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diff --git a/35233.txt b/35233.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e22ab3b --- /dev/null +++ b/35233.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16711 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Streets of Ascalon + Episodes in the Unfinished Career of Richard Quarren, Esqre. + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Illustrator: Charles Dana Gibson + +Release Date: February 10, 2011 [EBook #35233] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STREETS OF ASCALON *** + + + + +Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE STREETS OF ASCALON + + +Works of Robert W. Chambers + + The Streets of Ascalon + Blue-Bird Weather + Japonette + The Adventures of a Modest Man + The Danger Mark + Special Messenger + The Firing Line + The Younger Set + The Fighting Chance + Some Ladies in Haste + The Tree of Heaven + The Tracer of Lost Persons + A Young Man in a Hurry + Lorraine + Maids of Paradise + Ashes of Empire + The Red Republic + Outsiders + The Common Law + Ailsa Paige + The Green Mouse + Iole + The Reckoning + The Maid-at-Arms + Cardigan + The Haunts of Men + The Mystery of Choice + The Cambric Mask + The Maker of Moons + The King in Yellow + In Search of the Unknown + The Conspirators + A King and a Few Dukes + In the Quarter + +For Children + + Garden-Land + Forest-Land + River-Land + Mountain-Land + Orchard-Land + Outdoor-Land + Hide and Seek in Forest-Land + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK + +[Illustration: "She excused the witness and turned her back to the +looking-glass."] + + + + +_The_ STREETS +OF ASCALON + +_Episodes in the Unfinished Career of +Richard Quarren, Esq._ + +BY + +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +CHARLES DANA GIBSON + + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + +1912 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY + +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +Copyright, 1912, by The International Magazine Company + + +_Published, September, 1912_ + + +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +TO + +EULALIE ASHMORE + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + BETWEEN + PAGES + + "She excused the witness and turned her back + to the looking-glass" _Frontispiece_ + + "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed + gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle" 24-25 + + "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, + the Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, + deftly evaded their pressing gallantries" 30-31 + + "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' + she said lightly" 52-53 + + "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent + on her newspapers" 60-61 + + "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those + young men give there!'" 78-79 + + "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length, + reddening again" 86-87 + + "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because + I have a message to deliver--'" 98-99 + + "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about + the men!'" 116-117 + + "Strelsa, curled up on a divan ... listened to + his departure with quiet satisfaction" 126-127 + + "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked, + smiling" 128-129 + + "Once more, according to the newspapers, her + engagement to Sir Charles was expected + to be announced" 172-173 + + "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and + regarded in amazement by the neighbors" 178-179 + + "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for + the first time in nearly two months" 190-191 + + "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next + to the battered party in black?'" 194-195 + + "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' + she whispered" 210-211 + + "So he took the lake path and presently + rounded a sharp curve" 214-215 + + "'The old ones are the best,' she commented" 228-229 + + "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, + was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable" 246-247 + + "A high and soulful tenor voice was singing + 'Perfumes of Araby'" 272-273 + + "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very + slim in her limp black gown" 280-281 + + Jessie Vining 290-291 + + "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains + and dines with Dankmere and myself + at some near restaurant'" 302-303 + + "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling'" 328-329 + + "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she + asked caressingly" 346-347 + + "'And it is to be your last breakfast'" 374-375 + + Strelsa Leeds 380-381 + + "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl" 416-417 + + "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained + feebly" 424-425 + + +"_Tell it not in Gath, publish it not +in the streets of Ascalon._" + + + + +THE STREETS OF ASCALON + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It being rent day, and Saturday, the staff of the "Irish Legation," with +the exception of Westguard, began to migrate uptown for the monthly +conference, returning one by one from that mysterious financial jungle +popularly known as "Downtown." As for Westguard, he had been in his +apartment all day as usual. He worked where he resided. + +A little before five o'clock John Desmond Lacy, Jr., came in, went +directly to his rooms on the top floor, fished out a check-book, and +tried to persuade himself that he had a pleasing balance at the +bank--not because he was likely to have any balance either there or in +his youthful brain, but because he _had_ to have one somewhere. God +being good to the Irish he found he had not overdrawn his account. + +Roger O'Hara knocked on his door, later, and receiving no response +called out: "Are you in there, Jack?" + +"No," said Lacy, scratching away with his pen in passionate hopes of +discovering a still bigger balance. + +"Sportin' your oak, old Skeezicks?" inquired O'Hara, affectionately, +delivering a kick at the door. + +"Let me alone, you wild Irishman!" shouted Lacy. "If I can't dig out an +extra hundred somewhere the State Superintendent is likely to sport my +oak for keeps!" + +A big, lumbering, broad-shouldered young fellow was coming up the stairs +behind O'Hara, a blank book and some papers tucked under his arm, and +O'Hara nodded to him and opened Mr. Lacy's door without further +parleying. + +"Here's Westguard, now," he said; "and as we can't shoot landlords in +the close season we'll have to make arrangements to pay for bed and +board, Jack." + +Lacy glanced up from the sheet of figures before him, then waved his +guests to seats and lighted a cigarette. + +"Hooray," he remarked to Westguard; "I can draw you a check, Karl, and +live to tell the tale." And he rose and gave his place at the desk to +the man addressed, who seated himself heavily, as though tired. + +"Before we go over the accounts," he began, "I want to say a word or +two----" + +"Hadn't you better wait till Quarren comes in?" interrupted O'Hara, +smoking and stretching out his long legs. + +"No; I want to talk to you two fellows first. And I'll tell you at once +what's the matter: Quarren's check came back marked 'no funds.' This is +the third time; and one of us ought to talk to him." + +"It's only a slip," said Lacy--"it's the tendency in him that considers +the lilies of the field----" + +"It isn't square," said Westguard doggedly. + +"Nonsense, Karl, Rix means to be square----" + +"That's all right, too, but he isn't succeeding. It humiliates me; it +hurts like hell to have to call his attention to such oversights." + +"Oh, he's the gay tra-la-la," said O'Hara, indulgently; "do you think he +bothers his elegant noddle about such trifles as checks? Besides he's +almost as Irish as I am--God bless his mother and damn all landlords, +Lester Caldera included." + +"What does Quarren do with all his money, then?" mused Lacy--"soaking +the public in Tappan-Zee Park and sitting up so close and snug to the +rich and great!" + +"It's his business," said Westguard, "to see that any check he draws is +properly covered. Overdrafts may be funny in a woman, and in novels, but +once is too often for any man. And this makes three times for Rix." + +"Ah, thin, lave the poor la-ad be! ye could-blooded Sassenach!" said +Lacy, pretending to the brogue. "Phwat the divil!--'tis the cashier ye +should blame whin Rix tells him to pay, an' he refuses to projuice the +long-green wad!" + +But Westguard, unsmiling, consulted his memoranda, then, holding up his +sheet of figures: + +"There's a quorum here," he said. "Rix can read this over when he comes +in, if he likes. Here's the situation." And he read off the items of +liabilities and assets, showing exactly, and to a penny, how the house +had been run for the past month. + +Everything was there, rent, servants' wages, repairs, provisions, bills +for heating and lighting, extras, incidentals--all disbursements and +receipts; then, pausing for comments, and hearing none, he closed the +ledger with a sharp slap. + +"The roof's leakin'," observed O'Hara without particular interest. + +"Write to the landlord," said Lacy--"the stingy millionaire." + +"He won't fix it," returned the other. "Did you ever hear of Lester +Caldera spendin' a cent?" + +"On himself, yes." + +"That's not spendin'; it all goes inside or outside of him somewhere." +He stretched his legs, crossed them, sucked on his empty pipe, and +looked around at Westguard, who was still fussing over the figures. + +"Are you goin' to the Wycherlys', Karl?" + +"I think so." + +"What costume?" + +"None of your business," retorted Westguard pleasantly. + +"I'm going as the family Banshee," observed Lacy. + +"Did you ever hear me screech, Karl?" And, pointing his nose skyward and +ruffling up his auburn hair he emitted a yell so unendurable that it +brought Westguard to his feet, protesting. + +"Shut up!" he said. "Do you want to have this house pinched, you crazy +Milesian?" + +"Get out of my rooms if you don't like it," said Lacy. "If I'm going to +a masked dance as a Banshee I've got to practice screaming, haven't I?" + +"I," said O'Hara, "am goin' as a bingle." + +"What's a bingle?" + +"Nobody knows. Neither do I; and it's killin' me to think up a +costume.... Dick Quarren's goin', isn't he?" + +"Does he ever miss anything?" said Lacy. + +"He's missing most of his life," said Westguard so sharply that the +others opened their eyes. + +A flush had settled under Westguard's cheek-bones; he was still jotting +down figures with a flat silver pencil, but presently he looked up. + +"It's the cold and uncomplimentary truth about Ricky," he said. "That +set he runs with is making an utter fool of him." + +"That set," repeated Lacy, grinning. "Why, we all have wealthy relatives +in it--wealthy, charming, and respectable--h'm!" + +"Which is why we're at liberty to curse it out," observed O'Hara, +complacently. "We all know what it is. Karl is right. If a man is goin' +to make anythin' of himself he can't run with that expensive pack. One +may venture to visit the kennels now and then, and look over the new +litters--perhaps do a little huntin' once in a while--just enough--so +that the M. F. H. recognises your coat tails when you come a cropper. +But nix for wire or water! Me for the gate, please. Ah, do you think a +_man_ can stand what the papers call 'the realm of society' very long?" + +"Rix is doing well." + +Westguard said: "They've gradually been getting a strangle-hold on him. +Women are crazy about that sort of man--with his good looks and good +humour and his infernally easy way of obliging a hundred people at +once.... Look back a few years! Before he joined that whipper-snapper +junior club he was full of decent ambition, full of go, unspoiled, fresh +from college and as promising a youngster as anybody ever met. Where is +his ambition now? What future has he?--except possibly to marry a +million at forty-five and settle down with a comfortable grunt in the +trough. It's coming, I tell you. Look what he was four years ago--a boy +with clear eyes and a clear skin, frank, clean set, clean minded. Look +at him now--sallow, wiry, unprofitably wise, range, disillusioned--oh, +hell! they've mauled him to a shadow of a rag!" + +Lacy lighted another cigarette and winked at O'Hara. "Karl's off again," +he said. "Now we're going to get the Bible and the Sword for fair!" + +"Doesn't everybody need them both!" said Westguard, smiling. Then his +heavy features altered: "I care a good deal for Dick Quarren," he said. +"That's why his loose and careless financial methods make me mad--that's +why this loose and careless transformation of a decent, sincere, +innocent boy into an experienced, easy-going, cynical man makes me +tired. I've got to stand for it, I suppose, but I don't want to. He's a +gifted, clever, lovable fellow, but he hasn't any money and any right to +leisure, and these people are turning him into one of those dancing +things that leads cotillions and arranges tableaux, and plays social +diplomat and forgets secrets and has his pockets full of boudoir +keys--good Lord! I hate to say it, but they're making a tame cat of +him--they're using him ignobly, I tell you--and that's the truth--if he +had a friend with courage enough to tell him! I've tried, but I can't +talk this way to him." + +There was a silence: then O'Hara crossed one lank leg over the other, +gingerly, and contemplated his left shoe. + +"Karl," he said, "character never really changes; it only develops. +What's born in the cradle is lowered into the grave, as some Russian guy +said. You're a writer, and you know what I say is true." + +"Granted. But Quarren's character isn't developing; it's being stifled, +strangled. He could have been a professional man--a lawyer, and a +brilliant one--or an engineer, or a physician--any old thing. He's in +real estate--if you can call it that. All right; why doesn't he _do_ +something in it? I'll tell you why," he added, angrily answering his own +question; "these silly women are turning Quarren's ambition into +laziness, his ideals into mockery, his convictions into cynicism----" + +He stopped short. The door opened, and Quarren sauntered in. + +"Couldn't help hearing part of your sermon, Karl," he said laughing. "Go +ahead; I don't mind the Bible and the Sword--it's good for Jack Lacy, +too--and that scoundrel O'Hara. Hit us again, old Ironsides. We're no +good." And he sat down on the edge of Lacy's bed, and presently +stretched out on it, gracefully, arms under his blond head. + +"You've been catchin' it, Ricky," said O'Hara with a grin. "Karl says +that fashionable society is a bally wampire a-gorgin' of hisself at the +expense of bright young men like you. What's the come-back to that, +sonny?" + +"Thanks old fellow," said Quarren laughing and slightly lifting his head +to look across at Westguard. "Go ahead and talk hell and brimstone. A +fight is the only free luxury in the Irish Legation. I'll swat you with +a pillow when I get mad enough." + +Westguard bent his heavy head and looked down at the yellow check on the +table. + +"Rix," he said, "I've got to tell you that you have forgotten to make a +deposit at your bank." + +"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Quarren with weary but amiable vexation--"that is +the third time. What are you fellows going to do? Put me out of the +Legation?" + +"Why the devil are you so careless?" growled Westguard. + +"I honestly don't know. I didn't suppose I was so short. I thought I had +a balance." + +"Rot! The minute a man begins to _think_ he has a balance he knows damn +well that he hasn't! I don't care, Rix--but, take it from me, you'll +have a mortifying experience one of these days." + +"I guess that's right," said Quarren with a kind of careless contrition. +"I never seem to be more than a lap or two ahead of old lady Ruin. And I +break the speed-laws, too." + +"No youngster ever beat that old woman in a foot-race," observed Lacy. +"Pay up and give her enough carfare to travel the other way; that's your +only chance, Ricky." + +"Oh, certainly. No fellow need be in debt if he pays up, you Hibernian +idiot!" + +"Do you want some money?" asked Westguard bluntly. + +"Sure, Karl, oodles of it! But not from you, old chap." + +"You know you can have it from me, too, don't you?" said O'Hara. + +Quarren nodded cordially: "I'll get it; no fear. I'm terribly sorry +about that check. But it will be all right to-morrow, Karl." + +Lacy thought to himself with a grin: "He'll kill somebody at Auction to +square himself--that's what Ricky means to do. God be good to the +wealthy this winter night!" + +O'Hara, lank, carefully scrubbed, carefully turned out as one of his own +hunters, stood up with a yawn and glanced at his watch. + +"Didn't somebody say somebody was comin' in to tea?" he asked generally. + +"My cousin, Mrs. Wycherly," said Westguard--"and a friend of hers--I've +forgotten----" + +"Mrs. Leeds," observed Lacy. "And she is reputed to be a radiant peach. +Did any of you fellows ever meet her in the old days?" + +Nobody there had ever seen her. + +"Did Mrs. Wycherly say she is a looker?" asked O'Hara, sceptically. + +Westguard shrugged: "You know what to expect when one woman tells you +that another woman is good-looking. Probably she has a face that would +kill a caterpillar." + +Quarren laughed lazily from the bed: + +"I hear she's pretty. She's come out of the West. You know, of course, +who she was." + +"Reggie Leeds's wife," said O'Hara, slowly. + +There was a silence. Perhaps the men were thinking of the late Reginald +Leeds, and of the deep damnation of his taking off. + +"Have you never seen her?" asked Lacy. + +"Nobody ever has. She's never before been here," said Quarren, yawning. + +"Then come down and set the kettle on, Ricky. She may be the peachiest +kind of a peach in a special crate directed to your address and marked +'Perishable! Rush! With care!' So we'll have to be very careful in +rushing her----" + +"Oh, for Heaven's sake stop that lady-patter," protested O'Hara, +linking his arm in Lacy's and sauntering toward the door. "That sort of +conversation is Ricky's line of tea-talk. You'll reduce him to a +pitiable silence if you take away his only asset." + +Westguard gathered up his papers, pausing a moment at the doorway: + +"Coming?" he asked briefly of Quarren who was laughing. + +"Certainly he's coming," said Lacy returning and attempting to drag him +from the bed. "Come on, you tea-cup-rattling, macaroon-crunching, +caste-smitten, fashion-bitten Arbiter Elegantiarum!" + +They fought for a moment, then Lacy staggered back under repeated +wallops from one of his own pillows, and presently retired to his +bath-room to brush his thick red hair. This hair was his pride and +sorrow: it defied him in a brilliant cowlick until plastered flat with +water. However, well soaked, his hair darkened to what he considered a +chestnut colour. And that made him very proud. + +When he had soaked and subdued his ruddy locks he came out to where +Westguard still stood. + +"Are you coming, Rix?" demanded the latter again. + +"Not unless you particularly want me," returned Quarren, yawning +amiably. "I could take a nap if that red-headed Mick would get out of +here." + +Westguard said: "Suit yourself," and followed Lacy and O'Hara down the +stairs. + +The two latter young fellows turned aside into O'Hara's apartments to +further remake a killing and deadly toilet. Westguard continued on to +the first floor which he inhabited, and where he found a Japanese +servant already preparing the tea paraphernalia. A few minutes later +Mrs. Wycherly arrived with Mrs. Leeds. + +All women, experienced or otherwise, never quite lose their curiosity +concerning a bachelor's quarters. The haunts of men interest woman, +fascinating the married as well as the unwedded. Deep in their gentle +souls they know that the most luxurious masculine abode could easily be +made twice as comfortable by the kindly advice of any woman. Toleration, +curiosity, sympathy are the emotions which stir feminine hearts when +inspecting the solitary lair of the human male. + +"So these are the new rooms," said Molly Wycherly, patronisingly, after +O'Hara and Lacy had appeared and everybody had been presented to +everybody else. "Strelsa, do look at those early Edwards prints! It's +utterly impossible to find any of them now for sale anywhere." + +Strelsa Leeds looked up at the Botticelli Madonna and at Madame Royale; +and the three men looked at her as though hypnotised. + +So this was Reginald Leeds's wife--this distractingly pretty woman--even +yet scarcely more than a girl--with her delicate colour and vivid lips +and unspoiled eyes--dark eyes--a kind of purplish gray, very purely and +exquisitely shaped. But in their grayish-violet depths there was murder. +And the assassination of Lacy and O'Hara had already been accomplished. + +Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black--as though the tragic shadow of +two years ago still fell across her slender body. + +She looked around at the room; Molly Wycherly, pouring tea, nodded to +Westguard, and he handed the cup to Mrs. Leeds. + +She said, smilingly: "And--do you three unprotected men live in this big +house all by yourselves?" + +"There are four of us in the Legation," said Lacy, "and several servants +to beat off the suffragettes who become enamoured of us." + +"The--_legation_?" she repeated, amused at the term. + +"Our friends call this house the Irish Legation," he explained. "We're +all Irish by descent except Westguard who's a Sassenach--and Dick +Quarren, who is only half Irish.' + +"And who is Dick Quarren?" she asked innocently. + +"Oh, Strelsa!" cautioned Molly Wycherly--"you really mustn't argue +yourself unknown." + +"But I am unknown," insisted the girl, laughing and looking at the men +in turn with an engaging candour that bowled them over again, one by +one. "I _don't_ know who Mr. Quarren is, so why not admit it? _Is_ he +such a very wonderful personage, Mr. Lacy?" + +"Not at all, Mrs. Leeds. He and I share the top floor of the Legation. +We are, as a matter of record, the two financial wrecks of this +establishment, so naturally we go to the garret. Poverty is my only +distinction; Mr. Quarren, however, also leads the grand march at Lyric +Hall now and then I believe----" + +"What is Lyric Hall? Ought I to know?" + +Everybody was laughing, and Molly Wycherly said: + +"Richard Quarren, known variously as Rix, Ricky, and Dick Quarren, is an +exceedingly popular and indispensable young man in this town. You'll +meet him, Strelsa, and probably adore him. We all do." + +"Must I wait very long?" asked Strelsa, laughing. "I'd like to have the +adoration begin." + +Lacy said to O'Hara: "Go up and pull that pitiable dub off the bed, +Roger. The lady wishes to inspect him." + +"That's not very civil of Rix," said Mrs. Wycherly; "but I fancy I know +why he requires slumber." She added, glancing around mischievously at +the three men who were all looking languishingly at Mrs. Leeds: "He'll +be sorry when you three gentlemen describe Strelsa to him. I can +prophesy that much." + +"Certainly," said Lacy, airily; "we're all at Mrs. Leeds's feet! Even +the blind bat of Drumgool could see that! So why deny it?" + +"You're not denying it, Mr. Lacy," said Strelsa, laughing. "But I +realise perfectly that I am in the Irish Legation. So I shall carefully +salt everything you say to me." + +"If you think _I've_ kissed the blessed pebble you ought to listen to +that other bankrupt upstairs," said Lacy. + +"As far as pretty speeches are concerned you seem to be perfectly +solvent," said Strelsa gaily, looking around her at the various +adornments of this masculine abode. "I wonder where you dine," she added +with curiosity unabashed. + +"We've a fine dining-room below," he said proudly, "haven't we, Roger? +And as soon as Dick Quarren and I are sufficiently solvent to warrant +it, the Legation is going to give a series of brilliant banquets; will +you come, Mrs. Leeds?" + +"When you are solvent, perhaps," said Strelsa, smiling. + +"Westguard and I will give you a banquet at an hour's notice," said +O'Hara, eagerly. "Will you accept?" + +"Such overwhelming offers of hospitality!" she protested. "I had +believed the contrary about New Yorkers. You see I've just emerged from +the West, and I don't really know what to think of such bewildering +cordiality." + +"Karl," said Mrs. Wycherly, "are you going to show us over the house? If +you are we must hurry, as Strelsa and I are to decorate the Calderas' +box this evening, and it takes me an hour to paint my face." She turned +a fresh, winsome countenance to Westguard, who laughed, rose, and took +his pretty cousin by the hand. + +Under triple escort Mrs. Wycherly and Mrs. Leeds examined the Legation +from kitchen to garret--and Strelsa, inadvertently glancing in at a room +just as Westguard started to close the door, caught sight of a recumbent +shape on a bed--just a glimpse of a blond, symmetrical head and a +well-coupled figure, graceful even in the careless relaxation of sleep. + +Westguard asked her pardon: "That's Quarren. He was probably up till +daylight." + +"He was," said Molly Wycherly; "and by the same token so was I. Thank +you so much, Karl.... Thank you, Mr. O'Hara--and you, too, +Jack!"--offering her hand--"We've had a splendid party.... Strelsa, we +really ought to go at once----" + +"Will you come again?" + +"We will come again if you ask us," said Strelsa; "we're perfectly +fascinated by the Legation." + +"And its personnel?" hinted Lacy. "Do you like us, Mrs. Leeds?" + +"I've only seen three of you," parried Strelsa, much amused. + +"We refuse to commit ourselves," said Molly. "Good-bye. I suppose you +all are coming to my house-warming." + +They all looked at Mrs. Leeds and said that they were coming--said so +fervently. + +Molly laughed: she had no envy in her make-up, perhaps because she was +too pretty herself. + +"Oh, yes," she said, replying to their unasked questions, "Mrs. Leeds +will be there--and I plainly see _my_ miserable fate. But what can a +wretched woman expect from the Irish? Not constancy. Strelsa, take +warning. They loved me once!" + + * * * * * + +After Westguard had put them in their limousine, he came back to find +Quarren in his sitting-room, wearing a dressing-gown, and Lacy madly +detailing to him the charms of Strelsa Leeds: + +"Take it from me, Dicky, she's some queen! You didn't miss a thing but +the prettiest woman in town! And there's a _something_ about her--a kind +of a sort of a something----" + +"You appear to be in love, dear friend," observed Quarren kindly. + +"I am. So's every man here who met her. We don't deny it! We glory in +our fall! What was that costume of hers, Karl? Mourning?" + +"Fancy a glorious creature like her wearin' black for that nasty little +cad," observed O'Hara disgustedly. + +"It's probably fashion, not grief," remarked Westguard. + +"I guess it's nix for the weeps," said O'Hara--"after all she probably +went through with Reggie Leeds, I fancy she had no tears left over." + +"I want to talk," cried Lacy; "I want to tell Rix what he missed. I'd +got as far as her gown, I think----" + +"Go on," smiled Quarren. + +"Anyway," said Lacy, "she wore a sort of mourning as far as her veil +went, and her furs and gown and gloves were black, and her purse was +gun-metal and black opals--rather brisk? Yes?--And all the dingles on +her were gun-metal--everything black and sober--and that ruddy gold +head--and--those eyes!--a kind of a purple-gray, Ricky, slanting a +little, with long black lashes--I noticed 'em--and her lips were very +vivid--not paint, but a kind of noticeably healthy scarlet--and that +straight nose--and the fresh fragrant youth of her----" + +"For Heaven's sake, Jack----" + +"Sure. I'm through with 'em all. I'm wise to the sex. That was merely a +word picture. I'm talking like a writer, that's all. That's how you +boobs talk, isn't it, Karl?" + +"Always," said Westguard gravely. + +"Me for Mrs. Leeds," remarked O'Hara frankly. "I'd ask her to marry me +on the drop of a hat." + +"Well, I'll drop no hat for _you_!" said Lacy. "And there'll be plenty +of lunatics in this town who'll go madder than you or me before they +forget Mrs. Leeds. Wait! Town is going to sit up and take notice when +this new planet swims into its social ken. How's that epigram, Karl?" + +Westguard said thoughtfully: "There'll be notoriety, too, I'm afraid. If +nobody knows her everybody knows about that wretched boy she married." + +Quarren added: "I have always understood that the girl did not want to +marry him. It was her mother's doings." + +O'Hara scowled. "I also have heard that the mother engineered it.... +What was Mrs. Leeds's name? I forget----" + +"Strelsa Lanark," said Quarren who never forgot anything. + +"Ugh," grunted Westguard. "Fancy a mother throwing her daughter at the +head of a boy like Reggie Leeds!--as vicious and unclean a little whelp +as ever--Oh, what's the use?--and _de mortius nihil_--et cetera, +cock-a-doodle-do!" + +"That poor girl had two entire years of him," observed Lacy. "She +doesn't look more than twenty now--and he's been in--been dead two +years. Good Heavens! What a child she must have been when she married +him!" + +Westguard nodded: "She had two years of him--and I suppose he seldom +drew a perfectly sober breath.... He dragged her all over the world with +him--she standing for his rotten behaviour, trying to play the game with +the cards hopelessly stacked against her. Vincent Wier met them in +Naples; Mallison ran across them in Egypt; so did Lydon in Vienna. +They said it was heartbreaking to see her trying to keep up +appearances--trying to smile under his nagging or his drunken insults +in public places. Lydon told me that she behaved like a brick--stuck to +Reggie, tried to shield him, excuse him, make something out of the +miserable pup who was doing his best to drag her to his own level and +deprave her. But I guess she was too young or too unhappy or something, +because there's no depravity in the girl who was here a few minutes ago. +I'll swear to that." + +After a moment Lacy said: "Well, he got his at last!" + +"What was comin' to him," added O'Hara, with satisfaction. + +Lacy added, curiously: "_How_ can a man misbehave when he has such a +woman for a wife?" + +"I wonder," observed Quarren, "how many solid citizens read the account +in the papers and remained scared longer than six weeks?" + +"Lord help the wives of men," growled Westguard.... "If any of you +fellows are dressing for dinner you'd better be about it.... Wait a +moment, Rix!"--as Quarren, the last to leave, was already passing the +threshold. + +The young fellow turned, smiling: the others went on; Westguard stood +silent for a moment, then: + +"You're about the only man I care for very much," he said bluntly. "If I +am continually giving you the Bible and the Sword it's the best I have +to give." + +Quarren replied laughingly. + +"Don't worry, old fellow. I take what you say all right. And I really +mean to cut out a lot of fussing and begin to hustle.... Only, isn't it +a wise thing to keep next to possible clients?" + +"The people you train with don't buy lots in Tappan-Zee Park." + +"But I may induce them to go into more fashionable enterprises----" + +"Not they! The eagle yells on every dollar they finger. If there's any +bleeding to be done they'll do it, my son." + +"Lester Caldera has already asked me about acreage in Westchester." + +"Did he do more than ask?" + +"No." + +"Did you charge him for the consultation?" + +"Of course not." + +"Then he got your professional opinion for nothing." + +"But he, or others, may try to assemble several farms----" + +"Why don't they then?--instead of dragging you about at their heels from +house to house, from card-room to ball-room, from cafe to opera, from +one week-end to the next!--robbing you of time, of leisure, of +opportunity, of ambition--spoiling you--making a bally monkey of you! +You're always in some fat woman's opera box or on some fat man's yacht +or coach, or doing some damn thing--with your name figuring in +everything from Newport to Hot Springs--and--and how can you ever turn +into anything except a tame cat!" + +Quarren's face reddened slightly. + +"I'd be perfectly willing to sit in an office all day and all night if +anybody would give me any business. But what's the use of chewing +pencils and watching traffic on Forty-second Street?" + +"Then go into another business!" + +"I haven't any money." + +"I'll lend it to you!" + +"I can't risk _your_ money, Karl. I'm too uncertain of myself. If +anybody else offered to stake me I'd try the gamble." ... He looked up +at Westguard, ashamed, troubled, and showing it like a boy. "I'm afraid +I don't amount to anything, Karl. I'm afraid I'm no good except in the +kind of thing I seem to have a talent for." + +"Fetching and carrying for the fashionable and wealthy," sneered +Westguard. + +Quarren's face flushed again: "I suppose that's it." + +Westguard glared at him: "I wish I could shake it out of you!" + +"I guess the poison's there," said Quarren in a low voice. "The worst of +it is I like it--except when I understand your contempt." + +"You _like_ to fetch and carry and go about with your pocket full of +boudoir keys!" + +"People give me as much as I give them." + +"They don't!" said the other angrily. "They've taken a decent fellow and +put him in livery!" + +Quarren bit his lip as the blood leaped to his face. + +"Don't talk that way, Karl," he said quietly. "Even you have no business +to take that tone with me." + +There was a silence. After a few moments Westguard came over and held +out his hand. Quarren took it, looked at him. + +"I tell you," he said, "there's nothing to me. It's your kindness, Karl, +that sees in me possibilities that never were." + +"They're there. I'll do my duty almost to the point of breaking our +friendship. But--I'll have to stop short of that point." + +A quick smile came over Quarren's face, gay, affectionate: + +"You couldn't do that, Karl.... And don't worry. I'll cut out a lot of +frills and try to do things that are worth while. I mean it, really. +Don't worry, old fellow." + +"All right," said Westguard, smiling. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +A masked dance, which for so long has been out of fashion in the world +that pretends to it, was the experiment selected by Molly Wycherly for +the warming up of her new house on Park Avenue. + +The snowy avenue for blocks was a mass of motors and carriages; a +platoon of police took charge of the vehicular mess. Outside of the +storm-coated lines the penniless world of shreds and patches craned a +thousand necks as the glittering costumes passed from brougham and +limousine under the awnings into the great house. + +Already in the new ball-room, along the edges of the whirl, masqueraders +in tumultuous throngs were crowding forward to watch the dancers or +drifting into the eddies and set-backs where ranks of overloaded gilt +chairs creaked under jewelled dowagers, and where rickety old beaux +impersonated tinselled courtiers on wavering but devoted legs. + +Aloft in their rococo sky gallery a popular orchestra fiddled +frenziedly; the great curtains of living green set with thousands of +gardenias swayed in the air currents like Chinese tapestries; a +harmonious tumult swept the big new ball-room from end to end--a +composite uproar in which were mingled the rushing noise of silk, +clatter of sole and heel, laughter and cries of capering maskers +gathered from the four quarters of fashionable Gath to grace the +opening of the House of Wycherly. They were all there, dowager, matron, +debutante, old beaux, young gallant, dancing, laughing, coquetting, +flirting. Young eyes mocked the masked eyes that wooed them; adolescence +tormented maturity; the toothless ogled the toothsome. Unmasking alone +could set right this topsy-turvy world of carnival. + +A sinuous Harlequin, his skin-tight lozenge-patterned dress shimmering +like the red and gold skin of a Malay snake, came weaving his way +through the edges of the maelstrom, his eyes under the black half-mask +glittering maliciously at the victims of his lathe-sword. With it he +recklessly slapped whatever tempted him, patting gently the rounded arms +and shoulders of nymph and shepherdess, using more vigour on the plump +contours of fat and elderly courtiers, spinning on the points of his +pump-toes, his limber lathe-sword curved in both hands above his head, +leaping lithely over a chair here and there, and landing always as +lightly as a cat on silent feet--a wiry, symmetrical figure under the +rakish bi-corne, instinct with mischief and grace infernal. + +Encountering a burly masker dressed like one of Cromwell's ponderous +Ironsides, he hit him a resounding whack over his aluminum cuirass, and +whispered: + +"That Ironside rig doesn't conceal you: it reveals you, Karl! Out with +your Bible and your Sword and preach the wrath to come!" + +"It will come all right," said Westguard. "Do you know how many hundred +thousand dollars are wasted here to-night?... And yesterday a woman died +of hunger in Carmine Street. Don't worry about the wrath of God as long +as people die of cold and hunger in the streets of Ascalon." + +"That's not as bad as dying of inanition--which would happen to the +majority here if they didn't have things like this to amuse 'em. For +decency's sake, Karl, pity the perplexities of the rich for a change!" + +Westguard grunted something under his casque; then, adjusting his +aluminum mask: + +"Are you having a good time, Dicky? I suppose you are." + +"Oh, _I'm_ gay enough," returned the Harlequin airily--"but there's +never much genuine gaiety among the overfed." And he slapped a passing +gallant with his wooden sword, spun around on his toes, bent over +gracefully and stood on his hands, legs twinkling above him in the air. +Then, with a bound he was on his nimble feet again, and, linking his arm +in the arm of the Cromwellian trooper, strolled along the ranks of +fanning dowagers, glancing amiably into their masked faces. + +"Same old battle-line," he observed to his companion--"their jewels give +them away. Same old tiaras, same old ladies--all fat, all fifty, all +fanning away like the damned. Your aunt has on about a ton of emeralds. +I think she does it for the purpose of banting, don't you, Karl----" + +The uproar drowned his voice: Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed +gloomily around at the gorgeous spectacle for which his cousin Molly +Wycherly was responsible. + +"It's monkey-shines like this that breed anarchists," he growled. "Did +you notice that rubbering crowd outside the police lines in the snow? +Molly and Jim ought to see it." + +[Illustration: "Westguard, colossal in his armour, gazed gloomily around +at the gorgeous spectacle."] + +"Oh, cut it out, Karl," retorted the Harlequin gaily; "there'll be rich +and poor in the world as long as the bally old show runs--there'll be +reserved seats and gallery seats and standing room only, and ninety-nine +percent of the world cooling its shabby heels outside." + +"I don't care to discuss the problem with _you_," observed Westguard. +After a moment he added: "I'm going to dance once or twice and get +out.... I suppose you'll flit about doing the agreeable and fashionable +until daylight." + +"I suppose so," said the Harlequin, tranquilly. "Why not? Also _you_ +ought to find material here for one of your novels." + +"A man doesn't have to hunt for material. It's in his bedroom when he +wakes; it's all around him all day long. There's no more here than there +is outside in the snow; and no less.... But dancing all night isn't +going to help _your_ business, Ricky." + +"It won't hurt any business I'm likely to do." + +"Isn't your Tappan-Zee Park panning out?" + +"Fizzling out. Nobody's bought any building sites." + +"Why not?" + +"How the deuce do I know, Karl! I don't want to talk business, here----" + +He ceased speaking as three or four white masked Bacchantes in +fluttering raiment came dancing by to the wild music of Philemon and +Baucis. Shaking their be-ribboned tambourines, flowery garlands and +lynx-skins flying from their shoulders, they sped away on fleet little +feet, hotly pursued by adorers. + +"Come on," said the Harlequin briskly; "I think one of those skylarkers +ought to prove amusing! Shall I catch you one?" + +But he found no encouragement in the swift courtship he attempted; for +the Bacchantes, loudly protesting at his interference, banged him over +his head and shoulders with their resounding tambourines and danced away +unheeding his blandishments. + +"Flappers," observed a painted and powdered clown whose voice betrayed +him as O'Hara; "this town is overstocked with fudge-fed broilers. +They're always playin' about under foot, spoilin' your huntin'; and if +you touch 'em they ki-yi no end." + +"I suppose you're looking for Mrs. Leeds," said Westguard, smiling. + +"I fancy every man here is doin' the same thing," replied the clown. +"What's her costume? Do you know, Ironsides?" + +"I wouldn't tell you if I did," said Westguard frankly. + +The Harlequin shrugged. + +"This world," he remarked, "is principally encumbered with women, and +naturally a man supposes the choice is unlimited. But as you live to +drift from girl to girl you'll discover that there are just two kinds; +the kind you can kiss and the kind you can't. So finally you marry the +latter. Does Mrs. Leeds flirt?" + +"Will a fish swim?" rejoined the clown. "You bet she will flirt. Haven't +you met her?" + +"I? No," said the Harlequin carelessly. Which secretly amused both +Westguard and O'Hara, for it had been whispered about that the new +beauty not only had taken no pains to meet Quarren, but had pointedly +ignored an opportunity when the choice lay with her, remarking that +dancing men were one of the social necessities which everybody took for +granted--like flowers and champagne. And the comment had been carried +straight to Quarren, who had laughed at the time--and had never +forgotten it, nor the apparently causeless contempt that evidently had +inspired it. + +The clown brandished his bunch of toy balloons, and gazed about him: + +"Anybody who likes can go and tell Mrs. Leeds that I'm her declared +suitor. I don't care who knows it. I'm foolish about her. She's +different from any woman I ever saw. And if I don't find her pretty soon +I'll smash every balloon over your head, Ricky!" + +The Harlequin laughed. "Women," he said, "are cut out in various and +amusing patterns like animal crackers, but the fundamental paste never +varies, and the same pastry cook seasoned it." + +"That's a sickly and degenerate sentiment," observed Westguard. + +"You might say that about the unfledged," added O'Hara--"like those +kittenish Bacchantes. Winifred Miller and the youngest Vernon girl were +two of those Flappers, I think. But there's no real jollity among the +satiated," he added despondently. "A mask, a hungry stomach, and empty +pockets are the proper ingredients for gaiety--take it from me, Karl." +And he wandered off, beating everybody with his bunch of toy balloons. + +Quarren leaped to the seat of a chair and squatted there drawing his +shimmering legs up under him like a great jewelled spider. + +"Bet you ten that the voluminous domino yonder envelops my aunt, Mrs. +Sprowl," whispered Westguard. + +"You're betting on a certainty and a fat ankle." + +"Sure. I've seen her ankles going upstairs too often.... What the devil +is the old lady wearing under that domino?" + +"Wait till you see her later," said Quarren, delightedly. "She has come +as Brunhilda." + +"I don't want to see three hundred pounds of relative as Brunhilda," +growled Westguard. + +"You will, to-morrow. She's given her photograph to a _Herald_ man." + +"What did you let her do it for?" demanded Westguard wrathfully. + +"Could I help it?" + +"You could have stopped her. She thinks your opinion is the last lisp in +fashionable art problems." + +"There are some things you can't tell a woman," said Quarren. "One of +'em concerns her weight." + +"Are you afraid of Mrs. Sprowl?" + +The Harlequin laughed: + +"Where would I be if I incurred your aunt's displeasure, dear friend?" + +"Out of the monkey house for good I suppose," admitted Westguard. "Lord, +Ricky, what a lot you have had to swallow for the sake of staying put +among these people!" + +Quarren sat meditating under his mask, cross-legged, twirling his +sword, the crash of the floor orchestra dinning in his close-set ears. + +"Yes," he said without resentment, "I've endured my share. That's one +reason why I don't want to let several years of humiliation go for +nothing. I've earned whatever place I have. And I mean to keep it." + +Westguard turned on him half angrily, hesitated, then remained silent. +What was the use? If Quarren had not been guilty of actually fawning, +toadying, currying favour, he had certainly permitted himself to be +rudely used. He had learned very thoroughly his art in the school of the +courtier--learned how and when to be blind, silent, deaf; how to offer, +how to yield, when and how to demand and exact. Which, to Westguard, +meant the prostitution of intelligence. And he loathed the game like a +man who is free to play it if he cares to. Of those who are denied +participation, few really hate it. + +But he said nothing more; and the Harlequin, indolently stretching his +glittering limbs, dropped a light hand on Westguard's cuirassed +shoulder: + +"Don't be forever spoiling things for me, Karl. I really do enjoy the +game as it lies." + +"It _does_ lie--that is the trouble, Rix." + +"I can't afford to criticise it.... Listen; I'm a mediocre man; I'd +never count among real men. I count in the set which I amuse and which +accepts me. Let me enjoy it, can't you?" + +An aged dandy, masked, painted, wizened, and dressed like Henri II, +tottered by with a young girl on his arm, his shrill, falsetto giggle +piercing the racket around them. + +"Do you wish to live to be like that?" asked Westguard sharply. + +"Oh, I'll die long before that," said Quarren cheerfully, and leaped +lightly to his feet. "I shall now accomplish a little dancing," he said, +pointing with his wooden sword at the tossing throng. "Venus send me a +pretty married woman who really loves her husband.... By Bacchus! Those +dancers are going it! Come on, Karl. Leave us foot it!" + +Many maskers were throwing confetti now: multi-tinted serpents shot out +across the clamorous gulf; bunches of roses flung high, rising in swift +arcs of flight, crossed and recrossed. All along the edges of the dance, +like froth and autumn leaves cast up from a whirlpool, fluffy feminine +derelicts and gorgeous masculine escorts were flung pell-mell out of the +maelstrom and left stranded or drifting breathless among the eddies +setting in toward the supper-room. + +Suddenly, as the Harlequin bent forward to plunge into the crush, the +very centre of the whirlpool parted, and out of it floated a fluttering, +jingling, dazzling figure all gold--slender, bare-armed and bare of +throat and shoulders, auriferous, scintillating from crown to ankle--for +her sleeveless tabard was cloth-of-gold, and her mask was gold; so were +her jewelled shoes and the gemmed fillet that bound her locks; and her +thick hair clustering against her cheeks had the lustre of precious +metal. + +Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the Byzantine dancer, +besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing gallantries--evaded +the Harlequin, too, with laughing mockery, skilfully disengaging herself +from the throng of suitors stumbling around her, crowded and buffeted on +every side. + +After her like a flash sped Harlequin: for an instant, just ahead of +him, she appeared in plain sight, glimmering brightly against the green +and swaying tapestry of living leaves and flowers, then even as her +pursuers looked at her, she vanished before their very eyes. + +[Illustration: "Jingling, fluttering, gems clashing musically, the +Byzantine dancer, besieged by adorers, deftly evaded their pressing +gallantries."] + +They ran about distractedly hunting for her, Turk, Drum Major, Indian +Chief, and Charles the First, then reluctantly gave up the quest and +drifted off to seek for another ideal. All women are ideal under the +piquant promise of the mask. + +A pretty shepherdess, lingering near, whispered close to Quarren's +shoulder behind her fan: + +"Check to you, Harlequin! That golden dancer was the only girl in town +who hasn't taken any pains to meet you!" + +He turned his head, warily, divining Molly Wycherly under the disguise, +realising, too, that she recognised him. + +"You'll never find her now," laughed the shepherdess. "Besides she does +not care a rap about meeting a mere Harlequin. It's refreshing to see +you so thoroughly snubbed once in a while." And she danced gaily away, +arms akimbo, her garlanded crook over her shoulder; and her taunting +laughter floated back to him where he stood irresolute, wondering how +the golden dancer could have so completely vanished. + +Suddenly he recollected going over the house before its completion with +Jim Wycherly, who had been his own architect, and the memory of a +certain peculiarity in the construction of the ball-room flashed into +his mind. The only possible explanation for her disappearance was that +somebody had pointed out to her the low door behind the third pillar, +and she was now in the gilded swallow's-nest aloft. + +It was a whim of Wycherly--this concealed stair--he recalled it +perfectly now--and, parting the living tapestry of blossoms, he laid +his hand on the ivory and gilded paneling, pressing the heart of one +carved rose after another, until with a click! a tiny door swung inward, +revealing a narrow spiral of stairs, lighted rosily by electricity. + +He stepped inside, closed the door, and listened, then mounted +noiselessly. Half way up he caught the aroma of a cigarette; and, a +second later he stepped out onto a tiny latticed balcony, completely +screened. + +The golden dancer, who evidently had been gazing down on the carnival +scene below from behind the lattice, whirled around to confront him in a +little flurry of cigarette smoke. + +For a moment they faced each other, then: + +"How did you know where to find me, Harlequin?" + +"I'd have died if I hadn't found you, fairest, loveliest----" + +"That is no answer! Answer me!" + +"Why did you flee?" he asked. "Answer that, first." + +She glanced at her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders: + +"You see why I fled, don't you? Now answer me." + +The Harlequin presented the hilt of his sword which was set with a tiny +mirror. + +"You see why I fled after you," he said, "don't you?" + +"All the same," she insisted, smilingly, "I have been informed on +excellent authority that I am the only one, except the family, who knows +of this balcony. And here comes a Harlequin blundering in! _You_ are not +Mr. Wycherly; and you're certainly not Molly." + +"Alas! My ultimate ends are not as shapely." + +"Then who are you?" She added, laughing: "They're shapely enough, too." + +"I am only a poor wandering, love-smitten Harlequin--" he said, +"scorned, despised, and mocked by beauty----" + +"Love-smitten?" she repeated. + +"Can you doubt it, now?" + +She laughed gaily and leaned back against the balcony's velvet rail: + +"You lose no time in declaring yourself, do you, Harlequin?--that is, if +you are hinting that _I_ have smitten you with the pretty passion." + +"Through and through, beautiful dancer----" + +"How do you know that I am beautiful under this mask?" + +"I know many things. That's my compensation for being only a poor +mountebank of a Harlequin--magic penetration--the clairvoyance of +radium." + +"Did you expect to find _me_ at the top of those cork-screw stairs?" + +"I did." + +"Why?" + +"Inference. Every toad hides a jewel in its head. So I argued that +somewhere in the ugliness of darkest Philistia a gem must be hidden; and +I've searched for years--up and down throughout the haunts of men from +Gath to Ascalon. And--behold! My quest is ended at your pretty +feet!--Rose-Diamond of the World!" + +He sank lithely on one knee; she laughed deliciously, looking down at +his masked face. + +"Who are you, Harlequin?--whose wits and legs seem to be equally supple +and symmetrical?" + +"Tell it not in Gath; Publish it not in the streets of Ascalon; I am +that man for whom you were destined before either you or I were born. +Are you frightened?" + +The Byzantine dancer laughed and shook her head till all the golden +metal on her was set chiming. + +He said, still on one knee at her feet: + +"Exquisite phantom of an Empire dead, from what emblazoned sarcophagus +have you danced forth across our modern oceans to bewitch the Philistia +of to-day? Who clothed you in scarlet delicately? Who put ornaments of +gold upon your apparel----" + +"You court me with Scripture as smoothly as Heaven's great Enemy," she +said--"and to your own ends, as does he. Are you leagued with him, O +agile and intrusive Harlequin, to steal away my peace of mind?" + +Lithely, silently he leaped up to the balustrade and, gathering his +ankles under him, squatted there, cross-legged, peering sideways at her +through the slanting eye-holes. + +"If that screen behind you gives way," she warned him, "you will have +accomplished your last harlequinade." + +He glanced coolly over his shoulder: + +"How far is it to the floor below, do you suppose?" + +"Far enough to make a good harlequin out of a live one," she said.... +"Please be careful; I really mean it." + +"Child," he said solemnly, "do you suppose that I mind falling a hundred +feet or so on my head? I've already fallen infinitely farther than that +this evening." + +"And it didn't kill you?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands, +dramatically. + +"No. Because our destiny must first be accomplished before I die." + +"Ours?" + +"Yours and mine, pretty dancer! I've already fulfilled _my_ destiny by +falling in love with you at first sight. That was a long fall, wasn't +it?" + +"Very. Am I to fulfil mine in a similar manner?" + +"You are." + +"Will it--kill me, do you think?" + +"I don't think so. Try it." + +"Will it hurt?--this terrible fall? And how far must I descend to fall +in love with you?" + +"Sometimes falling in love does hurt," he said gravely, "when the fall +is a long one." + +"Is this to be a long one?" + +"You may think so." + +"Then I decline to tumble. Please go somewhere about your business, +Master Harlequin. I'm inclined to like you." + +"Dancer, my life's business is wherever you happen to be." + +"Why are you so sure?" + +"Magic," he said seriously. "I deal in it." + +"Wonderful! Your accomplishments overwhelm me. Perhaps, through the aid +of magic, you can even tell me who I am!" + +"I think I can." + +"Is that another threat of magic?" + +"It's a bet, too, if you like." + +"Are you offering to bet me that, before I unmask, you will be able to +discover who I am?" + +"Yes. Will you make it a wager?" She stood, silent, irresolute, +cautious but curious; then: + +"Do you mean that you can find out who _I am_? Now? Here in this +balcony?" + +"Certainly." + +"That is sheer nonsense," she said with decision. "I'll bet you anything +you like." + +"What stakes?" + +"Why there's nothing to bet except the usual, is there?" + +"You mean flowers, gloves, stockings, bon-bons?" + +"Yes." + +The Harlequin, smiling at her askance, drew from the hilt of his +lathe-sword a fresh cigarette, lighted it, looked across at the level +chandelier, and sent a ring of smoke toward the twinkling wilderness of +prisms hanging in mid-air. + +"Let's be original or perish," he said. "I'll bet you a day out of my +life against a day out of yours that I discover who you are in ten +minutes." + +"I won't accept such a silly wager! What would you do with me for a +day?" + +The Harlequin bent his masked head. Over his body the lozenges of +scarlet and gold slid crinkling as though with suppressed and serpentine +mirth. + +"_What_ are you laughing at?" she demanded half vexed, half amused. + +"Your fears, pretty dancer." + +"I am _not_ afraid!" + +"Very well. Prove it! I have offered to bet you a day out of my life +that I'll tell you who you are. Are you afraid to wager a day out of +yours that I can't do it?" + +She shook her head so that the burnished locks clustered against her +cheeks, and all over her slim figure the jingling gold rang melodiously. + +"I haven't long to live," she observed. "A day out of life is too much +to risk." + +"Why don't you think that you have long to live?" + +"I haven't. I know it." + +"_How_ do you know?" + +"I just know.... Besides, I don't wish to live very long." + +"You don't wish to live long?" + +"Only as long as I'm young enough to be forgetful. Old age is a +horror--in some cases. I don't desire ever to be forty. After forty they +say one lives on memory. I don't wish to." + +Through the slits of his mask his curious eyes watched her steadily. + +"You're not yet twenty-four," he said. + +"Not quite. That is a good guess, Harlequin." + +"And you don't want to live to be old?" + +"No, I don't wish to." + +"But you are rather keen on living while you're young." + +"I've never thought much about it. If I live, it's all right; if I die, +I don't think I'll mind it.... I'm sure I shouldn't." + +Her cigarette had gone out. She tossed it aside and daintily consented +to exchange cigarettes with him, offering her little gold case. + +"You're carefully inspecting my initials, aren't you?" she observed, +amused. "But that monogram will not help you, Master Harlequin." + +"Marriage alters only the final initial. Are you, by any unhappy +chance----" + +"That's for you to find out! I didn't say I was! I believe you _are_ +making me tell you things!" + +She threw back the lustrous hair that shadowed her cheeks and leaned +forward, her shadowed eyes fixed intently upon him through the apertures +of her golden mask. + +"I'm beginning to wonder uneasily who _you_ may be, Monsieur Harlequin! +You alarm me a little." + +"Aha!" he said. "I've told you I deal in magic! That you don't know who +I am, even after that confession, makes me reasonably certain who _you_ +are." + +"You're trying to scare me," she said, disdainfully. + +"I'll do it, yet." + +"I wonder." + +"You'll wonder more than ever in a few moments.... I'm going to tell you +who you are. But first of all I want you to fix the forfeit----" + +"Why--I don't know.... What do you want of me?" she asked, mockingly. + +"Whatever you care to risk." + +"Then you'll have to name it. Because I don't particularly care to offer +you anything.... And please hasten--I'll be missed presently----" + +"Won't you bet one day out of your life?" + +"No, I won't. I told you I wouldn't." + +"Then--one hour. Just a single hour?" + +"An hour?" + +"Yes, sixty minutes, payable on demand: If I win, you will place at my +disposal one entire hour out of your life. Will you dare that much, +pretty dancer?" + +She laughed, looked up at him; then readjusting her mask, she nodded +disdainfully. "Because," she observed, "it is quite impossible for you +ever to guess who I am. So do your very worst." + +He sprang from the balustrade, landing lightly, his left hand spread +over his heart, his bi-corne flourished in the other. + +"You are Strelsa Leeds!" he said in a low voice. + +The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a +bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge. + +"It--it is impossible that you should know--" she began, exasperated. +"How _could_ you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night! +I came by myself with my maid. It--it _is_ magic! It is +infernal--abominable magic----" + +She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous, +blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the +fillet that bound her hair. + +After a silence: + +"How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed +chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you--anyhow----" + +Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence, +striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask--trying to +interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it--or, +perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two +strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow. + +"Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful +emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her +under lip. + +"It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!" + +"First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit." + +"The--the forfeit!" she faltered. + +"Did you not lose your wager?" + +She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in +vain for a clew to his identity. Then, a trifle uneasily: + +"Yes, of course I lost my wager. But--I did not clearly understand what +you meant by an hour out of my life." + +"It is to be an hour at my disposal," he explained with another +grotesque bow. "I think that was the wager?" + +"Y-yes." + +"Unless," he remarked carelessly, "you desire the--ah--privilege and +indisputable prerogative of your delightful sex." + +"The privilege of my sex? What is that?" she asked, dangerously polite. + +"Why, to change your divine mind--repudiate the obligation----" + +"Harlequin!" + +"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow. + +"I pay what I owe--always.... _Always!_ Do you understand?" + +The Harlequin bowed again in arabesques, very low, yet with a singular +and almost devilish grace: + +"Madame concedes that the poor Harlequin has won his wager?" + +"Yes, I do--and you don't appear to be particularly humble, either." + +"Madame insists on paying?" he inquired suavely. + +"Yes, of course I do!" she said, uneasily. "I promised you an hour out +of my life. Am I to pay it now?" + +"You pay by the minute--one minute a day for sixty days. I am going to +take the first minute now. _Perhaps_ I may ask for the other fifty-nine, +also." + +"How?" + +"Shall I show you how?" + +"Very well." + +"A magic pass or two, first," he said gaily, crooking one spangled knee +and spinning around. Then he whipped out his lathe-sword, held it above +his head, coolly passed a glittering arm around her waist, and looked +down into her flushed face. + +"You will have to count out the sixty seconds," he said. "I shall be +otherwise occupied, and I can't trust myself to do two things at once." + +"_What_ are you about to do? Sink through a trap-door with me?" + +"I am about to salute you with the magic kiss. After that you'll be my +Columbine forever." + +"That is not included in the bet! Is it?" she asked in real +consternation. + +"I may do as I please with my hour, may I not?" + +"Was it the bet that you were to be at liberty to--to kiss me?" + +"I control absolutely an hour out of your life, do I not? I may use it +as I please. You had better count out sixty seconds." + +She looked down, biting her lip, and touched one hand against her +cheeks, alternately, as though to cool them with the snowy contact. + +He waited in silence for her reply. + +"Very well," she said resolutely, "if you elect to use the first minute +of your hour as frivolously as that, I must submit, I suppose." + +And she began to count aloud, rapidly: "One, two, three, four, five, +six, seven, eight, ni----" + +Her face was averted; he could see the tip of one small ear all aflame. +Presently she ventured a swift glance around at him and saw that he was +laughing. + +"Ten, eleven, twelve," she counted nervously, still watching him; +"thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--" panic threatened her; she doubled both +hands in the effort of self-control and timed her counting as though the +rapid beating of the tempo could hasten her immunity--"sixteen, +seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, one, two, three----" + +"Play fair!" he exclaimed. + +"I am trying to. Can't I say it that way up to ten, and then say +thirty?" + +"Oh, certainly. I've still half a minute. You'd better hurry! I may +begin at any moment." + +"Four--five--six--seven--m-m-m--thirty!" she cried, and the swift +numbers fled from her lips fairly stumbling over one another, tumbling +the sequence of hurrying numerals into one breathless gasp of: "Forty!" + +His arm slid away from her waist; he stepped backward, and stood, +watching her, one finger crooked, supporting his chin, the ironical +smile hovering ever on his lips. + +"Fifty!" she counted excitedly, her hands beating time to the counting; +"--fifty-one--two--three--four--m-m-m--sixty!"--and she whirled around +to face him with an impulsively triumphant gesture which terminated in +a swift curtsey, arms flung wide apart. + +"_Voila!_" she said, breathlessly, "I've paid my bet! Am I not a good +sport, Harlequin? Own that I am and I will forgive your outrageous +impudence!" + +"You are a most excellent sport, madame!" he conceded, grinning. + +Relief from the tension cooled her cheeks; she laughed bewitchingly and +looked at him, exultant, unafraid. + +"I frightened you well with my desperate counting, didn't I? You +completely forgot to do--anything, didn't you? Voyons! Admit it!" + +"You completely terrorized me," he admitted. + +"Besides," she said, "while I was so busily counting the seconds aloud +you couldn't very well have kissed me, could you? _That_ was strategy. +You couldn't have managed it, could you?" + +"Not very easily." + +"I really _did_ nonplus you, didn't I?" she insisted, aware of his +amusement. + +"Oh, entirely," he said. "I became an abject idiot." + +She stood breathing more evenly now, the pretty colour coming and going +in her cheeks. Considering him, looking alternately at his masked eyes +and at his expressive lips where a kind of silent and infernal mirth +still flickered, a sudden doubt assailed her. And presently, with a +dainty shrug, she turned and glanced down through the gilt lattice +toward the floor below. + +"I suppose," she said, tauntingly, "you hope I'll believe that you +refrained from kissing me out of some belated consideration for decency. +But I know perfectly well that I perplexed you, and confused you and +intimidated you." + +"This is, of course, the true solution of my motives in not kissing +you." + +She turned toward him: + +"What motive?" + +"My motive for not kissing you. My only motive was consideration for +you, and for the sacred conventions of Sainte Grundy." + +"I believe," she said scornfully, "you are really trying to make me +think that you _could_ have done it, and didn't!" + +"You are too clever to believe me a martyr to principle, madame!" + +She looked at him, stamped her foot till the bangles clashed. + +"Why _didn't_ you kiss me, then?--if you wish to spoil my victory?" + +"You yourself have told me why." + +"Am I wrong? Could you--didn't I surprise you--in fact, paralyse +you--with astonishment?" + +He laughed delighted; and she stamped her ringing foot again. + +"I see," she said; "I am supposed to be doubly in your debt, now. I'd +rather you _had_ kissed me and we were quits!" + +"It isn't too late you know." + +"It _is_ too late. It's all over." + +"Madame, I have fifty-nine other minutes in which to meet your kindly +expressed wishes. Did you forget?" + +"What!" she exclaimed, aghast. + +"One hour less one minute is still coming to me." + +"Am I--have I--is this ridiculous performance going to happen again?" +she asked, appalled. + +"Fifty-nine times," he laughed, doubling one spangled leg under the +other and whirling on his toe till he resembled a kaleidoscopic +teetotum. Then he drew his sword, cut right and left, slapped it back +into its sheath, and bowed his wriggling bow, one hand over his heart. + +"Don't look so troubled, madame," he said. "I release you from your +debt. You need never pay me what you owe me." + +Up went her small head, fiercely, under its flashing hair: + +"Thank you. I pay my debts!" she said crisply. + +"You decline to accept your release?" + +"Yes, I do!--from _you!"_ + +"You'll see this thing through!--if it takes all winter?" + +"Of course;" trying to smile, and not succeeding. + +He touched her arm and pointed out across the hot, perfumed gulf to the +gilded clock on high: + +"You _have_ seen it through! It is now one minute to midnight. We have +been here exactly one hour, lacking a minute, since our bet was on.... +And I've wanted to kiss you all the while." + +Confused, she looked at the clock under its elaborate azure and ormolu +foliations, then turned toward him, still uncertain of her immunity. + +"Do you mean that you have really used the hour as you saw fit?" she +asked. "Have I done my part honestly?--Like a good sportsman? Have I +really?" + +He bowed, laughingly: + +"I cheerfully concede it. You are a good sport." + +"And--all that time--" she began--"all that time----" + +"I had my chances--sixty of them." + +"And didn't take them?" + +"Only wanted to--but didn't." + +"You think that I----" + +"A woman never forgets a man who has kissed her. I took the rather +hopeless chance that you might remember me without that. But it's a long +shot. I expect that you'll forget me." + +"Do you _want_ me to remember you?" she asked, curiously. + +"Yes. But you won't." + +"How do you know?" + +"I know--from the expression of your mouth, perhaps. You are too pretty, +too popular to remember a poor Harlequin." + +"But you never have seen my face? Have you?" + +"No." + +"Then why do you continually say that I am pretty?" + +"I can divine what you must be." + +"Then--how--why did you refrain from--" She laughed lightly, and looked +up at him, mockingly. "Really, Harlequin, you _are_ funny. Do you +realise it?" + +She laughed again and the slight flush came back into her cheeks. + +"But you're nice, anyway.... Perhaps if you _had_ seen my face you might +have let me go unkissed all the quicker.... Masks cover horrible +surprises.... And, then again, if you _had_ seen it, _perhaps_ you might +_never_ have let me go at all!" she added, audaciously. + +In the gilded balcony opposite, the orchestra had now ceased playing; +the whirl and noise of the dancers filled the immense momentary quiet. +Then soft chimes from the great clock sounded midnight amid cries of, +"Unmask! masks off, everybody!" + +The Harlequin turned and drawing the black vizard from his face, bent +low and saluted her hand; and she, responding gaily with a curtsey, +looked up into the features of an utter stranger. + +She stood silent a moment, the surprised smile stamped on her lips; +then, in her turn, she slipped the mask from her eyes. + +"_Voila!_" she cried. "_C'est moi!_" + +After a moment he said, half to himself; + +"I knew well enough that you must be unusual. But I hadn't any +idea--any--idea----" + +"Then--you are _not_ disappointed in me, monsieur?" + +"My only regret is that I had my hour, and wasted it. Those hours never +sound twice for wandering harlequins." + +"Poor Harlequin!" she said saucily--"I'm sorry, but even _your_ magic +can't recall a vanished hour! Poor, poor Harlequin! You were too +generous to me!" + +"And now you are going to forget me," he said. "That is to be my +reward." + +"Why--I don't think--I don't expect to forget you. I suppose I am likely +to know you some day.... _Who_ are you, please? Somebody very grand in +New York?" + +"My name is Quarren." + +There was a silence; she glanced down at the ball-room floor through +the lattice screen, then slowly turned around to look at him again. + +"Have you ever heard of me?" he asked, smiling. + +"Yes." + +"Are you disappointed?" + +"Y-es. Pleasantly.... I supposed you to be--different." + +He laughed: + +"Has the world been knocking me very dreadfully to you, Mrs. Leeds?" + +"No.... One's impressions form without any reason--and +vaguely--from--nothing in particular.--I thought you were a very +different sort of man.--I am glad you are not." + +"That is charming of you." + +"It's honest. I had no desire to meet the type of man I supposed you to +be. Am I too frank?" + +"No, indeed," he said, laughing, "but I'm horribly afraid that I really +am the kind of man you imagined me." + +"You are not." + +"How do you know?" + +"No," she said, shaking her pretty head, "you can't be." + +He said, quoting her own words amiably: "I'm merely one of the necessary +incidents of any social environment--like flowers and champagne----" + +"Mr. Quarren!" + +In her distress she laid an impulsive hand on his sleeve; he lifted it, +laid it across the back of his own hand, and bowing, saluted it lightly, +gaily. + +"I am not offended," he said; "--I am what you supposed me." + +"Please don't say it! You are not. I didn't know you; I +was--prejudiced----" + +"You'll find me out sooner or later," he said laughing, "so I might as +well admit that your cap fitted me." + +"It doesn't fit!" she retorted; "I was a perfect fool to say that!" + +"As long as you like me," he returned, "does it make any difference what +I am?" + +"Of course it does! I'm not likely to find a man agreeable unless he's +worth noticing." + +"Am I?" + +"Oh, gentle angler, I refuse to nibble. Be content that an hour out of +my life has sped very swiftly in your company!" + +She turned and laid her hand on the little gilt door. He opened it for +her. + +"You've been very nice to me," she said. "I won't forget you." + +"You'll certainly forget me for that very reason. If I hadn't been nice +I'd have been the exception. And you would have remembered." + +She said with an odd smile: + +"Do you suppose that pleasant things have been so common in my life that +only the unpleasant episode makes any impression on my memory?" + +"To really remember me as I want you to, you ought to have had something +unpardonable to forgive me." + +"Perhaps I have!" she said, daringly; and slipped past him and down the +narrow stairs, her loup-mask fluttering from her elbow. + +At the foot of the stairs she turned, looking back at him over her bare +shoulder: + +"I've mortally offended at least three important men by hiding up there +with you. That is conceding _something_ to your attractions, isn't it?" + +"Everything. Will you let me find you some supper--and let the mortally +offended suitors sit and whistle a bit longer?" + +"Poor suitors--they've probably been performing heel-tattoos for an +hour.... Very well, then--I feel unusually shameless to-night--and I'll +go with you. But don't be disagreeable to me if a neglected and +glowering young man rushes up and drags me away by the back hair." + +"Who for example?" + +"Barent Van Dyne, for instance." + +"Oh, we'll side-step that youthful Knickerbocker," said Quarren, gaily. +"Leave it to me, Mrs. Leeds." + +"To behave so outrageously to Mr. Van Dyne is peculiarly horrid and +wicked of me," she said. "But you don't realise that--and--the fact +remains that you did _not_ take your forfeit. And I've a lot to make up +for that, haven't I?" she added so naively that they both gave way to +laughter unrestrained. + +The light touch of her arm on his, now guiding him amid the noisy, +rollicking throngs, now yielding to his guidance, ceased as he threaded +a way through the crush to a corner, and seated her at a table for two. + +In a few moments he came back with all kinds of delectable things; went +for more, returned laden, shamelessly pulled several palms between them +and the noisy outer world, and seated himself beside her. + +With napkin and plate on the low table beside her, she permitted him to +serve her. As he filled her champagne glass she lifted it and looked +across it at him: + +"How did you discover my identity?" she asked. "I'm devoured by +curiosity." + +"Shall I tell you?" + +"Please." + +"I'll take a tumble in your estimation if I tell you." + +"I don't think you will. Try it anyway." + +"Very well then. Somebody told me." + +"And you let me bet with you! And _you_ bet on a _certainty!_" + +"I did." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "is that good sportsmanship, Mr. +Quarren?" + +"No; very bad. And _that_ was why I didn't take the forfeit. Now you +understand." + +She sat considering him, the champagne breaking in her glass. + +"Yes, I do understand now. A good sportsman couldn't take a forfeit +which he won betting on a certainty.... That wasn't a real wager, was +it?" + +"No, it wasn't." + +"If it had been, I--I don't suppose you'd have let me go." + +"Indeed not!" + +They laughed, watching each other, curiously. + +"Which ought to teach me never again to make any such highly original +and sporting wagers," she said. "Anyway, you were perfectly nice about +it. Of course you couldn't very well have been otherwise. Tell me, did +you really suppose me to be attractive? You couldn't judge. How could +you--under that mask?" + +"Do you think that your mouth could have possibly belonged to any other +kind of a face except your own?" he said coolly. + +"Is my mouth unusual?" + +"Very." + +"How is it unusual?" + +"I haven't analysed the matter, but it is somehow so indescribable that +I guessed very easily what the other features must be." + +"Oh, flattery! Oh, impudence! Do you remember when Falstaff said that +the lion could always recognise the true prince? Shame on you, Mr. +Quarren. You are not only a very adroit flatterer but a perfectly good +sportsman after all--and the most gifted tormentor I ever knew in all my +life. And I like you fine!" She laughed, and made a quick little +gesture, partly arrested as he met her more than half way, touching the +rim of his glass to hers. "To our friendship," he said. + +"Our friendship," she repeated, gaily, "if the gods speed it." + +"--And--its consequences," he added. "Don't forget those." + +"What are they likely to be?" + +"Who knows? That's the gamble! But let us recognise all kinds of +possibilities, and drink to them, too. Shall we?" + +"What do you mean by the consequences of friendship?" she repeated, +hesitating. + +"That is the interesting thing about a new friendship," he explained. +"Nobody can ever predict what the consequences are to be. Are you afraid +to drink to the sporting chances, hazards, accidents, and possibilities +of our new friendship, Mrs. Leeds? _That_ is a perfectly good sporting +proposition." + +She considered him, interested, her eyes full of smiling curiosity, +perfectly conscious of the swift challenge of his lifted glass. + +[Illustration: "'To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!' she said +lightly."] + +After a few seconds' hesitation she struck the ringing rim of her glass +against his: + +"To our new friendship, Monsieur Harlequin!" she said lightly--"with +every sporting chance, worldly hazard, and heavenly possibility in it!" + +For the first time the smile faded from his face, and something in his +altered features arrested her glass at her very lips. + +"How suddenly serious you seem," she said. "Have I said anything?" + +He drained his glass; after a second she tasted hers, looked at him, +finished it, still watching him. + +"Really," she said; "you made me feel for a moment as though you and I +were performing a solemn rite. That was a new phase of you to me--that +exceedingly sudden and youthful gravity." + +He remained silent. Into his mind, just for a second, and while in the +act of setting the glass to his lips, there had flashed a flicker of +pale clairvoyance. It seemed to illumine something within him which he +had never believed in--another self. + +For that single instant he caught a glimpse of it, then it faded like a +spark in a confused dream. + +He raised his head and looked gravely across at Strelsa Leeds; and +level-eyed, smiling, inquisitive, she returned his gaze. + +Could this brief contact with her have evoked in him a far-buried +something which had never before given sign of existence? And could it +have been anything resembling aspiration that had glimmered so palely +out of an ordered and sordid commonplace personality which, with all +its talent for frivolity, he had accepted as his own? + +Without reason a slight flush came into his cheeks. + +"Why do you regard me so owlishly?" she asked, amused. "I repeat that +you made me feel as though we were performing a sort of solemn rite when +we drank our toast." + +"You couldn't feel that way with such a thoroughly frivolous man as I +am. Could you?" + +"I'm rather frivolous myself," she admitted, laughing. "I really can't +imagine why you made me feel so serious--or why you looked as though you +were. I've no talent for solemnity. Have you?" + +"I don't think so," he said. "What a terrible din everybody is making! +How hot and stifling it is here--with all those cloying gardenias.... A +man said, this evening, that this sort of thing makes for anarchy.... +It's rather beastly of me to sit here criticising my host's +magnificence.... Do you know--it's curious, too--but I wish that, for +the next hour or two, you and I were somewhere alone under a good wide +sky--where there was no noise. It's an odd idea, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds. +And probably you don't share it with me." + +She remained silent, thoughtful, her violet-gray eyes humorously +considering him. + +"How do you know I don't?" she said at last. "I'm not enamoured of +noise, either." + +"There's another thing," he went on, smiling--"it's rather curious, +too--but somehow I've a sort of a vague idea that I've a lot of things +to talk to you about. It's odd, isn't it?" + +"Well you know," she reminded him, "you couldn't very well have a lot +of things to talk to me about considering the fact that we've known each +other only an hour or so." + +"It doesn't seem logical.... And yet, there's that inexplicable +sensation of being on the verge of fairly bursting into millions of +words for your benefit--words which all my life have been bottled up in +me, accumulating, waiting for this opportunity." + +They both were laughing, yet already a slight tension threatened +both--had menaced them, vaguely, from the very first. It seemed to +impend ever so slightly, like a margin of faintest shadow edging +sunlight; yet it was always there. + +"I haven't time for millions of words this evening," she said. "Won't +some remain fresh and sparkling and epigrammatic until--until----" + +"To-morrow? They'll possibly keep that long." + +"I didn't say to-morrow." + +"I did." + +"I'm perfectly aware of the subtle suggestion and subtler flattery, Mr. +Quarren." + +"Then, may I see you to-morrow?" + +"Utterly impossible--pitiably hopeless. You see I am frank about the +heart-rending disappointment it is to me--and must be to you. But after +I am awake I am in the hands of Mrs. Lannis. And there's no room for you +in that pretty cradle." + +"The next day, then?" + +"We're going to Florida for three weeks." + +"You?" + +"Molly and Jim and I." + +"Palm Beach?" + +"Ultimately." + +"And then?" + +"Oh! Have you the effrontery to tell me to my face that you'll be in the +same mind about me three weeks hence?" + +"I have." + +"Do you expect me to believe you?" + +"I don't know--what to expect--of you, of myself," he said so quietly +that she looked up quickly. + +"Mr. Quarren! _Are_ you a sentimental man? I had mentally absolved you +from _that_ preconception of mine--among other apparently unmerited +ideas concerning you." + +"I suppose you'll arise and flee if I tell you that you're different +from other women," he said. + +"You wouldn't be such an idiot as to tell me that, would you?" + +"I might be. I'm just beginning to realise my capacity for imbecility. +You're different in this way anyhow; no woman ever before induced me to +pull a solemn countenance." + +"I _don't_ induce you! I ask you not to." + +"I _try_ not to; but, somehow, there's something so--so real about +_you_----" + +"Are you accustomed to foregather with the disembodied?" + +"I'm beginning to think that my world is rather thickly populated with +ghosts--phantoms of a more real world." + +He looked at her soberly; she had thought him younger than he now +seemed. A slight irritation silenced her for a moment, then, +impatiently: + +"You speak cynically and I dislike it. What reason have you to express +world-weary sentiments?--you who are young, who probably have never +known real sorrow, deep unhappiness! I have little patience with a +morbid view of anything, Mr. Quarren. I merely warn you--in the event of +your ever desiring to obtain my good graces." + +"I do desire them." + +"Then be yourself." + +"I don't know what I am. I thought I knew. Your advent has disorganised +both my complacency and my resignation." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Must I answer?" + +"Of course!" she said, laughing. + +"Then--the Harlequin who followed you up those stairs, never came down +again." + +"Oh!" she said, unenlightened. + +"I'm wondering who it was who came down out of that balcony in the wake +of the golden dancer," he added. + +"You and I--you very absurd young man. What are you trying to say?" + +"I--wonder," he said, smiling, "what I am trying to say." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Sunshine illuminated the rose-silk curtains of Mrs. Leeds's bedroom with +parallel slats of light and cast a frail and tremulous net of gold +across her bed. The sparrows in the Japanese ivy seemed to be unusually +boisterous, and their persistent metallic chatter disturbed Strelsa who +presently unclosed her gray eyes upon her own reflected features in the +wall-glass opposite. + +Face still flushed with slumber, she lay there considering her mirrored +features with humorous, sleepy eyes; then she sat up, stretched her +arms, yawned, patted her red lips with her palm, pressed her knuckles +over her eyelids, and presently slipped out of bed. Her bath was ready; +so was her maid. + +A little later, cross-legged on the bed once more, she sat sipping her +chocolate and studying the morning papers with an interest and +satisfaction unjaded. + +Coupled with the naive curiosity of a kitten remained her unspoiled +capacity for pleasure, and the interest of a child in a world unfolding +daily in a sequence of miracles under her intent and delighted eyes. + +Bare of throat and arm and shoulder, the lustrous hair shadowing her +face, she now appeared unexpectedly frail, even thin, as though the +fuller curves of the mould in which she was being formed had not yet +been filled up. + +Fully dressed, gown and furs lent to her something of a youthful +maturity which was entirely deceptive; for here, in bed, the golden +daylight revealed childish contours accented so delicately that they +seemed almost sexless. And in her intent gray eyes and in her +undeveloped mind was all that completed the bodily and mental +harmony--youth unawakened as yet except to a confused memory of +pain--and the dreamy and passionless unconsciousness of an unusually +late adolescence. + +At twenty-four Strelsa still looked upon her morning chocolate with a +healthy appetite; and the excitement of seeing her own name and picture +in the daily press had as yet lost none of its delightful thrill. + +All the morning papers reported the Wycherlys' house-warming with +cloying detail. And she adored it. What paragraphs particularly +concerned herself, her capable maid had enclosed in inky brackets. These +Strelsa read first of all, warm with pleasure at every stereotyped +tribute to her loveliness. + +The comments she perused were of all sorts, even the ungrammatical sort, +but she read them all with profound interest, and loved every one, even +the most fulsome. For life, and its kinder experience, was just +beginning for her after a shabby childhood, a lonely girlhood, and a +marriage unspeakable, the memory of which already had become to her as +vaguely poignant as the dull recollection of a nightmare. + +So her appetite for kindness, even the newspaper variety, was keen and +not at all discriminating; and the reaction from two years' +solitude--two years of endurance, of shrinking from public comment--had +developed in her a fierce longing for pleasure and for play-fellows. +Her fellow-men had responded with an enthusiasm which still surprised +her delightfully at moments. + + * * * * * + +The clever Swedish maid now removed the four-legged tray from her knees; +Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her newspapers, +satisfying a natural curiosity concerning what the world thought about +her costume of the night before, her beauty, herself, and the people she +knew. At last, agreeably satiated, she lowered the newspaper and lay +back, dreamy-eyed, faintly smiling, lost in pleasant retrospection. + +Had she really appeared as charming last night as these exceedingly kind +New York newspapers pretended? Did this jolly world really consider her +so beautiful? She wished to believe it. She tried to. Perhaps it was +really true--because all these daily paragraphs, which had begun with +her advent into certain New York sets, must really have been founded on +something unusual about her. + +And it could not be her fortune which continued to inspire such +journalistic loyalty and devotion, because she had none--scarcely enough +money in fact to manage with, dress with, pay her servants, and maintain +her pretty little house in the East Eighties. + +It could not be her wit; she had no more than the average American girl. +Nor was there anything else in her--neither her cultivation, +attainments, nor talents--to entitle her to distinction. So apparently +it must be her beauty that evoked paragraphs which had already made her +a fashion in the metropolis--was making her a cult--even perhaps a +notoriety. + +[Illustration: "Strelsa, propped on her pillows, was still intent on her +newspapers."] + +Because those people who had personally known Reginald Leeds, were +exceedingly curious concerning this young girl who had been a nobody, as +far as New York was concerned, until her name became legally coupled +with the name of one of the richest and most dissipated scions of an old +and honourable New York family. + +The public which had read with characteristic eagerness all about the +miserable finish of Reginald Leeds, found its abominable curiosity +piqued by his youthful widow's appearance in town. + +It is the newspapers' business to give the public what it wants--at +least that appears to be the popular impression; and so they gave the +public all it wanted about Strelsa Leeds, in daily chunks. And then +some. Which, in the beginning, she shrank from, horrified, frightened, +astonished--because, in the beginning, every mention of her name was +coupled with a glossary in full explanation of who she was, entailing a +condensed review of a sordid story which, for two years, she had striven +to obliterate from her mind. But these post-mortems lasted only a week +or so. Except for a sporadic eruption of the case in a provincial paper +now and then, which somebody always thoughtfully sent to her, the press +finally let the tragedy alone, contenting its intellectual public with +daily chronicles of young Mrs. Leeds's social activities. + +A million boarding houses throughout the land, read about her beauty +with avidity; and fat old women in soiled pink wrappers began to mention +her intimately to each other as "Strelsa Leeds"--the first hall-mark of +social fame--and there was loud discussion, in a million humble homes, +about the fashionable men who were paying her marked attention; and the +chances she had for bagging earls and dukes were maintained and +combated, below stairs and above, with an eagerness, envy, and +back-stairs knowledge truly and profoundly democratic. + + * * * * * + +Her morning mail had begun to assume almost fashionable proportions, but +she could not yet reconcile herself to the idea of even such a clever +maid as her own assuming power of social secretary. So she still read +and answered all her letters--or rather neglected to notice the +majority, which invested her with a kind of awe to some and made others +furious and unwillingly respectful. + +Letters, bills, notes, invitations, advertisements were scattered over +the bedclothes as she lay there, thinking over the pleasures and +excitement of last night's folly--thinking of Quarren, among others, and +of the swift intimacy that had sprung up between them--like a +witch-flower over night--thinking of her imprudence, and of the cold +displeasure of Barent Van Dyne who, toward daylight, had found her +almost nose to nose with Quarren, absorbed in exchanging with that young +man ideas and perfectly futile notions about everything on top, inside, +and underneath the habitable globe. + +She blushed as she remembered her flimsy excuses to Van Dyne--she had +the grace to blush over that memory--and how any of the dignity incident +to the occasion had been all Van Dyne's--and how, as she took his +irreproachable arm and parted ceremoniously with Quarren, she had +imprudently extended her hand behind her as her escort bore her away--a +childish impulse--the innocent coquetry of a village belle--she +flushed again at the recollection--and at the memory of Quarren's lips +on her finger-tips--and how her hand had closed on the gardenia he +pressed into it---- + +She turned her head on the pillow; the flower she had taken from him lay +beside her on her night table, limp, discoloured, malodorous; and she +picked it up, daintily, and flung it into the fireplace. + +At the same moment the telephone rang downstairs in the library. +Presently her maid knocked, announcing Mr. Quarren on the wire. + +"I'm not at home," said Strelsa, surprised, or rather trying to feel a +certain astonishment. What really surprised her was that she felt none. + +Her maid was already closing the door behind her when Strelsa said: + +"Wait a moment, Freda." And, after thinking, she smiled to herself and +added: "You may set my transmitter on the table beside me, and hang up +the receiver in the library.... Be sure to hang it up at once." + +Then, sitting up in bed, she unhooked the receiver and set it to her +ear. + +"Mr. Quarren," she began coldly, and without preliminary amenities, +"have you any possible excuse for awaking me at such an unearthly hour +as mid-day?" + +"Good Lord," he exclaimed contritely, "did I do that?" + +She had no more passion for the exact truth than the average woman, and +she quibbled: + +"Do you think I would say so if it were not true?" she demanded. + +"No, of course not----" + +"Well, then!" An indignant pause. "But," she added honestly, "I was not +exactly what you might call asleep, although it practically amounts to +the same thing. I was reposing.... Are _you_ feeling quite fit this +morning?" she added demurely. + +"I'd be all right if I could see you----" + +"You can't! What an idea!" + +"Why not? What are you going to do?" + +"There's no particular reason why I should detail my daily duties, +obligations, and engagements to you; is there?--But I'm an unusually +kind-hearted person, and not easily offended by people's +inquisitiveness. So I'll overlook your bad manners. First, then, I am +lunching at the Province Club, then I am going to a matinee at the +Casino, afterward dropping in for tea at the Sprowls, dining at the +Calderas, going to the Opera with the Vernons, and afterward, with them, +to a dance at the Van Dynes.... So, will you kindly inform me where +_you_ enter the scene?" + +She could hear him laugh over the telephone. + +"What are you doing just now?" he asked. + +"I am seated upon my innocent nocturnal couch, draped in exceedingly +intimate attire, conversing over the telephone with the original Paul +Pry." + +"Could anything induce you to array yourself more conventionally, +receive me, and let me take you to your luncheon at the Province Club?" + +"But I don't _wish_ to see you." + +"Is that perfectly true?" + +"Perfectly. I've just thrown your gardenia into the fireplace. Doesn't +that prove it?" + +"Oh, no. Because it's too early, yet, for either of us to treasure such +things----" + +"What horrid impertinence!" + +"Isn't it! But your heavenly gift of humour will transform my impudence +into a harmless and diverting sincerity. Please let me see you, Mrs. +Leeds--just for a few moments." + +"Why?" + +"Because you are going South and there are three restless weeks ahead of +me----" + +This time he could hear her clear, far laughter: + +"What has _my_ going to Florida to do with _your_ restlessness?" + +"Your very question irrevocably links cause and effect----" + +"Don't be absurd, Mr. Quarren!" + +"Absurdity is the badge of all our Guild----" + +"What Guild do _you_ belong to?" + +"The associated order of ardent suitors----" + +"Mr. Quarren! You are becoming ridiculous; do you know it?" + +"No, _I_ don't realise it, but they say all the rest of the world +considers suitors ridiculous----" + +"Do you expect me to listen to such nonsense at such an hour in the +morning?" + +"It's half past twelve; and my weak solution of nonsense is suitable to +the time of day----" + +"Am I to understand that the solution becomes stronger as the day +advances?" + +"Exactly; the solution becomes so concentrated and powerful that traces +of common-sense begin to appear----" + +"I didn't notice any last night." + +"Van Dyne interfered." + +"Poor Mr. Van Dyne. If you'd been civil to him he might have asked you +to the dance to-night--if I had suggested it. But you were horridly +rude." + +"I? Rude?" + +"You're not going to be rude enough to say it was I who behaved badly to +him, are you? Oh, the shocking vanity of man! No doubt you are thinking +that it was I who, serpent-like, whispered temptation into your innocent +ear, and drew you away into a corner, and shoved palms in front of us, +and brought silver and fine linen, and rare fruits and sparkling wines; +and paid shameless court with an intelligent weather-eye always on the +watch for a flouted and justly indignant cavalier!" + +"Yes," he said, "you did all those things. And now you're trying to +evade the results." + +"What are the results?" + +"A partly demented young man clamouring to see you at high-noon while +the cold cruel cause of his lunacy looks on and laughs." + +"I'm afraid that young man must continue to clamour," she said, +immensely amused at the picture he drew. "How far away is he at this +moment?" + +"In the Legation, a blithering wreck." + +"Why not in his office frantically immersed in vast business enterprises +and cataclysmic speculations?" + +"I'm rather afraid that if business immerses him too completely he will +be found drowned some day." + +"You promised--_said_ that you were going to begin a vigorous campaign," +she reminded him reproachfully. "I asked it of you; and you agreed." + +"I am beginning life anew--or trying to--by seeking the perennial source +of daily spiritual and mundane inspiration----" + +"Why won't you be serious?" + +"I am. Were you not the source of my new inspiration? Last night did +something or other to me--I am not yet perfectly sure what it was. I +want to see you to be sure--if only for a--moment--merely to satisfy +myself that you are real----" + +"Will one moment be enough?" + +"Certainly." + +"One second--or half a one?" + +"Plenty." + +"Very well--if you promise not to expect or ask for more than that----" + +"That is terribly nice of you!" + +"It is, overwhelmingly. But really I don't know whether I am nice or +merely weak-minded. Because I've lingered here gossiping so long with +you that I've simply got to fly like a mad creature about my dressing. +Good-bye----" + +"Shall I come up immediately?" + +"Of course not! I expect to be dressing for hours and +hours--figuratively speaking.... Perhaps you might start in ten minutes +if you are coming in a taxi." + +"You are an angel----" + +"That is not telephone vernacular.... And perhaps you had better be +prompt, because Mrs. Lannis is coming for me--that is, if you have +anything to--to say--that----" + +She flushed up, annoyed at her own stupidity, then felt grateful to him +as he answered lightly: + +"Of course; she might misunderstand our informality. Shall I see you in +half an hour?" + +"If I can manage it," she said. + +She managed it, somehow. At first, really indifferent, and not very +much amused, the talk with him had gradually aroused in her the same +interest and pleasurable curiosity that she had experienced in +exchanging badinage with him the night before. Now she really wanted to +see him, and she took enough trouble about it to set her deft maid +flying about her offices. + +First a fragrant precursor of his advent arrived in the shape of a great +bunch of winter violets; and her maid fastened them to her black fox +muff. Then the distant door-bell sounded; and in an extraordinarily +short space of time, wearing her pretty fur hat, her boa, and carrying a +muff that matched both, with his violets pinned to it, she entered the +dim drawing-room, halting just beyond the threshold. + +"Are you not ashamed," she said, severely, "to come battering at my door +at this hour of the day?" + +"Abjectly." + +They exchanged a brief handshake; she seated herself on the arm of a +sofa; he stood before the unlighted fireplace, looking at her with a +half smiling half curious air which made her laugh outright. + +"Bien! C'est moi, monsieur," she said. "Me voici! C'est moi-meme!" + +"I believe you _are_ real after all," he admitted. + +"Do I seem different?" + +"Yes--and no." + +"How am I different?" + +"Well, somehow, last night, I got the notion that you were younger, +thinner--and not very real----" + +"Are you presuming to criticise my appearance last night?" she asked +with mock indignation. "Because if you are, I proudly refer you to the +enlightened metropolitan morning press." + +"I read all about you," he said, smiling. + +"I am glad you did. You will doubtless now be inclined to treat me with +the respect due to my years and experience." + +"I believe," he said, "that your gown and hat and furs make a charming +difference----" + +"How perfectly horrid of you! I thought you admired my costume last +night!" + +"Oh, Lord," he said--"you were sufficiently charming last night. But +now, in your fluffy furs, you seem rather taller--less slender +perhaps--and tremendously fetching----" + +"Say that my clothes improve me, and that in reality I'm a horrid, thin +little beast!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I know I am, but I haven't +finished growing yet. Really that's the truth, Mr. Quarren. Would you +believe that I have grown an inch since last spring?" + +"I believe it," he said, "but would you mind stopping now? You are +exactly right." + +"You _know_ I'm thin and flat as a board!" + +"You're perfect!" + +"It's too late to say that to me----" + +"It is too early to say more." + +"Let's don't talk about myself, please." + +"It has become the only subject in the world that interests me----" + +"Please, Mr. Quarren! Are you actually attempting to be silly at this +hour of the day? The wise inanities of midnight sound perilously flat in +the sunshine--flatter than the flattest champagne, which no +bread-crumbs can galvanise into a single bubble. Tell me, why did you +wish to see me this morning. I mean the real reason? Was it merely to +find out whether I was weak-minded enough to receive you?" + +He looked at her, smiling: + +"I wanted to see whether you were as real and genuine and wholesome and +unspoiled and--and friendly as I thought you were last night." + +"Am I?" + +"More so." + +"Are you so sure about my friendliness?" + +"I want to believe in it," he said. "It means a lot to me already." + +"Believe in it then, you very badly spoiled young man," she said, +stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "I do like you.... And now I +think you had better go--unless you want to see Mrs. Lannis." + +Retaining her hand for a second he said: + +"Before you leave town will you let me ask you a question?" + +"I am leaving to-morrow. You'll have to ask it now." + +Their hands fell apart; he seemed doubtful, and she awaited his +question, smilingly. And as he made no sign of asking she said: + +"You have my permission to ask it. Is it a very impertinent question?" + +"Very." + +"How impertinent is it?" she inquired curiously. + +"Unpardonably personal." + +After a silence she laughed. + +"Last night," she said, "you told me that I would probably forget you +unless I had something unpardonable to forgive you. Isn't this a good +opportunity to leave your unpardonable imprint upon my insulted +memory?" + +"Excellent," he said. "This is my outrageous question: are you engaged +to be married?" + +For a full minute she remained silent in her intense displeasure. After +the first swift glance of surprise her gray eyes had dropped, and she +sat on the gilded arm of the sofa, studying the floor covering--an +ancient Saraband rug, with the inevitable and monotonous river-loop +symbol covering its old-rose ground in uninteresting repetition. After a +while she lifted her head and met his gaze, quietly. + +"I am trying to believe that you did not mean to be offensive," she +said. "And now that I have a shadow of a reason to pardon you, I shall +probably do so, ultimately." + +"But you won't answer me?" he said, reddening. + +"Of course not. Are we on any such footing of intimacy--even of +friendship, Mr. Quarren?" + +"No. But you are going away--and my reason for speaking--" He checked +himself; his reasons were impossible; there was no extenuation to be +found in them, no adequate explanation for them, or for his attitude +toward this young girl which had crystallised over night--over a +sleepless, thrilling night--dazzling him with its wonder and its truth +and its purity in the clean rays of the morning sun. + +She watched his expression as it changed, troubled, uncertain how to +regard him, now. + +"It isn't very much like you, to ask me such a question," she said. + +"Before I met you, you thought me one kind of a man; after I met you, +you thought me another. Have I turned out to be a third kind?" + +"N-no." + +"Would I turn into the first kind if I ask you again to answer my +question?" + +She gave him a swift, expressionless glance: + +"I want to like you; I'm trying to, Mr. Quarren. Won't you let me?" + +"I want to have the right to like _you_, too--perhaps more than you will +care to have me----" + +"Please don't speak that way--I don't know what you mean, anyway----" + +"That is why I asked you the question--to find out whether I had a right +to----" + +"Right!" she repeated. "What right? What do you mean? What have you +misinterpreted in me that has given you any rights as far as I am +concerned? Did you misunderstand our few hours of masked acquaintance--a +few moments of perfectly innocent imprudence?--my overlooking certain +conventions and listening to you at the telephone this morning--my +receiving you here at this silly hour? What has given you any right to +say anything to me, Mr. Quarren--to hint of the possibility of anything +serious--for the future--or at any time whatever?" + +"I have no right," he said, wincing. + +"Indeed you have not!" she rejoined warmly, flushed and affronted. "I am +glad that is perfectly clear to you." + +"No right at all," he repeated--"except the personal privilege of +recognising what is cleanest and sweetest and most admirable and most +unspoiled in life; the right to care for it without knowing exactly +why--the desire to be part of it--as have all men who are awakened +out of trivial dreams when such a woman as you crosses their limited and +foolish horizon." + +She sat staring at him, struggling to comprehend what he was saying, +perfectly unable to believe, nor even wishing to, yet painfully +attentive to his every word. + +"Mr. Quarren," she said, "I was hurt. I imagined presumption where there +was none. But I am afraid you are romantic and impulsive to an amazing +degree. Yet, both romance and impulse have a place and a reason, not +undignified, in human intercourse."--She felt rather superior in turning +this phrase, and looked on him a little more kindly---- + +"If the compliment which you have left me to infer is purely a romantic +one, it is nevertheless unwarranted--and, forgive me, unacceptable. The +trouble is----" + +She paused to recover her wits and her breath; but he took the latter +away again as he said: + +"I am in love with you; that is the trouble, Mrs. Leeds. And I really +have no business to say so until I amount to something." + +"You have no business to say so anyway after one single evening's +acquaintance!" she retorted hotly. + +"Oh, that! If love were a matter of time and convention--like five +o'clock tea!--but it isn't, you know. It isn't the brevity of our +acquaintance that worries me; it's what _I_ am--and what _you_ +are--and--and the long, long road I have to travel before I am worth +your lightest consideration--I never was in love before. Forgive my +crudeness. I'm only conscious of the--hopelessness of it all." + +Breathless, confused, incredulous, she sat there staring at +him--listening to and watching this tall, quiet, cool young fellow who +was telling her such incomprehensible things in a manner that began to +fascinate her. With an effort she collected herself, shook off the +almost eerie interest that was already beginning to obsess her, and +stood up, flushed but composed. + +"Shall we not say any more about it?" she said quietly. "Because there +is nothing more to say, Mr. Quarren--except--thank you for--for feeling +so amiably toward me--for believing me more than I really am.... And I +would like to have your friendship still, if I may----" + +"You have it." + +"Even yet?" + +"Why not?... It's selfish of me to say it--but I wish you--could have +saved me," he said almost carelessly. + +"From what, Mr. Quarren? I really do not understand you." + +"From being what I am--the sort of man you first divined me to be." + +"What do you mean by 'saving' you?" she asked, coldly. + +"I don't know!--giving me a glimmer of hope I suppose--something to +strive for." + +"One saves one's self," she said. + +He turned an altered face toward her: and she looked at him intently. + +"I guess you are right," he said with a short laugh. "If there is +anything worth saving, one saves one's self." + +"I think that is true," she said.... "And--if my friendship--if you +really care for it----" + +He met her gaze: + +"I honestly don't know. I've been carried off my feet by you, +completely. A man, under such conditions, doesn't know anything--not +even enough to hold his tongue--as you may have noticed. I am in love +with you. As I am to-day, my love for you would do you no good--I don't +know whether yours would do me any good--or your friendship, either. It +ought to if I amounted to anything; but I don't--and I don't know." + +"I wish you would not speak so bitterly--please----" + +"All right. It wasn't bitterness; it was just whine. ... I'll go, now. +You will comprehend, after you think it over, that there is at least +nothing of impertinence in my loving you--only a blind unreason--a +deadly fear lest the other man in me, suddenly revealed, vanish before I +could understand him. Because when I saw you, life's meaning broke out +suddenly--like a star--and that's another stale simile. But one has to +climb very far before one can touch even the nearest of the stars.... So +forgive my one lucid interval.... I shall probably never have +another.... May I take you to your carriage?" + +"Mrs. Lannis is calling for me." + +"Then--I will take my leave--and the tatters of my reputation--any song +can buy it, now----" + +"Mr. Quarren!" + +"Yes?" + +"I don't want you to go--like this. I want you to go away knowing in +your heart that you have been very--nice--agreeable--to a young girl who +hasn't perhaps had as much experience as you think----" + +"Thank God," he said, smiling. + +"I want you to like me, always," she said. "Will you?" + +"I promise," he replied so blithely that for a moment his light irony +deceived her. Then something in his eyes left her silent, concerned, +unresponsive--only her heart seemed to repeat persistently in childish +reiteration, the endless question, Why? Why? Why? And she heard it but +found no answer where love was not, and had never been. + +"I--am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I--I try to understand you--but +I don't seem to.... I am so _very_ sorry that you--care for me." + +He took her gloved hand, and she let him. + +"I guess I'm nothing but a harlequin after all," he said, "and they're +legitimate objects for pity. Good-bye, Mrs. Leeds. You've been very +patient and sweet with a blithering lunatic.... I've committed only +another harlequinade of a brand-new sort. But the fall from that balcony +would have been less destructive." + +She looked at him out of her gray eyes. + +"One thing," she said, with a tremulous smile, "you may be certain that +I am not going to forget you very easily." + +"Another thing," he said, "I shall never forget you as long as I live; +and--you have my violets, I see. Are they to follow the gardenia?" + +"Only when their time comes," she said, trying to laugh. + +So he wished her a happy trip and sojourn in the South, and went away +into the city--downtown, by the way to drop into an office chair in an +empty office and listen to the click of a typewriter in the outer room, +and sit there hour after hour with his chin in his hand staring at +nothing out of the clear blue eyes of a boy. + +And she went away to her luncheon at the Province Club with Susanne +Lannis who wished her to meet some of the governors--very grand +ladies--upon whose good will depended Strelsa's election to the most +aristocratic, comfortable, wisely managed, and thriftiest of all +metropolitan clubs. + +After luncheon she, with Mrs. Lannis and Chrysos Lacy--a pretty +red-haired edition of her brother--went to see "Sumurun." + +And after they had tea at the redoubtable Mrs. Sprowl's, where there +were more footmen than guests, more magnificence than comfort, and more +wickedness in the gossip than lemon in the tea or Irish in the more +popular high-ball. + +The old lady, fat, pink, enormous, looked about her out of her little +glittering green eyes with a pleased conviction that everybody on earth +was mortally afraid of her. And everybody, who happened to be anybody in +New York, was exactly that--with a few eccentric exceptions like her +nephew, Karl Westguard, and half a dozen heavily upholstered matrons +whose social altitude left them nothing to be afraid of except lack of +deference and death. + +Mrs. Sprowl had a fat, wheezy, and misleading laugh; and it took time +for Strelsa to understand that there was anything really venomous in the +old lady; but the gossip there that afternoon, and the wheezy delight in +driving a last nail into the coffin of some moribund reputation, made +plain to her why her hostess was held in such respectful terror. + +The talk finally swerved from Molly Wycherly's ball to the Irish +Legation, and Mrs. Sprowl leaned toward Strelsa, and panted behind her +fan: + +"A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men give there! +Orgies, I understand! No pretty actress in town is kept sighing long for +invitations. Even"--she whispered the name of a lovely and respectable +prima-donna with a perfectly good husband and progeny--and nodded so +violently that it set her coughing. + +"Oh," cried Strelsa, distressed, "surely you have been misinformed!" + +"Not in the least," wheezed the old lady. "She is no better than the +rest of 'em! And I sent for my nephew Karl, and I brought him up +roundly. 'Karl!' said I, 'what the devil do you mean! Do you want that +husband of hers dragging you all into court?' And, do you know, my dear, +he appeared perfectly astounded--said it wasn't so--just as you said a +moment ago. But I can put two and two together, yet; I'm not too old and +witless to do that! And I warrant you I gave him a tongue trouncing +which he won't forget. ... Probably he retailed it to that O'Hara man, +and to young Quarren, too. If he did it won't hurt 'em, either." + +She was speaking now so generally that everybody heard her, and Cyrille +Caldera said: + +"Ricky is certainly innocuous, anyway." + +"Oh, _is_ he!" said Mrs. Sprowl with another wheezy laugh. "I fancy I +know that boy. Did you say 'harmless,' Susanne? Well, _you_ ought to +know, of course----" + +Cyrille Caldera blushed brightly although her affair with Quarren had +been of the most innocent description. + +[Illustration: "'A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men +give there!'"] + +"There's probably as much ground for indicting Ricky as there is for +indicting me," she protested. "He's merely a nice, useful boy----" + +"Rather vapid, don't you think?" observed a thin young woman in sables +and an abundance of front teeth. + +"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and +a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination." + +"He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell +me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly +harmless." + +"Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to. + +"Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde--whose husband must have been +an idiot--and Cynthia Challis--she married Prince Sarnoff, you +remember----" + +"The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy. + +"I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl. +"How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar----" + +"Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis. + +"Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em +marry him. Poor Ricky." + +"Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is _so_ nice, and nobody is likely to +marry him." + +"Why?" asked Strelsa. + +"Because he's--why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't +you know it?" + +"No," said Strelsa. + +"That's the trouble--partly. Then there's no social advantage for any +girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out +of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky--unless he +marries a lame duck." + +"Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained +Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed. + +"Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight." + +"The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's +intelligent otherwise I fancy." + +"Yes, but not intellectual." + +"I think you are possibly mistaken." + +The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis +laughed. + +"Are _you_ his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night +for the first time." + +"Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet +Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But +you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison +arrives." At which sally everybody laughed. + +Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the +coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British +officer's arrival. + +Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew, +because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was +understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning +people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa +Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of +fashionable banter. + +"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles +you'll forget Ricky." + +"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl, +why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy." + +"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the +eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are +pretty." + +"I have enough--almost----" + +"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!" +laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa--you'll need +them." + +"You are mistaken. I _have_ enough. I'd like to be happy for a while." + +The naive inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and +happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of +the past which had unconsciously evoked it. + +After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in, +one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of +Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in +kennel parlance. + +To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed +loud and long. + +"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves +as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular +among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby +agape. But your man of the world has other tastes." + +"Jaded tastes," said somebody. + +"Maybe they're jaded and vicious--but they're his. And maybe that girl +has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But +it's the last shriek among people who know." + +"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French +sculptor who did the Merode?" + +"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else. + +"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds +needs padding--to suit my notions." + +"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl +will be scandalous when she fills out a little more.... If she only had +the wits to match what she is going to be!--But there's a streak of +something silly in her--I suspect latent sentiment--which is likely to +finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels +for Ricky, now!--a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except +in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little +minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky." + +"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing. + +"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks +in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that +girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind +about Strelsa Leeds, and"--she glared around her, fanning vigorously--"I +_think_ nobody is likely to interfere." + + * * * * * + +That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid +down the law of limits to him so decisively that, taken aback, +astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment. + +When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly +that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned. + +But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who +had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders. + +When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had +taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his +conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her. + +He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing +sponsor for Mrs. Leeds----" + +"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old +lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?" + +He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at +Strelsa. + +Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very +bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals. + +"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass. + +"What?" he asked sullenly. + +"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix--and also amass a little +common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to +start things for her. Which I shan't--in that direction." + +"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with +an unpleasant laugh. + +Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically. + +"I understand the Earl of Dankmere, perfectly," she said--"also other +people, including young, and sulky boys. So if you clearly understand my +wishes, and the girl doesn't make a fool of herself over you or any +other callow ineligible, her future will give me something agreeable to +occupy me." + +The blood stung his face as he stood up--a tall graceful figure among +the others in the box--a clean-cut, wholesome boy to all appearances, +with that easy and amiable presence which is not distinction but which +sometimes is even more agreeable. + +Lips compressed, the flush still hot on his face, he stood silent, +tasting all the bitterness that his career had stored up for him--sick +with contempt for a self that could accept and swallow such things. For +he had been well schooled, but scarcely to that contemptible point. + +"Of course," he said, pleasantly, "you understand that I shall do as I +please." + +Mrs. Sprowl laughed: + +"I'll see to that, too, Ricky." + +Chrysos Lacy leaned forward and began to talk to him, and his training +reacted mechanically, for he seemed at once to become his gay and +engaging self. + +He did not return to the Vernons' box nor did he see Strelsa again +before she went South. + +The next night a note was delivered to him, written from the Wycherlys' +car, "Wind-Flower." + + "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN: + + "Why did you not come back to say good-bye? You spoke of doing so. + I'm afraid Chrysos Lacy is responsible. + + "The dance at the Van Dynes was very jolly. I am exceedingly sorry + you were not there. Thank you for the flowers and bon-bons that + were delivered to me in my state-room. My violets are not yet + entirely faded, so they have not yet joined your gardenia in the + limbo of useless things. + + "Mr. Westguard came to the train. He _is_ nice. + + "Mr. O'Hara and Chrysos and Jack Lacy were there, so in spite of + your conspicuous absence the Legation maintained its gay reputation + and covered itself with immortal blarney. + + "This letter was started as a note to thank you for your gifts, but + it is becoming a serial as Molly and Jim and I sit here watching + the North Carolina landscape fly past our windows like streaks of + brown lightened only by the occasional delicious and sunny green of + some long-leafed pine. + + "There's nothing to see from horizon to horizon except the + monotonous repetition of mules and niggers and evil-looking cypress + swamps and a few razor-backs and a buzzard flying very high in the + blue. + + "Thank you again for my flowers.... I wonder if you understand that + my instinct is to be friends with you? + + "It was from the very beginning. + + "And please don't be absurd enough to think that I am going to + forget you--or our jolly escapade at the Wycherly ball. You behaved + very handsomely once. I know I can count on your kindness to me. + + "Good-bye, and many many thanks--as Jack Lacy says--'f'r the manny + booggy-rides, an' th' goom-candy, an' the boonches av malagy + grrapes'! + + "Sincerely your friend, + + "STRELSA LEEDS." + +That same day Sir Charles Mallison arrived in New York and went directly +to Mrs. Sprowl's house. Their interview was rather brief but loudly +cordial on the old lady's part: + +"How's my sister and Foxy?" she asked--meaning Sir Renard and Lady +Spinney. + +Sir Charles regretted he had not seen them. + +"And you?" + +"Quite fit, thanks." And he gravely trusted that her own health was +satisfactory. + +"You haven't changed your mind?" she asked with a smile which the +profane might consider more like a grin. + +Sir Charles said he had not, and a healthy colour showed under the tan. + +"All these years," commented the old lady, ironically. + +"Four," said Sir Charles. + +"Was it four years ago when you saw her in Egypt?" + +"Four years--last month--the tenth." + +"And never saw her again?" + +"Never." + +Mrs. Sprowl shook with asthmatic mirth: + +"Such story-book constancy! Why didn't you ask your friend the late +Sirdar to have Leeds pitched into the Nile. It would have saved you +those four years' waiting? You know you haven't many years to waste, Sir +Charles." + +"I'm forty-five," he said, colouring painfully. + +"Four years gone to hell," said the old lady with that delicate candour +which sometimes characterised her.... "And now what do you propose to do +with the rest of 'em? Dawdle away your time?" + +[Illustration: "'Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?' he ventured at length, reddening +again."] + +"Face my fate," he admitted touching his moustache and fearfully +embarrassed. + +"Well, if you're in a hurry, you'll have to go down South to face it. +She's at Palm Beach for the next three weeks." + +"Thank you," he said. + +She looked up at him, her little opaque green eyes a trifle softened. + +"I am trying to get you the prettiest woman in America," she said. "I'm +ready to fight off everybody else--beat 'em to death," she added, her +eyes snapping, then suddenly kind again--"because, Sir Charles, I like +you. And for no other reason on earth!" + +Which was not the exact truth. It was for another man's sake she was +kind to him. And the other man had been dead many years. + +Sir Charles thanked her, awkwardly, and fell silent again, pulling his +moustache. + +"Is--Mrs. Leeds--well?" he ventured, at length, reddening again. + +"Perfectly. She's a bit wiry just now--thin--leggy, y' know. Some +fanciers prefer 'em weedy. But she'll plump up. I know the breed." + +He shrank from her loud voice and the vulgarity of her comments, and she +was aware of it and didn't care a rap. There were plenty of noble ladies +as vulgar as she, and more so--and anyway it was not this well-built, +sober-faced man of forty-five whom she was serving with all the craft +and insolence and brutality and generosity that was in her--it was the +son of a dead man who had been much to her. How much nobody in these +days gossiped about any longer, for it was a long time ago, a long, long +time ago that she had made her curtsey to a young queen and a prince +consort. And Sir Charles's father had died at Majuba Hill. + +"There's a wretched little knock-kneed peer on the cards," she observed; +"Dankmere. He seems to think she has money or something. If he comes +over here, as my sister writes, I'll set him straighter than his own +legs. And I've written Foxy to tell him so." + +"Dankmere is a very good chap," said Sir Charles, terribly embarrassed. + +"But not good enough. His level is the Quartier d'Europe. He'll find it; +no fear.... When do you go South?" + +"To-morrow," he said, so honestly that she grinned again. + +"Then I'll give you a letter to Molly Wycherly. Her husband is Jim +Wycherly--one of your sort--eternally lumbering after something to kill. +He has a bungalow on some lagoon where he murders ducks, and no doubt +he'll go there. But his wife will be stopping at Palm Beach. I'll send +you a letter to her in the morning." + +"Many thanks," said Sir Charles, shyly. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Strelsa remained South longer than she had expected to remain, and at +the end of the third week Quarren wrote her. + + + "DEAR MRS. LEEDS: + + "Will you accept from me a copy of Karl's new book? And are you + ever coming back? You are missing an unusually diverting winter; + the opera is exceptional, there are some really interesting plays + in town and several new and amusing people--Prince and Princess + Sarnoff for example; and the Earl of Dankmere, an anxious, and + perplexed little man, sadly hard up, and simple-minded enough to + say so; which amuses everybody immensely. + + "He's pathetically original; plebeian on his mother's side; very + good-natured; nothing at all of a sportsman; and painfully short of + both intellect and cash--a funny, harmless, distracted little man + who runs about asking everybody the best and quickest methods of + amassing a comfortable fortune in America. And I must say that + people have jollied him rather cruelly. + + "The Sarnoffs on the other hand are modest and nice people--the + Prince is a yellow, dried-up Asiatic who is making a collection of + parasites--a shrewd, kindly, and clever little scientist. His wife + is a charming girl, intellectual but deliciously feminine. She was + Cynthia Challis before her marriage, and always a most attractive + and engaging personality. They dined with us at the Legation on + Thursday. + + "Afterward there was a dance at Mrs. Sprowl's. I led from one end, + Lester Caldera from the other. One or two newspapers criticised the + decorations and favours as vulgarly expensive; spoke of a 'monkey + figure'--purely imaginary--which they said I introduced into the + cotillion, and that the favours were marmosets!--who probably were + the intellectual peers of anybody present. + + "The old lady is in a terrific temper. I'm afraid some poor + scribblers are going to catch it. I thought it very funny. + + "Speaking of scribblers and temper reminds me that Karl Westguard's + new book is stirring up a toy tempest. He has succeeded in + offending a dozen people who pretend to recognise themselves or + their relatives among the various characters. I don't know whether + the novel is really any good, or not. We, who know Karl so + intimately, find it hard to realise that perhaps he may be a writer + of some importance. + + "There appears to be considerable excitement about this new book. + People seem inclined to discuss it at dinners; Karl's publishers + are delighted. Karl, on the contrary, is not at all flattered by + the kind of a success that menaces him. He is mad all through, but + not as mad as his redoubtable aunt, who tells everybody that he's a + scribbling lunatic who doesn't know what he's writing, and that she + washes her fat and gem-laden hands of him henceforth. + + "Poor Karl! He's already thirty-seven; he's written fifteen books, + no one of which, he tells me, ever before stirred up anybody's + interest. But this newest novel, 'The Real Thing,' has already gone + into three editions in two weeks--whatever that actually means--and + still the re-orders are pouring in, and his publishers are madly + booming it, and several indignant people are threatening Karl with + the law of libel, and Karl is partly furious, partly amused, and + entirely astonished at the whole affair. + + "Because you see, the people who think they recognise portraits of + themselves or their friends in several of the unattractive + characters in the story--are as usual, in error. Karl's people are + always purely and synthetically composite. Besides everybody who + knows Karl Westguard ought to know that he's too decent a fellow, + and too good a workman to use models stupidly. Anybody can copy; + anybody can reproduce the obvious. Even photographers are artists + in these days. Good work is a synthesis founded on truth, and + carried logically to a conclusion. + + "But it's useless to try to convince the Philistines. Once + possessed with the idea that they or their friends are 'meant,' as + they say, Archimedes's lever could not pry them loose from their + agreeably painful obsession. + + "Then there are other sorts of humans who are already bothering + Karl. This species recognise in every 'hero' or 'heroine' a minute + mental and physical analysis of themselves and their own + particular, specific, and petty emotions. Proud, happy, flattered, + they permit nobody to mistake the supposed tribute which they are + entirely self-persuaded that the novelist has offered to them. + + "And these phases of 'The Real Thing' are fretting and mortifying + Karl to the verge of distraction. He awakes to find himself not + famous but notorious--not criticised for his workmanship, good or + bad, but gabbled about because some ludicrous old Uncle Foozle + pretends to discover a similarity between Karl's episodes and + characters and certain doings of which Uncle F. is personally + cognisant. + + "The great resource of stupidity is and has always been the + anagram; and as stupidity is almost invariably suspicious, the hunt + for hidden meanings preoccupies the majority of mankind. + + * * * * * + + "Because I have ventured to send you Karl's new book is no reason + why I also should have presumed to write you a treatise in several + volumes. + + "But I miss you, oddly enough--miss everything I never had of + you--your opinions on what interests us both; the delightful + discussions of things important, which have never taken place + between us. It's odd, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds, that I miss, long for, + and even remember so much that has never been? + + "Molly Wycherly wrote to Mrs. Lannis that you were having a gay + time in Florida; that Sir Charles Mallison had joined your party; + that you'd had luncheons and dinners given you at the Club, at the + Inlet, at the Wiers's place, 'Coquina Castle'; and that Jim and Sir + Charles had bravely slain many ducks. Which is certainly glory + enough to go round. In a friendly little note to me you were good + enough to ask what I am doing, and to emphasise your request for an + answer by underlining your request. + + "Proud and flattered by your generous interest I hasten to inform + you that I am leading the same useful, serious, profitable, + purposeful, ambitious, and ennobling life which I was leading when + I first met you. Such a laudable existence makes for one's + self-respect; and, happy in that consciousness, undisturbed by + journalistic accusations concerning marmosets and vulgarity, I + concentrate my entire intellectual efforts upon keeping my job, + which is to remain deaf, dumb, and blind, and at the same time be + ornamental, resourceful, good-tempered, and amusing to those who + are not invariably all of these things at the same time. + + "Is it too much to expect another note from you? + + "Sincerely yours, + + "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN." + + + +She answered him on the fourth week of her absence. + + + "MY DEAR MR. QUARREN: + + "Your letter interested me, but there was all through it an + undertone of cynicism which rang false--almost a dissonance to an + ear which has heard you strike a truer chord. + + "I do not like what you say of yourself, or of your life. I have + talked very seriously with Molly, who adores you; and she evidently + thinks you capable of achieving anything you care to undertake. + Which is my own opinion--based on twenty-four hours of + acquaintance. + + "I have read Mr. Westguard's novel. Everybody here is reading it. + I'd like to talk to you about it, some day. Mr. Westguard's intense + bitterness confuses me a little, and seems almost to paralyse any + critical judgment I may possess. A crusade in fiction has always + seemed to me but a sterile effort. To do a thing is fine; to talk + about it in fiction a far less admirable performance--like the + small boy, safe in the window, who defies his enemy with out-thrust + tongue. + + "When I was young--a somewhat lonely child, with only a very few + books to companion me--I pored over Carlyle's 'French Revolution,' + and hated Philip Egalite. But that youthful hatred was a little + modified because Egalite did actually become personally active. If + he had only talked, my hatred would have become contempt for a + renegade who did not possess the courage of his convictions. But he + voted death to his own caste, facing the tribunal. He talked, but + he also acted. + + "I do not mean this as a parallel between Mr. Westguard and the + sanguinary French iconoclast. Mr. Westguard, also, has the courage + of his convictions; he lives, I understand, the life which he + considers a proper one. It is the life which he preaches in 'The + Real Thing'--a somewhat solemn, self-respecting, self-supporting + existence, devoted to self-development; a life of upright thinking, + and the fulfilment of duty, civil and religious, incident to + dignified citizenship. Such a life may be a blameless one; I don't + know. + + "Also it might even be admirable within its limits if Mr. Westguard + did not also appoint himself critic, disciplinarian, and prophet of + that particular section of society into which accident of birth has + dumped him. + + "Probably there is no section of human society that does not need a + wholesome scourging now and then, but somehow, it seems to me, that + it could be done less bitterly and with better grace than Mr. + Westguard does it in his book. The lash, swung from within, and + applied with judgment and discrimination, ought to do a more + thorough and convincing piece of work than a knout allied with the + clubs of the proletariat, hitting at every head in sight. + + "Let the prophets and sybils, the augurs and oracles of the _Hoi + polloi_ address themselves to them; and let ours talk to us, not + _about_ us to the world at large. + + "A renegade from either side makes an unholy alliance, and, with + his first shout from the public pulpit, tightens the master knot + which he is trying to untie to the glory of God and for the sake of + peace and good will on earth. And the result is Donnybrook Fair. + + "I hate to speak this way to you of your friend, and about a man I + like and, in a measure, really respect. But this is what I think. + And my inclination is to tell you the truth, always. + + "Concerning the artistic value of Mr. Westguard's literary + performance, I know little. The simplicity of his language + recommends the pages to me. The book is easy to read. Perhaps + therein lies his art; I do not know. + + "Now, as I am in an unaccountably serious mood amid all the + frivolity of this semi-tropical place, may I not say to you + something about yourself? How are you going to silence me? + + "Well, then; you seem to reason illogically. You make little of + yourself, yet you offer me your friendship, by implication, every + time you write to me. You seek my society mentally. Do you really + believe that my mind is so easily satisfied with intellectual + rubbish, or that I am flattered by letters from a nobody? + + "What do you suppose there is attractive about you, Mr. Quarren--if + you really do amount to as little as you pretend? I've seen + handsomer men, monsieur, wealthier men, more intelligent men; men + more experienced, men of far greater talents and attainments. + + "Why do you suppose that I sit here in the Southern sunshine + writing to you when there are dozens of men perfectly ready to + amuse me?--and qualified to do it, too! + + "For the sake of your _beaux-yeux_? _Non pas!_ + + "But there is a _something_ which the world recognises as a subtle + and nameless sympathy. And it stretches an invisible filament + between you and the girl who is writing to you. + + "That tie is not founded on sentiment; I think you know that. And, + of things spiritual, you and I have never yet spoken. + + "Therefore I conclude that the tie must be purely intellectual; + that mind calls to mind and finds contentment in the far response. + + "So, when you pretend to me that you are of no intellectual + account, you pay me a scurvy compliment. _Quod erat demonstrandum._ + + "With this gentle reproof I seal my long, long letter, and go where + the jasmine twineth and the orchestra playeth; for it is tea-time, + my friend, and the Park of Peacocks is all a-glitter with plumage. + Soft eyes look wealth to eyes that ask again; and all is brazen as + a dinner bell! + + "O friend! do you know that since I have been here I might have + attained to fortune, had I cared to select any one of several + generous gentlemen who have been good enough to thrust that + commodity at me? + + "To be asked to marry a man no longer distresses me. I am all over + the romantic idea of being sorry for wealthy amateurs who make me a + plain business proposition, offering to invest a fortune in my + good looks. To amateurs, connoisseurs, and collectors, there is no + such thing as a fixed market value to anything. An object of art is + worth what it can be bought for. I don't yet know how much I am + worth. I may yet find out. + + "There are nice men here, odious men, harmless men, colourless men, + worthy men, and the ever-present fool. He is really the happiest, I + suppose. + + "Then, all in a class by himself, is an Englishman, one Sir Charles + Mallison. I don't know what to tell you about him except that I + feel exceedingly safe and comfortable when I am with him. + + "He says very little; I say even less. But it is agreeable to be + with him. + + "He is middle-aged, and, I imagine, very wise. Perhaps his + reticence makes me think so. He and Mr. Wycherly shoot ducks on the + lagoon--and politics into each other. + + "I must go. You are not here to persuade me to stay and talk + nonsense to you against my better judgment. You're quite helpless, + you see. So I'm off. + + "Will you write to me again? + + "STRELSA LEEDS." + +A week after Quarren had answered her letter O'Hara called his attention +to a paragraph in a morning paper which hinted at an engagement between +Sir Charles Mallison and Mrs. Leeds. + +Next day's paper denied it on excellent authority; so, naturally, the +world at large believed the contrary. + +Southern news also revealed the interesting item that the yacht, +_Yulan_, belonging to Mrs. Sprowl's hatchet-faced nephew, Langly Sprowl, +had sailed from Miami for the West Indies with the owner and Mrs. Leeds +and Sir Charles Mallison among the guests. + +The _Yulan_ had not as fragrant a reputation as its exotic name might +signify, respectable parties being in the minority aboard her, but +Langly Sprowl was Langly Sprowl, and few people declined any invitation +of his. + +He was rather a remarkable young man, thin as a blade, with a voracious +appetite and no morals. Nor did he care whether anybody else had any. +What he wanted he went after with a cold and unsensitive directness that +no newspapers had been courageous enough to characterise. He wouldn't +have cared if they had. + +Among other things that he had wanted, recently, was another man's wife. +The other man being of his own caste made no difference to him; he +simply forced him to let his wife divorce him; which, it was understood, +that pretty young matron was now doing as rapidly as the laws of Nevada +allowed. + +Meanwhile Langly Sprowl had met Strelsa Leeds. + + * * * * * + +The sailing of the _Yulan_ for the West Indies became the topic of +dinner and dance gossip; and Quarren heard every interpretation that +curiosity and malice could put upon the episode. + +He had been feeling rather cheerful that day; a misguided man from +Jersey City had suddenly developed a mania for a country home. Quarren +personally conducted him all over Tappan-Zee Park on the Hudson, through +mud and slush in a skidding touring car, with the result that the man +had become a pioneer and had promised to purchase a building site. + +So Quarren came back to the Legation that afternoon feeling almost +buoyant, and discovered Westguard in all kinds of temper, smoking a huge +faience pipe which he always did when angry, and which had become known +as "The Weather-breeder." + +[Illustration: "'I write,' said Westguard, furious, 'because I have a +message to deliv--'"] + +"Jetzt geht das Wetter los!" quoted Quarren, dropping into a seat by the +fire. "Where is this particular area of low depression centred, Karl?" + +"Over my damn book. The papers insist it's a _livre-a-clef_; and I am +certain the thing is selling on that account! I tell you it's +humiliating. I've done my best as honestly as I know how, and not one +critic even mentions the philosophy of the thing; all they notice is the +mere story and the supposed resemblance between my characters and living +people! I'm cursed if I ever----" + +"Oh, shut up!" said Quarren tranquilly. "If you're a novelist you write +to amuse people, and you ought to be thankful that you've succeeded." + +"Confound it!" roared Westguard, "I write to _instruct_ people! not to +keep 'em from yawning!" + +"Then you've made a jolly fluke of it, that's all--because you have +accidentally written a corking good story--good enough and interesting +enough to make people stand for the cold chunks of philosophical +admonition with which you've spread your sandwich--thinly, Heaven be +praised!" + +"I write," said Westguard, furious, "because I've a message to +deliv----" + +"Help!" moaned Quarren. "You write because it's in you to do it; because +you've nothing more interesting to do; and because it enables you to +make a decent and honourable living!" + +"Do those reasons prevent my having a message to deliver?" roared +Westguard. + +"No, they exist in spite of it. You'd write anyway, whether or not you +believed you had a message to deliver. You've written some fifteen +novels, and fifteen times you have smothered your story with your +message. This time, by accident, the story got its second breath, and +romped home, with 'Message' a bad second, and that selling plater, +'Philosophy,' left at the post----" + +"Go on!--you irreverent tout!" growled Westguard; "I want my novels +read, of course. Any author does. But I wish to Heaven somebody would +try to interpret the important lessons which I----" + +"Oh, preciousness and splash! Tell your story as well as you can, and if +it's well done there'll be latent lessons enough in it." + +"Are you perhaps instructing me in my own profession?" asked the other, +smiling. + +"Heaven knows I'm not venturing----" + +"Heaven knows you _are_! Also there is something In what you say--" He +sat smoking, thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in the fire--"if I only +_could_ manage that!--to arrest the public's attention by the rather +cheap medium of the story, and then, cleverly, shoot a few moral pills +into 'em.... That's one way, of course----" + +"Like the drums of the Salvation Army." + +Westguard looked around at him, suspiciously, but Quarren seemed to be +serious enough. + +"I suppose it doesn't matter much how a fellow collects an audience, so +that he does collect one." + +"Exactly," nodded Quarren. "Get your people, then keep 'em interested +and unsuspecting while you inject 'em full of thinks." + +Westguard smoked and pondered; but presently his lips became stern and +compressed. + +"I don't intend to trifle with my convictions or make any truce or any +compromise with 'em," he announced. "I'm afraid that this last story of +mine ran away with me." + +"It sure did, old Ironsides. Heaven protected her own this time. And in +'The Real Thing' you have ridden farther out among the people with your +Bible and your Sword than you ever have penetrated by brandishing both +from the immemorial but immobile battlements of righteousness. Truth +_is_ a citadel, old fellow; but its garrison should be raiders, not +defenders. And they should ride far afield to carry its message. For few +journey to that far citadel; you must go to them. And does it make any +difference what vehicle you employ in the cause of Truth--so that the +message arrives somewhere before your vehicle breaks down of its own +heaviness? Novel or poem, sermon or holy writ--it's all one, Karl, so +that they get there with their burden." + +Westguard sat silent a moment, then thumped the table, emphatically. + +"If I had your wasted talents," he said, "I could write anything!" + +"Rot!" + +"As you please. You use your ability rottenly--that's true enough." + +"My ability," mimicked Quarren. + +"Yes, your many, many talents, Rix. God knows why He gave them to you; I +don't--for you use them ignobly, when you do not utterly neglect +them----" + +"I've a light and superficial talent for entertaining people; I've +nimble legs, and possess a low order of intelligence known as 'tact.' +What more have I?" + +"You're the best amateur actor in New York, for example." + +"An _amateur_," sneered Quarren. "That is to say, a man who has the +inclinations, but neither the courage, the self-respect, nor the +ambition of the professional.... Well, I admit that. I lack +something--courage, I think. I prefer what is easy. And I'm doing it." + +"What's your reward?" said Westguard bluntly. + +"Reward? Oh, I don't know. The inner temple. I have the run of the +premises. People like me, trust me, depend upon me more or less. The +intrigues and politics of my little world amuse me; now and then I act +as ambassador, as envoy of peace, as herald, as secret diplomatic +agent.... Reward? Oh, yes--you didn't suppose that my real-estate +operations clothed and fed me, did you, Karl?" + +"What does?" + +"Diplomacy," explained Quarren gaily. "A successful embassy is rewarded. +How? Why, now and then a pretty woman's husband makes an investment for +me at his own risk; now and then, when my office is successfully +accomplished, I have my fee as social attorney or arbiter +elegantiarum.... There are, perhaps, fewer separations and divorces on +account of me; fewer scandals. + +"I am sometimes called into consultation, _in extremis_; I listen, I +advise--sometimes I plan and execute; even take the initiative and +interfere--as when a foolish boy at the Cataract Club, last week, locked +himself into the bath-room with an automatic revolver and a case of +half-drunken fright. I had to be very careful; I expected to hear that +drumming fusillade at any moment. + +"But I talked to him, through the keyhole: and at last he opened the +door--to take a shot at me, first." + +Quarren shrugged and lighted a cigarette. + +"Of course," he added, "his father was only too glad to pay his debts. +But boys don't always see things in their true proportions. Neither do +women." + +Westguard, silent, scowling, pulled at his pipe for a while, then: + +"Why should you play surgeon and nurse in such a loathsome hospital?" + +"Somebody must. I seem better fitted to do it than the next man." + +"Yes," said Westguard with a wry face, "I fancy somebody must do +unpleasant things--even among the lepers of Molokai. But I'd prefer real +lepers." + +"The social sort are sometimes sicker," laughed Quarren. + +"I don't agree with you.... By the way, it's all off between my aunt and +me." + +"I'm sorry, Karl----" + +"I'm not! I don't want her money. She told me to go to the devil, and I +said something similar. Do you know what she wants me to do?" he added +angrily. "Give up writing, live on an allowance from her, and marry +Chrysos Lacy! What do you think of that for a cold-blooded and +impertinent proposition! We had a fearful family row," he continued with +satisfaction--"my aunt bellowing so that her footmen actually fled, and +I doing the cool and haughty, and letting her bellow her bally head +off." + +"You and she have exchanged civilities before," said Quarren, smiling. + +"Yes, but this is really serious. I'm damned if I give up writing." + +"Or marry Chrysos Lacy?" + +"Or that, either. Do you think I want a red-headed wife? And I've never +spoken a dozen words to her, either. And I'll pick out my own wife. What +does my aunt think I am? I wish I were in love with somebody's +parlour-maid. B'jinks! I'd marry her, just to see my aunt's +expression----" + +"Oh, stop your fulminations," said Quarren, laughing. "That's the way +with you artistic people; you're a passionate pack of pups!" + +"I'm not as passionate as my aunt!" retorted Westguard wrathfully. "Do +you consider her artistic? She's a meddlesome, malicious, domineering, +insolent, evil old woman, and I told her so." + +Quarren managed to stifle his laughter for a moment, but his sense of +the ludicrous was keen, and the scene his fancy evoked sent him off into +mirth uncontrollable. + +Westguard eyed him gloomily; ominous clouds poured from "The +Weather-breeder." + +"Perhaps it's funny," he said, "but she and I cannot stand each other, +and this time it's all off for keeps. I told her if she sent me another +check I'd send it back. That settles it, doesn't it?" + +"You're foolish, Karl----" + +"Never mind. If I can't keep myself alive in an untrammelled and +self-respecting exercise of my profession--" His voice ended in a +gurgling growl. Then, as though the recollections of his injuries at the +hands of his aunt still stung him, he reared up in his chair: + +"Chrysos Lacy," he roared, "is a sweet, innocent girl--not a bale of +fashionable merchandise! Besides," he added in a modified tone, "I was +rather taken by--by Mrs. Leeds." + +Quarren slowly raised his eyes. + +"I was," insisted Westguard sulkily; "and I proved myself an ass by +saying so to my aunt. Why in Heaven's name I was idiot enough to go and +tell her, I don't know. Perhaps I had a vague idea that she would be so +delighted that she'd give me several tons of helpful advice." + +"Did she?" + +"_Did_ she! She came back at me with Chrysos Lacy, I tell you! And when +I merely smiled and attempted to waive away the suggestion, she flew +into a passion, called me down, cursed me out--you know her language +isn't always in good taste--and then she ordered me to keep away from +Mrs. Leeds--as though I ever hung around any woman's skirts! I'm no +Squire of Dames. I tell you, Rix, I was mad clear through. So I told her +that I'd marry Mrs. Leeds the first chance I got----" + +"Don't talk about her that way," remonstrated Quarren pleasantly. + +"About who? My aunt?" + +"I didn't mean your aunt?" + +"Oh. About Mrs. Leeds. Why not? She's the most attractive woman I ever +met----" + +"Very well. But don't talk about marrying her--as though you had merely +to suggest it to her. You know, after all, Mrs. Leeds may have ideas of +her own." + +"Probably she has," admitted Westguard, sulkily. "I don't imagine she'd +care for a man of my sort. Why do you suppose she went off on that +cruise with Langly Sprowl?" + +Quarren said, gravely: "I have no idea what reasons Mrs. Leeds has for +doing anything." + +"You correspond." + +"Who said so?" + +"My aunt." + +Quarren flushed up, but said nothing. + +Westguard, oblivious of his annoyance, and enveloped in a spreading +cloud of tobacco, went on: + +"Of course if _you_ don't know, _I_ don't. But, by the same token, my +aunt was in a towering rage when she heard that Langly had Mrs. Leeds +aboard the _Yulan_." + +"What!" said the other, sharply. + +"She swore like a trooper, and called Langly all kinds of impolite +names. Said she'd trim him if he ever tried any of his tricks around +Mrs. Leeds----" + +"What tricks? What does she mean by tricks?" + +"Oh, I suppose she meant any of his blackguardly philandering. There +isn't a woman living on whom he is afraid to try his hatchet-faced +blandishments." + +Quarren dropped back into the depths of his arm-chair. Presently his +rigid muscles relaxed. He said coolly: + +"I don't think Langly Sprowl is likely to misunderstand Mrs. Leeds." + +"That depends," said Westguard. "He's a rotten specimen, even if he is +my cousin. And he knows I think so." + +A few minutes later O'Hara sauntered in. He had been riding in the Park +and his boots and spurs were shockingly muddy. + +"Who is this Sir Charles Mallison, anyway?" he asked, using the decanter +and then squirting his glass full of carbonic. "Is it true that he's +goin' to marry that charmin' Mrs. Leeds? I'll break his bally Sassenach +head for him! I'll----" + +"The rumour was contradicted in this morning's paper," said Quarren +coldly. + +O'Hara drank pensively: "I see that Langly Sprowl is messin' about, too. +Mrs. Ledwith had better hurry up out there in Reno--or wherever she's +gettin' her divorce. I saw Chet Ledwith ridin' in the Park. Dankmere was +with him. Funny he doesn't seem to lose any caste by sellin' his wife to +Sprowl." + +"The whole thing is a filthy mess," growled Westguard; "let it alone." + +"Why don't you make a novel about it?" inquired O'Hara. + +"Because, you dub! I don't use real episodes or living people!" roared +Westguard; "newspapers and a few chumps to the contrary!" + +"So!--so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly--"whoa--steady, boy!" And he +pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when +currying. + +"Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of +human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I +have any desire to do it, but if I _should_ ever write a novel dealing +with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved." + +"You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals +only," said Quarren. + +"Why? Aren't there plenty of scandalous----" + +"Plenty. But no more than in any other set or coterie; not as many as +there are among more ignorant people. Virtue far outbalances vice among +us: a novel, properly proportioned, ought to show that. If it doesn't, +it's misleading." + +"Supposing," said Westguard, "that I were indecent enough to show up my +aunt in fiction. Nobody would believe her possible." + +"I sometimes doubt her even now," observed O'Hara, grinning. + +Quarren said: "Count up the unpleasant characters in your own social +vicinity, Karl--just to prove to yourself that there are really very +few." + +"There is Langly--and my aunt--and the Lester Calderas--and the +Ledwiths----" + +"Go on!" + +Westguard laughed: "I guess that ends the list," he said. + +"It does. Also I dispute the list," said Quarren. + +"Cyrille Caldera is a pippin," remarked O'Hara, sentimentally. + +"What about Mary Ledwith? Is anybody here inclined to sit in judgment?" + +"I," said Westguard grimly. + +"Why?" + +"Divorce is a dirty business." + +"Oh. You'd rather she put up with Chester?--the sort of man who was weak +enough to let her go?" + +"Yes!" + +"Get out, you old Roundhead!" said Quarren, laughing. He rose, laid his +hand lightly on Westguard's shoulder in passing, and went upstairs to +his room, where he wrote a long letter to Strelsa; and then destroyed +it. Then he lay down, covering his boyish head with his arms. + +When Lacy came in he saw him lying on the bed, and thought he was +asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New +York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm +Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of +change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the +girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth. + +By daylight the fatigues of pleasure were faintly visible--that +unmistakable imprint which may perhaps leave the eyes clear and calm, +but which edges the hardened contour of the cheek under them with deeper +violet shadow. + +Not that hers was as yet the battered beauty of exhaustion; she had +merely lived every minute to the full all winter long, and had overtaxed +her capacity; and the fire had consumed something of her freshness. + +Not yet inured, not yet crystallised to that experienced hardness which +withstands the fierce flame of living too fast in a world where every +minute is demanded and where sleep becomes a forgotten art, the girl was +completely tired out, and while she herself did not realise it, her +features showed it. + +But nervous exhaustion alone could not account for the subtle change in +her expression. Eyes and lips were still sweet, even in repose, but +there was now a jaded charm about them--something unspoiled had +disappeared from them--something of that fearlessness which vanishes +after too close and too constant contact with the world of men. + +Evidently her mind was quite as weary as her body, though even to +herself she had not admitted fatigue; and a tired mind no longer defends +itself. Hers had not; and the defence had been, day by day, +imperceptibly weakening. So that things to which once she had been able +at will to close her mind, and, mentally deaf, let pass unheard, she had +heard, and had even thought about. And the effort to defend her ears and +mind became less vigorous, less instinctive--partly through sheer +weariness. + +The wisdom of woman and of man, and of what is called the world, the +girl was now learning--unconsciously in the beginning and then with a +kind of shamed indifference--but the creation of an artificial interest +in anything is a subtle matter; and the ceaseless repetition of things +unworthy at last awake that ignoble curiosity always latent in man. +Because intelligence was born with it; and unwearied intelligence alone +completely suppresses it. + +At first she had kept her head fairly level in the whirlwind of +adulation. To glimpses of laxity she closed her eyes. Sir Charles was +always refreshing to her; but she could see little more of him than of +other men--less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that +happened--and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly +Sprowl. + +Again and again she found herself with him separated from the +others--sometimes alone with him on deck--and never quite understood how +it came about so constantly. + +As for Sprowl he made love to her from the first; and he was a trim, +carefully groomed and volubly animated young man, full of information, +and with a restless, ceaseless range of intelligence which at first +dazzled with its false brilliancy. + +But it was only a kind of flash-light intelligence. It seemed to miss, +occasionally; some cog, some screw somewhere was either absent or badly +adjusted or over-strained. + +At first Strelsa found the young fellow fascinating. He had been +everywhere and had seen everything; his mind was kaleidoscopic; his +thought shifted, flashed, jerked, leaped like erratic lightning from one +subject to another--from Japanese aeroplanes to a scheme for filling in +the East River; from a plan to reconcile church and state in France to +an idea for indefinitely prolonging human life. He had written several +books about all kinds of things. Nobody read them. + +The first time he spoke to her of love was on a magnificent star-set +night off Martinique; and she coolly reminded him of the gossip +connecting him with a pretty woman in Reno. She could not have done it a +month ago. + +He denied it so pleasantly, so frankly, that, astonished, she could +scarcely choose but believe him. + +After that he made ardent, headlong love to her at every opportunity, +with a flighty recklessness which began by amusing her. At first, also, +she found wholesome laughter a good defence; but there was an +under-current of intelligent, relentless vigour in his attack which +presently sobered her. And she vaguely realised that he was a man who +knew what he wanted. A talk with Molly Wycherly sobered her still more; +and she avoided him as politely as she could. But, being her host, it +was impossible to keep clear of him. Besides there was about him a +certain unwholesome fascination, even for her. No matter how bad a man's +record may be, few women doubt their ability to make it a better one. + +"You little goose," said Molly Wycherly, "everybody knows the kind of +man he is. Could anything be more brazen than his attentions to you +while Mary Ledwith is in Reno?" + +"He says that her being there has nothing to do with him." + +"Then he lies," said Molly, shrugging her shoulders. + +"He doesn't speak as though he were trying to deceive anybody, Molly. He +is perfectly frank to me. I can't believe that scandal. Besides he is +quite open and manly about his unsavoury reputation; makes no excuses; +simply says that there's good in every man, and that there is always one +woman in the world who can bring it out----" + +"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell +you----" + +"No man is!" insisted Strelsa. + +"What?" + +"No man is. The great masters of fiction always ascribe at least one +virtue to their most infamous creations----" + +"Oh, Strelsa, you talk like a pan of fudge! _I_ tell you that Langly +Sprowl is no good at all. I hope you won't have to marry him to find +out." + +"I don't intend to.... How inconsistent you are, Molly. You--and +everybody else--believe him to be the most magnificent match in----" + +"If position and wealth is all you care for, yes. I didn't suppose you'd +come to that." + +Strelsa said candidly: "I care for both--I don't know how much." + +"As much as that?" + +"No; not enough to marry him. And if he is what you say, it's hopeless +of course.... I don't think he is. Be decent, Molly; everybody is very +horrid about him, and--and that is always a matter of sympathetic +interest to a generous woman. When the whole world condemns a man it +makes him interesting!" + +"That's a piffling and emotional thing to say! He may be attractive in +an uncanny way, because he's agreeable to look at, amusing, and very +dangerous--a perfectly cold-blooded, and I think, slightly unbalanced +social marauder. And that's the fact about Langly Sprowl. And I wish we +were on land, the _Yulan_ and her owner in--well, in the Erie Basin, +perhaps." + +Whether or not Strelsa believed these things, there still remained in +her that curious sense of fascination in Sprowl's presence, partly +arising, no doubt, from an instinctive sympathy for a young man so +universally damned; partly, because she thought that perhaps he really +was damned. Therefore, deep in her heart she felt that he must be +dangerous; and there is, in that one belief, every element of +unwholesome fascination. And a mind fatigued is no longer wholesome. + +Then, too, there was always Sir Charles Mallison to turn to for a +refreshing moral bath. Safety of soul lay in his vicinity; she felt +confidence in the world wherever he traversed it. With him she relaxed +and rested; there was repose for her in his silences; strength for her +when he spoke; and a serene comradeship which no hint of sentiment had +ever vexed. + +Perhaps only a few people realised how thoroughly a single winter was +equipping Strelsa for the part she seemed destined to play in that +narrow world with which she was already identified; and few realised how +fast she was learning. Laxity of precept, easy morals, looseness of +thought, idle and good-natured acquiescence in social conditions where +all standards seemed alike, all ideals merely a matter of personal +taste--this was the atmosphere into which she had stepped from two years +of Western solitude after a nightmare of violence, cruelty, and +depravity unutterable. And naturally it seemed heavenly to her; and each +revelation inconsistent with her own fastidious instincts left her less +and less surprised, less and less uneasy. And after a while she began to +assimilate all that she saw and heard. + +A few unworldly instincts remained in her--gratitude for and quick +response to any kindness offered from anybody; an inclination to make +friends with stray wanderers into her circle, and to cultivate the +socially useless. + +Taking four o'clock tea alone with Mrs. Sprowl the afternoon of her +return to town--an honour vouchsafed to few--Strelsa was relating, at +that masterful woman's request, her various exotic experiences. Mrs. +Sprowl had commanded her attendance early. There were reasons. And now +partly vexed, partly in unwilling admiration, the old lady sat smiling +and all the while thinking to herself impatiently; "Baby! Fool! Little +ninny! Imbecile!" while she listened, fat bejewelled hands folded, small +green eyes shining in the expanse of powdered and painted fat. + +After a while she could endure it no longer, and she said with a wheeze +of good-natured disdain: + +"It's like a school-girl's diary--all those rhapsodies over volcanoes, +palm trees, and the colour of the Spanish Main. Never mind geography, +child; tell me about the men!" + +"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly--"why there were shoals and shoals +of them, of every description!" + +"I mean the _one_ man?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly. + +"Which, please?" + +"Nonsense! There _was_ one, I suppose." + +"Oh, I don't think so.... Your nephew, Langly, was exceedingly +amiable----" + +"He's a plain beast," said his aunt, bluntly. "I didn't mean him." + +"He was very civil to me," insisted Strelsa, colouring. + +"Probably he didn't have a chance to be otherwise. He's a rotter, child. +Ask anybody. I know perfectly well what he's been up to. I'm sorry you +went on the _Yulan_. He had no business to ask you--or any other nice +girl--or anybody at all until that Reno scandal is officially made +respectable. If it were not for his money--" She stopped a moment, +adding cynically--"and if it were not for mine--certain people wouldn't +be tolerated anywhere, I suppose.... How did you like Sir Charles?" + +"Oh, he is charming!" she said warmly. + +"You like him?" + +"I almost adore him." + +"Why not adore him entirely?" + +[Illustration: "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the +men!'"] + +Strelsa laughed frankly: "He hasn't asked me to, for one reason. +Besides----" + +"No doubt he'll do it." + +The girl shook her head, still smiling: + +"You don't understand at all. There isn't the slightest sentiment +between us. He's only thoroughly nice and agreeable, and he and I are +most companionable. I hope nobody will be silly enough to hint anything +of that sort to him. It would embarrass him dreadfully." + +Mrs. Sprowl's smile was blandly tolerant: + +"The man's in love with you. Didn't you know it?" + +"But you are mistaken, dear Mrs. Sprowl. If it were true I would know +it, I think." + +"Nonsense! He told me so." + +"Oh," said Strelsa in amazed consternation. She added: "If it _is_ so +I'd rather not speak of it, please." + +Mrs. Sprowl eyed her with shifty but keen intelligence. "Little idiot," +she thought; but her smile remained bland and calmly patronising. + +For a second or two longer she studied the girl cautiously, trying to +make up her mind whether there was really any character in Strelsa's +soft beauty--anything firmer than material fastidiousness; anything more +real than a natural and dainty reticence. Mrs. Sprowl could ride +rough-shod over such details. But she was too wise to ride if there was +any chance of a check from higher sources. + +"If you married him it would be very gratifying to me," she said +pleasantly. "Come; let's discuss the matter like sensible women. Shall +we?" + +Many people would not have disregarded such a wish. Strelsa flushed and +lifted her purple-gray eyes to meet the little green ones scanning her +slyly. + +"I am sorry," she said, "but I couldn't discuss such a thing, you see. +Don't you see I can't, dear Mrs. Sprowl?" + +"Pooh! Rubbish! Anybody can discuss anything," rejoined the old lady +with impersonal and boisterous informality. "I'm fond of you. Everybody +knows it. I'm fond of Sir Charles. He's a fine figure of a man. You +match him in everything, except wealth. It's an ideal marriage----" + +"Please don't!--I simply cannot----" + +"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly--"an ideal marriage----" + +"But when there is no love----" + +"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you--crazy!----" + +"I--meant--on my part----" + +"Good God!" shouted the old lady, beating the air with pudgy +hands--"isn't it luck enough to have love on one side? What does the +present generation want! I tell you it's ideal, perfect. He's a good man +as men go, and a devilish handsome----" + +"I know--but----" + +"And he's got money!" shouted the old lady--"plenty of it I +tell you! And he has the entree everywhere on the Continent--in +England--everywhere!--which Dankmere has not!--if you're considering +that little whelp!" + +Stunned, shrinking from the dreadful asthmatic noises in Mrs. Sprowl's +voice, Strelsa sat dumb, wincing under the blows of sound, not knowing +how to escape. + +"I'm fond of you!" shrieked the old lady--"I can be of use to you and I +want to be. That's why I asked you to tea! I want to make you happy--and +Sir Charles, too! What the devil do you suppose there is in it for me +except to oblige hi--you both?" + +"Th-thank you, but----" + +"I'll bet a shilling that Molly Wycherly let you go about with any +little spindle-shanked pill who came hanging around!--And I told her +what were my wishes----" + +"Please--oh, _please_, Mrs. Sprowl----" + +"Yes, I did! It's a good match! I want you to consider it!--I insist +that----" + +"Mrs. Sprowl!" exclaimed Strelsa, pink with confusion and resentment, "I +am obliged to you for the interest you display, but it is a matter----" + +"What!" + +"I am really--grateful--but----" + +"Answer me, child. Has that cursed nephew of mine made any impression on +you? Answer me!" + +"Not the kind you evidently mean!" said Strelsa, helplessly. + +"Is there anybody else?" + +The outrageous question silenced the girl for a moment. Angry, she still +tried to be gentle; tried to remember the age, and the excellent +intentions of this excited old lady; and she answered in a low voice: + +"I care for no man in particular, unless it be Sir Charles--and----" + +"And who?" + +"Mr. Quarren, I think," she said. + +Mrs. Sprowl's jowl grew purple with fury: + +"You--has that boy had the impudence--damn him----" + +Strelsa sprang to her feet. + +"I really cannot remain--" she said with decision, but the old lady only +bawled: + +"Sit down! Sit down!" + +"I will not!" + +"Sit _down_!" she roared in a passion. "What the devil----" + +Strelsa, a little pale, started to pass her--then halted, astounded: for +the old lady had burst into a passion of choking gasps. Whether the +terrible sounds she made were due to impotent rage or asthma, Strelsa, +confused, shocked, embarrassed, but still angry, had no notion; and +while Mrs. Sprowl coughed fatly, she stood still, catching muffled +fragments of reproaches directed at people who flouted friendship; who +had no consideration for age, and no gratitude, no tenderness, no pity. + +"I--I _am_ grateful," faltered Strelsa, "only I cannot----" + +"I wanted to be a mother to you! I've tried to be," wheezed the old lady +in a fresh paroxysm; and beat the air. + +For one swift instant the girl remembered what her real mother had been +to her; and her heart hardened. + +"I care only for your friendship, Mrs. Sprowl; I do not wish you to do +anything for me; can we not be friends on that basis?" + +Mrs. Sprowl swabbed her inflamed eyes and peered around the corner of +the handkerchief. + +"Come here, my dear," she said. + +Strelsa went, slowly; and Mrs. Sprowl enveloped her like a fleshy squid, +panting. + +"I only wanted to be good to you, Strelsa. I'm just an old fool I +suppose----" + +"Oh, please don't----" + +"That's all I am, child, just a sentimental old fool. The poor man's +adoration of you touched my heart--and you do like him a little, don't +you?" + +"Very much.... Thank you for--for wishing happiness to me. I really +don't mean to be ungrateful; I have a horror of ingratitude. It's only +that--the idea never occurred to me; and I am incapable of doing such a +thing for material reasons, unless--I also really cared for a man----" + +"Of course, child. Maybe you will care for him some day. I won't +interfere any more.... Only--don't lose your heart to any of these young +jackals fawning around your skirts. Every set is full of 'em. They're +nothing but the capering chorus in this comic opera.... And--don't be +angry--but I am an older and wiser woman than you, and I am fond of you, +and it's my duty to tell you that any of the lesser breed--take young +Quarren for example--are of no real account, even in the society which +they amuse." + +"I would scarcely class Mr. Quarren with the sort you mention----" + +"Why not? He's of no importance." + +"Because he is kind, considerate, and unusually intelligent and +interesting; and he is very capable of succeeding in whatever he +undertakes," said Strelsa, slowly. + +"Ricky is a nice boy; but what does he undertake?" asked Mrs. Sprowl +with good-natured contempt. "He undertakes the duties, obligations, and +details of a useful man in the greater household, which make him +acceptable to us; and I'm bound to say that he does 'em very well. But +outside of that he's a nobody. And I'll tell you just what he'll turn +into; shall I? Society's third chief bottlewasher in succession. We had +one, who evolved us. He's dead. We have another. He's still talking. +When he ultimately evaporates into infinity Ricky will be his natural +successor. Do you want that kind of a husband?" + +"Did you suppose----" + +"Don't get angry, Strelsa? I didn't suppose anything. Ricky, like every +other man, dangles his good-looking, good-humoured self in your +vicinity. You're inclined to notice him. All I mean is that he isn't +worth your pains.... Now you won't be offended by a plain-spoken old +woman who wishes only your happiness, will you, my child?" + +"No," said Strelsa, wearily, beginning to feel the fatigue of the scene. + +She took her leave a few moments afterward, very unhappy because two of +the pleasantest incidents in her life had been badly, if not hopelessly, +marred. But Langly Sprowl was not one of them. + + * * * * * + +That hatchet-faced and immaculate gentleman, divining possibly that +Strelsa might be with his aunt, arrived shortly after her departure; +learned of it from a servant, and was turning on his heel without even +asking for Mrs. Sprowl, when the thought occurred to him that possibly +she might know Strelsa's destination. + +When a servant announced him he found his aunt quite herself, grim, +ready for trouble, her small green eyes fairly snapping. + +They indulged in no formalities, being alone together, and caring +nothing for servants' opinions. Their greeting was perfunctory; their +inquiries civil. Then there ensued a short silence. + +"Which way did Mrs. Leeds go?" he asked, busily twisting his long +moustache. + +"None of your business," rejoined his aunt. + +He looked up in slight surprise, recognised a condition of things which, +on second thought, surprised him still more. Because his aunt had never +before noticed his affairs--had not even commented on the Ledwith matter +to him. He had always felt that she disliked him too thoroughly to care. + +"I don't think I understood you," he said, watching her out of shifting +eyes which protruded a trifle. + +"I think you will understand me before I've done with you," returned his +aunt, grimly. "It's a perfectly plain matter; you've the rest of the +female community to chase if you choose. Go and chase 'em for all I +care--hunt from here to Reno if you like!--but I have other plans for +Strelsa Leeds. Do you understand? I've put my private mark on her. +There's no room for yours." + +Langly's gaze which had not met hers--and never met anybody's for more +than a fraction of a second--shifted. He continued his attentions to his +moustache; his eyes roved; he looked at but did not see a hundred things +in a second. + +"You don't know where she's gone?" he inquired with characteristic +pertinacity and an indifference to what she had said, absolutely stony. + +"Do you mean trouble for that girl?" + +"I do not." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Nothing." + +"Do you want to marry her?" + +"I said that I was considering nothing in particular. We are friends." + +"Keep away from her! Do you understand?" + +"I really don't know whether I do or not. I suppose you mean Sir +Charles." + +Mrs. Sprowl turned red: + +"Suppose what you like, you cold-blooded cad! But by God!--if you annoy +that child I'll empty the family wash all over the sidewalk! And let the +public pick it over!" + +He rested his pale, protuberant eyes on her for a brief second: + +"Will any of your finery figure in it? Any relics or rags once belonging +to the late parent of Sir Charles?" + +Her features were livid; her lips twisted, tortured under the flood of +injuries which choked her. Not a word came. Exhausted for a moment she +sat there grasping the gilded arms of her chair, livid as the dead save +for the hell blazing in her tiny green eyes. + +"I fancy that settles the laundry question," he said, while his restless +glance ceaselessly swept the splendid room and his lean, sunburnt hand +steadily caressed his moustache. Then, as though he had forgotten +something, he rose and walked out. A footman invested him with hat and +overcoat. A moment later the great doors clicked. + +In the silence of the huge house there was not a sound except the +whispers of servants; and these ceased presently. + +All alone, amid the lighted magnificence of the vast room sat the old +woman hunched in her chair, bloodless, motionless as a mass of dead +flesh. Even the spark in her eyes was gone, the lids closed, the gross +lower lip pendulous. Later two maids, being summoned, accompanied her +to her boudoir, and were dismissed. Her social secretary, a pretty girl, +came and left with instructions to cancel invitations for the evening. + +A maid arrived with a choice of headache remedies; then, with the aid of +another, disrobed her mistress and got her into bed. + +Their offices accomplished, they were ordered to withdraw but to leave +one light burning. It glimmered over an old-fashioned photograph on the +wall--the portrait of a British officer taken in the days when whiskers, +"pill-box," and frogged frock-tunic were cultivated in Her British +Majesty's Service. + +From where she lay she looked at him; and Sir Weyward Mallison stared +back at her through his monocle. + + * * * * * + +Strelsa at home, unpinning her hat before the mirror, received word over +the telephone that Mrs. Sprowl, being indisposed, regretfully recalled +the invitations for the evening. + +The girl's first sensation was relief, then self-reproach, quite +forgetting that if Mrs. Sprowl's violent emotions had made that +redoubtable old woman ill, they had also thoroughly fatigued the victim +of her ill-temper and made her very miserable. + +She wrote a perfunctory note of regret and civil inquiry and dispatched +it, then surrendered herself to the ministrations of her maid. + +The luxury of dining alone for the first time in months, appealed to +her. She decided that she was not to be at home to anybody. + +Langly Sprowl called about six, and was sent away. Strelsa, curled up on +a divan, could hear the staccato racket that his powerful racing-car +made in the street outside. The informality of her recent host aboard +the _Yulan_ did not entirely please her. She listened to his departure +with quiet satisfaction. + +Although it was not her day, several people came and went. Flowers from +various smitten youths arrived; orchids from Sprowl; nothing from +Quarren. Then for nearly two hours she slept where she lay and awakened +laughing aloud at something Quarren had been saying in her dream. But +what it was she could not recollect. + +At eight her maid came and hooked her into a comfortable and beloved +second-year gown; dinner was announced; she descended the stairway in +solitary state, still smiling to herself at Quarren's forgotten remark, +and passed by the library just as the telephone rang there. + +It may have been a flash of clairvoyance--afterward she wondered exactly +what it was that made her say to her maid very confidently: + +"That is Mr. Quarren. I'll speak to him." + +It was Mr. Quarren. The amusing coincidence of her dream and her +clairvoyance still lingering in her mind, she went leisurely to the +telephone and said: + +"I don't understand how I knew it was you. And I'm not sure why I came +to the 'phone, because I'm not at home to anybody. But _what_ was it you +said to me just now?" + +"When?" + +"A few minutes ago while I was asleep?" + +"About eight o'clock?" + +She laughed: "It happened to be a few minutes before eight. How did you +know that? I believe you did speak to me in my dream. Did you?" + +[Illustration: "Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his +departure with quiet satisfaction."] + +"I did." + +"Really?" + +"I said something aloud to you about eight o'clock." + +"How odd! Did you know I was asleep? But you couldn't----" + +"No, of course not. I was merely thinking of you." + +"You were--you happened to be thinking of _me_? And you said something +aloud about me?" + +"About you--and _to_ you." + +"How delightfully interesting! What was it, please?" + +"Oh, I was only talking nonsense." + +"Won't it bear repetition?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"Mr. Quarren! How maddening! I'm dying with curiosity. I dreamed that +you said something very amusing to me and I awoke, laughing; but now I +simply cannot recollect what it was you said." + +"I'll tell you some day." + +"Soon? Would you tell me this evening?" + +"How can I?" + +"That's true. I'm not at home to anybody. So you can't drop in, can +you?" + +"You are not logical; I could drop in because I'm not anybody----" + +"What!" + +"I'm not anybody in particular----" + +"You know if you begin to talk that way, after all these days, I'll ring +off in a rage. You are the only man in the world to whom I'm at home +even over the telephone, and if that doesn't settle your status with me, +what does?... Are you well, Mr. Quarren?" + +"Thank you, perfectly. I called you up to ask you about yourself." + +"I'm tired, somehow." + +"Oh, we are all that. Nothing more serious threatens you than impending +slumber?" + +"I said I was tired, not sleepy. I'm wide awake but horribly lazy--and +inclined to slump. Where are you; at the Legation?" + +"At the Founders' Club--foundered." + +"What are you doing there?" + +"Absolutely nothing. Reading the _Evening Post_." + +"You are dining out I suppose?" + +"No." + +She reflected until he spoke again, asking if she was still there. + +"Oh, yes; I'm trying to think whether I want you to come around and +share a solitary dinner with me. Do I want you?" + +"Just a little--don't you?" + +"Do you want to come?" + +"Yes." + +"Very much?" + +"I can't tell you how much--over the telephone." + +"That sounds both humble and dangerous. Which do you mean to be?" + +"Humble--and very, very grateful, dear lady. May I come?" + +"I--don't know. Dinner was announced a quarter of an hour ago." + +"It won't take me three minutes----" + +"If it takes you more you'll ring my door-bell in vain, young man." + +"I'll start now! Good----" + +[Illustration: "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked, +smiling."] + +"Wait! I haven't decided. Really I'm simply stupid with the accumulated +fatigues of two months' frivolity. Do you mind my being stupid?" + +"You know I don't----" + +"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your +way over. _A bien tot!_" + +She had been in the drawing-room only a few moments, looking at the huge +white orchids that Langly Sprowl had sent and which her butler was +arranging, when Quarren was announced; and she partly turned from the +orchids, extending her hand behind her in a greeting more confident and +intimate than she had ever before given him. + +"Look at these strange, pansy-shaped Brazilian flowers," she said. +"Kindly observe that they are actually growing out of that ball of moss +and fibre." + +She had retained his hand for a fraction of a second longer than +conventional acquaintance required, giving it a frank and friendly +pressure. Now, loosing it, she found her own fingers retained, and drew +them away with a little laugh of self-consciousness. + +"Sentiment before dinner implies that you'll have no room for it after +dinner. Here is your cocktail." + +"Do you remember our first toast?" he asked, smiling. + +"No." + +"The toast to friendship?" + +"Yes; I remember it." + +She touched her lips to her glass, not looking at him. He watched her. +After a moment she raised her eyes, met his gaze, returned it with one +quite as audacious: + +"I am drinking that same toast again--after many days," she said. + +"With all that it entails?" + +She nodded. + +"Its chances, hazards, consequences?" + +She laughed, then, looking at him, deliberately sipped from her glass, +the defiant smile in her eyes still daring him and Chance and Destiny +together. + +When he took her out she was saying: "I really can't account for my mood +to-night. I believe that seeing you again is reviving me. I was beastly +stupid." + +"My soporific society ought to calm, not exhilarate you." + +"It never did, particularly. What a long time it is since we have seen +each other. I _am_ glad you came." + +Seated, she asked the butler to remove the flowers which interrupted her +view of Quarren. + +"You haven't said anything about my personal appearance," she observed. +"Am I very much battered by my merry bouts with pleasure?" + +"Not much." + +"You wretch! Do you mean to say that I am marked at all?" + +"You look rather tired, Mrs. Leeds." + +"I know I do. By daylight it's particularly visible.... But--do _you_ +mind?" + +Her charming head was bent over her grapefruit: she lifted her gray eyes +under level brows, looking across the table at him. + +"I mind anything that concerns you," he said. + +"I mean--are you disappointed because I'm growing old and haggard?" + +"I think you are even more beautiful than you were." + +She laughed gaily and continued her dinner. "I _had_ to drag that out +of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudence _is_ +stamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm +beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. You _were_ one. Do +you deny your guilt?" + +"I do not." + +"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape. +_Am_ I very much changed, Mr. Quarren?" she said a trifle wistfully. + +He did not answer immediately. After a few moments she glanced at him +again and met his gaze. + +"Well?" she prompted him, laughing; "are you not neglecting your manners +as a declared suitor?" + +"You _have_ changed." + +"What a perfect pill you are!" she exclaimed, vexed--"you're casting +yourself for the role of the honest friend--and I simply hate it! Young +sir, do you not understand that I've breakfasted, lunched and dined too +long on flattery to endure anything more wholesome? If you can't lie to +me like a gentleman and a suitor your usefulness in my entourage is +ended." + +He said: "Do you want me to talk shop with you? I get rather tired of my +trade, sometimes. It's my trade to lie, you know." + +She looked up, quickly, but he was smiling. + +They remained rather silent after that. Coffee was served at table; she +lighted a cigarette for him and, later, one for herself, strolling off +into the drawing-room with it between her fingers, one hand resting +lightly on her hip. + +She seemed to have an inclination to wander about or linger before the +marble fireplace and blow delicate rings of smoke at her own reflection +in the mirror. + +He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded +affably to him in the glass: + +"I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first +knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless--I wasn't then.... +Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about +the kind--as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting." + +"A cradle song is what you require." + +"How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same +cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?" + +"I realise how tired you are." + +"And--I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her +mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time.... +Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you +know?" + +"Conscience?" he suggested, laughing. + +"Do you think so? I thought it was my heart." + +"Have you acquired one?" + +She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned +around toward him, still smiling. + +"I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?" + +"I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?" + +"I really don't know. What do you think?" + +He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the +fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her +dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between +forefinger and thumb. + +Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not +the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was +only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day +was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became +only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of +experience.... I wonder whether my silly head _was_ turned a little.... +People said too much to me: there were too many of them--and they came +too near.... And do you know--looking back at it now as I sit here +talking to you--I--it seems absurd--but I believe that I was really a +trifle lonely at times." + +She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them. + +"I thought of you on various occasions," she added. + +He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender. + +Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained +fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his +eyes from the bracket light. + +For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his +silence and abstraction--in the set of his shoulders, and the +unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it +glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the +forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again--agreeable to +be with him--not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable--for +even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was +no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly +conscious of a reserve force now awaking--of a growing sense of +freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour. + +"Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last. + +He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move--scarcely an +invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated +himself on the arm of the lounge beside her. + +"Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me." + +"I wrote very few.... Did they really interest you?" + +"A lot." + +"How?" + +"They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back +door of Eternity." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Otherwise he would never have stirred a step--until to-night." + +"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren--but a little +sentimental--isn't it?" + +"Do you think so?" + +"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment--being unaccustomed to +it." + +"How many men made you declarations?" + +"Oh; is _that_ real sentiment? I thought it was merely love." + +He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become +like the rest." + +She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I _have_ grown +hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not +even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you +think so?" + +"Do you, Mrs. Leeds?" + +"I think so.... A woman might as well know the worst truths about +life--and about men." + +"Not about men." + +"Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?" + +"Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?" + +"By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You +probably prefer your women screened and veiled." + +"We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film." + +"Mr. Quarren--are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing. +But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale +induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones. + +"What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked, +curiously. + +"Working at my trade." + +"You seem thinner." + +"Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I +must." + +"You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike--aren't +you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him. + +He laughed. + +"You make me very angry," she said; "I like you--I'm quite happy with +you--and suddenly you try to tell me that my friendship is lavished on +an unworthy man; that my taste is low, and that you're a kind of a +social jackal--an upper servant---- + +"I feed on what the pack leaves--and I wash their fragile plates for +them," he said lightly. + +"What else?" she asked, furious. + +"I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I +smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially +injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother +jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to +sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and +give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment's notice, acting as +manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter." + +He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost +control of herself and her fingers closed tight. + +"What are you saying!" she said, fiercely. "Are you telling me that this +is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to--to think +about--think about a great deal--care enough about to dine with in my +own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are +after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?" + +He said, slowly: "I could have been anything--I could be yet--if +you----" + +"If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for +anybody's!" she retorted.... "I refuse to believe that you are what you +say, anyway. It hurts--it hurts----" + +"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds----" + +"It hurts _me!_ I _do_ like you. I was glad to see you--you don't know +how glad. Your letters to me were--were interesting. _You_ have always +been interesting, from the very first--more so than many men--more than +most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If +I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?" + +Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest +every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand +tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted +handkerchief. + +"I could stand anything!--my friendship for you could stand almost +anything except what you pretend you are--and what other malicious +tongues will say if you continue to repeat it!--And it _has_ been said +already about you! Do you know that? People _do_ say that of you. +People even say so to me--tell me you are worthless--warn me +against--against----" + +"What?" + +"Caring--taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit +disrespect for yourself! A man--_any_ man is what he chooses to be, and +people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in +pretending to dignity and worth when--when you can be the peer of any +man? What's the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of +you with contempt. I denied what she said.... I'd rather they'd say +anything else about you--that you had vices--a vigorous, wilful, +unmanageable man's vices!--than to say _that_ of you!" + +"What?" + +"That you amount to nothing." + +"Do you care what they say, Mrs. Leeds?" + +"Of course! It strikes at my own self-respect!" + +"Do you care--otherwise?" + +"I care--as a friend, naturally----" + +"Otherwise still?" + +"No!" + +"Could you ever care?" + +"No," she said, nervously. + +She sat breathing faster and more irregularly, watching him. He looked +up and smiled at her, rested so, a moment, then rose to take his leave. + +She stretched out one arm toward the electric bell, but her fingers +seemed to miss it, and remained resting against the silk-hung wall. + +"Are you going?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"Must you?" + +"I think I'd better." + +"Very well." + +He waited, but she did not touch the bell button. She seemed to be +waiting for him to go; so he offered his hand, pleasantly, and turned +away toward the hall. And, rising leisurely, she descended the stairs +with him in silence. + +"Good-night," he said again. + +"Good-night. I am sorry you are going." + +"Did you wish me to remain a little longer?" + +"I--don't know what I wish...." + +Her cheeks were deeply flushed; the hand he took into his again seemed +burning. + +"It's fearfully hot in here," she said. "Please muffle up warmly because +it's bitter weather out doors"--and she lifted the other hand as though +unconsciously and passed her finger tips over his fur collar. + +"Do you feel feverish?" + +"A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?" + +"You haven't caught malaria in the tropics, have you?" + +"No, you funny man. I'm never ill. But it's odd how burning hot I seem +to be----" + +She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his. + +They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as +though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the +quiet around her--a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a +delicate mist--a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and +thought. + +Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred; +and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his. + +At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small +head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch--a slight caress over her +forehead--the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers, +closer, never stirring. + +Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical +currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless, +non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to +the sorcery. + +Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its +fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her. + +She strove to turn her mouth from his--twisted away from him, straining, +tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail, +gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she +shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even +look at him, now. + +Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood +there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and glass +door; a flurry of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the +spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes. + +Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and +locked the door against her maid. + +Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat +before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and +lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange +nerves signalling; stranger responses--of a subtle fragrance in her +breath so strange that she became conscious of it. + +She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the glass while +through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew +tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the +unknown. + +Unknown still!--for she crouched there shrinking from the +revelation--from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf, +blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of +self-contempt. + +Then fear came--fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and +defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already +dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very +patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes. + +So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one +day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser +passion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had +sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her--out of a moment's +lassitude, a touch of a man's hand, and his lips on hers! And now all +her life was already behind her--childhood, girlhood, wifehood--all, +all behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an +unknown road; an unknown world before her. + +With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty, +of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce +humiliation born of self-knowledge--knowledge scornfully admitted and +defied with every breath--but no longer denied. + +She _was_ as others were--fashioned of that same and common clay, +capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of +them--so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant, +they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things +of the mind. + +Was this the evolution that her winter's idleness and gaiety and the +fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that +strange moment, at the door, the moment that man's enemy had been +awaiting, to find her unprepared? + +Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on +her dresser--the fairest among the Philistines who had so long +unconsciously thanked God that she was not like other women in the homes +of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Strelsa was no longer at home to Quarren, even over the telephone. He +called her up two or three times in as many days, ventured to present +himself at her house twice without being received, and finally wrote her +a note. But at the end of the month the note still remained unanswered. + +However, there was news of her, sometimes involving her with Langly +Sprowl, but more often with Sir Charles Mallison. Also, had Quarren not +dropped out of everything so completely, he might easily have met her +dozens of times in dozens of places. But for a month now he had returned +every day from his office to his room in the Legation, and even the +members of that important diplomatic body found his door locked, after +dinner, though his light sometimes brightened the transom until morning. + +Westguard, after the final rupture with his aunt, had become a soured +hermit--sourer because of the low motives of the public which was buying +his book by the thousands and reading it for the story, exclusively. + +His aunt had cast him off; to him she was the overfed embodiment of +society, so it pleased him to consider the rupture as one between +society and himself. It tasted of martyrdom, and now his own public had +vulgarly gone back on him according to his ideals: nobody cared for his +economics, his social evils, his moral philosophy; only what he +considered the unworthy part of his book was eagerly absorbed and +discussed. The proletariat had grossly betrayed him; a hermit's +exemplary but embittered career was apparently all that remained for his +declining years. + +So, after dinner, he, too, retired to seclusion behind bolted doors, +pondering darkly on a philosophic novel which should be no novel at all +but a dignified and crushing rebuke to mankind--a solid slice of moral +cake thickly frosted with social economics, heavy with ethical plums, +and without any story to it whatever. + +Meanwhile his book had passed into the abhorred class of best sellers. + +As for Lacy and O'Hara, both had remarked Quarren's abrupt retirement +and his absence from that section of the social puddle which he was +accustomed to embellish and splash in. O'Hara, inclining more toward +sporting circles, noticed Quarren's absence less; but Lacy, after the +first week, demanded an explanation at the dinner-table. + +"You spoiled a party for Mrs. Lannis," he said--"and Winnifred Miller +was almost in tears over the charity tableaux----" + +"I wrote them both in plenty of time, Jack." + +"Yes. But who is there to take your place? Whatever you touch is +successful. Barent Van Dyne made a dub of himself." + +"They must break in another pup," said Quarren, amused. + +"You mean that you're chucking the whole bally thing for keeps?" + +"Practically." + +"Why?" asked O'Hara, looking up blankly. + +"Oh," said Quarren laughing, "I'm curious to find out what business I +really am in. Until this week I've never had time to discover that I was +trying to be a broker in real estate. And I've just found out that I've +been one for almost three years, and never knew it." + +"One's own company is the best," growled Westguard. "The monkey people +sicken you and the public make you ill. Solitude is the only remedy." + +"Not for me," said Quarren; "I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and +on the public; and I'm laying plans to do it." + +"They'll turn your stomach----" + +"Oh, dry up, Karl!" said O'Hara; "there's a medium between extremes +where you can get a good sportin' chance at anythin'--horse, dog, +girl--anythin' you fancy. You'd like some of my friends, now, +Ricky!--they're a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin' as +hell----" + +"_I_ don't want to meet any cock-fighters," growled Westguard. + +"They're all right, too--but there are all kinds of interestin' people +in my circles--writers like Karl, huntin' people, a professional here +and there--and then there's that fascinatin' Mrs. Wyland-Baily, the best +trap-shot----" + +"Trap-shot," repeated Westguard in disgust, and took his cigar and +himself into seclusion. + +Quarren also pushed back his chair, preparing to rise. + +"Doin' anythin'?" inquired O'Hara, desiring to be kind. "Young Calahan +and the Harlem Mutt have it out at the Cataract Club to-night," he +added persuasively. + +"Another time, thanks," said Quarren: "I've letters to write." + + * * * * * + +He wrote them--all the business letters he could think of, concentrating +his thoughts as much as possible. Afterward he lay down on the lounge +with a book, and remained there for an hour, although he changed books +every few minutes. This was becoming a bad habit. But it was difficult +reading although it ranged from Kipling to the Book of Common Prayer; +and at last he gave it up and, turning over buried his head in the +cushions. + +This wouldn't do either: he racked his brain for further employment, +found excuses for other business letters, wrote them, then attacked a +pile of social matters--notes and letters heretofore deliberately +neglected to the ragged edge of decency. + +He replied to them all, and invariably in the negative. + +It gave him something to do to go out to the nearest lamp post and mail +his letters. But when again he came back into his room the silence there +left him hesitating on his threshold. + +But he went in and locked his door, and kept his back turned to the desk +where pen and ink were tempting him as usual, and almost beyond +endurance now. And at last he weakened, and wrote to her once more: + + * * * * * + + "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS-- + + "I feel sure that your failure to answer my note of last week was + unintentional. + + "Some day, when you have a moment, would you write me a line saying + that you will be at home to me? + + "Very sincerely yours, + + "RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN." + + +He took this note to the nearest District Messenger Office; then +returned to his room. + +After an interminable time the messenger reported for the signature. +Mrs. Leeds was not at home and he had left the note as directed. + + * * * * * + +The night was a white one. He did not feel very well when he sat +scanning the morning paper over his coffee. Recently he had formed the +custom of reading two columns only in the paper--Real Estate News and +Society. In the latter column Strelsa usually figured. + +She figured as usual this morning; and he read the fulsome stuff +attentively. Also there was a flourish concerning an annual event at the +Santa Regina. + +And Quarren read this very carefully; and made up his mind as he +finished the paragraph. + +The conclusion he came to over his coffee and newspaper materialised +that afternoon at a Charity Bazaar, where, as he intended, he met +Strelsa Leeds face to face. She said, coolly amiable: + +"Have you been away? One never sees you these days." + +"I have been nowhere," he said, pleasantly. + +She shook her pretty head in reproof: + +"Is it good policy for a young man to drop out of sight? Our world +forgets over-night." + +He laughed: "Something similar has been intimated to me by others--but +less gently. I'm afraid I've offended some people." + +"Oh, so you have already been disciplined?" + +"Verbally trounced, admonished, and still smarting under the displeasure +of the powers that reign. They seem to resent my Sunday out--yet even +their other domestics have that. And it's the first I've taken in three +years. I think I'll have to give notice to my Missus." + +"The spectre of servitude still seems to obsess your humour," she +observed indifferently. + +"I _am_ that spectre, Mrs. Leeds." + +"You certainly look pallid enough for any disembodied role. You have not +been ill, by any chance?"--carelessly. + +"Not at all, thank you. Rude health and I continue to link arms." + +"Then it is not by chance that you absent yourself from the various +festivities where your part is usually supposed to be a leading one?" + +"All cooks eventually develop a distaste for their own concoctions," he +explained gravely. + +She lifted her eyebrows: "Yet you are here this afternoon." + +"Oh, yes. Charity has not yet palled on my palate--perhaps because I +need so much myself." + +"I have never considered you an object of charity." + +"Then I must draw your kind attention to my pitiable case by doing a +little begging.... Could I ask your forgiveness, for example? And +perhaps obtain it?" + +Her face flushed. "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Quarren," she said +with decision. + +"Do you mean that?" + +"Certainly." + +"I scarcely know how to take your--generosity." + +"I offer none. There is no occasion for generosity or for the exercise +of any virtue, cardinal or otherwise. You have not offended me, nor I +you--I trust.... Have I?" + +"No," he said. + +Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby +groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren +unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things. +Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and +Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman's advent as his own conge, +took his leave of Strelsa and went his way--which chanced, also, to be +the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat. + +Susanne Lannis, lips slightly curling, looked after them, touching +Strelsa's elbow: + +"Cyrille simply cannot let Ricky alone," she said. "The bill-posters +will find a fence for her if she doesn't come to her senses." + +"Who?" asked Strelsa, as one or two people laughed guardedly. + +"Why, Cyrille Caldera. _Elle s'affiche, ma chere!_" + +"Mrs. Caldera!" repeated the girl, surprised. + +"_And_ Ricky! Are you blind, Strelsa? It's been on for two weeks or +more. And she'd better not play too confidently with Ricky. You can +usually forecast what a wild animal will do, never how a trained one is +going to behave." + +"Such scandal!" laughed Chrysos Lacy. "How many of us can afford to +turn our backs to the rest of the cage even for an instant? Sir Charles, +I simply don't dare to go away. Otherwise I'd purchase several of those +glittering articles yonder--whatever they are. Do you happen to know?" + +"Automatic revolvers. The cartridges are charged with Japanese perfumes. +Did you never see one?" he asked, turning to Strelsa. But she was not +listening; and he transferred his attention to Chrysos. + +Several people moved forward to examine the pretty and apparently deadly +little weapons; Sir Charles was called upon to explain the Japanese game +of perfumes, and everybody began to purchase the paraphernalia, pistols, +cartridges, targets, and counters. + +Sir Charles came back, presently, to where Strelsa still stood, +listlessly examining laces. + +"All kinds of poor people have blinded themselves making these pretty +things," she said, as Sir Charles came up beside her. "My only apparent +usefulness is to buy them, I suppose." + +He offered her one of the automatic pistols. + +"It's loaded," he cautioned her, solemnly. + +"What an odd gift!" she said, surprised, taking it gingerly into her +gloved hand. "Is it really for me? And why?" + +"Are you timid about firearms?" he asked, jestingly. + +"No.... I don't know anything about them--except to keep my finger away +from the trigger. I know enough to do that." + +He supposed that she also was jesting, and her fastidious handling of +the weapon amused him. And when she asked him if it was safe to carry in +her muff, he assured her very gravely that she might venture to do so. +"Turn it loose on the first burglar," he added, "and his regeneration +will begin in all the forty-nine odours of sanctity." + +Strelsa smiled without comprehending. Cyrille Caldera was standing just +beyond them, apparently interested in antique jewellery, trying the +effect of various linked gems against her lilac gown, and inviting +Quarren's opinion of the results. Their backs were turned; Ricky's blond +head seemed to come unreasonably close to Cyrille's at moments. Once +Mrs. Caldera thoughtlessly laid a pretty hand on his arm as though in +emphasis. Their unheard conversation was evidently amusing them. + +Strelsa's smile remained unaltered; people were coming constantly to pay +their respects to her; and they lingered, attracted and amused by her +unusual gaiety, charm, and wit. + +Her mind seemed suddenly to have become crystal clear; her gay retorts +to lively badinage, and her laughing epigrams were deliciously +spontaneous. A slight exhilaration, without apparent reason, was +transforming her, swiftly, into an incarnation entirely unknown even to +herself. + +Conscious of a wonderful mood never before experienced, perfectly aware +of her unusual brilliancy and beauty, surprised and interested in the +sudden revelation of powers within her still unexercised, she felt +herself, for the first time in her life, in contact with things +heretofore impalpable--and, in spirit, with delicate fingers, she +gathered up instinctively those intangible threads with which man is +guided as surely as though driven in chains of steel. + +And all the while she was aware of Quarren's boyish head bending almost +too near to Cyrille Caldera's over the trays of antique jewels; and all +the while she was conscious of the transfiguration in process--that not +only a new self was being evolved for her out of the debris of the old, +but that the world itself was changing around her--and a new Heaven and +a new earth were being born--and a new hell. + +That evening she fought it out with herself with a sort of deadly +intelligence. Alone in her room, seated, and facing her mirrored gaze +unflinchingly, she stated her case, minutely, to herself from beginning +to end; then called the only witness for the prosecution--herself--and +questioned that witness without mercy. + +Did she care for Quarren? Apparently. How much? A great deal. Was she in +love with him? She could not answer. Wherein did he differ from other +men she knew--Sir Charles, for example? She only knew that he _was_ +different. Perhaps he was nobler? No. More intelligent? No. Kinder? No. +More admirable? No. More gentle, more sincere, less selfish? No. Did he, +as a man, compare favorably with other men--Sir Charles for example? The +comparison was not in Quarren's favor. + +Wherein, then, lay her interest in him? She could not answer. Was she +perhaps sorry for him? Very. Why? Because she believed him capable of +better things. Then the basis of her regard for him was founded on pity. +No; because from the beginning--even before he had unmasked--she had +been sensible of an interest in him different from any interest she had +ever before felt for any man. + +This uncompromisingly honest answer silenced her mentally for some +moments; then she lifted her resolute gray eyes to the eyes of the +mirrored witness: + +If that is true, then the attraction was partly physical? She could not +answer. Pressed for a statement she admitted that it might be that. + +Then the basis of her regard for him was ignoble? She found pleasure in +his intellectual attractions. But the basis had not been intellectual? +No. It had been material? Yes. And she had never forgotten the light +pressure of that masked Harlequin's spangled arm around her while she +desperately counted out the seconds of that magic minute forfeited to +him? No; she had never forgotten. It was a sensation totally unknown to +her before that moment? Yes. Had she experienced it since that time? +Yes. When? When he first told her that he loved her. And afterward? Yes. +When? + +In the cheeks of the mirrored witness a faint fire began to burn: her +own face grew pink: but she answered, looking the shadowy witness +steadily in the eyes: + +"When he took my hand at the door--and during--whatever +happened--afterward." + +And she excused the witness and turned her back to the looking-glass. + +The only witness for the defence was the accused--unless her own heart +were permitted to testify. Or--and there seemed to be some slight +confusion here--_was_ Quarren on trial? Or was she herself? + +This threatened to become a serious question; she strove to think +clearly, to reason; but only evoked the pale, amused face of Quarren +from inner and chaotic consciousness until the visualisation remained +fixed, defying obliteration. And she accepted the mental spectre for +the witness box. + +"Ricky," she said, "do you really love me?" + +But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the +smile she knew so well--so well, alas! + +"Why are you unworthy?" she said again--"you who surely are equipped for +a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is +so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth +nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no +better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many; +and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor +boy--poor boy." + +In vain she strove to visualise Sir Charles; she could not. All she +could do was to mentally enumerate his qualities; and she did so, the +amused face of Quarren looking on at her from out of empty space. + +"Ricky, Ricky," she said, "am I no better than that?--am I fit only for +such a response?--to find the contact of your hand so wonderful?--to +thrill with the consciousness of your nearness--to let my senses drift, +contented merely by your touch--yielding to the charm of it--suffering +even your lips' embrace----" + +She shuddered slightly, drawing one hand across her eyes, then sitting +straight, she faced his smiling phantom, resolute to end it now forever. + +"If I am such a woman," she said, "and you are the kind of man I know +you to be--then is it time for me to fast and pray, lest I enter into +temptation.... Into the one temptation I have never before known, +Ricky--and which, in my complacency and pride I never dreamed that I +should encounter. + +"And it is coming to that!... A girl must be honest with herself or all +life is only the same smiling lie. I'm ashamed to be honest, Ricky; but +I must be. You are not very much of a man--otherwise I might find some +reason for caring: and now there is none; and yet--I care--God knows +why--or what it is in you that I care for!--But I do--I am beginning to +care--and I don't know why; I--don't--know why----". + +She dropped her face in her hands, sitting there bowed low over her +knees. And there, hour after hour she fought it out with herself and +with the amused spectre ever at her elbow--so close at moments that some +unaroused nerve fell a-trembling in its sleep, threatening to awaken +those quiet senses that she already feared for their unknown powers. + + * * * * * + +The season was approaching its end, still kicking now and then +spasmodically, but pretty nearly done for. No particularly painful +incidents marked its demise except the continued absence of Quarren from +social purlieus accustomed to his gay presence and adroit executive +abilities. + +After several demoralised cotillions had withstood the shock of his +absence, and a dozen or more functions had become temporarily +disorganised because he declined to occupy himself with their success; +and after a number of hostesses had filled in his place at dinner, at +theatres, at week-ends, on yachts and coaches; and after an +unprecedented defiance of two summonses to the hazardous presence of +Mrs. Sprowl, he obeyed a third subpoena, and presented himself with an +air of cheerful confidence that instantly enraged her. + +The old lady lay abed with nothing more compromising than a toothache; +Quarren was conducted to the inner shrine; she glared at him hideously +from her pillows; and for one moment he felt seriously inclined to run. + +"Where have you been?" she wheezed. + +"Nowhere in particu----" + +"I know damn well you've been nowhere," she burst out. "Molly Wycherly's +dance went to pieces because she was fool enough to trust things to you. +Do you know who led? That great oaf, Barent Van Dyne! He led like a +trick elephant, too!" + +Quarren looked politely distressed. + +"And there are a dozen hostesses perfectly furious with you," continued +the old lady, pounding the pillows with a fat arm--"parties of all sorts +spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank +failures--what the devil possesses you to behave this way?" + +"I'm tired," he said, politely. + +"What!" + +He smiled: + +"Oh, the place suits, Mrs. Sprowl; I haven't any complaint; and the work +and wages are easy; and it's comfortable below-stairs. But--I'm just +tired." + +"What are you talking about?" + +"I'm talking _about_ my employers, and I'm talking _like_ the social +upper-servant that I am--or was. I'm merely giving a respectable +warning; that is the airy purport of my discourse, Mrs. Sprowl." + +"Do you know what you're saying?" + +"Yes, I think so," he said, wearily. + +"Well, then, what the devil _are_ you saying?" + +"Merely that I've dropped out of service to engage in trade." + +"You can't!" she yelled, sitting up in bed so suddenly that her unquiet +tooth took the opportunity to assert itself. + +She clapped a pudgy hand to her cheek, squinting furiously at Quarren: + +"You _can't_ drop out," she shouted. "Don't you ever want to amount to +anything?" + +"Yes, I do. That's why I'm doing it." + +"Don't act like a fool! Haven't you any ambition?" + +"That also is why," he said pleasantly. "I am ambitious to be out of +livery and see what my own kind will do to me." + +"Well, you'll see!" she threatened--"you'll see what we'll do to +you----" + +"_You're_ not my kind. I always supposed you were, but you all knew +better from the day I took service with you----" + +"Ricky!" + +"It is perfectly true, Mrs. Sprowl. My admittance included a livery and +the perennial prerogative of amusing people. But I had no money, no +family affiliations with the very amiable people who found me useful. +Only, in common with them, I had the inherent taste for idleness and the +genius for making it endurable to you all. So you welcomed me very +warmly; and you have been very kind to me.... But, somewhere or +other--in some forgotten corner of me--an odd and old-fashioned idea +awoke the other day.... I think perhaps it awoke when you reminded me +that to serve you was one thing and to marry among you something very +different." + +"Ricky! Do you want to drive me to the yelling verge of distraction? I +didn't say or intimate or dream any such thing! You know perfectly well +you're not only with us but _of_ us. Nobody ever imagined otherwise. But +you can't marry any girl you pick out. Sometimes she won't; sometimes +her family won't. It's the same everywhere. You have no money. Of course +I intend that you shall eventually marry money--What the devil are you +laughing at?" + +"I beg your pardon----" + +"I said that you would marry well. Was that funny? I also said, +once--and I repeat it now, that I have my own plans for one or two +girls--Strelsa Leeds included. I merely asked you to respect my wishes +in that single matter; and bang! you go off and blow up and maroon +yourself and sulk until nobody knows what's the matter with you. Don't +be a fool. Everybody likes you; every girl _can't_ love you--but I'll +bet many of 'em do.... Pick one out and come to me--if that's your +trouble. Go ahead and pick out what you fancy; and ten to one it will be +all right, and between you and me we'll land the little lady!" + +"You're tremendously kind----" + +"I know I am. I'm always doing kindnesses--and nobody likes me, and +they'd bite my head off, every one of 'em--if they weren't afraid it +would disagree with them," she added grimly. + +Quarren rose and came over to the bedside. + +"Good-bye, Mrs. Sprowl," he said. "And--I like you--somehow--I really +do." + +"The devil you do," said the old lady. + +"It's a curious fact," he insisted, smiling. + +"Get out with you, Ricky! And I want you to come----" + +"No--please." + +"What?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"I want to see some real people again. I've forgotten what they +resemble." + +"That's a damned insolent remark!" she gasped. + +"Not meant to be. _You_ are real enough, Heaven knows. But," and his +smile faded--"I've taken a month off to think it out. And, do you know, +thinking being an unaccustomed luxury, I've enjoyed it. Imagine my +delight and surprise, Mrs. Sprowl, when I discovered that my leisurely +reflections resulted in the discovery that I had a mind--a real +one--capable of reason and conclusions. And so when I actually came to a +conclusion my joy knew no bounds----" + +"Ricky! Stop those mental athletics! Do you hear? I've a toothache and a +backache and I can't stand 'em!" + +Quarren was laughing now; and presently a grim concession to humour +relaxed the old lady's lips till her fat face creased. + +"All right," she said; "go and play with the ragged boy around the +corner, my son. Then when you're ready come home and get your face +washed." + +"May I come occasionally to chat with you?" + +"As though you'd do that if you didn't have to!" she exclaimed +incredulously. + +"I think you know better." + +"No, I don't!" she snapped. "I know men and women; that's all I know. +And as you're one of the two species I don't expect anything celestial +from you.... And you'd better go, now." + +She turned over on her pillow with a grunt: Quarren laughed, lifted one +of her pudgy and heavily ringed hands from the coverlet, and, still +smiling, touched the largest diamond with his lips. + +"I think," he said, "that you are one of the very few I really like in +your funny unreal world.... You're so humanly bad." + +"What!" she shouted, floundering to a sitting posture. + +But, looking back at her from the door, he found her grinning. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Premonitions of spring started the annual social exodus; because in the +streets of Ascalon and in the busy ways of Gath spring becomes summer +over night and all Philistia is smitten by the sun. + +And all the meanness and shabbiness and effrontery of the monstrous +city, all its civic pretence and tarnished ostentation are suddenly +revealed when the summer sun blazes over Ascalon. Wherefore the daintier +among the Philistines flee--idler, courtier, dangler and squire of +dames--not to return until the first snow-flakes fall and the gray veil +of November descends once more over the sorry sham of Ascalon. + +Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the +drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer +sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and +millions of them--and a real sky overhead edging far horizons. + +He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being +hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of +unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester +Caldera was to finance for him. + +Recently, however, that suave young man had smilingly denied making any +such promise to anybody; which surprised and disconcerted Quarren who +had no money with which to build sewers, roads, and electric plants. +And he began to realise how carelessly he had drifted into the +enterprise--how carelessly he had drifted into everything and past +everything for the last five years. + +After a hunt for a capitalist among and outside his circle of friends +and acquaintances he began to appreciate his own lunacy even more +thoroughly. + +Then Lester Caldera, good-naturedly, offered to take the property off +his hands for less than a third of what he paid Sprowl for it; and as +Quarren's adjoining options were rapidly expiring he was forced to +accept. Which put the boy almost entirely out of business; so he closed +his handsome office downtown and opened another in the front parlour of +an old and rather dingy brown-stone house on the east side of Lexington +Avenue near Fiftieth Street and hung out his sign once more over the +busy streets of Ascalon. + + RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN + Real Estate + +Also he gave up his quarters at the Irish Legation to the unfeigned +grief of the diplomats domiciled there, and established himself in the +back parlour and extension of the Lexington Avenue house, ready at all +moments now for business or for sleep. Neither bothered him excessively. + +He wrote no more notes to Strelsa Leeds--that is, he posted no more, +however many he may have composed. Rumours from the inner temple +concerning her and Langly Sprowl and Sir Charles Mallison drifted out +into the real world every day or so. But he never went back to the +temple to verify them. That life was ended for him. Sometimes, sitting +alone at his desk, he fancied that he could almost hear the far laughter +of the temple revels, and the humming of the drones. But the roar of the +street-car, rushing, grinding through the steel-ribbed streets of +Ascalon always drowned it, and its far seen phantom glitter became a +burning reality where the mid-day sun struck the office sign outside his +open window. + +Fate, the ugly jade, was making faces at him, all kinds of faces. Just +now she wore the gaunt mask of poverty, but Quarren continued to ignore +her, because to him, there was no real menace in her skinny grin, no +real tragedy in what she threatened. + +Real tragedy lay in something very different--perhaps in manhood awaking +from ignoble lethargy to learn its own degeneracy in a young girl's +scornful eyes. + +All day long he sat in his office attending to the trivial business that +came into it--not enough so far to give him a living. + +In the still spring evenings he retired to his quarters in the back +parlour, bathed, dressed, looking out at the cats on the back fences. +Then he went forth to dine either at the Legation or with some one of +the few friends he had cared to retain in that magic-lantern world which +he at last had found uninhabitable--a world in which few virile men +remain very long--fewer and fewer as the years pass on. For the gilding +on the temple dome is peeling off; and the laughter is dying out, and +the hum of the drones sounds drowsy like unreal voices heard in summer +dreams. + +"It is the passing of an imbecile society," declaimed Westguard--"the +dying sounds of its meaningless noise--the first omens of a silence +which foretells annihilation. Out of chaos will gradually emerge the +elements of a real society--the splendid social and intellectual +brotherhood of the future----" + +"See my forthcoming novel," added Lacy, "$1.35 net, for sale at all +booksellers or sent post-paid on receipt of----" + +"You little fashionable fop!" growled Westguard--"there's a winter +coming for all butterflies!" + +"I've seen 'em dancing over the snow on a mild and sunny day," retorted +Lacy. "Karl, my son, the nobly despairing writer with a grouch never yet +convinced anybody." + +"I don't despair," retorted Westguard. "This country is getting what it +wants and what it deserves, ladled out to it in unappetising gobs. Year +after year great incoming waves of ignorance sweep us from ocean to +ocean; but I don't forget that those very waves also carry a constantly +growing and enlightened class higher and higher toward permanent +solidity. + +"Every annual wave pushes the flotsam of the year before toward the +solid land. The acquaintance with sordid things is the first real +impulse toward education. Some day there will be no squalor in the +land--neither the physical conditions in our slums nor the arid +intellectual deserts within the social frontiers." + +"But the waves will accomplish that--not your very worthy novels," said +Lacy, impudently. + +"If you call me 'worthy' I'll bat you on the head," roared Westguard, +sitting up on the sofa where he had been sprawling; and laughter, loud +and long, rattled the windows in the Irish Legation. + +The May night was hot; a sickly breeze stirred the curtains at the open +windows of Westguard's living room where the Legation was entertaining +informally. + +Quarren, Lacy, O'Hara, and Sir Charles Mallison sat by the window +playing poker; the Earl of Dankmere, perched on the piano-stool, was +mournfully rattling off a string of melodies acquired along Broadway; +Westguard himself, flat on his back, occupied a leather lounge and +dispensed philosophy when permitted. + +"You know," said Lacy, dealing rapidly, "you're only a tin-horn +philosopher, Karl, but you really could write a good story if you tried. +Get your people into action. That's the game." + +O'Hara nodded. "Interestin' people, in books and outside, are always +doin' things, not talkin'," he said--"like Sir Charles quietly drawin' +four cards to a kicker and sayin' nothin'." + +"--Like old Dankmere, yonder, playing 'Madame Sherry' and not trying to +tell us why human beings enjoy certain sounds known as harmonies, but +just keeping busy beating the box----" + +"--Like a pretty woman who is contented to be as attractive and cunnin' +as she can be, and not stoppin' to explain the anatomy of romantic love +and personal beauty," added O'Hara. + +"--Like----" + +"For Heaven's sake give me a stack of chips and shut up!" shouted +Westguard, jumping to his feet and striding to the table. "Everybody on +earth is competent to write a book except an author, but I defy anybody +to play my poker hands for me! Come on, Dankmere! Let's clean out this +complacent crowd!" + +Lord Dankmere complied, and seated himself at the table, anxiously +remarking to Quarren that he had come to America to acquire capital, not +to spend it. Sir Charles laughed and dealt; Westguard drew five cards, +attempted to bluff Quarren's full hand, and was scandalously routed. + +Again the cards were dealt and O'Hara bet the limit; and the Earl of +Dankmere came back with an agonised burst of chips that scared out Lacy +and Sir Charles and left Quarren thinking. + +When finally the dust of combat blew clear of the scene Dankmere's +stacks were nearly gone, and Quarren's had become symmetrical +sky-scrapers. + +Lacy said to Dankmere: "Now that you've learned how to get poor quickly +you're better prepared for the study of riches and how to acquire 'em. +Kindly pass the buck unless your misfortunes have paralysed you." + +"The whole country," said his lordship, "is nothing but one gigantic +poker game. I sail on the next steamer. I'm bluffed out." + +"Poor old Dankmere," purred Lacy, "won't the ladies love you?" + +"Their demonstrations," said the Earl, "are not keeping me awake +nights." + +"Something keeps Quarren awake nights, judging by his transom light. Is +it love, Ricky?" + +A slight colour mounted to Quarren's thin cheeks, but he answered +carelessly: "I read late sometimes.... How many cards do you want?" + +Sir Charles Mallison turned his head after a moment and looked at +Quarren; and meeting his eye, said pleasantly: "I only want one card, +Quarren. Please give me the right one." + +"Which?" + +"The Queen of Hearts." + +"Dealer draws one also," said the young fellow. + +Sir Charles laid down his hand with a smile: + +"Did _you_ fill?" he asked Quarren as everybody else remained out. + +"I don't mind showing," said Quarren sorting out his cards, faces up. + +"Which end?" inquired O'Hara. + +"An interior." And he touched the Queen of Hearts, carelessly. + +"Crazy playing and lunatic's luck," commented Lacy. "Dankmere, and you, +too, Sir Charles, you'd better cut and run for home as fast as your +little legs can toddle. Quarren is on the loose." + +Sir Charles laughed, glanced at Quarren, then turned to Dankmere. + +"It's none of my business," he said, "but if you really are in the +devilish financial straits you pretend to be, why don't you square up +things and go into trade?" + +"Square things?" repeated the little Earl mournfully; "will somebody +tell me how? Haven't I been trying out everything? Didn't I back a +musical comedy of sorts? Didn't I even do a turn in it myself?" + +"That's what probably smashed it," observed O'Hara. + +"He did it very well," laughed Sir Charles. + +"Dankmere ought to have filled his show full of flossy flappers," +insisted Lacy. "Who wants to see an Earl dance and sing? Next time I'll +manage the company for you, Dankmere----" + +"There'll be no next time," said Dankmere, scanning his cards. "I'm done +for," he added, dramatically, letting his own ante go. + +"You've lost your nerve," said Quarren, smiling. + +"And everything else, my boy!" + +"What's the matter with the heiresses, anyway?" inquired O'Hara +sympathetically. + +"The matter is that I don't want the sort that want me. Somebody's +ruined the business in the States. I suppose I might possibly induce a +Broadway show-girl----" + +The little Earl got up and began to wander around, hands in his pockets, +repeating: + +"I'd make a pretty good actor, in spite of what O'Hara said. It's the +only thing I like anyway. I can improvise songs, too. Listen to this +impromptu, you fellows": + +And he bent over the piano, still standing, and beat out a jingling +accompaniment: + + "I sigh for the maiden I never have seen, + I'll make her my countess whatever she's been-- + Typewriter, manicure, heiress or queen, + Aged fifty or thirty or lovely eighteen, + Redundant and squatty, or scraggy and lean, + Generous spendthrift or miserly mean-- + I sigh for the maiden I never have seen + Provided she's padded with wads of Long Green!" + +Still singing the air he picked up a silk hat and walking-stick and +began to dance, rather lightly and gracefully, his sunken, heavy-lidded +eyes fixed nonchalantly on space--his nimble little feet making no sound +on the floor as he swung, swayed, and capered under the electric light +timing his agile steps to his own singing. + +Loud applause greeted him; much hand-clapping and cries of "Good old +Dankmere! Three cheers for the British peerage!" + +Sir Charles looked slightly bored, sitting back in his chair and waiting +for the game to recommence. Which it did with the return of the Earl who +had now relieved both his intellect and his legs of an accumulated and +Terpischorean incubus. + +"If I was a bigger ass than I am," said the Earl, "I'd go into +vaudeville and let my creditors howl." + +"Did they really send you over here?" asked O'Hara, knowing that his +lordship made no bones about it. + +"They certainly did. And a fine mess I've made of it, haven't I? No +decent girl wants me--though why, I don't know, because I'm decent +enough as men go. But your newspapers make fun of me and my title--and I +might as well cut away to Dankmere Tarns and let 'em pick my carcass +clean." + +"What's Dankmere Tarns?" asked O'Hara. + +"Mine, except the mortgages on it." + +"Entailed?" + +"Naturally." + +"Kept up?" + +"No, shut up." + +"What sort of a gallery is that of yours at Dankmere Tarns?" inquired +Sir Charles, turning around. + +"How the devil do I know," replied his lordship fretfully. "I don't know +anything about pictures." + +"Are there not some very valuable ones there?" + +"There are a lot of very dirty ones." + +"Don't you know their value?" + +"No, I don't. But I fancy the good ones were sold off long ago--twenty +years ago I believe. There was a sale--a lot of rubbish of sorts. I +took it for granted that Lister's people cleaned out everything worth +taking." + +"When you go back," said Sir Charles, "inspect that rubbish again. +Perhaps Lister's people overlooked enough to get you out of your +financial difficulties. Pictures that sold for L100 twenty years ago +might bring L1,000 to-day. It's merely a suggestion, Dankmere--if you'll +pardon it." + +"And a good one," added O'Hara. "I know a lot of interestin' people and +they tell me that you can sell any rotten old picture over here for any +amount of money. Sting 'em, Dankmere. Get to 'em!" + +"You might send for some of your pictures," said Lacy, "and have a shot +at the auction-mad amateur. He's too easy." + +"And pay duty and storage and gallery hire and auction fees!--no, +thanks," replied the little Earl, cautiously. "I've burnt my bally +fingers too often in schemes." + +"I've a back room behind my office," said Quarren. "You can store them +there if you like, without charge." + +"Besides, if they're genuine, there will be no duty to pay," explained +Sir Charles. + +Dankmere sucked on his cigar but made no comment; and the game went on, +disastrously for him. + +Quarren said casually to Sir Charles: + +"I suppose you will be off to Newport, soon." + +"To-morrow. When do you leave town?" + +"I expect to remain in town nearly all summer." + +"Isn't that rather hard?" + +"No; it doesn't matter much," said the boy indifferently. + +"Many people are already on the wing," observed Lacy. + +"The Calderas have gone, I hear, and the Vernons and Mrs. Sprowl," added +O'Hara. + +"I suppose the Wycherlys will open Witch-Hollow in June," said Quarren +carelessly. + +"Yes. Are you asked?" + +"No." + +"Doubtless you will be," said Sir Charles. "Jim Wycherly is mad about +aviation and several men are going to send their biplanes up and try 'em +out." + +"I'm goin'," announced O'Hara. + +Quarren drew one card, and filled his house. Sir Charles laid aside his +useless hand with a smile and turned to Quarren: + +"Mrs. Leeds has spoken so often and so pleasantly of you that I have +been rather hoping I might some day have the opportunity of knowing you +better. I am very glad that the Legation asked me to-night." + +Quarren remained absolutely still for a few moments. Then he said: + +"Mrs. Leeds is very generous in her estimate of me." + +"She is a woman of rare qualities." + +"Of unusual qualities and rare charm," said Quarren coolly.... "I think, +Karl, that I'll make it ten more to draw cards. Are you all staying in?" + + * * * * * + +Before the party broke up--and it was an early one--Lord Dankmere turned +to Quarren. + +"I'll drop in at your office, if I may, some morning," he said. "May I?" + +"It will give me both pleasure and diversion," said Quarren laughing. +"There is not enough business in my office to afford me either. Also +you are welcome to send for those pictures and store them in my back +parlour until you can find a purchaser." + +"It's an idea, isn't it?" mused his lordship. "Now I don't suppose you +happen to know anything about such rubbish, do you?--pictures and that +sort. What?" + +"Why--yes--I do, in a way." + +"The devil you do! But then I've always been told that you know +something about everything----" + +"Very, very little," said Quarren, laughing. "In an ignorant world +smatterings are reverenced. But the fashionable Philistine of yesterday, +who used to boast of his ignorance regarding things artistic and +intellectual, is becoming a little ashamed of his ignorance----" + +Dankmere, reddening, said bluntly: + +"That applies to me; doesn't it?" + +"I beg your pardon!--I didn't mean it that way----" + +"You're right, anyway. I'm damnably ignorant.... See here, Quarren, if I +send over for some of those pictures of mine, will you give me your +opinion like a good fellow before I make a bally ass of myself by +offering probable trash to educated people?" + +"I'll tell you all I know about your pictures, if that is what you +mean," said Quarren, much amused. + +They shook hands as Sir Charles came up to make his adieux. + +"Good-bye," he said to Quarren. "I'm off to Newport to-morrow. And--I--I +promised to ask you to come with me." + +"Where?" + +"Mrs. Sprowl told me to bring you. You know how informal she is." + +Quarren, surprised, glanced sharply at Sir Charles. "I don't believe she +really wants me," he said. + +"If she didn't she wouldn't have made me promise to bring you. She's +that sort, you know. Won't you come? I am sure that Mrs. Leeds, also, +would be glad to see you." + +Quarren looked him coolly and unpleasantly in the eyes. + +"Do you really believe that?" he asked, almost insolently. + +Sir Charles reddened: + +"She asked me to say so to you. I heard from her this morning; and I +have fulfilled her request." + +"Thank her for me," returned Quarren, level-eyed and very white. + +"Which means?" insisted Sir Charles quietly. + +"Absolutely nothing," said Quarren in a voice which makes enemies. + + * * * * * + +The following day Sir Charles left for Newport where Mrs. Sprowl had +opened "Skyland," her villa of pink Tennessee marble, to a lively party +of young people of which Strelsa Leeds made one. And once more, +according to the newspapers, her engagement to Sir Charles was expected +to be announced at any moment. + +When Quarren picked up the newspapers from his office desk next morning +he found the whole story there--a story to which he had become +accustomed. + +But the next day, the papers repeated the news. And it remained, for the +first time, uncontradicted by anybody. All that morning he sat at his +desk staring at her picture, reproduced in half-tones on the first page +of every newspaper in town--stared at it, and at the neighbouring +likeness of Sir Charles in the uniform of his late regiment; read once +more of Strelsa's first marriage with all its sequence of misery and +degradation; read fulsome columns celebrating her beauty, her +popularity, her expected engagement to one of the wealthiest Englishmen +in the world. + +[Illustration: "Once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement +to Sir Charles was expected to be announced."] + +He read, also, all about Sir Charles Mallison, V.C.--the long record of +his military service, his wealth and the dignified simplicity of his +life. He read about his immense popularity in England, his vast but +unostentatious charities, his political and social status. + +To Quarren it all meant nothing more definite than a stupid sequence of +printed words; and he dropped his blond head into both hands and gazed +out into the sunshine. And presently he remembered the golden dancer +laughing at him from under her dainty mask--years and years ago: and +then he thought of the woman whose smooth young hands once seemed to +melt so sweetly against his--thought of her gray eyes tinged with +violet, and her hair and mouth and throat--and her cheek faintly +fragrant against his--a moment's miracle--and then, the end---- + +He made a quick, aimless movement as though impatiently escaping sudden +pain; cleared his sun-dazzled eyes and began, half blindly, to turn over +his morning's letters--circulars, bills, business matters--and suddenly +came upon a letter from her. + +For a while he merely gazed at it, incredulous of its reality. + +Then he opened the envelope very deliberately and still, scarcely +convinced, unfolded the scented sheaf of note-paper: + + "DEAR MR. QUARREN, + + "At Mrs. Sprowl's suggestion I wrote to Sir Charles asking him to + be kind enough to bring you with him when he came to 'Skyland.' + + "Somehow, I am afraid that my informality may have offended you; + and if this is so, I am sorry. We have been such good friends that + I supposed I might venture to send you such a message. + + "But perhaps I ought to have written it to you instead--I don't + know. Lately it seems as though many things that I have done have + been entirely misunderstood. + + "It's gray weather here, and the sea looks as though it were + bad-tempered; and I've been rather discontented, too, this + morning---- + + "I don't really mean that. There is a very jolly party here.... I + believe that I'm growing a little tired of parties. + + "Molly has asked me to Witch-Hollow for a quiet week in June, and + I'm going. She would ask you if I suggested it. Shall I? Because, + since we last met, once or twice the thought has occurred to me + that perhaps an explanation was overdue. Not that I should make any + to you if you and I meet at Witch-Hollow. There isn't any to + make--except by my saying that I hope to see you again. Will you be + content with that admission of guilt? + + "I meant to speak to you again that day at the Charity affair, only + there were so many people bothering--and you seemed to be so + delightfully preoccupied with that pretty Cyrille Caldera. I really + had no decent opportunity to speak to you again without making her + my mortal enemy--and you, too, perhaps. + + "May I dare to be a little friendly now and say that I would like + to see you? Somehow I feel that even still I may venture to talk to + you on a different plane and footing from any which exists between + other men and me. You were once so friendly, so kind, so nice to + me. You have been nice--_always_. And if I seem to have acquired + any of the hardness, any of the cynical veneer, any of the + fashionable scepticism and unbelief which, perhaps, no woman + entirely escapes in my environment, it all softens and relaxes and + fades and seems to slip away as soon as I begin to talk to + you--even on this note-paper. Which is only one way of saying, + 'Please be my friend again!' + + "I sometimes hear about you from others. I am impressively informed + that you have given up all frivolous social activity and are now + most industriously devoting yourself to your real-estate business. + And I am wondering whether this rather bewildering _volte-face_ is + to be permanent. + + "Because I see no reason for anybody going to extremes. Between the + hermit's cell and the Palace of Delights there is a quiet and happy + country. Don't you know that? + + "Would you care to write to me and tell me a little about yourself? + Do you think it odd or capricious of me to write to you? And are + you perhaps irritated because of my manners which must have seemed + to you discourteous--perhaps rude? + + "I know of course that you called on me; that you telephoned; that + you wrote to me; and that I made no response. + + "And I am going to make no explanation. Can your friendship, or + what may remain of it, stand the strain? + + "If it can, please write to me. And forgive me whatever injustice I + have seemed to do you. I ask it because, although you may not + believe it, my regard for you has never become less since the night + that a Harlequin and a golden dancer met in the noisy halls of old + King Carnival.... Only, the girl who writes you this was younger + and happier then than I think she ever will be again. + + "Your friend--if you wish-- + + "STRELSA LEEDS." + + + +He wrote her by return mail: + + "MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS, + + "When a man has made up his mind to drown without any more fuss, it + hurts him to be hauled out and resuscitated and told that he is + still alive. + + "If you mean, ultimately, to let me drown, do it now. I've been too + miserable over you. Also, I was insulting to Sir Charles. He's too + decent to have told you; but I was. And I can't ask his pardon + except by mending my manner toward him in future. + + "I'm a nobody; I haven't any money; and I love you. That is how the + matter stands this day in May. Let me know the worst and I'll drown + this time for good and all. + + "Are you engaged to marry Sir Charles? + + "R. S. QUARREN." + + + +By return mail came a note from her: + + "Can you not care for me and still be kind to me, Mr. Quarren? If + what you say about your regard for me is true--but it is certainly + exaggerated, anyway--should not your attitude toward me include a + nobler sentiment? I mean friendship. And I know whereof I speak, + because I am conscious of a capacity for it--a desire for it--and + for you as the object of it. I believe that, if you cared for it, I + could give you the very best of me in a friendship of the highest + type. + + "It is in me to give it--a pure, devoted, lofty, untroubled + friendship, absolutely free of lesser and material sentiments. Am I + sufficiently frank? I want such a friendship. I need it. I have + never before offered it to any man--the kind I mean to give you if + you wish. + + "I believe it would satisfy you; I am convinced that yours would + satisfy me. You don't know how I have missed such a friendship in + you. I have wanted it from the very beginning of our acquaintance. + But I had--problems--to solve, first; and I had to let our + friendship lie dormant. Now I have solved my perplexities, and all + my leisure is for you again, if you will. Do you want it? + + "Think over what I have written. Keep my letter for a week and then + write me. Does my offer not deserve a week's consideration? + + "Meanwhile please keep away from deep water. I do not wish you to + drown. + + "STRELSA LEEDS. + + "P. S.--Lord Dankmere is here. He is insufferable. He told Mrs. + Sprowl that you and he were going into the antique-picture + business. You wouldn't think of going into anything whatever with + a man of that sort, would you? Or was it merely a British jest?" + +He wrote at once: + + "I have your letter and will keep it a week before replying. + But--are you engaged?" + +She answered: + + "The papers have had me engaged to Barent Van Dyne, to Langly + Sprowl, to Sir Charles. You may take your choice if you are + determined to have me engaged to somebody. No doubt you think my + being engaged would make our future friendship safer. I'll attend + to it immediately if you wish me to." + +Evidently she was in a gay and contrary humour when she wrote so +flippantly to him. And he replied in kind and quite as lightly. Then, at +the week's end he wrote her again that he had considered her letter, and +that he accepted the friendship she offered, and gave her his in return. + +She did not reply. + +He wrote her again a week later, but had no answer. Another week passed, +and, slowly into his senses crept the dread of deep waters closing +around him. And after another week he began to wonder, dully, how long +it would take a man to drown if he made no struggle. + +Meanwhile several dozen crates and packing cases had arrived at the +Custom House for the Earl of Dankmere; and, in process of time were +delivered at the real-estate office of R. S. Quarren, littering his +sleeping quarters and office and overflowing into the extension and +backyard. + +[Illustration: "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded +in amazement by the neighbours."] + +It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and +Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and +hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the +back fences by several astonished cats. + +His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and +some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the +ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged +from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their +ancient un-keyed stretchers. + +There were primitives on panels, triptychs, huge canvases in frames +carved out of solid wood; pictures in battered Italian frames--some +floridly Florentine, some exquisitely inlaid on dull azure and +rose--pictures in Spanish frames, Dutch frames, English frames, French +frames of the last century; portraits, landscapes, genre, still +life--battle pictures, religious subjects, allegorical canvases, +mythological--all stacked up pell-mell in the backyard and regarded in +amazement by the neighbours, and by two young men who alternately smoked +and staunched their wounds under the summer sky. + +"Dankmere," said Quarren at last, "did your people send over your entire +collection?" + +"No; but I thought it might be as well to have plenty of rubbish on hand +in case a demand should spring up.... What do they look like to you, +Quarren--I mean what's your first impression?" + +"They look all right." + +"Really?" + +"Certainly. They seem to be genuine enough as far as I can see." + +"But are they otherwise any good?" + +"I think so. I'll go over each canvas very carefully and give you my +opinion for what it's worth. But, for Heaven's sake, Dankmere, where are +we going to put all these canvases?" + +"I suppose," said the Earl gloomily, "I'll be obliged to store what you +haven't room for. And as I gradually grow poorer and poorer the day will +arrive when I can't pay storage; and they'll sell 'em under my nose at +auction, Quarren. And first I know the papers will blossom out with: 'A +Wonderful Rembrandt discovered in a junk-shop! Ancient picture bought +for five dollars and pronounced a gem by experts! Lucky purchaser +refuses a hundred thousand dollars cash!'" + +Quarren laughed and turned away into the house; and Dankmere followed, +gloomily predicting his own approaching financial annihilation. + +From his office Quarren telephoned a picture dealer to send men with +heavy wire, hooks, ladders and other paraphernalia; then he and Dankmere +made their toilets, resumed their coats, and returned to the sunny +office to await events. + +After a few moments the Earl said abruptly: + +"Would you care to go into this venture with me, Quarren?" + +"I?" said Quarren, surprised. + +"Yes. Will you?" + +"Why, I have my own business, Dankmere----" + +"Is it enough to keep you busy?" + +"No--not yet--but I----" + +"Then, like a good fellow, help me sell these damned pictures. I haven't +any money to offer you, Quarren, but if you'll be willing to hang the +pictures around your office here and in the back parlour and the +extension, and if you'll talk the merry talk to the lunatics who may +come in to look at 'em and tell 'em what the bally pictures are and fix +the proper prices--why--why, I'll make any arrangement with you that you +please. Say a half interest, now. Would that be fair?" + +"Fair? Of course! It's far too liberal an offer--but I----" + +"It's worth that to me, Quarren--if you can see your way to helping me +out----" + +"But my help isn't worth half what these pictures might very easily +bring--even at public auction----" + +"Why not? I'd have to pay an auctioneer, an expert to appraise them--an +art dealer to hang them in his gallery for a couple of weeks--either +that or rent a place by the year. The only way I can recompense you for +your wall space, for talking art talk to visitors, for fixing prices, is +to offer you half of what we make. Why not? You pay a pretty stiff rent +here, don't you? You also pay a servant. You pay for heat and light, +don't you? So if you'll turn this floor into a combination gallery of +sorts--art and real estate, you see--we'll go into business, egad! What? +The Dankmere galleries! What? By gad I'll have a sign made to hang out +there beside your shingle--only I'm afraid you'll have to pay for it, +Quarren, and recompense yourself after we sell the first picture." + +"But, Dankmere," he protested, very much amused, "I don't want to become +a picture dealer." + +"What's the harm? Take a shot at it, old chap! A young man can't collect +too many kinds of experience. Take me for example!--I've sold dogs and +hunters on commission, gone shares in about every rotten scheme anybody +ever suggested to me, financed a show, and acted in it--as you +know--and, by gad!--here I am now a dealer in old masters! Be a good +fellow and come in with me. What?" + +"I don't really know enough about antique pictures to----" + +"What's the odds! Neither do I! My dear sir, we must lie like gentlemen +for the honour of the Dankmere gallery! What? Along comes a chap walking +slowly and painfully for the weight of the money in his pockets--'Ho!' +says he--'a genuine Van Dyck!' 'Certainly,' you say, very coldly. And, +'How much?' says he, shivering for fear he mayn't get it. 'Three hundred +thousand dollars,' you say, trying not to yawn in his face----" + +Quarren could no longer control his laughter: Dankmere blinked at him +amiably. + +"We'll hang them anyhow, Dankmere," he said. "As long as there is so +little business in the office I don't mind looking after your pictures +for you----" + +"Yours, too," urged the Earl. + +"No; I can't accept anything----" + +"Then it's all off!" exclaimed Dankmere, turning a bright red. "I'm +blessed if I'll accept charity!--even if I am hunting heiresses. I'll +marry money if I can, but I'm damned if I hold out a tin cup for +coppers!" + +"If you feel that way," began Quarren, very much embarrassed, "I'll do +whatever would make you feel comfortable----" + +"Half interest or it's all off! A Dankmere means what he says--now and +then." + +"One-third interest, then----" + +"A half!--by gad! There's a good fellow!" + +"No; one-third is all I'll accept." + +"Oh, very well. It may amount to ten dollars--it may amount to ten +thousand--and ten times that, perhaps. What?" + +"Perhaps," said Quarren, smiling. "And, if you're going out, Dankmere, +perhaps you had better order a sign painted--anything you like, of +course. Because I'm afraid I couldn't leave these pictures here +indefinitely and we might as well make plans to get rid of some of them +as soon as possible." + +"Right-o! I'm off to find a painter. Leave it to me, Quarren. And when +the picture-hangers come, have them hung in a poor light--I mean the +pictures--God knows they need it--the dimmer the light the better. What? +Take care of yourself, old chap. There's money in sight, believe me!" + +And the lively little Earl trotted out, swinging his stick and setting +his straw hat at an angle slightly rakish. + +No business came to the office that sunny afternoon; neither did the +picture-hangers. And Quarren, uneasy, and not caring to leave Dankmere's +ancestral collection of pictures in the back yard all night lest the +cats and a possible shower knock a little superfluous antiquity into +them, had just started to go out and hire somebody to help him carry the +canvases into the basement, when the office door opened in his very face +and Molly Wycherly came in, breezily. + +"Why, Molly!" he exclaimed, surprised; "this is exceedingly nice of +you----" + +"Oh, Ricky, I'm glad to see you! But I don't want to buy a house or sell +one or anything. I'm very unhappy--and I'm glad to see you----" + +She pressed his hand with both her gloved ones; he closed the door and +returned to the office; and she seated herself on top of his desk. + +"You dear boy," she said; "you are thin and white and you don't look +very happy either. Are you?" + +"Why, of course I'm happy----" + +"I don't believe it! Anyway, I was passing, and I saw your shingle +swinging, and I made the chauffeur stop on the impulse of the moment.... +How are you, Ricky dear?" + +"First rate. You are even unusually pretty, Molly." + +"I don't feel so. Strelsa and I came into town for the afternoon--on the +most horrid kind of business, Ricky." + +"I'm sorry----" + +"You will be sorrier when you hear that about all of Strelsa's money was +in that miserable Adamant Trust Company which is causing so much +scandal. You didn't know Strelsa's money was in it, did you?" + +"No," he said gravely. + +"Isn't it dreadful? The child doesn't know whether she will ever get a +penny or not. Some of those disgusting men have run away, one shot +himself--you read about it!--and now they are trying to pretend that the +two creatures they have arrested are insane and irresponsible. I don't +care whether they are or not; I'd like to kill them. How does their +insanity concern Strelsa? For three weeks she hasn't known what to +think, what to expect--and even her lawyers can't tell her. I hate +lawyers. But _I_ think the chances are that her pretty house will be for +sale before long.... Wouldn't it be too tragic if it came into your +office----" + +"Don't say such things, Molly," he said, bending his head over the desk +and fumbling with his pen. + +"Well, I knew you'd be sympathetic. It's a shame--a crime!--it's +absolutely disgusting the way that men gamble with other people's money +and cheat and lie and--and--oh, it's a perfectly rotten world and I'm +tired of it!" + +"Where is Mrs. Leeds?" he asked in a low voice. + +"At Witch-Hollow--in town for this afternoon to see her stupid lawyers. +They don't do anything. They say they can't just yet. They're lazy +or--something worse. That's my opinion. We go out on the five-three +train--Strelsa and I----" + +"Is she--much affected?" + +"No; and that's the silly part of it. It would simply wreck me. But she +hasn't wept a single tear.... I suppose she'll have to marry, now--" +Mrs. Wycherly glanced askance at Quarren, but his face remained gravely +expressionless. + +"Ricky dear?" + +"Yes." + +"I had a frightful row, on your account, with Mrs. Sprowl." + +"I'm sorry. Why?" + +"I told her I was going to ask you and Strelsa to Witch-Hollow." + +Quarren said calmly: + +"Don't do it then, Molly. There's no use of your getting in wrong with +Mrs. Sprowl." + +Mrs. Wycherly laughed: + +"Oh, I found a way around. I asked Mrs. Sprowl and Sir Charles at the +same time." + +"What do you mean?" he said, turning a colourless face to hers. + +"What I say. Ricky dear, I suppose that Strelsa _will_ have to marry a +wealthy man, now--and I believe she realises it, too--but I--I _wanted_ +her to marry you, some day----" + +He swung around again, confronting her. + +"You darling!" he said under his breath. + +Mrs. Wycherly's lip trembled and she dabbed at her eyes. + +"I wish I could express my feelings like Mrs. Sprowl, but I can't," she +said naively. "Sir Charles will marry her, now; I know perfectly well he +will--unless Langly Sprowl----" + +Quarren drew his breath sharply. + +"Not that man," she said. + +"God knows, Ricky. He's after Strelsa every minute--and he can make +himself agreeable. The worst of it is that Strelsa does not believe what +she hears about him. Women are that way, often. The moment the whole +world pitches into a man, women are inclined to believe him a +martyr--and end by discrediting every unworthy story concerning him.... +I don't know, but I think it is already a little that way with +Strelsa.... He's a clever brute--and oh! what a remorseless man!... I +said that once to Strelsa, and she said very warmly that I entirely +misjudged him.... I wish Mary Ledwith would come back and bring things +to a crisis--I do, indeed." + +Quarren said, calmly; + +"You don't think Mrs. Leeds is engaged to Sprowl, do you?" + +"No.... I don't think so. Sometimes I don't know what to think of +Strelsa. I'm certain that she was not engaged to him four weeks ago when +she was at Newport." + +Quarren gazed out into the sunlit street. It was just four weeks ago +that her letters ceased. Had she stopped writing because of worry over +the Adamant Trust? Or was there another reason? + +"I suppose," said Molly, dabbing at her eyes, "that Strelsa can't pick +and choose now. I suppose she's got to marry for sordid and sensible and +material reasons. But if only she would choose Sir Charles--I think I +could be almost reconciled to her losing you----" + +Quarren laughed harshly. + +"An irreparable loss to any woman," he said. "I doubt that Mrs. Leeds +survives losing me." + +"Ricky! She cares a great deal for you! So do I. And Strelsa _does_ care +for you----" + +"Not too rashly I hope," he said with another disagreeable laugh. + +"Oh, that isn't like you, Ricky! You're not the sneering, fleering nasty +kind. If you are badly hurt, take it better than that----" + +"I can't!" he said between set teeth. "I care for her; she knows it. I +guess she knows, too, that what she once said to me started me into what +I'm doing now--working, waiting, living like a dog--doing my best to +keep my self-respect and obtain hers--" He choked, regained his +self-control, and went on quietly: + +"Why do you think I dropped out of everything? To try to develop +whatever may be in me--so that I could speak to her as an equal and not +as the court jester and favourite mountebank of the degenerate gang she +travels with----" + +"Ricky!" + +"I beg your pardon," he said sullenly. + +"I am not offended, you poor boy.... I hadn't realised that you were so +much in love with her--so deeply concerned----" + +"I have always been.... She knows it...." He cleared his eyes and turned +a dazed gaze on the sunny street once more. + +"If I could--" he stopped; a hopeless look came into his eyes. Then he +slowly shook his head. + +"Oh, Ricky! Ricky! Can't you do something? Can't you make a lot of money +very quickly? You see Strelsa has simply got to marry money. Be fair; be +just to her. A girl can't exist without money, can she? You know that, +don't you?" + +"I've heard your world say so." + +"You know it's true!" + +"I don't know what is true. I don't know truth from falsehood. I suppose +that love requires money to keep it nourished--as roses require +manure----" + +"Ricky!" + +"I'm speaking of _your_ world----" + +"My world! The entire world knows that money is necessary--except +perhaps a silly sentimentalist here and there----" + +"Yes, there are one or two--here and there," he said. "But they're all +poor--and prejudiced." + +Molly applied her handkerchief to her eyes, viciously. + +"I hope _you_ are not one, Ricky. I'm sure I'm not fool enough to expect +a girl who has been accustomed to everything to be contented without +anything." + +"There's her husband as an asset." + +"Oh, my dear, don't talk slush!" + +"--And--children--perhaps." + +"And no money to educate them! You dear boy, there is nothing to +do--absolutely nothing--unless it's based on money. You know it; I know +it. People without it are intolerable--a nuisance to everybody and to +themselves. What could Strelsa find in life without the means to enjoy +it?" + +"Nothing--perhaps.... But I believe I'll ask her." + +"She'll tell you the truth, Ricky. She's an unusually truthful woman.... +I must go downtown. Strelsa and I are lunching"--she reddened--"with +Langly.... His aunt would kill me if she heard of it.... I positively do +not dare ask Langly to Witch-Hollow because I'm so deadly afraid of that +fat old woman!... Besides, I don't want him there--although--if Strelsa +_has_ to marry him----" + +She fell silent and thoughtful, reflecting, perhaps, that if Strelsa was +going to take Langly Sprowl, her own country house might as well have +the benefit of any fashionable and social glamour incident to the +announcement. + +Then, glancing at Quarren, her heart smote her, and she flushed: + +"Come up to Witch-Hollow, Ricky dear, and get her to elope with you if +you can! Will you?" + +"I'll come to Witch-Hollow if you ask me." + +"That's ducky of you. You _are_ a good sport, Ricky--and always were! Go +on and marry her if you can. Other women have stood it.... And, I know +it's vulgar and low and catty of me--but I'd love to see Mrs. Sprowl +blow up--and see that hatchet-faced Langly disappointed--yes, I would, +and I don't care what you think! Their ancestors were common people, and +Heaven knows why a Wycherly of Wycherly should be afraid of the +descendants of Dutch rum smugglers!" + +Quarren looked up with a weary smile. + +"But you are afraid," he said. + +"I am," admitted Molly, furiously; and marched out. + +As he put her into her car he said: + +"Write me if you don't change your mind about asking me to +Witch-Hollow." + +"No fear," said the pretty little woman; "and," she added, "I hope you +make mischief and raise the very dickens all around. I sincerely hope +you do!" + +"I hope so, too," he said with the ghost of a smile. + +[Illustration: "A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first +time in nearly two months."] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly +two months. + + + "DEAR MR. QUARREN, + + "Molly says that she saw you in town two weeks ago, and that she + told you how unexpectedly my worldly affairs have altered since I + last wrote to you. + + "For me, somehow or other, life has been always a sequence of + abrupt experiences--a series of extremes--one grotesque + exaggeration after another, and all diametrically opposed. And it + seems odd that such radically material transformations should so + ruthlessly disturb and finally, now, end by completely altering the + character of a girl whose real nature is--or was--unaccented and + serene to the verge of indifference. For the woman writing this is + very different from the one you knew as Strelsa Leeds. + + "I am not yet sure what the outcome of this Adamant affair will be. + Neither, apparently, are my attorneys. But it is absolutely certain + that if I ever recover anything at all, it will not amount to very + much--not nearly enough to live on. + + "When they first brought the unpleasant news to me my instinct was + to sit down and write you about it. I was horribly scared, and + wanted you to know it. + + "I didn't yield to the impulse as you know--I cannot give you the + reasons why. They were merely intuitions at first; later they + became reasons as my financial situation developed in all its + annoying proportions. + + "I can tell you only this: before material disaster threatened me + out of a clear sky, supposing that matters would always remain with + me as they were--that I should never know any serious want, never + apprehend actual necessity--I had made up my mind to a course of + life which now has become impossible. + + "It was not, perhaps, a very admirable plan of existence that I had + conceived for myself, nothing radical or original. I meant, merely, + _not_ to marry, to live well within my income, to divide my time + between my friends and myself--that is to give myself more leisure + for self-development, tranquil cultivation, and a wider and more + serious interest in things worthy. + + "If by dividing my time between my friends and myself I was to lose + touch more or less with the lively and rather exacting society in + which I live, I had decided on the sacrifice. + + "And that, Mr. Quarren, is how matters stood with me until a month + ago. + + "Now everything is altered--even my own character I think. There is + in me very little courage--and, alas, much of that cowardice which + shrinks from pain and privation of any kind--which cringes the more + basely, perhaps, because there has been, in my life, so much of + sorrow, so little of material ease and tranquility of mind. + + "I had been dreaming of a balanced and secure life with leisure to + develop mental resources hitherto neglected. And your + friendship--our new understanding--meant much of that part of life + for me--more than I realised--far more than you do. Can you + understand how deep the hurt is?--deeper because now you will learn + what a coward I really am and how selfishly I surrender to the + menace of material destruction. I am in dire terror of it; I simply + do not choose to endure it. That I need not submit to it, inspires + in me the low type of equanimity that enables me to face the future + with apparent courage. My world applauds it as pluck. I have + confessed to you what it really is. + + "Now you know me, Mr. Quarren--a preacher of lofty ideals while + prosperous, a recreant in adversity. + + "I thought once that the most ignoble sentiments ever entertained + by man were those lesser and physical emotions which, in the world, + masquerade as love--or as an essential part of it. To me they + always seemed intolerable as any part of love, material, unworthy, + base. To me love was intellectual--could be nothing less lofty--and + should aspire to the spiritual. + + "I say this because you once tried to make me understand that you + loved me. + + "Marriage of two minds with nothing material to sully an ideal + union was what I had dreamed of. I might have cared for you that + way when a marriage tainted with lesser emotions repelled me. And + now, like all iconoclasts, I end by shattering my own complacent + image, and the fragments have fallen to the lowest depth of all. + + "For I contemplate a mariage de convenance--and I scarcely care + whom I marry as long as he removes from me this terror of a sordid + and needy future. + + "All ideals, all desire for higher and better things--for a noble + leisure and the quiet pleasures of self-development, have + gone--vanished utterly. Fear sickens me night and day--the same + dull dread that I have known so many, many years in my life--a + blind horror of more unhappiness and pain after two years of + silence--that breathless stillness which frightened wounded things + know while they lie, panting, dazed listening for the coming + footsteps of that remorseless Fate which struck them down from + afar. + + "I tell you this, Mr. Quarren, because it is due to you if you + really love me--or if you once did love me--because when you have + read this you will no longer care for me. + + "One evening you made me understand that you cared for me; and I + replied to you only by a dazed silence that neither you nor I + entirely understood at the time. It was not contempt for you--yet, + perhaps, I could not really have cared very deeply for such a man + as you then seemed to be. It was not intellectual indifference that + silenced me.... And I can say no more about it--except + that--something--changed me radically from that moment--and ever + since I have been trying to understand myself--to learn something + about myself--and of the world I live in--and of men. + + "When a crisis arrives self-revelation comes in a single flash. My + financial crisis arrived as you know; I suddenly saw myself as I + am--a woman astonishingly undeveloped and ignorant in many ways, + crude, unawakened, stupid--a woman half-blinded with an unreasoning + dread of more pain--pain which she thought had at last been left + behind her--and a coward all through; and selfish from head to + heel. + + "This is what I _really_ am. And I shall prove it by marrying for + reasons entirely material, because I have no courage to ever again + face adversity and unhappiness. + +[Illustration: "'I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the +battered party in black?'"] + + "You will not care to write to me; and you will not care to see me + again. + + "I am glad you once cared for me. If you should ever reply to this + letter, don't be very unkind to me. I know what I am--and I vaguely + surmise what I shall lose by being so. But I have no courage for + anything else. + + "STRELSA LEEDS." + + + +That was the letter she wrote to Quarren; and he read it standing by his +desk while several noisy workmen were covering every available inch of +his walls with Dankmere's family pictures, and the little Earl himself, +whistling a lively air, trotted about superintending everything with all +the cheerful self-confidence of a family dog regulating everything that +goes on in his vicinity. + +"I say, Quarren--does this old lady hang next to the battered party in +black?" he demanded briskly. + +Quarren looked around; "Yes," he said, "they're both by Nicholas Maas +according to your list." + +"_I_ think they're bally fakes," remarked the Earl, "don't you?" + +"We'll try to find out," said Quarren, absently. + +Dankmere puffed away on his cigar and consulted his list: "Reynolds (Sir +Joshua). Portrait of Lady Dankmere," he read; "portrait of Sir Boggs +Dankmere!--string 'em up aloft over that jolly little lady with no frock +on!--Rembrandt (Van Rijn). Born near Leyden, July 15th, 1607--Oh, who +cares as long as it _is_ a Rembrandt!--Is it, Quarren? It isn't a copy, +is it?" + +"I hope not," said the young fellow absently. + +"Egad! So do I." And to the workmen--"Philemon and Baucis by Rembrandt! +Hang 'em up next to that Romney--over the Jan Steen ... Quarren?" + +"Yes?" + +"Do you think that St. Michael's Mount is a real Turner?" + +"It looks like it. I can't express opinions off-hand, Dankmere." + +"I can," said the little Earl; "and I say that if that _is_ a Turner I +can beat it myself working with tomato catsup, an underdone omelette, +and a clothes-brush.... Hello! I like this picture. The list calls it a +Watteau--'The Fete Champetre.' What do you know about it, Quarren?" + +"Nothing yet. It seems to be genuine enough." + +"And this pretty girl by Boucher?" + +"I tell you, Dankmere, that I don't know. They all appear to be genuine, +after a superficial examination. It takes time to be sure about any +picture--and if we're going to be certain it will require confabs with +authorities--restorers, dealers, experts, curators from various +museums--all sorts and conditions of people must be approached and +warily consulted--and paid," he added smiling. "And that has to be done +with circumspection because some are not honest and we don't want +anybody to get the impression that we are attempting to bribe anybody +for a favourable verdict." + +A few minutes later he went across the street and telegraphed to Molly +Wycherly: + + "May I remind you that you asked me to Witch-Hollow? + + QUARREN." + +The following morning after the workmen had departed, he and Dankmere +stood contemplating the transformations wrought in the office, back +parlour, and extension of Quarren's floor in the shabby old Lexington +Avenue house. + +The transformation was complete; all woodwork had been painted white, a +gray-green paper hung on the walls, the floor stained dark brown and +covered with several antique rugs which had come with the pictures--a +Fereghan, a Ladik, and an ancient Herez with rose and sapphire lights in +it. + +At the end of the suite hung another relic of Dankmere Tarns--a Gobelins +tapestry about ten by twelve, signed by Audran, the subject of which was +Boucher's "Venus, Mars, and Vulcan" from the picture in the Wallace +Collection. Opposite it was suspended an old Persian carpet of the +sixteenth century--a magnificent Dankmere heirloom woven in the golden +age of ancient Eastern art and displaying amid the soft splendour of its +matchless hues the strange and exquisitely arched cloud-forms traced in +forgotten dyes amid a wilderness of delicate flowers and vines. + +Between these two fabrics, filling the walls from base-board to ceiling, +were ranged Dankmere's pictures. Few traces of the real-estate office +remained--merely a desk, letter-file, a shelf piled up with maps, and +Quarren's shingle outside; but this was now overshadowed by the severely +magnificent sign: + + THE DANKMERE GALLERY + OF + OLD MASTERS + + ALGERNON FAYRE, R. S. QUARREN & Co. + +For Lord Dankmere, otherwise Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, Earl of +Dankmere, had decided to dedicate to trade only a portion of his +aristocratic appellations. As for the company, it consisted of Quarren's +cat, Daisy, and her litter of unweaned kittens. + +"Do you realise," said Quarren, dropping into the depths of a new +easy-chair, "that you have almost put me out of business?" + +"Well, you weren't in very deeply, you know," commented Dankmere. + +"No; but last week I went to bed a broker in real estate; and this week +I wake up a picture dealer and your partner. It's going to take most of +my time. I can't sell a picture unless I know what it is. I've got to +find out--or try to. Do you know what that means?" + +"I fancy it means chucking your real estate," said Dankmere, +imperturbably. "Why not? This is a better gamble. And if we make +anything we ought to make something worth while." + +"Do you propose that I shall simply drop my entire business--close up +everything and go into this thing permanently?" demanded Quarren. + +"It will come to that, ultimately. Don't you want to?" + +From the beginning Quarren had felt, vaguely, that it would come to +that--realised instinctively that in such an enterprise he would be on +solid ground--that the idea was pleasant to him--that his tastes fitted +him for such an occupation. Experience was lacking, but, somehow, his +ignorance did not dismay him. + +All his life he had cared for such things, been familiar with them, been +curious to learn more, had read enough to understand something of the +fascinating problems now confronting him, had, in his hours of leisure, +familiarised himself with the best of art in the public and private +galleries of the city. + +More than that a natural inclination and curiosity had led him among +dealers, restorers, brokers of pictures. He knew them all from Fifth +Avenue to Lexington, the celebrated and the obscure; he had heard them +talk, heard the gossip and scandal of their curious world, watched them +buying, selling, restoring, relining, reframing; listened to their +discussions concerning their art and the art in which they dealt. And it +had always fascinated him although, until Dankmere arrived, it had never +occurred to him to make a living out of a heterogeneous mass of partly +assimilated knowledge acquired from the sheer love of the subject. + +Fortunate the man whose means of livelihood is also his pleasure! Deep +in his heart lies the unconscious contentment of certainty. + +And somehow, with the advent of Dankmere's pictures, into Quarren's +troubled heart had come a vague sensation of ease--a cessation of the +old anxiety and unrest--a quiet that he had never before known. + +To learn what his wares really were seemed no formidable task; to +appreciate and appraise each one only little labours of love. Every +problem appeared to him as a separate attraction; the disposal of his +stock a delightful and leisurely certainty because he himself would be +certain of what he dealt in. + +Then, too, his mind had long since invaded a future which day by day +grew more alluring in its suggestions. He himself would learn the +practical and manual art of restoration--learn how to clean, reline, +revarnish; how to identify, how to dissect. Every thread of an ancient +canvas should tell him a true story; every grain in an old panel. He +would be chief surgeon in his hospital for old and decrepit +masterpieces; he would "cradle" with his own hands--clear the opacity +from time-dimmed beauty with savant touch, knit up tenderly the wounds +of ages---- + +"Dankmere," he said, throwing away his cigarette, "I'm going into this +business from this minute; and I would like to die in harness, at the +end, the companion, surgeon, and friend of old-time pictures. Do you +think I can make a living at it?" + +"God knows. Do you mean that you're really keen on it?" + +"Dead keen." + +Dankmere puffed on his cigar: "A chap usually makes out pretty well when +he's a bit keen on anything of sorts. You'll be owning the gallery, +next, you infernal Yankee!" + +Quarren laughed: "I won't forget that you gave me my first real chance +in the world. You've done it, too; do you realise it, Dankmere?" + +"Very glad I'm sure." + +"So am I!" said Quarren with sudden emphasis. "I believe I'm on the +right track now. I believe it's in me--in my heart--to work--to +_work_!"--he laughed--"as the old chronicles say, 'To the glory of God +and the happiness of self and mankind.' ... I'm grateful to you; do you +understand?" + +"Awf'lly glad, old chap." + +"You funny Englishman--I believe you are.... And we'll make this thing +go. Down comes my real-estate shingle; I'm a part of the Dankmere +Galleries now. I'll rent the basement after our first sale and there +you and I will fuss and tinker and doctor and nurse any poor old +derelict of a picture back to its pristine beauty. What?" + +"Not I," said the little Earl. "All I'm good for is to furnish the +initial stock. You may do what you please with it, and we'll share +profits according to contract. Further than that, Quarren, you'll have +to count me out." + +"Don't you care for pictures?" + +"I prefer horses," said the Earl drily--"and, after the stable and +kennel, my taste inclines toward Vaudeville." And he cocked up one +little leg over the other and whistled industriously at a waltz which he +was attempting to compose. He possessed a high, maddening, soprano +whistle which Quarren found painful to endure; and he was glad when his +lordship departed, jauntily twirling his walking-stick and taking fancy +dance steps as far as the front door. + +Left alone Quarren leaned back in his chair resting his head against the +new olive-tinted velvet. + +He had nothing to do but sit there and gaze at the pictures and wait for +an answer to his telegram. + +It came about dusk and he lighted the gas to read it: + + "Come up to Witch-Hollow to-morrow. + + "MARIE WYCHERLY." + + + +He could not leave until he had planned for work to go on during his +absence. First he arranged with Valasco to identify as nearly as +possible, and to appraise, the French and Italian pictures. Then he made +an arrangement with Van Boschoven for the Dutch and Flemish; secured +Drayton-Quinn for the English; and warned Dankmere not to bother or +interfere with these temperamental and irascible gentlemen while in +exercise of their professional duties. + +"Don't whistle, don't do abrupt skirt-dances, don't sing comic songs, +don't obscure the air with cigar smoke, don't go to sleep on the sofa +and snore, don't drink fizzes and rattle the ice in your glass----" + +"My God!" faltered his lordship, "do you mind if I breathe now and +then?" + +"I'll be away a few days--Valasco is slow, and the others take their +time. Let anybody come in who wants to, but don't sell anything until +the experts report to me in writing----" + +"Suppose some chap rushes in with ten thousand----" + +"No!" + +"What?" + +"Certainly not. Chaps who rush in with any serious money at all will +rush in again all the faster if you make them wait. Don't sell a +picture--not even to Valasco or any of the experts----" + +"Suppose a charming lady----" + +"Now you understand, don't you? I wouldn't think of selling a single +canvas until I have their reports and have made up my own mind that +they're as nearly right as any expert can be who didn't actually see the +artist paint the picture. The only trustworthy expert is the man who saw +the picture painted--if you can believe his word." + +"But my dear Quarren," protested Dankmere, seriously bewildered--"how +could any living expert ever have seen an artist, who died two hundred +years ago, paint anything?" + +"Right," said Quarren solemnly; "the point is keenly taken. Ergo, there +_are_ no real experts, only guessers. When Valasco _et al_ finish their +guessing, I'll guess how near they have guessed correctly. Good-bye.... +You _will_ be good, won't you, Dankmere?" + +"No fear. I'll keep my weather eye on the shop. Do you want me to sleep +here?" + +"You'd better, I think. But don't have rowdy parties here, will you? And +don't wander away and leave the door open. By George! I believe I'd +better stay----" + +"Rot! Go on and take your vacation, old chap! Back in a week?" + +"Yes; or any time you wire me----" + +"Not I. I'll have a jolly time by myself." + +"Don't have too many men here in the evening. The smoke will get into +those new curtains----" + +Dankmere, in his trousers and undershirt, stretched on the divan, +laughed and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. Then, reaching forth +he took a palm-leaf fan in one hand, a tall, frosty glass in the other, +and applied both in a manner from which he could extract the most +benefit. + +"Bon voyage!" he nodded to Quarren. "My duties and compliments and all +that--and pick me out an heiress of sorts--there's a good fellow----" + +As Quarren went out he heard his lordship burst forth into his +distressing whistle; and he left him searching piercingly for +inspiration to complete his "Coster's Hornpipe." + + * * * * * + +On the train Quarren bought the evening papers; and the first item that +met his eye was a front-page column devoted to the Dankmere Galleries. +Every paper had broken out into glaring scare-heads announcing the +recent despoiling of Dankmere Tarns and the venture into trade of +Algernon Cecil Clarence Fayre, tenth Earl of Dankmere. The majority of +papers were facetious, one or two scathing, but the more respectable +journals managed to repress a part of their characteristic antagonism +and report the matter with a minimum of venom and a rather exhaustive +historical accompaniment: + + + "POOR PEERS EAGER TO SELL HEIRLOOMS + + "LORD DANKMERE'S CASE SAID TO BE ONE OF DOZENS + AMONG THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY + + "GAMBLING SPIRIT BLAMED + + "OBSERVERS ASCRIBE POVERTY OF OLD BRITISH FAMILIES + TO THIS CAUSE--MANY RENT ROLLS DECLARED + TO BE MORTGAGED + + "The opening of the so-called Dankmere galleries on Lexington + Avenue will bring into the lime-light once more a sprightly though + somewhat world-battered little Peer recently and disastrously + connected with the stage and its feminine adjuncts. + + "The Dankmere galleries blossom in a shabby old house flanked on + one side by a Chop-Suey restaurant haunted of celestials, and on + the other by an undertaker's establishment displaying the following + enterprising sign: Mortem's Popular $50 Funerals! Bury Your Family + at Attractive Prices! + + "GAMBLING DID IT! + + "Gambling usually lands the British Peer on his aristocratic + uppers. But in this case gambolling behind the footlights is + responsible for the present display of the Dankmere family pictures + in the converted real-estate offices of young Mr. Quarren of + cotillion fame. + + "Among supposedly well-to-do English nobles the need for ready cash + so frequently reaches the acute stage that all manner of schemes + are readily resorted to in an effort to 'raise the wind.' + + "Lord Dankmere openly admits that had he supposed any valuable + 'junk' lay concealed in the attics of his mansion, he would, + without hesitation, have converted it into ready money long before + this. + + "Lord Dankmere's case is only one typical of dozens of others among + the exclusive and highly placed of Mayfair. It is a known fact that + since the sale of the Capri Madonna (Titian) for $350,000 to the + British Government, by special act of Parliament, Daffydill Palace + has gradually been unloaded of all treasures not tied by the entail + to the estate. For the same sum ($350,000) the late Earl of + Blitherington disposed of his famous Library and the sale of the + library was known to be necessary for the provision of living funds + for the incoming heir. Just recently the Duke of Putney, reputed to + be a man of vast wealth, had a difficulty with a dealer concerning + the sale of some of his treasures. + + "Such cases may be justified by circumstances. The general public + hears, however, of only a few isolated cases. The number of private + deals that are executed, week in, week out, between impoverished + members of the highest nobility--some of them bound, like Lord + Blitherington and the Duke of Putney by close official ties to the + Court--and the agents of either new-rich Britishers or wealthy + Americans has reached its maximum, and by degrees unentailed + treasures and heirlooms are passing from owners of many centuries + to families that were unheard of a dozen years ago. + + "THE AWFUL YANKEE + + "The American is given priority in the matter of purchase, not only + because he pays more, as a rule, but also for the reason that the + transfer of his prize to the United States removes the possibility + of noble sellers being pestered with awkward questions by the + inquisitive. For, however unostentatiously home deals are made and + transfers effected, society soon learns the facts. So hard up, + however, has the better-known aristocracy become, and so willing + are they to trade at fancy sums to anxious purchasers, that several + curio dealers in the St. James's quarter hold unlimited power of + attorney to act for plutocratic American principals either in the + United States or in this country. + + "Those who are reasonably entitled to explain the cause of this + poverty among old families, whose landed estates are unimpaired in + acreage at least, and whose inheritance was of respectable + proportions, declare that not since the eighteenth century has the + gambling spirit so persistently invaded the inside coteries of high + society. The desire to acquire riches quickly seems to have taken + hold of the erstwhile staid and conventional upper ten, just as it + has seized upon the smart set. The recent booms in oil and rubber + have had the effect of transferring many a comfortable rent roll + from its owner's bankers--milady's just as often as milord's--to + the chartered mortgagors of the financial world. The panic in + America in 1907 showed to what extent the English nobility was + interested, not only in gilt-edged securities, but also to what + degree it was involved in wildcat finance. The directing geniuses + of many of the suspect ventures of to-day in London are often the + possessors of names that are writ rubric in the pages of Debrett + and Burke. + + "According to a London radical paper, there are at present over a + score of estates in the auction mart which must soon pass from some + of the bluest-blooded nobles in Great Britain to men whose fortunes + have grown in the past few years from the humblest beginnings, a + fact which itself cannot fail to change both the tone and + constitution of town and country society." + +Quarren read every column, grimly, to the end, wincing when he +encountered some casual reference to himself and his recent social +activities. Then, lips compressed, boyish gaze fixed on the passing +landscape, he sat brooding until at last the conductor opened the door +and shouted the name of his station. + +The Wycherlys' new place, Witch-Hollow, a big rambling farm among the +Connecticut hills, was only three hours from New York, and half an hour +by automobile from the railroad. The buildings were wooden and not new; +a fashionable architect had made the large house "colonially" endurable +with furnaces and electricity as well as with fan-lights and fluted +pilasters. + +Most of the land remained wild--weed-grown pastures, hard-wood ridges, +neglected orchards planted seventy years ago. Molly Wycherly had ordered +a brand new old-time garden to be made for her overlooking the wide, +unruffled river; also a series of sylvan paths along the wooded shores +of the hill-set lake which was inhabited by bass placed there by orders +of her husband. + +"For Heaven's sake," he said to his wife, "don't try to knock any +antiquity into the place; I'm sick of fine old ancestral halls put up by +building-loan associations. Plenty of paint and varnish for mine, Molly, +and a few durable iron fountains and bronze stags on the lawn----" + +"No, Jim," she said firmly. + +So he ordered an aeroplane, a herd of sheep, a shepherd, and two +tailless sheep-dogs, and made plans to spend most of his vacation +yachting, when he did not spend it in town. + +But he was restlessly domiciled at Witch-Hollow, now, and he met Quarren +at the station in a bright purple runabout which he drove like +lightning, one hand on the steering wheel, the other carelessly waving +toward the streaky landscape in affable explanation of the various +points of interest. + +"Quite a little colony of us up here, Quarren," he said. "I don't know +why anybody picked out this silly country for estates, but Langly Sprowl +started a stud farm over yonder, and then poor Chester Ledwith built a +house for his wife in the middle of a thousand acres, over there where +you see those maple woods!--and then people began to come and pick up +worn-out farms and make 'em into fine old family places--Lester +Caldera's model dairies are behind that hill; and that leather-headed +O'Hara has a bungalow somewhere--and there's a sort of Hunt Club, too, +and a bum pack of Kiyi's----" + +The wind tore most of his speech from his lips and whirled it out of +earshot: Quarren caught a word now and then which interested him. It +also interested him to observe how Wycherly shaved annihilation at every +turn of the road. + +"I've asked some men to bring up their biplanes and have a few flies on +me," continued his host--"I've a 'Stinger' monoplane and a Kent biplane +myself. I can't get any more sensation out of motoring. I'd as soon +wheel twins in a go-cart." + +Quarren saw him cleverly avoid death with one hand, and laughed. + +"Who is stopping with you up here?" he shouted close to Wycherly's ear. + +"Nobody--Mrs. Leeds, Chrysos Lacy, and Sir Charles. There are some few +neighbours, too--Langly is mousing and prowling about; and that poor +Ledwith man is all alone in his big house--fixing to get out of it so +his wife can move in from Reno when she's ready for more mischief.... +Here we are, Quarren! Your stuff will be in your rooms in a few minutes. +There's my wife, now----" + +He waved his hand to Molly but let Quarren go forward alone while he +started across the fields toward his hangar where, in grotesque and +vicious-looking immobility, reposed his new winged pet, the little +Stinger monoplane, wings set as wickedly as an alert wasp's. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged +walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger +across her lips conjuring caution. + +"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't +suppose the child could possibly object." + +Quarren's features stiffened: + +"Does she?" + +"Why--this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and +Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she +had left." + +"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly. + +"I really don't know, Ricky----" + +"Yes, you do. What has happened?" + +"You're certainly rude enough----" + +"What has happened, Molly?" + +"I don't know for certain, I tell you.... Langly Sprowl has been roving +around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together +nearly every day." + +"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?" + +"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles." + +"Do you believe that?" + +"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly has persuaded her into +some sort of a tacit engagement.... I don't know what the child can be +thinking of--unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has +convinced her of his martyrdom.... There'll be a pretty situation when +Mary Ledwith returns.... I could kill Langly--" She doubled both pretty +hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she +placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the +top step deliberately kissed him. + +[Illustration: "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she +whispered."] + +"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad +you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and +your new enterprise!--I laughed and laughed!--forgive me, but the papers +were so funny--and I couldn't help laughing----" + +Quarren forced a smile. + +"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command +a good deal of respect sooner or later." + +"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?" + +"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before +you and Jim try to buy the entire collection." + +"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed +Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly +and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a +bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache +before your appearance adds another distressing jolt." + +"Has she had another shock recently?" + +"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for +her." + +"Are you sure?" + +"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and +even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's +a ghastly scandal--the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you +suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!" + +They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived +and a valet was busy unpacking for him. + +"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for +tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it--except +that little girl over there"--pointing along the corridor to a distant +door. + +He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too +soon." + +So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains, +Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly, +Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and +headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of +his guests. + +Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed +setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to +lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet. + +Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels +and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break +in--a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor +blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair. + +"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his +tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes. + +"We're out of the running, we two--aren't we?" he added. "You try very +pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more +hopeless race.... For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the +race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy +heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure +and senseless gold." + +He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer +was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear +waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks. + +Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the +Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions--among others the +new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so +marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any +of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms +resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him +enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been +so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that +Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of +strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or +the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his +heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea, +syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where +scores of frail and frivolous strangers nodded amid anaemic leaves, or +where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun, +seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per +dozen. + +He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the +sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered +wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too +closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions. + +Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering +between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently +rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the +rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper +which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks. +There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she +looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward +the hand he offered. + +"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession. + +"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?" + +"Yes. Have you just arrived?" + +"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys' +new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather +pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?" + +She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he +saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the +lashes. + +[Illustration: "So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp +curve."] + +He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on +the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths; +where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still +waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass. + +No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled +it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense +calm. + +"Are you--offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the +water. + +"Of course not!" he replied cordially. + +She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence. + +"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably. + +"Did you receive my letter?" + +"Of course I did." + +"You did not answer it." + +"I didn't know how--then." + +His reply seemed to perplex her--so did his light and effortless +good-humour. + +"I know how to answer it now," he added. + +She forced a smile: + +"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?" + +"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late +seldom dares start.... I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me +to be seated?" + +She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took +the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his +pocket. + +"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter." + +"Really, Mr. Quarren----" + +"Don't you want me to?" + +"I--don't think--it matters, now----" + +"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing. + +She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been +instantly conscious--he had changed since she had seen him--changed +radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air +suggesting assurance--an individuality which had not heretofore clearly +distinguished him--a hidden hint of strength. Or was she +mistaken--abashed--remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour +of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing +to him what she had written. + +She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain +unanswered." + +"You think I'm too late?" + +She looked at him steadily: + +"Yes, you are too late--in every sense." + +"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying +glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to +nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never +yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that +letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are +going to learn some day what tragedy really is." + +"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make +me take you seriously?" + +"I certainly am." + +"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed. + +"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have +_got_ to take me seriously." + +She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now +gaily maintained the lighter vein: + +"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen +and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I +suppose." + +"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist +rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!"--he held out to +her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what _is_ it?" + +"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving +picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent +blank verse, celebrating the occasion!" + +The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given +name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning +silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so +frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight +sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain, +inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean. + +"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted. + +"How can I deny it?--with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll +lend you some witch-hazel----" + +"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic," +he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up." + +"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients." + +"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a +handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel." + +She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either." + +"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?" + +"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray +eyes--a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to +her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched +his shoulder. + +She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said: + +"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it +wants to?" + +She laughed. + +He went on: "I mean when _you_ want it to be. Because it's really up to +you." + +"To _me_, my slangy friend?" + +"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa." + +This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and +she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom. + +"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly. + +"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds." + +"Is that a reason?"--very gravely. + +"You can make it so if you will." + +She hesitated, watching his expression. Then: + +"You say that you always think of me--that way. But I'm afraid that, +even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed +you to the use of it." + +"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?" + +"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to +give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of, +don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation----" + +"Strelsa----" + +"No!--please." + +"When?" + +She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr. +Quarren?" + +"Not unless you do." + +"I? What do you mean?" + +"Will you answer me honestly?" + +"Have you ever found me dishonest?" + +"Sometimes--with yourself." + +Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head +abruptly. After a few moments' silence: + +"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice. + +"Then--do you ever, by any accident, think of me?" + +She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to +avoid it. + +"I think of my friends--and you among them." + +"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?" + +"I--your friends--people are eternally dinning your name into my +ears----" + +"Please answer." + +"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to +know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick--whatever they call you?" + +"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in +sheer exasperation. + +"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I +made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you--when I happen +to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you +that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend----" + +"Won't you?" + +"No." + +"Some day?" + +"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like +it. It would be forced, artificial--an effort--and I don't +desire--wish--care----" + +"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child! +Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the +pronunciation of my name?" + +Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man +beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes +were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became +acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in +touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent +impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these +months, the same strange sensation passed through her--a thrilling +consciousness of his nearness. + +Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his +slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered. + +He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her, +then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she +saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought +might be. + +He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of +individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite +specimen known to you as _Mister_ Quarren?" + +She smiled, uncertainly: + +"But I _don't_ reject you, _Mister_ Quarren." + +"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us." + +"How absurd. Of course there is a wall." + +"I've got to climb over it then----" + +"I don't wish you to!" + +"Strelsa?" + +"W-what?" + +"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?" + +"I--I don't know what you mean." + +"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair. + +"Please don't say such things----" + +"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that +kind of a wall remain between us----" + +"I ask you not to talk about such----" + +"You _wouldn't_," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why +such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you +that he cares----" + +"Please--if you please--I had rather not----" + +"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather +plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you--I don't know how much, +yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap +up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously +he is in love with the unknown on the other side." + +He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite +thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended +along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every +nerve in her body. + +"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other +side of that barrier--your unknown self, Strelsa--undiscovered as yet by +me----" + +Her lips moved mechanically: + +"I wrote you--_told_ you what I am." + +"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know +yourself----" + +"I do. I _am_ what I wrote you." + +"Partly perhaps--partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a +sequence of blows----" + +"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of +my life!--But those would not count--if I were not selfish, dishonest, +and a coward." + +His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure +left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually +the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange +sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and +motionless, looking down at the still lake below. + +"What _is_ the barrier?" he asked quietly. + +"There is no barrier to your friendship--if you care to offer it, now +that you know me." + +"But I _don't_ know you. And I care for more than your friendship even +after the glimpse I have had of you." + +"I--care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren." + +"_Could_ you ever care for more?" + +"No.... I don't wish to.... There _is_ nothing higher." + +"_Could_ you--if there were?" + +But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light +weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new +senses that his touch had discovered so long ago--and which had +slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless +relaxation, this lassitude which was becoming almost painful--or +sweet--she did not understand which--was this also a part of friendship? +Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy?--this +deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening +her pulses, her even breathing--menacing the delicate nerves in her hand +so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering---- + +She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a +little quick indrawn breath. + +"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly--scarcely knowing +what she was saying. + +"What, Strelsa?" + +"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would." + +Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face +became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully: + +"I'm going to fight for you all the same." + +"What!" she exclaimed, crisply. + +"Fight hard, too," he added. "I'm on my mettle at last." + +"You have no chance, Mr. Quarren." + +"With--_him_?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at +all----" + +"I don't care to hear you speak that way!" she said, hotly. + +"Oh, I won't. A man's an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn't even +thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you--with your unknown self +behind that barrier. _Garde a vous!_" + +"I decline the combat, Monsieur," she said, trying to speak lightly. + +"Oh, I'm not afraid of _you_--the _visible_ you that I'm looking at and +which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will +fight me openly, fairly--and I have an even chance to win----" + +"Do you think so?" she said, lip between her teeth. + +"Don't you?" + +"No." + +"I do.... But it's your unknown self I'm afraid of, Strelsa. God alone +knows what it may do to both of us." + +"There is no other self! What do you mean?" + +"There are _two_ others--not this intellectual, friendly, kindly, +visible self that offers friendship and accepts it--not even the occult, +aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray +eyes----" + +"There _is_ no other!" she said, flushing and rising to her feet. + +"Is it dead?" + +"It never lived!" + +"Then," he said coolly, "it will be born as sure as I stand here!--born +to complete the trinity." He glanced out over the lake, then swung +around sharply: "You are wrong. It _has_ been born. And that unknown +self is hostile to me; and I know it!" + +They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she +said: "I think we have talked some nonsense. Don't you?" + +"_You_ haven't." + +"You're a generous boy; do you know it?" + +"You say so." + +"Oh, I'll cheerfully admit it. If you weren't you'd detest me--perhaps +despise me." + +"Men don't detest or despise a hurt and frightened child." + +"But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of +her?" + +"I don't know," he said. "Whatever you are I can't help loving you." + +She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a +while when she could control her lips she said: + +"I want to talk some more to you--and I don't know how; I don't even +know what I want to say except that--that----" + +"What, Strelsa?" + +"Please be--kind to me." She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered. + +He said after a moment: "I couldn't be anything else." + +"Are you very sure?" + +"Yes." + +"It means a great deal to me," she said. + +They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea +was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for +tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got +them in chunks and bolted them, wagging. + +An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she +wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke: + +"Ricky dear?" + +"Yes." + +"Am I an angel or otherwise?" + +"Angel always--but why particularly at this instant?" + +"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?" + +"Yes--you corker!" + +"Well, then!" + +"Molly, I worship you." + +"_Et apres?_" + +"I'll double that! I adore you also!" + +"Content! What are you two doing?" + +"Strelsa and I have been taking tea." + +"Oh, is it 'Strelsa' already?" + +"Very unwillingly on her part." + +"It isn't 'Ricky,' too, is it?" + +"Alas! not yet!" + +"No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. _What_ do you +think I've done, very cleverly?" + +"What?" + +"Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the +way to North Linden. We can't possibly get back until dinner. But that's +not all." + +"What more, most wonderful of women?" + +"I've got _him_ with us," she said with satisfaction. "I made Jim stop +and pick him up. I _knew_ he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I +made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some +fool horses at Acremont that he couldn't wriggle out of it particularly +as Strelsa is my guest and he's rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky, +make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I +couldn't avoid asking him." + +"Very well," said Quarren grimly. + +He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in +her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure. + +"What had Molly to say to _you_ all that time?" she asked. + +"Was I long away?" + +"Yes, you were!" + +"I'm delighted you found the time too long----" + +"I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly +how time flies with you and Molly.... Oh, dear! _Is_ that a mosquito?" + +"I'm afraid it is," said Quarren. + +"Then indoors I go!" exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. "You may come with +me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated." + +And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen +door. + +Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window +late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory. + +"I wonder if there's enough of this celestial radiance to make a new +aureole for you?" he said. + +"So my old one is worn out, is it?" + +"I meant to offer you a _double_ halo." + +"You do say sweet things--for a rather obstinate young man," she said, +flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through +the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano. +Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative: + +"Please lean on the piano." He did so, inquiringly. + +"Otherwise," she said, "you'd have attempted to seat yourself on this +bench; and there isn't room for both of us without crowding." + +"If you moved a little----" + +"But I won't," she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the +key-board. + +She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant, +careless, but acceptable barytone. + +"The old ones are the best," she commented, running lightly through a +medley ranging from "The Mikado" to "Erminie," the "Black Hussar," and +"The Mascotte." They sang the "gobble duet" from the latter fairly well: + + _She._ + + "When on your manly form I gaze + A sense of pleasure passes o'er me"; + + _He._ + + "The murmured music of your voice + Is sweeter far than liquid honey!" + +And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her +turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing. + +[Illustration: "'The old ones are best.' she commented."] + +Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing "Johnny +Schmoker" with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal +refrain: + + "Kanst du spielen?" + +and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by +that Teutonic musician. + +"I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless, +pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things," she exclaimed; and did +so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of +sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the +key-board with his own. + +She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise. + +"Very well," she said; "you'll have to match my performance with +something equally imbecile"; and she composed herself to listen. + +"What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?" he asked gravely; "turn +seven solemn handsprings?" + +"That isn't silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead." + +He prepared to do so but she wouldn't permit him: + +"No! I don't want to remember you doing such a thing.... All the same I +believe _you_ could do it and not lose--lose----" + +"Dignity?" + +"No--I don't know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you +to do something silly." + +"Shall I say it or do it?" + +"Either." + +"Then I'll recite something very, very precious--subtly, intricately, +and psychologically precious." + +"Oh, please do!" + +"It's--it's about a lover." + +She blushed. + +"Do you mind?" + +"You _are_ the limit! Of course I don't!" + +"It's about a lady, too." + +"Naturally." + +"And love--rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love." + +"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of +malice in her smile. + +"All right. The title is: '_Oh, Love! Oh, Why?_'" + +"A perfectly good title," she said gravely. "I alway says 'why?' to +Love." + +So he bowed to her and began very seriously: + + "Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate! + Wait for a moment while I relate + A harrowing tragedy up to date + Of innate Hate. + + "A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair; + Her store-curls stirred in the summer air; + An amorous Fly espied her there, + So rare and fair. + + "Before she knew where she was at, + He'd kissed the maiden where she sat, + And she batted him one which slapped him flat + Ker-spat! Like that! + + "Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye! + Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By, + Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly. + Oh, Love! Oh, Why?" + +She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem: + +"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can't endure the realism of that +spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge +headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?" + +Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood +changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among +the keys, striking vague harmonies. + +He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and +after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys. + +A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink, +lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world +outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which +only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille. + +She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the +alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even +when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a +moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive +lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his. + +Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught +her slender hand: + +"No!--please. Let me go! This is too serious--even if we did not mean +it----" + +"You know I mean it," he said simply. + +"You must not! You understand why!... And don't--again! I am not--I do +not choose to--to allow--endure--such--things----" + +He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking +at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed. + +"Please!" she repeated--and "please!" And she came toward him a step, +and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers. + +"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to +me--and let me go." + +"Am I unkind?" + +"Yes--yes! You know--you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I +_am_ going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me--not for one +moment!" + +"Check you from what, Strelsa?" + +"From--what I want out of life!--tranquillity, ease, security, +happiness----" + +"Happiness?" + +"Yes--yes! It _will_ be that! I don't need anything except what I shall +have. I don't want anything else. Can't you understand? Do you think +women feel as--as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men +experience is also experienced by women? I don't want it; I don't +require it! I've--I've always had a contempt for it--and I have +still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any +man--friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can't you +take it--and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find +security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my +friendship--as long as I never swerve in it--as long as I hold you first +among my friends--first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer +you--I will not! Now let me go!" + +"Your _other_ self, fighting me," he said, half to himself. + +"No, _I_ am! What do you mean by my other self! There _is_ no other----" + +"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!" + +She blushed scarlet: + +"Is _that_ what you mean!--the stupid, unworthy, material self----" + +"The trinity is incomplete without it." + +She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly +as though frightened. + +After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat +pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip: + +"I'm not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is +lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being +poor makes no difference either. I simply don't care--I don't even care +what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each +other--whether you think so or not. And you evidently don't, but I can't +help that. If I'm any good I'll make you think as I do----" + +He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms +and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows +slightly knitted. + +Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot +in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened +under his cheeks. + +"_Can't_ you care?" he said, half to himself. + +She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and +almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely +she felt that what had been there was now dead--that she never could +respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free +forever. + +"_Can't_ you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again, +turning toward her. + +"Is _that_ your idea of love?" + +He shook his head, hopelessly: + +"Oh, it's everything else, too--everything on earth--and +afterward--everything--mind, soul and body--birth, life, death--sky and +land and sea--everything that is or was or will be----" + +His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked--looked up +at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes. + +"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity--more than +for love; do you?" + +"Yes." + +"Is that true?" + +"Yes. Because, unless you mean friendship, I care nothing for love." + +"That is your answer." + +"It is." + +"Then there _is_ something lacking in you." + +"Perhaps. I have never loved in the manner you mean. I do not wish to. +Perhaps I am incapable of it.... I hope I am; I believe--I believe--" +But she fell silent, standing with eyes lowered and the warm blood once +more stinging her cheeks. + +Presently she looked up, calm, level-eyed: + +"I think you had better ask my forgiveness before you go." + +He shrugged: + +"Yes, I'll ask it if you like." + +To keep her composure became difficult: + +"It is your affair, Mr. Quarren--if you still care to preserve our +friendship." + +"Would a kiss shatter it?" + +She smiled: + +"A look, a word, the quiver of an eyelash is enough." + +"It doesn't seem to be very solidly founded, does it?" + +"Friendship is the frailest thing in the world--and the mightiest.... I +am waiting for your decision." + +He walked up to her again, and she steeled herself, not knowing what to +expect. + +"Will you marry me, Strelsa?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"Because I have told Mr. Sprowl that I will marry him." + +"Also because you don't love me; is that so?" + +She said tranquilly: "I can't afford to marry you. I wouldn't love you +anyway." + +"Couldn't?" + +"Wouldn't," she said calmly; but her face was crimson. + +"Oh," he said under his breath--"you _are_ capable of love." + +"I think not, Mr. Quarren; but I am very capable of hate." + +And, looking up, he saw it for an instant, clear in her eyes. Then it +died out; she turned a trifle pale, walked to the window and stood +leaning against it, one hand on the curtain. + +She did not seem to hear him when he came up behind her, and he touched +her lightly on the arm: + +"I ask your forgiveness," he said. + +"It is granted, Mr. Quarren." + +"Have I ruined our friendship?" + +"I don't know what you have done," she said wearily. + +A few moments later the motor arrived; Quarren turned on the electric +lights in the room; Strelsa walked across to the piano and seated +herself. + +She was playing rag-time when the motor party entered; Quarren came +forward and shook hands with Chrysos Lacy and Sir Charles; Langly Sprowl +passed him with a short nod, saying "How are you, Quarren?"--and kept +straight on to Strelsa. + +"Rotten luck," he said in his full, careless voice; "I'd meant to ride +over and chance a gallop with you but Wycherly picked me up and started +on one of his break-neck tears.... What have you been up to all day?" + +"Nothing--Mr. Quarren came." + +"I see--showed him about, I expect." + +"A--little." + +"Are you feeling fit, Strelsa?" + +"Perfectly.... Why?" + +"You look a bit streaky----" + +"Thank you!" + +"'Pon my word you do--a bit under the weather, you know----" + +"Woman's only friend and protector--a headache," she said, gaily +rattling off more rag-time. "Where did you go, Langly?" + +"To look over some silly horses----" + +"They're fine nags!" remonstrated Molly--"and I was perfectly sure that +Langly would buy half a dozen." + +"Not I," said that hatchet-faced young man; and into his sleek and +restless features came a glimmer of shrewdness--the sly thrift that +lurks in the faces of those who bargain much and wisely in petty wares. +It must have been a momentary ancestral gleam from his rum-smuggling +ancestors, for Langly Sprowl had never dealt in little things. + +Chrysos Lacy was saying: "It's adorable to see you again, Ricky. What +_is_ this we hear about you and Lord Dankmere setting up shop?" + +"It's true," he laughed. "Come in and buy an old master, Chrysos, at +bargain prices." + +"I shall insist on Jim buying several," said Molly. + +Her husband laughed derisively: + +"When I can buy a perfectly good Wright biplane for the same money? Come +to earth, Molly!" + +"You'll come to earth if you go sky-skating around the clouds in that +horrid little Stinger, Jim," she said. "Why couldn't _you_ take out the +Stinger for a little exercise?"--turning to Sprowl. + +"I'm going to," said Sprowl in his full penetrating voice, not conscious +that it required courage to risk a flight with the Stinger. Nobody had +ever imputed any lack of that sort of courage to Langly Sprowl. He +simply did not understand bodily fear. + +Strelsa glanced up at him from the piano: + +"It's rather risky, isn't it?" + +He merely stared at her out of his slightly protruding eyes as though +she were speaking an unfamiliar language. + +"Jim," said Quarren, "would you mind taking me as a passenger?" + +Wycherly, reckless enough anyway, balked a little at the proposition: + +"That Stinger is too light and too tricky I'm afraid." + +"Isn't she built for two?" + +"Well, I suppose she _could_ get off the ground with you and me----" + +"All right; let's try her?" + +"Jim! I won't let you," said his wife. + +"Don't be silly, Molly. Rix and I are not going up if she won't take +us----" + +"I forbid you to try! It's senseless!" + +Her husband laughed and finished his whisky and soda. Then twirling his +motor goggles around his fingers he stood looking at Strelsa. + +"You're a pretty little peach," he said sentimentally, "and I'm sorry +Molly is here or----" + +"Do _you_ care?" laughed Strelsa, looking around at him over her +shoulder. "_I_ don't mind being adored by _you_, Jim." + +"Don't you, sweetness?" + +"Indeed I don't." + +Wycherly started toward her: Langly Sprowl, who neither indulged in +badinage nor comprehended it in others, turned a perfectly +expressionless face on his host, who said: + +"You old muffin head, did you ever smile in your life? You'd better try +now because I'm going to take your best girl away from you!" + +Which bored Sprowl; and he turned his lean, narrow head away as a sleek +and sinister dog turns when laughed at. + +Strelsa slipped clear of the piano and vanished, chased heavily by +Wycherly. + +Molly said: "It's time to dress, good people. Langly, your man is +upstairs with your outfit. Come, Chrysos, dear--Rix, have you everything +you want?" she added in a low voice as he stood aside for her to pass: +"Have you _everything_, Ricky?" + +"Nothing," he said. + +"The little minx! _Is_ it Langly?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" And, aloud: "Jim! Do let Langly try out the +Stinger to-morrow." + +Her husband, who had given up his search for Strelsa, said that Sprowl +was welcome. + +People scattered to their respective quarters; Quarren walked slowly to +his. Sprowl, passing with his mincing, nervous stride, said: "How's +little Dankmere?" + +"All right," replied Quarren briefly. + +"Cheap little beggar," commented Sprowl. + +"He happens to be my partner," said the other. + +"He suits your business no doubt," said Sprowl with a contempt he took +no pains to conceal--a contempt which very plainly included Quarren as +well as the Earl and the picture business. + +Arrived at his door he glanced around to stare absently at Quarren. The +latter said, pleasantly: + +"I don't suppose you meant to be offensive, Sprowl; you simply can't +help it; can you?" + +"What?" + +"I mean, you can't help being a bounder. It's just in you, isn't it?" + +For a moment Sprowl's hatchet face was ghastly; he opened his mouth to +speak, twice, then jerked open his door and disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Quarren had been at Witch-Hollow three days when Dankmere called him on +the long-distance telephone. + +"Do you want me to come back?" asked the young fellow. "I don't mind if +you do; I'm quite ready to return----" + +"Not at all, my dear chap," said his lordship. "I fancied you might care +to hear how matters are going in the Dankmere Galleries." + +"Of course I do, but I rather hoped nothing in particular would happen +for a week or so----" + +"Plenty has. You know those experts of yours, Valasco, Drayton-Quinn, +and that Hollander Van Boschoven. Well, they don't get on. Each has come +to me privately, and in turn, and told me that the others were no +good----" + +"Your role is to remain amiable and non-committal," said Quarren. "Let +them talk----" + +"Valasco and Drayton-Quinn won't speak, and Van Boschoven has notified +me that he declines to come to the house as long as either of the others +are there." + +"Very well; arrange to have them there on different days." + +"I don't think Valasco will come back at all." + +"Why not?" + +"Because--the fact is--I believe I practically--so to speak--hit him." + +"What!" + +"Fact, old chap." + +"Why?" + +"Well, he asked me if I knew more about anything than I did about +pictures. I didn't catch his drift for about an hour--but then it came +to me, and I got up out of my chair and walked over and punched his +head. I don't think he'll come back, do you?" + +"No, I don't. What else have you been doing?" said Quarren angrily. + +"Nothing. One picture--the Raeburn portrait--has a bad hole in it." + +"How did it happen?" + +"Rather extraordinary thing, that! I was giving a most respectable card +party--some ladies and gentlemen of sorts--from the Winter Garden I +believe--and one of the ladies inadvertently shyed a glass at another +lady----" + +"For Heaven's sake, Dankmere----" + +"Quite right old chap--my fault entirely--I won't do it again. But, do +you know, the gallery already has become a most popular resort. People +are coming and going all day--a lot of dealers among them I suspect--and +there have been a number of theatrical people who want to hire pictures +for certain productions to be staged next winter----" + +"We don't do that sort of thing!" + +"That's what I thought; but there was one very fetching girl who opens +in 'Ancestors' next October----" + +"No, no, no!" + +"Right-o! I'll tell her at luncheon.... I say, Quarren: Karl Westguard +wants the gallery to-night. May I let him have it?" + +"Certainly. What for?" + +"Oh, some idea of his--I've forgotten what he said." + +"I believe I'd better come down," said Quarren bluntly. + +"Don't dream of it, old fellow. Everything is doing nicely. My respects +to the fair. By-the-bye--anything in my line up there?" + +Quarren laughed: + +"I'm afraid not, Dankmere." + +"_Very_ well," said the Earl, airily. "I'm not worrying now, you know. +_Good_-bye, old sport!" + +And he rang off. + +Quarren meeting Molly in the hall said: + +"I think I'd better leave this afternoon. Dankmere is messing matters." + +"Are you going to run away?" she said in a low voice, glancing sideways +at Strelsa who had just passed them wearing her riding habit. + +"Run away," he repeated, also lowering his voice. "From whom?" + +"From Langly Sprowl." + +He shrugged and looked out of the window. + +"It _is_ running away," insisted his pretty hostess. "You have a chance +I think." + +"Not the slightest." + +"You are wrong. Strelsa wept in her sleep all night. How does that +strike you?" + +"Not over me," he said grimly; but added: "How do you know she did?" + +"Her maid told mine," admitted Molly shamelessly. "Now if you are going +to criticise my channels of information I'll remind you that Richelieu +himself----" + +"Oh, Molly! Molly! What a funny girl you are!" he said, laughing. +"You're a sweet, loyal little thing, too--but there's no use--" His face +became expressionless, almost haggard--"there's no use," he repeated +under his breath. + +Slowly, side by side, they walked out to the veranda, her hand resting +lightly just within the crook of his arm, he, absent-mindedly filling +his pipe. + +"Strelsa likes you," she said. + +"With all the ardour and devotion of a fish," he returned, coolly. + +"Rix?" + +"What?" + +"Do you know," said Molly, thoughtfully, "she _is_ a sort of a fish. She +has the emotions of a mollusc as far as your sex is concerned. Some +women _are_ that way--more women than men would care to believe.... Do +you know, Ricky, if you'll let us alone, it is quite natural for us to +remain indifferent to considerations of that sort?" + +She stood watching the young fellow busy with his pipe. + +"It's only when you keep at us long enough that we respond," she said. +"Some of us are quickly responsive; it takes many of us a long while to +catch fire. Threatened emotion instinctively repels many of us--the more +fastidious among us, the finer grained and more delicately nerved, are +essentially reserved. Modesty, pride, a natural aloofness, are as much a +part of many women as their noses and fingers----" + +"What becomes of modesty and pride when a girl marries for money?" he +asked coolly. + +"Some women can give and accept in cold blood what it would be +impossible for them to accord to a more intimate and emotional demand." + +"No doubt an ethical distinction," he said, "but not very clear to me." + +"I did not argue that such women are admirable or excusable.... But how +many modern marriages in our particular vicinity are marriages of +inclination, Ricky?" + +"You're a washed-out lot," he said--"you're satiated as schoolgirls. If +you have any emotions left they're twisted ones by the time you are +introduced. Most debutantes of your sort make their bow equipped for +business, and with the experience of what, practically, has amounted to +several seasons. + +"If any old-fashioned young girls remain in your orbit I don't know +where to find them. Why, do you suppose any young girl, not yet out, +would bother to go to a party of any sort where there was not champagne +and a theatre-box and a supper in prospect? That's a fine comment on +your children, Molly, but you know it's true and so does everybody who +pretends to know anything about it." + +"You talk like Karl Westguard," she said, laughing. "Anyway, what has +all this to do with you and Strelsa Leeds?" + +"Nothing." He shrugged. "She is part of your last word in social +civilisation----" + +"She is a very normal, sensitive, proud girl, who has known little +except unhappiness all her life, Rix--including two years of marital +misery--two years of horror.--And you forget that those two years were +the result of a demand purely and brutally emotional--to which, a +novice, utterly ignorant, she yielded--pushed on by her mother.... +Please be fair to her; remember that her childhood was pinched with +poverty, that her girlhood in school was a lonely one, embarrassed by +lack of everything which her fashionable schoolmates had as matters of +course. + +"She could not go to the homes of her schoolmates in vacation times, +because she could not ask them, in turn, to her own. She was still in +school when Reggie Leeds saw her--and misbehaved--and the poor little +thing was sent home, guiltless but already half-damned. No wonder her +mother chased Reggie Leeds half around the world dragging her daughter +by the wrist!" + +"Did it make matters any better to force that drunken cad into a +marriage?" asked Quarren coldly. + +"It makes another marriage possible for Strelsa." + +Quarren gazed out across the country where a fine misty rain was still +falling. Acres of clover stretched away silvered with powdery moisture; +robins and bluebirds covered the soaked lawns, and their excited +call-notes prophesied blue skies. + +"It doesn't make any difference one way or the other," said Quarren, +half to himself. "She will go on in the predestined orbit----" + +"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it." + +"There is nothing to which she responds--except what I have not." + +"Make what you do possess more powerful, then." + +"What do I possess?" + +"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?" + +"Perhaps so--now--after a fashion.... But I am not the man who could +ever attract her----" + +"Wake her, and find out." + +"Wake her?" + +"Didn't I tell you that many of us are asleep, and that few of us awake +easily? Didn't I tell you that nobody likes to be awakened from the warm +comfort and idle security of emotionless slumber?--that it is the +instinct of many of us to resist--just as I hear my maid speak to me in +the morning and then turn over for another forty winks, hating her!" + +They both laughed. + +"My maid has instructions to persist until I respond," said Molly. +"Those are my instructions to you, also." + +"Suppose, after all, I were knocking at the door of an empty room?" + +"You must take your chances of course." + +There was a noise of horses on the gravel: Langly cantered up on a +handsome hunter followed by a mounted groom leading Strelsa's mare. + +Sprowl dismounted and came up to pay his respects to Molly, scarcely +troubling himself to recognise Quarren's presence, and turning his back +to him immediately, although Molly twice attempted to include him in the +conversation. + +Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a +pantomime unmistakable; but her pretty lips merely pressed each other +tighter, and she sauntered out, crop under one arm, with a careless +greeting to Langly. + +He came up offering his hand and she took it, then stood a moment in +desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren. + +[Illustration: "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was +silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."] + +"I thought I overheard you say to Molly that you were going back to town +this afternoon," she remarked, casting a brief glance in his direction. + +"I think I'd better go," he said, pleasantly. + +"A matter of business I suppose?" eyebrows slightly lifted. + +"In a way. Dankmere is alone, poor fellow." + +Molly laughed: + +"It is not good for man to be alone." + +Sprowl said: + +"There's a housemaid in my employ--she's saved something I understand. +You might notify Dankmere--" he half wheeled toward Quarren, eyes +slightly bulging without a shadow of expression on his sleek, narrow +face. + +Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of +a clear sky. + +"What?" he said slowly--then stepped back a pace as Strelsa passed close +in front of him, apparently perfectly unconscious of any discord: + +"Will you get me a lump of sugar, Mr. Quarren? My mare must be pampered +or she'll start that jiggling Kentucky amble and never walk one step." + +Quarren swung on his heel and entered the house; Molly, ignoring +Strelsa, turned sharply on Sprowl: + +"If you are insolent to my guests you need not come here," she said +briefly. + +Langly's restless eyes protruded; he glanced from Molly to Strelsa, then +his indifferent gaze wandered over the landscape. It was plain that the +rebuke had not made the slightest impression. Molly looked angrily at +Strelsa, but the latter, eyes averted, was gazing at her horse. And when +Quarren came back with a handful of sugar she took it and, descending +the steps, fed it, lump by lump to the two horses. + +Langly put her up, shouldered aside the groom, and adjusted heel-loop +and habit-loop. Then he mounted, saluted Molly and followed Strelsa at a +canter without even noticing his bridle. + +"What have you done to Langly?" asked Molly. + +"Characterised his bad manners the other day. It wasn't worth while; +there's no money in cursing.... And I think, Molly dear, that I'll take +an afternoon train----" + +"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way +under my roof----" + +"It was outdoors, dear lady," said Quarren, smiling. "It's only his +rudeness before you that I mind. Where is Sir Charles?" + +"Off with Chrysos somewhere on the river--there's their motor-launch, +now.... Ricky!" + +"Yes." + +"I'm angry all through.... Strelsa might have said something--showed her +lack of sympathy for Langly's remark by being a little more cordial to +you.... I don't like it in her. I don't know whether I am going to like +that girl or not----" + +"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do----" + +"There was! She _is_ a fish!--unless she gives Langly the dickens this +morning.... Will you motor with Jim and me, Ricky dear?" + +"If you like." + +She did like. So presently a racing car was brought around, Jim came +reluctantly from the hangar, and away they tore into the dull weather +now faintly illuminated by the prophecy of the sun. + +Everywhere the mist was turning golden; faint smears of blue appeared +and disappeared through the vapours passing overhead. Then, all at once +the sun's glaring lens played across the drenched meadows, and the +shadows of tree and hedge and standing cattle streamed out across the +herbage. + +In spite of the chains the car skidded dangerously at times; mud flew +and so did water, and very soon Molly had enough. So they tore back +again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters, +her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair +of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots--past +woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny +streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half +immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird +music--past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh +above the soaking brown earth. + +Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds +fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the +kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud +enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded +with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million +blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them. + +Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles +and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. Once, +across a distant hill, two horses and their riders passed outlined +against the sky; but even the eyes of a lover and a hater could not +identify anybody at such a distance. + +So he strolled on, taking roads when convenient, fields when it suited +him, neither knowing nor caring where he was going. + +Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he +turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a +little foot-bridge over a stream. + +A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up. + +"Is that you, Quarren?" he said. + +The young fellow stopped and looked down curiously at the sunken, +unhealthy face, then, shocked, came forward hastily and shook hands. + +"Why, Ledwith," he said, "what are you doing here?--Oh, I forgot; you +live here, don't you?" + +"That's my house yonder--or was," said the man with a slight motion of +his head. And, after a moment: "You didn't recognise me. Have I changed +much?" + +Quarren said: "You seem to have been--ill." + +"Yes; I have been. I'm ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few +minutes--unless you are going somewhere in particular--or don't care to +talk to me----" + +"Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be +gentle--even with such a man. + +"I haven't seen much of you, for a couple of years--I haven't seen much +of anybody," said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking +at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren: + +"You are stopping with----" + +"The Wycherlys." + +"Oh, yes.... I haven't seen them lately.... They are neighbours"--he +waved his sickly coloured hand--"but I'm rather quiet--I read a good +deal--as you see."--He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and +his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually. + +"It's a pretty country," said Quarren. + +"Yes--I thought so once. I built that house.... There's no use in my +keeping up social duties," he said with another slinking glance at +Quarren. "So I'm giving up the house." + +"Really." + +"Hasn't--you have heard so, haven't you?" + +He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and +his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or +rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and +continuously as he jerked about in his seat. + +"I suppose," he said slyly, "people talk about me, Quarren." + +"Do you know anybody immune to gossip?" inquired Quarren, smiling. + +"No; that's true. But I don't care anything for people.... I read, I +have my horses and dogs--but I'm going to move away. I told you that, +didn't I?" + +"I believe you did." + +Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost +imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance: + +"There's no use pretending to _you_, Quarren; is there?" + +Quarren said nothing. + +"You know all the gossip--all the dirty little faits divers of your +world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential----" + +"You're mistaken, Ledwith," he said pleasantly. "I'm done with it." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Why, that I've gone into a better business and I'm too busy to be +useful and amusing any longer." + +Ledwith's dead eyes stared: + +"I heard you had dropped out--were never seen about. Is that true?" + +"Yes." + +"Found the game too rotten?" + +"Oh, no. It's no different from any other game--a mixture of the same +old good and bad, with good predominating. But there's more to be had +out of life in other games." + +"Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working +as side partner, isn't it?" + +Quarren said pleasantly: "If you're serious, Ledwith, you're a liar." + +After a silence Ledwith said: "Do you think there's enough left of me to +care what anybody calls me?" + +Quarren turned: "I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make +you such an answer." + +"Never mind.... In that last year--when I still knew people--and when +they still knew me--you were very kind to me, Quarren." + +"Why not? You were always decent to me." + +Ledwith was now picking at his fingers, and Quarren saw that they were +dreadfully scarred and maltreated. + +"You've always been kind to me," repeated Ledwith, his extinct eyes +fixed on space. "Other people would have halted at sight of me and gone +the other way--or passed by cutting me dead.... _You_ sat down beside +me." + +"Am I anybody to refuse?" + +But Ledwith only blinked nervously down at his book, presently fell to +twitching the uncut pages again. + +"Poems," he said--"scarcely what you'd think I'd wish to read, +Quarren--poems of youth and love----" + +"You're young, Ledwith--if you cared to help yourself----" + +"Yes, if I cared--if I cared. In this book they all seem to care; youth +and happiness care; sorrow and years still care. Listen to this: + + "'You who look forward through the shining tears + Of April's showers + Into the sunrise of the coming years + Golden with unborn flowers-- + I who look backward where the sunset lowers + Counting November's hours!' + +"But--I _don't_ care. I care no longer, Quarren." + +"_That's_ losing your grip." + +He raised his ashy visage: "I'm _trying_ to let go.... But it's +slow--very slow--with a little pleasure--hell's own pleasure--" He +turned his shoulder, fished something out of his pocket, and pulling +back his cuff, bent over. After a few moments he turned around, calmly: + +"You've seen that on the stage I fancy." + +"Otherwise, also." + +"Quite likely. I've known a pretty woman--" He ended with a weary +gesture and dropped his head between his hands. + +"Quarren," he said, "there's only one hurt left in it all. I have two +little children." + +Quarren was silent. + +"I suppose--it won't last--that hurt. They're with my mother. It was +agreed that they should remain with her.... But it's the only hurt I +feel at all now--except--rarely--when those damned June roses are in +bloom.... She wore them a good deal.... Quarren, I'm glad it came early +to me if it had to come.... Like yellow dogs unsuccessful men are the +fastest breeders. The man in permanent hard luck is always the most +prolific.... I'm glad there are no more children." + +His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read +what was not written there-- + + "Her loveliness with shame and with surprise + Froze my swift speech; she turning on my face + The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, + Spoke slowly. + + "'I had great beauty; ask thou not my name; + No one can be more wise than destiny. + Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came + I brought calamity.'" + +Quarren bit his lip and looked down at the sunlit brook dancing by under +the bridge in amber beauty. + +Ledwith said musingly: "I don't know who it might have been if it had +not been Sprowl. It would have been _somebody_!... The decree has been +made absolute." + +Quarren looked up. + +"She's coming back here soon, now. I've had the place put in shape for +her." + +After a silence Quarren rose and offered his hand. + +Ledwith took it: "I suppose I shall not see you again?" + +"I'm going to town this afternoon. Good-bye." + +Looking back at the turn of the path he saw Ledwith, bent nearly double, +terribly intent on his half-bared arm. + +Returning in time for luncheon he encountered Sir Charles fresh from the +river, and Chrysos prettily sun-burned, just entering the house. + +"We broke down," said the girl; "I thought we'd never get back, but Sir +Charles is quite wonderful and he mended that very horrid machinery with +the point of a file. Think of it, Ricky!--the point of a file!" + +Sir Charles laughed and explained the simplicity of the repairs; and +Chrysos, not a whit less impressed, stared at him out of her pretty +golden eyes with a gaze perilously resembling adoration. + +Afterward, by the bay-window upstairs, Quarren said lightly to Molly: + +"How about the little Lacy girl and the Baronet?" + +"She's an idiot," said Molly, shortly. + +"I'm afraid she is." + +"Of course she is. I wish I hadn't asked her. Why, she goes about like a +creature in a trance when Sir Charles is away.... I don't know whether +to say anything to her or whether to write to her mother. She's slated +for Roger O'Hara." + +"I don't suppose her parents would object to Sir Charles," said Quarren, +smiling. + +"That's why I hesitate to write. Sir Charles is in love with Strelsa; +anybody can see that and everybody knows it. And it isn't likely that a +child like Chrysos could swerve him." + +"Then you'd better send him or her away, hadn't you?" + +"I don't know what to do," said Molly, vexed. "June is to be quiet and +peaceful at Witch-Hollow, and Sir Charles wanted to be here and Mrs. +Lacy asked me to have Chrysos because she needed the quiet and calm. And +_look_ what she's done!" + +"It's probably only a young girl's fancy." + +"Then it ought to be nipped in the bud. But her mother wants her here +and Sir Charles wants to be here and if I write to her mother she'll let +her remain anyway. I'm cross, Ricky. I'm tired, too--having dictated +letters and signed checks until my head aches. Where have you been?" + +"Prowling." + +"Well, luncheon is nearly ready, and Strelsa isn't back. Are you going +to New York this afternoon?" + +"Yes." + +"Please don't." + +"I think it's better," he said lightly. + +"All right. Run away if you want to. Don't say another word to me; I'm +irritated." + +Luncheon was not very gay; Chrysos adored Sir Charles in silence, but so +sweetly and unobtrusively that the Baronet was totally unaware of it. +Molly, frankly out of temper, made no effort of any sort; her husband in +his usual rude health and spirits talked about the Stinger to everybody. +Strelsa, who had arrived late, and whose toilet made her later still, +seemed inclined to be rather cheerful and animated, but received little +encouragement from Molly. + +However, she chatted gaily with Sir Charles and with Quarren, and after +luncheon invited Sir Charles to read to her and Chrysos, which the grave +and handsome Englishman did while they swung in old-fashioned hammocks +under the maple trees, enjoying the rare treat of hearing their own +language properly spoken. + +Molly had a book to herself on the veranda--the newest and wickedest of +French yellow-covered fiction; her husband returned to the Stinger; +Quarren listened to Sir Charles for a while, then without disturbing the +reading, slipped quietly off and wandered toward the kennels. + +Here for a while he caressed the nervous, silky Blue Beltons, then +strolled on toward the hemlock woods, a morning paper, still unread, +sticking out of his pocket. + +When he came to the rustic seat which was his objective, he lighted his +pipe, unfolded the paper, and forced his attention on the first column. + +How long he had been studying the print he did not know when, glancing +up at the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, he saw Strelsa coming in +his direction. He could see her very plainly through the hemlocks from +where he sat but she could not as yet see him. Then the fat waddling dog +ahead of her, barked; and he saw the girl stop short, probably divining +that the rustic seat was occupied. + +For a few moments she stood there, perhaps waiting for her dog to +return; but that fat sybarite had his chin on Quarren's knees; and, +presently, Strelsa moved forward, slowly, already certain who it was +ahead of her. + +Quarren rose as she came around the curve in the path: + +"If you don't want me here I'm quite willing to retire," he said, +pleasantly. + +"That is a ridiculous thing to say," she commented. Then she seated +herself and motioned him to resume his place. + +"I was rather wondering," she continued, "whether I'd see you before you +leave." + +"Oh, are you driving this afternoon?" + +"No." + +"Then I should certainly have looked for you and made my adieux." + +"Would you have remembered to do it?" + +He laughed: + +"What a question! I might possibly forget my own name, but not anything +concerning you." + +She looked down at the paper lying between them on the bench, and, still +looking down, said slowly: + +"I am sorry for what Langly did this morning.... He has expressed his +contrition to me----" + +"_That_ is all right as long as he doesn't express it to me," +interrupted Quarren, bluntly. + +"He means to speak to you----" + +"Please say to him that your report of his mental anguish is +sufficient." + +"_Are_ you vindictive, Mr. Quarren?" she asked, reddening. + +"Not permanently. But I either like or I dislike. So let the incident +close quietly." + +"Very well--if you care to humiliate me--him----" + +"Dear Mrs. Leeds, he isn't going to be humiliated, because he doesn't +care. And you know I wouldn't humiliate you for all the world----" + +"You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you----" + +He looked up at her: + +"Would _that_ make it easier for you?" + +"I--perhaps--please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren." + +"Very well," he said quietly. + +He caressed the dog's head where it lay across his knees, and looked out +over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and +wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart +the sun. + +She said in a low voice: "I hope your new business venture will be +successful." + +"I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care." + +"I care--greatly.... As much as I--dare." + +He laughed: "Don't you dare care about me?" + +She bit her lip: "I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two +occasions." + +"So you don't really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I +might again mistake it for something deeper." He was still laughing, and +she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then: + +"There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you--if you +will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out +of it." + +"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face altering. + +"Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren." + +"I thought I spoiled that for both of us," he said. + +"I didn't say so. I told you that I didn't know what you had done. I've +had time to reflect. It--our friendship isn't spoiled--if you still +value it." + +"I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa." + +There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly +reflected in hers. + +"Then let us have peace," she said unsteadily. "I have--been--not very +happy since you--since we----" + +"I know. I've been utterly miserable, too." He lifted one of her hands +and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in +his. + +"Do you mind?" he asked. + +"N-no." + +He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested +her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes. + +"I think--you had better not--touch me--any more--" she said faintly. + +"Is it disagreeable?" + +"Yes--n-no.... It is--it has nothing to do with friendship--" she looked +up, flushed, curious: "Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?" + +"Did you never caress a flower?" + +"Rix!"--she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first +time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. "It was your +nonsensical answer!--I--it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon +for being stupid.... And--may I have my hand? I use it occasionally." + +He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her +fingers. + +"Strelsa," he said, "I'm coming back into the battle again." + +"Then I am sorry I forgave you." + +"_Are_ you?" + +"Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can't you be to me what I wish to be to +you? Why can't you be what I want--what I need----" + +"Do you know what you need?" + +"Yes, I----" + +"No, you don't. You need to love--and to be loved. You don't know it, +but you do!" + +"That is a--a perfectly brutal thing to say----" + +"Does it sound so to you?" + +"Yes, it does! It is brutal--common, unworthy of you and of me----" + +He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her: + +"_Can't_ you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't +you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there +anything to be ashamed of in it?--merely because nothing has ever yet +awakened _you_ to it?" + +"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of +me is more than love--cleaner, better, stronger----" + +"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to +do!" + +"No." + +"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!" + +She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves +become irresponsible. I know nothing about it--I could not--I +will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it--to me it is +degrading--contemptible----" + +"What are you saying?" + +"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster. +"I'm telling you what I know--what I have learned in a bitter +school--during two dreadful years----" + +"_That!_" + +"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave +friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to +me? You are the one man I could ask it of--the only man I ever saw who +seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could +return what he gave me with all my heart--all my heart----" + +She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew +her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his +shoulder. + +"I won't _talk_ to you of love any more," he whispered. "You poor little +girl--you poor little thing. I didn't realise--I don't want to think +about it----" + +"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?" + +"Of course--of course--you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find +fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or +demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People +are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn't love them if you +don't want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you +please--about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too." + +Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering. + +"There," he whispered--"there, there--you little, little girl. That's +all I want of you after all--only what you want of me. I don't wish to +marry you if you don't wish it; I won't--I perhaps couldn't really love +you very deeply if you didn't respond. I shall not bother you any +more--or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am +concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable +to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly--look so, even, and +I'll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?" + +"Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don't mean anything, +do you by--by your arm around me----" + +"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled--"Which I +suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me." + +"I--begin to.... Will you let me?" + +"Yes.... Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?" + +She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth +curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless. + +"I believe you are worn out," he said. + +"I have not rested for weeks." + +"On account of that Trust business?" + +"Yes.... But I was tired before that--I had done too much--lived too +much--and I've felt as though I were being hunted for so long.... And +then--I was unhappy about you." + +"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said. + +"You were different, but--you made me feel that way, too--a little----" + +"I understand now." + +"Do you really?" + +"Yes. It's been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging, +importuning you to consider their desires--to care for them in their +own way--all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting, +head-long and boisterous--all at you constantly to give them what is +not in you to give--what has never been awakened--what lies stunned, +crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep----" + +"Killed," she whispered. + +"Perhaps." He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the +sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding +the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a +child's. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror, +partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa +lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she +could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him +was no longer there. + +"Do you--know about me?" she asked in a still, low voice. + +"About the past?" + +"About my marriage." + +"Yes." + +"Everything?" + +"Some things." + +"You know what the papers said?" + +"Yes.... Don't speak of it--unless you care to, Strelsa." + +"I want to.... Do you know this is the first time?" + +"Is it?" + +"The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody.... As long as my +mother lived I did not once speak of it to her." + +She rested in silence for a while, then: + +"Could I tell you?" + +"My dear, my dear!--of course you can." + +"I--it's been unsaid so long--there was nobody to tell it to. I've done +my best to forget it--and for days I seem to forget it. But sometimes +when I wake at night it is there--the horror of it--the terror sinking +deeper into my breast.... I was very young. You knew that?" + +"Yes." + +"You knew my mother had very slender means?" + +"Yes." + +"I wouldn't have cared; I was an imaginative child--and could have lived +quite happy with my fancies on very, very little.... I was a sensitive +and affectionate child--inclined to be demonstrative. You wouldn't +believe it, would you?" + +"I can understand it." + +"Can you? It's odd because I have changed so.... I was quite romantic +about my mother--madly in love with her.... There is nothing more to +say.... In boarding-school I was perfectly aware that I was being given +the best grooming that we could afford. Even then romance persisted. I +had the ideas of a coloured picture-book concerning men and love and +marriage. I remember, as a very little child, that I had a picture-book +showing Cinderella's wedding. It was a very golden sort of picture. It +coloured my ideas long after I was grown up." + +She moved her head a little, looked up for an instant and smiled; but at +his answering smile she turned her cheek to his shoulder, hastily, and +lay silent for a while. Presently she continued in a low voice: + +"It was when we were returning for the April vacation--and the platform +was crowded and some of the girls' brothers were there. There were two +trains in--and much confusion--I don't know how I became separated from +Miss Buckley and my schoolmates--I don't know to this day how I found +myself on the Baltimore train, and Gladys Leeds's brother laughing and +talking and the train moving faster and faster.... There is no use +saying any more. I was as ignorant as I was innocent--a perfect little +fool, frightened, excited, even amused by turns.... He had been +attentive to me. We both were fools. Only finally I became badly scared +and he talked such nonsense--and I managed to slip away from him and +board the train at Baltimore as soon as we arrived there.... If he +hadn't found me and returned to New York with me, it might not have been +known. But we were recognised on the train and--it was a dreadful thing +for me when I arrived home after midnight...." + +She fell silent; once or twice he looked down at her and saw that her +eyes were closed. Then, with a quick, uneven breath: + +"I think you know the rest, don't you?" + +"I think so." + +But she went on in a low, emotionless voice: "I was treated like a +damaged gown--for which depreciation in value somebody was to be made +responsible. I suffered; days and nights seemed unreal. There were +lawyers; did you know it?" + +"No." + +"Yes," she said wearily, "it was a bad dream--my mother, others--_his_ +family--many people strange and familiar passed through it. Then we +travelled; I saw nothing, feeling half dead.... We were married in the +Hawaiian Islands." + +"I know." + +"Then--the two years began." + +After a long while she said again: "That was the real nightmare. I +passed through the depths as in a trance. There was nothing lower, not +even hell.... We travelled in Europe, Africa, and India for two +years.... I scarcely remember a soul I saw or one single object. And +then--_that_ happened." + +"I know, dear." + +A slight shudder passed over her: + +"I've told you," she whispered--"I've told you at last. Shall I tell you +more?" + +"Not unless----" + +"I don't know whether I want to--about the gendarmes--and that terrible +woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs--and how ill +I was----" + +She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren's arm tightened +around her; and presently she became limp and motionless. + +"This--what I have told you--is a very close bond between us, isn't it?" +she said. + +"Very close, Strelsa." + +"Was I much to blame?" + +"No." + +"How much?" + +"You should have left him long before." + +"Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and +make the best of it." + +"Is that your idea?" + +"That was all I could see to do about it." + +"Don't you believe in divorce?" + +"Yes; but I thought he'd be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If +he'd been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left +him. But one can't abandon a helpless person." + +"Every word you utter," he said, "forges a new link in my love for you." + +"You don't mean--love?" + +"We mean the same I think--differing only in degree." + +"Thank you. That is nice of you." + +He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver: + +"Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?" + +"All gone--all of it." + +"I see.... And something has got to be done." + +"You know it has.... And I'm old before my time--tired, worn out. I +can't work--I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were +burnt out; I haven't the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure. +What am I to do?" + +"Not what you plan to do." + +"Why not? As long as I need help--and the best is offered----" + +"Wouldn't you take less--and me?" + +"Oh, Rix! I couldn't _use you_!" + +She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from +his arm. + +"I--I--you are my _friend_. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give +anybody--not even you." She smiled, tremulously--"And I suspect that as +far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But +it's sweet of you. You _are_ generous, having so little and wishing to +share it with me----" + +"Could you wait for me, Strelsa?" + +"Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can +I?--even if it were a certainty." + +"Can't you hold on for a couple of years?" + +"Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my +house." + +He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water. + +"Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't +already given you----" + +"I ask no more." + +"Oh, but you _do_!" + +"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa--only what you have to offer of +your own accord." + +They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote. + +"I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said. + +"If you could wait----" + +"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him." + +"Does that count?" + +"Yes--I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be.... I don't +know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix--you don't realise--and +I'm tired and sad--old before my time--perplexed, burnt out----" + +She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes. +After a while she opened them with a weary smile. + +"I'll try to think--after you are gone.... What time does your train +leave?" + +He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too: + +"_Have_ I kept you too long?" + +"No; I can make it. We'll have to walk rather fast----" + +"I'd rather you left me here." + +"Would you? Then--good-bye----" + +"Good-bye.... Will you come up again?" + +"I'll try." + +"Shall we write?" + +"Will you?" + +"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came. +I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is +enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and +welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Then--I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her; +she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek--a second's +contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Quarren arrived in town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor +he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up +Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking +with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him, +freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the +heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the +avenue's lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms +of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less +wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew +out of the night--"clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold"--and +dissolved again into darkness. + +Still thrilled, almost buoyant, he walked on, passing the high-piled +masonry of the branch Post-Office and the Central Palace on his left. +Against high stars the twin Power-House chimneys stood outlined in +steel; on the right endless blocks of brown-stone dwellings stretched +northward, some already converted into shops where print-sellers, +dealers in old books, and here and there antiquaries, had constructed +show-windows. + +Firemen lounged outside the Eighth Battalion quarters; here and there a +grocer's or wine-seller's windows remained illuminated where those who +were neither well-to-do nor very poor passed to and fro with little +packages which seemed a burden under the sultry skies. + +At last, ahead, the pseudo-oriental towers of a synagogue varied the +flat skyline, and a moment later he could see the New Thought Laundry, +the Tonsorial Drawing Rooms, the Undertaker's discreetly illuminated +windows, and finally the bay-window of his own recent Real-Estate +office, now transmogrified into the Dankmere Galleries of Old Masters, +Fayre and Quarren, proprietors. + +The window appeared to be brilliantly illuminated behind the drawn +curtains; and Quarren, surprised and vexed, concluded that the little +Englishman was again entertaining. So it perplexed and astonished him to +find the Earl sitting on the front steps, his straw hat on the back of +his head, smoking. At the same moment from within the house a confused +and indescribable murmur was wafted to his ears as though many people +were applauding. + +"What on earth is going on inside?" he asked, bewildered. + +"You told me over the telephone that Karl Westguard might have the +gallery for this evening," said the Englishman calmly. "So I let him +have it." + +"What did he want of it? Who has he got in there?"--demanded Quarren as +another ripple of applause sounded from within. + +Dankmere thought a moment: "I really don't know the audience, +Quarren--they're not a very fragrant lot." + +"What audience? Who are they?" + +"You Americans would call them a 'tough-looking bunch--except +Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera----" + +[Illustration: "A high and soulful tenor was singing 'Perfumes of +Araby.'"] + +"Cyrille Caldera and De Groot! What's that silly old Dandy doing down +here?" + +"Diffusing sweetness and light among the unwashed; telling them that +there are no such things as classes, that wealth is no barrier to +brotherhood, that the heart of Fifth Avenue beats as warmly and +guilelessly as the heart of Essex Street, and that its wealth-burdened +inhabitants have long desired to fraternise with the benchers in +Paradise Park." + +"Who put Westguard up to this?" asked Quarren, aghast. + +"De Groot. Karl is writing a levelling novel calculated to annihilate +caste. The Undertaker next door furnished the camp-chairs; the corner +grocer the collation; Westguard, Mrs. Caldera, and Bleecker De Groot the +mind-food. Go in and look 'em over." + +The front door was standing partly open; the notes of a piano floated +through; a high and soulful tenor voice was singing "Perfumes of Araby," +but Quarren did not notice any as he stepped inside. + +Not daring to leave his suit-case in the hallway he kept on along the +passage to the extension where the folding doors were locked. Here he +deposited his luggage, locked the door, then walked back to the front +parlour and, unobserved, slipped in, seating himself among the battered +derelicts of the rear row. + +A thin, hirsute young man had just finished scattering the perfumes of +Araby; other perfumes nearly finished Quarren; but he held his ground +and gazed grimly at an improvised platform where sat in a half-circle +and in full evening dress, Karl Westguard, Cyrille Caldera and Bleecker +De Groot. Also there was a table supporting a Calla lily. + +Westguard was saying very earnestly: "The world calls me a novelist. I +am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere +scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message--a plain, simple, +earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous +indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between +wealth and poverty----" + +"That's right," interrupted a hoarse voice; "it's all a con game, an' +the perlice is into it, too!" + +"T'hell wit te bulls! Croak 'em!" observed another gentleman thickly. + +Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which +greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old +Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an +artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side +feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom. + +"Ah, my friends!" cried De Groot, "if you could only realise how great +is the love for humanity within my breast!--If you could only know of +the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the +problems of the poor! + +"And I _have_ solved them--every one. And _this_ is the +answer!"--grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it--"this!" +seizing another--"and this, and this! And now I ask you, _what_ is this +mute answer which I have given you?" + +"De merry mitt," said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with +sweetness and indulgence. + +"I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacular," he said. "It _is_ +the 'merry mitt'--the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue +clasps palms with Doyers Street----" + +"Ding!" said a weary voice, "yer in wrong, boss. It's nix f'r the Tongs +wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A." + +Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. "The rich," he said, "are not +really happy." His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a +priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with +a kind of noble pity for his own weakness. + +"Dear, dear friends," he said tremulously, "believe me--oh, believe me +that the rich are not happy! Only the perspiring labourer knows what is +true contentment. The question of poverty is a great social question. +With me it is a religion. Oh, I could go on forever on this subject, +dear friends, and talk on and on and on----" + +Emotion again checked him--or perhaps he had lost the thread of his +discourse--or possibly he had attained its limit--but he filled it out +by coming down from the platform and shaking hands so vigorously that +the gardenia in his lapel presently fell out. + +Cyrille Caldera rose, fresh and dainty and smiling, and discoursed +single-tax and duplex tenements, getting the two subjects mixed but not +minding that. Also she pointed at the Calla lily and explained that the +lily was the emblem of purity. Which may have had something to do with +something or other. + +Then Westguard arose once more and told them all about the higher type +of novel he was writing for humanity's sake, and became so interested +and absorbed in his own business that the impatient shuffling of shabby +feet on the floor alone interrupted him. + +"Has anybody," inquired De Groot, sweetly, "any vital question to +ask--any burning inquiry of deeper, loftier import, which has perhaps +long remained unanswered in his heart?" + +A gentleman known usually as "Mike the Mink" arose and indicated with +derisive thumb a picture among the Dankmere collection, optimistically +attributed to Correggio: + +"Is that Salome, mister?" he inquired with a leer. + +De Groot looked at the canvas, slightly startled. + +"No, my dear friend; that is a picture painted hundreds of years ago by +a great Italian master. It is called 'Danae.' Jupiter, you know, came to +her in a shower of gold----" + +"They all have to come across with it," remarked the Mink. + +Somebody observed that if the police caught the dago who painted it +they'd pinch him. + +To make a diversion, and with her own fair hands, Cyrille Caldera +summoned the derelicts to sandwiches and ginger-ale; and De Groot, +dashing more unmanly moisture from his monocle, went about resolutely +shaking hands, while Westguard and the hirsute young man sang "Comrades" +with much feeling. + +Quarren, still unrecognised, edged his way out and rejoined Dankmere on +the front stoop. Neither made any comment on the proceedings. + +Later the derelicts, moodily replete, shuffled forth into the night, +herded lovingly by De Groot, still shaking hands. + +From the corner of the street opposite, Quarren and Dankmere observed +their departure, and, later, they beheld De Groot and Mrs. Caldera slip +around the block and discreetly disappear into a 1912 touring-car with +silver mountings and two men in livery on the box. + +Westguard, truer to his principles, took a tram and Quarren and the Earl +returned to their gallery with mixed emotions, and opened every window +top and bottom. + +"It's all right in its way, I suppose," said Quarren. "Probably De Groot +means well, but there's no conversation possible between a man who has +just dined rather heavily, and a man who has no chance of dining at +all." + +"Like preaching Christ to the poor from a Fifth Avenue pulpit," said +Dankmere, vaguely. + +"How do you mean?" + +"A church on a side street would seem to serve the purpose. And the poor +need the difference." + +"I don't know about those matters." + +"No; I don't either. It's easy, cheap, and popular to knock the +clergy.... Still, somehow or other, I can't seem to forget that the +disciples were poor--and it bothers me a lot, Quarren." + +Quarren said: "Haven't you and I enough to worry us concerning our own +morals?" + +Dankmere, who had been closing up and piling together the Undertaker's +camp-chairs, looked around at the younger man. + +"What did you say?" he asked. + +"I said that probably you and I would find no time left to criticise +either De Groot or the clergy, if we used our leisure in +self-examination." + +His lordship went on piling up chairs. When he finished he started +wandering around, hands in his pockets. Then he turned out all the +electric lamps, drew the bay-window curtains wide so that the silvery +radiance from the arc-light opposite made the darkness dimly lustrous. + +A little breeze stirred the hair on Quarren's forehead; Dankmere dropped +into the depths of an armchair near him. For a while they sat together +in darkness and silence, then the Englishman said abruptly: + +"You've been very kind to me." + +Quarren glanced up surprised. + +"Why not?" + +"Because nobody else has any decent words to say to me or of me." + +Quarren, amused, said: "How do you know that I have, Dankmere?" + +"A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an +ass--they don't tell me so but I know it. And if they don't take me for +an ass they assume that I'm something worse--because I have a title of +sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a +living out of it." + +"Also," Quarren reminded him, "you are looking for a wealthy wife." + +"God bless my soul! Am I the only chap in America who happens to be +doing that?" + +"No; but you're doing it conspicuously." + +"You mean I'm honest about it?" + +Quarren laughed: "Anyway perhaps that's one reason why I like you. At +first I also thought it was merely stupidity." + +Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe: + +"The majority of your better people have managed not to know me. I've +met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home +thresholds--most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives +sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?" + +"Both, Dankmere--and then some." + +"Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was +my first wife they shy at." + +Quarren remained silent. + +"She was a bar-maid," remarked the Earl. "We were quite happy--until she +died." + +Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension. + +"Of course my marrying her damned us both," observed the Earl. + +"Of course." + +"Quite so. People would have stood for anything else.... But she +wouldn't--you may think it odd.... And I was in love--so there you are." + +For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further +speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put +on his hat. + +"You know," he said, "I'm not really an ass. My tastes and my caste +don't happen to coincide--that's all, Quarren." + +They walked together to the front stoop. + +"When do we open shop?" asked the Earl, briskly. + +"As soon as I get the reports from our experts." + +"Won't business be dead all summer?" + +"We may do some business with agents and dealers." + +"I see. You and I are to alternate as salesmen?" + +"For a while. When things start I want to rent the basement and open a +department for repairing, relining and cleaning; and I'd like to be +able to do some of the work myself." + +"_You?_" + +"Surely. It interests me immensely." + +"You're welcome I'm sure," said Dankmere drily. "But who's to keep the +books and attend to correspondence?" + +"We'll get somebody. A young woman, who says she is well recommended, +advertised in Thursday's papers, and I wrote her from Witch-Hollow to +come around Sunday morning." + +"That's to-morrow." + +Quarren nodded. + +So Dankmere trotted jauntily away into the night, and Quarren locked the +gallery and went to bed, certain that he was destined to dream of +Strelsa. But the sleek, narrow head and slightly protruding eyes of +Langly Sprowl was the only vision that peered cautiously at him through +his sleep. + +The heated silence of a Sunday morning in June awoke him from a somewhat +restless night. Bathed and shaved, he crept forth limply to breakfast at +the Founders' Club where he still retained a membership. There was not a +soul there excepting himself and the servants--scarcely a person on the +avenues and cross-streets which he traversed going and coming, only one +or two old men selling Sunday papers at street-stands, an old hag +gleaning in the gutters, and the sparrows. + +Clothing was a burden. He had some pongee garments which he put on, +installed himself in the gallery with a Sunday paper, an iced lime +julep, and a cigarette, and awaited the event of the young lady who +had advertised that she knew all about book-keeping, stenography, +and typewriting, and could prove it. + +[Illustration: "She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her +limp black gown."] + +She came about noon--a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black +gown, and, at Quarren's invitation, seated herself at the newly +purchased desk of the firm. + +Here, at his request she took a page or two of dictation from him and +typed it rapidly and accurately. + +She had her own system of book-keeping which she explained to the young +man who seemed to think it satisfactory. Then he asked her what salary +she expected, and she told him, timidly. + +"All right," he said with a smile, "if it suits you it certainly suits +me. Will you begin to-morrow?" + +"Whenever you wish, Mr. Quarren." + +"Well, there won't be very much to do for a while," he said laughingly, +"except to sit at that desk and look ornamental." + +She flushed, then smiled and thanked him for giving her the position, +adding with another blush that she would do her best. + +"Your best," he said amiably, "will probably be exactly what we +require.... Did you bring any letters?" + +She hesitated: "One," she said gravely. She searched in her reticule, +found it, and handed it to Quarren who read it in silence, then returned +it to her. + +"You were stenographer in Mr. Sprowl's private office?" + +"Yes." + +"This letter isn't signed by Mr. Sprowl." + +"No, by Mr. Kyte, his private secretary." + +"It seems you were there only six months." + +"Six months." + +"And before that where were you?" + +"At home." + +"Oh; Mr. Sprowl was your first employer!" + +"Yes." + +"Why did you leave?" + +The girl hesitated so long that he thought she had not understood, and +was about to repeat the question when something in her pallor and in her +uplifted eyes checked him. + +"I don't know why I was sent away," she said in a colourless voice. + +He thought for a while, then, carelessly: "I take it that there was +nothing irregular in _your_ conduct?" + +"No." + +"You'd tell me if there was, wouldn't you?" + +She lifted her dark eyes to his. "Yes," she said. + +How much of an expert he was at judging faces he did not know, but he +was perfectly satisfied with himself when she took her leave. + +And when Dankmere came in after luncheon he said: + +"I've engaged a book-keeper. Her name is Jessie Vining. She's evidently +unhappy, poor, underfed, and the prettiest thing you ever saw out of a +business college. So, being unhappy, poor, underfed _and_ pretty, I take +it that she's all to the good." + +"It's a generous world of men," said Dankmere--"so I guess she _is_ +good." + +"I'm sure of it. She was Sprowl's private stenographer--and he sent her +away.... There are three reasons why he might have dismissed her. I've +taken my choice of them." + +"Did he give her a letter?" + +"No." + +"Oh. Then I've taken my choice, too." + +"Kyte ventured to give her a letter," said Quarren. "I've heard that +Kyte _could_ be decent sometimes." + +"I see." + +Nothing further was said about the new book-keeper. His lordship went +into the back parlour and played the piano until satiated; then mixed +himself a lime julep. + +That afternoon they went over the reports of the experts very carefully. +From these reports and his own conclusions Quarren drafted a catalogue +while Dankmere went about sticking adhesive labels on the frames, all +numbered. And, as he trotted blithely about his work, he talked to +himself and to the pictures: + +"Here's number nine for you, old lady! If I'd had a face like that I'd +have killed the artist who transferred it to canvas!... Number sixteen +for you there in your armour! Somebody in Springfield will buy you for +an ancestor and that's what will happen to you.... And you, too, in a +bag-wig!--_you'll_ be some rich Yankee's ancestor before you know it! +That's the way you'll end, my smirking friend.... Hello! _Tiens!_ _In +Gottes namen_--whom have we here? Why, it's Venus!... And hot weather is +no excuse for going about _that_ way!... Listen to this, Quarren, for an +impromptu patter-song-- + + "'Venus, dear, you ought to know + What the proper caper is-- + Even Eve, who wasn't slow, + Robbed the neighbours' graperies! + Even Maenads on the go, + Fat Bacchantes in a row-- + Even ladies in a show + Wear _some_ threads of naperies! + Through the heavens planet-strewn + Where a shred of vapour is + Quickly clothes herself the Moon! + Get you to a modiste soon + Where the tissue-paper is, + Cut in fashions fit for June-- + Wear 'em, dear, for draperies----'" + +"_Good_ heavens!" protested Quarren--"how long can you run on like +that?" + +"Years and years, my dear fellow. It's in me--born in me! Can you beat +it? Though I appear to be a peer appearance is a liar; cast for a part +apart from caste, departing I climb higher toward the boards to bore the +hordes and lord it, sock and buskin dispensing sweetness, art, and light +as per our old friend Ruskin----" + +"Dankmere!" + +"Heaven-born?" + +"Stop!" + +"I remain put.... What number do I stick on this gentleman with streaky +features?" + +"Eighteen. That's a Franz Hals." + +"Really?" + +"Yes; the records are all here, and the experts agree." + +His lordship got down nimbly from the step-ladder and came over to the +desk: + +"Young sir," he said, "how much is that picture worth?" + +"All we can get for it. It's not a very good example." + +"Are you going to tell people that?" + +"If they ask me," said Quarren, smiling. + +"What price are you going to put on it?" + +"Ten thousand." + +"And do you think any art-smitten ass will pay that sum for a thing like +that?" + +"I think so. If it were only a decent example I'd ask ten times +that--and probably get it in the end." + +Dankmere inspected the picture more respectfully for a few moments, then +pasted a label on an exquisite head by Greuze. + +"She's a peach," he said. "What price is going to waft her from my +roof-tree?" + +"The experts say it's not a Greuze but a contemporary copy. And there's +no pedigree, either." + +"Oh," said the Earl blankly, "is that your opinion, too?" + +"I haven't any yet. But there's no such picture by Greuze extant." + +"You _don't_ think it a copy?" + +"I'm inclined not to. Under that thick blackish-yellow varnish I believe +I'll find the pearl and rose texture of old Greuze himself. In the +meantime it's not for sale." + +"I see. And this battle-scene?" + +"Wouverman's--ruined by restoring. It's not worth much." + +"And this Virgin?" + +"Pure as the Virgin Herself--not a mark--flawless. It's by 'The Master +of the Death of Mary.' Isn't it a beauty? Do you notice St. John holding +the three cherries and the Christ-child caressing the goldfinch? Did you +ever see such colour?" + +"It's--er--pretty," said his lordship. + +And so during the entire afternoon they compiled the price-list and +catalogue, marking copies for what they were, noting such pictures as +had been ruined by restoring or repainted so completely as to almost +obliterate the last original brush stroke. Also Quarren reserved for his +own investigations such canvases as he doubted or of which he had +hopes--a number that under their crocked, battered, darkened or +discoloured surfaces hinted of by-gone glories that might still be +living and only imprisoned beneath the thick opacity of dust, soot, +varnish, and the repainting of many years ago. + +And that night he went to bed happier than he had ever been in all his +life--unless his moments with Strelsa Leeds might be termed happy ones. + + * * * * * + +Monday morning brought, among other things, a cloudless sun, and little +Miss Vining quite as spotless and radiant; and within ten minutes the +click of the typewriter made the silent picture-plastered rooms almost +gay. + +In shirtwaist and cuffs she took her place behind the desk with a sort +of silent decision which seemed at once to invest her with suzerainty +over all that corner of the room; and Dankmere coming in a little later, +whistling merrily and twirling his walking-stick, sheered off +instinctively on his breezy progress through the rooms, skirting Jessie +Vining's domain as though her private ensign flew above it and +earthworks, cannon and trespass notices flanked her corner on every +side. + +In the back parlour he said to Quarren: "So that is the girl?" + +"It sure is." + +"God bless my soul! she acts as though she had just bought in the whole +place." + +"What's she doing?" + +"Just sitting there," admitted Dankmere. + +He seemed to have lost his spirits. Once, certain that he was unobserved +except by Quarren, he ventured to balance his stick on his chin, but it +was a half-hearted performance; and when he tossed up his straw hat and +attempted to catch it on his head, he missed, and the corrugated brim +sustained a dent. + +A number of people called that morning, quiet, well-dressed, +cautious-eyed, soft-spoken gentlemen who moved about noiselessly over +the carpets and, on encountering one another, nodded with silent +familiarity and smiles scarcely perceptible. + +They seemed to require no information concerning the pictures which they +swept with glances almost careless on their first rounds of the rooms. +But the first leisurely tour always resulted in a second where one or +two pictures seemed to claim their closer scrutiny. + +Now and then one of these gentlemen would screw a jeweller's glass into +his eye and remain a few minutes nose almost touching a canvas. Several +used the large reading-glass lying on a side table. Before they departed +all glanced over the incomplete scale of prices which Jessie Vining had +typed and bound in blue covers; but one and all took their leave in +amiable silence, saying a non-committal word or two to Quarren in +pleasantly modulated voices and passing Jessie's desk with a grave +inclination of gravely preoccupied faces. + +When the last leisurely lingerer had taken his leave Quarren said to +Jessie Vining: + +"Those are representatives of various first-class dealers--confidential +buyers, sons--even dealers themselves--like that handsome gray-haired +young-looking man who is Max Von Ebers, head of that great house." + +"But they didn't buy one single thing!" said Jessie. + +Quarren laughed: "People don't buy off-hand. Our triumph is to get them +here at all. I wrote to each of them personally." + + * * * * * + +Nobody else came for a long while; then one or two of the lesser dealers +appeared, and now and then a man who might be an agent or a prowling and +wealthy amateur or perhaps one of those curious haunters of all art +marts who never buy but who never miss assisting at all inaugurations in +person--like an ubiquitous and silent dog who turns up wherever more +than two people assemble with any purpose in view--or without any. + +During the forenoon and early afternoon several women came into the +galleries; and they seemed to be a little different from ordinary women, +although it would be hard to say wherein they were different except in +one instance--a tall, darkly handsome girl whose jewellery was as +conspicuously oriental as her brilliant colour. + +Later Quarren told Jessie Vining that they were expert buyers on +commission or brokers having clients among those very wealthy people who +bought pictures now and then because it was fashionable to do so. Also, +these same women-brokers represented a number of those unhappy old +families who, incognito, were being forced by straitened circumstances +to part secretly with heirlooms--family plate, portraits, miniatures, +furniture--even with the antique mirrors on the walls and the very +fire-dogs on the hearth amid the ashes of a burnt-out race almost +extinct. + +A few Jews came--representing the extreme types of the most wonderful +race of people in the world--one tall, handsome, immaculate young man +whose cultivated accent, charming manners, and quiet bearing challenged +exception--and one or two representing the other extreme, loud, +restless, aggressive, and as impertinent as they dared be, discussing +the canvases in noisy voices and with callous manners verging always on +the offensive. + +These evinced a disposition for cash deals and bargain-wrangling, +discouraged good-naturedly by Quarren who referred them to the +catalogue; and presently they took themselves off. + +Dankmere sidled up to Quarren rather timidly toward the close of the +afternoon. + +"I don't see what bally good _I_ am in this business," he said. "I don't +mean to shirk, Quarren, but there doesn't seem to be anything for me to +do. I think that all these beggars spot me for an ignoramus the moment +they lay eyes on me, and the whole thing falls on you." + +Quarren said laughingly: "Well, didn't you furnish the stock?" + +"We ought to go halves," muttered Dankmere, shyly skirting Jessie +Vining's domain where she was writing letters with the Social Register +at her elbow. + + * * * * * + +The last days of June and the first of July were repetitions in a +measure of the opening day at the Dankmere Galleries; people came and +were received and entertained by Quarren; Dankmere sat about in various +chairs or retired furtively to the backyard to smoke at intervals; +Jessie Vining with more colour in her pale, oval face, ruled her corner +of the room in a sort of sweet and silent dignity. + +Dankmere, who, innately, possessed the effrontery of a born comedian, +for some reason utterly unknown to himself, was inclined to be afraid of +her--afraid of the clear brown eyes indifferently lifted to his when he +entered--afraid of the quiet "Good-morning, Lord Dankmere," with which +she responded to his morning greeting--afraid of her cool skilful little +hands busy with pencil, pen, or lettered key--afraid of everything about +her from her rippling brown hair and snowy collar to the tips of her +little tan shoes--even afraid of the back of her head when it presented +only a slender neck and two little rosy, close-set ears. But he didn't +mention his state of abasement to Quarren. + +A curious thing occurred, too: Jessie had evidently been gay on Sunday; +and, Monday noon, while out for lunch, she had left on her desk two +Coney Island postal cards decorated with her own photograph. When she +returned, one card had vanished; and she searched quietly but thoroughly +before she left for home that evening, but she did not find the card. +But she said nothing about it. + +The dreadful part of the affair was that it was theft--the Earl of +Dankmere's first crime. + +Why he had taken it he did not know. The awful impulse of kleptomania +alone seemed to explain but scarcely palliate his first offence against +society. + +It was only after he realised that the picture and Jessie Vining vaguely +resembled his dead Countess that his lordship began to understand why he +had committed a felony before he actually knew what he was doing. + +[Illustration: Jessie Vining.] + +And one day when Quarren was still out for lunch and Jessie had returned +to her correspondence, the terrified Earl suddenly appeared before her +holding out the photograph: and she took it, astonished, her lifted eyes +mutely inquiring concerning the inwardness of this extraordinary +episode. + +But Dankmere merely fled to the backyard and remained there all the +afternoon smoking his head off; and it was several days before Jessie +had an opportunity to find herself alone in his vicinity and to ask him +with almost perfect self-possession where he had found the photograph. + +"I stole it," said Dankmere, turning bright red to his ear-tips. + +"All she could think of to say was: 'Why?' + +"It resembles my wife. So do you." + +"Really," she said coldly. + + * * * * * + +Several days later she learned by the skilfully careless questioning of +Quarren that the Countess of Dankmere had not existed on earth for the +last ten years. + +This news extenuated the Earl's guilt in her eyes to a degree which +permitted a slight emotion resembling pity to pervade her. And one day +she said to him, casually pleasant--"Would you care for that post-card, +Lord Dankmere? If it resembles your wife I would be very glad to return +it to you." + +Dankmere, painfully red again, thanked her so nicely that the slight, +instinctive distrust and aversion which, in the beginning, she had +entertained for his lordship, suddenly disappeared so entirely that it +surprised her when she had leisure to think it over afterward. + +So she gave him the post-card, and next day she found a rose in a glass +of water on her desk; and that ended the incident for them both except +that Dankmere was shyer of her than ever and she was beginning to +realise that his aloof and expressionless deportment was due to +shyness--which seemed to be inexplicable because otherwise timidity was +scarcely the word to characterise his lively little lordship. + +Once, looking out of the rear windows, through the lace curtains she saw +the Earl of Dankmere in the backyard, gravely turning handsprings on the +grass while still smoking his pipe. Once, entering the gallery +unexpectedly, she discovered the Earl standing at the piano, playing a +rattling breakdown while his nimble little feet performed the same with +miraculous agility and professional precision. She withdrew to the front +door, hastily, and waited until the piano ceased from rumbling and the +Oxfords were at rest, then returned with heightened colour and a stifled +desire to laugh which she disguised under an absent-minded nod of +greeting. + +Meanwhile one or two pictures had been sold to dealers--not important +ones--but the sales were significant enough to justify the leasing of +the basement. And here Quarren installed himself from morning to noon as +apprentice to an old Englishman who, before the failure of his eyesight, +had amassed a little fortune as surgeon, physician, and trained nurse to +old and decrepit pictures. + +Not entirely unequipped in the beginning, Quarren now learned more about +his trade--the guarded secrets of mediums and solvents, the composition +of ancient and modern canvases, how old and modern colours were ground +and prepared, how mixed, how applied. + +He learned how the old masters of the various schools of painting +prepared a canvas or panel--how the snowy "veil" was spread and dried, +how the under painting was executed in earth-red and bone-black, how the +glaze was used and why, what was the medium, what the varnish. + +He learned about the "baths of sunlight," too--those clarifying +immersions practised so openly yet until recently not understood. He +comprehended the mechanics, physics, and simple chemistry of that +splendid, mysterious "inward glow" which seemed to slumber under the +colours of the old masters like the exquisite warmth in the heart of a +gem. + +To him, little by little, was revealed the only real wonder of the old +masters--their astonishing honesty. He began to understand that, first +of all, they were self-respecting artisans, practising their trade of +making pictures and painting each picture as well as they knew how; +that, like other artisans, their pride was in knowing their trade, in a +mastery of their tools, and in executing commissions as honestly as they +knew how and leaving the "art" to take care of itself. + +Also he learned--for he was obliged to learn in self-protection--the +tricks and deceptions and forgeries of the trade--all that was unworthy +about it, all its shabby disguises and imitations and crude artifices +and cunning falsehoods. + +He examined old canvases painted over with old-new pictures and then +relined; canvases showing portions of original colour; old canvases and +panels repainted and artificially darkened and cleverly covered with +both paint and varnish cracks; canvases that almost defied detection by +needle-point or glass or thumb friction or solvent, so ingenious was +the forgery simulating age. + +Every known adjunct was provided to carry out deception--genuinely old +canvases or panels, old stretchers really worm-eaten, aged frames of the +period, half-obliterated seals bearing sometimes even the cross-keys of +the Vatican. Even, in some cases, pretence that the pictures had been +cut from the frame and presumably stolen was carried out by a +knife-slashed and irregular ridge where the canvas had actually been so +cut and then sewed to a modern _toile_. + +For forgery of art is as old as the Greeks and as new as to-day--the one +sinister art that perhaps will never become a lost art; and Quarren and +his aged mentor in the basement of the Dankmere Galleries discovered +more than enough frauds among the Dankmere family pictures showing how +the little Earl's forebears had once been gulled before his present +lordship lay in his cradle. + +To Quarren the work was fascinating and, except for his increasing worry +over Strelsa Leeds, would have been all-absorbing to the degree of +happiness--or that interested contentment which passes for it on earth. + +To see the dull encasing armour of varnish disappear from some ancient +masterpiece under the thumb, as the delicate thumb of the Orient +polishes lacquer; to dare a solvent when needed, timing its strength to +the second lest disaster tarnish forever the exquisite bloom of the +shrouded glazing; to cautiously explore for suspected signatures, to +brood and ponder over ancient records and alleged pedigrees; to compare +prints and mezzotints, photographs and engravings in search for +identities; to study threads of canvas, flakes of varnish, flinty +globules of paint under the microscope; to learn, little by little, the +technical manners and capricious mannerisms significant of the progress +periods of each dead master; to pore over endless volumes, monographs, +illustrated foreign catalogues of public and private collections--in +these things and through them happiness came to Quarren. + +Never a summer sun rose over the streets of Ascalon arousing the +Philistine to another day of toil but it awoke Quarren to the subdued +excitement of another day. Eager, interested, content in his +self-respect, he went forth to a daily business which he cared about for +its own sake, and was fast learning to care about to the point of +infatuation. + +He was never tired these days; but the summer heat and lack of air and +exercise made him rather thin and pale. Close work with the magnifying +glass had left his features slightly careworn, and had begun little +converging lines at the outer corners of his eyes. Only one line in his +face expressed anything less happy--the commencement of a short +perpendicular crease between his eyebrows. Anxious pondering over old +canvases was not deepening that faint signature of perplexity--or the +forerunner of Care's signs manual nervously etched from the wing of +either nostril. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Since Quarren had left Witch-Hollow, he and Strelsa had exchanged +half-a-dozen letters of all sorts--gay, impersonal notes, sober epistles +reflecting more subdued moods, then letters fairly sparkling with high +spirits and the happy optimism of young people discovering that there is +more of good than evil in a world still really almost new to them. Then +there was a long letter of description and amusing narrative from her, +in which, here and there, she became almost sentimental over phases of +rural beauty; and he replied at equal length telling her about his new +shop-work in detail. + +Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there came from her a short, dry, and +deliberate letter mentioning once more her critical worldly +circumstances and the necessity of confronting them promptly and with +intelligence and decision. + +To which he answered vigorously, begging her to hold out--either fit +herself for employment--or throw her fortunes in with his and take the +chances. + +"Rix dear," she answered, "don't you suppose I have thought of that? But +I can't do it. There is nothing left in me to go on with. I'm burnt +out--deadly tired, wanting nothing more than I shall have by marrying as +I must marry. For I shall have you, too, as I have always had you. You +said so, didn't you? + +"What difference, then, does it make to you or me whether or not I am +married? + +"If you were sufficiently equipped to take care of me, and if I married +you, I could not give you anything more than I have given already--I +would not wish to if I could. All that many other women consider part of +love--all that lesser side of it and of marriage I could not give to you +or to any man--could not endure; because it is not in me and never has +been. It is foreign to me, unpleasant, distasteful--even hateful. + +"So as I can give you nothing more than I have given or ever shall give, +and as you have given me all you can--anyway all I care for in you--let +me feel free to seek my worldly salvation and find the quiet and rest +and surcease from anxiety which comes only under such circumstances. + +"You won't think unkindly of me, will you, Rix? I don't know very much; +I amount to very little. What ideals I had are dead. Why should anybody +bother to agree or disagree with my very unaggressive opinions or +criticise harshly a life which has been spent mainly in troubling the +world as little as possible? + + * * * * * + +"There are a number of people here--among them several friends of Jim +Wycherly, all of them aviation-mad. Jim took out the Stinger, smashed +the planes and got a fall which was not very serious. Lester Caldera did +the same thing to the Kent biplane except that he fell into the river +and Sir Charles and Chrysos, in the launch, fished him out--swearing, +they say. + +"Vincent Wier made a fine flight in his Delatour Dragon, sailing 'round +and 'round like a big hawk for a quarter of an hour, but the wind came +up and he couldn't land, and he finally came down thirty miles north of +us in a swamp. + +"Langly took me for a short flight in his Owlet No. 3--only two miles +and not very high, but the sensation was simply horrid. I never even +cared for motoring, you see, so the experience left me most +unenthusiastic, greatly to Langly's disgust. Really, all I care for is a +decently gaited horse--and I prefer to walk him half the time. There is +nothing speedy about me, Rix. If I ever had the inclination it's gone +now. + +"To the evident displeasure of Sir Charles, Langly took up Chrysos Lacy; +and the child adored it. I believe Sir Charles said something cutting to +Langly in his quiet and dry way which has, apparently, infuriated my +to-be-affianced, for he never goes near Sir Charles, now, and that +cold-eyed gentleman completely ignores him. Which is _not_ very +agreeable for me. + +"Oh, Rix, there seems to be so many misunderstandings in this +exceedingly small world of ours--rows innumerable, heartburns, +recriminations, quarrels secret and open, and endless misunderstandings. + +"Please don't let any come between us, will you? Somehow, lately, I find +myself looking on you as a distant but solid and almost peaceful refuge +for my harried thoughts. And I'm so very, very tired of being hunted. + + "STRELSA." + +"If they hunt you too hard," he wrote to Strelsa, "the gateway of my +friendship is open to you always: remember that, now and in the days to +come. + +"What you have written leaves me with nothing to answer except this. To +all it is given to endure according to their strength; beyond it no one +can strive; but short of its limits it's a shame to show +faint-heartedness. + +"About the man you are determined to marry I have no further word to +say. You know in what repute he is held in your world, and you believe +that its censure is unjust. There is good in every man, perhaps, and +perhaps the good in this man may show itself only in response to the +better qualities in you. + +"Somehow, without trying, you almost instantly evoke the better +qualities in me. You changed my entire life; do you know it? I myself +scarcely comprehended why. Perhaps the negative sweetness in you +concentrated and brought out the positive strength so long dormant in +me. All I know clearly is that you came into my life and found a fool +wasting it, capering about in a costume half livery, half motley. My +ambition was limited to my cap and bells; my aspirations never reached +beyond the tip of my bauble. Then I saw you--and, all by themselves, my +rags of motley fell from me, and something resembling a man stepped +clear of them. + +"I am trying to make out of myself all that there is in me to develop. +It is not much--scarcely more than the ability to earn a living. + +"I have come to care for nothing more than the right to look this sunny +world straight in the face. Until I knew you I had scarcely seen it +except through artificial light--scarce heard its voice; for the +laughter of your world and the jingle of my cap and bells drowned it in +my ass's ears. + +"I could tell you--for in dark moments I often believe it--that there is +only one thing that counts in the world--one thing worth having, worth +giving--love! + +"But in my heart I know it is not so; and the romancers are mistaken; +and so is the heart denied. + +"Better and worth more than love of man or woman is the mind's silent +approval--whether given in tranquillity or accorded in dumb anguish. + +"Strelsa dear, I shall always care for you; but I have discovered that +love is another matter--higher or lower as you will--but different. And +I do not think I shall be able to love the girl who does what you are +decided to do. And that does not mean that I criticise you or blame you, +or that my sympathy, affection, interest, in you will be less. On the +contrary all these emotions may become keener; only one little part will +die out, and that without changing the rest--merely that mysterious, +curious, elusive and illogical atom in the unstable molecule, which we +call love--and which, when separated, leaves the molecule changed only +in name. We call it friendship, then. + +"And this is, I think, what you would most desire. So when you do what +you have determined to do, I will really become toward you what you +are--and have always been--toward me. And could either of us ask for +more? + +"Only--forgive me--I wish it had been Sir Charles--or almost any other +man. But that is for your decision. Strelsa governs and alone is +responsible to Strelsa. + +"Meanwhile do not doubt my affection--do not fear unkindness, judgment, +or criticism. I wish I were what you cared for most in the world--after +the approval of your own mind. I wish you cared for me not only as you +do but with all that has never been aroused in you. For without that I +am helpless to fight for you. + +"So, in your own way, you will live life through, knowing that in me you +will always have an unchanged friend--even though the lover died when +you became a wife. Is all clear between us now? + + * * * * * + +"If you are ever in town, or passing through to Newport or Bar Harbour, +stop and inspect our gallery. + +"It is really quite pretty and some of the pictures are excellent. You +should see it now--sunlight slanting in through the dusty bay-window, +Dankmere at a long polished table doing his level best to assemble +certain old prints out of a portfolio containing nearly a thousand; +pretty little Miss Vining, pencil in hand, checking off at her desk the +reference books we require in our eternal hunt for information; I below +stairs in overalls if you please, paint and varnish stained, a +jeweller's glass screwed into my left eye, examining an ancient panel +which I strongly hope may have been the work of a gentleman named +Bronzino--for its mate is almost certainly the man in armour in the +Metropolitan Museum. + +"Strelsa, it is the most exciting business I ever dreamed of. And the +beauty of it is that it leads out into everything--stretches a +thousand sensitive tentacles which grasp at knowledge of beauty +everywhere--whether it lie in the sombre splendour of the tapestries of +Bayeux, of Italy, of Flanders; or deep in the woven magnificence of some +dead Sultan's palace rug; or in the beauty of the work of silversmiths, +goldsmiths, of sculptors in ivory or in wood long dead; or in the +untinted marbles of the immortal masters. + +"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are linked, how +closely and eternally knit together in the vast fabric fashioned by man +from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms of which lie buried +all that man has ever thought and hoped. + + * * * * * + +"My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five +squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now +open. + +"Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my knee, +she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman cat begin +an intermezzo on the back fence. + +"Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose, +astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under the +piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I supposed +that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes and--Daisy's +kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one in each pocket, +Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional little exclamation of +solicitude and pride. + +"Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries--not +superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have tea +in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her young +ones--Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together in a basket +which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk. + +"In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere +and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl Westguard +comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his novel--or perhaps +Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for us--or, if the heat makes us +feel particularly futile, I perform some of those highly intellectual +tricks which once made me acceptable among people I now seldom or +never see. + +[Illustration: "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines +with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"] + +"Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a sweet, +sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the ordinary yet +blessed with a delicate sense of honour and incidentally of humour. + +"She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her mind +about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our including her +in our harmless informalities. + +"Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he informs me +that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh; but Karl loves to +take himself seriously. + +"Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world is out +of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere Galleries need +expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship usually fights shy +of the frontiers of business. Old acquaintanceship is forgot very +quickly when one side or the other has anything to sell. Only those +thrifty imitations of friends venture near in quest of special +privilege; and not getting it, go, never to return. _Ubi amici, ibi +opes!_ + + * * * * * + +"When you pass through this furnace of Ascalon called New York will you +stop among the Philistines long enough to take a cup of tea with +us?--I'll show you the pictures; Dankmere will play 'Shannon Water' for +you; Miss Vining will talk pretty platitudes to you, Daisy will purr for +you, and the painted eyes of Dankmere's ancestors will look down +approvingly at you from the wall; and all our little world will know +that the loveliest and best of all the greater world is breaking bread +with us under our roof, and that one for once, unlike man's dealings +with your celestial sisters, our entertainment of you will not be wholly +unawares. + + "R. S. QUARREN." + +The basement workshop was aromatic with the odours of solvents, mediums, +and varnishes when he returned from posting his letter to Strelsa. His +old English mentor had departed for good, leaving him to go forward +alone in his profession. + +And now, as he stood there, looking out into the sunny backyard, for the +first time he felt the silence and isolation of the place, and his own +loneliness. Doubt crept in whispering the uselessness of working, of +saving, of self-denial, of laying by anything for a future that already +meant nothing of happiness to him. + +For whom, after all, should he save, hoard, gather together, economise? +Who was there to labour for? For whom should he endure? + +He cared nothing for women; he had really never cared for any woman +excepting only this one. He would never marry and have a son. He had no +near or distant relatives. For whose sake, then, was he standing here in +workman's overalls? What business had he here in the basement of a +shabby house in midsummer? Did there remain any vague hope of Strelsa? +Perhaps. Hope is the last of one's friends to die. Or was it for himself +that he was working now to provide against those evil days "when the +keepers of the house shall tremble"? Perhaps he was unconsciously +obeying nature's first law. + +And yet, slowly within him grew a certainty that these reasons were not +the real ones--not the vital impulse that moved his hand steadily +through critical and delicate moments as he bent, breathless, over the +faded splendours of ancient canvases. No; somehow or other he had +already begun to work for the sake of the work itself--whatever that +really meant. That was the basic impulse--the occult motive; and, +somehow he knew that, once aroused, the desire to strive could never +again in him remain wholly quiescent. + + * * * * * + +Both Dankmere and Miss Vining had gone to lunch, presumably in different +directions; Daisy and her youngsters, having been nourished, were +asleep; there was not a sound in the house except the soft rubbing of +tissue-paper where Quarren was lightly removing the retouching varnish +from a relined canvas. Presently the front door-bell rang. + +Quarren rinsed his hands and, still wearing overalls and painter's +blouse, mounted the basement stairs and opened the front door. And Mrs. +Sprowl supported by a footman waddled in, panting. + +"Tell your master I want to see him," she said--"I don't mean that fool +of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar--Good Lord! Ricky, is that _you_? +Here, get me a chair--those front steps nearly killed me. Long ago I +swore I'd never enter a house which was not basement-built and had an +elevator!... Hand me one of those fans. And if there's any water in the +house not swarming with typhoid germs, get me a glass of it." + +He brought her a tumbler of spring water; she panted and gulped and +fanned and panted, her little green eyes roaming around her. + +Presently she dismissed the footman, and turned her heavily flushed face +on Quarren. The rolls of fat crowded the lace on her neck, perspiration +glistened under her sparklike eyes. + +"How are you?" she inquired. + +He said, smilingly, that he was well. + +"You don't look it. You look gaunt.... Well, I never thought you'd come +to this--that you had it in you to do anything useful." + +"I believe I've heard you say so now and then," he said with perfect +good-humour. + +"Why not? Why should I have thought that your talents amounted to more +than ornaments?" + +"No reason to suppose so," he admitted, amused. + +"Not the slightest. Talent usually damns people to an effortless +existence. And yours was a pleasant one, too. You had a good time, +didn't you?" + +"Oh, very." + +"There was nothing to do except to come in, kiss the girls all around, +and make faces to amuse them, was there?" + +"Not much more," he admitted, laughing. + +Mrs. Sprowl's little green eyes travelled all over the walls. + +"Umph," she snorted, "I suppose these are some of Dankmere's heirlooms. +I never fancied that little bounder----" + +"Wait!" + +"What!" + +"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder----" + +"He _is_ one!" + +"Keep that opinion to yourself," he said bluntly. + +The old lady's eyes blazed. "I'm damned if I do!" she retorted--"I'll +say what----" + +"Not here! You mustn't be uncivil here. You know well enough how to +behave when necessary; and if you don't do it I'll call your carriage." + +For fully five minutes Mrs. Sprowl sat there attempting to digest what +he had said. The process was awful to behold, but she accomplished it at +last with a violent effort. + +"Ricky," she said, "I didn't come here to quarrel with you over an +Englishman who--of whom I--have my personal opinion." + +He laughed, leaned over and deliberately patted her fat wrist; and she +glared at him somewhat as a tigress inspects a favourite but overgrown +and presuming cub. + +"I don't know why you came," he said, "but it was nice of you anyway and +I am glad to see you." + +"If that's true," she said, "you're one of mighty few. The joy which +people feel in my presence is usually exhibited when I'm safely out of +their houses, or they are out of mine." + +She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water +empty and refused more. + +"Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place +of Molly's?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, what the devil is going on there?" + +"Aviation," he said blandly. + +"What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that +little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't +learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even +answer my letters. + +"Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with +Strelsa as I dare be--she's got to be led with sugar. I've almost +ordered her to come to me at Newport--but she doesn't come." + +"She's resting," said Quarren coolly. + +"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And +what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few +brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting +for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it +something else that glues him there--with the _Yulan_ in the North +River?" + +Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject. + +"If I thought," muttered the old lady--"if I imagined for one moment +that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on +Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself--I'd take the next train and tell +that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!" + +Quarren was silent. + +"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know +whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed--have you +ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa +Leeds?--any tacit understanding--any interest on her part in him?... Why +don't you answer me?" + +"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe." + +"Am I to take that impudence literally?" + +"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to +remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them." + +"Why can't you speak of Langly?" + +"Because what concerns him does not concern me." + +"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly. + +"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?" + +"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a +damn sight worse! I'd--I'd rather see her your wife than his!--and God +knows _what_ he wants of her at that--as Mary Ledwith has first call or +the world will turn Langly out of doors!" + +Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence. + +"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her +teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done +to her and her husband." + +"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance +against it." + +"You watch and see! Some things are _too_ rotten to be endured----" + +"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't +concern me." + +"Don't you care for that girl?" + +"We are friends." + +"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a +madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look +ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"--she added with an +abrupt change of feeling--"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you +are impertinent to me--and you know I do! But I--my heart is set on her +marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more +suitable?--happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where +Langly is a--a toad, a cold-blooded worm!--a--a thing! + +"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I +think of nothing else, care for nothing else----" + +"Why?" + +"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard. + +"Why do you care for it so much?" + +"Why? That is an absurd question." + +"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the +real one." + +"Ricky, you insolent----" + +"Never mind. Answer me; _why_ are you so absorbed in this marriage?" + +She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is +deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both." + +"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on +your part?" + +"That--and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly. + +"Just those three reasons?" + +"Certainly. Just those three." + +He shook his head. + +"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded. + +"I am compelled to--knowing that never in all your life have you made +the slightest effort in behalf of friendship--never inconvenienced +yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth." + +She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh; +but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though +pain had cut mirth short. + +"What is the matter?" he said. + +"Nothing.... _You_ are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to +take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to +read us and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we +look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't +care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my +features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it _is_ a friendly +pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?" + +"Yes." + +"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind +thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were +the receptacle for many--Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty, +miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret +kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you +something." + +She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he +placed his chair beside hers. + +"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?" + +"Yes." + +"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at +the time." + +"I know." + +"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never +forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch +he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what +was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the +girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to +America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know +these things, Rix?" + +"No," he said. + +"Then you know them now." + +"Yes, I--" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a +while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her +features. + +"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated--a voice +so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was +she who had spoken. + +"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life +friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix. +In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship--the +friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son." + +Quarren looked at her in silence. + +"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life +and youth began early for me--and lasted a little more than a year--and +then they both burnt out in my heart--leaving the rest of me alive--this +dross!--" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and +sat thinking for a while. + +Daisy walked into the room and seated herself in a bar of sunlight, +pleasantly blinking her yellow eyes. Mrs. Sprowl glanced at her +absently, and they eyed each other in silence. + +Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at +Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features. + +"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have +pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad +when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up. +I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that, in it, his +father spoke--amiably--of me and said that in me his son would always +find a friend.... That is all, Rix. Do you believe me?" + +"Yes." + +"Then--should I go to Witch-Hollow?" + +"I can't answer you." + +"Why?" + +"Because--because I care for her too much. And I can do absolutely +nothing for her. I could not swerve her or direct her. She alone knows +what is in her heart and mind to do. I cannot alter it. She will act +according to her strength; none can do otherwise.... And she is tired to +the very soul.... You tell me that life and youth in you died within a +year's space. I believe it.... But with her it took two years to die. +And then it died.... Let her alone, in God's name! The child is weary of +pursuit, deathly weary of importunity--tired, sad, frightened at the +disaster to her fortune. Let her alone. If she marries it will be +because of physical strength lacking--strength of character, of +mind--perhaps moral, perhaps spiritual strength--I don't know. All I +know is that no man or woman can help her, because the world has bruised +her too long and she's afraid of it." + +For a long while Mrs. Sprowl sat there in silence; then: + +"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir +Charles." + +"I don't think she is." + +"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!" + +Quarren looked at her oddly: + +"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so am I.... Friends do not +make a convenience of one another." + +"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow." + +"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that +there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make +the convenience of a husband out of either of us." + +"What a twisted, ridiculous, morbid----" + +"Let her alone," he said gently. + +"Very well.... But I'll be hanged if I let Langly alone! He's still got +me to deal with, thank God!--whatever he dares do to Mary +Ledwith--whatever he has done to that wretched creature Chester +Ledwith--he's still got a perfectly vigorous aunt to reckon with. And +we'll see," she added--"we'll see what can be done----" + +The front door opened noisily. + +"That's Dankmere," he said. "If you are not going to be civil to him +hadn't you better go?" + +"I'll be civil to him," she snorted, "but I'm going anyway. Good-bye, +Ricky. I'll buy a picture of you when the weather's cooler.... +How-de-do!"--as his lordship entered looking rather hot and mussy--"Hope +your venture into the realms of art will prove successful, Lord +Dankmere. Really, Rix, I must be going--if you'll call my man----" + +"I'll take you down," he said, smilingly offering his support. + +So Mrs. Sprowl rolled away in her motor, and Quarren came back, wearied +with the perplexities and strain of life, to face once more the lesser +problems of the immediate present: one of them was an ancient panel in +the basement, and he went downstairs to solve it, leaving Dankmere +sorting out old prints and Jessie Vining, who had just returned, writing +business letters on her machine. + +There were not many business letters to write--one to the Metropolitan +Museum people declining to present them with a charming little picture +by Netscher which they wanted but did not wish to pay for; one to the +Worcester Museum advising that progressive institution that, at the +request of their director, four canvases had been shipped to them for +inspection; several letters enclosing photographs of pictures desired by +foreign experts; and a notification to one or two local millionaires +that the Dankmere Galleries never shaded prices or exchanged canvases. + +Having accomplished the last of the day's work remaining up to that +particular minute, Jessie Vining leaned back in her chair, rubbed her +pretty eyes, glanced partly around toward Lord Dankmere but checked +herself, and, with her lips the slightest shade pursed up into a hint of +primness, picked up the library novel which she had been reading during +intervals of leisure. + +It was mainly about a British Peer. The Peer did not resemble Dankmere +in any particular; she had already noticed that. And now, as she read +on, and, naturally enough, compared the ideal peer with the real one, +the difference became painfully plain to her. + +Could that short young man in rather mussy summer clothes, sorting +prints over there, be a peer of the British realm? Was this young man, +whom she had seen turning handsprings on the grass in the backyard, a +belted Earl? + +In spite of herself her short upper lip curled slightly as she turned +from her book to glance at him. He looked up at the same moment, and +smiled on meeting her eye--such a kindly yet diffident smile that she +blushed a trifle. + +"I say, Miss Vining, I've gone over all these prints and I can't find +one that resembles the Hogarth portrait--if it is a Hogarth." + +"Mr. Quarren thinks it is." + +"I daresay he's quite right, but there's nothing here to prove it"; and +he slapped the huge portfolio shut, laid his hands on the table, vaulted +to the top of it, and sat down. Miss Vining resumed her reading. + +"Miss Vining?" + +"Yes?" very leisurely. + +"How _old_ do you think I am?" + +"I beg your pardon----" + +"How old do you think I am?" + +"Really I hadn't thought about it, Lord Dankmere." + +"Oh." + +Miss Vining resumed her reading. + +When the Earl had sat on top of the table long enough he got down and +dropped into the depths of an armchair. + +"Miss Vining," he said. + +"Yes?" incuriously. + +"Have you thought it out yet?" + +"Thought out what, Lord Dankmere?" + +"How old I am." + +"Really," she retorted, half laughing, half vexed, "do you suppose that +my mind is occupied in wondering what your age might be?" + +"Isn't it?" + +"Of course not." + +"Don't you want to know?" + +She began to laugh again: + +"Why, if you wish to tell me of course it will interest me _most_ +profoundly." And she made him a graceful little bow. + +"I'm thirty-three," he said. + +"Thank you so much for telling me." + +"You are welcome," he returned gravely. "Do you think I'm too old?" + +"Too old for what?" + +"Oh, for anything interesting." + +"What do you mean by 'interesting'?" + +But Lord Dankmere apparently did not know what he did mean for he made +no answer. + +After a little while he said: "Wouldn't it be odd if I ever have income +enough to pay off my debts?" + +"What?" + +He repeated the observation. + +"I don't know what you mean. You naturally expect to pay them, don't +you?" + +"I saw no chance of doing so before Mr. Quarren took hold of these +pictures." + +She was sorry for him: + +"Are you very deeply in debt?" + +He named the total of his liabilities and she straightened her young +shoulders, horrified. + +"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "I know plenty of chaps in England who +are far worse off." + +"But--that is terrible!" she faltered. + +Dankmere waved his hand: + +"It's not so bad. That show business let me in for a lot." + +"Why did you ever do it?" + +"I like it," he explained simply. + +She flushed: "It seems strange for a--a man of your kind to sing comic +songs and dance before an audience." + +"Not at all. I've a friend, Exford by name--who goes about grinding a +barrel-organ." + +"Why?" + +"He likes to do it.... I've another pal of sorts who chucked the Guards +to become a milliner. He always did like to crochet and trim hats. Why +not?--if he likes it!" + +"It is not," said Jessie Vining, "my idea of a British peer." + +"But for Heaven's sake, consider the peer! Now and then they have an +idea of what they'd like to do. Why not let them do it and be happy?" + +"Then they ought not to have been born to the peerage," she said firmly. + +"Many of them wouldn't have been had anybody consulted them." + +"You?" + +"It's brought me nothing but debt, ridicule, abuse, and summonses." + +"You couldn't resign, could you?" she said, smiling. + +"I _am_ resigned. Oh, well, I'd rather be what I am than anything else, +I fancy.... If the Topeka Museum trustees purchase that Gainsborough +I'll be out of debt fast enough." + +"And then?" she inquired, still smiling. + +"I don't know. I'd like to start another show." + +"And leave Mr. Quarren?" + +"What use am I? We'd share alike; he'd manage the business and I'd +manage a musical comedy I'm writing after hours----" + +He jumped up and went to the piano where for the next ten minutes he +rattled off some lively and very commonplace music which to Jessie +Vining sounded like everything she had ever before heard. + +"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully, swinging around on his stool. + +"It's--lively." + +"You _don't_ like it!" + +"I--it seems--very entertaining," she said, reddening. + +The Earl sat looking at her in silence for a moment; then he said: + +"To care for anything and make a failure of it--can you beat it for +straight misery, Miss Vining?" + +"Oh, please don't speak that way. I really am no judge of musical +composition." + +He considered the key-board gloomily; and resting one well-shaped hand +on it addressed empty space: + +"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the +deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of +accomplishment?" + +The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no +words suitable for the particular moment. + +Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two +softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water." + +His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the +quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang +"The Harp," and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago. + +When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes +lowered. + +"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said--"not these Strausses +and 'Girls from the Golden West.'" + +"Will you sing some more?" + +"Do you like my singing?" + +"Very much." + +So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten +melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age, +can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days, +the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world +was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to +inspire any maker of beautiful things. + +Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour +of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days. + +Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard +Dankmere open the door behind her and come out. + +They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north +with a nod of good-night, when he said: + +"Are you walking?" + +She was, to save carfare. + +"May I go a little way?" + +"Yes--if----" + +Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had +meant to say. Then, very slowly she turned northward, and he went, too, +grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying +himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking +beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Strelsa had gone to town with her maid, remained there the entire +afternoon, and returned to Witch-Hollow without seeing Quarren or even +letting him know she was there. + +It was the beginning of the end for her and she knew it; and she had +already begun to move doggedly toward the end through the blind +confusion of things, no longer seeing, hearing, heeding; impelled +mechanically toward the goal which meant to her only the relief of +absolute rest. + +For her troubles were accumulating and she found in herself no resisting +power--only the nervous strength left to get away from them. Troubles of +every description were impending; some had already come upon her, like +Quarren's last letter which she knew signified that the termination of +their friendship was already in sight. + +But other things were in sight, too, so she spent the afternoon in town +with her lawyers; which lengthy seance resulted in the advertising for +immediate sale of her house in town and its contents, her town car, +brougham, victoria and three horses. + +Through her lawyers, also, every jewel she possessed, all her wardrobe +except what she had with her at Witch-Hollow, and her very beautiful +collection of old lace, were placed in the hands of certain discreet +people to dispose of privately. + +Every servant in her employment except her maid was paid and dismissed; +her resignation from the Province Club was forwarded, all social +engagements for the summer cancelled. + +There remained only two other matters to settle; and one of them could +be put off--without hope of escape perhaps--but still it could be +avoided for a little while longer. + +The other was to write to Quarren; and she wrote as follows: + + "I have been in town; necessity drove me, and I was too unhappy to + see you. But this is the result: I can hold out a few months + longer--to no purpose, I know--yet, you asked it of me, and I am + trying to do it. Meanwhile the pressure never eases; I feel your + unhappiness deeply--deeply, Rix!--and it is steadily wearing me + out. And the pressure from Molly in your behalf, from Mrs. Sprowl + by daily letter in behalf of Sir Charles, from Langly in his own + interest never slackens for one moment. + + "And that is not all; my late husband left no will, and I have + steadily refused to make any contest for more than my dower rights. + + "That has been swept away, now; urgent need has compelled me to + offer for sale everything I possess except what wardrobe and + unimportant trinkets I have with me. + + "So many suits have been threatened and even commenced against + me--you don't know, Rix--but while there remains any chance of + meeting my obligations dollar for dollar I have refused to go + through bankruptcy. + + "I need not, now, I think. But the selling of everything will not + leave me very much; and in the end my cowardice will do what you + dread, and what I no longer fear, so utterly dead in me is every + emotion, every nerve, every moral. Men bound to the wheel have + slept; I want that sleep. I long for the insensibility, the endless + lethargy that the mortally bruised crave; and that is all I hope or + care for now. + + "Love, as man professes it, would only hurt me--even yours. There + can be no response from a soul and body stunned. Nothing must + disturb their bruised coma. + + "The man I intend to marry can evoke nothing in me, will demand + nothing of me. That is already mutually understood. It's merely a + bargain. He wants me as the ornament for the House of Sprowl. I can + carry out the pact without effort, figure as the mistress of his + domain, live life through unharassed as though I stood alone in a + vague, warm dream, safe from anything real. + + "Meanwhile, without aim, without hope, without even desire to + escape my destiny, I am holding out because you ask it. To what + end, my friend? Can you tell me?" + +One morning Molly came into her room greatly perturbed, and Strelsa, +still in bed, laid aside the New Testament which she had been reading, +and looked up questioningly at her agitated hostess. + +"It's your fault," began Molly without preliminaries--"that old woman +certainly suspects what you're up to with her nephew or she wouldn't +bother to come up here----" + +"Who?" said Strelsa, sitting up. "Mrs. Sprowl?" + +"Certainly, horse, foot, and dragoons! She's coming, I tell you, and +there's only one motive for her advent!" + +"But where will she stop?" asked Strelsa, flushing with dismay. + +"Where do you suppose?" + +"With Langly?" + +"He wouldn't have her." + +"She is not to be your guest, is she?" + +"No. She wrote hinting that she'd come if asked. I pretended not to +understand. I don't want her here. Every servant I have would leave--as +a beginning. Besides I don't require the social prestige of such a +visitation; and she knows that, too. So what do you think she's done?" + +"I can't imagine," said Strelsa wearily. + +"Well, she's manoeuvred, somehow; and this morning's paper announces that +she's to be entertained at South Linden by Mary Ledwith." + +Strelsa reddened. + +"Why should that concern me?" she asked calmly. + +"Concern you, child! How can it help concerning you? Do you see what +she's done?--do you count all the birds she's knocked over with one +stone. Mary Ledwith returns from Reno and Mrs. Sprowl fixes and secures +her social status by visiting her at once. And it's a perfectly plain +notice to Langly, too, and--forgive me, dear!--to you!" + +Strelsa scarlet and astonished, sat up rigid, her beautiful head thrown +back. + +"If she means it that way, it is slanderous," she said. "The entire +story is a base slander! Did _you_ believe it, Molly?" + +"Believe it? Of course I believe it----" + +"Why should you? Because a lot of vile newspapers have hinted at such a +thing? I tell you it is an infamous story without one atom of truth in +it----" + +"How do you know?" asked Molly bluntly. + +"Because Langly says so." + +"Oh. Did you ask him?" + +"No. He spoke of it himself." + +"He denied it?" + +"Absolutely on his word of honour." + +"Then why didn't he sue a few newspapers?" + +"He spoke of that, too. He said that his attorneys had advised him not +to bring any actions because the papers had been too clever to lay +themselves open to suits for libel." + +"Oh," said Molly softly. + +Strelsa, flushed, breathing rapidly and irregularly, sat there in bed +watching her; but Molly avoided her brilliant, level gaze. + +"There's no use in talking to you," she said, "but why on earth you +don't marry Sir Charles----" + +"Molly! Please don't----" + +"--Or Rix----" + +"Molly! Molly! _Can't_ you let me alone! Can't we be together for ten +minutes unless you urge me to marry somebody? Why do you want me to +marry anybody!--Why----" + +"But you're going to marry Langly, you say!" + +"Yes, I am! I am! But can't you let me forget it for a moment or two? +I--I'm not very well----" + +"I can't help it," said Molly, grimly. "I'm sorry, darling, but the +moment your engagement to Langly is announced there'll be a horrid +smash and some people are going to be spattered----" + +"It _isn't_ announced!" said the girl hotly. "Only you and Rix know +about it except Langly and myself!" + +Molly Wycherly rose from her chair, went over and seated herself on the +foot of the bed: + +"Tell me something, will you, Strelsa?" + +"What?" + +"Why does Langly desire to keep your engagement to him a secret?" + +"He wishes it for the present." + +"Why?" + +"For that very reason!" said Strelsa, fiercely--"because of the +injustice the papers have done him in this miserable Ledwith matter. He +chooses to wait until it is forgotten--in order to shield me, I suppose, +from any libellous comment----" + +"You talk like a little idiot!" said Molly between her teeth. "Strelsa, +I could shake you--if it would wake you up! Do you suppose for a moment +that this Ledwith matter will be forgotten? Do you suppose if there were +nothing in it but libel that he'd be afraid? You listen to me; that man +is not apt to be afraid of anything, but he evidently _is_ afraid, now! +Of what, then?" + +"Of my being annoyed by newspaper comment." + +"And you think it's merely that?" + +"Isn't it enough?" + +Molly laughed: + +"We're a hardened lot--some of us. But our most deadly fear is that the +papers may _not_ notice us. No matter what they say if they'll only say +something!--that's our necessity and our unadmitted prayer. Because +we've neither brains nor culture nor any distinguishing virtue or +ability--and we're nothing--absolutely nothing unless the papers create +us! Don't tell me that any one among us is afraid of publicity!--not in +the particular circle where you and I and Langly and his aunt pursue our +eccentric orbits! + +"Plenty of wealthy and fashionable people dread publicity and shrink +from it; plenty of them would gladly remain unchronicled and unsung. But +it is not so among the fixed stars and planets and meteors and +satellites of our particularly flamboyant constellation. I _know_. I +also know that you don't really belong in it. But you'll either become +accustomed to it or it will kill you if you don't drop--or soar, as you +please--into some other section of eternal space." + +She sat swinging her foot, flushed, animated, her eyes and colour +brilliant--a slim, exquisitely groomed woman with all the superficial +smoothness of a girl save for the wisdom in her eyes and in her smile, +alas! + +And the other's eyes reflected in their clear gray depths no such +wisdom, only the haunting knowledge of sorrow and, vaguely, the +inexplicable horror of man as he really is--or at least as she had only +known him. + +Still swinging her pretty foot, a deliberate smile edging her lips, +Molly said: + +"If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling." + +Strelsa stared at her without comprehension, then dropped her head back +on the pillows. + +"If you'll let me stay with you a little while longer--that is all I +ask," she said almost drowsily. + +Molly sprang up, came around and kissed her, lightly: "Of course. That +was what I was going to ask of you." + +[Illustration: "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling.'"] + +Strelsa closed her eyes. "I'll stay," she murmured. + +Molly laid her own cool face down beside Strelsa's hot cheek, kneeling +beside the bed. + +"Dear," she whispered, "let us wait and see what happens. There's just +one thing that has distorted your view--a dreadful experience with one +man--two years of hell's own horror with one of its wretched +inhabitants. I don't believe the impression is going to last a lifetime. +I don't believe it is indelible. I believe somehow, some time you will +learn that a man's love does not mean horror and degradation; that it is +no abuse of friendship which offers love also, to return it with +friendship only. + +"Sir Charles offers that; and you refuse because you do not love him and +will not use his friendship to aid yourself to material comfort. + +"And I suspect you have said the same thing to Rix. Have you?" + +The girl lay silent, eyes closed. + +"Never mind; don't answer. I know you well enough to know that you said +some such thing to Rix.... And it's all right in its way. But the +alternative is not what you think it is--not this bargain with Langly +for a place to lay your tired head--not this deal to decorate his name +and estates in return for personal immunity. You are wrong--I'm not +immoral, only unmoral--as many of us are--but you've gone all to pieces, +dear--morally, mentally, nervously--and it's not from cowardice, not +from depravity. It is the direct result of the two years of terror and +desperate self-control--two years of courage--high moral courage, +determination, self-suppression--and of the startling and dreadful +climax. + +"That is the blow you are now feeling--and the reaction even after two +years more of half-stunned solitude. You are waking, darling; that is +all. And it hurts." + +Strelsa's bare arm moved a little, moved, groping, and tightened around +Molly's neck. And they remained that way for a long while, Molly +kneeling on the floor beside her. + +"Don't you ever cry?" she whispered. + +"Not--now." + +"It would be better if you could." + +"There are no tears--I--I am burnt out--all burnt out----" + +"You need strength." + +"I haven't the desire for it any longer." + +"Not the desire to face things pluckily?" + +"No--no longer. Everything's dead in me except the longing for--quiet. +I'll pay any price for it--except misuse of friends." + +"How could you misuse Rix by marrying him?" + +"By accepting what I could never return." + +"Love?" + +"Yes." + +"Does he ask that?" + +"N-no--not now. But--he wants it. And I haven't it to give. So I can't +take his--and let him work all his life for my comfort--I can't take it +from Sir Charles and accept the position and fortune he offered me +once----" + +She lay silent a moment, then unclosed her eyes. + +"Molly," she said, "I don't believe that Sir Charles is going to mind +very much." + +Molly met her eyes for an instant, very near, and a pale flash of +telepathy passed between them. Then Strelsa smiled. + +"You mean Chrysos," said Molly. + +"Yes.... Don't you think so?" + +"She's little more than a child.... I don't know. Men are that way--men +of Sir Charles's age and experience are likely to drift that way.... But +if you are done with Sir Charles, what he does no longer interests +me--except that the Lacys will become insufferable if----" + +"Don't talk that way, dear." + +"I don't _like_ the family--except Chrysos." + +"Then be glad for her--if it comes true.... Sir Charles is a +dear--almost too perfectly ideal to be a man.... I do wish it for his +sake.... He was a little unhappy over me I think." + +"He adores you still, you little villain!" whispered Molly, fondling +her. "But--let poets sing and romancers rave--there's nothing that +starves as quickly as love. And Sir Charles has been long fasting--good +luck to him and more shame on you!" + +Strelsa laughed, cleared her brow and eyes of the soft bright hair, and, +flinging out both arms, took Molly to her heart in a swift, hard +embrace. + +"There!" she said, breathless, "I adore you anyhow, Molly.... I feel +better, too. I'm glad you talked to me.... Do you think I'll get +anything for my house?" + +"Yes, when you sell it. That's the hopeless part of it just at this time +of year----" + +"Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I've had an awful +lot of the other kind all my life." + +They laughed. + +Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I'll have enough left +over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and +chickens and a cow!" + +"How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?" + +Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as +though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a +little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado +Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for +pleasure--crazy about anything that promised gaiety and +amusement--anything to make me forget. + +"You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill--ill +most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother--it's +curious, but mother never said anything about her--and she cared for +fashionable people. + +"So I came to New York last winter--and you know the rest--I got tired +physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me--and so many women +urged me to do so many things--and I was unhappy about Rix--and then +came this awful financial crash----" + +"Stop thinking of it!" + +"Yes; I mean to. I only wanted you to understand how, one by one, +emotions and desires have been killed in me during the last four +years.... And even the desire for wealth and position--which I clung to +up to yesterday--somehow, now--this morning--has become little more than +a dreamy wish.... I'd rather have quiet if I could--if there's enough +money left to let me rest somewhere----" + +"There will be," said Molly, watching her. + +"Do you think so? And--then there would be no necessity for--for----" + +"Langly!" + +Strelsa flushed. "I wonder," she mused. "I wonder whether--but it seems +impossible that I should suddenly find I didn't care for everything I +cared for this winter. Perhaps I'm too tired to care just now." + +"It might be," said Molly, "that something--for example your friendship +with Rix--had made other matters seem less important." + +The girl looked up quickly, saw nothing in Molly's expression to disturb +her, then turned her eyes away, and lay silent, considering. + +If her friendship for Quarren had imperceptibly filled her mind, even +crowding aside other and most important matters, she did not realise it. +She thought of it now, and of him--recalling the letter she had written. + +Vaguely she was aware of the difference in her attitude toward life +since she wrote that letter only a few days before. To what was it due? +To his letter in reply now lying between the leaves of her New Testament +on the table beside her? This was his letter: + + "Hold out, Strelsa! Matters are going well with me. Your tide, too, + will turn before you know it. But neither man nor woman is going to + aid you, only time, Strelsa, and--something that neither you nor I + have bothered about very much--something that has many names in + many tongues--but they all mean the same. And the symbol of what + they mean is Truth. + + "Why not study it? We never have. All sages of all times have + studied it and found comfort; all saints in all ages have found in + it strength. + + "I find its traces in every ancient picture that I touch. But there + are books still older that have lived because of it. And one man + died for it--man or God as you will--the former is more + fashionable. + + "Lives that have been lived because of it, given for it, forgiven + for its sake, are worth our casual study. + + "For they say there is no greater thing than Truth. I can imagine + no greater. And the search for it is interesting--fascinating--I + had no idea how absorbing until recently--until I first saw you, + who sent me out into the world to work. + + "Hold out--and study this curious subject of Truth for a little + while. Will you? + + "If you'll only study it a while I promise that it will interest + you--not in its formalisms, not in its petty rituals and + observances, nor in its endless nomenclature, nor its + orthodoxy--but just as you discover it for yourself in the + histories of men and women--of saint and sinner--and, above all, in + the matchless life of Him who understood them all. + + "_Non tu corpus eras sine pectore!_" + +Lying there, remembering his letter almost word for word, and where it +now lay among printed pages incomprehensible to her except by the +mechanical processes of formal faith and superficial observance, she +wondered how much that, and the scarcely scanned printed page, might +have altered her views of life. + +Molly kissed her again and went away downstairs. + +When she was dressed in her habit she went out to the lawn's edge where +Langly and the horses had already gathered: he put her up, and they +cantered away down the wooded road that led to South Linden. + +After their first gallop they slowed to a walk on the farther hill +slope, chatting of inconsequential things; and it seemed to her that he +was in unusually good spirits--almost gay for him--and his short dry +laugh rang out once or twice, which was more than she had heard from him +in a week. + +From moment to moment she glanced sideways at him, curiously inspecting +the sleek-headed symmetry of the man, noticing, as always, his perfectly +groomed figure, his narrow head and the well-cut lines of the face and +jaw. Once she had seen him--the very first time she had ever met him at +Miami--eating a broiled lobster. And somehow his healthy appetite, the +clean incision of his sun-bronzed jaw and the working muscles, chewing +and swallowing, fascinated her; and she never saw him but she thought of +him eating vigorously aboard the _Yulan_. + +"Langly," she said, "is it going to be disagreeable for you when Mrs. +Ledwith returns to South Linden?" + +He looked at her leisurely, eyes, as always, slightly protruding: + +"Why?" + +"The newspapers." + +"Probably," he said. + +"Then--what are you going to do about it?" + +"About what?" + +"The papers." + +"Nothing." + +"Or--about Mrs. Ledwith?" + +"Be civil if I see her." + +"Of course," she said, reddening. "I was wondering whether gossip might +be nipped in the bud if you left before she arrives and remained away +until she leaves." + +His prominent eyes were searching her features all the while she was +speaking; now they wandered restlessly over the landscape. + +"It's my fashion," he said, "to face things as they come." + +"If you don't mind I'd rather have you go," she said. + +"Where?" + +"Anywhere you care to." + +He said: "I have told you a thousand times that the thing to do is to +take Molly Wycherly 'board the _Yulan_, and----" + +"I do not care to do it until our engagement is announced." + +"Very well," he said, swinging around in his saddle, "I'll announce it +to-day and we'll go aboard this evening and clear out." + +"Wh-what!" she faltered. + +"There's no use waiting any longer," he said. "Mrs. Ledwith and my fool +of an aunt are coming to-morrow. Did you know that? Well, they are. And +every dirty newspaper in town will make the matter insidiously +significant! If my aunt hadn't taken it into her head to visit Mrs. +Ledwith at this particular moment, there would have been few comments. +As it is there'll be plenty--and I don't feel like putting up with +them--I don't propose to for my own sake. The time comes, sooner or +later, when a man has got to consider himself." + +After a short silence Strelsa raised her gray eyes: + +"Has it occurred to you to consider, me, Langly?" + +"What? Certainly. Haven't I been doing that ever since we've been +engaged----" + +"I--wonder," she mused. + +"What else have I been doing?" he insisted--"denying myself the pleasure +of you when I'm half crazy about you----" + +"What!" + +A dull flush settled under his prominent cheek-bones: he looked straight +ahead of him between his horse's ears as he rode, sitting his saddle +like the perfect horseman he was, although his mount felt the savage +pain of a sudden and reasonless spurring and the wicked curb scarcely +controlled him. + +Strelsa set her lips, not looking at either horse or man on her right, +nor even noticing her own mare who was cutting up in sympathy with the +outraged hunter at her withers. + +"Langly?" + +"Yes?" + +"Has it ever occurred to you how painful such scandalous rumours must be +for Mrs. Ledwith?" + +"Can I help them?" + +Strelsa said, thoughtfully: "What a horrible thing for a woman! It was +generous of your aunt to show people what _she_ thought of such cruel +stories." + +"Do you think," he said sneeringly, "that my excellent aunt was inspired +by any such motive? You might as well know--if you don't know already--" +and his pale eyes rested a moment on the girl beside him--"that my aunt +is visiting Mrs. Ledwith solely to embarrass me!" + +"How could it embarrass you?" + +"By giving colour to the lies told about me and the Ledwiths," he said +in a hard voice--"by hinting that Mary Ledwith, free to marry, is +accepted by my aunt; and the rest is up to me! That's what that female +relative of mine has just done--" His big, white teeth closed with a +click and he spurred his horse cruelly again and checked him until the +slavering creature almost reared over backward. + +"If you maltreat that horse again, Langly, I'll leave you. Do you +understand?" she said, exasperated. + +"I beg your pardon--" Again his jaw fairly snapped, but the horse did +not suffer from his displeasure. + +"What has enraged you so?" she demanded. + +"This whole business. There isn't anything my aunt could have done more +vicious, more contemptible, than to visit Mrs. Ledwith at this moment. +I'll get it from every quarter, now." + +"I suppose she will, too." + +"My aunt? No such luck!" + +"I mean Mrs. Ledwith." + +"She? Oh, I suppose so." + +Strelsa said between tightening lips: + +"Is there nothing you can do, no kindness, no sacrifice you can make to +shield Mrs. Ledwith?" + +He stared at her, then his eyes roamed restlessly: + +"How?" + +"I don't know, Langly.... But if there is anything you could do----" + +"What? My aunt and the papers are determined that I shall marry her! I +take it that you are not suggesting that, are you?" + +"I am suggesting nothing," she replied in a low voice. + +"Well, _I_ am. I'm suggesting that you and Molly and I go aboard the +_Yulan_ and clear out to-night!" + +"You mean--to announce our engagement first?" + +"Just as you choose," he said without a shade of expression on his +features. + +"You would scarcely propose that I sail with you under any other +circumstances," she said sharply. + +"I leave it to you and Mrs. Wycherly. The main idea is to clear out and +let them howl and tear things up." + +"Howl at Mrs. Ledwith and tear her to tatters while we start around the +world on the _Yulan_?" nodded Strelsa. She was rather white, but she +laughed; and he, hearing her, turned and laughed, too--a quick bark of a +laugh that startled both horses who were unaccustomed to it. + +"Oh, I guess they won't put her out of business," he said. "She's young +and handsome and there are plenty of her sort to marry her--even +Dankmere would have a chance there or--" he hesitated, and decided to +refrain. But she understood perfectly, and lost the remainder of her +colour. + +"You mean Mr. Quarren," she said coolly. + +"I didn't," he replied, lying. And she was aware of his falsehood, too. + +"What started those rumours about Mrs. Ledwith and you, Langly?" she +asked in the same pleasantly even tone, and turned her horse's head +toward home at the same time. He made his mount pivot showily on his +hocks and drew bridle beside her. + +"Oh, they started at Newport." + +"How?" + +"How do I know? Ledwith and I were connected in business matters; I saw +more or less of them both--and he was too busy to be with his wife every +time I happened to be with her. So--you know what they said." + +"Yes. When you and she were lunching at different tables at the Santa +Regina you used to write notes to her, and everybody saw you." + +"What of it?" + +"Nothing." + +"That is just it; there was nothing in it." + +"Except her reputation.... What a silly and careless girl! But a man +doesn't think--doesn't care very much I fancy. And then everybody was +offensively sorry for Chester Ledwith. But that was not your lookout, +was it, Langly?" + +Sprowl turned his narrow face and looked at her in silence; and after a +moment misjudged her. + +"It was not my fault," he said quietly. "I liked his wife and I was +friendly with him until his gutter habits annoyed me." + +"He went to pieces, didn't he?" + +Once more Sprowl inspected her features, warily. Once more he misjudged +her. + +"He's gone to smash," he said--"but what's that to us?" + +"I wonder," she smiled, but had to control the tremor of her lower lip +by catching it between her teeth and looking away from the man beside +her. Quickly the hint of tears dried out in her gray eyes--from whatever +cause they sprang glimmering there to dim her eyesight. She bent her +head, absently arranging, rearranging and shifting her bridle. + +"The thing to do," he said, curling his long moustache with powerful +fingers--"is for the Wycherlys to stand by us now--and the others +there--that little Lacy girl--and Sir Charles if he chooses. We'll have +to take the whole lot of them aboard I suppose." + +"Suppose I go with you alone," she said in a low voice. + +He started in his saddle, turned on her a face that was reddening +heavily. For an instant she scarcely recognised him, so thick his lips +seemed, so congested the veins in forehead and neck. He seemed all mouth +and eyes and sanguine colour--and big, even teeth, now, as the lips drew +aside disclosing them. + +"Would you do that, Strelsa?" + +"Why not?" + +"Would you do it--for me?" + +Her rapid breathing impeded speech; she said something inarticulate; he +leaned from his saddle and caught her in his left arm. + +"By God," he stammered, "I knew it! You can have what you like from +me--I don't care what it is!--take it--fill out your own checks--only +let's get out of here before those damned women ruin us both!" + +She had strained back and aside from him, and was trying to guide her +mare away, but his powerful arm crushed her and his hot breath fell on +her face and neck. + +"You can have it your own way I tell you--I swear to God I'll marry +you----" + +"What!" + +Almost strangled she wrenched herself free, panting, staring; and he +realised his mistake. + +"We can't get a licence if we leave to-night," he said, breathing +heavily. "But we can touch at any port and manage that." + +"You--you _would_ take me--permit me to go--in such a manner?" she +breathed, still staring at him. + +"It's necessity, isn't it? Didn't you propose it? It makes no difference +to me, Strelsa. I told you I'd do anything you wished." + +"What did you mean--what did you mean by--by--" But she could go no +further in speech or thought. + +"The thing to do," he said calmly, "is not to fly off our heads or +become panic-stricken. You're doing the latter; I lost control of +myself--after what you gave me to hope--after what you said--showing +your trust in me," he added, moistening his thick dry lips with his +tongue. "I lost my self-command--because I _am_ crazy for you, +Strelsa--there's no sense in pretending otherwise--and you knew it all +the time, you little coquette! + +"What do you think a man's made of? You wanted a business arrangement +and I humoured you; but you knew all the while, and I knew, that--that I +am infatuated, absolutely mad about you." He added, boldly: "And I have +reason to think it doesn't entirely displease you, haven't I?" + +She did not seem to hear him. He laid his gloved hand over hers, and +recoiled before her eyes as from a blow. + +"Are you angry?" he asked. + +Her teeth were still working on her under lip. She made no answer. + +"Strelsa--if you really feel nothing for me--if you mean what you have +said about a purely business agreement--I will hold to it. I thought for +a moment--when you said--something in your smile made me think----" + +"You need not think any further," she said. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I came with you this morning to tell you that I will not +marry you." + +"That's nonsense! I've hurt you--made you angry----" + +"I came for that reason," she repeated. "I meant to do it as soon as I +had the courage. I meant to do it gently. Now I don't care how I do it. +It's enough for you to know that I will not marry you." + +"Is that final?" + +"Yes." + +"I don't believe it. I know perfectly well I was--was too impulsive, too +ardent----" + +She turned her face away with a faint, sick look at the summer fields +where scores of birds sang in the sunshine. + +"See here," he said, his manner changing, "I tell you I'm sorry. I ask +your pardon. Whatever you wish shall be done. Tell me what to do." + +After a few moments she turned toward him again. + +"A few minutes ago I could have told you what to do. I would have told +you to marry Mary Ledwith. Also I would have been wrong. Now, as you ask +me, I tell you not to marry her." + +His eyes were deadly dangerous, but she met them carelessly. + +"No," she said, "don't marry any woman after your attentions have made +her conspicuous. It will be pleasanter for her to be torn to pieces by +her friends." + +"You are having your vengeance," he said. "Take it to the limit, +Strelsa, and then let us be reconciled." + +"No, it is too late. It was too late even before we started out +together. Why--I didn't realise it then--but it was too late long +ago--from the day you spoke as you did in my presence to Mr. Quarren. +That finished you, Langly--if, indeed, you ever really began to mean +anything at all to me." + +He made a last effort and the veins stood out on his forehead: + +"I am sorry I spoke to Quarren as I did. I like him." + +She said coolly: "You hate him. You and Mr. Caldera almost ruined him in +that acreage affair." + +"You are mistaken. Caldera squeezed him; I did not. I knew nothing about +it. My agents attend to such petty matters. What motive have I for +disliking Quarren?" + +She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully: "Perhaps because you thought he +was devoted to me--and I to him.... And you were right," she added: "I +am devoted to him because he is a man and a clean one." + +"Have you ended?" + +"Ended what?" + +"Punishing me." + +Her lips curled slightly: "I am afraid you are inclined to +self-flattery, Langly. We chasten those whom we care for." + +"Are you silly enough to dismiss me through sheer pique?" he said +between his teeth. + +"Pique? I don't understand. I've merely concluded that I don't need your +fortune and I don't want your name. You, personally, never figured in +the proposed arrangement." + +His visage altered alarmingly: + +"Who have you got on the string now!" he broke out--"you little +adventuress! What damned fool is damned fool enough to marry you when +anybody could get you for less if they care to spend the time on +you----" + +Suddenly his arm shot out and he wrenched her bridle, dragging her horse +around and holding him there. + +"Are you mad?" she whispered, white to the lips. "Take your hand off my +bridle!" + +"For another word," he said between clinched teeth, "I'd ride you down +and spoil that face of yours! Hold your tongue and listen to me. I've +stood all I'm going to from you. I've done all the cringing and +boot-licking that is going to be done. You're the sort that needs curb +and spurs, and you'll get them if you cut up with me. Is that plain?" + +She had carried no crop that morning or she would have used it; her +bridle was useless; spurring might have dragged them both down under the +horses' feet. + +"For the last time," he said, "you listen to me. I love you. I want you. +You haven't a cent; you could fill out any check you chose to draw over +my signature. Now if you are not crazy, or a hopeless fool, behave +yourself." + +A great sob choked her; she forced it back and sat, waiting, eyes almost +closed. + +"Strelsa, answer me!" + +There was no reply. + +"Answer me, for God's sake!" + +She opened her eyes. + +"Will you marry me?" + +"No." + +His eyes seemed starting from his head and the deep blood rushed to his +face and neck, and he flung her bridle into her face with an +inarticulate sound. + +Then, slowly, side by side they advanced along the road together. A +groom met them at Witch-Hollow; Strelsa slipped from her saddle without +aid and, leisurely, erect, smiling, walked up to the veranda where Molly +stood reading the morning paper. + +"Hello dear," she said. "Am I very late for luncheon?" + +"It's over. Will you have a tray out here?" + +"May I?" + +"Don't you want to change, first?" + +"Yes, thanks." + +Molly glanced up from the paper: + +"Isn't Langly stopping for luncheon with you?" + +"No." + +Molly looked at her curiously: + +"Did you enjoy your gallop?" + +"We didn't gallop much." + +"Spooned?" + +Strelsa shuddered slightly. The elder woman dropped her paper and gazed +at her. + +"You don't mean to say it's all off, Strelsa!" + +"Entirely. Please don't let's speak of it again--or of him--if you don't +mind----" + +"I don't!--you darling!--you poor darling! What has that creature done +to _you_?" + +"Don't speak of him, please." + +"No, I won't. Oh, I'm so glad, Strelsa!--I can't tell you how happy, how +immensely relieved--and that cat of an aunt of his here to make +mischief!--and poor Mary Ledwith----" + +[Illustration: "'Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?' she asked +caressingly."] + +"Molly, I--I simply can't talk about it--any of it----" + +She turned abruptly, entered the house, and ran lightly up the stairs. +Molly waited for her, grimly content with the elimination of Langly +Sprowl and already planning separate campaigns in behalf of Sir Charles +and Quarren. + +She was still absorbed in her scheming when Strelsa came down. There was +not a trace of any emotion except pleasure in her face. In her heart it +was the same; only an immense, immeasurable relief reigned there, +calming and exciting her alternately. But her face was yet a trifle +pale; her hands still unsteady; and every delicate nerve, slowly +relaxing from the tension, was regaining its normal quiet by degrees. + +Her appetite was excellent, however. Afterward she and Molly chose +neighbouring rockers, and Molly, lighting a cigarette, opened fire: + +"Is it to be Sir Charles after all, darling?" she asked caressingly. + +Strelsa laughed outright, then, astonished that she had not shrunk from +a renewal of the eternal pressure, looked at Molly with wide gray eyes. + +"I don't know what's the matter with me to-day," she said; "I seem to be +able to laugh. I've not been very well physically; I've had a ghastly +morning; I'm homeless and wretchedly poor--and I'm laughing at it +all--the whole thing, Molly. What do you suppose is the matter with me?" + +"You're not in love, are you?" asked Molly with calm suspicion. + +"No, I'm not," said the girl with a quiet conviction that disconcerted +the elder woman. + +"Then I don't see why you should be very happy," said Molly honestly. + +Strelsa considered: "Perhaps it's because to-day I feel unusually well. +I slept--which I don't usually." + +"You're becoming devout, too," said Molly. + +"Devout? Oh, you saw me reading in my Testament.... It's an interesting +book, Molly," she said naively. "You know, as children, and at school, +and in church we don't read it with any intelligence--or listen to it in +the right way.... People _are_ odd. We have our moments of contrition, +abasement, fright, exaltation; but at bottom we know that our religion +and a fair observance of it is a sound policy of insurance. We accept it +as we take out insurance in view of eventualities and the chance of +future fire----" + +"That's flippant," said Molly. + +"I really didn't mean it so.... I was wondering about it all. Recently, +re-reading the New Testament, I was struck by finding so much in it that +I had never noticed or understood.... You know, Molly, after all Truth +is the greatest thing in the world." + +"So I've heard," observed Molly drily. + +"Oh, I've heard it, too, but never thought what it meant--until +recently. You see Truth, to me, was just telling it as often as +possible. I never thought much about it--that it is the basis of +everything worthy and beautiful--such as old pictures--" she added +vaguely--"and those things that silversmiths like Benvenuto Cellini +did----" + +"What?" + +Strelsa coloured: "Everything worthy is founded on Truth," she said. + +"That sounds like Tupper or a copy-book," said Molly, laughing. "For +surely those profound reflections never emanated originally from you or +Rix--did they?" + +Strelsa, much annoyed, picked up the field glasses and levelled them on +the river. + +Sir Charles was out there in a launch with Chrysos Lacy. Chrysos fished +and Sir Charles baited her hook. + +"That's a touching sight," said Strelsa, laughing. + +Molly said crossly: "Well, if you don't want him, for goodness' sake say +so!--and let me have some credit with the Lacys for engineering the +thing." + +"Take it, darling!" laughed the girl, "take the credit and let the cash +go--to Chrysos!" + +"How indelicate you _can_ be, Strelsa!" + +"Oh, I am. I'm in such rude health that it's almost vulgar. After all, +Molly, there's an immense relief in getting rid of your last penny and +knowing nothing worse can happen to you." + +"You might die." + +"I don't care." + +"Everybody cares whether they live or die." + +The girl looked at her, surprised. + +"I don't," she said, "--really." + +"Of course you do." + +"But why should I?" + +"Nonsense, Strelsa. No matter how they crack up Heaven, nobody is in a +hurry to go there." + +"I wasn't thinking of Heaven.... I was just curious to see what else +there is--I'm in no hurry, but it has always interested me.... I've had +a theory that perhaps to everybody worthy is given, hereafter, exactly +the kind of heaven they expect--to Buddhist, Brahman, Mohammedan, +Christian--to the Shinto priest as well as to the Sagamore.... There's +plenty of time--I'm in no hurry, nor would it be too soon to-morrow for +me to find out how near I am to the truth." + +"You're morbid, child!" + +"Less this very moment than for years.... Molly, do you know that I am +getting well? I wish you knew how well I feel." + +But Molly was no longer listening. High above the distant hangars where +the men had gathered since early morning, a great hawk-like thing was +soaring in circles. And already the distant racket of another huge +winged thing came to her ears on the summer wind. + +"I hope Jim will be careful," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Into the long stables at South Linden, that afternoon, Langly Sprowl's +trembling horse was led limping, his velvet flanks all torn by spurs and +caked with mud, his tender mouth badly lacerated. + +As for his master, it seemed that the ruin of the expensive hunter and +four hours' violent and capricious exercise in his reeking saddle had +merely whetted his appetite for more violence; and he had been tramping +for an hour up and down the length of the library in his big sprawling +house when Mr. Kyte, his confidential secretary, came in without +knocking. + +Sprowl hearing his step swung on him savagely, but Kyte coolly closed +the door behind him and turned the key. + +"Ledwith is here," he said. + +"Ledwith," repeated Sprowl, mechanically. + +"Yes, he's on the veranda. They said you were not at home. He said he'd +wait. I thought you ought to know. He acts queerly." + +Langly's protruding eyes became utterly expressionless. + +"All right," he said in dismissal. + +Kyte still lingered: + +"Is there anything I can say or do?" + +"If there was I'd tell you, wouldn't I?" + +Kyte's lowered gaze stole upward toward his employer, sustained his +expressionless glare for a second, then shifted. + +"Very well," he said unlocking the library door; "I thought he might be +armed, that's all." + +"Kyte!" + +Mr. Kyte turned on the door-sill. + +"What do you mean by saying that?" + +"Saying what?" + +"That you think this fellow Ledwith may be armed?" + +Kyte stood silent. + +"I ask you again," repeated Sprowl, "why you infer that this man might +have armed himself to visit this house?" + +Kyte's eyes stole upward, were instantly lowered. Sprowl walked over to +him. + +"You're paid to act, not think; do you understand?" he said in a husky, +suppressed voice; but his long fingers were twitching. + +"I understand," said Kyte. + +Sprowl's lean head jerked; Kyte went; and the master of the house strode +back into the library and resumed his pacing. + +Boots, spurs, the skirts of his riding coat, even his stock were stained +with mud and lather; and there was a spot or two across his sun-tanned +cheeks. + +Presently he walked to the bay-window which commanded part of the west +veranda, and looking out through the lace curtains saw Ledwith sitting +there, his sunken eyes fixed on the westering sun. + +The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at +elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers +and golf-stockings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of +the muscles. + +The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into +the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and +down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the +dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering +mentally unsound. + +Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying +his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still +sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and +strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors +to the veranda. + +Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said. + +Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face. + +There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a +crooked smile. + +"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he +said. + +"When are you leaving?" + +"To-night." + +"Where are you going?" + +"I don't know--to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that--I don't +know." + +Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out +across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of +tall trees lay like velvet on the grass; the crests of the woods beyond +grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were +noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged +woodpeckers imitated them; in the late sunlight the grackles' necks +were rainbow tinted. + +On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding, +switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted +hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded +with sunshine and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and +expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first +grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond. + +"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoarse and +painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in +distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak. + +"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl. + +The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute. + +"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need +exercise." + +"I've got to rest." + +"Well, then, what have you got to say?--because I'm going on. What's the +matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?" + +"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment. + +"What else?" + +"Anxiety." + +"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?" + +Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting +on his elbow against the tree-trunk: + +"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get +it?" + +"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously. + +"Then--my wife has returned." + +"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice +or features. + +"Yes," said Ledwith--"Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my +way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I +saw them from the hill." + +"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?" + +Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it, +looking down at the grass. + +"You are going to marry her of course," he said. + +"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business." + +"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing +possible. There is nothing else for her to do--for you to do. She knows +it, you know it, and so do I." + +"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?" + +"Only your word to confirm what I have just said." + +"What are you talking about?" + +"Your marriage with Mary." + +"I think I told you that it was none of your business." + +"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business." + +"May I ask why?" + +"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently, +there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the +reason." + +Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and +unclosing: + +"Is that all, Ledwith?" + +"That's all--when you have confirmed what I have said concerning the +necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched." + +"You lie," said Langly. + +Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me." + +"That is another lie." + +"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared, +after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body; +she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as +her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to +effrontery.... It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at +nothing--not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory +characteristic of your sort.... I don't mean physical cowardice," he +added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's +powerful frame. + +"Have you finished?" asked the latter. + +"In a moment, Langly. I am merely reminding you of what has happened. +Concerning myself I have nothing to say. Look at me. You know what I +was; you see what I am. I'm not whining; it's all in a lifetime. And the +man who is not fitted to take care of what is his, loses. That's all." + +Sprowl's head was averted after an involuntary glance at the man before +him. His face was red--or it may have been the ruddy evening sun +striking flat across it. + +Ledwith said: "You will marry her, of course. But I merely wish to hear +you say so." + +Sprowl swung on him, his thick lips receding: + +"I'll marry whom I choose! Do you understand that?" + +"Of course. But you will choose to marry her." + +"Do you think so?" + +"Yes. Or--I'll kill you," he said seriously. + +Langly stared at him, every vein suddenly dark and swollen; then his +bark of a laugh broke loose. + +"I suppose you've got it in your pocket," he said. + +Ledwith fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a dully blued weapon of +heavy calibre; and Sprowl walked slowly up to him, slapped his face, +took the revolver from him, and flung it into the woods. + +"Now go home and punch yourself full of dope," he said; swung on his +heel, and sauntered off. + +Ledwith looked after him, one bloodless hand resting on the cheek which +Sprowl had struck--watched him out of sight. Then, patiently, he started +to search for the weapon, dropping on all-fours, crawling, peering, +parting the ferns and bushes. But the sun was low and the woods dusky, +and he could not find what he was looking for. So he sat up on the +ground among the dead leaves of other years, drew from his pocket what +he needed, and slowly bared his scarred arm to the shoulder. + +As for Sprowl, his vigorous tread lengthened to a swinging stride as he +shouldered his way through a thicket and out again into the open. + +Already he scarcely remembered Ledwith at all, or his menace, or the +blow; scarcely even recollected that Mary Ledwith had returned or that +his aunt was within driving distance of his own quarters. + +A dull hot anguish, partly rage, possessed him, tormenting brain and +heart incessantly and giving him no rest. His own clumsy madness in +destroying what he believed had been a certainty--his stupidity, his +loss of self-control, not only in betraying passion prematurely but in +his subsequent violence and brutality, almost drove him insane. + +Never before in any affair with women had he forgotten caution in any +crisis; his had been a patience unshakable when necessary, a dogged, +driving persistence when the time came, the subtlety of absolute +inertness when required. But above all and everything else he has been a +master of patience, and so a master of himself; and so he had usually +won. + +And now--now in this crisis--a crisis involving the loss of what he +cared for enough to marry--if he must marry to have his way with +her--what was to be done? + +He tried to think coolly, but the cinders of rage and passion seemed to +stir and move with every breath he drew awaking the wild fire within. + +He would try to reason and think clearly--try to retrace matters to the +beginning and find out why he had blundered when everything was in his +own hands. + +It was his aunt's sudden policy that betrayed him into a premature +move--Mary Ledwith's return, and his aunt's visit. Mary Ledwith was +there to marry him; his aunt to make mischief unless he did what was +expected of him. + +Leisurely but thoroughly he cursed them both as he walked back across +his lawn. But he was already thinking of Strelsa again when, as he +entered the wide hall, his aunt waddled across the rugs of the +drawing-room, pronouncing his name with unmistakable decision. And, +before the servants, he swallowed the greeting he had hoped to give her, +and led her into the library. + +"Mercy on us, Langly!" she exclaimed, eyeing his reeking boots and +riding-breeches; "do you live like a pig up here?" + +"I've been out," he said briefly. "What do you want?" + +Her little green eyes lighted up, and her smile, which was fading, she +forced into a kind of fixed grin. + +"Your polished and thoughtful inquiry is characteristic of you," she +said. "Mary is here, and I want you to come over to dinner." + +"I'm not up to it," he said. + +"I want you to come." + +"I tell you I'm not up to it," he said bluntly. + +"And I tell you that you'd better come." + +"_Better_ come?" he repeated. + +"Yes, _better_ come. More than that, Langly, you'd better behave +yourself, or I'll make New York too hot to hold you." + +His prominent eyes were expressionless. + +"Ah?" he remarked. + +"Exactly, my friend. Your race is run. You've done one thing too +publicly to squirm out of the consequences. The town has stood for a +good deal from you. When that girl at the Frivolity Theatre shot +herself, leaving a letter directed to you, the limit of public patience +was nearly reached. You had to go abroad, didn't you? Well, you can't go +abroad this time. Neither London nor Paris nor Vienna nor Budapest--no, +nor St. Petersburg nor even Constantinople would stand you! Your course +is finished. If you've an ounce of brains remaining you know that you're +done for this time. So go and dress and come over to dinner.... And +don't worry; I'll keep away from you after you're married." + +"You'll keep your distance before that," he said slowly. + +"You're mistaken. Many people are afraid of you, but I never was and +never could be. You're no good; you never were. If you didn't lug my +name about with you I'd let you go to hell. You'll go there anyway, but +you'll go married first." + +"I expect to." + +"Married to Mary Ledwith," she said looking at him. + +He picked up a cigar, examined it, yawned, then glanced at her: + +"As I had--recently--occasion to tell Chester Ledwith, I'll marry whom I +please. Now suppose you clear out." + +"Are you dining with us?" + +"No." + +"What time may we expect you to-morrow?" + +"At no time." + +"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?" + +"No." + +"Is that final?" + +"Yes!" + +"Do you expect to marry anybody else?" + +"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face +distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at +last? Do you understand clearly?--you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!" + +He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down +the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and +abuse--rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness +and disintegration--his downfall from that silent citadel of +self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for +defiance or refuge. + +"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat +nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the +foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your +business--I warn you now and for the last time, or else--" He swung +around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work--"or else I'll supply +the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father +and yourself!" + +Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only +the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive. + +"So _that_ fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you +apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to +understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my +threshold. You _do_ understand, I guess." + +He continued his promenade but presently came back to her: + +"You know well enough who I want to marry. If you say or do one thing to +interfere I'll see that you figure in the Yellows." + +He thought a moment; the colour slowly returned to her face. After a fit +of coughing she struggled to rise from her chair. He let her pant and +scuffle and kick for a while, then opened the door and summoned her +footman. + +"I'm sorry I cannot drive with you this evening," he said quietly, as +the footman supported Mrs. Sprowl to her feet, "but I've promised the +Wycherlys. Pray offer my compliments and friendly wishes to Mrs. +Ledwith." + +When she had gone he walked back into the library, picked up the +telephone and finally got Molly Wycherly on the wire. + +"Won't you ask me to dinner?" he said. "I've an explanation to make to +Mrs. Leeds and I'd be awfully obliged to you." + +There was a silence, then Molly said, deliberately: + +"You must be a very absent-minded young man. I saw your aunt for a +moment this afternoon and she said that you are dining with her at Mrs. +Ledwith's." + +"She was mistaken--" began Sprowl quietly, but Molly cut him short with +a laughing "good-bye," and hung up the receiver. + +"That was Langly," she remarked, turning to Strelsa who was already +dressed for dinner and who had come into Molly's boudoir to observe the +hair-dressing and comprehensive embellishment of that young matron's +person by a new maid on probation. + +Strelsa's upper lip curled faintly, then the happy expression returned, +and she watched the decorating of Molly until the maid turned her out in +the perfection of grooming from crown to toe. + +There was nobody in the music-room. Molly turned again to Strelsa as +they entered: + +"What a brute he is!--asking me to invite him here for dinner when Mary +Ledwith has just arrived." + +"Did he do that?" + +"Yes. And his excuse was that he had an explanation to make you. What a +sneaking way of doing it!" + +Strelsa looked out of the dark window in silence. + +Molly said: "I wish he'd go away, I never can look at him without +thinking of Chester Ledwith--and all that wretched affair.... Not that I +am sniffy about Mary--the poor little fool.... Anyway," she added +naively, "old lady Sprowl has fixed her status and now we all know how +to behave toward her." + +Strelsa, arms clasped behind her back, came slowly forward from the +window: + +"What a sorry civilisation," she said thoughtfully, "and what sorry +codes we frame to govern it." + +"What?" sharply. + +Strelsa looked at her, absently. + +"Nobody seems to be ashamed of anything any more," she said, half to +herself. "The only thing that embarrasses us is what the outside world +may think of us. We don't seem to care what we think of each other." + +Molly, a trifle red, asked her warmly what she meant. + +"Oh, I was just realising what are the motives that govern us--the +majority of us--and how primitive they are. So many among us seem to be +moral throwbacks--types reappearing out of the mists of an ancient and +unmoral past.... Echoes of primitive ages when nobody knew any +better--when life was new, and was merely life and nothing +else--fighting, treacherous, cringing life which knew of nothing else to +do except to eat, sleep, and reproduce itself--bully the weaker, fawn on +the stronger, lie, steal, and watch out that death should not interfere +with the main chance." + +Molly, redder than ever, asked her again what she meant. + +"I don't know, dear.... How clean the woods and fields seem after a day +indoors with many people." + +"You mean we all need moral baths?" + +"I do." + +Molly smiled: "For a moment I thought you meant that I do." + +Strelsa smiled, too: + +"You're a good wife, Molly; and a good friend.... I wish you had a +baby." + +"I'm--going to." + +They looked at each other a moment; then Strelsa caught her in her arms. + +"Really?" + +Molly nodded: + +"That's why I worry about Jim taking chances in his aeroplane." + +"He mustn't! He's got to stop! What can he be thinking of!" cried +Strelsa indignantly. + +"But he--doesn't know." + +"You haven't _told_ him?" + +"No." + +"Why not?" + +"I--don't know how he'll take it." + +"What?" + +Molly flushed: "We didn't want one. I don't know what he'll say. We +didn't care for them----" + +Strelsa's angry beauty checked her with its silent scorn; suddenly her +pretty head fell forward on Strelsa's breast: + +"Don't look that way at me! I was a fool. How was I to know--anything? +I'd never had one.... You can't know whether you want a baby or not +until you have one.... I know now. I'm crazy about it.... I think it +would--would kill me if Jim is annoyed----" + +"He won't be, darling!" whispered Strelsa. "Don't mind what he says +anyway. He's only a man. He never even knew as much about it as you did. +What do men know, anyway? Jim is a dear--just the regular sort of man +interested in business and sport and probably afraid that a baby might +interfere with both. What does he know about it?... Besides he's too +decent to be annoyed----" + +"I'm afraid--I can't stand--even his indifference--" whimpered Molly. + +Strelsa, holding her clasped to her breast, started to speak, but a +noise of men in the outer hall silenced her--the aviators returning from +their hangars and gathering in the billiard-room for a long one before +dressing. + +"Wait," whispered Strelsa, gently disengaging herself--"wait just a +moment----" + +And she was out in the hall in an instant, just in time to touch Jim on +the arm as he closed the file toward the billiard-room. + +"Hello, Sweetness!" he said, pivoting on his heels and seizing her +hands. "Are you coming in to try a cocktail with us?" + +"Jim," she said, "I want to tell you something." + +"Shoot," he said. "And if you don't hurry I'll kiss you." + +"Listen, please. Molly is in the music-room. _Make_ her tell you." + +"Tell me what?" + +"Ask her, Jim.... And, if you care one atom for her--be happy at what +she tells you--and tell her that you are. Will you?" + +He stared at her, then lost countenance. Then he looked at her in a +panicky way and started to go, but she held on to him with +determination: + +"Smile first!" + +"Thunder! I----" + +"Smile. Oh, Jim, isn't there any decency in men?" + +His mind was working like mad; he stared at her, then through the +astonishment and consternation on his good-looking features a faint grin +broke out. + +"All right," she whispered, and let him go. + +Molly, idling at the piano, heard his tread behind her, and looked up +over her shoulder. + +"Hello, Jim," she said, faintly. + +"Hello, ducky. Strelsa says you have something to tell me." + +"I--Jim?" + +"So she said. So I cut out a long one to find out what it is. What's up, +ducky?" + +Molly's gaze grew keener: "Did that child tell you?" + +"She said that you had something to tell me." + +"_Did_ she?" + +"No! Aren't you going to tell me either?" + +He dropped into a chair opposite her; she sat on the piano-stool +considering him for a while in silence. Then, dropping her arms with a +helpless little gesture: + +"We are going to have a baby. Are you--annoyed?" + +For a second he sat as though paralysed, and the next second he had her +in his arms, the grin breaking out from utter blankness. + +"You're a corker, ducky!" he whispered. "You for me all the time!" + +"Jim!... Really?" + +"Surest thing you know! Which is it?--boy or--Oh, I beg your pardon, +dear--I'm not accustomed to the etiquette. But I'm delighted, ducky, +overwhelmed!" + +"Oh, Jim! I'm so glad. And I'm crazy about it--perfectly mad about +it.... And you're a dear to care----" + +"Certainly I care! What do you take me for--a wooden Indian!" he +exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate----" + +"But, Jim! We can't _tell_ people." + +"Oh--that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it +of course. But I'll do anything you say----" + +"Will you?" + +"Will I? Watch me!" + +"Then--then _don't_ take out the Stinger for a while. Do you mind, +dear?" + +"What!" he said, jaw dropping. + +"I can't bear it, Jim. I was a good sport before; you know I was. But my +nerve has gone. I can't take chances now; I _want_ you to see--it----" + +After a moment he nodded. + +"Sure," he said. "It's like Lent. You've got to offer up something.... +If you feel that way--" he sighed unconsciously--"I'll lock up the +hangar until----" + +"Oh, darling! Will you?" + +"Yes," said that desolate young man, and kissed his wife without a +scowl. He had behaved pretty well--about like the majority of husbands +outside of popular romances. + +The amateur aeronauts left in the morning before anybody was stirring +except the servants--Vincent Wier, Lester Caldera, the Van Dynes and the +rest, bag, baggage, and, later, two aeroplanes packed and destined for +Barent Van Dyne's Long Island estate where there was to be some serious +flying attempted over the flat and dusty plains of that salubrious +island. + +Sir Charles Mallison was leaving that same day, later; and there were to +be no more of Jim's noisy parties; and now under the circumstances, no +parties of Molly's, either; because Molly was becoming nervous and +despondent and a mania for her husband possessed her--the pretty +resurgence of earlier sentiment which, if not more than comfortably +dormant, buds charmingly again at a time like this. + +Also she wanted Strelsa, and nobody beside these two; and although she +liked parties of all sorts including Jim's sporting ones, and although +she liked Sir Charles immensely, she was looking forward to comfort of +an empty house with only her husband to decorate the landscape and +Strelsa to whisper to in morbid moments. + +For Chrysos was going to Newport, Sir Charles and her maid accompanying +her as far as New York from where the Baronet meant to sail the next +day. + +His luggage had already gone; his man was packing when Sir Charles +sauntered out over the dew-wet lawn, a sprig of sweet-william in his +lapel, tall, clear-skinned, nice to look upon. + +What he really thought of what he had seen in America, of the sort of +people who had entertained him, of the grotesque imitation of exotic +society--or of a certain sort of it--nobody really knew. Doubtless his +estimate was inclined to be a kindly one, for he was essentially that--a +philosophical, chivalrous, and modest man; and if his lines had fallen +in places where vulgarity, extravagance, and ostentation +predominated--if he had encountered little real cultivation, less +erudition, and almost nothing worthy of sympathetic interest, he never +betrayed either impatience or contempt. + +He had come for one reason only--the same reason that had brought him to +America for the first time--to ask Strelsa Leeds to marry him. + +He was man enough to understand that she did not care for him that way, +soldier enough to face his fate, keen enough, long since, to understand +that Quarren meant more to the woman he cared for than any other man. + +Cool, self-controlled, he watched every chance for an opening in his own +behalf. No good chance presented itself. So he made one and offered +himself with a dignity and simplicity that won Strelsa's esteem but not +her heart. + +After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her. +Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be +on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he +was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also +he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for +it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and +words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious. + +Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding +furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa; +and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough. + +So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted +to get back to his own kind--into real life again, among people of real +position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live +things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material +or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well. + +There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there--except a +warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom +he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow. + +Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her +fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a +cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite +and delightful. + +The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming +surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made +few demands on his intellect--that is, at first she had made very few. +Later--within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find +how much there really was to the young girl--and that perhaps her age +and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between +them. + +Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a +while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that +a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to +present himself at so early an hour. + +A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not +yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him. + +Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a +dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the +colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered +up in a big cane-backed chair. + +"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night--sitting here +because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down." + +He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down +compassionately: + +"Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it. + +The old lady peered up at him: + +"You're sailing to-morrow?" + +"To-morrow," he said, gravely. + +"When do you return?" + +"I have made no plans to return." + +"You mean to say that you've given up the fight?" + +"There was never any fight," he said. + +Mrs. Sprowl scowled: + +"Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?" + +"Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better +than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can +scarcely question her decision." + +"Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew +of mine?" she demanded. + +"No," he said. + +"Then--do you mean young Quarren?" + +"I think I do," he said smiling. + +"I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad +that it may be Rix. It--it would have killed me to see her fall into +Langly's hands.... I'm ill on account of him--his shocking treatment of +me last evening. It was a brutal scene--one of those terrible family +scenes!--and he threatened me--cursed me----" + +She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they +snapped open again with the old fire undiminished: + +"Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him.... +But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"You are going back into everything, I suppose." + +"Yes." + +"To forget her, I suppose." + +He said pleasantly: + +"I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman +as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a +privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not--painful." + +Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of +the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in +her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of +phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat. + +"I did my best," she said hoarsely. "I'm not defeated if you're not. Say +the word and I'll start something--" And suddenly she remembered +Langly's threat involving the memory of a dead man whose only son now +stood before her. + +She knew that her words were vain, her boast empty; she knew there was +nothing more for her to do--nothing even that Sir Charles might do +toward winning Strelsa without also doing the only thing in the world +which could really terrify herself. Even at the mere thought of it she +trembled again, and fear forced her to speech born of fear: + +"Perhaps it is best for you to go," she faltered. "Absence is a last +resort.... It may be well to try it----" + +He bent over and took her hand: + +"There is no longer even a last resort," he said kindly. "I am quite +reconciled. She is different from any other woman; ours was and is a +high type of friendship.... Sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether +it ever could have been any more than that to either of us." + +Mrs. Sprowl looked up at him, her face so altered and softened that his +own grew graver. + +"You are like your father," she said unsteadily. "It was my privilege to +share his friendship.... And his friendship was of that +kind--high-minded, generous, pure--asking no more than it gave--no more +than it gave----" + +She laid her cheek against Sir Charles's hands, let it rest there an +instant, then averting her face motioned his dismissal. + +He went with a pleasant and gentle word or two; she sat bolt upright +among her silken pillows, lips grimly compressed, but on her tightly +closed eyelids tears trembled. + +Sir Charles drew a long deep breath in the outer sunshine, filling his +lungs with the fragrant morning air. Hedges still glistened with +spiders' tapestry; the birds which sulked all day in their early +moulting-fever still sang a little in the cool of the morning, and he +listened to them as he walked while his quiet, impartial eye ranged +over the lovely rolling country, dew-washed and exquisite under a +cloudless sky. + +Far away he saw the chimneys of Langly Sprowl's sprawling country-seat, +smoke rising from two, but he saw nothing of the angry horseman of the +day before. Once, in the distance on the edge of a copse, he saw a man +creeping about on all-fours, evidently searching for some lost object in +the thicket. Looking back from a long way off he saw him still searching +on his hands and knees, and wondered at his patience, half inclined to +go back and aid him. + +But about that time one of Sprowl's young bulls came walking over toward +him with such menacing observations and deportment that Sir Charles +promptly looked about him for an advance to the rear-front--a manoeuvre +he had been obliged to learn in the late Transvaal unpleasantness. + +And at the same moment he saw Chrysos Lacy. + +There was no time for explanations; clearly she was too frightened to +stir; so he quietly picked her up on his advance to the rear-front, +carrying her in the first-aid style approved by the H. B. M. medical +staff, and scaled the five-bar fence as no barrier had ever been scaled +at Aldershot or Olympia by any warrior in khaki or scarlet tunic. + +"Th-thank you," said Chrysos, unwinding her arms from the baronet's neck +as the bull came trotting up on the other side of the fence and bellowed +at them. Not the slightest atom of fright remained, only a wild-rose +tint in her cheeks. She considered the bull, absently, patted a tendril +of hair into symmetry; but the breeze loosened it again, and she let it +blow across her cheek. + +"We should have been in South Africa together," said Sir Charles. +"We manoeuvre beautifully as a unit." + +[Illustration: "'And it is to be your last breakfast.'"] + +The girl laughed, then spying more wild strawberries--the quest of which +had beguiled her into hostile territory--dropped on her knees and began +to explore. + +The berries were big and ripe--huge drops of crimson honey hanging +heavily, five to a stalk. The meadow-grass was red with them, and Sir +Charles, without more ado, got down on all-fours and started to gather +them with all the serious and thorough determination characteristic of +that warrior. + +"You're not to eat any, yet," said Chrysos. + +"Of course not; they're for your breakfast I take it," he said. + +"For yours." + +He straightened up on his knees: "For mine?" + +"Certainly." + +"You didn't go wandering afield at this hour to pick wild strawberries +for _my_ breakfast!" he said incredulously. + +"Yes, I did," said the girl; and continued exploring, parting the high +grass-stems to feel for and detach some berry-loaded stem. + +"Do you know," he said, returning to his labours, "that I am quite +overcome by your thought of me?" + +"Why? We are friends.... And it is to be your last breakfast." + +There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, but her pretty face was +carefully turned away so that if there was to be anything to notice in +the features he could not notice it. + +"I'll miss you a lot," he said. + +"And I you, Sir Charles." + +"You'll be over, I suppose." + +"I suppose so." + +"That will be jolly," he said, sitting back on his heels to rest, and to +watch her--to find pleasure in her youth and beauty as she moved +gracefully amid the fragrant grasses, one little sun-tanned hand +clasping a great bouquet of the crimson fruit which nodded heavily amid +tufts of trefoil leaves. + +In the barred shadow of the pasture-fence they rested from their +exertions, she rearranging their bouquets of berries and tying them fast +with grass-stems. + +"It has been a pleasant comradeship," he said. + +"Yes." + +"You have found it so, too?" + +"Yes." + +She appeared to be so intent, so absorbed on her bouquet tying that he +involuntarily leaned nearer to watch her. A fragrance faintly fresh +seemed to grow in the air around him as the hill-breeze stirred her +hair. If it came from the waving grass-tops, or the honeyed fruit or +from her hair, or perhaps from those small, smooth hands, he did not +know. + +For a long while they sat there without speaking, she steadily intent on +her tying. Then, while still busy with a cluster, her slim fingers +hesitated, wavered, relaxed; her hands fell to her lap, and she remained +so, head bent, motionless. + +After a moment he spoke, but she made no answer. + +Through and through him shot the thrilling comprehension of that +exquisite avowal, childlike in its silent directness, charming in its +surprise. A wave of tenderness and awe mounted within him, touching his +bronzed cheeks with a deeper colour. + +"If you will, Chrysos," he said in a still voice. + +She lifted her head and looked directly at him, and in her questioning +gaze there was nothing of fear--merely the question. + +"I can't bear to have you go," she said. + +"I can't go--alone." + +"Could you--care for me?" + +"I love you, Chrysos." + +Her eyes widened in wonder: + +"You--you don't _love_ me--do you?" + +"Yes," he said, "I do. Will you marry me, Chrysos?" + +Her fascinated gaze met his in silence. He drew her close to his +shoulder; she laid her cheek against it. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Toward the end of the first week in August Strelsa wrote to Quarren: + + "Sometimes I wonder whether you realise how my attitude toward + everything is altering. Things which seemed important no longer + appear so in the sunlit tranquillity of this lovely place. Whatever + it is that seems to be changing me in various ways is doing it so + subtly, yet so inexorably, that I scarcely notice any difference in + myself until some morning I awake with such a delicious sense of + physical well-being and such a mental happiness apropos of nothing + at all except the mere awaking into the world again, that, thinking + it over, I cannot logically account for it. + + "Because, Rix, my worldly affairs seem to be going from bad to + worse. I know it perfectly well, yet where is that deadly + fear?--where is the dismay, the alternate hours of panic and dull + lethargy--the shrinking from a future which only yesterday seemed + to threaten me with more than I had strength to endure--menace me + with what I had neither the will nor the desire to resist? + + "Gone, my friend! And I am either a fool or a philosopher, but + whichever I am, I am a happy one. + + "I wish to tell you something. Last winter when they fished me out + of my morbid seclusion, I thought that the life I then entered upon + was the only panacea for the past, the only oblivion, the only + guarantee for the future. + + "Now I suppose I have gone to the other extreme, because, let me + tell you what I've done. Will you laugh? I can't help it if you do; + I've bought a house! What do you think of that? + + "The owner took back a mortgage, but I don't care. I paid so _very_ + little for it, and thirty acres of woods and fields--and it is a + darling house!--built in the eighteenth century and not in good + repair, but it's mine! mine! mine!--and it may need paint and + plumbing and all sorts of things which perhaps make for human + happiness and perhaps do not. But I tell you I really don't care. + + "And how I did it was this: I took what they offered for my laces + and jewels--about a third of their value--but it paid every debt + and left me with enough to buy my sweet old house up here. + + "But that's not all! I've rented my town house furnished for a term + of five years at seven thousand dollars a year! Isn't it wonderful? + + "And _that_ is not all, either. I am going into business, Rix! + Don't dare laugh. Jim has made an arrangement with an independent + New York florist, and I'm going to grow flowers under glass for the + Metropolitan market. + + "And, if I succeed, I _may_ try fruits outdoors and in. My small + brain is humming with schemes, millions of them. Isn't it heavenly? + + "Besides, from my second-story windows I shall be able to see + Molly's chimneys above the elms. And Molly is going to remain here + all winter, because, Rix--and this is a close secret--a little heir + or heiress is coming to make _this_ House of Wycherly 'an + habitation enforced'--and a happier habitation than it has been + since they bought it. + + "So you see I shall have neighbours all winter--two neighbours, for + Mrs. Ledwith is wretchedly ill and her physicians have advised her + to remain here all winter. Poor child--for she is nothing else, + Rix--I met her for the first time when I went to call on Mrs. + Sprowl. She's so young and so empty-headed, just a shallow, + hare-brained, little thing who had no more moral idea of sin than a + humming-bird--nor perhaps has she any now except that the world has + hurt her and broken her wings and damaged her plumage; and the + sunlight in which she sparkled for a summer has faded to a chill + gray twilight!--Oh, Rix, it is really pitiful; and somehow I can't + seem to remember whether she was guilty or not, because she's so + ill, so broken--lying here amid the splendour of her huge house---- + + "You know Mrs. Sprowl is on her way to Carlsbad. You haven't + written me what took place in your last interview with her; and + I've asked you, twice. Won't you tell me? + + "Langly, thank goodness, never disturbs us. And, Rix, do you know + that he has never been to call on Mary Ledwith? He keeps to his own + estate and nobody even sees him. Which is all I ask at any rate. + + "So Sir Charles called on you and told you about Chrysos? Isn't Sir + Charles the most darling man you ever knew? _I_ never knew such a + man. There is not one atom of anything small or unworthy in his + character. And I tell you very frankly that, thinking about him at + times, I am amazed at myself for not falling in love with him. + +[Illustration: Strelsa Leeds.] + + "Which is proof sufficient that if I couldn't care for him I cannot + ever care for any man. Don't you think so? + + "Now all this letter has been devoted to matters concerning myself + and not one line to you and the exciting success you and Lord + Dankmere are making of your new business. + + "Oh, Rix, I am not indifferent; all the time I have been writing to + you, that has been surging and laughing in my heart--like some + delicious aria that charmingly occupies your mind while you go + happily about other matters--happy because the ceaseless melody + that enchants you makes you so. + + "I have read your letter so many times, over and over; and always + the same thrill of excitement begins when I come to the part where + you begin to suspect that under the daubed surface of that canvas + there may be something worth while. + + "Is it really and truly a Van Dyck? Is there any chance that it is + not? Is it possible that all these years none of Dankmere's people + suspected what was hidden under the aged paint and varnish of that + tiresome old British landscape? + + "And it remained for you to suspect it!--for _you_ to discover it? + Oh, Rix, I am proud of you! + + "And how perfectly wonderful it is that now you know its history, + when it was supposed to have disappeared, where it has remained + ever since under its ignoble integument of foolish paint. + + "No, I promise not to say one word about it until I have your + permission. I understand quite well why you desire to keep the + matter from the newspapers for the present. But--won't it make you + and Lord Dankmere rich? Tell me--please tell me. I don't want + money for myself any more, but I do want it for you. You need it; + you can do so much with it, use it so intelligently, so gloriously, + make the world better with it,--make it more beautiful, and people + happier. + + "What a chasm, Rix, between what we were a year ago, and what we + care to be--what we are trying to be to-day! Sometimes I think of + it, not unhappily, merely wondering. + + "Toward what goal were we moving a year ago? What was there to be + of such lives?--what at the end? Why, there was, for us, no more + significance in living than there is to any overfed animal!--not as + much! + + "Oh, this glorious country of high clouds and far horizons!--and + alas! for the Streets of Ascalon where such as I once was go to and + fro--'clad delicately in scarlet and ornaments of gold.' + + "'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Streets of + Ascalon'--that the pavements of the Philistines have bruised my + feet, and their Five Cities weary me, and Philistia's high towers + are become a burden to my soul. For their gods are too many and too + strange for me. So I am decided to remain here--ere 'they that look + out of their windows be darkened' and 'the doors be shut in the + Streets'--'and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.' + + "My poor comrade! Must you remain a prisoner in the Streets of + Ascalon? Yet, through your soul I know as free and fresh a breeze + is blowing as stirs the curtains at my open window!--You wonderful + man to evoke in imagery--to visualise and conceive all that had to + be concrete to cure me soul and body of my hurts! + + * * * * * + + "I have been reading Karl Westguard's new novel. Rix, there is no + story in it, nothing at all that I can discover except a very + earnest warming over of several modern philosophers' views and + conclusions concerning social problems. + + "I hate to speak unkindly of it; I wanted to like it because I like + Karl Westguard. But it isn't fiction and it isn't philosophy, and + its treatment of social problems seems to follow methods already + obsolete. + + "Do you think people will buy it? But I don't suppose Karl cares + since he's made up his quarrel with his aunt. + + "Poor old lady! Did you ever see anybody so subdued and forlorn? + Something has gone wrong with her. She told me that she had had a + most dreadful scene with Langly and that she had not been well + since. + + "I'm afraid that sounds like gossip, but I wanted you to know. _Is_ + it gossip for me to tell you so much? I tell you about everything. + If it's gossip, make me stop. + + * * * * * + + "And now--when are you coming to see me? I am still at Molly's, you + know. My house is being cleaned and sweetened and papered and + chintzed and made livable and lovable. + + "When?--please. + + "Your friend and comrade, + + STRELSA." + +Quarren telegraphed: + + "I'll come the moment I can. Look for me any day this week. Letter + follows." + +Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining +went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled +out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody's suspicions by hurrying, +so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs +began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway--and +probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the +repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to +furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently +Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a +coincidence utterly unfathomable. + +Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to +his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his +attention. + +And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang +and he had to go up and open. + +At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the +glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand +with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it; +and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting +nervously the next second. + +"Come in," said Quarren, pleasantly. "It's very nice of you to think of +me, Ledwith." + +The man's hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the +gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them. +Inside his loose summer clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting +continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of +the gallery. + +For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases, +meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things; +then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct, +the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he +moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring +into space and twitching his scarred fingers. + +"You're busy, I suppose," he said. + +"Yes, I am," said Quarren, frankly. "But that needn't make any +difference if you'd care to come to the basement and talk to me while +I'm at work." + +Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly: + +"You're _always_ kind to me, Quarren." + +"Get over that idea," laughed the younger man. "Strange as it may seem +my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs." + +In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his +visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work, +explaining it as it progressed: + +"Here's an old picture by some Italian gink--impossible to tell by whom +it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and +school.... See what I'm doing, Ledwith? + +"That's what we call 'rabbit glue' because it's made out of rabbits' +bones--or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue. + +"Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water--then I glue over the face +of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the +other--so! + +"Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a +new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and +now it's dry and tight. + +"Now I'm going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It's already +been relined--perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old +relining canvas--with hot water--this way--cleaning off all the old +paste or glue from it with alcohol.... + +"Now here's a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening; +and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very +gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher. + +"Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then--just watch +me do laundry work!" + +He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined +picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and +precaution of an expert laundress doing frills. + +Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest. + +"In three days," said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, "I'll +soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you +see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no +air get in to blister the surface." + +He picked up another picture and displayed it: + +"Here's a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have +already relined it and it's fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is +thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin." + +He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution of alcohol, and +very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it. +Then he gave it a coat of varnish. + +"Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like +this, doesn't it, Ledwith? But I'll tell you why. When that varnish +dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin +very cautiously but steadily to rub the varnished surface with my +fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has +partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and +dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and +will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh--very +often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted. + +"Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can +remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But +sooner or later I get it clean. + +"Then I dig out any old patches or restorations and fill in with a +composition of putty, white lead, and a drier, and smooth this with a +cork. Then when it is sunned for an hour a day for three weeks or +more--or less, sometimes--I'm ready to grind my pure colours, mix them, +set my palette, and do as honest a piece of restoring as a study of that +particular master's methods permits. And that, Ledwith, is only a little +part of my fascinating profession. + +"Sometimes I lift the entire skin of paint from a canvas--picking out +the ancient threads from the rotten texture--and transfer it to a new +canvas or panel. Sometimes I cross-saw a panel, then chisel to the +plaster that lies beneath the painting, and so transfer it to a new and +sound support. Sometimes--" he laughed--"but there are a hundred +delicate and interesting surgical operations which I attempt--a thousand +exciting problems to solve--experiments without end that tempt me, +innovations that allure me----" + +He laughed again: + +"_You_ ought to take up some fad and make a business and even an art out +of it!" + +"I?" said Ledwith, dully. + +"Why not? Man, you're young yet, if--if----" + +"Yes, I know, Quarren.... But my mind is too old--very old and very +infirm--dying in me of age--the age that comes through those centuries +of pain that men sometimes live through in a few months." + +Quarren looked at him hopelessly. + +"Yet," he said, "if only a man wills it, the world is new again." + +"But--if the will fails?" + +"I don't know, Ledwith." + +"I do." He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on +Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars. + +"Even that can be cured," said the younger man. + +"If there is a will to cure it, perhaps." + +"Even a desire is enough." + +"I have not that desire. Why cure it?" + +"Because, Ledwith, you haven't gone your limit yet. There's more of +life; and you're cheating yourself out of it." + +"Yes, perhaps. But what kind of life?" he asked, staring vaguely out +into the sunshine of the backyard. "Life in hell has no attractions for +me." + +"We make our own hells." + +"I didn't make mine. They dug the pit and I fell into it--Hell's own +pit, Quarren----" + +"You are wrong! You fell into a pit which hurt so much that you supposed +it was the pit of hell. And, taking it for granted, you burrowed deeper +in blind fury, until it became a real hell. But _you_ dug it. There _is_ +no hell that a man does not dig for himself!" + +In Ledwith's dull eyes a smouldering spark seemed to flash, go out, then +glimmer palely. + +"Quarren," he said, "I am not going to live in hell alone. I'm going +there, shortly, but not alone." + +Something new and sinister in his eyes arrested the other's attention. +He considered the man for a few moments, then, coolly: + +"I wouldn't, Ledwith." + +"Why not?" + +"He isn't worth it--even as company in hell." + +"Do you think I'm going to let him live on?" + +"Do you care to sink to his level?" + +"Sink! Can I sink any lower than I am?" + +Quarren shrugged: + +"Easily, if you commit murder." + +"That isn't murder----" + +But Quarren cut him short continuing: + +"Sink lower, you ask? What have you done, anyway--except to commit this +crime against yourself?"--touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of +any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you +stand--except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself! +Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites +itself. Is that why you are doing it?--to arouse the amusement and +contempt of your hunter?" + +"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me----" + +"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to +see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?" + +Ledwith's sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing +step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder. + +"Listen to me," he said; "has it never occurred to you that you could +deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face +to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own +vitals?" + +He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man: + +"If you say the word _I'll_ stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do +is to punish him, murder isn't the way. What does a dead man care? Cut +your own throat and the crime might haunt him--and might not. But +_kill_!--Nonsense. It's all over then--except for the murderer." + +He slid his hand quietly to Ledwith's arm, patted it. + +"To punish him you need a doctor.... It's only a week under the new +treatment. You know that, don't you? After that a few months to get back +nerve and muscle and common sense." + +"And then?" motioned Ledwith with dry lips. + +"Then? Oh, anything that you fancy. It's according to a man's personal +taste. You can take him by the neck and beat him up in public if you +like--or knock him down in the club as often as he gets up. It all +depends, Ledwith. Some of us maintain self-respect without violence; +some of us seem to require it. It's up to you." + +"Yes." + +Quarren said carelessly: "If I were you, I think that I'd face the world +as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough--the real world I +mean, Ledwith--either here or abroad, just as I felt about it. + +"A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty. +And--personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that. +But men's ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you +are, will go ultimately with the world. Beat him up if you like; but, +personally, I never even wished to kick a cur. Some men kick 'em to +their satisfaction; it's a matter of taste I tell you. Besides----" + +He stopped short; and presently Ledwith looked up. + +"Shall I say it?" + +"Yes. You are kind to me, always." + +"Then--Ledwith, I don't know exactly how matters stand. I can only try +to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do, +having arrived where you have landed.... And, do you know, if I were +you, and if I listened to my better self, I don't think that I'd lay a +finger on Langly Sprowl." + +"Why?" + +"For the sake of the woman who betrayed me--and who is now betrayed in +turn by the man who betrayed us both." + +Ledwith said through his set teeth: "Do you think I care for her? If I +nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about +her?" + +"You are generous enough to care, Ledwith." + +"I am not!" he said, hoarsely. "I don't care a damn!" + +"Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares +with her a coat of social whitewash?" + +"I--she is only a little fool--alone to face the world now----" + +"You're quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First +offenders are given it by law.... But even if that chance lay in his +marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won't do it? Or +by battering him with a dog-whip? + +"It isn't really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than +the social viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman +who marries such a man?" + +He smiled: "Because," he continued, "my viewpoint has changed. Things +that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and +do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me +than social absolution." + +Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something +indistinctly. + +"Wait a moment," said Quarren, throwing aside his painter's blouse and +pulling on his coat. "I'll ring up a taxi in a second!... You _mean_ it, +Ledwith?" + +The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded. + +"You're on!" said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone. + +While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren's sleeve +and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab, +whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone building +composed of several old-time private residences thrown together. + +"Stand by me, Quarren," he whispered brokenly--"you won't go away, will +you? You wouldn't leave me to face this all--all alone. You've been kind +to me. I--I can do it--I can try to do it just at this moment--if you'll +stay close to me--if you'll let me keep hold of you----" + +"Sure thing!" said Quarren cheerfully. "I'll stay as long as you like. +Don't worry about your clothes; I'll send for plenty of linen and things +for us both. You're all right, Ledwith--you've got the nerve. I----" + +The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered +them in. + +"Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment," she said, singling out Ledwith at +a glance. + + * * * * * + +Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not +return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere +promised to observe to the letter. + +Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa: + + "Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to + see your house and its new owner. + + R. S. Q." + +Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked +carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the +basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for +Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly. + +The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful when paying tribute +to Terpsichore; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the +back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the +tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a +ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick +or two at the ceiling. + +And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly, +discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently +enamoured of his own grace and agility. + +When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly +and came back to find her at her desk, laughing. + +For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the +fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all +alone--exclusive of intrusive customers--for a day or more, assuaged a +slight chagrin. + +"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I +am, Miss Vining--with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't +it?" + +"Why?" asked Miss Vining. + +"Why--what?" repeated the Earl, confused. + +"Why _should_ I know all your imperfections?" + +He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason. + +"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you +suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to +see those people at Witch-Hollow." + +"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and +rewriting the blank spaces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine +at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such +peculiar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse +himself and take his eyes elsewhere. + +"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly. + +"I am not going to take one." + +"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop--er--and all that, you +know!" + +"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I +don't expect to droop--er--and all that, you know." + +He laughed, after a moment, and so did she--a sweet, fearless, little +laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it--a pretty, +frank tribute to what had become a friendship--an accord born of +confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord +Dankmere. + +It had been of slow growth at first--imperceptibly their relations had +grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost +cordial--but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he +with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was +moody, too, at intervals. + +"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked. + +"Don't I laugh as though I like it?" + +She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a +British peer--which is really a very wonderful thing----" + +"Oh, come," he said: "it really _is_ rather a wonderful thing, but you +don't believe it." + +"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to +hear trumpets sounding in the far distance----" + +"My boots squeak----" + +"Nonsense! I _do_ hear a sort of a fairy fanfare playing 'Hail to the +Belted Earl!'" + +"I wear braces----" + +"How common of you to distort my meaning! I don't care, you may do as +you like--dance break-downs and hammer the piano, but to me you will +ever remain a British peer--poor but noble----" + +"Wait until we hear from that Van Dyck! You can't call me poor then!" + +She laughed, then, looking at him earnestly, involuntarily clasped her +hands. + +"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," she breathed with a happy, satisfied +sigh. + +"Are you really very happy about it, Miss Vining?" + +"I? Why shouldn't I be!" she said indignantly. "I'm so proud that our +gallery has such a picture. I'm so proud of Mr. Quarren for discovering +it--and--" she laughed--"I'm proud of you for possessing it. You see I +am very impartial; I'm proud of the gallery, of everybody connected with +it including myself. Shouldn't I be?" + +"We are three very perfect people," he said gravely. + +"Do you know that we really are? Mr. Quarren is wonderful, and you +are--agreeable, and as for me, why when I rise in the morning and look +into the glass I say to myself, 'Who is that rather clever-looking girl +who smiles at me every morning in such friendly fashion?' And, would you +believe it!--she turns out to be Jessie Vining every time!" + +She was in a gay mood; she rattled away at her machine, glancing over it +mischievously at him from time to time. He, having nothing to do except +to look at her, did so as often as he dared. + +And so they kept the light conversational shuttle-cock flying through +the sunny afternoon until it drew near to tea-time. Jessie said very +seriously: + +"No Englishman can exist without tea. Tea is as essential to him as it +is to British fiction. A microscopic examination of any novel made by a +British subject will show traces of tea-leaves and curates although, as +the text-books on chemistry have it, otherwise the substance of the work +may be colourless, tasteless, odourless, and gaseous to the verge of the +fourth dimension----" + +"If you don't cease making game of things British and sacred," he +threatened, "I'll try to stop you in a way that will astonish you." + +"What will you try to do?" she asked, much interested. + +He looked her steadily in the eyes: + +"I'll try to turn you into a British subject. One can't slam one's own +country." + +"How could you turn me into such an object, Lord Dankmere?" + +"There's only one way." + +Innocent for a few moments of his meaning she smilingly and derisively +defied him. Then, of a sudden, startled into immobility, the smile froze +on her lips. + +At the swift change in her expression his own features were slowly and +not unbecomingly suffused. + +Then, incredulous, and a little nervous, she rose to prepare the tea; +and he sprang up to bring the folding table. + +The ceremony passed almost in silence; neither he nor she made the +effort to return to the lighter, gayer vein. When they spoke at all it +was on some matter connected with business; and her voice seemed to him +listless, almost tired. + +Which was natural enough, for the heat had been trying, and, in spite of +the open windows, no breath of coolness stirred the curtains. + +So the last minutes of the afternoon passed but the sunshine still +reddened the cornices of the houses across the street when she rose to +put away the tea-things. + +A little later she pinned on her hat and moved toward the front door +with a friendly nod to him in silent adieu. + +"Will you let me walk home with you?" he said. + +"I--think--not, this evening." + +"Were you going anywhere?" + +She paused, her gloved hand on the knob, and he came up to her, slowly. + +"_Were_ you?" he repeated. + +"No." + +"Then--don't you care to let me walk with you?" + +She seemed to be thinking; her head was a trifle lowered. + +He said: "Before you go there is something I wanted to tell you"--she +made an involuntary movement and the door opened and hung ajar letting +in the lively music of a street-organ. Then he leaned over and quietly +closed the door. + +"I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm taking an unwarrantable liberty by +interfering in your affairs without consulting you." + +She looked up at him, surprised. + +"It happened yesterday about this hour," he said. + +"What happened?" + +"Do you remember that you went home about three o'clock instead of +waiting until this hour as usual?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, this is what occurred. I left the gallery at this same hour. +Ahead of me descending the steps was a young girl who had just delivered +a business letter to Mr. Quarren. As she set foot on the pavement a +footman attached to an automobile drawn up across the street touched his +cap to her and said: 'Beg pardon, Miss Vining, I am Mr. Sprowl's man. +Mr. Sprowl would like to see you at the Cafe Cammargue. The car is +waiting.'" + +Miss Vining's colour faded; she stared at Dankmere with widening eyes, +and he dropped his hands into his coat-pockets and returned her gaze. + +"I don't understand you," she said in a low voice. + +"Neither did the young girl addressed by the footman. Neither did I. But +I was interested. So I said to the footman: 'Bring around your car. I +shall have to explain about Miss Vining to Mr. Sprowl.'" + +"What!" she said breathlessly. + +"That's where I interfered, Miss Vining. And the footman looked +doubtful, too, but he signalled the chauffeur.... And so I went to the +Cafe Cammargue----" + +He hesitated, looking at her white and distressed face, then continued +coolly: + +"Sprowl seemed surprised to see me. He was waiting in a private room.... +He's looking rather badly these days.... We talked a few minutes----" + +Pale, angry, every sense of modesty and reserve outraged, the girl faced +him, small head erect: + +"You went there to--to discuss _me_ with _that_ man!" + +He was silent. She turned suddenly and tried to open the door, but he +held it closed. + +"I did it because I cared for you enough to do it," he said. "Don't you +understand? Don't you suppose I know that kind of man?" + +"It--it was not your business--" she faltered, twisting blindly at the +door-knob. "Let me go--please----" + +"I made it my business.... And that man understood that I was making it +my business. And he won't attempt to annoy you again.... Can you forgive +me?" + +She turned on him excitedly, her eyes flashing with tears, but the +impetuous words of protest died on her lips as her eyes encountered his. + +"It was because I love you," he said. And, as he spoke, there was about +the man a quiet dignity and distinction that silenced her--something of +which she may have had vague glimpses at wide intervals in their +acquaintances--something which at times she suspected might lie latent +in unknown corners of his character. Now it suddenly confronted her; and +she recognised it and stood before him without a word to say. + +It mended matters a little when he smiled, and the familiar friend +reappeared beside her; but she still felt strange and shy; and +wondering, half fearfully, she let him lift her gloved hands and stand, +holding them, looking into her eyes. + +"You know what I am," he said. "I have nothing to say about myself. But +I love you very dearly.... I loved before, once, and married. And she +died.... After that I didn't behave very well--until I knew you.... It +is really in me to be a decent husband--if you can care for me.... And I +don't think we're likely to starve----" + +"I--it isn't that," she said, flushing scarlet. + +"What?" + +"What you _have_ ... I could only care for--what you are." + +"Can you do that?" + +But her calm had vanished, and, head bent and averted, she was +attempting to withdraw her hands--and might have freed herself entirely +if it had not been for his arm around her. + +This new and disconcerting phase of the case brought her so suddenly +face to face with him that it frightened her; and he let her go, and +followed her back to the empty gallery where she sank down at her desk, +resting her arms on the covered type-machine, and buried her quivering +face in them. + +It was excusable. Such things don't usually happen to typewriters and +stenographers although they have happened to barmaids. + +When he had been talking eloquently and otherwise for a long time Jessie +Vining lifted her pale, tear-stained face from her arms; and his +lordship dropped rather gracefully on his knees beside her, and she +looked down at him very solemnly and wistfully. + +It was shockingly late when they closed the gallery that evening. And +their mode of homeward progress was stranger still, for instead of a +tram or of the taxi which Lord Dankmere occasionally prevailed upon her +to accept, they drifted homeward on a pink cloud through the light-shot +streets of Ascalon. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +To the solitary and replete pike, lying motionless in shadow, no +still-bait within reach is interesting. But the slightest movement in +his vicinity of anything helpless instantly rivets his attention; any +creature apparently in distress arouses him to direct and lightning +action whether he be gorged or not--even, perhaps, while he is still +gashed raw with the punishment for his last attempt. + +So it was with Langly Sprowl. He had come into town, sullen, restless, +still fretting with checked desire. Within him a dull rage burned; he +was ready to injure, ready for anything to distract his mind which, +however, had not given up for a moment the dogged determination to +recover the ground he had lost with perhaps the only woman in the world +he had ever really cared for. + +Yet, he was the kind of man who does not know what real love is. That +understanding had not been born in him, and he had not acquired it. He +was totally incapable of anything except that fierce passion which is +aroused by obstacles when in pursuit of whatever evinces a desire to +escape. + +It was that way with him when, by accident, he saw and recognised Jessie +Vining one evening leaving the Dankmere Galleries. And Langly Sprowl +never denied himself anything that seemed incapable of self-defence. + +He stopped his car and got out and spoke to her, very civilly, and with +a sort of kindly frankness which he sometimes used with convincing +effect. She refused the proffered car to take her to her destination, +but could not very well avoid his escort; and their encounter ended by +her accepting his explanations and his extended hand, perplexed, +unwilling to misjudge him, but thankful when he departed. + +After that he continued to meet her occasionally and walk home with her. + +Then he sent his footman and the car for her; and drew Lord Dankmere out +of the grab-bag, to his infinite annoyance. Worse, Dankmere had struck +him with an impact so terrific that it had knocked him senseless across +the table in a private dining-room of the Cafe Cammargue, where he +presently woke up with a most amazing eye to find the terrified +proprietor and staff playing Samaritan. + +In various papers annoying paragraphs concerning him had begun to +appear--hints of how matters stood between him and Mary Ledwith, ugly +innuendo, veiled rumours of the breach between him and his aunt +consequent upon his untenable position _vis-a-vis_ Mrs. Ledwith. + +Until Dankmere had inconvenienced his features he had walked downtown to +his office every day, lank, long-legged, sleek head held erect, hatchet +face pointed straight in front of him, his restless eyes encountering +everybody's but seeing nobody unless directly saluted. + +Now, his right eye rivalling a thunder-cloud in tints, he drove one of +his racing cars as fast as he dared, swinging through Westchester or +scurrying about Long Island. Occasionally he went aboard the _Yulan_, +but a burning restlessness kept him moving; and at last he returned to +South Linden in a cold but deadly rage, determined to win back the +chances which he supposed he had thrown away in the very moment of +victory. + +Strelsa Leeds had now taken up her abode in her quaint little house; he +learned that immediately; and that evening he went over and came upon +her moving about in the dusky garden, so intent on inspecting her +flowers that he was within a pace of her before she turned her head and +saw him. + +"Strelsa," he said, "can we not be friends again? I ask no more than +that." + +Too surprised and annoyed to reply she merely gazed at him. And, +because, for the first time in his life, perhaps, he really felt every +word he uttered, he spoke now with a certain simplicity and self-control +that sounded unusual to her ears--so noticeably unlike what she knew of +him that it commanded her unwilling attention. + +For his unpardonable brutality and violence he asked forgiveness, +promising to serve her faithfully and in friendship for the privilege of +attempting to win back her respect and regard. He asked only that. + +He said that he scarcely knew what to do with his life without the hope +of recovering her respect and esteem; he asked for a beggar's chance, +begged for it with a candour and naivete almost boyish--so directly to +the point tended every instinct in him to recover through caution and +patience what he had lost through carelessness and a violence which +still astonished him. + +The Bermuda lilies were in bloom and Strelsa stood near them, listening +to him, touching the tall stalks absently at intervals. And while she +listened she became more conscious still of the great change in +herself--of her altered attitude toward so much in life that once had +seemed to her important. After he had ceased she still stood pensively +among the lilies, gray eyes brooding. At length, looking up, she said +very quietly: + +"Why do you care for my friendship, Langly? I am not the kind of woman +you think me--not even the kind I once thought myself. To me friendship +is no light thing either to ask for or to give. It means more to me than +it once did; and I give it very seldom, and sparingly, and to very, very +few. But toward everybody I am gently disposed--because, I am much +happier than I ever have been in all my life.... Is not my good will +sufficient for any possible relation between you and me?" + +"Then you are no longer angry with me?" + +"No--no longer angry." + +"Can we be friends again? Can you really forgive me, Strelsa?" + +"Why--yes, I could do that.... But, Langly, what have you and I in +common as a basis for friendship? What have we ever had in common? +Except when we encounter each other by hazard, why should we ever meet +at all?" + +"You have not pardoned me, Strelsa," he said patiently. + +"Does that really make any difference to you? It doesn't to me. It is +only because I never think of you that it would be an effort to forgive +you. I'll make that effort if you wish, but really, Langly, I never +think about you at all." + +"If that is true, let me be with you sometimes, Strelsa," he said in a +low voice. + +"Why?" + +"Because I am wretchedly unhappy. And I care for you--more than you +realise." + +She said seriously: "You have no right to speak that way to me, Langly." + +"Could you ever again give me the right to say I love you?" + +A quick flush of displeasure touched her cheeks; he saw it in the dusk +of the garden, and mistook it utterly: + +"Strelsa--listen to me, dear! I have not slept since our quarrel. I must +have been stark mad to say and do what I did.... Don't leave me! Don't +go! I beg you to listen a moment----" + +She had started to move away from him and his first forward step broke a +blossom from its stalk where it hung white in the dusk. + +"I ask you to go," she said under her breath. "There are people here--on +the veranda----" + +Every sense within him told him to go, pretending resignation. That was +his policy. He had come here for martyrdom, cuirassed in patience. Every +atom of common sense warned him to go. + +But also every physical sense in him was now fully aroused--the silvery +star-dusk, the scent of lilies, a slender woman within arm's reach--this +woman who had once been so nearly his--who was still rightfully +his!--these circumstances were arousing him once more to a temerity +which his better senses warned him to subdue. Yet if he could only get +nearer to her--if he could once get her into his arms--overwhelm her +with the storm of passion rising so swiftly within him, almost choking +him--so that his voice and limbs already trembled in its furious +surge---- + +"Strelsa--I love you! For God's sake show me some mercy!" he stammered. +"I come to you half crazed by the solitude to which your anger has +consigned me. I cannot endure it--I need you--I want you--I ask for your +compassion----" + +"Hush!" she pleaded, hastily retreating before him through the snowy +banks of rockets--"I have asked you not to speak to me that way! I ask +you to go--to go now!--because----" + +"Will you listen to me! Will you wait a moment! I am only trying to tell +you that I love you, dear----" + +He almost caught her, but she sprang aside, frightened, still retreating +before him. + +"I cannot go until you listen to me!--" he said thickly, trampling +through the flowers to intercept her. "You've got to listen!--do you +hear?" + +She had almost reached the terrace; the shadowy veranda opened widely +beyond. + +"There are people here! Don't you understand?" she said once more in a +choking voice; but he only advanced, and she fell back before him to the +very edge of the porch lattice. + +"Now listen to me!" he said between his teeth. "I love you and I'll +never give you up----" + +Suddenly she turned on him, hands tightly clenched: + +"Be silent!" she whispered fiercely. "I tell you what you say is +indecent, revolting! If there were a man here he'd kill you! Do you +understand?" + +At the same instant his eyes became fixed on a figure in white which +took shadowy shape on the dark veranda, rising and coming slowly +forward. + +Ghostlike as it was he knew it instantly, stood rooted in his tracks +while Strelsa stole away from him through the star-lit gloom, farther, +farther, slipping forever from him now--he knew that as he stood there +staring like a damned man upon that other dim shape in the darkness +beyond. + +It was his first glimpse of her since her return from Reno. And now, +unbidden, memories half strangled were already in full resurrection, +gasping in his ears of things that had been--of forgotten passion, of +pleasure promised; and, because never tasted, it had been the true and +only pleasure for such a man as he--the pleasure of anticipation. But +the world had never, would never believe that. Only he, and the phantom +there in the dusk before him, knew it to be true. + +Slightly reeling he turned away in the darkness. In his haunted ears +sounded a young wife's voice, promising, caressing; through and through +him shot a thrill of the old excitement, the old desire, urging him +again toward belated consummation. + +And again the old impatience seized him, the old ruthlessness, the old +anger at finding her weak in every way except one, the old contempt +which had turned to sullen amazement when she wrote him that she had +gone to Reno and that they must wait for their happiness until the +courts decreed it legal. + +Now as he swung along under the high stars he was thinking of these +things. And he felt that he had not tried her enough, had not really +exerted himself--that women who are fools require closer watching than +clever ones; that he could have overcome her scruples with any real +effort and saved her from giving him the slip and sowing a wind in Reno +which already had become enough of a breeze to bother him. + +With her, for a while, he might be able to distract his mind from this +recent obsession tormenting him. To overcome her would interest him; +and he had no doubt it could be done--for she was a little fool--silly +enough to slap the world in the face and brave public opinion at Reno. +No--it was not necessary to marry such a woman. She might think so, but +it wasn't. + +He had behaved unwisely, too. Why should he not have gone to see her +when she returned? By doing so, and acting cleverly, he could have +avoided trouble with his aunt, and also these annoying newspaper +paragraphs. Also he could have avoided the scene with Ledwith--and the +aborted reconciliation just now with Strelsa, where he had stood staring +at the apparition of Mary Ledwith as lost souls stand transfixed before +the pallid shades of those whom they have destroyed. + +At his lodge-gate a half-cowering dog fawned on him and he kicked it +aside. The bruised creature fled, and Sprowl turned in at his gates and +walked slowly up the cypress-bordered drive. + + * * * * * + +He thought it all out that night, studied it carefully. What he needed +was distraction from the present torment. Mary Ledwith could give that +to him. What a fool she had been ever to imagine that she could be +anything more than his temporary mistress. + +"The damned little idiot," he mused--"cutting away to Reno before I knew +what she was up to--and involving us both in all that talk! What did she +flatter herself I wanted, anyway.... But I ought to have called on her +at once; now it's going to be difficult." + +Yet he sullenly welcomed the difficulty--hoped that she'd hold out. That +was what he wanted, the excitement of it to take his mind from +Strelsa--keep him interested and employed until the moment arrived once +more when he might venture to see her again. He was, by habit, a patient +man. Only in the case of Strelsa Leeds had passion ever prematurely +betrayed him; and, pacing his porch there in the darkness, he set his +teeth and wondered at himself and cursed himself, unable to reconcile +what he knew of himself with what he had done to the only woman he had +ever wished to marry as a last resort. + + * * * * * + +For two weeks Sprowl kept to himself. Few men understood better than he +what was the medicinal value of time. Only once had he dared ignore it. + +So one evening, late in August, still dressed in knickerbockers and +heather-spats, he walked from his lawn across country to make the first +move in a new game with Mary Ledwith. + +Interested, confident, already amused, and in far better spirits than he +had been for many a day, he strode out across the fields, swinging his +walking-stick, his restless eyes seeing everything and looking directly +at nothing. + +Which was a mistake on his part for once, because, crossing a pasture +corner, his own bull, advancing silently from a clump of willows, nearly +caught him; but Sprowl went over the fence and, turning, brought down +his heavy stick across the brute's ringed nose; and the animal bellowed +at him and tore up the sod and followed along inside the fence +thundering his baffled fury as long as Sprowl remained in sight. + +It was not all bad disposition. Sprowl, who cared nothing for animals, +hated the bull, and, when nothing more attractive offered, was +accustomed to come to the fence, irritate the animal, lure him within +range, and strike him. He had done it many times; and, some day, he +meant to go into the pasture with a rifle, stand the animal's charge, +and shoot him. + +It was a calm, primrose-tinted sunset where trees and hills and a +distant spire loomed golden-black against the yellow west. No trees had +yet turned, although, here and there on wooded hills, single discoloured +branches broke the green monotony. + +No buckwheat had yet been cut, but above the ruddy fields of stalks the +snow of the blossoms had become tarnished in promise of maturity--the +first premonition of autumn except for a few harvest apples yellow amid +green leaves. + +He had started without any definite plan, a confident but patient +opportunist; and as he approached the Ledwith property and finally +sighted the chimneys of the house above the trees, something--some +errant thought seemed to amuse him, for he smiled slightly. His smile +was as rare as his laughter--and as brief; and there remained no trace +of it as he swung up the last hill and stood there gazing ahead. + +The sun had set. A delicate purple haze already dimmed distances; and +the twilight which falls more swiftly as summer deepens into autumn was +already stealing into every hollow and ravine, darkening the alders +where the stream stole swampwards. A few laggard crows were still +winging toward the woods; a few flocks of blackbirds passed overhead +almost unseen against the sky. Somewhere some gardener had been burning +leaves and refuse, and the odour made the dusk more autumn-like. + +As he crossed the line separating his land from the Ledwith estate he +nodded to the daughter of one of his own gardeners who was passing with +a collie; and then he turned to look again at the child whose slender +grace and freshness interested him. + +"Look out for that bull, Europa," he said, staring after her as she +walked on. + +She looked back at him, laughingly, and thanked him and went on quite +happily, the collie plodding at her heels. Recently Sprowl had been very +pleasant to her. + +When she was out of sight he started forward, climbed the fence into the +road, followed it to the drive-way, and followed that among the elms +and Norway firs to the porch. + +It was so dark here among the trees that only the lighted transom guided +him up the steps. + +To the maid who came to the door he said coolly: "Say to Mrs. Ledwith +that Mr. Sprowl wishes to see her for a moment on a very important +matter." + +"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home, sir." + +"What?" + +"Mrs. Ledwith is not at home." + +"Where is she; out?" + +"Y-yes, sir." + +"Where?" + +"I don't know, sir----" + +"Yes, you do. Mrs. Ledwith is at home but has given you instructions +concerning me. Isn't that so?" + +The maid, crimson and embarrassed, made no answer, and he walked past +her into the drawing-room. + +"Light up here," he said. + +"Please, sir----" + +"Do as I tell you, my good girl. Here--where's that button?--there!--" +as the pretty room sprang into light--"Now never mind your instructions +but go and say to Mrs. Ledwith that I _must_ see her." + +He calmly unfolded a flat packet of fresh bank-notes, selected one, +changed it on reflection for another of higher denomination, and handed +it to her. The girl hesitated, still irresolute until he lifted his +narrow head and stared at her. Then she went away hurriedly. + +When she returned to say that Mrs. Ledwith was not at home to Mr. Sprowl +he shrugged and bade her inform her mistress that their meeting was not +a matter of choice but of necessity, and that he would remain where he +was until she received him. + +Again the maid went away, evidently frightened, and Sprowl lighted a +cigarette and began to saunter about. When he had examined everything in +the room he strolled into the farther room. It was unlighted and suited +him to sit in; and he installed himself in a comfortable chair and, +throwing his cigarette into the fire-place, lighted a cigar. + +This was a game he understood--a waiting game. The game was traditional +with his forefathers; every one of them had played it; their endless +patience had made a fortune to which each in turn had added before he +died. Patience and courage--courage of the sort known as personal +bravery--had distinguished all his race. He himself had inherited +patience, and had used it wisely except in that one inexplicable +case!--and personal courage in him had never been lacking, nor had what +often accompanies it, coolness, obstinacy, and effrontery. + +He had decided to wait until his cigar had been leisurely finished. +Then, other measures--perhaps walking upstairs, unannounced, perhaps an +unresentful withdrawal, a note by messenger, and another attempt to see +her to-morrow--he did not yet know--had arrived at no conclusion--but +would make up his mind when he finished his cigar and then do whatever +caution dictated. + +Once a servant came to the door to look around for him, and when she +discovered him in the half-light of the music-room she departed hastily +for regions above. This amused Sprowl. + +As he lounged there, thoroughly comfortable, he could hear an occasional +stir in distant regions of the house, servants moving perhaps, a door +opened or closed, faint creaks from the stairs. Once the distant sounds +indicated that somebody was using a telephone; once, as he neared the +end of his cigar, a gray cat stole in, caught sight of him, halted, her +startled eyes fixed on him, then turned and scuttled out into the hall. + +Finally he rose, flicked his cigar ashes into the fireplace, stretched +his powerful frame, yawned, and glanced at his watch. + +And at the same instant somebody entered the front door with a +latch-key. + +Sprowl stood perfectly still, interested, waiting: and two men, +bare-headed and in evening dress, came swiftly but silently into the +drawing-room. One was Quarren, the other Chester Ledwith. Quarren took +hold of Ledwith's arm and tried to draw him out of the room. Then +Ledwith caught sight of Sprowl and started toward him, but Quarren again +seized his companion by the shoulder and dragged him back. + +"I tell you to keep quiet," he said in a low voice--"Keep out of +this!--go out of the house!" + +"I can't, Quarren! I----" + +"You promised not to come in until that man had left----" + +"I know it. I meant to--but, good God! Quarren! I can't stand there----" + +He was struggling toward Sprowl and Quarren was trying to push him back +into the hall. + +"You said that you had given up any idea of personal vengeance!" he +panted. "Let me deal with him quietly----" + +"I didn't know what I was saying," retorted Ledwith, straining away from +the man who held him, his eyes fixed on Sprowl. "I tell you I can't +remain quiet and see that blackguard in this house----" + +"But he's going I tell you! He's going without a row--without any noise. +Can't you let me manage it----" + +He could not drag Ledwith to the door, so he forced him into a chair and +stood guard, glancing back across his shoulder at Sprowl. + +"You'd better go," he said in a low but perfectly distinct voice. + +Sprowl, still holding his cigar, sauntered forward into the +drawing-room. + +"I suppose you are armed," he said contemptuously. "If you threaten me +I'll take away your guns and slap both your faces--ask the other pup how +it feels, Quarren." + +Ledwith struggled to rise but Quarren had him fast. + +"Get out of here, Sprowl," he said. "You'll have a bad time of it if he +gets away from me." + +Sprowl stared, hands in his pockets, puffing his cigar. + +"I've a notion to kick you both out," he drawled. + +"It would be a mistake," panted Quarren. "Can't you go while there's +time, Sprowl! I tell you he'll kill you in this room if you don't." + +"I won't--_kill_ him!--Let go of me, Quarren," gasped Ledwith. "I--I +won't do murder; I've promised you that--for _her_ sake----" + +"Let him loose, Quarren," said Sprowl. + +He waited for a full minute, watching the struggling men in silent +contempt. Then with a shrug he went out into the hall, leisurely put on +his hat, picked up his stick, opened the door, and sauntered out into +the darkness. + +"Now," breathed Quarren fiercely, "you play the man or I'm through with +you! He's gone and he won't come back--I'll see to that! And it's up to +you to show what you're made of!" + +Ledwith, freed, stood white and breathing hard for a few moments. Then a +dull flush suffused his thin face; he looked down, stood with hanging +head, until Quarren laid a hand on his shoulder. + +"It's up to you, Ledwith," he said quietly. "I don't blame you for +losing your head a moment, but if you mean what you said, I should say +that this is your chance.... And if I were you I'd simply go upstairs +and speak to her.... She's been through hell.... She's in it still. But +_you're_ out; and you can stay out if you choose. There's no need to +wallow if you don't want to. You're not in very good shape yet, but +you're a man. And now, if you do care for her, I really believe it's up +to you.... Will you go upstairs?" + +Ledwith turned and went out into the familiar hall. Then, as though +dazed, resting one thin hand on the rail, he mounted the stairway, head +hanging, feeling his way blindly back toward all that life had ever +held for him, but which he had been too weak to keep or even to defend. + +[Illustration: "'Let him loose, Quarren,' said Sprowl."] + +Quarren waited for a while; Ledwith did not return. After a few minutes +an excited maid came down, stared at him, then, reassured, opened the +door for him with a smile. And he went out into the starlight. + +He had been walking for only a few moments when he overtook Sprowl +sauntering down a lane; and the latter glanced around and, recognising +him, halted. + +"Where's the other hero?" he asked. + +"Probably discussing you with the woman he is likely to remarry." + +Sprowl shrugged: + +"That's what that kind of a man is made for--to marry what others don't +have to marry." + +"You lie," said Quarren quietly. + +Sprowl stared at him: then the long-pent fury overwhelmed his common +sense again, and again it was in regard to the woman he had lost by his +violence. + +"You know," he said, measuring his words, "that you're the same kind of +a man, too. And some day, if you're good, you can marry what I don't +have to marry----" + +He reeled under Quarren's blow, then struck at him blindly with his +walking-stick, leaping at him savagely but recoiling, dizzy, half +senseless under another blow so terrific that it almost nauseated him. + +He stood for a time, supporting himself against a tree; then as his wits +returned he lifted his bruised face and stared murderously about him. +Quarren was walking toward Witch-Hollow--half way there already and out +of earshot as well as sight. + +Against the stars something moved on a near hill-top, and Sprowl reeled +forward in pursuit, breaking into a heavy and steady run as the thing +disappeared in the darkness. But he had seen it move, just beyond that +fence, and he seized the top rail and got over and ran forward in the +darkness, clutching his stick and calling to Quarren by name. + +Where had he gone? He halted to listen, peering around with swollen +eyes. Blood dripped from his lips and cheek; he passed his hand over +them, glaring, listening. Suddenly he heard a dull sound close behind +him in the night; whirled to confront what was coming with an unseen +rush, thundering down on him, shaking the very ground. + +He made no outcry; there was no escape, nothing to do but to strike; and +he struck with every atom of his strength; and went crashing down into +darkness. And over his battered body bellowed and raged the bull. + + * * * * * + +Even the men who found them there in the morning could scarcely drive +away the half-crazed brute. And the little daughter of the gardener, who +had discovered what was there in the pasture, cowered in the fence +corner, crying her heart out for her father's dead master who had spoken +kindly to her since she had grown up and who had even taken her into his +arms and kissed her the day before when she had brought him a rare +orchid from the greenhouse. + + * * * * * + +Every newspaper in America gave up the right-hand columns to huge +headlines and an account of the tragedy at South Linden. Every paper in +the world chronicled it. There were few richer men in the world than +Langly Sprowl. The tragedy moved everybody in various ways; stocks, +however, did not move either way to the surprise of everybody. On second +thoughts, however, the world realised that his wealth had been too +solidly invested to cause a flurry. Besides he had a younger brother +financing something or other for the Emperor of China. Now he would +return. The great race would not become extinct. + + * * * * * + +That night Quarren went back to the Wycherlys and found Molly waiting +for him in the library. + +"What on earth did Mary Ledwith want of Jim this evening?" she asked. + +"Sprowl was in the house." + +"What!" + +"That's why the poor child telephoned. She was probably afraid of him, +and wanted Jim there." + +Molly's teeth clicked: + +"Jim would have half-killed him. It's probably a good thing he was in +town. What did you do?" + +"Nothing. Sprowl went all right." + +"What did Mary say to you?" + +"I didn't see her." + +"You didn't _see_ her?" + +"No." + +Molly's eyes grew rounder: + +"Where is Chester Ledwith? He didn't go with you into the house, did +he?" + +"Yes, he did." + +"But where is he? You--you don't mean to say----" + +"Yes, I do. He went upstairs and didn't return.... So I waited for a +while and then--came back." + +They sat silent for a while, then Molly lifted her eyes to his and they +were brimming with curiosity. + +"If they become reconciled," she said, "how are people going to take it, +Rix?" + +"Characteristically I suppose." + +"You mean that some will be nasty about it?" + +"Some." + +"But then----" + +"Oh, Molly, Molly," he said, smiling, "there are more important things +than what a few people are likely to think or say. The girl made a fool +of herself, and the man weakened and nearly went to pieces. He's found +himself again; he's disposed to help her find herself. It was only one +of those messes that the papers report every day. Few get out of such +pickles, but I believe these two are going to.... And somehow, do you +know--from something Sprowl said to-night, I don't believe that she went +the entire limit--took the last ditch." + +Molly reddened: "Why?" + +"Because, although they do it in popular fiction, men like Sprowl never +really boast of their successes. His sort keep silent--when there's +anything to conceal." + +"Did he boast?" + +"He did. I was sure he was lying, and I--" he shrugged. + +"Told him so?" + +"Well, something of that sort." + +"I believe he was lying, too.... It was just like that romantic little +fool to run off to Reno after nothing worse than the imprudence of +infatuation. I've known her a long while, Rix. She's too shallow for +real passion, too selfish to indulge it anyway. His name and fortune did +the business for her--little idiot. Really she annoys me." + +Quarren smiled: "Her late husband seems to like her. Fools feminine have +made many a man happy. You'll be nice to her I'm sure." + +"Of course.... Everybody will on Mrs. Sprowl's account." + +Quarren laughed again, then: + +"Meanwhile this Ledwith business has prevented my talking to Strelsa +over the telephone," he said. + +"Oh, Rix! You _said_ you were going to surprise her in the morning!" + +"But I want to see her, Molly. I don't want to wait----" + +"It's after ten and Strelsa has probably retired. She's a perfect +farmer, I tell you--yawns horribly every evening at nine. Why, I can't +keep her awake long enough to play a hand at Chinese Khan! Be +reasonable, Rix. You had planned to surprise her in the morning.... +And--I'm lonely without Jim.... Besides, if you are clever enough to +burst upon Strelsa's view in the morning when the day is young and all +before her, and when she's looking her very best, nobody can tell what +might happen.... And I'll whisper in your ear that the child has really +missed you.... But don't be in a hurry with her, will you, Rix?" + +"No," he said absently. + +Molly picked up her knitting. + +"If Chester Ledwith doesn't return by twelve I'm going to have the house +locked," she said, stifling a yawn. + +At twelve o'clock the house was accordingly locked for the night. + +"It's enough to compromise her," said Molly, crossly. "What a pair of +fools they are." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Strelsa, a pink apron pinned about her, a trowel in her gloved hand, +stood superintending the transplanting of some purple asters which not +very difficult exploit was being attempted by a local yokel acting as +her "hired man." + +The garden, a big one with a wall fronting the road, ran back all the +way to the terrace in the rear of the house beyond which stretched the +western veranda. + +And it was out on this veranda that Quarren stepped in the wake of +Strelsa's maid, and from there he caught his first view of Strelsa's +garden, and of Strelsa herself, fully armed and caparisoned for the +perennial fray with old Dame Nature. + +"You need not go down there to announce me," he said; "I'll speak to +Mrs. Leeds myself." + +But before he could move, Strelsa, happening to turn around, saw him on +the veranda, gazed at him incredulously for a moment, then brandished +her trowel with a clear, distant cry of greeting, and came toward him, +laughing in her excitement and surprise. They met midway, and she +whipped off her glove and gave him her hand in a firm, cool clasp. + +"Why the dickens didn't you wire!" she said. "You're a fraud, Rix! I +might easily have been away!--You might have missed me--we might have +missed each other.... Is _that_ all you care about seeing me?--after all +these weeks!" + +"I wanted to surprise you," he explained feebly. + +"Well, you didn't! That is--not much. I'd been thinking of you--and I +glanced up and saw you. You're stopping at Molly's I suppose." + +"Yes." + +"When did you arrive?" + +"L-last night," he admitted. + +"What! And didn't call me up! I refuse to believe it of you!" + +She really seemed indignant, and he followed her into the pretty house +where presently she became slightly mollified by his exuberant +admiration of the place. + +"Are you in earnest?" she said. "Do you really think it so pretty? If +you do I'll take you upstairs and show you my room, and the three +beautiful spick and span guest rooms. But _you'll_ never occupy one!" +she added, still wrathful at his apparent neglect of her. "I don't want +anybody here who isn't perfectly devoted to me. And it's very plain that +you are not." + +He mildly insisted that he was but she denied it, hotly. + +"And I shall _never_ get over it," she added. "But you may come upstairs +and see what you have missed." + +They went over the renovated house thoroughly; she, secretly enchanted +at his admiration and praise of everything, pointed out any object that +seemed to have escaped his attention merely to hear him approve it. +Finally she relented. + +"You _are_ satisfactory," she said as they returned to the front veranda +and seated themselves. "And really, Rix, I'm so terribly glad to see you +that I forgive your neglect.... Are you well? You don't look very +well," she added earnestly. "Why are you so white?" + +[Illustration: "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."] + +"I'm in fine shape, thank you." + +"I didn't mean your figure," she laughed--"Oh, that _was_ a common kind +of a joke, wasn't it? But I'm only a farmer, Rix. You must expect the +ruder and simpler forms of speech from a lady of the woodshed!... Why +are you so pale?" + +"Do I seem particularly underdone?" + +"That's horrid, too. Are you and I going to degenerate just because you +work for a living? You _are_ unusually thin, anyway; and the New York +pallor is very noticeable. Will you stay and get sun-burnt?" + +"I _could_ stay a few days." + +"How many?" + +"How many do you want me? Two whole days, Strelsa?" + +She laughed at him, then looked at him a trifle shyly, but laughed again +as she answered: + +"I want you to stay always, of course. Don't pretend that you don't know +it, because you are perfectly aware that I never tire of you. But if you +can stay only two days don't let us waste any time----" + +"We're not wasting it here together, are we?" + +"Don't you want to walk? I haven't a horse yet, except for agricultural +purposes. I'll rinse my hands and take off this apron--" She stood +unpinning and untying it, her gray eyes never leaving him in their +unabashed delight in him. + +Then she disappeared for a few minutes only to reappear wearing a pair +of stout little shoes and carrying a walking-stick which she said she +used in rough country. + +And first they visited her garden where all the old-fashioned autumn +flowers were in riotous bloom--scarlet sage, rockets, thickets of +gladiolus, heavy borders of asters, marigolds, and coreopsis; and here +she gave a few verbal directions to the yokel who gaped toothlessly in +reply. + +After that, side by side, they swung off together across the hill, she, +lithe and slender, setting the springy pace and twirling her +walking-stick, he, less accustomed to the open and more so to the smooth +hot streets of the city, slackening pace first. + +She chided and derided him and bantered him scornfully, then with sudden +sweet concern halted, reproaching herself for setting too hot a pace for +a city-worn and work-worn man. + +But the cool shadows of the woods were near, and she made him rest on +the little footbridge--the same bridge where he had encountered Ledwith +for the first time in years. He recognised the spot. + +After they had seated themselves and Strelsa, resting on the back of the +bridge seat, was contentedly dabbling in the stream with her cane, +Quarren said, slowly: + +"Shall I tell you why I did not disturb you last night, Strelsa?" + +"You can't excuse it----" + +"You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though----" + +"I am listening." + +"Then, it has to do with Ledwith. He's not very well but he's better +than he was. You see he wanted to take a course of treatment to regain +his health, and there seemed to be nobody else, so--I offered to see +him through." + +"That's like you, Rix," she said, looking at him. + +"Oh, it wasn't anything--I had nothing to do----" + +"That's like you, too. Did you pull him through?" + +"He pulled himself through.... It was strenuous for two or three +days--and hot as the devil in that sanitarium." ... He laughed. "We both +were wrecks when we came out two weeks later--oh, a bit groggy, that's +really all.... And he had no place to go--and seemed to be inclined to +keep hold of my sleeve--so I telephoned Molly. And she said to bring him +up. That was nice of her, wasn't it?" + +"Everybody is wonderful except you," she said. + +"Nonsense," he said, "it wasn't I who went through a modified hell. He's +got a lot of backbone, Ledwith.... And so we came up last night.... +And--now here's the interesting part, Strelsa! We strolled over to call +on Mrs. Ledwith----" + +"What!" + +"Certainly. I myself didn't see her but--" he laughed--"she seemed to be +at home to her ex-husband." + +"Rix!" + +"It's a fact. He went back there for breakfast this morning after he'd +changed his clothes." + +"After--_what_?" + +"Yes. It seems that they started out in a canoe about midnight and he +didn't turn up at Witch-Hollow until just before breakfast--and then he +only stayed long enough to change to boating flannels.... You should see +him; he's twenty years younger.... I fancy they'll get along together in +future." + +"Oh, Rix!" she said, "that was darling of you! You _are_ wonderful even +if you don't seem to know it!... And to think--to _think_ that Mary +Ledwith is going to be happy again!... Oh, you don't know how it has +been with her--the silly, unhappy little thing! + +"Why, after Mrs. Sprowl left, the girl went all to pieces. Molly and I +did what we could--but Molly isn't strong and Mrs. Ledwith was at my +house almost all the time--Oh, it was quite dreadful, and I'm sure she +was really losing her senses--because--I think I'll tell you--I tell you +everything--" She hesitated, and then, lowering her voice: + +"She had come to see me, and she was lying on the lounge in my +dressing-room, crying; and I was doing my hair. And first I knew she +sobbed out that she had killed her husband and wanted to die, and she +caught up that pistol that Sir Charles gave me at the Bazaar last +winter--it looked like a real one--and the next thing I knew she had +fired a charge of Japanese perfume at her temple, and it was all over +her face and hair!... Don't laugh, Rix; she thought she had killed +herself, and I had a horrid, messy time of it reviving her." + +"You poor child," he exclaimed trying not to laugh--"she had no brains +to blow out anyway.... That's a low thing to say. Ledwith likes her.... +I really believe she's been scared into life-long good behaviour." + +"She wasn't--really--horrid," said Strelsa in a low voice. "She told me +so." + +"I don't doubt it," he said. "But one way or the other you might as well +reproach a humming-bird for its morals. There are such people." + +After a short silence she said: + +"Tell me about people in town." + +"There are few there. Besides," he added smilingly, "I don't see much of +your sort of people." + +"_My_ sort?" she repeated, lifting her gray eyes. "Am I not your sort, +Rix?" + +"Are you? You should see me in my overalls and shirt-sleeves, stained +with solvents and varnish, sticky with glue and reeking turpentine, +ironing out a canvas with a warm flat-iron!... Am I your kind, Strelsa?" + +"Yes.... Am I _your_ kind?" + +"You always were. You know that." + +"Yes, I do know it, now." She sat very still, hands folded, considering +him with gray and speculative eyes. + +"From the very beginning," she said, "you have never once disappointed +me." + +"What!" he exclaimed incredulously. + +"Never," she repeated. + +"Why--why, I got in wrong the very first time!" he said. + +"You mean that wager we made?" + +"Yes." + +"But you behaved like a good sportsman." + +"Well, I wasn't exactly a bounder. But you were annoyed." + +She smiled: "Was I?" + +"You seemed to be." + +"Yet I sat in a corner behind some palms with you until daylight." + +They looked at each other and laughed over the reminiscence. Then he +said: + +"I _did_ disappoint you when you found out what sort of a man I was." + +"No, you didn't." + +"I proved it, too," he said under his breath. + +Her lips were set firmly, almost primly, but she blushed. + +"You meant to be nice to me," she said. "You meant to do me honour." + +"The honour of offering you such a man as I was," he said with smiling +bitterness. + +"Rix! _I_ was the fool--the silly little prig! I have blushed and +blushed to remember how I behaved; how I snubbed you and--good +heavens!--even lectured and admonished you!--How I ran away from you +with all the self-possession and _savoir-faire_ of a country schoolgirl! +What on earth you thought of me in those days I dread to surmise----" + +"But Strelsa, what was there to do except what you did?" + +"If I'd known anything I could have thanked you for caring that way for +me and dismissed you as a friend instead of fleeing as though you had +affronted me----" + +"I _did_ affront you." + +"You didn't intend to.... It would have been easy enough to tell you +that I liked you--but not that way.... And all those miserable, lonely, +unhappy months could have been spared me----" + +"Were _you_ unhappy?" + +"Didn't you know it?" + +"I never dreamed you were." + +"Well, I was--thinking of what I had done to you.... And all those men +bothering me, every moment, and everybody at me to marry everybody +else--and all I wanted was to be friends with _you_!... I wasn't sure +of what I wanted from the very beginning, of course, but I knew it as +soon as I saw you at the Bazaar again.... I was _so_ lonely, Rix----" + +She looked up out of clear, fearless eyes; he leaned forward and took +her hands in his. + +"I know what you want," he said quietly. "You want my friendship and you +have it--every atom of it, Strelsa. I will never overstep the borders +again; I understand you thoroughly.... You know what you have done for +me--what I was when you came into my life. My gratitude is a living +thing. Through you, because of you, the whole unknown world--all of real +life--has opened before me. You did it for me, Strelsa." + +"You did it for yourself and for me," she said in a low voice. "What are +you trying to tell me, Rix? That _I_ did this for _you_? When it is +you--it was you from the first--it has always been you who led, who +awakened first, who showed courage and common sense and patience and the +cheerful wisdom which--which saved me----" + +The emotion in her voice stirred him thrillingly; her hands lay +confidently in his; her gray eyes met his so sweetly, so honestly, that +hope awoke for a moment. + +"Strelsa," he said, "however it was with us--however it is now, I think +that together we amount to more than we ever could have amounted to +apart." + +"I know it," she said fervently. "I was nothing until I began to +comprehend you." + +"What was I before you awoke me?" + +"A man neglecting his nobler self.... But it could not have lasted; your +real self could not have long endured that harlequinade we once thought +was real life.... I'm glad if you think that I--something about +me--aroused you.... But if I had not, somebody or some circumstance +would have very soon served the same purpose." + +"Do you think so?" he said, stooping to kiss her hands. She looked at +him while he did so, confused by the quick pleasure of the contact, then +schooled herself to endure it, setting her lips in a grave, firm line. + +And it was a most serious face he lifted his eyes to as she quietly +withdrew her fingers from his. + +"You always played the courtier to perfection," she said, trying to +speak lightly. "Tell me about that accomplished and noble peer, Lord +Dankmere. Are you still inclined to like him?" + +He accepted her light and careless change of tone instantly, and spoke +laughingly of Dankmere: + +"He's really a mighty nice fellow, Strelsa. Anyway, I like him. And +_what_ do you think his lordship has been and gone and done?" + +"Has he become a Russian dancer, Rix?" + +"No, bless his heart! He's fallen head over ears in love and is engaged +and is going to marry!" + +"Who?" + +"Our stenographer!" + +"Rix!" + +"Certainly.... She's pretty and sweet and good and _most_ worthy; and +she's as crazy about Dankmere as he is about her.... Really, Strelsa, +she's a charming young girl, and she'll make as pretty a countess as any +of the Dankmeres have married in many a generation." + +Strelsa's lip curled: "I don't doubt that. They were always a horrid +cock-fighting, prize-fighting, dissolute lot, weren't they?" + +"Something like that. But the present Dankmere is a good sort--really he +is, Strelsa. And as for Jessie Vining, she's sweet. You'll be nice to +them, won't you?" + +She said: "I'd be nice to them anyway. But now that you ask me to I'll +be whatever you wish." + +"You _are_ a corker," he said almost tenderly; but with a slight smile +she kept her hands out of his reach. + +"We mustn't degenerate into sentimentalism just because we're glad to +see each other," she said so calmly that he did not notice the tremor in +her voice. "And by the way, how is Mr. Westguard?" + +They both laughed. + +"Speaking of sentiment," said Quarren, "Karl now exudes it daily. He and +Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera--to Lester's rage--have started a +weekly paper called _Brotherhood_, consisting of pabulum for the +horny-handed. + +"I couldn't do anything with Karl. Just look at him! He's really a good +story-teller if he chooses. He could write jolly-good novels if he +would. But the spectacle of De Groot weeping over a Bowery audience has +finished him; and he's hard at work on a volume called 'The World's +Woe,' and means to publish it himself because no publisher will take +it." + +"Poor Karl," she said, smiling. + +"No," said Quarren, "that's the worst of it. His aunt has settled a +million on him.... I tell you, Strelsa, the rich convert has less honour +among the poor than the dingiest little 'dip' among the gorgeous +corsairs of Wall Street. + +"I don't know how it happens, but Christ was never yet successfully +preached from Fifth Avenue, and the millionaire whose heart bleeds for +the poor needs a sterner surgeon than a complacent conscience to really +stop the hemorrhage." + +"Rich men do good, Rix," she said thoughtfully. + +"But not by teaching or practising the thrift of celestial +insurance--not by admonition to orthodoxy and exhortation to worship a +Creator who sees to it that no two people are created equal. There is +only one thing the rich can give to the poor for Christ's sake; and even +that will always be taken with suspicion and distrust. No; there are +only two ways to live: one is the life of self-discipline; the other is +to actually imitate the militant Son of Man whose faith we pretend to +profess--but whose life-history we merely parody, turning His crusade +into a grotesque carnival. I know of no third course consistent." + +"To lead an upright life within bounds where your lines have fallen, or +to strip and go forth militant," she mused. "There is no third course, +as you say.... Do you know, Rix, that I have become a wonderfully happy +sort of person?" + +"So have I," he said, laughingly. + +"It's just because we have something to do, isn't it?" + +"That--and the leisure which the idle never have. It seems like a +paradox, doesn't it?--to say that the idle never have any time to +themselves." + +"I know what you mean. I expect to work rather hard the rest of my +life," she said seriously, "and yet I can foresee lots and lots of most +delicious leisure awaiting me." + +"Do you foresee anything else, pretty prophetess?" + +"What else do you mean?" + +"Well, for example, you will be alone here all winter." + +"Do you mean loneliness?" she asked, smiling. "I don't expect to suffer +from that. Molly will be here all winter and--you will write to me--" +she turned to him--"won't you, Rix?" + +"Certainly. Besides I'm coming up to see you every week." + +"Every week!" she repeated, taken a little aback but smiling her sweet, +confused smile. "Do you realise what you are so gaily engaging to do?" + +"Perfectly. I'm going to build up here." + +"What!" + +"Of course." + +"A--a house?" + +He looked at her, hesitated, then looking away: + +"Either a house or--an addition." + +"An _addition_?" + +"If you'll let me, Strelsa--some day." + +She understood him then. The painful colour stole into her cheeks, +faintly burning, and she closed her eyes for a moment to endure it, +sitting silent, motionless, her little sun-tanned hands tightly clasped +on her knees. + +Then, unclosing her eyes she looked at him, delicate lips tightening. + +"I thought our relations were to remain on a higher plane," she said +steadily. + +"Our relations are to remain what you desire them to be, dear." + +"I desire them to be what they are--_always_." + +"Then that is my wish also," he said with a smile so genuine and gay +that, a little confused by his acquiescence, her own response was slow. +But presently her smile dawned, a little tremulous and uncertain, and +her gray eyes remained wistful though the lips curled deliciously. + +"I would do anything in the world for you, Rix, except--that," she said +in a low voice. + +"I know you would, you dear girl." + +"Don't you really believe it?" + +"Of course I do!" + +"But--I _can't_ do that--_ever_. It would--would spoil you for me.... +What in the world would I do if you were spoiled for me, Rix? I haven't +anybody else.... What would I do here--all alone? I couldn't stay--I +wouldn't know what to do--where to go in the world.... It would be +lonely--lonely----" + +She bent her head, and remained so, gray eyes fixed on her clasped +fingers. For a long while she sat bowed over, thinking; once or twice +she lifted her eyes to look at him, but her gaze always became confused +and remote; and he did not offer to break the silence. + +At last she looked up with a movement of decision, her face clearing. + +"You understand, don't you, Rix?" she said, rising. + +He nodded, rising also; and they descended the steps together and walked +slowly away toward Witch-Hollow. + +From the hill-top they noticed one of Sprowl's farm-waggons slowly +entering the drive, followed on foot by several men and a little girl. +Her blond hair and apron fluttered in the breeze. She was too far away +for them to see that she was weeping. + +"I wonder what they've got in that waggon?" said Quarren, curiously. + +Strelsa's gaze became indifferent, then passed on and rested on the blue +range of hills beyond. + +"Isn't it wonderful about Chrysos," she said. + +"The quaint little thing," he said almost tenderly. "She told Molly what +happened--how she sat down under a fence to tie wild strawberries for +Sir Charles, and how, all at once, she realised what his going out of +her life meant to her--and how the tears choked her to silence until she +suddenly found herself in his arms.... Can you see it as it happened, +Strelsa?--as pretty a pastoral as ever the older poets--" He broke off +abruptly, and she looked up, but he was still smiling as though the +scene of another man's happiness, so lightly evoked, were a +visualisation of his own. And again her gray eyes grew wistful as though +shyly pleading for his indulgence and silently asking his pardon for all +that she could never be to him or to any man. + +So they came across fields and down through fragrant lanes to +Witch-Hollow, where the fat setter gambolled ponderously around them +with fat barkings and waggings, and where Molly, sewing on the porch, +smoothed the frail and tiny garment over her knee and raised her pretty +head to survey them with a smiling intelligence that made Strelsa blush. + +"It _isn't_ so!" she found an opportunity to whisper into Molly's ear. +"If you look at us that way you'll simply make him miserable and break +my heart." + +Molly glanced after Quarren who had wandered indoors to find a cigarette +in the smoking-room. + +"If you don't marry that delectable young man," she said, "I'll take a +stick and beat you, Strelsa." + +"I don't want to--I don't _want_ to!" protested the girl, getting +possession of Molly's hands and covering them with caresses. And, +resting her soft lips on Molly's fingers, she looked at her; and the +young matron saw tears glimmering under the soft, dark lashes. + +"I _can't_ love him--that way," whispered the girl. "I would if I +could.... I couldn't care for him more than I do.... And--and it +terrifies me to think of losing him." + +"Losing him?" + +"Yes--by doing what you--what he--wishes." + +"You think you'll lose him if you marry him?" + +"I--yes. It would spoil him for me--spoil everything for me in the +world----" + +"Well, you listen to me," said Molly, exasperated. "When he has stood a +certain amount of this silliness from you he'll really and actually turn +into the sexless comrade you think you want. But he'll go elsewhere for +a mate. There are plenty suitable in the world. If you'd never been born +there would have been another for him. If you passed out of his life +there would some day be another. + +"Will we women never learn the truth?--that at best we are incidental to +man, but that, when we love, man is the whole bally thing to us? + +"Let him escape and you'll see, Strelsa. You'll get, perhaps, what +you're asking for now, but he'll get what he is asking for, too--if not +from you, from some girl of whom you and I and he perhaps have never +heard. + +"But she exists; don't worry. And any man worth his title is certain to +encounter her sooner or later." + +The girl, flushed, dumb, watched her out of wide gray eyes in which the +unshed tears had dried. The pretty matron slowly shook her head: + +"Because you once bit into tainted fruit you laid the axe to the entire +orchard. What nonsense! Rottenness is the exception; soundness the rule. +But you concluded that the hazard of bad fortune--that the unhappy +chance of your first and only experience--was not an exception but the +universal rule.... Very well; think it! He'll get over it some time, but +you never will, Strelsa. You'll remember it all your life. + +"For I tell you that we women who go to our graves without having missed +a single pang--we who die having known happiness and its shadow which is +sorrow--the happiness and sorrow which come through love of man +alone--die as we should die, in deep content of destiny fulfilled--which +is the only peace beyond all understanding." + +The girl lowered her head and, resting her cheek on Molly's shoulder, +looked down at the baby garment on her knees. + +"That also?" she whispered. + +"Yes.... Unless we pass that way, also, we can never die content.... But +until a month ago I did not know it.... Strelsa--Strelsa! Are you never +going to know what love can be?" + +The girl rose slowly, flushing and whitening by turns, and stood a +moment, her hands covering her eyes. + +And standing so: + +"Do you think he will go away--from me--some day?" + +"Yes; he will go--unless----" + +"Must it be--that way?" + +"It will be that way, Strelsa." + +"I had never thought of that." + +"Think of it as the truth. It will be so unless you love him in his own +fashion--and for his own sake. Try--if you care for him enough to +try.... And if you do, you will love him for your own sake, too." + +"I--I had thought of--of giving myself--for his sake--because he wishes +it.... I don't believe I'll be--much afraid--of him. Do you?" + +Molly's wise sweet eyes sparkled with silent laughter. Then without +another glance at the tall, young girl before her she picked up her +sewing, drew the needle from the hem, and smoothed out the lace +embroidery on her knees. + +After a while she said: + +"Jim's returning on the noon train. Will you and Rix be here to +luncheon?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well, ask him; I have my orders to give if you'll stay." + +Strelsa walked into the house; Quarren, still hunting about for a +cigarette, looked up as she entered the smoking-room. + +"Where the dickens does Jim keep his cigarettes?" he asked. "Do you +know, Strelsa?" + +"You poor boy!" she exclaimed laughingly, "have you been searching all +this time? The wonder is that you haven't perished. Why didn't you ask +me for one when we were at--our house?" + +"_Your_ house?" he corrected, smiling. + +Her gray eyes met his with a frightened sort of courage. + +"_Our house_--if you wish--" But her lips had begun to tremble and she +could not control them or force from them another word for all her +courage. + +He came over to where she stood, one slim hand resting against the wall; +and she looked back bravely into his keen eyes--the clear, direct, +questioning eyes of a boy. + +"I--I will--marry you," she said. + +A swift flush touched his face to the temples. + +"Don't you--want me?" she said, tremulously. + +"If you love me, Strelsa." + +"Isn't it enough--that you--love----" + +"No, dear." + +She lost her colour. + +"Rix! Don't you want me?" she faltered. + +"Not unless you want me, Strelsa." + +She drew a long unsteady breath. Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes, +and she held out both hands to him, blindly. + +"I--do love you," she whispered.... "I'll give what you give.... Only +you must teach me--not to be--afraid." + +Her cheek lay close to his shoulder; his arms drew her nearer. And, +after he had waited a long while, her gray eyes, which had been watching +his face, slowly closed, and she lifted her lips toward his. + + +THE END + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Hyphenation has been standardized. Nonstandard spellings have been +maintained, e.g. "barytone", but clear spelling errors have been +corrected ("hynotised" replaced with "hypnotised", "f" replaced with +"of"). Missing periods have been added at ends of sentences. Missing +close quotes have been added. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. 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