The Streets of Ascalon

"I hate to speak this way to you of your friend, and about a man I like and, in a measure, really respect. But this is what I think. And my inclination is to tell you the truth, always.

"Concerning the artistic value of Mr. Westguard's literary performance, I know little. The simplicity of his language recommends the pages to me. The book is easy to read. Perhaps therein lies his art; I do not know.

"Now, as I am in an unaccountably serious mood amid all the frivolity of this semi-tropical place, may I not say to you something about yourself? How are you going to silence me?

"Well, then; you seem to reason illogically. You make little of yourself, yet you offer me your friendship, by implication, every time you write to me. You seek my society mentally. Do you really believe that my mind is so easily satisfied with intellectual rubbish, or that I am flattered by letters from a nobody?

"What do you suppose there is attractive about you, Mr. Quarren – if you really do amount to as little as you pretend? I've seen handsomer men, monsieur, wealthier men, more intelligent men; men more experienced, men of far greater talents and attainments.

"Why do you suppose that I sit here in the Southern sunshine writing to you when there are dozens of men perfectly ready to amuse me? – and qualified to do it, too!

"For the sake of your beaux-yeux? Non pas!

"But there is a something which the world recognises as a subtle and nameless sympathy. And it stretches an invisible filament between you and the girl who is writing to you.

"That tie is not founded on sentiment; I think you know that. And, of things spiritual, you and I have never yet spoken.

"Therefore I conclude that the tie must be purely intellectual; that mind calls to mind and finds contentment in the far response.

"So, when you pretend to me that you are of no intellectual account, you pay me a scurvy compliment. Quod erat demonstrandum.

"With this gentle reproof I seal my long, long letter, and go where the jasmine twineth and the orchestra playeth; for it is tea-time, my friend, and the Park of Peacocks is all a-glitter with plumage. Soft eyes look wealth to eyes that ask again; and all is brazen as a dinner bell!

"O friend! do you know that since I have been here I might have attained to fortune, had I cared to select any one of several generous gentlemen who have been good enough to thrust that commodity at me?

"To be asked to marry a man no longer distresses me. I am all over the romantic idea of being sorry for wealthy amateurs who make me a plain business proposition, offering to invest a fortune in my good looks. To amateurs, connoisseurs, and collectors, there is no such thing as a fixed market value to anything. An object of art is worth what it can be bought for. I don't yet know how much I am worth. I may yet find out.

"There are nice men here, odious men, harmless men, colourless men, worthy men, and the ever-present fool. He is really the happiest, I suppose.

"Then, all in a class by himself, is an Englishman, one Sir Charles Mallison. I don't know what to tell you about him except that I feel exceedingly safe and comfortable when I am with him.

"He says very little; I say even less. But it is agreeable to be with him.

"He is middle-aged, and, I imagine, very wise. Perhaps his reticence makes me think so. He and Mr. Wycherly shoot ducks on the lagoon – and politics into each other.

"I must go. You are not here to persuade me to stay and talk nonsense to you against my better judgment. You're quite helpless, you see. So I'm off.

"Will you write to me again?

    "Strelsa Leeds."

A week after Quarren had answered her letter O'Hara called his attention to a paragraph in a morning paper which hinted at an engagement between Sir Charles Mallison and Mrs. Leeds.

Next day's paper denied it on excellent authority; so, naturally, the world at large believed the contrary.

Southern news also revealed the interesting item that the yacht, Yulan, belonging to Mrs. Sprowl's hatchet-faced nephew, Langly Sprowl, had sailed from Miami for the West Indies with the owner and Mrs. Leeds and Sir Charles Mallison among the guests.

The Yulan had not as fragrant a reputation as its exotic name might signify, respectable parties being in the minority aboard her, but Langly Sprowl was Langly Sprowl, and few people declined any invitation of his.

He was rather a remarkable young man, thin as a blade, with a voracious appetite and no morals. Nor did he care whether anybody else had any. What he wanted he went after with a cold and unsensitive directness that no newspapers had been courageous enough to characterise. He wouldn't have cared if they had.

Among other things that he had wanted, recently, was another man's wife. The other man being of his own caste made no difference to him; he simply forced him to let his wife divorce him; which, it was understood, that pretty young matron was now doing as rapidly as the laws of Nevada allowed.

Meanwhile Langly Sprowl had met Strelsa Leeds.

The sailing of the Yulan for the West Indies became the topic of dinner and dance gossip; and Quarren heard every interpretation that curiosity and malice could put upon the episode.

He had been feeling rather cheerful that day; a misguided man from Jersey City had suddenly developed a mania for a country home. Quarren personally conducted him all over Tappan-Zee Park on the Hudson, through mud and slush in a skidding touring car, with the result that the man had become a pioneer and had promised to purchase a building site.

So Quarren came back to the Legation that afternoon feeling almost buoyant, and discovered Westguard in all kinds of temper, smoking a huge faïence pipe which he always did when angry, and which had become known as "The Weather-breeder."

"Jetzt geht das Wetter los!" quoted Quarren, dropping into a seat by the fire. "Where is this particular area of low depression centred, Karl?"

"Over my damn book. The papers insist it's a livre-à-clef; and I am certain the thing is selling on that account! I tell you it's humiliating. I've done my best as honestly as I know how, and not one critic even mentions the philosophy of the thing; all they notice is the mere story and the supposed resemblance between my characters and living people! I'm cursed if I ever – "

"Oh, shut up!" said Quarren tranquilly. "If you're a novelist you write to amuse people, and you ought to be thankful that you've succeeded."

"Confound it!" roared Westguard, "I write to instruct people! not to keep 'em from yawning!"

"Then you've made a jolly fluke of it, that's all – because you have accidentally written a corking good story – good enough and interesting enough to make people stand for the cold chunks of philosophical admonition with which you've spread your sandwich – thinly, Heaven be praised!"

"I write," said Westguard, furious, "because I've a message to deliv – "

"Help!" moaned Quarren. "You write because it's in you to do it; because you've nothing more interesting to do; and because it enables you to make a decent and honourable living!"

"Do those reasons prevent my having a message to deliver?" roared Westguard.

"No, they exist in spite of it. You'd write anyway, whether or not you believed you had a message to deliver. You've written some fifteen novels, and fifteen times you have smothered your story with your message. This time, by accident, the story got its second breath, and romped home, with 'Message' a bad second, and that selling plater, 'Philosophy,' left at the post – "

"Go on! – you irreverent tout!" growled Westguard; "I want my novels read, of course. Any author does. But I wish to Heaven somebody would try to interpret the important lessons which I – "

"Oh, preciousness and splash! Tell your story as well as you can, and if it's well done there'll be latent lessons enough in it."

"Are you perhaps instructing me in my own profession?" asked the other, smiling.

"Heaven knows I'm not venturing – "

"Heaven knows you are! Also there is something In what you say – " He sat smoking, thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in the fire – "if I only could manage that! – to arrest the public's attention by the rather cheap medium of the story, and then, cleverly, shoot a few moral pills into 'em… That's one way, of course – "

"Like the drums of the Salvation Army."

Westguard looked around at him, suspiciously, but Quarren seemed to be serious enough.

"I suppose it doesn't matter much how a fellow collects an audience, so that he does collect one."

"Exactly," nodded Quarren. "Get your people, then keep 'em interested and unsuspecting while you inject 'em full of thinks."

Westguard smoked and pondered; but presently his lips became stern and compressed.