The Streets of Ascalon. Chambers Robert William
at his own risk; now and then, when my office is successfully accomplished, I have my fee as social attorney or arbiter elegantiarum… There are, perhaps, fewer separations and divorces on account of me; fewer scandals.
"I am sometimes called into consultation, in extremis; I listen, I advise – sometimes I plan and execute; even take the initiative and interfere – as when a foolish boy at the Cataract Club, last week, locked himself into the bath-room with an automatic revolver and a case of half-drunken fright. I had to be very careful; I expected to hear that drumming fusillade at any moment.
"But I talked to him, through the keyhole: and at last he opened the door – to take a shot at me, first."
Quarren shrugged and lighted a cigarette.
"Of course," he added, "his father was only too glad to pay his debts. But boys don't always see things in their true proportions. Neither do women."
Westguard, silent, scowling, pulled at his pipe for a while, then:
"Why should you play surgeon and nurse in such a loathsome hospital?"
"Somebody must. I seem better fitted to do it than the next man."
"Yes," said Westguard with a wry face, "I fancy somebody must do unpleasant things – even among the lepers of Molokai. But I'd prefer real lepers."
"The social sort are sometimes sicker," laughed Quarren.
"I don't agree with you… By the way, it's all off between my aunt and me."
"I'm sorry, Karl – "
"I'm not! I don't want her money. She told me to go to the devil, and I said something similar. Do you know what she wants me to do?" he added angrily. "Give up writing, live on an allowance from her, and marry Chrysos Lacy! What do you think of that for a cold-blooded and impertinent proposition! We had a fearful family row," he continued with satisfaction – "my aunt bellowing so that her footmen actually fled, and I doing the cool and haughty, and letting her bellow her bally head off."
"You and she have exchanged civilities before," said Quarren, smiling.
"Yes, but this is really serious. I'm damned if I give up writing."
"Or marry Chrysos Lacy?"
"Or that, either. Do you think I want a red-headed wife? And I've never spoken a dozen words to her, either. And I'll pick out my own wife. What does my aunt think I am? I wish I were in love with somebody's parlour-maid. B'jinks! I'd marry her, just to see my aunt's expression – "
"Oh, stop your fulminations," said Quarren, laughing. "That's the way with you artistic people; you're a passionate pack of pups!"
"I'm not as passionate as my aunt!" retorted Westguard wrathfully. "Do you consider her artistic? She's a meddlesome, malicious, domineering, insolent, evil old woman, and I told her so."
Quarren managed to stifle his laughter for a moment, but his sense of the ludicrous was keen, and the scene his fancy evoked sent him off into mirth uncontrollable.
Westguard eyed him gloomily; ominous clouds poured from "The Weather-breeder."
"Perhaps it's funny," he said, "but she and I cannot stand each other, and this time it's all off for keeps. I told her if she sent me another check I'd send it back. That settles it, doesn't it?"
"You're foolish, Karl – "
"Never mind. If I can't keep myself alive in an untrammelled and self-respecting exercise of my profession – " His voice ended in a gurgling growl. Then, as though the recollections of his injuries at the hands of his aunt still stung him, he reared up in his chair:
"Chrysos Lacy," he roared, "is a sweet, innocent girl – not a bale of fashionable merchandise! Besides," he added in a modified tone, "I was rather taken by – by Mrs. Leeds."
Quarren slowly raised his eyes.
"I was," insisted Westguard sulkily; "and I proved myself an ass by saying so to my aunt. Why in Heaven's name I was idiot enough to go and tell her, I don't know. Perhaps I had a vague idea that she would be so delighted that she'd give me several tons of helpful advice."
"Did she?"
"Did she! She came back at me with Chrysos Lacy, I tell you! And when I merely smiled and attempted to waive away the suggestion, she flew into a passion, called me down, cursed me out – you know her language isn't always in good taste – and then she ordered me to keep away from Mrs. Leeds – as though I ever hung around any woman's skirts! I'm no Squire of Dames. I tell you, Rix, I was mad clear through. So I told her that I'd marry Mrs. Leeds the first chance I got – "
"Don't talk about her that way," remonstrated Quarren pleasantly.
"About who? My aunt?"
"I didn't mean your aunt?"
"Oh. About Mrs. Leeds. Why not? She's the most attractive woman I ever met – "
"Very well. But don't talk about marrying her – as though you had merely to suggest it to her. You know, after all, Mrs. Leeds may have ideas of her own."
"Probably she has," admitted Westguard, sulkily. "I don't imagine she'd care for a man of my sort. Why do you suppose she went off on that cruise with Langly Sprowl?"
Quarren said, gravely: "I have no idea what reasons Mrs. Leeds has for doing anything."
"You correspond."
"Who said so?"
"My aunt."
Quarren flushed up, but said nothing.
Westguard, oblivious of his annoyance, and enveloped in a spreading cloud of tobacco, went on:
"Of course if you don't know, I don't. But, by the same token, my aunt was in a towering rage when she heard that Langly had Mrs. Leeds aboard the Yulan."
"What!" said the other, sharply.
"She swore like a trooper, and called Langly all kinds of impolite names. Said she'd trim him if he ever tried any of his tricks around Mrs. Leeds – "
"What tricks? What does she mean by tricks?"
"Oh, I suppose she meant any of his blackguardly philandering. There isn't a woman living on whom he is afraid to try his hatchet-faced blandishments."
Quarren dropped back into the depths of his arm-chair. Presently his rigid muscles relaxed. He said coolly:
"I don't think Langly Sprowl is likely to misunderstand Mrs. Leeds."
"That depends," said Westguard. "He's a rotten specimen, even if he is my cousin. And he knows I think so."
A few minutes later O'Hara sauntered in. He had been riding in the Park and his boots and spurs were shockingly muddy.
"Who is this Sir Charles Mallison, anyway?" he asked, using the decanter and then squirting his glass full of carbonic. "Is it true that he's goin' to marry that charmin' Mrs. Leeds? I'll break his bally Sassenach head for him! I'll – "
"The rumour was contradicted in this morning's paper," said Quarren coldly.
O'Hara drank pensively: "I see that Langly Sprowl is messin' about, too. Mrs. Ledwith had better hurry up out there in Reno – or wherever she's gettin' her divorce. I saw Chet Ledwith ridin' in the Park. Dankmere was with him. Funny he doesn't seem to lose any caste by sellin' his wife to Sprowl."
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