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diff --git a/35233-h/35233-h.htm b/35233-h/35233-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c143bac --- /dev/null +++ b/35233-h/35233-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,17046 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Streets Of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + .transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<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=""She excused the witness and turned her back to the +looking-glass."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"She excused the witness and turned her back to the +looking-glass."</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>ṛẹ</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—Mrs. Leeds—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—'"</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—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—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—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——"</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—"it's the tendency in him that considers +the lilies of the field——"</p> + +<p>"It isn't square," said Westguard doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Karl, Rix means to be square——"</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—God bless his mother and damn all landlords, +Lester Caldera included."</p> + +<p>"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!"</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!—'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—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—"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—wealthy, charming, and respectable—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—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 +<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—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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> clean minded. Look +at him now—sallow, wiry, unprofitably wise, rangé, disillusioned—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—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."</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—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 <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——"</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—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.</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—"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—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—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—"and a friend of hers—I've +forgotten——"</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——"</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—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.</p> + +<p>Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black—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—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—<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—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—"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——"</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—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.</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—and you, too, +Jack!"—offering her hand—"We've had a splendid party.... Strelsa, we +really ought to go at once——"</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—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—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—a kind +of a sort of a something——"</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—"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——"</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake, Jack——"</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——"</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!—as vicious and unclean a little whelp +as ever—Oh, what's the use?—and <i>de mortius nihil</i>—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—and he's been in—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—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 +appear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>ances—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."</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!"—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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"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!"</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—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—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—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—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—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—"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—"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——"</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=""Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around +at the gorgeous spectacle."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around +at the gorgeous spectacle."</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—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——"</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—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.</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—"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.</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—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—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—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<a name="gs03" id="gs03"></a><img src="images/gs03.jpg" width="640" height="436" alt=""Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the +Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing +gallantries."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the +Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing +gallantries."</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—this concealed stair—he recalled it +perfectly now—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——"</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—" he said, +"scorned, despised, and mocked by beauty——"</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?—that is, if +you are hinting that <i>I</i> have smitten you with the pretty passion."</p> + +<p>"Through and through, beautiful dancer——"</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—magic penetration—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—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!"</p> + +<p>He sank lithely on one knee; she laughed deliciously, looking down at +his masked face.</p> + +<p>"Who are you, Harlequin?—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——"</p> + +<p>"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?"</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—kill me, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so. Try it."</p> + +<p>"Will it hurt?—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—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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Why—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—I'll be missed presently——"</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—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—it is impossible that you should know—" 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—it <i>is</i> magic! It is +infernal—abominable magic——"</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—anyhow——"</p> + +<p>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.</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—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—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—ah—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—repudiate the obligation——"</p> + +<p>"Harlequin!"</p> + +<p>"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow.</p> + +<p>"I pay what I owe—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—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—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—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——"</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—" 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——"</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—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!"</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; +"—fifty-one—two—three—four—m-m-m—sixty!"—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—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?—if you wish to spoil my victory?"</p> + +<p>"You yourself have told me why."</p> + +<p>"Am I wrong? Could you—didn't I surprise you—in fact, paralyse +you—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—have I—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!—from <i>you!"</i></p> + +<p>"You'll see this thing through!—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?—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—all that time—" she began—"all that time——"</p> + +<p>"I had my chances—sixty of them."</p> + +<p>"And didn't take them?"</p> + +<p>"Only wanted to—but didn't."</p> + +<p>"You think that I——"</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—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—how—why did you refrain from—" 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—any—idea——"</p> + +<p>"Then—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—"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—I don't think—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—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—and +vaguely—from—nothing in particular.—I thought you were a very +different sort of man.—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—like flowers and champagne——"</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; "—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—prejudiced——"</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—and let the mortally +offended suitors sit and whistle a bit longer?"</p> + +<p>"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."</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—and—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 naďvely 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—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—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—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>"—And—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—"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=""'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' she said +lightly."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' she said +lightly."</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—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—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—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—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."</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—"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?"</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—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—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—until——"</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—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."</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—what to expect—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—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—so real about +<i>you</i>——"</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—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?—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—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—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—you very absurd young man. What are you trying to say?"</p> + +<p>"I—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 naďve 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—youth unawakened as yet except to a confused memory of +pain—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—two years of endurance, of shrinking from public comment—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=""Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her +newspapers."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her +newspapers."</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—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—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—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.</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—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.</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"—the first hall-mark of +social fame—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—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—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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> 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——</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——"<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——"</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?—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——"<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—just for a few moments."