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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42831 ***
+
+More: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/loveincloudcomed00bate
+
+
+
+
+
+LOVE IN A CLOUD
+
+A Comedy in Filigree
+
+by
+
+ARLO BATES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Boston and New York
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge
+1900
+
+Copyright, 1900, by Arlo Bates
+All Rights Reserved
+
+
+
+
+          TO
+    MRS. E. L. HOMANS
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                  PAGE
+
+         I. THE MISCHIEF OF A MAID              1
+
+        II. THE MADNESS OF A MAN               11
+
+       III. THE BABBLE OF A TEA                19
+
+        IV. THE TICKLING OF AN AUTHOR          29
+
+         V. THE BLAZING OF RANK                43
+
+        VI. THE MISCHIEF OF A WIDOW            50
+
+       VII. THE COUNSEL OF A MOTHER            60
+
+      VIII. THE TEST OF LOVE                   69
+
+        IX. THE MISCHIEF OF A GENTLEMAN        79
+
+         X. THE BUSINESS OF A CLUBMAN          89
+
+        XI. THE GAME OF CROSS-PURPOSES         98
+
+       XII. THE WASTING OF REQUESTS           108
+
+      XIII. THE WILE OF A WOMAN               119
+
+       XIV. THE CONCEALING OF SECRETS         130
+
+        XV. THE MISCHIEF OF A LETTER          138
+
+       XVI. THE DUTY OF A SON                 150
+
+      XVII. THE BUSINESS OF A LOVER           166
+
+     XVIII. THE MISCHIEF OF MEN               180
+
+       XIX. THE CRUELTY OF LOVE               191
+
+        XX. THE FAITHFULNESS OF A FRIEND      198
+
+       XXI. THE MISCHIEF OF A FIANCÉ          206
+
+      XXII. THE COOING OF TURTLE-DOVES        220
+
+     XXIII. THE BUSINESS OF A MUSE            227
+
+      XXIV. THE MISCHIEF OF A CAD             241
+
+       XXV. THE WAKING OF A SPINSTER          254
+
+      XXVI. THE WOOING OF A WIDOW             266
+
+     XXVII. THE CLIMAX OF COMEDY              277
+
+    XXVIII. THE UNCLOUDING OF LOVE            288
+
+
+
+
+LOVE IN A CLOUD
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE MISCHIEF OF A MAID
+
+
+"No, my dear May, I positively will not hear another word about 'Love in
+a Cloud.' I am tired to death of the very sound of its stupid name."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Harbinger," May Calthorpe responded, eagerly defensive, "it
+isn't a stupid name."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger settled herself back into the pile of gay cushions in the
+corner of the sofa, and went on without heeding the interruption:--
+
+"I have heard nothing but 'Love in a Cloud,' 'Love in a Cloud,' until it
+gives me a feeling of nausea. Nobody talks of anything else."
+
+May nodded her head triumphantly, a bright sparkle in her brown eyes.
+
+"That only shows what a perfectly lovely book it is," she declared.
+
+Mrs. Harbinger laughed, and bent forward to arrange a ribbon at May's
+throat.
+
+"I don't care if it is the loveliest book ever written," she responded;
+"I won't have it stuffed down my throat morning, noon, and night. Why,
+if you'll believe it, my husband, who never reads novels, not only read
+it, but actually kept awake over it, and after that feat he'll talk of
+it for months."
+
+Pretty May Calthorpe leaned forward with more animation than the mere
+discussion of an anonymous novel seemed to call for, and caught one of
+her hostess's hands in both her own.
+
+"Oh, did Mr. Harbinger like it?" she asked. "I am so interested to know
+what he thinks of it."
+
+"You never will know from me, my dear," was the cool response. "I've
+forbidden him to speak of it. I tell you that I am bored to death with
+the old thing."
+
+May started up suddenly from the sofa where she had been sitting beside
+Mrs. Harbinger. With rather an offended air she crossed to the
+fireplace, and began to arrange her hat before the mirror over the
+mantel. Mrs. Harbinger, smiling to herself, gave her attention to
+setting in order the cups on the tea-table before her. The sun of the
+April afternoon came in through the window, and from the polished floor
+of the drawing-room was reflected in bright patches on the ceiling; the
+brightness seemed to gather about the young, girlish face which looked
+out from the glass, with red lips and willful brown hair in tendrils
+over the white forehead. Yet as she faced her reflection, May pouted and
+put on the look of one aggrieved.
+
+"I am sorry I mentioned the book if you are so dreadfully against it,"
+she observed stiffly. "I was only going to tell you a secret about the
+author."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger laughed lightly, flashing a comical grimace at her
+visitor's back.
+
+"There you go again, like everybody else! Do you suppose, May, that
+there is anybody I know who hasn't told me a secret about the author?
+Why, I'm in the confidence of at least six persons who cannot deny that
+they wrote it."
+
+May whirled around swiftly, leaving her reflection so suddenly that it,
+offended, as quickly turned its back on her.
+
+"Who are they?" she demanded.
+
+"Well," the other answered quizzically, "Mrs. Croydon, for one."
+
+"Mrs. Croydon! Why, nobody could dream that she wrote it!"
+
+"But they do. It must have been written by some one that is inside the
+social ring; and there is a good deal in the style that is like her
+other books. I do wish," she went on, with a note of vexation in her
+voice, "that Graham would ever forget to mix up my two tea-services. He
+is a perfect genius for forgetting anything he ought to remember."
+
+She walked, as she spoke, to the bell, and as she passed May the girl
+sprang impulsively toward her, catching both her hands.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Harbinger!" she cried breathlessly. "I must tell you something
+before anybody comes."
+
+"Good gracious, May, what is it now? You are as impulsive as a pair of
+bellows that could blow themselves."
+
+The butler came ponderously in, in reply to her ring as she spoke, and
+the two women for the moment suspended all sign of emotion.
+
+"Graham," Mrs. Harbinger said, with the air of one long suffering and
+well-nigh at the end of her patience, "you have mixed the teacups again.
+Take out the tray, and bring in the cups with the broad gold band."
+
+Graham took up the tray and departed, his back radiating protest until
+the portière dropped behind him. When he was gone Mrs. Harbinger drew
+May down to a seat on the sofa, and looked at her steadily.
+
+"You evidently have really something to tell," she said; "and I have an
+idea that it's mischief. Out with it."
+
+May drew back with heightened color.
+
+"Oh, I don't dare to tell you!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Is it so bad as that?"
+
+"Oh, it isn't bad, only--Oh, I don't know what in the world you will
+think!"
+
+"No matter what I think. I shan't tell you, my dear. No woman ever does
+that."
+
+May regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and wistfulness in her
+look.
+
+"You are talking that way just to give me courage," she said.
+
+"Well, then," the other returned, laughing, "take courage, and tell me.
+What have you been doing?"
+
+"Only writing letters."
+
+"Only! Good gracious, May! writing letters may be worse than firing
+dynamite bombs. Women's letters are apt to be double-back-action
+infernal-machines; and girls' letters are a hundred times worse. Whom
+did you write to?"
+
+"To the author of 'Love in a Cloud.'"
+
+"To the author of 'Love in a Cloud'? How did you know him?"
+
+Miss Calthorpe cast down her eyes, swallowed as if she were choking, and
+then murmured faintly: "I don't know him."
+
+"What? Don't know him?" her friend demanded explosively.
+
+"Only the name he puts on his book: Christopher Calumus."
+
+"Which of course isn't his name at all. How in the world came you to
+write to him?"
+
+The air of Mrs. Harbinger became each moment more judicially moral,
+while that of May was correspondingly humble and deprecatory. In the
+interval during which the forgetful Graham returned with the teacups
+they sat silent. The culprit was twisting nervously a fold of her frock,
+creasing it in a manner which would have broken the heart of the tailor
+who made it. The judge regarded her with a look which was half
+impatient, but full, too, of disapproving sternness.
+
+"How could you write to a man you don't know," insisted Mrs.
+Harbinger,--"a man of whom you don't even know the name? How could you
+do such a thing?"
+
+"Why, you see," stammered May, "I thought--that is--Well, I read the
+book, and--Oh, you know, Mrs. Harbinger, the book is so perfectly
+lovely, and I was just wild over it, and I--I--"
+
+"You thought that being wild over it wasn't enough," interpolated the
+hostess in a pause; "but you must make a fool of yourself over it."
+
+"Why, the book was so evidently written by a gentleman, and a man that
+had fine feelings," the other responded, apparently plucking up courage,
+"that I--You see, I wanted to know some things that the book didn't
+tell, and I--"
+
+"You wrote to ask!" her friend concluded, jumping up, and standing
+before her companion. "Oh, for sheer infernal mischief commend me to one
+of you demure girls that look as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouths!
+If your father had known enough to have you educated at home instead of
+abroad, you'd have more sense."
+
+"Oh, a girl abroad never would dare to do such a thing," May put in
+naïvely.
+
+"But you thought that in America a girl might do what she pleases. Why,
+do you mean to tell me that you didn't understand perfectly well that
+you had no business to write to a man that you don't know? I don't
+believe any such nonsense."
+
+May blushed very much, and hung her head.
+
+"But I wanted so much to know him," she murmured almost inaudibly.
+
+Mrs. Harbinger regarded her a moment with the expression of a mother who
+has reached that stage of exasperation which is next halting-place
+before castigation. Then she turned and walked vehemently up the
+drawing-room and back, a quick sprint which seemed to have very little
+effect in cooling her indignation.
+
+"How long has this nonsense been going on?" she demanded, with a new
+sternness in her voice.
+
+"For--for six weeks," answered May tearfully. Then she lifted her
+swimming eyes in pitiful appeal, and proffered a plea for mercy. "Of
+course I didn't use my own name."
+
+"Five or six weeks!" cried Mrs. Harbinger, throwing up her hands.
+
+"But at first we didn't write more than once or twice a week."
+
+The other stared as if May were exploding a succession of torpedoes
+under her very nose.
+
+"But--but," she stammered, apparently fairly out of breath with
+amazement, "how often do you write now?"
+
+May sprang up in her turn. She faced her mentor with the truly virtuous
+indignation of a girl who has been proved to be in the wrong.
+
+"I shan't tell you another word!" she declared.
+
+Mrs. Harbinger seized her by the shoulders, and fairly pounced upon her
+in the swoop of her words.
+
+"How often do you write now?" she repeated. "Tell me before I shake
+you!"
+
+The brief defiance of May vanished like the flare of a match in a
+wind-storm.
+
+"Every day," she answered in a voice hardly audible.
+
+"Every day!" echoed the other in a tone of horror.
+
+Her look expressed that utter consternation which is beyond any
+recognition of sin, but is aroused only by the most flagrant breach of
+social propriety. Again the culprit put in what was evidently a prayer
+for pity, couched in a form suggested by instinctive feminine cunning.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Harbinger, if you only knew what beautiful letters he writes!"
+
+"What do I care for his beautiful letters? What did you want to drag me
+into this mess for? Now I shall have to do something."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Mrs. Harbinger!" cried May, clasping her hands. "Don't do
+anything. You won't have to do anything. I had to tell you when he is
+coming here."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger stared at the girl with the mien of one who is convinced
+that somebody's wits are hopelessly gone, and is uncertain whether they
+are those of herself or of her friend.
+
+"Coming here?" she repeated helplessly. "When?"
+
+"This afternoon. I am really going to meet him!" May ran on, flashing
+instantly from depression into smiles and animation. "Oh, I am so
+excited!"
+
+Mrs. Harbinger seized the girl again by the shoulder, and this time with
+an indignation evidently personal as well as moral.
+
+"Have you dared to ask a strange man to meet you at my house, May
+Calthorpe?"
+
+The other cringed, and writhed her shoulder out of the clutch of her
+hostess.
+
+"Of course not," she responded, taking in her turn with instant
+readiness the tone of just resentment. "He wrote me that he would be
+here."
+
+The other regarded May in silence a moment, apparently studying her in
+the light of these new revelations of character. Then she turned and
+walked thoughtfully to a chair, leaving May to sit down again on the
+sofa by which they had been standing. Mrs. Harbinger was evidently going
+over in her mind the list of possible authors who might be at her
+afternoon tea that day.
+
+"Then 'Love in a Cloud' was written by some one we know," she observed
+reflectively. "When did you write to him last?"
+
+"When I was here yesterday, waiting for you to go to the matinée."
+
+"Do you expect to recognize this unknown paragon?" asked Mrs. Harbinger
+with an air perhaps a thought too dispassionate.
+
+A charming blush came over May's face, but she answered with perfect
+readiness:--
+
+"He asked me to give him a sign."
+
+"What kind of a sign?"
+
+"He said he would wear any flower I named if I would--"
+
+"Would wear one, too, you minx! That's why you have a red carnation at
+your throat, is it? Oh, you ought to be shut up on bread and water for a
+month!"
+
+May showed signs of relapsing again into tears.
+
+"I declare, I think you are just as horrid as you can be," she
+protested. "I wish I hadn't told you a word. I'm sure there was no need
+that I should. I--"
+
+The lordly form of Graham the butler appeared at the drawing-room door.
+
+"Mrs. Croydon," he announced.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE MADNESS OF A MAN
+
+
+While Mrs. Harbinger was receiving from May Calthorpe the disjointed
+confession of that young woman's rashness, her husband, Tom Harbinger,
+was having a rather confused interview with a client in his down-town
+office. The client was a middle-aged man, with bushy, sandy hair, and an
+expression of invincible simplicity not unmixed with obstinacy. Tom was
+evidently puzzled how to take his client or what to do with him. He had,
+as they talked, the air of being uncertain whether Mr. Barnstable was in
+earnest, and of not knowing how far to treat him seriously.
+
+"But why do you come to me?" he asked at length, looking at his client
+as one regards a prize rebus. "Of course 'Love in a Cloud,' like any
+other book, has a publisher. Why don't you go there to find out who
+wrote it?"
+
+The other shook his head wearily. He was a chunky man, seeming to be
+made largely of oleaginous material, and appearing to be always
+over-worn with the effort of doing anything with muscles and
+determination hopelessly flabby despite his continual persistence.
+
+"I've been to them," he returned; "but they won't tell."
+
+"Then why not let the matter pass? It seems to me--"
+
+The other set his square jaw the more firmly amid its abundant folds of
+flabby flesh.
+
+"Let it pass?" he interrupted with heavy excitement. "If something isn't
+done to stop the infernal impudence of these literary scribblers there
+will be no peace in life. There is nothing sacred! They ought to be
+punished, and I'll follow this rascal if it costs me every dollar I'm
+worth. I came to you because I thought you'd sympathize with me."
+
+Mr. Harbinger moved uneasily in his chair like a worm on a hook.
+
+"Why, really, Barnstable," he said, "I feel as you do about the
+impudence of writers nowadays, and I'd like to help you if I could;
+but--"
+
+The other broke in with a solemn doggedness which might well discourage
+any hope of his being turned from his purpose by argument.
+
+"I mean to bring suit for libel, and that's the whole of it."
+
+"Perhaps then," the lawyer responded with ill concealed irritation, "you
+will be good enough to tell me whom the suit is to be against."
+
+"Who should it be against? The author of 'Love in a Cloud,' of course."
+
+"But we don't know who the author of that cursed book is."
+
+"I know we don't know; but, damme, we must find out. Get detectives;
+use decoy advertisements; do anything you like. I'll pay for it."
+
+Mr. Harbinger shrugged his shoulders, and regarded his client with an
+expression of entire hopelessness.
+
+"But I'm not in the detective business."
+
+The other gave no evidence of being in the least affected by the
+statement.
+
+"Of course a lawyer expects to find out whatever is necessary in
+conducting his clients' business," he remarked, with the air of having
+disposed of that point. "There must be a hundred ways of finding out who
+wrote the book. An author ought not to be harder to catch than a
+horse-thief, and they get those every day. When you've caught him, you
+just have him punished to the extent of the law."
+
+Harbinger rose from his chair and began to walk up and down with his
+hands in his pockets. The other watched him in silence, and for some
+moments nothing was said. At length the lawyer stopped before his
+client, and evidently collected himself for a final effort.
+
+"But consider," he said, "what your case is."
+
+"My case is a good case if there is any justice in the country. The man
+that wrote that book has insulted my wife. He has told her story in his
+confounded novel, and everybody is laughing over her divorce. It is
+infamous, Harbinger, infamous!"
+
+He so glowed and smouldered with inner wrath that the folds of his fat
+neck seemed to soften and to be in danger of melting together. His
+little eyes glowed, and his bushy hair bristled with indignation. He
+doubled his fist, and shook it at Harbinger as if he saw before him the
+novelist who had intruded upon his private affairs, and he meant to
+settle scores with him on the spot.
+
+"But nobody knew that you had a wife," Harbinger said. "You came here
+from Chicago without one, and we all thought that you were a bachelor."
+
+"I haven't a wife; that's just the trouble. She left me four years ago;
+but I don't see that that makes any difference. I'm fond of her just the
+same; and I won't have her put into an anonymous book."
+
+Harbinger sat down again, and drew his chair closer to that in which the
+other seethed, molten with impotent wrath.
+
+"Just because there's a divorced woman in 'Love in a Cloud,'" he said,
+"you propose to bring a suit for libel against the author. If you will
+pardon me, it strikes me as uncommon nonsense."
+
+Barnstable boiled up as a caldron of mush breaks into thick, spluttering
+bubbles.
+
+"Oh, it strikes you as uncommon nonsense, does it? Damme, if it was your
+wife you'd look at it differently. Isn't it your business to do what
+your clients want done?"
+
+"Oh, yes; but it's also my business to tell them when what they want is
+folly."
+
+"Then it's folly for a man to resent an insult to his wife, is it? The
+divorce court didn't make a Pawnee Indian of me. My temper may be
+incompatible, but, damme, Harbinger, I'm human."
+
+Harbinger began a laugh, but choked the bright little bantling as soon
+as it saw the light. He leaned forward, and laid his hand on the other's
+knee.
+
+"I understand your feelings, Barnstable," he said, "and I honor you for
+them; but do consider a little. In the first place, there is no
+probability that you could make a jury believe that the novelist meant
+you and your wife at all. Think how many divorce suits there are, and
+how well that story would fit half of them. What you would do would
+be to drag to light all the old story, and give your wife the
+unpleasantness of having everything talked over again. You would injure
+yourself, and you could hardly fail to give very serious pain to her."
+
+Barnstable stared at him with eyes which were full of confusion and of
+helplessness.
+
+"I don't want to hurt her," he stammered.
+
+"What do you want to do?"
+
+The client cast down his eyes, and into his sallow cheeks came a dull
+flush.
+
+"I wanted to protect her," he answered slowly; "and I wanted--I wanted
+to prove to her that--that I'd do what I could for her, if we were
+divorced."
+
+The face of the other man softened; he took the limp hand of his
+companion and shook it warmly.
+
+"There are better ways of doing it than dragging her name before the
+court," he said. "I tell you fairly that the suit you propose would be
+ridiculous. It would make you both a laughing-stock, and in the end come
+to nothing."
+
+The square jaw was still firmly set, but the small eyes were more
+wistful than ever.
+
+"But I must do something," Barnstable said. "I can't stand it not to do
+anything."
+
+Harbinger rose with the air of a man who considers the interview ended.
+
+"There is nothing that you can do now," he replied. "Just be quiet, and
+wait. Things will come round all right if you have patience; but don't
+be foolish. A lawyer learns pretty early in his professional life that
+there are a good many things that must be left to right themselves."
+
+Barnstable rose in turn. He seemed to be trying hard to adjust his mind
+to a new view of the situation, but it was evident enough that his brain
+was not of the sort to yield readily to fresh ideas of any kind. He
+examined his hat carefully, passing his thumb and forefinger round the
+rim as if to assure himself that it was all there; then he cleared his
+throat, and regarded the lawyer wistfully.
+
+"But I must do something," he repeated, with an air half apologetic. "I
+can't just let the thing go, can I?"
+
+"You can't do anything but let it go," was the answer. "Some time you
+will be glad that you did let it be. Take my word for it."
+
+Barnstable shook his head mournfully.
+
+"Then you take away my chance," he began, "of doing something--"
+
+He paused in evident confusion.
+
+"Of doing something?" repeated Harbinger.
+
+"Why, something, you know, to please--"
+
+"Oh, to please your wife? Well, just wait. Something will turn up sooner
+or later. Speaking of wives, I promised Mrs. Harbinger to come home to a
+tea or some sort of a powwow. What time is it?"
+
+"Yes, a small tea," Barnstable repeated with a queer look. "Pardon me,
+but is it too intrusive in me to ask if I may go home with you?"
+
+Harbinger regarded him in undisguised amazement; and quivers of
+embarrassment spread over Barnstable's wavelike folds of throat and
+chin.
+
+"Of course it seems to you very strange," the client went on huskily;
+"and I suppose it is etiquettsionally all wrong. Do you think your wife
+would mind much?"
+
+"Mrs. Harbinger," the lawyer responded, his voice much cooler than
+before, "will not object to anybody I bring home."
+
+The acquaintance of the two men was no more than that which comes from
+casual meetings at the same club. The club was, however, a good one, and
+membership was at least a guarantee of a man's respectability.
+
+"I happen to know," Barnstable proceeded, getting so embarrassed that
+there was reason to fear that in another moment his tongue would cleave
+to the roof of his mouth and his husky voice become extinct altogether,
+"that a person that I want very much to see will be there; and I will
+take it as very kind--if you think it don't matter,--that is, if your
+wife--"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Harbinger won't mind. Come along. Wait till I get my hat and
+my bag. A lawyer's green bag is in Boston as much a part of his dress as
+his coat is."
+
+The lawyer stuffed some papers into his green bag, rolled down the top
+of his desk, and took up his hat. The visitor had in the meantime been
+picking from his coat imaginary specks of lint and smoothing his
+unsmoothable hair.
+
+"I hope I look all right," Barnstable said nervously. "I--I dressed
+before I came here. I thought perhaps you would be willing--"
+
+"Oh, ho," interrupted Harbinger. "Then this whole thing is a ruse, is
+it? You never really meant to bring a suit for libel?"
+
+The face of the other hardened again.
+
+"Yes, I did," was his answer; "and I'm by no means sure that I've given
+it up yet."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE BABBLE OF A TEA
+
+
+The entrance of Mrs. Croydon into Mrs. Harbinger's drawing-room was
+accompanied by a rustling of stuffs, a fluttering of ribbons, and a
+nodding of plumes most wonderful to ear and eye. The lady was of a
+complexion so striking that the redness of her cheeks first impressed
+the beholder, even amid all the surrounding luxuriance of her toilet.
+Her eyes were large and round, and of a very light blue, offering to
+friend or foe the opportunity of comparing them to turquoise or blue
+china, and so prominent as to exercise on the sensitive stranger the
+fascination of a deformity from which it seems impossible to keep the
+glance. Mrs. Croydon was rather short, rather broad, extremely
+consequential, and evidently making always a supreme effort not to be
+overpowered by her overwhelming clothes. She came in now like a yacht
+decorated for a naval parade, and moving before a slow breeze.
+
+Mrs. Harbinger advanced a step to meet her guest, greeting the new-comer
+in words somewhat warmer than the tone in which they were spoken.
+
+"How do you do, Mrs. Croydon. Delighted to see you."
+
+"How d' y' do?" responded the flutterer, an arch air of youthfulness
+struggling vainly with the unwilling confession of her face that she was
+no longer on the sunny side of forty. "How d' y' do, Miss Calthorpe?
+Delighted to find you here. You can tell me all about your cousin
+Alice's engagement."
+
+Miss Calthorpe regarded the new-comer with a look certainly devoid of
+enthusiasm, and replied in a tone not without a suggestion of
+frostiness:--
+
+"On the contrary I did not know that she was engaged."
+
+"Oh, she is; to Count Shimbowski."
+
+"Count Shimbowski and Alice Endicott?" put in Mrs. Harbinger. "Is that
+the latest? Sit down, Mrs. Croydon. Really, it doesn't seem to me that
+it is likely that such a thing could be true, and the relatives not be
+notified."
+
+She reseated herself as she spoke, and busied herself with the
+tea-equipage. May rather threw herself down than resumed her seat.
+
+"Certainly it can't be true," the latter protested. "The idea of Alice's
+being engaged and we not know it!"
+
+"But it's true; I have it direct," insisted Mrs. Croydon; "Miss
+Wentstile told Mr. Bradish, and he told me."
+
+May sniffed rather inelegantly.
+
+"Oh, Miss Wentstile! She thinks because Alice is her niece she can do
+what she likes with her. It's all nonsense. Alice has always been fond
+of Jack Neligage. Everybody knows that."
+
+Mrs. Croydon managed somehow to communicate to her innumerable streamers
+and pennants a flutter which seemed to be meant to indicate violent
+inward laughter.
+
+"Oh, what a child you are, Miss Calthorpe! I declare, I really must put
+you into my next novel. I really must!"
+
+"May is still so young as to be romantic, of course," Mrs. Harbinger
+remarked, flashing at her young friend a quick sidewise glance. "Besides
+which she has been educated in a convent; and in a convent a girl must
+be either imaginative or a fool, or she'll die of ennui."
+
+"I suppose you never were romantic yourself," put in May defensively.
+
+"Oh, yes, my dear; I had my time of being a fool. Why, once I even fell
+violently in love with a man I had never seen."
+
+The swift rush of color into the face of Miss Calthorpe might have
+arrested the attention of Mrs. Croydon, but at that moment the voice of
+Graham interrupted, announcing:--
+
+"Mr. Bradish; Mr. Neligage."
+
+The two men who entered were widely different in appearance.
+
+That Mr. Bradish was considerably the elder was evident from his
+appearance, yet he came forward with an eager air which secured for him
+the first attention. He was lantern-jawed, and sanguine in color.
+Near-sight glasses unhappily gave to his eyes an appearance of having
+been boiled, and distorted his glance into an absurd likeness to a
+leer. A shadow of melancholy, vague yet palpable, softened his face, and
+was increased by the droop of his Don Quixote like yellow mustaches. The
+bald spot on his head and the stoop in his shoulders betrayed cruelly
+the fact that Harry Bradish was no longer young; and no less plainly
+upon everything about him was stamped the mark of a gentleman.
+
+Jack Neligage, on the other hand, came in with a face of irresistible
+good nature. There was a twinkle in his brown eyes, a spark of humor and
+kindliness which could evidently not be quenched even should there
+descend upon him serious misfortune. His face was still young enough
+hardly to show the marks of dissipation which yet were not entirely
+invisible to the searching eye; his hair was crisp and abundant; his
+features regular and well formed. He was a young fellow so evidently
+intended by nature for pleasure that to expect him to take life
+seriously would have seemed a sort of impropriety. An air of youth, and
+of jocund life, of zest and of mirthfulness came in with Jack,
+inevitably calling up smiles to meet him. Even disapproval smiled on
+Jack; and it was therefore not surprising if he evaded most of the
+reproofs which are apt to be the portion of an idle pleasure-seeker. He
+moved with a certain languid alertness that was never hurried and yet
+never too late. This served him well on the polo-field, where he was
+deliberately swift and swiftly deliberate in most effective fashion. He
+came into the drawing-room now with the easy mien of a favorite, yet
+with an indifference which seemed so natural as to save him from all
+appearance of conceit. He had the demeanor of the conscious but not
+quite spoiled darling of fortune.
+
+"You are just in time for the first brewing of tea," Mrs. Harbinger
+said, when greetings had been exchanged. "This tea was sent me by a
+Russian countess who charged me to let nobody drink it who takes cream.
+It is really very good if you get it fresh."
+
+"To have the tea and the hostess both fresh," Mr. Bradish responded,
+"will, I fear, be too intoxicating."
+
+"Never mind the tea," broke in Mrs. Croydon. "I am much more interested
+in what we were talking about. Mr. Bradish, you can tell us about Count
+Shimbowski and Alice Endicott."
+
+Jack Neligage turned about with a quickness unusual in him.
+
+"The Count and Miss Endicott?" he demanded. "What about them? Who's had
+the impertinence to couple their names?"
+
+Mrs. Croydon put up her hands in pretended terror, a hundred tags of
+ribbon fluttering as she did so.
+
+"Oh, don't blame me," she said. "I didn't do it. They're engaged."
+
+Neligage regarded her with a glance of vexed and startled disfavor. Then
+he gave a short, scornful laugh.
+
+"What nonsense!" he said. "Nobody could believe that."
+
+"But it's true," put in Bradish. "Miss Wentstile herself told me that
+she had arranged the match, and that I might mention it."
+
+Neligage looked at the speaker an instant with a disbelieving smile on
+his lip; and tossing his head went to lean his elbow on the mantel.
+
+"Arranged!" he echoed. "Good heavens! Is this a transaction in real
+estate?"
+
+"Marriage so often is, Mr. Neligage," observed Mrs. Harbinger, with a
+smile.
+
+Bradish began to explain with the solemn air which he had. He was often
+as obtuse and matter-of-fact as an Englishman, and now took up the
+establishment of the truth of his news with as much gravity as if he
+were setting forth a point of moral doctrine. He seemed eager to prove
+that he had at least been entirely innocent of any deception, and that
+whatever he had said must be blamelessly credible.
+
+"Of course it's extraordinary, and I said so to Miss Wentstile. She said
+that as the Count is a foreigner, it was very natural for him to follow
+foreign fashions in arranging the marriage with her instead of with
+Alice."
+
+"And she added, I've no doubt," interpolated Mrs. Harbinger, "that she
+entirely approved of the foreign fashion."
+
+"She did say something of that sort," admitted Bradish, with entire
+gravity.
+
+Mrs. Harbinger burst into a laugh, and trimmed the wick of her tea-lamp.
+Neligage grinned, but his pleasant face darkened instantly.
+
+"Miss Wentstile is an old idiot!" said he emphatically.
+
+"Oh, come, Mr. Neligage," remonstrated his hostess, "that is too strong
+language. We must observe the proprieties of abuse."
+
+"And say simply that she is Miss Wentstile," suggested Mrs. Croydon
+sweetly.
+
+The company smiled, with the exception of May, whose face had been
+growing longer and longer.
+
+"I don't care what she says," the girl burst out indignantly; "I don't
+believe Alice will listen to such a thing for one minute."
+
+"Perhaps she won't," Bradish rejoined doubtfully, "but Miss Wentstile is
+famous for having her own way. I'm sure I shouldn't feel safe if she
+undertook to marry me off."
+
+"She might take you for herself if she knew her power, Mr. Bradish,"
+responded Mrs. Croydon. "No more tea, my dear, thank you."
+
+"For Heaven's sake don't mention it then," he answered. "It's enough to
+have Jack here upset. The news is evidently too much for him."
+
+"What news has upset my son, Mr. Bradish?" demanded a crisp voice from
+the doorway. "I shall disown him if he can't hide his feelings."
+
+Past Graham, who was prepared to announce her, came a little woman,
+bright, vivacious, sparkling; with clear complexion and mischievous
+dimples. A woman trimly dressed, and in appearance hardly older than the
+son she lightly talked of disowning. The youthfulness of Mrs. Neligage
+was a constant source of irritation to her enemies, and with her
+tripping tongue and defiant independence she made enemies in plenty. Her
+gypsyish beauty and clear skin were offenses serious enough; but for a
+woman with a son of five and twenty to look no more than that age
+herself was a vexation which was not to be forgiven. Some had been
+spiteful enough to declare that she preserved her youth by being
+entirely free from feeling; but since in the same breath they were ready
+to charge the charming widow with having been by her emotions carried
+into all sorts of improprieties, the accusation was certainly to be
+received with some reservations. Certainly she was the fortunate
+possessor of unfailing spirits, of constant cleverness, and delightful
+originality. She had the courage, moreover, of daring to do what she
+wished with the smallest possible regard for conventions; and it has
+never been clearly shown how much independence of conventionality and
+freedom of life may effect toward the preservation of a woman's youth.
+
+She evidently understood the art of entering a room well. She came
+forward swiftly, yet without ungraceful hurry. She nodded brightly to
+the ladies, gave Bradish the momentary pleasure of brushing her
+finger-tips with his own as she passed him, then went forward to shake
+hands with Mrs. Harbinger. Without having done anything in particular
+she was evidently entire mistress of the situation, and the rest of the
+company became instantly her subordinates. Mrs. Croydon, almost twice
+her size and so elaborately overdressed, appeared suddenly to have
+become dowdy and ill at ease; yet nothing could have been more
+unconscious or friendly than the air with which the new-comer turned
+from the hostess to greet the other lady. There are women to whom
+superiority so evidently belongs by nature that they are not even at the
+trouble of asserting it.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Neligage," Mrs. Croydon said, as she grasped at the little
+glove which glanced over hers as a bird dips above the water, "you have
+lived so much abroad that you should be an authority on foreign
+marriages."
+
+"Just as you, having lived in Chicago, should be an authority on
+un-marriages, I suppose. Well, I've had the fun of disturbing a lot of
+foreign marriages in my day. What marriage is this?"
+
+"We were speaking of Miss Wentstile's proposing to marry Alice to Count
+Shimbowski," explained Mrs. Harbinger.
+
+"Then," returned Mrs. Neligage lightly, "you had better speak of
+something else as quickly as possible, for Alice and her aunt are just
+behind me. Let us talk of Mrs. Croydon's anonymous novel that's made
+such a stir while I've been in Washington. What is it? 'Cloudy Love'!
+That sounds tremendously improper. My dear, if you don't wish to see me
+fall in a dead faint at your feet, do give me some tea. I'm positively
+worn out."
+
+She seated herself near Mrs. Croydon, over whose face during her remarks
+had flitted several expressions, none of them over-amiable, and watched
+the hostess fill her cup.
+
+"Come, Mrs. Neligage," protested Bradish with an air of mild
+solicitation. "You are really too bad, you know. It isn't 'Cloudy Love,'
+but 'Love in a Cloud.' I didn't know that you confessed to writing it,
+Mrs. Croydon."
+
+"Oh, I don't. I only refuse to deny it."
+
+"Oh, well, now; not to deny is equivalent to a confession," he returned.
+
+"Not in the least," Mrs. Neligage struck in. "When you are dealing with
+a woman, Mr. Bradish, it isn't safe even to take things by contraries."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE TICKLING OF AN AUTHOR
+
+
+The entrance of Miss Wentstile and her niece Alice Endicott made the
+company so numerous that it naturally broke up into groups, and the
+general conversation was suspended.
+
+Miss Wentstile was a lady of commanding presence, whose youth was with
+the snows of yester year. She had the eye of a hawk and the jaw of a
+bulldog; nor was the effect of these rather formidable features softened
+by the strong aquiline nose. Her hair was touched with gray, but her
+color was still fresh and too clear not to be natural. She was richly
+dressed in dark green and fur, her complexion making the color possible
+in spite of her years. She was a woman to arouse attention, and one,
+too, who was evidently accustomed to dominate. She cast a keen glance
+about her as she crossed the room to her hostess, sweeping her niece
+along with her not without a suggestion that she dragged the girl as a
+captive at her chariot-wheel.
+
+Jack Neligage stepped forward as she passed him, evidently with the
+intention of intercepting the pair, or perhaps of gaining a word with
+Alice Endicott.
+
+"How do you do, Miss Wentstile," he said. "I am happy to see you looking
+so well."
+
+"There is no reason why I should not look well, Mr. Neligage," she
+responded severely. "I never sit up all night to smoke and drink and
+play cards."
+
+Neligage smiled his brightest, and made her a bow of mock deference.
+
+"Indeed, Miss Wentstile," he responded, "I am delighted to know that
+your habits have become so correct."
+
+She retorted with a contemptuous sniff, and by so effectually
+interposing between him and her niece that Miss Endicott could only nod
+to him over her aunt's shoulder. Jack made a grimace more impertinent
+than courtly, and for the time turned away, while the two ladies went on
+to Mrs. Harbinger.
+
+"Well, Alice," Mrs. Harbinger said, "I am glad you have come at last. I
+began to think that I must appoint a substitute to pour in your place."
+
+"I am sorry to be so late," Miss Endicott responded, as she and her
+hostess exchanged places. "I was detained unexpectedly."
+
+"I kept her," Miss Wentstile announced with grim suddenness. "I have
+been talking to her about--"
+
+"Aunt Sarah," interposed Alice hurriedly, "may I give you some tea?"
+
+"Don't interrupt me, Alice. I was talking to her about--"
+
+Mrs. Harbinger looked at the crimsoning cheeks of Alice, and meeting
+the girl's imploring glance, gave her a slight but reassuring nod.
+
+"My dear Miss Wentstile," she said, "I know you will excuse me; but here
+are more people coming."
+
+Miss Wentstile could hardly finish her remarks to the air, and as Mrs.
+Harbinger left her to greet a new arrival the spinster turned sharply to
+May Calthorpe, who had snuggled up to Alice in true school-girl fashion.
+
+"Ah, May," Miss Wentstile observed, "what do you settle down there for?
+Don't you know that now you have been brought out in society you are
+expected to make your market?"
+
+"No, Miss Wentstile," May responded; "if my market can't make itself,
+then it may go unmade."
+
+The elder turned away with another characteristic sniff, and Alice and
+May were left to themselves. People were never tired of condemning Miss
+Wentstile for her brusque and naked remarks; but after all society is
+always secretly grateful for any mortal who has the courage to be
+individual. The lady was often frank to the verge of rudeness; she was
+so accustomed to having her own way that one felt sure she would insist
+upon it at the very Judgment Seat; she said what she pleased, and
+exacted a deference to her opinions and to her wishes such as could
+hardly under existing human conditions be accorded to any mortal. Miss
+Wentstile must have been too shrewd not to estimate reasonably well the
+effect of her peculiarities, and no human being can be persistently
+eccentric without being theatrical. It was evident enough that she
+played in some degree to the gallery; and undoubtedly from this it is to
+be argued that she was not without some petty enjoyment in the notoriety
+which her manners produced. Should mankind be destroyed, the last thing
+to disappear would probably be human vanity, which, like the grin of the
+Cheshire cat in "Alice," would linger after the race was gone. Vanity in
+the individual is nourished by the notice of others; and if Miss
+Wentstile became more and more confirmed in her impertinences, it is
+hardly to be doubted that increase of vanity was the cause most active.
+She outwardly resented the implication that she was eccentric; but as
+she contrived continually and even complacently to become steadily more
+so, society might be excused for not thinking her resentment
+particularly deep. Dislike for notoriety perhaps never cured any woman
+of a fault; and certainly in the case of Miss Wentstile it was not in
+the least corrective.
+
+The relations between Miss Wentstile and Alice Endicott were well known.
+Alice was the doubly orphaned daughter of a gallant young officer killed
+in a plucky skirmish against superior force in the Indian troubles, and
+of the wife whose heart broke at his loss. At six Alice was left, except
+for a small pension, practically penniless, and with no nearer relative
+than Miss Wentstile. That lady had undertaken the support of the child,
+but had kept her much at school until the girl was sixteen. Then the
+niece became an inmate of her aunt's house, and outwardly, at least,
+the mere slave of the older lady's caprices. Miss Wentstile was kind in
+her fashion. In all that money bought she was generous. Alice was richly
+dressed, she might have what masters she wished, be surrounded by
+whatever luxuries she chose. As if the return for these benefits was to
+be implicit obedience, Miss Wentstile was impatient of any show toward
+herself of independence. If Alice could be imagined as bearing herself
+coldly and haughtily toward the world in general,--a possibility hardly
+to be conceived of,--Miss Wentstile might be pictured glorying in such a
+display of proper spirit; but toward her aunt the girl was expected to
+be all humility and concession. As neither was without the pride which
+belonged to the Wentstile blood, it is easy to see that perfect harmony
+was not to be looked for between the pair. Alice had all the folly of
+girlhood, which is so quick to refuse to be bullied into affection;
+which is so blind as not to perceive that an elder who insists upon its
+having no will of its own is providing excellent lessons in the high
+graces of humility and meekness. Clever observers--and society remains
+vital chiefly in virtue of its clever observers--detected that Miss
+Wentstile chafed with an inward consciousness that the deference of her
+niece was accorded as a courtesy and not as a right. The spinster had
+not the tact to avoid betraying her perception that the submission of
+Alice was rather outward than inward, and the public sense of justice
+was somewhat appeased in its resentment at her domineering treatment by
+its enjoyment of her powerlessness either to break the girl's spirit or
+force her into rebellion.
+
+The fondness of Alice for Jack Neligage was the one tangible thing with
+which Miss Wentstile could find fault; and this was so intangible after
+all that it was difficult to seize upon it. Nobody doubted that the two
+were warmly attached. Jack had never made any effort to hide his
+admiration; and while Alice had been more circumspect, the instinct of
+society is seldom much at fault in a matter of this sort. For Miss
+Wentstile to be sure that her niece favored the man of all others most
+completely obnoxious, and to bring the offense home to the culprit were,
+however, matters quite different. Now that Miss Wentstile had outdone
+herself in eccentricity by boldly adopting the foreign fashion of a
+_mariage de convenance_, there was every reason to believe that the real
+power of the spinster would be brought to the test. Nobody doubted that
+behind this absurd attempt to make a match between Alice and Count
+Shimbowski lay the determination to separate the girl from Jack
+Neligage; and it was inevitable that the struggle should be watched for
+with eager interest.
+
+The first instant that there was opportunity for a confidential word,
+May Calthorpe rushed precipitately upon the subject of the reported
+engagement.
+
+"Oh, Alice," she said, in a hurried half-whisper, "do you know that Miss
+Wentstile says she has arranged an engagement between you and that
+horrid Hungarian Count."
+
+Alice turned her long gray eyes quickly to meet those of her companion.
+
+"Has she really told of it?" she demanded almost fiercely.
+
+"They were all talking of it before you came in," May responded.
+
+Her voice was deepened, apparently by a tragic sense of the gravity of
+the subject under discussion; yet she was a bud in her first season, so
+that it was impossible that there should not also be in her tone some
+faint consciousness of the delightfully romantic nature of the
+situation.
+
+An angry flush came into the cheek of Miss Endicott. She was not a girl
+of striking face, although she had beautiful eyes; but there was a
+dignity in her carriage, an air of birth and breeding, which gave her
+distinction anywhere. She possessed, moreover, a sweet sincerity of
+character which made itself subtly felt in her every tone and movement.
+Now she knit her forehead in evident perplexity and resentment.
+
+"But did they believe it?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, they would believe anything of Miss Wentstile, of course," May
+replied. "We all know Aunt Sarah too well not to know that she is
+capable of the craziest thing that could be thought of."
+
+She picked out a fat bonbon as she spoke, and nibbled it comfortably, as
+if thoroughly enjoying herself.
+
+"But what can I do?" demanded Alice pathetically. "I can't stand up here
+and say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I really have no idea of marrying that
+foreign thing Aunt Sarah wants to buy for me.'"
+
+Whatever reply May might have made was interrupted by the arrival of a
+gentleman with an empty teacup. The new-comer was Richard Fairfield, a
+young man of not much money but of many friends, and of literary
+aspirations. As he crossed the drawing-room Mrs. Neligage carelessly
+held out to him her cup and saucer.
+
+"As you are going that way, Richard," she said without preface of
+salutation, "do you mind taking my cup to the table?"
+
+"Delighted, of course," he answered, extending his hand for it.
+
+"If Mrs. Neligage will permit me," broke in Mr. Bradish, darting
+forward. "I beg ten thousand pardons for not perceiving--"
+
+"But Mrs. Neligage will not permit you, Mr. Bradish," she responded
+brightly. "I have already commissioned Richard."
+
+Fairfield received the cup, and bore it away, while Bradish cast upon
+the widow a glance of reproach and remonstrance.
+
+"You women all pet a rising author," he said. "I suppose it's because
+you all hope to be put in his books."
+
+"Oh, no. On the contrary it is because we hope to be left out."
+
+"I don't see," he went on with little apparent relevancy, "why you need
+begrudge me the pleasure of doing you a small favor."
+
+"I don't wish you to get too much into the habit of doing small favors,"
+she responded over her shoulder, as she turned back to the group with
+which she had been chatting. "I am afraid that if you do, you'll fail
+when I ask a great one."
+
+Fairfield made his way to the table where Alice was dispensing tea. He
+was by her welcomed cordially, by May with a reserve which was evidently
+absent-minded regret that he should break in upon her confidences with
+her cousin. He exchanged with Alice the ordinary greetings, and then
+made way for a fresh arrival who wished for tea. May responded rather
+indifferently to his remarks as he took a chair at the end of the sofa
+upon which she was seated, seeming so absorbed that in a moment he
+laughed at some irrelevant reply which she gave.
+
+"You did not understand what I said," he remarked. "I didn't mean--"
+
+"I beg your pardon," she interrupted, turning toward him. "I was
+thinking of something I was talking about with Alice, and I didn't mind
+what you did say."
+
+"I am sorry that I interrupted."
+
+"Oh, everybody interrupts at an afternoon tea," she responded, smiling.
+"That is what we are here for, I suppose. I was simply in a cloud--"
+
+Fairfield returned her smile with interest.
+
+"Is that an allusion?"
+
+May flushed a little, and put her hand consciously to the carnation at
+her throat.
+
+"Oh, no," she answered, with a little too much eagerness. "I can talk of
+something beside that book. Though of course," she added, "I do think
+it is a perfectly wonderful story. There is so much heart in it. Why, I
+have read it so much that I know parts of it almost word for word."
+
+"Then you don't think it is cynical?"
+
+"Oh, not the least in the world! How can anybody say that? I am ashamed
+of you, Mr. Fairfield."
+
+"I didn't mean that I thought it cynical; but lots of folk do, you
+know."
+
+May tossed her hands in a girlish gesture of disdain.
+
+"I hate people that call everything cynical. It is a thing that they
+just say to sound wise. 'Love in a Cloud' is to me one of the truest
+books I ever read. Why, you take that scene where she tells him she
+cares for him just the same in spite of his disgrace. It brings the
+tears into my eyes every time I read it."
+
+A new light came into the young man's face as she spoke in her
+impulsive, girlish fashion. He was a handsome fellow, with well-bred
+face. He stroked his silky mustache with an air not unsuggestive of
+complacency.
+
+"It is delightful," said he, "to find somebody who really appreciates
+the book for what is best in it. Of course there are a great many people
+who say nice things about it, but they don't seem to go to the real
+heart of it as you do."
+
+"Oh, the story has so much heart," she returned. Then she regarded him
+quizzically. "You speak almost as if you had written it yourself."
+
+"Oh, I--That is--Why, you see," he answered, in evident confusion, "I
+suppose that my being an embryo literary man myself makes it natural for
+me to take the point of view of the author. Most readers of a novel, you
+know, care for nothing but the plot, and see nothing else."
+
+"Oh, it is not the plot," May cried enthusiastically. "I like that, of
+course, but what I really care for is the feeling in the book."
+
+Jack Neligage, with his eyes on Alice Endicott, had made his way over to
+the tea-table, and came up in time to hear this.
+
+"The book, Miss Calthorpe?" he repeated. "Oh, you must be talking of
+that everlasting novel. I wish I had had the good luck to write it."
+
+"Oh, I should adore you if you had, Mr. Neligage."
+
+"By Jove, then I'll swear I did write it."
+
+Fairfield regarded the girl with heightened color.
+
+"You had better be careful, Miss Calthorpe," he commented. "The real
+author might hear you."
+
+She started in pretty dismay, and covered with her hand the flower
+nestling under her chin.
+
+"Oh, he is not here!" she cried.
+
+"How do you know that?" demanded Jack laughingly.
+
+She sank back into the corner of the sofa with a blush far deeper than
+could be called for by the situation.
+
+"Oh, I just thought so," she said. "Who is there here that could have
+written it?"
+
+"Why, Dick here is always scribbling," Neligage returned, with a
+chuckle. "Perhaps you have been telling him what you thought of his
+book."
+
+The face of Fairfield grew suddenly sober.
+
+"Come, Jack," he said, rising, "that's too stupid a joke to be worthy of
+you."
+
+He was seized at that moment by Mrs. Harbinger, who presented him to
+Miss Wentstile. Fairfield had been presented to Miss Wentstile a dozen
+times in the course of the two winters since he had graduated at Harvard
+and settled in Boston; but since she never seemed to recognize him, he
+gave no sign of remembering her.
+
+"Miss Wentstile," the hostess said, "don't you know Mr. Fairfield? He is
+one of our literary lights now, you know."
+
+"A very tiny rushlight, I am afraid," the young man commented.
+
+Miss Wentstile examined him with critical impertinence through her
+lorgnette.
+
+"Are you one of the Baltimore Fairfields?" she asked.
+
+"No; my family came from Connecticut."
+
+"Indeed!" she remarked coolly. "I do not remember that I ever met a
+person from Connecticut before."
+
+The lips of the young man set themselves a little more firmly at this
+impertinence, and there came into his eyes a keen look.
+
+"I am pleased to be the humble means of increasing your experience," he
+said, with a bow.
+
+Miss Wentstile had the appearance of being anxious to quarrel with
+somebody, a fact which was perhaps due to the conversation which she had
+had with her niece as they came to the house. Alice had been ordered to
+be especially gracious to Count Shimbowski, and had respectfully but
+succinctly declared her intention to be as cold as possible. Miss
+Wentstile had all her life indulged in saying whatever she felt like
+saying, little influenced by the ordinary restraints of conventionality
+and not at all by consideration for the feelings of others. She had gone
+about the room that afternoon being as disagreeable as possible, and her
+rudeness to Fairfield was milder than certain things which were at that
+very moment being resented and quoted in the groups which she had
+passed. She glared at the young man now as if amazed that he had dared
+to reply, and unfortunately she ventured once more.
+
+"Thank you," she said. "Even the animals in the Zoo increase one's
+experience. It is always interesting to meet those that one has heard
+chattered about."
+
+He made her a deeper bow.
+
+"I know," he responded with a manner coolly polite. "I felt it myself
+the first half dozen times I had the honor to be presented to you; but
+even the choicest pleasures grow stale on too frequent repetition."
+
+Miss Wentstile glared at him for half a minute, while he seemed to grow
+pale at his own temerity. Then a humorous smile lightened her face, and
+she tapped him approvingly on the shoulder with her gold lorgnette.
+
+"Come, come," she said briskly but without any sharpness, "you must not
+be impertinent to an old woman. You will hold your own, I perceive. Come
+and see me. I am always at home on Wednesdays."
+
+Miss Wentstile moved on looking less grim, but her previous sins were
+still to be atoned for, and Mrs. Neligage, who knew nothing of the
+encounter between the spinster and Fairfield, was watching her
+opportunity. Miss Wentstile came upon the widow just as a burst of
+laughter greeted the conclusion of a story.
+
+"And his wife is entirely in the dark to this day," Mrs. Neligage ended.
+
+"That is--ha, ha!--the funniest thing I've heard this winter," declared
+Mr. Bradish, who was always in the train of Mrs. Neligage.
+
+"I think it's horrid!" protested Mrs. Croydon, with an entirely
+unsuccessful attempt to look shocked. "I declare, Miss Wentstile, they
+are gossiping in a way that positively makes me blush."
+
+"So you see that the age of miracles is not past after all," put in Mrs.
+Neligage.
+
+"Mrs. Neligage has lived abroad so much," Miss Wentstile said severely,
+"that I fear she has actually forgotten the language of civility."
+
+"Not to you, my dear Miss Wentstile," was the incorrigible retort. "My
+mother taught me to be civil to you in my earliest youth."
+
+And all that the unfortunate lady, thus cruelly attacked, could say
+was,--
+
+"I wish you remembered all your mother taught you half as well!"
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE BLAZING OF RANK
+
+
+The usual mass of people came and went that afternoon at Mrs.
+Harbinger's. It was not an especially large tea, but in a country where
+the five o'clock tea is the approved method of paying social grudges
+there will always be a goodly number of people to be asked and many who
+will respond. The hum of talk rose like the clatter of a factory, the
+usual number of conversations were begun only to end as soon as they
+were well started; the hostess fulfilled her duty of interrupting any
+two of her guests who seemed to be in danger of getting into real talk;
+presentations were made with the inevitable result of a perfunctory
+exchange of inanities; and in general the occasion was very like the
+dozen other similar festivities which were proceeding at the same time
+in all the more fashionable parts of the city.
+
+As time wore on the crowd lessened. Many had gone to do their wearisome
+duty of saying nothing at some other five o'clock; and the rooms were
+becoming comfortable again. The persons who had come early were
+lingering, and one expert in social craft might have detected signs that
+their remaining so long was not without some especial reason.
+
+"If he is coming," Mrs. Neligage observed to Mr. Bradish, "I wish he
+would come. It is certainly not very polite of him not to arrive earlier
+if he is really trying to pass as the slave of Alice."
+
+"Oh, he is always late," Bradish answered. "If you had not been in
+Washington you would have heard how he kept Miss Wentstile's dinner
+waiting an hour the other day because he couldn't make up his mind to
+leave the billiard table."
+
+Mrs. Neligage laughed rather mockingly.
+
+"How did dear Miss Wentstile like that?" asked she. "It is death for any
+mortal to dare to be late at her house, and she does not approve of
+billiards."
+
+"She was so taken up with berating the rest of us for his tardiness that
+when he appeared she had apparently forgotten all about his being to
+blame in anything."
+
+"She loves a title as she loves her life," Mrs. Neligage commented. "She
+would marry him herself and give him every penny she owns just to be
+called a countess for the rest of her life."
+
+A stir near the door, and the voice of Graham announcing "Count
+Shimbowski" made them both turn. A brief look of intelligence flashed
+across the face of the widow.
+
+"It is he," she murmured as if to herself.
+
+"Do you know him?" demanded Bradish.
+
+"Oh, I used to see him abroad years ago," was her answer. "Very likely
+he will have forgotten me."
+
+"That," Bradish declared, with a profound bow, "is impossible."
+
+The Count made his way across the drawing-room with a jaunty air not
+entirely in keeping with the crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes. He
+was tall and wiry, with sandy hair and big mustaches. He showed no
+consciousness that he was being stared at, but with admirable
+self-possession saluted his hostess.
+
+"How do you do, Count?" Mrs. Harbinger greeted him. "We began to think
+you were not coming."
+
+"Ah, how do, Mees Harbeenger. Not to come eet would be to me too
+desolate. _Bon jour_, my deear Mees Wentsteele. I am so above-joyed to
+encountair you'self here. My deear Mees Endeecott, I kees your
+feengair."
+
+"Beast!" muttered Jack Neligage to Fairfield. "I should like to cram a
+fistful of his twisted-up sentences down his snaky throat!"
+
+"He must open his throat with a corkscrew in the morning," was the
+reply.
+
+Miss Wentstile was smiling her most gracious.
+
+"How do you feel to-day, Count?" she asked. "Does our spring weather
+affect you unpleasantly?"
+
+The Count made a splendid gesture with both his hands, waving in the
+right the monocle which he more often carried than wore.
+
+"Oh, what ees eet de weder een one land w'ere de peoples so heavenly
+keent ees?" he demanded oratorically. "Only eet ees Mees Endeecott do
+keel me wid her so great cheelleeness."
+
+Miss Endicott looked up from her seat at the tea-table beside which the
+group stood. Her air was certainly sufficiently cold to excuse the Count
+for feeling her chilliness; and she answered without a glimmer of a
+smile.
+
+"I'm not cruel," she said. "I wouldn't hurt a worm."
+
+"But," the Count responded, shaking his head archly, "eet ees dat I be
+not a worm."
+
+"I thought that all men were worms of the dust," Mrs. Harbinger
+observed.
+
+The Count bowed his tall figure with finished grace.
+
+"And all de weemens," he declared, "aire angles!"
+
+"It is our sharpness, then, that is to be admired," Alice commented.
+
+"Of course, Alice," Miss Wentstile corrected vixenishly, "the Count
+means angels."
+
+"So many men," Alice went on without showing other sign of feeling than
+a slight flush, "have turned a woman from an angel into an angle."
+
+"I do comprehend not," the Count said.
+
+"It is no matter, Count," put in the hostess. "She is only teasing you,
+and being rude into the bargain. You will take tea? Alice, pour the
+Count some tea."
+
+Alice took up a cup.
+
+"How many lumps?" she asked.
+
+"Loomps? Loomps? Oh, eet weel be sugaire een de tea. Tree, eef you weel
+be so goot weedeen eet."
+
+Just as the Count, with profuse expressions of overwhelming gratitude
+to have been permitted so great an honor, had received his tea from the
+hand of Miss Endicott, and Miss Wentstile was clearing her throat with
+the evident intention of directing toward him some profound observation,
+Mrs. Neligage came briskly forward with outstretched hand.
+
+"It would be generous of you, Count," she said, "to recognize an old
+friend."
+
+He stared at her with evident astonishment.
+
+"_Ciel!_" he exclaimed. "Ah, but eet weel be de _belle_ Madame
+Neleegaze!"
+
+She laughed as she shook hands, her dark eyes sparkling with fun.
+
+"As gallant as ever, Count. It is good of you to remember me after so
+many years."
+
+The Count regarded her with a look so earnest that he might easily be
+supposed to remember from the past, whatever and whenever it had been,
+many things of interest. Miss Wentstile surveyed the pair with an
+expression of keen suspicion.
+
+"Louisa," she demanded, "where did you know the Count?"
+
+The Count tried to speak, but Mrs. Neligage was too quick for him.
+
+"It was at--Where was it, Count? My memory for places is so bad," she
+returned mischievously.
+
+"Yees," he said eagerly. "Eet weel have been Paris _certainement_, ees
+eet not?"
+
+She laughed more teasingly yet, and glanced swiftly from him to Miss
+Wentstile. She was evidently amusing herself, though the simple
+question of the place of a former meeting might not seem to give much
+opportunity.
+
+"That doesn't seem to me to have been the place," she remarked. "Paris?
+Let me see. I should have said that it was--"
+
+The remark was not concluded, for down went the Count's teacup with a
+splash and a crash, with startings and cries from the ladies, and a
+hasty drawing away of gowns. Miss Endicott, who had listened carefully
+to the talk, took the catastrophe coolly enough, but with a darkening of
+the face which seemed to show that she regarded the accident as
+intentional. The Count whipped out his handkerchief, and went down on
+his knee instantly to wipe the hem of Miss Wentstile's spattered frock;
+while Mrs. Neligage seemed more amused than ever.
+
+"Oh, I am deesconsolate forever!" the Count exclaimed, in tones which
+were pathetic enough to have made the reputation of an actor. "I am
+broken een de heart, Mees Wentsteele."
+
+"It is no matter," Miss Wentstile said stiffly.
+
+A ring of the bell brought Graham to repair the damage as far as might
+be, and in the confusion the Count moved aside with the widow.
+
+"That was not done with your usual skill, Count," she said mockingly.
+"It was much too violent for the occasion."
+
+"But for what you speak of Monaco here?" he demanded fiercely. "De old
+Mees Wentsteele say dat to play de card for money ees villain. She say
+eet is murderous. She say she weel not to endure de man dat have
+gamboled."
+
+"And you have gamboled in a lively manner in your time, Count. It's an
+old pun, but it would be new to you if you could understand it."
+
+"I don't understand," he said savagely in French.
+
+"No matter. It wasn't worth understanding," she answered, in the same
+tongue. "But you needn't have been afraid. I'm no spoil-sport. I
+shouldn't have told."
+
+"She is an old prude," he went on, smiling, and showing his white teeth.
+"If she knew I had been in a duel, she would know me no more."
+
+"She will not know from me."
+
+"As lovely and as kind as ever," he responded. "Ah, when I remember
+those days, when I was young, and you were just as you are now--"
+
+"Old, that is."
+
+"Oh, no; young, always young as when I knew you first. When I was at
+your feet with love, and your countryman was my rival--"
+
+Mrs. Neligage began to look as if she found the tables being turned, and
+that she had no more wish to have the past brought up than had the
+Count. She turned away from her companion. Then she looked back over her
+shoulder to observe, still in French, as she left him:--
+
+"I make it a point never to remember those days, my friend."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE MISCHIEF OF A WIDOW
+
+
+There were now but ten guests left, the persons who have been named, and
+who seemed for the most part to be lingering to observe the Count or
+Alice Endicott. May Calthorpe had all the afternoon kept near Alice, and
+only left her place when the sopping up of the Count's tea made it
+necessary for her to move. Mrs. Harbinger took her by the arm, and
+looked into her face scrutinizingly.
+
+"Well," she asked, "did your unknown author come?"
+
+"Nobody has come with a carnation. Oh, I am so disappointed!"
+
+"I am glad of it, my dear."
+
+"But he said he would come if I'd give him a sign, and I wrote to him
+while I was waiting for you yesterday."
+
+"So you told me."
+
+"Well," May echoed dolefully; "I think you might be more sympathetic."
+
+"What did you do with the letter?" asked Mrs. Harbinger.
+
+"I gave it to Graham to post."
+
+"Then very likely no harm is done. Graham never in his life posted a
+letter under two days."
+
+"Oh, do you think so?" May asked, brightening visibly at the suggestion.
+"You don't think he despised me, and wouldn't come?"
+
+Mrs. Harbinger gave her a little shake.
+
+"You hussy!" she exclaimed, with too evident an enjoyment of the
+situation to be properly severe. "How was it addressed?"
+
+"Just to Christopher Calumus, in care of the publishers."
+
+"Well, my dear," the hostess declared, "your precious epistle is
+probably in the butler's pantry now; or one of the maids has picked it
+up from the kitchen floor. I warn you that if I can find it I shall read
+it."
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't!" exclaimed May in evident distress.
+
+"Um! Wouldn't I, though? The way you take the suggestion shows that it's
+time somebody looked into your correspondence with this stranger."
+
+May opened her lips to protest again, but the voice of Graham was heard
+announcing Mr. Barnstable, and Mrs. Harbinger turned to greet the
+late-coming stranger. The gentleman's hair had apparently been scrubbed
+into sleekness, but had here and there broken through the smooth outer
+surface as the stuffing of an old cushion breaks through slits in the
+covering. His face was red, and his air full of self-consciousness. When
+he entered the drawing-room Mr. Harbinger was close behind him, but the
+latter stopped to speak with Bradish and Mrs. Neligage, and Barnstable
+advanced alone to where Mrs. Harbinger stood with May just behind her.
+
+"Heavens, May," the hostess said over her shoulder. "Here is your
+carnation. I hope you are pleased with the bearer."
+
+Barnstable stood hesitating, looking around as if to discover the
+hostess. On the face of Mrs. Croydon only was there sign of recognition.
+She bowed at him rather than to him, with an air so distant that no man
+could have spoken to her after such a frigid salutation. The stranger
+turned redder and redder, made a half step toward Mrs. Croydon, and then
+stopped. Fortunately Mr. Harbinger hastened up, and presented him to the
+hostess. That lady greeted him politely, but she had hardly exchanged
+the necessary commonplaces, before she put out her hand to where May
+stood watching in dazed surprise.
+
+"Let me present you to Miss Calthorpe," she said. "Mr. Barnstable, May."
+
+She glided away with a twinkle in her eye which must have implied that
+she had no fear in leaving the romantic girl with a lover that looked
+like that. May and Barnstable stood confronting each other a moment in
+awkward silence, and then the girl tossed her head with the air of a
+young colt that catches the bit between his teeth.
+
+"I had quite given you up," she said in a voice low, but distinct.
+
+"Eh?" he responded, with a startled look. "Given me up?"
+
+"I have been watching for the carnation all the afternoon."
+
+"Carnation?" he echoed, trying over his abundant chins to get a glimpse
+of the flower in his buttonhole. "Oh, yes; I generally wear a carnation.
+They keep, don't you know; and it was always the favorite flower of my
+wife."
+
+"Your wife?" demanded Miss Calthorpe.
+
+Her cheeks grew crimson, and she drew herself up haughtily.
+
+"Yes," Barnstable replied, looking confused. "That is, of course, she
+that was my wife."
+
+"I should never have believed," May observed distantly, "that 'Love in a
+Cloud' could have been written by a widower."
+
+Barnstable began to regard her as if he were in doubt whether she or he
+himself had lost all trace of reason.
+
+"'Love in a Cloud,'" he repeated, "'Love in a Cloud'? Do you know who
+wrote that beastly book?"
+
+Her color shot up, and the angry young goddess declared itself in every
+line of her face. Her pose became instantly a protest.
+
+"How dare you speak of that lovely book in that way?" she demanded. "It
+is perfectly exquisite!"
+
+"But who wrote it?" he demanded in his turn, growing so red as to
+suggest awful possibilities of apoplexy.
+
+"Didn't you?" she stammered. "Are you running it down just for
+modesty?"
+
+"I! I! I write 'Love in a Cloud'?" cried Barnstable, speaking so loud
+that he could be heard all over the room. "You insult me, Miss--Miss
+Calthump! You--"
+
+His feelings were evidently too much for him. He turned with rude
+abruptness, and looking about him, seemed to become aware that the eyes
+of almost everybody in the room were fixed on him. He cast a despairing
+glance to where Mrs. Harbinger and Mrs. Croydon were for the moment
+standing together, and then started in miserable flight toward the door.
+At the threshold he encountered Graham the butler, who presented him
+with a handful of letters.
+
+"Will you please give the letters to Mrs. Harbinger?" Graham said, and
+vanished.
+
+Barnstable looked after the butler, looked at the letters, looked around
+as if his head were swimming, and then turned back into the
+drawing-room. He walked up to the hostess, and held out the letters in
+silence, his fluffy face a pathetic spectacle of embarrassed woe.
+
+"What are these?" Mrs. Harbinger asked.
+
+He shook his head, as if he had given up all hope of understanding
+anything.
+
+"The butler put them in my hands," he murmured.
+
+"Upon my word, Mrs. Harbinger," spoke up Mrs. Croydon, seeming more
+offended than there was any apparent reason for her to be, "you have the
+most extraordinary butler that ever existed."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger threw out her hands in a gesture by which she evidently
+disclaimed all responsibility for Graham and his doings.
+
+"Extraordinary! Why, he makes my life a burden. There is no mistake he
+cannot make, and he invents fresh ones every day. Really, I know of no
+reason why the creature is tolerated in the house except that he makes a
+cocktail to suit Tom."
+
+"Dat ees ver' greet veertue," Count Shimbowski commented genially.
+
+"I do not agree with you, Count," Miss Wentstile responded stiffly.
+
+The spinster had been hovering about the Count ever since his accident
+with the teacup, apparently seeking an opportunity of snubbing him.
+
+"Oh, but I die but eef Mees Wentsteele agree of me!" the Count declared
+with his hand on his heart.
+
+Mrs. Croydon in the meanwhile had taken the letters from the hand of
+Barnstable, and was looking at them with a scrutiny perhaps closer than
+was exactly compatible with strict good-breeding.
+
+"Why, here is a letter that has never been posted," she said.
+
+Mr. Harbinger took the whole bundle from her hand.
+
+"I dare say," was his remark, "that any letter that's been given to
+Graham to mail in the last week is there. Why, this letter is addressed
+to Christopher Calumus."
+
+May Calthorpe moved forward so quickly that Mrs. Harbinger, who had
+extended her hand to take the letters from her husband, turned to
+restrain the girl. Mrs. Croydon swayed forward a little.
+
+"That is the author of 'Love in a Cloud,'" she said with a simper of
+self-consciousness.
+
+Mrs. Neligage, who was standing with Bradish and Alice at the moment,
+made a grimace.
+
+"She'll really have the impudence to take it," she said to them aside.
+"Now see me give that woman a lesson."
+
+She swept forward in a flash, and deftly took the letter out of Tom
+Harbinger's hand before he knew her intention. Flourishing it over her
+head, she looked them all over with eyes full of fun and mischief.
+
+"Honor to whom honor is due," she cried. "Ladies and gentlemen, be it my
+high privilege to deliver this to its real and only owner. Count," she
+went on, sweeping him a profound courtesy, "let your light shine. Behold
+in Count Shimbowski the too, too modest author of 'Love in a Cloud.'"
+
+There was a general outburst of amazement. The Count looked at the
+letter which had been thrust into his hand, and stammered something
+unintelligible.
+
+"_Vraiment_, Madame Neleegaze," he began, "eet ees too mooch of you--"
+
+"Oh, don't say anything," she interrupted him. "I have no other pleasure
+in life than doing mischief."
+
+Mrs. Croydon looked from the Count to Mrs. Neligage with an expression
+of mingled doubt and bewilderment. Her attitude of expecting to be
+received as the anonymous author vanished in an instant, and vexation
+began to predominate over the other emotions visible in her face.
+
+"Well," she said spitefully, "it is certainly a day of wonders; but if
+the letter belongs to the Count, it would be interesting to know who
+writes to him as Christopher Calumus."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger answered her in a tone so cold that Mrs. Croydon colored
+under it.
+
+"Really, Mrs. Croydon," she said, "the question is a little pointed."
+
+"Why, it is only a question about a person who doesn't exist. There
+isn't any such person as Christopher Calumus. I'm sure I'd like to know
+who writes to literary men under their assumed names."
+
+May was so pale that only the fact that everybody was looking at Mrs.
+Harbinger could shield her from discovery. The hostess drew herself up
+with a haughty lifting of the head.
+
+"If it is of so great importance to you," she said, "it is I who wrote
+the letter. Who else should write letters in this house?"
+
+She extended her hand to the Count as she spoke, as if to recover the
+harmless-looking little white missive which was causing so much
+commotion, but the Count did not offer to return it. Tom Harbinger stood
+a second as if amazement had struck him dumb. Then with the air of a
+puppet pronouncing words by machinery he ejaculated:--
+
+"You wrote to the Count?"
+
+His wife turned to him with a start, and opened her lips, but before she
+could speak a fresh interruption prevented. Barnstable in the few
+moments during which he had been in the room had met with so many
+strange experiences that he might well be bewildered. He had been
+greeted by May as one for whom she was waiting, and then had been hailed
+as the author of the book which he hated; the eccentric Graham had made
+of him a sort of involuntary penny-post; he had been in the midst of a
+group whisking a letter about like folk in the last act of a comedy; and
+now here was the announcement that the Count was the anonymous libeler
+for whom he had been seeking. He dashed forward, every fold of his chins
+quivering, his hair bristling, his little eyes red with excitement. He
+shook his fist in the face of the Count in a manner not often seen in a
+polite drawing-room.
+
+"You are a villain," he cried. "You have insulted my wife!"
+
+Bradish and Mr. Harbinger at once seized him, and between them he was
+drawn back gesticulating and struggling. The ladies looked frightened,
+but with the exception of Mrs. Croydon they behaved with admirable
+propriety. Mrs. Croydon gave a little yapping screech, and fell back in
+her chair in hysterics. More complete confusion could hardly have been
+imagined, and Mrs. Neligage, who looked on with eyes full of laughter,
+had certainly reason to congratulate herself that if she loved making
+mischief she had for once at least been most instantly and triumphantly
+successful.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE COUNSEL OF A MOTHER
+
+
+If an earthquake shook down the house in which was being held a Boston
+function, the persons there assembled would crawl from the ruins in a
+manner decorous and dignified, or if too badly injured for this would
+compose with decency their mangled limbs and furnish the addresses of
+their respective family physicians. The violent and ill-considered farce
+which had been played in Mrs. Harbinger's drawing-room might elsewhere
+have produced a long-continued disturbance; but here it left no trace
+after five minutes. Mr. Barnstable, babbling and protesting like a
+lunatic, was promptly hurried into confinement in the library, where Mr.
+Harbinger and Bradish stood guard over him as if he were a dangerous
+beast; while the other guests made haste to retire. They went, however,
+with entire decorum. Mrs. Croydon was, it is true, a disturbing element
+in the quickly restored serenity of the party, and was with difficulty
+made to assume some semblance of self-control. Graham, being sent to
+call a carriage, first caught a forlorn herdic, which was prowling about
+like a deserted tomcat, and when the lady would none of this managed to
+produce a hack which must have been the most shabby in the entire town.
+The Count was taken away by Miss Wentstile, who in the hour of his peril
+dropped the stiffness she had assumed at his recognition of Mrs.
+Neligage. She dragged Alice along with them, but Alice in turn held on
+to May, so that the Count was given no opportunity to press his suit.
+They all retired in good order, and however they talked, they at least
+behaved beautifully.
+
+As Neligage took his hat in the hall Fairfield caught him by the arm.
+
+"Jack," he said under his breath, "do you believe Mrs. Harbinger wrote
+me those letters?"
+
+"Of course not," Jack responded instantly. "Not if they are the sort of
+letters you said. Letty Harbinger is as square as a brick."
+
+"Then why did she say she did?"
