Richard Quarren

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ She thinks your opinion is the last lisp in fashionable art problems."
"There are some things you can't tell a woman," said Quarren. "One of 'em concerns her weight."
"Are you afraid of Mrs. Sprowl?"
The Harlequin laughed:
"Where would I be if I incurred your aunt's displeasure, dear friend?"
"Out of the monkey house for good I suppose," admitted Westguard. "Lord, Ricky, what a lot you have had to swallow for the sake of staying put among these people!"
Quarren sat meditating under his mask, cross-legged, twirling his sword, the crash of the floor orchestra dinning in his close-set ears. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ O'Hara scowled. "I also have heard that the mother engineered it.... What was Mrs. Leeds's name? I forget——"
"Strelsa Lanark," said Quarren who never forgot anything.
"Ugh," grunted Westguard. "Fancy a mother throwing her daughter at the head of a boy like Reggie Leeds!—as vicious and unclean a little whelp as ever—Oh, what's the use?—and de mortius nihil—et cetera, cock-a-doodle-do!"
"That poor girl had two entire years of him," observed Lacy. "She doesn't look more than twenty now—and he's been in—been dead two years. Good Heavens! What a child she must have been when she married him!" ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Never a summer sun rose over the streets of Ascalon arousing the Philistine to another day of toil but it awoke Quarren to the subdued excitement of another day. Eager, interested, content in his self-respect, he went forth to a daily business which he cared about for its own sake, and was fast learning to care about to the point of infatuation. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Besides he's almost as Irish as I am—God bless his mother and damn all landlords, Lester Caldera included."
"What does Quarren do with all his money, then?" mused Lacy—"soaking the public in Tappan-Zee Park and sitting up so close and snug to the rich and great!"
"It's his business," said Westguard, "to see that any check he draws is properly covered. Overdrafts may be funny in a woman, and in novels, but once is too often for any man. And this makes three times for Rix." ”

“ I seem better fitted to do it than the next man."
"Yes," said Westguard with a wry face, "I fancy somebody must do unpleasant things—even among the lepers of Molokai. But I'd prefer real lepers."
"The social sort are sometimes sicker," laughed Quarren.
"I don't agree with you.... By the way, it's all off between my aunt and me."
"I'm sorry, Karl——"
"I'm not! I don't want her money. She told me to go to the devil, and I said something similar. Do you know what she wants me to do?" he added angrily. "Give up writing, live on an allowance from her, and marry Chrysos Lacy! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She clapped a pudgy hand to her cheek, squinting furiously at Quarren:
"You can't drop out," she shouted. "Don't you ever want to amount to anything?"
"Yes, I do. That's why I'm doing it."
"Don't act like a fool! Haven't you any ambition?"
"That also is why," he said pleasantly. "I am ambitious to be out of livery and see what my own kind will do to me."
"Well, you'll see!" she threatened—"you'll see what we'll do to you——"
"You're not my kind. I always supposed you were, but you all knew better from the day I took service with you——"
"Ricky!"
"It is perfectly true, Mrs. Sprowl. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ What have you done, anyway—except to commit this crime against yourself?"—touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you stand—except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself! Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites itself. Is that why you are doing it?—to arouse the amusement and contempt of your hunter?" [Pg 390]
"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me——"
"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?" ”