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."
"_Very_ well," said the Earl, airily. "I'm not worrying now, you know.
_Good_-bye, old sport!"
And he rang off.
Quarren meeting Molly in the hall said:
"I think I'd better leave this afternoon. Dankmere is messing matters."
"Are you going to run away?" she said in a low voice, glancing sideways
at Strelsa who had just passed them wearing her riding habit.
"Run away," he repeated, also lowering his voice. "From whom?"
"From Langly Sprowl."
He shrugged and looked out of the window.
"It _is_ running away," insisted his pretty hostess. "You have a chance
I think."
"Not the slightest."
"You are wrong. Strelsa wept in her sleep all night. How does that
strike you?"
"Not over me," he said grimly; but added: "How do you know she did?"
"Her maid told mine," admitted Molly shamelessly. "Now if you are going
to criticise my channels of information I'll remind you that Richelieu
himself----"
"Oh, Molly! Molly! What a funny girl you are!" he said, laughing.
"You're a sweet, loyal little thing, too--but there's no use--" His face
became expressionless, almost haggard--"there's no use," he repeated
under his breath.
Slowly, side by side, they walked out to the veranda, her hand resting
lightly just within the crook of his arm, he, absent-mindedly filling
his pipe.
"Strelsa likes you," she said.
"With all the ardour and devotion of a fish," he returned, coolly.
"Rix?"
"What?"
"Do you know," said Molly, thoughtfully, "she _is_ a sort of a fish. She
has the emotions of a mollusc as far as your sex is concerned. Some
women _are_ that way--more women than men would care to believe.... Do
you know, Ricky, if you'll let us alone, it is quite natural for us to
remain indifferent to considerations of that sort?"
She stood watching the young fellow busy with his pipe.
"It's only when you keep at us long enough that we respond," she said.
"Some of us are quickly responsive; it takes many of us a long while to
catch fire. Threatened emotion instinctively repels many of us--the more
fastidious among us, the finer grained and more delicately nerved, are
essentially reserved. Modesty, pride, a natural aloofness, are as much a
part of many women as their noses and fingers----"
"What becomes of modesty and pride when a girl marries for money?" he
asked coolly.
"Some women can give and accept in cold blood what it would be
impossible for them to accord to a more intimate and emotional demand."
"No doubt an ethical distinction," he said, "but not very clear to me."
"I did not argue that such women are admirable or excusable.... But how
many modern marriages in our particular vicinity are marriages of
inclination, Ricky?"
"You're a washed-out lot," he said--"you're satiated as schoolgirls. If
you have any emotions left they're twisted ones by the time you are
introduced. Most 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 of horror.--And you forget that those two years were
the result of a demand purely and brutally emotional--to which, a
novice, utterly ignorant, she yielded--pushed on by her mother....
Please be fair to her; remember that her childhood was pinched with
poverty, that her girlhood in school was a lonely one, embarrassed by
lack of everything which her fashionable schoolmates had as matters of
course.
"She could not go to the homes of her schoolmates in vacation times,
because she could not ask them, in turn, to her own. She was still in
school when Reggie Leeds saw her--and misbehaved--and the poor little
thing was sent home, guiltless but already half-damned. No wonder her
mother chased Reggie Leeds half around the world dragging her daughter
by the wrist!"
"Did it make matters any better to force that drunken cad into a
marriage?" asked Quarren coldly.
"It makes another marriage possible for Strelsa."
Quarren gazed out across the country where a fine misty rain was still
falling. Acres of clover stretched away silvered with powdery moisture;
robins and bluebirds covered the soaked lawns, and their excited
call-notes prophesied blue skies.
"It doesn't make any difference one way or the other," said Quarren,
half to himself. "She will go on in the predestined orbit----"
"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it."
"There is nothing to which she responds--except what I have not."
"Make what you do possess more powerful, then."
"What do I possess?"
"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?"
"Perhaps so--now--after a fashion.... But I am not the man who could
ever attract her----"
"Wake her, and find out."
"Wake her?"
"Didn't I tell you that many of us are asleep, and that few of us awake
easily? Didn't I tell you that nobody likes to be awakened from the warm
comfort and idle security of emotionless slumber?--that it is the
instinct of many of us to resist--just as I hear my maid speak to me in
the morning and then turn over for another forty winks, hating her!"
They both laughed.
"My maid has instructions to persist until I respond," said Molly.
"Those are my instructions to you, also."
"Suppose, after all, I were knocking at the door of an empty room?"
"You must take your chances of course."
There was a noise of horses on the gravel: Langly cantered up on a
handsome hunter followed by a mounted groom leading Strelsa's mare.
Sprowl dismounted and came up to pay his respects to Molly, scarcely
troubling himself to recognise Quarren's presence, and turning his back
to him immediately, although Molly twice attempted to include him in the
conversation.
Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a
pantomime unmistakable; but her pretty lips merely pressed each other
tighter, and she sauntered out, crop under one arm, with a careless
greeting to Langly.
He came up offering his hand and she took it, then stood a moment in
desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren.
[Illustration: "Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was
silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable."]
"I thought I overheard you say to Molly that you were going back to town
this afternoon," she remarked, casting a brief glance in his direction.
"I think I'd better go," he said, pleasantly.
"A matter of business I suppose?" eyebrows slightly lifted.
"In a way. Dankmere is alone, poor fellow."
Molly laughed:
"It is not good for man to be alone."
Sprowl said:
"There's a housemaid in my employ--she's saved something I understand.
You might notify Dankmere--" he half wheeled toward Quarren, eyes
slightly bulging without a shadow of expression on his sleek, narrow
face.
Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of
a clear sky.
"What?" he said slowly--then stepped back a pace as Strelsa passed close
in front of him, apparently perfectly unconscious of any discord:
"Will you get me a lump of sugar, Mr. Quarren? My mare must be pampered
or she'll start that jiggling Kentucky amble and never walk one step."
Quarren swung on his heel and entered the house; Molly, ignoring
Strelsa, turned sharply on Sprowl:
"If you are insolent to my guests you need not come here," she said
briefly.
Langly's restless eyes protruded; he glanced from Molly to Strelsa, then
his indifferent gaze wandered over the landscape. It was plain that the
rebuke had not made the slightest impression. Molly looked angrily at
Strelsa, but the latter, eyes averted, was gazing at her horse. And when
Quarren came back with a handful of sugar she took it and, descending
the steps, fed it, lump by lump to the two horses.
Langly put her up, shouldered aside the groom, and adjusted heel-loop
and habit-loop. Then he mounted, saluted Molly and followed Strelsa at a
canter without even noticing his bridle.
"What have you done to Langly?" asked Molly.
"Characterised his bad manners the other day. It wasn't worth while;
there's no money in cursing.... And I think, Molly dear, that I'll take
an afternoon train----"
"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way
under my roof----"
"It was outdoors, dear lady," said Quarren, smiling. "It's only his
rudeness before you that I mind. Where is Sir Charles?"
"Off with Chrysos somewhere on the river--there's their motor-launch,
now.... Ricky!"
"Yes."
"I'm angry all through.... Strelsa might have said something--showed her
lack of sympathy for Langly's remark by being a little more cordial to
you.... I don't like it in her. I don't know whether I am going to like
that girl or not----"
"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do----"
"There was! She _is_ a fish!--unless she gives Langly the dickens this
morning.... Will you motor with Jim and me, Ricky dear?"
"If you like."
She did like. So presently a racing car was brought around, Jim came
reluctantly from the hangar, and away they tore into the dull weather
now faintly illuminated by the prophecy of the sun.
Everywhere the mist was turning golden; faint smears of blue appeared
and disappeared through the vapours passing overhead. Then, all at once
the sun's glaring lens played across the drenched meadows, and the
shadows of tree and hedge and standing cattle streamed out across the
herbage.
In spite of the chains the car skidded dangerously at times; mud flew
and so did water, and very soon Molly had enough. So they tore back
again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters,
her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair
of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots--past
woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny
streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half
immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird
music--past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh
above the soaking brown earth.
Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds
fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the
kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud
enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded
with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million
blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them.
Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles
and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. Once,
across a distant hill, two horses and their riders passed outlined
against the sky; but even the eyes of a lover and a hater could not
identify anybody at such a distance.
So he strolled on, taking roads when convenient, fields when it suited
him, neither knowing nor caring where he was going.
Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he
turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a
little foot-bridge over a stream.
A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up.
"Is that you, Quarren?" he said.
The young fellow stopped and looked down curiously at the sunken,
unhealthy face, then, shocked, came forward hastily and shook hands.
"Why, Ledwith," he said, "what are you doing here?--Oh, I forgot; you
live here, don't you?"
"That's my house yonder--or was," said the man with a slight motion of
his head. And, after a moment: "You didn't recognise me. Have I changed
much?"
Quarren said: "You seem to have been--ill."
"Yes; I have been. I'm ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few
minutes--unless you are going somewhere in particular--or don't care to
talk to me----"
"Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be
gentle--even with such a man.
"I haven't seen much of you, for a couple of years--I haven't seen much
of anybody," said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking
at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren:
"You are stopping with----"
"The Wycherlys."
"Oh, yes.... I haven't seen them lately.... They are neighbours"--he
waved his sickly coloured hand--"but I'm rather quiet--I read a good
deal--as you see."--He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and
his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually.
"It's a pretty country," said Quarren.
"Yes--I thought so once. I built that house.... There's no use in my
keeping up social duties," he said with another slinking glance at
Quarren. "So I'm giving up the house."
"Really."
"Hasn't--you have heard so, haven't you?"
He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and
his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or
rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and
continuously as he jerked about in his seat.
"I suppose," he said slyly, "people talk about me, Quarren."
"Do you know anybody immune to gossip?" inquired Quarren, smiling.
"No; that's true. But I don't care anything for people.... I read, I
have my horses and dogs--but I'm going to move away. I told you that,
didn't I?"
"I believe you did."
Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost
imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance:
"There's no use pretending to _you_, Quarren; is there?"
Quarren said nothing.
"You know all the gossip--all the dirty little faits divers of your
world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential----"
"You're mistaken, Ledwith," he said pleasantly. "I'm done with it."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, that I've gone into a better business and I'm too busy to be
useful and amusing any longer."
Ledwith's dead eyes stared:
"I heard you had dropped out--were never seen about. Is that true?"
"Yes."
"Found the game too rotten?"
"Oh, no. It's no different from any other game--a mixture of the same
old good and bad, with good predominating. But there's more to be had
out of life in other games."
"Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working
as side partner, isn't it?"
Quarren said pleasantly: "If you're serious, Ledwith, you're a liar."
After a silence Ledwith said: "Do you think there's enough left of me to
care what anybody calls me?"
Quarren turned: "I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make
you such an answer."
"Never mind.... In that last year--when I still knew people--and when
they still knew me--you were very kind to me, Quarren."
"Why not? You were always decent to me."
Ledwith was now picking at his fingers, and Quarren saw that they were
dreadfully scarred and maltreated.
"You've always been kind to me," repeated Ledwith, his extinct eyes
fixed on space. "Other people would have halted at sight of me and gone
the other way--or passed by cutting me dead.... _You_ sat down beside
me."
"Am I anybody to refuse?"
But Ledwith only blinked nervously down at his book, presently fell to
twitching the uncut pages again.
"Poems," he said--"scarcely what you'd think I'd wish to read,
Quarren--poems of youth and love----"
"You're young, Ledwith--if you cared to help yourself----"
"Yes, if I cared--if I cared. In this book they all seem to care; youth
and happiness care; sorrow and years still care. Listen to this:
"'You who look forward through the shining tears
Of April's showers
Into the sunrise of the coming years
Golden with unborn flowers--
I who look backward where the sunset lowers
Counting November's hours!'
"But--I _don't_ care. I care no longer, Quarren."
"_That's_ losing your grip."
He raised his ashy visage: "I'm _trying_ to let go.... But it's
slow--very slow--with a little pleasure--hell's own pleasure--" He
turned his shoulder, fished something out of his pocket, and pulling
back his cuff, bent over. After a few moments he turned around, calmly:
"You've seen that on the stage I fancy."
