Chambers Robert William
The Streets of Ascalon
CHAPTER XIV
Into the long stables at South Linden, that afternoon, Langly Sprowl's trembling horse was led limping, his velvet flanks all torn by spurs and caked with mud, his tender mouth badly lacerated.
As for his master, it seemed that the ruin of the expensive hunter and four hours' violent and capricious exercise in his reeking saddle had merely whetted his appetite for more violence; and he had been tramping for an hour up and down the length of the library in his big sprawling house when Mr. Kyte, his confidential secretary, came in without knocking.
Sprowl hearing his step swung on him savagely, but Kyte coolly closed the door behind him and turned the key.
"Ledwith is here," he said.
"Ledwith," repeated Sprowl, mechanically.
"Yes, he's on the veranda. They said you were not at home. He said he'd wait. I thought you ought to know. He acts queerly."
Langly's protruding eyes became utterly expressionless.
"All right," he said in dismissal.
Kyte still lingered:
"Is there anything I can say or do?"
"If there was I'd tell you, wouldn't I?"
Kyte's lowered gaze stole upward toward his employer, sustained his expressionless glare for a second, then shifted.
"Very well," he said unlocking the library door; "I thought he might be armed, that's all."
"Kyte!"
Mr. Kyte turned on the door-sill.
"What do you mean by saying that?"
"Saying what?"
"That you think this fellow Ledwith may be armed?"
Kyte stood silent.
"I ask you again," repeated Sprowl, "why you infer that this man might have armed himself to visit this house?"
Kyte's eyes stole upward, were instantly lowered. Sprowl walked over to him.
"You're paid to act, not think; do you understand?" he said in a husky, suppressed voice; but his long fingers were twitching.
"I understand," said Kyte.
Sprowl's lean head jerked; Kyte went; and the master of the house strode back into the library and resumed his pacing.
Boots, spurs, the skirts of his riding coat, even his stock were stained with mud and lather; and there was a spot or two across his sun-tanned cheeks.
Presently he walked to the bay-window which commanded part of the west veranda, and looking out through the lace curtains saw Ledwith sitting there, his sunken eyes fixed on the westering sun.
The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers and golf-stockings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of the muscles.
The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering mentally unsound.
Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors to the veranda.
Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said.
Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face.
There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a crooked smile.
"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he said.
"When are you leaving?"
"To-night."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know – to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that – I don't know."
Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of tall trees lay like velvet on the grass; the crests of the woods beyond grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged woodpeckers imitated them; in the late sunlight the grackles' necks were rainbow tinted.
On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding, switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded with sunshine and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond.
"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoarse and painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak.
"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl.
The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute.
"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need exercise."
"I've got to rest."
"Well, then, what have you got to say? – because I'm going on. What's the matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?"
"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment.
"What else?"
"Anxiety."
"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?"
Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting on his elbow against the tree-trunk:
"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get it?"
"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously.
"Then – my wife has returned."
"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice or features.
"Yes," said Ledwith – "Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I saw them from the hill."
"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?"
Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it, looking down at the grass.
"You are going to marry her of course," he said.
"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business."
"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing possible. There is nothing else for her to do – for you to do. She knows it, you know it, and so do I."
"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?"
"Only your word to confirm what I have just said."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your marriage with Mary."
"I think I told you that it was none of your business."
"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business."
"May I ask why?"
"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently, there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the reason."
Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and unclosing:
"Is that all, Ledwith?"
"That's all – when you have confirmed what I have said concerning the necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched."
"You lie," said Langly.
Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me."
"That is another lie."
"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared, after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body; she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to effrontery… It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at nothing – not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory characteristic of your sort… I don't mean physical cowardice," he added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's powerful frame.
"Have you finished?" asked the latter.
"In a moment, Langly. I am merely reminding you of what has happened. Concerning myself I have nothing to say. Look at me. You know what I was; you see what I am. I'm not whining; it's all in a lifetime. And the man who is not fitted to take care of what is his, loses. That's all."
Sprowl's head was averted after an involuntary glance at the man before him. His face was red – or it may have been the ruddy evening sun striking flat across it.
Ledwith said: "You will marry her, of course. But I merely wish to hear you say so."
Sprowl swung on him, his thick lips receding:
"I'll marry whom I choose! Do you understand that?"
"Of course. But you will choose to marry her."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes. Or – I'll kill you," he said seriously.
Langly stared at him, every vein suddenly dark and swollen; then his bark of a laugh broke loose.
"I suppose you've got it in your pocket," he said.
Ledwith fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a dully blued weapon of heavy calibre; and Sprowl walked slowly up to him, slapped his face, took the revolver from him, and flung it into the woods.
"Now go home and punch yourself full of dope," he said; swung on his heel, and sauntered off.
Ledwith looked after him, one bloodless hand resting on the cheek which Sprowl had struck – watched him out of sight. Then, patiently, he started to search for the weapon, dropping on all-fours, crawling, peering, parting the ferns and bushes. But the sun was low and the woods dusky, and he could not find what he was looking for. So he sat up on the ground among the dead leaves of other years, drew from his pocket what he needed, and slowly bared his scarred arm to the shoulder.
As for Sprowl, his vigorous tread lengthened to a swinging stride as he shouldered his way through a thicket and out again into the open.
Already he scarcely remembered Ledwith at all, or his menace, or the blow; scarcely even recollected that Mary Ledwith had returned or that his aunt was within driving distance of his own quarters.
A dull hot anguish, partly rage, possessed him, tormenting brain and heart incessantly and giving him no rest. His own clumsy madness in destroying what he believed had been a certainty – his stupidity, his loss of self-control, not only in betraying passion prematurely but in his subsequent violence and brutality, almost drove him insane.
Never before in any affair with women had he forgotten caution in any crisis; his had been a patience unshakable when necessary, a dogged, driving persistence when the time came, the subtlety of absolute inertness when required. But above all and everything else he has been a master of patience, and so a master of himself; and so he had usually won.
And now – now in this crisis – a crisis involving the loss of what he cared for enough to marry – if he must marry to have his way with her – what was to be done?
He tried to think coolly, but the cinders of rage and passion seemed to stir and move with every breath he drew awaking the wild fire within.
He would try to reason and think clearly – try to retrace matters to the beginning and find out why he had blundered when everything was in his own hands.
It was his aunt's sudden policy that betrayed him into a premature move – Mary Ledwith's return, and his aunt's visit. Mary Ledwith was there to marry him; his aunt to make mischief unless he did what was expected of him.
Leisurely but thoroughly he cursed them both as he walked back across his lawn. But he was already thinking of Strelsa again when, as he entered the wide hall, his aunt waddled across the rugs of the drawing-room, pronouncing his name with unmistakable decision. And, before the servants, he swallowed the greeting he had hoped to give her, and led her into the library.
"Mercy on us, Langly!" she exclaimed, eyeing his reeking boots and riding-breeches; "do you live like a pig up here?"
"I've been out," he said briefly. "What do you want?"
Her little green eyes lighted up, and her smile, which was fading, she forced into a kind of fixed grin.
"Your polished and thoughtful inquiry is characteristic of you," she said. "Mary is here, and I want you to come over to dinner."
"I'm not up to it," he said.
"I want you to come."
"I tell you I'm not up to it," he said bluntly.
"And I tell you that you'd better come."
"Better come?" he repeated.
"Yes, better come. More than that, Langly, you'd better behave yourself, or I'll make New York too hot to hold you."
His prominent eyes were expressionless.
"Ah?" he remarked.
"Exactly, my friend. Your race is run. You've done one thing too publicly to squirm out of the consequences. The town has stood for a good deal from you. When that girl at the Frivolity Theatre shot herself, leaving a letter directed to you, the limit of public patience was nearly reached. You had to go abroad, didn't you? Well, you can't go abroad this time. Neither London nor Paris nor Vienna nor Budapest – no, nor St. Petersburg nor even Constantinople would stand you! Your course is finished. If you've an ounce of brains remaining you know that you're done for this time. So go and dress and come over to dinner… And don't worry; I'll keep away from you after you're married."
"You'll keep your distance before that," he said slowly.
"You're mistaken. Many people are afraid of you, but I never was and never could be. You're no good; you never were. If you didn't lug my name about with you I'd let you go to hell. You'll go there anyway, but you'll go married first."
"I expect to."
"Married to Mary Ledwith," she said looking at him.
He picked up a cigar, examined it, yawned, then glanced at her:
"As I had – recently – occasion to tell Chester Ledwith, I'll marry whom I please. Now suppose you clear out."
"Are you dining with us?"
"No."
"What time may we expect you to-morrow?"
"At no time."
"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?"
"No."
"Is that final?"
"Yes!"
"Do you expect to marry anybody else?"
"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at last? Do you understand clearly? – you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!"
He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and abuse – rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness and disintegration – his downfall from that silent citadel of self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for defiance or refuge.
"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your business – I warn you now and for the last time, or else – " He swung around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work – "or else I'll supply the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father and yourself!"
Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive.
"So that fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my threshold. You do understand, I guess."
He continued his promenade but presently came back to her:
"You know well enough who I want to marry. If you say or do one thing to interfere I'll see that you figure in the Yellows."
He thought a moment; the colour slowly returned to her face. After a fit of coughing she struggled to rise from her chair. He let her pant and scuffle and kick for a while, then opened the door and summoned her footman.
"I'm sorry I cannot drive with you this evening," he said quietly, as the footman supported Mrs. Sprowl to her feet, "but I've promised the Wycherlys. Pray offer my compliments and friendly wishes to Mrs. Ledwith."
When she had gone he walked back into the library, picked up the telephone and finally got Molly Wycherly on the wire.
"Won't you ask me to dinner?" he said. "I've an explanation to make to Mrs. Leeds and I'd be awfully obliged to you."
There was a silence, then Molly said, deliberately:
"You must be a very absent-minded young man. I saw your aunt for a moment this afternoon and she said that you are dining with her at Mrs. Ledwith's."
"She was mistaken – " began Sprowl quietly, but Molly cut him short with a laughing "good-bye," and hung up the receiver.
"That was Langly," she remarked, turning to Strelsa who was already dressed for dinner and who had come into Molly's boudoir to observe the hair-dressing and comprehensive embellishment of that young matron's person by a new maid on probation.
Strelsa's upper lip curled faintly, then the happy expression returned, and she watched the decorating of Molly until the maid turned her out in the perfection of grooming from crown to toe.
There was nobody in the music-room. Molly turned again to Strelsa as they entered:
"What a brute he is! – asking me to invite him here for dinner when Mary Ledwith has just arrived."
"Did he do that?"
"Yes. And his excuse was that he had an explanation to make you. What a sneaking way of doing it!"
Strelsa looked out of the dark window in silence.
Molly said: "I wish he'd go away, I never can look at him without thinking of Chester Ledwith – and all that wretched affair… Not that I am sniffy about Mary – the poor little fool… Anyway," she added naïvely, "old lady Sprowl has fixed her status and now we all know how to behave toward her."
Strelsa, arms clasped behind her back, came slowly forward from the window:
"What a sorry civilisation," she said thoughtfully, "and what sorry codes we frame to govern it."
"What?" sharply.
Strelsa looked at her, absently.
"Nobody seems to be ashamed of anything any more," she said, half to herself. "The only thing that embarrasses us is what the outside world may think of us. We don't seem to care what we think of each other."
Molly, a trifle red, asked her warmly what she meant.
"Oh, I was just realising what are the motives that govern us – the majority of us – and how primitive they are. So many among us seem to be moral throwbacks – types reappearing out of the mists of an ancient and unmoral past… Echoes of primitive ages when nobody knew any better – when life was new, and was merely life and nothing else – fighting, treacherous, cringing life which knew of nothing else to do except to eat, sleep, and reproduce itself – bully the weaker, fawn on the stronger, lie, steal, and watch out that death should not interfere with the main chance."
Molly, redder than ever, asked her again what she meant.
"I don't know, dear… How clean the woods and fields seem after a day indoors with many people."
"You mean we all need moral baths?"
"I do."
Molly smiled: "For a moment I thought you meant that I do."
Strelsa smiled, too:
"You're a good wife, Molly; and a good friend… I wish you had a baby."
"I'm – going to."
They looked at each other a moment; then Strelsa caught her in her arms.
"Really?"
Molly nodded:
"That's why I worry about Jim taking chances in his aeroplane."
"He mustn't! He's got to stop! What can he be thinking of!" cried Strelsa indignantly.
"But he – doesn't know."
"You haven't told him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I – don't know how he'll take it."
"What?"
Molly flushed: "We didn't want one. I don't know what he'll say. We didn't care for them – "
Strelsa's angry beauty checked her with its silent scorn; suddenly her pretty head fell forward on Strelsa's breast:
"Don't look that way at me! I was a fool. How was I to know – anything? I'd never had one… You can't know whether you want a baby or not until you have one… I know now. I'm crazy about it… I think it would – would kill me if Jim is annoyed – "
"He won't be, darling!" whispered Strelsa. "Don't mind what he says anyway. He's only a man. He never even knew as much about it as you did. What do men know, anyway? Jim is a dear – just the regular sort of man interested in business and sport and probably afraid that a baby might interfere with both. What does he know about it?.. Besides he's too decent to be annoyed – "
"I'm afraid – I can't stand – even his indifference – " whimpered Molly.
Strelsa, holding her clasped to her breast, started to speak, but a noise of men in the outer hall silenced her – the aviators returning from their hangars and gathering in the billiard-room for a long one before dressing.
"Wait," whispered Strelsa, gently disengaging herself – "wait just a moment – "
And she was out in the hall in an instant, just in time to touch Jim on the arm as he closed the file toward the billiard-room.
"Hello, Sweetness!" he said, pivoting on his heels and seizing her hands. "Are you coming in to try a cocktail with us?"
"Jim," she said, "I want to tell you something."
"Shoot," he said. "And if you don't hurry I'll kiss you."
"Listen, please. Molly is in the music-room. Make her tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"Ask her, Jim… And, if you care one atom for her – be happy at what she tells you – and tell her that you are. Will you?"
He stared at her, then lost countenance. Then he looked at her in a panicky way and started to go, but she held on to him with determination:
"Smile first!"
"Thunder! I – "
"Smile. Oh, Jim, isn't there any decency in men?"
His mind was working like mad; he stared at her, then through the astonishment and consternation on his good-looking features a faint grin broke out.
"All right," she whispered, and let him go.
Molly, idling at the piano, heard his tread behind her, and looked up over her shoulder.
"Hello, Jim," she said, faintly.
"Hello, ducky. Strelsa says you have something to tell me."
"I – Jim?"
"So she said. So I cut out a long one to find out what it is. What's up, ducky?"
Molly's gaze grew keener: "Did that child tell you?"
"She said that you had something to tell me."
"Did she?"
"No! Aren't you going to tell me either?"
He dropped into a chair opposite her; she sat on the piano-stool considering him for a while in silence. Then, dropping her arms with a helpless little gesture:
"We are going to have a baby. Are you – annoyed?"
For a second he sat as though paralysed, and the next second he had her in his arms, the grin breaking out from utter blankness.
"You're a corker, ducky!" he whispered. "You for me all the time!"
"Jim!.. Really?"
"Surest thing you know! Which is it? – boy or – Oh, I beg your pardon, dear – I'm not accustomed to the etiquette. But I'm delighted, ducky, overwhelmed!"
"Oh, Jim! I'm so glad. And I'm crazy about it – perfectly mad about it… And you're a dear to care – "
"Certainly I care! What do you take me for – a wooden Indian!" he exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate – "
"But, Jim! We can't tell people."
"Oh – that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it of course. But I'll do anything you say – "
"Will you?"
"Will I? Watch me!"
"Then – then don't take out the Stinger for a while. Do you mind, dear?"
"What!" he said, jaw dropping.
"I can't bear it, Jim. I was a good sport before; you know I was. But my nerve has gone. I can't take chances now; I want you to see – it – "
After a moment he nodded.
"Sure," he said. "It's like Lent. You've got to offer up something… If you feel that way – " he sighed unconsciously – "I'll lock up the hangar until – "
"Oh, darling! Will you?"
"Yes," said that desolate young man, and kissed his wife without a scowl. He had behaved pretty well – about like the majority of husbands outside of popular romances.
The amateur aeronauts left in the morning before anybody was stirring except the servants – Vincent Wier, Lester Caldera, the Van Dynes and the rest, bag, baggage, and, later, two aeroplanes packed and destined for Barent Van Dyne's Long Island estate where there was to be some serious flying attempted over the flat and dusty plains of that salubrious island.
Sir Charles Mallison was leaving that same day, later; and there were to be no more of Jim's noisy parties; and now under the circumstances, no parties of Molly's, either; because Molly was becoming nervous and despondent and a mania for her husband possessed her – the pretty resurgence of earlier sentiment which, if not more than comfortably dormant, buds charmingly again at a time like this.
Also she wanted Strelsa, and nobody beside these two; and although she liked parties of all sorts including Jim's sporting ones, and although she liked Sir Charles immensely, she was looking forward to comfort of an empty house with only her husband to decorate the landscape and Strelsa to whisper to in morbid moments.
For Chrysos was going to Newport, Sir Charles and her maid accompanying her as far as New York from where the Baronet meant to sail the next day.
His luggage had already gone; his man was packing when Sir Charles sauntered out over the dew-wet lawn, a sprig of sweet-william in his lapel, tall, clear-skinned, nice to look upon.
What he really thought of what he had seen in America, of the sort of people who had entertained him, of the grotesque imitation of exotic society – or of a certain sort of it – nobody really knew. Doubtless his estimate was inclined to be a kindly one, for he was essentially that – a philosophical, chivalrous, and modest man; and if his lines had fallen in places where vulgarity, extravagance, and ostentation predominated – if he had encountered little real cultivation, less erudition, and almost nothing worthy of sympathetic interest, he never betrayed either impatience or contempt.
He had come for one reason only – the same reason that had brought him to America for the first time – to ask Strelsa Leeds to marry him.
He was man enough to understand that she did not care for him that way, soldier enough to face his fate, keen enough, long since, to understand that Quarren meant more to the woman he cared for than any other man.
Cool, self-controlled, he watched every chance for an opening in his own behalf. No good chance presented itself. So he made one and offered himself with a dignity and simplicity that won Strelsa's esteem but not her heart.
After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her. Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious.
Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa; and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough.
So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted to get back to his own kind – into real life again, among people of real position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well.
There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there – except a warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow.
Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite and delightful.
The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made few demands on his intellect – that is, at first she had made very few. Later – within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find how much there really was to the young girl – and that perhaps her age and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between them.
Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to present himself at so early an hour.
A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him.
Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered up in a big cane-backed chair.
"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night – sitting here because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down."
He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down compassionately:
"Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it.
The old lady peered up at him:
"You're sailing to-morrow?"
"To-morrow," he said, gravely.
"When do you return?"
"I have made no plans to return."
"You mean to say that you've given up the fight?"
"There was never any fight," he said.
Mrs. Sprowl scowled:
"Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?"
"Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can scarcely question her decision."
"Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew of mine?" she demanded.
"No," he said.
"Then – do you mean young Quarren?"
"I think I do," he said smiling.
"I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad that it may be Rix. It – it would have killed me to see her fall into Langly's hands… I'm ill on account of him – his shocking treatment of me last evening. It was a brutal scene – one of those terrible family scenes! – and he threatened me – cursed me – "
She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they snapped open again with the old fire undiminished:
"Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him… But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?"
"I'm afraid not."
"You are going back into everything, I suppose."
"Yes."
"To forget her, I suppose."
He said pleasantly:
"I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not – painful."
Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat.
"I did my best," she said hoarsely. "I'm not defeated if you're not. Say the word and I'll start something – " And suddenly she remembered Langly's threat involving the memory of a dead man whose only son now stood before her.