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because you are going South and there are three restless weeks ahead of +me——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Don't be absurd, Mr. Quarren!"</p> + +<p>"Absurdity is the badge of all our Guild——"</p> + +<p>"What Guild do <i>you</i> belong to?"</p> + +<p>"The associated order of ardent suitors——"</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——"</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——"</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——"</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—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—<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—or trying to—by seeking the perennial source +of daily spiritual and mundane inspiration——"<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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Will one moment be enough?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"One second—or half a one?"</p> + +<p>"Plenty."</p> + +<p>"Very well—if you promise not to expect or ask for more than that——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Shall I come up immediately?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You are an angel——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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-męme!"</p> + +<p>"I believe you <i>are</i> real after all," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"Do I seem different?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—and no."</p> + +<p>"How am I different?"</p> + +<p>"Well, somehow, last night, I got the notion that you were younger, +thinner—and not very real——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"How perfectly horrid of you! I thought you admired my costume last +night!"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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——"</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——"</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—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—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—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—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—even of +friendship, Mr. Quarren?"</p> + +<p>"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.</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—perhaps more than you will +care to have me——"</p> + +<p>"Please don't speak that way—I don't know what you mean, anyway——"</p> + +<p>"That is why I asked you the question—to find out whether I had a right +to——"</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—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?"</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—"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>—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."</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."—She felt rather superior in turning +this phrase, and looked on him a little more kindly——</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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>I</i> am—and what <i>you</i> +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."</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—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—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——"</p> + +<p>"You have it."</p> + +<p>"Even yet?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?... It's selfish of me to say it—but I wish you—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—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!—giving me a glimmer of hope I suppose—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—if my friendship—if you +really care for it——"<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—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."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would not speak so bitterly—please——"</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—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?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Lannis is calling for me."</p> + +<p>"Then—I will take my leave—and the tatters of my reputation—any song +can buy it, now——"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Quarren!"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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—am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I—I try to understand you—but +I don't seem to.... I am so <i>very</i> sorry that you—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—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—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—very grand +ladies—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—a pretty +red-haired edition of her brother—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—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"—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.</p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<a name="gs06" id="gs06"></a><img src="images/gs06.jpg" width="640" height="456" alt=""'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men +give there!'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men +give there!'"</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—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."</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——"</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——"</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—whose husband must have been +an idiot—and Cynthia Challis—she married Prince Sarnoff, you +remember——"</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——"</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—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—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."</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—almost——"</p> + +<p>"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!" +laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa—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 naďve 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—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—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!—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."</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"—she glared around her, fanning vigorously—"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——"</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—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."</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—"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—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.</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—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—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—as Jack Lacy says—'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—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—last month—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—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!"</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—Mrs. Leeds—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=""'Is—Mrs. Leeds—well?' he ventured at length, reddening +again."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'Is—Mrs. Leeds—well?' he ventured at length, reddening +again."</span> +</div> + +<p>"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."</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—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<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—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."</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—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—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—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<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'—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.</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—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.</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—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—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—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?</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—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—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—like the +small boy, safe in the window, who defies his enemy with out-thrust +tongue.</p> + +<p>"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.</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'—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—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?—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—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 +faďence 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-ŕ-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——"</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—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!"</p> + +<p>"I write," said Westguard, furious, "because I've a message to +deliv——"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;"> +<a name="gs08" id="gs08"></a><img src="images/gs08.jpg" width="320" height="470" alt=""'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because I have a +message to deliv—'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because I have a +message to deliv—'"</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——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Heaven knows you <i>are</i>! Also there is something In what you say—" He +sat smoking, thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in the fire—"if I only +<i>could</i> 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——"</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—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."</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—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—for you use them ignobly, when you do not utterly neglect +them——"</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—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—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—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;<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—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—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——"</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—"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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"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:<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—not a bale of +fashionable merchandise! Besides," he added in a modified tone, "I was +rather taken by—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—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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"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."</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——"</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——"</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—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!—so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly—"whoa—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——"<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—just to prove to yourself that there are really very +few."</p> + +<p>"There is Langly—and my aunt—and the Lester Calderas—and the +Ledwiths——"</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?—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—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—something unspoiled had +dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>appeared from them—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—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—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.</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—less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that +happened—and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly +Sprowl.</p> + +<p>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.<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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell +you——"</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——"</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—and +everybody else—believe him to be the most magnificent match in——"<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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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.<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—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=""'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the +men!'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the +men!'"</span> +</div> + +<p>"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly—"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——"</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—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?"</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——"</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Please don't!—I simply cannot——"</p> + +<p>"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly—"an ideal marriage——"</p> + +<p>"But when there is no love——"</p> + +<p>"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you—crazy!