Susanne Lannis, lips slightly curling, looked after them, touching Strelsa’s elbow:
“Cyrille simply cannot let Ricky alone,” she said. “The bill-posters will find a fence for her if she doesn’t come to her senses.”
“Who?” asked Strelsa, as one or two people laughed guardedly.
“Why, Cyrille Caldera. Elle s’affiche, ma chère!”
“Mrs. Caldera!” repeated the girl, surprised.
“And Ricky! Are you blind, Strelsa? It’s been on for two weeks or more. And she’d better not play too confidently with Ricky. You can usually forecast what a wild animal will do, never how a trained one is going to behave.”
“Such scandal!” laughed Chrysos Lacy. “How many of us can afford to turn our backs to the rest of the cage even for an instant? Sir Charles, I simply don’t dare to go away. Otherwise I’d purchase several of those glittering articles yonder — whatever they are. Do you happen to know?”
“Automatic revolvers. The cartridges are charged with Japanese perfumes. Did you never see one?” he asked, turning to Strelsa. But she was not listening; and he transferred his attention to Chrysos.
Several people moved forward to examine the pretty and apparently deadly little weapons; Sir Charles was called upon to explain the Japanese game of perfumes, and everybody began to purchase the paraphernalia, pistols, cartridges, targets, and counters.
Sir Charles came back, presently, to where Strelsa still stood, listlessly examining laces.
“All kinds of poor people have blinded themselves making these pretty things,” she said, as Sir Charles came up beside her. “My only apparent usefulness is to buy them, I suppose.”
He offered her one of the automatic pistols.
“It’s loaded,” he cautioned her, solemnly.
“What an odd gift!” she said, surprised, taking it gingerly into her gloved hand. “Is it really for me? And why?”
“Are you timid about firearms?” he asked, jestingly.
“No.... I don’t know anything about them — except to keep my finger away from the trigger. I know enough to do that.”
He supposed that she also was jesting, and her fastidious handling of the weapon amused him. And when she asked him if it was safe to carry in her muff, he assured her very gravely that she might venture to do so. “Turn it loose on the first burglar,” he added, “and his regeneration will begin in all the forty-nine odours of sanctity.”
Strelsa smiled without comprehending. Cyrille Caldera was standing just beyond them, apparently interested in antique jewellery, trying the effect of various linked gems against her lilac gown, and inviting Quarren’s opinion of the results. Their backs were turned; Ricky’s blond head seemed to come unreasonably close to Cyrille’s at moments. Once Mrs. Caldera thoughtlessly laid a pretty hand on his arm as though in emphasis. Their unheard conversation was evidently amusing them.
Strelsa’s smile remained unaltered; people were coming constantly to pay their respects to her; and they lingered, attracted and amused by her unusual gaiety, charm, and wit.
Her mind seemed suddenly to have become crystal clear; her gay retorts to lively badinage, and her laughing epigrams were deliciously spontaneous. A slight exhilaration, without apparent reason, was transforming her, swiftly, into an incarnation entirely unknown even to herself.
Conscious of a wonderful mood never before experienced, perfectly aware of her unusual brilliancy and beauty, surprised and interested in the sudden revelation of powers within her still unexercised, she felt herself, for the first time in her life, in contact with things heretofore impalpable — and, in spirit, with delicate fingers, she gathered up instinctively those intangible threads with which man is guided as surely as though driven in chains of steel.
And all the while she was aware of Quarren’s boyish head bending almost too near to Cyrille Caldera’s over the trays of antique jewels; and all the while she was conscious of the transfiguration in process — that not only a new self was being evolved for her out of the débris of the old, but that the world itself was changing around her — and a new Heaven and a new earth were being born — and a new hell.
That evening she fought it out with herself with a sort of deadly intelligence. Alone in her room, seated, and facing her mirrored gaze unflinchingly, she stated her case, minutely, to herself from beginning to end; then called the only witness for the prosecution — herself — and questioned that witness without mercy.
Did she care for Quarren? Apparently. How much? A great deal. Was she in love with him? She could not answer. Wherein did he differ from other men she knew — Sir Charles, for example? She only knew that he was different. Perhaps he was nobler? No. More intelligent? No. Kinder? No. More admirable? No. More gentle, more sincere, less selfish? No. Did he, as a man, compare favorably with other men — Sir Charles for example? The comparison was not in Quarren’s favor.
Wherein, then, lay her interest in him? She could not answer. Was she perhaps sorry for him? Very. Why? Because she believed him capable of better things. Then the basis of her regard for him was founded on pity. No; because from the beginning — even before he had unmasked — she had been sensible of an interest in him different from any interest she had ever before felt for any man.
This uncompromisingly honest answer silenced her mentally for some moments; then she lifted her resolute gray eyes to the eyes of the mirrored witness:
If that is true, then the attraction was partly physical? She could not answer. Pressed for a statement she admitted that it might be that.
Then the basis of her regard for him was ignoble? She found pleasure in his intellectual attractions. But the basis had not been intellectual? No. It had been material? Yes. And she had never forgotten the light pressure of that masked Harlequin’s spangled arm around her while she desperately counted out the seconds of that magic minute forfeited to him? No; she had never forgotten. It was a sensation totally unknown to her before that moment? Yes. Had she experienced it since that time? Yes. When? When he first told her that he loved her. And afterward? Yes. When?
In the cheeks of the mirrored witness a faint fire began to burn: her own face grew pink: but she answered, looking the shadowy witness steadily in the eyes:
“When he took my hand at the door — and during — whatever happened — afterward.”
And she excused the witness and turned her back to the looking-glass.
The only witness for the defence was the accused — unless her own heart were permitted to testify. Or — and there seemed to be some slight confusion here — was Quarren on trial? Or was she herself?
This threatened to become a serious question; she strove to think clearly, to reason; but only evoked the pale, amused face of Quarren from inner and chaotic consciousness until the visualisation remained fixed, defying obliteration. And she accepted the mental spectre for the witness box.
“Ricky,” she said, “do you really love me?”
But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the smile she knew so well — so well, alas!
“Why are you unworthy?” she said again— “you who surely are equipped for a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many; and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor boy — poor boy.”
In vain she strove to visualise Sir Charles; she could not. All she could do was to mentally enumerate his qualities; and she did so, the amused face of Quarren looking on at her from out of empty space.
“Ricky, Ricky,” she said, “am I no better than that? — am I fit only for such a response? — to find the contact of your hand so wonderful? — to thrill with the consciousness of your nearness — to let my senses drift, contented merely by your touch — yielding to the charm of it — suffering even your lips’ embrace — �
��”
She shuddered slightly, drawing one hand across her eyes, then sitting straight, she faced his smiling phantom, resolute to end it now forever.
“If I am such a woman,” she said, “and you are the kind of man I know you to be — then is it time for me to fast and pray, lest I enter into temptation.... Into the one temptation I have never before known, Ricky — and which, in my complacency and pride I never dreamed that I should encounter.
“And it is coming to that!... A girl must be honest with herself or all life is only the same smiling lie. I’m ashamed to be honest, Ricky; but I must be. You are not very much of a man — otherwise I might find some reason for caring: and now there is none; and yet — I care — God knows why — or what it is in you that I care for! — But I do — I am beginning to care — and I don’t know why; I — don’t — know why — —”.
She dropped her face in her hands, sitting there bowed low over her knees. And there, hour after hour she fought it out with herself and with the amused spectre ever at her elbow — so close at moments that some unaroused nerve fell a-trembling in its sleep, threatening to awaken those quiet senses that she already feared for their unknown powers.
The season was approaching its end, still kicking now and then spasmodically, but pretty nearly done for. No particularly painful incidents marked its demise except the continued absence of Quarren from social purlieus accustomed to his gay presence and adroit executive abilities.
After several demoralised cotillions had withstood the shock of his absence, and a dozen or more functions had become temporarily disorganised because he declined to occupy himself with their success; and after a number of hostesses had filled in his place at dinner, at theatres, at week-ends, on yachts and coaches; and after an unprecedented defiance of two summonses to the hazardous presence of Mrs. Sprowl, he obeyed a third subpœna, and presented himself with an air of cheerful confidence that instantly enraged her.
The old lady lay abed with nothing more compromising than a toothache; Quarren was conducted to the inner shrine; she glared at him hideously from her pillows; and for one moment he felt seriously inclined to run.
“Where have you been?” she wheezed.
“Nowhere in particu — —”
“I know damn well you’ve been nowhere,” she burst out. “Molly Wycherly’s dance went to pieces because she was fool enough to trust things to you. Do you know who led? That great oaf, Barent Van Dyne! He led like a trick elephant, too!”
Quarren looked politely distressed.
“And there are a dozen hostesses perfectly furious with you,” continued the old lady, pounding the pillows with a fat arm— “parties of all sorts spoiled, idiocies committed, dinners either commonplace or blank failures — what the devil possesses you to behave this way?”
“I’m tired,” he said, politely.
“What!”
He smiled:
“Oh, the place suits, Mrs. Sprowl; I haven’t any complaint; and the work and wages are easy; and it’s comfortable below-stairs. But — I’m just tired.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about my employers, and I’m talking like the social upper-servant that I am — or was. I’m merely giving a respectable warning; that is the airy purport of my discourse, Mrs. Sprowl.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Yes, I think so,” he said, wearily.
“Well, then, what the devil are you saying?”
“Merely that I’ve dropped out of service to engage in trade.”
“You can’t!” she yelled, sitting up in bed so suddenly that her unquiet tooth took the opportunity to assert itself.
She clapped a pudgy hand to her cheek, squinting furiously at Quarren:
“You can’t drop out,” she shouted. “Don’t you ever want to amount to anything?”
“Yes, I do. That’s why I’m doing it.”
“Don’t act like a fool! Haven’t you any ambition?”
“That also is why,” he said pleasantly. “I am ambitious to be out of livery and see what my own kind will do to me.”
“Well, you’ll see!” she threatened— “you’ll see what we’ll do to you — —”
“You’re not my kind. I always supposed you were, but you all knew better from the day I took service with you — —”
“Ricky!”
“It is perfectly true, Mrs. Sprowl. My admittance included a livery and the perennial prerogative of amusing people. But I had no money, no family affiliations with the very amiable people who found me useful. Only, in common with them, I had the inherent taste for idleness and the genius for making it endurable to you all. So you welcomed me very warmly; and you have been very kind to me.... But, somewhere or other — in some forgotten corner of me — an odd and old-fashioned idea awoke the other day.... I think perhaps it awoke when you reminded me that to serve you was one thing and to marry among you something very different.”
“Ricky! Do you want to drive me to the yelling verge of distraction? I didn’t say or intimate or dream any such thing! You know perfectly well you’re not only with us but of us. Nobody ever imagined otherwise. But you can’t marry any girl you pick out. Sometimes she won’t; sometimes her family won’t. It’s the same everywhere. You have no money. Of course I intend that you shall eventually marry money — What the devil are you laughing at?”
“I beg your pardon — —”
“I said that you would marry well. Was that funny? I also said, once — and I repeat it now, that I have my own plans for one or two girls — Strelsa Leeds included. I merely asked you to respect my wishes in that single matter; and bang! you go off and blow up and maroon yourself and sulk until nobody knows what’s the matter with you. Don’t be a fool. Everybody likes you; every girl can’t love you — but I’ll bet many of ’em do.... Pick one out and come to me — if that’s your trouble. Go ahead and pick out what you fancy; and ten to one it will be all right, and between you and me we’ll land the little lady!”
“You’re tremendously kind — —”
“I know I am. I’m always doing kindnesses — and nobody likes me, and they’d bite my head off, every one of ’em — if they weren’t afraid it would disagree with them,” she added grimly.
Quarren rose and came over to the bedside.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Sprowl,” he said. “And — I like you — somehow — I really do.”
“The devil you do,” said the old lady.
“It’s a curious fact,” he insisted, smiling.
“Get out with you, Ricky! And I want you to come — —”
“No — please.”
“What?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I want to see some real people again. I’ve forgotten what they resemble.”
“That’s a damned insolent remark!” she gasped.
“Not meant to be. You are real enough, Heaven knows. But,” and his smile faded— “I’ve taken a month off to think it out. And, do you know, thinking being an unaccustomed luxury, I’ve enjoyed it. Imagine my delight and surprise, Mrs. Sprowl, when I discovered that my leisurely reflections resulted in the discovery that I had a mind — a real one — capable of reason and conclusions. And so when I actually came to a conclusion my joy knew no bounds — —”
“Ricky! Stop those mental athletics! Do you hear? I’ve a toothache and a backache and I can’t stand ‘em!”
Quarren was laughing now; and presently a grim concession to humour relaxed the old lady’s lips till her fat face creased.
“All right,” she said; “go and play with the ragged boy around the corner, my son. Then when you’re ready come home and get your face washed.”
“May I come occasionally to chat with you?”
“As though you’d do that if you didn’t have to!” she exclaimed incredulously.
“I think you know better.”
“No, I don’t!” she snapped. “I know men and women; that’s all
I know. And as you’re one of the two species I don’t expect anything celestial from you.... And you’d better go, now.”
She turned over on her pillow with a grunt: Quarren laughed, lifted one of her pudgy and heavily ringed hands from the coverlet, and, still smiling, touched the largest diamond with his lips.
“I think,” he said, “that you are one of the very few I really like in your funny unreal world.... You’re so humanly bad.”
“What!” she shouted, floundering to a sitting posture.
But, looking back at her from the door, he found her grinning.
CHAPTER VII
Premonitions of spring started the annual social exodus; because in the streets of Ascalon and in the busy ways of Gath spring becomes summer over night and all Philistia is smitten by the sun.
And all the meanness and shabbiness and effrontery of the monstrous city, all its civic pretence and tarnished ostentation are suddenly revealed when the summer sun blazes over Ascalon. Wherefore the daintier among the Philistines flee — idler, courtier, dangler and squire of dames — not to return until the first snow-flakes fall and the gray veil of November descends once more over the sorry sham of Ascalon.
Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and millions of them — and a real sky overhead edging far horizons.
He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester Caldera was to finance for him.
Recently, however, that suave young man had smilingly denied making any such promise to anybody; which surprised and disconcerted Quarren who had no money with which to build sewers, roads, and electric plants. And he began to realise how carelessly he had drifted into the enterprise — how carelessly he had drifted into everything and past everything for the last five years.
After a hunt for a capitalist among and outside his circle of friends and acquaintances he began to appreciate his own lunacy even more thoroughly.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 593