The Streets of Ascalon
"Such cases may be justified by circumstances. The general public hears, however, of only a few isolated cases. The number of private deals that are executed, week in, week out, between impoverished members of the highest nobility – some of them bound, like Lord Blitherington and the Duke of Putney by close official ties to the Court – and the agents of either new-rich Britishers or wealthy Americans has reached its maximum, and by degrees unentailed treasures and heirlooms are passing from owners of many centuries to families that were unheard of a dozen years ago.
"THE AWFUL YANKEE"The American is given priority in the matter of purchase, not only because he pays more, as a rule, but also for the reason that the transfer of his prize to the United States removes the possibility of noble sellers being pestered with awkward questions by the inquisitive. For, however unostentatiously home deals are made and transfers effected, society soon learns the facts. So hard up, however, has the better-known aristocracy become, and so willing are they to trade at fancy sums to anxious purchasers, that several curio dealers in the St. James's quarter hold unlimited power of attorney to act for plutocratic American principals either in the United States or in this country.
"Those who are reasonably entitled to explain the cause of this poverty among old families, whose landed estates are unimpaired in acreage at least, and whose inheritance was of respectable proportions, declare that not since the eighteenth century has the gambling spirit so persistently invaded the inside coteries of high society. The desire to acquire riches quickly seems to have taken hold of the erstwhile staid and conventional upper ten, just as it has seized upon the smart set. The recent booms in oil and rubber have had the effect of transferring many a comfortable rent roll from its owner's bankers – milady's just as often as milord's – to the chartered mortgagors of the financial world. The panic in America in 1907 showed to what extent the English nobility was interested, not only in gilt-edged securities, but also to what degree it was involved in wildcat finance. The directing geniuses of many of the suspect ventures of to-day in London are often the possessors of names that are writ rubric in the pages of Debrett and Burke.
"According to a London radical paper, there are at present over a score of estates in the auction mart which must soon pass from some of the bluest-blooded nobles in Great Britain to men whose fortunes have grown in the past few years from the humblest beginnings, a fact which itself cannot fail to change both the tone and constitution of town and country society."
Quarren read every column, grimly, to the end, wincing when he encountered some casual reference to himself and his recent social activities. Then, lips compressed, boyish gaze fixed on the passing landscape, he sat brooding until at last the conductor opened the door and shouted the name of his station.
The Wycherlys' new place, Witch-Hollow, a big rambling farm among the Connecticut hills, was only three hours from New York, and half an hour by automobile from the railroad. The buildings were wooden and not new; a fashionable architect had made the large house "colonially" endurable with furnaces and electricity as well as with fan-lights and fluted pilasters.
Most of the land remained wild – weed-grown pastures, hard-wood ridges, neglected orchards planted seventy years ago. Molly Wycherly had ordered a brand new old-time garden to be made for her overlooking the wide, unruffled river; also a series of sylvan paths along the wooded shores of the hill-set lake which was inhabited by bass placed there by orders of her husband.
"For Heaven's sake," he said to his wife, "don't try to knock any antiquity into the place; I'm sick of fine old ancestral halls put up by building-loan associations. Plenty of paint and varnish for mine, Molly, and a few durable iron fountains and bronze stags on the lawn – "
"No, Jim," she said firmly.
So he ordered an aeroplane, a herd of sheep, a shepherd, and two tailless sheep-dogs, and made plans to spend most of his vacation yachting, when he did not spend it in town.
But he was restlessly domiciled at Witch-Hollow, now, and he met Quarren at the station in a bright purple runabout which he drove like lightning, one hand on the steering wheel, the other carelessly waving toward the streaky landscape in affable explanation of the various points of interest.
"Quite a little colony of us up here, Quarren," he said. "I don't know why anybody picked out this silly country for estates, but Langly Sprowl started a stud farm over yonder, and then poor Chester Ledwith built a house for his wife in the middle of a thousand acres, over there where you see those maple woods! – and then people began to come and pick up worn-out farms and make 'em into fine old family places – Lester Caldera's model dairies are behind that hill; and that leather-headed O'Hara has a bungalow somewhere – and there's a sort of Hunt Club, too, and a bum pack of Kiyi's – "
The wind tore most of his speech from his lips and whirled it out of earshot: Quarren caught a word now and then which interested him. It also interested him to observe how Wycherly shaved annihilation at every turn of the road.
"I've asked some men to bring up their biplanes and have a few flies on me," continued his host – "I've a 'Stinger' monoplane and a Kent biplane myself. I can't get any more sensation out of motoring. I'd as soon wheel twins in a go-cart."
Quarren saw him cleverly avoid death with one hand, and laughed.
"Who is stopping with you up here?" he shouted close to Wycherly's ear.
"Nobody – Mrs. Leeds, Chrysos Lacy, and Sir Charles. There are some few neighbours, too – Langly is mousing and prowling about; and that poor Ledwith man is all alone in his big house – fixing to get out of it so his wife can move in from Reno when she's ready for more mischief… Here we are, Quarren! Your stuff will be in your rooms in a few minutes. There's my wife, now – "
He waved his hand to Molly but let Quarren go forward alone while he started across the fields toward his hangar where, in grotesque and vicious-looking immobility, reposed his new winged pet, the little Stinger monoplane, wings set as wickedly as an alert wasp's.
CHAPTER IX
As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger across her lips conjuring caution.
"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't suppose the child could possibly object."
Quarren's features stiffened:
"Does she?"
"Why – this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she had left."
"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.
"I really don't know, Ricky – "
"Yes, you do. What has happened?"
"You're certainly rude enough – "
"What has happened, Molly?"
"I don't know for certain, I tell you… Langly Sprowl has been roving around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together nearly every day."
"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?"
"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles."
"Do you believe that?"
"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly has persuaded her into some sort of a tacit engagement… I don't know what the child can be thinking of – unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has convinced her of his martyrdom… There'll be a pretty situation when Mary Ledwith returns… I could kill Langly – " She doubled both pretty hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the top step deliberately kissed him.
"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and your new enterprise! – I laughed and laughed! – forgive me, but the papers were so funny – and I couldn't help laughing – "
Quarren forced a smile.
"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command a good deal of respect sooner or later."
"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?"
"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before you and Jim try to buy the entire collection."
"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache before your appearance adds another distressing jolt."
"Has she had another shock recently?"
"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for her."
"Are you sure?"
"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's a ghastly scandal – the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!"
They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived and a valet was busy unpacking for him.
"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it – except that little girl over there" – pointing along the corridor to a distant door.
He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too soon."
So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains, Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly, Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of his guests.
Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet.
Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break in – a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair.
"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes.
"We're out of the running, we two – aren't we?" he added. "You try very pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more hopeless race… For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure and senseless gold."
He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks.
Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions – among others the new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea, syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where scores of frail and frivolous strangers nodded amid anæmic leaves, or where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun, seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per dozen.
He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions.
Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks. There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward the hand he offered.
"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession.
"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?"
"Yes. Have you just arrived?"
"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys' new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?"
She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the lashes.
He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths; where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass.
No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense calm.
"Are you – offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the water.
"Of course not!" he replied cordially.
She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence.
"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably.
"Did you receive my letter?"
"Of course I did."
"You did not answer it."
"I didn't know how – then."
His reply seemed to perplex her – so did his light and effortless good-humour.
"I know how to answer it now," he added.
She forced a smile:
"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"
"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late seldom dares start… I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me to be seated?"
She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his pocket.
"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter."
"Really, Mr. Quarren – "
"Don't you want me to?"
"I – don't think – it matters, now – "
"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing.
She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been instantly conscious – he had changed since she had seen him – changed radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air suggesting assurance – an individuality which had not heretofore clearly distinguished him – a hidden hint of strength. Or was she mistaken – abashed – remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing to him what she had written.
She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain unanswered."
"You think I'm too late?"
She looked at him steadily:
"Yes, you are too late – in every sense."
"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are going to learn some day what tragedy really is."
"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make me take you seriously?"
"I certainly am."
"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed.
"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have got to take me seriously."
She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now gaily maintained the lighter vein:
"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I suppose."
"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!" – he held out to her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.
"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what is it?"
"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"
The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain, inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean.
"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.
"How can I deny it? – with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll lend you some witch-hazel – "
"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic," he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."
"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."
"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."
She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."
"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"
"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray eyes – a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched his shoulder.
She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:
"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it wants to?"
She laughed.
He went on: "I mean when you want it to be. Because it's really up to you."
"To me, my slangy friend?"
"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."
This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.
"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.
"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."
"Is that a reason?" – very gravely.
"You can make it so if you will."
She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:
"You say that you always think of me – that way. But I'm afraid that, even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed you to the use of it."
"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"
"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of, don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation – "
"Strelsa – "
"No! – please."
"When?"
She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr. Quarren?"
"Not unless you do."
"I? What do you mean?"
"Will you answer me honestly?"
"Have you ever found me dishonest?"
"Sometimes – with yourself."
Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head abruptly. After a few moments' silence:
"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.
"Then – do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"
She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to avoid it.
"I think of my friends – and you among them."
"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"
"I – your friends – people are eternally dinning your name into my ears – "
"Please answer."
"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick – whatever they call you?"
"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in sheer exasperation.
"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you – when I happen to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend – "
"Won't you?"
"No."
"Some day?"
"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like it. It would be forced, artificial – an effort – and I don't desire – wish – care – "
"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child! Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the pronunciation of my name?"
Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these months, the same strange sensation passed through her – a thrilling consciousness of his nearness.
Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.
He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her, then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought might be.
He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite specimen known to you as Mister Quarren?"
She smiled, uncertainly:
"But I don't reject you, Mister Quarren."
"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."
"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."
"I've got to climb over it then – "
"I don't wish you to!"
"Strelsa?"
"W-what?"
"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"
"I – I don't know what you mean."
"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.
"Please don't say such things – "
"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that kind of a wall remain between us – "
"I ask you not to talk about such – "
"You wouldn't," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you that he cares – "
"Please – if you please – I had rather not – "
"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you – I don't know how much, yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously he is in love with the unknown on the other side."
He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every nerve in her body.
"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other side of that barrier – your unknown self, Strelsa – undiscovered as yet by me – "
Her lips moved mechanically:
"I wrote you —told you what I am."
"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know yourself – "
"I do. I am what I wrote you."
"Partly perhaps – partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a sequence of blows – "
"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of my life! – But those would not count – if I were not selfish, dishonest, and a coward."
