Strelsa, a pink apron pinned about her, a trowel in her gloved hand,
stood superintending the transplanting of some purple asters which not
very difficult exploit was being attempted by a local yokel acting as
her "hired man."
The garden, a big one with a wall fronting the road, ran back all the
way to the terrace in the rear of the house beyond which stretched the
western veranda.
And it was out on this veranda that Quarren stepped in the wake of
Strelsa's maid, and from there he caught his first view of Strelsa's
garden, and of Strelsa herself, fully armed and caparisoned for the
perennial fray with old Dame Nature.
"You need not go down there to announce me," he said; "I'll speak to
Mrs. Leeds myself."
But before he could move, Strelsa, happening to turn around, saw him on
the veranda, gazed at him incredulously for a moment, then brandished
her trowel with a clear, distant cry of greeting, and came toward him,
laughing in her excitement and surprise. They met midway, and she
whipped off her glove and gave him her hand in a firm, cool clasp.
"Why the dickens didn't you wire!" she said. "You're a fraud, Rix! I
might easily have been away!--You might have missed me--we might have
missed each other.... Is _that_ all you care about seeing me?--after all
these weeks!"
"I wanted to surprise you," he explained feebly.
"Well, you didn't! That is--not much. I'd been thinking of you--and I
glanced up and saw you. You're stopping at Molly's I suppose."
"Yes."
"When did you arrive?"
"L-last night," he admitted.
"What! And didn't call me up! I refuse to believe it of you!"
She really seemed indignant, and he followed her into the pretty house
where presently she became slightly mollified by his exuberant
admiration of the place.
"Are you in earnest?" she said. "Do you really think it so pretty? If
you do I'll take you upstairs and show you my room, and the three
beautiful spick and span guest rooms. But _you'll_ never occupy one!"
she added, still wrathful at his apparent neglect of her. "I don't want
anybody here who isn't perfectly devoted to me. And it's very plain that
you are not."
He mildly insisted that he was but she denied it, hotly.
"And I shall _never_ get over it," she added. "But you may come upstairs
and see what you have missed."
They went over the renovated house thoroughly; she, secretly enchanted
at his admiration and praise of everything, pointed out any object that
seemed to have escaped his attention merely to hear him approve it.
Finally she relented.
"You _are_ satisfactory," she said as they returned to the front veranda
and seated themselves. "And really, Rix, I'm so terribly glad to see you
that I forgive your neglect.... Are you well? You don't look very
well," she added earnestly. "Why are you so white?"
[Illustration: "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."]
"I'm in fine shape, thank you."
"I didn't mean your figure," she laughed--"Oh, that _was_ a common kind
of a joke, wasn't it? But I'm only a farmer, Rix. You must expect the
ruder and simpler forms of speech from a lady of the woodshed!... Why
are you so pale?"
"Do I seem particularly underdone?"
"That's horrid, too. Are you and I going to degenerate just because you
work for a living? You _are_ unusually thin, anyway; and the New York
pallor is very noticeable. Will you stay and get sun-burnt?"
"I _could_ stay a few days."
"How many?"
"How many do you want me? Two whole days, Strelsa?"
She laughed at him, then looked at him a trifle shyly, but laughed again
as she answered:
"I want you to stay always, of course. Don't pretend that you don't know
it, because you are perfectly aware that I never tire of you. But if you
can stay only two days don't let us waste any time----"
"We're not wasting it here together, are we?"
"Don't you want to walk? I haven't a horse yet, except for agricultural
purposes. I'll rinse my hands and take off this apron--" She stood
unpinning and untying it, her gray eyes never leaving him in their
unabashed delight in him.
Then she disappeared for a few minutes only to reappear wearing a pair
of stout little shoes and carrying a walking-stick which she said she
used in rough country.
And first they visited her garden where all the old-fashioned autumn
flowers were in riotous bloom--scarlet sage, rockets, thickets of
gladiolus, heavy borders of asters, marigolds, and coreopsis; and here
she gave a few verbal directions to the yokel who gaped toothlessly in
reply.
After that, side by side, they swung off together across the hill, she,
lithe and slender, setting the springy pace and twirling her
walking-stick, he, less accustomed to the open and more so to the smooth
hot streets of the city, slackening pace first.
She chided and derided him and bantered him scornfully, then with sudden
sweet concern halted, reproaching herself for setting too hot a pace for
a city-worn and work-worn man.
But the cool shadows of the woods were near, and she made him rest on
the little footbridge--the same bridge where he had encountered Ledwith
for the first time in years. He recognised the spot.
After they had seated themselves and Strelsa, resting on the back of the
bridge seat, was contentedly dabbling in the stream with her cane,
Quarren said, slowly:
"Shall I tell you why I did not disturb you last night, Strelsa?"
"You can't excuse it----"
"You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though----"
"I am listening."
"Then, it has to do with Ledwith. He's not very well but he's better
than he was. You see he wanted to take a course of treatment to regain
his health, and there seemed to be nobody else, so--I offered to see
him through."
"That's like you, Rix," she said, looking at him.
"Oh, it wasn't anything--I had nothing to do----"
"That's like you, too. Did you pull him through?"
"He pulled himself through.... It was strenuous for two or three
days--and hot as the devil in that sanitarium." ... He laughed. "We both
were wrecks when we came out two weeks later--oh, a bit groggy, that's
really all.... And he had no place to go--and seemed to be inclined to
keep hold of my sleeve--so I telephoned Molly. And she said to bring him
up. That was nice of her, wasn't it?"
"Everybody is wonderful except you," she said.
"Nonsense," he said, "it wasn't I who went through a modified hell. He's
got a lot of backbone, Ledwith.... And so we came up last night....
And--now here's the interesting part, Strelsa! We strolled over to call
on Mrs. Ledwith----"
"What!"
"Certainly. I myself didn't see her but--" he laughed--"she seemed to be
at home to her ex-husband."
"Rix!"
"It's a fact. He went back there for breakfast this morning after he'd
changed his clothes."
"After--_what_?"
"Yes. It seems that they started out in a canoe about midnight and he
didn't turn up at Witch-Hollow until just before breakfast--and then he
only stayed long enough to change to boating flannels.... You should see
him; he's twenty years younger.... I fancy they'll get along together in
future."
"Oh, Rix!" she said, "that was darling of you! You _are_ wonderful even
if you don't seem to know it!... And to think--to _think_ that Mary
Ledwith is going to be happy again!... Oh, you don't know how it has
been with her--the silly, unhappy little thing!
"Why, after Mrs. Sprowl left, the girl went all to pieces. Molly and I
did what we could--but Molly isn't strong and Mrs. Ledwith was at my
house almost all the time--Oh, it was quite dreadful, and I'm sure she
was really losing her senses--because--I think I'll tell you--I tell you
everything--" She hesitated, and then, lowering her voice:
"She had come to see me, and she was lying on the lounge in my
dressing-room, crying; and I was doing my hair. And first I knew she
sobbed out that she had killed her husband and wanted to die, and she
caught up that pistol that Sir Charles gave me at the Bazaar last
winter--it looked like a real one--and the next thing I knew she had
fired a charge of Japanese perfume at her temple, and it was all over
her face and hair!... Don't laugh, Rix; she thought she had killed
herself, and I had a horrid, messy time of it reviving her."
"You poor child," he exclaimed trying not to laugh--"she had no brains
to blow out anyway.... That's a low thing to say. Ledwith likes her....
I really believe she's been scared into life-long good behaviour."
"She wasn't--really--horrid," said Strelsa in a low voice. "She told me
so."
"I don't doubt it," he said. "But one way or the other you might as well
reproach a humming-bird for its morals. There are such people."
After a short silence she said:
"Tell me about people in town."
"There are few there. Besides," he added smilingly, "I don't see much of
your sort of people."
"_My_ sort?" she repeated, lifting her gray eyes. "Am I not your sort,
Rix?"
"Are you? You should see me in my overalls and shirt-sleeves, stained
with solvents and varnish, sticky with glue and reeking turpentine,
ironing out a canvas with a warm flat-iron!... Am I your kind, Strelsa?"
"Yes.... Am I _your_ kind?"
"You always were. You know that."
"Yes, I do know it, now." She sat very still, hands folded, considering
him with gray and speculative eyes.
"From the very beginning," she said, "you have never once disappointed
me."
"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.
"Never," she repeated.
"Why--why, I got in wrong the very first time!" he said.
"You mean that wager we made?"
"Yes."
"But you behaved like a good sportsman."
"Well, I wasn't exactly a bounder. But you were annoyed."
She smiled: "Was I?"
"You seemed to be."
"Yet I sat in a corner behind some palms with you until daylight."
They looked at each other and laughed over the reminiscence. Then he
said:
"I _did_ disappoint you when you found out what sort of a man I was."
"No, you didn't."
"I proved it, too," he said under his breath.
Her lips were set firmly, almost primly, but she blushed.
"You meant to be nice to me," she said. "You meant to do me honour."
"The honour of offering you such a man as I was," he said with smiling
bitterness.
"Rix! _I_ was the fool--the silly little prig! I have blushed and
blushed to remember how I behaved; how I snubbed you and--good
heavens!--even lectured and admonished you!--How I ran away from you
with all the self-possession and _savoir-faire_ of a country schoolgirl!
What on earth you thought of me in those days I dread to surmise----"
"But Strelsa, what was there to do except what you did?"
"If I'd known anything I could have thanked you for caring that way for
me and dismissed you as a friend instead of fleeing as though you had
affronted me----"
"I _did_ affront you."
"You didn't intend to.... It would have been easy enough to tell you
that I liked you--but not that way.... And all those miserable, lonely,
unhappy months could have been spared me----"
"Were _you_ unhappy?"
"Didn't you know it?"
"I never dreamed you were."
"Well, I was--thinking of what I had done to you.... And all those men
bothering me, every moment, and everybody at me to marry everybody
else--and all I wanted was to be friends with _you_!... I wasn't sure
of what I wanted from the very beginning, of course, but I knew it as
soon as I saw you at the Bazaar again.... I was _so_ lonely, Rix----"
She looked up out of clear, fearless eyes; he leaned forward and took
her hands in his.
"I know what you want," he said quietly. "You want my friendship and you
have it--every atom of it, Strelsa. I will never overstep the borders
again; I understand you thoroughly.... You know what you have done for
me--what I was when you came into my life. My gratitude is a living
thing. Through you, because of you, the whole unknown world--all of real
life--has opened before me. You did it for me, Strelsa."
"You did it for yourself and for me," she said in a low voice. "What are
you trying to tell me, Rix? That _I_ did this for _you_? When it is
you--it was you from the first--it has always been you who led, who
awakened first, who showed courage and common sense and patience and the
cheerful wisdom which--which saved me----"
The emotion in her voice stirred him thrillingly; her hands lay
confidently in his; her gray eyes met his so sweetly, so honestly, that
hope awoke for a moment.
"Strelsa," he said, "however it was with us--however it is now, I think
that together we amount to more than we ever could have amounted to
apart."
"I know it," she said fervently. "I was nothing until I began to
comprehend you."
"What was I before you awoke me?"
"A man neglecting his nobler self.... But it could not have lasted; your
real self could not have long endured that harlequinade we once thought
was real life.... I'm glad if you think that I--something about
me--aroused you.... But if I had not, somebody or some circumstance
would have very soon served the same purpose."
"Do you think so?" he said, stooping to kiss her hands. She looked at
him while he did so, confused by the quick pleasure of the contact, then
schooled herself to endure it, setting her lips in a grave, firm line.
And it was a most serious face he lifted his eyes to as she quietly
withdrew her fingers from his.
"You always played the courtier to perfection," she said, trying to
speak lightly. "Tell me about that accomplished and noble peer, Lord
Dankmere. Are you still inclined to like him?"
He accepted her light and careless change of tone instantly, and spoke
laughingly of Dankmere:
"He's really a mighty nice fellow, Strelsa. Anyway, I like him. And
_what_ do you think his lordship has been and gone and done?"
