The Streets of Ascalon

She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them.

"I thought of you on various occasions," she added.

He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender.

Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his eyes from the bracket light.

For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his silence and abstraction – in the set of his shoulders, and the unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again – agreeable to be with him – not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable – for even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly conscious of a reserve force now awaking – of a growing sense of freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour.

"Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last.

He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move – scarcely an invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated himself on the arm of the lounge beside her.

"Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me."

"I wrote very few… Did they really interest you?"

"A lot."

"How?"

"They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back door of Eternity."

"How do you mean?"

"Otherwise he would never have stirred a step – until to-night."

"That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren – but a little sentimental – isn't it?"

"Do you think so?"

"I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment – being unaccustomed to it."

"How many men made you declarations?"

"Oh; is that real sentiment? I thought it was merely love."

He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become like the rest."

She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I have grown hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you think so?"

"Do you, Mrs. Leeds?"

"I think so… A woman might as well know the worst truths about life – and about men."

"Not about men."

"Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?"

"Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?"

"By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You probably prefer your women screened and veiled."

"We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film."

"Mr. Quarren – are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing. But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones.

"What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked, curiously.

"Working at my trade."

"You seem thinner."

"Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I must."

"You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike – aren't you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him.

He laughed.

"You make me very angry," she said; "I like you – I'm quite happy with you – and suddenly you try to tell me that my friendship is lavished on an unworthy man; that my taste is low, and that you're a kind of a social jackal – an upper servant —

"I feed on what the pack leaves – and I wash their fragile plates for them," he said lightly.

"What else?" she asked, furious.

"I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment's notice, acting as manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter."

He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost control of herself and her fingers closed tight.

"What are you saying!" she said, fiercely. "Are you telling me that this is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to – to think about – think about a great deal – care enough about to dine with in my own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?"

He said, slowly: "I could have been anything – I could be yet – if you – "

"If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for anybody's!" she retorted… "I refuse to believe that you are what you say, anyway. It hurts – it hurts – "

"It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds – "

"It hurts me! I do like you. I was glad to see you – you don't know how glad. Your letters to me were – were interesting. You have always been interesting, from the very first – more so than many men – more than most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?"

Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted handkerchief.

"I could stand anything! – my friendship for you could stand almost anything except what you pretend you are – and what other malicious tongues will say if you continue to repeat it! – And it has been said already about you! Do you know that? People do say that of you. People even say so to me – tell me you are worthless – warn me against – against – "

"What?"

"Caring – taking you seriously! And it's because you deliberately exhibit disrespect for yourself! A man —any man is what he chooses to be, and people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in pretending to dignity and worth when – when you can be the peer of any man? What's the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of you with contempt. I denied what she said… I'd rather they'd say anything else about you – that you had vices – a vigorous, wilful, unmanageable man's vices! – than to say that of you!"

"What?"