The Streets of Ascalon Part 62

"Is that Salome, mister?" he inquired with a leer.

De Groot looked at the canvas, slightly startled.

"No, my dear friend; that is a picture painted hundreds of years ago by a great Italian master. It is called 'Danae.' Jupiter, you know, came to her in a shower of gold----"

"They all have to come across with it," remarked the Mink.

Somebody observed that if the police caught the dago who painted it they'd pinch him.

To make a diversion, and with her own fair hands, Cyrille Caldera summoned the derelicts to sandwiches and ginger-ale; and De Groot, dashing more unmanly moisture from his monocle, went about resolutely shaking hands, while Westguard and the hirsute young man sang "Comrades"

with much feeling.

Quarren, still unrecognised, edged his way out and rejoined Dankmere on the front stoop. Neither made any comment on the proceedings.

Later the derelicts, moodily replete, shuffled forth into the night, herded lovingly by De Groot, still shaking hands.

From the corner of the street opposite, Quarren and Dankmere observed their departure, and, later, they beheld De Groot and Mrs. Caldera slip around the block and discreetly disappear into a 1912 touring-car with silver mountings and two men in livery on the box.

Westguard, truer to his principles, took a tram and Quarren and the Earl returned to their gallery with mixed emotions, and opened every window top and bottom.

"It's all right in its way, I suppose," said Quarren. "Probably De Groot means well, but there's no conversation possible between a man who has just dined rather heavily, and a man who has no chance of dining at all."

"Like preaching Christ to the poor from a Fifth Avenue pulpit," said Dankmere, vaguely.

"How do you mean?"

"A church on a side street would seem to serve the purpose. And the poor need the difference."

"I don't know about those matters."

"No; I don't either. It's easy, cheap, and popular to knock the clergy.... Still, somehow or other, I can't seem to forget that the disciples were poor--and it bothers me a lot, Quarren."

Quarren said: "Haven't you and I enough to worry us concerning our own morals?"

Dankmere, who had been closing up and piling together the Undertaker's camp-chairs, looked around at the younger man.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said that probably you and I would find no time left to criticise either De Groot or the clergy, if we used our leisure in self-examination."

His lordship went on piling up chairs. When he finished he started wandering around, hands in his pockets. Then he turned out all the electric lamps, drew the bay-window curtains wide so that the silvery radiance from the arc-light opposite made the darkness dimly l.u.s.trous.

A little breeze stirred the hair on Quarren's forehead; Dankmere dropped into the depths of an armchair near him. For a while they sat together in darkness and silence, then the Englishman said abruptly:

"You've been very kind to me."

Quarren glanced up surprised.

"Why not?"

"Because n.o.body else has any decent words to say to me or of me."

Quarren, amused, said: "How do you know that I have, Dankmere?"

"A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an a.s.s--they don't tell me so but I know it. And if they don't take me for an a.s.s they a.s.sume that I'm something worse--because I have a t.i.tle of sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a living out of it."

"Also," Quarren reminded him, "you are looking for a wealthy wife."

"G.o.d bless my soul! Am I the only chap in America who happens to be doing that?"

"No; but you're doing it conspicuously."

"You mean I'm honest about it?"

Quarren laughed: "Anyway perhaps that's one reason why I like you. At first I also thought it was merely stupidity."

Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe:

"The majority of your better people have managed not to know me. I've met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home thresholds--most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?"

"Both, Dankmere--and then some."

"Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was my first wife they shy at."

Quarren remained silent.

"She was a bar-maid," remarked the Earl. "We were quite happy--until she died."

Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension.

"Of course my marrying her d.a.m.ned us both," observed the Earl.

"Of course."

"Quite so. People would have stood for anything else.... But she wouldn't--you may think it odd.... And I was in love--so there you are."

For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put on his hat.

"You know," he said, "I'm not really an a.s.s. My tastes and my caste don't happen to coincide--that's all, Quarren."

They walked together to the front stoop.

"When do we open shop?" asked the Earl, briskly.

"As soon as I get the reports from our experts."

"Won't business be dead all summer?"

"We may do some business with agents and dealers."