The Streets of Ascalon

"I cannot bear it," she protested; "I can't endure the realism of that spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?"

Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among the keys, striking vague harmonies.

He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.

A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink, lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.

She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.

Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught her slender hand:

"No! – please. Let me go! This is too serious – even if we did not mean it – "

"You know I mean it," he said simply.

"You must not! You understand why!.. And don't – again! I am not – I do not choose to – to allow – endure – such – things – "

He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.

"Please!" she repeated – and "please!" And she came toward him a step, and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.

"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to me – and let me go."

"Am I unkind?"

"Yes – yes! You know – you know how it is with me! Let me go my way… I am going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me – not for one moment!"

"Check you from what, Strelsa?"

"From – what I want out of life! – tranquillity, ease, security, happiness – "

"Happiness?"

"Yes – yes! It will be that! I don't need anything except what I shall have. I don't want anything else. Can't you understand? Do you think women feel as – as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men experience is also experienced by women? I don't want it; I don't require it! I've – I've always had a contempt for it – and I have still… Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any man – friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can't you take it – and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my friendship – as long as I never swerve in it – as long as I hold you first among my friends – first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer you – I will not! Now let me go!"

"Your other self, fighting me," he said, half to himself.

"No, I am! What do you mean by my other self! There is no other – "

"Its lips rested on mine for a moment!"

She blushed scarlet:

"Is that what you mean! – the stupid, unworthy, material self – "

"The trinity is incomplete without it."

She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly as though frightened.

After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:

"I'm not going to give you up," he said. "I love you. Whatever is lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being poor makes no difference either. I simply don't care – I don't even care what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each other – whether you think so or not. And you evidently don't, but I can't help that. If I'm any good I'll make you think as I do – "

He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows slightly knitted.

Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened under his cheeks.

"Can't you care?" he said, half to himself.

She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely she felt that what had been there was now dead – that she never could respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free forever.

"Can't you care for a man who loves you, Strelsa?" he said again, turning toward her.

"Is that your idea of love?"

He shook his head, hopelessly:

"Oh, it's everything else, too – everything on earth – and afterward – everything – mind, soul and body – birth, life, death – sky and land and sea – everything that is or was or will be – "

His hands clenched, relaxed; he made a gesture, half checked – looked up at her, looked long and steadily into her expressionless eyes.

"You care for money, position, ease, security, tranquillity – more than for love; do you?"

"Yes."

"Is that true?"

"Yes. Because, unless you mean friendship, I care nothing for love."

"That is your answer."

"It is."

"Then there is something lacking in you."

"Perhaps. I have never loved in the manner you mean. I do not wish to. Perhaps I am incapable of it… I hope I am; I believe – I believe – " But she fell silent, standing with eyes lowered and the warm blood once more stinging her cheeks.

Presently she looked up, calm, level-eyed:

"I think you had better ask my forgiveness before you go."

He shrugged:

"Yes, I'll ask it if you like."

To keep her composure became difficult:

"It is your affair, Mr. Quarren – if you still care to preserve our friendship."