"I've a light and superficial talent for entertaining people; I've nimble legs, and possess a low order of intelligence known as 'tact.' What more have I?"
"You're the best amateur actor in New York, for example."
"An amateur," sneered Quarren. "That is to say, a man who has the inclinations, but neither the courage, the self-respect, nor the ambition of the professional.... Well, I admit that. I lack something—courage, I think. I prefer what is easy. And I'm doing it."
"What's your reward?" said Westguard bluntly.
"Reward? Oh, I don't know. The inner temple. I have the run of the premises. People like me, trust me, depend upon me more or less. The intrigues and politics of my little world amuse me; now and then I act as ambassador, as envoy of peace, as herald, as secret diplomatic agent.... Reward? Oh, yes—you didn't suppose that my real-estate operations clothed and fed me, did you, Karl?"
"What does?"
"Diplomacy," explained Quarren gaily. "A successful embassy is rewarded. How? Why, now and then a pretty woman's husband makes an investment for me at his own risk; now and then, when my office is successfully accomplished, I have my fee as social attorney or arbiter elegantiarum.... There are, perhaps, fewer separations and divorces on account of me; fewer scandals.
"I am sometimes called into consultation, in extremis; I listen, I advise—sometimes I plan and execute; even take the initiative and interfere—as when a foolish boy at the Cataract Club, last week, locked himself into the bath-room with an automatic revolver and a case of half-drunken fright. I had to be very careful; I expected to hear that drumming fusillade at any moment.
"But I talked to him, through the keyhole: and at last he opened the door—to take a shot at me, first."
Quarren shrugged and lighted a cigarette.