The Streets of Ascalon. Chambers Robert William

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СКАЧАТЬ bills, notes, invitations, advertisements were scattered over the bedclothes as she lay there, thinking over the pleasures and excitement of last night's folly – thinking of Quarren, among others, and of the swift intimacy that had sprung up between them – like a witch-flower over night – thinking of her imprudence, and of the cold displeasure of Barent Van Dyne who, toward daylight, had found her almost nose to nose with Quarren, absorbed in exchanging with that young man ideas and perfectly futile notions about everything on top, inside, and underneath the habitable globe.

      She blushed as she remembered her flimsy excuses to Van Dyne – she had the grace to blush over that memory – and how any of the dignity incident to the occasion had been all Van Dyne's – and how, as she took his irreproachable arm and parted ceremoniously with Quarren, she had imprudently extended her hand behind her as her escort bore her away – a childish impulse – the innocent coquetry of a village belle – she flushed again at the recollection – and at the memory of Quarren's lips on her finger-tips – and how her hand had closed on the gardenia he pressed into it —

      She turned her head on the pillow; the flower she had taken from him lay beside her on her night table, limp, discoloured, malodorous; and she picked it up, daintily, and flung it into the fireplace.

      At the same moment the telephone rang downstairs in the library. Presently her maid knocked, announcing Mr. Quarren on the wire.

      "I'm not at home," said Strelsa, surprised, or rather trying to feel a certain astonishment. What really surprised her was that she felt none.

      Her maid was already closing the door behind her when Strelsa said:

      "Wait a moment, Freda." And, after thinking, she smiled to herself and added: "You may set my transmitter on the table beside me, and hang up the receiver in the library… Be sure to hang it up at once."

      Then, sitting up in bed, she unhooked the receiver and set it to her ear.

      "Mr. Quarren," she began coldly, and without preliminary amenities, "have you any possible excuse for awaking me at such an unearthly hour as mid-day?"

      "Good Lord," he exclaimed contritely, "did I do that?"

      She had no more passion for the exact truth than the average woman, and she quibbled:

      "Do you think I would say so if it were not true?" she demanded.

      "No, of course not – "

      "Well, then!" An indignant pause. "But," she added honestly, "I was not exactly what you might call asleep, although it practically amounts to the same thing. I was reposing… Are you feeling quite fit this morning?" she added demurely.

      "I'd be all right if I could see you – "

      "You can't! What an idea!"

      "Why not? What are you going to do?"

      "There's no particular reason why I should detail my daily duties, obligations, and engagements to you; is there? – But I'm an unusually kind-hearted person, and not easily offended by people's inquisitiveness. So I'll overlook your bad manners. First, then, I am lunching at the Province Club, then I am going to a matinée at the Casino, afterward dropping in for tea at the Sprowls, dining at the Calderas, going to the Opera with the Vernons, and afterward, with them, to a dance at the Van Dynes… So, will you kindly inform me where you enter the scene?"

      She could hear him laugh over the telephone.

      "What are you doing just now?" he asked.

      "I am seated upon my innocent nocturnal couch, draped in exceedingly intimate attire, conversing over the telephone with the original Paul Pry."

      "Could anything induce you to array yourself more conventionally, receive me, and let me take you to your luncheon at the Province Club?"

      "But I don't wish to see you."

      "Is that perfectly true?"

      "Perfectly. I've just thrown your gardenia into the fireplace. Doesn't that prove it?"

      "Oh, no. Because it's too early, yet, for either of us to treasure such things – "

      "What horrid impertinence!"

      "Isn't it! But your heavenly gift of humour will transform my impudence into a harmless and diverting sincerity. Please let me see you, Mrs. Leeds – just for a few moments."

      "Why?"

      "Because you are going South and there are three restless weeks ahead of me – "

      This time he could hear her clear, far laughter:

      "What has my going to Florida to do with your restlessness?"

      "Your very question irrevocably links cause and effect – "

      "Don't be absurd, Mr. Quarren!"

      "Absurdity is the badge of all our Guild – "

      "What Guild do you belong to?"

      "The associated order of ardent suitors – "

      "Mr. Quarren! You are becoming ridiculous; do you know it?"

      "No, I don't realise it, but they say all the rest of the world considers suitors ridiculous – "

      "Do you expect me to listen to such nonsense at such an hour in the morning?"

      "It's half past twelve; and my weak solution of nonsense is suitable to the time of day – "

      "Am I to understand that the solution becomes stronger as the day advances?"

      "Exactly; the solution becomes so concentrated and powerful that traces of common-sense begin to appear – "

      "I didn't notice any last night."

      "Van Dyne interfered."

      "Poor Mr. Van Dyne. If you'd been civil to him he might have asked you to the dance to-night – if I had suggested it. But you were horridly rude."

      "I? Rude?"

      "You're not going to be rude enough to say it was I who behaved badly to him, are you? Oh, the shocking vanity of man! No doubt you are thinking that it was I who, serpent-like, whispered temptation into your innocent ear, and drew you away into a corner, and shoved palms in front of us, and brought silver and fine linen, and rare fruits and sparkling wines; and paid shameless court with an intelligent weather-eye always on the watch for a flouted and justly indignant cavalier!"

      "Yes," he said, "you did all those things. And now you're trying to evade the results."

      "What are the results?"

      "A partly demented young man clamouring to see you at high-noon while the cold cruel cause of his lunacy looks on and laughs."

      "I'm afraid that young man must continue to clamour," she said, immensely amused at the picture he drew. "How far away is he at this moment?"

      "In the Legation, a blithering wreck."

      "Why not in his office frantically immersed in vast business enterprises and cataclysmic speculations?"

      "I'm rather afraid СКАЧАТЬ