"Otherwise, also."
"Quite likely. I've known a pretty woman--" He ended with a weary
gesture and dropped his head between his hands.
"Quarren," he said, "there's only one hurt left in it all. I have two
little children."
Quarren was silent.
"I suppose--it won't last--that hurt. They're with my mother. It was
agreed that they should remain with her.... But it's the only hurt I
feel at all now--except--rarely--when those damned June roses are in
bloom.... She wore them a good deal.... Quarren, I'm glad it came early
to me if it had to come.... Like yellow dogs unsuccessful men are the
fastest breeders. The man in permanent hard luck is always the most
prolific.... I'm glad there are no more children."
His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read
what was not written there--
"Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
Froze my swift speech; she turning on my face
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
Spoke slowly.
"'I had great beauty; ask thou not my name;
No one can be more wise than destiny.
Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came
I brought calamity.'"
Quarren bit his lip and looked down at the sunlit brook dancing by under
the bridge in amber beauty.
Ledwith said musingly: "I don't know who it might have been if it had
not been Sprowl. It would have been _somebody_!... The decree has been
made absolute."
Quarren looked up.
"She's coming back here soon, now. I've had the place put in shape for
her."
After a silence Quarren rose and offered his hand.
Ledwith took it: "I suppose I shall not see you again?"
"I'm going to town this afternoon. Good-bye."
Looking back at the turn of the path he saw Ledwith, bent nearly double,
terribly intent on his half-bared arm.
Returning in time for luncheon he encountered Sir Charles fresh from the
river, and Chrysos prettily sun-burned, just entering the house.
"We broke down," said the girl; "I thought we'd never get back, but Sir
Charles is quite wonderful and he mended that very horrid machinery with
the point of a file. Think of it, Ricky!--the point of a file!"
Sir Charles laughed and explained the simplicity of the repairs; and
Chrysos, not a whit less impressed, stared at him out of her pretty
golden eyes with a gaze perilously resembling adoration.
Afterward, by the bay-window upstairs, Quarren said lightly to Molly:
"How about the little Lacy girl and the Baronet?"
"She's an idiot," said Molly, shortly.
"I'm afraid she is."
"Of course she is. I wish I hadn't asked her. Why, she goes about like a
creature in a trance when Sir Charles is away.... I don't know whether
to say anything to her or whether to write to her mother. She's slated
for Roger O'Hara."
"I don't suppose her parents would object to Sir Charles," said Quarren,
smiling.
"That's why I hesitate to write. Sir Charles is in love with Strelsa;
anybody can see that and everybody knows it. And it isn't likely that a
child like Chrysos could swerve him."
"Then you'd better send him or her away, hadn't you?"
"I don't know what to do," said Molly, vexed. "June is to be quiet and
peaceful at Witch-Hollow, and Sir Charles wanted to be here and Mrs.
Lacy asked me to have Chrysos because she needed the quiet and calm. And
_look_ what she's done!"
"It's probably only a young girl's fancy."
"Then it ought to be nipped in the bud. But her mother wants her here
and Sir Charles wants to be here and if I write to her mother she'll let
her remain anyway. I'm cross, Ricky. I'm tired, too--having dictated
letters and signed checks until my head aches. Where have you been?"
"Prowling."
"Well, luncheon is nearly ready, and Strelsa isn't back. Are you going
to New York this afternoon?"
"Yes."
"Please don't."
"I think it's better," he said lightly.
"All right. Run away if you want to. Don't say another word to me; I'm
irritated."
Luncheon was not very gay; Chrysos adored Sir Charles in silence, but so
sweetly and unobtrusively that the Baronet was totally unaware of it.
Molly, frankly out of temper, made no effort of any sort; her husband in
his usual rude health and spirits talked about the Stinger to everybody.
Strelsa, who had arrived late, and whose toilet made her later still,
seemed inclined to be rather cheerful and animated, but received little
encouragement from Molly.
However, she chatted gaily with Sir Charles and with Quarren, and after
luncheon invited Sir Charles to read to her and Chrysos, which the grave
and handsome Englishman did while they swung in old-fashioned hammocks
under the maple trees, enjoying the rare treat of hearing their own
language properly spoken.
Molly had a book to herself on the veranda--the newest and wickedest of
French yellow-covered fiction; her husband returned to the Stinger;
Quarren listened to Sir Charles for a while, then without disturbing the
reading, slipped quietly off and wandered toward the kennels.
Here for a while he caressed the nervous, silky Blue Beltons, then
strolled on toward the hemlock woods, a morning paper, still unread,
sticking out of his pocket.
When he came to the rustic seat which was his objective, he lighted his
pipe, unfolded the paper, and forced his attention on the first column.
How long he had been studying the print he did not know when, glancing
up at the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, he saw Strelsa coming in
his direction. He could see her very plainly through the hemlocks from
where he sat but she could not as yet see him. Then the fat waddling dog
ahead of her, barked; and he saw the girl stop short, probably divining
that the rustic seat was occupied.
For a few moments she stood there, perhaps waiting for her dog to
return; but that fat sybarite had his chin on Quarren's knees; and,
presently, Strelsa moved forward, slowly, already certain who it was
ahead of her.
Quarren rose as she came around the curve in the path:
"If you don't want me here I'm quite willing to retire," he said,
pleasantly.
"That is a ridiculous thing to say," she commented. Then she seated
herself and motioned him to resume his place.
"I was rather wondering," she continued, "whether I'd see you before you
leave."
"Oh, are you driving this afternoon?"
"No."
"Then I should certainly have looked for you and made my adieux."
"Would you have remembered to do it?"
He laughed:
"What a question! I might possibly forget my own name, but not anything
concerning you."
She looked down at the paper lying between them on the bench, and, still
looking down, said slowly:
"I am sorry for what Langly did this morning.... He has expressed his
contrition to me----"
"_That_ is all right as long as he doesn't express it to me,"
interrupted Quarren, bluntly.
"He means to speak to you----"
"Please say to him that your report of his mental anguish is
sufficient."
"_Are_ you vindictive, Mr. Quarren?" she asked, reddening.
"Not permanently. But I either like or I dislike. So let the incident
close quietly."
"Very well--if you care to humiliate me--him----"
"Dear Mrs. Leeds, he isn't going to be humiliated, because he doesn't
care. And you know I wouldn't humiliate you for all the world----"
"You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you----"
He looked up at her:
"Would _that_ make it easier for you?"
"I--perhaps--please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren."
"Very well," he said quietly.
He caressed the dog's head where it lay across his knees, and looked out
over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and
wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart
the sun.
She said in a low voice: "I hope your new business venture will be
successful."
"I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care."
"I care--greatly.... As much as I--dare."
He laughed: "Don't you dare care about me?"
She bit her lip: "I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two
occasions."
"So you don't really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I
might again mistake it for something deeper." He was still laughing, and
she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then:
"There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you--if you
will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out
of it."
"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face altering.
"Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren."
"I thought I spoiled that for both of us," he said.
"I didn't say so. I told you that I didn't know what you had done. I've
had time to reflect. It--our friendship isn't spoiled--if you still
value it."
"I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa."
There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly
reflected in hers.
"Then let us have peace," she said unsteadily. "I have--been--not very
happy since you--since we----"
"I know. I've been utterly miserable, too." He lifted one of her hands
and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in
his.
"Do you mind?" he asked.
"N-no."
He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested
her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes.
"I think--you had better not--touch me--any more--" she said faintly.
"Is it disagreeable?"
"Yes--n-no.... It is--it has nothing to do with friendship--" she looked
up, flushed, curious: "Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?"
"Did you never caress a flower?"
"Rix!"--she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first
time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. "It was your
nonsensical answer!--I--it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon
for being stupid.... And--may I have my hand? I use it occasionally."
He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her
fingers.
"Strelsa," he said, "I'm coming back into the battle again."
"Then I am sorry I forgave you."
"_Are_ you?"
"Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can't you be to me what I wish to be to
you? Why can't you be what I want--what I need----"
"Do you know what you need?"
"Yes, I----"
"No, you don't. You need to love--and to be loved. You don't know it,
but you do!"
"That is a--a perfectly brutal thing to say----"
"Does it sound so to you?"
"Yes, it does! It is brutal--common, unworthy of you and of me----"
He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her:
"_Can't_ you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't
you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there
anything to be ashamed of in it?--merely because nothing has ever yet
awakened _you_ to it?"
"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of
me is more than love--cleaner, better, stronger----"
"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to
do!"
"No."
"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!"
She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves
become irresponsible. I know nothing about it--I could not--I
will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it--to me it is
degrading--contemptible----"
"What are you saying?"
"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster.
"I'm telling you what I know--what I have learned in a bitter
school--during two dreadful years----"
"_That!_"
"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave
friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to
me? You are the one man I could ask it of--the only man I ever saw who
seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could
return what he gave me with all my heart--all my heart----"
She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew
her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his
shoulder.
"I won't _talk_ to you of love any more," he whispered. "You poor little
girl--you poor little thing. I didn't realise--I don't want to think
about it----"
"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?"
"Of course--of course--you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find
fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or
demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People
are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn't love them if you
don't want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you
please--about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too."
Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.
"There," he whispered--"there, there--you little, little girl. That's
all I want of you after all--only what you want of me. I don't wish to
marry you if you don't wish it; I won't--I perhaps couldn't really love
you very deeply if you didn't respond. I shall not bother you any
more--or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am
concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable
to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly--look so, even, and
I'll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?"
"Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don't mean anything,
do you by--by your arm around me----"
"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled--"Which I
suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me."
"I--begin to.... Will you let me?"
"Yes.... Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?"
She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth
curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless.
"I believe you are worn out," he said.
"I have not rested for weeks."
"On account of that Trust business?"
"Yes.... But I was tired before that--I had done too much--lived too
much--and I've felt as though I were being hunted for so long.... And
then--I was unhappy about you."
"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said.
"You were different, but--you made me feel that way, too--a little----"
"I understand now."
"Do you really?"
"Yes. It's been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging,
importuning you to consider their desires--to care for them in their
own way--all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting,
head-long and boisterous--all at you constantly to give them what is
not in you to give--what has never been awakened--what lies stunned,
crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep----"
"Killed," she whispered.
"Perhaps." He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the
sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding
the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a
child's. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror,
partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa
lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she
could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him
was no longer there.
"Do you--know about me?" she asked in a still, low voice.
"About the past?"
"About my marriage."
"Yes."
"Everything?"
"Some things."
"You know what the papers said?"
"Yes.... Don't speak of it--unless you care to, Strelsa."
"I want to.... Do you know this is the first time?"
"Is it?"
"The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody.... As long as my
mother lived I did not once speak of it to her."
She rested in silence for a while, then:
"Could I tell you?"
"My dear, my dear!--of course you can."
"I--it's been unsaid so long--there was nobody to tell it to. I've done
my best to forget it--and for days I seem to forget it. But sometimes
when I wake at night it is there--the horror of it--the terror sinking
deeper into my breast.... I was very young. You knew that?"
"Yes."
"You knew my mother had very slender means?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't have cared; I was an imaginative child--and could have lived
quite happy with my fancies on very, very little.... I was a sensitive
and affectionate child--inclined to be demonstrative. You wouldn't
believe it, would you?"
"I can understand it."
"Can you? It's odd because I have changed so.... I was quite romantic
about my mother--madly in love with her.... There is nothing more to
say.... In boarding-school I was perfectly aware that I was being given
the best grooming that we could afford. Even then romance persisted. I
had the ideas of a coloured picture-book concerning men and love and
marriage. I remember, as a very little child, that I had a picture-book
showing Cinderella's wedding. It was a very golden sort of picture. It
coloured my ideas long after I was grown up."
She moved her head a little, looked up for an instant and smiled; but at
his answering smile she turned her cheek to his shoulder, hastily, and
lay silent for a while. Presently she continued in a low voice:
"It was when we were returning for the April vacation--and the platform
was crowded and some of the girls' brothers were there. There were two
trains in--and much confusion--I don't know how I became separated from
Miss Buckley and my schoolmates--I don't know to this day how I found
myself on the Baltimore train, and Gladys Leeds's brother laughing and
talking and the train moving faster and faster.... There is no use
saying any more. I was as ignorant as I was innocent--a perfect little
fool, frightened, excited, even amused by turns.... He had been
attentive to me. We both were fools. Only finally I became badly scared
and he talked such nonsense--and I managed to slip away from him and
board the train at Baltimore as soon as we arrived there.... If he
hadn't found me and returned to New York with me, it might not have been
known. But we were recognised on the train and--it was a dreadful thing
for me when I arrived home after midnight...."
She fell silent; once or twice he looked down at her and saw that her
eyes were closed. Then, with a quick, uneven breath:
"I think you know the rest, don't you?"
"I think so."
But she went on in a low, emotionless voice: "I was treated like a
damaged gown--for which depreciation in value somebody was to be made
responsible. I suffered; days and nights seemed unreal. There were
lawyers; did you know it?"
"No."
"Yes," she said wearily, "it was a bad dream--my mother, others--_his_
family--many people strange and familiar passed through it. Then we
travelled; I saw nothing, feeling half dead.... We were married in the
Hawaiian Islands."
"I know."
"Then--the two years began."
After a long while she said again: "That was the real nightmare. I
passed through the depths as in a trance. There was nothing lower, not
even hell.... We travelled in Europe, Africa, and India for two
years.... I scarcely remember a soul I saw or one single object. And
then--_that_ happened."
"I know, dear."
A slight shudder passed over her:
"I've told you," she whispered--"I've told you at last. Shall I tell you
more?"
"Not unless----"
"I don't know whether I want to--about the gendarmes--and that terrible
woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs--and how ill
I was----"
She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren's arm tightened
around her; and presently she became limp and motionless.
"This--what I have told you--is a very close bond between us, isn't it?"
she said.
"Very close, Strelsa."
"Was I much to blame?"
"No."
"How much?"
"You should have left him long before."
"Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and
make the best of it."
"Is that your idea?"
"That was all I could see to do about it."
"Don't you believe in divorce?"
"Yes; but I thought he'd be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If
he'd been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left
him. But one can't abandon a helpless person."
"Every word you utter," he said, "forges a new link in my love for you."
"You don't mean--love?"
"We mean the same I think--differing only in degree."
"Thank you. That is nice of you."
He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver:
"Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?"
"All gone--all of it."
"I see.... And something has got to be done."
"You know it has.... And I'm old before my time--tired, worn out. I
can't work--I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were
burnt out; I haven't the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure.
What am I to do?"
"Not what you plan to do."
"Why not? As long as I need help--and the best is offered----"
"Wouldn't you take less--and me?"
"Oh, Rix! I couldn't _use you_!"
She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from
his arm.
"I--I--you are my _friend_. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give
anybody--not even you." She smiled, tremulously--"And I suspect that as
far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But
it's sweet of you. You _are_ generous, having so little and wishing to
share it with me----"
"Could you wait for me, Strelsa?"
"Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can
I?--even if it were a certainty."
"Can't you hold on for a couple of years?"
"Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my
house."
He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water.
"Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't
already given you----"
"I ask no more."
"Oh, but you _do_!"
"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa--only what you have to offer of
your own accord."
They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote.
"I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said.
"If you could wait----"
"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him."
"Does that count?"
"Yes--I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be.... I don't
know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix--you don't realise--and
I'm tired and sad--old before my time--perplexed, burnt out----"
She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes.
After a while she opened them with a weary smile.
"I'll try to think--after you are gone.... What time does your train
leave?"
He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too:
"_Have_ I kept you too long?"
"No; I can make it. We'll have to walk rather fast----"
"I'd rather you left me here."
"Would you? Then--good-bye----"
"Good-bye.... Will you come up again?"
"I'll try."
"Shall we write?"
"Will you?"
"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came.
I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is
enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and
welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?"
"Yes, dear."
"Then--I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her;
she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek--a second's
contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.