Since Quarren had left Witch-Hollow, he and Strelsa had exchanged
half-a-dozen letters of all sorts--gay, impersonal notes, sober epistles
reflecting more subdued moods, then letters fairly sparkling with high
spirits and the happy optimism of young people discovering that there is
more of good than evil in a world still really almost new to them. Then
there was a long letter of description and amusing narrative from her,
in which, here and there, she became almost sentimental over phases of
rural beauty; and he replied at equal length telling her about his new
shop-work in detail.
Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there came from her a short, dry, and
deliberate letter mentioning once more her critical worldly
circumstances and the necessity of confronting them promptly and with
intelligence and decision.
To which he answered vigorously, begging her to hold out--either fit
herself for employment--or throw her fortunes in with his and take the
chances.
"Rix dear," she answered, "don't you suppose I have thought of that? But
I can't do it. There is nothing left in me to go on with. I'm burnt
out--deadly tired, wanting nothing more than I shall have by marrying as
I must marry. For I shall have you, too, as I have always had you. You
said so, didn't you?
"What difference, then, does it make to you or me whether or not I am
married?
"If you were sufficiently equipped to take care of me, and if I married
you, I could not give you anything more than I have given already--I
would not wish to if I could. All that many other women consider part of
love--all that lesser side of it and of marriage I could not give to you
or to any man--could not endure; because it is not in me and never has
been. It is foreign to me, unpleasant, distasteful--even hateful.
"So as I can give you nothing more than I have given or ever shall give,
and as you have given me all you can--anyway all I care for in you--let
me feel free to seek my worldly salvation and find the quiet and rest
and surcease from anxiety which comes only under such circumstances.
"You won't think unkindly of me, will you, Rix? I don't know very much;
I amount to very little. What ideals I had are dead. Why should anybody
bother to agree or disagree with my very unaggressive opinions or
criticise harshly a life which has been spent mainly in troubling the
world as little as possible?
* * * * *
"There are a number of people here--among them several friends of Jim
Wycherly, all of them aviation-mad. Jim took out the Stinger, smashed
the planes and got a fall which was not very serious. Lester Caldera did
the same thing to the Kent biplane except that he fell into the river
and Sir Charles and Chrysos, in the launch, fished him out--swearing,
they say.
"Vincent Wier made a fine flight in his Delatour Dragon, sailing 'round
and 'round like a big hawk for a quarter of an hour, but the wind came
up and he couldn't land, and he finally came down thirty miles north of
us in a swamp.
"Langly took me for a short flight in his Owlet No. 3--only two miles
and not very high, but the sensation was simply horrid. I never even
cared for motoring, you see, so the experience left me most
unenthusiastic, greatly to Langly's disgust. Really, all I care for is a
decently gaited horse--and I prefer to walk him half the time. There is
nothing speedy about me, Rix. If I ever had the inclination it's gone
now.
"To the evident displeasure of Sir Charles, Langly took up Chrysos Lacy;
and the child adored it. I believe Sir Charles said something cutting to
Langly in his quiet and dry way which has, apparently, infuriated my
to-be-affianced, for he never goes near Sir Charles, now, and that
cold-eyed gentleman completely ignores him. Which is _not_ very
agreeable for me.
"Oh, Rix, there seems to be so many misunderstandings in this
exceedingly small world of ours--rows innumerable, heartburns,
recriminations, quarrels secret and open, and endless misunderstandings.
"Please don't let any come between us, will you? Somehow, lately, I find
myself looking on you as a distant but solid and almost peaceful refuge
for my harried thoughts. And I'm so very, very tired of being hunted.
"STRELSA."
"If they hunt you too hard," he wrote to Strelsa, "the gateway of my
friendship is open to you always: remember that, now and in the days to
come.
"What you have written leaves me with nothing to answer except this. To
all it is given to endure according to their strength; beyond it no one
can strive; but short of its limits it's a shame to show
faint-heartedness.
"About the man you are determined to marry I have no further word to
say. You know in what repute he is held in your world, and you believe
that its censure is unjust. There is good in every man, perhaps, and
perhaps the good in this man may show itself only in response to the
better qualities in you.
