"'The old ones are best.' she commented.""'The old ones are best.' she commented."
She."When on your manly form I gazeA sense of pleasure passes o'er me";He."The murmured music of your voiceIs 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.
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 believeyoucould 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?"
"Youarethe 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 relateA harrowing tragedy up to dateOf 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 flatKer-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?"
"Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!Wait for a moment while I relateA harrowing tragedy up to dateOf 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 flatKer-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.... Iamgoing 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! Itwillbe 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!"
"Yourotherself, fighting me," he said, half to himself.
"No,Iam! What do you mean by my other self! Thereisno other——"
"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"
She blushed scarlet:
"Isthatwhat 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'tyou 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 thatwhat had been there was now dead—that she never could respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free forever.
"Can'tyou care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again, turning toward her.
"Isthatyour 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 thereissomething 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—"youarecapable 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; andinto 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. Whatisthis 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'tyoutake 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 shecouldget 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——"
"Doyoucare?" laughed Strelsa, looking around at him over her shoulder. "Idon't mind being adored byyou, 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 youeverything, Ricky?"
"Nothing," he said.
"The little minx!Isit 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.
Quarren had been at Witch-Hollow three days when Dankmere called him on the long-distance telephone.
"Do you want me to come back?" asked the young fellow. "I don't mind if you do; I'm quite ready to return——"
"Not at all, my dear chap," said his lordship. "I fancied you might care to hear how matters are going in the Dankmere Galleries."
"Of course I do, but I rather hoped nothing in particular would happen for a week or so——"
"Plenty has. You know those experts of yours, Valasco, Drayton-Quinn, and that Hollander Van Boschoven. Well, they don't get on. Each has come to me privately, and in turn, and told me that the others were no good——"
"Your rôle is to remain amiable and non-committal," said Quarren. "Let them talk——"
"Valasco and Drayton-Quinn won't speak, and Van Boschoven has notified me that he declines to come to the house as long as either of the others are there."
"Very well; arrange to have them there on different days."
"I don't think Valasco will come back at all."
"Why not?"
"Because—the fact is—I believe I practically—so to speak—hit him."
"What!"
"Fact, old chap."
"Why?"
"Well, he asked me if I knew more about anything than I did about pictures. I didn't catch his drift for about an hour—but then it came to me, and I got up out of my chair and walked over and punched his head. I don't think he'll come back, do you?"
"No, I don't. What else have you been doing?" said Quarren angrily.
"Nothing. One picture—the Raeburn portrait—has a bad hole in it."
"How did it happen?"
"Rather extraordinary thing, that! I was giving a most respectable card party—some ladies and gentlemen of sorts—from the Winter Garden I believe—and one of the ladies inadvertently shyed a glass at another lady——"
"For Heaven's sake, Dankmere——"
"Quite right old chap—my fault entirely—I won't do it again. But, do you know, the gallery already has become a most popular resort. People are coming and going all day—a lot of dealers among them I suspect—and there have been a number of theatrical people who want to hire pictures for certain productions to be staged next winter——"
"We don't do that sort of thing!"
"That's what I thought; but there was one very fetching girl who opens in 'Ancestors' next October——"
"No, no, no!"
"Right-o! I'll tell her at luncheon.... I say, Quarren: Karl Westguard wants the gallery to-night. May I let him have it?"
"Certainly. What for?"
"Oh, some idea of his—I've forgotten what he said."
"I believe I'd better come down," said Quarren bluntly.
"Don't dream of it, old fellow. Everything is doing nicely. My respects to the fair. By-the-bye—anything in my line up there?"
Quarren laughed:
"I'm afraid not, Dankmere."
"Verywell," 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.
"Itisrunning 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, "sheisa sort of a fish. She has the emotions of a mollusc as far as your sex is concerned. Some womenarethat way—more women than men would care to believe.... Do you know, Ricky, if you'll let us alone, it is quite natural for us to remain indifferent to considerations of that sort?"
She stood watching the young fellow busy with his pipe.
"It's only when you keep at us long enough that we respond," she said. "Some of us are quickly responsive; it takes many of us a long while to catch fire. Threatened emotion instinctively repels many of us—the more fastidious among us, the finer grained and more delicately nerved, are essentially reserved. Modesty, pride, a natural aloofness, are as much a part of many women as their noses and fingers——"
"What becomes of modesty and pride when a girl marries for money?" he asked coolly.
"Some women can give and accept in cold blood what it would be impossible for them to accord to a more intimate and emotional demand."
"No doubt an ethical distinction," he said, "but not very clear to me."
"I did not argue that such women are admirable or excusable.... But how many modern marriages in our particular vicinity are marriages of inclination, Ricky?"
"You're a washed-out lot," he said—"you're satiated as schoolgirls. If you have any emotions left they're twisted ones by the time you are introduced. Most débutantes of your sort make their bow equipped for business, and with the experience of what, practically, has amounted to several seasons.
"If any old-fashioned young girls remain in your orbit I don't know where to find them. Why, do you suppose any young girl, not yet out, would bother to go to a party of any sort where there was not champagne and a theatre-box and a supper in prospect? That's a fine comment on your children, Molly, but you know it's true and so does everybody who pretends to know anything about it."
"You talk like Karl Westguard," she said, laughing. "Anyway, what has all this to do with you and Strelsa Leeds?"
"Nothing." He shrugged. "She is part of your last word in social civilisation——"
"She is a very normal, sensitive, proud girl, who has known little except unhappiness all her life, Rix—including two years of marital misery—two years ofhorror.—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.
"Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable.""Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."
He came up offering his hand and she took it, thenstood a moment in desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren.
"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 atStrelsa, 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! Sheisa 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 broughtaround, 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 toyou, 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....Yousat 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: