"'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the men!'""'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 theoneman?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly.
"Which, please?"
"Nonsense! Therewasone, 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 theYulan. 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?"
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 itisso 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 awish. Strelsa flushed and lifted her purple-gray eyes to meet the little green ones scanning her slyly.
"I am sorry," she said, "but I couldn't discuss such a thing, you see. Don't you see I can't, dear Mrs. Sprowl?"
"Pooh! Rubbish! Anybody can discuss anything," rejoined the old lady with impersonal and boisterous informality. "I'm fond of you. Everybody knows it. I'm fond of Sir Charles. He's a fine figure of a man. You match him in everything, except wealth. It's an ideal marriage——"
"Please don't!—I simply cannot——"
"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly—"an ideal marriage——"
"But when there is no love——"
"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you—crazy!—--"
"I—meant—on my part——"
"Good God!" shouted the old lady, beating the air with pudgy hands—"isn't it luck enough to have love on one side? What does the present generation want! I tell you it's ideal, perfect. He's a good man as men go, and a devilish handsome——"
"I know—but——"
"And he's got money!" shouted the old lady—"plenty of it I tell you! And he has the entrée everywhere on the Continent—in England—everywhere!—which Dankmere has not!—if you're considering that little whelp!"
Stunned, shrinking from the dreadful asthmatic noises in Mrs. Sprowl's voice, Strelsa sat dumb, wincing under the blows of sound, not knowing how to escape.
"I'm fond of you!" shrieked the old lady—"I canbe 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!"
"Sitdown!" 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—Iamgrateful," 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'sthird 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 streetoutside. The informality of her recent host aboard theYulandid not entirely please her. She listened to his departure with quiet satisfaction.
"Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his departure with quiet satisfaction.""Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... 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. Butwhatwas 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?"
"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 ofme? And you said something aloud about me?"
"About you—andtoyou."
"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 theEvening 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——"
"'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked, smiling.""'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked, smiling."
"Wait! I haven't decided. Really I'm simply stupid with the accumulated fatigues of two months' frivolity. Do you mind my being stupid?"
"You know I don't——"
"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your way over.À bien tôt!"
She had been in the drawing-room only a few moments, looking at the huge white orchids that Langly Sprowl had sent and which her butler was arranging, when Quarren was announced; and she partly turned from the orchids, extending her hand behind her in a greeting more confident and intimate than she had ever before given him.
"Look at these strange, pansy-shaped Brazilian flowers," she said. "Kindly observe that they are actually growing out of that ball of moss and fibre."
She had retained his hand for a fraction of a second longer than conventional acquaintance required, giving it a frank and friendly pressure. Now, loosing it, she found her own fingers retained, and drew them away with a little laugh of self-consciousness.
"Sentiment before dinner implies that you'll have no room for it after dinner. Here is your cocktail."
"Do you remember our first toast?" he asked, smiling.
"No."
"The toast to friendship?"
"Yes; I remember it."
She touched her lips to her glass, not looking at him. He watched her. After a moment she raised her eyes, met his gaze, returned it with one quite as audacious:
"I am drinking that same toast again—after many days," she said.
"With all that it entails?"
She nodded.
"Its chances, hazards, consequences?"
She laughed, then, looking at him, deliberately sipped from her glass, the defiant smile in her eyes still daring him and Chance and Destiny together.
When he took her out she was saying: "I really can't account for my mood to-night. I believe that seeing you again is reviving me. I was beastly stupid."
"My soporific society ought to calm, not exhilarate you."
"It never did, particularly. What a long time it is since we have seen each other. Iamglad 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—doyoumind?"
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. "Ihadto drag that out of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudenceisstamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. Youwereone. Do you deny your guilt?"
"I do not."
"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape.AmI 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?"
"Youhavechanged."
"What a perfect pill you are!" she exclaimed, vexed—"you're casting yourself for the rôle of the honest friend—and I simply hate it! Young sir, do you not understand that I've breakfasted, lunched and dined too long on flattery to endure anything more wholesome? If you can't lie to me like a gentleman and a suitor your usefulness in my entourage is ended."
He said: "Do you want me to talk shop with you? I get rather tired of my trade, sometimes. It's my trade to lie, you know."
She looked up, quickly, but he was smiling.
They remained rather silent after that. Coffee was served at table; she lighted a cigarette for him and, later, one for herself, strolling off into the drawing-room with it between her fingers, one hand resting lightly on her hip.
She seemed to have an inclination to wander about or linger before the marble fireplace and blow delicate rings of smoke at her own reflection in the mirror.
He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded affably to him in the glass:
"I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless—I wasn't then.... Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about the kind—as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting."
"A cradle song is what you require."
"How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?"
"I realise how tired you are."
"And—I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time.... Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you know?"
"Conscience?" he suggested, laughing.
"Do you think so? I thought it was my heart."
"Have you acquired one?"
She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned around toward him, still smiling.
"I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?"
"I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?"
"I really don't know. What do you think?"
He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between forefinger and thumb.
Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of experience.... I wonder whether my silly headwasturned 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—ofa 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; isthatreal 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; Ihavegrown 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 hurtsme!Idolike you. I was glad to see you—you don't know how glad. Your letters to me were—were interesting.Youhave 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 ithasbeen said already about you! Do you know that? Peopledosay 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—anyman 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 saythatof 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 flurryof 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, allbehind 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.
Shewasas 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.
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: nobodycared 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——"
"Idon'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 itout 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."
"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 intimatedto 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.
"Iamthat spectre, Mrs. Leeds."
"You certainly look pallid enough for any disembodied rôle. You have not been ill, by any chance?"—carelessly.
"Not at all, thank you. Rude health and I continue to link arms."
"Then it is not by chance that you absent yourself from the various festivities where your part is usually supposed to be a leading one?"
"All cooks eventually develop a distaste for their own concoctions," he explained gravely.
She lifted her eyebrows: "Yet you are here this afternoon."
"Oh, yes. Charity has not yet palled on my palate—perhaps because I need so much myself."
"I have never considered you an object of charity."
"Then I must draw your kind attention to my pitiable case by doing a little begging.... Could I ask your forgiveness, for example? And perhaps obtain it?"
Her face flushed. "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Quarren," she said with decision.
"Do you mean that?"
"Certainly."
"I scarcely know how to take your—generosity."
"I offer none. There is no occasion for generosity or for the exercise of any virtue, cardinal or otherwise. You have not offended me, nor I you—I trust.... Have I?"
"No," he said.
Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things. Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman's advent as his own congé, took his leave of Strelsa and went his way—which chanced, also, to be the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat.
Susanne Lannis, lips slightly curling, looked after them, touching Strelsa's elbow:
"Cyrille simply cannot let Ricky alone," she said. "The bill-posters will find a fence for her if she doesn't come to her senses."
"Who?" asked Strelsa, as one or two people laughed guardedly.
"Why, Cyrille Caldera.Elle s'affiche, ma chère!"
"Mrs. Caldera!" repeated the girl, surprised.
"AndRicky! 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. "Howmany 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, heassured her very gravely that she might venture to do so. "Turn it loose on the first burglar," he added, "and his regeneration will begin in all the forty-nine odours of sanctity."
Strelsa smiled without comprehending. Cyrille Caldera was standing just beyond them, apparently interested in antique jewellery, trying the effect of various linked gems against her lilac gown, and inviting Quarren's opinion of the results. Their backs were turned; Ricky's blond head seemed to come unreasonably close to Cyrille's at moments. Once Mrs. Caldera thoughtlessly laid a pretty hand on his arm as though in emphasis. Their unheard conversation was evidently amusing them.
Strelsa's smile remained unaltered; people were coming constantly to pay their respects to her; and they lingered, attracted and amused by her unusual gaiety, charm, and wit.
Her mind seemed suddenly to have become crystal clear; her gay retorts to lively badinage, and her laughing epigrams were deliciously spontaneous. A slight exhilaration, without apparent reason, was transforming her, swiftly, into an incarnation entirely unknown even to herself.
Conscious of a wonderful mood never before experienced, perfectly aware of her unusual brilliancy and beauty, surprised and interested in the sudden revelation of powers within her still unexercised, she felt herself, for the first time in her life, in contact with things heretofore impalpable—and, in spirit, with delicate fingers, she gathered up instinctively those intangible threads with which man is guided as surely as though driven in chains of steel.
And all the while she was aware of Quarren's boyish head bending almost too near to Cyrille Caldera's over the trays of antique jewels; and all the while she was conscious of the transfiguration in process—that not only a new self was being evolved for her out of the débris of the old, but that the world itself was changing around her—and a new Heaven and a new earth were being born—and a new hell.
That evening she fought it out with herself with a sort of deadly intelligence. Alone in her room, seated, and facing her mirrored gaze unflinchingly, she stated her case, minutely, to herself from beginning to end; then called the only witness for the prosecution—herself—and questioned that witness without mercy.
Did she care for Quarren? Apparently. How much? A great deal. Was she in love with him? She could not answer. Wherein did he differ from other men she knew—Sir Charles, for example? She only knew that hewasdifferent. 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 hermentally 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—wasQuarren on trial? Or was she herself?
This threatened to become a serious question; she strove to think clearly, to reason; but only evoked the pale, amused face of Quarren from inner and chaotic consciousness until the visualisation remained fixed, defying obliteration. And she accepted the mental spectre for the witness box.
"Ricky," she said, "do you really love me?"
But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the smile she knew so well—so well, alas!
"Why are you unworthy?" she said again—"you who surely are equipped for a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many; and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor boy—poor boy."
In vain she strove to visualise Sir Charles; she could not. All she could do was to mentally enumerate his qualities; and she did so, the amused face of Quarren looking on at her from out of empty space.
"Ricky, Ricky," she said, "am I no better than that?—am I fit only for such a response?—to find the contact of your hand so wonderful?—to thrill with the consciousness of your nearness—to let my senses drift, contented merely by your touch—yielding to the charm of it—suffering even your lips' embrace——"
She shuddered slightly, drawing one hand across her eyes, then sitting straight, she faced his smiling phantom, resolute to end it now forever.
"If I am such a woman," she said, "and you are the kind of man I know you to be—then is it time for me to fast and pray, lest I enter into temptation.... Into the one temptation I have never before known, Ricky—and which, in my complacency and pride I never dreamed that I should encounter.
"And it is coming to that!... A girl must be honest with herself or all life is only the same smiling lie. I'm ashamed to be honest, Ricky; but I must be. You are not very much of a man—otherwise I might find some reason for caring: and now there is none; and yet—I care—God knows why—or what it is in you that I care for!—But I do—I am beginning to care—and I don't know why; I—don't—know why——".
She dropped her face in her hands, sitting there bowed low over her knees. And there, hour after hour she fought it out with herself and with the amused spectre ever at her elbow—so close at moments that some unaroused nerve fell a-trembling in its sleep, threatening to awaken those quiet senses that she already feared for their unknown powers.
The season was approaching its end, still kicking now and then spasmodically, but pretty nearly done for. No particularly painful incidents marked its demise except the continued absence of Quarren from social purlieus accustomed to his gay presence and adroit executive abilities.
After several demoralised cotillions had withstood the shock of his absence, and a dozen or more functions had become temporarily disorganised because he declined to occupy himself with their success; and after a number of hostesses had filled in his place at dinner, at theatres, at week-ends, on yachts and coaches; and after an unprecedented defiance of two summonses to the hazardous presence of Mrs. Sprowl, he obeyed a third subpœna, and presented himself with an air of cheerful confidence that instantly enraged her.
The old lady lay abed with nothing more compromising than a toothache; Quarren was conducted to the inner shrine; she glared at him hideously from her pillows; and for one moment he felt seriously inclined to run.
"Where have you been?" she wheezed.
"Nowhere in particu——"
"I know damn well you've been nowhere," she burst out. "Molly Wycherly's dance went to pieces because she was fool enough to trust things to you. Do you know who led? That great oaf, Barent Van Dyne! He led like a trick elephant, too!"
Quarren looked politely distressed.
"And there are a dozen hostesses perfectly furious with you," continued the old lady, pounding the pillows with a fat arm—"parties of all sorts spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank failures—what the devil possesses you to behave this way?"
"I'm tired," he said, politely.
"What!"
He smiled:
"Oh, the place suits, Mrs. Sprowl; I haven't any complaint; and the work and wages are easy; and it's comfortable below-stairs. But—I'm just tired."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talkingaboutmy employers, and I'm talkinglikethe 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."