Chambers Robert William
The Streets of Ascalon
CHAPTER IX
As Quarren came forward between the peonies drooping over the flagged walk, Molly Wycherly, awaiting him on the veranda, laid her forefinger across her lips conjuring caution.
"I didn't tell Strelsa that you were coming," she whispered; "I didn't suppose the child could possibly object."
Quarren's features stiffened:
"Does she?"
"Why – this morning I said carelessly to Jim that I meant to ask you, and Strelsa came into my room later and begged me not to ask you until she had left."
"Why?" inquired the boy, grimly.
"I really don't know, Ricky – "
"Yes, you do. What has happened?"
"You're certainly rude enough – "
"What has happened, Molly?"
"I don't know for certain, I tell you… Langly Sprowl has been roving around the place a great deal lately. He and Strelsa ride together nearly every day."
"Do you think she has come to an understanding with him?"
"She hasn't told me so. Perhaps she prefers Sir Charles."
"Do you believe that?"
"Frankly, no. I'm much more afraid that Langly has persuaded her into some sort of a tacit engagement… I don't know what the child can be thinking of – unless the universal criticism of Langly Sprowl has convinced her of his martyrdom… There'll be a pretty situation when Mary Ledwith returns… I could kill Langly – " She doubled both pretty hands and frowned at Quarren, then her swift smile broke out and she placed the tips of her fingers on his shoulders and stooping from the top step deliberately kissed him.
"You dear fellow," she said; "I don't care what Strelsa thinks; I'm glad you've come. And, oh, Ricky! The papers are full of you and Dankmere and your new enterprise! – I laughed and laughed! – forgive me, but the papers were so funny – and I couldn't help laughing – "
Quarren forced a smile.
"I have an idea," he said, "that our new business is destined to command a good deal of respect sooner or later."
"Has Dankmere anything really valuable in his collection?"
"I'm taking that risk," he said, gaily. "Wait a few weeks, Molly, before you and Jim try to buy the entire collection."
"I can see Jim decorating the new 'Stinger' with old masters," laughed Molly. "Come upstairs with me; I'll show you your quarters. Go lightly and don't talk; Strelsa is wandering around the house somewhere with a bad case of blue devils, and I'd rather she were over her headache before your appearance adds another distressing jolt."
"Has she had another shock recently?"
"A letter from her lawyers. There won't be anything at all left for her."
"Are you sure?"
"She is. Why, Ricky, the City had half a million on deposit there, and even that foxy young man Langly was caught for twice as much more. It's a ghastly scandal – the entire affair. How many cents on a dollar do you suppose poor little Strelsa is going to recover? Not two!"
They paused at the door of his quarters. His luggage had already arrived and a valet was busy unpacking for him.
"Sir Charles, Chrysos Lacy, Jim and I are motoring. We'll be back for tea. Prowl about, Ricky; the place is yours and everything in it – except that little girl over there" – pointing along the corridor to a distant door.
He smiled. "She may be, yet," he said lightly. "Don't come back too soon."
So Molly went away laughing; and presently through the lace curtains, Quarren saw Jim Wycherly whirl up in a yellow touring car, and Molly, Chrysos, and Sir Charles clamber in for one of those terrific and headlong drives which made Jim's hospitality a terror to the majority of his guests.
Quarren watched the car disappear, hopelessly followed by an overfed setter. Then the dust settled; the fat family pet came panting back to lie down on the lawn, dead beat, and Quarren resumed his toilet.
Half an hour later he emerged from his quarters wearing tennis flannels and screwing the stem into a new pipe which he had decided to break in – a tall, well-built, pleasant-eyed young fellow with the city pallor blanching his skin and the breeze stirring his short blond hair.
"Hello, old man!" he said affably to the fat setter, who thumped his tail on the grass and looked up at Quarren with mild, deerlike eyes.
"We're out of the running, we two – aren't we?" he added. "You try very pluckily to keep up with your master's devil-wagon; I run a more hopeless race… For the golden chariot is too swift for me, and the race is to the swift; and the prize, doggy, is a young girl's unhappy heart which is slowly turning from sensitive flesh and blood into pure and senseless gold."
He stood under a tree slowly filling his pipe. The scent of early summer was in the air; the odour of June peonies, and young leaves and clear waters; of grasses and hedges and distant hemlocks.
Leisurely, the fat dog waddling at his heels, he sauntered about the Wycherly place inspecting its renovated attractions – among others the new old-fashioned garden full of new old-fashioned flowers so marvellously developed by modern skill that he recognised scarcely any of them. Petunias, with their great fluted and scalloped blossoms resembled nothing he had known by that name; the peonies seemed to him enormous and exotic; rockets, larkspurs, spiderwort, pinks, all had been so fantastically and grotesquely developed by modern horticulture that Quarren felt as though he were wandering alone among a gardenful of strangers. Only here and there a glimpse of familiar sweet-william or the faint perfume of lemon-verbena brought a friendly warmth into his heart; but, in hostile silence he passed by hydrangea and althea, syringa and preposterous canna, quietly detesting the rose garden where scores of frail and frivolous strangers nodded amid anæmic leaves, or where great, blatant, aniline-coloured blossoms bulged in the sun, seeming to repeat with every strapping bud their Metropolitan price per dozen.
He looked in at the stables and caressed a horse or two; examined the sheepfold; passed by garage and hangar without interest, lingered wistfully by the kennels where a dozen nervous little Blue Beltons, too closely inbred, welcomed his appearance with hysteric emotions.
Beyond the kennels he caught a distant glimpse of blue water glimmering between tall hemlock trees; so he took the lake path and presently rounded a sharp curve where a rustic bench stood, perched high above the rocky shore. Strelsa Leeds, seated there, looked up from the newspaper which she had been reading. Some of the colour faded from her cheeks. There was a second's silence, then, as though a little bewildered, she looked inquiringly into his smiling eyes and extended her hand toward the hand he offered.
"I didn't know you were coming," she said with pallid self-possession.
"I telegraphed for permission. Is your headache better?"
"Yes. Have you just arrived?"
"A little while ago. I was told to wander about and enjoy the Wycherlys' new ancestral palace. Does a ghost go with the place? You're rather pale, Mrs. Leeds. Have they engaged you as the family phantom?"
She laughed a little, then her gray eyes grew sombre; and, watching, he saw the dusky purple hue deepen in them under the downward sweep of the lashes.
He waited for her to speak, and she did not. Her remote gaze rested on the lake where the base of the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths; where green trees, reversed in untroubled reflection, tinted the still waters exquisitely, and bits of sky lay level as in a looking-glass.
No fish broke the absolute stillness of the surface, no breeze ruffled it; only the glitter of some drifting dragon-fly accented the intense calm.
"Are you – offended?" she said at last, her gaze now riveted on the water.
"Of course not!" he replied cordially.
She lifted her eyes, surveying him in silence.
"Why did you suppose so?" he asked amiably.
"Did you receive my letter?"
"Of course I did."
"You did not answer it."
"I didn't know how – then."
His reply seemed to perplex her – so did his light and effortless good-humour.
"I know how to answer it now," he added.
She forced a smile:
"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"
"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late seldom dares start… I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me to be seated?"
She flushed vividly and moved to the extreme edge of the seat. He took the other end, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in his pocket.
"Now," he said, smiling, "I am ready to answer your letter."
"Really, Mr. Quarren – "
"Don't you want me to?"
"I – don't think – it matters, now – "
"But it's only civil of me to answer it," he insisted, laughing.
She could not entirely interpret his mood. Of one thing she had been instantly conscious – he had changed since she had seen him – changed radically. There was about him, now, a certain inexplicable air suggesting assurance – an individuality which had not heretofore clearly distinguished him – a hidden hint of strength. Or was she mistaken – abashed – remembering what she had written him in a bitter hour of fear and self-abasement? A thousand times she had regretted writing to him what she had written.
She said, coldly: "I think that my letter may very properly remain unanswered."
"You think I'm too late?"
She looked at him steadily:
"Yes, you are too late – in every sense."
"You are mistaken," he said, cheerfully.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that all these superficial details which, under the magnifying glass of fear, you and I have regarded with terrified respect, amount to nothing. Real trouble is something else; the wings of tragedy have never yet even brushed either you or me. But unless you let me answer that letter of yours, and listen very carefully to my answer, you and I are going to learn some day what tragedy really is."
"Mr. Quarren!" she exclaimed, forcing a laugh, "are you trying to make me take you seriously?"
"I certainly am."
"That in itself is tragic enough," she laughed.
"It really is," he said: "because it has come to a time when you have got to take me seriously."
She had settled herself into a bantering attitude toward him and now gaily maintained the lighter vein:
"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I suppose."
"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!" – he held out to her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.
"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what is it?"
"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"
The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain, inwardly wondering what his attitude toward her might really mean.
"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.
"How can I deny it? – with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll lend you some witch-hazel – "
"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic," he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."
"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."
"But you are the principal ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."
She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."
"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"
"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray eyes – a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched his shoulder.
She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:
"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it wants to?"
She laughed.
He went on: "I mean when you want it to be. Because it's really up to you."
"To me, my slangy friend?"
"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."
This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.
"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.
"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."
"Is that a reason?" – very gravely.
"You can make it so if you will."
She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:
"You say that you always think of me – that way. But I'm afraid that, even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed you to the use of it."
"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"
"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of, don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation – "
"Strelsa – "
"No! – please."
"When?"
She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr. Quarren?"
"Not unless you do."
"I? What do you mean?"
"Will you answer me honestly?"
"Have you ever found me dishonest?"
"Sometimes – with yourself."
Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head abruptly. After a few moments' silence:
"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.
"Then – do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"
She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to avoid it.
"I think of my friends – and you among them."
"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"
"I – your friends – people are eternally dinning your name into my ears – "
"Please answer."
"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, Dick – whatever they call you?"
"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in sheer exasperation.
"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you – when I happen to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend – "
"Won't you?"
"No."
"Some day?"
"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like it. It would be forced, artificial – an effort – and I don't desire – wish – care – "
"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child! Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the pronunciation of my name?"
Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these months, the same strange sensation passed through her – a thrilling consciousness of his nearness.
Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.
He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her, then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought might be.
He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite specimen known to you as Mister Quarren?"
She smiled, uncertainly:
"But I don't reject you, Mister Quarren."
"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."
"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."
"I've got to climb over it then – "
"I don't wish you to!"
"Strelsa?"
"W-what?"
"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"
"I – I don't know what you mean."
"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.
"Please don't say such things – "
"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that kind of a wall remain between us – "
"I ask you not to talk about such – "
"You wouldn't," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you that he cares – "
"Please – if you please – I had rather not – "
"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you – I don't know how much, yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously he is in love with the unknown on the other side."
He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every nerve in her body.
"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other side of that barrier – your unknown self, Strelsa – undiscovered as yet by me – "
Her lips moved mechanically:
"I wrote you —told you what I am."
"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know yourself – "
"I do. I am what I wrote you."
"Partly perhaps – partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a sequence of blows – "
"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of my life! – But those would not count – if I were not selfish, dishonest, and a coward."
His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and motionless, looking down at the still lake below.
"What is the barrier?" he asked quietly.
"There is no barrier to your friendship – if you care to offer it, now that you know me."
"But I don't know you. And I care for more than your friendship even after the glimpse I have had of you."
"I – care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren."
"Could you ever care for more?"
"No… I don't wish to… There is nothing higher."
"Could you – if there were?"
But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new senses that his touch had discovered so long ago – and which had slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless relaxation, this lassitude which was becoming almost painful – or sweet – she did not understand which – was this also a part of friendship? Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy? – this deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening her pulses, her even breathing – menacing the delicate nerves in her hand so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering —
She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a little quick indrawn breath.
"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly – scarcely knowing what she was saying.
"What, Strelsa?"
"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would."
Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully:
"I'm going to fight for you all the same."
"What!" she exclaimed, crisply.
"Fight hard, too," he added. "I'm on my mettle at last."
"You have no chance, Mr. Quarren."
"With —him?" He shrugged his contempt. "I don't consider him at all – "
"I don't care to hear you speak that way!" she said, hotly.
"Oh, I won't. A man's an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn't even thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you – with your unknown self behind that barrier. Garde à vous!"
"I decline the combat, Monsieur," she said, trying to speak lightly.
"Oh, I'm not afraid of you– the visible you that I'm looking at and which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will fight me openly, fairly – and I have an even chance to win – "
"Do you think so?" she said, lip between her teeth.
"Don't you?"
"No."
"I do… But it's your unknown self I'm afraid of, Strelsa. God alone knows what it may do to both of us."
"There is no other self! What do you mean?"
"There are two others – not this intellectual, friendly, kindly, visible self that offers friendship and accepts it – not even the occult, aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray eyes – "
"There is no other!" she said, flushing and rising to her feet.
"Is it dead?"
"It never lived!"
"Then," he said coolly, "it will be born as sure as I stand here! – born to complete the trinity." He glanced out over the lake, then swung around sharply: "You are wrong. It has been born. And that unknown self is hostile to me; and I know it!"
They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she said: "I think we have talked some nonsense. Don't you?"
"You haven't."
"You're a generous boy; do you know it?"
"You say so."
