Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New
York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm
Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of
change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the
girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth.
By daylight the fatigues of pleasure were faintly visible--that
unmistakable imprint which may perhaps leave the eyes clear and calm,
but which edges the hardened contour of the cheek under them with deeper
violet shadow.
Not that hers was as yet the battered beauty of exhaustion; she had
merely lived every minute to the full all winter long, and had overtaxed
her capacity; and the fire had consumed something of her freshness.
Not yet inured, not yet crystallised to that experienced hardness which
withstands the fierce flame of living too fast in a world where every
minute is demanded and where sleep becomes a forgotten art, the girl was
completely tired out, and while she herself did not realise it, her
features showed it.
But nervous exhaustion alone could not account for the subtle change in
her expression. Eyes and lips were still sweet, even in repose, but
there was now a jaded charm about them--something unspoiled had
disappeared from them--something of that fearlessness which vanishes
after too close and too constant contact with the world of men.
Evidently her mind was quite as weary as her body, though even to
herself she had not admitted fatigue; and a tired mind no longer defends
itself. Hers had not; and the defence had been, day by day,
imperceptibly weakening. So that things to which once she had been able
at will to close her mind, and, mentally deaf, let pass unheard, she had
heard, and had even thought about. And the effort to defend her ears and
mind became less vigorous, less instinctive--partly through sheer
weariness.
The wisdom of woman and of man, and of what is called the world, the
girl was now learning--unconsciously in the beginning and then with a
kind of shamed indifference--but the creation of an artificial interest
in anything is a subtle matter; and the ceaseless repetition of things
unworthy at last awake that ignoble curiosity always latent in man.
Because intelligence was born with it; and unwearied intelligence alone
completely suppresses it.
At first she had kept her head fairly level in the whirlwind of
adulation. To glimpses of laxity she closed her eyes. Sir Charles was
always refreshing to her; but she could see little more of him than of
other men--less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that
happened--and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly
Sprowl.
Again and again she found herself with him separated from the
others--sometimes alone with him on deck--and never quite understood how
it came about so constantly.
As for Sprowl he made love to her from the first; and he was a trim,
carefully groomed and volubly animated young man, full of information,
and with a restless, ceaseless range of intelligence which at first
dazzled with its false brilliancy.
But it was only a kind of flash-light intelligence. It seemed to miss,
occasionally; some cog, some screw somewhere was either absent or badly
adjusted or over-strained.
At first Strelsa found the young fellow fascinating. He had been
everywhere and had seen everything; his mind was kaleidoscopic; his
thought shifted, flashed, jerked, leaped like erratic lightning from one
subject to another--from Japanese aeroplanes to a scheme for filling in
the East River; from a plan to reconcile church and state in France to
an idea for indefinitely prolonging human life. He had written several
books about all kinds of things. Nobody read them.
The first time he spoke to her of love was on a magnificent star-set
night off Martinique; and she coolly reminded him of the gossip
connecting him with a pretty woman in Reno. She could not have done it a
month ago.
He denied it so pleasantly, so frankly, that, astonished, she could
scarcely choose but believe him.
After that he made ardent, headlong love to her at every opportunity,
with a flighty recklessness which began by amusing her. At first, also,
she found wholesome laughter a good defence; but there was an
under-current of intelligent, relentless vigour in his attack which
presently sobered her. And she vaguely realised that he was a man who
knew what he wanted. A talk with Molly Wycherly sobered her still more;
and she avoided him as politely as she could. But, being her host, it
was impossible to keep clear of him. Besides there was about him a
certain unwholesome fascination, even for her. No matter how bad a man's
record may be, few women doubt their ability to make it a better one.
"You little goose," said Molly Wycherly, "everybody knows the kind of
man he is. Could anything be more brazen than his attentions to you
while Mary Ledwith is in Reno?"
"He says that her being there has nothing to do with him."
"Then he lies," said Molly, shrugging her shoulders.
"He doesn't speak as though he were trying to deceive anybody, Molly. He
is perfectly frank to me. I can't believe that scandal. Besides he is
quite open and manly about his unsavoury reputation; makes no excuses;
simply says that there's good in every man, and that there is always one
woman in the world who can bring it out----"
"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell
you----"
"No man is!" insisted Strelsa.
"What?"
"No man is. The great masters of fiction always ascribe at least one
virtue to their most infamous creations----"
"Oh, Strelsa, you talk like a pan of fudge! _I_ tell you that Langly
Sprowl is no good at all. I hope you won't have to marry him to find
out."
