The Streets of Ascalon Part 38

"At Mrs. Sprowl's suggestion I wrote to Sir Charles asking him to be kind enough to bring you with him when he came to 'Skyland.'

"Somehow, I am afraid that my informality may have offended you; and if this is so, I am sorry. We have been such good friends that I supposed I might venture to send you such a message.

"But perhaps I ought to have written it to you instead--I don't know. Lately it seems as though many things that I have done have been entirely misunderstood.

"It's gray weather here, and the sea looks as though it were bad-tempered; and I've been rather discontented, too, this morning----

"I don't really mean that. There is a very jolly party here.... I believe that I'm growing a little tired of parties.

"Molly has asked me to Witch-Hollow for a quiet week in June, and I'm going. She would ask you if I suggested it. Shall I? Because, since we last met, once or twice the thought has occurred to me that perhaps an explanation was overdue. Not that I should make any to you if you and I meet at Witch-Hollow. There isn't any to make--except by my saying that I hope to see you again. Will you be content with that admission of guilt?

"I meant to speak to you again that day at the Charity affair, only there were so many people bothering--and you seemed to be so delightfully preoccupied with that pretty Cyrille Caldera. I really had no decent opportunity to speak to you again without making her my mortal enemy--and you, too, perhaps.

"May I dare to be a little friendly now and say that I would like to see you? Somehow I feel that even still I may venture to talk to you on a different plane and footing from any which exists between other men and me. You were once so friendly, so kind, so nice to me. You have been nice--_always_. And if I seem to have acquired any of the hardness, any of the cynical veneer, any of the fashionable scepticism and unbelief which, perhaps, no woman entirely escapes in my environment, it all softens and relaxes and fades and seems to slip away as soon as I begin to talk to you--even on this note-paper. Which is only one way of saying, 'Please be my friend again!'

"I sometimes hear about you from others. I am impressively informed that you have given up all frivolous social activity and are now most industriously devoting yourself to your real-estate business.

And I am wondering whether this rather bewildering _volte-face_ is to be permanent.

"Because I see no reason for anybody going to extremes. Between the hermit's cell and the Palace of Delights there is a quiet and happy country. Don't you know that?

"Would you care to write to me and tell me a little about yourself?

Do you think it odd or capricious of me to write to you? And are you perhaps irritated because of my manners which must have seemed to you discourteous--perhaps rude?

"I know of course that you called on me; that you telephoned; that you wrote to me; and that I made no response.

"And I am going to make no explanation. Can your friendship, or what may remain of it, stand the strain?

"If it can, please write to me. And forgive me whatever injustice I have seemed to do you. I ask it because, although you may not believe it, my regard for you has never become less since the night that a Harlequin and a golden dancer met in the noisy halls of old King Carnival.... Only, the girl who writes you this was younger and happier then than I think she ever will be again.

"Your friend--if you wish--

"STRELSA LEEDS."

He wrote her by return mail:

"MY DEAR MRS. LEEDS,

"When a man has made up his mind to drown without any more fuss, it hurts him to be hauled out and resuscitated and told that he is still alive.

"If you mean, ultimately, to let me drown, do it now. I've been too miserable over you. Also, I was insulting to Sir Charles. He's too decent to have told you; but I was. And I can't ask his pardon except by mending my manner toward him in future.

"I'm a n.o.body; I haven't any money; and I love you. That is how the matter stands this day in May. Let me know the worst and I'll drown this time for good and all.

"Are you engaged to marry Sir Charles?

"R. S. QUARREN."

By return mail came a note from her:

"Can you not care for me and still be kind to me, Mr. Quarren? If what you say about your regard for me is true--but it is certainly exaggerated, anyway--should not your att.i.tude toward me include a n.o.bler sentiment? I mean friendship. And I know whereof I speak, because I am conscious of a capacity for it--a desire for it--and for you as the object of it. I believe that, if you cared for it, I could give you the very best of me in a friendship of the highest type.

"It is in me to give it--a pure, devoted, lofty, untroubled friendship, absolutely free of lesser and material sentiments. Am I sufficiently frank? I want such a friendship. I need it. I have never before offered it to any man--the kind I mean to give you if you wish.

"I believe it would satisfy you; I am convinced that yours would satisfy me. You don't know how I have missed such a friendship in you. I have wanted it from the very beginning of our acquaintance.

But I had--problems--to solve, first; and I had to let our friendship lie dormant. Now I have solved my perplexities, and all my leisure is for you again, if you will. Do you want it?

"Think over what I have written. Keep my letter for a week and then write me. Does my offer not deserve a week's consideration?

"Meanwhile please keep away from deep water. I do not wish you to drown.

"STRELSA LEEDS.

"P. S.--Lord Dankmere is here. He is insufferable. He told Mrs.

Sprowl that you and he were going into the antique-picture business. You wouldn't think of going into anything whatever with a man of that sort, would you? Or was it merely a British jest?"

He wrote at once:

"I have your letter and will keep it a week before replying.

But--are you engaged?"

She answered:

"The papers have had me engaged to Barent Van Dyne, to Langly Sprowl, to Sir Charles. You may take your choice if you are determined to have me engaged to somebody. No doubt you think my being engaged would make our future friendship safer. I'll attend to it immediately if you wish me to."

Evidently she was in a gay and contrary humour when she wrote so flippantly to him. And he replied in kind and quite as lightly. Then, at the week's end he wrote her again that he had considered her letter, and that he accepted the friendship she offered, and gave her his in return.

She did not reply.

He wrote her again a week later, but had no answer. Another week pa.s.sed, and, slowly into his senses crept the dread of deep waters closing around him. And after another week he began to wonder, dully, how long it would take a man to drown if he made no struggle.

Meanwhile several dozen crates and packing cases had arrived at the Custom House for the Earl of Dankmere; and, in process of time were delivered at the real-estate office of R. S. Quarren, littering his sleeping quarters and office and overflowing into the extension and backyard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded in amazement by the neighbours."]

It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the back fences by several astonished cats.

His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their ancient un-keyed stretchers.

There were primitives on panels, triptychs, huge canvases in frames carved out of solid wood; pictures in battered Italian frames--some floridly Florentine, some exquisitely inlaid on dull azure and rose--pictures in Spanish frames, Dutch frames, English frames, French frames of the last century; portraits, landscapes, genre, still life--battle pictures, religious subjects, allegorical canvases, mythological--all stacked up pell-mell in the backyard and regarded in amazement by the neighbours, and by two young men who alternately smoked and staunched their wounds under the summer sky.

"Dankmere," said Quarren at last, "did your people send over your entire collection?"

"No; but I thought it might be as well to have plenty of rubbish on hand in case a demand should spring up.... What do they look like to you, Quarren--I mean what's your first impression?"