Robert Chambers - The Streets of Ascalon

She was speaking now so generally that everybody heard her, and Cyrille Caldera said:

"Ricky is certainly innocuous, anyway."

"Oh, is he!" said Mrs. Sprowl with another wheezy laugh. "I fancy I know that boy. Did you say 'harmless,' Susanne? Well, you ought to know, of course – "

Cyrille Caldera blushed brightly although her affair with Quarren had been of the most innocent description.

"There's probably as much ground for indicting Ricky as there is for indicting me," she protested. "He's merely a nice, useful boy – "

"Rather vapid, don't you think?" observed a thin young woman in sables and an abundance of front teeth.

"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination."

"He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly harmless."

"Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to.

"Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde – whose husband must have been an idiot – and Cynthia Challis – she married Prince Sarnoff, you remember – "

"The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy.

"I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl. "How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar – "

"Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis.

"Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em marry him. Poor Ricky."

"Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is so nice, and nobody is likely to marry him."

"Why?" asked Strelsa.

"Because he's – why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't you know it?"

"No," said Strelsa.

"That's the trouble – partly. Then there's no social advantage for any girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky – unless he marries a lame duck."

"Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed.

"Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight."

"The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's intelligent otherwise I fancy."

"Yes, but not intellectual."

"I think you are possibly mistaken."

The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis laughed.

"Are you his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night for the first time."

"Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison arrives." At which sally everybody laughed.

Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British officer's arrival.

Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew, because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of fashionable banter.

"Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles you'll forget Ricky."

"Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl, why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy."

"It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are pretty."

"I have enough – almost – "

"Ah! the 'almost' betrays the canker feeding on that damask cheek!" laughed Mrs. Lannis. "No, you must marry millions, Strelsa – you'll need them."

"You are mistaken. I have enough. I'd like to be happy for a while."

The naïve inference concerning the incompatibility of marriage and happiness made them laugh again, forgetting perhaps the tragic shadow of the past which had unconsciously evoked it.

After Strelsa and Mrs. Lannis had gone, a pair of old cats dropped in, one in ermine, the other in sea-otter; and the inevitable discussion of Strelsa Leeds began with a brutality and frankness paralleled only in kennel parlance.

To a criticism of the girl's slenderness of physique Mrs. Sprowl laughed loud and long.

"That's what's setting all the men crazy. The world's as full of curves as I am; plumpness to the verge of redundancy is supposed to be popular among men; a well-filled stocking behind the footlights sets the gaby agape. But your man of the world has other tastes."

"Jaded tastes," said somebody.

"Maybe they're jaded and vicious – but they're his. And maybe that girl has a body and limbs which are little more accented than a boy's. But it's the last shriek among people who know."

"Not such a late one, either," said somebody. "Who was the French sculptor who did the Merode?"

"Before that Lippo fixed the type," observed somebody else.

"Personally," remarked a third, "I don't fancy pipe-stems. Mrs. Leeds needs padding – to suit my notions."

"Wait a year," said Mrs. Sprowl, significantly. "The beauty of that girl will be scandalous when she fills out a little more… If she only had the wits to match what she is going to be! – But there's a streak of something silly in her – I suspect latent sentiment – which is likely to finish her if she doesn't look sharp. Fancy her taking up the cudgels for Ricky, now! – a boy whose wits would be of no earthly account except in doing what he is doing. And he's apparently persuaded that little minx that he's intellectual! I'll have to talk to Ricky."

"You'd better talk to your nephew, too," said somebody, laughing.

"Who? Karl!" exclaimed the old lady, her little green eyes mere sparks in the broad expanse of face. "Let me catch him mooning around that girl! Let me catch Ricky philandering in earnest! I've made up my mind about Strelsa Leeds, and" – she glared around her, fanning vigorously – "I think nobody is likely to interfere."

That evening, at the opera, Westguard came into her box, and she laid down the law of limits to him so decisively that, taken aback, astonished and chagrined, he found nothing to say for the moment.

When he did recover his voice and temper he informed her very decidedly that he'd follow his own fancy as far as any woman was concerned.

But she only laughed derisively and sent him off to bring Quarren who had entered the Vernons' box and was bending over Strelsa's shoulders.

When Quarren obeyed, which he did not do with the alacrity she had taught him, she informed him with a brevity almost contemptuous that his conduct with Strelsa at the Wycherlys had displeased her.

He said, surprised: "Why does it concern you? Mrs. Wycherly is standing sponsor for Mrs. Leeds – "

"I shall relieve Molly Wycherly of any responsibility," said the old lady. "I like that girl. Can Molly do as much as I can for her?"

He remained silent, disturbed, looking out across the glitter at Strelsa.

Men crowded the Vernons' box, arriving in shoals and departing with very bad grace when it became necessary to give place to new arrivals.

"Do you see?" said the old lady, tendering him her opera glass.

"What?" he asked sullenly.

"A new planet. Use your telescope, Rix – and also amass a little common-sense. Yonder sits a future duchess, or a countess, if I care to start things for her. Which I shan't – in that direction."

"There are no poor duchesses or countesses, of course," he remarked with an unpleasant laugh.

Mrs. Sprowl looked at him, ironically.