The Streets of Ascalon Part 71

"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of accomplishment?"

The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no words suitable for the particular moment.

Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water."

His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang "The Harp," and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago.

When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes lowered.

"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said--"not these Strausses and 'Girls from the Golden West.'"

"Will you sing some more?"

"Do you like my singing?"

"Very much."

So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age, can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days, the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to inspire any maker of beautiful things.

Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days.

Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard Dankmere open the door behind her and come out.

They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north with a nod of good-night, when he said:

"Are you walking?"

She was, to save carfare.

"May I go a little way?"

"Yes--if----"

Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had meant to say. Then, very slowly she turned northward, and he went, too, grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself.

CHAPTER XIII

Strelsa had gone to town with her maid, remained there the entire afternoon, and returned to Witch-Hollow without seeing Quarren or even letting him know she was there.

It was the beginning of the end for her and she knew it; and she had already begun to move doggedly toward the end through the blind confusion of things, no longer seeing, hearing, heeding; impelled mechanically toward the goal which meant to her only the relief of absolute rest.

For her troubles were acc.u.mulating and she found in herself no resisting power--only the nervous strength left to get away from them. Troubles of every description were impending; some had already come upon her, like Quarren's last letter which she knew signified that the termination of their friends.h.i.+p was already in sight.

But other things were in sight, too, so she spent the afternoon in town with her lawyers; which lengthy seance resulted in the advertising for immediate sale of her house in town and its contents, her town car, brougham, victoria and three horses.

Through her lawyers, also, every jewel she possessed, all her wardrobe except what she had with her at Witch-Hollow, and her very beautiful collection of old lace, were placed in the hands of certain discreet people to dispose of privately.

Every servant in her employment except her maid was paid and dismissed; her resignation from the Province Club was forwarded, all social engagements for the summer cancelled.

There remained only two other matters to settle; and one of them could be put off--without hope of escape perhaps--but still it could be avoided for a little while longer.

The other was to write to Quarren; and she wrote as follows:

"I have been in town; necessity drove me, and I was too unhappy to see you. But this is the result: I can hold out a few months longer--to no purpose, I know--yet, you asked it of me, and I am trying to do it. Meanwhile the pressure never eases; I feel your unhappiness deeply--deeply, Rix!--and it is steadily wearing me out. And the pressure from Molly in your behalf, from Mrs. Sprowl by daily letter in behalf of Sir Charles, from Langly in his own interest never slackens for one moment.

"And that is not all; my late husband left no will, and I have steadily refused to make any contest for more than my dower rights.

"That has been swept away, now; urgent need has compelled me to offer for sale everything I possess except what wardrobe and unimportant trinkets I have with me.

"So many suits have been threatened and even commenced against me--you don't know, Rix--but while there remains any chance of meeting my obligations dollar for dollar I have refused to go through bankruptcy.

"I need not, now, I think. But the selling of everything will not leave me very much; and in the end my cowardice will do what you dread, and what I no longer fear, so utterly dead in me is every emotion, every nerve, every moral. Men bound to the wheel have slept; I want that sleep. I long for the insensibility, the endless lethargy that the mortally bruised crave; and that is all I hope or care for now.

"Love, as man professes it, would only hurt me--even yours. There can be no response from a soul and body stunned. Nothing must disturb their bruised coma.

"The man I intend to marry can evoke nothing in me, will demand nothing of me. That is already mutually understood. It's merely a bargain. He wants me as the ornament for the House of Sprowl. I can carry out the pact without effort, figure as the mistress of his domain, live life through unhara.s.sed as though I stood alone in a vague, warm dream, safe from anything real.

"Meanwhile, without aim, without hope, without even desire to escape my destiny, I am holding out because you ask it. To what end, my friend? Can you tell me?"

One morning Molly came into her room greatly perturbed, and Strelsa, still in bed, laid aside the New Testament which she had been reading, and looked up questioningly at her agitated hostess.

"It's your fault," began Molly without preliminaries--"that old woman certainly suspects what you're up to with her nephew or she wouldn't bother to come up here----"

"Who?" said Strelsa, sitting up. "Mrs. Sprowl?"

"Certainly, horse, foot, and dragoons! She's coming, I tell you, and there's only one motive for her advent!"

"But where will she stop?" asked Strelsa, flus.h.i.+ng with dismay.

"Where do you suppose?"

"With Langly?"

"He wouldn't have her."

"She is not to be your guest, is she?"

"No. She wrote hinting that she'd come if asked. I pretended not to understand. I don't want her here. Every servant I have would leave--as a beginning. Besides I don't require the social prestige of such a visitation; and she knows that, too. So what do you think she's done?"

"I can't imagine," said Strelsa wearily.

"Well, she's manuvred, somehow; and this morning's paper announces that she's to be entertained at South Linden by Mary Ledwith."

Strelsa reddened.