“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 lassitude 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.”
“What!” she exclaimed, crisply.
“Fight hard, too,” he added. “I’m on my mettle at last.”
“You have no chance, Mr. Quarren.”
“With — him?” He shrugged his contempt. “I don’t consider him at all — —”
“I don’t care to hear you speak that way!” she said, hotly.
“Oh, I won’t. A man’s an ass to vilify his rival. But I wasn’t even thinking of him, Strelsa. My fight is with you — with your unknown self behind that barrier. Garde à vous!”
“I decline the combat, Monsieur,” she said, trying to speak lightly.
“Oh, I’m not afraid of you — the visible you that I’m looking at and which I know something about. That incarnation of Strelsa Leeds will fight me openly, fairly — and I have an even chance to win — —”
“Do you think so?” she said, lip between her teeth.
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“I do.... But it’s your unknown self I’m afraid of, Strelsa. God alone knows what it may do to both of us.”
“There is no other self! What do you mean?”
“There are two others — not this intellectual, friendly, kindly, visible self that offers friendship and accepts it — not even the occult, aloof, spiritual self that I sometimes see brooding in your gray eyes — —”
“There is no other!” she said, flushing and rising to her feet.
“Is it dead?”
“It never lived!”
“Then,” he said coolly, “it will be born as sure as I stand here! — born to complete the trinity.” He glanced out over the lake, then swung around sharply: “You are wrong. It has been born. And that unknown self is hostile to me; and I know it!”
They walked toward the house together, silent for a while. Then she said: “I think we have talked some nonsense. Don’t you?”
“You haven’t.”
“You’re a generous boy; do you know it?”
“You say so.”
“Oh, I’ll cheerfully admit it. If you weren’t you’d detest me — perhaps despise me.”
“Men don’t detest or despise a hurt and frightened child.”
“But a selfish and cowardly woman? What does a man of your sort think of her?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever you are I can’t help loving you.”
She strove to laugh but her mouth suddenly became tremulous. After a while when she could control her lips she said:
“I want to talk some more to you — and I don’t know how; I don’t even know what I want to say except that — that — —”
“What, Strelsa?”
“Please be — kind to me.” She smiled at him, but her lips still quivered.
He said after a moment: “I couldn’t be anything else.”
“Are you very sure?”
“Yes.”
“It means a great deal to me,” she said.
They reached the house, but the motor party had not yet returned. Tea was served to them on the veranda; the fat setter came and begged for tastes of things that were certain to add to his obesity; and he got them in chunks and bolted them, wagging.
An hour later the telephone rang; it was Molly on the wire and she wanted to speak to Quarren. He could hear her laughing before she spoke:
“Ricky dear?”
“Yes.”
“Am I an angel or otherwise?”
“Angel always — but why particularly at this instant?”
“Stupid! Haven’t you had her alone all the after-noon?”
“Yes — you corker!”
“Well, then!”
“Molly, I worship you.”
“Et après?”
“I’ll double that! I adore you also!”
“Content! What are you two doing?”
“Strelsa and I have been taking tea.”
“Oh, is it ‘Strelsa’ already?”
“Very unwillingly on her part.”
“It isn’t ‘Ricky,’ too, is it?”
“Alas! not yet!”
“No matter. The child is horribly lonely and depressed. What do you think I’ve done, very cleverly?”
“What?”
“Flattered Jim and his driving until I induced him to take us all the way to North Linden. We can’t possibly get back until dinner. But that’s not all.”
“What more, most wonderful of women?”
“I’ve got him with us,” she said with satisfaction. “I made Jim stop and p
ick him up. I knew he was planning to drop in on Strelsa. And I made it such a personal matter that he should come with us to see some fool horses at Acremont that he couldn’t wriggle out of it particularly as Strelsa is my guest and he’s rather wary of offending me. Now, Ricky, make the best of your time because the beast is dining with us. I couldn’t avoid asking him.”
“Very well,” said Quarren grimly.
He went back to the veranda where Strelsa sat behind the tea-table in her frail pink gown looking distractingly pretty and demure.
“What had Molly to say to you all that time?” she asked.
“Was I long away?”
“Yes, you were!”
“I’m delighted you found the time too long — —”
“I did not say so! If you think it was short I shall warn Jim Wycherly how time flies with you and Molly.... Oh, dear! Is that a mosquito?”
“I’m afraid it is,” said Quarren.
“Then indoors I go!” exclaimed Strelsa indignantly. “You may come with me or remain out here and be slowly assassinated.”
And she went in, rather hastily, calling to him to close the screen door.
Quarren glanced around the deserted drawing-room. Through the bay-window late afternoon sunlight poured flooding the room with a ruddy glory.
“I wonder if there’s enough of this celestial radiance to make a new aureole for you?” he said.
“So my old one is worn out, is it?”
“I meant to offer you a double halo.”
“You do say sweet things — for a rather obstinate young man,” she said, flashing a laughing side glance at him. Then she walked slowly through the sunshine into the dimmer music-room, and found a seat at the piano. Her mood changed; she became gay, capricious, even a trifle imperative:
“Please lean on the piano.” He did so, inquiringly.
“Otherwise,” she said, “you’d have attempted to seat yourself on this bench; and there isn’t room for both of us without crowding.”
“If you moved a little — —”
“But I won’t,” she said serenely, and dropped her slim hands on the key-board.
She sang one or two modern songs, and he took second part in a pleasant, careless, but acceptable barytone.
“The old ones are the best,” she commented, running lightly through a medley ranging from “The Mikado” to “Erminie,” the “Black Hussar,” and “The Mascotte.” They sang the “gobble duet” from the latter fairly well:
“‘The old ones are best.’ she commented.”
She.
“When on your manly form I gaze
A sense of pleasure passes o’er me”;
He.
“The murmured music of your voice
Is sweeter far than liquid honey!”
And so on through the bleating of his sheep and the gobbling of her turkeys until they could scarcely sing for laughing.
Then the mood of the absurd seized her; and she made him sing “Johnny Schmoker” with her until they could scarcely draw breath for the eternal refrain:
“Kanst du spielen?”
and the interminable list of musical instruments so easily mastered by that Teutonic musician.
“I want to sing you a section of one of those imbecile, colourless, pastel-tinted and very precious Debussy things,” she exclaimed; and did so, wandering and meandering on and on through meaningless mazes of sound until he begged for mercy and even had to stay her hands on the key-board with his own.
She stopped then, pretending disappointment and surprise.
“Very well,” she said; “you’ll have to match my performance with something equally imbecile”; and she composed herself to listen.
“What shall I do that is sufficiently imbecile?” he asked gravely; “turn seven solemn handsprings?”
“That isn’t silly enough. Roll over on the rug and play dead.”
He prepared to do so but she wouldn’t permit him:
“No! I don’t want to remember you doing such a thing.... All the same I believe you could do it and not lose — lose — —”
“Dignity?”
“No — I don’t know what I mean. Come, Mr. Quarren; I am waiting for you to do something silly.”
“Shall I say it or do it?”
“Either.”
“Then I’ll recite something very, very precious — subtly, intricately, and psychologically precious.”
“Oh, please do!”
“It’s — it’s about a lover.”
She blushed.
“Do you mind?”
“You are the limit! Of course I don’t!”
“It’s about a lady, too.”
“Naturally.”
“And love — rash, precipitate, unwarranted, unrequited, and fatal love.”
“I can stand it if you can,” she said with the faintest glimmer of malice in her smile.
“All right. The title is: ‘Oh, Love! Oh, Why?’”
“A perfectly good title,” she said gravely. “I alway says ‘why?’ to Love.”
So he bowed to her and began very seriously:
“Oh, Lover in haste, beware of Fate! Wait for a moment while I relate A harrowing tragedy up to date Of innate Hate.
“A maiden rocked on her rocking-chair; Her store-curls stirred in the summer air; An amorous Fly espied her there, So rare and fair.
“Before she knew where she was at, He’d kissed the maiden where she sat, And she batted him one which slapped him flat Ker-spat! Like that!
“Oh, Life! Oh, Death! Oh, swat-in-the-eye! Beyond the Bournes of the By-and-By, Spattered the soul of that amorous Fly. Oh, Love! Oh, Why?”
She pretended to be overcome by the tragic pathos of the poem:
“I cannot bear it,” she protested; “I can’t endure the realism of that spattered soul. Why not let her wave him away and have him plunge headlong onto a sheet of fly-paper and die a buzzing martyr?”
Then, swift as a weather-vane swinging from north to south her mood changed once more and softened; and her fingers again began idling among the keys, striking vague harmonies.
He came across the room and stood looking down over her shoulder; and after a moment her hands ceased stirring, fell inert on the keys.
A single red shaft of light slanted on the wall. It faded out to pink, lingered; and then the gray evening shadows covered it. The world outside was very still; the room was stiller, save for her heart, which only she could hear, rapid, persistent, beating the reveille.
She heard it and sat motionless; every nerve in her was sounding the alarm; every breath repeated the prophecy; and she did not stir, even when his arm encircled her. Her head, fallen partly back, rested a moment against his shoulder: she met his light caress with unresponsive lips and eyes that looked up blindly into his.
Then her face burned scarlet and she sprang up, retreating as he caught her slender hand:
“No! — please. Let me go! This is too serious — even if we did not mean it — —”
“You know I mean it,” he said simply.
“You must not! You understand why!... And don’t — again! I am not — I do not choose to — to allow — endure — such — things — —”
He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.
“Please!” she repeated — and “please!” And she came toward him a step, and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.
“Won’t you be kind to me?” she said under her breath. “Be kind to me — and let me go.”
“Am I unkind?”
“Yes — yes! You know — you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I am going anyhow!” she added fiercely; “you can’t check me — not for one moment!”
“Check you from what, Strelsa?”
“From — what I want out of life! — tranquillity, ease, security, happiness — —”
“Happiness?”
“Yes — yes!
It will be that! I don’t need anything except what I shall have. I don’t want anything else. Can’t you understand? Do you think women feel as — as men do? Do you think the kind of love that men experience is also experienced by women? I don’t want it; I don’t require it! I’ve — I’ve always had a contempt for it — and I have still.... Anyway I have offered you the best that is in me to offer any man — friendship. That is the nearest I can come to love. Why can’t you take it — and let me alone! What is it to you if I marry and find security and comfort and quiet and protection, as long as I give you my friendship — as long as I never swerve in it — as long as I hold you first among my friends — first among men if you wish! More I cannot offer you — I will not! Now let me go!”
“Your other self, fighting me,” he said, half to himself.
“No, I am! What do you mean by my other self! There is no other — —”
“Its lips rested on mine for a moment!”
She blushed scarlet:
“Is that what you mean! — the stupid, unworthy, material self — —”
“The trinity is incomplete without it.”
She wrenched her hand free, and stood staring at him breathing unevenly as though frightened.
After a moment he began to pace the floor, hands dropped into his coat pockets, his teeth worrying his under lip:
“I’m not going to give you up,” he said. “I love you. Whatever is lacking in you makes no difference to me. My being poor and your being poor makes no difference either. I simply don’t care — I don’t even care what you think about it. Because I know that we will be worth it to each other — whether you think so or not. And you evidently don’t, but I can’t help that. If I’m any good I’ll make you think as I do — —”
He swung on his heel and came straight up to her, took her in his arms and kissed her, then, releasing her, turned toward the window, his brows slightly knitted.
Through the panes poured the sunset flood, bathing him from head to foot in ruddy light. He stared into the red West and the muscles tightened under his cheeks.
“Can’t you care?” he said, half to himself.
She stood dumb, still cold and rigid with repulsion from the swift and almost brutal contact. That time nothing in her had responded. Vaguely she felt that what had been there was now dead — that she never could respond again; that, from the lesser emotions, she was clean and free forever.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 599