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"So these are the new rooms," said Molly Wycherly, patronisingly, after O'Hara and Lacy had appeared and everybody had been presented to everybody else. "Strelsa, do look at those early Edwards prints! It's utterly impossible to find any of them now for sale anywhere."
Strelsa Leeds looked up at the Botticelli Madonna and at Madame Royale; and the three men looked at her as though hypnotised.
So this was Reginald Leeds's wife – this distractingly pretty woman – even yet scarcely more than a girl – with her delicate colour and vivid lips and unspoiled eyes – dark eyes – a kind of purplish gray, very purely and exquisitely shaped. But in their grayish-violet depths there was murder. And the assassination of Lacy and O'Hara had already been accomplished.
Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black – as though the tragic shadow of two years ago still fell across her slender body.
She looked around at the room; Molly Wycherly, pouring tea, nodded to Westguard, and he handed the cup to Mrs. Leeds.
She said, smilingly: "And – do you three unprotected men live in this big house all by yourselves?"
"There are four of us in the Legation," said Lacy, "and several servants to beat off the suffragettes who become enamoured of us."
"The —legation?" she repeated, amused at the term.
"Our friends call this house the Irish Legation," he explained. "We're all Irish by descent except Westguard who's a Sassenach – and Dick Quarren, who is only half Irish.'
"And who is Dick Quarren?" she asked innocently.
"Oh, Strelsa!" cautioned Molly Wycherly – "you really mustn't argue yourself unknown."
"But I am unknown," insisted the girl, laughing and looking at the men in turn with an engaging candour that bowled them over again, one by one. "I don't know who Mr. Quarren is, so why not admit it? Is he such a very wonderful personage, Mr. Lacy?"
"Not at all, Mrs. Leeds. He and I share the top floor of the Legation. We are, as a matter of record, the two financial wrecks of this establishment, so naturally we go to the garret. 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 indispensable 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. The lady wishes to inspect him."
"That's not very civil of Rix," said Mrs. Wycherly; "but I fancy I know why he requires slumber." She added, glancing around mischievously at the three men who were all looking languishingly at Mrs. Leeds: "He'll be sorry when you three gentlemen describe Strelsa to him. I can prophesy that much."
"Certainly," said Lacy, airily; "we're all at Mrs. Leeds's feet! Even the blind bat of Drumgool could see that! So why deny it?"
"You're not denying it, Mr. Lacy," said Strelsa, laughing. "But I realise perfectly that I am in the Irish Legation. So I shall carefully salt everything you say to me."
"If you think I've kissed the blessed pebble you ought to listen to that other bankrupt upstairs," said Lacy.
"As far as pretty speeches are concerned you seem to be perfectly solvent," said Strelsa gaily, looking around her at the various adornments of this masculine abode. "I wonder where you dine," she added with curiosity unabashed.
"We've a fine dining-room below," he said proudly, "haven't we, Roger? And as soon as Dick Quarren and I are sufficiently solvent to warrant it, the Legation is going to give a series of brilliant banquets; will you come, Mrs. Leeds?"
"When you are solvent, perhaps," said Strelsa, smiling.
"Westguard and I will give you a banquet at an hour's notice," said O'Hara, eagerly. "Will you accept?"
"Such overwhelming offers of hospitality!" she protested. "I had believed the contrary about New Yorkers. You see I've just emerged from the West, and I don't really know what to think of such bewildering cordiality."
"Karl," said Mrs. Wycherly, "are you going to show us over the house? If you are we must hurry, as Strelsa and I are to decorate the Calderas' box this evening, and it takes me an hour to paint my face." She turned a fresh, winsome countenance to Westguard, who laughed, rose, and took his pretty cousin by the hand.
Under triple escort Mrs. Wycherly and Mrs. Leeds examined the Legation from kitchen to garret – and Strelsa, inadvertently glancing in at a room just as Westguard started to close the door, caught sight of a recumbent shape on a bed – just a glimpse of a blond, symmetrical head and a well-coupled figure, graceful even in the careless relaxation of sleep.
Westguard asked her pardon: "That's Quarren. He was probably up till daylight."
"He was," said Molly Wycherly; "and by the same token so was I. Thank you so much, Karl… Thank you, Mr. O'Hara – and you, too, Jack!" – offering her hand – "We've had a splendid party… Strelsa, we really ought to go at once – "
"Will you come again?"
"We will come again if you ask us," said Strelsa; "we're perfectly fascinated by the Legation."
"And its personnel?" hinted Lacy. "Do you like us, Mrs. Leeds?"
"I've only seen three of you," parried Strelsa, much amused.
"We refuse to commit ourselves," said Molly. "Good-bye. I suppose you all are coming to my house-warming."
They all looked at Mrs. Leeds and said that they were coming – said so fervently.
Molly laughed: she had no envy in her make-up, perhaps because she was too pretty herself.
"Oh, yes," she said, replying to their unasked questions, "Mrs. Leeds will be there – and I plainly see my miserable fate. But what can a wretched woman expect from the Irish? Not constancy. Strelsa, take warning. They loved me once!"
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?"
"Fancy a glorious creature like her wearin' black for that nasty little cad," observed O'Hara disgustedly.
"It's probably fashion, not grief," remarked Westguard.
"I guess it's nix for the weeps," said O'Hara – "after all she probably went through with Reggie Leeds, I fancy she had no tears left over."
"I want to talk," cried Lacy; "I want to tell Rix what he missed. I'd got as far as her gown, I think – "
"Go on," smiled Quarren.
"Anyway," said Lacy, "she wore a sort of mourning as far as her veil went, and her furs and gown and gloves were black, and her purse was gun-metal and black opals – rather brisk? Yes? – And all the dingles on her were gun-metal – everything black and sober – and that ruddy gold head – and – those eyes! – a kind of a purple-gray, Ricky, slanting a little, with long black lashes – I noticed 'em – and her lips were very vivid – not paint, but a kind of noticeably healthy scarlet – and that straight nose – and the fresh fragrant youth of her – "
"For Heaven's sake, Jack – "
"Sure. I'm through with 'em all. I'm wise to the sex. That was merely a word picture. I'm talking like a writer, that's all. That's how you boobs talk, isn't it, Karl?"
"Always," said Westguard gravely.
"Me for Mrs. Leeds," remarked O'Hara frankly. "I'd ask her to marry me on the drop of a hat."
"Well, I'll drop no hat for you!" said Lacy. "And there'll be plenty of lunatics in this town who'll go madder than you or me before they forget Mrs. Leeds. Wait! Town is going to sit up and take notice when this new planet swims into its social ken. How's that epigram, Karl?"
Westguard said thoughtfully: "There'll be notoriety, too, I'm afraid. If nobody knows her everybody knows about that wretched boy she married."
Quarren added: "I have always understood that the girl did not want to marry him. It was her mother's doings."
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!"
Westguard nodded: "She had two years of him – and I suppose he seldom drew a perfectly sober breath… He dragged her all over the world with him – she standing for his rotten behaviour, trying to play the game with the cards hopelessly stacked against her. Vincent Wier met them in Naples; Mallison ran across them in Egypt; so did Lydon in Vienna. They said it was heartbreaking to see her trying to keep up appearances – trying to smile under his nagging or his drunken insults in public places. Lydon told me that she behaved like a brick – stuck to Reggie, tried to shield him, excuse him, make something out of the miserable pup who was doing his best to drag her to his own level and deprave her. But I guess she was too young or too unhappy or something, because there's no depravity in the girl who was here a few minutes ago. I'll swear to that."
After a moment Lacy said: "Well, he got his at last!"
"What was comin' to him," added O'Hara, with satisfaction.
Lacy added, curiously: "How can a man misbehave when he has such a woman for a wife?"
"I wonder," observed Quarren, "how many solid citizens read the account in the papers and remained scared longer than six weeks?"
"Lord help the wives of men," growled Westguard… "If any of you fellows are dressing for dinner you'd better be about it… Wait a moment, Rix!" – as Quarren, the last to leave, was already passing the threshold.
The young fellow turned, smiling: the others went on; Westguard stood silent for a moment, then:
"You're about the only man I care for very much," he said bluntly. "If I am continually giving you the Bible and the Sword it's the best I have to give."
Quarren replied laughingly.
"Don't worry, old fellow. I take what you say all right. And I really mean to cut out a lot of fussing and begin to hustle… Only, isn't it a wise thing to keep next to possible clients?"
"The people you train with don't buy lots in Tappan-Zee Park."
"But I may induce them to go into more fashionable enterprises – "
"Not they! The eagle yells on every dollar they finger. If there's any bleeding to be done they'll do it, my son."
"Lester Caldera has already asked me about acreage in Westchester."
"Did he do more than ask?"
"No."
"Did you charge him for the consultation?"
"Of course not."
"Then he got your professional opinion for nothing."
"But he, or others, may try to assemble several farms – "
"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!"
Quarren's face reddened slightly.
"I'd be perfectly willing to sit in an office all day and all night if anybody would give me any business. But what's the use of chewing pencils and watching traffic on Forty-second Street?"
"Then go into another business!"
"I haven't any money."
"I'll lend it to you!"
"I can't risk your money, Karl. I'm too uncertain of myself. If anybody else offered to stake me I'd try the gamble." … He looked up at Westguard, ashamed, troubled, and showing it like a boy. "I'm afraid I don't amount to anything, Karl. I'm afraid I'm no good except in the kind of thing I seem to have a talent for."
"Fetching and carrying for the fashionable and wealthy," sneered Westguard.
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. "Even you have no business to take that tone with me."
There was a silence. After a few moments Westguard came over and held out his hand. Quarren took it, looked at him.
"I tell you," he said, "there's nothing to me. It's your kindness, Karl, that sees in me possibilities that never were."
"They're there. I'll do my duty almost to the point of breaking our friendship. But – I'll have to stop short of that point."
A quick smile came over Quarren's face, gay, affectionate:
