As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged
walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger
across her lips conjuring caution.
"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't
suppose the child could possibly object."
Quarren's features stiffened:
"Does she?"
"Why--this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and
Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she
had left."
"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.
"I really don't know, Ricky----"
"Yes, you do. What has happened?"
"You're certainly rude enough----"
"What has happened, Molly?"
"I don't know for certain, I tell you.... Langly Sprowl has been roving
around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together
nearly every day."
"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?"
"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles."
"Do you believe that?"
"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly has persuaded her into
some sort of a tacit engagement.... I don't know what the child can be
thinking of--unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has
convinced her of his martyrdom.... There'll be a pretty situation when
Mary Ledwith returns.... I could kill Langly--" She doubled both pretty
hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she
placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the
top step deliberately kissed him.
[Illustration: "'I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming,' she
whispered."]
"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad
you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and
your new enterprise!--I laughed and laughed!--forgive me, but the papers
were so funny--and I couldn't help laughing----"
Quarren forced a smile.
"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command
a good deal of respect sooner or later."
"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?"
"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before
you and Jim try to buy the entire collection."
"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed
Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly
and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a
bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache
before your appearance adds another distressing jolt."
"Has she had another shock recently?"
"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for
her."
"Are you sure?"
"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and
even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's
a ghastly scandal--the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you
suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!"
They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived
and a valet was busy unpacking for him.
"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for
tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it--except
that little girl over there"--pointing along the corridor to a distant
door.
He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too
soon."
So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains,
Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly,
Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and
headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of
his guests.
Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed
setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to
lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet.
Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels
and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break
in--a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor
blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair.
"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his
tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes.
"We're out of the running, we two--aren't we?" he added. "You try very
pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more
hopeless race.... For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the
race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy
heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure
and senseless gold."
He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer
was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear
waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks.
Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the
Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions--among others the
new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so
marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any
of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms
resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him
enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been
so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that
Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of
strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or
the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his
heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea,
syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where
scores of frail and frivolous strangers nodded amid anæmic leaves, or
where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun,
seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per
dozen.
He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the
sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered
wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too
closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions.
Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering
between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently
rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the
rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper
which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks.
There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she
looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward
the hand he offered.
"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession.
"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?"
"Yes. Have you just arrived?"
"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys'
new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather
pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?"
She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he
saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the
lashes.
[Illustration: "So he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp
curve."]
He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on
the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths;
where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still
waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass.
No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled
it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense
calm.
"Are you--offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the
water.
"Of course not!" he replied cordially.
She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence.
"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably.
"Did you receive my letter?"
"Of course I did."
"You did not answer it."
"I didn't know how--then."
His reply seemed to perplex her--so did his light and effortless
good-humour.
"I know how to answer it now," he added.
She forced a smile:
"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"
"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late
seldom dares start.... I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me
to be seated?"
She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took
the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his
pocket.
"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter."
"Really, Mr. Quarren----"
"Don't you want me to?"
"I--don't think--it matters, now----"
"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing.
She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been
instantly conscious--he had changed since she had seen him--changed
radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air
suggesting assurance--an individuality which had not heretofore clearly
distinguished him--a hidden hint of strength. Or was she
mistaken--abashed--remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour
of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing
to him what she had written.
She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain
unanswered."
"You think I'm too late?"
She looked at him steadily:
"Yes, you are too late--in every sense."
"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying
glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to
nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never
yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that
letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are
going to learn some day what tragedy really is."
"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make
me take you seriously?"
"I certainly am."
"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed.
"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have
_got_ to take me seriously."
She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now
gaily maintained the lighter vein:
"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen
and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I
suppose."
"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist
rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!"--he held out to
her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.
"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what _is_ it?"
"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving
picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent
blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"
The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given
name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning
silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so
frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight
sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain,
inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean.
"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.
"How can I deny it?--with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll
lend you some witch-hazel----"
"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic,"
he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."
"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."
"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a
handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."
She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."
"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"
"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray
eyes--a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to
her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched
his shoulder.
She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:
"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it
wants to?"
She laughed.
He went on: "I mean when _you_ want it to be. Because it's really up to
you."
"To _me_, my slangy friend?"
"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."
This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and
she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.
"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.
"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."
"Is that a reason?"--very gravely.
"You can make it so if you will."
She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:
"You say that you always think of me--that way. But I'm afraid that,
even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed
you to the use of it."
"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"
"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to
give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of,
don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation----"
"Strelsa----"
"No!--please."
"When?"
She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr.
Quarren?"
"Not unless you do."
"I? What do you mean?"
"Will you answer me honestly?"
"Have you ever found me dishonest?"
"Sometimes--with yourself."
Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head
abruptly. After a few moments' silence:
"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.
"Then--do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"
She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to
avoid it.
"I think of my friends--and you among them."
"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"
"I--your friends--people are eternally dinning your name into my
ears----"
"Please answer."
"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to
know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick--whatever they call you?"
"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in
sheer exasperation.
"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I
made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you--when I happen
to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you
that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend----"
"Won't you?"
"No."
"Some day?"
"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like
it. It would be forced, artificial--an effort--and I don't
desire--wish--care----"
"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child!
Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the
pronunciation of my name?"
Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man
beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes
were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became
acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in
touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent
impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these
months, the same strange sensation passed through her--a thrilling
consciousness of his nearness.
Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his
slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.
He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her,
then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she
saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought
might be.
He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of
individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite
specimen known to you as _Mister_ Quarren?"
She smiled, uncertainly:
"But I _don't_ reject you, _Mister_ Quarren."
"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."
"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."
"I've got to climb over it then----"
"I don't wish you to!"
"Strelsa?"
"W-what?"
"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"
"I--I don't know what you mean."
"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.
"Please don't say such things----"
"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that
kind of a wall remain between us----"
"I ask you not to talk about such----"
"You _wouldn't_," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why
such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you
that he cares----"
"Please--if you please--I had rather not----"
"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather
plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you--I don't know how much,
yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap
up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously
he is in love with the unknown on the other side."
He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite
thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended
along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every
nerve in her body.
"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other
side of that barrier--your unknown self, Strelsa--undiscovered as yet by
me----"
Her lips moved mechanically:
"I wrote you--_told_ you what I am."
"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know
yourself----"
"I do. I _am_ what I wrote you."
"Partly perhaps--partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a
sequence of blows----"
"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of
my life!--But those would not count--if I were not selfish, dishonest,
and a coward."
His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure
left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually
the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange
sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and
motionless, looking down at the still lake below.
"What _is_ the barrier?" he asked quietly.
"There is no barrier to your friendship--if you care to offer it, now
that you know me."
"But I _don't_ know you. And I care for more than your friendship even
after the glimpse I have had of you."
"I--care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren."
"_Could_ you ever care for more?"
"No.... I don't wish to.... There _is_ nothing higher."
"_Could_ you--if there were?"
But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light
weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new
senses that his touch had discovered so long ago--and which had
slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless
relaxation, this lassitude which was becoming almost painful--or
sweet--she did not understand which--was this also a part of friendship?
Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy?--this
deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening
her pulses, her even breathing--menacing the delicate nerves in her hand
so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering----
She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a
little quick indrawn breath.
"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly--scarcely knowing
what she was saying.
"What, Strelsa?"
"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would."
Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face
became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully:
"I'm going to fight for you all the same."
"What!" she exclaimed, crisply.
"Fight hard, too," he added. "I'm on my mettle at last."
"You have no chance, Mr. Quarren."
"With--_him_?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at
all----"
"I don't care to hear you speak that way!" she said, hotly.
"Oh, I won't. A man's an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn't even
thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you--with your unknown self
behind that barrier. _Garde à vous!_"
"I decline the combat, Monsieur," she said, trying to speak lightly.
"Oh, I'm not afraid of _you_--the _visible_ you that I'm looking at and
which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will
fight me openly, fairly--and I have an even chance to win----"
"Do you think so?" she said, lip between her teeth.
"Don't you?"
"No."
"I do.... But it's your unknown self I'm afraid of, Strelsa. God alone
knows what it may do to both of us."
"There is no other self! What do you mean?"
"There are _two_ others--not this intellectual, friendly, kindly,
visible self that offers friendship and accepts it--not even the occult,
aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray
eyes----"
"There _is_ no other!" she said, flushing and rising to her feet.
"Is it dead?"
"It never lived!"
"Then," he said coolly, "it will be born as sure as I stand here!--born
to complete the trinity." He glanced out over the lake, then swung
around sharply: "You are wrong. It _has_ been born. And that unknown
self is hostile to me; and I know it!"
They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she
said: "I think we have talked some nonsense. Don't you?"
"_You_ haven't."
"You're a generous boy; do you know it?"
"You say so."
"Oh, I'll cheerfully admit it. If you weren't you'd detest me--perhaps
despise me."
"Men don't detest or despise a hurt and frightened child."
"But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of
her?"
"I don't know," he said. "Whatever you are I can't help loving you."
She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a
while when she could control her lips she said:
"I want to talk some more to you--and I don't know how; I don't even
know what I want to say except that--that----"
"What, Strelsa?"
"Please be--kind to me." She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered.
He said after a moment: "I couldn't be anything else."
"Are you very sure?"
"Yes."
"It means a great deal to me," she said.
They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea
was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for
tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got
them in chunks and bolted them, wagging.
An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she
wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke:
"Ricky dear?"
"Yes."
"Am I an angel or otherwise?"
"Angel always--but why particularly at this instant?"
"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?"
"Yes--you corker!"
"Well, then!"
"Molly, I worship you."
"_Et après?_"
"I'll double that! I adore you also!"
"Content! What are you two doing?"
"Strelsa and I have been taking tea."
"Oh, is it 'Strelsa' already?"
"Very unwillingly on her part."
"It isn't 'Ricky,' too, is it?"
"Alas! not yet!"
"No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. _What_ do you
think I've done, very cleverly?"
"What?"
"Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the
way to North Linden. We can't possibly get back until dinner. But that's
not all."
"What more, most wonderful of women?"
"I've got _him_ with us," she said with satisfaction. "I made Jim stop
and pick him up. I _knew_ he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I
made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some
fool horses at Acremont that he couldn't wriggle out of it particularly
as Strelsa is my guest and he's rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky,
make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I
couldn't avoid asking him."
"Very well," said Quarren grimly.
He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in
her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure.
"What had Molly to say to _you_ all that time?" she asked.
"Was I long away?"
"Yes, you were!"
"I'm delighted you found the time too long----"
"I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly
how time flies with you and Molly.... Oh, dear! _Is_ that a mosquito?"
"I'm afraid it is," said Quarren.
"Then indoors I go!" exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. "You may come with
me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated."
And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen
door.
Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window
late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory.
"I wonder if there's enough of this celestial radiance to make a new
aureole for you?" he said.
"So my old one is worn out, is it?"
"I meant to offer you a _double_ halo."
"You do say sweet things--for a rather obstinate young man," she said,
flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through
the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano.
Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative:
"Please lean on the piano." He did so, inquiringly.
"Otherwise," she said, "you'd have attempted to seat yourself on this
bench; and there isn't room for both of us without crowding."
"If you moved a little----"
"But I won't," she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the
key-board.
She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant,
careless, but acceptable barytone.
"The old ones are the best," she commented, running lightly through a
medley ranging from "The Mikado" to "Erminie," the "Black Hussar," and
"The Mascotte." They sang the "gobble duet" from the latter fairly well:
_She._
"When on your manly form I gaze
A sense of pleasure passes o'er me";
_He._
"The murmured music of your voice
Is sweeter far than liquid honey!"
And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her
turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing.
[Illustration: "'The old ones are best.' she commented."]
Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing "Johnny
Schmoker" with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal
refrain:
"Kanst du spielen?"
and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by
that Teutonic musician.
"I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless,
pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things," she exclaimed; and did
so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of
sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the
key-board with his own.
She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise.
"Very well," she said; "you'll have to match my performance with
something equally imbecile"; and she composed herself to listen.
"What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?" he asked gravely; "turn
seven solemn handsprings?"
"That isn't silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead."
He prepared to do so but she wouldn't permit him:
"No! I don't want to remember you doing such a thing.... All the same I
believe _you_ could do it and not lose--lose----"
"Dignity?"
"No--I don't know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you
to do something silly."
"Shall I say it or do it?"
"Either."
"Then I'll recite something very, very precious--subtly, intricately,
and psychologically precious."
"Oh, please do!"
"It's--it's about a lover."
She blushed.
"Do you mind?"
"You _are_ the limit! Of course I don't!"
"It's about a lady, too."
"Naturally."
"And love--rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love."
"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of
malice in her smile.
"All right. The title is: '_Oh, Love! Oh, Why?_'"
"A perfectly good title," she said gravely. "I alway says 'why?' to
Love."
So he bowed to her and began very seriously:
"Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!
Wait for a moment while I relate
A harrowing tragedy up to date
Of innate Hate.
"A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair;
Her store-curls stirred in the summer air;
An amorous Fly espied her there,
So rare and fair.
"Before she knew where she was at,
He'd kissed the maiden where she sat,
And she batted him one which slapped him flat
Ker-spat! Like that!
"Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye!
Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By,
Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly.
Oh, Love! Oh, Why?"
She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:
"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can't endure the realism of that
spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge
headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?"
Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood
changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among
the keys, striking vague harmonies.
He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and
after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.
A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink,
lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world
outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which
only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.
She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the
alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even
when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a
moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive
lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.
Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught
her slender hand:
"No!--please. Let me go! This is too serious--even if we did not mean
it----"
"You know I mean it," he said simply.
"You must not! You understand why!... And don't--again! I am not--I do
not choose to--to allow--endure--such--things----"
He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking
at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.
"Please!" she repeated--and "please!" And she came toward him a step,
and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.
"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to
me--and let me go."
"Am I unkind?"
"Yes--yes! You know--you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I
_am_ going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me--not for one
moment!"
"Check you from what, Strelsa?"
"From--what I want out of life!--tranquillity, ease, security,
happiness----"
"Happiness?"
"Yes--yes! It _will_ be that! I don't need anything except what I shall
have. I don't want anything else. Can't you understand? Do you think
women feel as--as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men
experience is also experienced by women? I don't want it; I don't
require it! I've--I've always had a contempt for it--and I have
still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any
man--friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can't you
take it--and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find
security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my
friendship--as long as I never swerve in it--as long as I hold you first
among my friends--first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer
you--I will not! Now let me go!"
"Your _other_ self, fighting me," he said, half to himself.
"No, _I_ am! What do you mean by my other self! There _is_ no other----"
"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"
She blushed scarlet:
"Is _that_ what you mean!--the stupid, unworthy, material self----"
"The trinity is incomplete without it."
She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly
as though frightened.
After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat
pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:
"I'm not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is
lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being
poor makes no difference either. I simply don't care--I don't even care
what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each
other--whether you think so or not. And you evidently don't, but I can't
help that. If I'm any good I'll make you think as I do----"
He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms
and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows
slightly knitted.
Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot
in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened
under his cheeks.
"_Can't_ you care?" he said, half to himself.
She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and
almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely
she felt that what had been there was now dead--that she never could
respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free
forever.
"_Can't_ you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again,
turning toward her.
"Is _that_ your idea of love?"
He shook his head, hopelessly:
"Oh, it's everything else, too--everything on earth--and
afterward--everything--mind, soul and body--birth, life, death--sky and
land and sea--everything that is or was or will be----"
His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked--looked up
at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes.
"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity--more than
for love; do you?"
"Yes."
"Is that true?"
"Yes. Because, unless you mean friendship, I care nothing for love."
"That is your answer."
"It is."
"Then there _is_ something lacking in you."
"Perhaps. I have never loved in the manner you mean. I do not wish to.
Perhaps I am incapable of it.... I hope I am; I believe--I believe--"
But she fell silent, standing with eyes lowered and the warm blood once
more stinging her cheeks.
Presently she looked up, calm, level-eyed:
"I think you had better ask my forgiveness before you go."
He shrugged:
"Yes, I'll ask it if you like."
To keep her composure became difficult:
"It is your affair, Mr. Quarren--if you still care to preserve our
friendship."
"Would a kiss shatter it?"
She smiled:
"A look, a word, the quiver of an eyelash is enough."
"It doesn't seem to be very solidly founded, does it?"
"Friendship is the frailest thing in the world--and the mightiest.... I
am waiting for your decision."
He walked up to her again, and she steeled herself, not knowing what to
expect.
"Will you marry me, Strelsa?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I have told Mr. Sprowl that I will marry him."
"Also because you don't love me; is that so?"
She said tranquilly: "I can't afford to marry you. I wouldn't love you
anyway."
"Couldn't?"
"Wouldn't," she said calmly; but her face was crimson.
"Oh," he said under his breath--"you _are_ capable of love."
"I think not, Mr. Quarren; but I am very capable of hate."
And, looking up, he saw it for an instant, clear in her eyes. Then it
died out; she turned a trifle pale, walked to the window and stood
leaning against it, one hand on the curtain.
She did not seem to hear him when he came up behind her, and he touched
her lightly on the arm:
"I ask your forgiveness," he said.
"It is granted, Mr. Quarren."
"Have I ruined our friendship?"
"I don't know what you have done," she said wearily.
A few moments later the motor arrived; Quarren turned on the electric
lights in the room; Strelsa walked across to the piano and seated
herself.
She was playing rag-time when the motor party entered; Quarren came
forward and shook hands with Chrysos Lacy and Sir Charles; Langly Sprowl
passed him with a short nod, saying "How are you, Quarren?"--and kept
straight on to Strelsa.
"Rotten luck," he said in his full, careless voice; "I'd meant to ride
over and chance a gallop with you but Wycherly picked me up and started
on one of his break-neck tears.... What have you been up to all day?"
"Nothing--Mr. Quarren came."
"I see--showed him about, I expect."
"A--little."
"Are you feeling fit, Strelsa?"
"Perfectly.... Why?"
"You look a bit streaky----"
"Thank you!"
"'Pon my word you do--a bit under the weather, you know----"
"Woman's only friend and protector--a headache," she said, gaily
rattling off more rag-time. "Where did you go, Langly?"
"To look over some silly horses----"
"They're fine nags!" remonstrated Molly--"and I was perfectly sure that
Langly would buy half a dozen."
"Not I," said that hatchet-faced young man; and into his sleek and
restless features came a glimmer of shrewdness--the sly thrift that
lurks in the faces of those who bargain much and wisely in petty wares.
It must have been a momentary ancestral gleam from his rum-smuggling
ancestors, for Langly Sprowl had never dealt in little things.
Chrysos Lacy was saying: "It's adorable to see you again, Ricky. What
_is_ this we hear about you and Lord Dankmere setting up shop?"
"It's true," he laughed. "Come in and buy an old master, Chrysos, at
bargain prices."
"I shall insist on Jim buying several," said Molly.
Her husband laughed derisively:
"When I can buy a perfectly good Wright biplane for the same money? Come
to earth, Molly!"
"You'll come to earth if you go sky-skating around the clouds in that
horrid little Stinger, Jim," she said. "Why couldn't _you_ take out the
Stinger for a little exercise?"--turning to Sprowl.
"I'm going to," said Sprowl in his full penetrating voice, not conscious
that it required courage to risk a flight with the Stinger. Nobody had
ever imputed any lack of that sort of courage to Langly Sprowl. He
simply did not understand bodily fear.
Strelsa glanced up at him from the piano:
"It's rather risky, isn't it?"
He merely stared at her out of his slightly protruding eyes as though
she were speaking an unfamiliar language.
"Jim," said Quarren, "would you mind taking me as a passenger?"
Wycherly, reckless enough anyway, balked a little at the proposition:
"That Stinger is too light and too tricky I'm afraid."
"Isn't she built for two?"
"Well, I suppose she _could_ get off the ground with you and me----"
"All right; let's try her?"
"Jim! I won't let you," said his wife.
"Don't be silly, Molly. Rix and I are not going up if she won't take
us----"
"I forbid you to try! It's senseless!"
Her husband laughed and finished his whisky and soda. Then twirling his
motor goggles around his fingers he stood looking at Strelsa.
"You're a pretty little peach," he said sentimentally, "and I'm sorry
Molly is here or----"
"Do _you_ care?" laughed Strelsa, looking around at him over her
shoulder. "_I_ don't mind being adored by _you_, Jim."
"Don't you, sweetness?"
"Indeed I don't."
Wycherly started toward her: Langly Sprowl, who neither indulged in
badinage nor comprehended it in others, turned a perfectly
expressionless face on his host, who said:
"You old muffin head, did you ever smile in your life? You'd better try
now because I'm going to take your best girl away from you!"
Which bored Sprowl; and he turned his lean, narrow head away as a sleek
and sinister dog turns when laughed at.
Strelsa slipped clear of the piano and vanished, chased heavily by
Wycherly.
Molly said: "It's time to dress, good people. Langly, your man is
upstairs with your outfit. Come, Chrysos, dear--Rix, have you everything
you want?" she added in a low voice as he stood aside for her to pass:
"Have you _everything_, Ricky?"
"Nothing," he said.
"The little minx! _Is_ it Langly?"
"Yes."
"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" And, aloud: "Jim! Do let Langly try out the
Stinger to-morrow."
Her husband, who had given up his search for Strelsa, said that Sprowl
was welcome.
People scattered to their respective quarters; Quarren walked slowly to
his. Sprowl, passing with his mincing, nervous stride, said: "How's
little Dankmere?"
"All right," replied Quarren briefly.
"Cheap little beggar," commented Sprowl.
"He happens to be my partner," said the other.
"He suits your business no doubt," said Sprowl with a contempt he took
no pains to conceal--a contempt which very plainly included Quarren as
well as the Earl and the picture business.
Arrived at his door he glanced around to stare absently at Quarren. The
latter said, pleasantly:
"I don't suppose you meant to be offensive, Sprowl; you simply can't
help it; can you?"
"What?"
"I mean, you can't help being a bounder. It's just in you, isn't it?"
For a moment Sprowl's hatchet face was ghastly; he opened his mouth to
speak, twice, then jerked open his door and disappeared.