The Streets of Ascalon

"Shall I say it?"

"Yes. You are kind to me, always."

"Then – Ledwith, I don't know exactly how matters stand. I can only try to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do, having arrived where you have landed… And, do you know, if I were you, and if I listened to my better self, I don't think that I'd lay a finger on Langly Sprowl."

"Why?"

"For the sake of the woman who betrayed me – and who is now betrayed in turn by the man who betrayed us both."

Ledwith said through his set teeth: "Do you think I care for her? If I nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about her?"

"You are generous enough to care, Ledwith."

"I am not!" he said, hoarsely. "I don't care a damn!"

"Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares with her a coat of social whitewash?"

"I – she is only a little fool – alone to face the world now – "

"You're quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First offenders are given it by law… But even if that chance lay in his marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won't do it? Or by battering him with a dog-whip?

"It isn't really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than the social viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman who marries such a man?"

He smiled: "Because," he continued, "my viewpoint has changed. Things that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me than social absolution."

Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something indistinctly.

"Wait a moment," said Quarren, throwing aside his painter's blouse and pulling on his coat. "I'll ring up a taxi in a second!.. You mean it, Ledwith?"

The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded.

"You're on!" said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone.

While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren's sleeve and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab, whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone building composed of several old-time private residences thrown together.

"Stand by me, Quarren," he whispered brokenly – "you won't go away, will you? You wouldn't leave me to face this all – all alone. You've been kind to me. I – I can do it – I can try to do it just at this moment – if you'll stay close to me – if you'll let me keep hold of you – "

"Sure thing!" said Quarren cheerfully. "I'll stay as long as you like. Don't worry about your clothes; I'll send for plenty of linen and things for us both. You're all right, Ledwith – you've got the nerve. I – "

The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered them in.

"Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment," she said, singling out Ledwith at a glance.

Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere promised to observe to the letter.

Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:

"Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to see your house and its new owner.

    R. S. Q."

Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.

The Earl of Dankmere was light-footed and graceful when paying tribute to Terpsichore; walking-stick balanced in both hands, straw hat on the back of his head, he performed in absolute silence to the rhythm of the tune running through his head, backward, forward, sideways, airy as a ballet-maiden, then off he went into the back room with a refined kick or two at the ceiling.

And there, Jessie Vining, entering the front room unexpectedly, discovered the peer executing his art before the mirror, apparently enamoured of his own grace and agility.

When he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror he stopped very suddenly and came back to find her at her desk, laughing.

For a moment he remained red and disconcerted, but the memory of the fact that he and Miss Vining were to occupy the galleries all alone – exclusive of intrusive customers – for a day or more, assuaged a slight chagrin.

"At any rate," he said, "it is just as well that you should know me as I am, Miss Vining – with all my faults and frivolous imperfections, isn't it?"

"Why?" asked Miss Vining.

"Why – what?" repeated the Earl, confused.

"Why should I know all your imperfections?"

He thought hard for a moment, but seemed to discover no valid reason.

"You ask such odd questions," he protested. "Now where the deuce do you suppose Quarren has gone? I'll bet he's cut the traces and gone up to see those people at Witch-Hollow."

"Perhaps," she said, making a few erasures in her type-written folio and rewriting the blank spaces. Then she glanced over the top of the machine at his lordship, who, as it happened, was gazing at her with such peculiar intensity that it took him an appreciable moment to rouse himself and take his eyes elsewhere.

"When do you take your vacation?" he asked, carelessly.

"I am not going to take one."

"Oh, but you ought! You'll go stale, fade, droop – er – and all that, you know!"

"It is very kind of you to feel interested," she said, smiling, "but I don't expect to droop – er – and all that, you know."

He laughed, after a moment, and so did she – a sweet, fearless, little laugh most complimentary to his lordship if he only knew it – a pretty, frank tribute to what had become a friendship – an accord born of confidence on her part, and of several other things on the part of Lord Dankmere.

It had been of slow growth at first – imperceptibly their relations had grown from a footing of distant civility to a companionship almost cordial – but not quite; for she was still shy with him at times, and he with her; and she had her moods of unresponsive reserve, and he was moody, too, at intervals.

"You don't like me to make fun of you, do you?" she asked.

"Don't I laugh as though I like it?"

She knitted her pretty brows: "I don't quite know. You see you're a British peer – which is really a very wonderful thing – "

"Oh, come," he said: "it really is rather a wonderful thing, but you don't believe it."

"Yes, I do. I stand in awe of you. When you come into the room I seem to hear trumpets sounding in the far distance – "

"My boots squeak – "