Lord Quorn

“ Then a dull flush suffused his thin face; he looked down, stood with hanging head, until Quarren laid a hand on his shoulder.
"It's up to you, Ledwith," he said quietly. "I don't blame you for losing your head a moment, but if you mean what you said, I should say that this is your chance.... And if I were you I'd simply go upstairs and speak to her.... She's been through hell.... She's in it still. But you're out; and you can stay out if you choose. There's no need to wallow if you don't want to. You're not in very good shape yet, but you're a man. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before the party broke up—and it was an early one—Lord Dankmere turned to Quarren.
"I'll drop in at your office, if I may, some morning," he said. "May I?"
"It will give me both pleasure and diversion," said Quarren laughing. "There is not enough business in [Pg 171] my office to afford me either. Also you are welcome to send for those pictures and store them in my back parlour until you can find a purchaser."
"It's an idea, isn't it?" mused his lordship. "Now I don't suppose you happen to know anything about such rubbish, do you?—pictures and that sort. What?" ”

“ I can't get any more sensation out of motoring. I'd as soon wheel twins in a go-cart."
Quarren saw him cleverly avoid death with one hand, and laughed.
"Who is stopping with you up here?" he shouted close to Wycherly's ear.
"Nobody—Mrs. Leeds, Chrysos Lacy, and Sir Charles. There are some few neighbours, too—Langly is mousing and prowling about; and that poor Ledwith man is all alone in his big house—fixing to get out of it so his wife can move in from Reno when she's ready for more mischief.... Here we are, Quarren! Your stuff will be in your rooms in a few minutes. ”

“ Quarren looked at him hopelessly.
"Yet," he said, "if only a man wills it, the world is new again."
"But—if the will fails?"
"I don't know, Ledwith."
"I do." He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars.
"Even that can be cured," said the younger man.
"If there is a will to cure it, perhaps."
"Even a desire is enough."
"I have not that desire. Why cure it?"
"Because, Ledwith, you haven't gone your limit yet. There's more of life; and you're cheating yourself out of it." ”

“ Poverty is my only distinction; Mr. Quarren, however, also leads the grand march at Lyric Hall now and then I believe——"
"What is Lyric Hall? Ought I to know?"
Everybody was laughing, and Molly Wycherly said:
"Richard Quarren, known variously as Rix, Ricky, and Dick Quarren, is an exceedingly popular and indis [Pg 13] pensable young man in this town. You'll meet him, Strelsa, and probably adore him. We all do."
"Must I wait very long?" asked Strelsa, laughing. "I'd like to have the adoration begin."
Lacy said to O'Hara: "Go up and pull that pitiable dub off the bed, Roger. ”

“ For a few moments the smile on his face became fixed and white, then he said, cheerfully: [Pg 224]
"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!" ”

“ 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. [Pg 255]
"She's coming back here soon, now. I've had the place put in shape for her." ”

“ Sprowl glanced at her absently, and they eyed each other in silence.
Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features.
"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up. I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that, [Pg 313] in it, his father spoke—amiably—of me and said that in me his son would always find a friend.... That is all, Rix. ”

“ She laughed gaily and continued her dinner. "I [Pg 131] had to drag that out of you, poor boy. But you see I'm uneasy; because imprudence is stamping the horrid imprint of maturity on me very rapidly; and I'm beginning to keep a more jealous eye on my suitors. You were one. Do you deny your guilt?"
"I do not."
"Then I shall never release you. I intend to let no guilty man escape. Am I very much changed, Mr. Quarren?" she said a trifle wistfully.
He did not answer immediately. After a few moments she glanced at him again and met his gaze. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases, meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things; then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct, the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring into space and twitching his scarred fingers. ”

“ After Westguard had put them in their limousine, he came back to find Quarren in his sitting-room, wearing a dressing-gown, and Lacy madly detailing to him the charms of Strelsa Leeds:
"Take it from me, Dicky, she's some queen! You didn't miss a thing but the prettiest woman in town! And there's a something about her—a kind of a sort of a something——"
"You appear to be in love, dear friend," observed Quarren kindly.
"I am. So's every man here who met her. We don't deny it! We glory in our fall! What was that costume of hers, Karl? Mourning?" ”

“ But there's no real jollity among the satiated," he added despondently. "A mask, a hungry stomach, and empty pockets are the proper ingredients for gaiety—take it from me, Karl." And he wandered off, beating everybody with his bunch of toy balloons.
Quarren leaped to the seat of a chair and squatted there drawing his shimmering legs up under him like a great jewelled spider. [Pg 28]
"Bet you ten that the voluminous domino yonder envelops my aunt, Mrs. Sprowl," whispered Westguard.
"You're betting on a certainty and a fat ankle." ”

“ Quarren, amused, said: "How do you know that I have, Dankmere?"
"A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an ass—they don't tell me so but I know it. And if they don't take me for an ass they assume that I'm something worse—because I have a title of sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a living out of it."
"Also," Quarren reminded him, "you are looking for a wealthy wife." ”

“ Sprowl sat there in silence; then:
"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir Charles."
"I don't think she is."
"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!"
Quarren looked at her oddly:
"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so [Pg 314] am I.... Friends do not make a convenience of one another."
"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow."
"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make the convenience of a husband out of either of us." ”

“ Gammon, which had been moved for on the first day of term by Sir Charles Wolstenholme, and which Lord Widdrington had said the court would take a day or two's time to consider. Mr. Quirk's eye caught the figure of a person, a few steps in advance of him, whom he fancied he had seen before. In a few minutes' time, the old gentleman was covered with a cold perspiration; for in a young man, about thirty years old, decently dressed—thin, sallow, and wearing a very depressed air—Mr. Quirk recognized Mr. ”

“ And Quarren read this very carefully; and made up his mind as he finished the paragraph.
The conclusion he came to over his coffee and newspaper materialised that afternoon at a Charity Bazaar, where, as he intended, he met Strelsa Leeds face to face. She said, coolly amiable:
"Have you been away? One never sees you these days."
"I have been nowhere," he said, pleasantly.
She shook her pretty head in reproof:
"Is it good policy for a young man to drop out of sight? Our world forgets over-night." ”

“ Quarren said carelessly: "If I were you, I think that I'd face the world as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough—the real world I mean, Ledwith—either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.
"A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty. And—personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that. But men's ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you are, will go ultimately with the world. ”

“ I've been as short with Strelsa as I dare be—she's got to be [Pg 308] led with sugar. I've almost ordered her to come to me at Newport—but she doesn't come."
"She's resting," said Quarren coolly.
"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it something else that glues him there—with the Yulan in the North River?" ”

“ She forced a smile:
"Isn't it too late to think of answering that letter, Mr. Quarren?"
"Oh, no," he said pleasantly; "a man who is afraid of being too late seldom dares start.... I wonder if anything could induce you to ask me to be seated?" ”

“ Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things. Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman's advent as his own congé, took his leave of Strelsa and went his way—which chanced, also, to be the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat. ”

“ Meanwhile Langly Sprowl had met Strelsa Leeds.
The sailing of the Yulan for the West Indies became the topic of dinner and dance gossip; and Quarren heard every interpretation that curiosity and malice could put upon the episode.
He had been feeling rather cheerful that day; a misguided man from Jersey City had suddenly developed a mania for a country home. Quarren personally conducted him all over Tappan-Zee Park on the Hudson, through mud and slush in a skidding touring car, with the result that the man had become a pioneer and had promised to purchase a building site. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Solitude is the only remedy."
"Not for me," said Quarren; "I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and on the public; and I'm laying plans to do it."
"They'll turn your stomach——"
"Oh, dry up, Karl!" said O'Hara; "there's a medium between extremes where you can get a good sportin' chance at anythin'—horse, dog, girl—anythin' you fancy. You'd like some of my friends, now, Ricky!—they're a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin' as hell——"
"I don't want to meet any cock-fighters," growled Westguard. ”