—--"</p> + +<p>"I—meant—on my part——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"I know—but——"</p> + +<p>"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!"</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—"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—and +Sir Charles, too! What the devil do you suppose there is in it for me +except to oblige hi—you both?"</p> + +<p>"Th-thank you, but——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"Please—oh, <i>please</i>, Mrs. Sprowl——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did! It's a good match! I want you to consider it!—I insist +that——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"I am really—grateful—but——"</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—and——"</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—has that boy had the impudence—damn him——"<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—" 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——"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I—I <i>am</i> grateful," faltered Strelsa, "only I cannot——"</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——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, please don't——"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I would scarcely class Mr. Quarren with the sort you mention——"</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——"</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—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—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."</p> + +<p>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.</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!—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—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=""Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his +departure with quiet satisfaction."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his +departure with quiet satisfaction."</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. I was merely thinking of you."</p> + +<p>"You were—you happened to be thinking of <i>me</i>? And you said something +aloud about me?"</p> + +<p>"About you—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——"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not anybody in particular——"</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—and +inclined to slump. Where are you; at the Legation?"</p> + +<p>"At the Founders' Club—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—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—over the telephone."</p> + +<p>"That sounds both humble and dangerous. Which do you mean to be?"</p> + +<p>"Humble—and very, very grateful, dear lady. May I come?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know. Dinner was announced a quarter of an hour ago."</p> + +<p>"It won't take me three minutes——"</p> + +<p>"If it takes you more you'll ring my door-bell in vain, young man."</p> + +<p>"I'll start now! Good——"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<a name="gs11" id="gs11"></a><img src="images/gs11.jpg" width="640" height="478" alt=""'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked, +smiling."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked, +smiling."</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——"</p> + +<p>"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your +way over. <i>Ŕ 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—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—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—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—"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."</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—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."</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—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—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."</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—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 <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—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—until to-night."</p> + +<p>"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren—but a little +sentimental—isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment—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—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—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—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—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——</p> + +<p>"I feed on what the pack leaves—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—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?"</p> + +<p>He said, slowly: "I could have been anything—I could be yet—if +you——"</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—it hurts——"</p> + +<p>"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds——"</p> + +<p>"It hurts <i>me!</i> I <i>do</i> like you. I was glad to see you—you don't know +how glad. Your letters to me were—were interesting. <i>You</i> 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?"<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!—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 <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—tell me you are worthless—warn me +against—against——"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Caring—taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit +disrespect for yourself! A man—<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—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 <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—otherwise?"</p> + +<p>"I care—as a friend, naturally——"</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—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"—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——"<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—a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a +delicate mist—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—a slight caress over her +forehead—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—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—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!—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.</p> + +<p>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.</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—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<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—knowledge scornfully admitted and +defied with every breath—but no longer denied.</p> + +<p>She <i>was</i> 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.</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—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—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—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—"and Winnifred Miller +was almost in tears over the charity tableaux——"</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——"</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'—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——"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't want to meet any cock-fighters," growled Westguard.</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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—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>—<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—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—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—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?"—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—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—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—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—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 chčre!</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—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—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—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—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.</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—herself—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—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—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—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.</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—and during—whatever +happened—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—unless her own heart +were permitted to testify. Or—and there seemed to be some slight +confusion here—<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—so well, alas!</p> + +<p>"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."</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?—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——"</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—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.<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—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——".</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—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 subpœna, 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——"</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—"parties of all sorts +spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank +failures—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—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—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—"you'll see what we'll do to +you——"</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——"</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—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<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—What the devil are you +laughing at?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon——"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>can't</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"You're tremendously kind——"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Quarren rose and came over to the bedside.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Mrs. Sprowl," he said. "And—I like you—somehow—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——"</p> + +<p>"No—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—"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——"</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—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.</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—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—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—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—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—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—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.</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—"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——"</p> + +<p>"See my forthcoming novel," added Lacy, "$1.35 net, for sale at all +booksellers or sent post-paid on receipt of——"</p> + +<p>"You little fashionable fop!" growled Westguard—"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—neither the physical conditions in our slums nor the arid +intellectual deserts within the social frontiers."</p> + +<p>"But the waves will accomplish that—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—"like Sir Charles quietly drawin' +four cards to a kicker and sayin' nothin'."</p> + +<p>"—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——"</p> + +<p>"—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>"—Like——"</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——"</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——"</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—<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—<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—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—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."</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—twenty +years ago I believe. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> a sale—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 Ł100 twenty years ago +might bring Ł1,000 to-day. It's merely a suggestion, Dankmere—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!—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—and it was an early one—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?—pictures and that +sort. What?"</p> + +<p>"Why—yes—I do, in a way."</p> + +<p>"The devil you do! But then I've always been told that you know +something about everything——"</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——"</p> + +<p>Dankmere, reddening, said bluntly:</p> + +<p>"That applies to me; doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon!—I didn't mean it that way——"</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—I—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—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—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=""Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement +to Sir Charles was expected to be announced."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement +to Sir Charles was expected to be announced."</span> +</div> + +<p>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.</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—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——</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—circulars, bills, business matters—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—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——</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—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—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.</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—<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—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—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—if you wish—<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—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.</p> + +<p>"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.</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—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?</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.—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—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=""All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded +in amazement by the neighbours."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded +in amazement by the neighbours."</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—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.</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Is it enough to keep you busy?"</p> + +<p>"No—not yet—but I——"</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—why—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—but I——"</p> + +<p>"It's worth that to me, Quarren—if you can see your way to helping me +out——"</p> + +<p>"But my help isn't worth half what these pictures might very easily +bring—even at public auction——"</p> + +<p>"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."</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!—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—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?"</p> + +<p>"I don't really know enough about antique pictures to——"</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—'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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Yours, too," urged the Earl.</p> + +<p>"No; I can't accept anything——"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"If you feel that way," began Quarren, very much embarrassed, "I'll do +whatever would make you feel comfortable——"</p> + +<p>"Half interest or it's all off! A Dankmere means what he says—now and +then."</p> + +<p>"One-third interest, then——"</p> + +<p>"A half!—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—it may amount to ten +thousand—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—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—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!"</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——"</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—and I'm glad to see you——"<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——"</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—on the +most horrid kind of business, Ricky."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry——"</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—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>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——"<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—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!"</p> + +<p>"Where is Mrs. Leeds?" he asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"Is she—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—" +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—and I believe she realises it, too—but I—I <i>wanted</i> +her to marry you, some day——"</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 naďvely. "Sir Charles will marry her, now; I know perfectly well he +will—unless Langly Sprowl——"</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—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."</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—I think I +could be almost reconciled to her losing you——"</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——"</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——"</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—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:</p> + +<p>"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——"<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—so deeply concerned——"</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—" 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—as roses require +manure——"</p> + +<p>"Ricky!"</p> + +<p>"I'm speaking of <i>your</i> world——"</p> + +<p>"My world! The entire world knows that money is necessary—except +perhaps a silly sentimentalist here and there——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, there are one or two—here and there," he said. "But they're all +poor—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>"—And—children—perhaps."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—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"—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 +<i>has</i> to marry him——"</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—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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> 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!"</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=""A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first +time in nearly two months."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first +time in nearly two months."</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—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.</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—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—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—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.</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—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—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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"Now you know me, Mr. Quarren—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—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.</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—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—for a noble +leisure and the quiet pleasures of self-development, have +gone—vanished utterly. Fear sickens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</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—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.</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—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.</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=""'I say, Quarren—does this old lady hang next to +the battered party in black?'"" title="" /> <span class="caption">"'I say, Quarren—does this old lady hang next to +the battered party in black?'"</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—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—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!—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 <i>is</i> a Rembrandt!—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—"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—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—'The Fęte Champętre.' 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—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."</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—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—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.</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—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> & 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—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—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—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.</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—a cessation of the +old anxiety and unrest—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—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—clear the opacity +from time-dimmed beauty with savant touch, knit up tenderly the wounds +of ages——</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—in my heart—to work—to +<i>work</i>!"—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?"</p> + +<p>"Awf'lly glad, old chap."</p> + +<p>"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<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—"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——"</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Suppose some chap rushes in with ten thousand——"</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—not even to Valasco or any of the experts——"</p> + +<p>"Suppose a charming lady——"</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—if you can believe his word."</p> + +<p>"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?"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Rot! Go on and take your vacation, old chap! Back in a week?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; or any time you wire me——"</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——"</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—and pick me out an heiress of sorts—there's a good fellow——"</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—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—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—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—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.</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—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——"</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!—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——"<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—"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—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——"</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=""'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she +whispered."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she +whispered."</span> +</div> + + +<p>Quarren's features stiffened:</p> + +<p>"Does she?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.</p> + +<p>"I really don't know, Ricky——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"You're certainly rude enough——"</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—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.</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!—I laughed and laughed!—forgive me, but the papers +were so funny—and I couldn't help laughing——"</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—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—except +that little girl over there"—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—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—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—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 anćmic 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=""So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp +curve."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp +curve."</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—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—then."</p> + +<p>His reply seemed to perplex her—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——"<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—don't think—it matters, now——"</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—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.</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—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!"—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?—with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll +lend you some witch-hazel——"</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—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?"—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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Strelsa——"</p> + +<p>"No!—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—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—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—and you among them."</p> + +<p>"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"</p> + +<p>"I—your friends—people are eternally dinning your name into my +ears——"<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—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—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——"</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—an effort—and I don't +desire—wish—care——"</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—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——"</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—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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"I ask you not to talk about such——"</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——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Please—if you please—I had rather not——"</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—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—your unknown self, Strelsa—undiscovered as yet by +me——"</p> + +<p>Her lips moved mechanically:</p> + +<p>"I wrote you—<i>told</i> you what I am."