"I don't intend to.... How inconsistent you are, Molly. You--and
everybody else--believe him to be the most magnificent match in----"
"If position and wealth is all you care for, yes. I didn't suppose you'd
come to that."
Strelsa said candidly: "I care for both--I don't know how much."
"As much as that?"
"No; not enough to marry him. And if he is what you say, it's hopeless
of course.... I don't think he is. Be decent, Molly; everybody is very
horrid about him, and--and that is always a matter of sympathetic
interest to a generous woman. When the whole world condemns a man it
makes him interesting!"
"That's a piffling and emotional thing to say! He may be attractive in
an uncanny way, because he's agreeable to look at, amusing, and very
dangerous--a perfectly cold-blooded, and I think, slightly unbalanced
social marauder. And that's the fact about Langly Sprowl. And I wish we
were on land, the _Yulan_ and her owner in--well, in the Erie Basin,
perhaps."
Whether or not Strelsa believed these things, there still remained in
her that curious sense of fascination in Sprowl's presence, partly
arising, no doubt, from an instinctive sympathy for a young man so
universally damned; partly, because she thought that perhaps he really
was damned. Therefore, deep in her heart she felt that he must be
dangerous; and there is, in that one belief, every element of
unwholesome fascination. And a mind fatigued is no longer wholesome.
Then, too, there was always Sir Charles Mallison to turn to for a
refreshing moral bath. Safety of soul lay in his vicinity; she felt
confidence in the world wherever he traversed it. With him she relaxed
and rested; there was repose for her in his silences; strength for her
when he spoke; and a serene comradeship which no hint of sentiment had
ever vexed.
Perhaps only a few people realised how thoroughly a single winter was
equipping Strelsa for the part she seemed destined to play in that
narrow world with which she was already identified; and few realised how
fast she was learning. Laxity of precept, easy morals, looseness of
thought, idle and good-natured acquiescence in social conditions where
all standards seemed alike, all ideals merely a matter of personal
taste--this was the atmosphere into which she had stepped from two years
of Western solitude after a nightmare of violence, cruelty, and
depravity unutterable. And naturally it seemed heavenly to her; and each
revelation inconsistent with her own fastidious instincts left her less
and less surprised, less and less uneasy. And after a while she began to
assimilate all that she saw and heard.
A few unworldly instincts remained in her--gratitude for and quick
response to any kindness offered from anybody; an inclination to make
friends with stray wanderers into her circle, and to cultivate the
socially useless.
Taking four o'clock tea alone with Mrs. Sprowl the afternoon of her
return to town--an honour vouchsafed to few--Strelsa was relating, at
that masterful woman's request, her various exotic experiences. Mrs.
Sprowl had commanded her attendance early. There were reasons. And now
partly vexed, partly in unwilling admiration, the old lady sat smiling
and all the while thinking to herself impatiently; "Baby! Fool! Little
ninny! Imbecile!" while she listened, fat bejewelled hands folded, small
green eyes shining in the expanse of powdered and painted fat.
After a while she could endure it no longer, and she said with a wheeze
of good-natured disdain:
"It's like a school-girl's diary--all those rhapsodies over volcanoes,
palm trees, and the colour of the Spanish Main. Never mind geography,
child; tell me about the men!"
"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly--"why there were shoals and shoals
of them, of every description!"
"I mean the _one_ man?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly.
"Which, please?"
"Nonsense! There _was_ one, I suppose."
"Oh, I don't think so.... Your nephew, Langly, was exceedingly
amiable----"
"He's a plain beast," said his aunt, bluntly. "I didn't mean him."
"He was very civil to me," insisted Strelsa, colouring.
"Probably he didn't have a chance to be otherwise. He's a rotter, child.
Ask anybody. I know perfectly well what he's been up to. I'm sorry you
went on the _Yulan_. He had no business to ask you--or any other nice
girl--or anybody at all until that Reno scandal is officially made
respectable. If it were not for his money--" She stopped a moment,
adding cynically--"and if it were not for mine--certain people wouldn't
be tolerated anywhere, I suppose.... How did you like Sir Charles?"
"Oh, he is charming!" she said warmly.
"You like him?"
"I almost adore him."
"Why not adore him entirely?"
[Illustration: "'Never mind geography, child; tell me about the
men!'"]
