The Streets of Ascalon. Chambers Robert William
a great many well-meaning people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of fashionable banter.
"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles you'll forget Ricky."
"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl, why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy."
"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are pretty."
"I have enough – almost – "
"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!" laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa – you'll need them."
"You are mistaken. I have enough. I'd like to be happy for a while."
The naïve inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of the past which had unconsciously evoked it.
After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in, one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in kennel parlance.
To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed loud and long.
"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby agape. But your man of the world has other tastes."
"Jaded tastes," said somebody.
"Maybe they're jaded and vicious – but they're his. And maybe that girl has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But it's the last shriek among people who know."
"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French sculptor who did the Merode?"
"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else.
"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds needs padding – to suit my notions."
"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl will be scandalous when she fills out a little more… If she only had the wits to match what she is going to be! – But there's a streak of something silly in her – I suspect latent sentiment – which is likely to finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels for Ricky, now! – a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky."
"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing.
"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind about Strelsa Leeds, and" – she glared around her, fanning vigorously – "I think nobody is likely to interfere."
That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid down the law of limits to him so decisively that, taken aback, astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment.
When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned.
But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders.
When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her.
He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing sponsor for Mrs. Leeds – "
"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?"
He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at Strelsa.
Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals.
"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass.
"What?" he asked sullenly.
"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix – and also amass a little common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to start things for her. Which I shan't – in that direction."
"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with an unpleasant laugh.
Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically.
"I understand the Earl of Dankmere, perfectly," she said – "also other people, including young, and sulky boys. So if you clearly understand my wishes, and the girl doesn't make a fool of herself over you or any other callow ineligible, her future will give me something agreeable to occupy me."
The blood stung his face as he stood up – a tall graceful figure among the others in the box – a clean-cut, wholesome boy to all appearances, with that easy and amiable presence which is not distinction but which sometimes is even more agreeable.
Lips compressed, the flush still hot on his face, he stood silent, tasting all the bitterness that his career had stored up for him – sick with contempt for a self that could accept and swallow such things. For he had been well schooled, but scarcely to that contemptible point.
"Of course," he said, pleasantly, "you understand that I shall do as I please."
Mrs. Sprowl laughed:
"I'll see to that, too, Ricky."
Chrysos Lacy leaned forward and began to talk to him, and his training reacted mechanically, for he seemed at once to become his gay and engaging self.
He did not return to the Vernons' box nor did he see Strelsa again before she went South.
The next night a note was delivered to him, written from the Wycherlys' car, "Wind-Flower."
"My dear Mr. Quarren:
"Why did you not come back to say good-bye? You spoke of doing so. I'm afraid Chrysos Lacy is responsible.
"The dance at the Van Dynes was very jolly. I am exceedingly sorry you were not there. Thank you for the flowers and bon-bons that were delivered to me in my state-room. My violets are not yet entirely faded, so they have not yet joined your gardenia in the limbo of useless things.
"Mr. Westguard came to the train. He is nice.
"Mr. O'Hara and Chrysos and Jack Lacy were there, so in spite of your conspicuous absence the Legation maintained its gay reputation and covered itself with immortal blarney.
"This letter was started as a note to thank you for your gifts, but it is becoming a serial as Molly and Jim and I sit here watching the North Carolina landscape fly past our windows like streaks of brown lightened only by the occasional delicious and sunny green of some long-leafed pine.
"There's nothing to see from horizon to horizon except the monotonous repetition of mules and niggers and evil-looking cypress swamps and a few razor-backs and a buzzard flying very high in the blue.
"Thank you again for my flowers… I wonder if you understand that my instinct is to be friends with you?
"It was from the very beginning.
"And please don't be absurd enough to think that I am going to forget you – or our jolly escapade at the Wycherly ball. You behaved very handsomely once. I know I can count on your kindness to me.
"Good-bye, and many many thanks – as Jack Lacy says – 'f'r the manny booggy-rides, an' th' goom-candy, an' the boonches av malagy grrapes'!
That same day Sir Charles Mallison arrived in New York and went directly to Mrs. Sprowl's house. Their interview