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know +yourself——"</p> + +<p>"I do. I <i>am</i> what I wrote you."</p> + +<p>"Partly perhaps—partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a +sequence of blows——"</p> + +<p>"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."</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—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—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—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—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——</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—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—<i>him</i>?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at +all——"</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—with your unknown self +behind that barrier. <i>Garde ŕ 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>—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—and I have an even chance to win——"</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—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——"</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!—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—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—and I don't know how; I don't even +know what I want to say except that—that——"</p> + +<p>"What, Strelsa?"</p> + +<p>"Please be—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—but why particularly at this instant?"</p> + +<p>"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—you corker!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then!"</p> + +<p>"Molly, I worship you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Et aprčs?</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——"</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—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——"</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=""'The old ones are best.' she commented."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'The old ones are best.' she commented."</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—lose——"</p> + +<p>"Dignity?"</p> + +<p>"No—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—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—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—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!—please. Let me go! This is too serious—even if we did not mean +it——"</p> + +<p>"You know I mean it," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"You must not! You understand why!... And don't—again! I am not—I do +not choose to—to allow—endure—such—things——"<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—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—and let me go."</p> + +<p>"Am I unkind?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes! You know—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—not for one +moment!"</p> + +<p>"Check you from what, Strelsa?"</p> + +<p>"From—what I want out of life!—tranquillity, ease, security, +happiness——"</p> + +<p>"Happiness?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—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—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!"<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——"</p> + +<p>"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"</p> + +<p>She blushed scarlet:</p> + +<p>"Is <i>that</i> what you mean!—the stupid, unworthy, material self——"</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—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——"</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—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—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——"</p> + +<p>His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked—looked up +at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes.</p> + +<p>"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity—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—I believe—" +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—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—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—"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?"—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—Mr. Quarren came."</p> + +<p>"I see—showed him about, I expect."</p> + +<p>"A—little."</p> + +<p>"Are you feeling fit, Strelsa?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly.... Why?"</p> + +<p>"You look a bit streaky——"</p> + +<p>"Thank you!"</p> + +<p>"'Pon my word you do—a bit under the weather, you know——"</p> + +<p>"Woman's only friend and protector—a headache," she said, gaily +rattling off more rag-time. "Where did you go, Langly?"</p> + +<p>"To look over some silly horses——"</p> + +<p>"They're fine nags!" remonstrated Molly—"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—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?"—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——"</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——"</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——"</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—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—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——"</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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Your rôle is to remain amiable and non-committal," said Quarren. "Let +them talk——"</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—the fact is—I believe I practically—so to speak—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—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—the Raeburn portrait—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—some ladies and gentlemen of sorts—from the Winter Garden I +believe—and one of the ladies inadvertently shyed a glass at another +lady——"</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake, Dankmere——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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——"</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—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—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——"</p> + +<p>"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.</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—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—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——"<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—"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——"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> 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.</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—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!"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing to which she responds—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—now—after a fashion.... But I am not the man who could +ever attract her——"</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?—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!"</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=""Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was +silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was +silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."</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—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.</p> + +<p>Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of +a clear sky.</p> + +<p>"What?" he said slowly—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——"</p> + +<p>"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way +under my roof——"</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—there's their motor-launch, +now.... Ricky!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do——"</p> + +<p>"There was! She <i>is</i> a fish!—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—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.</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?—Oh, I forgot; you +live here, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Quarren said: "You seem to have been—ill."</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be +gentle—even with such a man.</p> + +<p>"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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are stopping with——"</p> + +<p>"The Wycherlys."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"It's a pretty country," said Quarren.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Really."</p> + +<p>"Hasn't—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—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—all the dirty little faits divers of your +world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential——"</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—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—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—when I still knew people—and when +they still knew me—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—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—"scarcely what you'd think I'd wish to read, +Quarren—poems of youth and love——"</p> + +<p>"You're young, Ledwith—if you cared to help yourself——"</p> + +<p>"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:</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—<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—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—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:</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—" 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—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."</p> + +<p>His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read +what was not written there—</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!—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—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—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——"</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——"</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—if you care to humiliate me—him——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you——"</p> + +<p>He looked up at her:</p> + +<p>"Would <i>that</i> make it easier for you?"</p> + +<p>"I—perhaps—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—greatly.... As much as I—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—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—our friendship isn't spoiled—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—been—not very +happy since you—since we——"</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—you had better not—touch me—any more—" she said faintly.</p> + +<p>"Is it disagreeable?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Did you never caress a flower?"</p> + +<p>"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."</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—what I need——"</p> + +<p>"Do you know what you need?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I——"</p> + +<p>"No, you don't. You need to love—and to be loved. You don't know it, +but you do!"</p> + +<p>"That is a—a perfectly brutal thing to say——"</p> + +<p>"Does it sound so to you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it does! It is brutal—common, unworthy of you and of me——"</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?—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—cleaner, better, stronger——"</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—I could not—I +will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it—to me it is +degrading—contemptible——"</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—what I have learned in a bitter +school—during two dreadful years——"</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—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——"</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—you poor little thing. I didn't realise—I don't want to think +about it——"</p> + +<p>"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.</p> + +<p>"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<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—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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don't mean anything, +do you by—by your arm around me——"</p> + +<p>"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled—"Which I +suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me."</p> + +<p>"I—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—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."</p> + +<p>"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said.</p> + +<p>"You were different, but—you made me feel that way, too—a little——"</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—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——"</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—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—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!—of course you can."</p> + +<p>"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?"</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—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?"</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—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—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...."</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—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—my mother, others—<i>his</i> +family—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—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—<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—"I've told you at last. Shall I tell you +more?"</p> + +<p>"Not unless——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—what I have told you—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—love?"</p> + +<p>"We mean the same I think—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—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—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?"</p> + +<p>"Not what you plan to do."</p> + +<p>"Why not? As long as I need help—and the best is offered——"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you take less—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—I—you are my <i>friend</i>. 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 <i>are</i> generous, having so little and wishing to +share it with me——"<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?—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——"</p> + +<p>"I ask no more."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you <i>do</i>!"</p> + +<p>"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa—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——"</p> + +<p>"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him."</p> + +<p>"Does that count?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you left me here."</p> + +<p>"Would you? Then—good-bye——"</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—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—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—"clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold"—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?"—demanded Quarren as +another ripple of applause sounded from within.</p> + +<p>Dankmere thought a moment: "I really don't know the audience, +Quarren—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—except +Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera——"</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=""A high and soulful tenor was singing 'Perfumes of +Araby.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"A high and soulful tenor was singing 'Perfumes of +Araby.'"</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—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——"</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!—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—every one. And <i>this</i> is the +answer!"—grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it—"this!" +seizing another—"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'—the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue +clasps palms with Doyers Street——"</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—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——"</p> + +<p>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.</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—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——"</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—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—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."</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—most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives +sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?"</p> + +<p>"Both, Dankmere—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—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—you may think it odd.... And I was in love—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—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—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=""She came about noon—a pale young girl, very slim in her +limp black gown."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"She came about noon—a pale young girl, very slim in her +limp black gown."</span> +</div> + +<p>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.</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—"so I guess she <i>is</i> +good."</p> + +<p>"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."</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!—<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>—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—</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—<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 Mćnads on the go,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fat Bacchantes in a row—<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—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wear 'em, dear, for draperies—— '"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"<i>Good</i> heavens!" protested Quarren—"how long can you run on like +that?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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—ruined by restoring. It's not worth much."</p> + +<p>"And this Virgin?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"It's—er—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—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—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—confidential +buyers, sons—even dealers themselves—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—like an ubiquitous and silent dog who turns up wherever more +than two people assemble with any purpose in view—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—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—family plate, portraits, miniatures, +furniture—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—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.</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—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.</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—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—"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—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—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.</p> + +<p>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.<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—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—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—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—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.</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—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—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—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—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—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.<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—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—either fit +herself for employment—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—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—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.</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—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.</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—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.</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—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.</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—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—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—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—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—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!<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—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—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.</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—and have always been—toward me. And could either of +us ask for more?</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.<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—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—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.</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—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.</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—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—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.</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—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<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=""'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and +dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and +dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"</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?—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—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—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.</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—"I don't mean that fool +of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar—Good Lord! Ricky, is that <i>you</i>? +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."</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Wait!"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder——"</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—"I'll +say what——"<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—of whom I—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—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—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—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—"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!"</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—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?"</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—I'd rather see her your wife than his!—and God +knows <i>what</i> he wants of her at that—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——"</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!"—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!</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——"</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——"</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—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—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."</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—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—" 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—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—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—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.</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—amiably—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—should I go to Witch-Hollow?"</p> + +<p>"I can't answer you."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"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."</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——"</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!—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——"</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!"—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——"</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—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—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—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——"</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—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—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—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?—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——"</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—lively."</p> + +<p>"You <i>don't</i> like it!"</p> + +<p>"I—it seems—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—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—"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—if——"</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—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—without hope of escape perhaps—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—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.</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—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.<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—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—"that old woman +certainly suspects what you're up to with her nephew or she wouldn't +bother to come up here——"</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—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 manœuvred, 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?—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!"</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——"</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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Molly! Please don't——"</p> + +<p>"—Or Rix——"</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!—Why——"</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—I'm not very well——"</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——"</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—"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——"</p> + +<p>"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 <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—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!—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—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!</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—or soar, as you +please—into some other section of eternal space."</p> + +<p>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!</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—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=""'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling.'"</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—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—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.</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—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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</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—now."</p> + +<p>"It would be better if you could."</p> + +<p>"There are no tears—I—I am burnt out—all burnt out——"</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—no longer. Everything's dead in me except the longing for—quiet. +I'll pay any price for it—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—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——"</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—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——"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk that way, dear."</p> + +<p>"I don't <i>like</i> the family—except Chrysos."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</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——"</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—crazy about anything that promised gaiety and +amusement—anything to make me forget.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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——"</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—then there would be no necessity for—for——"</p> + +<p>"Langly!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"It might be," said Molly, "that something—for example your friendship +with Rix—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—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—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.</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—man or God as you will—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—fascinating—I +had no idea how absorbing until recently—until I first saw you, +who sent me out into the world to work.</p> + +<p>"Hold out—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—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.</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—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.</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—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 <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—what are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"About what?"</p> + +<p>"The papers."</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Or—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——"</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—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."</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——"</p> + +<p>"I—wonder," she mused.</p> + +<p>"What else have I been doing?" he insisted—"denying myself the pleasure +of you when I'm half crazy about you——"</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—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!"</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—"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.</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—" 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——"</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—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—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—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.</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—and he was too busy to be with his wife every +time I happened to be with her. So—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—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—"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—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—"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."</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—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—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—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!"</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—I swear to God I'll marry +you——"</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—you <i>would</i> take me—permit me to go—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—what did you mean by—by—" 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—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 <i>am</i> crazy for you, +Strelsa—there's no sense in pretending otherwise—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—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—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——"</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—made you angry——"</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—was too impulsive, too +ardent——"</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—I didn't realise it then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>—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."</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—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—"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——"</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—or of him—if you don't +mind——"</p> + +<p>"I don't!—you darling!—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!—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——"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Molly, I—I simply can't talk about it—any of it——"</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=""'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she asked +caressingly."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she asked +caressingly."</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—and I'm laughing at it +all—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—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 naďvely. "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 <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——"</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—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——"</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—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!—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—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, "—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—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<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—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—to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that—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?—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—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—"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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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?</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—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—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—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—recently—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?—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—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—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—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!"</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—" 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!—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—and all that wretched affair.... Not that I +am sniffy about Mary—the poor little fool.... Anyway," she added +naďvely, "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—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."</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—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—doesn't know."</p> + +<p>"You haven't <i>told</i> him?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I—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——"</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—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——"<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—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——"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid—I can't stand—even his indifference—" 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—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—"wait just a +moment——"</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—be happy at what +she tells you—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——"</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—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—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?—boy or—Oh, I beg your pardon, +dear—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—perfectly mad about +it.... And you're a dear to care——"</p> + +<p>"Certainly I care! What do you take me for—a wooden Indian!" he +exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate——"</p> + +<p>"But, Jim! We can't <i>tell</i> people."</p> + +<p>"Oh—that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it +of course. But I'll do anything you say——"</p> + +<p>"Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Will I? Watch me!"</p> + +<p>"Then—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—it——"</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—" he sighed unconsciously—"I'll lock up the +hangar until——"</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—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—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—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—or of a certain sort of it—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—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.</p> + +<p>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.</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—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—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—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.</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—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—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—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—his shocking treatment of +me last evening. It was a brutal scene—one of those terrible family +scenes!—and he threatened me—cursed me——"</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—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—" 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—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——"</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—high-minded, generous, pure—asking no more than it gave—no more +than it gave——"</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—a manœuvre +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 manœuvre beautifully as a unit."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</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=""'And it is to be your last breakfast.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'And it is to be your last breakfast.'"</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—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—merely the question.</p> + +<p>"I can't bear to have you go," she said.</p> + +<p>"I can't go—alone."</p> + +<p>"Could you—care for me?"</p> + +<p>"I love you, Chrysos."</p> + +<p>Her eyes widened in wonder:</p> + +<p>"You—you don't <i>love</i> me—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?—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?</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—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.</p> + +<p>"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.</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—and this is a close secret—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'—and a happier habitation than it has been +since they bought it.</p> + +<p>"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——</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—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.</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!—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—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—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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"'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.'</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!—You wonderful +man to evoke in imagery—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—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?—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—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—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—or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue.</p> + +<p>"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!<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—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....</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—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—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—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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> 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——"</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—if——"</p> + +<p>"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."</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—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—Hell's own +pit, Quarren——"</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—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——"</p> + +<p>But Quarren cut him short continuing:</p> + +<p>"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?"<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——"</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—and might not. But +<i>kill</i>!—Nonsense. It's all over then—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—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—the real world I +mean, Ledwith—either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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—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—she is only a little fool—alone to face the world now——"</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—"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——"</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—you've got the nerve. I——"</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—exclusive of intrusive customers—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—with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Miss Vining.</p> + +<p>"Why—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—er—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—er—and all that, you know."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</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—which is really a very wonderful thing——"</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——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My boots squeak——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</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—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?"</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—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!"</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——"</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—think—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—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"—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——"</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——"</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—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—it was not your business—" she faltered, twisting blindly at the +door-knob. "Let me go—please——"</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—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.</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—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—if you can care for me.... And I +don't think we're likely to starve——"</p> + +<p>"I—it isn't that," she said, flushing scarlet.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"What you <i>have</i> ... I could only care for—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—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—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—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-ŕ-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—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 naďveté 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.</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—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—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?"</p> + +<p>"Then you are no longer angry with me?"</p> + +<p>"No—no longer angry."</p> + +<p>"Can we be friends again? Can you really forgive me, Strelsa?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</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—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—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——"</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—on +the veranda——"</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—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——</p> + +<p>"Strelsa—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—I need you—I want you—I ask for your +compassion——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"Will you listen to me! Will you wait a moment! I am only trying to tell +you that I love you, dear——"</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!—" he said thickly, trampling +through the flowers to intercept her. "You've got to listen!—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——"</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—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—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.</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—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—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.</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—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—"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."</p> + +<p>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<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—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—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.</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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"Do as I tell you, my good girl. Here—where's that button?—there!—" +as the pretty room sprang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> into light—"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—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.</p> + +<p>He had decided to wait until his cigar had been leisurely finished. +Then, other measures—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—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.</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—"Keep out of +this!—go out of the house!"</p> + +<p>"I can't, Quarren! I——"<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——"</p> + +<p>"I know it. I meant to—but, good God! Quarren! I can't stand there——"</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——"</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——"</p> + +<p>"But he's going I tell you! He's going without a row—without any noise. +Can't you let me manage it——"</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—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—<i>kill</i> him!—Let go of me, Quarren," gasped Ledwith. "I—I +won't do murder; I've promised you that—for <i>her</i> sake——"</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=""'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl."</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—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—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——"</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—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—you don't mean to say——"</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—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——"</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—from something Sprowl said to-night, I don't believe that she went +the entire limit—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—when there's +anything to conceal."</p> + +<p>"Did he boast?"</p> + +<p>"He did. I was sure he was lying, and I—" 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—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——"</p> + +<p>"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?"</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!—You might have missed me—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?—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=""'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."</span> +</div> + + +<p>"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."</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—"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——"</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—" 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—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—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——"</p> + +<p>"You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though——"</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—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—I had nothing to do——"</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—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?"</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—now here's the interesting part, Strelsa! We strolled over to call +on Mrs. Ledwith——"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. I myself didn't see her but—" he laughed—"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—<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—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—to <i>think</i> 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!</p> + +<p>"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:</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—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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"She wasn't—really—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—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—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 <i>savoir-faire</i> of a country schoolgirl! +What on earth you thought of me in those days I dread to surmise——"</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——"</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—but not that way.... And all those miserable, lonely, +unhappy months could have been spared me——"</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—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<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——"</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—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."</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—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——"</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—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—something about +me—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—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—to Lester's rage—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—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."</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—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."</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—you will write to me—" +she turned to him—"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—a house?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her, hesitated, then looking away:</p> + +<p>"Either a house or—an addition."</p> + +<p>"An <i>addition</i>?"</p> + +<p>"If you'll let me, Strelsa—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—<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—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—I <i>can't</i> do that—<i>ever</i>. 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——"</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—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.</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—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—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."</p> + +<p>"Losing him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—by doing what you—what he—wishes."</p> + +<p>"You think you'll lose him if you marry him?"</p> + +<p>"I—yes. It would spoil him for me—spoil everything for me in the +world——"</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?—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—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—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.</p> + +<p>"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."</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—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—from me—some day?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; he will go—unless——"</p> + +<p>"Must it be—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—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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</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—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>—if you wish—" 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—the clear, direct, +questioning eyes of a boy.</p> + +<p>"I—I will—marry you," she said.</p> + +<p>A swift flush touched his face to the temples.</p> + +<p>"Don't you—want me?" she said, tremulously.</p> + +<p>"If you love me, Strelsa."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it enough—that you—love——"</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—do love you," she whispered.... "I'll give what you give.... Only +you must teach me—not to be—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’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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STREETS OF ASCALON *** + +***** This file should be named 35233-h.htm or 35233-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/2/3/35233/ + +Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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