Avoiding a big house amid brand-new and very showy landscape effects he turned aside into a pretty strip of woods; and presently came to a little foot-bridge over a stream.

  A man sat there, reading, and as Quarren passed, he looked up.

  “Is that you, Quarren?” he said.

  The young fellow stopped and looked down curiously at the sunken, unhealthy face, then, shocked, came forward hastily and shook hands.

  “Why, Ledwith,” he said, “what are you doing here? — Oh, I forgot; you live here, don’t you?”

  “That’s my house yonder — or was,” said the man with a slight motion of his head. And, after a moment: “You didn’t recognise me. Have I changed much?”

  Quarren said: “You seem to have been — ill.”

  “Yes; I have been. I’m ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few minutes — unless you are going somewhere in particular — or don’t care to talk to me — —”

  “Thank you.” Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be gentle — even with such a man.

  “I haven’t seen much of you, for a couple of years — I haven’t seen much of anybody,” said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren:

  “You are stopping with — —”

  “The Wycherlys.”

  “Oh, yes.... I haven’t seen them lately.... They are neighbours” — he waved his sickly coloured hand— “but I’m rather quiet — I read a good deal — as you see.” — He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually.

  “It’s a pretty country,” said Quarren.

  “Yes — I thought so once. I built that house.... There’s no use in my keeping up social duties,” he said with another slinking glance at Quarren. “So I’m giving up the house.”

  “Really.”

  “Hasn’t — you have heard so, haven’t you?”

  He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and continuously as he jerked about in his seat.

  “I suppose,” he said slyly, “people talk about me, Quarren.”

  “Do you know anybody immune to gossip?” inquired Quarren, smiling.

  “No; that’s true. But I don’t care anything for people.... I read, I have my horses and dogs — but I’m going to move away. I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “I believe you did.”

  Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance:

  “There’s no use pretending to you, Quarren; is there?”

  Quarren said nothing.

  “You know all the gossip — all the dirty little faits divers of your world. And you’re a sort of doctor and confidential — —”

  “You’re mistaken, Ledwith,” he said pleasantly. “I’m done with it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Why, that I’ve gone into a better business and I’m too busy to be useful and amusing any longer.”

  Ledwith’s dead eyes stared:

  “I heard you had dropped out — were never seen about. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Found the game too rotten?”

  “Oh, no. It’s no different from any other game — a mixture of the same old good and bad, with good predominating. But there’s more to be had out of life in other games.”

  “Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working as side partner, isn’t it?”

  Quarren said pleasantly: “If you’re serious, Ledwith, you’re a liar.”

  After a silence Ledwith said: “Do you think there’s enough left of me to care what anybody calls me?”

  Quarren turned: “I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make you such an answer.”

  “Never mind.... In that last year — when I still knew people — and when they still knew me — you were very kind to me, Quarren.”

  “Why not? You were always decent to me.”

  Ledwith was now picking at his fingers, and Quarren saw that they were dreadfully scarred and maltreated.

  “You’ve always been kind to me,” repeated Ledwith, his extinct eyes fixed on space. “Other people would have halted at sight of me and gone the other way — or passed by cutting me dead.... You sat down beside me.”

  “Am I anybody to refuse?”

  But Ledwith only blinked nervously down at his book, presently fell to twitching the uncut pages again.

  “Poems,” he said— “scarcely what you’d think I’d wish to read, Quarren — poems of youth and love — —”

  “You’re young, Ledwith — if you cared to help yourself — —”

  “Yes, if I cared — if I cared. In this book they all seem to care; youth and happiness care; sorrow and years still care. Listen to this:

  “‘You who look forward through the shining tears Of April’s showers Into the sunrise of the coming years Golden with unborn flowers — I who look backward where the sunset lowers Counting November’s hours!’

  “But — I don’t care. I care no longer, Quarren.”

  “That’s losing your grip.”

  He raised his ashy visage: “I’m trying to let go.... But it’s slow — very slow — with a little pleasure — hell’s own pleasure—” He turned his shoulder, fished something out of his pocket, and pulling back his cuff, bent over. After a few moments he turned around, calmly:

  “You’ve seen that on the stage I fancy.”

  “Otherwise, also.”

  “Quite likely. I’ve known a pretty woman—” He ended with a weary gesture and dropped his head between his hands.

  “Quarren,” he said, “there’s only one hurt left in it all. I have two little children.”

  Quarren was silent.

  “I suppose — it won’t last — that hurt. They’re with my mother. It was agreed that they should remain with her.... But it’s the only hurt I feel at all now — except — rarely — when those damned June roses are in bloom.... She wore them a good deal.... Quarren, I’m glad it came early to me if it had to come.... Like yellow dogs unsuccessful men are the fastest breeders. The man in permanent hard luck is always the most prolific.... I’m glad there are no more children.”

  His sunken eyes fell to the book, and, thinking of his wife, he read what was not written there —

  “Her loveliness with shame and with surprise Froze my swift speech; she turning on my face The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, Spoke slowly.

  “‘I had great beauty; ask thou not my name; No one can be more wise than destiny. Many drew swords and died. Where’er I came I brought calamity.’”

  Quarren bit his lip and looked down at the sunlit brook dancing by under the bridge in amber beauty.

  Ledwith said musingly: “I don’t know who it might have been if it had not been Sprowl. It would have been somebody!... The decree has been made absolute.”

  Quarren looked up.

  “She’s coming back here soon, now. I’ve had the place put in shape for her.”

  After a silence Quarren rose and offered his hand.

  Ledwith took it: “I suppose I shall not see you again?”

  “I’m going to town this afternoon. Good-bye.”

  Looking back at the turn of the path he saw Ledwith, bent nearly double, terribly intent on his half-bared arm.

  Returning in time for luncheon he encountered Sir Charles fresh from the river, and Chrysos prettily sun-burned, just entering the house.

  “We broke down,” said the girl; “I thought we’d never get back, but Sir Charles is quite wonderful and he mended that very horrid machinery with the point of a file. Think of it, Ricky! — the point of a file!”

  Sir Charles laughed and explained the simplicity of the repairs; and Chrysos, not a whit less impressed, stared at him out of her pretty golden eyes with a gaze perilously resembling adoration.

  Afterward, by the bay-window upstairs, Quarren said lightly to Molly:

  “How about the little Lacy girl and the Baronet?”

  “She’s an idiot,” said Molly, shortly.

  “I’m afraid she is.”

  “Of course she is. I wish I hadn’t asked her. Why, she goes about like a creature in a trance when Sir Charles is away.... I don’t know whether to say anything to her or whether to write to her mother. She’s slated for Roger O’Hara.”

  “I don’t suppose her parents would object to Sir Charles,” said Quarren, smiling.

  “That’s why I hesitate to write. Sir Charles is in love with Strelsa; anybody can see that and everybody knows it. And it isn’t likely that a child like Chrysos could swerve him.”

  “Then you’d better send him or her away, hadn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Molly, vexed. “June is to be quiet and peaceful at Witch-Hollow, and Sir Charles wanted to be here and Mrs. Lacy asked me to have Chrysos because she needed the quiet and calm. And look what she’s done!”

  “It’s probably only a young girl’s fancy.”

  “Then it ought to be nipped in the bud. But her mother wants her here and Sir Charles wants to be here and if I write to her mother she’ll let her remain anyway. I’m cross, Ricky. I’m tired, too — having dictated letters and signed checks until my head aches. Where have you been?”

  “Prowling.”

  “Well, luncheon is nearly ready, and Strelsa isn’t back. Are you going to New York this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I think it’s better,” he said lightly.

  “All right. Run away if you want to. Don’t say another word to me; I’m irritated.”

  Luncheon was not very gay; Chrysos adored Sir Charles in silence, but so sweetly and unobtrusively that the Baronet was totally unaware of it. Molly, frankly out of temper, made no effort of any sort; her husband in his usual rude health and spirits talked about the Stinger to everybody. Strelsa, who had arrived late, and whose toilet made her later still, seemed inclined to be rather cheerful and animated, but received little encouragement from Molly.

  However, she chatted gaily with Sir Charles and with Quarren, and after luncheon invited Sir Charles to read to her and Chrysos, which the grave and handsome Englishman did while they swung in old-fashioned hammocks under the maple trees, enjoying the rare treat of hearing their own language properly spoken.

  Molly had a book to herself on the veranda — the newest and wickedest of French yellow-covered fiction; her husband returned to the Stinger; Quarren listened to Sir Charles for a while, then without disturbing the reading, slipped quietly off and wandered toward the kennels.

  Here for a while he caressed the nervous, silky Blue Beltons, then strolled on toward the hemlock woods, a morning paper, still unread, sticking out of his pocket.

  When he came to the rustic seat which was his objective, he lighted his pipe, unfolded the paper, and forced his attention on the first column.

  How long he had been studying the print he did not know when, glancing up at the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, he saw Strelsa coming in his direction. He could see her very plainly through the hemlocks from where he sat but she could not as yet see him. Then the fat waddling dog ahead of her, barked; and he saw the girl stop short, probably divining that the rustic seat was occupied.

  For a few moments she stood there, perhaps waiting for her dog to return; but that fat sybarite had his chin on Quarren’s knees; and, presently, Strelsa moved forward, slowly, already certain who it was ahead of her.

  Quarren rose as she came around the curve in the path:

  “If you don’t want me here I’m quite willing to retire,” he said, pleasantly.

  “That is a ridiculous thing to say,” she commented. Then she seated herself and motioned him to resume his place.

  “I was rather wondering,” she continued, “whether I’d see you before you leave.”

  “Oh, are you driving this afternoon?”

  “No.”

  “Then I should certainly have looked for you and made my adieux.”

  “Would you have remembered to do it?”

  He laughed:

  “What a question! I might possibly forget my own name, but not anything concerning you.”

  She looked down at the paper lying between them on the bench, and, still looking down, said slowly:

  “I am sorry for what Langly did this morning.... He has expressed his contrition to me — —”

  “That is all right as long as he doesn’t express it to me,” interrupted Quarren, bluntly.

  “He means to speak to you — —”

  “Please say to him that your report of his mental anguish is sufficient.”

  “Are you vindictive, Mr. Quarren?” she asked, reddening.

  “Not permanently. But I either like or I dislike. So let the incident close quietly.”

  “Very well — if you care to humiliate me — him — —”

  “Dear Mrs. Leeds, he isn’t going to be humiliated, because he doesn’t care. And you know I wouldn’t humiliate you for all the world — —”

  “You will unless you let Langly express his formal regrets to you — —”

  He looked up at her:

  “Would that make it easier for you?”

  “I — perhaps — please do as you see fit, Mr. Quarren.”

  “Very well,” he said quietly.

  He caressed the dog’s head where it lay across his knees, and looked out over the water. Breezes crinkled the surface in every direction and wind-blown dragon-flies glittered like swift meteors darting athwart the sun.

  She said in a low voice: “I hope your new business venture will be successful.”

  “I know you do. It is very sweet of you to care.”

  “I care — greatly.... As much as I — dare.”

  He laughed: “Don’t you dare care about me?”

  She bit her lip: “I have found it slightly venturesome on one or two occasions.”

  “So you don’t really dare express your kindly regard for me fearing I might again mistake it for something deeper.” He was still laughing, and she lifted her gray eyes in silence for a moment, then:

  “There is nothing in the world deeper than my regard for you — if you will let it be what it is, and seek to make nothing less spiritual out of it.”

  “Do you mean that?” he asked, his face altering.

  “Mean it? Why of course I do, Mr. Quarren.”

  “I thought I spoiled that for both of us,” he said.

  “I didn’t say so. I told you that I didn’t know what you had done. I’ve had time to reflect. It — our friendship isn’t spoiled — if you still value it.”

  “I value it above everything in the world, Strelsa.”

  There was a silence. The emotion in his face and voice was faintly reflected in hers.

  “Then let us have peace,” she said unsteadily. “I have — been — not very happy since you — since we — —”

  “I know. I’ve been utterly miserable, too.” He lifted one of her hands and kissed it, and she changed colour but left her hand lying inert in his.

  “Do you mind?” he asked.

  “N-no.”

  He laid his lips to her fingers again; she stirred uneasily, then rested her other arm on the back of the seat and shaded her eyes.

  “I think — you had better not — touch me — any more—” she said faintly.

  “Is it disagreeable?”

  “Yes — n-no.... It is — it has nothing to do with friendship—” she looked up, flushed, curious: “Why do you always want to touch me, Mr. Quarren?”

  “Did you never caress a flower?”

  “Rix!” — she caught her breath as his name escaped her for the first time, and he saw her face surging in the loveliest colour. “It was your nonsensical answer! — I — it took me by surprise ... and I ask your pardon for being stupid.... And — may I have my hand? I use it occasionally.”

  He quietly reversed it, laid his lips to the palm, and released her fingers.

  “Strelsa,” he said, “I’m coming back into the battle again.”

  “Then I am sorry I forgave you.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes! Why can’t you be to me what I wish to be to you? Why can’t you be what I want — what I need — —”

  “Do you know what you need?”

  “Yes, I — —”

  “No, you don’t. You need to love — and to be loved. You don’t know it, but you do!”

  “That is a — a perfectly brutal thing to say — —”

  “Does it sound so to you?”

  “Yes, it does! It is brutal — common, unworthy of you and of me — —”

  He took both her hands in a grip that almost hurt her:

  “Can’t you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can’t you? Doesn’t a man’s love mean anything to you but words? Is there anything to be ashamed of in it? — merely because nothing has ever yet awakened you to it?”

  “Nothing ever will,” she said steadily. “The friendship you can have of me is more than love — cleaner, better, stronger — —”

  “It isn’t strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to do!”

  “No.”

  “Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!”

  She said calmly: “Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves become irresponsible. I know nothing about it — I could not — I will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it — to me it is degrading — contemptible — —”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I am telling you the truth,” she retorted, pale, and breathing faster. “I’m telling you what I know — what I have learned in a bitter school — during two dreadful years — —”

  “That!”

  “Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can’t you be kind to me? You are the one man I could ask it of — the only man I ever saw who seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could return what he gave me with all my heart — all my heart — —”

  She bowed her face over the hands which he still held; suddenly he drew her close into his arms; and she rested so, her head against his shoulder.

 

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