The Streets of Ascalon Part 31

"A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?"

"You haven't caught malaria in the tropics, have you?"

"No, you funny man. I'm never ill. But it's odd how burning hot I seem to be----"

She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his.

They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the quiet around her--a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a delicate mist--a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and thought.

Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred; and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his.

At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch--a slight caress over her forehead--the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers, closer, never stirring.

Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless, non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to the sorcery.

Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her.

She strove to turn her mouth from his--twisted away from him, straining, tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail, gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even look at him, now.

Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and gla.s.s door; a flurry of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes.

Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and locked the door against her maid.

Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange nerves signalling; stranger responses--of a subtle fragrance in her breath so strange that she became conscious of it.

She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the gla.s.s while through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the unknown.

Unknown still!--for she crouched there shrinking from the revelation--from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf, blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of self-contempt.

Then fear came--fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes.

So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser pa.s.sion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her--out of a moment's la.s.situde, a touch of a man's hand, and his lips on hers! And now all her life was already behind her--childhood, girlhood, wifehood--all, all behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an unknown road; an unknown world before her.

With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty, of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce humiliation born of self-knowledge--knowledge scornfully admitted and defied with every breath--but no longer denied.

She _was_ as others were--fashioned of that same and common clay, capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of them--so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant, they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things of the mind.

Was this the evolution that her winter's idleness and gaiety and the fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that strange moment, at the door, the moment that man's enemy had been awaiting, to find her unprepared?

Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on her dresser--the fairest among the Philistines who had so long unconsciously thanked G.o.d that she was not like other women in the homes of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon.

CHAPTER VI

Strelsa was no longer at home to Quarren, even over the telephone. He called her up two or three times in as many days, ventured to present himself at her house twice without being received, and finally wrote her a note. But at the end of the month the note still remained unanswered.

However, there was news of her, sometimes involving her with Langly Sprowl, but more often with Sir Charles Mallison. Also, had Quarren not dropped out of everything so completely, he might easily have met her dozens of times in dozens of places. But for a month now he had returned every day from his office to his room in the Legation, and even the members of that important diplomatic body found his door locked, after dinner, though his light sometimes brightened the transom until morning.

Westguard, after the final rupture with his aunt, had become a soured hermit--sourer because of the low motives of the public which was buying his book by the thousands and reading it for the story, exclusively.

His aunt had cast him off; to him she was the overfed embodiment of society, so it pleased him to consider the rupture as one between society and himself. It tasted of martyrdom, and now his own public had vulgarly gone back on him according to his ideals: n.o.body cared for his economics, his social evils, his moral philosophy; only what he considered the unworthy part of his book was eagerly absorbed and discussed. The proletariat had grossly betrayed him; a hermit's exemplary but embittered career was apparently all that remained for his declining years.

So, after dinner, he, too, retired to seclusion behind bolted doors, pondering darkly on a philosophic novel which should be no novel at all but a dignified and crushing rebuke to mankind--a solid slice of moral cake thickly frosted with social economics, heavy with ethical plums, and without any story to it whatever.

Meanwhile his book had pa.s.sed into the abhorred cla.s.s of best sellers.

As for Lacy and O'Hara, both had remarked Quarren's abrupt retirement and his absence from that section of the social puddle which he was accustomed to embellish and splash in. O'Hara, inclining more toward sporting circles, noticed Quarren's absence less; but Lacy, after the first week, demanded an explanation at the dinner-table.

"You spoiled a party for Mrs. Lannis," he said--"and Winnifred Miller was almost in tears over the charity tableaux----"

"I wrote them both in plenty of time, Jack."

"Yes. But who is there to take your place? Whatever you touch is successful. Barent Van Dyne made a dub of himself."

"They must break in another pup," said Quarren, amused.

"You mean that you're chucking the whole bally thing for keeps?"

"Practically."

"Why?" asked O'Hara, looking up blankly.

"Oh," said Quarren laughing, "I'm curious to find out what business I really am in. Until this week I've never had time to discover that I was trying to be a broker in real estate. And I've just found out that I've been one for almost three years, and never knew it."

"One's own company is the best," growled Westguard. "The monkey people sicken you and the public make you ill. Solitude is the only remedy."

"Not for me," said Quarren; "I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and on the public; and I'm laying plans to do it."

"They'll turn your stomach----"

"Oh, dry up, Karl!" said O'Hara; "there's a medium between extremes where you can get a good sportin' chance at anythin'--horse, dog, girl--anythin' you fancy. You'd like some of my friends, now, Ricky!--they're a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin' as h.e.l.l----"

"_I_ don't want to meet any c.o.c.k-fighters," growled Westguard.

"They're all right, too--but there are all kinds of interestin' people in my circles--writers like Karl, huntin' people, a professional here and there--and then there's that fascinatin' Mrs. Wyland-Baily, the best trap-shot----"

"Trap-shot," repeated Westguard in disgust, and took his cigar and himself into seclusion.

Quarren also pushed back his chair, preparing to rise.

"Doin' anythin'?" inquired O'Hara, desiring to be kind. "Young Calahan and the Harlem Mutt have it out at the Cataract Club to-night," he added persuasively.

"Another time, thanks," said Quarren: "I've letters to write."