Toward the end of the first week in August Strelsa wrote to Quarren:
"Sometimes I wonder whether you realise how my attitude toward
everything is altering. Things which seemed important no longer
appear so in the sunlit tranquillity of this lovely place. Whatever
it is that seems to be changing me in various ways is doing it so
subtly, yet so inexorably, that I scarcely notice any difference in
myself until some morning I awake with such a delicious sense of
physical well-being and such a mental happiness apropos of nothing
at all except the mere awaking into the world again, that, thinking
it over, I cannot logically account for it.
"Because, Rix, my worldly affairs seem to be going from bad to
worse. I know it perfectly well, yet where is that deadly
fear?--where is the dismay, the alternate hours of panic and dull
lethargy--the shrinking from a future which only yesterday seemed
to threaten me with more than I had strength to endure--menace me
with what I had neither the will nor the desire to resist?
"Gone, my friend! And I am either a fool or a philosopher, but
whichever I am, I am a happy one.
"I wish to tell you something. Last winter when they fished me out
of my morbid seclusion, I thought that the life I then entered upon
was the only panacea for the past, the only oblivion, the only
guarantee for the future.
"Now I suppose I have gone to the other extreme, because, let me
tell you what I've done. Will you laugh? I can't help it if you do;
I've bought a house! What do you think of that?
"The owner took back a mortgage, but I don't care. I paid so _very_
little for it, and thirty acres of woods and fields--and it is a
darling house!--built in the eighteenth century and not in good
repair, but it's mine! mine! mine!--and it may need paint and
plumbing and all sorts of things which perhaps make for human
happiness and perhaps do not. But I tell you I really don't care.
"And how I did it was this: I took what they offered for my laces
and jewels--about a third of their value--but it paid every debt
and left me with enough to buy my sweet old house up here.
"But that's not all! I've rented my town house furnished for a term
of five years at seven thousand dollars a year! Isn't it wonderful?
"And _that_ is not all, either. I am going into business, Rix!
Don't dare laugh. Jim has made an arrangement with an independent
New York florist, and I'm going to grow flowers under glass for the
Metropolitan market.
"And, if I succeed, I _may_ try fruits outdoors and in. My small
brain is humming with schemes, millions of them. Isn't it heavenly?
"Besides, from my second-story windows I shall be able to see
Molly's chimneys above the elms. And Molly is going to remain here
all winter, because, Rix--and this is a close secret--a little heir
or heiress is coming to make _this_ House of Wycherly 'an
habitation enforced'--and a happier habitation than it has been
since they bought it.
"So you see I shall have neighbours all winter--two neighbours, for
Mrs. Ledwith is wretchedly ill and her physicians have advised her
to remain here all winter. Poor child--for she is nothing else,
Rix--I met her for the first time when I went to call on Mrs.
Sprowl. She's so young and so empty-headed, just a shallow,
hare-brained, little thing who had no more moral idea of sin than a
humming-bird--nor perhaps has she any now except that the world has
hurt her and broken her wings and damaged her plumage; and the
sunlight in which she sparkled for a summer has faded to a chill
gray twilight!--Oh, Rix, it is really pitiful; and somehow I can't
seem to remember whether she was guilty or not, because she's so
ill, so broken--lying here amid the splendour of her huge house----
"You know Mrs. Sprowl is on her way to Carlsbad. You haven't
written me what took place in your last interview with her; and
I've asked you, twice. Won't you tell me?
"Langly, thank goodness, never disturbs us. And, Rix, do you know
that he has never been to call on Mary Ledwith? He keeps to his own
estate and nobody even sees him. Which is all I ask at any rate.
"So Sir Charles called on you and told you about Chrysos? Isn't Sir
Charles the most darling man you ever knew? _I_ never knew such a
man. There is not one atom of anything small or unworthy in his
character. And I tell you very frankly that, thinking about him at
times, I am amazed at myself for not falling in love with him.
[Illustration: Strelsa Leeds.]
"Which is proof sufficient that if I couldn't care for him I cannot
ever care for any man. Don't you think so?
"Now all this letter has been devoted to matters concerning myself
and not one line to you and the exciting success you and Lord
Dankmere are making of your new business.
"Oh, Rix, I am not indifferent; all the time I have been writing to
you, that has been surging and laughing in my heart--like some
delicious aria that charmingly occupies your mind while you go
happily about other matters--happy because the ceaseless melody
that enchants you makes you so.
"I have read your letter so many times, over and over; and always
the same thrill of excitement begins when I come to the part where
you begin to suspect that under the daubed surface of that canvas
there may be something worth while.
"Is it really and truly a Van Dyck? Is there any chance that it is
not? Is it possible that all these years none of Dankmere's people
suspected what was hidden under the aged paint and varnish of that
tiresome old British landscape?
"And it remained for you to suspect it!--for _you_ to discover it?
Oh, Rix, I am proud of you!
"And how perfectly wonderful it is that now you know its history,
when it was supposed to have disappeared, where it has remained
ever since under its ignoble integument of foolish paint.
"No, I promise not to say one word about it until I have your
permission. I understand quite well why you desire to keep the
matter from the newspapers for the present. But--won't it make you
and Lord Dankmere rich? Tell me--please tell me. I don't want
money for myself any more, but I do want it for you. You need it;
you can do so much with it, use it so intelligently, so gloriously,
make the world better with it,--make it more beautiful, and people
happier.
"What a chasm, Rix, between what we were a year ago, and what we
care to be--what we are trying to be to-day! Sometimes I think of
it, not unhappily, merely wondering.
"Toward what goal were we moving a year ago? What was there to be
of such lives?--what at the end? Why, there was, for us, no more
significance in living than there is to any overfed animal!--not as
much!
"Oh, this glorious country of high clouds and far horizons!--and
alas! for the Streets of Ascalon where such as I once was go to and
fro--'clad delicately in scarlet and ornaments of gold.'
"'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Streets of
Ascalon'--that the pavements of the Philistines have bruised my
feet, and their Five Cities weary me, and Philistia's high towers
are become a burden to my soul. For their gods are too many and too
strange for me. So I am decided to remain here--ere 'they that look
out of their windows be darkened' and 'the doors be shut in the
Streets'--'and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.'
"My poor comrade! Must you remain a prisoner in the Streets of
Ascalon? Yet, through your soul I know as free and fresh a breeze
is blowing as stirs the curtains at my open window!--You wonderful
man to evoke in imagery--to visualise and conceive all that had to
be concrete to cure me soul and body of my hurts!
* * * * *
"I have been reading Karl Westguard's new novel. Rix, there is no
story in it, nothing at all that I can discover except a very
earnest warming over of several modern philosophers' views and
conclusions concerning social problems.
"I hate to speak unkindly of it; I wanted to like it because I like
Karl Westguard. But it isn't fiction and it isn't philosophy, and
its treatment of social problems seems to follow methods already
obsolete.
"Do you think people will buy it? But I don't suppose Karl cares
since he's made up his quarrel with his aunt.
"Poor old lady! Did you ever see anybody so subdued and forlorn?
Something has gone wrong with her. She told me that she had had a
most dreadful scene with Langly and that she had not been well
since.
"I'm afraid that sounds like gossip, but I wanted you to know. _Is_
it gossip for me to tell you so much? I tell you about everything.
If it's gossip, make me stop.
* * * * *
"And now--when are you coming to see me? I am still at Molly's, you
know. My house is being cleaned and sweetened and papered and
chintzed and made livable and lovable.
"When?--please.
"Your friend and comrade,
STRELSA."
Quarren telegraphed:
"I'll come the moment I can. Look for me any day this week. Letter
follows."
Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining
went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled
out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody's suspicions by hurrying,
so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs
began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway--and
probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the
repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to
furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently
Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a
coincidence utterly unfathomable.
Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to
his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his
attention.
And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang
and he had to go up and open.
At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the
glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand
with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it;
and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting
nervously the next second.
"Come in," said Quarren, pleasantly. "It's very nice of you to think of
me, Ledwith."
The man's hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the
gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them.
Inside his loose summer clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting
continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of
the gallery.
For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases,
meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things;
then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct,
the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he
moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring
into space and twitching his scarred fingers.
"You're busy, I suppose," he said.
"Yes, I am," said Quarren, frankly. "But that needn't make any
difference if you'd care to come to the basement and talk to me while
I'm at work."
Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly:
"You're _always_ kind to me, Quarren."
"Get over that idea," laughed the younger man. "Strange as it may seem
my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs."
In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his
visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work,
explaining it as it progressed:
"Here's an old picture by some Italian gink--impossible to tell by whom
it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and
school.... See what I'm doing, Ledwith?
"That's what we call 'rabbit glue' because it's made out of rabbits'
bones--or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue.
"Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water--then I glue over the face
of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the
other--so!
"Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a
new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and
now it's dry and tight.
"Now I'm going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It's already
been relined--perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old
relining canvas--with hot water--this way--cleaning off all the old
paste or glue from it with alcohol....
"Now here's a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening;
and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very
gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher.
"Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then--just watch
me do laundry work!"
He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined
picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and
precaution of an expert laundress doing frills.
Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest.
"In three days," said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, "I'll
soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you
see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no
air get in to blister the surface."
He picked up another picture and displayed it:
"Here's a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have
already relined it and it's fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is
thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin."
He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution of alcohol, and
very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it.
Then he gave it a coat of varnish.
"Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like
this, doesn't it, Ledwith? But I'll tell you why. When that varnish
dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin
very cautiously but steadily to rub the varnished surface with my
fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has
partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and
dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and
will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh--very
often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted.
"Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can
remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But
sooner or later I get it clean.
"Then I dig out any old patches or restorations and fill in with a
composition of putty, white lead, and a drier, and smooth this with a
cork. Then when it is sunned for an hour a day for three weeks or
more--or less, sometimes--I'm ready to grind my pure colours, mix them,
set my palette, and do as honest a piece of restoring as a study of that
particular master's methods permits. And that, Ledwith, is only a little
part of my fascinating profession.
"Sometimes I lift the entire skin of paint from a canvas--picking out
the ancient threads from the rotten texture--and transfer it to a new
canvas or panel. Sometimes I cross-saw a panel, then chisel to the
plaster that lies beneath the painting, and so transfer it to a new and
sound support. Sometimes--" he laughed--"but there are a hundred
delicate and interesting surgical operations which I attempt--a thousand
exciting problems to solve--experiments without end that tempt me,
innovations that allure me----"
He laughed again:
"_You_ ought to take up some fad and make a business and even an art out
of it!"
"I?" said Ledwith, dully.
"Why not? Man, you're young yet, if--if----"
"Yes, I know, Quarren.... But my mind is too old--very old and very
infirm--dying in me of age--the age that comes through those centuries
of pain that men sometimes live through in a few months."
Quarren looked at him hopelessly.
"Yet," he said, "if only a man wills it, the world is new again."
"But--if the will fails?"
"I don't know, Ledwith."
"I do." He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on
Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars.
"Even that can be cured," said the younger man.
"If there is a will to cure it, perhaps."
"Even a desire is enough."
"I have not that desire. Why cure it?"
"Because, Ledwith, you haven't gone your limit yet. There's more of
life; and you're cheating yourself out of it."
"Yes, perhaps. But what kind of life?" he asked, staring vaguely out
into the sunshine of the backyard. "Life in hell has no attractions for
me."
"We make our own hells."
"I didn't make mine. They dug the pit and I fell into it--Hell's own
pit, Quarren----"
"You are wrong! You fell into a pit which hurt so much that you supposed
it was the pit of hell. And, taking it for granted, you burrowed deeper
in blind fury, until it became a real hell. But _you_ dug it. There _is_
no hell that a man does not dig for himself!"
In Ledwith's dull eyes a smouldering spark seemed to flash, go out, then
glimmer palely.
"Quarren," he said, "I am not going to live in hell alone. I'm going
there, shortly, but not alone."
Something new and sinister in his eyes arrested the other's attention.
He considered the man for a few moments, then, coolly:
"I wouldn't, Ledwith."
"Why not?"
"He isn't worth it--even as company in hell."
"Do you think I'm going to let him live on?"
"Do you care to sink to his level?"
"Sink! Can I sink any lower than I am?"
Quarren shrugged:
"Easily, if you commit murder."
"That isn't murder----"
But Quarren cut him short continuing:
"Sink lower, you ask? What have you done, anyway--except to commit this
crime against yourself?"--touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of
any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you
stand--except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself!
Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites
itself. Is that why you are doing it?--to arouse the amusement and
contempt of your hunter?"
"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me----"
"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to
see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?"
Ledwith's sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing
step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder.
"Listen to me," he said; "has it never occurred to you that you could
deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face
to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own
vitals?"
He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man:
"If you say the word _I'll_ stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do
is to punish him, murder isn't the way. What does a dead man care? Cut
your own throat and the crime might haunt him--and might not. But
_kill_!--Nonsense. It's all over then--except for the murderer."
He slid his hand quietly to Ledwith's arm, patted it.
"To punish him you need a doctor.... It's only a week under the new
treatment. You know that, don't you? After that a few months to get back
nerve and muscle and common sense."
"And then?" motioned Ledwith with dry lips.
"Then? Oh, anything that you fancy. It's according to a man's personal
taste. You can take him by the neck and beat him up in public if you
like--or knock him down in the club as often as he gets up. It all
depends, Ledwith. Some of us maintain self-respect without violence;
some of us seem to require it. It's up to you."
"Yes."
Quarren said carelessly: "If I were you, I think that I'd face the world
as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough--the real world I
mean, Ledwith--either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.
"A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty.
And--personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that.
But men's ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you
are, will go ultimately with the world. Beat him up if you like; but,
personally, I never even wished to kick a cur. Some men kick 'em to
their satisfaction; it's a matter of taste I tell you. Besides----"
He stopped short; and presently Ledwith looked up.
"Shall I say it?"
"Yes. You are kind to me, always."
"Then--Ledwith, I don't know exactly how matters stand. I can only try
to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do,
having arrived where you have landed.... And, do you know, if I were
you, and if I listened to my better self, I don't think that I'd lay a
finger on Langly Sprowl."
"Why?"
"For the sake of the woman who betrayed me--and who is now betrayed in
turn by the man who betrayed us both."
Ledwith said through his set teeth: "Do you think I care for her? If I
nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about
her?"
"You are generous enough to care, Ledwith."
"I am not!" he said, hoarsely. "I don't care a damn!"
"Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares
with her a coat of social whitewash?"
"I--she is only a little fool--alone to face the world now----"
"You're quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First
offenders are given it by law.... But even if that chance lay in his
marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won't do it? Or
by battering him with a dog-whip?
"It isn't really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than
the social viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman
who marries such a man?"
He smiled: "Because," he continued, "my viewpoint has changed. Things
that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and
do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me
than social absolution."
Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something
indistinctly.
"Wait a moment," said Quarren, throwing aside his painter's blouse and
pulling on his coat. "I'll ring up a taxi in a second!... You _mean_ it,
Ledwith?"
The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded.
"You're on!" said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone.
While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren's sleeve
and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab,
whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone building
composed of several old-time private residences thrown together.
"Stand by me, Quarren," he whispered brokenly--"you won't go away, will
you? You wouldn't leave me to face this all--all alone. You've been kind
to me. I--I can do it--I can try to do it just at this moment--if you'll
stay close to me--if you'll let me keep hold of you----"
"Sure thing!" said Quarren cheerfully. "I'll stay as long as you like.
Don't worry about your clothes; I'll send for plenty of linen and things
for us both. You're all right, Ledwith--you've got the nerve. I----"
The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered
them in.
"Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment," she said, singling out Ledwith at
a glance.
* * * * *
Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not
return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere
promised to observe to the letter.
Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:
"Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to
see your house and its new owner.
R. S. Q."
Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked
carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the
basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for
Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.
The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful when paying tribute
to Terpsichore; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the
back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the
tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a
ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick
or two at the ceiling.
And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly,
discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently
enamoured of his own grace and agility.
When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly
and came back to find her at her desk, laughing.
For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the
fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all
alone--exclusive of intrusive customers--for a day or more, assuaged a
slight chagrin.
"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I
am, Miss Vining--with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't
it?"
"Why?" asked Miss Vining.
"Why--what?" repeated the Earl, confused.
"Why _should_ I know all your imperfections?"
He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason.
"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you
suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to
see those people at Witch-Hollow."
"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and
rewriting the blank spaces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine
at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such
peculiar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse
himself and take his eyes elsewhere.
"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly.
"I am not going to take one."
"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop--er--and all that, you
know!"
"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I
don't expect to droop--er--and all that, you know."
He laughed, after a moment, and so did she--a sweet, fearless, little
laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it--a pretty,
frank tribute to what had become a friendship--an accord born of
confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord
Dankmere.
It had been of slow growth at first--imperceptibly their relations had
grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost
cordial--but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he
with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was
moody, too, at intervals.
"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked.
"Don't I laugh as though I like it?"
She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a
British peer--which is really a very wonderful thing----"
"Oh, come," he said: "it really _is_ rather a wonderful thing, but you
don't believe it."
"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to
hear trumpets sounding in the far distance----"
"My boots squeak----"
"Nonsense! I _do_ hear a sort of a fairy fanfare playing 'Hail to the
Belted Earl!'"
"I wear braces----"
"How common of you to distort my meaning! I don't care, you may do as
you like--dance break-downs and hammer the piano, but to me you will
ever remain a British peer--poor but noble----"
"Wait until we hear from that Van Dyck! You can't call me poor then!"
She laughed, then, looking at him earnestly, involuntarily clasped her
hands.
"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," she breathed with a happy, satisfied
sigh.
"Are you really very happy about it, Miss Vining?"
"I? Why shouldn't I be!" she said indignantly. "I'm so proud that our
gallery has such a picture. I'm so proud of Mr. Quarren for discovering
it--and--" she laughed--"I'm proud of you for possessing it. You see I
am very impartial; I'm proud of the gallery, of everybody connected with
it including myself. Shouldn't I be?"
"We are three very perfect people," he said gravely.
"Do you know that we really are? Mr. Quarren is wonderful, and you
are--agreeable, and as for me, why when I rise in the morning and look
into the glass I say to myself, 'Who is that rather clever-looking girl
who smiles at me every morning in such friendly fashion?' And, would you
believe it!--she turns out to be Jessie Vining every time!"
She was in a gay mood; she rattled away at her machine, glancing over it
mischievously at him from time to time. He, having nothing to do except
to look at her, did so as often as he dared.
And so they kept the light conversational shuttle-cock flying through
the sunny afternoon until it drew near to tea-time. Jessie said very
seriously:
"No Englishman can exist without tea. Tea is as essential to him as it
is to British fiction. A microscopic examination of any novel made by a
British subject will show traces of tea-leaves and curates although, as
the text-books on chemistry have it, otherwise the substance of the work
may be colourless, tasteless, odourless, and gaseous to the verge of the
fourth dimension----"
"If you don't cease making game of things British and sacred," he
threatened, "I'll try to stop you in a way that will astonish you."
"What will you try to do?" she asked, much interested.
He looked her steadily in the eyes:
"I'll try to turn you into a British subject. One can't slam one's own
country."
"How could you turn me into such an object, Lord Dankmere?"
"There's only one way."
Innocent for a few moments of his meaning she smilingly and derisively
defied him. Then, of a sudden, startled into immobility, the smile froze
on her lips.
At the swift change in her expression his own features were slowly and
not unbecomingly suffused.
Then, incredulous, and a little nervous, she rose to prepare the tea;
and he sprang up to bring the folding table.
The ceremony passed almost in silence; neither he nor she made the
effort to return to the lighter, gayer vein. When they spoke at all it
was on some matter connected with business; and her voice seemed to him
listless, almost tired.
Which was natural enough, for the heat had been trying, and, in spite of
the open windows, no breath of coolness stirred the curtains.
So the last minutes of the afternoon passed but the sunshine still
reddened the cornices of the houses across the street when she rose to
put away the tea-things.
A little later she pinned on her hat and moved toward the front door
with a friendly nod to him in silent adieu.
"Will you let me walk home with you?" he said.
"I--think--not, this evening."
"Were you going anywhere?"
She paused, her gloved hand on the knob, and he came up to her, slowly.
"_Were_ you?" he repeated.
"No."
"Then--don't you care to let me walk with you?"
She seemed to be thinking; her head was a trifle lowered.
He said: "Before you go there is something I wanted to tell you"--she
made an involuntary movement and the door opened and hung ajar letting
in the lively music of a street-organ. Then he leaned over and quietly
closed the door.
"I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm taking an unwarrantable liberty by
interfering in your affairs without consulting you."
She looked up at him, surprised.
"It happened yesterday about this hour," he said.
"What happened?"
"Do you remember that you went home about three o'clock instead of
waiting until this hour as usual?"
"Yes."
"Well, this is what occurred. I left the gallery at this same hour.
Ahead of me descending the steps was a young girl who had just delivered
a business letter to Mr. Quarren. As she set foot on the pavement a
footman attached to an automobile drawn up across the street touched his
cap to her and said: 'Beg pardon, Miss Vining, I am Mr. Sprowl's man.
Mr. Sprowl would like to see you at the Café Cammargue. The car is
waiting.'"
Miss Vining's colour faded; she stared at Dankmere with widening eyes,
and he dropped his hands into his coat-pockets and returned her gaze.
"I don't understand you," she said in a low voice.
"Neither did the young girl addressed by the footman. Neither did I. But
I was interested. So I said to the footman: 'Bring around your car. I
shall have to explain about Miss Vining to Mr. Sprowl.'"
"What!" she said breathlessly.
"That's where I interfered, Miss Vining. And the footman looked
doubtful, too, but he signalled the chauffeur.... And so I went to the
Café Cammargue----"
He hesitated, looking at her white and distressed face, then continued
coolly:
"Sprowl seemed surprised to see me. He was waiting in a private room....
He's looking rather badly these days.... We talked a few minutes----"
Pale, angry, every sense of modesty and reserve outraged, the girl faced
him, small head erect:
"You went there to--to discuss _me_ with _that_ man!"
He was silent. She turned suddenly and tried to open the door, but he
held it closed.
"I did it because I cared for you enough to do it," he said. "Don't you
understand? Don't you suppose I know that kind of man?"
"It--it was not your business--" she faltered, twisting blindly at the
door-knob. "Let me go--please----"
"I made it my business.... And that man understood that I was making it
my business. And he won't attempt to annoy you again.... Can you forgive
me?"
She turned on him excitedly, her eyes flashing with tears, but the
impetuous words of protest died on her lips as her eyes encountered his.
"It was because I love you," he said. And, as he spoke, there was about
the man a quiet dignity and distinction that silenced her--something of
which she may have had vague glimpses at wide intervals in their
acquaintances--something which at times she suspected might lie latent
in unknown corners of his character. Now it suddenly confronted her; and
she recognised it and stood before him without a word to say.
It mended matters a little when he smiled, and the familiar friend
reappeared beside her; but she still felt strange and shy; and
wondering, half fearfully, she let him lift her gloved hands and stand,
holding them, looking into her eyes.
"You know what I am," he said. "I have nothing to say about myself. But
I love you very dearly.... I loved before, once, and married. And she
died.... After that I didn't behave very well--until I knew you.... It
is really in me to be a decent husband--if you can care for me.... And I
don't think we're likely to starve----"
"I--it isn't that," she said, flushing scarlet.
"What?"
"What you _have_ ... I could only care for--what you are."
"Can you do that?"
But her calm had vanished, and, head bent and averted, she was
attempting to withdraw her hands--and might have freed herself entirely
if it had not been for his arm around her.
This new and disconcerting phase of the case brought her so suddenly
face to face with him that it frightened her; and he let her go, and
followed her back to the empty gallery where she sank down at her desk,
resting her arms on the covered type-machine, and buried her quivering
face in them.
It was excusable. Such things don't usually happen to typewriters and
stenographers although they have happened to barmaids.
When he had been talking eloquently and otherwise for a long time Jessie
Vining lifted her pale, tear-stained face from her arms; and his
lordship dropped rather gracefully on his knees beside her, and she
looked down at him very solemnly and wistfully.
It was shockingly late when they closed the gallery that evening. And
their mode of homeward progress was stranger still, for instead of a
tram or of the taxi which Lord Dankmere occasionally prevailed upon her
to accept, they drifted homeward on a pink cloud through the light-shot
streets of Ascalon.