The Streets of Ascalon

"Do you know what you need?"

"Yes, I – "

"No, you don't. You need to love – and to be loved. You don't know it, but you do!"

"That is a – a perfectly brutal thing to say – "

"Does it sound so to you?"

"Yes, it does! It is brutal – common, unworthy of you and of me – "

He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her:

"Can't you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there anything to be ashamed of in it? – merely because nothing has ever yet awakened you to it?"

"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of me is more than love – cleaner, better, stronger – "

"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to do!"

"No."

"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!"

She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves become irresponsible. I know nothing about it – I could not – I will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it – to me it is degrading – contemptible – "

"What are you saying?"

"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster. "I'm telling you what I know – what I have learned in a bitter school – during two dreadful years – "

"That!"

"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to me? You are the one man I could ask it of – the only man I ever saw who seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could return what he gave me with all my heart – all my heart – "

She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his shoulder.

"I won't talk to you of love any more," he whispered. "You poor little girl – you poor little thing. I didn't realise – I don't want to think about it – "

"I don't either," she said. "You will be kind to me, won't you?"

"Of course – of course – you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn't love them if you don't want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you please – about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too."

Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.

"There," he whispered – "there, there – you little, little girl. That's all I want of you after all – only what you want of me. I don't wish to marry you if you don't wish it; I won't – I perhaps couldn't really love you very deeply if you didn't respond. I shall not bother you any more – or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly – look so, even, and I'll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?"

"Yes… You are so good… I wanted this… You don't mean anything, do you by – by your arm around me – "

"No more than your face against my shoulder means." He smiled – "Which I suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me."

"I – begin to… Will you let me?"

"Yes… Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?"

She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless.

"I believe you are worn out," he said.

"I have not rested for weeks."

"On account of that Trust business?"

"Yes… But I was tired before that – I had done too much – lived too much – and I've felt as though I were being hunted for so long… And then – I was unhappy about you."

"Because I had joined in the hunt," he said.

"You were different, but – you made me feel that way, too – a little – "

"I understand now."

"Do you really?"

"Yes. It's been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging, importuning you to consider their desires – to care for them in their own way – all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting, head-long and boisterous – all at you constantly to give them what is not in you to give – what has never been awakened – what lies stunned, crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep – "

"Killed," she whispered.

"Perhaps." He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a child's. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror, partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him was no longer there.

"Do you – know about me?" she asked in a still, low voice.

"About the past?"

"About my marriage."

"Yes."

"Everything?"

"Some things."

"You know what the papers said?"

"Yes… Don't speak of it – unless you care to, Strelsa."

"I want to… Do you know this is the first time?"

"Is it?"

"The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody… As long as my mother lived I did not once speak of it to her."