The Streets of Ascalon Part 46

She had settled herself into a bantering att.i.tude toward him and now gaily maintained the lighter vein:

"Merely because you and Lord Dankmere have become respectable tradesmen and worthy citizens you've hastened up here to admonish the frivolous, I suppose."

"I'm so respectable and worthy," he admitted, "that I couldn't resist rushing up here to exhibit myself. Look at that bruise!"--he held out to her his left hand badly discoloured between thumb and forefinger.

"Oh," she exclaimed, half serious, "what _is_ it?"

"A bang with an honest hammer. Dankmere and I were driving picture-nails. Oh, Strelsa! you should have listened to my inadvertent blank verse, celebrating the occasion!"

The quick, warm colour stained her cheeks as she heard him use her given name for the first time. She raised her eyes to his in questioning silence, but he was still laughing over his reminiscence and seemed so frankly unconscious of the liberty he had taken that, again, a slight sense of confusion came over her, and she leaned back, uncertain, inwardly wondering what his att.i.tude toward her might really mean.

"Do you admit my worthiness as a son of toil?" he insisted.

"How can I deny it?--with that horrid corroboration on your hand. I'll lend you some witch-hazel----"

"Witch-hazel from Witch-Hollow ought to accomplish all kinds of magic,"

he said. "I'll be delighted to have you bind it up."

"I didn't offer to; I offered you merely the ingredients."

"But you are the princ.i.p.al ingredient. Otherwise there's no virtue in a handkerchief soaked with witch-hazel."

She smiled, then in a low voice: "There's no virtue in me, either."

"Is that why you didn't include yourself in your first-aid offer?"

"Perhaps," she said, quietly, watching him out of her violet-gray eyes--a little curiously and shyly now, because he had moved nearer to her, and her arm, extended along the back of the seat, almost touched his shoulder.

She was considering whether or not to withdraw it when he said:

"Have you any idea what a jolly world this old planet can be when it wants to?"

She laughed.

He went on: "I mean when _you_ want it to be. Because it's really up to you."

"To _me_, my slangy friend?"

"To you, to me, to anybody, Strelsa."

This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.

"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.

"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."

"Is that a reason?"--very gravely.

"You can make it so if you will."

She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:

"You say that you always think of me--that way. But I'm afraid that, even in your thoughts, the repet.i.tion of my name has scarcely accustomed you to the use of it."

"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"

"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of, don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation----"

"Strelsa----"

"No!--please."

"When?"

She flushed, then, slightly impatient: "Do you make it a point, Mr.

Quarren?"

"Not unless you do."

"I? What do you mean?"

"Will you answer me honestly?"

"Have you ever found me dishonest?"

"Sometimes--with yourself."

Suddenly the colour surged in her cheeks and she turned her head abruptly. After a few moments' silence:

"Ask your question," she said in a calm and indifferent voice.

"Then--do you ever, by any accident, think of me?"

She foresaw at once what was coming, bit her lip, but saw no way to avoid it.

"I think of my friends--and you among them."

"Do you always think of me as 'Mr. Quarren'?"

"I--your friends--people are eternally dinning your name into my ears----"

"Please answer."

"What?" She turned toward him disdainfully: "Would it gratify you to know that I think of you as Rix, Ricky, d.i.c.k--whatever they call you?"

"Which?" he insisted, laughing. And finally she laughed, too, partly in sheer exasperation.

"Rix!" she said: "Now are you satisfied? I don't know why on earth I made such a scene about it. It's the way I think of you--when I happen to remember you. But if you fancy for a moment I am going to call you that, please awake from vain dreams, my airy friend----"