"Sir Charles offers that; and you refuse because you do not love him and will not use his friendship to aid yourself to material comfort.
"And I suspect you have said the same thing to Rix. Have you?"
The girl lay silent, eyes closed.
"Never mind; don"t answer. I know you well enough to know that you said some such thing to Rix.... And it"s all right in its way. But the alternative is not what you think it is--not this bargain with Langly for a place to lay your tired head--not this deal to decorate his name and estates in return for personal immunity. You are wrong--I"m not immoral, only unmoral--as many of us are--but you"ve gone all to pieces, dear--morally, mentally, nervously--and it"s not from cowardice, not from depravity. It is the direct result of the two years of terror and desperate self-control--two years of courage--high moral courage, determination, self-suppression--and of the startling and dreadful climax.
"That is the blow you are now feeling--and the reaction even after two years more of half-stunned solitude. You are waking, darling; that is all. And it hurts."
Strelsa"s bare arm moved a little, moved, groping, and tightened around Molly"s neck. And they remained that way for a long while, Molly kneeling on the floor beside her.
"Don"t you ever cry?" she whispered.
"Not--now."
"It would be better if you could."
"There are no tears--I--I am burnt out--all burnt out----"
"You need strength."
"I haven"t the desire for it any longer."
"Not the desire to face things pluckily?"
"No--no longer. Everything"s dead in me except the longing for--quiet.
I"ll pay any price for it--except misuse of friends."
"How could you misuse Rix by marrying him?"
"By accepting what I could never return."
"Love?"
"Yes."
"Does he ask that?"
"N-no--not now. But--he wants it. And I haven"t it to give. So I can"t take his--and let him work all his life for my comfort--I can"t take it from Sir Charles and accept the position and fortune he offered me once----"
She lay silent a moment, then unclosed her eyes.
"Molly," she said, "I don"t believe that Sir Charles is going to mind very much."
Molly met her eyes for an instant, very near, and a pale flash of telepathy pa.s.sed between them. Then Strelsa smiled.
"You mean Chrysos," said Molly.
"Yes.... Don"t you think so?"
"She"s little more than a child.... I don"t know. Men are that way--men of Sir Charles"s age and experience are likely to drift that way.... But if you are done with Sir Charles, what he does no longer interests me--except that the Lacys will become insufferable if----"
"Don"t talk that way, dear."
"I don"t _like_ the family--except Chrysos."
"Then be glad for her--if it comes true.... Sir Charles is a dear--almost too perfectly ideal to be a man.... I do wish it for his sake.... He was a little unhappy over me I think."
"He adores you still, you little villain!" whispered Molly, fondling her. "But--let poets sing and romancers rave--there"s nothing that starves as quickly as love. And Sir Charles has been long fasting--good luck to him and more shame on you!"
Strelsa laughed, cleared her brow and eyes of the soft bright hair, and, flinging out both arms, took Molly to her heart in a swift, hard embrace.
"There!" she said, breathless, "I adore you anyhow, Molly.... I feel better, too. I"m glad you talked to me.... Do you think I"ll get anything for my house?"
"Yes, when you sell it. That"s the hopeless part of it just at this time of year----"
"Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I"ve had an awful lot of the other kind all my life."
They laughed.
Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I"ll have enough left over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and chickens and a cow!"
"How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?"
Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for pleasure--crazy about anything that promised gaiety and amus.e.m.e.nt--anything to make me forget.
"You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill--ill most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother--it"s curious, but mother never said anything about her--and she cared for fashionable people.
"So I came to New York last winter--and you know the rest--I got tired physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me--and so many women urged me to do so many things--and I was unhappy about Rix--and then came this awful financial crash----"
"Stop thinking of it!"
"Yes; I mean to. I only wanted you to understand how, one by one, emotions and desires have been killed in me during the last four years.... And even the desire for wealth and position--which I clung to up to yesterday--somehow, now--this morning--has become little more than a dreamy wish.... I"d rather have quiet if I could--if there"s enough money left to let me rest somewhere----"
"There will be," said Molly, watching her.
"Do you think so? And--then there would be no necessity for--for----"
"Langly!"
Strelsa flushed. "I wonder," she mused. "I wonder whether--but it seems impossible that I should suddenly find I didn"t care for everything I cared for this winter. Perhaps I"m too tired to care just now."
"It might be," said Molly, "that something--for example your friendship with Rix--had made other matters seem less important."
The girl looked up quickly, saw nothing in Molly"s expression to disturb her, then turned her eyes away, and lay silent, considering.
If her friendship for Quarren had imperceptibly filled her mind, even crowding aside other and most important matters, she did not realise it.
She thought of it now, and of him--recalling the letter she had written.