The Streets of Ascalon Part 11

"You are not."

"How do you know?"

"No," she said, shaking her pretty head, "you can't be."

He said, quoting her own words amiably: "I'm merely one of the necessary incidents of any social environment--like flowers and champagne----"

"Mr. Quarren!"

In her distress she laid an impulsive hand on his sleeve; he lifted it, laid it across the back of his own hand, and bowing, saluted it lightly, gaily.

"I am not offended," he said; "--I am what you supposed me."

"Please don't say it! You are not. I didn't know you; I was--prejudiced----"

"You'll find me out sooner or later," he said laughing, "so I might as well admit that your cap fitted me."

"It doesn't fit!" she retorted; "I was a perfect fool to say that!"

"As long as you like me," he returned, "does it make any difference what I am?"

"Of course it does! I'm not likely to find a man agreeable unless he's worth noticing."

"Am I?"

"Oh, gentle angler, I refuse to nibble. Be content that an hour out of my life has sped very swiftly in your company!"

She turned and laid her hand on the little gilt door. He opened it for her.

"You've been very nice to me," she said. "I won't forget you."

"You'll certainly forget me for that very reason. If I hadn't been nice I'd have been the exception. And you would have remembered."

She said with an odd smile:

"Do you suppose that pleasant things have been so common in my life that only the unpleasant episode makes any impression on my memory?"

"To really remember me as I want you to, you ought to have had something unpardonable to forgive me."

"Perhaps I have!" she said, daringly; and slipped past him and down the narrow stairs, her loup-mask fluttering from her elbow.

At the foot of the stairs she turned, looking back at him over her bare shoulder:

"I've mortally offended at least three important men by hiding up there with you. That is conceding _something_ to your attractions, isn't it?"

"Everything. Will you let me find you some supper--and let the mortally offended suitors sit and whistle a bit longer?"

"Poor suitors--they've probably been performing heel-tattoos for an hour.... Very well, then--I feel unusually shameless to-night--and I'll go with you. But don't be disagreeable to me if a neglected and glowering young man rushes up and drags me away by the back hair."

"Who for example?"

"Barent Van Dyne, for instance."

"Oh, we'll side-step that youthful Knickerbocker," said Quarren, gaily.

"Leave it to me, Mrs. Leeds."

"To behave so outrageously to Mr. Van Dyne is peculiarly horrid and wicked of me," she said. "But you don't realise that--and--the fact remains that you did _not_ take your forfeit. And I've a lot to make up for that, haven't I?" she added so navely that they both gave way to laughter unrestrained.

The light touch of her arm on his, now guiding him amid the noisy, rollicking throngs, now yielding to his guidance, ceased as he threaded a way through the crush to a corner, and seated her at a table for two.

In a few moments he came back with all kinds of delectable things; went for more, returned laden, shamelessly pulled several palms between them and the noisy outer world, and seated himself beside her.

With napkin and plate on the low table beside her, she permitted him to serve her. As he filled her champagne gla.s.s she lifted it and looked across it at him:

"How did you discover my ident.i.ty?" she asked. "I'm devoured by curiosity."

"Shall I tell you?"

"Please."

"I'll take a tumble in your estimation if I tell you."

"I don't think you will. Try it anyway."

"Very well then. Somebody told me."

"And you let me bet with you! And _you_ bet on a _certainty!_"

"I did."

"Oh!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "is that good sportsmanship, Mr.

Quarren?"

"No; very bad. And _that_ was why I didn't take the forfeit. Now you understand."

She sat considering him, the champagne breaking in her gla.s.s.

"Yes, I do understand now. A good sportsman couldn't take a forfeit which he won betting on a certainty.... That wasn't a real wager, was it?"

"No, it wasn't."

"If it had been, I--I don't suppose you'd have let me go."

"Indeed not!"

They laughed, watching each other, curiously.

"Which ought to teach me never again to make any such highly original and sporting wagers," she said. "Anyway, you were perfectly nice about it. Of course you couldn't very well have been otherwise. Tell me, did you really suppose me to be attractive? You couldn't judge. How could you--under that mask?"