Robert W. Chambers

“ I really do enjoy the game as it lies."
"It does lie—that is the trouble, Rix."
"I can't afford to criticise it.... Listen; I'm a mediocre man; I'd never count among real men. I count in the set which I amuse and which accepts me. Let me enjoy it, can't you?"
An aged dandy, masked, painted, wizened, and dressed like Henri II, tottered by with a young girl on his arm, his shrill, falsetto giggle piercing the racket around them.
"Do you wish to live to be like that?" asked Westguard sharply.
"Oh, I'll die long before that," said Quarren cheerfully, and leaped lightly to his feet. ”

“ But the clear-cut, amused face seemed to mock her question with the smile she knew so well—so well, alas!
"Why are you unworthy?" she said again—"you who surely are equipped for a nobler life. What is it in you that I have responded to? If a woman is so colourless as to respond merely to love in the abstract, she is worth nothing better, nothing higher, than what she has evoked. For you are no better than other men, Ricky; indeed you are less admirable than many; and to compare you to Sir Charles is not advantageous to you, poor boy—poor boy." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Quarren's face flushed again: "I suppose that's it."
Westguard glared at him: "I wish I could shake it out of you!"
"I guess the poison's there," said Quarren in a low voice. "The worst of it is I like it—except when I understand your contempt."
"You like to fetch and carry and go about with your pocket full of boudoir keys!"
"People give me as much as I give them."
"They don't!" said the other angrily. "They've taken a decent fellow and put him in livery!"
Quarren bit his lip as the blood leaped to his face.
"Don't talk that way, Karl," he said quietly. ”

“ Quarren laughed: "People don't buy off-hand. Our triumph is to get them here at all. I wrote to each of them personally."
Nobody else came for a long while; then one or two of the lesser dealers appeared, and now and then a man who might be an agent or a prowling and wealthy amateur or perhaps one of those curious haunters of all art marts who never buy but who never miss assisting at all inaugurations in person—like an ubiquitous and silent dog who turns up wherever more than two people assemble with any purpose in view—or without any. ”

“ A masked dance, which for so long has been out of fashion in the world that pretends to it, was the experiment selected by Molly Wycherly for the warming up of her new house on Park Avenue.
The snowy avenue for blocks was a mass of motors and carriages; a platoon of police took charge of the vehicular mess. Outside of the storm-coated lines the penniless world of shreds and patches craned a thousand necks as the glittering costumes passed from brougham and limousine under the awnings into the great house. ”

“ So they tore back again to the house, Molly to change her muddy clothes and write letters, her husband to return to his beloved Stinger, Quarren to put on a pair of stout shoes and heather spats and go wandering off cross-lots—past woodlands still dripping with golden rain from every leaf, past tiny streams swollen amber where mint and scented grasses swayed half immersed; past hedge and orchard and wild tangles ringing with bird music—past fields of young crops of every kind washed green and fresh above the soaking brown earth. ”

“ Out of the inner temple, his ears still ringing with the noise of the drones, Quarren had gone forth. And already, far away in the outer sunshine, he could see real people at work and at play, millions and millions of them—and a real sky overhead edging far horizons.
He began real life once more in a bad way, financially; his money being hopelessly locked up in Tappan-Zee Park, a wooded and worthless tract of unimproved land along the Hudson which Quarren had supposed Lester Caldera was to finance for him. ”

“ One prefers to think often of such a woman as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not—painful."
Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat. ”

“ Quarren gazed out across the country where a fine misty rain was still falling. Acres of clover stretched away silvered with powdery moisture; robins and bluebirds covered the soaked lawns, and their excited call-notes prophesied blue skies.
"It doesn't make any difference one way or the other," said Quarren, half to himself. "She will go on in the predestined orbit——"
"Not if a stronger body pulls her out of it."
"There is nothing to which she responds—except what I have not."
"Make what you do possess more powerful, then."
"What do I possess?"
"Kindness. And also manhood, Ricky. Don't you?" ”

“ Swallows settled on the wet road around every puddle; bluebirds fluttered among the fruit trees; the strident battle note of the kingbird was heard, the unlovely call of passing grackle, the loud enthusiasm of nesting robins. Everywhere a rain-cleansed world resounded with the noises of lesser life, flashed with its colour in a million blossoms and in the delicately brilliant wings hovering over them.
Far away he could see the river and the launch, too, where Sir Charles and Chrysos Lacy were circling hither and thither at full speed. ”

“ All women are ideal under the piquant promise of the mask.
A pretty shepherdess, lingering near, whispered close to Quarren's shoulder behind her fan:
"Check to you, Harlequin! That golden dancer was the only girl in town who hasn't taken any pains to meet you!"
He turned his head, warily, divining Molly Wycherly under the disguise, realising, too, that she recognised him.
"You'll never find her now," laughed the shepherdess. "Besides she does not care a rap about meeting a mere Harlequin. It's refreshing to see you so thoroughly snubbed once in a while." ”

“ For me, somehow or other, life has been always a sequence of abrupt experiences—a series of extremes—one grotesque exaggeration after another, and all diametrically opposed. And it seems odd that such radically material transformations should so ruthlessly disturb and finally, now, end by completely altering the character of a girl whose real nature is—or was—unaccented and serene to the verge of indifference. For the woman writing this is very different from the one you knew as Strelsa Leeds. ”

“ It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the back fences by several astonished cats.
His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their ancient un-keyed stretchers. ”

“ Strelsa, a little pale, started to pass her—then halted, astounded: for the old lady had burst into a passion of choking gasps. Whether the terrible sounds she made were due to impotent rage or asthma, Strelsa, confused, shocked, embarrassed, but still angry, had no notion; and while Mrs. Sprowl coughed fatly, she stood still, catching muffled fragments of reproaches directed at people who flouted friendship; who had no consideration for age, and no gratitude, no tenderness, no pity. ”

“ She looked at him while he did so, confused by the quick pleasure of the contact, then schooled herself to endure it, setting her lips in a grave, firm line.
And it was a most serious face he lifted his eyes to as she quietly withdrew her fingers from his.
"You always played the courtier to perfection," she said, trying to speak lightly. "Tell me about that accomplished and noble peer, Lord Dankmere. Are you still inclined to like him?"
He accepted her light and careless change of tone instantly, and spoke laughingly of Dankmere:
"He's really a mighty nice fellow, Strelsa. Anyway, I like him. ”

“ He'll get over it some time, but you never will, Strelsa. You'll remember it all your life.
"For I tell you that we women who go to our graves without having missed a single pang—we who die having known happiness and its shadow which is sorrow—the happiness and sorrow which come through love of man alone—die as we should die, in deep content of destiny fulfilled—which is the only peace beyond all understanding." ”

“ Sprowl eyed her with shifty but keen intelligence. "Little idiot," she thought; but her smile remained bland and calmly patronising.
For a second or two longer she studied the girl cautiously, trying to make up her mind whether there was really any character in Strelsa's soft beauty—anything firmer than material fastidiousness; anything more real than a natural and dainty reticence. Mrs. Sprowl could ride rough-shod over such details. But she was too wise to ride if there was any chance of a check from higher sources. ”

“ For two weeks Sprowl kept to himself. Few men understood better than he what was the medicinal value of time. Only once had he dared ignore it.
So one evening, late in August, still dressed in knickerbockers and heather-spats, he walked from his lawn across country to make the first move in a new game with Mary Ledwith.
Interested, confident, already amused, and in far better spirits than he had been for many a day, he strode out across the fields, swinging his walking-stick, his restless eyes seeing everything and looking directly at nothing. ”

“ He said that his attorneys had advised him not to bring any actions because the papers had been too clever to lay themselves open to suits for libel."
"Oh," said Molly softly.
Strelsa, flushed, breathing rapidly and irregularly, sat there in bed watching her; but Molly avoided her brilliant, level gaze.
"There's no use in talking to you," she said, "but why on earth you don't marry Sir Charles——"
"Molly! Please don't——"
"—Or Rix——"
"Molly! Molly! Can't you let me alone! Can't we be together for ten minutes unless you urge me to marry somebody? ”

“ 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!" ”

“ And it had always fascinated him although, until Dankmere arrived, it had never occurred to him to make a living out of a heterogeneous mass of partly assimilated knowledge acquired from the sheer love of the subject.
Fortunate the man whose means of livelihood is also his pleasure! Deep in his heart lies the unconscious contentment of certainty.
And somehow, with the advent of Dankmere's pictures, into Quarren's troubled heart had come a vague sensation of ease—a cessation of the old anxiety and unrest—a quiet that he had never before known. ”

“ Quarren, Lacy, O'Hara, and Sir Charles Mallison sat by the window playing poker; the Earl of Dankmere, perched on the piano-stool, was mournfully rattling off a string of melodies acquired along Broadway; Westguard himself, flat on his back, occupied a leather lounge and dispensed philosophy when permitted.
"You know," said Lacy, dealing rapidly, "you're only a tin-horn philosopher, Karl, but you really could write a good story if you tried. Get your people into action. That's the game." ”

“ And he pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when currying.
"Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I have any desire to do it, but if I should ever write a novel dealing with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved."
"You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals only," said Quarren. ”

“ Ledwith's sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder.
"Listen to me," he said; "has it never occurred to you that you could deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own vitals?"
He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man:
"If you say the word I'll stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do is to punish him, murder isn't the way. What does a dead man care? ”

“ She glanced at her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders:
"You see why I fled, don't you? Now answer me."
The Harlequin presented the hilt of his sword which was set with a tiny mirror.
"You see why I fled after you," he said, "don't you?"
"All the same," she insisted, smilingly, "I have been informed on excellent authority that I am the only one, except the family, who knows of this balcony. And here comes a Harlequin blundering in! You are not Mr. Wycherly; and you're certainly not Molly." ”

“ Why don't they then?—instead of dragging you about at their heels from house to house, from card-room to ball-room, from café to opera, from one week-end to the next!—robbing you of time, of leisure, of opportunity, of ambition—spoiling you—making a bally monkey of you! You're always in some fat woman's opera box or on some fat man's yacht or coach, or doing some damn thing—with your name figuring in everything from Newport to Hot Springs—and—and how can you ever turn into anything except a tame cat! ”

“ 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 unharassed as though I stood alone in a vague, warm dream, safe from anything real. ”