"Has he become a Russian dancer, Rix?"
"No, bless his heart! He's fallen head over ears in love and is engaged
and is going to marry!"
"Who?"
"Our stenographer!"
"Rix!"
"Certainly.... She's pretty and sweet and good and _most_ worthy; and
she's as crazy about Dankmere as he is about her.... Really, Strelsa,
she's a charming young girl, and she'll make as pretty a countess as any
of the Dankmeres have married in many a generation."
Strelsa's lip curled: "I don't doubt that. They were always a horrid
cock-fighting, prize-fighting, dissolute lot, weren't they?"
"Something like that. But the present Dankmere is a good sort--really he
is, Strelsa. And as for Jessie Vining, she's sweet. You'll be nice to
them, won't you?"
She said: "I'd be nice to them anyway. But now that you ask me to I'll
be whatever you wish."
"You _are_ a corker," he said almost tenderly; but with a slight smile
she kept her hands out of his reach.
"We mustn't degenerate into sentimentalism just because we're glad to
see each other," she said so calmly that he did not notice the tremor in
her voice. "And by the way, how is Mr. Westguard?"
They both laughed.
"Speaking of sentiment," said Quarren, "Karl now exudes it daily. He and
Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera--to Lester's rage--have started a
weekly paper called _Brotherhood_, consisting of pabulum for the
horny-handed.
"I couldn't do anything with Karl. Just look at him! He's really a good
story-teller if he chooses. He could write jolly-good novels if he
would. But the spectacle of De Groot weeping over a Bowery audience has
finished him; and he's hard at work on a volume called 'The World's
Woe,' and means to publish it himself because no publisher will take
it."
"Poor Karl," she said, smiling.
"No," said Quarren, "that's the worst of it. His aunt has settled a
million on him.... I tell you, Strelsa, the rich convert has less honour
among the poor than the dingiest little 'dip' among the gorgeous
corsairs of Wall Street.
"I don't know how it happens, but Christ was never yet successfully
preached from Fifth Avenue, and the millionaire whose heart bleeds for
the poor needs a sterner surgeon than a complacent conscience to really
stop the hemorrhage."
"Rich men do good, Rix," she said thoughtfully.
"But not by teaching or practising the thrift of celestial
insurance--not by admonition to orthodoxy and exhortation to worship a
Creator who sees to it that no two people are created equal. There is
only one thing the rich can give to the poor for Christ's sake; and even
that will always be taken with suspicion and distrust. No; there are
only two ways to live: one is the life of self-discipline; the other is
to actually imitate the militant Son of Man whose faith we pretend to
profess--but whose life-history we merely parody, turning His crusade
into a grotesque carnival. I know of no third course consistent."
"To lead an upright life within bounds where your lines have fallen, or
to strip and go forth militant," she mused. "There is no third course,
as you say.... Do you know, Rix, that I have become a wonderfully happy
sort of person?"
"So have I," he said, laughingly.
"It's just because we have something to do, isn't it?"
"That--and the leisure which the idle never have. It seems like a
paradox, doesn't it?--to say that the idle never have any time to
themselves."
"I know what you mean. I expect to work rather hard the rest of my
life," she said seriously, "and yet I can foresee lots and lots of most
delicious leisure awaiting me."
"Do you foresee anything else, pretty prophetess?"
"What else do you mean?"
"Well, for example, you will be alone here all winter."
"Do you mean loneliness?" she asked, smiling. "I don't expect to suffer
from that. Molly will be here all winter and--you will write to me--"
she turned to him--"won't you, Rix?"
"Certainly. Besides I'm coming up to see you every week."
"Every week!" she repeated, taken a little aback but smiling her sweet,
confused smile. "Do you realise what you are so gaily engaging to do?"
"Perfectly. I'm going to build up here."
"What!"
"Of course."
"A--a house?"
He looked at her, hesitated, then looking away:
"Either a house or--an addition."
"An _addition_?"
"If you'll let me, Strelsa--some day."
She understood him then. The painful colour stole into her cheeks,
faintly burning, and she closed her eyes for a moment to endure it,
sitting silent, motionless, her little sun-tanned hands tightly clasped
on her knees.
Then, unclosing her eyes she looked at him, delicate lips tightening.
"I thought our relations were to remain on a higher plane," she said
steadily.
"Our relations are to remain what you desire them to be, dear."
"I desire them to be what they are--_always_."
"Then that is my wish also," he said with a smile so genuine and gay
that, a little confused by his acquiescence, her own response was slow.
But presently her smile dawned, a little tremulous and uncertain, and
her gray eyes remained wistful though the lips curled deliciously.
"I would do anything in the world for you, Rix, except--that," she said
in a low voice.
"I know you would, you dear girl."
"Don't you really believe it?"
"Of course I do!"
"But--I _can't_ do that--_ever_. It would--would spoil you for me....
What in the world would I do if you were spoiled for me, Rix? I haven't
anybody else.... What would I do here--all alone? I couldn't stay--I
wouldn't know what to do--where to go in the world.... It would be
lonely--lonely----"
She bent her head, and remained so, gray eyes fixed on her clasped
fingers. For a long while she sat bowed over, thinking; once or twice
she lifted her eyes to look at him, but her gaze always became confused
and remote; and he did not offer to break the silence.
At last she looked up with a movement of decision, her face clearing.
"You understand, don't you, Rix?" she said, rising.
He nodded, rising also; and they descended the steps together and walked
slowly away toward Witch-Hollow.
From the hill-top they noticed one of Sprowl's farm-waggons slowly
entering the drive, followed on foot by several men and a little girl.
Her blond hair and apron fluttered in the breeze. She was too far away
for them to see that she was weeping.
"I wonder what they've got in that waggon?" said Quarren, curiously.
Strelsa's gaze became indifferent, then passed on and rested on the blue
range of hills beyond.
"Isn't it wonderful about Chrysos," she said.
"The quaint little thing," he said almost tenderly. "She told Molly what
happened--how she sat down under a fence to tie wild strawberries for
Sir Charles, and how, all at once, she realised what his going out of
her life meant to her--and how the tears choked her to silence until she
suddenly found herself in his arms.... Can you see it as it happened,
Strelsa?--as pretty a pastoral as ever the older poets--" He broke off
abruptly, and she looked up, but he was still smiling as though the
scene of another man's happiness, so lightly evoked, were a
visualisation of his own. And again her gray eyes grew wistful as though
shyly pleading for his indulgence and silently asking his pardon for all
that she could never be to him or to any man.
So they came across fields and down through fragrant lanes to
Witch-Hollow, where the fat setter gambolled ponderously around them
with fat barkings and waggings, and where Molly, sewing on the porch,
smoothed the frail and tiny garment over her knee and raised her pretty
head to survey them with a smiling intelligence that made Strelsa blush.
"It _isn't_ so!" she found an opportunity to whisper into Molly's ear.
"If you look at us that way you'll simply make him miserable and break
my heart."
Molly glanced after Quarren who had wandered indoors to find a cigarette
in the smoking-room.
"If you don't marry that delectable young man," she said, "I'll take a
stick and beat you, Strelsa."
"I don't want to--I don't _want_ to!" protested the girl, getting
possession of Molly's hands and covering them with caresses. And,
resting her soft lips on Molly's fingers, she looked at her; and the
young matron saw tears glimmering under the soft, dark lashes.
"I _can't_ love him--that way," whispered the girl. "I would if I
could.... I couldn't care for him more than I do.... And--and it
terrifies me to think of losing him."
"Losing him?"
"Yes--by doing what you--what he--wishes."
"You think you'll lose him if you marry him?"
"I--yes. It would spoil him for me--spoil everything for me in the
world----"
"Well, you listen to me," said Molly, exasperated. "When he has stood a
certain amount of this silliness from you he'll really and actually turn
into the sexless comrade you think you want. But he'll go elsewhere for
a mate. There are plenty suitable in the world. If you'd never been born
there would have been another for him. If you passed out of his life
there would some day be another.
"Will we women never learn the truth?--that at best we are incidental to
man, but that, when we love, man is the whole bally thing to us?
"Let him escape and you'll see, Strelsa. You'll get, perhaps, what
you're asking for now, but he'll get what he is asking for, too--if not
from you, from some girl of whom you and I and he perhaps have never
heard.
"But she exists; don't worry. And any man worth his title is certain to
encounter her sooner or later."
The girl, flushed, dumb, watched her out of wide gray eyes in which the
unshed tears had dried. The pretty matron slowly shook her head:
"Because you once bit into tainted fruit you laid the axe to the entire
orchard. What nonsense! Rottenness is the exception; soundness the rule.
But you concluded that the hazard of bad fortune--that the unhappy
chance of your first and only experience--was not an exception but the
universal rule.... Very well; think it! He'll get over it some time, but
you never will, Strelsa. You'll remember it all your life.
"For I tell you that we women who go to our graves without having missed
a single pang--we who die having known happiness and its shadow which is
sorrow--the happiness and sorrow which come through love of man
alone--die as we should die, in deep content of destiny fulfilled--which
is the only peace beyond all understanding."
The girl lowered her head and, resting her cheek on Molly's shoulder,
looked down at the baby garment on her knees.
"That also?" she whispered.
"Yes.... Unless we pass that way, also, we can never die content.... But
until a month ago I did not know it.... Strelsa--Strelsa! Are you never
going to know what love can be?"
The girl rose slowly, flushing and whitening by turns, and stood a
moment, her hands covering her eyes.
And standing so:
"Do you think he will go away--from me--some day?"
"Yes; he will go--unless----"
"Must it be--that way?"
"It will be that way, Strelsa."
"I had never thought of that."
"Think of it as the truth. It will be so unless you love him in his own
fashion--and for his own sake. Try--if you care for him enough to
try.... And if you do, you will love him for your own sake, too."
"I--I had thought of--of giving myself--for his sake--because he wishes
it.... I don't believe I'll be--much afraid--of him. Do you?"
Molly's wise sweet eyes sparkled with silent laughter. Then without
another glance at the tall, young girl before her she picked up her
sewing, drew the needle from the hem, and smoothed out the lace
embroidery on her knees.
After a while she said:
"Jim's returning on the noon train. Will you and Rix be here to
luncheon?"
"I don't know."
"Well, ask him; I have my orders to give if you'll stay."
Strelsa walked into the house; Quarren, still hunting about for a
cigarette, looked up as she entered the smoking-room.
"Where the dickens does Jim keep his cigarettes?" he asked. "Do you
know, Strelsa?"
"You poor boy!" she exclaimed laughingly, "have you been searching all
this time? The wonder is that you haven't perished. Why didn't you ask
me for one when we were at--our house?"
"_Your_ house?" he corrected, smiling.
Her gray eyes met his with a frightened sort of courage.
"_Our house_--if you wish--" But her lips had begun to tremble and she
could not control them or force from them another word for all her
courage.
He came over to where she stood, one slim hand resting against the wall;
and she looked back bravely into his keen eyes--the clear, direct,
questioning eyes of a boy.
"I--I will--marry you," she said.
A swift flush touched his face to the temples.
"Don't you--want me?" she said, tremulously.
"If you love me, Strelsa."
"Isn't it enough--that you--love----"
"No, dear."
She lost her colour.
"Rix! Don't you want me?" she faltered.
"Not unless you want me, Strelsa."
She drew a long unsteady breath. Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes,
and she held out both hands to him, blindly.
"I--do love you," she whispered.... "I'll give what you give.... Only
you must teach me--not to be--afraid."
Her cheek lay close to his shoulder; his arms drew her nearer. And,
after he had waited a long while, her gray eyes, which had been watching
his face, slowly closed, and she lifted her lips toward his.
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:
Hyphenation has been standardized. Nonstandard spellings have been
maintained, e.g. "barytone", but clear spelling errors have been
corrected ("hynotised" replaced with "hypnotised", "f" replaced with
"of"). Missing periods have been added at ends of sentences. Missing
close quotes have been added.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Streets of Ascalon, by Robert W. Chambers