Chambers Robert William
The Streets of Ascalon

"Do you expect me to listen to such nonsense at such an hour in the morning?"

"It's half past twelve; and my weak solution of nonsense is suitable to the time of day – "

"Am I to understand that the solution becomes stronger as the day advances?"

"Exactly; the solution becomes so concentrated and powerful that traces of common-sense begin to appear – "

"I didn't notice any last night."

"Van Dyne interfered."

"Poor Mr. Van Dyne. If you'd been civil to him he might have asked you to the dance to-night – if I had suggested it. But you were horridly rude."

"I? Rude?"

"You're not going to be rude enough to say it was I who behaved badly to him, are you? Oh, the shocking vanity of man! No doubt you are thinking that it was I who, serpent-like, whispered temptation into your innocent ear, and drew you away into a corner, and shoved palms in front of us, and brought silver and fine linen, and rare fruits and sparkling wines; and paid shameless court with an intelligent weather-eye always on the watch for a flouted and justly indignant cavalier!"

"Yes," he said, "you did all those things. And now you're trying to evade the results."

"What are the results?"

"A partly demented young man clamouring to see you at high-noon while the cold cruel cause of his lunacy looks on and laughs."

"I'm afraid that young man must continue to clamour," she said, immensely amused at the picture he drew. "How far away is he at this moment?"

"In the Legation, a blithering wreck."

"Why not in his office frantically immersed in vast business enterprises and cataclysmic speculations?"

"I'm rather afraid that if business immerses him too completely he will be found drowned some day."

"You promised —said that you were going to begin a vigorous campaign," she reminded him reproachfully. "I asked it of you; and you agreed."

"I am beginning life anew – or trying to – by seeking the perennial source of daily spiritual and mundane inspiration – "

"Why won't you be serious?"

"I am. Were you not the source of my new inspiration? Last night did something or other to me – I am not yet perfectly sure what it was. I want to see you to be sure – if only for a – moment – merely to satisfy myself that you are real – "

"Will one moment be enough?"

"Certainly."

"One second – or half a one?"

"Plenty."

"Very well – if you promise not to expect or ask for more than that – "

"That is terribly nice of you!"

"It is, overwhelmingly. But really I don't know whether I am nice or merely weak-minded. Because I've lingered here gossiping so long with you that I've simply got to fly like a mad creature about my dressing. Good-bye – "

"Shall I come up immediately?"

"Of course not! I expect to be dressing for hours and hours – figuratively speaking… Perhaps you might start in ten minutes if you are coming in a taxi."

"You are an angel – "

"That is not telephone vernacular… And perhaps you had better be prompt, because Mrs. Lannis is coming for me – that is, if you have anything to – to say – that – "

She flushed up, annoyed at her own stupidity, then felt grateful to him as he answered lightly:

"Of course; she might misunderstand our informality. Shall I see you in half an hour?"

"If I can manage it," she said.

She managed it, somehow. At first, really indifferent, and not very much amused, the talk with him had gradually aroused in her the same interest and pleasurable curiosity that she had experienced in exchanging badinage with him the night before. Now she really wanted to see him, and she took enough trouble about it to set her deft maid flying about her offices.

First a fragrant precursor of his advent arrived in the shape of a great bunch of winter violets; and her maid fastened them to her black fox muff. Then the distant door-bell sounded; and in an extraordinarily short space of time, wearing her pretty fur hat, her boa, and carrying a muff that matched both, with his violets pinned to it, she entered the dim drawing-room, halting just beyond the threshold.

"Are you not ashamed," she said, severely, "to come battering at my door at this hour of the day?"

"Abjectly."

They exchanged a brief handshake; she seated herself on the arm of a sofa; he stood before the unlighted fireplace, looking at her with a half smiling half curious air which made her laugh outright.

"Bien! C'est moi, monsieur," she said. "Me voici! C'est moi-même!"

"I believe you are real after all," he admitted.

"Do I seem different?"

"Yes – and no."

"How am I different?"

"Well, somehow, last night, I got the notion that you were younger, thinner – and not very real – "

"Are you presuming to criticise my appearance last night?" she asked with mock indignation. "Because if you are, I proudly refer you to the enlightened metropolitan morning press."

"I read all about you," he said, smiling.

"I am glad you did. You will doubtless now be inclined to treat me with the respect due to my years and experience."

"I believe," he said, "that your gown and hat and furs make a charming difference – "

"How perfectly horrid of you! I thought you admired my costume last night!"

"Oh, Lord," he said – "you were sufficiently charming last night. But now, in your fluffy furs, you seem rather taller – less slender perhaps – and tremendously fetching – "

"Say that my clothes improve me, and that in reality I'm a horrid, thin little beast!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I know I am, but I haven't finished growing yet. Really that's the truth, Mr. Quarren. Would you believe that I have grown an inch since last spring?"

"I believe it," he said, "but would you mind stopping now? You are exactly right."

"You know I'm thin and flat as a board!"

"You're perfect!"

"It's too late to say that to me – "

"It is too early to say more."

"Let's don't talk about myself, please."

"It has become the only subject in the world that interests me – "

"Please, Mr. Quarren! Are you actually attempting to be silly at this hour of the day? The wise inanities of midnight sound perilously flat in the sunshine – flatter than the flattest champagne, which no bread-crumbs can galvanise into a single bubble. Tell me, why did you wish to see me this morning. I mean the real reason? Was it merely to find out whether I was weak-minded enough to receive you?"

He looked at her, smiling:

"I wanted to see whether you were as real and genuine and wholesome and unspoiled and – and friendly as I thought you were last night."

"Am I?"

"More so."

"Are you so sure about my friendliness?"

"I want to believe in it," he said. "It means a lot to me already."

"Believe in it then, you very badly spoiled young man," she said, stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "I do like you… And now I think you had better go – unless you want to see Mrs. Lannis."

Retaining her hand for a second he said:

"Before you leave town will you let me ask you a question?"

"I am leaving to-morrow. You'll have to ask it now."

Their hands fell apart; he seemed doubtful, and she awaited his question, smilingly. And as he made no sign of asking she said:

"You have my permission to ask it. Is it a very impertinent question?"

"Very."

"How impertinent is it?" she inquired curiously.

"Unpardonably personal."

After a silence she laughed.

"Last night," she said, "you told me that I would probably forget you unless I had something unpardonable to forgive you. Isn't this a good opportunity to leave your unpardonable imprint upon my insulted memory?"

"Excellent," he said. "This is my outrageous question: are you engaged to be married?"

For a full minute she remained silent in her intense displeasure. After the first swift glance of surprise her gray eyes had dropped, and she sat on the gilded arm of the sofa, studying the floor covering – an ancient Saraband rug, with the inevitable and monotonous river-loop symbol covering its old-rose ground in uninteresting repetition. After a while she lifted her head and met his gaze, quietly.

"I am trying to believe that you did not mean to be offensive," she said. "And now that I have a shadow of a reason to pardon you, I shall probably do so, ultimately."

"But you won't answer me?" he said, reddening.

"Of course not. Are we on any such footing of intimacy – even of friendship, Mr. Quarren?"

"No. But you are going away – and my reason for speaking – " He checked himself; his reasons were impossible; there was no extenuation to be found in them, no adequate explanation for them, or for his attitude toward this young girl which had crystallised over night – over a sleepless, thrilling night – dazzling him with its wonder and its truth and its purity in the clean rays of the morning sun.

She watched his expression as it changed, troubled, uncertain how to regard him, now.

"It isn't very much like you, to ask me such a question," she said.

"Before I met you, you thought me one kind of a man; after I met you, you thought me another. Have I turned out to be a third kind?"

"N-no."

"Would I turn into the first kind if I ask you again to answer my question?"

She gave him a swift, expressionless glance:

"I want to like you; I'm trying to, Mr. Quarren. Won't you let me?"

"I want to have the right to like you, too – perhaps more than you will care to have me – "

"Please don't speak that way – I don't know what you mean, anyway – "

"That is why I asked you the question – to find out whether I had a right to – "

"Right!" she repeated. "What right? What do you mean? What have you misinterpreted in me that has given you any rights as far as I am concerned? Did you misunderstand our few hours of masked acquaintance – a few moments of perfectly innocent imprudence? – my overlooking certain conventions and listening to you at the telephone this morning – my receiving you here at this silly hour? What has given you any right to say anything to me, Mr. Quarren – to hint of the possibility of anything serious – for the future – or at any time whatever?"

"I have no right," he said, wincing.

"Indeed you have not!" she rejoined warmly, flushed and affronted. "I am glad that is perfectly clear to you."

"No right at all," he repeated – "except the personal privilege of recognising what is cleanest and sweetest and most admirable and most unspoiled in life; the right to care for it without knowing exactly why – the desire to be part of it – as have all men who are awakened out of trivial dreams when such a woman as you crosses their limited and foolish horizon."

She sat staring at him, struggling to comprehend what he was saying, perfectly unable to believe, nor even wishing to, yet painfully attentive to his every word.

"Mr. Quarren," she said, "I was hurt. I imagined presumption where there was none. But I am afraid you are romantic and impulsive to an amazing degree. Yet, both romance and impulse have a place and a reason, not undignified, in human intercourse." – She felt rather superior in turning this phrase, and looked on him a little more kindly —

"If the compliment which you have left me to infer is purely a romantic one, it is nevertheless unwarranted – and, forgive me, unacceptable. The trouble is – "

She paused to recover her wits and her breath; but he took the latter away again as he said:

"I am in love with you; that is the trouble, Mrs. Leeds. And I really have no business to say so until I amount to something."

"You have no business to say so anyway after one single evening's acquaintance!" she retorted hotly.

"Oh, that! If love were a matter of time and convention – like five o'clock tea! – but it isn't, you know. It isn't the brevity of our acquaintance that worries me; it's what I am – and what you are – and – and the long, long road I have to travel before I am worth your lightest consideration – I never was in love before. Forgive my crudeness. I'm only conscious of the – hopelessness of it all."

Breathless, confused, incredulous, she sat there staring at him – listening to and watching this tall, quiet, cool young fellow who was telling her such incomprehensible things in a manner that began to fascinate her. With an effort she collected herself, shook off the almost eerie interest that was already beginning to obsess her, and stood up, flushed but composed.

"Shall we not say any more about it?" she said quietly. "Because there is nothing more to say, Mr. Quarren – except – thank you for – for feeling so amiably toward me – for believing me more than I really am… And I would like to have your friendship still, if I may – "

"You have it."

"Even yet?"

"Why not?.. It's selfish of me to say it – but I wish you – could have saved me," he said almost carelessly.

"From what, Mr. Quarren? I really do not understand you."

"From being what I am – the sort of man you first divined me to be."

"What do you mean by 'saving' you?" she asked, coldly.

"I don't know! – giving me a glimmer of hope I suppose – something to strive for."

"One saves one's self," she said.

He turned an altered face toward her: and she looked at him intently.

"I guess you are right," he said with a short laugh. "If there is anything worth saving, one saves one's self."

"I think that is true," she said… "And – if my friendship – if you really care for it – "

He met her gaze:

"I honestly don't know. I've been carried off my feet by you, completely. A man, under such conditions, doesn't know anything – not even enough to hold his tongue – as you may have noticed. I am in love with you. As I am to-day, my love for you would do you no good – I don't know whether yours would do me any good – or your friendship, either. It ought to if I amounted to anything; but I don't – and I don't know."

"I wish you would not speak so bitterly – please – "

"All right. It wasn't bitterness; it was just whine. … I'll go, now. You will comprehend, after you think it over, that there is at least nothing of impertinence in my loving you – only a blind unreason – a deadly fear lest the other man in me, suddenly revealed, vanish before I could understand him. Because when I saw you, life's meaning broke out suddenly – like a star – and that's another stale simile. But one has to climb very far before one can touch even the nearest of the stars… So forgive my one lucid interval… I shall probably never have another… May I take you to your carriage?"

"Mrs. Lannis is calling for me."

"Then – I will take my leave – and the tatters of my reputation – any song can buy it, now – "

"Mr. Quarren!"

"Yes?"

"I don't want you to go – like this. I want you to go away knowing in your heart that you have been very – nice – agreeable – to a young girl who hasn't perhaps had as much experience as you think – "

"Thank God," he said, smiling.

"I want you to like me, always," she said. "Will you?"

"I promise," he replied so blithely that for a moment his light irony deceived her. Then something in his eyes left her silent, concerned, unresponsive – only her heart seemed to repeat persistently in childish reiteration, the endless question, Why? Why? Why? And she heard it but found no answer where love was not, and had never been.

"I – am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I – I try to understand you – but I don't seem to… I am so very sorry that you – care for me."

He took her gloved hand, and she let him.

"I guess I'm nothing but a harlequin after all," he said, "and they're legitimate objects for pity. Good-bye, Mrs. Leeds. You've been very patient and sweet with a blithering lunatic… I've committed only another harlequinade of a brand-new sort. But the fall from that balcony would have been less destructive."

She looked at him out of her gray eyes.

"One thing," she said, with a tremulous smile, "you may be certain that I am not going to forget you very easily."

"Another thing," he said, "I shall never forget you as long as I live; and – you have my violets, I see. Are they to follow the gardenia?"

"Only when their time comes," she said, trying to laugh.

So he wished her a happy trip and sojourn in the South, and went away into the city – downtown, by the way to drop into an office chair in an empty office and listen to the click of a typewriter in the outer room, and sit there hour after hour with his chin in his hand staring at nothing out of the clear blue eyes of a boy.

And she went away to her luncheon at the Province Club with Susanne Lannis who wished her to meet some of the governors – very grand ladies – upon whose good will depended Strelsa's election to the most aristocratic, comfortable, wisely managed, and thriftiest of all metropolitan clubs.

After luncheon she, with Mrs. Lannis and Chrysos Lacy – a pretty red-haired edition of her brother – went to see "Sumurun."

And after they had tea at the redoubtable Mrs. Sprowl's, where there were more footmen than guests, more magnificence than comfort, and more wickedness in the gossip than lemon in the tea or Irish in the more popular high-ball.

The old lady, fat, pink, enormous, looked about her out of her little glittering green eyes with a pleased conviction that everybody on earth was mortally afraid of her. And everybody, who happened to be anybody in New York, was exactly that – with a few eccentric exceptions like her nephew, Karl Westguard, and half a dozen heavily upholstered matrons whose social altitude left them nothing to be afraid of except lack of deference and death.

Mrs. Sprowl had a fat, wheezy, and misleading laugh; and it took time for Strelsa to understand that there was anything really venomous in the old lady; but the gossip there that afternoon, and the wheezy delight in driving a last nail into the coffin of some moribund reputation, made plain to her why her hostess was held in such respectful terror.

The talk finally swerved from Molly Wycherly's ball to the Irish Legation, and Mrs. Sprowl leaned toward Strelsa, and panted behind her fan:

"A perfect scandal, child. The suppers those young men give there! Orgies, I understand! No pretty actress in town is kept sighing long for invitations. Even" – she whispered the name of a lovely and respectable prima-donna with a perfectly good husband and progeny – and nodded so violently that it set her coughing.

"Oh," cried Strelsa, distressed, "surely you have been misinformed!"

"Not in the least," wheezed the old lady. "She is no better than the rest of 'em! And I sent for my nephew Karl, and I brought him up roundly. 'Karl!' said I, 'what the devil do you mean! Do you want that husband of hers dragging you all into court?' And, do you know, my dear, he appeared perfectly astounded – said it wasn't so – just as you said a moment ago. But I can put two and two together, yet; I'm not too old and witless to do that! And I warrant you I gave him a tongue trouncing which he won't forget. … Probably he retailed it to that O'Hara man, and to young Quarren, too. If he did it won't hurt 'em, either."

She was speaking now so generally that everybody heard her, and Cyrille Caldera said:

"Ricky is certainly innocuous, anyway."

"Oh, is he!" said Mrs. Sprowl with another wheezy laugh. "I fancy I know that boy. Did you say 'harmless,' Susanne? Well, you ought to know, of course – "

Cyrille Caldera blushed brightly although her affair with Quarren had been of the most innocent description.

"There's probably as much ground for indicting Ricky as there is for indicting me," she protested. "He's merely a nice, useful boy – "

"Rather vapid, don't you think?" observed a thin young woman in sables and an abundance of front teeth.

"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination."

"He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly harmless."

"Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to.

"Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde – whose husband must have been an idiot – and Cynthia Challis – she married Prince Sarnoff, you remember – "

"The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy.

"I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl. "How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar – "

"Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis.

"Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em marry him. Poor Ricky."

"Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is so nice, and nobody is likely to marry him."

"Why?" asked Strelsa.

"Because he's – why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't you know it?"

"No," said Strelsa.

"That's the trouble – partly. Then there's no social advantage for any girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky – unless he marries a lame duck."

"Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed.

"Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight."

"The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's intelligent otherwise I fancy."

"Yes, but not intellectual."

"I think you are possibly mistaken."

The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis laughed.

"Are you his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night for the first time."

"Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison arrives." At which sally everybody laughed.

Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British officer's arrival.

Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew, because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of fashionable banter.

"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles you'll forget Ricky."

"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl, why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy."

"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are pretty."

"I have enough – almost – "

"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!" laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa – you'll need them."

"You are mistaken. I have enough. I'd like to be happy for a while."

The naïve inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of the past which had unconsciously evoked it.

After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in, one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in kennel parlance.

