"Can you not care for me and still be kind to me, Mr. Quarren? If what you say about your regard for me is true—but it is certainly exaggerated, anyway—should not your attitude toward me include a nobler sentiment? I mean friendship. And I know whereof I speak, because I am conscious of a capacity for it—a desire for it—and for you as the object of it. I believe that, if you cared for it, I could give you the very best of me in a friendship of the highest type.
"It is in me to give it—a pure, devoted, lofty, untroubled friendship, absolutely free of lesser and material sentiments. Am I sufficiently frank? I want such a friendship. I need it. I have never before offered it to any man—the kind I mean to give you if you wish.
"I believe it would satisfy you; I am convinced that yours would satisfy me. You don't know how I have missed such a friendship in you. I have wanted it from the very beginning of our acquaintance. But I had—problems—to solve, first; and I had to let our friendship lie dormant. Now I have solved my perplexities, and all my leisure is for you again, if you will. Do you want it?
"Think over what I have written. Keep my letter for a week and then write me. Does my offer not deserve a week's consideration?
"Meanwhile please keep away from deep water. I do not wish you to drown.
"Strelsa Leeds.
"P. S.—Lord Dankmere is here. He is insufferable. He told Mrs. Sprowl that you and he were going into the antique-picture business. You wouldn't think of going into anything whatever with a man of that sort, would you? Or was it merely a British jest?"
He wrote at once:
"I have your letter and will keep it a week before replying. But—are you engaged?"
She answered:
"The papers have had me engaged to Barent Van Dyne, to Langly Sprowl, to Sir Charles. You may take your choice if you are determined to have me engaged to somebody. No doubt you think my being engaged would make our future friendship safer. I'll attend to it immediately if you wish me to."
Evidently she was in a gay and contrary humour when she wrote so flippantly to him. And he replied in kind and quite as lightly. Then, at the week's end he wrote her again that he had considered her letter, and that he accepted the friendship she offered, and gave her his in return.
She did not reply.
He wrote her again a week later, but had no answer. Another week passed, and, slowly into his senses crept the dread of deep waters closing around him. And after another week he began to wonder, dully, how long it would take a man to drown if he made no struggle.
Meanwhile several dozen crates and packing cases had arrived at the Custom House for the Earl of Dankmere; and, in process of time were delivered at the real-estate office of R. S. Quarren, littering his sleeping quarters and office and overflowing into the extension and backyard.