The Streets of Ascalon Part 24

"Get out, you old Roundhead!" said Quarren, laughing. He rose, laid his hand lightly on Westguard's shoulder in pa.s.sing, and went upstairs to his room, where he wrote a long letter to Strelsa; and then destroyed it. Then he lay down, covering his boyish head with his arms.

When Lacy came in he saw him lying on the bed, and thought he was asleep.

CHAPTER V

Toward the end of March Strelsa, with the Wycherlys, returned to New York, dead tired. She had been flattered, run after, courted from Palm Beach to Havana; the perpetual social activity, the unbroken fever of change and excitement had already made firmer the soft lineaments of the girl's features, had slightly altered the expression of the mouth.

By daylight the fatigues of pleasure were faintly visible--that unmistakable imprint which may perhaps leave the eyes clear and calm, but which edges the hardened contour of the cheek under them with deeper violet shadow.

Not that hers was as yet the battered beauty of exhaustion; she had merely lived every minute to the full all winter long, and had overtaxed her capacity; and the fire had consumed something of her freshness.

Not yet inured, not yet crystallised to that experienced hardness which withstands the fierce flame of living too fast in a world where every minute is demanded and where sleep becomes a forgotten art, the girl was completely tired out, and while she herself did not realise it, her features showed it.

But nervous exhaustion alone could not account for the subtle change in her expression. Eyes and lips were still sweet, even in repose, but there was now a jaded charm about them--something unspoiled had disappeared from them--something of that fearlessness which vanishes after too close and too constant contact with the world of men.

Evidently her mind was quite as weary as her body, though even to herself she had not admitted fatigue; and a tired mind no longer defends itself. Hers had not; and the defence had been, day by day, imperceptibly weakening. So that things to which once she had been able at will to close her mind, and, mentally deaf, let pa.s.s unheard, she had heard, and had even thought about. And the effort to defend her ears and mind became less vigorous, less instinctive--partly through sheer weariness.

The wisdom of woman and of man, and of what is called the world, the girl was now learning--unconsciously in the beginning and then with a kind of shamed indifference--but the creation of an artificial interest in anything is a subtle matter; and the ceaseless repet.i.tion of things unworthy at last awake that ign.o.ble curiosity always latent in man.

Because intelligence was born with it; and unwearied intelligence alone completely suppresses it.

At first she had kept her head fairly level in the whirlwind of adulation. To glimpses of laxity she closed her eyes. Sir Charles was always refreshing to her; but she could see little more of him than of other men--less than she saw of Langly Sprowl, however that happened--and it probably happened through the cleverness of Langly Sprowl.

Again and again she found herself with him separated from the others--sometimes alone with him on deck--and never quite understood how it came about so constantly.

As for Sprowl he made love to her from the first; and he was a trim, carefully groomed and volubly animated young man, full of information, and with a restless, ceaseless range of intelligence which at first dazzled with its false brilliancy.

But it was only a kind of flash-light intelligence. It seemed to miss, occasionally; some cog, some screw somewhere was either absent or badly adjusted or over-strained.

At first Strelsa found the young fellow fascinating. He had been everywhere and had seen everything; his mind was kaleidoscopic; his thought shifted, flashed, jerked, leaped like erratic lightning from one subject to another--from j.a.panese aeroplanes to a scheme for filling in the East River; from a plan to reconcile church and state in France to an idea for indefinitely prolonging human life. He had written several books about all kinds of things. n.o.body read them.

The first time he spoke to her of love was on a magnificent star-set night off Martinique; and she coolly reminded him of the gossip connecting him with a pretty woman in Reno. She could not have done it a month ago.

He denied it so pleasantly, so frankly, that, astonished, she could scarcely choose but believe him.

After that he made ardent, headlong love to her at every opportunity, with a flighty recklessness which began by amusing her. At first, also, she found wholesome laughter a good defence; but there was an under-current of intelligent, relentless vigour in his attack which presently sobered her. And she vaguely realised that he was a man who knew what he wanted. A talk with Molly Wycherly sobered her still more; and she avoided him as politely as she could. But, being her host, it was impossible to keep clear of him. Besides there was about him a certain unwholesome fascination, even for her. No matter how bad a man's record may be, few women doubt their ability to make it a better one.

"You little goose," said Molly Wycherly, "everybody knows the kind of man he is. Could anything be more brazen than his attentions to you while Mary Ledwith is in Reno?"

"He says that her being there has nothing to do with him."

"Then he lies," said Molly, shrugging her shoulders.

"He doesn't speak as though he were trying to deceive anybody, Molly. He is perfectly frank to me. I can't believe that scandal. Besides he is quite open and manly about his unsavoury reputation; makes no excuses; simply says that there's good in every man, and that there is always one woman in the world who can bring it out----"

"Oh, mushy! What an out-of-date whine! He's bad all through I tell you----"

"No man is!" insisted Strelsa.

"What?"

"No man is. The great masters of fiction always ascribe at least one virtue to their most infamous creations----"

"Oh, Strelsa, you talk like a pan of fudge! _I_ tell you that Langly Sprowl is no good at all. I hope you won't have to marry him to find out."

"I don't intend to.... How inconsistent you are, Molly. You--and everybody else--believe him to be the most magnificent match in----"

"If position and wealth is all you care for, yes. I didn't suppose you'd come to that."

Strelsa said candidly: "I care for both--I don't know how much."

"As much as that?"

"No; not enough to marry him. And if he is what you say, it's hopeless of course.... I don't think he is. Be decent, Molly; everybody is very horrid about him, and--and that is always a matter of sympathetic interest to a generous woman. When the whole world condemns a man it makes him interesting!"

"That's a piffling and emotional thing to say! He may be attractive in an uncanny way, because he's agreeable to look at, amusing, and very dangerous--a perfectly cold-blooded, and I think, slightly unbalanced social marauder. And that's the fact about Langly Sprowl. And I wish we were on land, the _Yulan_ and her owner in--well, in the Erie Basin, perhaps."

Whether or not Strelsa believed these things, there still remained in her that curious sense of fascination in Sprowl's presence, partly arising, no doubt, from an instinctive sympathy for a young man so universally d.a.m.ned; partly, because she thought that perhaps he really was d.a.m.ned. Therefore, deep in her heart she felt that he must be dangerous; and there is, in that one belief, every element of unwholesome fascination. And a mind fatigued is no longer wholesome.

Then, too, there was always Sir Charles Mallison to turn to for a refreshing moral bath. Safety of soul lay in his vicinity; she felt confidence in the world wherever he traversed it. With him she relaxed and rested; there was repose for her in his silences; strength for her when he spoke; and a serene comradeship which no hint of sentiment had ever vexed.

Perhaps only a few people realised how thoroughly a single winter was equipping Strelsa for the part she seemed destined to play in that narrow world with which she was already identified; and few realised how fast she was learning. Laxity of precept, easy morals, looseness of thought, idle and good-natured acquiescence in social conditions where all standards seemed alike, all ideals merely a matter of personal taste--this was the atmosphere into which she had stepped from two years of Western solitude after a nightmare of violence, cruelty, and depravity unutterable. And naturally it seemed heavenly to her; and each revelation inconsistent with her own fastidious instincts left her less and less surprised, less and less uneasy. And after a while she began to a.s.similate all that she saw and heard.

A few unworldly instincts remained in her--grat.i.tude for and quick response to any kindness offered from anybody; an inclination to make friends with stray wanderers into her circle, and to cultivate the socially useless.

Taking four o'clock tea alone with Mrs. Sprowl the afternoon of her return to town--an honour vouchsafed to few--Strelsa was relating, at that masterful woman's request, her various exotic experiences. Mrs.

Sprowl had commanded her attendance early. There were reasons. And now partly vexed, partly in unwilling admiration, the old lady sat smiling and all the while thinking to herself impatiently; "Baby! Fool! Little ninny! Imbecile!" while she listened, fat bejewelled hands folded, small green eyes shining in the expanse of powdered and painted fat.

After a while she could endure it no longer, and she said with a wheeze of good-natured disdain:

"It's like a school-girl's diary--all those rhapsodies over volcanoes, palm trees, and the colour of the Spanish Main. Never mind geography, child; tell me about the men!"

"Men?" repeated Strelsa, laughingly--"why there were shoals and shoals of them, of every description!"

"I mean the _one_ man?" insisted Mrs. Sprowl encouragingly.

"Which, please?"

"Nonsense! There _was_ one, I suppose."

"Oh, I don't think so.... Your nephew, Langly, was exceedingly amiable----"

"He's a plain beast," said his aunt, bluntly. "I didn't mean him."

"He was very civil to me," insisted Strelsa, colouring.