. One was Quarren, the other Chester Ledwith. Quarren took
+hold of Ledwith's arm and tried to draw him out of the room. Then
+Ledwith caught sight of Sprowl and started toward him, but Quarren again
+seized his companion by the shoulder and dragged him back.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you to keep quiet," he said in a low voice&mdash;"Keep out of
+this!&mdash;go out of the house!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't, Quarren! I&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You promised not to come in until that man had left&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it. I meant to&mdash;but, good God! Quarren! I can't stand there&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was struggling toward Sprowl and Quarren was trying to push him back
+into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"You said that you had given up any idea of personal vengeance!" he
+panted. "Let me deal with him quietly&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know what I was saying," retorted Ledwith, straining away from
+the man who held him, his eyes fixed on Sprowl. "I tell you I can't
+remain quiet and see that blackguard in this house&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But he's going I tell you! He's going without a row&mdash;without any noise.
+Can't you let me manage it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He could not drag Ledwith to the door, so he forced him into a chair and
+stood guard, glancing back across his shoulder at Sprowl.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better go," he said in a low but perfectly distinct voice.</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl, still holding his cigar, sauntered forward into the
+drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are armed," he said contemptuously. "If you threaten me
+I'll take away your guns and slap both your faces&mdash;ask the other pup how
+it feels, Quarren."</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith struggled to rise but Quarren had him fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of here, Sprowl," he said. "You'll have a bad time of it if he
+gets away from me."</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl stared, hands in his pockets, puffing his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"I've a notion to kick you both out," he drawled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It would be a mistake," panted Quarren. "Can't you go while there's
+time, Sprowl! I tell you he'll kill you in this room if you don't."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't&mdash;<i>kill</i> him!&mdash;Let go of me, Quarren," gasped Ledwith. "I&mdash;I
+won't do murder; I've promised you that&mdash;for <i>her</i> sake&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let him loose, Quarren," said Sprowl.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;">
+<a name="gs28" id="gs28"></a><img src="images/gs28.jpg" width="320" height="467" alt="&quot;&#39;Let him loose, Quarren,&#39; said Sprowl.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;Let him loose, Quarren,&#39; said Sprowl.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>He waited for a full minute, watching the struggling men in silent
+contempt. Then with a shrug he went out into the hall, leisurely put on
+his hat, picked up his stick, opened the door, and sauntered out into
+the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," breathed Quarren fiercely, "you play the man or I'm through with
+you! He's gone and he won't come back&mdash;I'll see to that! And it's up to
+you to show what you're made of!"</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith, freed, stood white and breathing hard for a few moments. Then a
+dull flush suffused his thin face; he looked down, stood with hanging
+head, until Quarren laid a hand on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"It's up to you, Ledwith," he said quietly. "I don't blame you for
+losing your head a moment, but if you mean what you said, I should say
+that this is your chance.... And if I were you I'd simply go upstairs
+and speak to her.... She's been through hell.... She's in it still. But
+<i>you're</i> out; and you can stay out if you choose. There's no need to
+wallow if you don't want to. You're not in very good shape yet, but
+you're a man. And now, if you do care for her, I really believe it's up
+to you.... Will you go upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>Ledwith turned and went out into the familiar hall. Then, as though
+dazed, resting one thin hand on the rail, he mounted the stairway, head
+hanging, feeling his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> way blindly back toward all that life had ever
+held for him, but which he had been too weak to keep or even to defend.</p>
+
+<p>Quarren waited for a while; Ledwith did not return. After a few minutes
+an excited maid came down, stared at him, then, reassured, opened the
+door for him with a smile. And he went out into the starlight.</p>
+
+<p>He had been walking for only a few moments when he overtook Sprowl
+sauntering down a lane; and the latter glanced around and, recognising
+him, halted.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the other hero?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably discussing you with the woman he is likely to remarry."</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl shrugged:</p>
+
+<p>"That's what that kind of a man is made for&mdash;to marry what others don't
+have to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"You lie," said Quarren quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Sprowl stared at him: then the long-pent fury overwhelmed his common
+sense again, and again it was in regard to the woman he had lost by his
+violence.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," he said, measuring his words, "that you're the same kind of
+a man, too. And some day, if you're good, you can marry what I don't
+have to marry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He reeled under Quarren's blow, then struck at him blindly with his
+walking-stick, leaping at him savagely but recoiling, dizzy, half
+senseless under another blow so terrific that it almost nauseated him.</p>
+
+<p>He stood for a time, supporting himself against a tree; then as his wits
+returned he lifted his bruised face and stared murderously about him.
+Quarren was walking toward Witch-Hollow&mdash;half way there already and out
+of earshot as well as sight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Against the stars something moved on a near hill-top, and Sprowl reeled
+forward in pursuit, breaking into a heavy and steady run as the thing
+disappeared in the darkness. But he had seen it move, just beyond that
+fence, and he seized the top rail and got over and ran forward in the
+darkness, clutching his stick and calling to Quarren by name.</p>
+
+<p>Where had he gone? He halted to listen, peering around with swollen
+eyes. Blood dripped from his lips and cheek; he passed his hand over
+them, glaring, listening. Suddenly he heard a dull sound close behind
+him in the night; whirled to confront what was coming with an unseen
+rush, thundering down on him, shaking the very ground.</p>
+
+<p>He made no outcry; there was no escape, nothing to do but to strike; and
+he struck with every atom of his strength; and went crashing down into
+darkness. And over his battered body bellowed and raged the bull.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Even the men who found them there in the morning could scarcely drive
+away the half-crazed brute. And the little daughter of the gardener, who
+had discovered what was there in the pasture, cowered in the fence
+corner, crying her heart out for her father's dead master who had spoken
+kindly to her since she had grown up and who had even taken her into his
+arms and kissed her the day before when she had brought him a rare
+orchid from the greenhouse.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Every newspaper in America gave up the right-hand columns to huge
+headlines and an account of the tragedy at South Linden. Every paper in
+the world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> chronicled it. There were few richer men in the world than
+Langly Sprowl. The tragedy moved everybody in various ways; stocks,
+however, did not move either way to the surprise of everybody. On second
+thoughts, however, the world realised that his wealth had been too
+solidly invested to cause a flurry. Besides he had a younger brother
+financing something or other for the Emperor of China. Now he would
+return. The great race would not become extinct.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>That night Quarren went back to the Wycherlys and found Molly waiting
+for him in the library.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth did Mary Ledwith want of Jim this evening?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sprowl was in the house."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's why the poor child telephoned. She was probably afraid of him,
+and wanted Jim there."</p>
+
+<p>Molly's teeth clicked:</p>
+
+<p>"Jim would have half-killed him. It's probably a good thing he was in
+town. What did you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. Sprowl went all right."</p>
+
+<p>"What did Mary say to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see her."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't <i>see</i> her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Molly's eyes grew rounder:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Chester Ledwith? He didn't go with you into the house, did
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he did."</p>
+
+<p>"But where is he? You&mdash;you don't mean to say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. He went upstairs and didn't re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>turn.... So I waited for a
+while and then&mdash;came back."</p>
+
+<p>They sat silent for a while, then Molly lifted her eyes to his and they
+were brimming with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"If they become reconciled," she said, "how are people going to take it,
+Rix?"</p>
+
+<p>"Characteristically I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that some will be nasty about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some."</p>
+
+<p>"But then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Molly, Molly," he said, smiling, "there are more important things
+than what a few people are likely to think or say. The girl made a fool
+of herself, and the man weakened and nearly went to pieces. He's found
+himself again; he's disposed to help her find herself. It was only one
+of those messes that the papers report every day. Few get out of such
+pickles, but I believe these two are going to.... And somehow, do you
+know&mdash;from something Sprowl said to-night, I don't believe that she went
+the entire limit&mdash;took the last ditch."</p>
+
+<p>Molly reddened: "Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because, although they do it in popular fiction, men like Sprowl never
+really boast of their successes. His sort keep silent&mdash;when there's
+anything to conceal."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he boast?"</p>
+
+<p>"He did. I was sure he was lying, and I&mdash;" he shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"Told him so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, something of that sort."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he was lying, too.... It was just like that romantic little
+fool to run off to Reno after nothing worse than the imprudence of
+infatuation. I've<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> known her a long while, Rix. She's too shallow for
+real passion, too selfish to indulge it anyway. His name and fortune did
+the business for her&mdash;little idiot. Really she annoys me."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren smiled: "Her late husband seems to like her. Fools feminine have
+made many a man happy. You'll be nice to her I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course.... Everybody will on Mrs. Sprowl's account."</p>
+
+<p>Quarren laughed again, then:</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile this Ledwith business has prevented my talking to Strelsa
+over the telephone," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rix! You <i>said</i> you were going to surprise her in the morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to see her, Molly. I don't want to wait&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's after ten and Strelsa has probably retired. She's a perfect
+farmer, I tell you&mdash;yawns horribly every evening at nine. Why, I can't
+keep her awake long enough to play a hand at Chinese Khan! Be
+reasonable, Rix. You had planned to surprise her in the morning....
+And&mdash;I'm lonely without Jim.... Besides, if you are clever enough to
+burst upon Strelsa's view in the morning when the day is young and all
+before her, and when she's looking her very best, nobody can tell what
+might happen.... And I'll whisper in your ear that the child has really
+missed you.... But don't be in a hurry with her, will you, Rix?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said absently.</p>
+
+<p>Molly picked up her knitting.</p>
+
+<p>"If Chester Ledwith doesn't return by twelve I'm going to have the house
+locked," she said, stifling a yawn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At twelve o'clock the house was accordingly locked for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"It's enough to compromise her," said Molly, crossly. "What a pair of
+fools they are."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Strelsa, a pink apron pinned about her, a trowel in her gloved hand,
+stood superintending the transplanting of some purple asters which not
+very difficult exploit was being attempted by a local yokel acting as
+her "hired man."</p>
+
+<p>The garden, a big one with a wall fronting the road, ran back all the
+way to the terrace in the rear of the house beyond which stretched the
+western veranda.</p>
+
+<p>And it was out on this veranda that Quarren stepped in the wake of
+Strelsa's maid, and from there he caught his first view of Strelsa's
+garden, and of Strelsa herself, fully armed and caparisoned for the
+perennial fray with old Dame Nature.</p>
+
+<p>"You need not go down there to announce me," he said; "I'll speak to
+Mrs. Leeds myself."</p>
+
+<p>But before he could move, Strelsa, happening to turn around, saw him on
+the veranda, gazed at him incredulously for a moment, then brandished
+her trowel with a clear, distant cry of greeting, and came toward him,
+laughing in her excitement and surprise. They met midway, and she
+whipped off her glove and gave him her hand in a firm, cool clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Why the dickens didn't you wire!" she said. "You're a fraud, Rix! I
+might easily have been away!&mdash;You might have missed me&mdash;we might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>
+missed each other.... Is <i>that</i> all you care about seeing me?&mdash;after all
+these weeks!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to surprise you," he explained feebly.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;">
+<a name="gs29" id="gs29"></a><img src="images/gs29.jpg" width="640" height="461" alt="&quot;&#39;I wanted to surprise you,&#39; he explained feebly.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;I wanted to surprise you,&#39; he explained feebly.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Well, you didn't! That is&mdash;not much. I'd been thinking of you&mdash;and I
+glanced up and saw you. You're stopping at Molly's I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"When did you arrive?"</p>
+
+<p>"L-last night," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"What! And didn't call me up! I refuse to believe it of you!"</p>
+
+<p>She really seemed indignant, and he followed her into the pretty house
+where presently she became slightly mollified by his exuberant
+admiration of the place.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you in earnest?" she said. "Do you really think it so pretty? If
+you do I'll take you upstairs and show you my room, and the three
+beautiful spick and span guest rooms. But <i>you'll</i> never occupy one!"
+she added, still wrathful at his apparent neglect of her. "I don't want
+anybody here who isn't perfectly devoted to me. And it's very plain that
+you are not."</p>
+
+<p>He mildly insisted that he was but she denied it, hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall <i>never</i> get over it," she added. "But you may come upstairs
+and see what you have missed."</p>
+
+<p>They went over the renovated house thoroughly; she, secretly enchanted
+at his admiration and praise of everything, pointed out any object that
+seemed to have escaped his attention merely to hear him approve it.
+Finally she relented.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> satisfactory," she said as they returned to the front veranda
+and seated themselves. "And really, Rix, I'm so terribly glad to see you
+that I for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>give your neglect.... Are you well? You don't look very
+well," she added earnestly. "Why are you so white?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm in fine shape, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean your figure," she laughed&mdash;"Oh, that <i>was</i> a common kind
+of a joke, wasn't it? But I'm only a farmer, Rix. You must expect the
+ruder and simpler forms of speech from a lady of the woodshed!... Why
+are you so pale?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I seem particularly underdone?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's horrid, too. Are you and I going to degenerate just because you
+work for a living? You <i>are</i> unusually thin, anyway; and the New York
+pallor is very noticeable. Will you stay and get sun-burnt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>could</i> stay a few days."</p>
+
+<p>"How many?"</p>
+
+<p>"How many do you want me? Two whole days, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at him, then looked at him a trifle shyly, but laughed again
+as she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to stay always, of course. Don't pretend that you don't know
+it, because you are perfectly aware that I never tire of you. But if you
+can stay only two days don't let us waste any time&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We're not wasting it here together, are we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want to walk? I haven't a horse yet, except for agricultural
+purposes. I'll rinse my hands and take off this apron&mdash;" She stood
+unpinning and untying it, her gray eyes never leaving him in their
+unabashed delight in him.</p>
+
+<p>Then she disappeared for a few minutes only to reappear wearing a pair
+of stout little shoes and carry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>ing a walking-stick which she said she
+used in rough country.</p>
+
+<p>And first they visited her garden where all the old-fashioned autumn
+flowers were in riotous bloom&mdash;scarlet sage, rockets, thickets of
+gladiolus, heavy borders of asters, marigolds, and coreopsis; and here
+she gave a few verbal directions to the yokel who gaped toothlessly in
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>After that, side by side, they swung off together across the hill, she,
+lithe and slender, setting the springy pace and twirling her
+walking-stick, he, less accustomed to the open and more so to the smooth
+hot streets of the city, slackening pace first.</p>
+
+<p>She chided and derided him and bantered him scornfully, then with sudden
+sweet concern halted, reproaching herself for setting too hot a pace for
+a city-worn and work-worn man.</p>
+
+<p>But the cool shadows of the woods were near, and she made him rest on
+the little footbridge&mdash;the same bridge where he had encountered Ledwith
+for the first time in years. He recognised the spot.</p>
+
+<p>After they had seated themselves and Strelsa, resting on the back of the
+bridge seat, was contentedly dabbling in the stream with her cane,
+Quarren said, slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you why I did not disturb you last night, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can't excuse it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am listening."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, it has to do with Ledwith. He's not very well but he's better
+than he was. You see he wanted to take a course of treatment to regain
+his health, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> there seemed to be nobody else, so&mdash;I offered to see
+him through."</p>
+
+<p>"That's like you, Rix," she said, looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it wasn't anything&mdash;I had nothing to do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's like you, too. Did you pull him through?"</p>
+
+<p>"He pulled himself through.... It was strenuous for two or three
+days&mdash;and hot as the devil in that sanitarium." ... He laughed. "We both
+were wrecks when we came out two weeks later&mdash;oh, a bit groggy, that's
+really all.... And he had no place to go&mdash;and seemed to be inclined to
+keep hold of my sleeve&mdash;so I telephoned Molly. And she said to bring him
+up. That was nice of her, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody is wonderful except you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," he said, "it wasn't I who went through a modified hell. He's
+got a lot of backbone, Ledwith.... And so we came up last night....
+And&mdash;now here's the interesting part, Strelsa! We strolled over to call
+on Mrs. Ledwith&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. I myself didn't see her but&mdash;" he laughed&mdash;"she seemed to be
+at home to her ex-husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Rix!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fact. He went back there for breakfast this morning after he'd
+changed his clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"After&mdash;<i>what</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It seems that they started out in a canoe about midnight and he
+didn't turn up at Witch-Hollow until just before breakfast&mdash;and then he
+only stayed long enough to change to boating flannels.... You should see
+him; he's twenty years younger.... I fancy they'll get along together in
+future."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rix!" she said, "that was darling of you! You <i>are</i> wonderful even
+if you don't seem to know it!... And to think&mdash;to <i>think</i> that Mary
+Ledwith is going to be happy again!... Oh, you don't know how it has
+been with her&mdash;the silly, unhappy little thing!</p>
+
+<p>"Why, after Mrs. Sprowl left, the girl went all to pieces. Molly and I
+did what we could&mdash;but Molly isn't strong and Mrs. Ledwith was at my
+house almost all the time&mdash;Oh, it was quite dreadful, and I'm sure she
+was really losing her senses&mdash;because&mdash;I think I'll tell you&mdash;I tell you
+everything&mdash;" She hesitated, and then, lowering her voice:</p>
+
+<p>"She had come to see me, and she was lying on the lounge in my
+dressing-room, crying; and I was doing my hair. And first I knew she
+sobbed out that she had killed her husband and wanted to die, and she
+caught up that pistol that Sir Charles gave me at the Bazaar last
+winter&mdash;it looked like a real one&mdash;and the next thing I knew she had
+fired a charge of Japanese perfume at her temple, and it was all over
+her face and hair!... Don't laugh, Rix; she thought she had killed
+herself, and I had a horrid, messy time of it reviving her."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor child," he exclaimed trying not to laugh&mdash;"she had no brains
+to blow out anyway.... That's a low thing to say. Ledwith likes her....
+I really believe she's been scared into life-long good behaviour."</p>
+
+<p>"She wasn't&mdash;really&mdash;horrid," said Strelsa in a low voice. "She told me
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it," he said. "But one way or the other you might as well
+reproach a humming-bird for its morals. There are such people."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After a short silence she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about people in town."</p>
+
+<p>"There are few there. Besides," he added smilingly, "I don't see much of
+your sort of people."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>My</i> sort?" she repeated, lifting her gray eyes. "Am I not your sort,
+Rix?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you? You should see me in my overalls and shirt-sleeves, stained
+with solvents and varnish, sticky with glue and reeking turpentine,
+ironing out a canvas with a warm flat-iron!... Am I your kind, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Am I <i>your</i> kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"You always were. You know that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do know it, now." She sat very still, hands folded, considering
+him with gray and speculative eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"From the very beginning," she said, "you have never once disappointed
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Never," she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why, I got in wrong the very first time!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that wager we made?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But you behaved like a good sportsman."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wasn't exactly a bounder. But you were annoyed."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled: "Was I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You seemed to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I sat in a corner behind some palms with you until daylight."</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other and laughed over the reminiscence. Then he
+said:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I <i>did</i> disappoint you when you found out what sort of a man I was."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I proved it, too," he said under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>Her lips were set firmly, almost primly, but she blushed.</p>
+
+<p>"You meant to be nice to me," she said. "You meant to do me honour."</p>
+
+<p>"The honour of offering you such a man as I was," he said with smiling
+bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"Rix! <i>I</i> was the fool&mdash;the silly little prig! I have blushed and
+blushed to remember how I behaved; how I snubbed you and&mdash;good
+heavens!&mdash;even lectured and admonished you!&mdash;How I ran away from you
+with all the self-possession and <i>savoir-faire</i> of a country schoolgirl!
+What on earth you thought of me in those days I dread to surmise&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But Strelsa, what was there to do except what you did?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I'd known anything I could have thanked you for caring that way for
+me and dismissed you as a friend instead of fleeing as though you had
+affronted me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>did</i> affront you."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't intend to.... It would have been easy enough to tell you
+that I liked you&mdash;but not that way.... And all those miserable, lonely,
+unhappy months could have been spared me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Were <i>you</i> unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never dreamed you were."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was&mdash;thinking of what I had done to you.... And all those men
+bothering me, every moment, and everybody at me to marry everybody
+else&mdash;and all I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> wanted was to be friends with <i>you</i>!... I wasn't sure
+of what I wanted from the very beginning, of course, but I knew it as
+soon as I saw you at the Bazaar again.... I was <i>so</i> lonely, Rix&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up out of clear, fearless eyes; he leaned forward and took
+her hands in his.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you want," he said quietly. "You want my friendship and you
+have it&mdash;every atom of it, Strelsa. I will never overstep the borders
+again; I understand you thoroughly.... You know what you have done for
+me&mdash;what I was when you came into my life. My gratitude is a living
+thing. Through you, because of you, the whole unknown world&mdash;all of real
+life&mdash;has opened before me. You did it for me, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>"You did it for yourself and for me," she said in a low voice. "What are
+you trying to tell me, Rix? That <i>I</i> did this for <i>you</i>? When it is
+you&mdash;it was you from the first&mdash;it has always been you who led, who
+awakened first, who showed courage and common sense and patience and the
+cheerful wisdom which&mdash;which saved me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The emotion in her voice stirred him thrillingly; her hands lay
+confidently in his; her gray eyes met his so sweetly, so honestly, that
+hope awoke for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Strelsa," he said, "however it was with us&mdash;however it is now, I think
+that together we amount to more than we ever could have amounted to
+apart."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," she said fervently. "I was nothing until I began to
+comprehend you."</p>
+
+<p>"What was I before you awoke me?"</p>
+
+<p>"A man neglecting his nobler self.... But it could not have lasted; your
+real self could not have long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> endured that harlequinade we once thought
+was real life.... I'm glad if you think that I&mdash;something about
+me&mdash;aroused you.... But if I had not, somebody or some circumstance
+would have very soon served the same purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" he said, stooping to kiss her hands. She looked at
+him while he did so, confused by the quick pleasure of the contact, then
+schooled herself to endure it, setting her lips in a grave, firm line.</p>
+
+<p>And it was a most serious face he lifted his eyes to as she quietly
+withdrew her fingers from his.</p>
+
+<p>"You always played the courtier to perfection," she said, trying to
+speak lightly. "Tell me about that accomplished and noble peer, Lord
+Dankmere. Are you still inclined to like him?"</p>
+
+<p>He accepted her light and careless change of tone instantly, and spoke
+laughingly of Dankmere:</p>
+
+<p>"He's really a mighty nice fellow, Strelsa. Anyway, I like him. And
+<i>what</i> do you think his lordship has been and gone and done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has he become a Russian dancer, Rix?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, bless his heart! He's fallen head over ears in love and is engaged
+and is going to marry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our stenographer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rix!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly.... She's pretty and sweet and good and <i>most</i> worthy; and
+she's as crazy about Dankmere as he is about her.... Really, Strelsa,
+she's a charming young girl, and she'll make as pretty a countess as any
+of the Dankmeres have married in many a generation."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa's lip curled: "I don't doubt that. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> were always a horrid
+cock-fighting, prize-fighting, dissolute lot, weren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something like that. But the present Dankmere is a good sort&mdash;really he
+is, Strelsa. And as for Jessie Vining, she's sweet. You'll be nice to
+them, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She said: "I'd be nice to them anyway. But now that you ask me to I'll
+be whatever you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> a corker," he said almost tenderly; but with a slight smile
+she kept her hands out of his reach.</p>
+
+<p>"We mustn't degenerate into sentimentalism just because we're glad to
+see each other," she said so calmly that he did not notice the tremor in
+her voice. "And by the way, how is Mr. Westguard?"</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of sentiment," said Quarren, "Karl now exudes it daily. He and
+Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera&mdash;to Lester's rage&mdash;have started a
+weekly paper called <i>Brotherhood</i>, consisting of pabulum for the
+horny-handed.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't do anything with Karl. Just look at him! He's really a good
+story-teller if he chooses. He could write jolly-good novels if he
+would. But the spectacle of De Groot weeping over a Bowery audience has
+finished him; and he's hard at work on a volume called 'The World's
+Woe,' and means to publish it himself because no publisher will take
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Karl," she said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Quarren, "that's the worst of it. His aunt has settled a
+million on him.... I tell you, Strelsa, the rich convert has less honour
+among the poor than the dingiest little 'dip' among the gorgeous
+corsairs of Wall Street.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how it happens, but Christ was never yet successfully
+preached from Fifth Avenue, and the millionaire whose heart bleeds for
+the poor needs a sterner surgeon than a complacent conscience to really
+stop the hemorrhage."</p>
+
+<p>"Rich men do good, Rix," she said thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"But not by teaching or practising the thrift of celestial
+insurance&mdash;not by admonition to orthodoxy and exhortation to worship a
+Creator who sees to it that no two people are created equal. There is
+only one thing the rich can give to the poor for Christ's sake; and even
+that will always be taken with suspicion and distrust. No; there are
+only two ways to live: one is the life of self-discipline; the other is
+to actually imitate the militant Son of Man whose faith we pretend to
+profess&mdash;but whose life-history we merely parody, turning His crusade
+into a grotesque carnival. I know of no third course consistent."</p>
+
+<p>"To lead an upright life within bounds where your lines have fallen, or
+to strip and go forth militant," she mused. "There is no third course,
+as you say.... Do you know, Rix, that I have become a wonderfully happy
+sort of person?"</p>
+
+<p>"So have I," he said, laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's just because we have something to do, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That&mdash;and the leisure which the idle never have. It seems like a
+paradox, doesn't it?&mdash;to say that the idle never have any time to
+themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you mean. I expect to work rather hard the rest of my
+life," she said seriously, "and yet I can foresee lots and lots of most
+delicious leisure awaiting me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you foresee anything else, pretty prophetess?"</p>
+
+<p>"What else do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for example, you will be alone here all winter."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean loneliness?" she asked, smiling. "I don't expect to suffer
+from that. Molly will be here all winter and&mdash;you will write to me&mdash;"
+she turned to him&mdash;"won't you, Rix?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. Besides I'm coming up to see you every week."</p>
+
+<p>"Every week!" she repeated, taken a little aback but smiling her sweet,
+confused smile. "Do you realise what you are so gaily engaging to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly. I'm going to build up here."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"A&mdash;a house?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her, hesitated, then looking away:</p>
+
+<p>"Either a house or&mdash;an addition."</p>
+
+<p>"An <i>addition</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll let me, Strelsa&mdash;some day."</p>
+
+<p>She understood him then. The painful colour stole into her cheeks,
+faintly burning, and she closed her eyes for a moment to endure it,
+sitting silent, motionless, her little sun-tanned hands tightly clasped
+on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>Then, unclosing her eyes she looked at him, delicate lips tightening.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought our relations were to remain on a higher plane," she said
+steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Our relations are to remain what you desire them to be, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I desire them to be what they are&mdash;<i>always</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then that is my wish also," he said with a smile so genuine and gay
+that, a little confused by his acquiescence, her own response was slow.
+But presently her smile dawned, a little tremulous and uncertain, and
+her gray eyes remained wistful though the lips curled deliciously.</p>
+
+<p>"I would do anything in the world for you, Rix, except&mdash;that," she said
+in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you would, you dear girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you really believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;I <i>can't</i> do that&mdash;<i>ever</i>. It would&mdash;would spoil you for me....
+What in the world would I do if you were spoiled for me, Rix? I haven't
+anybody else.... What would I do here&mdash;all alone? I couldn't stay&mdash;I
+wouldn't know what to do&mdash;where to go in the world.... It would be
+lonely&mdash;lonely&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She bent her head, and remained so, gray eyes fixed on her clasped
+fingers. For a long while she sat bowed over, thinking; once or twice
+she lifted her eyes to look at him, but her gaze always became confused
+and remote; and he did not offer to break the silence.</p>
+
+<p>At last she looked up with a movement of decision, her face clearing.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand, don't you, Rix?" she said, rising.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, rising also; and they descended the steps together and walked
+slowly away toward Witch-Hollow.</p>
+
+<p>From the hill-top they noticed one of Sprowl's farm-waggons slowly
+entering the drive, followed on foot by several men and a little girl.
+Her blond hair and apron<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> fluttered in the breeze. She was too far away
+for them to see that she was weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what they've got in that waggon?" said Quarren, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa's gaze became indifferent, then passed on and rested on the blue
+range of hills beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it wonderful about Chrysos," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"The quaint little thing," he said almost tenderly. "She told Molly what
+happened&mdash;how she sat down under a fence to tie wild strawberries for
+Sir Charles, and how, all at once, she realised what his going out of
+her life meant to her&mdash;and how the tears choked her to silence until she
+suddenly found herself in his arms.... Can you see it as it happened,
+Strelsa?&mdash;as pretty a pastoral as ever the older poets&mdash;" He broke off
+abruptly, and she looked up, but he was still smiling as though the
+scene of another man's happiness, so lightly evoked, were a
+visualisation of his own. And again her gray eyes grew wistful as though
+shyly pleading for his indulgence and silently asking his pardon for all
+that she could never be to him or to any man.</p>
+
+<p>So they came across fields and down through fragrant lanes to
+Witch-Hollow, where the fat setter gambolled ponderously around them
+with fat barkings and waggings, and where Molly, sewing on the porch,
+smoothed the frail and tiny garment over her knee and raised her pretty
+head to survey them with a smiling intelligence that made Strelsa blush.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>isn't</i> so!" she found an opportunity to whisper into Molly's ear.
+"If you look at us that way you'll simply make him miserable and break
+my heart."</p>
+
+<p>Molly glanced after Quarren who had wandered indoors to find a cigarette
+in the smoking-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you don't marry that delectable young man," she said, "I'll take a
+stick and beat you, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to&mdash;I don't <i>want</i> to!" protested the girl, getting
+possession of Molly's hands and covering them with caresses. And,
+resting her soft lips on Molly's fingers, she looked at her; and the
+young matron saw tears glimmering under the soft, dark lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>can't</i> love him&mdash;that way," whispered the girl. "I would if I
+could.... I couldn't care for him more than I do.... And&mdash;and it
+terrifies me to think of losing him."</p>
+
+<p>"Losing him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;by doing what you&mdash;what he&mdash;wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"You think you'll lose him if you marry him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;yes. It would spoil him for me&mdash;spoil everything for me in the
+world&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you listen to me," said Molly, exasperated. "When he has stood a
+certain amount of this silliness from you he'll really and actually turn
+into the sexless comrade you think you want. But he'll go elsewhere for
+a mate. There are plenty suitable in the world. If you'd never been born
+there would have been another for him. If you passed out of his life
+there would some day be another.</p>
+
+<p>"Will we women never learn the truth?&mdash;that at best we are incidental to
+man, but that, when we love, man is the whole bally thing to us?</p>
+
+<p>"Let him escape and you'll see, Strelsa. You'll get, perhaps, what
+you're asking for now, but he'll get what he is asking for, too&mdash;if not
+from you, from some girl of whom you and I and he perhaps have never
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>"But she exists; don't worry. And any man worth his title is certain to
+encounter her sooner or later."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The girl, flushed, dumb, watched her out of wide gray eyes in which the
+unshed tears had dried. The pretty matron slowly shook her head:</p>
+
+<p>"Because you once bit into tainted fruit you laid the axe to the entire
+orchard. What nonsense! Rottenness is the exception; soundness the rule.
+But you concluded that the hazard of bad fortune&mdash;that the unhappy
+chance of your first and only experience&mdash;was not an exception but the
+universal rule.... Very well; think it! He'll get over it some time, but
+you never will, Strelsa. You'll remember it all your life.</p>
+
+<p>"For I tell you that we women who go to our graves without having missed
+a single pang&mdash;we who die having known happiness and its shadow which is
+sorrow&mdash;the happiness and sorrow which come through love of man
+alone&mdash;die as we should die, in deep content of destiny fulfilled&mdash;which
+is the only peace beyond all understanding."</p>
+
+<p>The girl lowered her head and, resting her cheek on Molly's shoulder,
+looked down at the baby garment on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>"That also?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Unless we pass that way, also, we can never die content.... But
+until a month ago I did not know it.... Strelsa&mdash;Strelsa! Are you never
+going to know what love can be?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl rose slowly, flushing and whitening by turns, and stood a
+moment, her hands covering her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And standing so:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he will go away&mdash;from me&mdash;some day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he will go&mdash;unless&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Must it be&mdash;that way?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It will be that way, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>"I had never thought of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Think of it as the truth. It will be so unless you love him in his own
+fashion&mdash;and for his own sake. Try&mdash;if you care for him enough to
+try.... And if you do, you will love him for your own sake, too."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I had thought of&mdash;of giving myself&mdash;for his sake&mdash;because he wishes
+it.... I don't believe I'll be&mdash;much afraid&mdash;of him. Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>Molly's wise sweet eyes sparkled with silent laughter. Then without
+another glance at the tall, young girl before her she picked up her
+sewing, drew the needle from the hem, and smoothed out the lace
+embroidery on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>After a while she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Jim's returning on the noon train. Will you and Rix be here to
+luncheon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ask him; I have my orders to give if you'll stay."</p>
+
+<p>Strelsa walked into the house; Quarren, still hunting about for a
+cigarette, looked up as she entered the smoking-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Where the dickens does Jim keep his cigarettes?" he asked. "Do you
+know, Strelsa?"</p>
+
+<p>"You poor boy!" she exclaimed laughingly, "have you been searching all
+this time? The wonder is that you haven't perished. Why didn't you ask
+me for one when we were at&mdash;our house?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your</i> house?" he corrected, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Her gray eyes met his with a frightened sort of courage.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Our house</i>&mdash;if you wish&mdash;" But her lips had be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>gun to tremble and she
+could not control them or force from them another word for all her
+courage.</p>
+
+<p>He came over to where she stood, one slim hand resting against the wall;
+and she looked back bravely into his keen eyes&mdash;the clear, direct,
+questioning eyes of a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I will&mdash;marry you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>A swift flush touched his face to the temples.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you&mdash;want me?" she said, tremulously.</p>
+
+<p>"If you love me, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it enough&mdash;that you&mdash;love&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear."</p>
+
+<p>She lost her colour.</p>
+
+<p>"Rix! Don't you want me?" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless you want me, Strelsa."</p>
+
+<p>She drew a long unsteady breath. Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes,
+and she held out both hands to him, blindly.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;do love you," she whispered.... "I'll give what you give.... Only
+you must teach me&mdash;not to be&mdash;afraid."</p>
+
+<p>Her cheek lay close to his shoulder; his arms drew her nearer. And,
+after he had waited a long while, her gray eyes, which had been watching
+his face, slowly closed, and she lifted her lips toward his.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">THE END
+</p>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h4>Transcriber&#8217;s notes</h4>
+
+
+<p>Hyphenation has been standardized. Nonstandard spellings have been
+maintained, e.g. "barytone", but clear spelling errors have been
+corrected ("hynotised" replaced with "hypnotised", "f" replaced with
+"of"). Missing periods have been added at ends of sentences. Missing
+close quotes have been added.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Streets of Ascalon
+       Episodes in the Unfinished Career of Richard Quarren, Esqre.
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Illustrator: Charles Dana Gibson
+
+Release Date: February 10, 2011 [EBook #35233]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STREETS OF ASCALON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STREETS OF ASCALON
+
+
+Works of Robert W. Chambers
+
+  The Streets of Ascalon
+  Blue-Bird Weather
+  Japonette
+  The Adventures of a Modest Man
+  The Danger Mark
+  Special Messenger
+  The Firing Line
+  The Younger Set
+  The Fighting Chance
+  Some Ladies in Haste
+  The Tree of Heaven
+  The Tracer of Lost Persons
+  A Young Man in a Hurry
+  Lorraine
+  Maids of Paradise
+  Ashes of Empire
+  The Red Republic
+  Outsiders
+  The Common Law
+  Ailsa Paige
+  The Green Mouse
+  Iole
+  The Reckoning
+  The Maid-at-Arms
+  Cardigan
+  The Haunts of Men
+  The Mystery of Choice
+  The Cambric Mask
+  The Maker of Moons
+  The King in Yellow
+  In Search of the Unknown
+  The Conspirators
+  A King and a Few Dukes
+  In the Quarter
+
+For Children
+
+  Garden-Land
+  Forest-Land
+  River-Land
+  Mountain-Land
+  Orchard-Land
+  Outdoor-Land
+  Hide and Seek in Forest-Land
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK
+
+[Illustration: "She excused the witness and turned her back to the
+looking-glass."]
+
+
+
+
+_The_ STREETS
+OF ASCALON
+
+_Episodes in the Unfinished Career of
+Richard Quarren, Esq._
+
+BY
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+CHARLES DANA GIBSON
+
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+1912
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+Copyright, 1912, by The International Magazine Company
+
+
+_Published, September, 1912_
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+EULALIE ASHMORE
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                       BETWEEN
+                                                         PAGES
+
+  "She excused the witness and turned her back
+  to the looking-glass"                         _Frontispiece_
+
+  "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed
+  gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle"             24-25
+
+  "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically,
+  the Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers,
+  deftly evaded their pressing gallantries"              30-31
+
+  "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!'
+  she said lightly"                                      52-53
+
+  "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent
+  on her newspapers"                                     60-61
+
+  "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those
+  young men give there!'"                                78-79
+
+  "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length,
+  reddening again"                                       86-87
+
+  "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because
+  I have a message to deliver--'"                        98-99
+
+  "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about
+  the men!'"                                           116-117
+
+  "Strelsa, curled up on a divan ... listened to
+  his departure with quiet satisfaction"               126-127
+
+  "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked,
+  smiling"                                             128-129
+
+  "Once more, according to the newspapers, her
+  engagement to Sir Charles was expected
+  to be announced"                                     172-173
+
+  "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and
+  regarded in amazement by the neighbors"              178-179
+
+  "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for
+  the first time in nearly two months"                 190-191
+
+  "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next
+  to the battered party in black?'"                    194-195
+
+  "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,'
+  she whispered"                                       210-211
+
+  "So he took the lake path and presently
+  rounded a sharp curve"                               214-215
+
+  "'The old ones are the best,' she commented"         228-229
+
+  "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves,
+  was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable"      246-247
+
+  "A high and soulful tenor voice was singing
+  'Perfumes of Araby'"                                 272-273
+
+  "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very
+  slim in her limp black gown"                         280-281
+
+  Jessie Vining                                        290-291
+
+  "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains
+  and dines with Dankmere and myself
+  at some near restaurant'"                            302-303
+
+  "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling'"     328-329
+
+  "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she
+  asked caressingly"                                   346-347
+
+  "'And it is to be your last breakfast'"              374-375
+
+  Strelsa Leeds                                        380-381
+
+  "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl"              416-417
+
+  "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained
+  feebly"                                              424-425
+
+
+"_Tell it not in Gath, publish it not
+in the streets of Ascalon._"
+
+
+
+
+THE STREETS OF ASCALON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It being rent day, and Saturday, the staff of the "Irish Legation," with
+the exception of Westguard, began to migrate uptown for the monthly
+conference, returning one by one from that mysterious financial jungle
+popularly known as "Downtown." As for Westguard, he had been in his
+apartment all day as usual. He worked where he resided.
+
+A little before five o'clock John Desmond Lacy, Jr., came in, went
+directly to his rooms on the top floor, fished out a check-book, and
+tried to persuade himself that he had a pleasing balance at the
+bank--not because he was likely to have any balance either there or in
+his youthful brain, but because he _had_ to have one somewhere. God
+being good to the Irish he found he had not overdrawn his account.
+
+Roger O'Hara knocked on his door, later, and receiving no response
+called out: "Are you in there, Jack?"
+
+"No," said Lacy, scratching away with his pen in passionate hopes of
+discovering a still bigger balance.
+
+"Sportin' your oak, old Skeezicks?" inquired O'Hara, affectionately,
+delivering a kick at the door.
+
+"Let me alone, you wild Irishman!" shouted Lacy. "If I can't dig out an
+extra hundred somewhere the State Superintendent is likely to sport my
+oak for keeps!"
+
+A big, lumbering, broad-shouldered young fellow was coming up the stairs
+behind O'Hara, a blank book and some papers tucked under his arm, and
+O'Hara nodded to him and opened Mr. Lacy's door without further
+parleying.
+
+"Here's Westguard, now," he said; "and as we can't shoot landlords in
+the close season we'll have to make arrangements to pay for bed and
+board, Jack."
+
+Lacy glanced up from the sheet of figures before him, then waved his
+guests to seats and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Hooray," he remarked to Westguard; "I can draw you a check, Karl, and
+live to tell the tale." And he rose and gave his place at the desk to
+the man addressed, who seated himself heavily, as though tired.
+
+"Before we go over the accounts," he began, "I want to say a word or
+two----"
+
+"Hadn't you better wait till Quarren comes in?" interrupted O'Hara,
+smoking and stretching out his long legs.
+
+"No; I want to talk to you two fellows first. And I'll tell you at once
+what's the matter: Quarren's check came back marked 'no funds.' This is
+the third time; and one of us ought to talk to him."
+
+"It's only a slip," said Lacy--"it's the tendency in him that considers
+the lilies of the field----"
+
+"It isn't square," said Westguard doggedly.
+
+"Nonsense, Karl, Rix means to be square----"
+
+"That's all right, too, but he isn't succeeding. It humiliates me; it
+hurts like hell to have to call his attention to such oversights."
+
+"Oh, he's the gay tra-la-la," said O'Hara, indulgently; "do you think he
+bothers his elegant noddle about such trifles as checks? Besides he's
+almost as Irish as I am--God bless his mother and damn all landlords,
+Lester Caldera included."
+
+"What does Quarren do with all his money, then?" mused Lacy--"soaking
+the public in Tappan-Zee Park and sitting up so close and snug to the
+rich and great!"
+
+"It's his business," said Westguard, "to see that any check he draws is
+properly covered. Overdrafts may be funny in a woman, and in novels, but
+once is too often for any man. And this makes three times for Rix."
+
+"Ah, thin, lave the poor la-ad be! ye could-blooded Sassenach!" said
+Lacy, pretending to the brogue. "Phwat the divil!--'tis the cashier ye
+should blame whin Rix tells him to pay, an' he refuses to projuice the
+long-green wad!"
+
+But Westguard, unsmiling, consulted his memoranda, then, holding up his
+sheet of figures:
+
+"There's a quorum here," he said. "Rix can read this over when he comes
+in, if he likes. Here's the situation." And he read off the items of
+liabilities and assets, showing exactly, and to a penny, how the house
+had been run for the past month.
+
+Everything was there, rent, servants' wages, repairs, provisions, bills
+for heating and lighting, extras, incidentals--all disbursements and
+receipts; then, pausing for comments, and hearing none, he closed the
+ledger with a sharp slap.
+
+"The roof's leakin'," observed O'Hara without particular interest.
+
+"Write to the landlord," said Lacy--"the stingy millionaire."
+
+"He won't fix it," returned the other. "Did you ever hear of Lester
+Caldera spendin' a cent?"
+
+"On himself, yes."
+
+"That's not spendin'; it all goes inside or outside of him somewhere."
+He stretched his legs, crossed them, sucked on his empty pipe, and
+looked around at Westguard, who was still fussing over the figures.
+
+"Are you goin' to the Wycherlys', Karl?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"What costume?"
+
+"None of your business," retorted Westguard pleasantly.
+
+"I'm going as the family Banshee," observed Lacy.
+
+"Did you ever hear me screech, Karl?" And, pointing his nose skyward and
+ruffling up his auburn hair he emitted a yell so unendurable that it
+brought Westguard to his feet, protesting.
+
+"Shut up!" he said. "Do you want to have this house pinched, you crazy
+Milesian?"
+
+"Get out of my rooms if you don't like it," said Lacy. "If I'm going to
+a masked dance as a Banshee I've got to practice screaming, haven't I?"
+
+"I," said O'Hara, "am goin' as a bingle."
+
+"What's a bingle?"
+
+"Nobody knows. Neither do I; and it's killin' me to think up a
+costume.... Dick Quarren's goin', isn't he?"
+
+"Does he ever miss anything?" said Lacy.
+
+"He's missing most of his life," said Westguard so sharply that the
+others opened their eyes.
+
+A flush had settled under Westguard's cheek-bones; he was still jotting
+down figures with a flat silver pencil, but presently he looked up.
+
+"It's the cold and uncomplimentary truth about Ricky," he said. "That
+set he runs with is making an utter fool of him."
+
+"That set," repeated Lacy, grinning. "Why, we all have wealthy relatives
+in it--wealthy, charming, and respectable--h'm!"
+
+"Which is why we're at liberty to curse it out," observed O'Hara,
+complacently. "We all know what it is. Karl is right. If a man is goin'
+to make anythin' of himself he can't run with that expensive pack. One
+may venture to visit the kennels now and then, and look over the new
+litters--perhaps do a little huntin' once in a while--just enough--so
+that the M. F. H. recognises your coat tails when you come a cropper.
+But nix for wire or water! Me for the gate, please. Ah, do you think a
+_man_ can stand what the papers call 'the realm of society' very long?"
+
+"Rix is doing well."
+
+Westguard said: "They've gradually been getting a strangle-hold on him.
+Women are crazy about that sort of man--with his good looks and good
+humour and his infernally easy way of obliging a hundred people at
+once.... Look back a few years! Before he joined that whipper-snapper
+junior club he was full of decent ambition, full of go, unspoiled, fresh
+from college and as promising a youngster as anybody ever met. Where is
+his ambition now? What future has he?--except possibly to marry a
+million at forty-five and settle down with a comfortable grunt in the
+trough. It's coming, I tell you. Look what he was four years ago--a boy
+with clear eyes and a clear skin, frank, clean set, clean minded. Look
+at him now--sallow, wiry, unprofitably wise, range, disillusioned--oh,
+hell! they've mauled him to a shadow of a rag!"
+
+Lacy lighted another cigarette and winked at O'Hara. "Karl's off again,"
+he said. "Now we're going to get the Bible and the Sword for fair!"
+
+"Doesn't everybody need them both!" said Westguard, smiling. Then his
+heavy features altered: "I care a good deal for Dick Quarren," he said.
+"That's why his loose and careless financial methods make me mad--that's
+why this loose and careless transformation of a decent, sincere,
+innocent boy into an experienced, easy-going, cynical man makes me
+tired. I've got to stand for it, I suppose, but I don't want to. He's a
+gifted, clever, lovable fellow, but he hasn't any money and any right to
+leisure, and these people are turning him into one of those dancing
+things that leads cotillions and arranges tableaux, and plays social
+diplomat and forgets secrets and has his pockets full of boudoir
+keys--good Lord! I hate to say it, but they're making a tame cat of
+him--they're using him ignobly, I tell you--and that's the truth--if he
+had a friend with courage enough to tell him! I've tried, but I can't
+talk this way to him."
+
+There was a silence: then O'Hara crossed one lank leg over the other,
+gingerly, and contemplated his left shoe.
+
+"Karl," he said, "character never really changes; it only develops.
+What's born in the cradle is lowered into the grave, as some Russian guy
+said. You're a writer, and you know what I say is true."
+
+"Granted. But Quarren's character isn't developing; it's being stifled,
+strangled. He could have been a professional man--a lawyer, and a
+brilliant one--or an engineer, or a physician--any old thing. He's in
+real estate--if you can call it that. All right; why doesn't he _do_
+something in it? I'll tell you why," he added, angrily answering his own
+question; "these silly women are turning Quarren's ambition into
+laziness, his ideals into mockery, his convictions into cynicism----"
+
+He stopped short. The door opened, and Quarren sauntered in.
+
+"Couldn't help hearing part of your sermon, Karl," he said laughing. "Go
+ahead; I don't mind the Bible and the Sword--it's good for Jack Lacy,
+too--and that scoundrel O'Hara. Hit us again, old Ironsides. We're no
+good." And he sat down on the edge of Lacy's bed, and presently
+stretched out on it, gracefully, arms under his blond head.
+
+"You've been catchin' it, Ricky," said O'Hara with a grin. "Karl says
+that fashionable society is a bally wampire a-gorgin' of hisself at the
+expense of bright young men like you. What's the come-back to that,
+sonny?"
+
+"Thanks old fellow," said Quarren laughing and slightly lifting his head
+to look across at Westguard. "Go ahead and talk hell and brimstone. A
+fight is the only free luxury in the Irish Legation. I'll swat you with
+a pillow when I get mad enough."
+
+Westguard bent his heavy head and looked down at the yellow check on the
+table.
+
+"Rix," he said, "I've got to tell you that you have forgotten to make a
+deposit at your bank."
+
+"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Quarren with weary but amiable vexation--"that is
+the third time. What are you fellows going to do? Put me out of the
+Legation?"
+
+"Why the devil are you so careless?" growled Westguard.
+
+"I honestly don't know. I didn't suppose I was so short. I thought I had
+a balance."
+
+"Rot! The minute a man begins to _think_ he has a balance he knows damn
+well that he hasn't! I don't care, Rix--but, take it from me, you'll
+have a mortifying experience one of these days."
+
+"I guess that's right," said Quarren with a kind of careless contrition.
+"I never seem to be more than a lap or two ahead of old lady Ruin. And I
+break the speed-laws, too."
+
+"No youngster ever beat that old woman in a foot-race," observed Lacy.
+"Pay up and give her enough carfare to travel the other way; that's your
+only chance, Ricky."
+
+"Oh, certainly. No fellow need be in debt if he pays up, you Hibernian
+idiot!"
+
+"Do you want some money?" asked Westguard bluntly.
+
+"Sure, Karl, oodles of it! But not from you, old chap."
+
+"You know you can have it from me, too, don't you?" said O'Hara.
+
+Quarren nodded cordially: "I'll get it; no fear. I'm terribly sorry
+about that check. But it will be all right to-morrow, Karl."
+
+Lacy thought to himself with a grin: "He'll kill somebody at Auction to
+square himself--that's what Ricky means to do. God be good to the
+wealthy this winter night!"
+
+O'Hara, lank, carefully scrubbed, carefully turned out as one of his own
+hunters, stood up with a yawn and glanced at his watch.
+
+"Didn't somebody say somebody was comin' in to tea?" he asked generally.
+
+"My cousin, Mrs. Wycherly," said Westguard--"and a friend of hers--I've
+forgotten----"
+
+"Mrs. Leeds," observed Lacy. "And she is reputed to be a radiant peach.
+Did any of you fellows ever meet her in the old days?"
+
+Nobody there had ever seen her.
+
+"Did Mrs. Wycherly say she is a looker?" asked O'Hara, sceptically.
+
+Westguard shrugged: "You know what to expect when one woman tells you
+that another woman is good-looking. Probably she has a face that would
+kill a caterpillar."
+
+Quarren laughed lazily from the bed:
+
+"I hear she's pretty. She's come out of the West. You know, of course,
+who she was."
+
+"Reggie Leeds's wife," said O'Hara, slowly.
+
+There was a silence. Perhaps the men were thinking of the late Reginald
+Leeds, and of the deep damnation of his taking off.
+
+"Have you never seen her?" asked Lacy.
+
+"Nobody ever has. She's never before been here," said Quarren, yawning.
+
+"Then come down and set the kettle on, Ricky. She may be the peachiest
+kind of a peach in a special crate directed to your address and marked
+'Perishable! Rush! With care!' So we'll have to be very careful in
+rushing her----"
+
+"Oh, for Heaven's sake stop that lady-patter," protested O'Hara,
+linking his arm in Lacy's and sauntering toward the door. "That sort of
+conversation is Ricky's line of tea-talk. You'll reduce him to a
+pitiable silence if you take away his only asset."
+
+Westguard gathered up his papers, pausing a moment at the doorway:
+
+"Coming?" he asked briefly of Quarren who was laughing.
+
+"Certainly he's coming," said Lacy returning and attempting to drag him
+from the bed. "Come on, you tea-cup-rattling, macaroon-crunching,
+caste-smitten, fashion-bitten Arbiter Elegantiarum!"
+
+They fought for a moment, then Lacy staggered back under repeated
+wallops from one of his own pillows, and presently retired to his
+bath-room to brush his thick red hair. This hair was his pride and
+sorrow: it defied him in a brilliant cowlick until plastered flat with
+water. However, well soaked, his hair darkened to what he considered a
+chestnut colour. And that made him very proud.
+
+When he had soaked and subdued his ruddy locks he came out to where
+Westguard still stood.
+
+"Are you coming, Rix?" demanded the latter again.
+
+"Not unless you particularly want me," returned Quarren, yawning
+amiably. "I could take a nap if that red-headed Mick would get out of
+here."
+
+Westguard said: "Suit yourself," and followed Lacy and O'Hara down the
+stairs.
+
+The two latter young fellows turned aside into O'Hara's apartments to
+further remake a killing and deadly toilet. Westguard continued on to
+the first floor which he inhabited, and where he found a Japanese
+servant already preparing the tea paraphernalia. A few minutes later
+Mrs. Wycherly arrived with Mrs. Leeds.
+
+All women, experienced or otherwise, never quite lose their curiosity
+concerning a bachelor's quarters. The haunts of men interest woman,
+fascinating the married as well as the unwedded. Deep in their gentle
+souls they know that the most luxurious masculine abode could easily be
+made twice as comfortable by the kindly advice of any woman. Toleration,
+curiosity, sympathy are the emotions which stir feminine hearts when
+inspecting the solitary lair of the human male.
+
+"So these are the new rooms," said Molly Wycherly, patronisingly, after
+O'Hara and Lacy had appeared and everybody had been presented to
+everybody else. "Strelsa, do look at those early Edwards prints! It's
+utterly impossible to find any of them now for sale anywhere."
+
+Strelsa Leeds looked up at the Botticelli Madonna and at Madame Royale;
+and the three men looked at her as though hypnotised.
+
+So this was Reginald Leeds's wife--this distractingly pretty woman--even
+yet scarcely more than a girl--with her delicate colour and vivid lips
+and unspoiled eyes--dark eyes--a kind of purplish gray, very purely and
+exquisitely shaped. But in their grayish-violet depths there was murder.
+And the assassination of Lacy and O'Hara had already been accomplished.
+
+Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black--as though the tragic shadow of
+two years ago still fell across her slender body.
+
+She looked around at the room; Molly Wycherly, pouring tea, nodded to
+Westguard, and he handed the cup to Mrs. Leeds.
+
+She said, smilingly: "And--do you three unprotected men live in this big
+house all by yourselves?"
+
+"There are four of us in the Legation," said Lacy, "and several servants
+to beat off the suffragettes who become enamoured of us."
+
+"The--_legation_?" she repeated, amused at the term.
+
+"Our friends call this house the Irish Legation," he explained. "We're
+all Irish by descent except Westguard who's a Sassenach--and Dick
+Quarren, who is only half Irish.'
+
+"And who is Dick Quarren?" she asked innocently.
+
+"Oh, Strelsa!" cautioned Molly Wycherly--"you really mustn't argue
+yourself unknown."
+
+"But I am unknown," insisted the girl, laughing and looking at the men
+in turn with an engaging candour that bowled them over again, one by
+one. "I _don't_ know who Mr. Quarren is, so why not admit it? _Is_ he
+such a very wonderful personage, Mr. Lacy?"
+
+"Not at all, Mrs. Leeds. He and I share the top floor of the Legation.
+We are, as a matter of record, the two financial wrecks of this
+establishment, so naturally we go to the garret. Poverty is my only
+distinction; Mr. Quarren, however, also leads the grand march at Lyric
+Hall now and then I believe----"
+
+"What is Lyric Hall? Ought I to know?"
+
+Everybody was laughing, and Molly Wycherly said:
+
+"Richard Quarren, known variously as Rix, Ricky, and Dick Quarren, is an
+exceedingly popular and indispensable young man in this town. You'll
+meet him, Strelsa, and probably adore him. We all do."
+
+"Must I wait very long?" asked Strelsa, laughing. "I'd like to have the
+adoration begin."
+
+Lacy said to O'Hara: "Go up and pull that pitiable dub off the bed,
+Roger. The lady wishes to inspect him."
+
+"That's not very civil of Rix," said Mrs. Wycherly; "but I fancy I know
+why he requires slumber." She added, glancing around mischievously at
+the three men who were all looking languishingly at Mrs. Leeds: "He'll
+be sorry when you three gentlemen describe Strelsa to him. I can
+prophesy that much."
+
+"Certainly," said Lacy, airily; "we're all at Mrs. Leeds's feet! Even
+the blind bat of Drumgool could see that! So why deny it?"
+
+"You're not denying it, Mr. Lacy," said Strelsa, laughing. "But I
+realise perfectly that I am in the Irish Legation. So I shall carefully
+salt everything you say to me."
+
+"If you think _I've_ kissed the blessed pebble you ought to listen to
+that other bankrupt upstairs," said Lacy.
+
+"As far as pretty speeches are concerned you seem to be perfectly
+solvent," said Strelsa gaily, looking around her at the various
+adornments of this masculine abode. "I wonder where you dine," she added
+with curiosity unabashed.
+
+"We've a fine dining-room below," he said proudly, "haven't we, Roger?
+And as soon as Dick Quarren and I are sufficiently solvent to warrant
+it, the Legation is going to give a series of brilliant banquets; will
+you come, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"When you are solvent, perhaps," said Strelsa, smiling.
+
+"Westguard and I will give you a banquet at an hour's notice," said
+O'Hara, eagerly. "Will you accept?"
+
+"Such overwhelming offers of hospitality!" she protested. "I had
+believed the contrary about New Yorkers. You see I've just emerged from
+the West, and I don't really know what to think of such bewildering
+cordiality."
+
+"Karl," said Mrs. Wycherly, "are you going to show us over the house? If
+you are we must hurry, as Strelsa and I are to decorate the Calderas'
+box this evening, and it takes me an hour to paint my face." She turned
+a fresh, winsome countenance to Westguard, who laughed, rose, and took
+his pretty cousin by the hand.
+
+Under triple escort Mrs. Wycherly and Mrs. Leeds examined the Legation
+from kitchen to garret--and Strelsa, inadvertently glancing in at a room
+just as Westguard started to close the door, caught sight of a recumbent
+shape on a bed--just a glimpse of a blond, symmetrical head and a
+well-coupled figure, graceful even in the careless relaxation of sleep.
+
+Westguard asked her pardon: "That's Quarren. He was probably up till
+daylight."
+
+"He was," said Molly Wycherly; "and by the same token so was I. Thank
+you so much, Karl.... Thank you, Mr. O'Hara--and you, too,
+Jack!"--offering her hand--"We've had a splendid party.... Strelsa, we
+really ought to go at once----"
+
+"Will you come again?"
+
+"We will come again if you ask us," said Strelsa; "we're perfectly
+fascinated by the Legation."
+
+"And its personnel?" hinted Lacy. "Do you like us, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"I've only seen three of you," parried Strelsa, much amused.
+
+"We refuse to commit ourselves," said Molly. "Good-bye. I suppose you
+all are coming to my house-warming."
+
+They all looked at Mrs. Leeds and said that they were coming--said so
+fervently.
+
+Molly laughed: she had no envy in her make-up, perhaps because she was
+too pretty herself.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, replying to their unasked questions, "Mrs. Leeds
+will be there--and I plainly see _my_ miserable fate. But what can a
+wretched woman expect from the Irish? Not constancy. Strelsa, take
+warning. They loved me once!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Westguard had put them in their limousine, he came back to find
+Quarren in his sitting-room, wearing a dressing-gown, and Lacy madly
+detailing to him the charms of Strelsa Leeds:
+
+"Take it from me, Dicky, she's some queen! You didn't miss a thing but
+the prettiest woman in town! And there's a _something_ about her--a kind
+of a sort of a something----"
+
+"You appear to be in love, dear friend," observed Quarren kindly.
+
+"I am. So's every man here who met her. We don't deny it! We glory in
+our fall! What was that costume of hers, Karl? Mourning?"
+
+"Fancy a glorious creature like her wearin' black for that nasty little
+cad," observed O'Hara disgustedly.
+
+"It's probably fashion, not grief," remarked Westguard.
+
+"I guess it's nix for the weeps," said O'Hara--"after all she probably
+went through with Reggie Leeds, I fancy she had no tears left over."
+
+"I want to talk," cried Lacy; "I want to tell Rix what he missed. I'd
+got as far as her gown, I think----"
+
+"Go on," smiled Quarren.
+
+"Anyway," said Lacy, "she wore a sort of mourning as far as her veil
+went, and her furs and gown and gloves were black, and her purse was
+gun-metal and black opals--rather brisk? Yes?--And all the dingles on
+her were gun-metal--everything black and sober--and that ruddy gold
+head--and--those eyes!--a kind of a purple-gray, Ricky, slanting a
+little, with long black lashes--I noticed 'em--and her lips were very
+vivid--not paint, but a kind of noticeably healthy scarlet--and that
+straight nose--and the fresh fragrant youth of her----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Jack----"
+
+"Sure. I'm through with 'em all. I'm wise to the sex. That was merely a
+word picture. I'm talking like a writer, that's all. That's how you
+boobs talk, isn't it, Karl?"
+
+"Always," said Westguard gravely.
+
+"Me for Mrs. Leeds," remarked O'Hara frankly. "I'd ask her to marry me
+on the drop of a hat."
+
+"Well, I'll drop no hat for _you_!" said Lacy. "And there'll be plenty
+of lunatics in this town who'll go madder than you or me before they
+forget Mrs. Leeds. Wait! Town is going to sit up and take notice when
+this new planet swims into its social ken. How's that epigram, Karl?"
+
+Westguard said thoughtfully: "There'll be notoriety, too, I'm afraid. If
+nobody knows her everybody knows about that wretched boy she married."
+
+Quarren added: "I have always understood that the girl did not want to
+marry him. It was her mother's doings."
+
+O'Hara scowled. "I also have heard that the mother engineered it....
+What was Mrs. Leeds's name? I forget----"
+
+"Strelsa Lanark," said Quarren who never forgot anything.
+
+"Ugh," grunted Westguard. "Fancy a mother throwing her daughter at the
+head of a boy like Reggie Leeds!--as vicious and unclean a little whelp
+as ever--Oh, what's the use?--and _de mortius nihil_--et cetera,
+cock-a-doodle-do!"
+
+"That poor girl had two entire years of him," observed Lacy. "She
+doesn't look more than twenty now--and he's been in--been dead two
+years. Good Heavens! What a child she must have been when she married
+him!"
+
+Westguard nodded: "She had two years of him--and I suppose he seldom
+drew a perfectly sober breath.... He dragged her all over the world with
+him--she standing for his rotten behaviour, trying to play the game with
+the cards hopelessly stacked against her. Vincent Wier met them in
+Naples; Mallison ran across them in Egypt; so did Lydon in Vienna.
+They said it was heartbreaking to see her trying to keep up
+appearances--trying to smile under his nagging or his drunken insults
+in public places. Lydon told me that she behaved like a brick--stuck to
+Reggie, tried to shield him, excuse him, make something out of the
+miserable pup who was doing his best to drag her to his own level and
+deprave her. But I guess she was too young or too unhappy or something,
+because there's no depravity in the girl who was here a few minutes ago.
+I'll swear to that."
+
+After a moment Lacy said: "Well, he got his at last!"
+
+"What was comin' to him," added O'Hara, with satisfaction.
+
+Lacy added, curiously: "_How_ can a man misbehave when he has such a
+woman for a wife?"
+
+"I wonder," observed Quarren, "how many solid citizens read the account
+in the papers and remained scared longer than six weeks?"
+
+"Lord help the wives of men," growled Westguard.... "If any of you
+fellows are dressing for dinner you'd better be about it.... Wait a
+moment, Rix!"--as Quarren, the last to leave, was already passing the
+threshold.
+
+The young fellow turned, smiling: the others went on; Westguard stood
+silent for a moment, then:
+
+"You're about the only man I care for very much," he said bluntly. "If I
+am continually giving you the Bible and the Sword it's the best I have
+to give."
+
+Quarren replied laughingly.
+
+"Don't worry, old fellow. I take what you say all right. And I really
+mean to cut out a lot of fussing and begin to hustle.... Only, isn't it
+a wise thing to keep next to possible clients?"
+
+"The people you train with don't buy lots in Tappan-Zee Park."
+
+"But I may induce them to go into more fashionable enterprises----"
+
+"Not they! The eagle yells on every dollar they finger. If there's any
+bleeding to be done they'll do it, my son."
+
+"Lester Caldera has already asked me about acreage in Westchester."
+
+"Did he do more than ask?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did you charge him for the consultation?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Then he got your professional opinion for nothing."
+
+"But he, or others, may try to assemble several farms----"
+
+"Why don't they then?--instead of dragging you about at their heels from
+house to house, from card-room to ball-room, from cafe to opera, from
+one week-end to the next!--robbing you of time, of leisure, of
+opportunity, of ambition--spoiling you--making a bally monkey of you!
+You're always in some fat woman's opera box or on some fat man's yacht
+or coach, or doing some damn thing--with your name figuring in
+everything from Newport to Hot Springs--and--and how can you ever turn
+into anything except a tame cat!"
+
+Quarren's face reddened slightly.
+
+"I'd be perfectly willing to sit in an office all day and all night if
+anybody would give me any business. But what's the use of chewing
+pencils and watching traffic on Forty-second Street?"
+
+"Then go into another business!"
+
+"I haven't any money."
+
+"I'll lend it to you!"
+
+"I can't risk _your_ money, Karl. I'm too uncertain of myself. If
+anybody else offered to stake me I'd try the gamble." ... He looked up
+at Westguard, ashamed, troubled, and showing it like a boy. "I'm afraid
+I don't amount to anything, Karl. I'm afraid I'm no good except in the
+kind of thing I seem to have a talent for."
+
+"Fetching and carrying for the fashionable and wealthy," sneered
+Westguard.
+
+Quarren's face flushed again: "I suppose that's it."
+
+Westguard glared at him: "I wish I could shake it out of you!"
+
+"I guess the poison's there," said Quarren in a low voice. "The worst of
+it is I like it--except when I understand your contempt."
+
+"You _like_ to fetch and carry and go about with your pocket full of
+boudoir keys!"
+
+"People give me as much as I give them."
+
+"They don't!" said the other angrily. "They've taken a decent fellow and
+put him in livery!"
+
+Quarren bit his lip as the blood leaped to his face.
+
+"Don't talk that way, Karl," he said quietly. "Even you have no business
+to take that tone with me."
+
+There was a silence. After a few moments Westguard came over and held
+out his hand. Quarren took it, looked at him.
+
+"I tell you," he said, "there's nothing to me. It's your kindness, Karl,
+that sees in me possibilities that never were."
+
+"They're there. I'll do my duty almost to the point of breaking our
+friendship. But--I'll have to stop short of that point."
+
+A quick smile came over Quarren's face, gay, affectionate:
+
+"You couldn't do that, Karl.... And don't worry. I'll cut out a lot of
+frills and try to do things that are worth while. I mean it, really.
+Don't worry, old fellow."
+
+"All right," said Westguard, smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+A masked dance, which for so long has been out of fashion in the world
+that pretends to it, was the experiment selected by Molly Wycherly for
+the warming up of her new house on Park Avenue.
+
+The snowy avenue for blocks was a mass of motors and carriages; a
+platoon of police took charge of the vehicular mess. Outside of the
+storm-coated lines the penniless world of shreds and patches craned a
+thousand necks as the glittering costumes passed from brougham and
+limousine under the awnings into the great house.
+
+Already in the new ball-room, along the edges of the whirl, masqueraders
+in tumultuous throngs were crowding forward to watch the dancers or
+drifting into the eddies and set-backs where ranks of overloaded gilt
+chairs creaked under jewelled dowagers, and where rickety old beaux
+impersonated tinselled courtiers on wavering but devoted legs.
+
+Aloft in their rococo sky gallery a popular orchestra fiddled
+frenziedly; the great curtains of living green set with thousands of
+gardenias swayed in the air currents like Chinese tapestries; a
+harmonious tumult swept the big new ball-room from end to end--a
+composite uproar in which were mingled the rushing noise of silk,
+clatter of sole and heel, laughter and cries of capering maskers
+gathered from the four quarters of fashionable Gath to grace the
+opening of the House of Wycherly. They were all there, dowager, matron,
+debutante, old beaux, young gallant, dancing, laughing, coquetting,
+flirting. Young eyes mocked the masked eyes that wooed them; adolescence
+tormented maturity; the toothless ogled the toothsome. Unmasking alone
+could set right this topsy-turvy world of carnival.
+
+A sinuous Harlequin, his skin-tight lozenge-patterned dress shimmering
+like the red and gold skin of a Malay snake, came weaving his way
+through the edges of the maelstrom, his eyes under the black half-mask
+glittering maliciously at the victims of his lathe-sword. With it he
+recklessly slapped whatever tempted him, patting gently the rounded arms
+and shoulders of nymph and shepherdess, using more vigour on the plump
+contours of fat and elderly courtiers, spinning on the points of his
+pump-toes, his limber lathe-sword curved in both hands above his head,
+leaping lithely over a chair here and there, and landing always as
+lightly as a cat on silent feet--a wiry, symmetrical figure under the
+rakish bi-corne, instinct with mischief and grace infernal.
+
+Encountering a burly masker dressed like one of Cromwell's ponderous
+Ironsides, he hit him a resounding whack over his aluminum cuirass, and
+whispered:
+
+"That Ironside rig doesn't conceal you: it reveals you, Karl! Out with
+your Bible and your Sword and preach the wrath to come!"
+
+"It will come all right," said Westguard. "Do you know how many hundred
+thousand dollars are wasted here to-night?... And yesterday a woman died
+of hunger in Carmine Street. Don't worry about the wrath of God as long
+as people die of cold and hunger in the streets of Ascalon."
+
+"That's not as bad as dying of inanition--which would happen to the
+majority here if they didn't have things like this to amuse 'em. For
+decency's sake, Karl, pity the perplexities of the rich for a change!"
+
+Westguard grunted something under his casque; then, adjusting his
+aluminum mask:
+
+"Are you having a good time, Dicky? I suppose you are."
+
+"Oh, _I'm_ gay enough," returned the Harlequin airily--"but there's
+never much genuine gaiety among the overfed." And he slapped a passing
+gallant with his wooden sword, spun around on his toes, bent over
+gracefully and stood on his hands, legs twinkling above him in the air.
+Then, with a bound he was on his nimble feet again, and, linking his arm
+in the arm of the Cromwellian trooper, strolled along the ranks of
+fanning dowagers, glancing amiably into their masked faces.
+
+"Same old battle-line," he observed to his companion--"their jewels give
+them away. Same old tiaras, same old ladies--all fat, all fifty, all
+fanning away like the damned. Your aunt has on about a ton of emeralds.
+I think she does it for the purpose of banting, don't you, Karl----"
+
+The uproar drowned his voice: Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed
+gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle for which his cousin Molly
+Wycherly was responsible.
+
+"It's monkey-shines like this that breed anarchists," he growled. "Did
+you notice that rubbering crowd outside the police lines in the snow?
+Molly and Jim ought to see it."
+
+[Illustration: "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around
+at the gorgeous spectacle."]
+
+"Oh, cut it out, Karl," retorted the Harlequin gaily; "there'll be rich
+and poor in the world as long as the bally old show runs--there'll be
+reserved seats and gallery seats and standing room only, and ninety-nine
+percent of the world cooling its shabby heels outside."
+
+"I don't care to discuss the problem with _you_," observed Westguard.
+After a moment he added: "I'm going to dance once or twice and get
+out.... I suppose you'll flit about doing the agreeable and fashionable
+until daylight."
+
+"I suppose so," said the Harlequin, tranquilly. "Why not? Also _you_
+ought to find material here for one of your novels."
+
+"A man doesn't have to hunt for material. It's in his bedroom when he
+wakes; it's all around him all day long. There's no more here than there
+is outside in the snow; and no less.... But dancing all night isn't
+going to help _your_ business, Ricky."
+
+"It won't hurt any business I'm likely to do."
+
+"Isn't your Tappan-Zee Park panning out?"
+
+"Fizzling out. Nobody's bought any building sites."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"How the deuce do I know, Karl! I don't want to talk business, here----"
+
+He ceased speaking as three or four white masked Bacchantes in
+fluttering raiment came dancing by to the wild music of Philemon and
+Baucis. Shaking their be-ribboned tambourines, flowery garlands and
+lynx-skins flying from their shoulders, they sped away on fleet little
+feet, hotly pursued by adorers.
+
+"Come on," said the Harlequin briskly; "I think one of those skylarkers
+ought to prove amusing! Shall I catch you one?"
+
+But he found no encouragement in the swift courtship he attempted; for
+the Bacchantes, loudly protesting at his interference, banged him over
+his head and shoulders with their resounding tambourines and danced away
+unheeding his blandishments.
+
+"Flappers," observed a painted and powdered clown whose voice betrayed
+him as O'Hara; "this town is overstocked with fudge-fed broilers.
+They're always playin' about under foot, spoilin' your huntin'; and if
+you touch 'em they ki-yi no end."
+
+"I suppose you're looking for Mrs. Leeds," said Westguard, smiling.
+
+"I fancy every man here is doin' the same thing," replied the clown.
+"What's her costume? Do you know, Ironsides?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell you if I did," said Westguard frankly.
+
+The Harlequin shrugged.
+
+"This world," he remarked, "is principally encumbered with women, and
+naturally a man supposes the choice is unlimited. But as you live to
+drift from girl to girl you'll discover that there are just two kinds;
+the kind you can kiss and the kind you can't. So finally you marry the
+latter. Does Mrs. Leeds flirt?"
+
+"Will a fish swim?" rejoined the clown. "You bet she will flirt. Haven't
+you met her?"
+
+"I? No," said the Harlequin carelessly. Which secretly amused both
+Westguard and O'Hara, for it had been whispered about that the new
+beauty not only had taken no pains to meet Quarren, but had pointedly
+ignored an opportunity when the choice lay with her, remarking that
+dancing men were one of the social necessities which everybody took for
+granted--like flowers and champagne. And the comment had been carried
+straight to Quarren, who had laughed at the time--and had never
+forgotten it, nor the apparently causeless contempt that evidently had
+inspired it.
+
+The clown brandished his bunch of toy balloons, and gazed about him:
+
+"Anybody who likes can go and tell Mrs. Leeds that I'm her declared
+suitor. I don't care who knows it. I'm foolish about her. She's
+different from any woman I ever saw. And if I don't find her pretty soon
+I'll smash every balloon over your head, Ricky!"
+
+The Harlequin laughed. "Women," he said, "are cut out in various and
+amusing patterns like animal crackers, but the fundamental paste never
+varies, and the same pastry cook seasoned it."
+
+"That's a sickly and degenerate sentiment," observed Westguard.
+
+"You might say that about the unfledged," added O'Hara--"like those
+kittenish Bacchantes. Winifred Miller and the youngest Vernon girl were
+two of those Flappers, I think. But there's no real jollity among the
+satiated," he added despondently. "A mask, a hungry stomach, and empty
+pockets are the proper ingredients for gaiety--take it from me, Karl."
+And he wandered off, beating everybody with his bunch of toy balloons.
+
+Quarren leaped to the seat of a chair and squatted there drawing his
+shimmering legs up under him like a great jewelled spider.
+
+"Bet you ten that the voluminous domino yonder envelops my aunt, Mrs.
+Sprowl," whispered Westguard.
+
+"You're betting on a certainty and a fat ankle."
+
+"Sure. I've seen her ankles going upstairs too often.... What the devil
+is the old lady wearing under that domino?"
+
+"Wait till you see her later," said Quarren, delightedly. "She has come
+as Brunhilda."
+
+"I don't want to see three hundred pounds of relative as Brunhilda,"
+growled Westguard.
+
+"You will, to-morrow. She's given her photograph to a _Herald_ man."
+
+"What did you let her do it for?" demanded Westguard wrathfully.
+
+"Could I help it?"
+
+"You could have stopped her. She thinks your opinion is the last lisp in
+fashionable art problems."
+
+"There are some things you can't tell a woman," said Quarren. "One of
+'em concerns her weight."
+
+"Are you afraid of Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+The Harlequin laughed:
+
+"Where would I be if I incurred your aunt's displeasure, dear friend?"
+
+"Out of the monkey house for good I suppose," admitted Westguard. "Lord,
+Ricky, what a lot you have had to swallow for the sake of staying put
+among these people!"
+
+Quarren sat meditating under his mask, cross-legged, twirling his
+sword, the crash of the floor orchestra dinning in his close-set ears.
+
+"Yes," he said without resentment, "I've endured my share. That's one
+reason why I don't want to let several years of humiliation go for
+nothing. I've earned whatever place I have. And I mean to keep it."
+
+Westguard turned on him half angrily, hesitated, then remained silent.
+What was the use? If Quarren had not been guilty of actually fawning,
+toadying, currying favour, he had certainly permitted himself to be
+rudely used. He had learned very thoroughly his art in the school of the
+courtier--learned how and when to be blind, silent, deaf; how to offer,
+how to yield, when and how to demand and exact. Which, to Westguard,
+meant the prostitution of intelligence. And he loathed the game like a
+man who is free to play it if he cares to. Of those who are denied
+participation, few really hate it.
+
+But he said nothing more; and the Harlequin, indolently stretching his
+glittering limbs, dropped a light hand on Westguard's cuirassed
+shoulder:
+
+"Don't be forever spoiling things for me, Karl. I really do enjoy the
+game as it lies."
+
+"It _does_ lie--that is the trouble, Rix."
+
+"I can't afford to criticise it.... Listen; I'm a mediocre man; I'd
+never count among real men. I count in the set which I amuse and which
+accepts me. Let me enjoy it, can't you?"
+
+An aged dandy, masked, painted, wizened, and dressed like Henri II,
+tottered by with a young girl on his arm, his shrill, falsetto giggle
+piercing the racket around them.
+
+"Do you wish to live to be like that?" asked Westguard sharply.
+
+"Oh, I'll die long before that," said Quarren cheerfully, and leaped
+lightly to his feet. "I shall now accomplish a little dancing," he said,
+pointing with his wooden sword at the tossing throng. "Venus send me a
+pretty married woman who really loves her husband.... By Bacchus! Those
+dancers are going it! Come on, Karl. Leave us foot it!"
+
+Many maskers were throwing confetti now: multi-tinted serpents shot out
+across the clamorous gulf; bunches of roses flung high, rising in swift
+arcs of flight, crossed and recrossed. All along the edges of the dance,
+like froth and autumn leaves cast up from a whirlpool, fluffy feminine
+derelicts and gorgeous masculine escorts were flung pell-mell out of the
+maelstrom and left stranded or drifting breathless among the eddies
+setting in toward the supper-room.
+
+Suddenly, as the Harlequin bent forward to plunge into the crush, the
+very centre of the whirlpool parted, and out of it floated a fluttering,
+jingling, dazzling figure all gold--slender, bare-armed and bare of
+throat and shoulders, auriferous, scintillating from crown to ankle--for
+her sleeveless tabard was cloth-of-gold, and her mask was gold; so were
+her jewelled shoes and the gemmed fillet that bound her locks; and her
+thick hair clustering against her cheeks had the lustre of precious
+metal.
+
+Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the Byzantine dancer,
+besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing gallantries--evaded
+the Harlequin, too, with laughing mockery, skilfully disengaging herself
+from the throng of suitors stumbling around her, crowded and buffeted on
+every side.
+
+After her like a flash sped Harlequin: for an instant, just ahead of
+him, she appeared in plain sight, glimmering brightly against the green
+and swaying tapestry of living leaves and flowers, then even as her
+pursuers looked at her, she vanished before their very eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the
+Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing
+gallantries."]
+
+They ran about distractedly hunting for her, Turk, Drum Major, Indian
+Chief, and Charles the First, then reluctantly gave up the quest and
+drifted off to seek for another ideal. All women are ideal under the
+piquant promise of the mask.
+
+A pretty shepherdess, lingering near, whispered close to Quarren's
+shoulder behind her fan:
+
+"Check to you, Harlequin! That golden dancer was the only girl in town
+who hasn't taken any pains to meet you!"
+
+He turned his head, warily, divining Molly Wycherly under the disguise,
+realising, too, that she recognised him.
+
+"You'll never find her now," laughed the shepherdess. "Besides she does
+not care a rap about meeting a mere Harlequin. It's refreshing to see
+you so thoroughly snubbed once in a while." And she danced gaily away,
+arms akimbo, her garlanded crook over her shoulder; and her taunting
+laughter floated back to him where he stood irresolute, wondering how
+the golden dancer could have so completely vanished.
+
+Suddenly he recollected going over the house before its completion with
+Jim Wycherly, who had been his own architect, and the memory of a
+certain peculiarity in the construction of the ball-room flashed into
+his mind. The only possible explanation for her disappearance was that
+somebody had pointed out to her the low door behind the third pillar,
+and she was now in the gilded swallow's-nest aloft.
+
+It was a whim of Wycherly--this concealed stair--he recalled it
+perfectly now--and, parting the living tapestry of blossoms, he laid
+his hand on the ivory and gilded paneling, pressing the heart of one
+carved rose after another, until with a click! a tiny door swung inward,
+revealing a narrow spiral of stairs, lighted rosily by electricity.
+
+He stepped inside, closed the door, and listened, then mounted
+noiselessly. Half way up he caught the aroma of a cigarette; and, a
+second later he stepped out onto a tiny latticed balcony, completely
+screened.
+
+The golden dancer, who evidently had been gazing down on the carnival
+scene below from behind the lattice, whirled around to confront him in a
+little flurry of cigarette smoke.
+
+For a moment they faced each other, then:
+
+"How did you know where to find me, Harlequin?"
+
+"I'd have died if I hadn't found you, fairest, loveliest----"
+
+"That is no answer! Answer me!"
+
+"Why did you flee?" he asked. "Answer that, first."
+
+She glanced at her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"You see why I fled, don't you? Now answer me."
+
+The Harlequin presented the hilt of his sword which was set with a tiny
+mirror.
+
+"You see why I fled after you," he said, "don't you?"
+
+"All the same," she insisted, smilingly, "I have been informed on
+excellent authority that I am the only one, except the family, who knows
+of this balcony. And here comes a Harlequin blundering in! _You_ are not
+Mr. Wycherly; and you're certainly not Molly."
+
+"Alas! My ultimate ends are not as shapely."
+
+"Then who are you?" She added, laughing: "They're shapely enough, too."
+
+"I am only a poor wandering, love-smitten Harlequin--" he said,
+"scorned, despised, and mocked by beauty----"
+
+"Love-smitten?" she repeated.
+
+"Can you doubt it, now?"
+
+She laughed gaily and leaned back against the balcony's velvet rail:
+
+"You lose no time in declaring yourself, do you, Harlequin?--that is, if
+you are hinting that _I_ have smitten you with the pretty passion."
+
+"Through and through, beautiful dancer----"
+
+"How do you know that I am beautiful under this mask?"
+
+"I know many things. That's my compensation for being only a poor
+mountebank of a Harlequin--magic penetration--the clairvoyance of
+radium."
+
+"Did you expect to find _me_ at the top of those cork-screw stairs?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Inference. Every toad hides a jewel in its head. So I argued that
+somewhere in the ugliness of darkest Philistia a gem must be hidden; and
+I've searched for years--up and down throughout the haunts of men from
+Gath to Ascalon. And--behold! My quest is ended at your pretty
+feet!--Rose-Diamond of the World!"
+
+He sank lithely on one knee; she laughed deliciously, looking down at
+his masked face.
+
+"Who are you, Harlequin?--whose wits and legs seem to be equally supple
+and symmetrical?"
+
+"Tell it not in Gath; Publish it not in the streets of Ascalon; I am
+that man for whom you were destined before either you or I were born.
+Are you frightened?"
+
+The Byzantine dancer laughed and shook her head till all the golden
+metal on her was set chiming.
+
+He said, still on one knee at her feet:
+
+"Exquisite phantom of an Empire dead, from what emblazoned sarcophagus
+have you danced forth across our modern oceans to bewitch the Philistia
+of to-day? Who clothed you in scarlet delicately? Who put ornaments of
+gold upon your apparel----"
+
+"You court me with Scripture as smoothly as Heaven's great Enemy," she
+said--"and to your own ends, as does he. Are you leagued with him, O
+agile and intrusive Harlequin, to steal away my peace of mind?"
+
+Lithely, silently he leaped up to the balustrade and, gathering his
+ankles under him, squatted there, cross-legged, peering sideways at her
+through the slanting eye-holes.
+
+"If that screen behind you gives way," she warned him, "you will have
+accomplished your last harlequinade."
+
+He glanced coolly over his shoulder:
+
+"How far is it to the floor below, do you suppose?"
+
+"Far enough to make a good harlequin out of a live one," she said....
+"Please be careful; I really mean it."
+
+"Child," he said solemnly, "do you suppose that I mind falling a hundred
+feet or so on my head? I've already fallen infinitely farther than that
+this evening."
+
+"And it didn't kill you?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
+dramatically.
+
+"No. Because our destiny must first be accomplished before I die."
+
+"Ours?"
+
+"Yours and mine, pretty dancer! I've already fulfilled _my_ destiny by
+falling in love with you at first sight. That was a long fall, wasn't
+it?"
+
+"Very. Am I to fulfil mine in a similar manner?"
+
+"You are."
+
+"Will it--kill me, do you think?"
+
+"I don't think so. Try it."
+
+"Will it hurt?--this terrible fall? And how far must I descend to fall
+in love with you?"
+
+"Sometimes falling in love does hurt," he said gravely, "when the fall
+is a long one."
+
+"Is this to be a long one?"
+
+"You may think so."
+
+"Then I decline to tumble. Please go somewhere about your business,
+Master Harlequin. I'm inclined to like you."
+
+"Dancer, my life's business is wherever you happen to be."
+
+"Why are you so sure?"
+
+"Magic," he said seriously. "I deal in it."
+
+"Wonderful! Your accomplishments overwhelm me. Perhaps, through the aid
+of magic, you can even tell me who I am!"
+
+"I think I can."
+
+"Is that another threat of magic?"
+
+"It's a bet, too, if you like."
+
+"Are you offering to bet me that, before I unmask, you will be able to
+discover who I am?"
+
+"Yes. Will you make it a wager?" She stood, silent, irresolute,
+cautious but curious; then:
+
+"Do you mean that you can find out who _I am_? Now? Here in this
+balcony?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"That is sheer nonsense," she said with decision. "I'll bet you anything
+you like."
+
+"What stakes?"
+
+"Why there's nothing to bet except the usual, is there?"
+
+"You mean flowers, gloves, stockings, bon-bons?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The Harlequin, smiling at her askance, drew from the hilt of his
+lathe-sword a fresh cigarette, lighted it, looked across at the level
+chandelier, and sent a ring of smoke toward the twinkling wilderness of
+prisms hanging in mid-air.
+
+"Let's be original or perish," he said. "I'll bet you a day out of my
+life against a day out of yours that I discover who you are in ten
+minutes."
+
+"I won't accept such a silly wager! What would you do with me for a
+day?"
+
+The Harlequin bent his masked head. Over his body the lozenges of
+scarlet and gold slid crinkling as though with suppressed and serpentine
+mirth.
+
+"_What_ are you laughing at?" she demanded half vexed, half amused.
+
+"Your fears, pretty dancer."
+
+"I am _not_ afraid!"
+
+"Very well. Prove it! I have offered to bet you a day out of my life
+that I'll tell you who you are. Are you afraid to wager a day out of
+yours that I can't do it?"
+
+She shook her head so that the burnished locks clustered against her
+cheeks, and all over her slim figure the jingling gold rang melodiously.
+
+"I haven't long to live," she observed. "A day out of life is too much
+to risk."
+
+"Why don't you think that you have long to live?"
+
+"I haven't. I know it."
+
+"_How_ do you know?"
+
+"I just know.... Besides, I don't wish to live very long."
+
+"You don't wish to live long?"
+
+"Only as long as I'm young enough to be forgetful. Old age is a
+horror--in some cases. I don't desire ever to be forty. After forty they
+say one lives on memory. I don't wish to."
+
+Through the slits of his mask his curious eyes watched her steadily.
+
+"You're not yet twenty-four," he said.
+
+"Not quite. That is a good guess, Harlequin."
+
+"And you don't want to live to be old?"
+
+"No, I don't wish to."
+
+"But you are rather keen on living while you're young."
+
+"I've never thought much about it. If I live, it's all right; if I die,
+I don't think I'll mind it.... I'm sure I shouldn't."
+
+Her cigarette had gone out. She tossed it aside and daintily consented
+to exchange cigarettes with him, offering her little gold case.
+
+"You're carefully inspecting my initials, aren't you?" she observed,
+amused. "But that monogram will not help you, Master Harlequin."
+
+"Marriage alters only the final initial. Are you, by any unhappy
+chance----"
+
+"That's for you to find out! I didn't say I was! I believe you _are_
+making me tell you things!"
+
+She threw back the lustrous hair that shadowed her cheeks and leaned
+forward, her shadowed eyes fixed intently upon him through the apertures
+of her golden mask.
+
+"I'm beginning to wonder uneasily who _you_ may be, Monsieur Harlequin!
+You alarm me a little."
+
+"Aha!" he said. "I've told you I deal in magic! That you don't know who
+I am, even after that confession, makes me reasonably certain who _you_
+are."
+
+"You're trying to scare me," she said, disdainfully.
+
+"I'll do it, yet."
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"You'll wonder more than ever in a few moments.... I'm going to tell you
+who you are. But first of all I want you to fix the forfeit----"
+
+"Why--I don't know.... What do you want of me?" she asked, mockingly.
+
+"Whatever you care to risk."
+
+"Then you'll have to name it. Because I don't particularly care to offer
+you anything.... And please hasten--I'll be missed presently----"
+
+"Won't you bet one day out of your life?"
+
+"No, I won't. I told you I wouldn't."
+
+"Then--one hour. Just a single hour?"
+
+"An hour?"
+
+"Yes, sixty minutes, payable on demand: If I win, you will place at my
+disposal one entire hour out of your life. Will you dare that much,
+pretty dancer?"
+
+She laughed, looked up at him; then readjusting her mask, she nodded
+disdainfully. "Because," she observed, "it is quite impossible for you
+ever to guess who I am. So do your very worst."
+
+He sprang from the balustrade, landing lightly, his left hand spread
+over his heart, his bi-corne flourished in the other.
+
+"You are Strelsa Leeds!" he said in a low voice.
+
+The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a
+bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge.
+
+"It--it is impossible that you should know--" she began, exasperated.
+"How _could_ you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night!
+I came by myself with my maid. It--it _is_ magic! It is
+infernal--abominable magic----"
+
+She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous,
+blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the
+fillet that bound her hair.
+
+After a silence:
+
+"How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed
+chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you--anyhow----"
+
+Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence,
+striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask--trying to
+interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it--or,
+perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two
+strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow.
+
+"Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful
+emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her
+under lip.
+
+"It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!"
+
+"First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit."
+
+"The--the forfeit!" she faltered.
+
+"Did you not lose your wager?"
+
+She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in
+vain for a clew to his identity. Then, a trifle uneasily:
+
+"Yes, of course I lost my wager. But--I did not clearly understand what
+you meant by an hour out of my life."
+
+"It is to be an hour at my disposal," he explained with another
+grotesque bow. "I think that was the wager?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Unless," he remarked carelessly, "you desire the--ah--privilege and
+indisputable prerogative of your delightful sex."
+
+"The privilege of my sex? What is that?" she asked, dangerously polite.
+
+"Why, to change your divine mind--repudiate the obligation----"
+
+"Harlequin!"
+
+"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow.
+
+"I pay what I owe--always.... _Always!_ Do you understand?"
+
+The Harlequin bowed again in arabesques, very low, yet with a singular
+and almost devilish grace:
+
+"Madame concedes that the poor Harlequin has won his wager?"
+
+"Yes, I do--and you don't appear to be particularly humble, either."
+
+"Madame insists on paying?" he inquired suavely.
+
+"Yes, of course I do!" she said, uneasily. "I promised you an hour out
+of my life. Am I to pay it now?"
+
+"You pay by the minute--one minute a day for sixty days. I am going to
+take the first minute now. _Perhaps_ I may ask for the other fifty-nine,
+also."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Shall I show you how?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"A magic pass or two, first," he said gaily, crooking one spangled knee
+and spinning around. Then he whipped out his lathe-sword, held it above
+his head, coolly passed a glittering arm around her waist, and looked
+down into her flushed face.
+
+"You will have to count out the sixty seconds," he said. "I shall be
+otherwise occupied, and I can't trust myself to do two things at once."
+
+"_What_ are you about to do? Sink through a trap-door with me?"
+
+"I am about to salute you with the magic kiss. After that you'll be my
+Columbine forever."
+
+"That is not included in the bet! Is it?" she asked in real
+consternation.
+
+"I may do as I please with my hour, may I not?"
+
+"Was it the bet that you were to be at liberty to--to kiss me?"
+
+"I control absolutely an hour out of your life, do I not? I may use it
+as I please. You had better count out sixty seconds."
+
+She looked down, biting her lip, and touched one hand against her
+cheeks, alternately, as though to cool them with the snowy contact.
+
+He waited in silence for her reply.
+
+"Very well," she said resolutely, "if you elect to use the first minute
+of your hour as frivolously as that, I must submit, I suppose."
+
+And she began to count aloud, rapidly: "One, two, three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight, ni----"
+
+Her face was averted; he could see the tip of one small ear all aflame.
+Presently she ventured a swift glance around at him and saw that he was
+laughing.
+
+"Ten, eleven, twelve," she counted nervously, still watching him;
+"thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--" panic threatened her; she doubled both
+hands in the effort of self-control and timed her counting as though the
+rapid beating of the tempo could hasten her immunity--"sixteen,
+seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, one, two, three----"
+
+"Play fair!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I am trying to. Can't I say it that way up to ten, and then say
+thirty?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. I've still half a minute. You'd better hurry! I may
+begin at any moment."
+
+"Four--five--six--seven--m-m-m--thirty!" she cried, and the swift
+numbers fled from her lips fairly stumbling over one another, tumbling
+the sequence of hurrying numerals into one breathless gasp of: "Forty!"
+
+His arm slid away from her waist; he stepped backward, and stood,
+watching her, one finger crooked, supporting his chin, the ironical
+smile hovering ever on his lips.
+
+"Fifty!" she counted excitedly, her hands beating time to the counting;
+"--fifty-one--two--three--four--m-m-m--sixty!"--and she whirled around
+to face him with an impulsively triumphant gesture which terminated in
+a swift curtsey, arms flung wide apart.
+
+"_Voila!_" she said, breathlessly, "I've paid my bet! Am I not a good
+sport, Harlequin? Own that I am and I will forgive your outrageous
+impudence!"
+
+"You are a most excellent sport, madame!" he conceded, grinning.
+
+Relief from the tension cooled her cheeks; she laughed bewitchingly and
+looked at him, exultant, unafraid.
+
+"I frightened you well with my desperate counting, didn't I? You
+completely forgot to do--anything, didn't you? Voyons! Admit it!"
+
+"You completely terrorized me," he admitted.
+
+"Besides," she said, "while I was so busily counting the seconds aloud
+you couldn't very well have kissed me, could you? _That_ was strategy.
+You couldn't have managed it, could you?"
+
+"Not very easily."
+
+"I really _did_ nonplus you, didn't I?" she insisted, aware of his
+amusement.
+
+"Oh, entirely," he said. "I became an abject idiot."
+
+She stood breathing more evenly now, the pretty colour coming and going
+in her cheeks. Considering him, looking alternately at his masked eyes
+and at his expressive lips where a kind of silent and infernal mirth
+still flickered, a sudden doubt assailed her. And presently, with a
+dainty shrug, she turned and glanced down through the gilt lattice
+toward the floor below.
+
+"I suppose," she said, tauntingly, "you hope I'll believe that you
+refrained from kissing me out of some belated consideration for decency.
+But I know perfectly well that I perplexed you, and confused you and
+intimidated you."
+
+"This is, of course, the true solution of my motives in not kissing
+you."
+
+She turned toward him:
+
+"What motive?"
+
+"My motive for not kissing you. My only motive was consideration for
+you, and for the sacred conventions of Sainte Grundy."
+
+"I believe," she said scornfully, "you are really trying to make me
+think that you _could_ have done it, and didn't!"
+
+"You are too clever to believe me a martyr to principle, madame!"
+
+She looked at him, stamped her foot till the bangles clashed.
+
+"Why _didn't_ you kiss me, then?--if you wish to spoil my victory?"
+
+"You yourself have told me why."
+
+"Am I wrong? Could you--didn't I surprise you--in fact, paralyse
+you--with astonishment?"
+
+He laughed delighted; and she stamped her ringing foot again.
+
+"I see," she said; "I am supposed to be doubly in your debt, now. I'd
+rather you _had_ kissed me and we were quits!"
+
+"It isn't too late you know."
+
+"It _is_ too late. It's all over."
+
+"Madame, I have fifty-nine other minutes in which to meet your kindly
+expressed wishes. Did you forget?"
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, aghast.
+
+"One hour less one minute is still coming to me."
+
+"Am I--have I--is this ridiculous performance going to happen again?"
+she asked, appalled.
+
+"Fifty-nine times," he laughed, doubling one spangled leg under the
+other and whirling on his toe till he resembled a kaleidoscopic
+teetotum. Then he drew his sword, cut right and left, slapped it back
+into its sheath, and bowed his wriggling bow, one hand over his heart.
+
+"Don't look so troubled, madame," he said. "I release you from your
+debt. You need never pay me what you owe me."
+
+Up went her small head, fiercely, under its flashing hair:
+
+"Thank you. I pay my debts!" she said crisply.
+
+"You decline to accept your release?"
+
+"Yes, I do!--from _you!"_
+
+"You'll see this thing through!--if it takes all winter?"
+
+"Of course;" trying to smile, and not succeeding.
+
+He touched her arm and pointed out across the hot, perfumed gulf to the
+gilded clock on high:
+
+"You _have_ seen it through! It is now one minute to midnight. We have
+been here exactly one hour, lacking a minute, since our bet was on....
+And I've wanted to kiss you all the while."
+
+Confused, she looked at the clock under its elaborate azure and ormolu
+foliations, then turned toward him, still uncertain of her immunity.
+
+"Do you mean that you have really used the hour as you saw fit?" she
+asked. "Have I done my part honestly?--Like a good sportsman? Have I
+really?"
+
+He bowed, laughingly:
+
+"I cheerfully concede it. You are a good sport."
+
+"And--all that time--" she began--"all that time----"
+
+"I had my chances--sixty of them."
+
+"And didn't take them?"
+
+"Only wanted to--but didn't."
+
+"You think that I----"
+
+"A woman never forgets a man who has kissed her. I took the rather
+hopeless chance that you might remember me without that. But it's a long
+shot. I expect that you'll forget me."
+
+"Do you _want_ me to remember you?" she asked, curiously.
+
+"Yes. But you won't."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I know--from the expression of your mouth, perhaps. You are too pretty,
+too popular to remember a poor Harlequin."
+
+"But you never have seen my face? Have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why do you continually say that I am pretty?"
+
+"I can divine what you must be."
+
+"Then--how--why did you refrain from--" She laughed lightly, and looked
+up at him, mockingly. "Really, Harlequin, you _are_ funny. Do you
+realise it?"
+
+She laughed again and the slight flush came back into her cheeks.
+
+"But you're nice, anyway.... Perhaps if you _had_ seen my face you might
+have let me go unkissed all the quicker.... Masks cover horrible
+surprises.... And, then again, if you _had_ seen it, _perhaps_ you might
+_never_ have let me go at all!" she added, audaciously.
+
+In the gilded balcony opposite, the orchestra had now ceased playing;
+the whirl and noise of the dancers filled the immense momentary quiet.
+Then soft chimes from the great clock sounded midnight amid cries of,
+"Unmask! masks off, everybody!"
+
+The Harlequin turned and drawing the black vizard from his face, bent
+low and saluted her hand; and she, responding gaily with a curtsey,
+looked up into the features of an utter stranger.
+
+She stood silent a moment, the surprised smile stamped on her lips;
+then, in her turn, she slipped the mask from her eyes.
+
+"_Voila!_" she cried. "_C'est moi!_"
+
+After a moment he said, half to himself;
+
+"I knew well enough that you must be unusual. But I hadn't any
+idea--any--idea----"
+
+"Then--you are _not_ disappointed in me, monsieur?"
+
+"My only regret is that I had my hour, and wasted it. Those hours never
+sound twice for wandering harlequins."
+
+"Poor Harlequin!" she said saucily--"I'm sorry, but even _your_ magic
+can't recall a vanished hour! Poor, poor Harlequin! You were too
+generous to me!"
+
+"And now you are going to forget me," he said. "That is to be my
+reward."
+
+"Why--I don't think--I don't expect to forget you. I suppose I am likely
+to know you some day.... _Who_ are you, please? Somebody very grand in
+New York?"
+
+"My name is Quarren."
+
+There was a silence; she glanced down at the ball-room floor through
+the lattice screen, then slowly turned around to look at him again.
+
+"Have you ever heard of me?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you disappointed?"
+
+"Y-es. Pleasantly.... I supposed you to be--different."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Has the world been knocking me very dreadfully to you, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"No.... One's impressions form without any reason--and
+vaguely--from--nothing in particular.--I thought you were a very
+different sort of man.--I am glad you are not."
+
+"That is charming of you."
+
+"It's honest. I had no desire to meet the type of man I supposed you to
+be. Am I too frank?"
+
+"No, indeed," he said, laughing, "but I'm horribly afraid that I really
+am the kind of man you imagined me."
+
+"You are not."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"No," she said, shaking her pretty head, "you can't be."
+
+He said, quoting her own words amiably: "I'm merely one of the necessary
+incidents of any social environment--like flowers and champagne----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren!"
+
+In her distress she laid an impulsive hand on his sleeve; he lifted it,
+laid it across the back of his own hand, and bowing, saluted it lightly,
+gaily.
+
+"I am not offended," he said; "--I am what you supposed me."
+
+"Please don't say it! You are not. I didn't know you; I
+was--prejudiced----"
+
+"You'll find me out sooner or later," he said laughing, "so I might as
+well admit that your cap fitted me."
+
+"It doesn't fit!" she retorted; "I was a perfect fool to say that!"
+
+"As long as you like me," he returned, "does it make any difference what
+I am?"
+
+"Of course it does! I'm not likely to find a man agreeable unless he's
+worth noticing."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"Oh, gentle angler, I refuse to nibble. Be content that an hour out of
+my life has sped very swiftly in your company!"
+
+She turned and laid her hand on the little gilt door. He opened it for
+her.
+
+"You've been very nice to me," she said. "I won't forget you."
+
+"You'll certainly forget me for that very reason. If I hadn't been nice
+I'd have been the exception. And you would have remembered."
+
+She said with an odd smile:
+
+"Do you suppose that pleasant things have been so common in my life that
+only the unpleasant episode makes any impression on my memory?"
+
+"To really remember me as I want you to, you ought to have had something
+unpardonable to forgive me."
+
+"Perhaps I have!" she said, daringly; and slipped past him and down the
+narrow stairs, her loup-mask fluttering from her elbow.
+
+At the foot of the stairs she turned, looking back at him over her bare
+shoulder:
+
+"I've mortally offended at least three important men by hiding up there
+with you. That is conceding _something_ to your attractions, isn't it?"
+
+"Everything. Will you let me find you some supper--and let the mortally
+offended suitors sit and whistle a bit longer?"
+
+"Poor suitors--they've probably been performing heel-tattoos for an
+hour.... Very well, then--I feel unusually shameless to-night--and I'll
+go with you. But don't be disagreeable to me if a neglected and
+glowering young man rushes up and drags me away by the back hair."
+
+"Who for example?"
+
+"Barent Van Dyne, for instance."
+
+"Oh, we'll side-step that youthful Knickerbocker," said Quarren, gaily.
+"Leave it to me, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"To behave so outrageously to Mr. Van Dyne is peculiarly horrid and
+wicked of me," she said. "But you don't realise that--and--the fact
+remains that you did _not_ take your forfeit. And I've a lot to make up
+for that, haven't I?" she added so naively that they both gave way to
+laughter unrestrained.
+
+The light touch of her arm on his, now guiding him amid the noisy,
+rollicking throngs, now yielding to his guidance, ceased as he threaded
+a way through the crush to a corner, and seated her at a table for two.
+
+In a few moments he came back with all kinds of delectable things; went
+for more, returned laden, shamelessly pulled several palms between them
+and the noisy outer world, and seated himself beside her.
+
+With napkin and plate on the low table beside her, she permitted him to
+serve her. As he filled her champagne glass she lifted it and looked
+across it at him:
+
+"How did you discover my identity?" she asked. "I'm devoured by
+curiosity."
+
+"Shall I tell you?"
+
+"Please."
+
+"I'll take a tumble in your estimation if I tell you."
+
+"I don't think you will. Try it anyway."
+
+"Very well then. Somebody told me."
+
+"And you let me bet with you! And _you_ bet on a _certainty!_"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "is that good sportsmanship, Mr.
+Quarren?"
+
+"No; very bad. And _that_ was why I didn't take the forfeit. Now you
+understand."
+
+She sat considering him, the champagne breaking in her glass.
+
+"Yes, I do understand now. A good sportsman couldn't take a forfeit
+which he won betting on a certainty.... That wasn't a real wager, was
+it?"
+
+"No, it wasn't."
+
+"If it had been, I--I don't suppose you'd have let me go."
+
+"Indeed not!"
+
+They laughed, watching each other, curiously.
+
+"Which ought to teach me never again to make any such highly original
+and sporting wagers," she said. "Anyway, you were perfectly nice about
+it. Of course you couldn't very well have been otherwise. Tell me, did
+you really suppose me to be attractive? You couldn't judge. How could
+you--under that mask?"
+
+"Do you think that your mouth could have possibly belonged to any other
+kind of a face except your own?" he said coolly.
+
+"Is my mouth unusual?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"How is it unusual?"
+
+"I haven't analysed the matter, but it is somehow so indescribable that
+I guessed very easily what the other features must be."
+
+"Oh, flattery! Oh, impudence! Do you remember when Falstaff said that
+the lion could always recognise the true prince? Shame on you, Mr.
+Quarren. You are not only a very adroit flatterer but a perfectly good
+sportsman after all--and the most gifted tormentor I ever knew in all my
+life. And I like you fine!" She laughed, and made a quick little
+gesture, partly arrested as he met her more than half way, touching the
+rim of his glass to hers. "To our friendship," he said.
+
+"Our friendship," she repeated, gaily, "if the gods speed it."
+
+"--And--its consequences," he added. "Don't forget those."
+
+"What are they likely to be?"
+
+"Who knows? That's the gamble! But let us recognise all kinds of
+possibilities, and drink to them, too. Shall we?"
+
+"What do you mean by the consequences of friendship?" she repeated,
+hesitating.
+
+"That is the interesting thing about a new friendship," he explained.
+"Nobody can ever predict what the consequences are to be. Are you afraid
+to drink to the sporting chances, hazards, accidents, and possibilities
+of our new friendship, Mrs. Leeds? _That_ is a perfectly good sporting
+proposition."
+
+She considered him, interested, her eyes full of smiling curiosity,
+perfectly conscious of the swift challenge of his lifted glass.
+
+[Illustration: "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' she said
+lightly."]
+
+After a few seconds' hesitation she struck the ringing rim of her glass
+against his:
+
+"To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!" she said lightly--"with
+every sporting chance, worldly hazard, and heavenly possibility in it!"
+
+For the first time the smile faded from his face, and something in his
+altered features arrested her glass at her very lips.
+
+"How suddenly serious you seem," she said. "Have I said anything?"
+
+He drained his glass; after a second she tasted hers, looked at him,
+finished it, still watching him.
+
+"Really," she said; "you made me feel for a moment as though you and I
+were performing a solemn rite. That was a new phase of you to me--that
+exceedingly sudden and youthful gravity."
+
+He remained silent. Into his mind, just for a second, and while in the
+act of setting the glass to his lips, there had flashed a flicker of
+pale clairvoyance. It seemed to illumine something within him which he
+had never believed in--another self.
+
+For that single instant he caught a glimpse of it, then it faded like a
+spark in a confused dream.
+
+He raised his head and looked gravely across at Strelsa Leeds; and
+level-eyed, smiling, inquisitive, she returned his gaze.
+
+Could this brief contact with her have evoked in him a far-buried
+something which had never before given sign of existence? And could it
+have been anything resembling aspiration that had glimmered so palely
+out of an ordered and sordid commonplace personality which, with all
+its talent for frivolity, he had accepted as his own?
+
+Without reason a slight flush came into his cheeks.
+
+"Why do you regard me so owlishly?" she asked, amused. "I repeat that
+you made me feel as though we were performing a sort of solemn rite when
+we drank our toast."
+
+"You couldn't feel that way with such a thoroughly frivolous man as I
+am. Could you?"
+
+"I'm rather frivolous myself," she admitted, laughing. "I really can't
+imagine why you made me feel so serious--or why you looked as though you
+were. I've no talent for solemnity. Have you?"
+
+"I don't think so," he said. "What a terrible din everybody is making!
+How hot and stifling it is here--with all those cloying gardenias.... A
+man said, this evening, that this sort of thing makes for anarchy....
+It's rather beastly of me to sit here criticising my host's
+magnificence.... Do you know--it's curious, too--but I wish that, for
+the next hour or two, you and I were somewhere alone under a good wide
+sky--where there was no noise. It's an odd idea, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds.
+And probably you don't share it with me."
+
+She remained silent, thoughtful, her violet-gray eyes humorously
+considering him.
+
+"How do you know I don't?" she said at last. "I'm not enamoured of
+noise, either."
+
+"There's another thing," he went on, smiling--"it's rather curious,
+too--but somehow I've a sort of a vague idea that I've a lot of things
+to talk to you about. It's odd, isn't it?"
+
+"Well you know," she reminded him, "you couldn't very well have a lot
+of things to talk to me about considering the fact that we've known each
+other only an hour or so."
+
+"It doesn't seem logical.... And yet, there's that inexplicable
+sensation of being on the verge of fairly bursting into millions of
+words for your benefit--words which all my life have been bottled up in
+me, accumulating, waiting for this opportunity."
+
+They both were laughing, yet already a slight tension threatened
+both--had menaced them, vaguely, from the very first. It seemed to
+impend ever so slightly, like a margin of faintest shadow edging
+sunlight; yet it was always there.
+
+"I haven't time for millions of words this evening," she said. "Won't
+some remain fresh and sparkling and epigrammatic until--until----"
+
+"To-morrow? They'll possibly keep that long."
+
+"I didn't say to-morrow."
+
+"I did."
+
+"I'm perfectly aware of the subtle suggestion and subtler flattery, Mr.
+Quarren."
+
+"Then, may I see you to-morrow?"
+
+"Utterly impossible--pitiably hopeless. You see I am frank about the
+heart-rending disappointment it is to me--and must be to you. But after
+I am awake I am in the hands of Mrs. Lannis. And there's no room for you
+in that pretty cradle."
+
+"The next day, then?"
+
+"We're going to Florida for three weeks."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Molly and Jim and I."
+
+"Palm Beach?"
+
+"Ultimately."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Oh! Have you the effrontery to tell me to my face that you'll be in the
+same mind about me three weeks hence?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Do you expect me to believe you?"
+
+"I don't know--what to expect--of you, of myself," he said so quietly
+that she looked up quickly.
+
+"Mr. Quarren! _Are_ you a sentimental man? I had mentally absolved you
+from _that_ preconception of mine--among other apparently unmerited
+ideas concerning you."
+
+"I suppose you'll arise and flee if I tell you that you're different
+from other women," he said.
+
+"You wouldn't be such an idiot as to tell me that, would you?"
+
+"I might be. I'm just beginning to realise my capacity for imbecility.
+You're different in this way anyhow; no woman ever before induced me to
+pull a solemn countenance."
+
+"I _don't_ induce you! I ask you not to."
+
+"I _try_ not to; but, somehow, there's something so--so real about
+_you_----"
+
+"Are you accustomed to foregather with the disembodied?"
+
+"I'm beginning to think that my world is rather thickly populated with
+ghosts--phantoms of a more real world."
+
+He looked at her soberly; she had thought him younger than he now
+seemed. A slight irritation silenced her for a moment, then,
+impatiently:
+
+"You speak cynically and I dislike it. What reason have you to express
+world-weary sentiments?--you who are young, who probably have never
+known real sorrow, deep unhappiness! I have little patience with a
+morbid view of anything, Mr. Quarren. I merely warn you--in the event of
+your ever desiring to obtain my good graces."
+
+"I do desire them."
+
+"Then be yourself."
+
+"I don't know what I am. I thought I knew. Your advent has disorganised
+both my complacency and my resignation."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Must I answer?"
+
+"Of course!" she said, laughing.
+
+"Then--the Harlequin who followed you up those stairs, never came down
+again."
+
+"Oh!" she said, unenlightened.
+
+"I'm wondering who it was who came down out of that balcony in the wake
+of the golden dancer," he added.
+
+"You and I--you very absurd young man. What are you trying to say?"
+
+"I--wonder," he said, smiling, "what I am trying to say."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Sunshine illuminated the rose-silk curtains of Mrs. Leeds's bedroom with
+parallel slats of light and cast a frail and tremulous net of gold
+across her bed. The sparrows in the Japanese ivy seemed to be unusually
+boisterous, and their persistent metallic chatter disturbed Strelsa who
+presently unclosed her gray eyes upon her own reflected features in the
+wall-glass opposite.
+
+Face still flushed with slumber, she lay there considering her mirrored
+features with humorous, sleepy eyes; then she sat up, stretched her
+arms, yawned, patted her red lips with her palm, pressed her knuckles
+over her eyelids, and presently slipped out of bed. Her bath was ready;
+so was her maid.
+
+A little later, cross-legged on the bed once more, she sat sipping her
+chocolate and studying the morning papers with an interest and
+satisfaction unjaded.
+
+Coupled with the naive curiosity of a kitten remained her unspoiled
+capacity for pleasure, and the interest of a child in a world unfolding
+daily in a sequence of miracles under her intent and delighted eyes.
+
+Bare of throat and arm and shoulder, the lustrous hair shadowing her
+face, she now appeared unexpectedly frail, even thin, as though the
+fuller curves of the mould in which she was being formed had not yet
+been filled up.
+
+Fully dressed, gown and furs lent to her something of a youthful
+maturity which was entirely deceptive; for here, in bed, the golden
+daylight revealed childish contours accented so delicately that they
+seemed almost sexless. And in her intent gray eyes and in her
+undeveloped mind was all that completed the bodily and mental
+harmony--youth unawakened as yet except to a confused memory of
+pain--and the dreamy and passionless unconsciousness of an unusually
+late adolescence.
+
+At twenty-four Strelsa still looked upon her morning chocolate with a
+healthy appetite; and the excitement of seeing her own name and picture
+in the daily press had as yet lost none of its delightful thrill.
+
+All the morning papers reported the Wycherlys' house-warming with
+cloying detail. And she adored it. What paragraphs particularly
+concerned herself, her capable maid had enclosed in inky brackets. These
+Strelsa read first of all, warm with pleasure at every stereotyped
+tribute to her loveliness.
+
+The comments she perused were of all sorts, even the ungrammatical sort,
+but she read them all with profound interest, and loved every one, even
+the most fulsome. For life, and its kinder experience, was just
+beginning for her after a shabby childhood, a lonely girlhood, and a
+marriage unspeakable, the memory of which already had become to her as
+vaguely poignant as the dull recollection of a nightmare.
+
+So her appetite for kindness, even the newspaper variety, was keen and
+not at all discriminating; and the reaction from two years'
+solitude--two years of endurance, of shrinking from public comment--had
+developed in her a fierce longing for pleasure and for play-fellows.
+Her fellow-men had responded with an enthusiasm which still surprised
+her delightfully at moments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clever Swedish maid now removed the four-legged tray from her knees;
+Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her newspapers,
+satisfying a natural curiosity concerning what the world thought about
+her costume of the night before, her beauty, herself, and the people she
+knew. At last, agreeably satiated, she lowered the newspaper and lay
+back, dreamy-eyed, faintly smiling, lost in pleasant retrospection.
+
+Had she really appeared as charming last night as these exceedingly kind
+New York newspapers pretended? Did this jolly world really consider her
+so beautiful? She wished to believe it. She tried to. Perhaps it was
+really true--because all these daily paragraphs, which had begun with
+her advent into certain New York sets, must really have been founded on
+something unusual about her.
+
+And it could not be her fortune which continued to inspire such
+journalistic loyalty and devotion, because she had none--scarcely enough
+money in fact to manage with, dress with, pay her servants, and maintain
+her pretty little house in the East Eighties.
+
+It could not be her wit; she had no more than the average American girl.
+Nor was there anything else in her--neither her cultivation,
+attainments, nor talents--to entitle her to distinction. So apparently
+it must be her beauty that evoked paragraphs which had already made her
+a fashion in the metropolis--was making her a cult--even perhaps a
+notoriety.
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her
+newspapers."]
+
+Because those people who had personally known Reginald Leeds, were
+exceedingly curious concerning this young girl who had been a nobody, as
+far as New York was concerned, until her name became legally coupled
+with the name of one of the richest and most dissipated scions of an old
+and honourable New York family.
+
+The public which had read with characteristic eagerness all about the
+miserable finish of Reginald Leeds, found its abominable curiosity
+piqued by his youthful widow's appearance in town.
+
+It is the newspapers' business to give the public what it wants--at
+least that appears to be the popular impression; and so they gave the
+public all it wanted about Strelsa Leeds, in daily chunks. And then
+some. Which, in the beginning, she shrank from, horrified, frightened,
+astonished--because, in the beginning, every mention of her name was
+coupled with a glossary in full explanation of who she was, entailing a
+condensed review of a sordid story which, for two years, she had striven
+to obliterate from her mind. But these post-mortems lasted only a week
+or so. Except for a sporadic eruption of the case in a provincial paper
+now and then, which somebody always thoughtfully sent to her, the press
+finally let the tragedy alone, contenting its intellectual public with
+daily chronicles of young Mrs. Leeds's social activities.
+
+A million boarding houses throughout the land, read about her beauty
+with avidity; and fat old women in soiled pink wrappers began to mention
+her intimately to each other as "Strelsa Leeds"--the first hall-mark of
+social fame--and there was loud discussion, in a million humble homes,
+about the fashionable men who were paying her marked attention; and the
+chances she had for bagging earls and dukes were maintained and
+combated, below stairs and above, with an eagerness, envy, and
+back-stairs knowledge truly and profoundly democratic.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her morning mail had begun to assume almost fashionable proportions, but
+she could not yet reconcile herself to the idea of even such a clever
+maid as her own assuming power of social secretary. So she still read
+and answered all her letters--or rather neglected to notice the
+majority, which invested her with a kind of awe to some and made others
+furious and unwillingly respectful.
+
+Letters, bills, notes, invitations, advertisements were scattered over
+the bedclothes as she lay there, thinking over the pleasures and
+excitement of last night's folly--thinking of Quarren, among others, and
+of the swift intimacy that had sprung up between them--like a
+witch-flower over night--thinking of her imprudence, and of the cold
+displeasure of Barent Van Dyne who, toward daylight, had found her
+almost nose to nose with Quarren, absorbed in exchanging with that young
+man ideas and perfectly futile notions about everything on top, inside,
+and underneath the habitable globe.
+
+She blushed as she remembered her flimsy excuses to Van Dyne--she had
+the grace to blush over that memory--and how any of the dignity incident
+to the occasion had been all Van Dyne's--and how, as she took his
+irreproachable arm and parted ceremoniously with Quarren, she had
+imprudently extended her hand behind her as her escort bore her away--a
+childish impulse--the innocent coquetry of a village belle--she
+flushed again at the recollection--and at the memory of Quarren's lips
+on her finger-tips--and how her hand had closed on the gardenia he
+pressed into it----
+
+She turned her head on the pillow; the flower she had taken from him lay
+beside her on her night table, limp, discoloured, malodorous; and she
+picked it up, daintily, and flung it into the fireplace.
+
+At the same moment the telephone rang downstairs in the library.
+Presently her maid knocked, announcing Mr. Quarren on the wire.
+
+"I'm not at home," said Strelsa, surprised, or rather trying to feel a
+certain astonishment. What really surprised her was that she felt none.
+
+Her maid was already closing the door behind her when Strelsa said:
+
+"Wait a moment, Freda." And, after thinking, she smiled to herself and
+added: "You may set my transmitter on the table beside me, and hang up
+the receiver in the library.... Be sure to hang it up at once."
+
+Then, sitting up in bed, she unhooked the receiver and set it to her
+ear.
+
+"Mr. Quarren," she began coldly, and without preliminary amenities,
+"have you any possible excuse for awaking me at such an unearthly hour
+as mid-day?"
+
+"Good Lord," he exclaimed contritely, "did I do that?"
+
+She had no more passion for the exact truth than the average woman, and
+she quibbled:
+
+"Do you think I would say so if it were not true?" she demanded.
+
+"No, of course not----"
+
+"Well, then!" An indignant pause. "But," she added honestly, "I was not
+exactly what you might call asleep, although it practically amounts to
+the same thing. I was reposing.... Are _you_ feeling quite fit this
+morning?" she added demurely.
+
+"I'd be all right if I could see you----"
+
+"You can't! What an idea!"
+
+"Why not? What are you going to do?"
+
+"There's no particular reason why I should detail my daily duties,
+obligations, and engagements to you; is there?--But I'm an unusually
+kind-hearted person, and not easily offended by people's
+inquisitiveness. So I'll overlook your bad manners. First, then, I am
+lunching at the Province Club, then I am going to a matinee at the
+Casino, afterward dropping in for tea at the Sprowls, dining at the
+Calderas, going to the Opera with the Vernons, and afterward, with them,
+to a dance at the Van Dynes.... So, will you kindly inform me where
+_you_ enter the scene?"
+
+She could hear him laugh over the telephone.
+
+"What are you doing just now?" he asked.
+
+"I am seated upon my innocent nocturnal couch, draped in exceedingly
+intimate attire, conversing over the telephone with the original Paul
+Pry."
+
+"Could anything induce you to array yourself more conventionally,
+receive me, and let me take you to your luncheon at the Province Club?"
+
+"But I don't _wish_ to see you."
+
+"Is that perfectly true?"
+
+"Perfectly. I've just thrown your gardenia into the fireplace. Doesn't
+that prove it?"
+
+"Oh, no. Because it's too early, yet, for either of us to treasure such
+things----"
+
+"What horrid impertinence!"
+
+"Isn't it! But your heavenly gift of humour will transform my impudence
+into a harmless and diverting sincerity. Please let me see you, Mrs.
+Leeds--just for a few moments."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are going South and there are three restless weeks ahead of
+me----"
+
+This time he could hear her clear, far laughter:
+
+"What has _my_ going to Florida to do with _your_ restlessness?"
+
+"Your very question irrevocably links cause and effect----"
+
+"Don't be absurd, Mr. Quarren!"
+
+"Absurdity is the badge of all our Guild----"
+
+"What Guild do _you_ belong to?"
+
+"The associated order of ardent suitors----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren! You are becoming ridiculous; do you know it?"
+
+"No, _I_ don't realise it, but they say all the rest of the world
+considers suitors ridiculous----"
+
+"Do you expect me to listen to such nonsense at such an hour in the
+morning?"
+
+"It's half past twelve; and my weak solution of nonsense is suitable to
+the time of day----"
+
+"Am I to understand that the solution becomes stronger as the day
+advances?"
+
+"Exactly; the solution becomes so concentrated and powerful that traces
+of common-sense begin to appear----"
+
+"I didn't notice any last night."
+
+"Van Dyne interfered."
+
+"Poor Mr. Van Dyne. If you'd been civil to him he might have asked you
+to the dance to-night--if I had suggested it. But you were horridly
+rude."
+
+"I? Rude?"
+
+"You're not going to be rude enough to say it was I who behaved badly to
+him, are you? Oh, the shocking vanity of man! No doubt you are thinking
+that it was I who, serpent-like, whispered temptation into your innocent
+ear, and drew you away into a corner, and shoved palms in front of us,
+and brought silver and fine linen, and rare fruits and sparkling wines;
+and paid shameless court with an intelligent weather-eye always on the
+watch for a flouted and justly indignant cavalier!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "you did all those things. And now you're trying to
+evade the results."
+
+"What are the results?"
+
+"A partly demented young man clamouring to see you at high-noon while
+the cold cruel cause of his lunacy looks on and laughs."
+
+"I'm afraid that young man must continue to clamour," she said,
+immensely amused at the picture he drew. "How far away is he at this
+moment?"
+
+"In the Legation, a blithering wreck."
+
+"Why not in his office frantically immersed in vast business enterprises
+and cataclysmic speculations?"
+
+"I'm rather afraid that if business immerses him too completely he will
+be found drowned some day."
+
+"You promised--_said_ that you were going to begin a vigorous campaign,"
+she reminded him reproachfully. "I asked it of you; and you agreed."
+
+"I am beginning life anew--or trying to--by seeking the perennial source
+of daily spiritual and mundane inspiration----"
+
+"Why won't you be serious?"
+
+"I am. Were you not the source of my new inspiration? Last night did
+something or other to me--I am not yet perfectly sure what it was. I
+want to see you to be sure--if only for a--moment--merely to satisfy
+myself that you are real----"
+
+"Will one moment be enough?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"One second--or half a one?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"Very well--if you promise not to expect or ask for more than that----"
+
+"That is terribly nice of you!"
+
+"It is, overwhelmingly. But really I don't know whether I am nice or
+merely weak-minded. Because I've lingered here gossiping so long with
+you that I've simply got to fly like a mad creature about my dressing.
+Good-bye----"
+
+"Shall I come up immediately?"
+
+"Of course not! I expect to be dressing for hours and
+hours--figuratively speaking.... Perhaps you might start in ten minutes
+if you are coming in a taxi."
+
+"You are an angel----"
+
+"That is not telephone vernacular.... And perhaps you had better be
+prompt, because Mrs. Lannis is coming for me--that is, if you have
+anything to--to say--that----"
+
+She flushed up, annoyed at her own stupidity, then felt grateful to him
+as he answered lightly:
+
+"Of course; she might misunderstand our informality. Shall I see you in
+half an hour?"
+
+"If I can manage it," she said.
+
+She managed it, somehow. At first, really indifferent, and not very
+much amused, the talk with him had gradually aroused in her the same
+interest and pleasurable curiosity that she had experienced in
+exchanging badinage with him the night before. Now she really wanted to
+see him, and she took enough trouble about it to set her deft maid
+flying about her offices.
+
+First a fragrant precursor of his advent arrived in the shape of a great
+bunch of winter violets; and her maid fastened them to her black fox
+muff. Then the distant door-bell sounded; and in an extraordinarily
+short space of time, wearing her pretty fur hat, her boa, and carrying a
+muff that matched both, with his violets pinned to it, she entered the
+dim drawing-room, halting just beyond the threshold.
+
+"Are you not ashamed," she said, severely, "to come battering at my door
+at this hour of the day?"
+
+"Abjectly."
+
+They exchanged a brief handshake; she seated herself on the arm of a
+sofa; he stood before the unlighted fireplace, looking at her with a
+half smiling half curious air which made her laugh outright.
+
+"Bien! C'est moi, monsieur," she said. "Me voici! C'est moi-meme!"
+
+"I believe you _are_ real after all," he admitted.
+
+"Do I seem different?"
+
+"Yes--and no."
+
+"How am I different?"
+
+"Well, somehow, last night, I got the notion that you were younger,
+thinner--and not very real----"
+
+"Are you presuming to criticise my appearance last night?" she asked
+with mock indignation. "Because if you are, I proudly refer you to the
+enlightened metropolitan morning press."
+
+"I read all about you," he said, smiling.
+
+"I am glad you did. You will doubtless now be inclined to treat me with
+the respect due to my years and experience."
+
+"I believe," he said, "that your gown and hat and furs make a charming
+difference----"
+
+"How perfectly horrid of you! I thought you admired my costume last
+night!"
+
+"Oh, Lord," he said--"you were sufficiently charming last night. But
+now, in your fluffy furs, you seem rather taller--less slender
+perhaps--and tremendously fetching----"
+
+"Say that my clothes improve me, and that in reality I'm a horrid, thin
+little beast!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I know I am, but I haven't
+finished growing yet. Really that's the truth, Mr. Quarren. Would you
+believe that I have grown an inch since last spring?"
+
+"I believe it," he said, "but would you mind stopping now? You are
+exactly right."
+
+"You _know_ I'm thin and flat as a board!"
+
+"You're perfect!"
+
+"It's too late to say that to me----"
+
+"It is too early to say more."
+
+"Let's don't talk about myself, please."
+
+"It has become the only subject in the world that interests me----"
+
+"Please, Mr. Quarren! Are you actually attempting to be silly at this
+hour of the day? The wise inanities of midnight sound perilously flat in
+the sunshine--flatter than the flattest champagne, which no
+bread-crumbs can galvanise into a single bubble. Tell me, why did you
+wish to see me this morning. I mean the real reason? Was it merely to
+find out whether I was weak-minded enough to receive you?"
+
+He looked at her, smiling:
+
+"I wanted to see whether you were as real and genuine and wholesome and
+unspoiled and--and friendly as I thought you were last night."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"More so."
+
+"Are you so sure about my friendliness?"
+
+"I want to believe in it," he said. "It means a lot to me already."
+
+"Believe in it then, you very badly spoiled young man," she said,
+stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "I do like you.... And now I
+think you had better go--unless you want to see Mrs. Lannis."
+
+Retaining her hand for a second he said:
+
+"Before you leave town will you let me ask you a question?"
+
+"I am leaving to-morrow. You'll have to ask it now."
+
+Their hands fell apart; he seemed doubtful, and she awaited his
+question, smilingly. And as he made no sign of asking she said:
+
+"You have my permission to ask it. Is it a very impertinent question?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"How impertinent is it?" she inquired curiously.
+
+"Unpardonably personal."
+
+After a silence she laughed.
+
+"Last night," she said, "you told me that I would probably forget you
+unless I had something unpardonable to forgive you. Isn't this a good
+opportunity to leave your unpardonable imprint upon my insulted
+memory?"
+
+"Excellent," he said. "This is my outrageous question: are you engaged
+to be married?"
+
+For a full minute she remained silent in her intense displeasure. After
+the first swift glance of surprise her gray eyes had dropped, and she
+sat on the gilded arm of the sofa, studying the floor covering--an
+ancient Saraband rug, with the inevitable and monotonous river-loop
+symbol covering its old-rose ground in uninteresting repetition. After a
+while she lifted her head and met his gaze, quietly.
+
+"I am trying to believe that you did not mean to be offensive," she
+said. "And now that I have a shadow of a reason to pardon you, I shall
+probably do so, ultimately."
+
+"But you won't answer me?" he said, reddening.
+
+"Of course not. Are we on any such footing of intimacy--even of
+friendship, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"No. But you are going away--and my reason for speaking--" He checked
+himself; his reasons were impossible; there was no extenuation to be
+found in them, no adequate explanation for them, or for his attitude
+toward this young girl which had crystallised over night--over a
+sleepless, thrilling night--dazzling him with its wonder and its truth
+and its purity in the clean rays of the morning sun.
+
+She watched his expression as it changed, troubled, uncertain how to
+regard him, now.
+
+"It isn't very much like you, to ask me such a question," she said.
+
+"Before I met you, you thought me one kind of a man; after I met you,
+you thought me another. Have I turned out to be a third kind?"
+
+"N-no."
+
+"Would I turn into the first kind if I ask you again to answer my
+question?"
+
+She gave him a swift, expressionless glance:
+
+"I want to like you; I'm trying to, Mr. Quarren. Won't you let me?"
+
+"I want to have the right to like _you_, too--perhaps more than you will
+care to have me----"
+
+"Please don't speak that way--I don't know what you mean, anyway----"
+
+"That is why I asked you the question--to find out whether I had a right
+to----"
+
+"Right!" she repeated. "What right? What do you mean? What have you
+misinterpreted in me that has given you any rights as far as I am
+concerned? Did you misunderstand our few hours of masked acquaintance--a
+few moments of perfectly innocent imprudence?--my overlooking certain
+conventions and listening to you at the telephone this morning--my
+receiving you here at this silly hour? What has given you any right to
+say anything to me, Mr. Quarren--to hint of the possibility of anything
+serious--for the future--or at any time whatever?"
+
+"I have no right," he said, wincing.
+
+"Indeed you have not!" she rejoined warmly, flushed and affronted. "I am
+glad that is perfectly clear to you."
+
+"No right at all," he repeated--"except the personal privilege of
+recognising what is cleanest and sweetest and most admirable and most
+unspoiled in life; the right to care for it without knowing exactly
+why--the desire to be part of it--as have all men who are awakened
+out of trivial dreams when such a woman as you crosses their limited and
+foolish horizon."
+
+She sat staring at him, struggling to comprehend what he was saying,
+perfectly unable to believe, nor even wishing to, yet painfully
+attentive to his every word.
+
+"Mr. Quarren," she said, "I was hurt. I imagined presumption where there
+was none. But I am afraid you are romantic and impulsive to an amazing
+degree. Yet, both romance and impulse have a place and a reason, not
+undignified, in human intercourse."--She felt rather superior in turning
+this phrase, and looked on him a little more kindly----
+
+"If the compliment which you have left me to infer is purely a romantic
+one, it is nevertheless unwarranted--and, forgive me, unacceptable. The
+trouble is----"
+
+She paused to recover her wits and her breath; but he took the latter
+away again as he said:
+
+"I am in love with you; that is the trouble, Mrs. Leeds. And I really
+have no business to say so until I amount to something."
+
+"You have no business to say so anyway after one single evening's
+acquaintance!" she retorted hotly.
+
+"Oh, that! If love were a matter of time and convention--like five
+o'clock tea!--but it isn't, you know. It isn't the brevity of our
+acquaintance that worries me; it's what _I_ am--and what _you_
+are--and--and the long, long road I have to travel before I am worth
+your lightest consideration--I never was in love before. Forgive my
+crudeness. I'm only conscious of the--hopelessness of it all."
+
+Breathless, confused, incredulous, she sat there staring at
+him--listening to and watching this tall, quiet, cool young fellow who
+was telling her such incomprehensible things in a manner that began to
+fascinate her. With an effort she collected herself, shook off the
+almost eerie interest that was already beginning to obsess her, and
+stood up, flushed but composed.
+
+"Shall we not say any more about it?" she said quietly. "Because there
+is nothing more to say, Mr. Quarren--except--thank you for--for feeling
+so amiably toward me--for believing me more than I really am.... And I
+would like to have your friendship still, if I may----"
+
+"You have it."
+
+"Even yet?"
+
+"Why not?... It's selfish of me to say it--but I wish you--could have
+saved me," he said almost carelessly.
+
+"From what, Mr. Quarren? I really do not understand you."
+
+"From being what I am--the sort of man you first divined me to be."
+
+"What do you mean by 'saving' you?" she asked, coldly.
+
+"I don't know!--giving me a glimmer of hope I suppose--something to
+strive for."
+
+"One saves one's self," she said.
+
+He turned an altered face toward her: and she looked at him intently.
+
+"I guess you are right," he said with a short laugh. "If there is
+anything worth saving, one saves one's self."
+
+"I think that is true," she said.... "And--if my friendship--if you
+really care for it----"
+
+He met her gaze:
+
+"I honestly don't know. I've been carried off my feet by you,
+completely. A man, under such conditions, doesn't know anything--not
+even enough to hold his tongue--as you may have noticed. I am in love
+with you. As I am to-day, my love for you would do you no good--I don't
+know whether yours would do me any good--or your friendship, either. It
+ought to if I amounted to anything; but I don't--and I don't know."
+
+"I wish you would not speak so bitterly--please----"
+
+"All right. It wasn't bitterness; it was just whine. ... I'll go, now.
+You will comprehend, after you think it over, that there is at least
+nothing of impertinence in my loving you--only a blind unreason--a
+deadly fear lest the other man in me, suddenly revealed, vanish before I
+could understand him. Because when I saw you, life's meaning broke out
+suddenly--like a star--and that's another stale simile. But one has to
+climb very far before one can touch even the nearest of the stars.... So
+forgive my one lucid interval.... I shall probably never have
+another.... May I take you to your carriage?"
+
+"Mrs. Lannis is calling for me."
+
+"Then--I will take my leave--and the tatters of my reputation--any song
+can buy it, now----"
+
+"Mr. Quarren!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I don't want you to go--like this. I want you to go away knowing in
+your heart that you have been very--nice--agreeable--to a young girl who
+hasn't perhaps had as much experience as you think----"
+
+"Thank God," he said, smiling.
+
+"I want you to like me, always," she said. "Will you?"
+
+"I promise," he replied so blithely that for a moment his light irony
+deceived her. Then something in his eyes left her silent, concerned,
+unresponsive--only her heart seemed to repeat persistently in childish
+reiteration, the endless question, Why? Why? Why? And she heard it but
+found no answer where love was not, and had never been.
+
+"I--am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I--I try to understand you--but
+I don't seem to.... I am so _very_ sorry that you--care for me."
+
+He took her gloved hand, and she let him.
+
+"I guess I'm nothing but a harlequin after all," he said, "and they're
+legitimate objects for pity. Good-bye, Mrs. Leeds. You've been very
+patient and sweet with a blithering lunatic.... I've committed only
+another harlequinade of a brand-new sort. But the fall from that balcony
+would have been less destructive."
+
+She looked at him out of her gray eyes.
+
+"One thing," she said, with a tremulous smile, "you may be certain that
+I am not going to forget you very easily."
+
+"Another thing," he said, "I shall never forget you as long as I live;
+and--you have my violets, I see. Are they to follow the gardenia?"
+
+"Only when their time comes," she said, trying to laugh.
+
+So he wished her a happy trip and sojourn in the South, and went away
+into the city--downtown, by the way to drop into an office chair in an
+empty office and listen to the click of a typewriter in the outer room,
+and sit there hour after hour with his chin in his hand staring at
+nothing out of the clear blue eyes of a boy.
+
+And she went away to her luncheon at the Province Club with Susanne
+Lannis who wished her to meet some of the governors--very grand
+ladies--upon whose good will depended Strelsa's election to the most
+aristocratic, comfortable, wisely managed, and thriftiest of all
+metropolitan clubs.
+
+After luncheon she, with Mrs. Lannis and Chrysos Lacy--a pretty
+red-haired edition of her brother--went to see "Sumurun."
+
+And after they had tea at the redoubtable Mrs. Sprowl's, where there
+were more footmen than guests, more magnificence than comfort, and more
+wickedness in the gossip than lemon in the tea or Irish in the more
+popular high-ball.
+
+The old lady, fat, pink, enormous, looked about her out of her little
+glittering green eyes with a pleased conviction that everybody on earth
+was mortally afraid of her. And everybody, who happened to be anybody in
+New York, was exactly that--with a few eccentric exceptions like her
+nephew, Karl Westguard, and half a dozen heavily upholstered matrons
+whose social altitude left them nothing to be afraid of except lack of
+deference and death.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl had a fat, wheezy, and misleading laugh; and it took time
+for Strelsa to understand that there was anything really venomous in the
+old lady; but the gossip there that afternoon, and the wheezy delight in
+driving a last nail into the coffin of some moribund reputation, made
+plain to her why her hostess was held in such respectful terror.
+
+The talk finally swerved from Molly Wycherly's ball to the Irish
+Legation, and Mrs. Sprowl leaned toward Strelsa, and panted behind her
+fan:
+
+"A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men give there!
+Orgies, I understand! No pretty actress in town is kept sighing long for
+invitations. Even"--she whispered the name of a lovely and respectable
+prima-donna with a perfectly good husband and progeny--and nodded so
+violently that it set her coughing.
+
+"Oh," cried Strelsa, distressed, "surely you have been misinformed!"
+
+"Not in the least," wheezed the old lady. "She is no better than the
+rest of 'em! And I sent for my nephew Karl, and I brought him up
+roundly. 'Karl!' said I, 'what the devil do you mean! Do you want that
+husband of hers dragging you all into court?' And, do you know, my dear,
+he appeared perfectly astounded--said it wasn't so--just as you said a
+moment ago. But I can put two and two together, yet; I'm not too old and
+witless to do that! And I warrant you I gave him a tongue trouncing
+which he won't forget. ... Probably he retailed it to that O'Hara man,
+and to young Quarren, too. If he did it won't hurt 'em, either."
+
+She was speaking now so generally that everybody heard her, and Cyrille
+Caldera said:
+
+"Ricky is certainly innocuous, anyway."
+
+"Oh, _is_ he!" said Mrs. Sprowl with another wheezy laugh. "I fancy I
+know that boy. Did you say 'harmless,' Susanne? Well, _you_ ought to
+know, of course----"
+
+Cyrille Caldera blushed brightly although her affair with Quarren had
+been of the most innocent description.
+
+[Illustration: "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men
+give there!'"]
+
+"There's probably as much ground for indicting Ricky as there is for
+indicting me," she protested. "He's merely a nice, useful boy----"
+
+"Rather vapid, don't you think?" observed a thin young woman in sables
+and an abundance of front teeth.
+
+"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and
+a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination."
+
+"He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell
+me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly
+harmless."
+
+"Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to.
+
+"Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde--whose husband must have been
+an idiot--and Cynthia Challis--she married Prince Sarnoff, you
+remember----"
+
+"The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy.
+
+"I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl.
+"How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar----"
+
+"Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis.
+
+"Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em
+marry him. Poor Ricky."
+
+"Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is _so_ nice, and nobody is likely to
+marry him."
+
+"Why?" asked Strelsa.
+
+"Because he's--why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't
+you know it?"
+
+"No," said Strelsa.
+
+"That's the trouble--partly. Then there's no social advantage for any
+girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out
+of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky--unless he
+marries a lame duck."
+
+"Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained
+Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed.
+
+"Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight."
+
+"The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's
+intelligent otherwise I fancy."
+
+"Yes, but not intellectual."
+
+"I think you are possibly mistaken."
+
+The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis
+laughed.
+
+"Are _you_ his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night
+for the first time."
+
+"Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet
+Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But
+you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison
+arrives." At which sally everybody laughed.
+
+Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the
+coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British
+officer's arrival.
+
+Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew,
+because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was
+understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning
+people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa
+Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of
+fashionable banter.
+
+"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles
+you'll forget Ricky."
+
+"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl,
+why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy."
+
+"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the
+eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are
+pretty."
+
+"I have enough--almost----"
+
+"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!"
+laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa--you'll need
+them."
+
+"You are mistaken. I _have_ enough. I'd like to be happy for a while."
+
+The naive inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and
+happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of
+the past which had unconsciously evoked it.
+
+After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in,
+one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of
+Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in
+kennel parlance.
+
+To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed
+loud and long.
+
+"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves
+as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular
+among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby
+agape. But your man of the world has other tastes."
+
+"Jaded tastes," said somebody.
+
+"Maybe they're jaded and vicious--but they're his. And maybe that girl
+has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But
+it's the last shriek among people who know."
+
+"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French
+sculptor who did the Merode?"
+
+"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else.
+
+"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds
+needs padding--to suit my notions."
+
+"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl
+will be scandalous when she fills out a little more.... If she only had
+the wits to match what she is going to be!--But there's a streak of
+something silly in her--I suspect latent sentiment--which is likely to
+finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels
+for Ricky, now!--a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except
+in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little
+minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky."
+
+"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing.
+
+"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks
+in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that
+girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind
+about Strelsa Leeds, and"--she glared around her, fanning vigorously--"I
+_think_ nobody is likely to interfere."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid
+down the law of limits to him so decisively that, taken aback,
+astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment.
+
+When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly
+that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned.
+
+But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who
+had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders.
+
+When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had
+taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his
+conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her.
+
+He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing
+sponsor for Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old
+lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?"
+
+He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at
+Strelsa.
+
+Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very
+bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals.
+
+"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass.
+
+"What?" he asked sullenly.
+
+"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix--and also amass a little
+common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to
+start things for her. Which I shan't--in that direction."
+
+"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with
+an unpleasant laugh.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically.
+
+"I understand the Earl of Dankmere, perfectly," she said--"also other
+people, including young, and sulky boys. So if you clearly understand my
+wishes, and the girl doesn't make a fool of herself over you or any
+other callow ineligible, her future will give me something agreeable to
+occupy me."
+
+The blood stung his face as he stood up--a tall graceful figure among
+the others in the box--a clean-cut, wholesome boy to all appearances,
+with that easy and amiable presence which is not distinction but which
+sometimes is even more agreeable.
+
+Lips compressed, the flush still hot on his face, he stood silent,
+tasting all the bitterness that his career had stored up for him--sick
+with contempt for a self that could accept and swallow such things. For
+he had been well schooled, but scarcely to that contemptible point.
+
+"Of course," he said, pleasantly, "you understand that I shall do as I
+please."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl laughed:
+
+"I'll see to that, too, Ricky."
+
+Chrysos Lacy leaned forward and began to talk to him, and his training
+reacted mechanically, for he seemed at once to become his gay and
+engaging self.
+
+He did not return to the Vernons' box nor did he see Strelsa again
+before she went South.
+
+The next night a note was delivered to him, written from the Wycherlys'
+car, "Wind-Flower."
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN:
+
+     "Why did you not come back to say good-bye? You spoke of doing so.
+     I'm afraid Chrysos Lacy is responsible.
+
+     "The dance at the Van Dynes was very jolly. I am exceedingly sorry
+     you were not there. Thank you for the flowers and bon-bons that
+     were delivered to me in my state-room. My violets are not yet
+     entirely faded, so they have not yet joined your gardenia in the
+     limbo of useless things.
+
+     "Mr. Westguard came to the train. He _is_ nice.
+
+     "Mr. O'Hara and Chrysos and Jack Lacy were there, so in spite of
+     your conspicuous absence the Legation maintained its gay reputation
+     and covered itself with immortal blarney.
+
+     "This letter was started as a note to thank you for your gifts, but
+     it is becoming a serial as Molly and Jim and I sit here watching
+     the North Carolina landscape fly past our windows like streaks of
+     brown lightened only by the occasional delicious and sunny green of
+     some long-leafed pine.
+
+     "There's nothing to see from horizon to horizon except the
+     monotonous repetition of mules and niggers and evil-looking cypress
+     swamps and a few razor-backs and a buzzard flying very high in the
+     blue.
+
+     "Thank you again for my flowers.... I wonder if you understand that
+     my instinct is to be friends with you?
+
+     "It was from the very beginning.
+
+     "And please don't be absurd enough to think that I am going to
+     forget you--or our jolly escapade at the Wycherly ball. You behaved
+     very handsomely once. I know I can count on your kindness to me.
+
+     "Good-bye, and many many thanks--as Jack Lacy says--'f'r the manny
+     booggy-rides, an' th' goom-candy, an' the boonches av malagy
+     grrapes'!
+
+                                  "Sincerely your friend,
+
+                                             "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+That same day Sir Charles Mallison arrived in New York and went directly
+to Mrs. Sprowl's house. Their interview was rather brief but loudly
+cordial on the old lady's part:
+
+"How's my sister and Foxy?" she asked--meaning Sir Renard and Lady
+Spinney.
+
+Sir Charles regretted he had not seen them.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Quite fit, thanks." And he gravely trusted that her own health was
+satisfactory.
+
+"You haven't changed your mind?" she asked with a smile which the
+profane might consider more like a grin.
+
+Sir Charles said he had not, and a healthy colour showed under the tan.
+
+"All these years," commented the old lady, ironically.
+
+"Four," said Sir Charles.
+
+"Was it four years ago when you saw her in Egypt?"
+
+"Four years--last month--the tenth."
+
+"And never saw her again?"
+
+"Never."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl shook with asthmatic mirth:
+
+"Such story-book constancy! Why didn't you ask your friend the late
+Sirdar to have Leeds pitched into the Nile. It would have saved you
+those four years' waiting? You know you haven't many years to waste, Sir
+Charles."
+
+"I'm forty-five," he said, colouring painfully.
+
+"Four years gone to hell," said the old lady with that delicate candour
+which sometimes characterised her.... "And now what do you propose to do
+with the rest of 'em? Dawdle away your time?"
+
+[Illustration: "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length, reddening
+again."]
+
+"Face my fate," he admitted touching his moustache and fearfully
+embarrassed.
+
+"Well, if you're in a hurry, you'll have to go down South to face it.
+She's at Palm Beach for the next three weeks."
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+She looked up at him, her little opaque green eyes a trifle softened.
+
+"I am trying to get you the prettiest woman in America," she said. "I'm
+ready to fight off everybody else--beat 'em to death," she added, her
+eyes snapping, then suddenly kind again--"because, Sir Charles, I like
+you. And for no other reason on earth!"
+
+Which was not the exact truth. It was for another man's sake she was
+kind to him. And the other man had been dead many years.
+
+Sir Charles thanked her, awkwardly, and fell silent again, pulling his
+moustache.
+
+"Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?" he ventured, at length, reddening again.
+
+"Perfectly. She's a bit wiry just now--thin--leggy, y' know. Some
+fanciers prefer 'em weedy. But she'll plump up. I know the breed."
+
+He shrank from her loud voice and the vulgarity of her comments, and she
+was aware of it and didn't care a rap. There were plenty of noble ladies
+as vulgar as she, and more so--and anyway it was not this well-built,
+sober-faced man of forty-five whom she was serving with all the craft
+and insolence and brutality and generosity that was in her--it was the
+son of a dead man who had been much to her. How much nobody in these
+days gossiped about any longer, for it was a long time ago, a long, long
+time ago that she had made her curtsey to a young queen and a prince
+consort. And Sir Charles's father had died at Majuba Hill.
+
+"There's a wretched little knock-kneed peer on the cards," she observed;
+"Dankmere. He seems to think she has money or something. If he comes
+over here, as my sister writes, I'll set him straighter than his own
+legs. And I've written Foxy to tell him so."
+
+"Dankmere is a very good chap," said Sir Charles, terribly embarrassed.
+
+"But not good enough. His level is the Quartier d'Europe. He'll find it;
+no fear.... When do you go South?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, so honestly that she grinned again.
+
+"Then I'll give you a letter to Molly Wycherly. Her husband is Jim
+Wycherly--one of your sort--eternally lumbering after something to kill.
+He has a bungalow on some lagoon where he murders ducks, and no doubt
+he'll go there. But his wife will be stopping at Palm Beach. I'll send
+you a letter to her in the morning."
+
+"Many thanks," said Sir Charles, shyly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Strelsa remained South longer than she had expected to remain, and at
+the end of the third week Quarren wrote her.
+
+
+     "DEAR MRS. LEEDS:
+
+     "Will you accept from me a copy of Karl's new book? And are you
+     ever coming back? You are missing an unusually diverting winter;
+     the opera is exceptional, there are some really interesting plays
+     in town and several new and amusing people--Prince and Princess
+     Sarnoff for example; and the Earl of Dankmere, an anxious, and
+     perplexed little man, sadly hard up, and simple-minded enough to
+     say so; which amuses everybody immensely.
+
+     "He's pathetically original; plebeian on his mother's side; very
+     good-natured; nothing at all of a sportsman; and painfully short of
+     both intellect and cash--a funny, harmless, distracted little man
+     who runs about asking everybody the best and quickest methods of
+     amassing a comfortable fortune in America. And I must say that
+     people have jollied him rather cruelly.
+
+     "The Sarnoffs on the other hand are modest and nice people--the
+     Prince is a yellow, dried-up Asiatic who is making a collection of
+     parasites--a shrewd, kindly, and clever little scientist. His wife
+     is a charming girl, intellectual but deliciously feminine. She was
+     Cynthia Challis before her marriage, and always a most attractive
+     and engaging personality. They dined with us at the Legation on
+     Thursday.
+
+     "Afterward there was a dance at Mrs. Sprowl's. I led from one end,
+     Lester Caldera from the other. One or two newspapers criticised the
+     decorations and favours as vulgarly expensive; spoke of a 'monkey
+     figure'--purely imaginary--which they said I introduced into the
+     cotillion, and that the favours were marmosets!--who probably were
+     the intellectual peers of anybody present.
+
+     "The old lady is in a terrific temper. I'm afraid some poor
+     scribblers are going to catch it. I thought it very funny.
+
+     "Speaking of scribblers and temper reminds me that Karl Westguard's
+     new book is stirring up a toy tempest. He has succeeded in
+     offending a dozen people who pretend to recognise themselves or
+     their relatives among the various characters. I don't know whether
+     the novel is really any good, or not. We, who know Karl so
+     intimately, find it hard to realise that perhaps he may be a writer
+     of some importance.
+
+     "There appears to be considerable excitement about this new book.
+     People seem inclined to discuss it at dinners; Karl's publishers
+     are delighted. Karl, on the contrary, is not at all flattered by
+     the kind of a success that menaces him. He is mad all through, but
+     not as mad as his redoubtable aunt, who tells everybody that he's a
+     scribbling lunatic who doesn't know what he's writing, and that she
+     washes her fat and gem-laden hands of him henceforth.
+
+     "Poor Karl! He's already thirty-seven; he's written fifteen books,
+     no one of which, he tells me, ever before stirred up anybody's
+     interest. But this newest novel, 'The Real Thing,' has already gone
+     into three editions in two weeks--whatever that actually means--and
+     still the re-orders are pouring in, and his publishers are madly
+     booming it, and several indignant people are threatening Karl with
+     the law of libel, and Karl is partly furious, partly amused, and
+     entirely astonished at the whole affair.
+
+     "Because you see, the people who think they recognise portraits of
+     themselves or their friends in several of the unattractive
+     characters in the story--are as usual, in error. Karl's people are
+     always purely and synthetically composite. Besides everybody who
+     knows Karl Westguard ought to know that he's too decent a fellow,
+     and too good a workman to use models stupidly. Anybody can copy;
+     anybody can reproduce the obvious. Even photographers are artists
+     in these days. Good work is a synthesis founded on truth, and
+     carried logically to a conclusion.
+
+     "But it's useless to try to convince the Philistines. Once
+     possessed with the idea that they or their friends are 'meant,' as
+     they say, Archimedes's lever could not pry them loose from their
+     agreeably painful obsession.
+
+     "Then there are other sorts of humans who are already bothering
+     Karl. This species recognise in every 'hero' or 'heroine' a minute
+     mental and physical analysis of themselves and their own
+     particular, specific, and petty emotions. Proud, happy, flattered,
+     they permit nobody to mistake the supposed tribute which they are
+     entirely self-persuaded that the novelist has offered to them.
+
+     "And these phases of 'The Real Thing' are fretting and mortifying
+     Karl to the verge of distraction. He awakes to find himself not
+     famous but notorious--not criticised for his workmanship, good or
+     bad, but gabbled about because some ludicrous old Uncle Foozle
+     pretends to discover a similarity between Karl's episodes and
+     characters and certain doings of which Uncle F. is personally
+     cognisant.
+
+     "The great resource of stupidity is and has always been the
+     anagram; and as stupidity is almost invariably suspicious, the hunt
+     for hidden meanings preoccupies the majority of mankind.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Because I have ventured to send you Karl's new book is no reason
+     why I also should have presumed to write you a treatise in several
+     volumes.
+
+     "But I miss you, oddly enough--miss everything I never had of
+     you--your opinions on what interests us both; the delightful
+     discussions of things important, which have never taken place
+     between us. It's odd, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds, that I miss, long for,
+     and even remember so much that has never been?
+
+     "Molly Wycherly wrote to Mrs. Lannis that you were having a gay
+     time in Florida; that Sir Charles Mallison had joined your party;
+     that you'd had luncheons and dinners given you at the Club, at the
+     Inlet, at the Wiers's place, 'Coquina Castle'; and that Jim and Sir
+     Charles had bravely slain many ducks. Which is certainly glory
+     enough to go round. In a friendly little note to me you were good
+     enough to ask what I am doing, and to emphasise your request for an
+     answer by underlining your request.
+
+     "Proud and flattered by your generous interest I hasten to inform
+     you that I am leading the same useful, serious, profitable,
+     purposeful, ambitious, and ennobling life which I was leading when
+     I first met you. Such a laudable existence makes for one's
+     self-respect; and, happy in that consciousness, undisturbed by
+     journalistic accusations concerning marmosets and vulgarity, I
+     concentrate my entire intellectual efforts upon keeping my job,
+     which is to remain deaf, dumb, and blind, and at the same time be
+     ornamental, resourceful, good-tempered, and amusing to those who
+     are not invariably all of these things at the same time.
+
+     "Is it too much to expect another note from you?
+
+                               "Sincerely yours,
+
+                                         "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN."
+
+
+
+She answered him on the fourth week of her absence.
+
+
+     "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN:
+
+     "Your letter interested me, but there was all through it an
+     undertone of cynicism which rang false--almost a dissonance to an
+     ear which has heard you strike a truer chord.
+
+     "I do not like what you say of yourself, or of your life. I have
+     talked very seriously with Molly, who adores you; and she evidently
+     thinks you capable of achieving anything you care to undertake.
+     Which is my own opinion--based on twenty-four hours of
+     acquaintance.
+
+     "I have read Mr. Westguard's novel. Everybody here is reading it.
+     I'd like to talk to you about it, some day. Mr. Westguard's intense
+     bitterness confuses me a little, and seems almost to paralyse any
+     critical judgment I may possess. A crusade in fiction has always
+     seemed to me but a sterile effort. To do a thing is fine; to talk
+     about it in fiction a far less admirable performance--like the
+     small boy, safe in the window, who defies his enemy with out-thrust
+     tongue.
+
+     "When I was young--a somewhat lonely child, with only a very few
+     books to companion me--I pored over Carlyle's 'French Revolution,'
+     and hated Philip Egalite. But that youthful hatred was a little
+     modified because Egalite did actually become personally active. If
+     he had only talked, my hatred would have become contempt for a
+     renegade who did not possess the courage of his convictions. But he
+     voted death to his own caste, facing the tribunal. He talked, but
+     he also acted.
+
+     "I do not mean this as a parallel between Mr. Westguard and the
+     sanguinary French iconoclast. Mr. Westguard, also, has the courage
+     of his convictions; he lives, I understand, the life which he
+     considers a proper one. It is the life which he preaches in 'The
+     Real Thing'--a somewhat solemn, self-respecting, self-supporting
+     existence, devoted to self-development; a life of upright thinking,
+     and the fulfilment of duty, civil and religious, incident to
+     dignified citizenship. Such a life may be a blameless one; I don't
+     know.
+
+     "Also it might even be admirable within its limits if Mr. Westguard
+     did not also appoint himself critic, disciplinarian, and prophet of
+     that particular section of society into which accident of birth has
+     dumped him.
+
+     "Probably there is no section of human society that does not need a
+     wholesome scourging now and then, but somehow, it seems to me, that
+     it could be done less bitterly and with better grace than Mr.
+     Westguard does it in his book. The lash, swung from within, and
+     applied with judgment and discrimination, ought to do a more
+     thorough and convincing piece of work than a knout allied with the
+     clubs of the proletariat, hitting at every head in sight.
+
+     "Let the prophets and sybils, the augurs and oracles of the _Hoi
+     polloi_ address themselves to them; and let ours talk to us, not
+     _about_ us to the world at large.
+
+     "A renegade from either side makes an unholy alliance, and, with
+     his first shout from the public pulpit, tightens the master knot
+     which he is trying to untie to the glory of God and for the sake of
+     peace and good will on earth. And the result is Donnybrook Fair.
+
+     "I hate to speak this way to you of your friend, and about a man I
+     like and, in a measure, really respect. But this is what I think.
+     And my inclination is to tell you the truth, always.
+
+     "Concerning the artistic value of Mr. Westguard's literary
+     performance, I know little. The simplicity of his language
+     recommends the pages to me. The book is easy to read. Perhaps
+     therein lies his art; I do not know.
+
+     "Now, as I am in an unaccountably serious mood amid all the
+     frivolity of this semi-tropical place, may I not say to you
+     something about yourself? How are you going to silence me?
+
+     "Well, then; you seem to reason illogically. You make little of
+     yourself, yet you offer me your friendship, by implication, every
+     time you write to me. You seek my society mentally. Do you really
+     believe that my mind is so easily satisfied with intellectual
+     rubbish, or that I am flattered by letters from a nobody?
+
+     "What do you suppose there is attractive about you, Mr. Quarren--if
+     you really do amount to as little as you pretend? I've seen
+     handsomer men, monsieur, wealthier men, more intelligent men; men
+     more experienced, men of far greater talents and attainments.
+
+     "Why do you suppose that I sit here in the Southern sunshine
+     writing to you when there are dozens of men perfectly ready to
+     amuse me?--and qualified to do it, too!
+
+     "For the sake of your _beaux-yeux_? _Non pas!_
+
+     "But there is a _something_ which the world recognises as a subtle
+     and nameless sympathy. And it stretches an invisible filament
+     between you and the girl who is writing to you.
+
+     "That tie is not founded on sentiment; I think you know that. And,
+     of things spiritual, you and I have never yet spoken.
+
+     "Therefore I conclude that the tie must be purely intellectual;
+     that mind calls to mind and finds contentment in the far response.
+
+     "So, when you pretend to me that you are of no intellectual
+     account, you pay me a scurvy compliment. _Quod erat demonstrandum._
+
+     "With this gentle reproof I seal my long, long letter, and go where
+     the jasmine twineth and the orchestra playeth; for it is tea-time,
+     my friend, and the Park of Peacocks is all a-glitter with plumage.
+     Soft eyes look wealth to eyes that ask again; and all is brazen as
+     a dinner bell!
+
+     "O friend! do you know that since I have been here I might have
+     attained to fortune, had I cared to select any one of several
+     generous gentlemen who have been good enough to thrust that
+     commodity at me?
+
+     "To be asked to marry a man no longer distresses me. I am all over
+     the romantic idea of being sorry for wealthy amateurs who make me a
+     plain business proposition, offering to invest a fortune in my
+     good looks. To amateurs, connoisseurs, and collectors, there is no
+     such thing as a fixed market value to anything. An object of art is
+     worth what it can be bought for. I don't yet know how much I am
+     worth. I may yet find out.
+
+     "There are nice men here, odious men, harmless men, colourless men,
+     worthy men, and the ever-present fool. He is really the happiest, I
+     suppose.
+
+     "Then, all in a class by himself, is an Englishman, one Sir Charles
+     Mallison. I don't know what to tell you about him except that I
+     feel exceedingly safe and comfortable when I am with him.
+
+     "He says very little; I say even less. But it is agreeable to be
+     with him.
+
+     "He is middle-aged, and, I imagine, very wise. Perhaps his
+     reticence makes me think so. He and Mr. Wycherly shoot ducks on the
+     lagoon--and politics into each other.
+
+     "I must go. You are not here to persuade me to stay and talk
+     nonsense to you against my better judgment. You're quite helpless,
+     you see. So I'm off.
+
+     "Will you write to me again?
+
+                                       "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+A week after Quarren had answered her letter O'Hara called his attention
+to a paragraph in a morning paper which hinted at an engagement between
+Sir Charles Mallison and Mrs. Leeds.
+
+Next day's paper denied it on excellent authority; so, naturally, the
+world at large believed the contrary.
+
+Southern news also revealed the interesting item that the yacht,
+_Yulan_, belonging to Mrs. Sprowl's hatchet-faced nephew, Langly Sprowl,
+had sailed from Miami for the West Indies with the owner and Mrs. Leeds
+and Sir Charles Mallison among the guests.
+
+The _Yulan_ had not as fragrant a reputation as its exotic name might
+signify, respectable parties being in the minority aboard her, but
+Langly Sprowl was Langly Sprowl, and few people declined any invitation
+of his.
+
+He was rather a remarkable young man, thin as a blade, with a voracious
+appetite and no morals. Nor did he care whether anybody else had any.
+What he wanted he went after with a cold and unsensitive directness that
+no newspapers had been courageous enough to characterise. He wouldn't
+have cared if they had.
+
+Among other things that he had wanted, recently, was another man's wife.
+The other man being of his own caste made no difference to him; he
+simply forced him to let his wife divorce him; which, it was understood,
+that pretty young matron was now doing as rapidly as the laws of Nevada
+allowed.
+
+Meanwhile Langly Sprowl had met Strelsa Leeds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sailing of the _Yulan_ for the West Indies became the topic of
+dinner and dance gossip; and Quarren heard every interpretation that
+curiosity and malice could put upon the episode.
+
+He had been feeling rather cheerful that day; a misguided man from
+Jersey City had suddenly developed a mania for a country home. Quarren
+personally conducted him all over Tappan-Zee Park on the Hudson, through
+mud and slush in a skidding touring car, with the result that the man
+had become a pioneer and had promised to purchase a building site.
+
+So Quarren came back to the Legation that afternoon feeling almost
+buoyant, and discovered Westguard in all kinds of temper, smoking a huge
+faience pipe which he always did when angry, and which had become known
+as "The Weather-breeder."
+
+[Illustration: "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because I have a
+message to deliv--'"]
+
+"Jetzt geht das Wetter los!" quoted Quarren, dropping into a seat by the
+fire. "Where is this particular area of low depression centred, Karl?"
+
+"Over my damn book. The papers insist it's a _livre-a-clef_; and I am
+certain the thing is selling on that account! I tell you it's
+humiliating. I've done my best as honestly as I know how, and not one
+critic even mentions the philosophy of the thing; all they notice is the
+mere story and the supposed resemblance between my characters and living
+people! I'm cursed if I ever----"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Quarren tranquilly. "If you're a novelist you write
+to amuse people, and you ought to be thankful that you've succeeded."
+
+"Confound it!" roared Westguard, "I write to _instruct_ people! not to
+keep 'em from yawning!"
+
+"Then you've made a jolly fluke of it, that's all--because you have
+accidentally written a corking good story--good enough and interesting
+enough to make people stand for the cold chunks of philosophical
+admonition with which you've spread your sandwich--thinly, Heaven be
+praised!"
+
+"I write," said Westguard, furious, "because I've a message to
+deliv----"
+
+"Help!" moaned Quarren. "You write because it's in you to do it; because
+you've nothing more interesting to do; and because it enables you to
+make a decent and honourable living!"
+
+"Do those reasons prevent my having a message to deliver?" roared
+Westguard.
+
+"No, they exist in spite of it. You'd write anyway, whether or not you
+believed you had a message to deliver. You've written some fifteen
+novels, and fifteen times you have smothered your story with your
+message. This time, by accident, the story got its second breath, and
+romped home, with 'Message' a bad second, and that selling plater,
+'Philosophy,' left at the post----"
+
+"Go on!--you irreverent tout!" growled Westguard; "I want my novels
+read, of course. Any author does. But I wish to Heaven somebody would
+try to interpret the important lessons which I----"
+
+"Oh, preciousness and splash! Tell your story as well as you can, and if
+it's well done there'll be latent lessons enough in it."
+
+"Are you perhaps instructing me in my own profession?" asked the other,
+smiling.
+
+"Heaven knows I'm not venturing----"
+
+"Heaven knows you _are_! Also there is something In what you say--" He
+sat smoking, thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in the fire--"if I only
+_could_ manage that!--to arrest the public's attention by the rather
+cheap medium of the story, and then, cleverly, shoot a few moral pills
+into 'em.... That's one way, of course----"
+
+"Like the drums of the Salvation Army."
+
+Westguard looked around at him, suspiciously, but Quarren seemed to be
+serious enough.
+
+"I suppose it doesn't matter much how a fellow collects an audience, so
+that he does collect one."
+
+"Exactly," nodded Quarren. "Get your people, then keep 'em interested
+and unsuspecting while you inject 'em full of thinks."
+
+Westguard smoked and pondered; but presently his lips became stern and
+compressed.
+
+"I don't intend to trifle with my convictions or make any truce or any
+compromise with 'em," he announced. "I'm afraid that this last story of
+mine ran away with me."
+
+"It sure did, old Ironsides. Heaven protected her own this time. And in
+'The Real Thing' you have ridden farther out among the people with your
+Bible and your Sword than you ever have penetrated by brandishing both
+from the immemorial but immobile battlements of righteousness. Truth
+_is_ a citadel, old fellow; but its garrison should be raiders, not
+defenders. And they should ride far afield to carry its message. For few
+journey to that far citadel; you must go to them. And does it make any
+difference what vehicle you employ in the cause of Truth--so that the
+message arrives somewhere before your vehicle breaks down of its own
+heaviness? Novel or poem, sermon or holy writ--it's all one, Karl, so
+that they get there with their burden."
+
+Westguard sat silent a moment, then thumped the table, emphatically.
+
+"If I had your wasted talents," he said, "I could write anything!"
+
+"Rot!"
+
+"As you please. You use your ability rottenly--that's true enough."
+
+"My ability," mimicked Quarren.
+
+"Yes, your many, many talents, Rix. God knows why He gave them to you; I
+don't--for you use them ignobly, when you do not utterly neglect
+them----"
+
+"I've a light and superficial talent for entertaining people; I've
+nimble legs, and possess a low order of intelligence known as 'tact.'
+What more have I?"
+
+"You're the best amateur actor in New York, for example."
+
+"An _amateur_," sneered Quarren. "That is to say, a man who has the
+inclinations, but neither the courage, the self-respect, nor the
+ambition of the professional.... Well, I admit that. I lack
+something--courage, I think. I prefer what is easy. And I'm doing it."
+
+"What's your reward?" said Westguard bluntly.
+
+"Reward? Oh, I don't know. The inner temple. I have the run of the
+premises. People like me, trust me, depend upon me more or less. The
+intrigues and politics of my little world amuse me; now and then I act
+as ambassador, as envoy of peace, as herald, as secret diplomatic
+agent.... Reward? Oh, yes--you didn't suppose that my real-estate
+operations clothed and fed me, did you, Karl?"
+
+"What does?"
+
+"Diplomacy," explained Quarren gaily. "A successful embassy is rewarded.
+How? Why, now and then a pretty woman's husband makes an investment for
+me at his own risk; now and then, when my office is successfully
+accomplished, I have my fee as social attorney or arbiter
+elegantiarum.... There are, perhaps, fewer separations and divorces on
+account of me; fewer scandals.
+
+"I am sometimes called into consultation, _in extremis_; I listen, I
+advise--sometimes I plan and execute; even take the initiative and
+interfere--as when a foolish boy at the Cataract Club, last week, locked
+himself into the bath-room with an automatic revolver and a case of
+half-drunken fright. I had to be very careful; I expected to hear that
+drumming fusillade at any moment.
+
+"But I talked to him, through the keyhole: and at last he opened the
+door--to take a shot at me, first."
+
+Quarren shrugged and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Of course," he added, "his father was only too glad to pay his debts.
+But boys don't always see things in their true proportions. Neither do
+women."
+
+Westguard, silent, scowling, pulled at his pipe for a while, then:
+
+"Why should you play surgeon and nurse in such a loathsome hospital?"
+
+"Somebody must. I seem better fitted to do it than the next man."
+
+"Yes," said Westguard with a wry face, "I fancy somebody must do
+unpleasant things--even among the lepers of Molokai. But I'd prefer real
+lepers."
+
+"The social sort are sometimes sicker," laughed Quarren.
+
+"I don't agree with you.... By the way, it's all off between my aunt and
+me."
+
+"I'm sorry, Karl----"
+
+"I'm not! I don't want her money. She told me to go to the devil, and I
+said something similar. Do you know what she wants me to do?" he added
+angrily. "Give up writing, live on an allowance from her, and marry
+Chrysos Lacy! What do you think of that for a cold-blooded and
+impertinent proposition! We had a fearful family row," he continued with
+satisfaction--"my aunt bellowing so that her footmen actually fled, and
+I doing the cool and haughty, and letting her bellow her bally head
+off."
+
+"You and she have exchanged civilities before," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"Yes, but this is really serious. I'm damned if I give up writing."
+
+"Or marry Chrysos Lacy?"
+
+"Or that, either. Do you think I want a red-headed wife? And I've never
+spoken a dozen words to her, either. And I'll pick out my own wife. What
+does my aunt think I am? I wish I were in love with somebody's
+parlour-maid. B'jinks! I'd marry her, just to see my aunt's
+expression----"
+
+"Oh, stop your fulminations," said Quarren, laughing. "That's the way
+with you artistic people; you're a passionate pack of pups!"
+
+"I'm not as passionate as my aunt!" retorted Westguard wrathfully. "Do
+you consider her artistic? She's a meddlesome, malicious, domineering,
+insolent, evil old woman, and I told her so."
+
+Quarren managed to stifle his laughter for a moment, but his sense of
+the ludicrous was keen, and the scene his fancy evoked sent him off into
+mirth uncontrollable.
+
+Westguard eyed him gloomily; ominous clouds poured from "The
+Weather-breeder."
+
+"Perhaps it's funny," he said, "but she and I cannot stand each other,
+and this time it's all off for keeps. I told her if she sent me another
+check I'd send it back. That settles it, doesn't it?"
+
+"You're foolish, Karl----"
+
+"Never mind. If I can't keep myself alive in an untrammelled and
+self-respecting exercise of my profession--" His voice ended in a
+gurgling growl. Then, as though the recollections of his injuries at the
+hands of his aunt still stung him, he reared up in his chair:
+
+"Chrysos Lacy," he roared, "is a sweet, innocent girl--not a bale of
+fashionable merchandise! Besides," he added in a modified tone, "I was
+rather taken by--by Mrs. Leeds."
+
+Quarren slowly raised his eyes.
+
+"I was," insisted Westguard sulkily; "and I proved myself an ass by
+saying so to my aunt. Why in Heaven's name I was idiot enough to go and
+tell her, I don't know. Perhaps I had a vague idea that she would be so
+delighted that she'd give me several tons of helpful advice."
+
+"Did she?"
+
+"_Did_ she! She came back at me with Chrysos Lacy, I tell you! And when
+I merely smiled and attempted to waive away the suggestion, she flew
+into a passion, called me down, cursed me out--you know her language
+isn't always in good taste--and then she ordered me to keep away from
+Mrs. Leeds--as though I ever hung around any woman's skirts! I'm no
+Squire of Dames. I tell you, Rix, I was mad clear through. So I told her
+that I'd marry Mrs. Leeds the first chance I got----"
+
+"Don't talk about her that way," remonstrated Quarren pleasantly.
+
+"About who? My aunt?"
+
+"I didn't mean your aunt?"
+
+"Oh. About Mrs. Leeds. Why not? She's the most attractive woman I ever
+met----"
+
+"Very well. But don't talk about marrying her--as though you had merely
+to suggest it to her. You know, after all, Mrs. Leeds may have ideas of
+her own."
+
+"Probably she has," admitted Westguard, sulkily. "I don't imagine she'd
+care for a man of my sort. Why do you suppose she went off on that
+cruise with Langly Sprowl?"
+
+Quarren said, gravely: "I have no idea what reasons Mrs. Leeds has for
+doing anything."
+
+"You correspond."
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"My aunt."
+
+Quarren flushed up, but said nothing.
+
+Westguard, oblivious of his annoyance, and enveloped in a spreading
+cloud of tobacco, went on:
+
+"Of course if _you_ don't know, _I_ don't. But, by the same token, my
+aunt was in a towering rage when she heard that Langly had Mrs. Leeds
+aboard the _Yulan_."
+
+"What!" said the other, sharply.
+
+"She swore like a trooper, and called Langly all kinds of impolite
+names. Said she'd trim him if he ever tried any of his tricks around
+Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"What tricks? What does she mean by tricks?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose she meant any of his blackguardly philandering. There
+isn't a woman living on whom he is afraid to try his hatchet-faced
+blandishments."
+
+Quarren dropped back into the depths of his arm-chair. Presently his
+rigid muscles relaxed. He said coolly:
+
+"I don't think Langly Sprowl is likely to misunderstand Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"That depends," said Westguard. "He's a rotten specimen, even if he is
+my cousin. And he knows I think so."
+
+A few minutes later O'Hara sauntered in. He had been riding in the Park
+and his boots and spurs were shockingly muddy.
+
+"Who is this Sir Charles Mallison, anyway?" he asked, using the decanter
+and then squirting his glass full of carbonic. "Is it true that he's
+goin' to marry that charmin' Mrs. Leeds? I'll break his bally Sassenach
+head for him! I'll----"
+
+"The rumour was contradicted in this morning's paper," said Quarren
+coldly.
+
+O'Hara drank pensively: "I see that Langly Sprowl is messin' about, too.
+Mrs. Ledwith had better hurry up out there in Reno--or wherever she's
+gettin' her divorce. I saw Chet Ledwith ridin' in the Park. Dankmere was
+with him. Funny he doesn't seem to lose any caste by sellin' his wife to
+Sprowl."
+
+"The whole thing is a filthy mess," growled Westguard; "let it alone."
+
+"Why don't you make a novel about it?" inquired O'Hara.
+
+"Because, you dub! I don't use real episodes or living people!" roared
+Westguard; "newspapers and a few chumps to the contrary!"
+
+"So!--so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly--"whoa--steady, boy!" And he
+pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when
+currying.
+
+"Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of
+human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I
+have any desire to do it, but if I _should_ ever write a novel dealing
+with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved."
+
+"You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals
+only," said Quarren.
+
+"Why? Aren't there plenty of scandalous----"
+
+"Plenty. But no more than in any other set or coterie; not as many as
+there are among more ignorant people. Virtue far outbalances vice among
+us: a novel, properly proportioned, ought to show that. If it doesn't,
+it's misleading."
+
+"Supposing," said Westguard, "that I were indecent enough to show up my
+aunt in fiction. Nobody would believe her possible."
+
+"I sometimes doubt her even now," observed O'Hara, grinning.
+
+Quarren said: "Count up the unpleasant characters in your own social
+vicinity, Karl--just to prove to yourself that there are really very
+few."
+
+"There is Langly--and my aunt--and the Lester Calderas--and the
+Ledwiths----"
+
+"Go on!"
+
+Westguard laughed: "I guess that ends the list," he said.
+
+"It does. Also I dispute the list," said Quarren.
+
+"Cyrille Caldera is a pippin," remarked O'Hara, sentimentally.
+
+"What about Mary Ledwith? Is anybody here inclined to sit in judgment?"
+
+"I," said Westguard grimly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Divorce is a dirty business."
+
+"Oh. You'd rather she put up with Chester?--the sort of man who was weak
+enough to let her go?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Get out, you old Roundhead!" said Quarren, laughing. He rose, laid his
+hand lightly on Westguard's shoulder in passing, and went upstairs to
+his room, where he wrote a long letter to Strelsa; and then destroyed
+it. Then he lay down, covering his boyish head with his arms.
+
+When Lacy came in he saw him lying on the bed, and thought he was
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New
+York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm
+Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of
+change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the
+girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth.
+
+By daylight the fatigues of pleasure were faintly visible--that
+unmistakable imprint which may perhaps leave the eyes clear and calm,
+but which edges the hardened contour of the cheek under them with deeper
+violet shadow.
+
+Not that hers was as yet the battered beauty of exhaustion; she had
+merely lived every minute to the full all winter long, and had overtaxed
+her capacity; and the fire had consumed something of her freshness.
+
+Not yet inured, not yet crystallised to that experienced hardness which
+withstands the fierce flame of living too fast in a world where every
+minute is demanded and where sleep becomes a forgotten art, the girl was
+completely tired out, and while she herself did not realise it, her
+features showed it.
+
+But nervous exhaustion alone could not account for the subtle change in
+her expression. Eyes and lips were still sweet, even in repose, but
+there was now a jaded charm about them--something unspoiled had
+disappeared from them--something of that fearlessness which vanishes
+after too close and too constant contact with the world of men.
+
+Evidently her mind was quite as weary as her body, though even to
+herself she had not admitted fatigue; and a tired mind no longer defends
+itself. Hers had not; and the defence had been, day by day,
+imperceptibly weakening. So that things to which once she had been able
+at will to close her mind, and, mentally deaf, let pass unheard, she had
+heard, and had even thought about. And the effort to defend her ears and
+mind became less vigorous, less instinctive--partly through sheer
+weariness.
+
+The wisdom of woman and of man, and of what is called the world, the
+girl was now learning--unconsciously in the beginning and then with a
+kind of shamed indifference--but the creation of an artificial interest
+in anything is a subtle matter; and the ceaseless repetition of things
+unworthy at last awake that ignoble curiosity always latent in man.
+Because intelligence was born with it; and unwearied intelligence alone
+completely suppresses it.
+
+At first she had kept her head fairly level in the whirlwind of
+adulation. To glimpses of laxity she closed her eyes. Sir Charles was
+always refreshing to her; but she could see little more of him than of
+other men--less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that
+happened--and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly
+Sprowl.
+
+Again and again she found herself with him separated from the
+others--sometimes alone with him on deck--and never quite understood how
+it came about so constantly.
+
+As for Sprowl he made love to her from the first; and he was a trim,
+carefully groomed and volubly animated young man, full of information,
+and with a restless, ceaseless range of intelligence which at first
+dazzled with its false brilliancy.
+
+But it was only a kind of flash-light intelligence. It seemed to miss,
+occasionally; some cog, some screw somewhere was either absent or badly
+adjusted or over-strained.
+
+At first Strelsa found the young fellow fascinating. He had been
+everywhere and had seen everything; his mind was kaleidoscopic; his
+thought shifted, flashed, jerked, leaped like erratic lightning from one
+subject to another--from Japanese aeroplanes to a scheme for filling in
+the East River; from a plan to reconcile church and state in France to
+an idea for indefinitely prolonging human life. He had written several
+books about all kinds of things. Nobody read them.
+
+The first time he spoke to her of love was on a magnificent star-set
+night off Martinique; and she coolly reminded him of the gossip
+connecting him with a pretty woman in Reno. She could not have done it a
+month ago.
+
+He denied it so pleasantly, so frankly, that, astonished, she could
+scarcely choose but believe him.
+
+After that he made ardent, headlong love to her at every opportunity,
+with a flighty recklessness which began by amusing her. At first, also,
+she found wholesome laughter a good defence; but there was an
+under-current of intelligent, relentless vigour in his attack which
+presently sobered her. And she vaguely realised that he was a man who
+knew what he wanted. A talk with Molly Wycherly sobered her still more;
+and she avoided him as politely as she could. But, being her host, it
+was impossible to keep clear of him. Besides there was about him a
+certain unwholesome fascination, even for her. No matter how bad a man's
+record may be, few women doubt their ability to make it a better one.
+
+"You little goose," said Molly Wycherly, "everybody knows the kind of
+man he is. Could anything be more brazen than his attentions to you
+while Mary Ledwith is in Reno?"
+
+"He says that her being there has nothing to do with him."
+
+"Then he lies," said Molly, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"He doesn't speak as though he were trying to deceive anybody, Molly. He
+is perfectly frank to me. I can't believe that scandal. Besides he is
+quite open and manly about his unsavoury reputation; makes no excuses;
+simply says that there's good in every man, and that there is always one
+woman in the world who can bring it out----"
+
+"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell
+you----"
+
+"No man is!" insisted Strelsa.
+
+"What?"
+
+"No man is. The great masters of fiction always ascribe at least one
+virtue to their most infamous creations----"
+
+"Oh, Strelsa, you talk like a pan of fudge! _I_ tell you that Langly
+Sprowl is no good at all. I hope you won't have to marry him to find
+out."
+
+"I don't intend to.... How inconsistent you are, Molly. You--and
+everybody else--believe him to be the most magnificent match in----"
+
+"If position and wealth is all you care for, yes. I didn't suppose you'd
+come to that."
+
+Strelsa said candidly: "I care for both--I don't know how much."
+
+"As much as that?"
+
+"No; not enough to marry him. And if he is what you say, it's hopeless
+of course.... I don't think he is. Be decent, Molly; everybody is very
+horrid about him, and--and that is always a matter of sympathetic
+interest to a generous woman. When the whole world condemns a man it
+makes him interesting!"
+
+"That's a piffling and emotional thing to say! He may be attractive in
+an uncanny way, because he's agreeable to look at, amusing, and very
+dangerous--a perfectly cold-blooded, and I think, slightly unbalanced
+social marauder. And that's the fact about Langly Sprowl. And I wish we
+were on land, the _Yulan_ and her owner in--well, in the Erie Basin,
+perhaps."
+
+Whether or not Strelsa believed these things, there still remained in
+her that curious sense of fascination in Sprowl's presence, partly
+arising, no doubt, from an instinctive sympathy for a young man so
+universally damned; partly, because she thought that perhaps he really
+was damned. Therefore, deep in her heart she felt that he must be
+dangerous; and there is, in that one belief, every element of
+unwholesome fascination. And a mind fatigued is no longer wholesome.
+
+Then, too, there was always Sir Charles Mallison to turn to for a
+refreshing moral bath. Safety of soul lay in his vicinity; she felt
+confidence in the world wherever he traversed it. With him she relaxed
+and rested; there was repose for her in his silences; strength for her
+when he spoke; and a serene comradeship which no hint of sentiment had
+ever vexed.
+
+Perhaps only a few people realised how thoroughly a single winter was
+equipping Strelsa for the part she seemed destined to play in that
+narrow world with which she was already identified; and few realised how
+fast she was learning. Laxity of precept, easy morals, looseness of
+thought, idle and good-natured acquiescence in social conditions where
+all standards seemed alike, all ideals merely a matter of personal
+taste--this was the atmosphere into which she had stepped from two years
+of Western solitude after a nightmare of violence, cruelty, and
+depravity unutterable. And naturally it seemed heavenly to her; and each
+revelation inconsistent with her own fastidious instincts left her less
+and less surprised, less and less uneasy. And after a while she began to
+assimilate all that she saw and heard.
+
+A few unworldly instincts remained in her--gratitude for and quick
+response to any kindness offered from anybody; an inclination to make
+friends with stray wanderers into her circle, and to cultivate the
+socially useless.
+
+Taking four o'clock tea alone with Mrs. Sprowl the afternoon of her
+return to town--an honour vouchsafed to few--Strelsa was relating, at
+that masterful woman's request, her various exotic experiences. Mrs.
+Sprowl had commanded her attendance early. There were reasons. And now
+partly vexed, partly in unwilling admiration, the old lady sat smiling
+and all the while thinking to herself impatiently; "Baby! Fool! Little
+ninny! Imbecile!" while she listened, fat bejewelled hands folded, small
+green eyes shining in the expanse of powdered and painted fat.
+
+After a while she could endure it no longer, and she said with a wheeze
+of good-natured disdain:
+
+"It's like a school-girl's diary--all those rhapsodies over volcanoes,
+palm trees, and the colour of the Spanish Main. Never mind geography,
+child; tell me about the men!"
+
+"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly--"why there were shoals and shoals
+of them, of every description!"
+
+"I mean the _one_ man?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly.
+
+"Which, please?"
+
+"Nonsense! There _was_ one, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, I don't think so.... Your nephew, Langly, was exceedingly
+amiable----"
+
+"He's a plain beast," said his aunt, bluntly. "I didn't mean him."
+
+"He was very civil to me," insisted Strelsa, colouring.
+
+"Probably he didn't have a chance to be otherwise. He's a rotter, child.
+Ask anybody. I know perfectly well what he's been up to. I'm sorry you
+went on the _Yulan_. He had no business to ask you--or any other nice
+girl--or anybody at all until that Reno scandal is officially made
+respectable. If it were not for his money--" She stopped a moment,
+adding cynically--"and if it were not for mine--certain people wouldn't
+be tolerated anywhere, I suppose.... How did you like Sir Charles?"
+
+"Oh, he is charming!" she said warmly.
+
+"You like him?"
+
+"I almost adore him."
+
+"Why not adore him entirely?"
+
+[Illustration: "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the
+men!'"]
+
+Strelsa laughed frankly: "He hasn't asked me to, for one reason.
+Besides----"
+
+"No doubt he'll do it."
+
+The girl shook her head, still smiling:
+
+"You don't understand at all. There isn't the slightest sentiment
+between us. He's only thoroughly nice and agreeable, and he and I are
+most companionable. I hope nobody will be silly enough to hint anything
+of that sort to him. It would embarrass him dreadfully."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's smile was blandly tolerant:
+
+"The man's in love with you. Didn't you know it?"
+
+"But you are mistaken, dear Mrs. Sprowl. If it were true I would know
+it, I think."
+
+"Nonsense! He told me so."
+
+"Oh," said Strelsa in amazed consternation. She added: "If it _is_ so
+I'd rather not speak of it, please."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl eyed her with shifty but keen intelligence. "Little idiot,"
+she thought; but her smile remained bland and calmly patronising.
+
+For a second or two longer she studied the girl cautiously, trying to
+make up her mind whether there was really any character in Strelsa's
+soft beauty--anything firmer than material fastidiousness; anything more
+real than a natural and dainty reticence. Mrs. Sprowl could ride
+rough-shod over such details. But she was too wise to ride if there was
+any chance of a check from higher sources.
+
+"If you married him it would be very gratifying to me," she said
+pleasantly. "Come; let's discuss the matter like sensible women. Shall
+we?"
+
+Many people would not have disregarded such a wish. Strelsa flushed and
+lifted her purple-gray eyes to meet the little green ones scanning her
+slyly.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, "but I couldn't discuss such a thing, you see.
+Don't you see I can't, dear Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+"Pooh! Rubbish! Anybody can discuss anything," rejoined the old lady
+with impersonal and boisterous informality. "I'm fond of you. Everybody
+knows it. I'm fond of Sir Charles. He's a fine figure of a man. You
+match him in everything, except wealth. It's an ideal marriage----"
+
+"Please don't!--I simply cannot----"
+
+"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly--"an ideal marriage----"
+
+"But when there is no love----"
+
+"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you--crazy!----"
+
+"I--meant--on my part----"
+
+"Good God!" shouted the old lady, beating the air with pudgy
+hands--"isn't it luck enough to have love on one side? What does the
+present generation want! I tell you it's ideal, perfect. He's a good man
+as men go, and a devilish handsome----"
+
+"I know--but----"
+
+"And he's got money!" shouted the old lady--"plenty of it I
+tell you! And he has the entree everywhere on the Continent--in
+England--everywhere!--which Dankmere has not!--if you're considering
+that little whelp!"
+
+Stunned, shrinking from the dreadful asthmatic noises in Mrs. Sprowl's
+voice, Strelsa sat dumb, wincing under the blows of sound, not knowing
+how to escape.
+
+"I'm fond of you!" shrieked the old lady--"I can be of use to you and I
+want to be. That's why I asked you to tea! I want to make you happy--and
+Sir Charles, too! What the devil do you suppose there is in it for me
+except to oblige hi--you both?"
+
+"Th-thank you, but----"
+
+"I'll bet a shilling that Molly Wycherly let you go about with any
+little spindle-shanked pill who came hanging around!--And I told her
+what were my wishes----"
+
+"Please--oh, _please_, Mrs. Sprowl----"
+
+"Yes, I did! It's a good match! I want you to consider it!--I insist
+that----"
+
+"Mrs. Sprowl!" exclaimed Strelsa, pink with confusion and resentment, "I
+am obliged to you for the interest you display, but it is a matter----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I am really--grateful--but----"
+
+"Answer me, child. Has that cursed nephew of mine made any impression on
+you? Answer me!"
+
+"Not the kind you evidently mean!" said Strelsa, helplessly.
+
+"Is there anybody else?"
+
+The outrageous question silenced the girl for a moment. Angry, she still
+tried to be gentle; tried to remember the age, and the excellent
+intentions of this excited old lady; and she answered in a low voice:
+
+"I care for no man in particular, unless it be Sir Charles--and----"
+
+"And who?"
+
+"Mr. Quarren, I think," she said.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's jowl grew purple with fury:
+
+"You--has that boy had the impudence--damn him----"
+
+Strelsa sprang to her feet.
+
+"I really cannot remain--" she said with decision, but the old lady only
+bawled:
+
+"Sit down! Sit down!"
+
+"I will not!"
+
+"Sit _down_!" she roared in a passion. "What the devil----"
+
+Strelsa, a little pale, started to pass her--then halted, astounded: for
+the old lady had burst into a passion of choking gasps. Whether the
+terrible sounds she made were due to impotent rage or asthma, Strelsa,
+confused, shocked, embarrassed, but still angry, had no notion; and
+while Mrs. Sprowl coughed fatly, she stood still, catching muffled
+fragments of reproaches directed at people who flouted friendship; who
+had no consideration for age, and no gratitude, no tenderness, no pity.
+
+"I--I _am_ grateful," faltered Strelsa, "only I cannot----"
+
+"I wanted to be a mother to you! I've tried to be," wheezed the old lady
+in a fresh paroxysm; and beat the air.
+
+For one swift instant the girl remembered what her real mother had been
+to her; and her heart hardened.
+
+"I care only for your friendship, Mrs. Sprowl; I do not wish you to do
+anything for me; can we not be friends on that basis?"
+
+Mrs. Sprowl swabbed her inflamed eyes and peered around the corner of
+the handkerchief.
+
+"Come here, my dear," she said.
+
+Strelsa went, slowly; and Mrs. Sprowl enveloped her like a fleshy squid,
+panting.
+
+"I only wanted to be good to you, Strelsa. I'm just an old fool I
+suppose----"
+
+"Oh, please don't----"
+
+"That's all I am, child, just a sentimental old fool. The poor man's
+adoration of you touched my heart--and you do like him a little, don't
+you?"
+
+"Very much.... Thank you for--for wishing happiness to me. I really
+don't mean to be ungrateful; I have a horror of ingratitude. It's only
+that--the idea never occurred to me; and I am incapable of doing such a
+thing for material reasons, unless--I also really cared for a man----"
+
+"Of course, child. Maybe you will care for him some day. I won't
+interfere any more.... Only--don't lose your heart to any of these young
+jackals fawning around your skirts. Every set is full of 'em. They're
+nothing but the capering chorus in this comic opera.... And--don't be
+angry--but I am an older and wiser woman than you, and I am fond of you,
+and it's my duty to tell you that any of the lesser breed--take young
+Quarren for example--are of no real account, even in the society which
+they amuse."
+
+"I would scarcely class Mr. Quarren with the sort you mention----"
+
+"Why not? He's of no importance."
+
+"Because he is kind, considerate, and unusually intelligent and
+interesting; and he is very capable of succeeding in whatever he
+undertakes," said Strelsa, slowly.
+
+"Ricky is a nice boy; but what does he undertake?" asked Mrs. Sprowl
+with good-natured contempt. "He undertakes the duties, obligations, and
+details of a useful man in the greater household, which make him
+acceptable to us; and I'm bound to say that he does 'em very well. But
+outside of that he's a nobody. And I'll tell you just what he'll turn
+into; shall I? Society's third chief bottlewasher in succession. We had
+one, who evolved us. He's dead. We have another. He's still talking.
+When he ultimately evaporates into infinity Ricky will be his natural
+successor. Do you want that kind of a husband?"
+
+"Did you suppose----"
+
+"Don't get angry, Strelsa? I didn't suppose anything. Ricky, like every
+other man, dangles his good-looking, good-humoured self in your
+vicinity. You're inclined to notice him. All I mean is that he isn't
+worth your pains.... Now you won't be offended by a plain-spoken old
+woman who wishes only your happiness, will you, my child?"
+
+"No," said Strelsa, wearily, beginning to feel the fatigue of the scene.
+
+She took her leave a few moments afterward, very unhappy because two of
+the pleasantest incidents in her life had been badly, if not hopelessly,
+marred. But Langly Sprowl was not one of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That hatchet-faced and immaculate gentleman, divining possibly that
+Strelsa might be with his aunt, arrived shortly after her departure;
+learned of it from a servant, and was turning on his heel without even
+asking for Mrs. Sprowl, when the thought occurred to him that possibly
+she might know Strelsa's destination.
+
+When a servant announced him he found his aunt quite herself, grim,
+ready for trouble, her small green eyes fairly snapping.
+
+They indulged in no formalities, being alone together, and caring
+nothing for servants' opinions. Their greeting was perfunctory; their
+inquiries civil. Then there ensued a short silence.
+
+"Which way did Mrs. Leeds go?" he asked, busily twisting his long
+moustache.
+
+"None of your business," rejoined his aunt.
+
+He looked up in slight surprise, recognised a condition of things which,
+on second thought, surprised him still more. Because his aunt had never
+before noticed his affairs--had not even commented on the Ledwith matter
+to him. He had always felt that she disliked him too thoroughly to care.
+
+"I don't think I understood you," he said, watching her out of shifting
+eyes which protruded a trifle.
+
+"I think you will understand me before I've done with you," returned his
+aunt, grimly. "It's a perfectly plain matter; you've the rest of the
+female community to chase if you choose. Go and chase 'em for all I
+care--hunt from here to Reno if you like!--but I have other plans for
+Strelsa Leeds. Do you understand? I've put my private mark on her.
+There's no room for yours."
+
+Langly's gaze which had not met hers--and never met anybody's for more
+than a fraction of a second--shifted. He continued his attentions to his
+moustache; his eyes roved; he looked at but did not see a hundred things
+in a second.
+
+"You don't know where she's gone?" he inquired with characteristic
+pertinacity and an indifference to what she had said, absolutely stony.
+
+"Do you mean trouble for that girl?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Do you want to marry her?"
+
+"I said that I was considering nothing in particular. We are friends."
+
+"Keep away from her! Do you understand?"
+
+"I really don't know whether I do or not. I suppose you mean Sir
+Charles."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl turned red:
+
+"Suppose what you like, you cold-blooded cad! But by God!--if you annoy
+that child I'll empty the family wash all over the sidewalk! And let the
+public pick it over!"
+
+He rested his pale, protuberant eyes on her for a brief second:
+
+"Will any of your finery figure in it? Any relics or rags once belonging
+to the late parent of Sir Charles?"
+
+Her features were livid; her lips twisted, tortured under the flood of
+injuries which choked her. Not a word came. Exhausted for a moment she
+sat there grasping the gilded arms of her chair, livid as the dead save
+for the hell blazing in her tiny green eyes.
+
+"I fancy that settles the laundry question," he said, while his restless
+glance ceaselessly swept the splendid room and his lean, sunburnt hand
+steadily caressed his moustache. Then, as though he had forgotten
+something, he rose and walked out. A footman invested him with hat and
+overcoat. A moment later the great doors clicked.
+
+In the silence of the huge house there was not a sound except the
+whispers of servants; and these ceased presently.
+
+All alone, amid the lighted magnificence of the vast room sat the old
+woman hunched in her chair, bloodless, motionless as a mass of dead
+flesh. Even the spark in her eyes was gone, the lids closed, the gross
+lower lip pendulous. Later two maids, being summoned, accompanied her
+to her boudoir, and were dismissed. Her social secretary, a pretty girl,
+came and left with instructions to cancel invitations for the evening.
+
+A maid arrived with a choice of headache remedies; then, with the aid of
+another, disrobed her mistress and got her into bed.
+
+Their offices accomplished, they were ordered to withdraw but to leave
+one light burning. It glimmered over an old-fashioned photograph on the
+wall--the portrait of a British officer taken in the days when whiskers,
+"pill-box," and frogged frock-tunic were cultivated in Her British
+Majesty's Service.
+
+From where she lay she looked at him; and Sir Weyward Mallison stared
+back at her through his monocle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Strelsa at home, unpinning her hat before the mirror, received word over
+the telephone that Mrs. Sprowl, being indisposed, regretfully recalled
+the invitations for the evening.
+
+The girl's first sensation was relief, then self-reproach, quite
+forgetting that if Mrs. Sprowl's violent emotions had made that
+redoubtable old woman ill, they had also thoroughly fatigued the victim
+of her ill-temper and made her very miserable.
+
+She wrote a perfunctory note of regret and civil inquiry and dispatched
+it, then surrendered herself to the ministrations of her maid.
+
+The luxury of dining alone for the first time in months, appealed to
+her. She decided that she was not to be at home to anybody.
+
+Langly Sprowl called about six, and was sent away. Strelsa, curled up on
+a divan, could hear the staccato racket that his powerful racing-car
+made in the street outside. The informality of her recent host aboard
+the _Yulan_ did not entirely please her. She listened to his departure
+with quiet satisfaction.
+
+Although it was not her day, several people came and went. Flowers from
+various smitten youths arrived; orchids from Sprowl; nothing from
+Quarren. Then for nearly two hours she slept where she lay and awakened
+laughing aloud at something Quarren had been saying in her dream. But
+what it was she could not recollect.
+
+At eight her maid came and hooked her into a comfortable and beloved
+second-year gown; dinner was announced; she descended the stairway in
+solitary state, still smiling to herself at Quarren's forgotten remark,
+and passed by the library just as the telephone rang there.
+
+It may have been a flash of clairvoyance--afterward she wondered exactly
+what it was that made her say to her maid very confidently:
+
+"That is Mr. Quarren. I'll speak to him."
+
+It was Mr. Quarren. The amusing coincidence of her dream and her
+clairvoyance still lingering in her mind, she went leisurely to the
+telephone and said:
+
+"I don't understand how I knew it was you. And I'm not sure why I came
+to the 'phone, because I'm not at home to anybody. But _what_ was it you
+said to me just now?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"A few minutes ago while I was asleep?"
+
+"About eight o'clock?"
+
+She laughed: "It happened to be a few minutes before eight. How did you
+know that? I believe you did speak to me in my dream. Did you?"
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his
+departure with quiet satisfaction."]
+
+"I did."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"I said something aloud to you about eight o'clock."
+
+"How odd! Did you know I was asleep? But you couldn't----"
+
+"No, of course not. I was merely thinking of you."
+
+"You were--you happened to be thinking of _me_? And you said something
+aloud about me?"
+
+"About you--and _to_ you."
+
+"How delightfully interesting! What was it, please?"
+
+"Oh, I was only talking nonsense."
+
+"Won't it bear repetition?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Mr. Quarren! How maddening! I'm dying with curiosity. I dreamed that
+you said something very amusing to me and I awoke, laughing; but now I
+simply cannot recollect what it was you said."
+
+"I'll tell you some day."
+
+"Soon? Would you tell me this evening?"
+
+"How can I?"
+
+"That's true. I'm not at home to anybody. So you can't drop in, can
+you?"
+
+"You are not logical; I could drop in because I'm not anybody----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I'm not anybody in particular----"
+
+"You know if you begin to talk that way, after all these days, I'll ring
+off in a rage. You are the only man in the world to whom I'm at home
+even over the telephone, and if that doesn't settle your status with me,
+what does?... Are you well, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Thank you, perfectly. I called you up to ask you about yourself."
+
+"I'm tired, somehow."
+
+"Oh, we are all that. Nothing more serious threatens you than impending
+slumber?"
+
+"I said I was tired, not sleepy. I'm wide awake but horribly lazy--and
+inclined to slump. Where are you; at the Legation?"
+
+"At the Founders' Club--foundered."
+
+"What are you doing there?"
+
+"Absolutely nothing. Reading the _Evening Post_."
+
+"You are dining out I suppose?"
+
+"No."
+
+She reflected until he spoke again, asking if she was still there.
+
+"Oh, yes; I'm trying to think whether I want you to come around and
+share a solitary dinner with me. Do I want you?"
+
+"Just a little--don't you?"
+
+"Do you want to come?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very much?"
+
+"I can't tell you how much--over the telephone."
+
+"That sounds both humble and dangerous. Which do you mean to be?"
+
+"Humble--and very, very grateful, dear lady. May I come?"
+
+"I--don't know. Dinner was announced a quarter of an hour ago."
+
+"It won't take me three minutes----"
+
+"If it takes you more you'll ring my door-bell in vain, young man."
+
+"I'll start now! Good----"
+
+[Illustration: "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked,
+smiling."]
+
+"Wait! I haven't decided. Really I'm simply stupid with the accumulated
+fatigues of two months' frivolity. Do you mind my being stupid?"
+
+"You know I don't----"
+
+"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your
+way over. _A bien tot!_"
+
+She had been in the drawing-room only a few moments, looking at the huge
+white orchids that Langly Sprowl had sent and which her butler was
+arranging, when Quarren was announced; and she partly turned from the
+orchids, extending her hand behind her in a greeting more confident and
+intimate than she had ever before given him.
+
+"Look at these strange, pansy-shaped Brazilian flowers," she said.
+"Kindly observe that they are actually growing out of that ball of moss
+and fibre."
+
+She had retained his hand for a fraction of a second longer than
+conventional acquaintance required, giving it a frank and friendly
+pressure. Now, loosing it, she found her own fingers retained, and drew
+them away with a little laugh of self-consciousness.
+
+"Sentiment before dinner implies that you'll have no room for it after
+dinner. Here is your cocktail."
+
+"Do you remember our first toast?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"No."
+
+"The toast to friendship?"
+
+"Yes; I remember it."
+
+She touched her lips to her glass, not looking at him. He watched her.
+After a moment she raised her eyes, met his gaze, returned it with one
+quite as audacious:
+
+"I am drinking that same toast again--after many days," she said.
+
+"With all that it entails?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Its chances, hazards, consequences?"
+
+She laughed, then, looking at him, deliberately sipped from her glass,
+the defiant smile in her eyes still daring him and Chance and Destiny
+together.
+
+When he took her out she was saying: "I really can't account for my mood
+to-night. I believe that seeing you again is reviving me. I was beastly
+stupid."
+
+"My soporific society ought to calm, not exhilarate you."
+
+"It never did, particularly. What a long time it is since we have seen
+each other. I _am_ glad you came."
+
+Seated, she asked the butler to remove the flowers which interrupted her
+view of Quarren.
+
+"You haven't said anything about my personal appearance," she observed.
+"Am I very much battered by my merry bouts with pleasure?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"You wretch! Do you mean to say that I am marked at all?"
+
+"You look rather tired, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"I know I do. By daylight it's particularly visible.... But--do _you_
+mind?"
+
+Her charming head was bent over her grapefruit: she lifted her gray eyes
+under level brows, looking across the table at him.
+
+"I mind anything that concerns you," he said.
+
+"I mean--are you disappointed because I'm growing old and haggard?"
+
+"I think you are even more beautiful than you were."
+
+She laughed gaily and continued her dinner. "I _had_ to drag that out
+of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudence _is_
+stamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm
+beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. You _were_ one. Do
+you deny your guilt?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape.
+_Am_ I very much changed, Mr. Quarren?" she said a trifle wistfully.
+
+He did not answer immediately. After a few moments she glanced at him
+again and met his gaze.
+
+"Well?" she prompted him, laughing; "are you not neglecting your manners
+as a declared suitor?"
+
+"You _have_ changed."
+
+"What a perfect pill you are!" she exclaimed, vexed--"you're casting
+yourself for the role of the honest friend--and I simply hate it! Young
+sir, do you not understand that I've breakfasted, lunched and dined too
+long on flattery to endure anything more wholesome? If you can't lie to
+me like a gentleman and a suitor your usefulness in my entourage is
+ended."
+
+He said: "Do you want me to talk shop with you? I get rather tired of my
+trade, sometimes. It's my trade to lie, you know."
+
+She looked up, quickly, but he was smiling.
+
+They remained rather silent after that. Coffee was served at table; she
+lighted a cigarette for him and, later, one for herself, strolling off
+into the drawing-room with it between her fingers, one hand resting
+lightly on her hip.
+
+She seemed to have an inclination to wander about or linger before the
+marble fireplace and blow delicate rings of smoke at her own reflection
+in the mirror.
+
+He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded
+affably to him in the glass:
+
+"I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first
+knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless--I wasn't then....
+Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about
+the kind--as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting."
+
+"A cradle song is what you require."
+
+"How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same
+cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?"
+
+"I realise how tired you are."
+
+"And--I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her
+mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time....
+Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you
+know?"
+
+"Conscience?" he suggested, laughing.
+
+"Do you think so? I thought it was my heart."
+
+"Have you acquired one?"
+
+She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned
+around toward him, still smiling.
+
+"I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?"
+
+"I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?"
+
+"I really don't know. What do you think?"
+
+He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the
+fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her
+dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between
+forefinger and thumb.
+
+Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not
+the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was
+only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day
+was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became
+only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of
+experience.... I wonder whether my silly head _was_ turned a little....
+People said too much to me: there were too many of them--and they came
+too near.... And do you know--looking back at it now as I sit here
+talking to you--I--it seems absurd--but I believe that I was really a
+trifle lonely at times."
+
+She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them.
+
+"I thought of you on various occasions," she added.
+
+He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender.
+
+Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained
+fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his
+eyes from the bracket light.
+
+For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his
+silence and abstraction--in the set of his shoulders, and the
+unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it
+glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the
+forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again--agreeable to
+be with him--not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable--for
+even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was
+no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly
+conscious of a reserve force now awaking--of a growing sense of
+freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour.
+
+"Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last.
+
+He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move--scarcely an
+invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated
+himself on the arm of the lounge beside her.
+
+"Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me."
+
+"I wrote very few.... Did they really interest you?"
+
+"A lot."
+
+"How?"
+
+"They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back
+door of Eternity."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Otherwise he would never have stirred a step--until to-night."
+
+"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren--but a little
+sentimental--isn't it?"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment--being unaccustomed to
+it."
+
+"How many men made you declarations?"
+
+"Oh; is _that_ real sentiment? I thought it was merely love."
+
+He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become
+like the rest."
+
+She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I _have_ grown
+hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not
+even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"Do you, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"I think so.... A woman might as well know the worst truths about
+life--and about men."
+
+"Not about men."
+
+"Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?"
+
+"Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?"
+
+"By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You
+probably prefer your women screened and veiled."
+
+"We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film."
+
+"Mr. Quarren--are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing.
+But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale
+induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones.
+
+"What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked,
+curiously.
+
+"Working at my trade."
+
+"You seem thinner."
+
+"Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I
+must."
+
+"You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike--aren't
+you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"You make me very angry," she said; "I like you--I'm quite happy with
+you--and suddenly you try to tell me that my friendship is lavished on
+an unworthy man; that my taste is low, and that you're a kind of a
+social jackal--an upper servant----
+
+"I feed on what the pack leaves--and I wash their fragile plates for
+them," he said lightly.
+
+"What else?" she asked, furious.
+
+"I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I
+smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially
+injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother
+jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to
+sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and
+give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment's notice, acting as
+manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter."
+
+He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost
+control of herself and her fingers closed tight.
+
+"What are you saying!" she said, fiercely. "Are you telling me that this
+is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to--to think
+about--think about a great deal--care enough about to dine with in my
+own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are
+after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?"
+
+He said, slowly: "I could have been anything--I could be yet--if
+you----"
+
+"If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for
+anybody's!" she retorted.... "I refuse to believe that you are what you
+say, anyway. It hurts--it hurts----"
+
+"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds----"
+
+"It hurts _me!_ I _do_ like you. I was glad to see you--you don't know
+how glad. Your letters to me were--were interesting. _You_ have always
+been interesting, from the very first--more so than many men--more than
+most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If
+I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?"
+
+Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest
+every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand
+tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted
+handkerchief.
+
+"I could stand anything!--my friendship for you could stand almost
+anything except what you pretend you are--and what other malicious
+tongues will say if you continue to repeat it!--And it _has_ been said
+already about you! Do you know that? People _do_ say that of you.
+People even say so to me--tell me you are worthless--warn me
+against--against----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Caring--taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit
+disrespect for yourself! A man--_any_ man is what he chooses to be, and
+people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in
+pretending to dignity and worth when--when you can be the peer of any
+man? What's the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of
+you with contempt. I denied what she said.... I'd rather they'd say
+anything else about you--that you had vices--a vigorous, wilful,
+unmanageable man's vices!--than to say _that_ of you!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"That you amount to nothing."
+
+"Do you care what they say, Mrs. Leeds?"
+
+"Of course! It strikes at my own self-respect!"
+
+"Do you care--otherwise?"
+
+"I care--as a friend, naturally----"
+
+"Otherwise still?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Could you ever care?"
+
+"No," she said, nervously.
+
+She sat breathing faster and more irregularly, watching him. He looked
+up and smiled at her, rested so, a moment, then rose to take his leave.
+
+She stretched out one arm toward the electric bell, but her fingers
+seemed to miss it, and remained resting against the silk-hung wall.
+
+"Are you going?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Must you?"
+
+"I think I'd better."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He waited, but she did not touch the bell button. She seemed to be
+waiting for him to go; so he offered his hand, pleasantly, and turned
+away toward the hall. And, rising leisurely, she descended the stairs
+with him in silence.
+
+"Good-night," he said again.
+
+"Good-night. I am sorry you are going."
+
+"Did you wish me to remain a little longer?"
+
+"I--don't know what I wish...."
+
+Her cheeks were deeply flushed; the hand he took into his again seemed
+burning.
+
+"It's fearfully hot in here," she said. "Please muffle up warmly because
+it's bitter weather out doors"--and she lifted the other hand as though
+unconsciously and passed her finger tips over his fur collar.
+
+"Do you feel feverish?"
+
+"A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?"
+
+"You haven't caught malaria in the tropics, have you?"
+
+"No, you funny man. I'm never ill. But it's odd how burning hot I seem
+to be----"
+
+She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his.
+
+They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as
+though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the
+quiet around her--a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a
+delicate mist--a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and
+thought.
+
+Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred;
+and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his.
+
+At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small
+head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch--a slight caress over her
+forehead--the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers,
+closer, never stirring.
+
+Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical
+currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless,
+non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to
+the sorcery.
+
+Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its
+fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her.
+
+She strove to turn her mouth from his--twisted away from him, straining,
+tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail,
+gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she
+shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even
+look at him, now.
+
+Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood
+there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and glass
+door; a flurry of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the
+spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes.
+
+Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and
+locked the door against her maid.
+
+Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat
+before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and
+lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange
+nerves signalling; stranger responses--of a subtle fragrance in her
+breath so strange that she became conscious of it.
+
+She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the glass while
+through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew
+tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the
+unknown.
+
+Unknown still!--for she crouched there shrinking from the
+revelation--from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf,
+blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of
+self-contempt.
+
+Then fear came--fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and
+defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already
+dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very
+patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes.
+
+So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one
+day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser
+passion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had
+sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her--out of a moment's
+lassitude, a touch of a man's hand, and his lips on hers! And now all
+her life was already behind her--childhood, girlhood, wifehood--all,
+all behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an
+unknown road; an unknown world before her.
+
+With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty,
+of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce
+humiliation born of self-knowledge--knowledge scornfully admitted and
+defied with every breath--but no longer denied.
+
+She _was_ as others were--fashioned of that same and common clay,
+capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of
+them--so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant,
+they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things
+of the mind.
+
+Was this the evolution that her winter's idleness and gaiety and the
+fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that
+strange moment, at the door, the moment that man's enemy had been
+awaiting, to find her unprepared?
+
+Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on
+her dresser--the fairest among the Philistines who had so long
+unconsciously thanked God that she was not like other women in the homes
+of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Strelsa was no longer at home to Quarren, even over the telephone. He
+called her up two or three times in as many days, ventured to present
+himself at her house twice without being received, and finally wrote her
+a note. But at the end of the month the note still remained unanswered.
+
+However, there was news of her, sometimes involving her with Langly
+Sprowl, but more often with Sir Charles Mallison. Also, had Quarren not
+dropped out of everything so completely, he might easily have met her
+dozens of times in dozens of places. But for a month now he had returned
+every day from his office to his room in the Legation, and even the
+members of that important diplomatic body found his door locked, after
+dinner, though his light sometimes brightened the transom until morning.
+
+Westguard, after the final rupture with his aunt, had become a soured
+hermit--sourer because of the low motives of the public which was buying
+his book by the thousands and reading it for the story, exclusively.
+
+His aunt had cast him off; to him she was the overfed embodiment of
+society, so it pleased him to consider the rupture as one between
+society and himself. It tasted of martyrdom, and now his own public had
+vulgarly gone back on him according to his ideals: nobody cared for his
+economics, his social evils, his moral philosophy; only what he
+considered the unworthy part of his book was eagerly absorbed and
+discussed. The proletariat had grossly betrayed him; a hermit's
+exemplary but embittered career was apparently all that remained for his
+declining years.
+
+So, after dinner, he, too, retired to seclusion behind bolted doors,
+pondering darkly on a philosophic novel which should be no novel at all
+but a dignified and crushing rebuke to mankind--a solid slice of moral
+cake thickly frosted with social economics, heavy with ethical plums,
+and without any story to it whatever.
+
+Meanwhile his book had passed into the abhorred class of best sellers.
+
+As for Lacy and O'Hara, both had remarked Quarren's abrupt retirement
+and his absence from that section of the social puddle which he was
+accustomed to embellish and splash in. O'Hara, inclining more toward
+sporting circles, noticed Quarren's absence less; but Lacy, after the
+first week, demanded an explanation at the dinner-table.
+
+"You spoiled a party for Mrs. Lannis," he said--"and Winnifred Miller
+was almost in tears over the charity tableaux----"
+
+"I wrote them both in plenty of time, Jack."
+
+"Yes. But who is there to take your place? Whatever you touch is
+successful. Barent Van Dyne made a dub of himself."
+
+"They must break in another pup," said Quarren, amused.
+
+"You mean that you're chucking the whole bally thing for keeps?"
+
+"Practically."
+
+"Why?" asked O'Hara, looking up blankly.
+
+"Oh," said Quarren laughing, "I'm curious to find out what business I
+really am in. Until this week I've never had time to discover that I was
+trying to be a broker in real estate. And I've just found out that I've
+been one for almost three years, and never knew it."
+
+"One's own company is the best," growled Westguard. "The monkey people
+sicken you and the public make you ill. Solitude is the only remedy."
+
+"Not for me," said Quarren; "I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and
+on the public; and I'm laying plans to do it."
+
+"They'll turn your stomach----"
+
+"Oh, dry up, Karl!" said O'Hara; "there's a medium between extremes
+where you can get a good sportin' chance at anythin'--horse, dog,
+girl--anythin' you fancy. You'd like some of my friends, now,
+Ricky!--they're a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin' as
+hell----"
+
+"_I_ don't want to meet any cock-fighters," growled Westguard.
+
+"They're all right, too--but there are all kinds of interestin' people
+in my circles--writers like Karl, huntin' people, a professional here
+and there--and then there's that fascinatin' Mrs. Wyland-Baily, the best
+trap-shot----"
+
+"Trap-shot," repeated Westguard in disgust, and took his cigar and
+himself into seclusion.
+
+Quarren also pushed back his chair, preparing to rise.
+
+"Doin' anythin'?" inquired O'Hara, desiring to be kind. "Young Calahan
+and the Harlem Mutt have it out at the Cataract Club to-night," he
+added persuasively.
+
+"Another time, thanks," said Quarren: "I've letters to write."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He wrote them--all the business letters he could think of, concentrating
+his thoughts as much as possible. Afterward he lay down on the lounge
+with a book, and remained there for an hour, although he changed books
+every few minutes. This was becoming a bad habit. But it was difficult
+reading although it ranged from Kipling to the Book of Common Prayer;
+and at last he gave it up and, turning over buried his head in the
+cushions.
+
+This wouldn't do either: he racked his brain for further employment,
+found excuses for other business letters, wrote them, then attacked a
+pile of social matters--notes and letters heretofore deliberately
+neglected to the ragged edge of decency.
+
+He replied to them all, and invariably in the negative.
+
+It gave him something to do to go out to the nearest lamp post and mail
+his letters. But when again he came back into his room the silence there
+left him hesitating on his threshold.
+
+But he went in and locked his door, and kept his back turned to the desk
+where pen and ink were tempting him as usual, and almost beyond
+endurance now. And at last he weakened, and wrote to her once more:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS--
+
+     "I feel sure that your failure to answer my note of last week was
+     unintentional.
+
+     "Some day, when you have a moment, would you write me a line saying
+     that you will be at home to me?
+
+                            "Very sincerely yours,
+
+                                      "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN."
+
+
+He took this note to the nearest District Messenger Office; then
+returned to his room.
+
+After an interminable time the messenger reported for the signature.
+Mrs. Leeds was not at home and he had left the note as directed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was a white one. He did not feel very well when he sat
+scanning the morning paper over his coffee. Recently he had formed the
+custom of reading two columns only in the paper--Real Estate News and
+Society. In the latter column Strelsa usually figured.
+
+She figured as usual this morning; and he read the fulsome stuff
+attentively. Also there was a flourish concerning an annual event at the
+Santa Regina.
+
+And Quarren read this very carefully; and made up his mind as he
+finished the paragraph.
+
+The conclusion he came to over his coffee and newspaper materialised
+that afternoon at a Charity Bazaar, where, as he intended, he met
+Strelsa Leeds face to face. She said, coolly amiable:
+
+"Have you been away? One never sees you these days."
+
+"I have been nowhere," he said, pleasantly.
+
+She shook her pretty head in reproof:
+
+"Is it good policy for a young man to drop out of sight? Our world
+forgets over-night."
+
+He laughed: "Something similar has been intimated to me by others--but
+less gently. I'm afraid I've offended some people."
+
+"Oh, so you have already been disciplined?"
+
+"Verbally trounced, admonished, and still smarting under the displeasure
+of the powers that reign. They seem to resent my Sunday out--yet even
+their other domestics have that. And it's the first I've taken in three
+years. I think I'll have to give notice to my Missus."
+
+"The spectre of servitude still seems to obsess your humour," she
+observed indifferently.
+
+"I _am_ that spectre, Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"You certainly look pallid enough for any disembodied role. You have not
+been ill, by any chance?"--carelessly.
+
+"Not at all, thank you. Rude health and I continue to link arms."
+
+"Then it is not by chance that you absent yourself from the various
+festivities where your part is usually supposed to be a leading one?"
+
+"All cooks eventually develop a distaste for their own concoctions," he
+explained gravely.
+
+She lifted her eyebrows: "Yet you are here this afternoon."
+
+"Oh, yes. Charity has not yet palled on my palate--perhaps because I
+need so much myself."
+
+"I have never considered you an object of charity."
+
+"Then I must draw your kind attention to my pitiable case by doing a
+little begging.... Could I ask your forgiveness, for example? And
+perhaps obtain it?"
+
+Her face flushed. "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Quarren," she said
+with decision.
+
+"Do you mean that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I scarcely know how to take your--generosity."
+
+"I offer none. There is no occasion for generosity or for the exercise
+of any virtue, cardinal or otherwise. You have not offended me, nor I
+you--I trust.... Have I?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby
+groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren
+unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things.
+Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and
+Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman's advent as his own conge,
+took his leave of Strelsa and went his way--which chanced, also, to be
+the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat.
+
+Susanne Lannis, lips slightly curling, looked after them, touching
+Strelsa's elbow:
+
+"Cyrille simply cannot let Ricky alone," she said. "The bill-posters
+will find a fence for her if she doesn't come to her senses."
+
+"Who?" asked Strelsa, as one or two people laughed guardedly.
+
+"Why, Cyrille Caldera. _Elle s'affiche, ma chere!_"
+
+"Mrs. Caldera!" repeated the girl, surprised.
+
+"_And_ Ricky! Are you blind, Strelsa? It's been on for two weeks or
+more. And she'd better not play too confidently with Ricky. You can
+usually forecast what a wild animal will do, never how a trained one is
+going to behave."
+
+"Such scandal!" laughed Chrysos Lacy. "How many of us can afford to
+turn our backs to the rest of the cage even for an instant? Sir Charles,
+I simply don't dare to go away. Otherwise I'd purchase several of those
+glittering articles yonder--whatever they are. Do you happen to know?"
+
+"Automatic revolvers. The cartridges are charged with Japanese perfumes.
+Did you never see one?" he asked, turning to Strelsa. But she was not
+listening; and he transferred his attention to Chrysos.
+
+Several people moved forward to examine the pretty and apparently deadly
+little weapons; Sir Charles was called upon to explain the Japanese game
+of perfumes, and everybody began to purchase the paraphernalia, pistols,
+cartridges, targets, and counters.
+
+Sir Charles came back, presently, to where Strelsa still stood,
+listlessly examining laces.
+
+"All kinds of poor people have blinded themselves making these pretty
+things," she said, as Sir Charles came up beside her. "My only apparent
+usefulness is to buy them, I suppose."
+
+He offered her one of the automatic pistols.
+
+"It's loaded," he cautioned her, solemnly.
+
+"What an odd gift!" she said, surprised, taking it gingerly into her
+gloved hand. "Is it really for me? And why?"
+
+"Are you timid about firearms?" he asked, jestingly.
+
+"No.... I don't know anything about them--except to keep my finger away
+from the trigger. I know enough to do that."
+
+He supposed that she also was jesting, and her fastidious handling of
+the weapon amused him. And when she asked him if it was safe to carry in
+her muff, he assured her very gravely that she might venture to do so.
+"Turn it loose on the first burglar," he added, "and his regeneration
+will begin in all the forty-nine odours of sanctity."
+
+Strelsa smiled without comprehending. Cyrille Caldera was standing just
+beyond them, apparently interested in antique jewellery, trying the
+effect of various linked gems against her lilac gown, and inviting
+Quarren's opinion of the results. Their backs were turned; Ricky's blond
+head seemed to come unreasonably close to Cyrille's at moments. Once
+Mrs. Caldera thoughtlessly laid a pretty hand on his arm as though in
+emphasis. Their unheard conversation was evidently amusing them.
+
+Strelsa's smile remained unaltered; people were coming constantly to pay
+their respects to her; and they lingered, attracted and amused by her
+unusual gaiety, charm, and wit.
+
+Her mind seemed suddenly to have become crystal clear; her gay retorts
+to lively badinage, and her laughing epigrams were deliciously
+spontaneous. A slight exhilaration, without apparent reason, was
+transforming her, swiftly, into an incarnation entirely unknown even to
+herself.
+
+Conscious of a wonderful mood never before experienced, perfectly aware
+of her unusual brilliancy and beauty, surprised and interested in the
+sudden revelation of powers within her still unexercised, she felt
+herself, for the first time in her life, in contact with things
+heretofore impalpable--and, in spirit, with delicate fingers, she
+gathered up instinctively those intangible threads with which man is
+guided as surely as though driven in chains of steel.
+
+And all the while she was aware of Quarren's boyish head bending almost
+too near to Cyrille Caldera's over the trays of antique jewels; and all
+the while she was conscious of the transfiguration in process--that not
+only a new self was being evolved for her out of the debris of the old,
+but that the world itself was changing around her--and a new Heaven and
+a new earth were being born--and a new hell.
+
+That evening she fought it out with herself with a sort of deadly
+intelligence. Alone in her room, seated, and facing her mirrored gaze
+unflinchingly, she stated her case, minutely, to herself from beginning
+to end; then called the only witness for the prosecution--herself--and
+questioned that witness without mercy.
+
+Did she care for Quarren? Apparently. How much? A great deal. Was she in
+love with him? She could not answer. Wherein did he differ from other
+men she knew--Sir Charles, for example? She only knew that he _was_
+different. Perhaps he was nobler? No. More intelligent? No. Kinder? No.
+More admirable? No. More gentle, more sincere, less selfish? No. Did he,
+as a man, compare favorably with other men--Sir Charles for example? The
+comparison was not in Quarren's favor.
+
+Wherein, then, lay her interest in him? She could not answer. Was she
+perhaps sorry for him? Very. Why? Because she believed him capable of
+better things. Then the basis of her regard for him was founded on pity.
+No; because from the beginning--even before he had unmasked--she had
+been sensible of an interest in him different from any interest she had
+ever before felt for any man.
+
+This uncompromisingly honest answer silenced her mentally for some
+moments; then she lifted her resolute gray eyes to the eyes of the
+mirrored witness:
+
+If that is true, then the attraction was partly physical? She could not
+answer. Pressed for a statement she admitted that it might be that.
+
+Then the basis of her regard for him was ignoble? She found pleasure in
+his intellectual attractions. But the basis had not been intellectual?
+No. It had been material? Yes. And she had never forgotten the light
+pressure of that masked Harlequin's spangled arm around her while she
+desperately counted out the seconds of that magic minute forfeited to
+him? No; she had never forgotten. It was a sensation totally unknown to
+her before that moment? Yes. Had she experienced it since that time?
+Yes. When? When he first told her that he loved her. And afterward? Yes.
+When?
+
+In the cheeks of the mirrored witness a faint fire began to burn: her
+own face grew pink: but she answered, looking the shadowy witness
+steadily in the eyes:
+
+"When he took my hand at the door--and during--whatever
+happened--afterward."
+
+And she excused the witness and turned her back to the looking-glass.
+
+The only witness for the defence was the accused--unless her own heart
+were permitted to testify. Or--and there seemed to be some slight
+confusion here--_was_ Quarren on trial? Or was she herself?
+
+This threatened to become a serious question; she strove to think
+clearly, to reason; but only evoked the pale, amused face of Quarren
+from inner and chaotic consciousness until the visualisation remained
+fixed, defying obliteration. And she accepted the mental spectre for
+the witness box.
+
+"Ricky," she said, "do you really love me?"
+
+But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the
+smile she knew so well--so well, alas!
+
+"Why are you unworthy?" she said again--"you who surely are equipped for
+a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is
+so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth
+nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no
+better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many;
+and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor
+boy--poor boy."
+
+In vain she strove to visualise Sir Charles; she could not. All she
+could do was to mentally enumerate his qualities; and she did so, the
+amused face of Quarren looking on at her from out of empty space.
+
+"Ricky, Ricky," she said, "am I no better than that?--am I fit only for
+such a response?--to find the contact of your hand so wonderful?--to
+thrill with the consciousness of your nearness--to let my senses drift,
+contented merely by your touch--yielding to the charm of it--suffering
+even your lips' embrace----"
+
+She shuddered slightly, drawing one hand across her eyes, then sitting
+straight, she faced his smiling phantom, resolute to end it now forever.
+
+"If I am such a woman," she said, "and you are the kind of man I know
+you to be--then is it time for me to fast and pray, lest I enter into
+temptation.... Into the one temptation I have never before known,
+Ricky--and which, in my complacency and pride I never dreamed that I
+should encounter.
+
+"And it is coming to that!... A girl must be honest with herself or all
+life is only the same smiling lie. I'm ashamed to be honest, Ricky; but
+I must be. You are not very much of a man--otherwise I might find some
+reason for caring: and now there is none; and yet--I care--God knows
+why--or what it is in you that I care for!--But I do--I am beginning to
+care--and I don't know why; I--don't--know why----".
+
+She dropped her face in her hands, sitting there bowed low over her
+knees. And there, hour after hour she fought it out with herself and
+with the amused spectre ever at her elbow--so close at moments that some
+unaroused nerve fell a-trembling in its sleep, threatening to awaken
+those quiet senses that she already feared for their unknown powers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The season was approaching its end, still kicking now and then
+spasmodically, but pretty nearly done for. No particularly painful
+incidents marked its demise except the continued absence of Quarren from
+social purlieus accustomed to his gay presence and adroit executive
+abilities.
+
+After several demoralised cotillions had withstood the shock of his
+absence, and a dozen or more functions had become temporarily
+disorganised because he declined to occupy himself with their success;
+and after a number of hostesses had filled in his place at dinner, at
+theatres, at week-ends, on yachts and coaches; and after an
+unprecedented defiance of two summonses to the hazardous presence of
+Mrs. Sprowl, he obeyed a third subpoena, and presented himself with an
+air of cheerful confidence that instantly enraged her.
+
+The old lady lay abed with nothing more compromising than a toothache;
+Quarren was conducted to the inner shrine; she glared at him hideously
+from her pillows; and for one moment he felt seriously inclined to run.
+
+"Where have you been?" she wheezed.
+
+"Nowhere in particu----"
+
+"I know damn well you've been nowhere," she burst out. "Molly Wycherly's
+dance went to pieces because she was fool enough to trust things to you.
+Do you know who led? That great oaf, Barent Van Dyne! He led like a
+trick elephant, too!"
+
+Quarren looked politely distressed.
+
+"And there are a dozen hostesses perfectly furious with you," continued
+the old lady, pounding the pillows with a fat arm--"parties of all sorts
+spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank
+failures--what the devil possesses you to behave this way?"
+
+"I'm tired," he said, politely.
+
+"What!"
+
+He smiled:
+
+"Oh, the place suits, Mrs. Sprowl; I haven't any complaint; and the work
+and wages are easy; and it's comfortable below-stairs. But--I'm just
+tired."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"I'm talking _about_ my employers, and I'm talking _like_ the social
+upper-servant that I am--or was. I'm merely giving a respectable
+warning; that is the airy purport of my discourse, Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+"Do you know what you're saying?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," he said, wearily.
+
+"Well, then, what the devil _are_ you saying?"
+
+"Merely that I've dropped out of service to engage in trade."
+
+"You can't!" she yelled, sitting up in bed so suddenly that her unquiet
+tooth took the opportunity to assert itself.
+
+She clapped a pudgy hand to her cheek, squinting furiously at Quarren:
+
+"You _can't_ drop out," she shouted. "Don't you ever want to amount to
+anything?"
+
+"Yes, I do. That's why I'm doing it."
+
+"Don't act like a fool! Haven't you any ambition?"
+
+"That also is why," he said pleasantly. "I am ambitious to be out of
+livery and see what my own kind will do to me."
+
+"Well, you'll see!" she threatened--"you'll see what we'll do to
+you----"
+
+"_You're_ not my kind. I always supposed you were, but you all knew
+better from the day I took service with you----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"It is perfectly true, Mrs. Sprowl. My admittance included a livery and
+the perennial prerogative of amusing people. But I had no money, no
+family affiliations with the very amiable people who found me useful.
+Only, in common with them, I had the inherent taste for idleness and the
+genius for making it endurable to you all. So you welcomed me very
+warmly; and you have been very kind to me.... But, somewhere or
+other--in some forgotten corner of me--an odd and old-fashioned idea
+awoke the other day.... I think perhaps it awoke when you reminded me
+that to serve you was one thing and to marry among you something very
+different."
+
+"Ricky! Do you want to drive me to the yelling verge of distraction? I
+didn't say or intimate or dream any such thing! You know perfectly well
+you're not only with us but _of_ us. Nobody ever imagined otherwise. But
+you can't marry any girl you pick out. Sometimes she won't; sometimes
+her family won't. It's the same everywhere. You have no money. Of course
+I intend that you shall eventually marry money--What the devil are you
+laughing at?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"I said that you would marry well. Was that funny? I also said,
+once--and I repeat it now, that I have my own plans for one or two
+girls--Strelsa Leeds included. I merely asked you to respect my wishes
+in that single matter; and bang! you go off and blow up and maroon
+yourself and sulk until nobody knows what's the matter with you. Don't
+be a fool. Everybody likes you; every girl _can't_ love you--but I'll
+bet many of 'em do.... Pick one out and come to me--if that's your
+trouble. Go ahead and pick out what you fancy; and ten to one it will be
+all right, and between you and me we'll land the little lady!"
+
+"You're tremendously kind----"
+
+"I know I am. I'm always doing kindnesses--and nobody likes me, and
+they'd bite my head off, every one of 'em--if they weren't afraid it
+would disagree with them," she added grimly.
+
+Quarren rose and came over to the bedside.
+
+"Good-bye, Mrs. Sprowl," he said. "And--I like you--somehow--I really
+do."
+
+"The devil you do," said the old lady.
+
+"It's a curious fact," he insisted, smiling.
+
+"Get out with you, Ricky! And I want you to come----"
+
+"No--please."
+
+"What?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I want to see some real people again. I've forgotten what they
+resemble."
+
+"That's a damned insolent remark!" she gasped.
+
+"Not meant to be. _You_ are real enough, Heaven knows. But," and his
+smile faded--"I've taken a month off to think it out. And, do you know,
+thinking being an unaccustomed luxury, I've enjoyed it. Imagine my
+delight and surprise, Mrs. Sprowl, when I discovered that my leisurely
+reflections resulted in the discovery that I had a mind--a real
+one--capable of reason and conclusions. And so when I actually came to a
+conclusion my joy knew no bounds----"
+
+"Ricky! Stop those mental athletics! Do you hear? I've a toothache and a
+backache and I can't stand 'em!"
+
+Quarren was laughing now; and presently a grim concession to humour
+relaxed the old lady's lips till her fat face creased.
+
+"All right," she said; "go and play with the ragged boy around the
+corner, my son. Then when you're ready come home and get your face
+washed."
+
+"May I come occasionally to chat with you?"
+
+"As though you'd do that if you didn't have to!" she exclaimed
+incredulously.
+
+"I think you know better."
+
+"No, I don't!" she snapped. "I know men and women; that's all I know.
+And as you're one of the two species I don't expect anything celestial
+from you.... And you'd better go, now."
+
+She turned over on her pillow with a grunt: Quarren laughed, lifted one
+of her pudgy and heavily ringed hands from the coverlet, and, still
+smiling, touched the largest diamond with his lips.
+
+"I think," he said, "that you are one of the very few I really like in
+your funny unreal world.... You're so humanly bad."
+
+"What!" she shouted, floundering to a sitting posture.
+
+But, looking back at her from the door, he found her grinning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Premonitions of spring started the annual social exodus; because in the
+streets of Ascalon and in the busy ways of Gath spring becomes summer
+over night and all Philistia is smitten by the sun.
+
+And all the meanness and shabbiness and effrontery of the monstrous
+city, all its civic pretence and tarnished ostentation are suddenly
+revealed when the summer sun blazes over Ascalon. Wherefore the daintier
+among the Philistines flee--idler, courtier, dangler and squire of
+dames--not to return until the first snow-flakes fall and the gray veil
+of November descends once more over the sorry sham of Ascalon.
+
+Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the
+drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer
+sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and
+millions of them--and a real sky overhead edging far horizons.
+
+He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being
+hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of
+unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester
+Caldera was to finance for him.
+
+Recently, however, that suave young man had smilingly denied making any
+such promise to anybody; which surprised and disconcerted Quarren who
+had no money with which to build sewers, roads, and electric plants.
+And he began to realise how carelessly he had drifted into the
+enterprise--how carelessly he had drifted into everything and past
+everything for the last five years.
+
+After a hunt for a capitalist among and outside his circle of friends
+and acquaintances he began to appreciate his own lunacy even more
+thoroughly.
+
+Then Lester Caldera, good-naturedly, offered to take the property off
+his hands for less than a third of what he paid Sprowl for it; and as
+Quarren's adjoining options were rapidly expiring he was forced to
+accept. Which put the boy almost entirely out of business; so he closed
+his handsome office downtown and opened another in the front parlour of
+an old and rather dingy brown-stone house on the east side of Lexington
+Avenue near Fiftieth Street and hung out his sign once more over the
+busy streets of Ascalon.
+
+                   RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN
+                         Real Estate
+
+Also he gave up his quarters at the Irish Legation to the unfeigned
+grief of the diplomats domiciled there, and established himself in the
+back parlour and extension of the Lexington Avenue house, ready at all
+moments now for business or for sleep. Neither bothered him excessively.
+
+He wrote no more notes to Strelsa Leeds--that is, he posted no more,
+however many he may have composed. Rumours from the inner temple
+concerning her and Langly Sprowl and Sir Charles Mallison drifted out
+into the real world every day or so. But he never went back to the
+temple to verify them. That life was ended for him. Sometimes, sitting
+alone at his desk, he fancied that he could almost hear the far laughter
+of the temple revels, and the humming of the drones. But the roar of the
+street-car, rushing, grinding through the steel-ribbed streets of
+Ascalon always drowned it, and its far seen phantom glitter became a
+burning reality where the mid-day sun struck the office sign outside his
+open window.
+
+Fate, the ugly jade, was making faces at him, all kinds of faces. Just
+now she wore the gaunt mask of poverty, but Quarren continued to ignore
+her, because to him, there was no real menace in her skinny grin, no
+real tragedy in what she threatened.
+
+Real tragedy lay in something very different--perhaps in manhood awaking
+from ignoble lethargy to learn its own degeneracy in a young girl's
+scornful eyes.
+
+All day long he sat in his office attending to the trivial business that
+came into it--not enough so far to give him a living.
+
+In the still spring evenings he retired to his quarters in the back
+parlour, bathed, dressed, looking out at the cats on the back fences.
+Then he went forth to dine either at the Legation or with some one of
+the few friends he had cared to retain in that magic-lantern world which
+he at last had found uninhabitable--a world in which few virile men
+remain very long--fewer and fewer as the years pass on. For the gilding
+on the temple dome is peeling off; and the laughter is dying out, and
+the hum of the drones sounds drowsy like unreal voices heard in summer
+dreams.
+
+"It is the passing of an imbecile society," declaimed Westguard--"the
+dying sounds of its meaningless noise--the first omens of a silence
+which foretells annihilation. Out of chaos will gradually emerge the
+elements of a real society--the splendid social and intellectual
+brotherhood of the future----"
+
+"See my forthcoming novel," added Lacy, "$1.35 net, for sale at all
+booksellers or sent post-paid on receipt of----"
+
+"You little fashionable fop!" growled Westguard--"there's a winter
+coming for all butterflies!"
+
+"I've seen 'em dancing over the snow on a mild and sunny day," retorted
+Lacy. "Karl, my son, the nobly despairing writer with a grouch never yet
+convinced anybody."
+
+"I don't despair," retorted Westguard. "This country is getting what it
+wants and what it deserves, ladled out to it in unappetising gobs. Year
+after year great incoming waves of ignorance sweep us from ocean to
+ocean; but I don't forget that those very waves also carry a constantly
+growing and enlightened class higher and higher toward permanent
+solidity.
+
+"Every annual wave pushes the flotsam of the year before toward the
+solid land. The acquaintance with sordid things is the first real
+impulse toward education. Some day there will be no squalor in the
+land--neither the physical conditions in our slums nor the arid
+intellectual deserts within the social frontiers."
+
+"But the waves will accomplish that--not your very worthy novels," said
+Lacy, impudently.
+
+"If you call me 'worthy' I'll bat you on the head," roared Westguard,
+sitting up on the sofa where he had been sprawling; and laughter, loud
+and long, rattled the windows in the Irish Legation.
+
+The May night was hot; a sickly breeze stirred the curtains at the open
+windows of Westguard's living room where the Legation was entertaining
+informally.
+
+Quarren, Lacy, O'Hara, and Sir Charles Mallison sat by the window
+playing poker; the Earl of Dankmere, perched on the piano-stool, was
+mournfully rattling off a string of melodies acquired along Broadway;
+Westguard himself, flat on his back, occupied a leather lounge and
+dispensed philosophy when permitted.
+
+"You know," said Lacy, dealing rapidly, "you're only a tin-horn
+philosopher, Karl, but you really could write a good story if you tried.
+Get your people into action. That's the game."
+
+O'Hara nodded. "Interestin' people, in books and outside, are always
+doin' things, not talkin'," he said--"like Sir Charles quietly drawin'
+four cards to a kicker and sayin' nothin'."
+
+"--Like old Dankmere, yonder, playing 'Madame Sherry' and not trying to
+tell us why human beings enjoy certain sounds known as harmonies, but
+just keeping busy beating the box----"
+
+"--Like a pretty woman who is contented to be as attractive and cunnin'
+as she can be, and not stoppin' to explain the anatomy of romantic love
+and personal beauty," added O'Hara.
+
+"--Like----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake give me a stack of chips and shut up!" shouted
+Westguard, jumping to his feet and striding to the table. "Everybody on
+earth is competent to write a book except an author, but I defy anybody
+to play my poker hands for me! Come on, Dankmere! Let's clean out this
+complacent crowd!"
+
+Lord Dankmere complied, and seated himself at the table, anxiously
+remarking to Quarren that he had come to America to acquire capital, not
+to spend it. Sir Charles laughed and dealt; Westguard drew five cards,
+attempted to bluff Quarren's full hand, and was scandalously routed.
+
+Again the cards were dealt and O'Hara bet the limit; and the Earl of
+Dankmere came back with an agonised burst of chips that scared out Lacy
+and Sir Charles and left Quarren thinking.
+
+When finally the dust of combat blew clear of the scene Dankmere's
+stacks were nearly gone, and Quarren's had become symmetrical
+sky-scrapers.
+
+Lacy said to Dankmere: "Now that you've learned how to get poor quickly
+you're better prepared for the study of riches and how to acquire 'em.
+Kindly pass the buck unless your misfortunes have paralysed you."
+
+"The whole country," said his lordship, "is nothing but one gigantic
+poker game. I sail on the next steamer. I'm bluffed out."
+
+"Poor old Dankmere," purred Lacy, "won't the ladies love you?"
+
+"Their demonstrations," said the Earl, "are not keeping me awake
+nights."
+
+"Something keeps Quarren awake nights, judging by his transom light. Is
+it love, Ricky?"
+
+A slight colour mounted to Quarren's thin cheeks, but he answered
+carelessly: "I read late sometimes.... How many cards do you want?"
+
+Sir Charles Mallison turned his head after a moment and looked at
+Quarren; and meeting his eye, said pleasantly: "I only want one card,
+Quarren. Please give me the right one."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"The Queen of Hearts."
+
+"Dealer draws one also," said the young fellow.
+
+Sir Charles laid down his hand with a smile:
+
+"Did _you_ fill?" he asked Quarren as everybody else remained out.
+
+"I don't mind showing," said Quarren sorting out his cards, faces up.
+
+"Which end?" inquired O'Hara.
+
+"An interior." And he touched the Queen of Hearts, carelessly.
+
+"Crazy playing and lunatic's luck," commented Lacy. "Dankmere, and you,
+too, Sir Charles, you'd better cut and run for home as fast as your
+little legs can toddle. Quarren is on the loose."
+
+Sir Charles laughed, glanced at Quarren, then turned to Dankmere.
+
+"It's none of my business," he said, "but if you really are in the
+devilish financial straits you pretend to be, why don't you square up
+things and go into trade?"
+
+"Square things?" repeated the little Earl mournfully; "will somebody
+tell me how? Haven't I been trying out everything? Didn't I back a
+musical comedy of sorts? Didn't I even do a turn in it myself?"
+
+"That's what probably smashed it," observed O'Hara.
+
+"He did it very well," laughed Sir Charles.
+
+"Dankmere ought to have filled his show full of flossy flappers,"
+insisted Lacy. "Who wants to see an Earl dance and sing? Next time I'll
+manage the company for you, Dankmere----"
+
+"There'll be no next time," said Dankmere, scanning his cards. "I'm done
+for," he added, dramatically, letting his own ante go.
+
+"You've lost your nerve," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"And everything else, my boy!"
+
+"What's the matter with the heiresses, anyway?" inquired O'Hara
+sympathetically.
+
+"The matter is that I don't want the sort that want me. Somebody's
+ruined the business in the States. I suppose I might possibly induce a
+Broadway show-girl----"
+
+The little Earl got up and began to wander around, hands in his pockets,
+repeating:
+
+"I'd make a pretty good actor, in spite of what O'Hara said. It's the
+only thing I like anyway. I can improvise songs, too. Listen to this
+impromptu, you fellows":
+
+And he bent over the piano, still standing, and beat out a jingling
+accompaniment:
+
+    "I sigh for the maiden I never have seen,
+    I'll make her my countess whatever she's been--
+    Typewriter, manicure, heiress or queen,
+    Aged fifty or thirty or lovely eighteen,
+    Redundant and squatty, or scraggy and lean,
+    Generous spendthrift or miserly mean--
+    I sigh for the maiden I never have seen
+    Provided she's padded with wads of Long Green!"
+
+Still singing the air he picked up a silk hat and walking-stick and
+began to dance, rather lightly and gracefully, his sunken, heavy-lidded
+eyes fixed nonchalantly on space--his nimble little feet making no sound
+on the floor as he swung, swayed, and capered under the electric light
+timing his agile steps to his own singing.
+
+Loud applause greeted him; much hand-clapping and cries of "Good old
+Dankmere! Three cheers for the British peerage!"
+
+Sir Charles looked slightly bored, sitting back in his chair and waiting
+for the game to recommence. Which it did with the return of the Earl who
+had now relieved both his intellect and his legs of an accumulated and
+Terpischorean incubus.
+
+"If I was a bigger ass than I am," said the Earl, "I'd go into
+vaudeville and let my creditors howl."
+
+"Did they really send you over here?" asked O'Hara, knowing that his
+lordship made no bones about it.
+
+"They certainly did. And a fine mess I've made of it, haven't I? No
+decent girl wants me--though why, I don't know, because I'm decent
+enough as men go. But your newspapers make fun of me and my title--and I
+might as well cut away to Dankmere Tarns and let 'em pick my carcass
+clean."
+
+"What's Dankmere Tarns?" asked O'Hara.
+
+"Mine, except the mortgages on it."
+
+"Entailed?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"Kept up?"
+
+"No, shut up."
+
+"What sort of a gallery is that of yours at Dankmere Tarns?" inquired
+Sir Charles, turning around.
+
+"How the devil do I know," replied his lordship fretfully. "I don't know
+anything about pictures."
+
+"Are there not some very valuable ones there?"
+
+"There are a lot of very dirty ones."
+
+"Don't you know their value?"
+
+"No, I don't. But I fancy the good ones were sold off long ago--twenty
+years ago I believe. There was a sale--a lot of rubbish of sorts. I
+took it for granted that Lister's people cleaned out everything worth
+taking."
+
+"When you go back," said Sir Charles, "inspect that rubbish again.
+Perhaps Lister's people overlooked enough to get you out of your
+financial difficulties. Pictures that sold for L100 twenty years ago
+might bring L1,000 to-day. It's merely a suggestion, Dankmere--if you'll
+pardon it."
+
+"And a good one," added O'Hara. "I know a lot of interestin' people and
+they tell me that you can sell any rotten old picture over here for any
+amount of money. Sting 'em, Dankmere. Get to 'em!"
+
+"You might send for some of your pictures," said Lacy, "and have a shot
+at the auction-mad amateur. He's too easy."
+
+"And pay duty and storage and gallery hire and auction fees!--no,
+thanks," replied the little Earl, cautiously. "I've burnt my bally
+fingers too often in schemes."
+
+"I've a back room behind my office," said Quarren. "You can store them
+there if you like, without charge."
+
+"Besides, if they're genuine, there will be no duty to pay," explained
+Sir Charles.
+
+Dankmere sucked on his cigar but made no comment; and the game went on,
+disastrously for him.
+
+Quarren said casually to Sir Charles:
+
+"I suppose you will be off to Newport, soon."
+
+"To-morrow. When do you leave town?"
+
+"I expect to remain in town nearly all summer."
+
+"Isn't that rather hard?"
+
+"No; it doesn't matter much," said the boy indifferently.
+
+"Many people are already on the wing," observed Lacy.
+
+"The Calderas have gone, I hear, and the Vernons and Mrs. Sprowl," added
+O'Hara.
+
+"I suppose the Wycherlys will open Witch-Hollow in June," said Quarren
+carelessly.
+
+"Yes. Are you asked?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Doubtless you will be," said Sir Charles. "Jim Wycherly is mad about
+aviation and several men are going to send their biplanes up and try 'em
+out."
+
+"I'm goin'," announced O'Hara.
+
+Quarren drew one card, and filled his house. Sir Charles laid aside his
+useless hand with a smile and turned to Quarren:
+
+"Mrs. Leeds has spoken so often and so pleasantly of you that I have
+been rather hoping I might some day have the opportunity of knowing you
+better. I am very glad that the Legation asked me to-night."
+
+Quarren remained absolutely still for a few moments. Then he said:
+
+"Mrs. Leeds is very generous in her estimate of me."
+
+"She is a woman of rare qualities."
+
+"Of unusual qualities and rare charm," said Quarren coolly.... "I think,
+Karl, that I'll make it ten more to draw cards. Are you all staying in?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the party broke up--and it was an early one--Lord Dankmere turned
+to Quarren.
+
+"I'll drop in at your office, if I may, some morning," he said. "May I?"
+
+"It will give me both pleasure and diversion," said Quarren laughing.
+"There is not enough business in my office to afford me either. Also
+you are welcome to send for those pictures and store them in my back
+parlour until you can find a purchaser."
+
+"It's an idea, isn't it?" mused his lordship. "Now I don't suppose you
+happen to know anything about such rubbish, do you?--pictures and that
+sort. What?"
+
+"Why--yes--I do, in a way."
+
+"The devil you do! But then I've always been told that you know
+something about everything----"
+
+"Very, very little," said Quarren, laughing. "In an ignorant world
+smatterings are reverenced. But the fashionable Philistine of yesterday,
+who used to boast of his ignorance regarding things artistic and
+intellectual, is becoming a little ashamed of his ignorance----"
+
+Dankmere, reddening, said bluntly:
+
+"That applies to me; doesn't it?"
+
+"I beg your pardon!--I didn't mean it that way----"
+
+"You're right, anyway. I'm damnably ignorant.... See here, Quarren, if I
+send over for some of those pictures of mine, will you give me your
+opinion like a good fellow before I make a bally ass of myself by
+offering probable trash to educated people?"
+
+"I'll tell you all I know about your pictures, if that is what you
+mean," said Quarren, much amused.
+
+They shook hands as Sir Charles came up to make his adieux.
+
+"Good-bye," he said to Quarren. "I'm off to Newport to-morrow. And--I--I
+promised to ask you to come with me."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Mrs. Sprowl told me to bring you. You know how informal she is."
+
+Quarren, surprised, glanced sharply at Sir Charles. "I don't believe she
+really wants me," he said.
+
+"If she didn't she wouldn't have made me promise to bring you. She's
+that sort, you know. Won't you come? I am sure that Mrs. Leeds, also,
+would be glad to see you."
+
+Quarren looked him coolly and unpleasantly in the eyes.
+
+"Do you really believe that?" he asked, almost insolently.
+
+Sir Charles reddened:
+
+"She asked me to say so to you. I heard from her this morning; and I
+have fulfilled her request."
+
+"Thank her for me," returned Quarren, level-eyed and very white.
+
+"Which means?" insisted Sir Charles quietly.
+
+"Absolutely nothing," said Quarren in a voice which makes enemies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following day Sir Charles left for Newport where Mrs. Sprowl had
+opened "Skyland," her villa of pink Tennessee marble, to a lively party
+of young people of which Strelsa Leeds made one. And once more,
+according to the newspapers, her engagement to Sir Charles was expected
+to be announced at any moment.
+
+When Quarren picked up the newspapers from his office desk next morning
+he found the whole story there--a story to which he had become
+accustomed.
+
+But the next day, the papers repeated the news. And it remained, for the
+first time, uncontradicted by anybody. All that morning he sat at his
+desk staring at her picture, reproduced in half-tones on the first page
+of every newspaper in town--stared at it, and at the neighbouring
+likeness of Sir Charles in the uniform of his late regiment; read once
+more of Strelsa's first marriage with all its sequence of misery and
+degradation; read fulsome columns celebrating her beauty, her
+popularity, her expected engagement to one of the wealthiest Englishmen
+in the world.
+
+[Illustration: "Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement
+to Sir Charles was expected to be announced."]
+
+He read, also, all about Sir Charles Mallison, V.C.--the long record of
+his military service, his wealth and the dignified simplicity of his
+life. He read about his immense popularity in England, his vast but
+unostentatious charities, his political and social status.
+
+To Quarren it all meant nothing more definite than a stupid sequence of
+printed words; and he dropped his blond head into both hands and gazed
+out into the sunshine. And presently he remembered the golden dancer
+laughing at him from under her dainty mask--years and years ago: and
+then he thought of the woman whose smooth young hands once seemed to
+melt so sweetly against his--thought of her gray eyes tinged with
+violet, and her hair and mouth and throat--and her cheek faintly
+fragrant against his--a moment's miracle--and then, the end----
+
+He made a quick, aimless movement as though impatiently escaping sudden
+pain; cleared his sun-dazzled eyes and began, half blindly, to turn over
+his morning's letters--circulars, bills, business matters--and suddenly
+came upon a letter from her.
+
+For a while he merely gazed at it, incredulous of its reality.
+
+Then he opened the envelope very deliberately and still, scarcely
+convinced, unfolded the scented sheaf of note-paper:
+
+     "DEAR MR. QUARREN,
+
+     "At Mrs. Sprowl's suggestion I wrote to Sir Charles asking him to
+     be kind enough to bring you with him when he came to 'Skyland.'
+
+     "Somehow, I am afraid that my informality may have offended you;
+     and if this is so, I am sorry. We have been such good friends that
+     I supposed I might venture to send you such a message.
+
+     "But perhaps I ought to have written it to you instead--I don't
+     know. Lately it seems as though many things that I have done have
+     been entirely misunderstood.
+
+     "It's gray weather here, and the sea looks as though it were
+     bad-tempered; and I've been rather discontented, too, this
+     morning----
+
+     "I don't really mean that. There is a very jolly party here.... I
+     believe that I'm growing a little tired of parties.
+
+     "Molly has asked me to Witch-Hollow for a quiet week in June, and
+     I'm going. She would ask you if I suggested it. Shall I? Because,
+     since we last met, once or twice the thought has occurred to me
+     that perhaps an explanation was overdue. Not that I should make any
+     to you if you and I meet at Witch-Hollow. There isn't any to
+     make--except by my saying that I hope to see you again. Will you be
+     content with that admission of guilt?
+
+     "I meant to speak to you again that day at the Charity affair, only
+     there were so many people bothering--and you seemed to be so
+     delightfully preoccupied with that pretty Cyrille Caldera. I really
+     had no decent opportunity to speak to you again without making her
+     my mortal enemy--and you, too, perhaps.
+
+     "May I dare to be a little friendly now and say that I would like
+     to see you? Somehow I feel that even still I may venture to talk to
+     you on a different plane and footing from any which exists between
+     other men and me. You were once so friendly, so kind, so nice to
+     me. You have been nice--_always_. And if I seem to have acquired
+     any of the hardness, any of the cynical veneer, any of the
+     fashionable scepticism and unbelief which, perhaps, no woman
+     entirely escapes in my environment, it all softens and relaxes and
+     fades and seems to slip away as soon as I begin to talk to
+     you--even on this note-paper. Which is only one way of saying,
+     'Please be my friend again!'
+
+     "I sometimes hear about you from others. I am impressively informed
+     that you have given up all frivolous social activity and are now
+     most industriously devoting yourself to your real-estate business.
+     And I am wondering whether this rather bewildering _volte-face_ is
+     to be permanent.
+
+     "Because I see no reason for anybody going to extremes. Between the
+     hermit's cell and the Palace of Delights there is a quiet and happy
+     country. Don't you know that?
+
+     "Would you care to write to me and tell me a little about yourself?
+     Do you think it odd or capricious of me to write to you? And are
+     you perhaps irritated because of my manners which must have seemed
+     to you discourteous--perhaps rude?
+
+     "I know of course that you called on me; that you telephoned; that
+     you wrote to me; and that I made no response.
+
+     "And I am going to make no explanation. Can your friendship, or
+     what may remain of it, stand the strain?
+
+     "If it can, please write to me. And forgive me whatever injustice I
+     have seemed to do you. I ask it because, although you may not
+     believe it, my regard for you has never become less since the night
+     that a Harlequin and a golden dancer met in the noisy halls of old
+     King Carnival.... Only, the girl who writes you this was younger
+     and happier then than I think she ever will be again.
+
+                             "Your friend--if you wish--
+
+                                           "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+
+
+He wrote her by return mail:
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS,
+
+     "When a man has made up his mind to drown without any more fuss, it
+     hurts him to be hauled out and resuscitated and told that he is
+     still alive.
+
+     "If you mean, ultimately, to let me drown, do it now. I've been too
+     miserable over you. Also, I was insulting to Sir Charles. He's too
+     decent to have told you; but I was. And I can't ask his pardon
+     except by mending my manner toward him in future.
+
+     "I'm a nobody; I haven't any money; and I love you. That is how the
+     matter stands this day in May. Let me know the worst and I'll drown
+     this time for good and all.
+
+     "Are you engaged to marry Sir Charles?
+
+                                "R. S. QUARREN."
+
+
+
+By return mail came a note from her:
+
+     "Can you not care for me and still be kind to me, Mr. Quarren? If
+     what you say about your regard for me is true--but it is certainly
+     exaggerated, anyway--should not your attitude toward me include a
+     nobler sentiment? I mean friendship. And I know whereof I speak,
+     because I am conscious of a capacity for it--a desire for it--and
+     for you as the object of it. I believe that, if you cared for it, I
+     could give you the very best of me in a friendship of the highest
+     type.
+
+     "It is in me to give it--a pure, devoted, lofty, untroubled
+     friendship, absolutely free of lesser and material sentiments. Am I
+     sufficiently frank? I want such a friendship. I need it. I have
+     never before offered it to any man--the kind I mean to give you if
+     you wish.
+
+     "I believe it would satisfy you; I am convinced that yours would
+     satisfy me. You don't know how I have missed such a friendship in
+     you. I have wanted it from the very beginning of our acquaintance.
+     But I had--problems--to solve, first; and I had to let our
+     friendship lie dormant. Now I have solved my perplexities, and all
+     my leisure is for you again, if you will. Do you want it?
+
+     "Think over what I have written. Keep my letter for a week and then
+     write me. Does my offer not deserve a week's consideration?
+
+     "Meanwhile please keep away from deep water. I do not wish you to
+     drown.
+
+                               "STRELSA LEEDS.
+
+     "P. S.--Lord Dankmere is here. He is insufferable. He told Mrs.
+     Sprowl that you and he were going into the antique-picture
+     business. You wouldn't think of going into anything whatever with
+     a man of that sort, would you? Or was it merely a British jest?"
+
+He wrote at once:
+
+     "I have your letter and will keep it a week before replying.
+     But--are you engaged?"
+
+She answered:
+
+     "The papers have had me engaged to Barent Van Dyne, to Langly
+     Sprowl, to Sir Charles. You may take your choice if you are
+     determined to have me engaged to somebody. No doubt you think my
+     being engaged would make our future friendship safer. I'll attend
+     to it immediately if you wish me to."
+
+Evidently she was in a gay and contrary humour when she wrote so
+flippantly to him. And he replied in kind and quite as lightly. Then, at
+the week's end he wrote her again that he had considered her letter, and
+that he accepted the friendship she offered, and gave her his in return.
+
+She did not reply.
+
+He wrote her again a week later, but had no answer. Another week passed,
+and, slowly into his senses crept the dread of deep waters closing
+around him. And after another week he began to wonder, dully, how long
+it would take a man to drown if he made no struggle.
+
+Meanwhile several dozen crates and packing cases had arrived at the
+Custom House for the Earl of Dankmere; and, in process of time were
+delivered at the real-estate office of R. S. Quarren, littering his
+sleeping quarters and office and overflowing into the extension and
+backyard.
+
+[Illustration: "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded
+in amazement by the neighbours."]
+
+It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and
+Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and
+hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the
+back fences by several astonished cats.
+
+His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and
+some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the
+ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged
+from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their
+ancient un-keyed stretchers.
+
+There were primitives on panels, triptychs, huge canvases in frames
+carved out of solid wood; pictures in battered Italian frames--some
+floridly Florentine, some exquisitely inlaid on dull azure and
+rose--pictures in Spanish frames, Dutch frames, English frames, French
+frames of the last century; portraits, landscapes, genre, still
+life--battle pictures, religious subjects, allegorical canvases,
+mythological--all stacked up pell-mell in the backyard and regarded in
+amazement by the neighbours, and by two young men who alternately smoked
+and staunched their wounds under the summer sky.
+
+"Dankmere," said Quarren at last, "did your people send over your entire
+collection?"
+
+"No; but I thought it might be as well to have plenty of rubbish on hand
+in case a demand should spring up.... What do they look like to you,
+Quarren--I mean what's your first impression?"
+
+"They look all right."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Certainly. They seem to be genuine enough as far as I can see."
+
+"But are they otherwise any good?"
+
+"I think so. I'll go over each canvas very carefully and give you my
+opinion for what it's worth. But, for Heaven's sake, Dankmere, where are
+we going to put all these canvases?"
+
+"I suppose," said the Earl gloomily, "I'll be obliged to store what you
+haven't room for. And as I gradually grow poorer and poorer the day will
+arrive when I can't pay storage; and they'll sell 'em under my nose at
+auction, Quarren. And first I know the papers will blossom out with: 'A
+Wonderful Rembrandt discovered in a junk-shop! Ancient picture bought
+for five dollars and pronounced a gem by experts! Lucky purchaser
+refuses a hundred thousand dollars cash!'"
+
+Quarren laughed and turned away into the house; and Dankmere followed,
+gloomily predicting his own approaching financial annihilation.
+
+From his office Quarren telephoned a picture dealer to send men with
+heavy wire, hooks, ladders and other paraphernalia; then he and Dankmere
+made their toilets, resumed their coats, and returned to the sunny
+office to await events.
+
+After a few moments the Earl said abruptly:
+
+"Would you care to go into this venture with me, Quarren?"
+
+"I?" said Quarren, surprised.
+
+"Yes. Will you?"
+
+"Why, I have my own business, Dankmere----"
+
+"Is it enough to keep you busy?"
+
+"No--not yet--but I----"
+
+"Then, like a good fellow, help me sell these damned pictures. I haven't
+any money to offer you, Quarren, but if you'll be willing to hang the
+pictures around your office here and in the back parlour and the
+extension, and if you'll talk the merry talk to the lunatics who may
+come in to look at 'em and tell 'em what the bally pictures are and fix
+the proper prices--why--why, I'll make any arrangement with you that you
+please. Say a half interest, now. Would that be fair?"
+
+"Fair? Of course! It's far too liberal an offer--but I----"
+
+"It's worth that to me, Quarren--if you can see your way to helping me
+out----"
+
+"But my help isn't worth half what these pictures might very easily
+bring--even at public auction----"
+
+"Why not? I'd have to pay an auctioneer, an expert to appraise them--an
+art dealer to hang them in his gallery for a couple of weeks--either
+that or rent a place by the year. The only way I can recompense you for
+your wall space, for talking art talk to visitors, for fixing prices, is
+to offer you half of what we make. Why not? You pay a pretty stiff rent
+here, don't you? You also pay a servant. You pay for heat and light,
+don't you? So if you'll turn this floor into a combination gallery of
+sorts--art and real estate, you see--we'll go into business, egad! What?
+The Dankmere galleries! What? By gad I'll have a sign made to hang out
+there beside your shingle--only I'm afraid you'll have to pay for it,
+Quarren, and recompense yourself after we sell the first picture."
+
+"But, Dankmere," he protested, very much amused, "I don't want to become
+a picture dealer."
+
+"What's the harm? Take a shot at it, old chap! A young man can't collect
+too many kinds of experience. Take me for example!--I've sold dogs and
+hunters on commission, gone shares in about every rotten scheme anybody
+ever suggested to me, financed a show, and acted in it--as you
+know--and, by gad!--here I am now a dealer in old masters! Be a good
+fellow and come in with me. What?"
+
+"I don't really know enough about antique pictures to----"
+
+"What's the odds! Neither do I! My dear sir, we must lie like gentlemen
+for the honour of the Dankmere gallery! What? Along comes a chap walking
+slowly and painfully for the weight of the money in his pockets--'Ho!'
+says he--'a genuine Van Dyck!' 'Certainly,' you say, very coldly. And,
+'How much?' says he, shivering for fear he mayn't get it. 'Three hundred
+thousand dollars,' you say, trying not to yawn in his face----"
+
+Quarren could no longer control his laughter: Dankmere blinked at him
+amiably.
+
+"We'll hang them anyhow, Dankmere," he said. "As long as there is so
+little business in the office I don't mind looking after your pictures
+for you----"
+
+"Yours, too," urged the Earl.
+
+"No; I can't accept anything----"
+
+"Then it's all off!" exclaimed Dankmere, turning a bright red. "I'm
+blessed if I'll accept charity!--even if I am hunting heiresses. I'll
+marry money if I can, but I'm damned if I hold out a tin cup for
+coppers!"
+
+"If you feel that way," began Quarren, very much embarrassed, "I'll do
+whatever would make you feel comfortable----"
+
+"Half interest or it's all off! A Dankmere means what he says--now and
+then."
+
+"One-third interest, then----"
+
+"A half!--by gad! There's a good fellow!"
+
+"No; one-third is all I'll accept."
+
+"Oh, very well. It may amount to ten dollars--it may amount to ten
+thousand--and ten times that, perhaps. What?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Quarren, smiling. "And, if you're going out, Dankmere,
+perhaps you had better order a sign painted--anything you like, of
+course. Because I'm afraid I couldn't leave these pictures here
+indefinitely and we might as well make plans to get rid of some of them
+as soon as possible."
+
+"Right-o! I'm off to find a painter. Leave it to me, Quarren. And when
+the picture-hangers come, have them hung in a poor light--I mean the
+pictures--God knows they need it--the dimmer the light the better. What?
+Take care of yourself, old chap. There's money in sight, believe me!"
+
+And the lively little Earl trotted out, swinging his stick and setting
+his straw hat at an angle slightly rakish.
+
+No business came to the office that sunny afternoon; neither did the
+picture-hangers. And Quarren, uneasy, and not caring to leave Dankmere's
+ancestral collection of pictures in the back yard all night lest the
+cats and a possible shower knock a little superfluous antiquity into
+them, had just started to go out and hire somebody to help him carry the
+canvases into the basement, when the office door opened in his very face
+and Molly Wycherly came in, breezily.
+
+"Why, Molly!" he exclaimed, surprised; "this is exceedingly nice of
+you----"
+
+"Oh, Ricky, I'm glad to see you! But I don't want to buy a house or sell
+one or anything. I'm very unhappy--and I'm glad to see you----"
+
+She pressed his hand with both her gloved ones; he closed the door and
+returned to the office; and she seated herself on top of his desk.
+
+"You dear boy," she said; "you are thin and white and you don't look
+very happy either. Are you?"
+
+"Why, of course I'm happy----"
+
+"I don't believe it! Anyway, I was passing, and I saw your shingle
+swinging, and I made the chauffeur stop on the impulse of the moment....
+How are you, Ricky dear?"
+
+"First rate. You are even unusually pretty, Molly."
+
+"I don't feel so. Strelsa and I came into town for the afternoon--on the
+most horrid kind of business, Ricky."
+
+"I'm sorry----"
+
+"You will be sorrier when you hear that about all of Strelsa's money was
+in that miserable Adamant Trust Company which is causing so much
+scandal. You didn't know Strelsa's money was in it, did you?"
+
+"No," he said gravely.
+
+"Isn't it dreadful? The child doesn't know whether she will ever get a
+penny or not. Some of those disgusting men have run away, one shot
+himself--you read about it!--and now they are trying to pretend that the
+two creatures they have arrested are insane and irresponsible. I don't
+care whether they are or not; I'd like to kill them. How does their
+insanity concern Strelsa? For three weeks she hasn't known what to
+think, what to expect--and even her lawyers can't tell her. I hate
+lawyers. But _I_ think the chances are that her pretty house will be for
+sale before long.... Wouldn't it be too tragic if it came into your
+office----"
+
+"Don't say such things, Molly," he said, bending his head over the desk
+and fumbling with his pen.
+
+"Well, I knew you'd be sympathetic. It's a shame--a crime!--it's
+absolutely disgusting the way that men gamble with other people's money
+and cheat and lie and--and--oh, it's a perfectly rotten world and I'm
+tired of it!"
+
+"Where is Mrs. Leeds?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"At Witch-Hollow--in town for this afternoon to see her stupid lawyers.
+They don't do anything. They say they can't just yet. They're lazy
+or--something worse. That's my opinion. We go out on the five-three
+train--Strelsa and I----"
+
+"Is she--much affected?"
+
+"No; and that's the silly part of it. It would simply wreck me. But she
+hasn't wept a single tear.... I suppose she'll have to marry, now--"
+Mrs. Wycherly glanced askance at Quarren, but his face remained gravely
+expressionless.
+
+"Ricky dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I had a frightful row, on your account, with Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+"I'm sorry. Why?"
+
+"I told her I was going to ask you and Strelsa to Witch-Hollow."
+
+Quarren said calmly:
+
+"Don't do it then, Molly. There's no use of your getting in wrong with
+Mrs. Sprowl."
+
+Mrs. Wycherly laughed:
+
+"Oh, I found a way around. I asked Mrs. Sprowl and Sir Charles at the
+same time."
+
+"What do you mean?" he said, turning a colourless face to hers.
+
+"What I say. Ricky dear, I suppose that Strelsa _will_ have to marry a
+wealthy man, now--and I believe she realises it, too--but I--I _wanted_
+her to marry you, some day----"
+
+He swung around again, confronting her.
+
+"You darling!" he said under his breath.
+
+Mrs. Wycherly's lip trembled and she dabbed at her eyes.
+
+"I wish I could express my feelings like Mrs. Sprowl, but I can't," she
+said naively. "Sir Charles will marry her, now; I know perfectly well he
+will--unless Langly Sprowl----"
+
+Quarren drew his breath sharply.
+
+"Not that man," she said.
+
+"God knows, Ricky. He's after Strelsa every minute--and he can make
+himself agreeable. The worst of it is that Strelsa does not believe what
+she hears about him. Women are that way, often. The moment the whole
+world pitches into a man, women are inclined to believe him a
+martyr--and end by discrediting every unworthy story concerning him....
+I don't know, but I think it is already a little that way with
+Strelsa.... He's a clever brute--and oh! what a remorseless man!... I
+said that once to Strelsa, and she said very warmly that I entirely
+misjudged him.... I wish Mary Ledwith would come back and bring things
+to a crisis--I do, indeed."
+
+Quarren said, calmly;
+
+"You don't think Mrs. Leeds is engaged to Sprowl, do you?"
+
+"No.... I don't think so. Sometimes I don't know what to think of
+Strelsa. I'm certain that she was not engaged to him four weeks ago when
+she was at Newport."
+
+Quarren gazed out into the sunlit street. It was just four weeks ago
+that her letters ceased. Had she stopped writing because of worry over
+the Adamant Trust? Or was there another reason?
+
+"I suppose," said Molly, dabbing at her eyes, "that Strelsa can't pick
+and choose now. I suppose she's got to marry for sordid and sensible and
+material reasons. But if only she would choose Sir Charles--I think I
+could be almost reconciled to her losing you----"
+
+Quarren laughed harshly.
+
+"An irreparable loss to any woman," he said. "I doubt that Mrs. Leeds
+survives losing me."
+
+"Ricky! She cares a great deal for you! So do I. And Strelsa _does_ care
+for you----"
+
+"Not too rashly I hope," he said with another disagreeable laugh.
+
+"Oh, that isn't like you, Ricky! You're not the sneering, fleering nasty
+kind. If you are badly hurt, take it better than that----"
+
+"I can't!" he said between set teeth. "I care for her; she knows it. I
+guess she knows, too, that what she once said to me started me into what
+I'm doing now--working, waiting, living like a dog--doing my best to
+keep my self-respect and obtain hers--" He choked, regained his
+self-control, and went on quietly:
+
+"Why do you think I dropped out of everything? To try to develop
+whatever may be in me--so that I could speak to her as an equal and not
+as the court jester and favourite mountebank of the degenerate gang she
+travels with----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said sullenly.
+
+"I am not offended, you poor boy.... I hadn't realised that you were so
+much in love with her--so deeply concerned----"
+
+"I have always been.... She knows it...." He cleared his eyes and turned
+a dazed gaze on the sunny street once more.
+
+"If I could--" he stopped; a hopeless look came into his eyes. Then he
+slowly shook his head.
+
+"Oh, Ricky! Ricky! Can't you do something? Can't you make a lot of money
+very quickly? You see Strelsa has simply got to marry money. Be fair; be
+just to her. A girl can't exist without money, can she? You know that,
+don't you?"
+
+"I've heard your world say so."
+
+"You know it's true!"
+
+"I don't know what is true. I don't know truth from falsehood. I suppose
+that love requires money to keep it nourished--as roses require
+manure----"
+
+"Ricky!"
+
+"I'm speaking of _your_ world----"
+
+"My world! The entire world knows that money is necessary--except
+perhaps a silly sentimentalist here and there----"
+
+"Yes, there are one or two--here and there," he said. "But they're all
+poor--and prejudiced."
+
+Molly applied her handkerchief to her eyes, viciously.
+
+"I hope _you_ are not one, Ricky. I'm sure I'm not fool enough to expect
+a girl who has been accustomed to everything to be contented without
+anything."
+
+"There's her husband as an asset."
+
+"Oh, my dear, don't talk slush!"
+
+"--And--children--perhaps."
+
+"And no money to educate them! You dear boy, there is nothing to
+do--absolutely nothing--unless it's based on money. You know it; I know
+it. People without it are intolerable--a nuisance to everybody and to
+themselves. What could Strelsa find in life without the means to enjoy
+it?"
+
+"Nothing--perhaps.... But I believe I'll ask her."
+
+"She'll tell you the truth, Ricky. She's an unusually truthful woman....
+I must go downtown. Strelsa and I are lunching"--she reddened--"with
+Langly.... His aunt would kill me if she heard of it.... I positively do
+not dare ask Langly to Witch-Hollow because I'm so deadly afraid of that
+fat old woman!... Besides, I don't want him there--although--if Strelsa
+_has_ to marry him----"
+
+She fell silent and thoughtful, reflecting, perhaps, that if Strelsa was
+going to take Langly Sprowl, her own country house might as well have
+the benefit of any fashionable and social glamour incident to the
+announcement.
+
+Then, glancing at Quarren, her heart smote her, and she flushed:
+
+"Come up to Witch-Hollow, Ricky dear, and get her to elope with you if
+you can! Will you?"
+
+"I'll come to Witch-Hollow if you ask me."
+
+"That's ducky of you. You _are_ a good sport, Ricky--and always were! Go
+on and marry her if you can. Other women have stood it.... And, I know
+it's vulgar and low and catty of me--but I'd love to see Mrs. Sprowl
+blow up--and see that hatchet-faced Langly disappointed--yes, I would,
+and I don't care what you think! Their ancestors were common people, and
+Heaven knows why a Wycherly of Wycherly should be afraid of the
+descendants of Dutch rum smugglers!"
+
+Quarren looked up with a weary smile.
+
+"But you are afraid," he said.
+
+"I am," admitted Molly, furiously; and marched out.
+
+As he put her into her car he said:
+
+"Write me if you don't change your mind about asking me to
+Witch-Hollow."
+
+"No fear," said the pretty little woman; "and," she added, "I hope you
+make mischief and raise the very dickens all around. I sincerely hope
+you do!"
+
+"I hope so, too," he said with the ghost of a smile.
+
+[Illustration: "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first
+time in nearly two months."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly
+two months.
+
+
+     "DEAR MR. QUARREN,
+
+     "Molly says that she saw you in town two weeks ago, and that she
+     told you how unexpectedly my worldly affairs have altered since I
+     last wrote to you.
+
+     "For me, somehow or other, life has been always a sequence of
+     abrupt experiences--a series of extremes--one grotesque
+     exaggeration after another, and all diametrically opposed. And it
+     seems odd that such radically material transformations should so
+     ruthlessly disturb and finally, now, end by completely altering the
+     character of a girl whose real nature is--or was--unaccented and
+     serene to the verge of indifference. For the woman writing this is
+     very different from the one you knew as Strelsa Leeds.
+
+     "I am not yet sure what the outcome of this Adamant affair will be.
+     Neither, apparently, are my attorneys. But it is absolutely certain
+     that if I ever recover anything at all, it will not amount to very
+     much--not nearly enough to live on.
+
+     "When they first brought the unpleasant news to me my instinct was
+     to sit down and write you about it. I was horribly scared, and
+     wanted you to know it.
+
+     "I didn't yield to the impulse as you know--I cannot give you the
+     reasons why. They were merely intuitions at first; later they
+     became reasons as my financial situation developed in all its
+     annoying proportions.
+
+     "I can tell you only this: before material disaster threatened me
+     out of a clear sky, supposing that matters would always remain with
+     me as they were--that I should never know any serious want, never
+     apprehend actual necessity--I had made up my mind to a course of
+     life which now has become impossible.
+
+     "It was not, perhaps, a very admirable plan of existence that I had
+     conceived for myself, nothing radical or original. I meant, merely,
+     _not_ to marry, to live well within my income, to divide my time
+     between my friends and myself--that is to give myself more leisure
+     for self-development, tranquil cultivation, and a wider and more
+     serious interest in things worthy.
+
+     "If by dividing my time between my friends and myself I was to lose
+     touch more or less with the lively and rather exacting society in
+     which I live, I had decided on the sacrifice.
+
+     "And that, Mr. Quarren, is how matters stood with me until a month
+     ago.
+
+     "Now everything is altered--even my own character I think. There is
+     in me very little courage--and, alas, much of that cowardice which
+     shrinks from pain and privation of any kind--which cringes the more
+     basely, perhaps, because there has been, in my life, so much of
+     sorrow, so little of material ease and tranquility of mind.
+
+     "I had been dreaming of a balanced and secure life with leisure to
+     develop mental resources hitherto neglected. And your
+     friendship--our new understanding--meant much of that part of life
+     for me--more than I realised--far more than you do. Can you
+     understand how deep the hurt is?--deeper because now you will learn
+     what a coward I really am and how selfishly I surrender to the
+     menace of material destruction. I am in dire terror of it; I simply
+     do not choose to endure it. That I need not submit to it, inspires
+     in me the low type of equanimity that enables me to face the future
+     with apparent courage. My world applauds it as pluck. I have
+     confessed to you what it really is.
+
+     "Now you know me, Mr. Quarren--a preacher of lofty ideals while
+     prosperous, a recreant in adversity.
+
+     "I thought once that the most ignoble sentiments ever entertained
+     by man were those lesser and physical emotions which, in the world,
+     masquerade as love--or as an essential part of it. To me they
+     always seemed intolerable as any part of love, material, unworthy,
+     base. To me love was intellectual--could be nothing less lofty--and
+     should aspire to the spiritual.
+
+     "I say this because you once tried to make me understand that you
+     loved me.
+
+     "Marriage of two minds with nothing material to sully an ideal
+     union was what I had dreamed of. I might have cared for you that
+     way when a marriage tainted with lesser emotions repelled me. And
+     now, like all iconoclasts, I end by shattering my own complacent
+     image, and the fragments have fallen to the lowest depth of all.
+
+     "For I contemplate a mariage de convenance--and I scarcely care
+     whom I marry as long as he removes from me this terror of a sordid
+     and needy future.
+
+     "All ideals, all desire for higher and better things--for a noble
+     leisure and the quiet pleasures of self-development, have
+     gone--vanished utterly. Fear sickens me night and day--the same
+     dull dread that I have known so many, many years in my life--a
+     blind horror of more unhappiness and pain after two years of
+     silence--that breathless stillness which frightened wounded things
+     know while they lie, panting, dazed listening for the coming
+     footsteps of that remorseless Fate which struck them down from
+     afar.
+
+     "I tell you this, Mr. Quarren, because it is due to you if you
+     really love me--or if you once did love me--because when you have
+     read this you will no longer care for me.
+
+     "One evening you made me understand that you cared for me; and I
+     replied to you only by a dazed silence that neither you nor I
+     entirely understood at the time. It was not contempt for you--yet,
+     perhaps, I could not really have cared very deeply for such a man
+     as you then seemed to be. It was not intellectual indifference that
+     silenced me.... And I can say no more about it--except
+     that--something--changed me radically from that moment--and ever
+     since I have been trying to understand myself--to learn something
+     about myself--and of the world I live in--and of men.
+
+     "When a crisis arrives self-revelation comes in a single flash. My
+     financial crisis arrived as you know; I suddenly saw myself as I
+     am--a woman astonishingly undeveloped and ignorant in many ways,
+     crude, unawakened, stupid--a woman half-blinded with an unreasoning
+     dread of more pain--pain which she thought had at last been left
+     behind her--and a coward all through; and selfish from head to
+     heel.
+
+     "This is what I _really_ am. And I shall prove it by marrying for
+     reasons entirely material, because I have no courage to ever again
+     face adversity and unhappiness.
+
+[Illustration: "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the
+battered party in black?'"]
+
+     "You will not care to write to me; and you will not care to see me
+     again.
+
+     "I am glad you once cared for me. If you should ever reply to this
+     letter, don't be very unkind to me. I know what I am--and I vaguely
+     surmise what I shall lose by being so. But I have no courage for
+     anything else.
+
+                                  "STRELSA LEEDS."
+
+
+
+That was the letter she wrote to Quarren; and he read it standing by his
+desk while several noisy workmen were covering every available inch of
+his walls with Dankmere's family pictures, and the little Earl himself,
+whistling a lively air, trotted about superintending everything with all
+the cheerful self-confidence of a family dog regulating everything that
+goes on in his vicinity.
+
+"I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the battered party in
+black?" he demanded briskly.
+
+Quarren looked around; "Yes," he said, "they're both by Nicholas Maas
+according to your list."
+
+"_I_ think they're bally fakes," remarked the Earl, "don't you?"
+
+"We'll try to find out," said Quarren, absently.
+
+Dankmere puffed away on his cigar and consulted his list: "Reynolds (Sir
+Joshua). Portrait of Lady Dankmere," he read; "portrait of Sir Boggs
+Dankmere!--string 'em up aloft over that jolly little lady with no frock
+on!--Rembrandt (Van Rijn). Born near Leyden, July 15th, 1607--Oh, who
+cares as long as it _is_ a Rembrandt!--Is it, Quarren? It isn't a copy,
+is it?"
+
+"I hope not," said the young fellow absently.
+
+"Egad! So do I." And to the workmen--"Philemon and Baucis by Rembrandt!
+Hang 'em up next to that Romney--over the Jan Steen ... Quarren?"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Do you think that St. Michael's Mount is a real Turner?"
+
+"It looks like it. I can't express opinions off-hand, Dankmere."
+
+"I can," said the little Earl; "and I say that if that _is_ a Turner I
+can beat it myself working with tomato catsup, an underdone omelette,
+and a clothes-brush.... Hello! I like this picture. The list calls it a
+Watteau--'The Fete Champetre.' What do you know about it, Quarren?"
+
+"Nothing yet. It seems to be genuine enough."
+
+"And this pretty girl by Boucher?"
+
+"I tell you, Dankmere, that I don't know. They all appear to be genuine,
+after a superficial examination. It takes time to be sure about any
+picture--and if we're going to be certain it will require confabs with
+authorities--restorers, dealers, experts, curators from various
+museums--all sorts and conditions of people must be approached and
+warily consulted--and paid," he added smiling. "And that has to be done
+with circumspection because some are not honest and we don't want
+anybody to get the impression that we are attempting to bribe anybody
+for a favourable verdict."
+
+A few minutes later he went across the street and telegraphed to Molly
+Wycherly:
+
+     "May I remind you that you asked me to Witch-Hollow?
+
+                                         QUARREN."
+
+The following morning after the workmen had departed, he and Dankmere
+stood contemplating the transformations wrought in the office, back
+parlour, and extension of Quarren's floor in the shabby old Lexington
+Avenue house.
+
+The transformation was complete; all woodwork had been painted white, a
+gray-green paper hung on the walls, the floor stained dark brown and
+covered with several antique rugs which had come with the pictures--a
+Fereghan, a Ladik, and an ancient Herez with rose and sapphire lights in
+it.
+
+At the end of the suite hung another relic of Dankmere Tarns--a Gobelins
+tapestry about ten by twelve, signed by Audran, the subject of which was
+Boucher's "Venus, Mars, and Vulcan" from the picture in the Wallace
+Collection. Opposite it was suspended an old Persian carpet of the
+sixteenth century--a magnificent Dankmere heirloom woven in the golden
+age of ancient Eastern art and displaying amid the soft splendour of its
+matchless hues the strange and exquisitely arched cloud-forms traced in
+forgotten dyes amid a wilderness of delicate flowers and vines.
+
+Between these two fabrics, filling the walls from base-board to ceiling,
+were ranged Dankmere's pictures. Few traces of the real-estate office
+remained--merely a desk, letter-file, a shelf piled up with maps, and
+Quarren's shingle outside; but this was now overshadowed by the severely
+magnificent sign:
+
+                     THE DANKMERE GALLERY
+                              OF
+                         OLD MASTERS
+
+             ALGERNON FAYRE, R. S. QUARREN & Co.
+
+For Lord Dankmere, otherwise Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, Earl of
+Dankmere, had decided to dedicate to trade only a portion of his
+aristocratic appellations. As for the company, it consisted of Quarren's
+cat, Daisy, and her litter of unweaned kittens.
+
+"Do you realise," said Quarren, dropping into the depths of a new
+easy-chair, "that you have almost put me out of business?"
+
+"Well, you weren't in very deeply, you know," commented Dankmere.
+
+"No; but last week I went to bed a broker in real estate; and this week
+I wake up a picture dealer and your partner. It's going to take most of
+my time. I can't sell a picture unless I know what it is. I've got to
+find out--or try to. Do you know what that means?"
+
+"I fancy it means chucking your real estate," said Dankmere,
+imperturbably. "Why not? This is a better gamble. And if we make
+anything we ought to make something worth while."
+
+"Do you propose that I shall simply drop my entire business--close up
+everything and go into this thing permanently?" demanded Quarren.
+
+"It will come to that, ultimately. Don't you want to?"
+
+From the beginning Quarren had felt, vaguely, that it would come to
+that--realised instinctively that in such an enterprise he would be on
+solid ground--that the idea was pleasant to him--that his tastes fitted
+him for such an occupation. Experience was lacking, but, somehow, his
+ignorance did not dismay him.
+
+All his life he had cared for such things, been familiar with them, been
+curious to learn more, had read enough to understand something of the
+fascinating problems now confronting him, had, in his hours of leisure,
+familiarised himself with the best of art in the public and private
+galleries of the city.
+
+More than that a natural inclination and curiosity had led him among
+dealers, restorers, brokers of pictures. He knew them all from Fifth
+Avenue to Lexington, the celebrated and the obscure; he had heard them
+talk, heard the gossip and scandal of their curious world, watched them
+buying, selling, restoring, relining, reframing; listened to their
+discussions concerning their art and the art in which they dealt. And it
+had always fascinated him although, until Dankmere arrived, it had never
+occurred to him to make a living out of a heterogeneous mass of partly
+assimilated knowledge acquired from the sheer love of the subject.
+
+Fortunate the man whose means of livelihood is also his pleasure! Deep
+in his heart lies the unconscious contentment of certainty.
+
+And somehow, with the advent of Dankmere's pictures, into Quarren's
+troubled heart had come a vague sensation of ease--a cessation of the
+old anxiety and unrest--a quiet that he had never before known.
+
+To learn what his wares really were seemed no formidable task; to
+appreciate and appraise each one only little labours of love. Every
+problem appeared to him as a separate attraction; the disposal of his
+stock a delightful and leisurely certainty because he himself would be
+certain of what he dealt in.
+
+Then, too, his mind had long since invaded a future which day by day
+grew more alluring in its suggestions. He himself would learn the
+practical and manual art of restoration--learn how to clean, reline,
+revarnish; how to identify, how to dissect. Every thread of an ancient
+canvas should tell him a true story; every grain in an old panel. He
+would be chief surgeon in his hospital for old and decrepit
+masterpieces; he would "cradle" with his own hands--clear the opacity
+from time-dimmed beauty with savant touch, knit up tenderly the wounds
+of ages----
+
+"Dankmere," he said, throwing away his cigarette, "I'm going into this
+business from this minute; and I would like to die in harness, at the
+end, the companion, surgeon, and friend of old-time pictures. Do you
+think I can make a living at it?"
+
+"God knows. Do you mean that you're really keen on it?"
+
+"Dead keen."
+
+Dankmere puffed on his cigar: "A chap usually makes out pretty well when
+he's a bit keen on anything of sorts. You'll be owning the gallery,
+next, you infernal Yankee!"
+
+Quarren laughed: "I won't forget that you gave me my first real chance
+in the world. You've done it, too; do you realise it, Dankmere?"
+
+"Very glad I'm sure."
+
+"So am I!" said Quarren with sudden emphasis. "I believe I'm on the
+right track now. I believe it's in me--in my heart--to work--to
+_work_!"--he laughed--"as the old chronicles say, 'To the glory of God
+and the happiness of self and mankind.' ... I'm grateful to you; do you
+understand?"
+
+"Awf'lly glad, old chap."
+
+"You funny Englishman--I believe you are.... And we'll make this thing
+go. Down comes my real-estate shingle; I'm a part of the Dankmere
+Galleries now. I'll rent the basement after our first sale and there
+you and I will fuss and tinker and doctor and nurse any poor old
+derelict of a picture back to its pristine beauty. What?"
+
+"Not I," said the little Earl. "All I'm good for is to furnish the
+initial stock. You may do what you please with it, and we'll share
+profits according to contract. Further than that, Quarren, you'll have
+to count me out."
+
+"Don't you care for pictures?"
+
+"I prefer horses," said the Earl drily--"and, after the stable and
+kennel, my taste inclines toward Vaudeville." And he cocked up one
+little leg over the other and whistled industriously at a waltz which he
+was attempting to compose. He possessed a high, maddening, soprano
+whistle which Quarren found painful to endure; and he was glad when his
+lordship departed, jauntily twirling his walking-stick and taking fancy
+dance steps as far as the front door.
+
+Left alone Quarren leaned back in his chair resting his head against the
+new olive-tinted velvet.
+
+He had nothing to do but sit there and gaze at the pictures and wait for
+an answer to his telegram.
+
+It came about dusk and he lighted the gas to read it:
+
+     "Come up to Witch-Hollow to-morrow.
+
+                             "MARIE WYCHERLY."
+
+
+
+He could not leave until he had planned for work to go on during his
+absence. First he arranged with Valasco to identify as nearly as
+possible, and to appraise, the French and Italian pictures. Then he made
+an arrangement with Van Boschoven for the Dutch and Flemish; secured
+Drayton-Quinn for the English; and warned Dankmere not to bother or
+interfere with these temperamental and irascible gentlemen while in
+exercise of their professional duties.
+
+"Don't whistle, don't do abrupt skirt-dances, don't sing comic songs,
+don't obscure the air with cigar smoke, don't go to sleep on the sofa
+and snore, don't drink fizzes and rattle the ice in your glass----"
+
+"My God!" faltered his lordship, "do you mind if I breathe now and
+then?"
+
+"I'll be away a few days--Valasco is slow, and the others take their
+time. Let anybody come in who wants to, but don't sell anything until
+the experts report to me in writing----"
+
+"Suppose some chap rushes in with ten thousand----"
+
+"No!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Certainly not. Chaps who rush in with any serious money at all will
+rush in again all the faster if you make them wait. Don't sell a
+picture--not even to Valasco or any of the experts----"
+
+"Suppose a charming lady----"
+
+"Now you understand, don't you? I wouldn't think of selling a single
+canvas until I have their reports and have made up my own mind that
+they're as nearly right as any expert can be who didn't actually see the
+artist paint the picture. The only trustworthy expert is the man who saw
+the picture painted--if you can believe his word."
+
+"But my dear Quarren," protested Dankmere, seriously bewildered--"how
+could any living expert ever have seen an artist, who died two hundred
+years ago, paint anything?"
+
+"Right," said Quarren solemnly; "the point is keenly taken. Ergo, there
+_are_ no real experts, only guessers. When Valasco _et al_ finish their
+guessing, I'll guess how near they have guessed correctly. Good-bye....
+You _will_ be good, won't you, Dankmere?"
+
+"No fear. I'll keep my weather eye on the shop. Do you want me to sleep
+here?"
+
+"You'd better, I think. But don't have rowdy parties here, will you? And
+don't wander away and leave the door open. By George! I believe I'd
+better stay----"
+
+"Rot! Go on and take your vacation, old chap! Back in a week?"
+
+"Yes; or any time you wire me----"
+
+"Not I. I'll have a jolly time by myself."
+
+"Don't have too many men here in the evening. The smoke will get into
+those new curtains----"
+
+Dankmere, in his trousers and undershirt, stretched on the divan,
+laughed and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. Then, reaching forth
+he took a palm-leaf fan in one hand, a tall, frosty glass in the other,
+and applied both in a manner from which he could extract the most
+benefit.
+
+"Bon voyage!" he nodded to Quarren. "My duties and compliments and all
+that--and pick me out an heiress of sorts--there's a good fellow----"
+
+As Quarren went out he heard his lordship burst forth into his
+distressing whistle; and he left him searching piercingly for
+inspiration to complete his "Coster's Hornpipe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the train Quarren bought the evening papers; and the first item that
+met his eye was a front-page column devoted to the Dankmere Galleries.
+Every paper had broken out into glaring scare-heads announcing the
+recent despoiling of Dankmere Tarns and the venture into trade of
+Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, tenth Earl of Dankmere. The majority of
+papers were facetious, one or two scathing, but the more respectable
+journals managed to repress a part of their characteristic antagonism
+and report the matter with a minimum of venom and a rather exhaustive
+historical accompaniment:
+
+
+             "POOR PEERS EAGER TO SELL HEIRLOOMS
+
+        "LORD DANKMERE'S CASE SAID TO BE ONE OF DOZENS
+                AMONG THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY
+
+                   "GAMBLING SPIRIT BLAMED
+
+      "OBSERVERS ASCRIBE POVERTY OF OLD BRITISH FAMILIES
+           TO THIS CAUSE--MANY RENT ROLLS DECLARED
+                       TO BE MORTGAGED
+
+     "The opening of the so-called Dankmere galleries on Lexington
+     Avenue will bring into the lime-light once more a sprightly though
+     somewhat world-battered little Peer recently and disastrously
+     connected with the stage and its feminine adjuncts.
+
+     "The Dankmere galleries blossom in a shabby old house flanked on
+     one side by a Chop-Suey restaurant haunted of celestials, and on
+     the other by an undertaker's establishment displaying the following
+     enterprising sign: Mortem's Popular $50 Funerals! Bury Your Family
+     at Attractive Prices!
+
+                      "GAMBLING DID IT!
+
+     "Gambling usually lands the British Peer on his aristocratic
+     uppers. But in this case gambolling behind the footlights is
+     responsible for the present display of the Dankmere family pictures
+     in the converted real-estate offices of young Mr. Quarren of
+     cotillion fame.
+
+     "Among supposedly well-to-do English nobles the need for ready cash
+     so frequently reaches the acute stage that all manner of schemes
+     are readily resorted to in an effort to 'raise the wind.'
+
+     "Lord Dankmere openly admits that had he supposed any valuable
+     'junk' lay concealed in the attics of his mansion, he would,
+     without hesitation, have converted it into ready money long before
+     this.
+
+     "Lord Dankmere's case is only one typical of dozens of others among
+     the exclusive and highly placed of Mayfair. It is a known fact that
+     since the sale of the Capri Madonna (Titian) for $350,000 to the
+     British Government, by special act of Parliament, Daffydill Palace
+     has gradually been unloaded of all treasures not tied by the entail
+     to the estate. For the same sum ($350,000) the late Earl of
+     Blitherington disposed of his famous Library and the sale of the
+     library was known to be necessary for the provision of living funds
+     for the incoming heir. Just recently the Duke of Putney, reputed to
+     be a man of vast wealth, had a difficulty with a dealer concerning
+     the sale of some of his treasures.
+
+     "Such cases may be justified by circumstances. The general public
+     hears, however, of only a few isolated cases. The number of private
+     deals that are executed, week in, week out, between impoverished
+     members of the highest nobility--some of them bound, like Lord
+     Blitherington and the Duke of Putney by close official ties to the
+     Court--and the agents of either new-rich Britishers or wealthy
+     Americans has reached its maximum, and by degrees unentailed
+     treasures and heirlooms are passing from owners of many centuries
+     to families that were unheard of a dozen years ago.
+
+                      "THE AWFUL YANKEE
+
+     "The American is given priority in the matter of purchase, not only
+     because he pays more, as a rule, but also for the reason that the
+     transfer of his prize to the United States removes the possibility
+     of noble sellers being pestered with awkward questions by the
+     inquisitive. For, however unostentatiously home deals are made and
+     transfers effected, society soon learns the facts. So hard up,
+     however, has the better-known aristocracy become, and so willing
+     are they to trade at fancy sums to anxious purchasers, that several
+     curio dealers in the St. James's quarter hold unlimited power of
+     attorney to act for plutocratic American principals either in the
+     United States or in this country.
+
+     "Those who are reasonably entitled to explain the cause of this
+     poverty among old families, whose landed estates are unimpaired in
+     acreage at least, and whose inheritance was of respectable
+     proportions, declare that not since the eighteenth century has the
+     gambling spirit so persistently invaded the inside coteries of high
+     society. The desire to acquire riches quickly seems to have taken
+     hold of the erstwhile staid and conventional upper ten, just as it
+     has seized upon the smart set. The recent booms in oil and rubber
+     have had the effect of transferring many a comfortable rent roll
+     from its owner's bankers--milady's just as often as milord's--to
+     the chartered mortgagors of the financial world. The panic in
+     America in 1907 showed to what extent the English nobility was
+     interested, not only in gilt-edged securities, but also to what
+     degree it was involved in wildcat finance. The directing geniuses
+     of many of the suspect ventures of to-day in London are often the
+     possessors of names that are writ rubric in the pages of Debrett
+     and Burke.
+
+     "According to a London radical paper, there are at present over a
+     score of estates in the auction mart which must soon pass from some
+     of the bluest-blooded nobles in Great Britain to men whose fortunes
+     have grown in the past few years from the humblest beginnings, a
+     fact which itself cannot fail to change both the tone and
+     constitution of town and country society."
+
+Quarren read every column, grimly, to the end, wincing when he
+encountered some casual reference to himself and his recent social
+activities. Then, lips compressed, boyish gaze fixed on the passing
+landscape, he sat brooding until at last the conductor opened the door
+and shouted the name of his station.
+
+The Wycherlys' new place, Witch-Hollow, a big rambling farm among the
+Connecticut hills, was only three hours from New York, and half an hour
+by automobile from the railroad. The buildings were wooden and not new;
+a fashionable architect had made the large house "colonially" endurable
+with furnaces and electricity as well as with fan-lights and fluted
+pilasters.
+
+Most of the land remained wild--weed-grown pastures, hard-wood ridges,
+neglected orchards planted seventy years ago. Molly Wycherly had ordered
+a brand new old-time garden to be made for her overlooking the wide,
+unruffled river; also a series of sylvan paths along the wooded shores
+of the hill-set lake which was inhabited by bass placed there by orders
+of her husband.
+
+"For Heaven's sake," he said to his wife, "don't try to knock any
+antiquity into the place; I'm sick of fine old ancestral halls put up by
+building-loan associations. Plenty of paint and varnish for mine, Molly,
+and a few durable iron fountains and bronze stags on the lawn----"
+
+"No, Jim," she said firmly.
+
+So he ordered an aeroplane, a herd of sheep, a shepherd, and two
+tailless sheep-dogs, and made plans to spend most of his vacation
+yachting, when he did not spend it in town.
+
+But he was restlessly domiciled at Witch-Hollow, now, and he met Quarren
+at the station in a bright purple runabout which he drove like
+lightning, one hand on the steering wheel, the other carelessly waving
+toward the streaky landscape in affable explanation of the various
+points of interest.
+
+"Quite a little colony of us up here, Quarren," he said. "I don't know
+why anybody picked out this silly country for estates, but Langly Sprowl
+started a stud farm over yonder, and then poor Chester Ledwith built a
+house for his wife in the middle of a thousand acres, over there where
+you see those maple woods!--and then people began to come and pick up
+worn-out farms and make 'em into fine old family places--Lester
+Caldera's model dairies are behind that hill; and that leather-headed
+O'Hara has a bungalow somewhere--and there's a sort of Hunt Club, too,
+and a bum pack of Kiyi's----"
+
+The wind tore most of his speech from his lips and whirled it out of
+earshot: Quarren caught a word now and then which interested him. It
+also interested him to observe how Wycherly shaved annihilation at every
+turn of the road.
+
+"I've asked some men to bring up their biplanes and have a few flies on
+me," continued his host--"I've a 'Stinger' monoplane and a Kent biplane
+myself. I can't get any more sensation out of motoring. I'd as soon
+wheel twins in a go-cart."
+
+Quarren saw him cleverly avoid death with one hand, and laughed.
+
+"Who is stopping with you up here?" he shouted close to Wycherly's ear.
+
+"Nobody--Mrs. Leeds, Chrysos Lacy, and Sir Charles. There are some few
+neighbours, too--Langly is mousing and prowling about; and that poor
+Ledwith man is all alone in his big house--fixing to get out of it so
+his wife can move in from Reno when she's ready for more mischief....
+Here we are, Quarren! Your stuff will be in your rooms in a few minutes.
+There's my wife, now----"
+
+He waved his hand to Molly but let Quarren go forward alone while he
+started across the fields toward his hangar where, in grotesque and
+vicious-looking immobility, reposed his new winged pet, the little
+Stinger monoplane, wings set as wickedly as an alert wasp's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged
+walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger
+across her lips conjuring caution.
+
+"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't
+suppose the child could possibly object."
+
+Quarren's features stiffened:
+
+"Does she?"
+
+"Why--this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and
+Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she
+had left."
+
+"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.
+
+"I really don't know, Ricky----"
+
+"Yes, you do. What has happened?"
+
+"You're certainly rude enough----"
+
+"What has happened, Molly?"
+
+"I don't know for certain, I tell you.... Langly Sprowl has been roving
+around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together
+nearly every day."
+
+"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?"
+
+"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles."
+
+"Do you believe that?"
+
+"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly has persuaded her into
+some sort of a tacit engagement.... I don't know what the child can be
+thinking of--unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has
+convinced her of his martyrdom.... There'll be a pretty situation when
+Mary Ledwith returns.... I could kill Langly--" She doubled both pretty
+hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she
+placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the
+top step deliberately kissed him.
+
+[Illustration: "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she
+whispered."]
+
+"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad
+you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and
+your new enterprise!--I laughed and laughed!--forgive me, but the papers
+were so funny--and I couldn't help laughing----"
+
+Quarren forced a smile.
+
+"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command
+a good deal of respect sooner or later."
+
+"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?"
+
+"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before
+you and Jim try to buy the entire collection."
+
+"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed
+Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly
+and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a
+bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache
+before your appearance adds another distressing jolt."
+
+"Has she had another shock recently?"
+
+"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for
+her."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and
+even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's
+a ghastly scandal--the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you
+suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!"
+
+They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived
+and a valet was busy unpacking for him.
+
+"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for
+tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it--except
+that little girl over there"--pointing along the corridor to a distant
+door.
+
+He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too
+soon."
+
+So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains,
+Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly,
+Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and
+headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of
+his guests.
+
+Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed
+setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to
+lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet.
+
+Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels
+and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break
+in--a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor
+blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair.
+
+"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his
+tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes.
+
+"We're out of the running, we two--aren't we?" he added. "You try very
+pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more
+hopeless race.... For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the
+race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy
+heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure
+and senseless gold."
+
+He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer
+was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear
+waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks.
+
+Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the
+Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions--among others the
+new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so
+marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any
+of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms
+resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him
+enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been
+so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that
+Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of
+strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or
+the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his
+heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea,
+syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where
+scores of frail and frivolous strangers nodded amid anaemic leaves, or
+where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun,
+seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per
+dozen.
+
+He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the
+sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered
+wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too
+closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions.
+
+Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering
+between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently
+rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the
+rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper
+which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks.
+There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she
+looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward
+the hand he offered.
+
+"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession.
+
+"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?"
+
+"Yes. Have you just arrived?"
+
+"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys'
+new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather
+pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?"
+
+She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he
+saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the
+lashes.
+
+[Illustration: "So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp
+curve."]
+
+He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on
+the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths;
+where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still
+waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass.
+
+No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled
+it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense
+calm.
+
+"Are you--offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the
+water.
+
+"Of course not!" he replied cordially.
+
+She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence.
+
+"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably.
+
+"Did you receive my letter?"
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"You did not answer it."
+
+"I didn't know how--then."
+
+His reply seemed to perplex her--so did his light and effortless
+good-humour.
+
+"I know how to answer it now," he added.
+
+She forced a smile:
+
+"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late
+seldom dares start.... I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me
+to be seated?"
+
+She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took
+the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter."
+
+"Really, Mr. Quarren----"
+
+"Don't you want me to?"
+
+"I--don't think--it matters, now----"
+
+"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing.
+
+She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been
+instantly conscious--he had changed since she had seen him--changed
+radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air
+suggesting assurance--an individuality which had not heretofore clearly
+distinguished him--a hidden hint of strength. Or was she
+mistaken--abashed--remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour
+of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing
+to him what she had written.
+
+She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain
+unanswered."
+
+"You think I'm too late?"
+
+She looked at him steadily:
+
+"Yes, you are too late--in every sense."
+
+"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying
+glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to
+nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never
+yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that
+letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are
+going to learn some day what tragedy really is."
+
+"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make
+me take you seriously?"
+
+"I certainly am."
+
+"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed.
+
+"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have
+_got_ to take me seriously."
+
+She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now
+gaily maintained the lighter vein:
+
+"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen
+and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I
+suppose."
+
+"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist
+rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!"--he held out to
+her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what _is_ it?"
+
+"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving
+picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent
+blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"
+
+The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given
+name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning
+silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so
+frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight
+sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain,
+inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean.
+
+"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.
+
+"How can I deny it?--with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll
+lend you some witch-hazel----"
+
+"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic,"
+he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."
+
+"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."
+
+"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a
+handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."
+
+She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."
+
+"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"
+
+"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray
+eyes--a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to
+her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched
+his shoulder.
+
+She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:
+
+"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it
+wants to?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+He went on: "I mean when _you_ want it to be. Because it's really up to
+you."
+
+"To _me_, my slangy friend?"
+
+"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."
+
+This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and
+she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.
+
+"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.
+
+"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."
+
+"Is that a reason?"--very gravely.
+
+"You can make it so if you will."
+
+She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:
+
+"You say that you always think of me--that way. But I'm afraid that,
+even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed
+you to the use of it."
+
+"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"
+
+"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to
+give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of,
+don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation----"
+
+"Strelsa----"
+
+"No!--please."
+
+"When?"
+
+She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr.
+Quarren?"
+
+"Not unless you do."
+
+"I? What do you mean?"
+
+"Will you answer me honestly?"
+
+"Have you ever found me dishonest?"
+
+"Sometimes--with yourself."
+
+Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head
+abruptly. After a few moments' silence:
+
+"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.
+
+"Then--do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"
+
+She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to
+avoid it.
+
+"I think of my friends--and you among them."
+
+"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"
+
+"I--your friends--people are eternally dinning your name into my
+ears----"
+
+"Please answer."
+
+"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to
+know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick--whatever they call you?"
+
+"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in
+sheer exasperation.
+
+"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I
+made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you--when I happen
+to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you
+that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend----"
+
+"Won't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Some day?"
+
+"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like
+it. It would be forced, artificial--an effort--and I don't
+desire--wish--care----"
+
+"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child!
+Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the
+pronunciation of my name?"
+
+Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man
+beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes
+were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became
+acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in
+touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent
+impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these
+months, the same strange sensation passed through her--a thrilling
+consciousness of his nearness.
+
+Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his
+slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.
+
+He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her,
+then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she
+saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought
+might be.
+
+He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of
+individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite
+specimen known to you as _Mister_ Quarren?"
+
+She smiled, uncertainly:
+
+"But I _don't_ reject you, _Mister_ Quarren."
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."
+
+"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."
+
+"I've got to climb over it then----"
+
+"I don't wish you to!"
+
+"Strelsa?"
+
+"W-what?"
+
+"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"
+
+"I--I don't know what you mean."
+
+"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.
+
+"Please don't say such things----"
+
+"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that
+kind of a wall remain between us----"
+
+"I ask you not to talk about such----"
+
+"You _wouldn't_," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why
+such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you
+that he cares----"
+
+"Please--if you please--I had rather not----"
+
+"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather
+plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you--I don't know how much,
+yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap
+up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously
+he is in love with the unknown on the other side."
+
+He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite
+thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended
+along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every
+nerve in her body.
+
+"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other
+side of that barrier--your unknown self, Strelsa--undiscovered as yet by
+me----"
+
+Her lips moved mechanically:
+
+"I wrote you--_told_ you what I am."
+
+"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know
+yourself----"
+
+"I do. I _am_ what I wrote you."
+
+"Partly perhaps--partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a
+sequence of blows----"
+
+"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of
+my life!--But those would not count--if I were not selfish, dishonest,
+and a coward."
+
+His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure
+left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually
+the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange
+sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and
+motionless, looking down at the still lake below.
+
+"What _is_ the barrier?" he asked quietly.
+
+"There is no barrier to your friendship--if you care to offer it, now
+that you know me."
+
+"But I _don't_ know you. And I care for more than your friendship even
+after the glimpse I have had of you."
+
+"I--care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"_Could_ you ever care for more?"
+
+"No.... I don't wish to.... There _is_ nothing higher."
+
+"_Could_ you--if there were?"
+
+But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light
+weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new
+senses that his touch had discovered so long ago--and which had
+slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless
+relaxation, this lassitude which was becoming almost painful--or
+sweet--she did not understand which--was this also a part of friendship?
+Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy?--this
+deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening
+her pulses, her even breathing--menacing the delicate nerves in her hand
+so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering----
+
+She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a
+little quick indrawn breath.
+
+"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly--scarcely knowing
+what she was saying.
+
+"What, Strelsa?"
+
+"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would."
+
+Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face
+became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully:
+
+"I'm going to fight for you all the same."
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, crisply.
+
+"Fight hard, too," he added. "I'm on my mettle at last."
+
+"You have no chance, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"With--_him_?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at
+all----"
+
+"I don't care to hear you speak that way!" she said, hotly.
+
+"Oh, I won't. A man's an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn't even
+thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you--with your unknown self
+behind that barrier. _Garde a vous!_"
+
+"I decline the combat, Monsieur," she said, trying to speak lightly.
+
+"Oh, I'm not afraid of _you_--the _visible_ you that I'm looking at and
+which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will
+fight me openly, fairly--and I have an even chance to win----"
+
+"Do you think so?" she said, lip between her teeth.
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I do.... But it's your unknown self I'm afraid of, Strelsa. God alone
+knows what it may do to both of us."
+
+"There is no other self! What do you mean?"
+
+"There are _two_ others--not this intellectual, friendly, kindly,
+visible self that offers friendship and accepts it--not even the occult,
+aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray
+eyes----"
+
+"There _is_ no other!" she said, flushing and rising to her feet.
+
+"Is it dead?"
+
+"It never lived!"
+
+"Then," he said coolly, "it will be born as sure as I stand here!--born
+to complete the trinity." He glanced out over the lake, then swung
+around sharply: "You are wrong. It _has_ been born. And that unknown
+self is hostile to me; and I know it!"
+
+They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she
+said: "I think we have talked some nonsense. Don't you?"
+
+"_You_ haven't."
+
+"You're a generous boy; do you know it?"
+
+"You say so."
+
+"Oh, I'll cheerfully admit it. If you weren't you'd detest me--perhaps
+despise me."
+
+"Men don't detest or despise a hurt and frightened child."
+
+"But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of
+her?"
+
+"I don't know," he said. "Whatever you are I can't help loving you."
+
+She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a
+while when she could control her lips she said:
+
+"I want to talk some more to you--and I don't know how; I don't even
+know what I want to say except that--that----"
+
+"What, Strelsa?"
+
+"Please be--kind to me." She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered.
+
+He said after a moment: "I couldn't be anything else."
+
+"Are you very sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It means a great deal to me," she said.
+
+They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea
+was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for
+tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got
+them in chunks and bolted them, wagging.
+
+An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she
+wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke:
+
+"Ricky dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Am I an angel or otherwise?"
+
+"Angel always--but why particularly at this instant?"
+
+"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?"
+
+"Yes--you corker!"
+
+"Well, then!"
+
+"Molly, I worship you."
+
+"_Et apres?_"
+
+"I'll double that! I adore you also!"
+
+"Content! What are you two doing?"
+
+"Strelsa and I have been taking tea."
+
+"Oh, is it 'Strelsa' already?"
+
+"Very unwillingly on her part."
+
+"It isn't 'Ricky,' too, is it?"
+
+"Alas! not yet!"
+
+"No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. _What_ do you
+think I've done, very cleverly?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the
+way to North Linden. We can't possibly get back until dinner. But that's
+not all."
+
+"What more, most wonderful of women?"
+
+"I've got _him_ with us," she said with satisfaction. "I made Jim stop
+and pick him up. I _knew_ he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I
+made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some
+fool horses at Acremont that he couldn't wriggle out of it particularly
+as Strelsa is my guest and he's rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky,
+make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I
+couldn't avoid asking him."
+
+"Very well," said Quarren grimly.
+
+He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in
+her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure.
+
+"What had Molly to say to _you_ all that time?" she asked.
+
+"Was I long away?"
+
+"Yes, you were!"
+
+"I'm delighted you found the time too long----"
+
+"I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly
+how time flies with you and Molly.... Oh, dear! _Is_ that a mosquito?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is," said Quarren.
+
+"Then indoors I go!" exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. "You may come with
+me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated."
+
+And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen
+door.
+
+Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window
+late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory.
+
+"I wonder if there's enough of this celestial radiance to make a new
+aureole for you?" he said.
+
+"So my old one is worn out, is it?"
+
+"I meant to offer you a _double_ halo."
+
+"You do say sweet things--for a rather obstinate young man," she said,
+flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through
+the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano.
+Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative:
+
+"Please lean on the piano." He did so, inquiringly.
+
+"Otherwise," she said, "you'd have attempted to seat yourself on this
+bench; and there isn't room for both of us without crowding."
+
+"If you moved a little----"
+
+"But I won't," she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the
+key-board.
+
+She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant,
+careless, but acceptable barytone.
+
+"The old ones are the best," she commented, running lightly through a
+medley ranging from "The Mikado" to "Erminie," the "Black Hussar," and
+"The Mascotte." They sang the "gobble duet" from the latter fairly well:
+
+                           _She._
+
+               "When on your manly form I gaze
+             A sense of pleasure passes o'er me";
+
+                            _He._
+
+              "The murmured music of your voice
+              Is sweeter far than liquid honey!"
+
+And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her
+turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing.
+
+[Illustration: "'The old ones are best.' she commented."]
+
+Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing "Johnny
+Schmoker" with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal
+refrain:
+
+                     "Kanst du spielen?"
+
+and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by
+that Teutonic musician.
+
+"I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless,
+pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things," she exclaimed; and did
+so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of
+sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the
+key-board with his own.
+
+She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise.
+
+"Very well," she said; "you'll have to match my performance with
+something equally imbecile"; and she composed herself to listen.
+
+"What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?" he asked gravely; "turn
+seven solemn handsprings?"
+
+"That isn't silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead."
+
+He prepared to do so but she wouldn't permit him:
+
+"No! I don't want to remember you doing such a thing.... All the same I
+believe _you_ could do it and not lose--lose----"
+
+"Dignity?"
+
+"No--I don't know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you
+to do something silly."
+
+"Shall I say it or do it?"
+
+"Either."
+
+"Then I'll recite something very, very precious--subtly, intricately,
+and psychologically precious."
+
+"Oh, please do!"
+
+"It's--it's about a lover."
+
+She blushed.
+
+"Do you mind?"
+
+"You _are_ the limit! Of course I don't!"
+
+"It's about a lady, too."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"And love--rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love."
+
+"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of
+malice in her smile.
+
+"All right. The title is: '_Oh, Love! Oh, Why?_'"
+
+"A perfectly good title," she said gravely. "I alway says 'why?' to
+Love."
+
+So he bowed to her and began very seriously:
+
+    "Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!
+    Wait for a moment while I relate
+    A harrowing tragedy up to date
+            Of innate Hate.
+
+    "A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair;
+    Her store-curls stirred in the summer air;
+    An amorous Fly espied her there,
+            So rare and fair.
+
+    "Before she knew where she was at,
+    He'd kissed the maiden where she sat,
+    And she batted him one which slapped him flat
+            Ker-spat! Like that!
+
+    "Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye!
+    Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By,
+    Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly.
+            Oh, Love! Oh, Why?"
+
+She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:
+
+"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can't endure the realism of that
+spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge
+headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?"
+
+Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood
+changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among
+the keys, striking vague harmonies.
+
+He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and
+after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.
+
+A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink,
+lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world
+outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which
+only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.
+
+She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the
+alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even
+when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a
+moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive
+lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.
+
+Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught
+her slender hand:
+
+"No!--please. Let me go! This is too serious--even if we did not mean
+it----"
+
+"You know I mean it," he said simply.
+
+"You must not! You understand why!... And don't--again! I am not--I do
+not choose to--to allow--endure--such--things----"
+
+He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking
+at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.
+
+"Please!" she repeated--and "please!" And she came toward him a step,
+and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.
+
+"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to
+me--and let me go."
+
+"Am I unkind?"
+
+"Yes--yes! You know--you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I
+_am_ going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me--not for one
+moment!"
+
+"Check you from what, Strelsa?"
+
+"From--what I want out of life!--tranquillity, ease, security,
+happiness----"
+
+"Happiness?"
+
+"Yes--yes! It _will_ be that! I don't need anything except what I shall
+have. I don't want anything else. Can't you understand? Do you think
+women feel as--as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men
+experience is also experienced by women? I don't want it; I don't
+require it! I've--I've always had a contempt for it--and I have
+still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any
+man--friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can't you
+take it--and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find
+security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my
+friendship--as long as I never swerve in it--as long as I hold you first
+among my friends--first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer
+you--I will not! Now let me go!"
+
+"Your _other_ self, fighting me," he said, half to himself.
+
+"No, _I_ am! What do you mean by my other self! There _is_ no other----"
+
+"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"
+
+She blushed scarlet:
+
+"Is _that_ what you mean!--the stupid, unworthy, material self----"
+
+"The trinity is incomplete without it."
+
+She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly
+as though frightened.
+
+After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat
+pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:
+
+"I'm not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is
+lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being
+poor makes no difference either. I simply don't care--I don't even care
+what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each
+other--whether you think so or not. And you evidently don't, but I can't
+help that. If I'm any good I'll make you think as I do----"
+
+He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms
+and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows
+slightly knitted.
+
+Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot
+in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened
+under his cheeks.
+
+"_Can't_ you care?" he said, half to himself.
+
+She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and
+almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely
+she felt that what had been there was now dead--that she never could
+respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free
+forever.
+
+"_Can't_ you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again,
+turning toward her.
+
+"Is _that_ your idea of love?"
+
+He shook his head, hopelessly:
+
+"Oh, it's everything else, too--everything on earth--and
+afterward--everything--mind, soul and body--birth, life, death--sky and
+land and sea--everything that is or was or will be----"
+
+His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked--looked up
+at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes.
+
+"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity--more than
+for love; do you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+"Yes. Because, unless you mean friendship, I care nothing for love."
+
+"That is your answer."
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then there _is_ something lacking in you."
+
+"Perhaps. I have never loved in the manner you mean. I do not wish to.
+Perhaps I am incapable of it.... I hope I am; I believe--I believe--"
+But she fell silent, standing with eyes lowered and the warm blood once
+more stinging her cheeks.
+
+Presently she looked up, calm, level-eyed:
+
+"I think you had better ask my forgiveness before you go."
+
+He shrugged:
+
+"Yes, I'll ask it if you like."
+
+To keep her composure became difficult:
+
+"It is your affair, Mr. Quarren--if you still care to preserve our
+friendship."
+
+"Would a kiss shatter it?"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"A look, a word, the quiver of an eyelash is enough."
+
+"It doesn't seem to be very solidly founded, does it?"
+
+"Friendship is the frailest thing in the world--and the mightiest.... I
+am waiting for your decision."
+
+He walked up to her again, and she steeled herself, not knowing what to
+expect.
+
+"Will you marry me, Strelsa?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I have told Mr. Sprowl that I will marry him."
+
+"Also because you don't love me; is that so?"
+
+She said tranquilly: "I can't afford to marry you. I wouldn't love you
+anyway."
+
+"Couldn't?"
+
+"Wouldn't," she said calmly; but her face was crimson.
+
+"Oh," he said under his breath--"you _are_ capable of love."
+
+"I think not, Mr. Quarren; but I am very capable of hate."
+
+And, looking up, he saw it for an instant, clear in her eyes. Then it
+died out; she turned a trifle pale, walked to the window and stood
+leaning against it, one hand on the curtain.
+
+She did not seem to hear him when he came up behind her, and he touched
+her lightly on the arm:
+
+"I ask your forgiveness," he said.
+
+"It is granted, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Have I ruined our friendship?"
+
+"I don't know what you have done," she said wearily.
+
+A few moments later the motor arrived; Quarren turned on the electric
+lights in the room; Strelsa walked across to the piano and seated
+herself.
+
+She was playing rag-time when the motor party entered; Quarren came
+forward and shook hands with Chrysos Lacy and Sir Charles; Langly Sprowl
+passed him with a short nod, saying "How are you, Quarren?"--and kept
+straight on to Strelsa.
+
+"Rotten luck," he said in his full, careless voice; "I'd meant to ride
+over and chance a gallop with you but Wycherly picked me up and started
+on one of his break-neck tears.... What have you been up to all day?"
+
+"Nothing--Mr. Quarren came."
+
+"I see--showed him about, I expect."
+
+"A--little."
+
+"Are you feeling fit, Strelsa?"
+
+"Perfectly.... Why?"
+
+"You look a bit streaky----"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"'Pon my word you do--a bit under the weather, you know----"
+
+"Woman's only friend and protector--a headache," she said, gaily
+rattling off more rag-time. "Where did you go, Langly?"
+
+"To look over some silly horses----"
+
+"They're fine nags!" remonstrated Molly--"and I was perfectly sure that
+Langly would buy half a dozen."
+
+"Not I," said that hatchet-faced young man; and into his sleek and
+restless features came a glimmer of shrewdness--the sly thrift that
+lurks in the faces of those who bargain much and wisely in petty wares.
+It must have been a momentary ancestral gleam from his rum-smuggling
+ancestors, for Langly Sprowl had never dealt in little things.
+
+Chrysos Lacy was saying: "It's adorable to see you again, Ricky. What
+_is_ this we hear about you and Lord Dankmere setting up shop?"
+
+"It's true," he laughed. "Come in and buy an old master, Chrysos, at
+bargain prices."
+
+"I shall insist on Jim buying several," said Molly.
+
+Her husband laughed derisively:
+
+"When I can buy a perfectly good Wright biplane for the same money? Come
+to earth, Molly!"
+
+"You'll come to earth if you go sky-skating around the clouds in that
+horrid little Stinger, Jim," she said. "Why couldn't _you_ take out the
+Stinger for a little exercise?"--turning to Sprowl.
+
+"I'm going to," said Sprowl in his full penetrating voice, not conscious
+that it required courage to risk a flight with the Stinger. Nobody had
+ever imputed any lack of that sort of courage to Langly Sprowl. He
+simply did not understand bodily fear.
+
+Strelsa glanced up at him from the piano:
+
+"It's rather risky, isn't it?"
+
+He merely stared at her out of his slightly protruding eyes as though
+she were speaking an unfamiliar language.
+
+"Jim," said Quarren, "would you mind taking me as a passenger?"
+
+Wycherly, reckless enough anyway, balked a little at the proposition:
+
+"That Stinger is too light and too tricky I'm afraid."
+
+"Isn't she built for two?"
+
+"Well, I suppose she _could_ get off the ground with you and me----"
+
+"All right; let's try her?"
+
+"Jim! I won't let you," said his wife.
+
+"Don't be silly, Molly. Rix and I are not going up if she won't take
+us----"
+
+"I forbid you to try! It's senseless!"
+
+Her husband laughed and finished his whisky and soda. Then twirling his
+motor goggles around his fingers he stood looking at Strelsa.
+
+"You're a pretty little peach," he said sentimentally, "and I'm sorry
+Molly is here or----"
+
+"Do _you_ care?" laughed Strelsa, looking around at him over her
+shoulder. "_I_ don't mind being adored by _you_, Jim."
+
+"Don't you, sweetness?"
+
+"Indeed I don't."
+
+Wycherly started toward her: Langly Sprowl, who neither indulged in
+badinage nor comprehended it in others, turned a perfectly
+expressionless face on his host, who said:
+
+"You old muffin head, did you ever smile in your life? You'd better try
+now because I'm going to take your best girl away from you!"
+
+Which bored Sprowl; and he turned his lean, narrow head away as a sleek
+and sinister dog turns when laughed at.
+
+Strelsa slipped clear of the piano and vanished, chased heavily by
+Wycherly.
+
+Molly said: "It's time to dress, good people. Langly, your man is
+upstairs with your outfit. Come, Chrysos, dear--Rix, have you everything
+you want?" she added in a low voice as he stood aside for her to pass:
+"Have you _everything_, Ricky?"
+
+"Nothing," he said.
+
+"The little minx! _Is_ it Langly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" And, aloud: "Jim! Do let Langly try out the
+Stinger to-morrow."
+
+Her husband, who had given up his search for Strelsa, said that Sprowl
+was welcome.
+
+People scattered to their respective quarters; Quarren walked slowly to
+his. Sprowl, passing with his mincing, nervous stride, said: "How's
+little Dankmere?"
+
+"All right," replied Quarren briefly.
+
+"Cheap little beggar," commented Sprowl.
+
+"He happens to be my partner," said the other.
+
+"He suits your business no doubt," said Sprowl with a contempt he took
+no pains to conceal--a contempt which very plainly included Quarren as
+well as the Earl and the picture business.
+
+Arrived at his door he glanced around to stare absently at Quarren. The
+latter said, pleasantly:
+
+"I don't suppose you meant to be offensive, Sprowl; you simply can't
+help it; can you?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean, you can't help being a bounder. It's just in you, isn't it?"
+
+For a moment Sprowl's hatchet face was ghastly; he opened his mouth to
+speak, twice, then jerked open his door and disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Quarren had been at Witch-Hollow three days when Dankmere called him on
+the long-distance telephone.
+
+"Do you want me to come back?" asked the young fellow. "I don't mind if
+you do; I'm quite ready to return----"
+
+"Not at all, my dear chap," said his lordship. "I fancied you might care
+to hear how matters are going in the Dankmere Galleries."
+
+"Of course I do, but I rather hoped nothing in particular would happen
+for a week or so----"
+
+"Plenty has. You know those experts of yours, Valasco, Drayton-Quinn,
+and that Hollander Van Boschoven. Well, they don't get on. Each has come
+to me privately, and in turn, and told me that the others were no
+good----"
+
+"Your role is to remain amiable and non-committal," said Quarren. "Let
+them talk----"
+
+"Valasco and Drayton-Quinn won't speak, and Van Boschoven has notified
+me that he declines to come to the house as long as either of the others
+are there."
+
+"Very well; arrange to have them there on different days."
+
+"I don't think Valasco will come back at all."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--the fact is--I believe I practically--so to speak--hit him."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Fact, old chap."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, he asked me if I knew more about anything than I did about
+pictures. I didn't catch his drift for about an hour--but then it came
+to me, and I got up out of my chair and walked over and punched his
+head. I don't think he'll come back, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't. What else have you been doing?" said Quarren angrily.
+
+"Nothing. One picture--the Raeburn portrait--has a bad hole in it."
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"Rather extraordinary thing, that! I was giving a most respectable card
+party--some ladies and gentlemen of sorts--from the Winter Garden I
+believe--and one of the ladies inadvertently shyed a glass at another
+lady----"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Dankmere----"
+
+"Quite right old chap--my fault entirely--I won't do it again. But, do
+you know, the gallery already has become a most popular resort. People
+are coming and going all day--a lot of dealers among them I suspect--and
+there have been a number of theatrical people who want to hire pictures
+for certain productions to be staged next winter----"
+
+"We don't do that sort of thing!"
+
+"That's what I thought; but there was one very fetching girl who opens
+in 'Ancestors' next October----"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Right-o! I'll tell her at luncheon.... I say, Quarren: Karl Westguard
+wants the gallery to-night. May I let him have it?"
+
+"Certainly. What for?"
+
+"Oh, some idea of his--I've forgotten what he said."
+
+"I believe I'd better come down," said Quarren bluntly.
+
+"Don't dream of it, old fellow. Everything is doing nicely. My respects
+to the fair. By-the-bye--anything in my line up there?"
+
+Quarren laughed:
+
+"I'm afraid not, Dankmere."
+
+"_Very_ well," said the Earl, airily. "I'm not worrying now, you know.
+_Good_-bye, old sport!"
+
+And he rang off.
+
+Quarren meeting Molly in the hall said:
+
+"I think I'd better leave this afternoon. Dankmere is messing matters."
+
+"Are you going to run away?" she said in a low voice, glancing sideways
+at Strelsa who had just passed them wearing her riding habit.
+
+"Run away," he repeated, also lowering his voice. "From whom?"
+
+"From Langly Sprowl."
+
+He shrugged and looked out of the window.
+
+"It _is_ running away," insisted his pretty hostess. "You have a chance
+I think."
+
+"Not the slightest."
+
+"You are wrong. Strelsa wept in her sleep all night. How does that
+strike you?"
+
+"Not over me," he said grimly; but added: "How do you know she did?"
+
+"Her maid told mine," admitted Molly shamelessly. "Now if you are going
+to criticise my channels of information I'll remind you that Richelieu
+himself----"
+
+"Oh, Molly! Molly! What a funny girl you are!" he said, laughing.
+"You're a sweet, loyal little thing, too--but there's no use--" His face
+became expressionless, almost haggard--"there's no use," he repeated
+under his breath.
+
+Slowly, side by side, they walked out to the veranda, her hand resting
+lightly just within the crook of his arm, he, absent-mindedly filling
+his pipe.
+
+"Strelsa likes you," she said.
+
+"With all the ardour and devotion of a fish," he returned, coolly.
+
+"Rix?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Do you know," said Molly, thoughtfully, "she _is_ a sort of a fish. She
+has the emotions of a mollusc as far as your sex is concerned. Some
+women _are_ that way--more women than men would care to believe.... Do
+you know, Ricky, if you'll let us alone, it is quite natural for us to
+remain indifferent to considerations of that sort?"
+
+She stood watching the young fellow busy with his pipe.
+
+"It's only when you keep at us long enough that we respond," she said.
+"Some of us are quickly responsive; it takes many of us a long while to
+catch fire. Threatened emotion instinctively repels many of us--the more
+fastidious among us, the finer grained and more delicately nerved, are
+essentially reserved. Modesty, pride, a natural aloofness, are as much a
+part of many women as their noses and fingers----"
+
+"What becomes of modesty and pride when a girl marries for money?" he
+asked coolly.
+
+"Some women can give and accept in cold blood what it would be
+impossible for them to accord to a more intimate and emotional demand."
+
+"No doubt an ethical distinction," he said, "but not very clear to me."
+
+"I did not argue that such women are admirable or excusable.... But how
+many modern marriages in our particular vicinity are marriages of
+inclination, Ricky?"
+
+"You're a washed-out lot," he said--"you're satiated as schoolgirls. If
+you have any emotions left they're twisted ones by the time you are
+introduced. Most debutantes of your sort make their bow equipped for
+business, and with the experience of what, practically, has amounted to
+several seasons.
+
+"If any old-fashioned young girls remain in your orbit I don't know
+where to find them. Why, do you suppose any young girl, not yet out,
+would bother to go to a party of any sort where there was not champagne
+and a theatre-box and a supper in prospect? That's a fine comment on
+your children, Molly, but you know it's true and so does everybody who
+pretends to know anything about it."
+
+"You talk like Karl Westguard," she said, laughing. "Anyway, what has
+all this to do with you and Strelsa Leeds?"
+
+"Nothing." He shrugged. "She is part of your last word in social
+civilisation----"
+
+"She is a very normal, sensitive, proud girl, who has known little
+except unhappiness all her life, Rix--including two years of marital
+misery--two years of horror.--And you forget that those two years were
+the result of a demand purely and brutally emotional--to which, a
+novice, utterly ignorant, she yielded--pushed on by her mother....
+Please be fair to her; remember that her childhood was pinched with
+poverty, that her girlhood in school was a lonely one, embarrassed by
+lack of everything which her fashionable schoolmates had as matters of
+course.
+
+"She could not go to the homes of her schoolmates in vacation times,
+because she could not ask them, in turn, to her own. She was still in
+school when Reggie Leeds saw her--and misbehaved--and the poor little
+thing was sent home, guiltless but already half-damned. No wonder her
+mother chased Reggie Leeds half around the world dragging her daughter
+by the wrist!"
+
+"Did it make matters any better to force that drunken cad into a
+marriage?" asked Quarren coldly.
+
+"It makes another marriage possible for Strelsa."
+
+Quarren gazed out across the country where a fine misty rain was still
+falling. Acres of clover stretched away silvered with powdery moisture;
+robins and bluebirds covered the soaked lawns, and their excited
+call-notes prophesied blue skies.
+
+"It doesn't make any difference one way or the other," said Quarren,
+half to himself. "She will go on in the predestined orbit----"
+
+"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it."
+
+"There is nothing to which she responds--except what I have not."
+
+"Make what you do possess more powerful, then."
+
+"What do I possess?"
+
+"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?"
+
+"Perhaps so--now--after a fashion.... But I am not the man who could
+ever attract her----"
+
+"Wake her, and find out."
+
+"Wake her?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you that many of us are asleep, and that few of us awake
+easily? Didn't I tell you that nobody likes to be awakened from the warm
+comfort and idle security of emotionless slumber?--that it is the
+instinct of many of us to resist--just as I hear my maid speak to me in
+the morning and then turn over for another forty winks, hating her!"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"My maid has instructions to persist until I respond," said Molly.
+"Those are my instructions to you, also."
+
+"Suppose, after all, I were knocking at the door of an empty room?"
+
+"You must take your chances of course."
+
+There was a noise of horses on the gravel: Langly cantered up on a
+handsome hunter followed by a mounted groom leading Strelsa's mare.
+
+Sprowl dismounted and came up to pay his respects to Molly, scarcely
+troubling himself to recognise Quarren's presence, and turning his back
+to him immediately, although Molly twice attempted to include him in the
+conversation.
+
+Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a
+pantomime unmistakable; but her pretty lips merely pressed each other
+tighter, and she sauntered out, crop under one arm, with a careless
+greeting to Langly.
+
+He came up offering his hand and she took it, then stood a moment in
+desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren.
+
+[Illustration: "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was
+silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."]
+
+"I thought I overheard you say to Molly that you were going back to town
+this afternoon," she remarked, casting a brief glance in his direction.
+
+"I think I'd better go," he said, pleasantly.
+
+"A matter of business I suppose?" eyebrows slightly lifted.
+
+"In a way. Dankmere is alone, poor fellow."
+
+Molly laughed:
+
+"It is not good for man to be alone."
+
+Sprowl said:
+
+"There's a housemaid in my employ--she's saved something I understand.
+You might notify Dankmere--" he half wheeled toward Quarren, eyes
+slightly bulging without a shadow of expression on his sleek, narrow
+face.
+
+Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of
+a clear sky.
+
+"What?" he said slowly--then stepped back a pace as Strelsa passed close
+in front of him, apparently perfectly unconscious of any discord:
+
+"Will you get me a lump of sugar, Mr. Quarren? My mare must be pampered
+or she'll start that jiggling Kentucky amble and never walk one step."
+
+Quarren swung on his heel and entered the house; Molly, ignoring
+Strelsa, turned sharply on Sprowl:
+
+"If you are insolent to my guests you need not come here," she said
+briefly.
+
+Langly's restless eyes protruded; he glanced from Molly to Strelsa, then
+his indifferent gaze wandered over the landscape. It was plain that the
+rebuke had not made the slightest impression. Molly looked angrily at
+Strelsa, but the latter, eyes averted, was gazing at her horse. And when
+Quarren came back with a handful of sugar she took it and, descending
+the steps, fed it, lump by lump to the two horses.
+
+Langly put her up, shouldered aside the groom, and adjusted heel-loop
+and habit-loop. Then he mounted, saluted Molly and followed Strelsa at a
+canter without even noticing his bridle.
+
+"What have you done to Langly?" asked Molly.
+
+"Characterised his bad manners the other day. It wasn't worth while;
+there's no money in cursing.... And I think, Molly dear, that I'll take
+an afternoon train----"
+
+"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way
+under my roof----"
+
+"It was outdoors, dear lady," said Quarren, smiling. "It's only his
+rudeness before you that I mind. Where is Sir Charles?"
+
+"Off with Chrysos somewhere on the river--there's their motor-launch,
+now.... Ricky!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm angry all through.... Strelsa might have said something--showed her
+lack of sympathy for Langly's remark by being a little more cordial to
+you.... I don't like it in her. I don't know whether I am going to like
+that girl or not----"
+
+"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do----"
+
+"There was! She _is_ a fish!--unless she gives Langly the dickens this
+morning.... Will you motor with Jim and me, Ricky dear?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+She did like. So presently a racing car was brought around, Jim came
+reluctantly from the hangar, and away they tore into the dull weather
+now faintly illuminated by the prophecy of the sun.
+
+Everywhere the mist was turning golden; faint smears of blue appeared
+and disappeared through the vapours passing overhead. Then, all at once
+the sun's glaring lens played across the drenched meadows, and the
+shadows of tree and hedge and standing cattle streamed out across the
+herbage.
+
+In spite of the chains the car skidded dangerously at times; mud flew
+and so did water, and very soon Molly had enough. So they tore back
+again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters,
+her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair
+of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots--past
+woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny
+streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half
+immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird
+music--past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh
+above the soaking brown earth.
+
+Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds
+fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the
+kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud
+enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded
+with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million
+blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them.
+
+Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles
+and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. Once,
+across a distant hill, two horses and their riders passed outlined
+against the sky; but even the eyes of a lover and a hater could not
+identify anybody at such a distance.
+
+So he strolled on, taking roads when convenient, fields when it suited
+him, neither knowing nor caring where he was going.
+
+Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he
+turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a
+little foot-bridge over a stream.
+
+A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up.
+
+"Is that you, Quarren?" he said.
+
+The young fellow stopped and looked down curiously at the sunken,
+unhealthy face, then, shocked, came forward hastily and shook hands.
+
+"Why, Ledwith," he said, "what are you doing here?--Oh, I forgot; you
+live here, don't you?"
+
+"That's my house yonder--or was," said the man with a slight motion of
+his head. And, after a moment: "You didn't recognise me. Have I changed
+much?"
+
+Quarren said: "You seem to have been--ill."
+
+"Yes; I have been. I'm ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few
+minutes--unless you are going somewhere in particular--or don't care to
+talk to me----"
+
+"Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be
+gentle--even with such a man.
+
+"I haven't seen much of you, for a couple of years--I haven't seen much
+of anybody," said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking
+at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren:
+
+"You are stopping with----"
+
+"The Wycherlys."
+
+"Oh, yes.... I haven't seen them lately.... They are neighbours"--he
+waved his sickly coloured hand--"but I'm rather quiet--I read a good
+deal--as you see."--He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and
+his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually.
+
+"It's a pretty country," said Quarren.
+
+"Yes--I thought so once. I built that house.... There's no use in my
+keeping up social duties," he said with another slinking glance at
+Quarren. "So I'm giving up the house."
+
+"Really."
+
+"Hasn't--you have heard so, haven't you?"
+
+He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and
+his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or
+rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and
+continuously as he jerked about in his seat.
+
+"I suppose," he said slyly, "people talk about me, Quarren."
+
+"Do you know anybody immune to gossip?" inquired Quarren, smiling.
+
+"No; that's true. But I don't care anything for people.... I read, I
+have my horses and dogs--but I'm going to move away. I told you that,
+didn't I?"
+
+"I believe you did."
+
+Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost
+imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance:
+
+"There's no use pretending to _you_, Quarren; is there?"
+
+Quarren said nothing.
+
+"You know all the gossip--all the dirty little faits divers of your
+world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential----"
+
+"You're mistaken, Ledwith," he said pleasantly. "I'm done with it."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that I've gone into a better business and I'm too busy to be
+useful and amusing any longer."
+
+Ledwith's dead eyes stared:
+
+"I heard you had dropped out--were never seen about. Is that true?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Found the game too rotten?"
+
+"Oh, no. It's no different from any other game--a mixture of the same
+old good and bad, with good predominating. But there's more to be had
+out of life in other games."
+
+"Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working
+as side partner, isn't it?"
+
+Quarren said pleasantly: "If you're serious, Ledwith, you're a liar."
+
+After a silence Ledwith said: "Do you think there's enough left of me to
+care what anybody calls me?"
+
+Quarren turned: "I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make
+you such an answer."
+
+"Never mind.... In that last year--when I still knew people--and when
+they still knew me--you were very kind to me, Quarren."
+
+"Why not? You were always decent to me."
+
+Ledwith was now picking at his fingers, and Quarren saw that they were
+dreadfully scarred and maltreated.
+
+"You've always been kind to me," repeated Ledwith, his extinct eyes
+fixed on space. "Other people would have halted at sight of me and gone
+the other way--or passed by cutting me dead.... _You_ sat down beside
+me."
+
+"Am I anybody to refuse?"
+
+But Ledwith only blinked nervously down at his book, presently fell to
+twitching the uncut pages again.
+
+"Poems," he said--"scarcely what you'd think I'd wish to read,
+Quarren--poems of youth and love----"
+
+"You're young, Ledwith--if you cared to help yourself----"
+
+"Yes, if I cared--if I cared. In this book they all seem to care; youth
+and happiness care; sorrow and years still care. Listen to this:
+
+    "'You who look forward through the shining tears
+              Of April's showers
+    Into the sunrise of the coming years
+    Golden with unborn flowers--
+    I who look backward where the sunset lowers
+    Counting November's hours!'
+
+"But--I _don't_ care. I care no longer, Quarren."
+
+"_That's_ losing your grip."
+
+He raised his ashy visage: "I'm _trying_ to let go.... But it's
+slow--very slow--with a little pleasure--hell's own pleasure--" He
+turned his shoulder, fished something out of his pocket, and pulling
+back his cuff, bent over. After a few moments he turned around, calmly:
+
+"You've seen that on the stage I fancy."
+
+"Otherwise, also."
+
+"Quite likely. I've known a pretty woman--" He ended with a weary
+gesture and dropped his head between his hands.
+
+"Quarren," he said, "there's only one hurt left in it all. I have two
+little children."
+
+Quarren was silent.
+
+"I suppose--it won't last--that hurt. They're with my mother. It was
+agreed that they should remain with her.... But it's the only hurt I
+feel at all now--except--rarely--when those damned June roses are in
+bloom.... She wore them a good deal.... Quarren, I'm glad it came early
+to me if it had to come.... Like yellow dogs unsuccessful men are the
+fastest breeders. The man in permanent hard luck is always the most
+prolific.... I'm glad there are no more children."
+
+His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read
+what was not written there--
+
+    "Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
+      Froze my swift speech; she turning on my face
+    The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
+      Spoke slowly.
+
+    "'I had great beauty; ask thou not my name;
+      No one can be more wise than destiny.
+    Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came
+      I brought calamity.'"
+
+Quarren bit his lip and looked down at the sunlit brook dancing by under
+the bridge in amber beauty.
+
+Ledwith said musingly: "I don't know who it might have been if it had
+not been Sprowl. It would have been _somebody_!... The decree has been
+made absolute."
+
+Quarren looked up.
+
+"She's coming back here soon, now. I've had the place put in shape for
+her."
+
+After a silence Quarren rose and offered his hand.
+
+Ledwith took it: "I suppose I shall not see you again?"
+
+"I'm going to town this afternoon. Good-bye."
+
+Looking back at the turn of the path he saw Ledwith, bent nearly double,
+terribly intent on his half-bared arm.
+
+Returning in time for luncheon he encountered Sir Charles fresh from the
+river, and Chrysos prettily sun-burned, just entering the house.
+
+"We broke down," said the girl; "I thought we'd never get back, but Sir
+Charles is quite wonderful and he mended that very horrid machinery with
+the point of a file. Think of it, Ricky!--the point of a file!"
+
+Sir Charles laughed and explained the simplicity of the repairs; and
+Chrysos, not a whit less impressed, stared at him out of her pretty
+golden eyes with a gaze perilously resembling adoration.
+
+Afterward, by the bay-window upstairs, Quarren said lightly to Molly:
+
+"How about the little Lacy girl and the Baronet?"
+
+"She's an idiot," said Molly, shortly.
+
+"I'm afraid she is."
+
+"Of course she is. I wish I hadn't asked her. Why, she goes about like a
+creature in a trance when Sir Charles is away.... I don't know whether
+to say anything to her or whether to write to her mother. She's slated
+for Roger O'Hara."
+
+"I don't suppose her parents would object to Sir Charles," said Quarren,
+smiling.
+
+"That's why I hesitate to write. Sir Charles is in love with Strelsa;
+anybody can see that and everybody knows it. And it isn't likely that a
+child like Chrysos could swerve him."
+
+"Then you'd better send him or her away, hadn't you?"
+
+"I don't know what to do," said Molly, vexed. "June is to be quiet and
+peaceful at Witch-Hollow, and Sir Charles wanted to be here and Mrs.
+Lacy asked me to have Chrysos because she needed the quiet and calm. And
+_look_ what she's done!"
+
+"It's probably only a young girl's fancy."
+
+"Then it ought to be nipped in the bud. But her mother wants her here
+and Sir Charles wants to be here and if I write to her mother she'll let
+her remain anyway. I'm cross, Ricky. I'm tired, too--having dictated
+letters and signed checks until my head aches. Where have you been?"
+
+"Prowling."
+
+"Well, luncheon is nearly ready, and Strelsa isn't back. Are you going
+to New York this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Please don't."
+
+"I think it's better," he said lightly.
+
+"All right. Run away if you want to. Don't say another word to me; I'm
+irritated."
+
+Luncheon was not very gay; Chrysos adored Sir Charles in silence, but so
+sweetly and unobtrusively that the Baronet was totally unaware of it.
+Molly, frankly out of temper, made no effort of any sort; her husband in
+his usual rude health and spirits talked about the Stinger to everybody.
+Strelsa, who had arrived late, and whose toilet made her later still,
+seemed inclined to be rather cheerful and animated, but received little
+encouragement from Molly.
+
+However, she chatted gaily with Sir Charles and with Quarren, and after
+luncheon invited Sir Charles to read to her and Chrysos, which the grave
+and handsome Englishman did while they swung in old-fashioned hammocks
+under the maple trees, enjoying the rare treat of hearing their own
+language properly spoken.
+
+Molly had a book to herself on the veranda--the newest and wickedest of
+French yellow-covered fiction; her husband returned to the Stinger;
+Quarren listened to Sir Charles for a while, then without disturbing the
+reading, slipped quietly off and wandered toward the kennels.
+
+Here for a while he caressed the nervous, silky Blue Beltons, then
+strolled on toward the hemlock woods, a morning paper, still unread,
+sticking out of his pocket.
+
+When he came to the rustic seat which was his objective, he lighted his
+pipe, unfolded the paper, and forced his attention on the first column.
+
+How long he had been studying the print he did not know when, glancing
+up at the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, he saw Strelsa coming in
+his direction. He could see her very plainly through the hemlocks from
+where he sat but she could not as yet see him. Then the fat waddling dog
+ahead of her, barked; and he saw the girl stop short, probably divining
+that the rustic seat was occupied.
+
+For a few moments she stood there, perhaps waiting for her dog to
+return; but that fat sybarite had his chin on Quarren's knees; and,
+presently, Strelsa moved forward, slowly, already certain who it was
+ahead of her.
+
+Quarren rose as she came around the curve in the path:
+
+"If you don't want me here I'm quite willing to retire," he said,
+pleasantly.
+
+"That is a ridiculous thing to say," she commented. Then she seated
+herself and motioned him to resume his place.
+
+"I was rather wondering," she continued, "whether I'd see you before you
+leave."
+
+"Oh, are you driving this afternoon?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I should certainly have looked for you and made my adieux."
+
+"Would you have remembered to do it?"
+
+He laughed:
+
+"What a question! I might possibly forget my own name, but not anything
+concerning you."
+
+She looked down at the paper lying between them on the bench, and, still
+looking down, said slowly:
+
+"I am sorry for what Langly did this morning.... He has expressed his
+contrition to me----"
+
+"_That_ is all right as long as he doesn't express it to me,"
+interrupted Quarren, bluntly.
+
+"He means to speak to you----"
+
+"Please say to him that your report of his mental anguish is
+sufficient."
+
+"_Are_ you vindictive, Mr. Quarren?" she asked, reddening.
+
+"Not permanently. But I either like or I dislike. So let the incident
+close quietly."
+
+"Very well--if you care to humiliate me--him----"
+
+"Dear Mrs. Leeds, he isn't going to be humiliated, because he doesn't
+care. And you know I wouldn't humiliate you for all the world----"
+
+"You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you----"
+
+He looked up at her:
+
+"Would _that_ make it easier for you?"
+
+"I--perhaps--please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Very well," he said quietly.
+
+He caressed the dog's head where it lay across his knees, and looked out
+over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and
+wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart
+the sun.
+
+She said in a low voice: "I hope your new business venture will be
+successful."
+
+"I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care."
+
+"I care--greatly.... As much as I--dare."
+
+He laughed: "Don't you dare care about me?"
+
+She bit her lip: "I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two
+occasions."
+
+"So you don't really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I
+might again mistake it for something deeper." He was still laughing, and
+she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then:
+
+"There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you--if you
+will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out
+of it."
+
+"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face altering.
+
+"Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"I thought I spoiled that for both of us," he said.
+
+"I didn't say so. I told you that I didn't know what you had done. I've
+had time to reflect. It--our friendship isn't spoiled--if you still
+value it."
+
+"I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa."
+
+There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly
+reflected in hers.
+
+"Then let us have peace," she said unsteadily. "I have--been--not very
+happy since you--since we----"
+
+"I know. I've been utterly miserable, too." He lifted one of her hands
+and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in
+his.
+
+"Do you mind?" he asked.
+
+"N-no."
+
+He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested
+her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes.
+
+"I think--you had better not--touch me--any more--" she said faintly.
+
+"Is it disagreeable?"
+
+"Yes--n-no.... It is--it has nothing to do with friendship--" she looked
+up, flushed, curious: "Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"Did you never caress a flower?"
+
+"Rix!"--she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first
+time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. "It was your
+nonsensical answer!--I--it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon
+for being stupid.... And--may I have my hand? I use it occasionally."
+
+He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her
+fingers.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "I'm coming back into the battle again."
+
+"Then I am sorry I forgave you."
+
+"_Are_ you?"
+
+"Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can't you be to me what I wish to be to
+you? Why can't you be what I want--what I need----"
+
+"Do you know what you need?"
+
+"Yes, I----"
+
+"No, you don't. You need to love--and to be loved. You don't know it,
+but you do!"
+
+"That is a--a perfectly brutal thing to say----"
+
+"Does it sound so to you?"
+
+"Yes, it does! It is brutal--common, unworthy of you and of me----"
+
+He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her:
+
+"_Can't_ you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't
+you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there
+anything to be ashamed of in it?--merely because nothing has ever yet
+awakened _you_ to it?"
+
+"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of
+me is more than love--cleaner, better, stronger----"
+
+"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to
+do!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!"
+
+She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves
+become irresponsible. I know nothing about it--I could not--I
+will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it--to me it is
+degrading--contemptible----"
+
+"What are you saying?"
+
+"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster.
+"I'm telling you what I know--what I have learned in a bitter
+school--during two dreadful years----"
+
+"_That!_"
+
+"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave
+friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to
+me? You are the one man I could ask it of--the only man I ever saw who
+seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could
+return what he gave me with all my heart--all my heart----"
+
+She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew
+her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his
+shoulder.
+
+"I won't _talk_ to you of love any more," he whispered. "You poor little
+girl--you poor little thing. I didn't realise--I don't want to think
+about it----"
+
+"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?"
+
+"Of course--of course--you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find
+fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or
+demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People
+are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn't love them if you
+don't want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you
+please--about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too."
+
+Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.
+
+"There," he whispered--"there, there--you little, little girl. That's
+all I want of you after all--only what you want of me. I don't wish to
+marry you if you don't wish it; I won't--I perhaps couldn't really love
+you very deeply if you didn't respond. I shall not bother you any
+more--or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am
+concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable
+to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly--look so, even, and
+I'll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?"
+
+"Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don't mean anything,
+do you by--by your arm around me----"
+
+"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled--"Which I
+suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me."
+
+"I--begin to.... Will you let me?"
+
+"Yes.... Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?"
+
+She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth
+curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless.
+
+"I believe you are worn out," he said.
+
+"I have not rested for weeks."
+
+"On account of that Trust business?"
+
+"Yes.... But I was tired before that--I had done too much--lived too
+much--and I've felt as though I were being hunted for so long.... And
+then--I was unhappy about you."
+
+"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said.
+
+"You were different, but--you made me feel that way, too--a little----"
+
+"I understand now."
+
+"Do you really?"
+
+"Yes. It's been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging,
+importuning you to consider their desires--to care for them in their
+own way--all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting,
+head-long and boisterous--all at you constantly to give them what is
+not in you to give--what has never been awakened--what lies stunned,
+crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep----"
+
+"Killed," she whispered.
+
+"Perhaps." He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the
+sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding
+the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a
+child's. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror,
+partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa
+lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she
+could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him
+was no longer there.
+
+"Do you--know about me?" she asked in a still, low voice.
+
+"About the past?"
+
+"About my marriage."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Some things."
+
+"You know what the papers said?"
+
+"Yes.... Don't speak of it--unless you care to, Strelsa."
+
+"I want to.... Do you know this is the first time?"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody.... As long as my
+mother lived I did not once speak of it to her."
+
+She rested in silence for a while, then:
+
+"Could I tell you?"
+
+"My dear, my dear!--of course you can."
+
+"I--it's been unsaid so long--there was nobody to tell it to. I've done
+my best to forget it--and for days I seem to forget it. But sometimes
+when I wake at night it is there--the horror of it--the terror sinking
+deeper into my breast.... I was very young. You knew that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You knew my mother had very slender means?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wouldn't have cared; I was an imaginative child--and could have lived
+quite happy with my fancies on very, very little.... I was a sensitive
+and affectionate child--inclined to be demonstrative. You wouldn't
+believe it, would you?"
+
+"I can understand it."
+
+"Can you? It's odd because I have changed so.... I was quite romantic
+about my mother--madly in love with her.... There is nothing more to
+say.... In boarding-school I was perfectly aware that I was being given
+the best grooming that we could afford. Even then romance persisted. I
+had the ideas of a coloured picture-book concerning men and love and
+marriage. I remember, as a very little child, that I had a picture-book
+showing Cinderella's wedding. It was a very golden sort of picture. It
+coloured my ideas long after I was grown up."
+
+She moved her head a little, looked up for an instant and smiled; but at
+his answering smile she turned her cheek to his shoulder, hastily, and
+lay silent for a while. Presently she continued in a low voice:
+
+"It was when we were returning for the April vacation--and the platform
+was crowded and some of the girls' brothers were there. There were two
+trains in--and much confusion--I don't know how I became separated from
+Miss Buckley and my schoolmates--I don't know to this day how I found
+myself on the Baltimore train, and Gladys Leeds's brother laughing and
+talking and the train moving faster and faster.... There is no use
+saying any more. I was as ignorant as I was innocent--a perfect little
+fool, frightened, excited, even amused by turns.... He had been
+attentive to me. We both were fools. Only finally I became badly scared
+and he talked such nonsense--and I managed to slip away from him and
+board the train at Baltimore as soon as we arrived there.... If he
+hadn't found me and returned to New York with me, it might not have been
+known. But we were recognised on the train and--it was a dreadful thing
+for me when I arrived home after midnight...."
+
+She fell silent; once or twice he looked down at her and saw that her
+eyes were closed. Then, with a quick, uneven breath:
+
+"I think you know the rest, don't you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+But she went on in a low, emotionless voice: "I was treated like a
+damaged gown--for which depreciation in value somebody was to be made
+responsible. I suffered; days and nights seemed unreal. There were
+lawyers; did you know it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes," she said wearily, "it was a bad dream--my mother, others--_his_
+family--many people strange and familiar passed through it. Then we
+travelled; I saw nothing, feeling half dead.... We were married in the
+Hawaiian Islands."
+
+"I know."
+
+"Then--the two years began."
+
+After a long while she said again: "That was the real nightmare. I
+passed through the depths as in a trance. There was nothing lower, not
+even hell.... We travelled in Europe, Africa, and India for two
+years.... I scarcely remember a soul I saw or one single object. And
+then--_that_ happened."
+
+"I know, dear."
+
+A slight shudder passed over her:
+
+"I've told you," she whispered--"I've told you at last. Shall I tell you
+more?"
+
+"Not unless----"
+
+"I don't know whether I want to--about the gendarmes--and that terrible
+woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs--and how ill
+I was----"
+
+She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren's arm tightened
+around her; and presently she became limp and motionless.
+
+"This--what I have told you--is a very close bond between us, isn't it?"
+she said.
+
+"Very close, Strelsa."
+
+"Was I much to blame?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"You should have left him long before."
+
+"Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and
+make the best of it."
+
+"Is that your idea?"
+
+"That was all I could see to do about it."
+
+"Don't you believe in divorce?"
+
+"Yes; but I thought he'd be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If
+he'd been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left
+him. But one can't abandon a helpless person."
+
+"Every word you utter," he said, "forges a new link in my love for you."
+
+"You don't mean--love?"
+
+"We mean the same I think--differing only in degree."
+
+"Thank you. That is nice of you."
+
+He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver:
+
+"Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?"
+
+"All gone--all of it."
+
+"I see.... And something has got to be done."
+
+"You know it has.... And I'm old before my time--tired, worn out. I
+can't work--I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were
+burnt out; I haven't the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure.
+What am I to do?"
+
+"Not what you plan to do."
+
+"Why not? As long as I need help--and the best is offered----"
+
+"Wouldn't you take less--and me?"
+
+"Oh, Rix! I couldn't _use you_!"
+
+She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from
+his arm.
+
+"I--I--you are my _friend_. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give
+anybody--not even you." She smiled, tremulously--"And I suspect that as
+far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But
+it's sweet of you. You _are_ generous, having so little and wishing to
+share it with me----"
+
+"Could you wait for me, Strelsa?"
+
+"Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can
+I?--even if it were a certainty."
+
+"Can't you hold on for a couple of years?"
+
+"Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my
+house."
+
+He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water.
+
+"Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't
+already given you----"
+
+"I ask no more."
+
+"Oh, but you _do_!"
+
+"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa--only what you have to offer of
+your own accord."
+
+They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote.
+
+"I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said.
+
+"If you could wait----"
+
+"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him."
+
+"Does that count?"
+
+"Yes--I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be.... I don't
+know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix--you don't realise--and
+I'm tired and sad--old before my time--perplexed, burnt out----"
+
+She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes.
+After a while she opened them with a weary smile.
+
+"I'll try to think--after you are gone.... What time does your train
+leave?"
+
+He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too:
+
+"_Have_ I kept you too long?"
+
+"No; I can make it. We'll have to walk rather fast----"
+
+"I'd rather you left me here."
+
+"Would you? Then--good-bye----"
+
+"Good-bye.... Will you come up again?"
+
+"I'll try."
+
+"Shall we write?"
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came.
+I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is
+enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and
+welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Then--I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her;
+she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek--a second's
+contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Quarren arrived in town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor
+he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up
+Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking
+with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him,
+freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the
+heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the
+avenue's lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms
+of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less
+wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew
+out of the night--"clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold"--and
+dissolved again into darkness.
+
+Still thrilled, almost buoyant, he walked on, passing the high-piled
+masonry of the branch Post-Office and the Central Palace on his left.
+Against high stars the twin Power-House chimneys stood outlined in
+steel; on the right endless blocks of brown-stone dwellings stretched
+northward, some already converted into shops where print-sellers,
+dealers in old books, and here and there antiquaries, had constructed
+show-windows.
+
+Firemen lounged outside the Eighth Battalion quarters; here and there a
+grocer's or wine-seller's windows remained illuminated where those who
+were neither well-to-do nor very poor passed to and fro with little
+packages which seemed a burden under the sultry skies.
+
+At last, ahead, the pseudo-oriental towers of a synagogue varied the
+flat skyline, and a moment later he could see the New Thought Laundry,
+the Tonsorial Drawing Rooms, the Undertaker's discreetly illuminated
+windows, and finally the bay-window of his own recent Real-Estate
+office, now transmogrified into the Dankmere Galleries of Old Masters,
+Fayre and Quarren, proprietors.
+
+The window appeared to be brilliantly illuminated behind the drawn
+curtains; and Quarren, surprised and vexed, concluded that the little
+Englishman was again entertaining. So it perplexed and astonished him to
+find the Earl sitting on the front steps, his straw hat on the back of
+his head, smoking. At the same moment from within the house a confused
+and indescribable murmur was wafted to his ears as though many people
+were applauding.
+
+"What on earth is going on inside?" he asked, bewildered.
+
+"You told me over the telephone that Karl Westguard might have the
+gallery for this evening," said the Englishman calmly. "So I let him
+have it."
+
+"What did he want of it? Who has he got in there?"--demanded Quarren as
+another ripple of applause sounded from within.
+
+Dankmere thought a moment: "I really don't know the audience,
+Quarren--they're not a very fragrant lot."
+
+"What audience? Who are they?"
+
+"You Americans would call them a 'tough-looking bunch--except
+Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera----"
+
+[Illustration: "A high and soulful tenor was singing 'Perfumes of
+Araby.'"]
+
+"Cyrille Caldera and De Groot! What's that silly old Dandy doing down
+here?"
+
+"Diffusing sweetness and light among the unwashed; telling them that
+there are no such things as classes, that wealth is no barrier to
+brotherhood, that the heart of Fifth Avenue beats as warmly and
+guilelessly as the heart of Essex Street, and that its wealth-burdened
+inhabitants have long desired to fraternise with the benchers in
+Paradise Park."
+
+"Who put Westguard up to this?" asked Quarren, aghast.
+
+"De Groot. Karl is writing a levelling novel calculated to annihilate
+caste. The Undertaker next door furnished the camp-chairs; the corner
+grocer the collation; Westguard, Mrs. Caldera, and Bleecker De Groot the
+mind-food. Go in and look 'em over."
+
+The front door was standing partly open; the notes of a piano floated
+through; a high and soulful tenor voice was singing "Perfumes of Araby,"
+but Quarren did not notice any as he stepped inside.
+
+Not daring to leave his suit-case in the hallway he kept on along the
+passage to the extension where the folding doors were locked. Here he
+deposited his luggage, locked the door, then walked back to the front
+parlour and, unobserved, slipped in, seating himself among the battered
+derelicts of the rear row.
+
+A thin, hirsute young man had just finished scattering the perfumes of
+Araby; other perfumes nearly finished Quarren; but he held his ground
+and gazed grimly at an improvised platform where sat in a half-circle
+and in full evening dress, Karl Westguard, Cyrille Caldera and Bleecker
+De Groot. Also there was a table supporting a Calla lily.
+
+Westguard was saying very earnestly: "The world calls me a novelist. I
+am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere
+scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message--a plain, simple,
+earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous
+indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between
+wealth and poverty----"
+
+"That's right," interrupted a hoarse voice; "it's all a con game, an'
+the perlice is into it, too!"
+
+"T'hell wit te bulls! Croak 'em!" observed another gentleman thickly.
+
+Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which
+greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old
+Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an
+artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side
+feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom.
+
+"Ah, my friends!" cried De Groot, "if you could only realise how great
+is the love for humanity within my breast!--If you could only know of
+the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the
+problems of the poor!
+
+"And I _have_ solved them--every one. And _this_ is the
+answer!"--grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it--"this!"
+seizing another--"and this, and this! And now I ask you, _what_ is this
+mute answer which I have given you?"
+
+"De merry mitt," said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with
+sweetness and indulgence.
+
+"I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacular," he said. "It _is_
+the 'merry mitt'--the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue
+clasps palms with Doyers Street----"
+
+"Ding!" said a weary voice, "yer in wrong, boss. It's nix f'r the Tongs
+wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A."
+
+Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. "The rich," he said, "are not
+really happy." His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a
+priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with
+a kind of noble pity for his own weakness.
+
+"Dear, dear friends," he said tremulously, "believe me--oh, believe me
+that the rich are not happy! Only the perspiring labourer knows what is
+true contentment. The question of poverty is a great social question.
+With me it is a religion. Oh, I could go on forever on this subject,
+dear friends, and talk on and on and on----"
+
+Emotion again checked him--or perhaps he had lost the thread of his
+discourse--or possibly he had attained its limit--but he filled it out
+by coming down from the platform and shaking hands so vigorously that
+the gardenia in his lapel presently fell out.
+
+Cyrille Caldera rose, fresh and dainty and smiling, and discoursed
+single-tax and duplex tenements, getting the two subjects mixed but not
+minding that. Also she pointed at the Calla lily and explained that the
+lily was the emblem of purity. Which may have had something to do with
+something or other.
+
+Then Westguard arose once more and told them all about the higher type
+of novel he was writing for humanity's sake, and became so interested
+and absorbed in his own business that the impatient shuffling of shabby
+feet on the floor alone interrupted him.
+
+"Has anybody," inquired De Groot, sweetly, "any vital question to
+ask--any burning inquiry of deeper, loftier import, which has perhaps
+long remained unanswered in his heart?"
+
+A gentleman known usually as "Mike the Mink" arose and indicated with
+derisive thumb a picture among the Dankmere collection, optimistically
+attributed to Correggio:
+
+"Is that Salome, mister?" he inquired with a leer.
+
+De Groot looked at the canvas, slightly startled.
+
+"No, my dear friend; that is a picture painted hundreds of years ago by
+a great Italian master. It is called 'Danae.' Jupiter, you know, came to
+her in a shower of gold----"
+
+"They all have to come across with it," remarked the Mink.
+
+Somebody observed that if the police caught the dago who painted it
+they'd pinch him.
+
+To make a diversion, and with her own fair hands, Cyrille Caldera
+summoned the derelicts to sandwiches and ginger-ale; and De Groot,
+dashing more unmanly moisture from his monocle, went about resolutely
+shaking hands, while Westguard and the hirsute young man sang "Comrades"
+with much feeling.
+
+Quarren, still unrecognised, edged his way out and rejoined Dankmere on
+the front stoop. Neither made any comment on the proceedings.
+
+Later the derelicts, moodily replete, shuffled forth into the night,
+herded lovingly by De Groot, still shaking hands.
+
+From the corner of the street opposite, Quarren and Dankmere observed
+their departure, and, later, they beheld De Groot and Mrs. Caldera slip
+around the block and discreetly disappear into a 1912 touring-car with
+silver mountings and two men in livery on the box.
+
+Westguard, truer to his principles, took a tram and Quarren and the Earl
+returned to their gallery with mixed emotions, and opened every window
+top and bottom.
+
+"It's all right in its way, I suppose," said Quarren. "Probably De Groot
+means well, but there's no conversation possible between a man who has
+just dined rather heavily, and a man who has no chance of dining at
+all."
+
+"Like preaching Christ to the poor from a Fifth Avenue pulpit," said
+Dankmere, vaguely.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"A church on a side street would seem to serve the purpose. And the poor
+need the difference."
+
+"I don't know about those matters."
+
+"No; I don't either. It's easy, cheap, and popular to knock the
+clergy.... Still, somehow or other, I can't seem to forget that the
+disciples were poor--and it bothers me a lot, Quarren."
+
+Quarren said: "Haven't you and I enough to worry us concerning our own
+morals?"
+
+Dankmere, who had been closing up and piling together the Undertaker's
+camp-chairs, looked around at the younger man.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked.
+
+"I said that probably you and I would find no time left to criticise
+either De Groot or the clergy, if we used our leisure in
+self-examination."
+
+His lordship went on piling up chairs. When he finished he started
+wandering around, hands in his pockets. Then he turned out all the
+electric lamps, drew the bay-window curtains wide so that the silvery
+radiance from the arc-light opposite made the darkness dimly lustrous.
+
+A little breeze stirred the hair on Quarren's forehead; Dankmere dropped
+into the depths of an armchair near him. For a while they sat together
+in darkness and silence, then the Englishman said abruptly:
+
+"You've been very kind to me."
+
+Quarren glanced up surprised.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because nobody else has any decent words to say to me or of me."
+
+Quarren, amused, said: "How do you know that I have, Dankmere?"
+
+"A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an
+ass--they don't tell me so but I know it. And if they don't take me for
+an ass they assume that I'm something worse--because I have a title of
+sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a
+living out of it."
+
+"Also," Quarren reminded him, "you are looking for a wealthy wife."
+
+"God bless my soul! Am I the only chap in America who happens to be
+doing that?"
+
+"No; but you're doing it conspicuously."
+
+"You mean I'm honest about it?"
+
+Quarren laughed: "Anyway perhaps that's one reason why I like you. At
+first I also thought it was merely stupidity."
+
+Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe:
+
+"The majority of your better people have managed not to know me. I've
+met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home
+thresholds--most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives
+sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?"
+
+"Both, Dankmere--and then some."
+
+"Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was
+my first wife they shy at."
+
+Quarren remained silent.
+
+"She was a bar-maid," remarked the Earl. "We were quite happy--until she
+died."
+
+Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension.
+
+"Of course my marrying her damned us both," observed the Earl.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Quite so. People would have stood for anything else.... But she
+wouldn't--you may think it odd.... And I was in love--so there you are."
+
+For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further
+speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put
+on his hat.
+
+"You know," he said, "I'm not really an ass. My tastes and my caste
+don't happen to coincide--that's all, Quarren."
+
+They walked together to the front stoop.
+
+"When do we open shop?" asked the Earl, briskly.
+
+"As soon as I get the reports from our experts."
+
+"Won't business be dead all summer?"
+
+"We may do some business with agents and dealers."
+
+"I see. You and I are to alternate as salesmen?"
+
+"For a while. When things start I want to rent the basement and open a
+department for repairing, relining and cleaning; and I'd like to be
+able to do some of the work myself."
+
+"_You?_"
+
+"Surely. It interests me immensely."
+
+"You're welcome I'm sure," said Dankmere drily. "But who's to keep the
+books and attend to correspondence?"
+
+"We'll get somebody. A young woman, who says she is well recommended,
+advertised in Thursday's papers, and I wrote her from Witch-Hollow to
+come around Sunday morning."
+
+"That's to-morrow."
+
+Quarren nodded.
+
+So Dankmere trotted jauntily away into the night, and Quarren locked the
+gallery and went to bed, certain that he was destined to dream of
+Strelsa. But the sleek, narrow head and slightly protruding eyes of
+Langly Sprowl was the only vision that peered cautiously at him through
+his sleep.
+
+The heated silence of a Sunday morning in June awoke him from a somewhat
+restless night. Bathed and shaved, he crept forth limply to breakfast at
+the Founders' Club where he still retained a membership. There was not a
+soul there excepting himself and the servants--scarcely a person on the
+avenues and cross-streets which he traversed going and coming, only one
+or two old men selling Sunday papers at street-stands, an old hag
+gleaning in the gutters, and the sparrows.
+
+Clothing was a burden. He had some pongee garments which he put on,
+installed himself in the gallery with a Sunday paper, an iced lime
+julep, and a cigarette, and awaited the event of the young lady who
+had advertised that she knew all about book-keeping, stenography,
+and typewriting, and could prove it.
+
+[Illustration: "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her
+limp black gown."]
+
+She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black
+gown, and, at Quarren's invitation, seated herself at the newly
+purchased desk of the firm.
+
+Here, at his request she took a page or two of dictation from him and
+typed it rapidly and accurately.
+
+She had her own system of book-keeping which she explained to the young
+man who seemed to think it satisfactory. Then he asked her what salary
+she expected, and she told him, timidly.
+
+"All right," he said with a smile, "if it suits you it certainly suits
+me. Will you begin to-morrow?"
+
+"Whenever you wish, Mr. Quarren."
+
+"Well, there won't be very much to do for a while," he said laughingly,
+"except to sit at that desk and look ornamental."
+
+She flushed, then smiled and thanked him for giving her the position,
+adding with another blush that she would do her best.
+
+"Your best," he said amiably, "will probably be exactly what we
+require.... Did you bring any letters?"
+
+She hesitated: "One," she said gravely. She searched in her reticule,
+found it, and handed it to Quarren who read it in silence, then returned
+it to her.
+
+"You were stenographer in Mr. Sprowl's private office?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This letter isn't signed by Mr. Sprowl."
+
+"No, by Mr. Kyte, his private secretary."
+
+"It seems you were there only six months."
+
+"Six months."
+
+"And before that where were you?"
+
+"At home."
+
+"Oh; Mr. Sprowl was your first employer!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you leave?"
+
+The girl hesitated so long that he thought she had not understood, and
+was about to repeat the question when something in her pallor and in her
+uplifted eyes checked him.
+
+"I don't know why I was sent away," she said in a colourless voice.
+
+He thought for a while, then, carelessly: "I take it that there was
+nothing irregular in _your_ conduct?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You'd tell me if there was, wouldn't you?"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes to his. "Yes," she said.
+
+How much of an expert he was at judging faces he did not know, but he
+was perfectly satisfied with himself when she took her leave.
+
+And when Dankmere came in after luncheon he said:
+
+"I've engaged a book-keeper. Her name is Jessie Vining. She's evidently
+unhappy, poor, underfed, and the prettiest thing you ever saw out of a
+business college. So, being unhappy, poor, underfed _and_ pretty, I take
+it that she's all to the good."
+
+"It's a generous world of men," said Dankmere--"so I guess she _is_
+good."
+
+"I'm sure of it. She was Sprowl's private stenographer--and he sent her
+away.... There are three reasons why he might have dismissed her. I've
+taken my choice of them."
+
+"Did he give her a letter?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh. Then I've taken my choice, too."
+
+"Kyte ventured to give her a letter," said Quarren. "I've heard that
+Kyte _could_ be decent sometimes."
+
+"I see."
+
+Nothing further was said about the new book-keeper. His lordship went
+into the back parlour and played the piano until satiated; then mixed
+himself a lime julep.
+
+That afternoon they went over the reports of the experts very carefully.
+From these reports and his own conclusions Quarren drafted a catalogue
+while Dankmere went about sticking adhesive labels on the frames, all
+numbered. And, as he trotted blithely about his work, he talked to
+himself and to the pictures:
+
+"Here's number nine for you, old lady! If I'd had a face like that I'd
+have killed the artist who transferred it to canvas!... Number sixteen
+for you there in your armour! Somebody in Springfield will buy you for
+an ancestor and that's what will happen to you.... And you, too, in a
+bag-wig!--_you'll_ be some rich Yankee's ancestor before you know it!
+That's the way you'll end, my smirking friend.... Hello! _Tiens!_ _In
+Gottes namen_--whom have we here? Why, it's Venus!... And hot weather is
+no excuse for going about _that_ way!... Listen to this, Quarren, for an
+impromptu patter-song--
+
+    "'Venus, dear, you ought to know
+      What the proper caper is--
+    Even Eve, who wasn't slow,
+      Robbed the neighbours' graperies!
+    Even Maenads on the go,
+    Fat Bacchantes in a row--
+    Even ladies in a show
+      Wear _some_ threads of naperies!
+    Through the heavens planet-strewn
+      Where a shred of vapour is
+    Quickly clothes herself the Moon!
+    Get you to a modiste soon
+      Where the tissue-paper is,
+    Cut in fashions fit for June--
+      Wear 'em, dear, for draperies----'"
+
+"_Good_ heavens!" protested Quarren--"how long can you run on like
+that?"
+
+"Years and years, my dear fellow. It's in me--born in me! Can you beat
+it? Though I appear to be a peer appearance is a liar; cast for a part
+apart from caste, departing I climb higher toward the boards to bore the
+hordes and lord it, sock and buskin dispensing sweetness, art, and light
+as per our old friend Ruskin----"
+
+"Dankmere!"
+
+"Heaven-born?"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+"I remain put.... What number do I stick on this gentleman with streaky
+features?"
+
+"Eighteen. That's a Franz Hals."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes; the records are all here, and the experts agree."
+
+His lordship got down nimbly from the step-ladder and came over to the
+desk:
+
+"Young sir," he said, "how much is that picture worth?"
+
+"All we can get for it. It's not a very good example."
+
+"Are you going to tell people that?"
+
+"If they ask me," said Quarren, smiling.
+
+"What price are you going to put on it?"
+
+"Ten thousand."
+
+"And do you think any art-smitten ass will pay that sum for a thing like
+that?"
+
+"I think so. If it were only a decent example I'd ask ten times
+that--and probably get it in the end."
+
+Dankmere inspected the picture more respectfully for a few moments, then
+pasted a label on an exquisite head by Greuze.
+
+"She's a peach," he said. "What price is going to waft her from my
+roof-tree?"
+
+"The experts say it's not a Greuze but a contemporary copy. And there's
+no pedigree, either."
+
+"Oh," said the Earl blankly, "is that your opinion, too?"
+
+"I haven't any yet. But there's no such picture by Greuze extant."
+
+"You _don't_ think it a copy?"
+
+"I'm inclined not to. Under that thick blackish-yellow varnish I believe
+I'll find the pearl and rose texture of old Greuze himself. In the
+meantime it's not for sale."
+
+"I see. And this battle-scene?"
+
+"Wouverman's--ruined by restoring. It's not worth much."
+
+"And this Virgin?"
+
+"Pure as the Virgin Herself--not a mark--flawless. It's by 'The Master
+of the Death of Mary.' Isn't it a beauty? Do you notice St. John holding
+the three cherries and the Christ-child caressing the goldfinch? Did you
+ever see such colour?"
+
+"It's--er--pretty," said his lordship.
+
+And so during the entire afternoon they compiled the price-list and
+catalogue, marking copies for what they were, noting such pictures as
+had been ruined by restoring or repainted so completely as to almost
+obliterate the last original brush stroke. Also Quarren reserved for his
+own investigations such canvases as he doubted or of which he had
+hopes--a number that under their crocked, battered, darkened or
+discoloured surfaces hinted of by-gone glories that might still be
+living and only imprisoned beneath the thick opacity of dust, soot,
+varnish, and the repainting of many years ago.
+
+And that night he went to bed happier than he had ever been in all his
+life--unless his moments with Strelsa Leeds might be termed happy ones.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monday morning brought, among other things, a cloudless sun, and little
+Miss Vining quite as spotless and radiant; and within ten minutes the
+click of the typewriter made the silent picture-plastered rooms almost
+gay.
+
+In shirtwaist and cuffs she took her place behind the desk with a sort
+of silent decision which seemed at once to invest her with suzerainty
+over all that corner of the room; and Dankmere coming in a little later,
+whistling merrily and twirling his walking-stick, sheered off
+instinctively on his breezy progress through the rooms, skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain as though her private ensign flew above it and
+earthworks, cannon and trespass notices flanked her corner on every
+side.
+
+In the back parlour he said to Quarren: "So that is the girl?"
+
+"It sure is."
+
+"God bless my soul! she acts as though she had just bought in the whole
+place."
+
+"What's she doing?"
+
+"Just sitting there," admitted Dankmere.
+
+He seemed to have lost his spirits. Once, certain that he was unobserved
+except by Quarren, he ventured to balance his stick on his chin, but it
+was a half-hearted performance; and when he tossed up his straw hat and
+attempted to catch it on his head, he missed, and the corrugated brim
+sustained a dent.
+
+A number of people called that morning, quiet, well-dressed,
+cautious-eyed, soft-spoken gentlemen who moved about noiselessly over
+the carpets and, on encountering one another, nodded with silent
+familiarity and smiles scarcely perceptible.
+
+They seemed to require no information concerning the pictures which they
+swept with glances almost careless on their first rounds of the rooms.
+But the first leisurely tour always resulted in a second where one or
+two pictures seemed to claim their closer scrutiny.
+
+Now and then one of these gentlemen would screw a jeweller's glass into
+his eye and remain a few minutes nose almost touching a canvas. Several
+used the large reading-glass lying on a side table. Before they departed
+all glanced over the incomplete scale of prices which Jessie Vining had
+typed and bound in blue covers; but one and all took their leave in
+amiable silence, saying a non-committal word or two to Quarren in
+pleasantly modulated voices and passing Jessie's desk with a grave
+inclination of gravely preoccupied faces.
+
+When the last leisurely lingerer had taken his leave Quarren said to
+Jessie Vining:
+
+"Those are representatives of various first-class dealers--confidential
+buyers, sons--even dealers themselves--like that handsome gray-haired
+young-looking man who is Max Von Ebers, head of that great house."
+
+"But they didn't buy one single thing!" said Jessie.
+
+Quarren laughed: "People don't buy off-hand. Our triumph is to get them
+here at all. I wrote to each of them personally."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nobody else came for a long while; then one or two of the lesser dealers
+appeared, and now and then a man who might be an agent or a prowling and
+wealthy amateur or perhaps one of those curious haunters of all art
+marts who never buy but who never miss assisting at all inaugurations in
+person--like an ubiquitous and silent dog who turns up wherever more
+than two people assemble with any purpose in view--or without any.
+
+During the forenoon and early afternoon several women came into the
+galleries; and they seemed to be a little different from ordinary women,
+although it would be hard to say wherein they were different except in
+one instance--a tall, darkly handsome girl whose jewellery was as
+conspicuously oriental as her brilliant colour.
+
+Later Quarren told Jessie Vining that they were expert buyers on
+commission or brokers having clients among those very wealthy people who
+bought pictures now and then because it was fashionable to do so. Also,
+these same women-brokers represented a number of those unhappy old
+families who, incognito, were being forced by straitened circumstances
+to part secretly with heirlooms--family plate, portraits, miniatures,
+furniture--even with the antique mirrors on the walls and the very
+fire-dogs on the hearth amid the ashes of a burnt-out race almost
+extinct.
+
+A few Jews came--representing the extreme types of the most wonderful
+race of people in the world--one tall, handsome, immaculate young man
+whose cultivated accent, charming manners, and quiet bearing challenged
+exception--and one or two representing the other extreme, loud,
+restless, aggressive, and as impertinent as they dared be, discussing
+the canvases in noisy voices and with callous manners verging always on
+the offensive.
+
+These evinced a disposition for cash deals and bargain-wrangling,
+discouraged good-naturedly by Quarren who referred them to the
+catalogue; and presently they took themselves off.
+
+Dankmere sidled up to Quarren rather timidly toward the close of the
+afternoon.
+
+"I don't see what bally good _I_ am in this business," he said. "I don't
+mean to shirk, Quarren, but there doesn't seem to be anything for me to
+do. I think that all these beggars spot me for an ignoramus the moment
+they lay eyes on me, and the whole thing falls on you."
+
+Quarren said laughingly: "Well, didn't you furnish the stock?"
+
+"We ought to go halves," muttered Dankmere, shyly skirting Jessie
+Vining's domain where she was writing letters with the Social Register
+at her elbow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last days of June and the first of July were repetitions in a
+measure of the opening day at the Dankmere Galleries; people came and
+were received and entertained by Quarren; Dankmere sat about in various
+chairs or retired furtively to the backyard to smoke at intervals;
+Jessie Vining with more colour in her pale, oval face, ruled her corner
+of the room in a sort of sweet and silent dignity.
+
+Dankmere, who, innately, possessed the effrontery of a born comedian,
+for some reason utterly unknown to himself, was inclined to be afraid of
+her--afraid of the clear brown eyes indifferently lifted to his when he
+entered--afraid of the quiet "Good-morning, Lord Dankmere," with which
+she responded to his morning greeting--afraid of her cool skilful little
+hands busy with pencil, pen, or lettered key--afraid of everything about
+her from her rippling brown hair and snowy collar to the tips of her
+little tan shoes--even afraid of the back of her head when it presented
+only a slender neck and two little rosy, close-set ears. But he didn't
+mention his state of abasement to Quarren.
+
+A curious thing occurred, too: Jessie had evidently been gay on Sunday;
+and, Monday noon, while out for lunch, she had left on her desk two
+Coney Island postal cards decorated with her own photograph. When she
+returned, one card had vanished; and she searched quietly but thoroughly
+before she left for home that evening, but she did not find the card.
+But she said nothing about it.
+
+The dreadful part of the affair was that it was theft--the Earl of
+Dankmere's first crime.
+
+Why he had taken it he did not know. The awful impulse of kleptomania
+alone seemed to explain but scarcely palliate his first offence against
+society.
+
+It was only after he realised that the picture and Jessie Vining vaguely
+resembled his dead Countess that his lordship began to understand why he
+had committed a felony before he actually knew what he was doing.
+
+[Illustration: Jessie Vining.]
+
+And one day when Quarren was still out for lunch and Jessie had returned
+to her correspondence, the terrified Earl suddenly appeared before her
+holding out the photograph: and she took it, astonished, her lifted eyes
+mutely inquiring concerning the inwardness of this extraordinary
+episode.
+
+But Dankmere merely fled to the backyard and remained there all the
+afternoon smoking his head off; and it was several days before Jessie
+had an opportunity to find herself alone in his vicinity and to ask him
+with almost perfect self-possession where he had found the photograph.
+
+"I stole it," said Dankmere, turning bright red to his ear-tips.
+
+"All she could think of to say was: 'Why?'
+
+"It resembles my wife. So do you."
+
+"Really," she said coldly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Several days later she learned by the skilfully careless questioning of
+Quarren that the Countess of Dankmere had not existed on earth for the
+last ten years.
+
+This news extenuated the Earl's guilt in her eyes to a degree which
+permitted a slight emotion resembling pity to pervade her. And one day
+she said to him, casually pleasant--"Would you care for that post-card,
+Lord Dankmere? If it resembles your wife I would be very glad to return
+it to you."
+
+Dankmere, painfully red again, thanked her so nicely that the slight,
+instinctive distrust and aversion which, in the beginning, she had
+entertained for his lordship, suddenly disappeared so entirely that it
+surprised her when she had leisure to think it over afterward.
+
+So she gave him the post-card, and next day she found a rose in a glass
+of water on her desk; and that ended the incident for them both except
+that Dankmere was shyer of her than ever and she was beginning to
+realise that his aloof and expressionless deportment was due to
+shyness--which seemed to be inexplicable because otherwise timidity was
+scarcely the word to characterise his lively little lordship.
+
+Once, looking out of the rear windows, through the lace curtains she saw
+the Earl of Dankmere in the backyard, gravely turning handsprings on the
+grass while still smoking his pipe. Once, entering the gallery
+unexpectedly, she discovered the Earl standing at the piano, playing a
+rattling breakdown while his nimble little feet performed the same with
+miraculous agility and professional precision. She withdrew to the front
+door, hastily, and waited until the piano ceased from rumbling and the
+Oxfords were at rest, then returned with heightened colour and a stifled
+desire to laugh which she disguised under an absent-minded nod of
+greeting.
+
+Meanwhile one or two pictures had been sold to dealers--not important
+ones--but the sales were significant enough to justify the leasing of
+the basement. And here Quarren installed himself from morning to noon as
+apprentice to an old Englishman who, before the failure of his eyesight,
+had amassed a little fortune as surgeon, physician, and trained nurse to
+old and decrepit pictures.
+
+Not entirely unequipped in the beginning, Quarren now learned more about
+his trade--the guarded secrets of mediums and solvents, the composition
+of ancient and modern canvases, how old and modern colours were ground
+and prepared, how mixed, how applied.
+
+He learned how the old masters of the various schools of painting
+prepared a canvas or panel--how the snowy "veil" was spread and dried,
+how the under painting was executed in earth-red and bone-black, how the
+glaze was used and why, what was the medium, what the varnish.
+
+He learned about the "baths of sunlight," too--those clarifying
+immersions practised so openly yet until recently not understood. He
+comprehended the mechanics, physics, and simple chemistry of that
+splendid, mysterious "inward glow" which seemed to slumber under the
+colours of the old masters like the exquisite warmth in the heart of a
+gem.
+
+To him, little by little, was revealed the only real wonder of the old
+masters--their astonishing honesty. He began to understand that, first
+of all, they were self-respecting artisans, practising their trade of
+making pictures and painting each picture as well as they knew how;
+that, like other artisans, their pride was in knowing their trade, in a
+mastery of their tools, and in executing commissions as honestly as they
+knew how and leaving the "art" to take care of itself.
+
+Also he learned--for he was obliged to learn in self-protection--the
+tricks and deceptions and forgeries of the trade--all that was unworthy
+about it, all its shabby disguises and imitations and crude artifices
+and cunning falsehoods.
+
+He examined old canvases painted over with old-new pictures and then
+relined; canvases showing portions of original colour; old canvases and
+panels repainted and artificially darkened and cleverly covered with
+both paint and varnish cracks; canvases that almost defied detection by
+needle-point or glass or thumb friction or solvent, so ingenious was
+the forgery simulating age.
+
+Every known adjunct was provided to carry out deception--genuinely old
+canvases or panels, old stretchers really worm-eaten, aged frames of the
+period, half-obliterated seals bearing sometimes even the cross-keys of
+the Vatican. Even, in some cases, pretence that the pictures had been
+cut from the frame and presumably stolen was carried out by a
+knife-slashed and irregular ridge where the canvas had actually been so
+cut and then sewed to a modern _toile_.
+
+For forgery of art is as old as the Greeks and as new as to-day--the one
+sinister art that perhaps will never become a lost art; and Quarren and
+his aged mentor in the basement of the Dankmere Galleries discovered
+more than enough frauds among the Dankmere family pictures showing how
+the little Earl's forebears had once been gulled before his present
+lordship lay in his cradle.
+
+To Quarren the work was fascinating and, except for his increasing worry
+over Strelsa Leeds, would have been all-absorbing to the degree of
+happiness--or that interested contentment which passes for it on earth.
+
+To see the dull encasing armour of varnish disappear from some ancient
+masterpiece under the thumb, as the delicate thumb of the Orient
+polishes lacquer; to dare a solvent when needed, timing its strength to
+the second lest disaster tarnish forever the exquisite bloom of the
+shrouded glazing; to cautiously explore for suspected signatures, to
+brood and ponder over ancient records and alleged pedigrees; to compare
+prints and mezzotints, photographs and engravings in search for
+identities; to study threads of canvas, flakes of varnish, flinty
+globules of paint under the microscope; to learn, little by little, the
+technical manners and capricious mannerisms significant of the progress
+periods of each dead master; to pore over endless volumes, monographs,
+illustrated foreign catalogues of public and private collections--in
+these things and through them happiness came to Quarren.
+
+Never a summer sun rose over the streets of Ascalon arousing the
+Philistine to another day of toil but it awoke Quarren to the subdued
+excitement of another day. Eager, interested, content in his
+self-respect, he went forth to a daily business which he cared about for
+its own sake, and was fast learning to care about to the point of
+infatuation.
+
+He was never tired these days; but the summer heat and lack of air and
+exercise made him rather thin and pale. Close work with the magnifying
+glass had left his features slightly careworn, and had begun little
+converging lines at the outer corners of his eyes. Only one line in his
+face expressed anything less happy--the commencement of a short
+perpendicular crease between his eyebrows. Anxious pondering over old
+canvases was not deepening that faint signature of perplexity--or the
+forerunner of Care's signs manual nervously etched from the wing of
+either nostril.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Since Quarren had left Witch-Hollow, he and Strelsa had exchanged
+half-a-dozen letters of all sorts--gay, impersonal notes, sober epistles
+reflecting more subdued moods, then letters fairly sparkling with high
+spirits and the happy optimism of young people discovering that there is
+more of good than evil in a world still really almost new to them. Then
+there was a long letter of description and amusing narrative from her,
+in which, here and there, she became almost sentimental over phases of
+rural beauty; and he replied at equal length telling her about his new
+shop-work in detail.
+
+Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there came from her a short, dry, and
+deliberate letter mentioning once more her critical worldly
+circumstances and the necessity of confronting them promptly and with
+intelligence and decision.
+
+To which he answered vigorously, begging her to hold out--either fit
+herself for employment--or throw her fortunes in with his and take the
+chances.
+
+"Rix dear," she answered, "don't you suppose I have thought of that? But
+I can't do it. There is nothing left in me to go on with. I'm burnt
+out--deadly tired, wanting nothing more than I shall have by marrying as
+I must marry. For I shall have you, too, as I have always had you. You
+said so, didn't you?
+
+"What difference, then, does it make to you or me whether or not I am
+married?
+
+"If you were sufficiently equipped to take care of me, and if I married
+you, I could not give you anything more than I have given already--I
+would not wish to if I could. All that many other women consider part of
+love--all that lesser side of it and of marriage I could not give to you
+or to any man--could not endure; because it is not in me and never has
+been. It is foreign to me, unpleasant, distasteful--even hateful.
+
+"So as I can give you nothing more than I have given or ever shall give,
+and as you have given me all you can--anyway all I care for in you--let
+me feel free to seek my worldly salvation and find the quiet and rest
+and surcease from anxiety which comes only under such circumstances.
+
+"You won't think unkindly of me, will you, Rix? I don't know very much;
+I amount to very little. What ideals I had are dead. Why should anybody
+bother to agree or disagree with my very unaggressive opinions or
+criticise harshly a life which has been spent mainly in troubling the
+world as little as possible?
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There are a number of people here--among them several friends of Jim
+Wycherly, all of them aviation-mad. Jim took out the Stinger, smashed
+the planes and got a fall which was not very serious. Lester Caldera did
+the same thing to the Kent biplane except that he fell into the river
+and Sir Charles and Chrysos, in the launch, fished him out--swearing,
+they say.
+
+"Vincent Wier made a fine flight in his Delatour Dragon, sailing 'round
+and 'round like a big hawk for a quarter of an hour, but the wind came
+up and he couldn't land, and he finally came down thirty miles north of
+us in a swamp.
+
+"Langly took me for a short flight in his Owlet No. 3--only two miles
+and not very high, but the sensation was simply horrid. I never even
+cared for motoring, you see, so the experience left me most
+unenthusiastic, greatly to Langly's disgust. Really, all I care for is a
+decently gaited horse--and I prefer to walk him half the time. There is
+nothing speedy about me, Rix. If I ever had the inclination it's gone
+now.
+
+"To the evident displeasure of Sir Charles, Langly took up Chrysos Lacy;
+and the child adored it. I believe Sir Charles said something cutting to
+Langly in his quiet and dry way which has, apparently, infuriated my
+to-be-affianced, for he never goes near Sir Charles, now, and that
+cold-eyed gentleman completely ignores him. Which is _not_ very
+agreeable for me.
+
+"Oh, Rix, there seems to be so many misunderstandings in this
+exceedingly small world of ours--rows innumerable, heartburns,
+recriminations, quarrels secret and open, and endless misunderstandings.
+
+"Please don't let any come between us, will you? Somehow, lately, I find
+myself looking on you as a distant but solid and almost peaceful refuge
+for my harried thoughts. And I'm so very, very tired of being hunted.
+
+                                 "STRELSA."
+
+"If they hunt you too hard," he wrote to Strelsa, "the gateway of my
+friendship is open to you always: remember that, now and in the days to
+come.
+
+"What you have written leaves me with nothing to answer except this. To
+all it is given to endure according to their strength; beyond it no one
+can strive; but short of its limits it's a shame to show
+faint-heartedness.
+
+"About the man you are determined to marry I have no further word to
+say. You know in what repute he is held in your world, and you believe
+that its censure is unjust. There is good in every man, perhaps, and
+perhaps the good in this man may show itself only in response to the
+better qualities in you.
+
+"Somehow, without trying, you almost instantly evoke the better
+qualities in me. You changed my entire life; do you know it? I myself
+scarcely comprehended why. Perhaps the negative sweetness in you
+concentrated and brought out the positive strength so long dormant in
+me. All I know clearly is that you came into my life and found a fool
+wasting it, capering about in a costume half livery, half motley. My
+ambition was limited to my cap and bells; my aspirations never reached
+beyond the tip of my bauble. Then I saw you--and, all by themselves, my
+rags of motley fell from me, and something resembling a man stepped
+clear of them.
+
+"I am trying to make out of myself all that there is in me to develop.
+It is not much--scarcely more than the ability to earn a living.
+
+"I have come to care for nothing more than the right to look this sunny
+world straight in the face. Until I knew you I had scarcely seen it
+except through artificial light--scarce heard its voice; for the
+laughter of your world and the jingle of my cap and bells drowned it in
+my ass's ears.
+
+"I could tell you--for in dark moments I often believe it--that there is
+only one thing that counts in the world--one thing worth having, worth
+giving--love!
+
+"But in my heart I know it is not so; and the romancers are mistaken;
+and so is the heart denied.
+
+"Better and worth more than love of man or woman is the mind's silent
+approval--whether given in tranquillity or accorded in dumb anguish.
+
+"Strelsa dear, I shall always care for you; but I have discovered that
+love is another matter--higher or lower as you will--but different. And
+I do not think I shall be able to love the girl who does what you are
+decided to do. And that does not mean that I criticise you or blame you,
+or that my sympathy, affection, interest, in you will be less. On the
+contrary all these emotions may become keener; only one little part will
+die out, and that without changing the rest--merely that mysterious,
+curious, elusive and illogical atom in the unstable molecule, which we
+call love--and which, when separated, leaves the molecule changed only
+in name. We call it friendship, then.
+
+"And this is, I think, what you would most desire. So when you do what
+you have determined to do, I will really become toward you what you
+are--and have always been--toward me. And could either of us ask for
+more?
+
+"Only--forgive me--I wish it had been Sir Charles--or almost any other
+man. But that is for your decision. Strelsa governs and alone is
+responsible to Strelsa.
+
+"Meanwhile do not doubt my affection--do not fear unkindness, judgment,
+or criticism. I wish I were what you cared for most in the world--after
+the approval of your own mind. I wish you cared for me not only as you
+do but with all that has never been aroused in you. For without that I
+am helpless to fight for you.
+
+"So, in your own way, you will live life through, knowing that in me you
+will always have an unchanged friend--even though the lover died when
+you became a wife. Is all clear between us now?
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If you are ever in town, or passing through to Newport or Bar Harbour,
+stop and inspect our gallery.
+
+"It is really quite pretty and some of the pictures are excellent. You
+should see it now--sunlight slanting in through the dusty bay-window,
+Dankmere at a long polished table doing his level best to assemble
+certain old prints out of a portfolio containing nearly a thousand;
+pretty little Miss Vining, pencil in hand, checking off at her desk the
+reference books we require in our eternal hunt for information; I below
+stairs in overalls if you please, paint and varnish stained, a
+jeweller's glass screwed into my left eye, examining an ancient panel
+which I strongly hope may have been the work of a gentleman named
+Bronzino--for its mate is almost certainly the man in armour in the
+Metropolitan Museum.
+
+"Strelsa, it is the most exciting business I ever dreamed of. And the
+beauty of it is that it leads out into everything--stretches a
+thousand sensitive tentacles which grasp at knowledge of beauty
+everywhere--whether it lie in the sombre splendour of the tapestries of
+Bayeux, of Italy, of Flanders; or deep in the woven magnificence of some
+dead Sultan's palace rug; or in the beauty of the work of silversmiths,
+goldsmiths, of sculptors in ivory or in wood long dead; or in the
+untinted marbles of the immortal masters.
+
+"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are linked, how
+closely and eternally knit together in the vast fabric fashioned by man
+from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms of which lie buried
+all that man has ever thought and hoped.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five
+squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now
+open.
+
+"Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my knee,
+she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman cat begin
+an intermezzo on the back fence.
+
+"Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose,
+astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under the
+piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I supposed
+that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes and--Daisy's
+kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one in each pocket,
+Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional little exclamation of
+solicitude and pride.
+
+"Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries--not
+superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have tea
+in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her young
+ones--Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together in a basket
+which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk.
+
+"In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere
+and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl Westguard
+comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his novel--or perhaps
+Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for us--or, if the heat makes us
+feel particularly futile, I perform some of those highly intellectual
+tricks which once made me acceptable among people I now seldom or
+never see.
+
+[Illustration: "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines
+with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"]
+
+"Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a sweet,
+sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the ordinary yet
+blessed with a delicate sense of honour and incidentally of humour.
+
+"She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her mind
+about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our including her
+in our harmless informalities.
+
+"Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he informs me
+that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh; but Karl loves to
+take himself seriously.
+
+"Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world is out
+of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere Galleries need
+expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship usually fights shy
+of the frontiers of business. Old acquaintanceship is forgot very
+quickly when one side or the other has anything to sell. Only those
+thrifty imitations of friends venture near in quest of special
+privilege; and not getting it, go, never to return. _Ubi amici, ibi
+opes!_
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+"When you pass through this furnace of Ascalon called New York will you
+stop among the Philistines long enough to take a cup of tea with
+us?--I'll show you the pictures; Dankmere will play 'Shannon Water' for
+you; Miss Vining will talk pretty platitudes to you, Daisy will purr for
+you, and the painted eyes of Dankmere's ancestors will look down
+approvingly at you from the wall; and all our little world will know
+that the loveliest and best of all the greater world is breaking bread
+with us under our roof, and that one for once, unlike man's dealings
+with your celestial sisters, our entertainment of you will not be wholly
+unawares.
+
+                                 "R. S. QUARREN."
+
+The basement workshop was aromatic with the odours of solvents, mediums,
+and varnishes when he returned from posting his letter to Strelsa. His
+old English mentor had departed for good, leaving him to go forward
+alone in his profession.
+
+And now, as he stood there, looking out into the sunny backyard, for the
+first time he felt the silence and isolation of the place, and his own
+loneliness. Doubt crept in whispering the uselessness of working, of
+saving, of self-denial, of laying by anything for a future that already
+meant nothing of happiness to him.
+
+For whom, after all, should he save, hoard, gather together, economise?
+Who was there to labour for? For whom should he endure?
+
+He cared nothing for women; he had really never cared for any woman
+excepting only this one. He would never marry and have a son. He had no
+near or distant relatives. For whose sake, then, was he standing here in
+workman's overalls? What business had he here in the basement of a
+shabby house in midsummer? Did there remain any vague hope of Strelsa?
+Perhaps. Hope is the last of one's friends to die. Or was it for himself
+that he was working now to provide against those evil days "when the
+keepers of the house shall tremble"? Perhaps he was unconsciously
+obeying nature's first law.
+
+And yet, slowly within him grew a certainty that these reasons were not
+the real ones--not the vital impulse that moved his hand steadily
+through critical and delicate moments as he bent, breathless, over the
+faded splendours of ancient canvases. No; somehow or other he had
+already begun to work for the sake of the work itself--whatever that
+really meant. That was the basic impulse--the occult motive; and,
+somehow he knew that, once aroused, the desire to strive could never
+again in him remain wholly quiescent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Both Dankmere and Miss Vining had gone to lunch, presumably in different
+directions; Daisy and her youngsters, having been nourished, were
+asleep; there was not a sound in the house except the soft rubbing of
+tissue-paper where Quarren was lightly removing the retouching varnish
+from a relined canvas. Presently the front door-bell rang.
+
+Quarren rinsed his hands and, still wearing overalls and painter's
+blouse, mounted the basement stairs and opened the front door. And Mrs.
+Sprowl supported by a footman waddled in, panting.
+
+"Tell your master I want to see him," she said--"I don't mean that fool
+of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar--Good Lord! Ricky, is that _you_?
+Here, get me a chair--those front steps nearly killed me. Long ago I
+swore I'd never enter a house which was not basement-built and had an
+elevator!... Hand me one of those fans. And if there's any water in the
+house not swarming with typhoid germs, get me a glass of it."
+
+He brought her a tumbler of spring water; she panted and gulped and
+fanned and panted, her little green eyes roaming around her.
+
+Presently she dismissed the footman, and turned her heavily flushed face
+on Quarren. The rolls of fat crowded the lace on her neck, perspiration
+glistened under her sparklike eyes.
+
+"How are you?" she inquired.
+
+He said, smilingly, that he was well.
+
+"You don't look it. You look gaunt.... Well, I never thought you'd come
+to this--that you had it in you to do anything useful."
+
+"I believe I've heard you say so now and then," he said with perfect
+good-humour.
+
+"Why not? Why should I have thought that your talents amounted to more
+than ornaments?"
+
+"No reason to suppose so," he admitted, amused.
+
+"Not the slightest. Talent usually damns people to an effortless
+existence. And yours was a pleasant one, too. You had a good time,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Oh, very."
+
+"There was nothing to do except to come in, kiss the girls all around,
+and make faces to amuse them, was there?"
+
+"Not much more," he admitted, laughing.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's little green eyes travelled all over the walls.
+
+"Umph," she snorted, "I suppose these are some of Dankmere's heirlooms.
+I never fancied that little bounder----"
+
+"Wait!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder----"
+
+"He _is_ one!"
+
+"Keep that opinion to yourself," he said bluntly.
+
+The old lady's eyes blazed. "I'm damned if I do!" she retorted--"I'll
+say what----"
+
+"Not here! You mustn't be uncivil here. You know well enough how to
+behave when necessary; and if you don't do it I'll call your carriage."
+
+For fully five minutes Mrs. Sprowl sat there attempting to digest what
+he had said. The process was awful to behold, but she accomplished it at
+last with a violent effort.
+
+"Ricky," she said, "I didn't come here to quarrel with you over an
+Englishman who--of whom I--have my personal opinion."
+
+He laughed, leaned over and deliberately patted her fat wrist; and she
+glared at him somewhat as a tigress inspects a favourite but overgrown
+and presuming cub.
+
+"I don't know why you came," he said, "but it was nice of you anyway and
+I am glad to see you."
+
+"If that's true," she said, "you're one of mighty few. The joy which
+people feel in my presence is usually exhibited when I'm safely out of
+their houses, or they are out of mine."
+
+She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water
+empty and refused more.
+
+"Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place
+of Molly's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what the devil is going on there?"
+
+"Aviation," he said blandly.
+
+"What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that
+little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't
+learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even
+answer my letters.
+
+"Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with
+Strelsa as I dare be--she's got to be led with sugar. I've almost
+ordered her to come to me at Newport--but she doesn't come."
+
+"She's resting," said Quarren coolly.
+
+"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And
+what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few
+brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting
+for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it
+something else that glues him there--with the _Yulan_ in the North
+River?"
+
+Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject.
+
+"If I thought," muttered the old lady--"if I imagined for one moment
+that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on
+Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself--I'd take the next train and tell
+that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!"
+
+Quarren was silent.
+
+"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know
+whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed--have you
+ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa
+Leeds?--any tacit understanding--any interest on her part in him?... Why
+don't you answer me?"
+
+"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."
+
+"Am I to take that impudence literally?"
+
+"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to
+remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."
+
+"Why can't you speak of Langly?"
+
+"Because what concerns him does not concern me."
+
+"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly.
+
+"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?"
+
+"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a
+damn sight worse! I'd--I'd rather see her your wife than his!--and God
+knows _what_ he wants of her at that--as Mary Ledwith has first call or
+the world will turn Langly out of doors!"
+
+Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence.
+
+"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her
+teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done
+to her and her husband."
+
+"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance
+against it."
+
+"You watch and see! Some things are _too_ rotten to be endured----"
+
+"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't
+concern me."
+
+"Don't you care for that girl?"
+
+"We are friends."
+
+"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a
+madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look
+ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"--she added with an
+abrupt change of feeling--"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you
+are impertinent to me--and you know I do! But I--my heart is set on her
+marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more
+suitable?--happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where
+Langly is a--a toad, a cold-blooded worm!--a--a thing!
+
+"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I
+think of nothing else, care for nothing else----"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard.
+
+"Why do you care for it so much?"
+
+"Why? That is an absurd question."
+
+"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the
+real one."
+
+"Ricky, you insolent----"
+
+"Never mind. Answer me; _why_ are you so absorbed in this marriage?"
+
+She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is
+deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both."
+
+"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on
+your part?"
+
+"That--and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly.
+
+"Just those three reasons?"
+
+"Certainly. Just those three."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded.
+
+"I am compelled to--knowing that never in all your life have you made
+the slightest effort in behalf of friendship--never inconvenienced
+yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth."
+
+She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh;
+but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though
+pain had cut mirth short.
+
+"What is the matter?" he said.
+
+"Nothing.... _You_ are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to
+take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to
+read us and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we
+look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't
+care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my
+features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it _is_ a friendly
+pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind
+thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were
+the receptacle for many--Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty,
+miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret
+kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you
+something."
+
+She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he
+placed his chair beside hers.
+
+"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at
+the time."
+
+"I know."
+
+"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never
+forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch
+he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what
+was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the
+girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to
+America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know
+these things, Rix?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Then you know them now."
+
+"Yes, I--" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a
+while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her
+features.
+
+"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated--a voice
+so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was
+she who had spoken.
+
+"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life
+friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix.
+In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship--the
+friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son."
+
+Quarren looked at her in silence.
+
+"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life
+and youth began early for me--and lasted a little more than a year--and
+then they both burnt out in my heart--leaving the rest of me alive--this
+dross!--" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and
+sat thinking for a while.
+
+Daisy walked into the room and seated herself in a bar of sunlight,
+pleasantly blinking her yellow eyes. Mrs. Sprowl glanced at her
+absently, and they eyed each other in silence.
+
+Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at
+Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features.
+
+"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have
+pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad
+when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up.
+I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that, in it, his
+father spoke--amiably--of me and said that in me his son would always
+find a friend.... That is all, Rix. Do you believe me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--should I go to Witch-Hollow?"
+
+"I can't answer you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--because I care for her too much. And I can do absolutely
+nothing for her. I could not swerve her or direct her. She alone knows
+what is in her heart and mind to do. I cannot alter it. She will act
+according to her strength; none can do otherwise.... And she is tired to
+the very soul.... You tell me that life and youth in you died within a
+year's space. I believe it.... But with her it took two years to die.
+And then it died.... Let her alone, in God's name! The child is weary of
+pursuit, deathly weary of importunity--tired, sad, frightened at the
+disaster to her fortune. Let her alone. If she marries it will be
+because of physical strength lacking--strength of character, of
+mind--perhaps moral, perhaps spiritual strength--I don't know. All I
+know is that no man or woman can help her, because the world has bruised
+her too long and she's afraid of it."
+
+For a long while Mrs. Sprowl sat there in silence; then:
+
+"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir
+Charles."
+
+"I don't think she is."
+
+"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!"
+
+Quarren looked at her oddly:
+
+"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so am I.... Friends do not
+make a convenience of one another."
+
+"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow."
+
+"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that
+there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make
+the convenience of a husband out of either of us."
+
+"What a twisted, ridiculous, morbid----"
+
+"Let her alone," he said gently.
+
+"Very well.... But I'll be hanged if I let Langly alone! He's still got
+me to deal with, thank God!--whatever he dares do to Mary
+Ledwith--whatever he has done to that wretched creature Chester
+Ledwith--he's still got a perfectly vigorous aunt to reckon with. And
+we'll see," she added--"we'll see what can be done----"
+
+The front door opened noisily.
+
+"That's Dankmere," he said. "If you are not going to be civil to him
+hadn't you better go?"
+
+"I'll be civil to him," she snorted, "but I'm going anyway. Good-bye,
+Ricky. I'll buy a picture of you when the weather's cooler....
+How-de-do!"--as his lordship entered looking rather hot and mussy--"Hope
+your venture into the realms of art will prove successful, Lord
+Dankmere. Really, Rix, I must be going--if you'll call my man----"
+
+"I'll take you down," he said, smilingly offering his support.
+
+So Mrs. Sprowl rolled away in her motor, and Quarren came back, wearied
+with the perplexities and strain of life, to face once more the lesser
+problems of the immediate present: one of them was an ancient panel in
+the basement, and he went downstairs to solve it, leaving Dankmere
+sorting out old prints and Jessie Vining, who had just returned, writing
+business letters on her machine.
+
+There were not many business letters to write--one to the Metropolitan
+Museum people declining to present them with a charming little picture
+by Netscher which they wanted but did not wish to pay for; one to the
+Worcester Museum advising that progressive institution that, at the
+request of their director, four canvases had been shipped to them for
+inspection; several letters enclosing photographs of pictures desired by
+foreign experts; and a notification to one or two local millionaires
+that the Dankmere Galleries never shaded prices or exchanged canvases.
+
+Having accomplished the last of the day's work remaining up to that
+particular minute, Jessie Vining leaned back in her chair, rubbed her
+pretty eyes, glanced partly around toward Lord Dankmere but checked
+herself, and, with her lips the slightest shade pursed up into a hint of
+primness, picked up the library novel which she had been reading during
+intervals of leisure.
+
+It was mainly about a British Peer. The Peer did not resemble Dankmere
+in any particular; she had already noticed that. And now, as she read
+on, and, naturally enough, compared the ideal peer with the real one,
+the difference became painfully plain to her.
+
+Could that short young man in rather mussy summer clothes, sorting
+prints over there, be a peer of the British realm? Was this young man,
+whom she had seen turning handsprings on the grass in the backyard, a
+belted Earl?
+
+In spite of herself her short upper lip curled slightly as she turned
+from her book to glance at him. He looked up at the same moment, and
+smiled on meeting her eye--such a kindly yet diffident smile that she
+blushed a trifle.
+
+"I say, Miss Vining, I've gone over all these prints and I can't find
+one that resembles the Hogarth portrait--if it is a Hogarth."
+
+"Mr. Quarren thinks it is."
+
+"I daresay he's quite right, but there's nothing here to prove it"; and
+he slapped the huge portfolio shut, laid his hands on the table, vaulted
+to the top of it, and sat down. Miss Vining resumed her reading.
+
+"Miss Vining?"
+
+"Yes?" very leisurely.
+
+"How _old_ do you think I am?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"How old do you think I am?"
+
+"Really I hadn't thought about it, Lord Dankmere."
+
+"Oh."
+
+Miss Vining resumed her reading.
+
+When the Earl had sat on top of the table long enough he got down and
+dropped into the depths of an armchair.
+
+"Miss Vining," he said.
+
+"Yes?" incuriously.
+
+"Have you thought it out yet?"
+
+"Thought out what, Lord Dankmere?"
+
+"How old I am."
+
+"Really," she retorted, half laughing, half vexed, "do you suppose that
+my mind is occupied in wondering what your age might be?"
+
+"Isn't it?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Don't you want to know?"
+
+She began to laugh again:
+
+"Why, if you wish to tell me of course it will interest me _most_
+profoundly." And she made him a graceful little bow.
+
+"I'm thirty-three," he said.
+
+"Thank you so much for telling me."
+
+"You are welcome," he returned gravely. "Do you think I'm too old?"
+
+"Too old for what?"
+
+"Oh, for anything interesting."
+
+"What do you mean by 'interesting'?"
+
+But Lord Dankmere apparently did not know what he did mean for he made
+no answer.
+
+After a little while he said: "Wouldn't it be odd if I ever have income
+enough to pay off my debts?"
+
+"What?"
+
+He repeated the observation.
+
+"I don't know what you mean. You naturally expect to pay them, don't
+you?"
+
+"I saw no chance of doing so before Mr. Quarren took hold of these
+pictures."
+
+She was sorry for him:
+
+"Are you very deeply in debt?"
+
+He named the total of his liabilities and she straightened her young
+shoulders, horrified.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "I know plenty of chaps in England who
+are far worse off."
+
+"But--that is terrible!" she faltered.
+
+Dankmere waved his hand:
+
+"It's not so bad. That show business let me in for a lot."
+
+"Why did you ever do it?"
+
+"I like it," he explained simply.
+
+She flushed: "It seems strange for a--a man of your kind to sing comic
+songs and dance before an audience."
+
+"Not at all. I've a friend, Exford by name--who goes about grinding a
+barrel-organ."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He likes to do it.... I've another pal of sorts who chucked the Guards
+to become a milliner. He always did like to crochet and trim hats. Why
+not?--if he likes it!"
+
+"It is not," said Jessie Vining, "my idea of a British peer."
+
+"But for Heaven's sake, consider the peer! Now and then they have an
+idea of what they'd like to do. Why not let them do it and be happy?"
+
+"Then they ought not to have been born to the peerage," she said firmly.
+
+"Many of them wouldn't have been had anybody consulted them."
+
+"You?"
+
+"It's brought me nothing but debt, ridicule, abuse, and summonses."
+
+"You couldn't resign, could you?" she said, smiling.
+
+"I _am_ resigned. Oh, well, I'd rather be what I am than anything else,
+I fancy.... If the Topeka Museum trustees purchase that Gainsborough
+I'll be out of debt fast enough."
+
+"And then?" she inquired, still smiling.
+
+"I don't know. I'd like to start another show."
+
+"And leave Mr. Quarren?"
+
+"What use am I? We'd share alike; he'd manage the business and I'd
+manage a musical comedy I'm writing after hours----"
+
+He jumped up and went to the piano where for the next ten minutes he
+rattled off some lively and very commonplace music which to Jessie
+Vining sounded like everything she had ever before heard.
+
+"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully, swinging around on his stool.
+
+"It's--lively."
+
+"You _don't_ like it!"
+
+"I--it seems--very entertaining," she said, reddening.
+
+The Earl sat looking at her in silence for a moment; then he said:
+
+"To care for anything and make a failure of it--can you beat it for
+straight misery, Miss Vining?"
+
+"Oh, please don't speak that way. I really am no judge of musical
+composition."
+
+He considered the key-board gloomily; and resting one well-shaped hand
+on it addressed empty space:
+
+"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the
+deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of
+accomplishment?"
+
+The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no
+words suitable for the particular moment.
+
+Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two
+softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water."
+
+His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the
+quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang
+"The Harp," and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago.
+
+When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes
+lowered.
+
+"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said--"not these Strausses
+and 'Girls from the Golden West.'"
+
+"Will you sing some more?"
+
+"Do you like my singing?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten
+melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age,
+can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days,
+the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world
+was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to
+inspire any maker of beautiful things.
+
+Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour
+of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days.
+
+Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard
+Dankmere open the door behind her and come out.
+
+They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north
+with a nod of good-night, when he said:
+
+"Are you walking?"
+
+She was, to save carfare.
+
+"May I go a little way?"
+
+"Yes--if----"
+
+Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had
+meant to say. Then, very slowly she turned northward, and he went, too,
+grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying
+himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking
+beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Strelsa had gone to town with her maid, remained there the entire
+afternoon, and returned to Witch-Hollow without seeing Quarren or even
+letting him know she was there.
+
+It was the beginning of the end for her and she knew it; and she had
+already begun to move doggedly toward the end through the blind
+confusion of things, no longer seeing, hearing, heeding; impelled
+mechanically toward the goal which meant to her only the relief of
+absolute rest.
+
+For her troubles were accumulating and she found in herself no resisting
+power--only the nervous strength left to get away from them. Troubles of
+every description were impending; some had already come upon her, like
+Quarren's last letter which she knew signified that the termination of
+their friendship was already in sight.
+
+But other things were in sight, too, so she spent the afternoon in town
+with her lawyers; which lengthy seance resulted in the advertising for
+immediate sale of her house in town and its contents, her town car,
+brougham, victoria and three horses.
+
+Through her lawyers, also, every jewel she possessed, all her wardrobe
+except what she had with her at Witch-Hollow, and her very beautiful
+collection of old lace, were placed in the hands of certain discreet
+people to dispose of privately.
+
+Every servant in her employment except her maid was paid and dismissed;
+her resignation from the Province Club was forwarded, all social
+engagements for the summer cancelled.
+
+There remained only two other matters to settle; and one of them could
+be put off--without hope of escape perhaps--but still it could be
+avoided for a little while longer.
+
+The other was to write to Quarren; and she wrote as follows:
+
+     "I have been in town; necessity drove me, and I was too unhappy to
+     see you. But this is the result: I can hold out a few months
+     longer--to no purpose, I know--yet, you asked it of me, and I am
+     trying to do it. Meanwhile the pressure never eases; I feel your
+     unhappiness deeply--deeply, Rix!--and it is steadily wearing me
+     out. And the pressure from Molly in your behalf, from Mrs. Sprowl
+     by daily letter in behalf of Sir Charles, from Langly in his own
+     interest never slackens for one moment.
+
+     "And that is not all; my late husband left no will, and I have
+     steadily refused to make any contest for more than my dower rights.
+
+     "That has been swept away, now; urgent need has compelled me to
+     offer for sale everything I possess except what wardrobe and
+     unimportant trinkets I have with me.
+
+     "So many suits have been threatened and even commenced against
+     me--you don't know, Rix--but while there remains any chance of
+     meeting my obligations dollar for dollar I have refused to go
+     through bankruptcy.
+
+     "I need not, now, I think. But the selling of everything will not
+     leave me very much; and in the end my cowardice will do what you
+     dread, and what I no longer fear, so utterly dead in me is every
+     emotion, every nerve, every moral. Men bound to the wheel have
+     slept; I want that sleep. I long for the insensibility, the endless
+     lethargy that the mortally bruised crave; and that is all I hope or
+     care for now.
+
+     "Love, as man professes it, would only hurt me--even yours. There
+     can be no response from a soul and body stunned. Nothing must
+     disturb their bruised coma.
+
+     "The man I intend to marry can evoke nothing in me, will demand
+     nothing of me. That is already mutually understood. It's merely a
+     bargain. He wants me as the ornament for the House of Sprowl. I can
+     carry out the pact without effort, figure as the mistress of his
+     domain, live life through unharassed as though I stood alone in a
+     vague, warm dream, safe from anything real.
+
+     "Meanwhile, without aim, without hope, without even desire to
+     escape my destiny, I am holding out because you ask it. To what
+     end, my friend? Can you tell me?"
+
+One morning Molly came into her room greatly perturbed, and Strelsa,
+still in bed, laid aside the New Testament which she had been reading,
+and looked up questioningly at her agitated hostess.
+
+"It's your fault," began Molly without preliminaries--"that old woman
+certainly suspects what you're up to with her nephew or she wouldn't
+bother to come up here----"
+
+"Who?" said Strelsa, sitting up. "Mrs. Sprowl?"
+
+"Certainly, horse, foot, and dragoons! She's coming, I tell you, and
+there's only one motive for her advent!"
+
+"But where will she stop?" asked Strelsa, flushing with dismay.
+
+"Where do you suppose?"
+
+"With Langly?"
+
+"He wouldn't have her."
+
+"She is not to be your guest, is she?"
+
+"No. She wrote hinting that she'd come if asked. I pretended not to
+understand. I don't want her here. Every servant I have would leave--as
+a beginning. Besides I don't require the social prestige of such a
+visitation; and she knows that, too. So what do you think she's done?"
+
+"I can't imagine," said Strelsa wearily.
+
+"Well, she's manoeuvred, somehow; and this morning's paper announces that
+she's to be entertained at South Linden by Mary Ledwith."
+
+Strelsa reddened.
+
+"Why should that concern me?" she asked calmly.
+
+"Concern you, child! How can it help concerning you? Do you see what
+she's done?--do you count all the birds she's knocked over with one
+stone. Mary Ledwith returns from Reno and Mrs. Sprowl fixes and secures
+her social status by visiting her at once. And it's a perfectly plain
+notice to Langly, too, and--forgive me, dear!--to you!"
+
+Strelsa scarlet and astonished, sat up rigid, her beautiful head thrown
+back.
+
+"If she means it that way, it is slanderous," she said. "The entire
+story is a base slander! Did _you_ believe it, Molly?"
+
+"Believe it? Of course I believe it----"
+
+"Why should you? Because a lot of vile newspapers have hinted at such a
+thing? I tell you it is an infamous story without one atom of truth in
+it----"
+
+"How do you know?" asked Molly bluntly.
+
+"Because Langly says so."
+
+"Oh. Did you ask him?"
+
+"No. He spoke of it himself."
+
+"He denied it?"
+
+"Absolutely on his word of honour."
+
+"Then why didn't he sue a few newspapers?"
+
+"He spoke of that, too. He said that his attorneys had advised him not
+to bring any actions because the papers had been too clever to lay
+themselves open to suits for libel."
+
+"Oh," said Molly softly.
+
+Strelsa, flushed, breathing rapidly and irregularly, sat there in bed
+watching her; but Molly avoided her brilliant, level gaze.
+
+"There's no use in talking to you," she said, "but why on earth you
+don't marry Sir Charles----"
+
+"Molly! Please don't----"
+
+"--Or Rix----"
+
+"Molly! Molly! _Can't_ you let me alone! Can't we be together for ten
+minutes unless you urge me to marry somebody? Why do you want me to
+marry anybody!--Why----"
+
+"But you're going to marry Langly, you say!"
+
+"Yes, I am! I am! But can't you let me forget it for a moment or two?
+I--I'm not very well----"
+
+"I can't help it," said Molly, grimly. "I'm sorry, darling, but the
+moment your engagement to Langly is announced there'll be a horrid
+smash and some people are going to be spattered----"
+
+"It _isn't_ announced!" said the girl hotly. "Only you and Rix know
+about it except Langly and myself!"
+
+Molly Wycherly rose from her chair, went over and seated herself on the
+foot of the bed:
+
+"Tell me something, will you, Strelsa?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why does Langly desire to keep your engagement to him a secret?"
+
+"He wishes it for the present."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For that very reason!" said Strelsa, fiercely--"because of the
+injustice the papers have done him in this miserable Ledwith matter. He
+chooses to wait until it is forgotten--in order to shield me, I suppose,
+from any libellous comment----"
+
+"You talk like a little idiot!" said Molly between her teeth. "Strelsa,
+I could shake you--if it would wake you up! Do you suppose for a moment
+that this Ledwith matter will be forgotten? Do you suppose if there were
+nothing in it but libel that he'd be afraid? You listen to me; that man
+is not apt to be afraid of anything, but he evidently _is_ afraid, now!
+Of what, then?"
+
+"Of my being annoyed by newspaper comment."
+
+"And you think it's merely that?"
+
+"Isn't it enough?"
+
+Molly laughed:
+
+"We're a hardened lot--some of us. But our most deadly fear is that the
+papers may _not_ notice us. No matter what they say if they'll only say
+something!--that's our necessity and our unadmitted prayer. Because
+we've neither brains nor culture nor any distinguishing virtue or
+ability--and we're nothing--absolutely nothing unless the papers create
+us! Don't tell me that any one among us is afraid of publicity!--not in
+the particular circle where you and I and Langly and his aunt pursue our
+eccentric orbits!
+
+"Plenty of wealthy and fashionable people dread publicity and shrink
+from it; plenty of them would gladly remain unchronicled and unsung. But
+it is not so among the fixed stars and planets and meteors and
+satellites of our particularly flamboyant constellation. I _know_. I
+also know that you don't really belong in it. But you'll either become
+accustomed to it or it will kill you if you don't drop--or soar, as you
+please--into some other section of eternal space."
+
+She sat swinging her foot, flushed, animated, her eyes and colour
+brilliant--a slim, exquisitely groomed woman with all the superficial
+smoothness of a girl save for the wisdom in her eyes and in her smile,
+alas!
+
+And the other's eyes reflected in their clear gray depths no such
+wisdom, only the haunting knowledge of sorrow and, vaguely, the
+inexplicable horror of man as he really is--or at least as she had only
+known him.
+
+Still swinging her pretty foot, a deliberate smile edging her lips,
+Molly said:
+
+"If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling."
+
+Strelsa stared at her without comprehension, then dropped her head back
+on the pillows.
+
+"If you'll let me stay with you a little while longer--that is all I
+ask," she said almost drowsily.
+
+Molly sprang up, came around and kissed her, lightly: "Of course. That
+was what I was going to ask of you."
+
+[Illustration: "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling.'"]
+
+Strelsa closed her eyes. "I'll stay," she murmured.
+
+Molly laid her own cool face down beside Strelsa's hot cheek, kneeling
+beside the bed.
+
+"Dear," she whispered, "let us wait and see what happens. There's just
+one thing that has distorted your view--a dreadful experience with one
+man--two years of hell's own horror with one of its wretched
+inhabitants. I don't believe the impression is going to last a lifetime.
+I don't believe it is indelible. I believe somehow, some time you will
+learn that a man's love does not mean horror and degradation; that it is
+no abuse of friendship which offers love also, to return it with
+friendship only.
+
+"Sir Charles offers that; and you refuse because you do not love him and
+will not use his friendship to aid yourself to material comfort.
+
+"And I suspect you have said the same thing to Rix. Have you?"
+
+The girl lay silent, eyes closed.
+
+"Never mind; don't answer. I know you well enough to know that you said
+some such thing to Rix.... And it's all right in its way. But the
+alternative is not what you think it is--not this bargain with Langly
+for a place to lay your tired head--not this deal to decorate his name
+and estates in return for personal immunity. You are wrong--I'm not
+immoral, only unmoral--as many of us are--but you've gone all to pieces,
+dear--morally, mentally, nervously--and it's not from cowardice, not
+from depravity. It is the direct result of the two years of terror and
+desperate self-control--two years of courage--high moral courage,
+determination, self-suppression--and of the startling and dreadful
+climax.
+
+"That is the blow you are now feeling--and the reaction even after two
+years more of half-stunned solitude. You are waking, darling; that is
+all. And it hurts."
+
+Strelsa's bare arm moved a little, moved, groping, and tightened around
+Molly's neck. And they remained that way for a long while, Molly
+kneeling on the floor beside her.
+
+"Don't you ever cry?" she whispered.
+
+"Not--now."
+
+"It would be better if you could."
+
+"There are no tears--I--I am burnt out--all burnt out----"
+
+"You need strength."
+
+"I haven't the desire for it any longer."
+
+"Not the desire to face things pluckily?"
+
+"No--no longer. Everything's dead in me except the longing for--quiet.
+I'll pay any price for it--except misuse of friends."
+
+"How could you misuse Rix by marrying him?"
+
+"By accepting what I could never return."
+
+"Love?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does he ask that?"
+
+"N-no--not now. But--he wants it. And I haven't it to give. So I can't
+take his--and let him work all his life for my comfort--I can't take it
+from Sir Charles and accept the position and fortune he offered me
+once----"
+
+She lay silent a moment, then unclosed her eyes.
+
+"Molly," she said, "I don't believe that Sir Charles is going to mind
+very much."
+
+Molly met her eyes for an instant, very near, and a pale flash of
+telepathy passed between them. Then Strelsa smiled.
+
+"You mean Chrysos," said Molly.
+
+"Yes.... Don't you think so?"
+
+"She's little more than a child.... I don't know. Men are that way--men
+of Sir Charles's age and experience are likely to drift that way.... But
+if you are done with Sir Charles, what he does no longer interests
+me--except that the Lacys will become insufferable if----"
+
+"Don't talk that way, dear."
+
+"I don't _like_ the family--except Chrysos."
+
+"Then be glad for her--if it comes true.... Sir Charles is a
+dear--almost too perfectly ideal to be a man.... I do wish it for his
+sake.... He was a little unhappy over me I think."
+
+"He adores you still, you little villain!" whispered Molly, fondling
+her. "But--let poets sing and romancers rave--there's nothing that
+starves as quickly as love. And Sir Charles has been long fasting--good
+luck to him and more shame on you!"
+
+Strelsa laughed, cleared her brow and eyes of the soft bright hair, and,
+flinging out both arms, took Molly to her heart in a swift, hard
+embrace.
+
+"There!" she said, breathless, "I adore you anyhow, Molly.... I feel
+better, too. I'm glad you talked to me.... Do you think I'll get
+anything for my house?"
+
+"Yes, when you sell it. That's the hopeless part of it just at this time
+of year----"
+
+"Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I've had an awful
+lot of the other kind all my life."
+
+They laughed.
+
+Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I'll have enough left
+over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and
+chickens and a cow!"
+
+"How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?"
+
+Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as
+though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a
+little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado
+Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for
+pleasure--crazy about anything that promised gaiety and
+amusement--anything to make me forget.
+
+"You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill--ill
+most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother--it's
+curious, but mother never said anything about her--and she cared for
+fashionable people.
+
+"So I came to New York last winter--and you know the rest--I got tired
+physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me--and so many women
+urged me to do so many things--and I was unhappy about Rix--and then
+came this awful financial crash----"
+
+"Stop thinking of it!"
+
+"Yes; I mean to. I only wanted you to understand how, one by one,
+emotions and desires have been killed in me during the last four
+years.... And even the desire for wealth and position--which I clung to
+up to yesterday--somehow, now--this morning--has become little more than
+a dreamy wish.... I'd rather have quiet if I could--if there's enough
+money left to let me rest somewhere----"
+
+"There will be," said Molly, watching her.
+
+"Do you think so? And--then there would be no necessity for--for----"
+
+"Langly!"
+
+Strelsa flushed. "I wonder," she mused. "I wonder whether--but it seems
+impossible that I should suddenly find I didn't care for everything I
+cared for this winter. Perhaps I'm too tired to care just now."
+
+"It might be," said Molly, "that something--for example your friendship
+with Rix--had made other matters seem less important."
+
+The girl looked up quickly, saw nothing in Molly's expression to disturb
+her, then turned her eyes away, and lay silent, considering.
+
+If her friendship for Quarren had imperceptibly filled her mind, even
+crowding aside other and most important matters, she did not realise it.
+She thought of it now, and of him--recalling the letter she had written.
+
+Vaguely she was aware of the difference in her attitude toward life
+since she wrote that letter only a few days before. To what was it due?
+To his letter in reply now lying between the leaves of her New Testament
+on the table beside her? This was his letter:
+
+     "Hold out, Strelsa! Matters are going well with me. Your tide, too,
+     will turn before you know it. But neither man nor woman is going to
+     aid you, only time, Strelsa, and--something that neither you nor I
+     have bothered about very much--something that has many names in
+     many tongues--but they all mean the same. And the symbol of what
+     they mean is Truth.
+
+     "Why not study it? We never have. All sages of all times have
+     studied it and found comfort; all saints in all ages have found in
+     it strength.
+
+     "I find its traces in every ancient picture that I touch. But there
+     are books still older that have lived because of it. And one man
+     died for it--man or God as you will--the former is more
+     fashionable.
+
+     "Lives that have been lived because of it, given for it, forgiven
+     for its sake, are worth our casual study.
+
+     "For they say there is no greater thing than Truth. I can imagine
+     no greater. And the search for it is interesting--fascinating--I
+     had no idea how absorbing until recently--until I first saw you,
+     who sent me out into the world to work.
+
+     "Hold out--and study this curious subject of Truth for a little
+     while. Will you?
+
+     "If you'll only study it a while I promise that it will interest
+     you--not in its formalisms, not in its petty rituals and
+     observances, nor in its endless nomenclature, nor its
+     orthodoxy--but just as you discover it for yourself in the
+     histories of men and women--of saint and sinner--and, above all, in
+     the matchless life of Him who understood them all.
+
+     "_Non tu corpus eras sine pectore!_"
+
+Lying there, remembering his letter almost word for word, and where it
+now lay among printed pages incomprehensible to her except by the
+mechanical processes of formal faith and superficial observance, she
+wondered how much that, and the scarcely scanned printed page, might
+have altered her views of life.
+
+Molly kissed her again and went away downstairs.
+
+When she was dressed in her habit she went out to the lawn's edge where
+Langly and the horses had already gathered: he put her up, and they
+cantered away down the wooded road that led to South Linden.
+
+After their first gallop they slowed to a walk on the farther hill
+slope, chatting of inconsequential things; and it seemed to her that he
+was in unusually good spirits--almost gay for him--and his short dry
+laugh rang out once or twice, which was more than she had heard from him
+in a week.
+
+From moment to moment she glanced sideways at him, curiously inspecting
+the sleek-headed symmetry of the man, noticing, as always, his perfectly
+groomed figure, his narrow head and the well-cut lines of the face and
+jaw. Once she had seen him--the very first time she had ever met him at
+Miami--eating a broiled lobster. And somehow his healthy appetite, the
+clean incision of his sun-bronzed jaw and the working muscles, chewing
+and swallowing, fascinated her; and she never saw him but she thought of
+him eating vigorously aboard the _Yulan_.
+
+"Langly," she said, "is it going to be disagreeable for you when Mrs.
+Ledwith returns to South Linden?"
+
+He looked at her leisurely, eyes, as always, slightly protruding:
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The newspapers."
+
+"Probably," he said.
+
+"Then--what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"About what?"
+
+"The papers."
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Or--about Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+"Be civil if I see her."
+
+"Of course," she said, reddening. "I was wondering whether gossip might
+be nipped in the bud if you left before she arrives and remained away
+until she leaves."
+
+His prominent eyes were searching her features all the while she was
+speaking; now they wandered restlessly over the landscape.
+
+"It's my fashion," he said, "to face things as they come."
+
+"If you don't mind I'd rather have you go," she said.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Anywhere you care to."
+
+He said: "I have told you a thousand times that the thing to do is to
+take Molly Wycherly 'board the _Yulan_, and----"
+
+"I do not care to do it until our engagement is announced."
+
+"Very well," he said, swinging around in his saddle, "I'll announce it
+to-day and we'll go aboard this evening and clear out."
+
+"Wh-what!" she faltered.
+
+"There's no use waiting any longer," he said. "Mrs. Ledwith and my fool
+of an aunt are coming to-morrow. Did you know that? Well, they are. And
+every dirty newspaper in town will make the matter insidiously
+significant! If my aunt hadn't taken it into her head to visit Mrs.
+Ledwith at this particular moment, there would have been few comments.
+As it is there'll be plenty--and I don't feel like putting up with
+them--I don't propose to for my own sake. The time comes, sooner or
+later, when a man has got to consider himself."
+
+After a short silence Strelsa raised her gray eyes:
+
+"Has it occurred to you to consider, me, Langly?"
+
+"What? Certainly. Haven't I been doing that ever since we've been
+engaged----"
+
+"I--wonder," she mused.
+
+"What else have I been doing?" he insisted--"denying myself the pleasure
+of you when I'm half crazy about you----"
+
+"What!"
+
+A dull flush settled under his prominent cheek-bones: he looked straight
+ahead of him between his horse's ears as he rode, sitting his saddle
+like the perfect horseman he was, although his mount felt the savage
+pain of a sudden and reasonless spurring and the wicked curb scarcely
+controlled him.
+
+Strelsa set her lips, not looking at either horse or man on her right,
+nor even noticing her own mare who was cutting up in sympathy with the
+outraged hunter at her withers.
+
+"Langly?"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you how painful such scandalous rumours must be
+for Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+"Can I help them?"
+
+Strelsa said, thoughtfully: "What a horrible thing for a woman! It was
+generous of your aunt to show people what _she_ thought of such cruel
+stories."
+
+"Do you think," he said sneeringly, "that my excellent aunt was inspired
+by any such motive? You might as well know--if you don't know already--"
+and his pale eyes rested a moment on the girl beside him--"that my aunt
+is visiting Mrs. Ledwith solely to embarrass me!"
+
+"How could it embarrass you?"
+
+"By giving colour to the lies told about me and the Ledwiths," he said
+in a hard voice--"by hinting that Mary Ledwith, free to marry, is
+accepted by my aunt; and the rest is up to me! That's what that female
+relative of mine has just done--" His big, white teeth closed with a
+click and he spurred his horse cruelly again and checked him until the
+slavering creature almost reared over backward.
+
+"If you maltreat that horse again, Langly, I'll leave you. Do you
+understand?" she said, exasperated.
+
+"I beg your pardon--" Again his jaw fairly snapped, but the horse did
+not suffer from his displeasure.
+
+"What has enraged you so?" she demanded.
+
+"This whole business. There isn't anything my aunt could have done more
+vicious, more contemptible, than to visit Mrs. Ledwith at this moment.
+I'll get it from every quarter, now."
+
+"I suppose she will, too."
+
+"My aunt? No such luck!"
+
+"I mean Mrs. Ledwith."
+
+"She? Oh, I suppose so."
+
+Strelsa said between tightening lips:
+
+"Is there nothing you can do, no kindness, no sacrifice you can make to
+shield Mrs. Ledwith?"
+
+He stared at her, then his eyes roamed restlessly:
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know, Langly.... But if there is anything you could do----"
+
+"What? My aunt and the papers are determined that I shall marry her! I
+take it that you are not suggesting that, are you?"
+
+"I am suggesting nothing," she replied in a low voice.
+
+"Well, _I_ am. I'm suggesting that you and Molly and I go aboard the
+_Yulan_ and clear out to-night!"
+
+"You mean--to announce our engagement first?"
+
+"Just as you choose," he said without a shade of expression on his
+features.
+
+"You would scarcely propose that I sail with you under any other
+circumstances," she said sharply.
+
+"I leave it to you and Mrs. Wycherly. The main idea is to clear out and
+let them howl and tear things up."
+
+"Howl at Mrs. Ledwith and tear her to tatters while we start around the
+world on the _Yulan_?" nodded Strelsa. She was rather white, but she
+laughed; and he, hearing her, turned and laughed, too--a quick bark of a
+laugh that startled both horses who were unaccustomed to it.
+
+"Oh, I guess they won't put her out of business," he said. "She's young
+and handsome and there are plenty of her sort to marry her--even
+Dankmere would have a chance there or--" he hesitated, and decided to
+refrain. But she understood perfectly, and lost the remainder of her
+colour.
+
+"You mean Mr. Quarren," she said coolly.
+
+"I didn't," he replied, lying. And she was aware of his falsehood, too.
+
+"What started those rumours about Mrs. Ledwith and you, Langly?" she
+asked in the same pleasantly even tone, and turned her horse's head
+toward home at the same time. He made his mount pivot showily on his
+hocks and drew bridle beside her.
+
+"Oh, they started at Newport."
+
+"How?"
+
+"How do I know? Ledwith and I were connected in business matters; I saw
+more or less of them both--and he was too busy to be with his wife every
+time I happened to be with her. So--you know what they said."
+
+"Yes. When you and she were lunching at different tables at the Santa
+Regina you used to write notes to her, and everybody saw you."
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That is just it; there was nothing in it."
+
+"Except her reputation.... What a silly and careless girl! But a man
+doesn't think--doesn't care very much I fancy. And then everybody was
+offensively sorry for Chester Ledwith. But that was not your lookout,
+was it, Langly?"
+
+Sprowl turned his narrow face and looked at her in silence; and after a
+moment misjudged her.
+
+"It was not my fault," he said quietly. "I liked his wife and I was
+friendly with him until his gutter habits annoyed me."
+
+"He went to pieces, didn't he?"
+
+Once more Sprowl inspected her features, warily. Once more he misjudged
+her.
+
+"He's gone to smash," he said--"but what's that to us?"
+
+"I wonder," she smiled, but had to control the tremor of her lower lip
+by catching it between her teeth and looking away from the man beside
+her. Quickly the hint of tears dried out in her gray eyes--from whatever
+cause they sprang glimmering there to dim her eyesight. She bent her
+head, absently arranging, rearranging and shifting her bridle.
+
+"The thing to do," he said, curling his long moustache with powerful
+fingers--"is for the Wycherlys to stand by us now--and the others
+there--that little Lacy girl--and Sir Charles if he chooses. We'll have
+to take the whole lot of them aboard I suppose."
+
+"Suppose I go with you alone," she said in a low voice.
+
+He started in his saddle, turned on her a face that was reddening
+heavily. For an instant she scarcely recognised him, so thick his lips
+seemed, so congested the veins in forehead and neck. He seemed all mouth
+and eyes and sanguine colour--and big, even teeth, now, as the lips drew
+aside disclosing them.
+
+"Would you do that, Strelsa?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Would you do it--for me?"
+
+Her rapid breathing impeded speech; she said something inarticulate; he
+leaned from his saddle and caught her in his left arm.
+
+"By God," he stammered, "I knew it! You can have what you like from
+me--I don't care what it is!--take it--fill out your own checks--only
+let's get out of here before those damned women ruin us both!"
+
+She had strained back and aside from him, and was trying to guide her
+mare away, but his powerful arm crushed her and his hot breath fell on
+her face and neck.
+
+"You can have it your own way I tell you--I swear to God I'll marry
+you----"
+
+"What!"
+
+Almost strangled she wrenched herself free, panting, staring; and he
+realised his mistake.
+
+"We can't get a licence if we leave to-night," he said, breathing
+heavily. "But we can touch at any port and manage that."
+
+"You--you _would_ take me--permit me to go--in such a manner?" she
+breathed, still staring at him.
+
+"It's necessity, isn't it? Didn't you propose it? It makes no difference
+to me, Strelsa. I told you I'd do anything you wished."
+
+"What did you mean--what did you mean by--by--" But she could go no
+further in speech or thought.
+
+"The thing to do," he said calmly, "is not to fly off our heads or
+become panic-stricken. You're doing the latter; I lost control of
+myself--after what you gave me to hope--after what you said--showing
+your trust in me," he added, moistening his thick dry lips with his
+tongue. "I lost my self-command--because I _am_ crazy for you,
+Strelsa--there's no sense in pretending otherwise--and you knew it all
+the time, you little coquette!
+
+"What do you think a man's made of? You wanted a business arrangement
+and I humoured you; but you knew all the while, and I knew, that--that I
+am infatuated, absolutely mad about you." He added, boldly: "And I have
+reason to think it doesn't entirely displease you, haven't I?"
+
+She did not seem to hear him. He laid his gloved hand over hers, and
+recoiled before her eyes as from a blow.
+
+"Are you angry?" he asked.
+
+Her teeth were still working on her under lip. She made no answer.
+
+"Strelsa--if you really feel nothing for me--if you mean what you have
+said about a purely business agreement--I will hold to it. I thought for
+a moment--when you said--something in your smile made me think----"
+
+"You need not think any further," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I came with you this morning to tell you that I will not
+marry you."
+
+"That's nonsense! I've hurt you--made you angry----"
+
+"I came for that reason," she repeated. "I meant to do it as soon as I
+had the courage. I meant to do it gently. Now I don't care how I do it.
+It's enough for you to know that I will not marry you."
+
+"Is that final?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't believe it. I know perfectly well I was--was too impulsive, too
+ardent----"
+
+She turned her face away with a faint, sick look at the summer fields
+where scores of birds sang in the sunshine.
+
+"See here," he said, his manner changing, "I tell you I'm sorry. I ask
+your pardon. Whatever you wish shall be done. Tell me what to do."
+
+After a few moments she turned toward him again.
+
+"A few minutes ago I could have told you what to do. I would have told
+you to marry Mary Ledwith. Also I would have been wrong. Now, as you ask
+me, I tell you not to marry her."
+
+His eyes were deadly dangerous, but she met them carelessly.
+
+"No," she said, "don't marry any woman after your attentions have made
+her conspicuous. It will be pleasanter for her to be torn to pieces by
+her friends."
+
+"You are having your vengeance," he said. "Take it to the limit,
+Strelsa, and then let us be reconciled."
+
+"No, it is too late. It was too late even before we started out
+together. Why--I didn't realise it then--but it was too late long
+ago--from the day you spoke as you did in my presence to Mr. Quarren.
+That finished you, Langly--if, indeed, you ever really began to mean
+anything at all to me."
+
+He made a last effort and the veins stood out on his forehead:
+
+"I am sorry I spoke to Quarren as I did. I like him."
+
+She said coolly: "You hate him. You and Mr. Caldera almost ruined him in
+that acreage affair."
+
+"You are mistaken. Caldera squeezed him; I did not. I knew nothing about
+it. My agents attend to such petty matters. What motive have I for
+disliking Quarren?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully: "Perhaps because you thought he
+was devoted to me--and I to him.... And you were right," she added: "I
+am devoted to him because he is a man and a clean one."
+
+"Have you ended?"
+
+"Ended what?"
+
+"Punishing me."
+
+Her lips curled slightly: "I am afraid you are inclined to
+self-flattery, Langly. We chasten those whom we care for."
+
+"Are you silly enough to dismiss me through sheer pique?" he said
+between his teeth.
+
+"Pique? I don't understand. I've merely concluded that I don't need your
+fortune and I don't want your name. You, personally, never figured in
+the proposed arrangement."
+
+His visage altered alarmingly:
+
+"Who have you got on the string now!" he broke out--"you little
+adventuress! What damned fool is damned fool enough to marry you when
+anybody could get you for less if they care to spend the time on
+you----"
+
+Suddenly his arm shot out and he wrenched her bridle, dragging her horse
+around and holding him there.
+
+"Are you mad?" she whispered, white to the lips. "Take your hand off my
+bridle!"
+
+"For another word," he said between clinched teeth, "I'd ride you down
+and spoil that face of yours! Hold your tongue and listen to me. I've
+stood all I'm going to from you. I've done all the cringing and
+boot-licking that is going to be done. You're the sort that needs curb
+and spurs, and you'll get them if you cut up with me. Is that plain?"
+
+She had carried no crop that morning or she would have used it; her
+bridle was useless; spurring might have dragged them both down under the
+horses' feet.
+
+"For the last time," he said, "you listen to me. I love you. I want you.
+You haven't a cent; you could fill out any check you chose to draw over
+my signature. Now if you are not crazy, or a hopeless fool, behave
+yourself."
+
+A great sob choked her; she forced it back and sat, waiting, eyes almost
+closed.
+
+"Strelsa, answer me!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Answer me, for God's sake!"
+
+She opened her eyes.
+
+"Will you marry me?"
+
+"No."
+
+His eyes seemed starting from his head and the deep blood rushed to his
+face and neck, and he flung her bridle into her face with an
+inarticulate sound.
+
+Then, slowly, side by side they advanced along the road together. A
+groom met them at Witch-Hollow; Strelsa slipped from her saddle without
+aid and, leisurely, erect, smiling, walked up to the veranda where Molly
+stood reading the morning paper.
+
+"Hello dear," she said. "Am I very late for luncheon?"
+
+"It's over. Will you have a tray out here?"
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Don't you want to change, first?"
+
+"Yes, thanks."
+
+Molly glanced up from the paper:
+
+"Isn't Langly stopping for luncheon with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+Molly looked at her curiously:
+
+"Did you enjoy your gallop?"
+
+"We didn't gallop much."
+
+"Spooned?"
+
+Strelsa shuddered slightly. The elder woman dropped her paper and gazed
+at her.
+
+"You don't mean to say it's all off, Strelsa!"
+
+"Entirely. Please don't let's speak of it again--or of him--if you don't
+mind----"
+
+"I don't!--you darling!--you poor darling! What has that creature done
+to _you_?"
+
+"Don't speak of him, please."
+
+"No, I won't. Oh, I'm so glad, Strelsa!--I can't tell you how happy, how
+immensely relieved--and that cat of an aunt of his here to make
+mischief!--and poor Mary Ledwith----"
+
+[Illustration: "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she asked
+caressingly."]
+
+"Molly, I--I simply can't talk about it--any of it----"
+
+She turned abruptly, entered the house, and ran lightly up the stairs.
+Molly waited for her, grimly content with the elimination of Langly
+Sprowl and already planning separate campaigns in behalf of Sir Charles
+and Quarren.
+
+She was still absorbed in her scheming when Strelsa came down. There was
+not a trace of any emotion except pleasure in her face. In her heart it
+was the same; only an immense, immeasurable relief reigned there,
+calming and exciting her alternately. But her face was yet a trifle
+pale; her hands still unsteady; and every delicate nerve, slowly
+relaxing from the tension, was regaining its normal quiet by degrees.
+
+Her appetite was excellent, however. Afterward she and Molly chose
+neighbouring rockers, and Molly, lighting a cigarette, opened fire:
+
+"Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?" she asked caressingly.
+
+Strelsa laughed outright, then, astonished that she had not shrunk from
+a renewal of the eternal pressure, looked at Molly with wide gray eyes.
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me to-day," she said; "I seem to be
+able to laugh. I've not been very well physically; I've had a ghastly
+morning; I'm homeless and wretchedly poor--and I'm laughing at it
+all--the whole thing, Molly. What do you suppose is the matter with me?"
+
+"You're not in love, are you?" asked Molly with calm suspicion.
+
+"No, I'm not," said the girl with a quiet conviction that disconcerted
+the elder woman.
+
+"Then I don't see why you should be very happy," said Molly honestly.
+
+Strelsa considered: "Perhaps it's because to-day I feel unusually well.
+I slept--which I don't usually."
+
+"You're becoming devout, too," said Molly.
+
+"Devout? Oh, you saw me reading in my Testament.... It's an interesting
+book, Molly," she said naively. "You know, as children, and at school,
+and in church we don't read it with any intelligence--or listen to it in
+the right way.... People _are_ odd. We have our moments of contrition,
+abasement, fright, exaltation; but at bottom we know that our religion
+and a fair observance of it is a sound policy of insurance. We accept it
+as we take out insurance in view of eventualities and the chance of
+future fire----"
+
+"That's flippant," said Molly.
+
+"I really didn't mean it so.... I was wondering about it all. Recently,
+re-reading the New Testament, I was struck by finding so much in it that
+I had never noticed or understood.... You know, Molly, after all Truth
+is the greatest thing in the world."
+
+"So I've heard," observed Molly drily.
+
+"Oh, I've heard it, too, but never thought what it meant--until
+recently. You see Truth, to me, was just telling it as often as
+possible. I never thought much about it--that it is the basis of
+everything worthy and beautiful--such as old pictures--" she added
+vaguely--"and those things that silversmiths like Benvenuto Cellini
+did----"
+
+"What?"
+
+Strelsa coloured: "Everything worthy is founded on Truth," she said.
+
+"That sounds like Tupper or a copy-book," said Molly, laughing. "For
+surely those profound reflections never emanated originally from you or
+Rix--did they?"
+
+Strelsa, much annoyed, picked up the field glasses and levelled them on
+the river.
+
+Sir Charles was out there in a launch with Chrysos Lacy. Chrysos fished
+and Sir Charles baited her hook.
+
+"That's a touching sight," said Strelsa, laughing.
+
+Molly said crossly: "Well, if you don't want him, for goodness' sake say
+so!--and let me have some credit with the Lacys for engineering the
+thing."
+
+"Take it, darling!" laughed the girl, "take the credit and let the cash
+go--to Chrysos!"
+
+"How indelicate you _can_ be, Strelsa!"
+
+"Oh, I am. I'm in such rude health that it's almost vulgar. After all,
+Molly, there's an immense relief in getting rid of your last penny and
+knowing nothing worse can happen to you."
+
+"You might die."
+
+"I don't care."
+
+"Everybody cares whether they live or die."
+
+The girl looked at her, surprised.
+
+"I don't," she said, "--really."
+
+"Of course you do."
+
+"But why should I?"
+
+"Nonsense, Strelsa. No matter how they crack up Heaven, nobody is in a
+hurry to go there."
+
+"I wasn't thinking of Heaven.... I was just curious to see what else
+there is--I'm in no hurry, but it has always interested me.... I've had
+a theory that perhaps to everybody worthy is given, hereafter, exactly
+the kind of heaven they expect--to Buddhist, Brahman, Mohammedan,
+Christian--to the Shinto priest as well as to the Sagamore.... There's
+plenty of time--I'm in no hurry, nor would it be too soon to-morrow for
+me to find out how near I am to the truth."
+
+"You're morbid, child!"
+
+"Less this very moment than for years.... Molly, do you know that I am
+getting well? I wish you knew how well I feel."
+
+But Molly was no longer listening. High above the distant hangars where
+the men had gathered since early morning, a great hawk-like thing was
+soaring in circles. And already the distant racket of another huge
+winged thing came to her ears on the summer wind.
+
+"I hope Jim will be careful," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Into the long stables at South Linden, that afternoon, Langly Sprowl's
+trembling horse was led limping, his velvet flanks all torn by spurs and
+caked with mud, his tender mouth badly lacerated.
+
+As for his master, it seemed that the ruin of the expensive hunter and
+four hours' violent and capricious exercise in his reeking saddle had
+merely whetted his appetite for more violence; and he had been tramping
+for an hour up and down the length of the library in his big sprawling
+house when Mr. Kyte, his confidential secretary, came in without
+knocking.
+
+Sprowl hearing his step swung on him savagely, but Kyte coolly closed
+the door behind him and turned the key.
+
+"Ledwith is here," he said.
+
+"Ledwith," repeated Sprowl, mechanically.
+
+"Yes, he's on the veranda. They said you were not at home. He said he'd
+wait. I thought you ought to know. He acts queerly."
+
+Langly's protruding eyes became utterly expressionless.
+
+"All right," he said in dismissal.
+
+Kyte still lingered:
+
+"Is there anything I can say or do?"
+
+"If there was I'd tell you, wouldn't I?"
+
+Kyte's lowered gaze stole upward toward his employer, sustained his
+expressionless glare for a second, then shifted.
+
+"Very well," he said unlocking the library door; "I thought he might be
+armed, that's all."
+
+"Kyte!"
+
+Mr. Kyte turned on the door-sill.
+
+"What do you mean by saying that?"
+
+"Saying what?"
+
+"That you think this fellow Ledwith may be armed?"
+
+Kyte stood silent.
+
+"I ask you again," repeated Sprowl, "why you infer that this man might
+have armed himself to visit this house?"
+
+Kyte's eyes stole upward, were instantly lowered. Sprowl walked over to
+him.
+
+"You're paid to act, not think; do you understand?" he said in a husky,
+suppressed voice; but his long fingers were twitching.
+
+"I understand," said Kyte.
+
+Sprowl's lean head jerked; Kyte went; and the master of the house strode
+back into the library and resumed his pacing.
+
+Boots, spurs, the skirts of his riding coat, even his stock were stained
+with mud and lather; and there was a spot or two across his sun-tanned
+cheeks.
+
+Presently he walked to the bay-window which commanded part of the west
+veranda, and looking out through the lace curtains saw Ledwith sitting
+there, his sunken eyes fixed on the westering sun.
+
+The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at
+elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers
+and golf-stockings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of
+the muscles.
+
+The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into
+the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and
+down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the
+dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering
+mentally unsound.
+
+Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying
+his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still
+sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and
+strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors
+to the veranda.
+
+Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said.
+
+Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face.
+
+There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a
+crooked smile.
+
+"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he
+said.
+
+"When are you leaving?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I don't know--to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that--I don't
+know."
+
+Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out
+across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of
+tall trees lay like velvet on the grass; the crests of the woods beyond
+grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were
+noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged
+woodpeckers imitated them; in the late sunlight the grackles' necks
+were rainbow tinted.
+
+On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding,
+switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted
+hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded
+with sunshine and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and
+expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first
+grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond.
+
+"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoarse and
+painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in
+distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak.
+
+"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl.
+
+The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute.
+
+"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need
+exercise."
+
+"I've got to rest."
+
+"Well, then, what have you got to say?--because I'm going on. What's the
+matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?"
+
+"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment.
+
+"What else?"
+
+"Anxiety."
+
+"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?"
+
+Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting
+on his elbow against the tree-trunk:
+
+"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get
+it?"
+
+"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously.
+
+"Then--my wife has returned."
+
+"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice
+or features.
+
+"Yes," said Ledwith--"Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my
+way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I
+saw them from the hill."
+
+"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?"
+
+Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it,
+looking down at the grass.
+
+"You are going to marry her of course," he said.
+
+"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business."
+
+"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing
+possible. There is nothing else for her to do--for you to do. She knows
+it, you know it, and so do I."
+
+"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?"
+
+"Only your word to confirm what I have just said."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"Your marriage with Mary."
+
+"I think I told you that it was none of your business."
+
+"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business."
+
+"May I ask why?"
+
+"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently,
+there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the
+reason."
+
+Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and
+unclosing:
+
+"Is that all, Ledwith?"
+
+"That's all--when you have confirmed what I have said concerning the
+necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched."
+
+"You lie," said Langly.
+
+Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me."
+
+"That is another lie."
+
+"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared,
+after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body;
+she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as
+her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to
+effrontery.... It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at
+nothing--not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory
+characteristic of your sort.... I don't mean physical cowardice," he
+added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's
+powerful frame.
+
+"Have you finished?" asked the latter.
+
+"In a moment, Langly. I am merely reminding you of what has happened.
+Concerning myself I have nothing to say. Look at me. You know what I
+was; you see what I am. I'm not whining; it's all in a lifetime. And the
+man who is not fitted to take care of what is his, loses. That's all."
+
+Sprowl's head was averted after an involuntary glance at the man before
+him. His face was red--or it may have been the ruddy evening sun
+striking flat across it.
+
+Ledwith said: "You will marry her, of course. But I merely wish to hear
+you say so."
+
+Sprowl swung on him, his thick lips receding:
+
+"I'll marry whom I choose! Do you understand that?"
+
+"Of course. But you will choose to marry her."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Yes. Or--I'll kill you," he said seriously.
+
+Langly stared at him, every vein suddenly dark and swollen; then his
+bark of a laugh broke loose.
+
+"I suppose you've got it in your pocket," he said.
+
+Ledwith fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a dully blued weapon of
+heavy calibre; and Sprowl walked slowly up to him, slapped his face,
+took the revolver from him, and flung it into the woods.
+
+"Now go home and punch yourself full of dope," he said; swung on his
+heel, and sauntered off.
+
+Ledwith looked after him, one bloodless hand resting on the cheek which
+Sprowl had struck--watched him out of sight. Then, patiently, he started
+to search for the weapon, dropping on all-fours, crawling, peering,
+parting the ferns and bushes. But the sun was low and the woods dusky,
+and he could not find what he was looking for. So he sat up on the
+ground among the dead leaves of other years, drew from his pocket what
+he needed, and slowly bared his scarred arm to the shoulder.
+
+As for Sprowl, his vigorous tread lengthened to a swinging stride as he
+shouldered his way through a thicket and out again into the open.
+
+Already he scarcely remembered Ledwith at all, or his menace, or the
+blow; scarcely even recollected that Mary Ledwith had returned or that
+his aunt was within driving distance of his own quarters.
+
+A dull hot anguish, partly rage, possessed him, tormenting brain and
+heart incessantly and giving him no rest. His own clumsy madness in
+destroying what he believed had been a certainty--his stupidity, his
+loss of self-control, not only in betraying passion prematurely but in
+his subsequent violence and brutality, almost drove him insane.
+
+Never before in any affair with women had he forgotten caution in any
+crisis; his had been a patience unshakable when necessary, a dogged,
+driving persistence when the time came, the subtlety of absolute
+inertness when required. But above all and everything else he has been a
+master of patience, and so a master of himself; and so he had usually
+won.
+
+And now--now in this crisis--a crisis involving the loss of what he
+cared for enough to marry--if he must marry to have his way with
+her--what was to be done?
+
+He tried to think coolly, but the cinders of rage and passion seemed to
+stir and move with every breath he drew awaking the wild fire within.
+
+He would try to reason and think clearly--try to retrace matters to the
+beginning and find out why he had blundered when everything was in his
+own hands.
+
+It was his aunt's sudden policy that betrayed him into a premature
+move--Mary Ledwith's return, and his aunt's visit. Mary Ledwith was
+there to marry him; his aunt to make mischief unless he did what was
+expected of him.
+
+Leisurely but thoroughly he cursed them both as he walked back across
+his lawn. But he was already thinking of Strelsa again when, as he
+entered the wide hall, his aunt waddled across the rugs of the
+drawing-room, pronouncing his name with unmistakable decision. And,
+before the servants, he swallowed the greeting he had hoped to give her,
+and led her into the library.
+
+"Mercy on us, Langly!" she exclaimed, eyeing his reeking boots and
+riding-breeches; "do you live like a pig up here?"
+
+"I've been out," he said briefly. "What do you want?"
+
+Her little green eyes lighted up, and her smile, which was fading, she
+forced into a kind of fixed grin.
+
+"Your polished and thoughtful inquiry is characteristic of you," she
+said. "Mary is here, and I want you to come over to dinner."
+
+"I'm not up to it," he said.
+
+"I want you to come."
+
+"I tell you I'm not up to it," he said bluntly.
+
+"And I tell you that you'd better come."
+
+"_Better_ come?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes, _better_ come. More than that, Langly, you'd better behave
+yourself, or I'll make New York too hot to hold you."
+
+His prominent eyes were expressionless.
+
+"Ah?" he remarked.
+
+"Exactly, my friend. Your race is run. You've done one thing too
+publicly to squirm out of the consequences. The town has stood for a
+good deal from you. When that girl at the Frivolity Theatre shot
+herself, leaving a letter directed to you, the limit of public patience
+was nearly reached. You had to go abroad, didn't you? Well, you can't go
+abroad this time. Neither London nor Paris nor Vienna nor Budapest--no,
+nor St. Petersburg nor even Constantinople would stand you! Your course
+is finished. If you've an ounce of brains remaining you know that you're
+done for this time. So go and dress and come over to dinner.... And
+don't worry; I'll keep away from you after you're married."
+
+"You'll keep your distance before that," he said slowly.
+
+"You're mistaken. Many people are afraid of you, but I never was and
+never could be. You're no good; you never were. If you didn't lug my
+name about with you I'd let you go to hell. You'll go there anyway, but
+you'll go married first."
+
+"I expect to."
+
+"Married to Mary Ledwith," she said looking at him.
+
+He picked up a cigar, examined it, yawned, then glanced at her:
+
+"As I had--recently--occasion to tell Chester Ledwith, I'll marry whom I
+please. Now suppose you clear out."
+
+"Are you dining with us?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What time may we expect you to-morrow?"
+
+"At no time."
+
+"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is that final?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Do you expect to marry anybody else?"
+
+"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face
+distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at
+last? Do you understand clearly?--you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!"
+
+He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down
+the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and
+abuse--rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness
+and disintegration--his downfall from that silent citadel of
+self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for
+defiance or refuge.
+
+"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat
+nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the
+foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your
+business--I warn you now and for the last time, or else--" He swung
+around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work--"or else I'll supply
+the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father
+and yourself!"
+
+Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only
+the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive.
+
+"So _that_ fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you
+apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to
+understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my
+threshold. You _do_ understand, I guess."
+
+He continued his promenade but presently came back to her:
+
+"You know well enough who I want to marry. If you say or do one thing to
+interfere I'll see that you figure in the Yellows."
+
+He thought a moment; the colour slowly returned to her face. After a fit
+of coughing she struggled to rise from her chair. He let her pant and
+scuffle and kick for a while, then opened the door and summoned her
+footman.
+
+"I'm sorry I cannot drive with you this evening," he said quietly, as
+the footman supported Mrs. Sprowl to her feet, "but I've promised the
+Wycherlys. Pray offer my compliments and friendly wishes to Mrs.
+Ledwith."
+
+When she had gone he walked back into the library, picked up the
+telephone and finally got Molly Wycherly on the wire.
+
+"Won't you ask me to dinner?" he said. "I've an explanation to make to
+Mrs. Leeds and I'd be awfully obliged to you."
+
+There was a silence, then Molly said, deliberately:
+
+"You must be a very absent-minded young man. I saw your aunt for a
+moment this afternoon and she said that you are dining with her at Mrs.
+Ledwith's."
+
+"She was mistaken--" began Sprowl quietly, but Molly cut him short with
+a laughing "good-bye," and hung up the receiver.
+
+"That was Langly," she remarked, turning to Strelsa who was already
+dressed for dinner and who had come into Molly's boudoir to observe the
+hair-dressing and comprehensive embellishment of that young matron's
+person by a new maid on probation.
+
+Strelsa's upper lip curled faintly, then the happy expression returned,
+and she watched the decorating of Molly until the maid turned her out in
+the perfection of grooming from crown to toe.
+
+There was nobody in the music-room. Molly turned again to Strelsa as
+they entered:
+
+"What a brute he is!--asking me to invite him here for dinner when Mary
+Ledwith has just arrived."
+
+"Did he do that?"
+
+"Yes. And his excuse was that he had an explanation to make you. What a
+sneaking way of doing it!"
+
+Strelsa looked out of the dark window in silence.
+
+Molly said: "I wish he'd go away, I never can look at him without
+thinking of Chester Ledwith--and all that wretched affair.... Not that I
+am sniffy about Mary--the poor little fool.... Anyway," she added
+naively, "old lady Sprowl has fixed her status and now we all know how
+to behave toward her."
+
+Strelsa, arms clasped behind her back, came slowly forward from the
+window:
+
+"What a sorry civilisation," she said thoughtfully, "and what sorry
+codes we frame to govern it."
+
+"What?" sharply.
+
+Strelsa looked at her, absently.
+
+"Nobody seems to be ashamed of anything any more," she said, half to
+herself. "The only thing that embarrasses us is what the outside world
+may think of us. We don't seem to care what we think of each other."
+
+Molly, a trifle red, asked her warmly what she meant.
+
+"Oh, I was just realising what are the motives that govern us--the
+majority of us--and how primitive they are. So many among us seem to be
+moral throwbacks--types reappearing out of the mists of an ancient and
+unmoral past.... Echoes of primitive ages when nobody knew any
+better--when life was new, and was merely life and nothing
+else--fighting, treacherous, cringing life which knew of nothing else to
+do except to eat, sleep, and reproduce itself--bully the weaker, fawn on
+the stronger, lie, steal, and watch out that death should not interfere
+with the main chance."
+
+Molly, redder than ever, asked her again what she meant.
+
+"I don't know, dear.... How clean the woods and fields seem after a day
+indoors with many people."
+
+"You mean we all need moral baths?"
+
+"I do."
+
+Molly smiled: "For a moment I thought you meant that I do."
+
+Strelsa smiled, too:
+
+"You're a good wife, Molly; and a good friend.... I wish you had a
+baby."
+
+"I'm--going to."
+
+They looked at each other a moment; then Strelsa caught her in her arms.
+
+"Really?"
+
+Molly nodded:
+
+"That's why I worry about Jim taking chances in his aeroplane."
+
+"He mustn't! He's got to stop! What can he be thinking of!" cried
+Strelsa indignantly.
+
+"But he--doesn't know."
+
+"You haven't _told_ him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I--don't know how he'll take it."
+
+"What?"
+
+Molly flushed: "We didn't want one. I don't know what he'll say. We
+didn't care for them----"
+
+Strelsa's angry beauty checked her with its silent scorn; suddenly her
+pretty head fell forward on Strelsa's breast:
+
+"Don't look that way at me! I was a fool. How was I to know--anything?
+I'd never had one.... You can't know whether you want a baby or not
+until you have one.... I know now. I'm crazy about it.... I think it
+would--would kill me if Jim is annoyed----"
+
+"He won't be, darling!" whispered Strelsa. "Don't mind what he says
+anyway. He's only a man. He never even knew as much about it as you did.
+What do men know, anyway? Jim is a dear--just the regular sort of man
+interested in business and sport and probably afraid that a baby might
+interfere with both. What does he know about it?... Besides he's too
+decent to be annoyed----"
+
+"I'm afraid--I can't stand--even his indifference--" whimpered Molly.
+
+Strelsa, holding her clasped to her breast, started to speak, but a
+noise of men in the outer hall silenced her--the aviators returning from
+their hangars and gathering in the billiard-room for a long one before
+dressing.
+
+"Wait," whispered Strelsa, gently disengaging herself--"wait just a
+moment----"
+
+And she was out in the hall in an instant, just in time to touch Jim on
+the arm as he closed the file toward the billiard-room.
+
+"Hello, Sweetness!" he said, pivoting on his heels and seizing her
+hands. "Are you coming in to try a cocktail with us?"
+
+"Jim," she said, "I want to tell you something."
+
+"Shoot," he said. "And if you don't hurry I'll kiss you."
+
+"Listen, please. Molly is in the music-room. _Make_ her tell you."
+
+"Tell me what?"
+
+"Ask her, Jim.... And, if you care one atom for her--be happy at what
+she tells you--and tell her that you are. Will you?"
+
+He stared at her, then lost countenance. Then he looked at her in a
+panicky way and started to go, but she held on to him with
+determination:
+
+"Smile first!"
+
+"Thunder! I----"
+
+"Smile. Oh, Jim, isn't there any decency in men?"
+
+His mind was working like mad; he stared at her, then through the
+astonishment and consternation on his good-looking features a faint grin
+broke out.
+
+"All right," she whispered, and let him go.
+
+Molly, idling at the piano, heard his tread behind her, and looked up
+over her shoulder.
+
+"Hello, Jim," she said, faintly.
+
+"Hello, ducky. Strelsa says you have something to tell me."
+
+"I--Jim?"
+
+"So she said. So I cut out a long one to find out what it is. What's up,
+ducky?"
+
+Molly's gaze grew keener: "Did that child tell you?"
+
+"She said that you had something to tell me."
+
+"_Did_ she?"
+
+"No! Aren't you going to tell me either?"
+
+He dropped into a chair opposite her; she sat on the piano-stool
+considering him for a while in silence. Then, dropping her arms with a
+helpless little gesture:
+
+"We are going to have a baby. Are you--annoyed?"
+
+For a second he sat as though paralysed, and the next second he had her
+in his arms, the grin breaking out from utter blankness.
+
+"You're a corker, ducky!" he whispered. "You for me all the time!"
+
+"Jim!... Really?"
+
+"Surest thing you know! Which is it?--boy or--Oh, I beg your pardon,
+dear--I'm not accustomed to the etiquette. But I'm delighted, ducky,
+overwhelmed!"
+
+"Oh, Jim! I'm so glad. And I'm crazy about it--perfectly mad about
+it.... And you're a dear to care----"
+
+"Certainly I care! What do you take me for--a wooden Indian!" he
+exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate----"
+
+"But, Jim! We can't _tell_ people."
+
+"Oh--that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it
+of course. But I'll do anything you say----"
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Will I? Watch me!"
+
+"Then--then _don't_ take out the Stinger for a while. Do you mind,
+dear?"
+
+"What!" he said, jaw dropping.
+
+"I can't bear it, Jim. I was a good sport before; you know I was. But my
+nerve has gone. I can't take chances now; I _want_ you to see--it----"
+
+After a moment he nodded.
+
+"Sure," he said. "It's like Lent. You've got to offer up something....
+If you feel that way--" he sighed unconsciously--"I'll lock up the
+hangar until----"
+
+"Oh, darling! Will you?"
+
+"Yes," said that desolate young man, and kissed his wife without a
+scowl. He had behaved pretty well--about like the majority of husbands
+outside of popular romances.
+
+The amateur aeronauts left in the morning before anybody was stirring
+except the servants--Vincent Wier, Lester Caldera, the Van Dynes and the
+rest, bag, baggage, and, later, two aeroplanes packed and destined for
+Barent Van Dyne's Long Island estate where there was to be some serious
+flying attempted over the flat and dusty plains of that salubrious
+island.
+
+Sir Charles Mallison was leaving that same day, later; and there were to
+be no more of Jim's noisy parties; and now under the circumstances, no
+parties of Molly's, either; because Molly was becoming nervous and
+despondent and a mania for her husband possessed her--the pretty
+resurgence of earlier sentiment which, if not more than comfortably
+dormant, buds charmingly again at a time like this.
+
+Also she wanted Strelsa, and nobody beside these two; and although she
+liked parties of all sorts including Jim's sporting ones, and although
+she liked Sir Charles immensely, she was looking forward to comfort of
+an empty house with only her husband to decorate the landscape and
+Strelsa to whisper to in morbid moments.
+
+For Chrysos was going to Newport, Sir Charles and her maid accompanying
+her as far as New York from where the Baronet meant to sail the next
+day.
+
+His luggage had already gone; his man was packing when Sir Charles
+sauntered out over the dew-wet lawn, a sprig of sweet-william in his
+lapel, tall, clear-skinned, nice to look upon.
+
+What he really thought of what he had seen in America, of the sort of
+people who had entertained him, of the grotesque imitation of exotic
+society--or of a certain sort of it--nobody really knew. Doubtless his
+estimate was inclined to be a kindly one, for he was essentially that--a
+philosophical, chivalrous, and modest man; and if his lines had fallen
+in places where vulgarity, extravagance, and ostentation
+predominated--if he had encountered little real cultivation, less
+erudition, and almost nothing worthy of sympathetic interest, he never
+betrayed either impatience or contempt.
+
+He had come for one reason only--the same reason that had brought him to
+America for the first time--to ask Strelsa Leeds to marry him.
+
+He was man enough to understand that she did not care for him that way,
+soldier enough to face his fate, keen enough, long since, to understand
+that Quarren meant more to the woman he cared for than any other man.
+
+Cool, self-controlled, he watched every chance for an opening in his own
+behalf. No good chance presented itself. So he made one and offered
+himself with a dignity and simplicity that won Strelsa's esteem but not
+her heart.
+
+After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her.
+Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be
+on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he
+was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also
+he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for
+it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and
+words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious.
+
+Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding
+furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa;
+and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough.
+
+So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted
+to get back to his own kind--into real life again, among people of real
+position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live
+things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material
+or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well.
+
+There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there--except a
+warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom
+he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow.
+
+Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her
+fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a
+cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite
+and delightful.
+
+The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming
+surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made
+few demands on his intellect--that is, at first she had made very few.
+Later--within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find
+how much there really was to the young girl--and that perhaps her age
+and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between
+them.
+
+Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a
+while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that
+a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to
+present himself at so early an hour.
+
+A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not
+yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him.
+
+Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a
+dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the
+colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered
+up in a big cane-backed chair.
+
+"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night--sitting here
+because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down."
+
+He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down
+compassionately:
+
+"Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it.
+
+The old lady peered up at him:
+
+"You're sailing to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, gravely.
+
+"When do you return?"
+
+"I have made no plans to return."
+
+"You mean to say that you've given up the fight?"
+
+"There was never any fight," he said.
+
+Mrs. Sprowl scowled:
+
+"Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?"
+
+"Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better
+than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can
+scarcely question her decision."
+
+"Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew
+of mine?" she demanded.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Then--do you mean young Quarren?"
+
+"I think I do," he said smiling.
+
+"I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad
+that it may be Rix. It--it would have killed me to see her fall into
+Langly's hands.... I'm ill on account of him--his shocking treatment of
+me last evening. It was a brutal scene--one of those terrible family
+scenes!--and he threatened me--cursed me----"
+
+She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they
+snapped open again with the old fire undiminished:
+
+"Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him....
+But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"You are going back into everything, I suppose."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To forget her, I suppose."
+
+He said pleasantly:
+
+"I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman
+as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a
+privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not--painful."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of
+the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in
+her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of
+phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat.
+
+"I did my best," she said hoarsely. "I'm not defeated if you're not. Say
+the word and I'll start something--" And suddenly she remembered
+Langly's threat involving the memory of a dead man whose only son now
+stood before her.
+
+She knew that her words were vain, her boast empty; she knew there was
+nothing more for her to do--nothing even that Sir Charles might do
+toward winning Strelsa without also doing the only thing in the world
+which could really terrify herself. Even at the mere thought of it she
+trembled again, and fear forced her to speech born of fear:
+
+"Perhaps it is best for you to go," she faltered. "Absence is a last
+resort.... It may be well to try it----"
+
+He bent over and took her hand:
+
+"There is no longer even a last resort," he said kindly. "I am quite
+reconciled. She is different from any other woman; ours was and is a
+high type of friendship.... Sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether
+it ever could have been any more than that to either of us."
+
+Mrs. Sprowl looked up at him, her face so altered and softened that his
+own grew graver.
+
+"You are like your father," she said unsteadily. "It was my privilege to
+share his friendship.... And his friendship was of that
+kind--high-minded, generous, pure--asking no more than it gave--no more
+than it gave----"
+
+She laid her cheek against Sir Charles's hands, let it rest there an
+instant, then averting her face motioned his dismissal.
+
+He went with a pleasant and gentle word or two; she sat bolt upright
+among her silken pillows, lips grimly compressed, but on her tightly
+closed eyelids tears trembled.
+
+Sir Charles drew a long deep breath in the outer sunshine, filling his
+lungs with the fragrant morning air. Hedges still glistened with
+spiders' tapestry; the birds which sulked all day in their early
+moulting-fever still sang a little in the cool of the morning, and he
+listened to them as he walked while his quiet, impartial eye ranged
+over the lovely rolling country, dew-washed and exquisite under a
+cloudless sky.
+
+Far away he saw the chimneys of Langly Sprowl's sprawling country-seat,
+smoke rising from two, but he saw nothing of the angry horseman of the
+day before. Once, in the distance on the edge of a copse, he saw a man
+creeping about on all-fours, evidently searching for some lost object in
+the thicket. Looking back from a long way off he saw him still searching
+on his hands and knees, and wondered at his patience, half inclined to
+go back and aid him.
+
+But about that time one of Sprowl's young bulls came walking over toward
+him with such menacing observations and deportment that Sir Charles
+promptly looked about him for an advance to the rear-front--a manoeuvre
+he had been obliged to learn in the late Transvaal unpleasantness.
+
+And at the same moment he saw Chrysos Lacy.
+
+There was no time for explanations; clearly she was too frightened to
+stir; so he quietly picked her up on his advance to the rear-front,
+carrying her in the first-aid style approved by the H. B. M. medical
+staff, and scaled the five-bar fence as no barrier had ever been scaled
+at Aldershot or Olympia by any warrior in khaki or scarlet tunic.
+
+"Th-thank you," said Chrysos, unwinding her arms from the baronet's neck
+as the bull came trotting up on the other side of the fence and bellowed
+at them. Not the slightest atom of fright remained, only a wild-rose
+tint in her cheeks. She considered the bull, absently, patted a tendril
+of hair into symmetry; but the breeze loosened it again, and she let it
+blow across her cheek.
+
+"We should have been in South Africa together," said Sir Charles.
+"We manoeuvre beautifully as a unit."
+
+[Illustration: "'And it is to be your last breakfast.'"]
+
+The girl laughed, then spying more wild strawberries--the quest of which
+had beguiled her into hostile territory--dropped on her knees and began
+to explore.
+
+The berries were big and ripe--huge drops of crimson honey hanging
+heavily, five to a stalk. The meadow-grass was red with them, and Sir
+Charles, without more ado, got down on all-fours and started to gather
+them with all the serious and thorough determination characteristic of
+that warrior.
+
+"You're not to eat any, yet," said Chrysos.
+
+"Of course not; they're for your breakfast I take it," he said.
+
+"For yours."
+
+He straightened up on his knees: "For mine?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You didn't go wandering afield at this hour to pick wild strawberries
+for _my_ breakfast!" he said incredulously.
+
+"Yes, I did," said the girl; and continued exploring, parting the high
+grass-stems to feel for and detach some berry-loaded stem.
+
+"Do you know," he said, returning to his labours, "that I am quite
+overcome by your thought of me?"
+
+"Why? We are friends.... And it is to be your last breakfast."
+
+There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, but her pretty face was
+carefully turned away so that if there was to be anything to notice in
+the features he could not notice it.
+
+"I'll miss you a lot," he said.
+
+"And I you, Sir Charles."
+
+"You'll be over, I suppose."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"That will be jolly," he said, sitting back on his heels to rest, and to
+watch her--to find pleasure in her youth and beauty as she moved
+gracefully amid the fragrant grasses, one little sun-tanned hand
+clasping a great bouquet of the crimson fruit which nodded heavily amid
+tufts of trefoil leaves.
+
+In the barred shadow of the pasture-fence they rested from their
+exertions, she rearranging their bouquets of berries and tying them fast
+with grass-stems.
+
+"It has been a pleasant comradeship," he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have found it so, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She appeared to be so intent, so absorbed on her bouquet tying that he
+involuntarily leaned nearer to watch her. A fragrance faintly fresh
+seemed to grow in the air around him as the hill-breeze stirred her
+hair. If it came from the waving grass-tops, or the honeyed fruit or
+from her hair, or perhaps from those small, smooth hands, he did not
+know.
+
+For a long while they sat there without speaking, she steadily intent on
+her tying. Then, while still busy with a cluster, her slim fingers
+hesitated, wavered, relaxed; her hands fell to her lap, and she remained
+so, head bent, motionless.
+
+After a moment he spoke, but she made no answer.
+
+Through and through him shot the thrilling comprehension of that
+exquisite avowal, childlike in its silent directness, charming in its
+surprise. A wave of tenderness and awe mounted within him, touching his
+bronzed cheeks with a deeper colour.
+
+"If you will, Chrysos," he said in a still voice.
+
+She lifted her head and looked directly at him, and in her questioning
+gaze there was nothing of fear--merely the question.
+
+"I can't bear to have you go," she said.
+
+"I can't go--alone."
+
+"Could you--care for me?"
+
+"I love you, Chrysos."
+
+Her eyes widened in wonder:
+
+"You--you don't _love_ me--do you?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I do. Will you marry me, Chrysos?"
+
+Her fascinated gaze met his in silence. He drew her close to his
+shoulder; she laid her cheek against it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Toward the end of the first week in August Strelsa wrote to Quarren:
+
+     "Sometimes I wonder whether you realise how my attitude toward
+     everything is altering. Things which seemed important no longer
+     appear so in the sunlit tranquillity of this lovely place. Whatever
+     it is that seems to be changing me in various ways is doing it so
+     subtly, yet so inexorably, that I scarcely notice any difference in
+     myself until some morning I awake with such a delicious sense of
+     physical well-being and such a mental happiness apropos of nothing
+     at all except the mere awaking into the world again, that, thinking
+     it over, I cannot logically account for it.
+
+     "Because, Rix, my worldly affairs seem to be going from bad to
+     worse. I know it perfectly well, yet where is that deadly
+     fear?--where is the dismay, the alternate hours of panic and dull
+     lethargy--the shrinking from a future which only yesterday seemed
+     to threaten me with more than I had strength to endure--menace me
+     with what I had neither the will nor the desire to resist?
+
+     "Gone, my friend! And I am either a fool or a philosopher, but
+     whichever I am, I am a happy one.
+
+     "I wish to tell you something. Last winter when they fished me out
+     of my morbid seclusion, I thought that the life I then entered upon
+     was the only panacea for the past, the only oblivion, the only
+     guarantee for the future.
+
+     "Now I suppose I have gone to the other extreme, because, let me
+     tell you what I've done. Will you laugh? I can't help it if you do;
+     I've bought a house! What do you think of that?
+
+     "The owner took back a mortgage, but I don't care. I paid so _very_
+     little for it, and thirty acres of woods and fields--and it is a
+     darling house!--built in the eighteenth century and not in good
+     repair, but it's mine! mine! mine!--and it may need paint and
+     plumbing and all sorts of things which perhaps make for human
+     happiness and perhaps do not. But I tell you I really don't care.
+
+     "And how I did it was this: I took what they offered for my laces
+     and jewels--about a third of their value--but it paid every debt
+     and left me with enough to buy my sweet old house up here.
+
+     "But that's not all! I've rented my town house furnished for a term
+     of five years at seven thousand dollars a year! Isn't it wonderful?
+
+     "And _that_ is not all, either. I am going into business, Rix!
+     Don't dare laugh. Jim has made an arrangement with an independent
+     New York florist, and I'm going to grow flowers under glass for the
+     Metropolitan market.
+
+     "And, if I succeed, I _may_ try fruits outdoors and in. My small
+     brain is humming with schemes, millions of them. Isn't it heavenly?
+
+     "Besides, from my second-story windows I shall be able to see
+     Molly's chimneys above the elms. And Molly is going to remain here
+     all winter, because, Rix--and this is a close secret--a little heir
+     or heiress is coming to make _this_ House of Wycherly 'an
+     habitation enforced'--and a happier habitation than it has been
+     since they bought it.
+
+     "So you see I shall have neighbours all winter--two neighbours, for
+     Mrs. Ledwith is wretchedly ill and her physicians have advised her
+     to remain here all winter. Poor child--for she is nothing else,
+     Rix--I met her for the first time when I went to call on Mrs.
+     Sprowl. She's so young and so empty-headed, just a shallow,
+     hare-brained, little thing who had no more moral idea of sin than a
+     humming-bird--nor perhaps has she any now except that the world has
+     hurt her and broken her wings and damaged her plumage; and the
+     sunlight in which she sparkled for a summer has faded to a chill
+     gray twilight!--Oh, Rix, it is really pitiful; and somehow I can't
+     seem to remember whether she was guilty or not, because she's so
+     ill, so broken--lying here amid the splendour of her huge house----
+
+     "You know Mrs. Sprowl is on her way to Carlsbad. You haven't
+     written me what took place in your last interview with her; and
+     I've asked you, twice. Won't you tell me?
+
+     "Langly, thank goodness, never disturbs us. And, Rix, do you know
+     that he has never been to call on Mary Ledwith? He keeps to his own
+     estate and nobody even sees him. Which is all I ask at any rate.
+
+     "So Sir Charles called on you and told you about Chrysos? Isn't Sir
+     Charles the most darling man you ever knew? _I_ never knew such a
+     man. There is not one atom of anything small or unworthy in his
+     character. And I tell you very frankly that, thinking about him at
+     times, I am amazed at myself for not falling in love with him.
+
+[Illustration: Strelsa Leeds.]
+
+     "Which is proof sufficient that if I couldn't care for him I cannot
+     ever care for any man. Don't you think so?
+
+     "Now all this letter has been devoted to matters concerning myself
+     and not one line to you and the exciting success you and Lord
+     Dankmere are making of your new business.
+
+     "Oh, Rix, I am not indifferent; all the time I have been writing to
+     you, that has been surging and laughing in my heart--like some
+     delicious aria that charmingly occupies your mind while you go
+     happily about other matters--happy because the ceaseless melody
+     that enchants you makes you so.
+
+     "I have read your letter so many times, over and over; and always
+     the same thrill of excitement begins when I come to the part where
+     you begin to suspect that under the daubed surface of that canvas
+     there may be something worth while.
+
+     "Is it really and truly a Van Dyck? Is there any chance that it is
+     not? Is it possible that all these years none of Dankmere's people
+     suspected what was hidden under the aged paint and varnish of that
+     tiresome old British landscape?
+
+     "And it remained for you to suspect it!--for _you_ to discover it?
+     Oh, Rix, I am proud of you!
+
+     "And how perfectly wonderful it is that now you know its history,
+     when it was supposed to have disappeared, where it has remained
+     ever since under its ignoble integument of foolish paint.
+
+     "No, I promise not to say one word about it until I have your
+     permission. I understand quite well why you desire to keep the
+     matter from the newspapers for the present. But--won't it make you
+     and Lord Dankmere rich? Tell me--please tell me. I don't want
+     money for myself any more, but I do want it for you. You need it;
+     you can do so much with it, use it so intelligently, so gloriously,
+     make the world better with it,--make it more beautiful, and people
+     happier.
+
+     "What a chasm, Rix, between what we were a year ago, and what we
+     care to be--what we are trying to be to-day! Sometimes I think of
+     it, not unhappily, merely wondering.
+
+     "Toward what goal were we moving a year ago? What was there to be
+     of such lives?--what at the end? Why, there was, for us, no more
+     significance in living than there is to any overfed animal!--not as
+     much!
+
+     "Oh, this glorious country of high clouds and far horizons!--and
+     alas! for the Streets of Ascalon where such as I once was go to and
+     fro--'clad delicately in scarlet and ornaments of gold.'
+
+     "'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Streets of
+     Ascalon'--that the pavements of the Philistines have bruised my
+     feet, and their Five Cities weary me, and Philistia's high towers
+     are become a burden to my soul. For their gods are too many and too
+     strange for me. So I am decided to remain here--ere 'they that look
+     out of their windows be darkened' and 'the doors be shut in the
+     Streets'--'and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.'
+
+     "My poor comrade! Must you remain a prisoner in the Streets of
+     Ascalon? Yet, through your soul I know as free and fresh a breeze
+     is blowing as stirs the curtains at my open window!--You wonderful
+     man to evoke in imagery--to visualise and conceive all that had to
+     be concrete to cure me soul and body of my hurts!
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "I have been reading Karl Westguard's new novel. Rix, there is no
+     story in it, nothing at all that I can discover except a very
+     earnest warming over of several modern philosophers' views and
+     conclusions concerning social problems.
+
+     "I hate to speak unkindly of it; I wanted to like it because I like
+     Karl Westguard. But it isn't fiction and it isn't philosophy, and
+     its treatment of social problems seems to follow methods already
+     obsolete.
+
+     "Do you think people will buy it? But I don't suppose Karl cares
+     since he's made up his quarrel with his aunt.
+
+     "Poor old lady! Did you ever see anybody so subdued and forlorn?
+     Something has gone wrong with her. She told me that she had had a
+     most dreadful scene with Langly and that she had not been well
+     since.
+
+     "I'm afraid that sounds like gossip, but I wanted you to know. _Is_
+     it gossip for me to tell you so much? I tell you about everything.
+     If it's gossip, make me stop.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "And now--when are you coming to see me? I am still at Molly's, you
+     know. My house is being cleaned and sweetened and papered and
+     chintzed and made livable and lovable.
+
+     "When?--please.
+
+                            "Your friend and comrade,
+
+                                        STRELSA."
+
+Quarren telegraphed:
+
+     "I'll come the moment I can. Look for me any day this week. Letter
+     follows."
+
+Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining
+went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled
+out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody's suspicions by hurrying,
+so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs
+began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway--and
+probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the
+repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to
+furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently
+Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a
+coincidence utterly unfathomable.
+
+Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to
+his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his
+attention.
+
+And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang
+and he had to go up and open.
+
+At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the
+glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand
+with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it;
+and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting
+nervously the next second.
+
+"Come in," said Quarren, pleasantly. "It's very nice of you to think of
+me, Ledwith."
+
+The man's hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the
+gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them.
+Inside his loose summer clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting
+continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of
+the gallery.
+
+For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases,
+meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things;
+then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct,
+the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he
+moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring
+into space and twitching his scarred fingers.
+
+"You're busy, I suppose," he said.
+
+"Yes, I am," said Quarren, frankly. "But that needn't make any
+difference if you'd care to come to the basement and talk to me while
+I'm at work."
+
+Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly:
+
+"You're _always_ kind to me, Quarren."
+
+"Get over that idea," laughed the younger man. "Strange as it may seem
+my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs."
+
+In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his
+visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work,
+explaining it as it progressed:
+
+"Here's an old picture by some Italian gink--impossible to tell by whom
+it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and
+school.... See what I'm doing, Ledwith?
+
+"That's what we call 'rabbit glue' because it's made out of rabbits'
+bones--or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue.
+
+"Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water--then I glue over the face
+of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the
+other--so!
+
+"Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a
+new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and
+now it's dry and tight.
+
+"Now I'm going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It's already
+been relined--perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old
+relining canvas--with hot water--this way--cleaning off all the old
+paste or glue from it with alcohol....
+
+"Now here's a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening;
+and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very
+gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher.
+
+"Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then--just watch
+me do laundry work!"
+
+He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined
+picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and
+precaution of an expert laundress doing frills.
+
+Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest.
+
+"In three days," said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, "I'll
+soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you
+see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no
+air get in to blister the surface."
+
+He picked up another picture and displayed it:
+
+"Here's a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have
+already relined it and it's fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is
+thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin."
+
+He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution of alcohol, and
+very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it.
+Then he gave it a coat of varnish.
+
+"Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like
+this, doesn't it, Ledwith? But I'll tell you why. When that varnish
+dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin
+very cautiously but steadily to rub the varnished surface with my
+fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has
+partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and
+dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and
+will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh--very
+often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted.
+
+"Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can
+remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But
+sooner or later I get it clean.
+
+"Then I dig out any old patches or restorations and fill in with a
+composition of putty, white lead, and a drier, and smooth this with a
+cork. Then when it is sunned for an hour a day for three weeks or
+more--or less, sometimes--I'm ready to grind my pure colours, mix them,
+set my palette, and do as honest a piece of restoring as a study of that
+particular master's methods permits. And that, Ledwith, is only a little
+part of my fascinating profession.
+
+"Sometimes I lift the entire skin of paint from a canvas--picking out
+the ancient threads from the rotten texture--and transfer it to a new
+canvas or panel. Sometimes I cross-saw a panel, then chisel to the
+plaster that lies beneath the painting, and so transfer it to a new and
+sound support. Sometimes--" he laughed--"but there are a hundred
+delicate and interesting surgical operations which I attempt--a thousand
+exciting problems to solve--experiments without end that tempt me,
+innovations that allure me----"
+
+He laughed again:
+
+"_You_ ought to take up some fad and make a business and even an art out
+of it!"
+
+"I?" said Ledwith, dully.
+
+"Why not? Man, you're young yet, if--if----"
+
+"Yes, I know, Quarren.... But my mind is too old--very old and very
+infirm--dying in me of age--the age that comes through those centuries
+of pain that men sometimes live through in a few months."
+
+Quarren looked at him hopelessly.
+
+"Yet," he said, "if only a man wills it, the world is new again."
+
+"But--if the will fails?"
+
+"I don't know, Ledwith."
+
+"I do." He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on
+Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars.
+
+"Even that can be cured," said the younger man.
+
+"If there is a will to cure it, perhaps."
+
+"Even a desire is enough."
+
+"I have not that desire. Why cure it?"
+
+"Because, Ledwith, you haven't gone your limit yet. There's more of
+life; and you're cheating yourself out of it."
+
+"Yes, perhaps. But what kind of life?" he asked, staring vaguely out
+into the sunshine of the backyard. "Life in hell has no attractions for
+me."
+
+"We make our own hells."
+
+"I didn't make mine. They dug the pit and I fell into it--Hell's own
+pit, Quarren----"
+
+"You are wrong! You fell into a pit which hurt so much that you supposed
+it was the pit of hell. And, taking it for granted, you burrowed deeper
+in blind fury, until it became a real hell. But _you_ dug it. There _is_
+no hell that a man does not dig for himself!"
+
+In Ledwith's dull eyes a smouldering spark seemed to flash, go out, then
+glimmer palely.
+
+"Quarren," he said, "I am not going to live in hell alone. I'm going
+there, shortly, but not alone."
+
+Something new and sinister in his eyes arrested the other's attention.
+He considered the man for a few moments, then, coolly:
+
+"I wouldn't, Ledwith."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"He isn't worth it--even as company in hell."
+
+"Do you think I'm going to let him live on?"
+
+"Do you care to sink to his level?"
+
+"Sink! Can I sink any lower than I am?"
+
+Quarren shrugged:
+
+"Easily, if you commit murder."
+
+"That isn't murder----"
+
+But Quarren cut him short continuing:
+
+"Sink lower, you ask? What have you done, anyway--except to commit this
+crime against yourself?"--touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of
+any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you
+stand--except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself!
+Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites
+itself. Is that why you are doing it?--to arouse the amusement and
+contempt of your hunter?"
+
+"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me----"
+
+"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to
+see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?"
+
+Ledwith's sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing
+step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Listen to me," he said; "has it never occurred to you that you could
+deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face
+to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own
+vitals?"
+
+He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man:
+
+"If you say the word _I'll_ stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do
+is to punish him, murder isn't the way. What does a dead man care? Cut
+your own throat and the crime might haunt him--and might not. But
+_kill_!--Nonsense. It's all over then--except for the murderer."
+
+He slid his hand quietly to Ledwith's arm, patted it.
+
+"To punish him you need a doctor.... It's only a week under the new
+treatment. You know that, don't you? After that a few months to get back
+nerve and muscle and common sense."
+
+"And then?" motioned Ledwith with dry lips.
+
+"Then? Oh, anything that you fancy. It's according to a man's personal
+taste. You can take him by the neck and beat him up in public if you
+like--or knock him down in the club as often as he gets up. It all
+depends, Ledwith. Some of us maintain self-respect without violence;
+some of us seem to require it. It's up to you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Quarren said carelessly: "If I were you, I think that I'd face the world
+as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough--the real world I
+mean, Ledwith--either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.
+
+"A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty.
+And--personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that.
+But men's ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you
+are, will go ultimately with the world. Beat him up if you like; but,
+personally, I never even wished to kick a cur. Some men kick 'em to
+their satisfaction; it's a matter of taste I tell you. Besides----"
+
+He stopped short; and presently Ledwith looked up.
+
+"Shall I say it?"
+
+"Yes. You are kind to me, always."
+
+"Then--Ledwith, I don't know exactly how matters stand. I can only try
+to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do,
+having arrived where you have landed.... And, do you know, if I were
+you, and if I listened to my better self, I don't think that I'd lay a
+finger on Langly Sprowl."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For the sake of the woman who betrayed me--and who is now betrayed in
+turn by the man who betrayed us both."
+
+Ledwith said through his set teeth: "Do you think I care for her? If I
+nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about
+her?"
+
+"You are generous enough to care, Ledwith."
+
+"I am not!" he said, hoarsely. "I don't care a damn!"
+
+"Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares
+with her a coat of social whitewash?"
+
+"I--she is only a little fool--alone to face the world now----"
+
+"You're quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First
+offenders are given it by law.... But even if that chance lay in his
+marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won't do it? Or
+by battering him with a dog-whip?
+
+"It isn't really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than
+the social viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman
+who marries such a man?"
+
+He smiled: "Because," he continued, "my viewpoint has changed. Things
+that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and
+do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me
+than social absolution."
+
+Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something
+indistinctly.
+
+"Wait a moment," said Quarren, throwing aside his painter's blouse and
+pulling on his coat. "I'll ring up a taxi in a second!... You _mean_ it,
+Ledwith?"
+
+The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded.
+
+"You're on!" said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone.
+
+While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren's sleeve
+and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab,
+whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone building
+composed of several old-time private residences thrown together.
+
+"Stand by me, Quarren," he whispered brokenly--"you won't go away, will
+you? You wouldn't leave me to face this all--all alone. You've been kind
+to me. I--I can do it--I can try to do it just at this moment--if you'll
+stay close to me--if you'll let me keep hold of you----"
+
+"Sure thing!" said Quarren cheerfully. "I'll stay as long as you like.
+Don't worry about your clothes; I'll send for plenty of linen and things
+for us both. You're all right, Ledwith--you've got the nerve. I----"
+
+The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered
+them in.
+
+"Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment," she said, singling out Ledwith at
+a glance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not
+return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere
+promised to observe to the letter.
+
+Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:
+
+     "Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to
+     see your house and its new owner.
+
+     R. S. Q."
+
+Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked
+carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the
+basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for
+Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.
+
+The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful when paying tribute
+to Terpsichore; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the
+back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the
+tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a
+ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick
+or two at the ceiling.
+
+And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly,
+discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently
+enamoured of his own grace and agility.
+
+When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly
+and came back to find her at her desk, laughing.
+
+For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the
+fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all
+alone--exclusive of intrusive customers--for a day or more, assuaged a
+slight chagrin.
+
+"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I
+am, Miss Vining--with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Why?" asked Miss Vining.
+
+"Why--what?" repeated the Earl, confused.
+
+"Why _should_ I know all your imperfections?"
+
+He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason.
+
+"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you
+suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to
+see those people at Witch-Hollow."
+
+"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and
+rewriting the blank spaces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine
+at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such
+peculiar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse
+himself and take his eyes elsewhere.
+
+"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly.
+
+"I am not going to take one."
+
+"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop--er--and all that, you
+know!"
+
+"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I
+don't expect to droop--er--and all that, you know."
+
+He laughed, after a moment, and so did she--a sweet, fearless, little
+laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it--a pretty,
+frank tribute to what had become a friendship--an accord born of
+confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord
+Dankmere.
+
+It had been of slow growth at first--imperceptibly their relations had
+grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost
+cordial--but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he
+with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was
+moody, too, at intervals.
+
+"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked.
+
+"Don't I laugh as though I like it?"
+
+She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a
+British peer--which is really a very wonderful thing----"
+
+"Oh, come," he said: "it really _is_ rather a wonderful thing, but you
+don't believe it."
+
+"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to
+hear trumpets sounding in the far distance----"
+
+"My boots squeak----"
+
+"Nonsense! I _do_ hear a sort of a fairy fanfare playing 'Hail to the
+Belted Earl!'"
+
+"I wear braces----"
+
+"How common of you to distort my meaning! I don't care, you may do as
+you like--dance break-downs and hammer the piano, but to me you will
+ever remain a British peer--poor but noble----"
+
+"Wait until we hear from that Van Dyck! You can't call me poor then!"
+
+She laughed, then, looking at him earnestly, involuntarily clasped her
+hands.
+
+"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," she breathed with a happy, satisfied
+sigh.
+
+"Are you really very happy about it, Miss Vining?"
+
+"I? Why shouldn't I be!" she said indignantly. "I'm so proud that our
+gallery has such a picture. I'm so proud of Mr. Quarren for discovering
+it--and--" she laughed--"I'm proud of you for possessing it. You see I
+am very impartial; I'm proud of the gallery, of everybody connected with
+it including myself. Shouldn't I be?"
+
+"We are three very perfect people," he said gravely.
+
+"Do you know that we really are? Mr. Quarren is wonderful, and you
+are--agreeable, and as for me, why when I rise in the morning and look
+into the glass I say to myself, 'Who is that rather clever-looking girl
+who smiles at me every morning in such friendly fashion?' And, would you
+believe it!--she turns out to be Jessie Vining every time!"
+
+She was in a gay mood; she rattled away at her machine, glancing over it
+mischievously at him from time to time. He, having nothing to do except
+to look at her, did so as often as he dared.
+
+And so they kept the light conversational shuttle-cock flying through
+the sunny afternoon until it drew near to tea-time. Jessie said very
+seriously:
+
+"No Englishman can exist without tea. Tea is as essential to him as it
+is to British fiction. A microscopic examination of any novel made by a
+British subject will show traces of tea-leaves and curates although, as
+the text-books on chemistry have it, otherwise the substance of the work
+may be colourless, tasteless, odourless, and gaseous to the verge of the
+fourth dimension----"
+
+"If you don't cease making game of things British and sacred," he
+threatened, "I'll try to stop you in a way that will astonish you."
+
+"What will you try to do?" she asked, much interested.
+
+He looked her steadily in the eyes:
+
+"I'll try to turn you into a British subject. One can't slam one's own
+country."
+
+"How could you turn me into such an object, Lord Dankmere?"
+
+"There's only one way."
+
+Innocent for a few moments of his meaning she smilingly and derisively
+defied him. Then, of a sudden, startled into immobility, the smile froze
+on her lips.
+
+At the swift change in her expression his own features were slowly and
+not unbecomingly suffused.
+
+Then, incredulous, and a little nervous, she rose to prepare the tea;
+and he sprang up to bring the folding table.
+
+The ceremony passed almost in silence; neither he nor she made the
+effort to return to the lighter, gayer vein. When they spoke at all it
+was on some matter connected with business; and her voice seemed to him
+listless, almost tired.
+
+Which was natural enough, for the heat had been trying, and, in spite of
+the open windows, no breath of coolness stirred the curtains.
+
+So the last minutes of the afternoon passed but the sunshine still
+reddened the cornices of the houses across the street when she rose to
+put away the tea-things.
+
+A little later she pinned on her hat and moved toward the front door
+with a friendly nod to him in silent adieu.
+
+"Will you let me walk home with you?" he said.
+
+"I--think--not, this evening."
+
+"Were you going anywhere?"
+
+She paused, her gloved hand on the knob, and he came up to her, slowly.
+
+"_Were_ you?" he repeated.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then--don't you care to let me walk with you?"
+
+She seemed to be thinking; her head was a trifle lowered.
+
+He said: "Before you go there is something I wanted to tell you"--she
+made an involuntary movement and the door opened and hung ajar letting
+in the lively music of a street-organ. Then he leaned over and quietly
+closed the door.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm taking an unwarrantable liberty by
+interfering in your affairs without consulting you."
+
+She looked up at him, surprised.
+
+"It happened yesterday about this hour," he said.
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"Do you remember that you went home about three o'clock instead of
+waiting until this hour as usual?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, this is what occurred. I left the gallery at this same hour.
+Ahead of me descending the steps was a young girl who had just delivered
+a business letter to Mr. Quarren. As she set foot on the pavement a
+footman attached to an automobile drawn up across the street touched his
+cap to her and said: 'Beg pardon, Miss Vining, I am Mr. Sprowl's man.
+Mr. Sprowl would like to see you at the Cafe Cammargue. The car is
+waiting.'"
+
+Miss Vining's colour faded; she stared at Dankmere with widening eyes,
+and he dropped his hands into his coat-pockets and returned her gaze.
+
+"I don't understand you," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Neither did the young girl addressed by the footman. Neither did I. But
+I was interested. So I said to the footman: 'Bring around your car. I
+shall have to explain about Miss Vining to Mr. Sprowl.'"
+
+"What!" she said breathlessly.
+
+"That's where I interfered, Miss Vining. And the footman looked
+doubtful, too, but he signalled the chauffeur.... And so I went to the
+Cafe Cammargue----"
+
+He hesitated, looking at her white and distressed face, then continued
+coolly:
+
+"Sprowl seemed surprised to see me. He was waiting in a private room....
+He's looking rather badly these days.... We talked a few minutes----"
+
+Pale, angry, every sense of modesty and reserve outraged, the girl faced
+him, small head erect:
+
+"You went there to--to discuss _me_ with _that_ man!"
+
+He was silent. She turned suddenly and tried to open the door, but he
+held it closed.
+
+"I did it because I cared for you enough to do it," he said. "Don't you
+understand? Don't you suppose I know that kind of man?"
+
+"It--it was not your business--" she faltered, twisting blindly at the
+door-knob. "Let me go--please----"
+
+"I made it my business.... And that man understood that I was making it
+my business. And he won't attempt to annoy you again.... Can you forgive
+me?"
+
+She turned on him excitedly, her eyes flashing with tears, but the
+impetuous words of protest died on her lips as her eyes encountered his.
+
+"It was because I love you," he said. And, as he spoke, there was about
+the man a quiet dignity and distinction that silenced her--something of
+which she may have had vague glimpses at wide intervals in their
+acquaintances--something which at times she suspected might lie latent
+in unknown corners of his character. Now it suddenly confronted her; and
+she recognised it and stood before him without a word to say.
+
+It mended matters a little when he smiled, and the familiar friend
+reappeared beside her; but she still felt strange and shy; and
+wondering, half fearfully, she let him lift her gloved hands and stand,
+holding them, looking into her eyes.
+
+"You know what I am," he said. "I have nothing to say about myself. But
+I love you very dearly.... I loved before, once, and married. And she
+died.... After that I didn't behave very well--until I knew you.... It
+is really in me to be a decent husband--if you can care for me.... And I
+don't think we're likely to starve----"
+
+"I--it isn't that," she said, flushing scarlet.
+
+"What?"
+
+"What you _have_ ... I could only care for--what you are."
+
+"Can you do that?"
+
+But her calm had vanished, and, head bent and averted, she was
+attempting to withdraw her hands--and might have freed herself entirely
+if it had not been for his arm around her.
+
+This new and disconcerting phase of the case brought her so suddenly
+face to face with him that it frightened her; and he let her go, and
+followed her back to the empty gallery where she sank down at her desk,
+resting her arms on the covered type-machine, and buried her quivering
+face in them.
+
+It was excusable. Such things don't usually happen to typewriters and
+stenographers although they have happened to barmaids.
+
+When he had been talking eloquently and otherwise for a long time Jessie
+Vining lifted her pale, tear-stained face from her arms; and his
+lordship dropped rather gracefully on his knees beside her, and she
+looked down at him very solemnly and wistfully.
+
+It was shockingly late when they closed the gallery that evening. And
+their mode of homeward progress was stranger still, for instead of a
+tram or of the taxi which Lord Dankmere occasionally prevailed upon her
+to accept, they drifted homeward on a pink cloud through the light-shot
+streets of Ascalon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+To the solitary and replete pike, lying motionless in shadow, no
+still-bait within reach is interesting. But the slightest movement in
+his vicinity of anything helpless instantly rivets his attention; any
+creature apparently in distress arouses him to direct and lightning
+action whether he be gorged or not--even, perhaps, while he is still
+gashed raw with the punishment for his last attempt.
+
+So it was with Langly Sprowl. He had come into town, sullen, restless,
+still fretting with checked desire. Within him a dull rage burned; he
+was ready to injure, ready for anything to distract his mind which,
+however, had not given up for a moment the dogged determination to
+recover the ground he had lost with perhaps the only woman in the world
+he had ever really cared for.
+
+Yet, he was the kind of man who does not know what real love is. That
+understanding had not been born in him, and he had not acquired it. He
+was totally incapable of anything except that fierce passion which is
+aroused by obstacles when in pursuit of whatever evinces a desire to
+escape.
+
+It was that way with him when, by accident, he saw and recognised Jessie
+Vining one evening leaving the Dankmere Galleries. And Langly Sprowl
+never denied himself anything that seemed incapable of self-defence.
+
+He stopped his car and got out and spoke to her, very civilly, and with
+a sort of kindly frankness which he sometimes used with convincing
+effect. She refused the proffered car to take her to her destination,
+but could not very well avoid his escort; and their encounter ended by
+her accepting his explanations and his extended hand, perplexed,
+unwilling to misjudge him, but thankful when he departed.
+
+After that he continued to meet her occasionally and walk home with her.
+
+Then he sent his footman and the car for her; and drew Lord Dankmere out
+of the grab-bag, to his infinite annoyance. Worse, Dankmere had struck
+him with an impact so terrific that it had knocked him senseless across
+the table in a private dining-room of the Cafe Cammargue, where he
+presently woke up with a most amazing eye to find the terrified
+proprietor and staff playing Samaritan.
+
+In various papers annoying paragraphs concerning him had begun to
+appear--hints of how matters stood between him and Mary Ledwith, ugly
+innuendo, veiled rumours of the breach between him and his aunt
+consequent upon his untenable position _vis-a-vis_ Mrs. Ledwith.
+
+Until Dankmere had inconvenienced his features he had walked downtown to
+his office every day, lank, long-legged, sleek head held erect, hatchet
+face pointed straight in front of him, his restless eyes encountering
+everybody's but seeing nobody unless directly saluted.
+
+Now, his right eye rivalling a thunder-cloud in tints, he drove one of
+his racing cars as fast as he dared, swinging through Westchester or
+scurrying about Long Island. Occasionally he went aboard the _Yulan_,
+but a burning restlessness kept him moving; and at last he returned to
+South Linden in a cold but deadly rage, determined to win back the
+chances which he supposed he had thrown away in the very moment of
+victory.
+
+Strelsa Leeds had now taken up her abode in her quaint little house; he
+learned that immediately; and that evening he went over and came upon
+her moving about in the dusky garden, so intent on inspecting her
+flowers that he was within a pace of her before she turned her head and
+saw him.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "can we not be friends again? I ask no more than
+that."
+
+Too surprised and annoyed to reply she merely gazed at him. And,
+because, for the first time in his life, perhaps, he really felt every
+word he uttered, he spoke now with a certain simplicity and self-control
+that sounded unusual to her ears--so noticeably unlike what she knew of
+him that it commanded her unwilling attention.
+
+For his unpardonable brutality and violence he asked forgiveness,
+promising to serve her faithfully and in friendship for the privilege of
+attempting to win back her respect and regard. He asked only that.
+
+He said that he scarcely knew what to do with his life without the hope
+of recovering her respect and esteem; he asked for a beggar's chance,
+begged for it with a candour and naivete almost boyish--so directly to
+the point tended every instinct in him to recover through caution and
+patience what he had lost through carelessness and a violence which
+still astonished him.
+
+The Bermuda lilies were in bloom and Strelsa stood near them, listening
+to him, touching the tall stalks absently at intervals. And while she
+listened she became more conscious still of the great change in
+herself--of her altered attitude toward so much in life that once had
+seemed to her important. After he had ceased she still stood pensively
+among the lilies, gray eyes brooding. At length, looking up, she said
+very quietly:
+
+"Why do you care for my friendship, Langly? I am not the kind of woman
+you think me--not even the kind I once thought myself. To me friendship
+is no light thing either to ask for or to give. It means more to me than
+it once did; and I give it very seldom, and sparingly, and to very, very
+few. But toward everybody I am gently disposed--because, I am much
+happier than I ever have been in all my life.... Is not my good will
+sufficient for any possible relation between you and me?"
+
+"Then you are no longer angry with me?"
+
+"No--no longer angry."
+
+"Can we be friends again? Can you really forgive me, Strelsa?"
+
+"Why--yes, I could do that.... But, Langly, what have you and I in
+common as a basis for friendship? What have we ever had in common?
+Except when we encounter each other by hazard, why should we ever meet
+at all?"
+
+"You have not pardoned me, Strelsa," he said patiently.
+
+"Does that really make any difference to you? It doesn't to me. It is
+only because I never think of you that it would be an effort to forgive
+you. I'll make that effort if you wish, but really, Langly, I never
+think about you at all."
+
+"If that is true, let me be with you sometimes, Strelsa," he said in a
+low voice.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I am wretchedly unhappy. And I care for you--more than you
+realise."
+
+She said seriously: "You have no right to speak that way to me, Langly."
+
+"Could you ever again give me the right to say I love you?"
+
+A quick flush of displeasure touched her cheeks; he saw it in the dusk
+of the garden, and mistook it utterly:
+
+"Strelsa--listen to me, dear! I have not slept since our quarrel. I must
+have been stark mad to say and do what I did.... Don't leave me! Don't
+go! I beg you to listen a moment----"
+
+She had started to move away from him and his first forward step broke a
+blossom from its stalk where it hung white in the dusk.
+
+"I ask you to go," she said under her breath. "There are people here--on
+the veranda----"
+
+Every sense within him told him to go, pretending resignation. That was
+his policy. He had come here for martyrdom, cuirassed in patience. Every
+atom of common sense warned him to go.
+
+But also every physical sense in him was now fully aroused--the silvery
+star-dusk, the scent of lilies, a slender woman within arm's reach--this
+woman who had once been so nearly his--who was still rightfully
+his!--these circumstances were arousing him once more to a temerity
+which his better senses warned him to subdue. Yet if he could only get
+nearer to her--if he could once get her into his arms--overwhelm her
+with the storm of passion rising so swiftly within him, almost choking
+him--so that his voice and limbs already trembled in its furious
+surge----
+
+"Strelsa--I love you! For God's sake show me some mercy!" he stammered.
+"I come to you half crazed by the solitude to which your anger has
+consigned me. I cannot endure it--I need you--I want you--I ask for your
+compassion----"
+
+"Hush!" she pleaded, hastily retreating before him through the snowy
+banks of rockets--"I have asked you not to speak to me that way! I ask
+you to go--to go now!--because----"
+
+"Will you listen to me! Will you wait a moment! I am only trying to tell
+you that I love you, dear----"
+
+He almost caught her, but she sprang aside, frightened, still retreating
+before him.
+
+"I cannot go until you listen to me!--" he said thickly, trampling
+through the flowers to intercept her. "You've got to listen!--do you
+hear?"
+
+She had almost reached the terrace; the shadowy veranda opened widely
+beyond.
+
+"There are people here! Don't you understand?" she said once more in a
+choking voice; but he only advanced, and she fell back before him to the
+very edge of the porch lattice.
+
+"Now listen to me!" he said between his teeth. "I love you and I'll
+never give you up----"
+
+Suddenly she turned on him, hands tightly clenched:
+
+"Be silent!" she whispered fiercely. "I tell you what you say is
+indecent, revolting! If there were a man here he'd kill you! Do you
+understand?"
+
+At the same instant his eyes became fixed on a figure in white which
+took shadowy shape on the dark veranda, rising and coming slowly
+forward.
+
+Ghostlike as it was he knew it instantly, stood rooted in his tracks
+while Strelsa stole away from him through the star-lit gloom, farther,
+farther, slipping forever from him now--he knew that as he stood there
+staring like a damned man upon that other dim shape in the darkness
+beyond.
+
+It was his first glimpse of her since her return from Reno. And now,
+unbidden, memories half strangled were already in full resurrection,
+gasping in his ears of things that had been--of forgotten passion, of
+pleasure promised; and, because never tasted, it had been the true and
+only pleasure for such a man as he--the pleasure of anticipation. But
+the world had never, would never believe that. Only he, and the phantom
+there in the dusk before him, knew it to be true.
+
+Slightly reeling he turned away in the darkness. In his haunted ears
+sounded a young wife's voice, promising, caressing; through and through
+him shot a thrill of the old excitement, the old desire, urging him
+again toward belated consummation.
+
+And again the old impatience seized him, the old ruthlessness, the old
+anger at finding her weak in every way except one, the old contempt
+which had turned to sullen amazement when she wrote him that she had
+gone to Reno and that they must wait for their happiness until the
+courts decreed it legal.
+
+Now as he swung along under the high stars he was thinking of these
+things. And he felt that he had not tried her enough, had not really
+exerted himself--that women who are fools require closer watching than
+clever ones; that he could have overcome her scruples with any real
+effort and saved her from giving him the slip and sowing a wind in Reno
+which already had become enough of a breeze to bother him.
+
+With her, for a while, he might be able to distract his mind from this
+recent obsession tormenting him. To overcome her would interest him;
+and he had no doubt it could be done--for she was a little fool--silly
+enough to slap the world in the face and brave public opinion at Reno.
+No--it was not necessary to marry such a woman. She might think so, but
+it wasn't.
+
+He had behaved unwisely, too. Why should he not have gone to see her
+when she returned? By doing so, and acting cleverly, he could have
+avoided trouble with his aunt, and also these annoying newspaper
+paragraphs. Also he could have avoided the scene with Ledwith--and the
+aborted reconciliation just now with Strelsa, where he had stood staring
+at the apparition of Mary Ledwith as lost souls stand transfixed before
+the pallid shades of those whom they have destroyed.
+
+At his lodge-gate a half-cowering dog fawned on him and he kicked it
+aside. The bruised creature fled, and Sprowl turned in at his gates and
+walked slowly up the cypress-bordered drive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He thought it all out that night, studied it carefully. What he needed
+was distraction from the present torment. Mary Ledwith could give that
+to him. What a fool she had been ever to imagine that she could be
+anything more than his temporary mistress.
+
+"The damned little idiot," he mused--"cutting away to Reno before I knew
+what she was up to--and involving us both in all that talk! What did she
+flatter herself I wanted, anyway.... But I ought to have called on her
+at once; now it's going to be difficult."
+
+Yet he sullenly welcomed the difficulty--hoped that she'd hold out. That
+was what he wanted, the excitement of it to take his mind from
+Strelsa--keep him interested and employed until the moment arrived once
+more when he might venture to see her again. He was, by habit, a patient
+man. Only in the case of Strelsa Leeds had passion ever prematurely
+betrayed him; and, pacing his porch there in the darkness, he set his
+teeth and wondered at himself and cursed himself, unable to reconcile
+what he knew of himself with what he had done to the only woman he had
+ever wished to marry as a last resort.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For two weeks Sprowl kept to himself. Few men understood better than he
+what was the medicinal value of time. Only once had he dared ignore it.
+
+So one evening, late in August, still dressed in knickerbockers and
+heather-spats, he walked from his lawn across country to make the first
+move in a new game with Mary Ledwith.
+
+Interested, confident, already amused, and in far better spirits than he
+had been for many a day, he strode out across the fields, swinging his
+walking-stick, his restless eyes seeing everything and looking directly
+at nothing.
+
+Which was a mistake on his part for once, because, crossing a pasture
+corner, his own bull, advancing silently from a clump of willows, nearly
+caught him; but Sprowl went over the fence and, turning, brought down
+his heavy stick across the brute's ringed nose; and the animal bellowed
+at him and tore up the sod and followed along inside the fence
+thundering his baffled fury as long as Sprowl remained in sight.
+
+It was not all bad disposition. Sprowl, who cared nothing for animals,
+hated the bull, and, when nothing more attractive offered, was
+accustomed to come to the fence, irritate the animal, lure him within
+range, and strike him. He had done it many times; and, some day, he
+meant to go into the pasture with a rifle, stand the animal's charge,
+and shoot him.
+
+It was a calm, primrose-tinted sunset where trees and hills and a
+distant spire loomed golden-black against the yellow west. No trees had
+yet turned, although, here and there on wooded hills, single discoloured
+branches broke the green monotony.
+
+No buckwheat had yet been cut, but above the ruddy fields of stalks the
+snow of the blossoms had become tarnished in promise of maturity--the
+first premonition of autumn except for a few harvest apples yellow amid
+green leaves.
+
+He had started without any definite plan, a confident but patient
+opportunist; and as he approached the Ledwith property and finally
+sighted the chimneys of the house above the trees, something--some
+errant thought seemed to amuse him, for he smiled slightly. His smile
+was as rare as his laughter--and as brief; and there remained no trace
+of it as he swung up the last hill and stood there gazing ahead.
+
+The sun had set. A delicate purple haze already dimmed distances; and
+the twilight which falls more swiftly as summer deepens into autumn was
+already stealing into every hollow and ravine, darkening the alders
+where the stream stole swampwards. A few laggard crows were still
+winging toward the woods; a few flocks of blackbirds passed overhead
+almost unseen against the sky. Somewhere some gardener had been burning
+leaves and refuse, and the odour made the dusk more autumn-like.
+
+As he crossed the line separating his land from the Ledwith estate he
+nodded to the daughter of one of his own gardeners who was passing with
+a collie; and then he turned to look again at the child whose slender
+grace and freshness interested him.
+
+"Look out for that bull, Europa," he said, staring after her as she
+walked on.
+
+She looked back at him, laughingly, and thanked him and went on quite
+happily, the collie plodding at her heels. Recently Sprowl had been very
+pleasant to her.
+
+When she was out of sight he started forward, climbed the fence into the
+road, followed it to the drive-way, and followed that among the elms
+and Norway firs to the porch.
+
+It was so dark here among the trees that only the lighted transom guided
+him up the steps.
+
+To the maid who came to the door he said coolly: "Say to Mrs. Ledwith
+that Mr. Sprowl wishes to see her for a moment on a very important
+matter."
+
+"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home, sir."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home."
+
+"Where is she; out?"
+
+"Y-yes, sir."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don't know, sir----"
+
+"Yes, you do. Mrs. Ledwith is at home but has given you instructions
+concerning me. Isn't that so?"
+
+The maid, crimson and embarrassed, made no answer, and he walked past
+her into the drawing-room.
+
+"Light up here," he said.
+
+"Please, sir----"
+
+"Do as I tell you, my good girl. Here--where's that button?--there!--"
+as the pretty room sprang into light--"Now never mind your instructions
+but go and say to Mrs. Ledwith that I _must_ see her."
+
+He calmly unfolded a flat packet of fresh bank-notes, selected one,
+changed it on reflection for another of higher denomination, and handed
+it to her. The girl hesitated, still irresolute until he lifted his
+narrow head and stared at her. Then she went away hurriedly.
+
+When she returned to say that Mrs. Ledwith was not at home to Mr. Sprowl
+he shrugged and bade her inform her mistress that their meeting was not
+a matter of choice but of necessity, and that he would remain where he
+was until she received him.
+
+Again the maid went away, evidently frightened, and Sprowl lighted a
+cigarette and began to saunter about. When he had examined everything in
+the room he strolled into the farther room. It was unlighted and suited
+him to sit in; and he installed himself in a comfortable chair and,
+throwing his cigarette into the fire-place, lighted a cigar.
+
+This was a game he understood--a waiting game. The game was traditional
+with his forefathers; every one of them had played it; their endless
+patience had made a fortune to which each in turn had added before he
+died. Patience and courage--courage of the sort known as personal
+bravery--had distinguished all his race. He himself had inherited
+patience, and had used it wisely except in that one inexplicable
+case!--and personal courage in him had never been lacking, nor had what
+often accompanies it, coolness, obstinacy, and effrontery.
+
+He had decided to wait until his cigar had been leisurely finished.
+Then, other measures--perhaps walking upstairs, unannounced, perhaps an
+unresentful withdrawal, a note by messenger, and another attempt to see
+her to-morrow--he did not yet know--had arrived at no conclusion--but
+would make up his mind when he finished his cigar and then do whatever
+caution dictated.
+
+Once a servant came to the door to look around for him, and when she
+discovered him in the half-light of the music-room she departed hastily
+for regions above. This amused Sprowl.
+
+As he lounged there, thoroughly comfortable, he could hear an occasional
+stir in distant regions of the house, servants moving perhaps, a door
+opened or closed, faint creaks from the stairs. Once the distant sounds
+indicated that somebody was using a telephone; once, as he neared the
+end of his cigar, a gray cat stole in, caught sight of him, halted, her
+startled eyes fixed on him, then turned and scuttled out into the hall.
+
+Finally he rose, flicked his cigar ashes into the fireplace, stretched
+his powerful frame, yawned, and glanced at his watch.
+
+And at the same instant somebody entered the front door with a
+latch-key.
+
+Sprowl stood perfectly still, interested, waiting: and two men,
+bare-headed and in evening dress, came swiftly but silently into the
+drawing-room. One was Quarren, the other Chester Ledwith. Quarren took
+hold of Ledwith's arm and tried to draw him out of the room. Then
+Ledwith caught sight of Sprowl and started toward him, but Quarren again
+seized his companion by the shoulder and dragged him back.
+
+"I tell you to keep quiet," he said in a low voice--"Keep out of
+this!--go out of the house!"
+
+"I can't, Quarren! I----"
+
+"You promised not to come in until that man had left----"
+
+"I know it. I meant to--but, good God! Quarren! I can't stand there----"
+
+He was struggling toward Sprowl and Quarren was trying to push him back
+into the hall.
+
+"You said that you had given up any idea of personal vengeance!" he
+panted. "Let me deal with him quietly----"
+
+"I didn't know what I was saying," retorted Ledwith, straining away from
+the man who held him, his eyes fixed on Sprowl. "I tell you I can't
+remain quiet and see that blackguard in this house----"
+
+"But he's going I tell you! He's going without a row--without any noise.
+Can't you let me manage it----"
+
+He could not drag Ledwith to the door, so he forced him into a chair and
+stood guard, glancing back across his shoulder at Sprowl.
+
+"You'd better go," he said in a low but perfectly distinct voice.
+
+Sprowl, still holding his cigar, sauntered forward into the
+drawing-room.
+
+"I suppose you are armed," he said contemptuously. "If you threaten me
+I'll take away your guns and slap both your faces--ask the other pup how
+it feels, Quarren."
+
+Ledwith struggled to rise but Quarren had him fast.
+
+"Get out of here, Sprowl," he said. "You'll have a bad time of it if he
+gets away from me."
+
+Sprowl stared, hands in his pockets, puffing his cigar.
+
+"I've a notion to kick you both out," he drawled.
+
+"It would be a mistake," panted Quarren. "Can't you go while there's
+time, Sprowl! I tell you he'll kill you in this room if you don't."
+
+"I won't--_kill_ him!--Let go of me, Quarren," gasped Ledwith. "I--I
+won't do murder; I've promised you that--for _her_ sake----"
+
+"Let him loose, Quarren," said Sprowl.
+
+He waited for a full minute, watching the struggling men in silent
+contempt. Then with a shrug he went out into the hall, leisurely put on
+his hat, picked up his stick, opened the door, and sauntered out into
+the darkness.
+
+"Now," breathed Quarren fiercely, "you play the man or I'm through with
+you! He's gone and he won't come back--I'll see to that! And it's up to
+you to show what you're made of!"
+
+Ledwith, freed, stood white and breathing hard for a few moments. Then a
+dull flush suffused his thin face; he looked down, stood with hanging
+head, until Quarren laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"It's up to you, Ledwith," he said quietly. "I don't blame you for
+losing your head a moment, but if you mean what you said, I should say
+that this is your chance.... And if I were you I'd simply go upstairs
+and speak to her.... She's been through hell.... She's in it still. But
+_you're_ out; and you can stay out if you choose. There's no need to
+wallow if you don't want to. You're not in very good shape yet, but
+you're a man. And now, if you do care for her, I really believe it's up
+to you.... Will you go upstairs?"
+
+Ledwith turned and went out into the familiar hall. Then, as though
+dazed, resting one thin hand on the rail, he mounted the stairway, head
+hanging, feeling his way blindly back toward all that life had ever
+held for him, but which he had been too weak to keep or even to defend.
+
+[Illustration: "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl."]
+
+Quarren waited for a while; Ledwith did not return. After a few minutes
+an excited maid came down, stared at him, then, reassured, opened the
+door for him with a smile. And he went out into the starlight.
+
+He had been walking for only a few moments when he overtook Sprowl
+sauntering down a lane; and the latter glanced around and, recognising
+him, halted.
+
+"Where's the other hero?" he asked.
+
+"Probably discussing you with the woman he is likely to remarry."
+
+Sprowl shrugged:
+
+"That's what that kind of a man is made for--to marry what others don't
+have to marry."
+
+"You lie," said Quarren quietly.
+
+Sprowl stared at him: then the long-pent fury overwhelmed his common
+sense again, and again it was in regard to the woman he had lost by his
+violence.
+
+"You know," he said, measuring his words, "that you're the same kind of
+a man, too. And some day, if you're good, you can marry what I don't
+have to marry----"
+
+He reeled under Quarren's blow, then struck at him blindly with his
+walking-stick, leaping at him savagely but recoiling, dizzy, half
+senseless under another blow so terrific that it almost nauseated him.
+
+He stood for a time, supporting himself against a tree; then as his wits
+returned he lifted his bruised face and stared murderously about him.
+Quarren was walking toward Witch-Hollow--half way there already and out
+of earshot as well as sight.
+
+Against the stars something moved on a near hill-top, and Sprowl reeled
+forward in pursuit, breaking into a heavy and steady run as the thing
+disappeared in the darkness. But he had seen it move, just beyond that
+fence, and he seized the top rail and got over and ran forward in the
+darkness, clutching his stick and calling to Quarren by name.
+
+Where had he gone? He halted to listen, peering around with swollen
+eyes. Blood dripped from his lips and cheek; he passed his hand over
+them, glaring, listening. Suddenly he heard a dull sound close behind
+him in the night; whirled to confront what was coming with an unseen
+rush, thundering down on him, shaking the very ground.
+
+He made no outcry; there was no escape, nothing to do but to strike; and
+he struck with every atom of his strength; and went crashing down into
+darkness. And over his battered body bellowed and raged the bull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even the men who found them there in the morning could scarcely drive
+away the half-crazed brute. And the little daughter of the gardener, who
+had discovered what was there in the pasture, cowered in the fence
+corner, crying her heart out for her father's dead master who had spoken
+kindly to her since she had grown up and who had even taken her into his
+arms and kissed her the day before when she had brought him a rare
+orchid from the greenhouse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every newspaper in America gave up the right-hand columns to huge
+headlines and an account of the tragedy at South Linden. Every paper in
+the world chronicled it. There were few richer men in the world than
+Langly Sprowl. The tragedy moved everybody in various ways; stocks,
+however, did not move either way to the surprise of everybody. On second
+thoughts, however, the world realised that his wealth had been too
+solidly invested to cause a flurry. Besides he had a younger brother
+financing something or other for the Emperor of China. Now he would
+return. The great race would not become extinct.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night Quarren went back to the Wycherlys and found Molly waiting
+for him in the library.
+
+"What on earth did Mary Ledwith want of Jim this evening?" she asked.
+
+"Sprowl was in the house."
+
+"What!"
+
+"That's why the poor child telephoned. She was probably afraid of him,
+and wanted Jim there."
+
+Molly's teeth clicked:
+
+"Jim would have half-killed him. It's probably a good thing he was in
+town. What did you do?"
+
+"Nothing. Sprowl went all right."
+
+"What did Mary say to you?"
+
+"I didn't see her."
+
+"You didn't _see_ her?"
+
+"No."
+
+Molly's eyes grew rounder:
+
+"Where is Chester Ledwith? He didn't go with you into the house, did
+he?"
+
+"Yes, he did."
+
+"But where is he? You--you don't mean to say----"
+
+"Yes, I do. He went upstairs and didn't return.... So I waited for a
+while and then--came back."
+
+They sat silent for a while, then Molly lifted her eyes to his and they
+were brimming with curiosity.
+
+"If they become reconciled," she said, "how are people going to take it,
+Rix?"
+
+"Characteristically I suppose."
+
+"You mean that some will be nasty about it?"
+
+"Some."
+
+"But then----"
+
+"Oh, Molly, Molly," he said, smiling, "there are more important things
+than what a few people are likely to think or say. The girl made a fool
+of herself, and the man weakened and nearly went to pieces. He's found
+himself again; he's disposed to help her find herself. It was only one
+of those messes that the papers report every day. Few get out of such
+pickles, but I believe these two are going to.... And somehow, do you
+know--from something Sprowl said to-night, I don't believe that she went
+the entire limit--took the last ditch."
+
+Molly reddened: "Why?"
+
+"Because, although they do it in popular fiction, men like Sprowl never
+really boast of their successes. His sort keep silent--when there's
+anything to conceal."
+
+"Did he boast?"
+
+"He did. I was sure he was lying, and I--" he shrugged.
+
+"Told him so?"
+
+"Well, something of that sort."
+
+"I believe he was lying, too.... It was just like that romantic little
+fool to run off to Reno after nothing worse than the imprudence of
+infatuation. I've known her a long while, Rix. She's too shallow for
+real passion, too selfish to indulge it anyway. His name and fortune did
+the business for her--little idiot. Really she annoys me."
+
+Quarren smiled: "Her late husband seems to like her. Fools feminine have
+made many a man happy. You'll be nice to her I'm sure."
+
+"Of course.... Everybody will on Mrs. Sprowl's account."
+
+Quarren laughed again, then:
+
+"Meanwhile this Ledwith business has prevented my talking to Strelsa
+over the telephone," he said.
+
+"Oh, Rix! You _said_ you were going to surprise her in the morning!"
+
+"But I want to see her, Molly. I don't want to wait----"
+
+"It's after ten and Strelsa has probably retired. She's a perfect
+farmer, I tell you--yawns horribly every evening at nine. Why, I can't
+keep her awake long enough to play a hand at Chinese Khan! Be
+reasonable, Rix. You had planned to surprise her in the morning....
+And--I'm lonely without Jim.... Besides, if you are clever enough to
+burst upon Strelsa's view in the morning when the day is young and all
+before her, and when she's looking her very best, nobody can tell what
+might happen.... And I'll whisper in your ear that the child has really
+missed you.... But don't be in a hurry with her, will you, Rix?"
+
+"No," he said absently.
+
+Molly picked up her knitting.
+
+"If Chester Ledwith doesn't return by twelve I'm going to have the house
+locked," she said, stifling a yawn.
+
+At twelve o'clock the house was accordingly locked for the night.
+
+"It's enough to compromise her," said Molly, crossly. "What a pair of
+fools they are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Strelsa, a pink apron pinned about her, a trowel in her gloved hand,
+stood superintending the transplanting of some purple asters which not
+very difficult exploit was being attempted by a local yokel acting as
+her "hired man."
+
+The garden, a big one with a wall fronting the road, ran back all the
+way to the terrace in the rear of the house beyond which stretched the
+western veranda.
+
+And it was out on this veranda that Quarren stepped in the wake of
+Strelsa's maid, and from there he caught his first view of Strelsa's
+garden, and of Strelsa herself, fully armed and caparisoned for the
+perennial fray with old Dame Nature.
+
+"You need not go down there to announce me," he said; "I'll speak to
+Mrs. Leeds myself."
+
+But before he could move, Strelsa, happening to turn around, saw him on
+the veranda, gazed at him incredulously for a moment, then brandished
+her trowel with a clear, distant cry of greeting, and came toward him,
+laughing in her excitement and surprise. They met midway, and she
+whipped off her glove and gave him her hand in a firm, cool clasp.
+
+"Why the dickens didn't you wire!" she said. "You're a fraud, Rix! I
+might easily have been away!--You might have missed me--we might have
+missed each other.... Is _that_ all you care about seeing me?--after all
+these weeks!"
+
+"I wanted to surprise you," he explained feebly.
+
+"Well, you didn't! That is--not much. I'd been thinking of you--and I
+glanced up and saw you. You're stopping at Molly's I suppose."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When did you arrive?"
+
+"L-last night," he admitted.
+
+"What! And didn't call me up! I refuse to believe it of you!"
+
+She really seemed indignant, and he followed her into the pretty house
+where presently she became slightly mollified by his exuberant
+admiration of the place.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" she said. "Do you really think it so pretty? If
+you do I'll take you upstairs and show you my room, and the three
+beautiful spick and span guest rooms. But _you'll_ never occupy one!"
+she added, still wrathful at his apparent neglect of her. "I don't want
+anybody here who isn't perfectly devoted to me. And it's very plain that
+you are not."
+
+He mildly insisted that he was but she denied it, hotly.
+
+"And I shall _never_ get over it," she added. "But you may come upstairs
+and see what you have missed."
+
+They went over the renovated house thoroughly; she, secretly enchanted
+at his admiration and praise of everything, pointed out any object that
+seemed to have escaped his attention merely to hear him approve it.
+Finally she relented.
+
+"You _are_ satisfactory," she said as they returned to the front veranda
+and seated themselves. "And really, Rix, I'm so terribly glad to see you
+that I forgive your neglect.... Are you well? You don't look very
+well," she added earnestly. "Why are you so white?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."]
+
+"I'm in fine shape, thank you."
+
+"I didn't mean your figure," she laughed--"Oh, that _was_ a common kind
+of a joke, wasn't it? But I'm only a farmer, Rix. You must expect the
+ruder and simpler forms of speech from a lady of the woodshed!... Why
+are you so pale?"
+
+"Do I seem particularly underdone?"
+
+"That's horrid, too. Are you and I going to degenerate just because you
+work for a living? You _are_ unusually thin, anyway; and the New York
+pallor is very noticeable. Will you stay and get sun-burnt?"
+
+"I _could_ stay a few days."
+
+"How many?"
+
+"How many do you want me? Two whole days, Strelsa?"
+
+She laughed at him, then looked at him a trifle shyly, but laughed again
+as she answered:
+
+"I want you to stay always, of course. Don't pretend that you don't know
+it, because you are perfectly aware that I never tire of you. But if you
+can stay only two days don't let us waste any time----"
+
+"We're not wasting it here together, are we?"
+
+"Don't you want to walk? I haven't a horse yet, except for agricultural
+purposes. I'll rinse my hands and take off this apron--" She stood
+unpinning and untying it, her gray eyes never leaving him in their
+unabashed delight in him.
+
+Then she disappeared for a few minutes only to reappear wearing a pair
+of stout little shoes and carrying a walking-stick which she said she
+used in rough country.
+
+And first they visited her garden where all the old-fashioned autumn
+flowers were in riotous bloom--scarlet sage, rockets, thickets of
+gladiolus, heavy borders of asters, marigolds, and coreopsis; and here
+she gave a few verbal directions to the yokel who gaped toothlessly in
+reply.
+
+After that, side by side, they swung off together across the hill, she,
+lithe and slender, setting the springy pace and twirling her
+walking-stick, he, less accustomed to the open and more so to the smooth
+hot streets of the city, slackening pace first.
+
+She chided and derided him and bantered him scornfully, then with sudden
+sweet concern halted, reproaching herself for setting too hot a pace for
+a city-worn and work-worn man.
+
+But the cool shadows of the woods were near, and she made him rest on
+the little footbridge--the same bridge where he had encountered Ledwith
+for the first time in years. He recognised the spot.
+
+After they had seated themselves and Strelsa, resting on the back of the
+bridge seat, was contentedly dabbling in the stream with her cane,
+Quarren said, slowly:
+
+"Shall I tell you why I did not disturb you last night, Strelsa?"
+
+"You can't excuse it----"
+
+"You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though----"
+
+"I am listening."
+
+"Then, it has to do with Ledwith. He's not very well but he's better
+than he was. You see he wanted to take a course of treatment to regain
+his health, and there seemed to be nobody else, so--I offered to see
+him through."
+
+"That's like you, Rix," she said, looking at him.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't anything--I had nothing to do----"
+
+"That's like you, too. Did you pull him through?"
+
+"He pulled himself through.... It was strenuous for two or three
+days--and hot as the devil in that sanitarium." ... He laughed. "We both
+were wrecks when we came out two weeks later--oh, a bit groggy, that's
+really all.... And he had no place to go--and seemed to be inclined to
+keep hold of my sleeve--so I telephoned Molly. And she said to bring him
+up. That was nice of her, wasn't it?"
+
+"Everybody is wonderful except you," she said.
+
+"Nonsense," he said, "it wasn't I who went through a modified hell. He's
+got a lot of backbone, Ledwith.... And so we came up last night....
+And--now here's the interesting part, Strelsa! We strolled over to call
+on Mrs. Ledwith----"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Certainly. I myself didn't see her but--" he laughed--"she seemed to be
+at home to her ex-husband."
+
+"Rix!"
+
+"It's a fact. He went back there for breakfast this morning after he'd
+changed his clothes."
+
+"After--_what_?"
+
+"Yes. It seems that they started out in a canoe about midnight and he
+didn't turn up at Witch-Hollow until just before breakfast--and then he
+only stayed long enough to change to boating flannels.... You should see
+him; he's twenty years younger.... I fancy they'll get along together in
+future."
+
+"Oh, Rix!" she said, "that was darling of you! You _are_ wonderful even
+if you don't seem to know it!... And to think--to _think_ that Mary
+Ledwith is going to be happy again!... Oh, you don't know how it has
+been with her--the silly, unhappy little thing!
+
+"Why, after Mrs. Sprowl left, the girl went all to pieces. Molly and I
+did what we could--but Molly isn't strong and Mrs. Ledwith was at my
+house almost all the time--Oh, it was quite dreadful, and I'm sure she
+was really losing her senses--because--I think I'll tell you--I tell you
+everything--" She hesitated, and then, lowering her voice:
+
+"She had come to see me, and she was lying on the lounge in my
+dressing-room, crying; and I was doing my hair. And first I knew she
+sobbed out that she had killed her husband and wanted to die, and she
+caught up that pistol that Sir Charles gave me at the Bazaar last
+winter--it looked like a real one--and the next thing I knew she had
+fired a charge of Japanese perfume at her temple, and it was all over
+her face and hair!... Don't laugh, Rix; she thought she had killed
+herself, and I had a horrid, messy time of it reviving her."
+
+"You poor child," he exclaimed trying not to laugh--"she had no brains
+to blow out anyway.... That's a low thing to say. Ledwith likes her....
+I really believe she's been scared into life-long good behaviour."
+
+"She wasn't--really--horrid," said Strelsa in a low voice. "She told me
+so."
+
+"I don't doubt it," he said. "But one way or the other you might as well
+reproach a humming-bird for its morals. There are such people."
+
+After a short silence she said:
+
+"Tell me about people in town."
+
+"There are few there. Besides," he added smilingly, "I don't see much of
+your sort of people."
+
+"_My_ sort?" she repeated, lifting her gray eyes. "Am I not your sort,
+Rix?"
+
+"Are you? You should see me in my overalls and shirt-sleeves, stained
+with solvents and varnish, sticky with glue and reeking turpentine,
+ironing out a canvas with a warm flat-iron!... Am I your kind, Strelsa?"
+
+"Yes.... Am I _your_ kind?"
+
+"You always were. You know that."
+
+"Yes, I do know it, now." She sat very still, hands folded, considering
+him with gray and speculative eyes.
+
+"From the very beginning," she said, "you have never once disappointed
+me."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.
+
+"Never," she repeated.
+
+"Why--why, I got in wrong the very first time!" he said.
+
+"You mean that wager we made?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you behaved like a good sportsman."
+
+"Well, I wasn't exactly a bounder. But you were annoyed."
+
+She smiled: "Was I?"
+
+"You seemed to be."
+
+"Yet I sat in a corner behind some palms with you until daylight."
+
+They looked at each other and laughed over the reminiscence. Then he
+said:
+
+"I _did_ disappoint you when you found out what sort of a man I was."
+
+"No, you didn't."
+
+"I proved it, too," he said under his breath.
+
+Her lips were set firmly, almost primly, but she blushed.
+
+"You meant to be nice to me," she said. "You meant to do me honour."
+
+"The honour of offering you such a man as I was," he said with smiling
+bitterness.
+
+"Rix! _I_ was the fool--the silly little prig! I have blushed and
+blushed to remember how I behaved; how I snubbed you and--good
+heavens!--even lectured and admonished you!--How I ran away from you
+with all the self-possession and _savoir-faire_ of a country schoolgirl!
+What on earth you thought of me in those days I dread to surmise----"
+
+"But Strelsa, what was there to do except what you did?"
+
+"If I'd known anything I could have thanked you for caring that way for
+me and dismissed you as a friend instead of fleeing as though you had
+affronted me----"
+
+"I _did_ affront you."
+
+"You didn't intend to.... It would have been easy enough to tell you
+that I liked you--but not that way.... And all those miserable, lonely,
+unhappy months could have been spared me----"
+
+"Were _you_ unhappy?"
+
+"Didn't you know it?"
+
+"I never dreamed you were."
+
+"Well, I was--thinking of what I had done to you.... And all those men
+bothering me, every moment, and everybody at me to marry everybody
+else--and all I wanted was to be friends with _you_!... I wasn't sure
+of what I wanted from the very beginning, of course, but I knew it as
+soon as I saw you at the Bazaar again.... I was _so_ lonely, Rix----"
+
+She looked up out of clear, fearless eyes; he leaned forward and took
+her hands in his.
+
+"I know what you want," he said quietly. "You want my friendship and you
+have it--every atom of it, Strelsa. I will never overstep the borders
+again; I understand you thoroughly.... You know what you have done for
+me--what I was when you came into my life. My gratitude is a living
+thing. Through you, because of you, the whole unknown world--all of real
+life--has opened before me. You did it for me, Strelsa."
+
+"You did it for yourself and for me," she said in a low voice. "What are
+you trying to tell me, Rix? That _I_ did this for _you_? When it is
+you--it was you from the first--it has always been you who led, who
+awakened first, who showed courage and common sense and patience and the
+cheerful wisdom which--which saved me----"
+
+The emotion in her voice stirred him thrillingly; her hands lay
+confidently in his; her gray eyes met his so sweetly, so honestly, that
+hope awoke for a moment.
+
+"Strelsa," he said, "however it was with us--however it is now, I think
+that together we amount to more than we ever could have amounted to
+apart."
+
+"I know it," she said fervently. "I was nothing until I began to
+comprehend you."
+
+"What was I before you awoke me?"
+
+"A man neglecting his nobler self.... But it could not have lasted; your
+real self could not have long endured that harlequinade we once thought
+was real life.... I'm glad if you think that I--something about
+me--aroused you.... But if I had not, somebody or some circumstance
+would have very soon served the same purpose."
+
+"Do you think so?" he said, stooping to kiss her hands. She looked at
+him while he did so, confused by the quick pleasure of the contact, then
+schooled herself to endure it, setting her lips in a grave, firm line.
+
+And it was a most serious face he lifted his eyes to as she quietly
+withdrew her fingers from his.
+
+"You always played the courtier to perfection," she said, trying to
+speak lightly. "Tell me about that accomplished and noble peer, Lord
+Dankmere. Are you still inclined to like him?"
+
+He accepted her light and careless change of tone instantly, and spoke
+laughingly of Dankmere:
+
+"He's really a mighty nice fellow, Strelsa. Anyway, I like him. And
+_what_ do you think his lordship has been and gone and done?"
+
+"Has he become a Russian dancer, Rix?"
+
+"No, bless his heart! He's fallen head over ears in love and is engaged
+and is going to marry!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Our stenographer!"
+
+"Rix!"
+
+"Certainly.... She's pretty and sweet and good and _most_ worthy; and
+she's as crazy about Dankmere as he is about her.... Really, Strelsa,
+she's a charming young girl, and she'll make as pretty a countess as any
+of the Dankmeres have married in many a generation."
+
+Strelsa's lip curled: "I don't doubt that. They were always a horrid
+cock-fighting, prize-fighting, dissolute lot, weren't they?"
+
+"Something like that. But the present Dankmere is a good sort--really he
+is, Strelsa. And as for Jessie Vining, she's sweet. You'll be nice to
+them, won't you?"
+
+She said: "I'd be nice to them anyway. But now that you ask me to I'll
+be whatever you wish."
+
+"You _are_ a corker," he said almost tenderly; but with a slight smile
+she kept her hands out of his reach.
+
+"We mustn't degenerate into sentimentalism just because we're glad to
+see each other," she said so calmly that he did not notice the tremor in
+her voice. "And by the way, how is Mr. Westguard?"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Speaking of sentiment," said Quarren, "Karl now exudes it daily. He and
+Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera--to Lester's rage--have started a
+weekly paper called _Brotherhood_, consisting of pabulum for the
+horny-handed.
+
+"I couldn't do anything with Karl. Just look at him! He's really a good
+story-teller if he chooses. He could write jolly-good novels if he
+would. But the spectacle of De Groot weeping over a Bowery audience has
+finished him; and he's hard at work on a volume called 'The World's
+Woe,' and means to publish it himself because no publisher will take
+it."
+
+"Poor Karl," she said, smiling.
+
+"No," said Quarren, "that's the worst of it. His aunt has settled a
+million on him.... I tell you, Strelsa, the rich convert has less honour
+among the poor than the dingiest little 'dip' among the gorgeous
+corsairs of Wall Street.
+
+"I don't know how it happens, but Christ was never yet successfully
+preached from Fifth Avenue, and the millionaire whose heart bleeds for
+the poor needs a sterner surgeon than a complacent conscience to really
+stop the hemorrhage."
+
+"Rich men do good, Rix," she said thoughtfully.
+
+"But not by teaching or practising the thrift of celestial
+insurance--not by admonition to orthodoxy and exhortation to worship a
+Creator who sees to it that no two people are created equal. There is
+only one thing the rich can give to the poor for Christ's sake; and even
+that will always be taken with suspicion and distrust. No; there are
+only two ways to live: one is the life of self-discipline; the other is
+to actually imitate the militant Son of Man whose faith we pretend to
+profess--but whose life-history we merely parody, turning His crusade
+into a grotesque carnival. I know of no third course consistent."
+
+"To lead an upright life within bounds where your lines have fallen, or
+to strip and go forth militant," she mused. "There is no third course,
+as you say.... Do you know, Rix, that I have become a wonderfully happy
+sort of person?"
+
+"So have I," he said, laughingly.
+
+"It's just because we have something to do, isn't it?"
+
+"That--and the leisure which the idle never have. It seems like a
+paradox, doesn't it?--to say that the idle never have any time to
+themselves."
+
+"I know what you mean. I expect to work rather hard the rest of my
+life," she said seriously, "and yet I can foresee lots and lots of most
+delicious leisure awaiting me."
+
+"Do you foresee anything else, pretty prophetess?"
+
+"What else do you mean?"
+
+"Well, for example, you will be alone here all winter."
+
+"Do you mean loneliness?" she asked, smiling. "I don't expect to suffer
+from that. Molly will be here all winter and--you will write to me--"
+she turned to him--"won't you, Rix?"
+
+"Certainly. Besides I'm coming up to see you every week."
+
+"Every week!" she repeated, taken a little aback but smiling her sweet,
+confused smile. "Do you realise what you are so gaily engaging to do?"
+
+"Perfectly. I'm going to build up here."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"A--a house?"
+
+He looked at her, hesitated, then looking away:
+
+"Either a house or--an addition."
+
+"An _addition_?"
+
+"If you'll let me, Strelsa--some day."
+
+She understood him then. The painful colour stole into her cheeks,
+faintly burning, and she closed her eyes for a moment to endure it,
+sitting silent, motionless, her little sun-tanned hands tightly clasped
+on her knees.
+
+Then, unclosing her eyes she looked at him, delicate lips tightening.
+
+"I thought our relations were to remain on a higher plane," she said
+steadily.
+
+"Our relations are to remain what you desire them to be, dear."
+
+"I desire them to be what they are--_always_."
+
+"Then that is my wish also," he said with a smile so genuine and gay
+that, a little confused by his acquiescence, her own response was slow.
+But presently her smile dawned, a little tremulous and uncertain, and
+her gray eyes remained wistful though the lips curled deliciously.
+
+"I would do anything in the world for you, Rix, except--that," she said
+in a low voice.
+
+"I know you would, you dear girl."
+
+"Don't you really believe it?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+"But--I _can't_ do that--_ever_. It would--would spoil you for me....
+What in the world would I do if you were spoiled for me, Rix? I haven't
+anybody else.... What would I do here--all alone? I couldn't stay--I
+wouldn't know what to do--where to go in the world.... It would be
+lonely--lonely----"
+
+She bent her head, and remained so, gray eyes fixed on her clasped
+fingers. For a long while she sat bowed over, thinking; once or twice
+she lifted her eyes to look at him, but her gaze always became confused
+and remote; and he did not offer to break the silence.
+
+At last she looked up with a movement of decision, her face clearing.
+
+"You understand, don't you, Rix?" she said, rising.
+
+He nodded, rising also; and they descended the steps together and walked
+slowly away toward Witch-Hollow.
+
+From the hill-top they noticed one of Sprowl's farm-waggons slowly
+entering the drive, followed on foot by several men and a little girl.
+Her blond hair and apron fluttered in the breeze. She was too far away
+for them to see that she was weeping.
+
+"I wonder what they've got in that waggon?" said Quarren, curiously.
+
+Strelsa's gaze became indifferent, then passed on and rested on the blue
+range of hills beyond.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful about Chrysos," she said.
+
+"The quaint little thing," he said almost tenderly. "She told Molly what
+happened--how she sat down under a fence to tie wild strawberries for
+Sir Charles, and how, all at once, she realised what his going out of
+her life meant to her--and how the tears choked her to silence until she
+suddenly found herself in his arms.... Can you see it as it happened,
+Strelsa?--as pretty a pastoral as ever the older poets--" He broke off
+abruptly, and she looked up, but he was still smiling as though the
+scene of another man's happiness, so lightly evoked, were a
+visualisation of his own. And again her gray eyes grew wistful as though
+shyly pleading for his indulgence and silently asking his pardon for all
+that she could never be to him or to any man.
+
+So they came across fields and down through fragrant lanes to
+Witch-Hollow, where the fat setter gambolled ponderously around them
+with fat barkings and waggings, and where Molly, sewing on the porch,
+smoothed the frail and tiny garment over her knee and raised her pretty
+head to survey them with a smiling intelligence that made Strelsa blush.
+
+"It _isn't_ so!" she found an opportunity to whisper into Molly's ear.
+"If you look at us that way you'll simply make him miserable and break
+my heart."
+
+Molly glanced after Quarren who had wandered indoors to find a cigarette
+in the smoking-room.
+
+"If you don't marry that delectable young man," she said, "I'll take a
+stick and beat you, Strelsa."
+
+"I don't want to--I don't _want_ to!" protested the girl, getting
+possession of Molly's hands and covering them with caresses. And,
+resting her soft lips on Molly's fingers, she looked at her; and the
+young matron saw tears glimmering under the soft, dark lashes.
+
+"I _can't_ love him--that way," whispered the girl. "I would if I
+could.... I couldn't care for him more than I do.... And--and it
+terrifies me to think of losing him."
+
+"Losing him?"
+
+"Yes--by doing what you--what he--wishes."
+
+"You think you'll lose him if you marry him?"
+
+"I--yes. It would spoil him for me--spoil everything for me in the
+world----"
+
+"Well, you listen to me," said Molly, exasperated. "When he has stood a
+certain amount of this silliness from you he'll really and actually turn
+into the sexless comrade you think you want. But he'll go elsewhere for
+a mate. There are plenty suitable in the world. If you'd never been born
+there would have been another for him. If you passed out of his life
+there would some day be another.
+
+"Will we women never learn the truth?--that at best we are incidental to
+man, but that, when we love, man is the whole bally thing to us?
+
+"Let him escape and you'll see, Strelsa. You'll get, perhaps, what
+you're asking for now, but he'll get what he is asking for, too--if not
+from you, from some girl of whom you and I and he perhaps have never
+heard.
+
+"But she exists; don't worry. And any man worth his title is certain to
+encounter her sooner or later."
+
+The girl, flushed, dumb, watched her out of wide gray eyes in which the
+unshed tears had dried. The pretty matron slowly shook her head:
+
+"Because you once bit into tainted fruit you laid the axe to the entire
+orchard. What nonsense! Rottenness is the exception; soundness the rule.
+But you concluded that the hazard of bad fortune--that the unhappy
+chance of your first and only experience--was not an exception but the
+universal rule.... Very well; think it! He'll get over it some time, but
+you never will, Strelsa. You'll remember it all your life.
+
+"For I tell you that we women who go to our graves without having missed
+a single pang--we who die having known happiness and its shadow which is
+sorrow--the happiness and sorrow which come through love of man
+alone--die as we should die, in deep content of destiny fulfilled--which
+is the only peace beyond all understanding."
+
+The girl lowered her head and, resting her cheek on Molly's shoulder,
+looked down at the baby garment on her knees.
+
+"That also?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes.... Unless we pass that way, also, we can never die content.... But
+until a month ago I did not know it.... Strelsa--Strelsa! Are you never
+going to know what love can be?"
+
+The girl rose slowly, flushing and whitening by turns, and stood a
+moment, her hands covering her eyes.
+
+And standing so:
+
+"Do you think he will go away--from me--some day?"
+
+"Yes; he will go--unless----"
+
+"Must it be--that way?"
+
+"It will be that way, Strelsa."
+
+"I had never thought of that."
+
+"Think of it as the truth. It will be so unless you love him in his own
+fashion--and for his own sake. Try--if you care for him enough to
+try.... And if you do, you will love him for your own sake, too."
+
+"I--I had thought of--of giving myself--for his sake--because he wishes
+it.... I don't believe I'll be--much afraid--of him. Do you?"
+
+Molly's wise sweet eyes sparkled with silent laughter. Then without
+another glance at the tall, young girl before her she picked up her
+sewing, drew the needle from the hem, and smoothed out the lace
+embroidery on her knees.
+
+After a while she said:
+
+"Jim's returning on the noon train. Will you and Rix be here to
+luncheon?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, ask him; I have my orders to give if you'll stay."
+
+Strelsa walked into the house; Quarren, still hunting about for a
+cigarette, looked up as she entered the smoking-room.
+
+"Where the dickens does Jim keep his cigarettes?" he asked. "Do you
+know, Strelsa?"
+
+"You poor boy!" she exclaimed laughingly, "have you been searching all
+this time? The wonder is that you haven't perished. Why didn't you ask
+me for one when we were at--our house?"
+
+"_Your_ house?" he corrected, smiling.
+
+Her gray eyes met his with a frightened sort of courage.
+
+"_Our house_--if you wish--" But her lips had begun to tremble and she
+could not control them or force from them another word for all her
+courage.
+
+He came over to where she stood, one slim hand resting against the wall;
+and she looked back bravely into his keen eyes--the clear, direct,
+questioning eyes of a boy.
+
+"I--I will--marry you," she said.
+
+A swift flush touched his face to the temples.
+
+"Don't you--want me?" she said, tremulously.
+
+"If you love me, Strelsa."
+
+"Isn't it enough--that you--love----"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+She lost her colour.
+
+"Rix! Don't you want me?" she faltered.
+
+"Not unless you want me, Strelsa."
+
+She drew a long unsteady breath. Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes,
+and she held out both hands to him, blindly.
+
+"I--do love you," she whispered.... "I'll give what you give.... Only
+you must teach me--not to be--afraid."
+
+Her cheek lay close to his shoulder; his arms drew her nearer. And,
+after he had waited a long while, her gray eyes, which had been watching
+his face, slowly closed, and she lifted her lips toward his.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Hyphenation has been standardized. Nonstandard spellings have been
+maintained, e.g. "barytone", but clear spelling errors have been
+corrected ("hynotised" replaced with "hypnotised", "f" replaced with
+"of"). Missing periods have been added at ends of sentences. Missing
+close quotes have been added.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers
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