The Streets of Ascalon Part 47

"Won't you?"

"No."

"Some day?"

"Certainly not. Why should I? I don't want to. I don't feel like it. It would be forced, artificial--an effort--and I don't desire--wish--care----"

"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, laughing, "that's enough, you poor child!

Do you think I'd permit you to undergo the suffering necessary to the p.r.o.nunciation of my name?"

Amused yet resentful, perplexed, uncertain of this new phase of the man beside her, she leaned back, head slightly lowered; but her gray eyes were swiftly lifted every few moments to watch him. Suddenly she became acutely conscious of her extended arm where her hand now was lightly in touch with the rough cloth of his sleeve; and she checked a violent impulse to withdraw her hand. Then, once more, and after all these months, the same strange sensation pa.s.sed through her--a thrilling consciousness of his nearness.

Absolutely motionless, confused yet every instinct alert to his slightest word or movement, she sat there, gray eyes partly lowered.

He neither spoke nor moved; his pleasant glance rested absently on her, then wandered toward the quiet lake; and venturing to raise her eyes she saw him smile to himself and wondered uneasily what his moment's thought might be.

He said, still smiling: "What is it in that curious combination of individualities known as Strelsa Leeds, that rejects one composite specimen known to you as _Mister_ Quarren?"

She smiled, uncertainly:

"But I _don't_ reject you, _Mister_ Quarren."

"Oh, yes, you do. I'm sensible of an occult wall between us."

"How absurd. Of course there is a wall."

"I've got to climb over it then----"

"I don't wish you to!"

"Strelsa?"

"W-what?"

"That wall isn't a golden one, is it?"

"I--I don't know what you mean."

"I mean money," he said; and she blushed from neck to hair.

"Please don't say such things----"

"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that kind of a wall remain between us----"

"I ask you not to talk about such----"

"You _wouldn't_," he insisted, smiling. "Nor is there now any reason why such a man as I am becoming, and ultimately will be, should not tell you that he cares----"

"Please--if you please--I had rather not----"

"So," he concluded, still smiling, "the matter, as it stands, is rather plain. You don't care for me enough. I love you--I don't know how much, yet. When a girl interposes such an occult barrier and a man comes slap up against it, he's too much addled to understand exactly how seriously he is in love with the unknown on the other side."

He spoke in a friendly, almost impersonal way and, as though quite thoughtlessly, dropped his left hand over her right which lay extended along the back of the seat. And the contact seemed to paralyse every nerve in her body.

"Because," he continued, leisurely, "the unknown does lie on the other side of that barrier--your unknown self, Strelsa--undiscovered as yet by me----"

Her lips moved mechanically:

"I wrote you--_told_ you what I am."

"Oh, that?" He laughed: "That was a mood. I don't think you know yourself----"

"I do. I _am_ what I wrote you."

"Partly perhaps--partly a rather frightened girl, still quivering from a sequence of blows----"

"Remembering all the other blows that have marked almost every year of my life!--But those would not count--if I were not selfish, dishonest, and a coward."

His hand closed slightly over hers; for a moment or two the pressure left her restless, ill at ease; but she made no movement. And gradually the contact stirred something within her to vague response. A strange sense of rest subtly invaded her; and she remained silent and motionless, looking down at the still lake below.

"What _is_ the barrier?" he asked quietly.

"There is no barrier to your friendship--if you care to offer it, now that you know me."

"But I _don't_ know you. And I care for more than your friendship even after the glimpse I have had of you."

"I--care only for friendship, Mr. Quarren."

"_Could_ you ever care for more?"

"No.... I don't wish to.... There _is_ nothing higher."

"_Could_ you--if there were?"

But she remained silent, disturbed, troubled once more by the light weight of his hand over hers which seemed to be awaking again the new senses that his touch had discovered so long ago--and which had slumbered in her ever since. Was this acquiescence, this listless relaxation, this la.s.situde which was becoming almost painful--or sweet--she did not understand which--was this also a part of friendship?

Was it a part of anything intellectual, spiritual, worthy?--this deepening emotion which, no longer vague and undefined, was threatening her pulses, her even breathing--menacing the delicate nerves in her hand so that already they had begun to warn her, quivering----

She withdrew her hand, sharply, and straightened her shoulders with a little quick indrawn breath.

"I've got to tell you something," she said abruptly--scarcely knowing what she was saying.

"What, Strelsa?"

"I'm going to marry Langly Sprowl. I've said I would."

Perhaps he had expected it. For a few moments the smile on his face became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully:

"I'm going to fight for you all the same."