The Streets of Ascalon

"Oh, Rix! I couldn't use you!"

She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from his arm.

"I – I – you are my friend. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give anybody – not even you." She smiled, tremulously – "And I suspect that as far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more… But it's sweet of you. You are generous, having so little and wishing to share it with me – "

"Could you wait for me, Strelsa?"

"Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can I? – even if it were a certainty."

"Can't you hold on for a couple of years?"

"Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my house."

He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water.

"Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't already given you – "

"I ask no more."

"Oh, but you do!"

"No, I want only what you want, Strelsa – only what you have to offer of your own accord."

They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote.

"I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said.

"If you could wait – "

"But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him."

"Does that count?"

"Yes – I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be… I don't know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix – you don't realise – and I'm tired and sad – old before my time – perplexed, burnt out – "

She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes. After a while she opened them with a weary smile.

"I'll try to think – after you are gone… What time does your train leave?"

He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too:

"Have I kept you too long?"

"No; I can make it. We'll have to walk rather fast – "

"I'd rather you left me here."

"Would you? Then – good-bye – "

"Good-bye… Will you come up again?"

"I'll try."

"Shall we write?"

"Will you?"

"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came. I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?"

"Yes, dear."

"Then – I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her; she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek – a second's contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.

CHAPTER XI

Quarren arrived in town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him, freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the avenue's lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew out of the night – "clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold" – and dissolved again into darkness.

Still thrilled, almost buoyant, he walked on, passing the high-piled masonry of the branch Post-Office and the Central Palace on his left. Against high stars the twin Power-House chimneys stood outlined in steel; on the right endless blocks of brown-stone dwellings stretched northward, some already converted into shops where print-sellers, dealers in old books, and here and there antiquaries, had constructed show-windows.

Firemen lounged outside the Eighth Battalion quarters; here and there a grocer's or wine-seller's windows remained illuminated where those who were neither well-to-do nor very poor passed to and fro with little packages which seemed a burden under the sultry skies.

At last, ahead, the pseudo-oriental towers of a synagogue varied the flat skyline, and a moment later he could see the New Thought Laundry, the Tonsorial Drawing Rooms, the Undertaker's discreetly illuminated windows, and finally the bay-window of his own recent Real-Estate office, now transmogrified into the Dankmere Galleries of Old Masters, Fayre and Quarren, proprietors.

The window appeared to be brilliantly illuminated behind the drawn curtains; and Quarren, surprised and vexed, concluded that the little Englishman was again entertaining. So it perplexed and astonished him to find the Earl sitting on the front steps, his straw hat on the back of his head, smoking. At the same moment from within the house a confused and indescribable murmur was wafted to his ears as though many people were applauding.

"What on earth is going on inside?" he asked, bewildered.

"You told me over the telephone that Karl Westguard might have the gallery for this evening," said the Englishman calmly. "So I let him have it."

"What did he want of it? Who has he got in there?" – demanded Quarren as another ripple of applause sounded from within.

Dankmere thought a moment: "I really don't know the audience, Quarren – they're not a very fragrant lot."

"What audience? Who are they?"

"You Americans would call them a 'tough-looking bunch – except Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera – "

"Cyrille Caldera and De Groot! What's that silly old Dandy doing down here?"

"Diffusing sweetness and light among the unwashed; telling them that there are no such things as classes, that wealth is no barrier to brotherhood, that the heart of Fifth Avenue beats as warmly and guilelessly as the heart of Essex Street, and that its wealth-burdened inhabitants have long desired to fraternise with the benchers in Paradise Park."

"Who put Westguard up to this?" asked Quarren, aghast.

"De Groot. Karl is writing a levelling novel calculated to annihilate caste. The Undertaker next door furnished the camp-chairs; the corner grocer the collation; Westguard, Mrs. Caldera, and Bleecker De Groot the mind-food. Go in and look 'em over."