To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed loud and long.

"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby agape. But your man of the world has other tastes."

"Jaded tastes," said somebody.

"Maybe they're jaded and vicious – but they're his. And maybe that girl has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But it's the last shriek among people who know."

"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French sculptor who did the Merode?"

"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else.

"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds needs padding – to suit my notions."

"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl will be scandalous when she fills out a little more… If she only had the wits to match what she is going to be! – But there's a streak of something silly in her – I suspect latent sentiment – which is likely to finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels for Ricky, now! – a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky."

"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing.

"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind about Strelsa Leeds, and" – she glared around her, fanning vigorously – "I think nobody is likely to interfere."

That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid down the law of limits to him so decisively that, taken aback, astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment.

When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned.

But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders.

When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her.

He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing sponsor for Mrs. Leeds – "

"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?"

He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at Strelsa.

Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals.

"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass.

"What?" he asked sullenly.

"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix – and also amass a little common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to start things for her. Which I shan't – in that direction."

"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with an unpleasant laugh.

Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically.

"I understand the Earl of Dankmere, perfectly," she said – "also other people, including young, and sulky boys. So if you clearly understand my wishes, and the girl doesn't make a fool of herself over you or any other callow ineligible, her future will give me something agreeable to occupy me."

The blood stung his face as he stood up – a tall graceful figure among the others in the box – a clean-cut, wholesome boy to all appearances, with that easy and amiable presence which is not distinction but which sometimes is even more agreeable.

Lips compressed, the flush still hot on his face, he stood silent, tasting all the bitterness that his career had stored up for him – sick with contempt for a self that could accept and swallow such things. For he had been well schooled, but scarcely to that contemptible point.

"Of course," he said, pleasantly, "you understand that I shall do as I please."

Mrs. Sprowl laughed:

"I'll see to that, too, Ricky."

Chrysos Lacy leaned forward and began to talk to him, and his training reacted mechanically, for he seemed at once to become his gay and engaging self.

He did not return to the Vernons' box nor did he see Strelsa again before she went South.

The next night a note was delivered to him, written from the Wycherlys' car, "Wind-Flower."

"My dear Mr. Quarren:

"Why did you not come back to say good-bye? You spoke of doing so. I'm afraid Chrysos Lacy is responsible.

"The dance at the Van Dynes was very jolly. I am exceedingly sorry you were not there. Thank you for the flowers and bon-bons that were delivered to me in my state-room. My violets are not yet entirely faded, so they have not yet joined your gardenia in the limbo of useless things.

"Mr. Westguard came to the train. He is nice.

"Mr. O'Hara and Chrysos and Jack Lacy were there, so in spite of your conspicuous absence the Legation maintained its gay reputation and covered itself with immortal blarney.

"This letter was started as a note to thank you for your gifts, but it is becoming a serial as Molly and Jim and I sit here watching the North Carolina landscape fly past our windows like streaks of brown lightened only by the occasional delicious and sunny green of some long-leafed pine.

"There's nothing to see from horizon to horizon except the monotonous repetition of mules and niggers and evil-looking cypress swamps and a few razor-backs and a buzzard flying very high in the blue.

"Thank you again for my flowers… I wonder if you understand that my instinct is to be friends with you?

"It was from the very beginning.

"And please don't be absurd enough to think that I am going to forget you – or our jolly escapade at the Wycherly ball. You behaved very handsomely once. I know I can count on your kindness to me.

"Good-bye, and many many thanks – as Jack Lacy says – 'f'r the manny booggy-rides, an' th' goom-candy, an' the boonches av malagy grrapes'!

"Sincerely your friend,

"Strelsa Leeds."

That same day Sir Charles Mallison arrived in New York and went directly to Mrs. Sprowl's house. Their interview was rather brief but loudly cordial on the old lady's part:

"How's my sister and Foxy?" she asked – meaning Sir Renard and Lady Spinney.

Sir Charles regretted he had not seen them.

"And you?"

"Quite fit, thanks." And he gravely trusted that her own health was satisfactory.

"You haven't changed your mind?" she asked with a smile which the profane might consider more like a grin.

Sir Charles said he had not, and a healthy colour showed under the tan.

"All these years," commented the old lady, ironically.

"Four," said Sir Charles.

"Was it four years ago when you saw her in Egypt?"

"Four years – last month – the tenth."

"And never saw her again?"

"Never."

Mrs. Sprowl shook with asthmatic mirth: