The Streets of Ascalon

"There is nothing to which she responds – except what I have not."

"Make what you do possess more powerful, then."

"What do I possess?"

"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?"

"Perhaps so – now – after a fashion… But I am not the man who could ever attract her – "

"Wake her, and find out."

"Wake her?"

"Didn't I tell you that many of us are asleep, and that few of us awake easily? Didn't I tell you that nobody likes to be awakened from the warm comfort and idle security of emotionless slumber? – that it is the instinct of many of us to resist – just as I hear my maid speak to me in the morning and then turn over for another forty winks, hating her!"

They both laughed.

"My maid has instructions to persist until I respond," said Molly. "Those are my instructions to you, also."

"Suppose, after all, I were knocking at the door of an empty room?"

"You must take your chances of course."

There was a noise of horses on the gravel: Langly cantered up on a handsome hunter followed by a mounted groom leading Strelsa's mare.

Sprowl dismounted and came up to pay his respects to Molly, scarcely troubling himself to recognise Quarren's presence, and turning his back to him immediately, although Molly twice attempted to include him in the conversation.

Strelsa in the library, pulling on her gloves, was silent witness to a pantomime unmistakable; but her pretty lips merely pressed each other tighter, and she sauntered out, crop under one arm, with a careless greeting to Langly.

He came up offering his hand and she took it, then stood a moment in desultory conversation, facing the others so as to include Quarren.

"I thought I overheard you say to Molly that you were going back to town this afternoon," she remarked, casting a brief glance in his direction.

"I think I'd better go," he said, pleasantly.

"A matter of business I suppose?" eyebrows slightly lifted.

"In a way. Dankmere is alone, poor fellow."

Molly laughed:

"It is not good for man to be alone."

Sprowl said:

"There's a housemaid in my employ – she's saved something I understand. You might notify Dankmere – " he half wheeled toward Quarren, eyes slightly bulging without a shadow of expression on his sleek, narrow face.

Molly flushed; Quarren glanced at Sprowl, amazed at his insolence out of a clear sky.

"What?" he said slowly – then stepped back a pace as Strelsa passed close in front of him, apparently perfectly unconscious of any discord:

"Will you get me a lump of sugar, Mr. Quarren? My mare must be pampered or she'll start that jiggling Kentucky amble and never walk one step."

Quarren swung on his heel and entered the house; Molly, ignoring Strelsa, turned sharply on Sprowl:

"If you are insolent to my guests you need not come here," she said briefly.

Langly's restless eyes protruded; he glanced from Molly to Strelsa, then his indifferent gaze wandered over the landscape. It was plain that the rebuke had not made the slightest impression. Molly looked angrily at Strelsa, but the latter, eyes averted, was gazing at her horse. And when Quarren came back with a handful of sugar she took it and, descending the steps, fed it, lump by lump to the two horses.

Langly put her up, shouldered aside the groom, and adjusted heel-loop and habit-loop. Then he mounted, saluted Molly and followed Strelsa at a canter without even noticing his bridle.

"What have you done to Langly?" asked Molly.

"Characterised his bad manners the other day. It wasn't worth while; there's no money in cursing… And I think, Molly dear, that I'll take an afternoon train – "

"I won't let you," said his hostess. "I won't have you treated that way under my roof – "

"It was outdoors, dear lady," said Quarren, smiling. "It's only his rudeness before you that I mind. Where is Sir Charles?"

"Off with Chrysos somewhere on the river – there's their motor-launch, now… Ricky!"

"Yes."

"I'm angry all through… Strelsa might have said something – showed her lack of sympathy for Langly's remark by being a little more cordial to you… I don't like it in her. I don't know whether I am going to like that girl or not – "

"Nonsense. There was nothing for her to say or do – "

"There was! She is a fish! – unless she gives Langly the dickens this morning… Will you motor with Jim and me, Ricky dear?"

"If you like."

She did like. So presently a racing car was brought around, Jim came reluctantly from the hangar, and away they tore into the dull weather now faintly illuminated by the prophecy of the sun.

Everywhere the mist was turning golden; faint smears of blue appeared and disappeared through the vapours passing overhead. Then, all at once the sun's glaring lens played across the drenched meadows, and the shadows of tree and hedge and standing cattle streamed out across the herbage.

In spite of the chains the car skidded dangerously at times; mud flew and so did water, and very soon Molly had enough. So they tore back again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters, her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots – past woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird music – past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh above the soaking brown earth.

Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them.

Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. Once, across a distant hill, two horses and their riders passed outlined against the sky; but even the eyes of a lover and a hater could not identify anybody at such a distance.

So he strolled on, taking roads when convenient, fields when it suited him, neither knowing nor caring where he was going.

Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a little foot-bridge over a stream.

A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up.

"Is that you, Quarren?" he said.