The Streets of Ascalon

"No, I won't. Because if you cared enough for me you wouldn't let that kind of a wall remain between us – "

"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."