The Streets of Ascalon Part 68

"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."

"Am I to take that impudence literally?"

"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."

"Why can't you speak of Langly?"

"Because what concerns him does not concern me."

"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly.

"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?"

"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a d.a.m.n sight worse! I'd--I'd rather see her your wife than his!--and G.o.d knows _what_ he wants of her at that--as Mary Ledwith has first call or the world will turn Langly out of doors!"

Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence.

"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done to her and her husband."

"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance against it."

"You watch and see! Some things are _too_ rotten to be endured----"

"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't concern me."

"Don't you care for that girl?"

"We are friends."

"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"--she added with an abrupt change of feeling--"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you are impertinent to me--and you know I do! But I--my heart is set on her marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more suitable?--happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where Langly is a--a toad, a cold-blooded worm!--a--a thing!

"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I think of nothing else, care for nothing else----"

"Why?"

"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard.

"Why do you care for it so much?"

"Why? That is an absurd question."

"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the real one."

"Ricky, you insolent----"

"Never mind. Answer me; _why_ are you so absorbed in this marriage?"

She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both."

"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on your part?"

"That--and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly.

"Just those three reasons?"

"Certainly. Just those three."

He shook his head.

"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded.

"I am compelled to--knowing that never in all your life have you made the slightest effort in behalf of friendship--never inconvenienced yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth."

She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh; but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though pain had cut mirth short.

"What is the matter?" he said.

"Nothing.... _You_ are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to read us and remain unread. G.o.d! If only some of us could see what we look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it _is_ a friendly pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?"

"Yes."

"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were the receptacle for many--Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty, miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you something."

She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he placed his chair beside hers.

"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?"

"Yes."

"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at the time."

"I know."

"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know these things, Rix?"

"No," he said.

"Then you know them now."

"Yes, I--" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her features.

"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated--a voice so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was she who had spoken.

"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix.

In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship--the friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son."

Quarren looked at her in silence.

"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life and youth began early for me--and lasted a little more than a year--and then they both burnt out in my heart--leaving the rest of me alive--this dross!--" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and sat thinking for a while.