"Oh, I'll cheerfully admit it. If you weren't you'd detest me – perhaps despise me."
"Men don't detest or despise a hurt and frightened child."
"But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of her?"
"I don't know," he said. "Whatever you are I can't help loving you."
She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a while when she could control her lips she said:
"I want to talk some more to you – and I don't know how; I don't even know what I want to say except that – that – "
"What, Strelsa?"
"Please be – kind to me." She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered.
He said after a moment: "I couldn't be anything else."
"Are you very sure?"
"Yes."
"It means a great deal to me," she said.
They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got them in chunks and bolted them, wagging.
An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke:
"Ricky dear?"
"Yes."
"Am I an angel or otherwise?"
"Angel always – but why particularly at this instant?"
"Stupid! Haven't you had her alone all the after-noon?"
"Yes – you corker!"
"Well, then!"
"Molly, I worship you."
"Et après?"
"I'll double that! I adore you also!"
"Content! What are you two doing?"
"Strelsa and I have been taking tea."
"Oh, is it 'Strelsa' already?"
"Very unwillingly on her part."
"It isn't 'Ricky,' too, is it?"
"Alas! not yet!"
"No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. What do you think I've done, very cleverly?"
"What?"
"Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the way to North Linden. We can't possibly get back until dinner. But that's not all."
"What more, most wonderful of women?"
"I've got him with us," she said with satisfaction. "I made Jim stop and pick him up. I knew he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some fool horses at Acremont that he couldn't wriggle out of it particularly as Strelsa is my guest and he's rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky, make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I couldn't avoid asking him."
"Very well," said Quarren grimly.
He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure.
"What had Molly to say to you all that time?" she asked.
"Was I long away?"
"Yes, you were!"
"I'm delighted you found the time too long – "
"I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly how time flies with you and Molly… Oh, dear! Is that a mosquito?"
"I'm afraid it is," said Quarren.
"Then indoors I go!" exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. "You may come with me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated."
And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen door.
Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory.
"I wonder if there's enough of this celestial radiance to make a new aureole for you?" he said.
"So my old one is worn out, is it?"
"I meant to offer you a double halo."
"You do say sweet things – for a rather obstinate young man," she said, flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano. Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative:
"Please lean on the piano." He did so, inquiringly.
"Otherwise," she said, "you'd have attempted to seat yourself on this bench; and there isn't room for both of us without crowding."
"If you moved a little – "
"But I won't," she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the key-board.
She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant, careless, but acceptable barytone.
"The old ones are the best," she commented, running lightly through a medley ranging from "The Mikado" to "Erminie," the "Black Hussar," and "The Mascotte." They sang the "gobble duet" from the latter fairly well:
She
"When on your manly form I gaze
A sense of pleasure passes o'er me";
He
"The murmured music of your voice
Is sweeter far than liquid honey!"
And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing.
Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing "Johnny Schmoker" with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal refrain:
"Kanst du spielen?"
and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by that Teutonic musician.
"I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless, pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things," she exclaimed; and did so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the key-board with his own.
She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise.
"Very well," she said; "you'll have to match my performance with something equally imbecile"; and she composed herself to listen.
"What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?" he asked gravely; "turn seven solemn handsprings?"
"That isn't silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead."
He prepared to do so but she wouldn't permit him:
"No! I don't want to remember you doing such a thing… All the same I believe you could do it and not lose – lose – "
"Dignity?"
"No – I don't know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you to do something silly."
"Shall I say it or do it?"
"Either."
"Then I'll recite something very, very precious – subtly, intricately, and psychologically precious."
"Oh, please do!"
"It's – it's about a lover."
She blushed.
"Do you mind?"
"You are the limit! Of course I don't!"
"It's about a lady, too."
"Naturally."
"And love – rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love."
"I can stand it if you can," she said with the faintest glimmer of malice in her smile.
"All right. The title is: 'Oh, Love! Oh, Why?'"
"A perfectly good title," she said gravely. "I alway says 'why?' to Love."
So he bowed to her and began very seriously:
"Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate!
Wait for a moment while I relate
A harrowing tragedy up to date
Of innate Hate.
"A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair;
Her store-curls stirred in the summer air;
An amorous Fly espied her there,
So rare and fair.
"Before she knew where she was at,
He'd kissed the maiden where she sat,
And she batted him one which slapped him flat
Ker-spat! Like that!
"Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye!
Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By,
Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly.
Oh, Love! Oh, Why?"
She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:
"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!"