Strelsa laughed frankly: "He hasn't asked me to, for one reason.
Besides----"
"No doubt he'll do it."
The girl shook her head, still smiling:
"You don't understand at all. There isn't the slightest sentiment
between us. He's only thoroughly nice and agreeable, and he and I are
most companionable. I hope nobody will be silly enough to hint anything
of that sort to him. It would embarrass him dreadfully."
Mrs. Sprowl's smile was blandly tolerant:
"The man's in love with you. Didn't you know it?"
"But you are mistaken, dear Mrs. Sprowl. If it were true I would know
it, I think."
"Nonsense! He told me so."
"Oh," said Strelsa in amazed consternation. She added: "If it _is_ so
I'd rather not speak of it, please."
Mrs. Sprowl eyed her with shifty but keen intelligence. "Little idiot,"
she thought; but her smile remained bland and calmly patronising.
For a second or two longer she studied the girl cautiously, trying to
make up her mind whether there was really any character in Strelsa's
soft beauty--anything firmer than material fastidiousness; anything more
real than a natural and dainty reticence. Mrs. Sprowl could ride
rough-shod over such details. But she was too wise to ride if there was
any chance of a check from higher sources.
"If you married him it would be very gratifying to me," she said
pleasantly. "Come; let's discuss the matter like sensible women. Shall
we?"
Many people would not have disregarded such a wish. Strelsa flushed and
lifted her purple-gray eyes to meet the little green ones scanning her
slyly.
"I am sorry," she said, "but I couldn't discuss such a thing, you see.
Don't you see I can't, dear Mrs. Sprowl?"
"Pooh! Rubbish! Anybody can discuss anything," rejoined the old lady
with impersonal and boisterous informality. "I'm fond of you. Everybody
knows it. I'm fond of Sir Charles. He's a fine figure of a man. You
match him in everything, except wealth. It's an ideal marriage----"
"Please don't!--I simply cannot----"
"Ideal," repeated Mrs. Sprowl loudly--"an ideal marriage----"
"But when there is no love----"
"Plenty! Loads of it! He's mad about you--crazy!----"
"I--meant--on my part----"
"Good God!" shouted the old lady, beating the air with pudgy
hands--"isn't it luck enough to have love on one side? What does the
present generation want! I tell you it's ideal, perfect. He's a good man
as men go, and a devilish handsome----"
"I know--but----"
"And he's got money!" shouted the old lady--"plenty of it I
tell you! And he has the entrée everywhere on the Continent--in
England--everywhere!--which Dankmere has not!--if you're considering
that little whelp!"
Stunned, shrinking from the dreadful asthmatic noises in Mrs. Sprowl's
voice, Strelsa sat dumb, wincing under the blows of sound, not knowing
how to escape.
"I'm fond of you!" shrieked the old lady--"I can be of use to you and I
want to be. That's why I asked you to tea! I want to make you happy--and
Sir Charles, too! What the devil do you suppose there is in it for me
except to oblige hi--you both?"
"Th-thank you, but----"
"I'll bet a shilling that Molly Wycherly let you go about with any
little spindle-shanked pill who came hanging around!--And I told her
what were my wishes----"
"Please--oh, _please_, Mrs. Sprowl----"
"Yes, I did! It's a good match! I want you to consider it!--I insist
that----"
"Mrs. Sprowl!" exclaimed Strelsa, pink with confusion and resentment, "I
am obliged to you for the interest you display, but it is a matter----"
"What!"
"I am really--grateful--but----"
"Answer me, child. Has that cursed nephew of mine made any impression on
you? Answer me!"
"Not the kind you evidently mean!" said Strelsa, helplessly.
"Is there anybody else?"
The outrageous question silenced the girl for a moment. Angry, she still
tried to be gentle; tried to remember the age, and the excellent
intentions of this excited old lady; and she answered in a low voice:
"I care for no man in particular, unless it be Sir Charles--and----"
"And who?"
"Mr. Quarren, I think," she said.
Mrs. Sprowl's jowl grew purple with fury:
"You--has that boy had the impudence--damn him----"
Strelsa sprang to her feet.
"I really cannot remain--" she said with decision, but the old lady only
bawled:
"Sit down! Sit down!"
"I will not!"
"Sit _down_!" she roared in a passion. "What the devil----"
Strelsa, a little pale, started to pass her--then halted, astounded: for
the old lady had burst into a passion of choking gasps. Whether the
terrible sounds she made were due to impotent rage or asthma, Strelsa,
confused, shocked, embarrassed, but still angry, had no notion; and
while Mrs. Sprowl coughed fatly, she stood still, catching muffled
fragments of reproaches directed at people who flouted friendship; who
had no consideration for age, and no gratitude, no tenderness, no pity.
"I--I _am_ grateful," faltered Strelsa, "only I cannot----"
"I wanted to be a mother to you! I've tried to be," wheezed the old lady
in a fresh paroxysm; and beat the air.
For one swift instant the girl remembered what her real mother had been
to her; and her heart hardened.
"I care only for your friendship, Mrs. Sprowl; I do not wish you to do
anything for me; can we not be friends on that basis?"
Mrs. Sprowl swabbed her inflamed eyes and peered around the corner of
the handkerchief.
"Come here, my dear," she said.
Strelsa went, slowly; and Mrs. Sprowl enveloped her like a fleshy squid,
panting.
"I only wanted to be good to you, Strelsa. I'm just an old fool I
suppose----"
"Oh, please don't----"
"That's all I am, child, just a sentimental old fool. The poor man's
adoration of you touched my heart--and you do like him a little, don't
you?"
"Very much.... Thank you for--for wishing happiness to me. I really
don't mean to be ungrateful; I have a horror of ingratitude. It's only
that--the idea never occurred to me; and I am incapable of doing such a
thing for material reasons, unless--I also really cared for a man----"
"Of course, child. Maybe you will care for him some day. I won't
interfere any more.... Only--don't lose your heart to any of these young
jackals fawning around your skirts. Every set is full of 'em. They're
nothing but the capering chorus in this comic opera.... And--don't be
angry--but I am an older and wiser woman than you, and I am fond of you,
and it's my duty to tell you that any of the lesser breed--take young
Quarren for example--are of no real account, even in the society which
they amuse."
"I would scarcely class Mr. Quarren with the sort you mention----"
"Why not? He's of no importance."
"Because he is kind, considerate, and unusually intelligent and
interesting; and he is very capable of succeeding in whatever he
undertakes," said Strelsa, slowly.
"Ricky is a nice boy; but what does he undertake?" asked Mrs. Sprowl
with good-natured contempt. "He undertakes the duties, obligations, and
details of a useful man in the greater household, which make him
acceptable to us; and I'm bound to say that he does 'em very well. But
outside of that he's a nobody. And I'll tell you just what he'll turn
into; shall I? Society's third chief bottlewasher in succession. We had
one, who evolved us. He's dead. We have another. He's still talking.
When he ultimately evaporates into infinity Ricky will be his natural
successor. Do you want that kind of a husband?"
"Did you suppose----"
"Don't get angry, Strelsa? I didn't suppose anything. Ricky, like every
other man, dangles his good-looking, good-humoured self in your
vicinity. You're inclined to notice him. All I mean is that he isn't
worth your pains.... Now you won't be offended by a plain-spoken old
woman who wishes only your happiness, will you, my child?"
"No," said Strelsa, wearily, beginning to feel the fatigue of the scene.
She took her leave a few moments afterward, very unhappy because two of
the pleasantest incidents in her life had been badly, if not hopelessly,
marred. But Langly Sprowl was not one of them.
* * * * *
That hatchet-faced and immaculate gentleman, divining possibly that
Strelsa might be with his aunt, arrived shortly after her departure;
learned of it from a servant, and was turning on his heel without even
asking for Mrs. Sprowl, when the thought occurred to him that possibly
she might know Strelsa's destination.
When a servant announced him he found his aunt quite herself, grim,
ready for trouble, her small green eyes fairly snapping.
They indulged in no formalities, being alone together, and caring
nothing for servants' opinions. Their greeting was perfunctory; their
inquiries civil. Then there ensued a short silence.
"Which way did Mrs. Leeds go?" he asked, busily twisting his long
moustache.
"None of your business," rejoined his aunt.
He looked up in slight surprise, recognised a condition of things which,
on second thought, surprised him still more. Because his aunt had never
before noticed his affairs--had not even commented on the Ledwith matter
to him. He had always felt that she disliked him too thoroughly to care.
"I don't think I understood you," he said, watching her out of shifting
eyes which protruded a trifle.
"I think you will understand me before I've done with you," returned his
aunt, grimly. "It's a perfectly plain matter; you've the rest of the
female community to chase if you choose. Go and chase 'em for all I
care--hunt from here to Reno if you like!--but I have other plans for
Strelsa Leeds. Do you understand? I've put my private mark on her.
There's no room for yours."
Langly's gaze which had not met hers--and never met anybody's for more
than a fraction of a second--shifted. He continued his attentions to his
moustache; his eyes roved; he looked at but did not see a hundred things
in a second.
"You don't know where she's gone?" he inquired with characteristic
pertinacity and an indifference to what she had said, absolutely stony.
"Do you mean trouble for that girl?"
"I do not."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing."
"Do you want to marry her?"
"I said that I was considering nothing in particular. We are friends."
"Keep away from her! Do you understand?"
"I really don't know whether I do or not. I suppose you mean Sir
Charles."
Mrs. Sprowl turned red:
"Suppose what you like, you cold-blooded cad! But by God!--if you annoy
that child I'll empty the family wash all over the sidewalk! And let the
public pick it over!"
He rested his pale, protuberant eyes on her for a brief second:
"Will any of your finery figure in it? Any relics or rags once belonging
to the late parent of Sir Charles?"
Her features were livid; her lips twisted, tortured under the flood of
injuries which choked her. Not a word came. Exhausted for a moment she
sat there grasping the gilded arms of her chair, livid as the dead save
for the hell blazing in her tiny green eyes.
"I fancy that settles the laundry question," he said, while his restless
glance ceaselessly swept the splendid room and his lean, sunburnt hand
steadily caressed his moustache. Then, as though he had forgotten
something, he rose and walked out. A footman invested him with hat and
overcoat. A moment later the great doors clicked.
In the silence of the huge house there was not a sound except the
whispers of servants; and these ceased presently.
All alone, amid the lighted magnificence of the vast room sat the old
woman hunched in her chair, bloodless, motionless as a mass of dead
flesh. Even the spark in her eyes was gone, the lids closed, the gross
lower lip pendulous. Later two maids, being summoned, accompanied her
to her boudoir, and were dismissed. Her social secretary, a pretty girl,
came and left with instructions to cancel invitations for the evening.
A maid arrived with a choice of headache remedies; then, with the aid of
another, disrobed her mistress and got her into bed.
Their offices accomplished, they were ordered to withdraw but to leave
one light burning. It glimmered over an old-fashioned photograph on the
wall--the portrait of a British officer taken in the days when whiskers,
"pill-box," and frogged frock-tunic were cultivated in Her British
Majesty's Service.
From where she lay she looked at him; and Sir Weyward Mallison stared
back at her through his monocle.
* * * * *
Strelsa at home, unpinning her hat before the mirror, received word over
the telephone that Mrs. Sprowl, being indisposed, regretfully recalled
the invitations for the evening.
The girl's first sensation was relief, then self-reproach, quite
forgetting that if Mrs. Sprowl's violent emotions had made that
redoubtable old woman ill, they had also thoroughly fatigued the victim
of her ill-temper and made her very miserable.
She wrote a perfunctory note of regret and civil inquiry and dispatched
it, then surrendered herself to the ministrations of her maid.
The luxury of dining alone for the first time in months, appealed to
her. She decided that she was not to be at home to anybody.
Langly Sprowl called about six, and was sent away. Strelsa, curled up on
a divan, could hear the staccato racket that his powerful racing-car
made in the street outside. The informality of her recent host aboard
the _Yulan_ did not entirely please her. She listened to his departure
with quiet satisfaction.
Although it was not her day, several people came and went. Flowers from
various smitten youths arrived; orchids from Sprowl; nothing from
Quarren. Then for nearly two hours she slept where she lay and awakened
laughing aloud at something Quarren had been saying in her dream. But
what it was she could not recollect.
At eight her maid came and hooked her into a comfortable and beloved
second-year gown; dinner was announced; she descended the stairway in
solitary state, still smiling to herself at Quarren's forgotten remark,
and passed by the library just as the telephone rang there.
It may have been a flash of clairvoyance--afterward she wondered exactly
what it was that made her say to her maid very confidently:
"That is Mr. Quarren. I'll speak to him."
It was Mr. Quarren. The amusing coincidence of her dream and her
clairvoyance still lingering in her mind, she went leisurely to the
telephone and said:
"I don't understand how I knew it was you. And I'm not sure why I came
to the 'phone, because I'm not at home to anybody. But _what_ was it you
said to me just now?"
"When?"
"A few minutes ago while I was asleep?"
"About eight o'clock?"
She laughed: "It happened to be a few minutes before eight. How did you
know that? I believe you did speak to me in my dream. Did you?"
[Illustration: "Strelsa, curled upon a divan ... listened to his
departure with quiet satisfaction."]
"I did."
"Really?"
"I said something aloud to you about eight o'clock."
"How odd! Did you know I was asleep? But you couldn't----"
"No, of course not. I was merely thinking of you."
"You were--you happened to be thinking of _me_? And you said something
aloud about me?"
"About you--and _to_ you."
"How delightfully interesting! What was it, please?"
"Oh, I was only talking nonsense."
"Won't it bear repetition?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Mr. Quarren! How maddening! I'm dying with curiosity. I dreamed that
you said something very amusing to me and I awoke, laughing; but now I
simply cannot recollect what it was you said."
"I'll tell you some day."
"Soon? Would you tell me this evening?"
"How can I?"
"That's true. I'm not at home to anybody. So you can't drop in, can
you?"
"You are not logical; I could drop in because I'm not anybody----"
"What!"
"I'm not anybody in particular----"
"You know if you begin to talk that way, after all these days, I'll ring
off in a rage. You are the only man in the world to whom I'm at home
even over the telephone, and if that doesn't settle your status with me,
what does?... Are you well, Mr. Quarren?"
"Thank you, perfectly. I called you up to ask you about yourself."
"I'm tired, somehow."
"Oh, we are all that. Nothing more serious threatens you than impending
slumber?"
"I said I was tired, not sleepy. I'm wide awake but horribly lazy--and
inclined to slump. Where are you; at the Legation?"
"At the Founders' Club--foundered."
"What are you doing there?"
"Absolutely nothing. Reading the _Evening Post_."
"You are dining out I suppose?"
"No."
She reflected until he spoke again, asking if she was still there.
"Oh, yes; I'm trying to think whether I want you to come around and
share a solitary dinner with me. Do I want you?"
"Just a little--don't you?"
"Do you want to come?"
"Yes."
"Very much?"
"I can't tell you how much--over the telephone."
"That sounds both humble and dangerous. Which do you mean to be?"
"Humble--and very, very grateful, dear lady. May I come?"
"I--don't know. Dinner was announced a quarter of an hour ago."
"It won't take me three minutes----"
"If it takes you more you'll ring my door-bell in vain, young man."
"I'll start now! Good----"
[Illustration: "'Do you remember our first toast?' he asked,
smiling."]
"Wait! I haven't decided. Really I'm simply stupid with the accumulated
fatigues of two months' frivolity. Do you mind my being stupid?"
"You know I don't----"
"Shame on you! That was not the answer. Think out the right one on your
way over. _À bien tôt!_"
She had been in the drawing-room only a few moments, looking at the huge
white orchids that Langly Sprowl had sent and which her butler was
arranging, when Quarren was announced; and she partly turned from the
orchids, extending her hand behind her in a greeting more confident and
intimate than she had ever before given him.
"Look at these strange, pansy-shaped Brazilian flowers," she said.
"Kindly observe that they are actually growing out of that ball of moss
and fibre."
She had retained his hand for a fraction of a second longer than
conventional acquaintance required, giving it a frank and friendly
pressure. Now, loosing it, she found her own fingers retained, and drew
them away with a little laugh of self-consciousness.
"Sentiment before dinner implies that you'll have no room for it after
dinner. Here is your cocktail."
"Do you remember our first toast?" he asked, smiling.
"No."
"The toast to friendship?"
"Yes; I remember it."
She touched her lips to her glass, not looking at him. He watched her.
After a moment she raised her eyes, met his gaze, returned it with one
quite as audacious:
"I am drinking that same toast again--after many days," she said.
"With all that it entails?"
She nodded.
"Its chances, hazards, consequences?"
She laughed, then, looking at him, deliberately sipped from her glass,
the defiant smile in her eyes still daring him and Chance and Destiny
together.
When he took her out she was saying: "I really can't account for my mood
to-night. I believe that seeing you again is reviving me. I was beastly
stupid."
"My soporific society ought to calm, not exhilarate you."
"It never did, particularly. What a long time it is since we have seen
each other. I _am_ glad you came."
Seated, she asked the butler to remove the flowers which interrupted her
view of Quarren.
"You haven't said anything about my personal appearance," she observed.
"Am I very much battered by my merry bouts with pleasure?"
"Not much."
"You wretch! Do you mean to say that I am marked at all?"
"You look rather tired, Mrs. Leeds."
"I know I do. By daylight it's particularly visible.... But--do _you_
mind?"
Her charming head was bent over her grapefruit: she lifted her gray eyes
under level brows, looking across the table at him.
"I mind anything that concerns you," he said.
"I mean--are you disappointed because I'm growing old and haggard?"
"I think you are even more beautiful than you were."
She laughed gaily and continued her dinner. "I _had_ to drag that out
of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudence _is_
stamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm
beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. You _were_ one. Do
you deny your guilt?"
"I do not."
"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape.
_Am_ I very much changed, Mr. Quarren?" she said a trifle wistfully.
He did not answer immediately. After a few moments she glanced at him
again and met his gaze.
"Well?" she prompted him, laughing; "are you not neglecting your manners
as a declared suitor?"
"You _have_ changed."
"What a perfect pill you are!" she exclaimed, vexed--"you're casting
yourself for the rôle of the honest friend--and I simply hate it! Young
sir, do you not understand that I've breakfasted, lunched and dined too
long on flattery to endure anything more wholesome? If you can't lie to
me like a gentleman and a suitor your usefulness in my entourage is
ended."
He said: "Do you want me to talk shop with you? I get rather tired of my
trade, sometimes. It's my trade to lie, you know."
She looked up, quickly, but he was smiling.
They remained rather silent after that. Coffee was served at table; she
lighted a cigarette for him and, later, one for herself, strolling off
into the drawing-room with it between her fingers, one hand resting
lightly on her hip.
She seemed to have an inclination to wander about or linger before the
marble fireplace and blow delicate rings of smoke at her own reflection
in the mirror.
He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded
affably to him in the glass:
"I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first
knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless--I wasn't then....
Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about
the kind--as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting."
"A cradle song is what you require."
"How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same
cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?"
"I realise how tired you are."
"And--I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her
mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time....
Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you
know?"
"Conscience?" he suggested, laughing.
"Do you think so? I thought it was my heart."
"Have you acquired one?"
She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned
around toward him, still smiling.
"I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?"
"I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?"
"I really don't know. What do you think?"
He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the
fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her
dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between
forefinger and thumb.
Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not
the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was
only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day
was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became
only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of
experience.... I wonder whether my silly head _was_ turned a little....
People said too much to me: there were too many of them--and they came
too near.... And do you know--looking back at it now as I sit here
talking to you--I--it seems absurd--but I believe that I was really a
trifle lonely at times."
She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them.
"I thought of you on various occasions," she added.
He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender.
Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained
fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his
eyes from the bracket light.
For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his
silence and abstraction--in the set of his shoulders, and the
unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it
glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the
forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again--agreeable to
be with him--not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable--for
even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was
no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly
conscious of a reserve force now awaking--of a growing sense of
freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour.
"Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last.
He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move--scarcely an
invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated
himself on the arm of the lounge beside her.
"Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me."
"I wrote very few.... Did they really interest you?"
"A lot."
"How?"
"They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back
door of Eternity."
"How do you mean?"
"Otherwise he would never have stirred a step--until to-night."
"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren--but a little
sentimental--isn't it?"
"Do you think so?"
"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment--being unaccustomed to
it."
"How many men made you declarations?"
"Oh; is _that_ real sentiment? I thought it was merely love."
He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become
like the rest."
She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I _have_ grown
hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not
even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you
think so?"
"Do you, Mrs. Leeds?"
"I think so.... A woman might as well know the worst truths about
life--and about men."
"Not about men."
"Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?"
"Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?"
"By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You
probably prefer your women screened and veiled."
"We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film."
"Mr. Quarren--are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing.
But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale
induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones.
"What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked,
curiously.
"Working at my trade."
"You seem thinner."
"Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I
must."
"You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike--aren't
you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him.
He laughed.
"You make me very angry," she said; "I like you--I'm quite happy with
you--and suddenly you try to tell me that my friendship is lavished on
an unworthy man; that my taste is low, and that you're a kind of a
social jackal--an upper servant----
"I feed on what the pack leaves--and I wash their fragile plates for
them," he said lightly.
"What else?" she asked, furious.
"I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I
smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially
injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother
jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to
sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and
give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment's notice, acting as
manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter."
He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost
control of herself and her fingers closed tight.
"What are you saying!" she said, fiercely. "Are you telling me that this
is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to--to think
about--think about a great deal--care enough about to dine with in my
own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are
after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?"
He said, slowly: "I could have been anything--I could be yet--if
you----"
"If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for
anybody's!" she retorted.... "I refuse to believe that you are what you
say, anyway. It hurts--it hurts----"
"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds----"
"It hurts _me!_ I _do_ like you. I was glad to see you--you don't know
how glad. Your letters to me were--were interesting. _You_ have always
been interesting, from the very first--more so than many men--more than
most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If
I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?"
Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest
every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand
tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted
handkerchief.
"I could stand anything!--my friendship for you could stand almost
anything except what you pretend you are--and what other malicious
tongues will say if you continue to repeat it!--And it _has_ been said
already about you! Do you know that? People _do_ say that of you.
People even say so to me--tell me you are worthless--warn me
against--against----"
"What?"
"Caring--taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit
disrespect for yourself! A man--_any_ man is what he chooses to be, and
people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in
pretending to dignity and worth when--when you can be the peer of any
man? What's the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of
you with contempt. I denied what she said.... I'd rather they'd say
anything else about you--that you had vices--a vigorous, wilful,
unmanageable man's vices!--than to say _that_ of you!"
"What?"
"That you amount to nothing."
"Do you care what they say, Mrs. Leeds?"
"Of course! It strikes at my own self-respect!"
"Do you care--otherwise?"
"I care--as a friend, naturally----"
"Otherwise still?"
"No!"
"Could you ever care?"
"No," she said, nervously.
She sat breathing faster and more irregularly, watching him. He looked
up and smiled at her, rested so, a moment, then rose to take his leave.
She stretched out one arm toward the electric bell, but her fingers
seemed to miss it, and remained resting against the silk-hung wall.
"Are you going?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Must you?"
"I think I'd better."
"Very well."
He waited, but she did not touch the bell button. She seemed to be
waiting for him to go; so he offered his hand, pleasantly, and turned
away toward the hall. And, rising leisurely, she descended the stairs
with him in silence.
"Good-night," he said again.
"Good-night. I am sorry you are going."
"Did you wish me to remain a little longer?"
"I--don't know what I wish...."
Her cheeks were deeply flushed; the hand he took into his again seemed
burning.
"It's fearfully hot in here," she said. "Please muffle up warmly because
it's bitter weather out doors"--and she lifted the other hand as though
unconsciously and passed her finger tips over his fur collar.
"Do you feel feverish?"
"A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?"
"You haven't caught malaria in the tropics, have you?"
"No, you funny man. I'm never ill. But it's odd how burning hot I seem
to be----"
She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his.
They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as
though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the
quiet around her--a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a
delicate mist--a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and
thought.
Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred;
and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his.
At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small
head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch--a slight caress over her
forehead--the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers,
closer, never stirring.
Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical
currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless,
non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to
the sorcery.
Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its
fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her.
She strove to turn her mouth from his--twisted away from him, straining,
tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail,
gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she
shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even
look at him, now.
Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood
there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and glass
door; a flurry of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the
spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes.
Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and
locked the door against her maid.
Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat
before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and
lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange
nerves signalling; stranger responses--of a subtle fragrance in her
breath so strange that she became conscious of it.
She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the glass while
through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew
tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the
unknown.
Unknown still!--for she crouched there shrinking from the
revelation--from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf,
blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of
self-contempt.
Then fear came--fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and
defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already
dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very
patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes.
So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one
day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser
passion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had
sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her--out of a moment's
lassitude, a touch of a man's hand, and his lips on hers! And now all
her life was already behind her--childhood, girlhood, wifehood--all,
all behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an
unknown road; an unknown world before her.
With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty,
of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce
humiliation born of self-knowledge--knowledge scornfully admitted and
defied with every breath--but no longer denied.
She _was_ as others were--fashioned of that same and common clay,
capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of
them--so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant,
they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things
of the mind.
Was this the evolution that her winter's idleness and gaiety and the
fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that
strange moment, at the door, the moment that man's enemy had been
awaiting, to find her unprepared?
Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on
her dresser--the fairest among the Philistines who had so long
unconsciously thanked God that she was not like other women in the homes
of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon.