The Streets of Ascalon Part 35

Premonitions of spring started the annual social exodus; because in the streets of Ascalon and in the busy ways of Gath spring becomes summer over night and all Philistia is smitten by the sun.

And all the meanness and shabbiness and effrontery of the monstrous city, all its civic pretence and tarnished ostentation are suddenly revealed when the summer sun blazes over Ascalon. Wherefore the daintier among the Philistines flee--idler, courtier, dangler and squire of dames--not to return until the first snow-flakes fall and the gray veil of November descends once more over the sorry sham of Ascalon.

Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and millions of them--and a real sky overhead edging far horizons.

He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester Caldera was to finance for him.

Recently, however, that suave young man had smilingly denied making any such promise to anybody; which surprised and disconcerted Quarren who had no money with which to build sewers, roads, and electric plants.

And he began to realise how carelessly he had drifted into the enterprise--how carelessly he had drifted into everything and past everything for the last five years.

After a hunt for a capitalist among and outside his circle of friends and acquaintances he began to appreciate his own lunacy even more thoroughly.

Then Lester Caldera, good-naturedly, offered to take the property off his hands for less than a third of what he paid Sprowl for it; and as Quarren's adjoining options were rapidly expiring he was forced to accept. Which put the boy almost entirely out of business; so he closed his handsome office downtown and opened another in the front parlour of an old and rather dingy brown-stone house on the east side of Lexington Avenue near Fiftieth Street and hung out his sign once more over the busy streets of Ascalon.

RICHARD STANLEY QUARREN Real Estate

Also he gave up his quarters at the Irish Legation to the unfeigned grief of the diplomats domiciled there, and established himself in the back parlour and extension of the Lexington Avenue house, ready at all moments now for business or for sleep. Neither bothered him excessively.

He wrote no more notes to Strelsa Leeds--that is, he posted no more, however many he may have composed. Rumours from the inner temple concerning her and Langly Sprowl and Sir Charles Mallison drifted out into the real world every day or so. But he never went back to the temple to verify them. That life was ended for him. Sometimes, sitting alone at his desk, he fancied that he could almost hear the far laughter of the temple revels, and the humming of the drones. But the roar of the street-car, rushing, grinding through the steel-ribbed streets of Ascalon always drowned it, and its far seen phantom glitter became a burning reality where the mid-day sun struck the office sign outside his open window.

Fate, the ugly jade, was making faces at him, all kinds of faces. Just now she wore the gaunt mask of poverty, but Quarren continued to ignore her, because to him, there was no real menace in her skinny grin, no real tragedy in what she threatened.

Real tragedy lay in something very different--perhaps in manhood awaking from ign.o.ble lethargy to learn its own degeneracy in a young girl's scornful eyes.

All day long he sat in his office attending to the trivial business that came into it--not enough so far to give him a living.

In the still spring evenings he retired to his quarters in the back parlour, bathed, dressed, looking out at the cats on the back fences.

Then he went forth to dine either at the Legation or with some one of the few friends he had cared to retain in that magic-lantern world which he at last had found uninhabitable--a world in which few virile men remain very long--fewer and fewer as the years pa.s.s on. For the gilding on the temple dome is peeling off; and the laughter is dying out, and the hum of the drones sounds drowsy like unreal voices heard in summer dreams.

"It is the pa.s.sing of an imbecile society," declaimed Westguard--"the dying sounds of its meaningless noise--the first omens of a silence which foretells annihilation. Out of chaos will gradually emerge the elements of a real society--the splendid social and intellectual brotherhood of the future----"

"See my forthcoming novel," added Lacy, "$1.35 net, for sale at all booksellers or sent post-paid on receipt of----"

"You little fashionable fop!" growled Westguard--"there's a winter coming for all b.u.t.terflies!"

"I've seen 'em dancing over the snow on a mild and sunny day," retorted Lacy. "Karl, my son, the n.o.bly despairing writer with a grouch never yet convinced anybody."

"I don't despair," retorted Westguard. "This country is getting what it wants and what it deserves, ladled out to it in unappetising gobs. Year after year great incoming waves of ignorance sweep us from ocean to ocean; but I don't forget that those very waves also carry a constantly growing and enlightened cla.s.s higher and higher toward permanent solidity.

"Every annual wave pushes the flotsam of the year before toward the solid land. The acquaintance with sordid things is the first real impulse toward education. Some day there will be no squalor in the land--neither the physical conditions in our slums nor the arid intellectual deserts within the social frontiers."

"But the waves will accomplish that--not your very worthy novels," said Lacy, impudently.

"If you call me 'worthy' I'll bat you on the head," roared Westguard, sitting up on the sofa where he had been sprawling; and laughter, loud and long, rattled the windows in the Irish Legation.

The May night was hot; a sickly breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows of Westguard's living room where the Legation was entertaining informally.

Quarren, Lacy, O'Hara, and Sir Charles Mallison sat by the window playing poker; the Earl of Dankmere, perched on the piano-stool, was mournfully rattling off a string of melodies acquired along Broadway; Westguard himself, flat on his back, occupied a leather lounge and dispensed philosophy when permitted.

"You know," said Lacy, dealing rapidly, "you're only a tin-horn philosopher, Karl, but you really could write a good story if you tried.

Get your people into action. That's the game."

O'Hara nodded. "Interestin' people, in books and outside, are always doin' things, not talkin'," he said--"like Sir Charles quietly drawin'

four cards to a kicker and sayin' nothin'."

"--Like old Dankmere, yonder, playing 'Madame Sherry' and not trying to tell us why human beings enjoy certain sounds known as harmonies, but just keeping busy beating the box----"

"--Like a pretty woman who is contented to be as attractive and cunnin'

as she can be, and not stoppin' to explain the anatomy of romantic love and personal beauty," added O'Hara.

"--Like----"

"For Heaven's sake give me a stack of chips and shut up!" shouted Westguard, jumping to his feet and striding to the table. "Everybody on earth is competent to write a book except an author, but I defy anybody to play my poker hands for me! Come on, Dankmere! Let's clean out this complacent crowd!"

Lord Dankmere complied, and seated himself at the table, anxiously remarking to Quarren that he had come to America to acquire capital, not to spend it. Sir Charles laughed and dealt; Westguard drew five cards, attempted to bluff Quarren's full hand, and was scandalously routed.

Again the cards were dealt and O'Hara bet the limit; and the Earl of Dankmere came back with an agonised burst of chips that scared out Lacy and Sir Charles and left Quarren thinking.

When finally the dust of combat blew clear of the scene Dankmere's stacks were nearly gone, and Quarren's had become symmetrical sky-sc.r.a.pers.

Lacy said to Dankmere: "Now that you've learned how to get poor quickly you're better prepared for the study of riches and how to acquire 'em.

Kindly pa.s.s the buck unless your misfortunes have paralysed you."

"The whole country," said his lordship, "is nothing but one gigantic poker game. I sail on the next steamer. I'm bluffed out."

"Poor old Dankmere," purred Lacy, "won't the ladies love you?"

"Their demonstrations," said the Earl, "are not keeping me awake nights."

"Something keeps Quarren awake nights, judging by his transom light. Is it love, Ricky?"

A slight colour mounted to Quarren's thin cheeks, but he answered carelessly: "I read late sometimes.... How many cards do you want?"

Sir Charles Mallison turned his head after a moment and looked at Quarren; and meeting his eye, said pleasantly: "I only want one card, Quarren. Please give me the right one."

"Which?"

"The Queen of Hearts."

"Dealer draws one also," said the young fellow.

Sir Charles laid down his hand with a smile:

"Did _you_ fill?" he asked Quarren as everybody else remained out.

"I don't mind showing," said Quarren sorting out his cards, faces up.