"Somehow, without trying, you almost instantly evoke the better
qualities in me. You changed my entire life; do you know it? I myself
scarcely comprehended why. Perhaps the negative sweetness in you
concentrated and brought out the positive strength so long dormant in
me. All I know clearly is that you came into my life and found a fool
wasting it, capering about in a costume half livery, half motley. My
ambition was limited to my cap and bells; my aspirations never reached
beyond the tip of my bauble. Then I saw you--and, all by themselves, my
rags of motley fell from me, and something resembling a man stepped
clear of them.
"I am trying to make out of myself all that there is in me to develop.
It is not much--scarcely more than the ability to earn a living.
"I have come to care for nothing more than the right to look this sunny
world straight in the face. Until I knew you I had scarcely seen it
except through artificial light--scarce heard its voice; for the
laughter of your world and the jingle of my cap and bells drowned it in
my ass's ears.
"I could tell you--for in dark moments I often believe it--that there is
only one thing that counts in the world--one thing worth having, worth
giving--love!
"But in my heart I know it is not so; and the romancers are mistaken;
and so is the heart denied.
"Better and worth more than love of man or woman is the mind's silent
approval--whether given in tranquillity or accorded in dumb anguish.
"Strelsa dear, I shall always care for you; but I have discovered that
love is another matter--higher or lower as you will--but different. And
I do not think I shall be able to love the girl who does what you are
decided to do. And that does not mean that I criticise you or blame you,
or that my sympathy, affection, interest, in you will be less. On the
contrary all these emotions may become keener; only one little part will
die out, and that without changing the rest--merely that mysterious,
curious, elusive and illogical atom in the unstable molecule, which we
call love--and which, when separated, leaves the molecule changed only
in name. We call it friendship, then.
"And this is, I think, what you would most desire. So when you do what
you have determined to do, I will really become toward you what you
are--and have always been--toward me. And could either of us ask for
more?
"Only--forgive me--I wish it had been Sir Charles--or almost any other
man. But that is for your decision. Strelsa governs and alone is
responsible to Strelsa.
"Meanwhile do not doubt my affection--do not fear unkindness, judgment,
or criticism. I wish I were what you cared for most in the world--after
the approval of your own mind. I wish you cared for me not only as you
do but with all that has never been aroused in you. For without that I
am helpless to fight for you.
"So, in your own way, you will live life through, knowing that in me you
will always have an unchanged friend--even though the lover died when
you became a wife. Is all clear between us now?
* * * * *
"If you are ever in town, or passing through to Newport or Bar Harbour,
stop and inspect our gallery.
"It is really quite pretty and some of the pictures are excellent. You
should see it now--sunlight slanting in through the dusty bay-window,
Dankmere at a long polished table doing his level best to assemble
certain old prints out of a portfolio containing nearly a thousand;
pretty little Miss Vining, pencil in hand, checking off at her desk the
reference books we require in our eternal hunt for information; I below
stairs in overalls if you please, paint and varnish stained, a
jeweller's glass screwed into my left eye, examining an ancient panel
which I strongly hope may have been the work of a gentleman named
Bronzino--for its mate is almost certainly the man in armour in the
Metropolitan Museum.
"Strelsa, it is the most exciting business I ever dreamed of. And the
beauty of it is that it leads out into everything--stretches a
thousand sensitive tentacles which grasp at knowledge of beauty
everywhere--whether it lie in the sombre splendour of the tapestries of
Bayeux, of Italy, of Flanders; or deep in the woven magnificence of some
dead Sultan's palace rug; or in the beauty of the work of silversmiths,
goldsmiths, of sculptors in ivory or in wood long dead; or in the
untinted marbles of the immortal masters.
"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are linked, how
closely and eternally knit together in the vast fabric fashioned by man
from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms of which lie buried
all that man has ever thought and hoped.
* * * * *
"My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five
squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now
open.
"Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my knee,
she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman cat begin
an intermezzo on the back fence.
"Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose,
astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under the
piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I supposed
that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes and--Daisy's
kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one in each pocket,
Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional little exclamation of
solicitude and pride.
"Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries--not
superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have tea
in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her young
ones--Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together in a basket
which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk.
"In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere
and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl Westguard
comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his novel--or perhaps
Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for us--or, if the heat makes us
feel particularly futile, I perform some of those highly intellectual
tricks which once made me acceptable among people I now seldom or
never see.
[Illustration: "'In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines
with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant.'"]
"Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a sweet,
sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the ordinary yet
blessed with a delicate sense of honour and incidentally of humour.
"She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her mind
about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our including her
in our harmless informalities.
"Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he informs me
that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh; but Karl loves to
take himself seriously.
"Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world is out
of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere Galleries need
expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship usually fights shy
of the frontiers of business. Old acquaintanceship is forgot very
quickly when one side or the other has anything to sell. Only those
thrifty imitations of friends venture near in quest of special
privilege; and not getting it, go, never to return. _Ubi amici, ibi
opes!_
* * * * *
"When you pass through this furnace of Ascalon called New York will you
stop among the Philistines long enough to take a cup of tea with
us?--I'll show you the pictures; Dankmere will play 'Shannon Water' for
you; Miss Vining will talk pretty platitudes to you, Daisy will purr for
you, and the painted eyes of Dankmere's ancestors will look down
approvingly at you from the wall; and all our little world will know
that the loveliest and best of all the greater world is breaking bread
with us under our roof, and that one for once, unlike man's dealings
with your celestial sisters, our entertainment of you will not be wholly
unawares.
"R. S. QUARREN."
The basement workshop was aromatic with the odours of solvents, mediums,
and varnishes when he returned from posting his letter to Strelsa. His
old English mentor had departed for good, leaving him to go forward
alone in his profession.
And now, as he stood there, looking out into the sunny backyard, for the
first time he felt the silence and isolation of the place, and his own
loneliness. Doubt crept in whispering the uselessness of working, of
saving, of self-denial, of laying by anything for a future that already
meant nothing of happiness to him.
For whom, after all, should he save, hoard, gather together, economise?
Who was there to labour for? For whom should he endure?
He cared nothing for women; he had really never cared for any woman
excepting only this one. He would never marry and have a son. He had no
near or distant relatives. For whose sake, then, was he standing here in
workman's overalls? What business had he here in the basement of a
shabby house in midsummer? Did there remain any vague hope of Strelsa?
Perhaps. Hope is the last of one's friends to die. Or was it for himself
that he was working now to provide against those evil days "when the
keepers of the house shall tremble"? Perhaps he was unconsciously
obeying nature's first law.
And yet, slowly within him grew a certainty that these reasons were not
the real ones--not the vital impulse that moved his hand steadily
through critical and delicate moments as he bent, breathless, over the
faded splendours of ancient canvases. No; somehow or other he had
already begun to work for the sake of the work itself--whatever that
really meant. That was the basic impulse--the occult motive; and,
somehow he knew that, once aroused, the desire to strive could never
again in him remain wholly quiescent.
* * * * *
Both Dankmere and Miss Vining had gone to lunch, presumably in different
directions; Daisy and her youngsters, having been nourished, were
asleep; there was not a sound in the house except the soft rubbing of
tissue-paper where Quarren was lightly removing the retouching varnish
from a relined canvas. Presently the front door-bell rang.
Quarren rinsed his hands and, still wearing overalls and painter's
blouse, mounted the basement stairs and opened the front door. And Mrs.
Sprowl supported by a footman waddled in, panting.
"Tell your master I want to see him," she said--"I don't mean that fool
of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar--Good Lord! Ricky, is that _you_?
Here, get me a chair--those front steps nearly killed me. Long ago I
swore I'd never enter a house which was not basement-built and had an
elevator!... Hand me one of those fans. And if there's any water in the
house not swarming with typhoid germs, get me a glass of it."
He brought her a tumbler of spring water; she panted and gulped and
fanned and panted, her little green eyes roaming around her.
Presently she dismissed the footman, and turned her heavily flushed face
on Quarren. The rolls of fat crowded the lace on her neck, perspiration
glistened under her sparklike eyes.
"How are you?" she inquired.
He said, smilingly, that he was well.
"You don't look it. You look gaunt.... Well, I never thought you'd come
to this--that you had it in you to do anything useful."
"I believe I've heard you say so now and then," he said with perfect
good-humour.
"Why not? Why should I have thought that your talents amounted to more
than ornaments?"
"No reason to suppose so," he admitted, amused.
"Not the slightest. Talent usually damns people to an effortless
existence. And yours was a pleasant one, too. You had a good time,
didn't you?"
"Oh, very."
"There was nothing to do except to come in, kiss the girls all around,
and make faces to amuse them, was there?"
"Not much more," he admitted, laughing.
Mrs. Sprowl's little green eyes travelled all over the walls.
"Umph," she snorted, "I suppose these are some of Dankmere's heirlooms.
I never fancied that little bounder----"
"Wait!"
"What!"
"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder----"
"He _is_ one!"
"Keep that opinion to yourself," he said bluntly.
The old lady's eyes blazed. "I'm damned if I do!" she retorted--"I'll
say what----"
"Not here! You mustn't be uncivil here. You know well enough how to
behave when necessary; and if you don't do it I'll call your carriage."
For fully five minutes Mrs. Sprowl sat there attempting to digest what
he had said. The process was awful to behold, but she accomplished it at
last with a violent effort.
"Ricky," she said, "I didn't come here to quarrel with you over an
Englishman who--of whom I--have my personal opinion."
He laughed, leaned over and deliberately patted her fat wrist; and she
glared at him somewhat as a tigress inspects a favourite but overgrown
and presuming cub.
"I don't know why you came," he said, "but it was nice of you anyway and
I am glad to see you."
"If that's true," she said, "you're one of mighty few. The joy which
people feel in my presence is usually exhibited when I'm safely out of
their houses, or they are out of mine."
She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water
empty and refused more.
"Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place
of Molly's?"
"Yes."
"Well, what the devil is going on there?"
"Aviation," he said blandly.
"What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that
little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't
learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even
answer my letters.
"Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with
Strelsa as I dare be--she's got to be led with sugar. I've almost
ordered her to come to me at Newport--but she doesn't come."
"She's resting," said Quarren coolly.
"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And
what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few
brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting
for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it
something else that glues him there--with the _Yulan_ in the North
River?"
Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject.
"If I thought," muttered the old lady--"if I imagined for one moment
that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on
Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself--I'd take the next train and tell
that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!"
Quarren was silent.
"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know
whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed--have you
ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa
Leeds?--any tacit understanding--any interest on her part in him?... Why
don't you answer me?"
"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."
"Am I to take that impudence literally?"
"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to
remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."
"Why can't you speak of Langly?"
"Because what concerns him does not concern me."
"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly.
"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?"
"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a
damn sight worse! I'd--I'd rather see her your wife than his!--and God
knows _what_ he wants of her at that--as Mary Ledwith has first call or
the world will turn Langly out of doors!"
Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence.
"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her
teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done
to her and her husband."
"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance
against it."
"You watch and see! Some things are _too_ rotten to be endured----"
"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't
concern me."
"Don't you care for that girl?"
"We are friends."
"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a
madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look
ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"--she added with an
abrupt change of feeling--"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you
are impertinent to me--and you know I do! But I--my heart is set on her
marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more
suitable?--happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where
Langly is a--a toad, a cold-blooded worm!--a--a thing!
"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I
think of nothing else, care for nothing else----"
"Why?"
"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard.
"Why do you care for it so much?"
"Why? That is an absurd question."
"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the
real one."
"Ricky, you insolent----"
"Never mind. Answer me; _why_ are you so absorbed in this marriage?"
She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is
deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both."
"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on
your part?"
"That--and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly.
"Just those three reasons?"
"Certainly. Just those three."
He shook his head.
"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded.
"I am compelled to--knowing that never in all your life have you made
the slightest effort in behalf of friendship--never inconvenienced
yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth."
She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh;
but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though
pain had cut mirth short.
"What is the matter?" he said.
"Nothing.... _You_ are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to
take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to
read us and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we
look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't
care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my
features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it _is_ a friendly
pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?"
"Yes."
"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind
thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were
the receptacle for many--Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty,
miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret
kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you
something."
She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he
placed his chair beside hers.
"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?"
"Yes."
"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at
the time."
"I know."
"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never
forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch
he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what
was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the
girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to
America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know
these things, Rix?"
"No," he said.
"Then you know them now."
"Yes, I--" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a
while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her
features.
"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated--a voice
so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was
she who had spoken.
"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life
friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix.
In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship--the
friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son."
Quarren looked at her in silence.
"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life
and youth began early for me--and lasted a little more than a year--and
then they both burnt out in my heart--leaving the rest of me alive--this
dross!--" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and
sat thinking for a while.
Daisy walked into the room and seated herself in a bar of sunlight,
pleasantly blinking her yellow eyes. Mrs. Sprowl glanced at her
absently, and they eyed each other in silence.
Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at
Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features.
"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have
pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad
when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up.
I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that, in it, his
father spoke--amiably--of me and said that in me his son would always
find a friend.... That is all, Rix. Do you believe me?"
"Yes."
"Then--should I go to Witch-Hollow?"
"I can't answer you."
"Why?"
"Because--because I care for her too much. And I can do absolutely
nothing for her. I could not swerve her or direct her. She alone knows
what is in her heart and mind to do. I cannot alter it. She will act
according to her strength; none can do otherwise.... And she is tired to
the very soul.... You tell me that life and youth in you died within a
year's space. I believe it.... But with her it took two years to die.
And then it died.... Let her alone, in God's name! The child is weary of
pursuit, deathly weary of importunity--tired, sad, frightened at the
disaster to her fortune. Let her alone. If she marries it will be
because of physical strength lacking--strength of character, of
mind--perhaps moral, perhaps spiritual strength--I don't know. All I
know is that no man or woman can help her, because the world has bruised
her too long and she's afraid of it."
For a long while Mrs. Sprowl sat there in silence; then:
"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir
Charles."
"I don't think she is."
"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!"
Quarren looked at her oddly:
"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so am I.... Friends do not
make a convenience of one another."
"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow."
"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that
there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make
the convenience of a husband out of either of us."
"What a twisted, ridiculous, morbid----"
"Let her alone," he said gently.
"Very well.... But I'll be hanged if I let Langly alone! He's still got
me to deal with, thank God!--whatever he dares do to Mary
Ledwith--whatever he has done to that wretched creature Chester
Ledwith--he's still got a perfectly vigorous aunt to reckon with. And
we'll see," she added--"we'll see what can be done----"
The front door opened noisily.
"That's Dankmere," he said. "If you are not going to be civil to him
hadn't you better go?"
"I'll be civil to him," she snorted, "but I'm going anyway. Good-bye,
Ricky. I'll buy a picture of you when the weather's cooler....
How-de-do!"--as his lordship entered looking rather hot and mussy--"Hope
your venture into the realms of art will prove successful, Lord
Dankmere. Really, Rix, I must be going--if you'll call my man----"
"I'll take you down," he said, smilingly offering his support.
So Mrs. Sprowl rolled away in her motor, and Quarren came back, wearied
with the perplexities and strain of life, to face once more the lesser
problems of the immediate present: one of them was an ancient panel in
the basement, and he went downstairs to solve it, leaving Dankmere
sorting out old prints and Jessie Vining, who had just returned, writing
business letters on her machine.
There were not many business letters to write--one to the Metropolitan
Museum people declining to present them with a charming little picture
by Netscher which they wanted but did not wish to pay for; one to the
Worcester Museum advising that progressive institution that, at the
request of their director, four canvases had been shipped to them for
inspection; several letters enclosing photographs of pictures desired by
foreign experts; and a notification to one or two local millionaires
that the Dankmere Galleries never shaded prices or exchanged canvases.
Having accomplished the last of the day's work remaining up to that
particular minute, Jessie Vining leaned back in her chair, rubbed her
pretty eyes, glanced partly around toward Lord Dankmere but checked
herself, and, with her lips the slightest shade pursed up into a hint of
primness, picked up the library novel which she had been reading during
intervals of leisure.
It was mainly about a British Peer. The Peer did not resemble Dankmere
in any particular; she had already noticed that. And now, as she read
on, and, naturally enough, compared the ideal peer with the real one,
the difference became painfully plain to her.
Could that short young man in rather mussy summer clothes, sorting
prints over there, be a peer of the British realm? Was this young man,
whom she had seen turning handsprings on the grass in the backyard, a
belted Earl?
In spite of herself her short upper lip curled slightly as she turned
from her book to glance at him. He looked up at the same moment, and
smiled on meeting her eye--such a kindly yet diffident smile that she
blushed a trifle.
"I say, Miss Vining, I've gone over all these prints and I can't find
one that resembles the Hogarth portrait--if it is a Hogarth."
"Mr. Quarren thinks it is."
"I daresay he's quite right, but there's nothing here to prove it"; and
he slapped the huge portfolio shut, laid his hands on the table, vaulted
to the top of it, and sat down. Miss Vining resumed her reading.
"Miss Vining?"
"Yes?" very leisurely.
"How _old_ do you think I am?"
"I beg your pardon----"
"How old do you think I am?"
"Really I hadn't thought about it, Lord Dankmere."
"Oh."
Miss Vining resumed her reading.
When the Earl had sat on top of the table long enough he got down and
dropped into the depths of an armchair.
"Miss Vining," he said.
"Yes?" incuriously.
"Have you thought it out yet?"
"Thought out what, Lord Dankmere?"
"How old I am."
"Really," she retorted, half laughing, half vexed, "do you suppose that
my mind is occupied in wondering what your age might be?"
"Isn't it?"
"Of course not."
"Don't you want to know?"
She began to laugh again:
"Why, if you wish to tell me of course it will interest me _most_
profoundly." And she made him a graceful little bow.
"I'm thirty-three," he said.
"Thank you so much for telling me."
"You are welcome," he returned gravely. "Do you think I'm too old?"
"Too old for what?"
"Oh, for anything interesting."
"What do you mean by 'interesting'?"
But Lord Dankmere apparently did not know what he did mean for he made
no answer.
After a little while he said: "Wouldn't it be odd if I ever have income
enough to pay off my debts?"
"What?"
He repeated the observation.
"I don't know what you mean. You naturally expect to pay them, don't
you?"
"I saw no chance of doing so before Mr. Quarren took hold of these
pictures."
She was sorry for him:
"Are you very deeply in debt?"
He named the total of his liabilities and she straightened her young
shoulders, horrified.
"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "I know plenty of chaps in England who
are far worse off."
"But--that is terrible!" she faltered.
Dankmere waved his hand:
"It's not so bad. That show business let me in for a lot."
"Why did you ever do it?"
"I like it," he explained simply.
She flushed: "It seems strange for a--a man of your kind to sing comic
songs and dance before an audience."
"Not at all. I've a friend, Exford by name--who goes about grinding a
barrel-organ."
"Why?"
"He likes to do it.... I've another pal of sorts who chucked the Guards
to become a milliner. He always did like to crochet and trim hats. Why
not?--if he likes it!"
"It is not," said Jessie Vining, "my idea of a British peer."
"But for Heaven's sake, consider the peer! Now and then they have an
idea of what they'd like to do. Why not let them do it and be happy?"
"Then they ought not to have been born to the peerage," she said firmly.
"Many of them wouldn't have been had anybody consulted them."
"You?"
"It's brought me nothing but debt, ridicule, abuse, and summonses."
"You couldn't resign, could you?" she said, smiling.
"I _am_ resigned. Oh, well, I'd rather be what I am than anything else,
I fancy.... If the Topeka Museum trustees purchase that Gainsborough
I'll be out of debt fast enough."
"And then?" she inquired, still smiling.
"I don't know. I'd like to start another show."
"And leave Mr. Quarren?"
"What use am I? We'd share alike; he'd manage the business and I'd
manage a musical comedy I'm writing after hours----"
He jumped up and went to the piano where for the next ten minutes he
rattled off some lively and very commonplace music which to Jessie
Vining sounded like everything she had ever before heard.
"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully, swinging around on his stool.
"It's--lively."
"You _don't_ like it!"
"I--it seems--very entertaining," she said, reddening.
The Earl sat looking at her in silence for a moment; then he said:
"To care for anything and make a failure of it--can you beat it for
straight misery, Miss Vining?"
"Oh, please don't speak that way. I really am no judge of musical
composition."
He considered the key-board gloomily; and resting one well-shaped hand
on it addressed empty space:
"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the
deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of
accomplishment?"
The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no
words suitable for the particular moment.
Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two
softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water."
His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the
quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang
"The Harp," and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago.
When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes
lowered.
"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said--"not these Strausses
and 'Girls from the Golden West.'"
"Will you sing some more?"
"Do you like my singing?"
"Very much."
So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten
melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age,
can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days,
the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world
was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to
inspire any maker of beautiful things.
Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour
of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days.
Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard
Dankmere open the door behind her and come out.
They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north
with a nod of good-night, when he said:
"Are you walking?"
She was, to save carfare.
"May I go a little way?"
"Yes--if----"
Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had
meant to say. Then, very slowly she turned northward, and he went, too,
grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying
himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking
beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself.