The Streets of Ascalon Part 88

Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere promised to observe to the letter.

Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:

"Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to see your house and its new owner.

R. S. Q."

Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the bas.e.m.e.nt where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.

The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful when paying tribute to Terpsich.o.r.e; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick or two at the ceiling.

And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly, discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently enamoured of his own grace and agility.

When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly and came back to find her at her desk, laughing.

For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all alone--exclusive of intrusive customers--for a day or more, a.s.suaged a slight chagrin.

"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I am, Miss Vining--with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't it?"

"Why?" asked Miss Vining.

"Why--what?" repeated the Earl, confused.

"Why _should_ I know all your imperfections?"

He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason.

"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to see those people at Witch-Hollow."

"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and rewriting the blank s.p.a.ces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such peculiar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse himself and take his eyes elsewhere.

"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly.

"I am not going to take one."

"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop--er--and all that, you know!"

"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I don't expect to droop--er--and all that, you know."

He laughed, after a moment, and so did she--a sweet, fearless, little laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it--a pretty, frank tribute to what had become a friendship--an accord born of confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord Dankmere.

It had been of slow growth at first--imperceptibly their relations had grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost cordial--but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was moody, too, at intervals.

"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked.

"Don't I laugh as though I like it?"

She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a British peer--which is really a very wonderful thing----"

"Oh, come," he said: "it really _is_ rather a wonderful thing, but you don't believe it."

"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to hear trumpets sounding in the far distance----"

"My boots squeak----"

"Nonsense! I _do_ hear a sort of a fairy fanfare playing 'Hail to the Belted Earl!'"

"I wear braces----"

"How common of you to distort my meaning! I don't care, you may do as you like--dance break-downs and hammer the piano, but to me you will ever remain a British peer--poor but n.o.ble----"

"Wait until we hear from that Van Dyck! You can't call me poor then!"

She laughed, then, looking at him earnestly, involuntarily clasped her hands.

"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," she breathed with a happy, satisfied sigh.

"Are you really very happy about it, Miss Vining?"

"I? Why shouldn't I be!" she said indignantly. "I'm so proud that our gallery has such a picture. I'm so proud of Mr. Quarren for discovering it--and--" she laughed--"I'm proud of you for possessing it. You see I am very impartial; I'm proud of the gallery, of everybody connected with it including myself. Shouldn't I be?"

"We are three very perfect people," he said gravely.

"Do you know that we really are? Mr. Quarren is wonderful, and you are--agreeable, and as for me, why when I rise in the morning and look into the gla.s.s I say to myself, 'Who is that rather clever-looking girl who smiles at me every morning in such friendly fashion?' And, would you believe it!--she turns out to be Jessie Vining every time!"

She was in a gay mood; she rattled away at her machine, glancing over it mischievously at him from time to time. He, having nothing to do except to look at her, did so as often as he dared.

And so they kept the light conversational shuttle-c.o.c.k flying through the sunny afternoon until it drew near to tea-time. Jessie said very seriously:

"No Englishman can exist without tea. Tea is as essential to him as it is to British fiction. A microscopic examination of any novel made by a British subject will show traces of tea-leaves and curates although, as the text-books on chemistry have it, otherwise the substance of the work may be colourless, tasteless, odourless, and gaseous to the verge of the fourth dimension----"

"If you don't cease making game of things British and sacred," he threatened, "I'll try to stop you in a way that will astonish you."

"What will you try to do?" she asked, much interested.

He looked her steadily in the eyes:

"I'll try to turn you into a British subject. One can't slam one's own country."

"How could you turn me into such an object, Lord Dankmere?"

"There's only one way."

Innocent for a few moments of his meaning she smilingly and derisively defied him. Then, of a sudden, startled into immobility, the smile froze on her lips.

At the swift change in her expression his own features were slowly and not unbecomingly suffused.