+
+Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
+
+"The letter was evidently written here," he said. "She must know who did
+write it."
+
+"Ah, I see!" exclaimed the other. "She was shielding somebody."
+
+Jack regarded him with sudden sternness.
+
+"There was nobody that it could be except--"
+
+He broke off abruptly, a black look in his face, and before another word
+could be exchanged Mrs. Neligage called him. He went off with his
+mother, hastily telling his friend he would see him before bedtime.
+
+Mrs. Neligage was hardly up to her son's shoulder, but so well preserved
+was she that she might easily have been mistaken for a sister not so
+much his senior. She was admirably dressed, exquisitely gloved and
+booted, to the last fold of her tailor-made frock entirely correct, and
+in her manner provokingly and piquantly animated.
+
+"Who in the world was that horror that made the exhibition of himself?"
+she asked. "I never saw anything like that at the Harbingers' before."
+
+"I know nothing about him except that his name is Barnstable, and that
+he came from the West somewhere. He's joined the Calif Club lately. How
+he got in I don't understand; but he seems to have loads of money."
+
+"He is a beast," Mrs. Neligage pronounced by way of dismissing the
+subject. "What did Mrs. Harbinger mean by thanking you for arranging
+something with the Count? What have you to do with him?"
+
+"Oh, that is a secret."
+
+"Then if it is a secret tell it at once."
+
+"I'll tell you just to disappoint you," Jack returned with a grin. "It
+is only about some etchings that the Count brought over. Mrs. Harbinger
+has bought a couple as a present for Tom."
+
+"She had better be careful," Mrs. Neligage observed. "Tom thinks more of
+the collection now than he does of anything else in the world. But what
+are you mixed up in the Count's transactions for?"
+
+"She asked me to fix it, and besides the poor devil needed to sell them
+to raise the wind. I'm too used to being hard up myself not to feel for
+him."
+
+"But you wrote me that you detested the Count."
+
+"So I do, but you can't help doing a fellow a good turn, can you, just
+because you don't happen to like him?"
+
+She laughed lightly.
+
+"You are a model of good nature. I wish you'd show it to May Calthorpe."
+
+Her son looked down at her with a questioning glance.
+
+"She is always at liberty to admire my virtues, of course; but she can't
+expect me to put myself out to make special exhibitions for her
+benefit."
+
+The faces of both mother and son hardened a little, as if the subject
+touched upon was one concerning which they had disagreed before. The
+change of expression brought out a subtle likeness which had not before
+been visible. Jack Neligage was usually said to resemble his father, who
+had died just as the boy was entering his teens, but when he was in a
+passion--a thing which happened but seldom--his face oddly took on the
+look of his mother. The change, moreover, was not entirely to his
+disadvantage, for as a rule Jack showed too plainly the easy-going,
+self-indulgent character which had been the misfortune of the late John
+Neligage, and which made friends of the family declare with a sigh that
+Jack would never amount to anything worth while.
+
+Mother and son walked on in silence a moment, and then the lady
+observed, in a voice as dispassionate as ever:--
+
+"She is a silly little thing. I believe even you could wind her round
+your finger."
+
+"I haven't any intention of trying."
+
+"So you have given me to understand before; but now that I am going away
+you might at least let me go with the consolation of knowing you'd
+provided for yourself. You must marry somebody with money, and she has
+no end of it."
+
+He braced back his shoulders as if he found it not altogether easy not
+to reply impatiently.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, to Europe. Anywhere out of the arctic zone of the New England
+conscience. I've had as long a spell of respectability as I can stand,
+my boy."
+
+Something in her manner evidently irritated him more and more. She spoke
+with a little indefinable defiant swagger, as if she intended to anger
+him. He looked at her no longer, but fixed his gaze on the distance.
+
+"When you talk of giving up respectability," he remarked in an aggrieved
+tone, "I should think you might consider me."
+
+Her eyes danced, as if she were delighted to see him becoming angry.
+
+"Oh, I do, Jack, I assure you; but I really cannot afford to be
+respectable any longer. Respectability is the most expensive luxury of
+civilization; and how can I keep it up when I'm in debt to everybody
+that'll trust me."
+
+"Then you might economize."
+
+"Economize! Ye gods! This from you, Jack! Where did you hear the word?
+I'm sure you know nothing of the thing."
+
+He laughed in evident self-despite.
+
+"We are a nice pair of ruffianly adventurers," he responded; "a regular
+pair of genteel paupers. But we've both got to pull up, I tell you."
+
+"Oh, heavens!" was his mother's reply. "Don't talk to me of pulling up.
+What fun do I have as it is but quarreling with Miss Wentstile and
+snubbing Harry Bradish? I've got to keep up my authority in our set, or
+I should lose even these amusements."
+
+Jack flashed her a swift, questioning look, and with a new note in his
+voice, a note of doubt at once and desperation, blurted out a fresh
+question.
+
+"How about flirting with Sibley Langdon?"
+
+Mrs. Neligage flushed slightly and for a brief second contracted her
+well-arched eyebrows, but in an instant she was herself again.
+
+"Oh, well," she returned, with a pretty little shrug, "that of course is
+a trifle better, but not much. Sibley really cares for himself so
+entirely that there's very little to be got out of him."
+
+"But you know how you make folks talk."
+
+"Oh, folks always talk. There is always as much gossip about nothing as
+about something."
+
+"But he puts on such a damnable air of proprietorship," Jack burst out,
+with much more feeling than he had thus far shown. "I know I shall kick
+him some time."
+
+"That is the sort of thing you had better leave to the Barnstable man,"
+she responded dryly. "Sibley only has the air of owning everything.
+That's just his nature. He's really less fun than good old Harry
+Bradish. But such as he is, he is the best I can do. If that stuffy old
+invalid wife of his would only die, I think I'd marry him out of hand
+for his money."
+
+Jack threw out his arm with an angry gesture.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, mother," he said, "what are you after that you are
+going on so? You know you drive me wild when you get into this sort of a
+talk."
+
+"Or I might elope with him as it is, you know," she continued in her
+most teasing manner; but watching him intently.
+
+"What in the deuce do you talk to me like that for!" he cried, shaking
+himself savagely. "You're my mother!"
+
+Mrs. Neligage grew suddenly grave. She drew closer to her son, and
+slipped her hand through his arm.
+
+"So much the worse for us both, isn't it, Jack? Come, we may as well
+behave like rational beings. Of course I was teasing you; but that isn't
+the trouble. It's yourself you are angry with."
+
+"What have I to be angry with myself about?"
+
+"You are trying to make up your mind that you're willing to be poor for
+the sake of marrying Alice Endicott; but you know you wouldn't be equal
+to it. If I thought you would, I'd say go ahead. Do you think you'd be
+happy in a South End apartment house with the washing on a line between
+the chimneys, and a dry-goods box outside the window for a
+refrigerator?"
+
+Jack mingled a groan and a laugh.
+
+"You can't pay your debts as it is," she went on remorselessly. "We are
+a pair of paupers who have to live as if we were rich. You see what your
+father made of it, starting with a fortune. You can't suppose you'd do
+much better when you've nothing but debts."
+
+"I think I'll enlist, or run away to sea," Jack declared, tugging
+viciously at his mustache.
+
+"No, you'll accept your destiny. You'll like it better than you think,
+when you're settled down to it. You'll stay here and marry May
+Calthorpe."
+
+"You must think I'm a whelp to marry a girl just for her money."
+
+"Oh, you must fall in love with her. Any man is a wretch who'd marry a
+girl just for her money, but a man's a fool that can't fall in love with
+a pretty girl worth half a million."
+
+Jack dropped his mother's hand from his arm with more emphasis than
+politeness, and stopped to face her on the corner of the street.
+
+"The very Old Boy is in you to-day, mother," he said. "I won't listen to
+another word."
+
+She regarded him with a saucy, laughing face, and put out her hand.
+
+"Well, good-night then," she said. "Come in and see me as soon as you
+can. I have a lot of things to tell you about Washington. By the way,
+what do you think of my going there, and setting up as a lobbyist? They
+say women make no end of money that way."
+
+He swung hastily round, and left her without a word. She went on her
+way, but her face turned suddenly careworn and haggard as she walked in
+the gathering twilight toward the little apartment where she lived in
+fashionable poverty.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE TEST OF LOVE
+
+
+One of the distinctive features of "good society" is that its talk is
+chiefly of persons. Less distinguished circles may waste precious time
+on the discussion of ideas, but in company really select such
+conversation is looked upon as dull and pedantic. One of the first
+requisites for entrance into the world of fashion is a thorough
+knowledge of the concerns of those who are included in its alluring
+round; and not to be informed in this branch of wisdom marks at once the
+outsider. It follows that concealment of personal affairs is pretty
+nearly impossible. Humanity being frail, it frequently happens that
+fashionable folk delude themselves by the fond belief that they have
+escaped the universal law of their surroundings; but the minute
+familiarity which each might boast of all that relates to his neighbors
+should undeceive them. That of which all the world talks is not to be
+concealed.
+
+Everybody in their set knew perfectly well that Jack Neligage had been
+in love with Alice Endicott from the days when they had paddled in the
+sand on the walks of the Public Garden. The smart nursery maids whose
+occupation it was to convey their charges thither and keep them out of
+the fountains, between whiles exchanging gossip about the parents of the
+babies, had begun the talk. The opinions of fashionable society are
+generally first formed by servants, and then served up with a garnish of
+fancifully distorted facts for the edification of their mistresses; and
+in due time the loves of the Public Garden, reported and decorated by
+the nursery maids, serve as topics for afternoon calls. Master Jack was
+known to be in love with Miss Alice before either of them could have
+written the word, and in this case the passion had been so lasting that
+it excited remark not only for itself as an ordinary attachment, but as
+an extraordinary case of unusual constancy.
+
+Society knew, of course, the impossibility of the situation. It was
+common knowledge that neither of the lovers had anything to marry on.
+Jack's handsome and spendthrift father had effectually dissipated the
+property which he inherited, only his timely death preserving to Mrs.
+Neligage and her son the small remnant which kept them from actual
+destitution. Alice was dependent upon the bounty of her aunt, Miss
+Wentstile. Miss Wentstile, it is true, was abundantly able to provide
+for Alice, but the old lady seriously disapproved of Jack Neligage, and
+of his mother she disapproved more strongly yet. Everybody said--and
+despite all the sarcastic observations of that most objectionable class,
+the satirists, what everybody says nobody likes to disregard--that if
+Jack and Alice were so rash as to marry they would never touch a penny
+of the aunt's money. Jack, moreover, was in debt. Nobody blamed him much
+for this, because he was a general favorite, and all his acquaintance
+recognized how impossible it was for a young man to live within an
+income so small as from any rational point of view to be regarded as
+much the same thing as no income at all; but of course it was recognized
+also that it is not well in the present day to marry nothing upon a
+capital of less than nothing. It has been successfully done, it is true;
+but it calls for more energy and ingenuity than was possessed by
+easy-going Jack Neligage. In view of all these facts, frequently
+discussed, society was unanimously agreed that Jack and Alice could
+never marry.
+
+This impossibility excited a faint sort of romantic sympathy for the
+young couple. They were invited to the same houses and thrown together,
+apparently with the idea that they should play with fire as steadily and
+as long as possible. The unphrased feeling probably was that since the
+culmination of their hopes in matrimony was out of the question, it was
+only common humanity to afford them opportunities for getting from the
+ill-starred attachment all the pleasure that was to be had. Society
+approves strongly of romance so long as it stops short of disastrous
+marriages; and since Jack and Alice were not to be united, to see them
+dallying with the temptation of making an imprudent match was a
+spectacle at once piquant and diverting.
+
+On the evening of the day when the news of Alice's pseudo-engagement
+had been discussed at Mrs. Harbinger's tea, Jack called on her. She
+received him with composure, coming into the room a little pale,
+perhaps, but entirely free from self-consciousness. Alice was not
+considered handsome by her friends, but no one could fail to recognize
+that her face was an unusual one. The Count, in his distorted English,
+had declared that Miss Endicott "have een her face one Madonna," and the
+description was hardly to be bettered. The serene oval countenance, the
+dark, clear skin, the smooth hair of a deep chestnut, the level brows
+and long lashes, the high, pure forehead, all belonged to the Madonna
+type; although the sparkle of humor which now and then gleamed in the
+full, gray eyes imparted a bewitching flavor of humanity. To-night she
+was very grave, but she smiled properly, the smile a well-instructed
+girl learns as she learns to courtesy. She shook hands in a way perhaps
+a little formal, since she was greeting so old an acquaintance.
+
+"Sit down, please," she said. "It is kind of you to come in. I hardly
+had a chance to say a word to you this afternoon."
+
+Jack did not return her greeting, nor did he accept her invitation to be
+seated. He stooped above the low chair into which she sank as she spoke.
+
+"What is this amazing story that you are engaged to Count Shimbowski?"
+he demanded abruptly.
+
+She looked up to him with a smile which was more conventional than
+ever.
+
+"What right have you to ask me a question like that?" she returned.
+
+He waved his hand as if to put aside formalities.
+
+"But is it true?" he insisted.
+
+"What is it to you, Jack, if it were?"
+
+She grew visibly paler, and her fingers knit themselves together. He, on
+the contrary, flushed and became more commanding in his manner.
+
+"Do you suppose," he answered, "that I should be willing to see a friend
+of mine throw herself away on that old roué? He is old enough to be your
+father."
+
+"But you know," said she, assuming an air of raillery which did not seem
+to be entirely genuine, "that the proverb says it's better to be an old
+man's darling than a young man's slave."
+
+Jack flung himself into a chair with an impatient exclamation, and
+immediately got up again to walk the floor.
+
+"I wouldn't have believed it of you, Alice. How can you joke about a
+thing like that!"
+
+"Why, Jack; you've told me a hundred times that the only way to get
+through life comfortably is to take everything in jest."
+
+"Oh, confound what I've told you! That's good enough philosophy for me,
+but it's beneath you to talk so."
+
+"What is sauce for the goose--"
+
+"Keep still," he interrupted. "If you can't be serious--"
+
+"You are so fond of being serious," she murmured, interrupting in her
+turn.
+
+"But I am serious now. Haven't we always been good friends enough for me
+to speak to you in earnest without your treating me as if I was either
+impertinent or a fool?"
+
+He stopped his restless walk to stand before her again. She was silent a
+moment with her glance fixed on the rug. Then she raised her eyes to
+his, and her manner became suddenly grave.
+
+"Yes, Jack," she said, "we have always been friends; but has any man,
+simply because he is a friend, a right to ask a girl a question like
+that?"
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean no more than I say. There are other men with whom I've been
+friends all my life. Is there any one of them that you'd think had a
+right to come here to-night and question me about my engagement?"
+
+"I'd break his head if he did!" Jack retorted savagely.
+
+"Then why shouldn't he--whoever he might be--break yours?"
+
+He flung himself into his chair again, his sunny face clouded, and his
+brows drawn down. He met her glance with a look which seemed to be
+trying to fathom the purpose of her mood.
+
+"Why, hang it," he said; "with me it's different. You know I've always
+been more than a common friend."
+
+"You have been a good friend," she answered with resolute
+self-composure; "but only a friend after all."
+
+"Then you mean that I cannot be more than a friend?"
+
+She dropped her eyes, a faint flush stealing up into her pale cheeks.
+
+"You do not wish to be; and therefore you have no right--"
+
+He sprang up impulsively and seized both her hands in his.
+
+"Good God, Alice," he exclaimed, "you drive me wild! You know that if I
+were not so cursedly poor--"
+
+She released herself gently, and with perfect calmness.
+
+"I know," she responded, "that you have weighed me in the balance
+against the trouble of earning a living, and you haven't found me worth
+the price. In the face of a fact like that what is the use of words?"
+
+He thrust his empty hands into his pockets, and glowered down on her.
+
+"You know I love you, Alice. You know I've been in love with you ever
+since I began to walk; and you--you--"
+
+She rose and faced him proudly.
+
+"Well, say it!" she cried. "Say that I was foolish enough to love you!
+That I knew no better than to believe in you, and that I half broke my
+heart when you forced me to see that you weren't what I thought. Say it,
+if you like. You can't make me more ashamed of it than I am already!"
+
+"Ashamed--Alice?"
+
+"Yes, ashamed! It humiliates me that I should set my heart on a man that
+cared so little for me that he set me below his polo-ponies, his
+bachelor ease, his miserable little self-indulgences! Oh, Jack," she
+went on, her manner suddenly changing to one of appeal, and the tears
+starting into her eyes, "why can't you be a man?"
+
+She put her hand on his arm, and he covered it affectionately with one
+of his while she hurried on.
+
+"Do break away from the life you are living, and do something worthy of
+you. You are good to everybody else; there's nothing you won't do for
+others; do this for yourself. Do it for me. You are throwing yourself
+away, and I have to hear them talk of your debts, and your racing and
+gambling, and how reckless you are! It almost kills me!"
+
+The full sunniness of his smile came back as he looked down into her
+earnest face, caressing her hand.
+
+"Dear little woman," he said; "are you sure you have got entirely over
+being fond of me?"
+
+"I couldn't get over being fond of you. You know it. That's what makes
+it hurt so."
+
+He raised her hand tenderly, and kissed it. Then he dropped it abruptly,
+and turned away.
+
+"You must get over it," he said, so brusquely that she started almost as
+if from a blow.
+
+She sank back into her seat, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes,
+while he walked back to his chair and sat down with an air of bravado.
+
+"It's no use, Alice," he said, "I'm not worth a thought, and it isn't in
+me to--Well, the fact is that I know myself too well. I know that if I
+promised you to-night that to-morrow I'd begin better fashions, I'm not
+man enough to live up to it. I couldn't involve you in--Oh, don't,
+don't!"
+
+He broke off to turn to toy with some of the ornaments on the table. In
+a moment Alice had suppressed her sobs, and he spoke again, but without
+meeting her look. His voice was hard and flippant.
+
+"You see I have such a good time that I wouldn't give it up for the
+world. I think I'd better keep on as I'm going. The time makes us, and
+we have to abide by the fashion of the time."
+
+"If that is the way you feel," she said coldly, "it is I who have
+presumed on old friendship."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed harshly.
+
+"We have both been a little unnecessarily tragic, it seems to me," was
+his rejoinder. "Love isn't for a poor man unless he'll take it on the
+half-shell without dressing; and I fancy neither of us would much care
+for it that way. My bank-account is a standing reason why I shouldn't
+marry anybody."
+
+"The sentiment does credit to Mr. Neligage's head if not to his heart,"
+commented the sneering voice of Miss Wentstile, who at that moment came
+through the portières from the library. "I hope I don't intrude?"
+
+"Certainly not," Alice answered with spirit. "Mr. Neligage was giving
+me a lesson in the social economics of matrimony; but I knew before all
+he has to tell."
+
+"Then, my dear," her aunt said, "I trust he will excuse you. It is time
+we went to Mrs. Wilson's. I promised the Count that we would be there
+early."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE MISCHIEF OF A GENTLEMAN
+
+
+The Goddess of Misfortune sometimes capriciously takes a spite against
+an entire family, so that all of its members are at the same time
+involved in one misadventure or another. She shows a malicious impulse
+to wreak her disfavor on all of a connection at once, apparently from a
+knowledge that misery begets misery, and that nothing so completely
+fills to overflowing the cup of vexation as the finding that those from
+whom sympathy would naturally be expected are themselves in a condition
+to demand rather than to give it. She apparently amuses herself in mere
+wantonness of enjoyment of the sufferings of her victims when no one of
+them is in a condition to cheer the others. She illustrated this
+unamiable trait of her celestial character next day in her dealing with
+the Neligages, mother and son.
+
+It was a beautiful spring day, not too warm in the unseasonable fashion
+which often makes a New England April so detestable, but with a fresh
+air full of exhilaration. Even in the city the cool, invigorating
+morning was refreshing. It provoked thoughts of springing grass and
+swelling buds, it suggested the marsh-marigolds preparing their gold
+down amid the roots of rushes, it teased the sense with vague yet
+disquieting desires to be in the open. The sun called to mind the
+amethystine foliage, half mist and half leaves, which was beginning to
+appear in the woods, as if trailing clouds had become entangled among
+the twig-set branches. The wind brought a spirit of daring, as if to-day
+one could do and not count the cost; as if adventures were the normal
+experience of man, and dreams might become tangible with the foliage
+which was condensing out of the spring air. It was one of those rare
+days which put the ideal to shame.
+
+The windows of Mrs. Neligage's little parlor were open, and the morning
+air with all its provoking suggestions was floating in softly, as she
+rose to welcome a caller. He was not in the first springtime of life,
+yet suggested a season which was to spring what Indian summer is to
+autumn. A certain brisk jauntiness in face, dress, and manner might mean
+that he had by sheer determination remained far younger than his years.
+He had a hard, handsome face, with cleanly cut features, and side
+whiskers which were perhaps too long and flowing. His hair was somewhat
+touched with gray, but it was abundant, and curled attractively about
+his high, white forehead. His dress was perfection, and gave the
+impression that if he had moral scruples--about which his hard, bright
+eyes might raise a doubt--it would be in the direction of being always
+perfectly attired. His manner as he greeted Mrs. Neligage was carefully
+genial, yet the spring which was in the air seemed in his presence to be
+chilled by an untimely frost.
+
+"How bright you are looking this morning, Louise," Mr. Sibley Langdon
+said, kissing her hand with an elaborate air of gallantry. "You are
+really the incarnation of the spring that is upon us."
+
+She smiled languidly, drawing away her hand and moving to a seat.
+
+"You know I am getting old enough to like to be told I am young,
+Sibley," was her answer. "Sit down, and tell me what has happened in the
+month that I've been in Washington."
+
+"Nothing can happen while you are away," he responded, with a smile. "We
+only vegetate, and wait for your return. You don't mind if I smoke?"
+
+"Certainly not. How is Mrs. Langdon?"
+
+He drew out a cigarette-case of tortoise-shell and gold, helped himself
+to a cigarette, and lighted it before he answered.
+
+"Mrs. Langdon is as usual," he replied. "She is as ill and as pious as
+ever."
+
+"For which is she to be pitied the more?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know that she is to be pitied for either," Langdon
+responded, in his crisp, well-bred voice. "Both her illness and her
+piety are in the nature of occupations to her. One must do something,
+you know."
+
+Mrs. Neligage offered no reply to this, and for half a moment the caller
+smoked in silence.
+
+"Tell me about yourself," he said. "You cruelly refuse to write to me,
+so that when you are away I am always in the dark as to what you are
+doing. I've no doubt you had all Washington at your feet."
+
+"Oh, there were a few unimportant exceptions," Mrs. Neligage returned,
+her voice a little hard. "I don't think that if you went on now you'd
+find the capital draped in mourning over my departure."
+
+Langdon knocked the ashes from his cigarette with the deliberation which
+marked all his movements. Then he looked at his hostess curiously.
+
+"You don't seem to be in the best of spirits this morning, Louise," he
+said. "Has anything gone wrong?"
+
+She looked at him with contracting brows, and ignored his question as
+she demanded abruptly:--
+
+"What did you come to say to me?"
+
+"To say to you, my dear? I came as usual to say how much I admire you,
+of course."
+
+She made an impatient gesture.
+
+"What did you come to say?" she repeated. "Do you think I don't know you
+well enough to see when you have some especial purpose in mind?"
+
+Sibley Langdon laughed lightly,--a sort of inward, well-bred laugh,--and
+again with care trimmed his cigarette.
+
+"You are a person of remarkable penetration, and it is evidently of no
+use to hope to get ahead of you. I really came for the pleasure of
+seeing you, but now that I am here I may as well mention that I have
+decided to go abroad almost at once."
+
+"Ah," Mrs. Neligage commented. "Does Mrs. Langdon go with you?"
+
+He laughed outright, as if the question struck him as unusually droll.
+
+"You really cannot think me so selfish as to insist upon her risking her
+fragile health by an ocean voyage just for my pleasure."
+
+"I suspected that you meant to go alone," she said dryly.
+
+"But, my dear child," he answered with no change of manner, "I don't
+mean to go alone."
+
+She changed color, but she did not pursue the subject. She took up from
+the table a little Japanese ivory carving, and began to examine it with
+close scrutiny.
+
+"You do not ask whom I hope to take with me," Langdon said.
+
+She looked at him firmly.
+
+"I have no possible interest in knowing," she responded.
+
+"You are far too modest, Louise. On the contrary you have the greatest.
+I had hoped--"
+
+He half hesitated over the sentence, and she interrupted him by rising
+and moving to the open window.
+
+"It is so nice to have the windows open again," she said. "I feel as if
+I were less alone when there is nothing between me and the world. That
+big fat policeman over there is a great friend of mine."
+
+"We are all your slaves, you see," Langdon responded, rising languidly
+and joining her. "By the way, I had a letter from Count Marchetti the
+other day."
+
+Mrs. Neligage flushed and paled, and into her eye came a dangerous
+sparkle. She moved away from him, and went back to her seat, leaving him
+to follow again. She did not look at him, but she spoke with a
+determined manner which showed that she was not cowed.
+
+"Before I go to bed to-night, Sibley," she said, "I shall write to the
+Countess the whole story of her necklace. I was a fool not to do it
+before."
+
+He smiled indulgently.
+
+"Oh, did I call up that old unpleasantness?" he observed. "I really beg
+your pardon. But since you speak of it, what good would it do to write
+to her now? It would make no difference in facts, of course; and it
+wouldn't change things here at all."
+
+She sprang up and turned upon him in a fury.
+
+"Sibley Langdon," she cried, "you are a perfect fiend!"
+
+He laughed and looked at her with admiration so evident that her eyes
+fell.
+
+"You have told me that before, and you are so devilish handsome when you
+say it, Louise, that I can't resist the temptation sometimes of making
+you repeat it. Come, don't be cross. We are too wise if not too old to
+talk melodrama."
+
+"I shall act melodrama if you keep on tormenting me! What did you come
+here for this morning? Say it, and have done."
+
+"If you take it that way," returned he, "I came only to say
+good-morning."
+
+His coolness was unshaken, and he smiled as charmingly as ever.
+
+"Tell me," he remarked, flinging his cigarette end into the grate and
+taking out his case again, "did you see the Kanes in Washington?"
+
+He lighted a fresh cigarette, and for half an hour talked of casual
+matters, the people of their set in Washington, the new buildings there,
+the decorations, and the political scandals. His manner became almost
+deferential, and Mrs. Neligage as they chatted lost gradually all trace
+of the excitement which she had shown. At length the talk came round to
+their neighbors at home.
+
+"I met Count Shimbowski at the club the other day," Langdon remarked,
+"and he alluded to the old days at Monte Carlo almost with sentiment. It
+is certainly amusing to see him passed round among respectable Boston
+houses."
+
+"He is respectable enough according to his standards," she responded.
+"It is funny, though, to see how much afraid he is that Miss Wentstile
+should know about his past history."
+
+"I suppose there's no doubt he's to marry Alice Endicott, is there?"
+
+"There is Alice herself," Mrs. Neligage answered. "I should call her a
+pretty big doubt."
+
+"At any rate," her companion observed, "Jack can't marry her. Miss
+Wentstile would never give them a penny."
+
+"I have never heard Jack say that he wished to marry her," Mrs.
+Neligage responded coolly. "You are quite right about Miss Wentstile,
+though; she regards Jack as the blackest sheep imaginable."
+
+Langdon did not speak for a moment or two, and when he did break silence
+his manner was more decided than before.
+
+"What line do you like best to cross by?" he asked.
+
+"I have been on so many," she answered, "that I really can't tell."
+
+"It is safe to say then that you like a fast boat."
+
+She made no reply, and only played nervously with the clever carving in
+her hand, where little ivory rats were stealing grain with eternal
+motionless activity.
+
+"Of course if you were going over this spring," Langdon said, "we should
+be likely to meet somewhere on the other side; Paris, very possibly. It
+is a pity that people gossip so, or we might go on the same steamer."
+
+She looked him squarely in the face.
+
+"I am not going abroad this summer," she said distinctly.
+
+"Oh, my dear Louise," returned he half mockingly, half pleadingly, "you
+really can't mean that. Europe would be intolerably dull without you."
+
+She looked up, pale to the eyes.
+
+"My son would be dull here without me," she said.
+
+"Oh, Jack," returned the other, shrugging his shoulders, "he'll get on
+very well. If you were going, you know, you might leave him something--"
+
+She started to her feet with eyes blazing.
+
+"You had better go," she said in a low voice. "I have endured a good
+deal from you, Sibley; and I've always known that the day would come
+when you'd insult me. It will be better for us both if you go."
+
+He rose in his turn, as collected as ever.
+
+"Insult you, my dear Louise? Why, I wouldn't hurt your feelings for
+anything in the world. I give you leave to repeat every word that I have
+said to any of your friends,--to Miss Wentstile, or Letty Harbinger, or
+to Jack--"
+
+"If I repeated them to Jack," she interrupted him, "he'd break every
+bone in your body!"
+
+"Would he? I doubt it. At any rate he would have to hear me first; and
+then--"
+
+Mrs. Neligage, all her brightness quenched, her face old and miserable,
+threw out her hands in despairing supplication.
+
+"Go!" she cried. "Go! Or I shall do something we'll both be sorry for!
+Go, or I'll call that policeman over there."
+
+He laughed lightly, but he moved toward the door.
+
+"Gad!" he ejaculated. "That would make a pretty item in the evening
+papers. Well, if you really wish it, I'll go; but I hope you'll think
+over what I've said, or rather think over what I haven't said, since
+you haven't seemed pleased with my words. I shall come at one to drive
+you to the County Club."
+
+He bade her an elaborate good-morning, and went away, as collected, as
+handsome, as debonaire as ever; while Mrs. Neligage, the hard, bright
+little widow who had the reputation of being afraid of nothing and of
+having no feelings, broke down into a most unusual fit of crying.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE BUSINESS OF A CLUBMAN
+
+
+The first game of polo for the season at the County Club was to be
+played that Saturday. The unusually early spring had put the turf in
+condition, and the men had had more or less practice. It was too soon,
+of course, for a match, but there was to be a friendly set-to between
+the County Club team and a team from the Oracle Club. It was not much
+more than an excuse for bringing the members out, and for having a mild
+gala, with fresh spring toilettes and spring buoyancy to add to the zest
+of the day.
+
+Amusement is a business which calls for a good deal of brains if it is
+to be carried on successfully. Of course only professionals can hope to
+succeed in a line so difficult, and in America there are few real
+professionals in the art of self-amusement. Most men spoil their chances
+of complete success by dallying more or less with work of one sort or
+another; and this is fatal. Only he who is sincere in putting amusement
+first, and to it sacrifices all other considerations, can hope for true
+preëminence in this calling. Jack Neligage was one of the few men in
+Boston entirely free from any weakness in the way of occupation beyond
+that of pleasure-seeking; and as a consequence he was one of the few
+who did it well.
+
+All forms of fashionable play came easily and naturally to Jack, and in
+them all he bore a part with tolerable grace. He was sufficiently adept
+at tennis in its day; and when that had passed, he was equally adroit in
+golf and in curling; he could lead a german better than anybody else;
+nobody so well managed assemblies and devised novel surprises in the way
+of decorations; nobody else so well arranged coaching trips or so surely
+made the life of a house party. All these things were part of his
+profession as a pleasure-seeker, and they were all done with a quick and
+merry spirit which gave to them a charm not to be resisted.
+
+It was on the polo-field, however, that Jack was at his best. No man who
+hopes to keep up with the fashions can afford to become too much
+interested in any single sport, for presently the fad will alter, and he
+must perforce abandon the old delights; but polo held its own very well,
+and it was evidently the thing in which Jack reveled most. He was the
+leading player not of his club only, but of all the clubs about. His
+stud of polo-ponies was selected with more care than has often gone to
+the making of a state constitution, for the matters that are really
+important must be attended to with zeal, while public politics may be
+expected more or less to take care of themselves. His friends wondered
+how Neligage contrived to get hold of ponies so valuable, or how he was
+able to keep so expensive an outfit after he had obtained it; but
+everybody was agreed that he had a most wonderful lot.
+
+The question of how he managed might have been better understood by any
+one who had chanced to overhear a conversation between Jack and Dr.
+Wilson, which took place just before luncheon that day. Dr. Wilson was
+chairman of the board of managers of the club. He was a man who had come
+into the club chiefly as the husband of Mrs. Chauncy Wilson, a lady
+whose stud was one of the finest in the state, and he was somewhat
+looked down upon by the men of genuine old family. He was good-humored,
+however; shrewd if a little unrefined; and he had been rich long enough
+to carry the burden of his wife's enormous fortune without undue
+self-consequence. To-day it became his duty to talk to Jack on an
+unpleasant matter of business.
+
+"Jack," he said, "I've got to pitch into you again."
+
+"The same old thing, I suppose."
+
+"Same old thing. Sometimes I've half a mind to resign from the club, so
+as to get rid of having to drub you fellows about your bills."
+
+Jack gnawed his mustache, twisting his cigar in his fingers in a way
+that threatened to demolish it altogether.
+
+"I've told you already that I can't do anything until--"
+
+"Oh, I know it," Wilson broke in. "I'm satisfied, but the committee is
+getting scared. The finances of the club are in an awful mess; there's
+no denying that. Some of the men on the committee, you see, are afraid
+of being blamed for letting the credits run on so."
+
+Jack did not take advantage of the pause which gave him an opportunity
+to speak, and the other went on again.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, old man; but there's got to be an end somewhere, and
+nobody's been given the rope that you have."
+
+"I can resign, of course," Jack said shortly.
+
+"Oh, dry up that sort of talk! Nobody'd listen to your resigning.
+Everybody wants you here, and we couldn't spare you from the polo team."
+
+"But if I can't pay up, what else can I do?"
+
+"But you can't resign in debt, man."
+
+Jack laughed with savage amusement.
+
+"What the devil am I to do? I can't stay, and I can't leave. That seems
+to be about the size of it."
+
+Dr. Wilson looked at his companion keenly, and there was in his tone
+some hesitation as he replied.
+
+"You might sell--"
+
+"Sell my ponies!" broke in Neligage excitedly. "When I do I'll give up
+playing."
+
+"Oh, nonsense! Don't be so infernally stubborn. Harbinger'll buy one,
+and I'll buy a couple, and the others it doesn't matter about. You've
+always had twice as many as you need."
+
+"So you propose that I shouldn't have any."
+
+"You could use them just the same."
+
+Jack swore savagely.
+
+"Thank you," he returned. "I may be a beggar, but I won't be a beat."
+
+Wilson laughed with his oily, chuckling laugh.
+
+"I don't see," he observed with characteristic brusqueness, "why it is
+any worse to take a favor from a friend that offers it than to get it
+out of a club that can't help itself."
+
+Jack's cheeks flushed, and he began an angry reply. Then he restrained
+himself.
+
+"I won't quarrel with you for doing your official duty, Wilson," he said
+stiffly. "I'll fix things somehow or get out."
+
+"Oh, hang it, man," returned the doctor good-naturedly, "you mustn't
+talk of getting out. I'll lend you what you need."
+
+"Thank you, but you know I can't pay you."
+
+"That's no matter. Something will turn up, and you may pay me when you
+get ready."
+
+"No; I'm deep enough in the mire as it is. I won't make it worse by
+borrowing. That's the only virtue that I ever had,--that I didn't sponge
+on my friends. I'm just as much obliged to you; but I can't do it."
+
+They had been sitting in the smoking-room before the fireplace where a
+smouldering log or two took from the air its spring chill. Jack as he
+spoke flung the stub of his cigar into the ashes, and rose with an air
+of considering the conversation definitely ended. Wilson looked up at
+him, his golden-brown eyes more sober than usual.
+
+"Of course it is just as you say, old man," he remarked; "but if you
+change your mind, you've only to let me know."
+
+Jack moved off with a downcast air unusual to him, but by the time he
+had encountered two or three men who were about the club-house, and had
+exchanged with them a jest or a remark about the coming game, his face
+was as sunny as ever. People were now arriving rather rapidly, and soon
+the stylish trap of Sibley Langdon came bowling up the driveway in fine
+style, with Mrs. Neligage sitting beside the owner. Jack was on the
+front piazza when they drove up, and his mother waved her hand to him
+gayly.
+
+"Gad, Jack," one of the men said, "your mother is a wonder. She looks
+younger than you do this minute."
+
+"I don't think she is," Jack returned with a grin; "but you're right.
+She is a wonderfully young woman to be the mother of a great cub like
+me."
+
+Not only in her looks did Mrs. Neligage give the impression of youth,
+but her movements and her unquenchable vivacity might put to a
+disadvantage half of the young girls. She tripped up the steps as
+lightly as a leaf blown by the wind, her trim figure swaying as lithely
+as a willow-shoot. As she came to Jack she said to him in a tone loud
+enough to be heard by all who were on the piazza:--
+
+"Oh, Jack, come into the house a moment. I want to show you a letter."
+
+She dropped a gay greeting here and there as she led the way, and in a
+moment they were alone inside the house. Mrs. Neligage turned instantly,
+with a face from which all gayety had vanished as the color of a
+ballet-dancer's cheek vanishes under the pall of a green light.
+
+"Jack," she said hastily, "I am desperate. I am in the worst scrape I
+ever was in, in my life. Can you raise any money?"
+
+He looked at her a moment in amazed silence; then he laughed roughly.
+
+"Money?" he retorted. "I am all but turned out of the club to-day for
+want of it. This is probably my last game."
+
+"You are not in earnest?" she demanded, pressing closer to him, and
+putting her hand on his arm. "You are not really going to leave the
+club?"
+
+"What else can I do? The committee think it isn't possible to let things
+go any longer."
+
+She looked into his face, her own hardening. She studied him with a keen
+glance, which he met firmly, yet with evident effort.
+
+"Jack," she said at length, her voice lower, "there is only one way out
+of it. Last night you wouldn't listen to me; but you must now. You must
+marry May Calthorpe. If you were engaged to her it would be easy enough
+to raise money."
+
+"You talk as if she were only waiting for me to say the word, and she'd
+rush into my arms."
+
+"She will, she must, if you'll have her. You wouldn't take her for your
+own good, but you've got to do it for mine. You can't let me be ruined
+just through your obstinacy."
+
+"Ruined? What under the canopy do you mean, mother? You are trying to
+scare me to make me go your way."
+
+"I'm not, Jack; upon my word I'm not! I tell you I'm in an awful mess,
+and you must stand by me."
+
+Jack turned away from her and walked toward the window; then he faced
+her again with a look which evidently questioned how far she was really
+in earnest. There had been occasions when Mrs. Neligage had used her
+histrionic powers to get the better of her son in some domestic
+discussion, and the price of such success is inevitably distrust. Now
+she faced him boldly, and met his look with a nod of perfect
+comprehension.
+
+"Yes, I am telling you the truth, Jacky. There is nothing for it but for
+us both to go to smash if you won't take May."
+
+"Take May," he echoed impatiently, "how you do keep saying that! How can
+I take her? She doesn't care a straw about me anyway, and I've no doubt
+she looks on me as one of the old fellows."
+
+"She being eighteen and you twenty-five," his mother answered, smiling
+satirically. "But somebody is coming. I can't talk to you now; only this
+one thing I must say. Play into my hands as you can if you will, and
+you'll be engaged to May before the week's over."
+
+He broke into a roar of laughter which had a sound of being as much
+nerves as amusement.
+
+"Is this a comic opera?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, dear Jacky," his mother retorted, resuming her light manner,
+"that's just what it is. Don't you miss your cue."
+
+She left him, and went gayly forward to greet the new-comers, ladies who
+had just driven up, and Jack followed her lead with a countenance from
+which disturbance and bewilderment had not entirely vanished.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE GAME OF CROSS-PURPOSES
+
+
+Mrs. Neligage escaped from her friends speedily, with that easy
+swiftness which is in the power of the socially adroit, and returned to
+the piazza by a French window which opened at the side of the house, and
+so was not in sight from the front of the club. There she came upon
+Count Shimbowski comfortably seated in a sunny corner, smoking and
+meditating.
+
+"Ah, Count," she said, as he rose to receive her, "this is unexpected
+pleasure. Are you resting from the strain of continual adulation?"
+
+"What you say?" he responded. Then he dropped into his seat with a
+despairing gesture. "Dis Eengleesh," he said; "eet ees eemposseeble eet
+to know. I have told Mees Wentsteele dat she ees very freesh, and--"
+
+He ended with a groan, and a snug little Hungarian oath under his
+breath.
+
+"Fresh!" echoed Mrs. Neligage, with a laugh like a redbird whisking
+gayly from branch to branch. "My dear Count, she is anything but fresh.
+She is as stale as a last year's love-affair. But she ought to be
+pleased to be told she is fresh."
+
+"Oh, I say: 'You be so freesh, Mees Wentsteele,' and she, she say:
+'Freesh, Count Shimbowski? You result me!' Den day teel me freesh mean
+fooleesh, _sotte_. What language ees dat?"
+
+"Oh, it isn't so bad as you think, Count. It is only _argot_ anyway, and
+it doesn't mean _sotte_, but _naïve_. Besides, she wouldn't mind. She is
+enough of a woman to be pleased that you even tried to tell her she was
+young."
+
+"But no more ees she young."
+
+"No more, Count. We are all of us getting to be old enough to be our own
+grandmothers. Miss Wentstile looks as if she was at the Flood and forgot
+to go in when it rained."
+
+The Count looked more puzzled than amused at this sally, but his
+politeness came to his rescue. A compliment is always the resource of a
+man of the world when a lady puzzles him.
+
+"Eet ees only Madame Neleegaze to what belong eemortal youth," he said
+with a bow.
+
+She rose and swept him a courtesy, and then took from her dress one of
+the flowers she was wearing, which chanced to be very portly red
+carnations.
+
+"You are as gallant as ever, Count," she said, "so that your English
+doesn't matter. Besides that, you have a title; and American women love
+a title as a moth loves a candle."
+
+She stuck the carnation into his buttonhole as she spoke, and returned
+to her seat, where she settled herself with the air of one ready for a
+serious chat.
+
+"It is very odd to see you on this side of the Atlantic, Count," she
+remarked. "Tell me, what are you doing in this country,--besides taking
+the town by storm, that is?"
+
+"I weell range my own self;--say you een Eengleesh 'arrange my own
+self'?"
+
+"When it means you are going to marry, Count, it might be well to say
+that you are going to arrange yourself and derange somebody else. Is the
+lady Miss Endicott?"
+
+"Eet ees Mees Endeecott. Ees she not good for me?"
+
+"She is a thousand times too good for you, my dear fellow; but she is as
+poor as a church mouse."
+
+"Ah, but her aunt, Mees Wentsteele, she geeve her one _dot_: two
+thousand hundred dollar. Eet weell be a meellion francs, ees eet not?"
+
+"So you get a million francs for yourself, Count. It is more than I
+should have thought you worth."
+
+"But de teettle!"
+
+"Oh, the title is worth something, but I could buy one a good deal
+cheaper. If I remember correctly I might have had yours for nothing,
+Count."
+
+The Count did not look entirely pleased at this reminiscence, but he
+smiled, and again took refuge in a compliment.
+
+"To one so _ravissante_ as madame all teettles are under her feet."
+
+"I wish you would set up a school for compliments here in Boston,
+Count, and teach our men to say nice things. Really, a Boston man's
+compliments are like molasses candy, they are so home-made. But why
+don't you take the aunt instead of the niece? Miss Wentstile is worth
+half a million."
+
+"Dat weell be mouche," responded the Count with gravity; "but she have
+bones."
+
+The widow laughed lightly. The woman who after forty can laugh like a
+girl is one who has preserved her power over men, and she is generally
+one fully aware of the fact. Mrs. Neligage had no greater charm than her
+light-hearted laugh, which no care could permanently subdue. She tossed
+her head, and then shook it at the Count.
+
+"Yes," she responded, "you are unfortunately right. She has bones. By
+the way, do you happen to have with you that letter I gave you at Mrs.
+Harbinger's yesterday?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, drawing from his pocket the note addressed to
+Christopher Calumus, "I have eet."
+
+"I would like to see it," Mrs. Neligage said, extending her hand.
+
+The Count smiled, and held it up.
+
+"You can see eet," said he, "but eet ees not permeet you weedeen de hand
+to have eet."
+
+She leaned forward and examined it closely, studying the address with
+keen eyes.
+
+"It is no matter," was her remark. "I only wanted to make sure."
+
+"Do you de handwrite know?" he demanded eagerly.
+
+"And if I do?"
+
+"You do know," he broke out in French. "I can see it in your face. Tell
+me who wrote it."
+
+She shook her head, smiling teasingly. Then she rose, and moved toward
+the window by which she had come from the house.
+
+"No, Count," was her answer. "It doesn't suit my plan to tell you. I
+didn't think quickly enough yesterday, or I wouldn't have given it to
+you. It was in your hands before I thought whose writing it was."
+
+The Count, who had risen, bowed profoundly.
+
+"After all," he said, "I need not trouble you. Mrs. Harbinger
+acknowledged that she wrote it."
+
+Mrs. Neligage flashed back at him a mocking grimace as she withdrew by
+the window.
+
+"I never expected to live to see you believe a thing because a woman
+said it," she laughed. "You must have been in strange hands since I used
+to know you!"
+
+Left alone, the Count thoughtfully regarded the letter for a moment,
+then with a shrug he restored it to his pocket, and turned to go around
+the corner of the house to the front piazza. Sounds of wheels, of
+voices, of talking, and of laughter told of the gathering of
+pleasure-seekers; and scarcely had the Count passed the corner than he
+met Mr. Bradish face to face. There were groups of men and women on the
+piazza and on the lawn, with the horses and dogs in sight which are the
+natural features in such a picture at an out-of-town club. The Count
+heeded none of these things, but stepped forward eagerly.
+
+"Ah, Count, you have come out to the games like everybody else, I see,"
+Bradish said pleasantly.
+
+"Eet ees extreme glad to see me, Mr. Bradeesh," the Count returned,
+shaking him by the hand. "Do you weelleengly come wid us a leettle, for
+dat I say to you ver' particle?"
+
+Bradish, with his usual kindly courtesy, followed the Count around the
+corner of the house, out of sight of the arriving company.
+
+"Something particular to say to me, Count?" he observed. "You do me too
+much honor."
+
+"Eet weell be of honor dat I weell to you speak," the Count responded.
+"Weell you for myself de condescension to have dat you weell be one
+friend to one _affaire d'honneur_?"
+
+Bradish stared at him in undisguised amazement.
+
+"An _affaire d'honneur_?" he echoed. "Surely you don't mean that you are
+going to fight? You can't mean a duel?"
+
+"Oh, _oui, oui_; eet weell be a duel dat eet calls you."
+
+Bradish stared harder than ever, and then sat down as if overcome.
+
+"But, my dear Count, you can't fight duels in America."
+
+"For what weell not een Amereeca fight? He have result me! Me, Count
+Ernst Shimbowski! Weell I not to have hees blood?"
+
+"I'm afraid you won't," Bradish responded, shaking his head. "That isn't
+the way we do things here. But who is it has insulted you?"
+
+The Count became more and more excited as he spoke of his wrongs, and
+with wide gestures he appealed to the whole surrounding region to bear
+him out in his rage and his resolution. He stood over Bradish like an
+avenging and furious angel, swaying his body by way of accent to his
+words.
+
+"You deed see! De ladies day deed see! All de world weell have heard dat
+he result--he eensult me! De Shimbowski name have been eensult'! Deed he
+not say 'Veelaine! Veelaine!' Oh, _sacré nom de mon père_! 'Veelaine!
+Veelaine!' Eet weell not but only blood to wash dat eensult!"
+
+How an American gentleman should behave when he is seriously asked to
+act as a second in a duel in this land and time is a question which has
+probably never been authoritatively settled, and which might be reasoned
+upon with very curious arguments from different points of view. It is
+safe to say that any person who finds himself in such a position could
+hardly manage to incur much risk of running into danger, or even of
+doing violence to any moral scruples with which he may chance to be
+encumbered. He must always feel that the chances of a duel's actually
+taking place are so ridiculously small that the whole matter can be
+regarded only as food for laughter; and that no matter how eager for
+fight one or both of the possible combatants might be, the end will be
+peace. So far from making the position of a second more easy, however,
+this fact perhaps renders it more difficult. It is harder to face the
+ridiculous than the perilous. If there were any especial chance that a
+duel would proceed to extremes, that principals would perhaps come to
+grief and seconds be with them involved in actual danger, even though
+only the ignoble danger of legal complications, a man might feel that
+honor called upon him not to fail his friend in extremity. When it is
+merely a question of becoming more or less ridiculous according to the
+notoriety of the affair, the matter is different. The demand of society
+is that a gentleman shall be ready to brave peril, but there is nothing
+in the social code which goes so far as to call upon him to run the
+chance of making himself ridiculous. Society is founded upon the deepest
+principles of human nature, and if it demanded of man the sacrifice of
+his vanity the social fabric would go to pieces like a house of cards in
+a whirlwind. Bradish might have been called upon to risk his life at the
+request of the Count, although they were in reality little more than
+acquaintances; but he certainly cannot be held to have been under any
+obligations to give the world a right to laugh at him.
+
+Bradish regarded the Count with a smile half amused and half
+sympathetic, while the Hungarian poured out his excited protest, and
+when there came a pause he said soothingly:--
+
+"Oh, sit down and talk it over, my dear Count. I see you mean that
+stupid dunce of a Barnstable. You can't fight him. Everybody would laugh
+at the very idea. Besides, he isn't your equal socially. You can't fight
+him."
+
+"You do comprehend not!" cried the Count. "De Shimbowski name weell eet
+to have blood for de eensult!"
+
+"But--"
+
+The Count drew himself up with an air of hauteur which checked the words
+on Bradish's lips.
+
+"Eet ees not for a Shimbowski to beg for favors," he said stiffly. "Eef
+eet ees you dat do not serve me--"
+
+"Oh, I assure you," interrupted Bradish hastily, "I am more than willing
+to serve you; but I wanted to warn you that in America we look at things
+so differently--"
+
+"Een Amereeca even," the Count in his turn interrupted with a superb
+gesture, "dare weell be gentlemans, ees eet not?"
+
+In the face of that gesture there was nothing more to be said in the way
+of objection. Time and the chapter of accidents must determine what
+would come of it, but no man of sensibility and patriotism, appealed to
+in that grand fashion in the name of the honor of America, could have
+held out longer. Least of all was it to be expected that Harry Bradish,
+kindest-hearted of living men, and famous for never being able to refuse
+any service that was asked of him, could resist this last touch. He rose
+as if to get out of the interview as speedily as possible.
+
+"Very well then," he said, "if you persist in going on, I'll do what I
+can for you, but I give you fair warning once more that it'll come to
+nothing more than making us both ridiculous."
+
+The Count shook hands warmly, but his response was one which might be
+said to show less consideration than might have been desired for the man
+who was making a sacrifice in his behalf.
+
+"De Shimbowski name," he declared grandiloquently, yet with evident
+sincerity, "ees never reedeeculous."
+
+There followed some settling of details, in all of which Bradish evinced
+a tendency to temporize and to postpone, but in which the ardor of the
+Count so hurried everything forward that had Barnstable been on the spot
+the duel might have been actually accomplished despite all obstacles. It
+was evident, however, that one side cannot alone arrange a meeting of
+honor, and in the end little could be done beyond the Count's receiving
+a promise from Bradish that the latter would communicate with Barnstable
+as soon as possible.
+
+This momentous and blood-curdling decision having been arrived at, the
+two gentlemen emerged from their retirement on the side piazza, and once
+more joined the gay world as represented by the now numerous gathering
+assembled to see the polo at the County Club.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE WASTING OF REQUESTS
+
+
+The exhilaration of the spring day, the pleasure of taking up once more
+the outdoor life of the warm season, the little excitement which belongs
+to the assembling of merry-makers, the chatter, the laughter, all the
+gay bustle combined to fill the County Club with a joyous atmosphere.
+Before the front of the house was a sloping lawn which merged into an
+open park, here and there dotted with groups of budding trees and
+showing vividly the red of golf flags. The driveway wound in curves of
+carefully devised carelessness from the country road beyond the park to
+the end of the piazza, and all arrivals could be properly studied as
+they approached. The piazza was wide and roomy, so that it was not
+crowded, although a considerable number of men and women were there
+assembled; and from group to group laughter answered laughter.
+
+Mrs. Harbinger in the capacity of chaperone had with her Alice Endicott
+and May Calthorpe. The three ladies stood chatting with Dick Fairfield,
+tossing words back and forth like tennis-balls for the sheer pleasure of
+the exercise.
+
+"Oh, I insist," Fairfield said, "that spring is only a season when the
+days are picked before they are ripe."
+
+"You say that simply in your capacity of a literary man, Mr. Fairfield,"
+Alice retorted; "but I doubt if it really means anything."
+
+"I am afraid it doesn't mean much," he responded laughing, "but to
+insist that an epigram must mean something would limit production
+dreadfully."
+
+"Then we are to understand," Mrs. Harbinger observed, "that what you
+literary men say is never to be taken seriously."
+
+"Oh, you should make a distinction, Mrs. Harbinger. What a literary man
+says in his professional capacity you are at liberty to believe or not,
+just as you choose; but of course in regard to what is said in his
+personal capacity it is different."
+
+"There, I suppose," she retorted, "he is simply to be classed with other
+men, and not to be believed at all."
+
+"Bless me, what cynicism! Where is Mr. Harbinger to defend his
+reputation?"
+
+"He is so absorbed in getting ready for the game that he has forgotten
+all about any reputation but that of a polo-player," Mrs. Harbinger
+returned. "And that reminds me that I haven't seen his new pony. Come,
+Alice, you appreciate a horse. We must go and examine this new wonder
+from Canada."
+
+"We are not invited apparently," May said, seating herself in a piazza
+chair. "It is evidently your duty, Mr. Fairfield, to stay here and
+entertain me while they are gone."
+
+"I remain to be entertained," he responded, following her example.
+
+Mrs. Harbinger and Alice went off to the stables, and the pair left
+behind exchanged casual comments upon the day, the carriages driving up,
+the smart spring gowns of the ladies, and that sort of verbal
+thistledown which makes up ordinary society chit-chat. A remark which
+Fairfield made on the attire of a dashing young woman was the means of
+bringing the talk around again to the subject which had been touched
+upon between them on the previous afternoon.
+
+"I suppose," Miss Calthorpe observed, "that a man who writes stories has
+to know about clothes. You do write stories, I am sure, Mr. Fairfield."
+
+He smiled, and traced a crack in the piazza floor with his stick.
+
+"Which means, of course," he said, "that you have never read any of
+them. That is so far lucky for me."
+
+"Why is it lucky?"
+
+"Because you might not have liked them."
+
+"But on the other hand I might have liked them very much."
+
+"Well, perhaps there is that chance. I don't know, however, that I
+should be willing to run the risk. What kind of a story do you like?"
+
+"I told you that yesterday, Mr. Fairfield. If you really cared for my
+opinion you would remember."
+
+"You said that you liked 'Love in a Cloud.' Is that what you mean?"
+
+"Then you do remember," she remarked with an air of satisfaction.
+"Perhaps it was only because you liked the book yourself."
+
+"Why not believe that it was because I put so much value on your
+opinion?"
+
+"Oh, I am not so vain as that, Mr. Fairfield," she cried. "If you
+remember, it was not on my account."
+
+He laughed without replying, and continued the careful tracing of the
+crack in the floor as if the occupation were the pleasantest imaginable.
+May watched him for a moment, and then with the semblance of pique she
+turned her shoulder toward him. The movement drew his eyes, and he
+suddenly stopped his occupation to straighten up apologetically.
+
+"I was thinking," he said, "what would be the result of your reading
+such stories of mine as have been published--there have been a few, you
+know, in the magazines--if you were to test them by the standard of
+'Love in a Cloud.' I'm afraid they might not stand it."
+
+She smiled reassuringly, but perhaps with a faint suggestion of
+condescension.
+
+"One doesn't expect all stories to be as good as the best," she
+observed.
+
+Fairfield turned his face away for a quick flash of a grin to the
+universe in general; then with perfect gravity he looked again at his
+companion.
+
+"I am afraid," he said, "that even the author of 'Love in a Cloud'
+wouldn't expect so much of you as that you should call his story the
+best."
+
+"I do call it the best," she returned, a little defiantly. "Don't you?"
+
+"No," he said slowly, "I couldn't go so far as that."
+
+"But you spoke yesterday as if you admired it."
+
+"But that isn't the same thing as saying that there is nothing better."
+
+Miss Calthorpe began to tap her small foot impatiently.
+
+"That is always the way with men who write," she declared. "They always
+have all sorts of fault to find with everything."
+
+"Have you known a great many literary men?" he asked.
+
+There are few things more offensive in conversation, especially in
+conversation with a lady, than an insistence upon logic. To ask of a
+woman that she shall make only exact statements is as bad as to require
+her to be always consistent, and there is small reason for wonder if at
+this inquiry Miss Calthorpe should show signs of offense.
+
+"I do not see what that has to do with the matter," she returned
+stiffly. "Of course everybody knows about literary men."
+
+The sun of the April afternoon smiled over the landscape, and the young
+man smiled under his mustache, which was too large to be entirely
+becoming. He glanced up at his companion, who did not smile in return,
+but only sat there looking extremely pretty, with her flushed cheeks,
+her dark hair in pretty willful tendrils about her temples, and her
+dark eyes alight.
+
+"Perhaps you have some personal feeling about the book," he said. "You
+know that it is claimed that a woman's opinion of literature is always
+half personal feeling."
+
+She flushed more deeply yet, and drew herself up as if he were intruding
+upon unwarrantable matters.
+
+"I don't even know who wrote the book," she replied.
+
+"Then it is only the book itself that you admire, and not the author?"
+
+"Of course it is the book. Haven't I said that I don't even know who the
+author is? I can't see," she went on somewhat irrelevantly, "why it is
+that as soon as there is anything that is worth praising you men begin
+to run it down."
+
+He looked as if he were a trifle surprised at her warmth.
+
+"Run it down?" he repeated. "Why, I am not running it down. I said that
+I admired the novel, didn't I?"
+
+"But you said that you didn't think it was one of the best," she
+insisted.
+
+"But you might allow a little for individual taste, Miss Calthorpe."
+
+"Oh, of course there is a difference in individual tastes, but that has
+to do with the parts of the story that one likes best. It's nothing at
+all to do with whether one isn't willing to confess its merits."
+
+He broke into a laugh of so much amusement that she contracted her level
+brows into a frown which made her prettier than ever.
+
+"Now you are laughing at me," she said almost pouting. "It is so
+disappointing to find that I was deceived. Of course I know that there
+is a good deal of professional jealousy among authors, but I shouldn't
+have thought--"
+
+She perhaps did not like to complete her sentence, and so left it for
+him to end with a fresh laugh.
+
+"I wish I dared tell you how funny that is!" he chuckled.
+
+She made no reply to this, but turned her attention to the landscape.
+There was a silence of a few moments, in which Fairfield had every
+appearance of being amused, while she equally showed that she was
+offended. The situation was certainly one from which a young author
+might derive a good deal of satisfaction. It is not often that it falls
+to the lot of a writer to find his work so sincerely and ardently
+admired that he is himself taken to task for being jealous of its
+success. Such pleasure as comes from writing anonymous books must be
+greatly tempered by the fact that in a world where it is so much more
+easy to blame than to praise the author is sure to hear so much more
+censure of his work than approbation. To be accused by a young and
+pretty girl of a fault which one has not committed and from which one
+may be clear at a word is in itself a pleasing pastime, and when the
+imaginary fault is that of not sufficiently admiring one's own book,
+the titillation of the vanity is as lively as it is complicated. The
+spirit which Miss Calthorpe had shown, her pretty vehemence, and her
+marked admiration for "Love in a Cloud" might have seemed charming to
+any man who had a taste for beauty and youthful enthusiasm; upon the
+author of the book she praised it was inevitable that they should work
+mightily.
+
+The pair were interrupted by the return of Mrs. Harbinger and Alice, who
+reported that there were so many men about the stables, and the ponies
+were being so examined and talked over by the players, that it was
+plainly no place for ladies.
+
+"It was evident that we weren't wanted," Mrs. Harbinger said. "I hope
+that we are here. Ah, here comes the Count."
+
+The gentleman named, fresh from his talk with Harry Bradish, came
+forward to join them, his smile as sunny as that of the day.
+
+"See," May whispered tragically to Mrs. Harbinger as the Hungarian
+advanced, "he has a red carnation in his buttonhole."
+
+"He must have read the letter then," Mrs. Harbinger returned hastily.
+"Hush!"
+
+To make the most exciting communication and to follow it by a command to
+the hearer to preserve the appearance of indifference is a
+characteristically feminine act. It gives the speaker not only the last
+word but an effective dramatic climax, and the ever-womanly is nothing
+if not dramatic. The complement of this habit is the power of obeying
+the difficult order to be silent, and only a woman could unmoved hear
+the most nerve-shattering remarks with a manner of perfect tranquillity.
+
+"Ah, eet ees so sweet loovly ladies een de landscape to see," the Count
+declared poetically, "where de birds dey twatter een de trees and things
+smell you so mooch."
+
+"Thank you. Count," Mrs. Harbinger responded. "That is very pretty, but
+I am afraid that it means nothing."
+
+"What I say to you, Madame," the Count responded, with his hand on his
+heart, "always eet mean mooch; eet ees dat eet mean everyt'ing!"
+
+"Then it is certainly time for me to go," she said lightly. "It wouldn't
+be safe for me to stay to hear everything. Come, girls: let's walk over
+to the field."
+
+The sitters rose, and they moved toward the other end of the piazza.
+
+"It is really too early to go to the field," May said, "why don't we
+walk out to the new golf-holes first? I want to see how they've changed
+the drive over the brook."
+
+"Very well," Mrs. Harbinger assented. "The shortest way is to go through
+the house."
+
+They passed in through a long window, and as they went Alice Endicott
+lingered a little with the Count. That part of the piazza was at the
+moment deserted, and so when before entering the house she dropped her
+parasol and waited for her companion to pick it up for her, they were
+practically alone.
+
+"Thank you, Count," she said, as he handed her the parasol. "I am sorry
+to trouble you."
+
+"Nodings what eet ees dat I do for Mees Endeecott ees trouble."
+
+"Is that true?" she asked, pausing with her foot on the threshold, and
+turning back to him. "If I could believe it there are two favors that I
+should like to ask."
+
+"Two favors?" he repeated. "Ah, I weell be heavenlee happee eef eet ees
+dat I do two favors."
+
+"One is for myself," she said, "and the other is for Miss Wentstile. I'm
+sure you won't refuse me."
+
+"Who could refuse one ladee so loovlaie!"
+
+"The first is," Alice went on, paying no heed to the Count's florid
+compliments, "that you give me the letter Mrs. Neligage gave you
+yesterday."
+
+"But de ladee what have wrote eet--"
+
+"The lady that wrote it," Alice interrupted, "desires to have it again."
+
+"Den weell I to her eet geeve," said the Count.
+
+"But she has empowered me to receive it."
+
+"But dat eet do not empower me eet to geeve."
+
+"Then you decline to let me have it, Count?"
+
+"Ah, I am desolation, Mees Endeecott, for dat I do not what you desaire;
+but I weell rather to do de oder t'ing what you have weesh."
+
+"I am afraid, Count, that your willingness to oblige goes no farther
+than to let you do what you wish, instead of what I wish. I only wanted
+to know where you have known Mrs. Neligage."
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed, "dat is what Mees Wentsteele have ask. My dear
+young lady, eet ees not dat you can be jealous dat once I have known
+Madame Neleegaze?"
+
+She faced him with a look of astonishment so complete that the most
+simple could not misunderstand it. Then the look changed into profound
+disdain.
+
+"Jealous!" she repeated. "I jealous, and of you, Count!"
+
+Her look ended in a smile, as if her sense of humor found the idea of
+jealousy too droll to admit of indignation, and she turned to go in
+through the window, leaving the Count hesitating behind.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE WILE OF A WOMAN
+
+
+Before the Count had recovered himself sufficiently to go after Miss
+Endicott despite her look of contempt and her yet more significant
+amusement, Jack Neligage came toward him down the piazza, and called him
+by name.
+
+"Oh, Count Shimbowski," Jack said. "I beg your pardon, but may I speak
+with you a moment?"
+
+The Count looked after Miss Endicott, but he turned toward Neligage.
+
+"I am always at your service," he said in French.
+
+"I wanted to speak to you about that letter that my mother gave you
+yesterday. She made a mistake."
+
+"A mistake?" the Count echoed, noncommittally.
+
+"Yes. It is not for you."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Will you give it to me, please?" Jack said.
+
+"But why should I give it to you? Are you Christopher Calumus?"
+
+"Perhaps," answered Jack, with a grin. "At least I can assure you that
+it is on the authority of the author of 'Love in a Cloud' that I ask for
+the letter."
+
+"But I've already refused that letter to a lady."
+
+"To a lady?"
+
+"To Miss Endicott."
+
+"Miss Endicott!" echoed Jack again, in evident astonishment. "Why should
+she want it?"
+
+"She said that she had the authority of the writer, as you say that you
+have the authority of the man it was written to."
+
+"Did you give it to her?"
+
+"No; but if I did not give it to her, how can I give it to you?"
+
+Neligage had grown more sober at the mention of Miss Endicott's name; he
+stood looking down, and softly beating the toe of his boot with his polo
+mallet.
+
+"May I ask," he said at length, raising his glance to the Count's face,
+"what you propose to do with the letter?"
+
+The other waved his hands in a gesture which seemed to take in all
+possible combinations of circumstances, while his shrug apparently
+expressed his inner conviction that whichever of these combinations
+presented itself Count Shimbowski would be equal to it.
+
+"At least," he returned, "as Mrs. Harbinger has acknowledged that she
+wrote it, I could not give it up without her command."
+
+Neligage laughed, and swung his mallet through the air, striking an
+imaginary ball with much deftness and precision.
+
+"She said she wrote it, I know; but I think that was only for a lark,
+like mother's part in the play. I don't believe Mrs. Harbinger wrote
+it. However, here she comes, and you may ask her. I'll see you again. I
+must have the letter."
+
+He broke into a lively whistle, and went off down the walk, as Mrs.
+Harbinger emerged through the window which a few moments before she had
+entered.
+
+"I decided that I wouldn't go down to the brook," she said. "It is too
+warm to walk. Besides, I wanted to speak to you."
+
+"Madame Harbeenger do to me too mooch of _honneur_," the Count
+protested, with his usual exuberance of gesture. "Eet ees to be me at
+her sarveece."
+
+She led the way back to the chairs where her group had been sitting
+shortly before, and took a seat which placed her back toward the only
+other persons on the piazza, a couple of men smoking at the other end.
+
+"Sit down, Count," she said, waving her hand at a chair. "Somebody will
+come, so I must say what I have to say quickly. I want that letter."
+
+The Count smiled broadly, and performed with much success the inevitable
+shrug.
+
+"You dat lettaire weesh; Madame Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; Mr.
+Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; everybody dat lettaire weesh. Count
+Shimbowski dat lettaire he keep, weell eet not?"
+
+"Mrs. Neligage and Jack want it?" Mrs. Harbinger exclaimed. "What in the
+world can have set them on? Did they ask you for it?"
+
+"Eet ees dat they have ask," the Count answered solemnly.
+
+"I cannot understand that," she pursued thoughtfully. "Certainly they
+can't know who wrote it."
+
+"Ees eet not dat you have said--"
+
+"Oh, yes," Mrs. Harbinger interrupted him, with a smile, "I forgot that
+they were there when I confessed to it."
+
+The Count laid his hand on his heart and rolled up his eyes,--not too
+much.
+
+"I have so weesh' to tell you how dat I have dat beauteous lettaire
+adore," he said. "I have wear de lettaire een de pocket of my heart."
+
+This somewhat startling assertion was explained by his pushing aside his
+coat so that the top of a letter appeared peeping out of the left pocket
+of his waistcoat as nearly over his heart as the exigencies of tailoring
+permitted.
+
+"I shouldn't have let you know that I wrote it," she said.
+
+"But eet have geeve to me so joyous extrodinaire eet to know!"
+
+She regarded him shrewdly, then dropping her eyes, she asked:--
+
+"Was it better than the other one?"
+
+"De oder?" he repeated, evidently taken by surprise. "Ah, dat alone also
+have I treasured too mooch."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger broke out frankly into a laugh.
+
+"Come," she said, "I have caught you. You know nothing about any other.
+We might as well be plain with each other. I didn't write that letter
+and you didn't write 'Love in a Cloud,' or you'd know about the whole
+correspondence."
+
+"Ah, from de Eden_garten_," cried the Count, "de weemens ees too mooch
+for not to fool de man. Madame ees for me greatly too clevaire."
+
+"Thank you," she said laughingly. "Then give me the letter."
+
+He bowed, and shrugged, and smiled deprecatingly; but he shook his head.
+
+"So have Mees Endeecott say. Eef to her I geeve eet not, I can geeve eet
+not to you, desolation as eet make of my heart."
+
+"Miss Endicott? Has she been after the letter too? Is there anybody
+else?"
+
+"Madame Neleegaze, Mr. Neleegaze, Mees Endeecott, Madame Harbeenger,"
+the Count enumerated, telling them off on his fingers. "Dat ees all now;
+but eef I dat lettaire have in my heart-pocket she weell come to me dat
+have eet wrote. Ees eet not so? Eet ees to she what have eet wrote dat
+eet weell be to geeve eet. I am eenterest to her behold."
+
+"Then you will not give it to me?" Mrs. Harbinger said, rising.
+
+He rose also, a mild whirlwind of apologetic shrugs and contortions,
+contortions not ungraceful, but as extraordinary as his English.
+
+"Eet make me desolation een de heart," he declared; "but for now eet
+weell be for me to keep dat lettaire."
+
+He made her a profound bow, and as if to secure himself against farther
+solicitation betook himself off. Mrs. Harbinger resumed her chair, and
+sat for a time thinking. She tapped the tip of her parasol on the
+railing before her, and the tip of her shoe on the floor, but neither
+process seemed to bring a solution of the difficulty which she was
+pondering. The arrivals at the club were about done, and although it
+still wanted some half hour to the time set for the polo game, most of
+those who had been about the club had gone over to the polo-field. The
+sound of a carriage approaching drew the attention of Mrs. Harbinger. A
+vehicle easily to be recognized as belonging to the railway station was
+advancing toward the club, and in it sat Mr. Barnstable. The gentleman
+was landed at the piazza steps, and coming up, he stood looking about
+him as if in doubt what to do next. His glance fell upon Mrs. Harbinger,
+and the light of recognition flooded his fluffy face as moonlight floods
+the dunes of a sandy shore. He came forward abruptly and awkwardly.
+
+"Beg pardon, Mrs. Harbinger," he said. "I came out to find your husband.
+Do you know where I can see him?"
+
+"He is all ready to play polo now, Mr. Barnstable," she returned. "I
+don't think you can see him until after the game."
+
+She spoke rather dryly and without any cordiality. He stood with his hat
+in his two hands, pulling nervously at the brim.
+
+"You are very likely angry with me, Mrs. Harbinger," he blurted out
+abruptly. "I ought to apologize for what I did at your house yesterday.
+I made a fool of myself."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger regarded him curiously, as if she could hardly make up
+her mind how such a person was to be treated.
+
+"It is not customary to have scenes of that kind in our parlors," she
+answered, smiling.
+
+"I know it," he said, with an accent of deep despair. "It was all my
+unfortunate temper that ran away with me. But you don't appreciate, Mrs.
+Harbinger, how a man feels when his wife has been made the subject of an
+infamous libel."
+
+"But if you'll let me say so, Mr. Barnstable, I think you are going out
+of your way to find trouble. You are not the only man who has been
+separated from his wife, and the chances are that the author of 'Love in
+a Cloud' never heard of your domestic affairs at all."
+
+"But he must have," protested Barnstable with growing excitement,
+"why--"
+
+"Pardon me," she interrupted, "I wasn't done. I say that the chance of
+the author of that book knowing anything about your affairs is so small
+as to be almost impossible."
+
+"But there were circumstances so exact! Why, all that scene--"
+
+"Really, Mr. Barnstable," Mrs. Harbinger again interrupted, "you must
+not go about telling what scenes are true. That is more of a publishing
+of your affairs than any putting them in a novel could be."
+
+His eyes stared at her from the folds and undulations of his face like
+two remarkably large jellyfish cast by the waves among sand heaps.
+
+"But--but," he stammered, "what am I to do? How would you feel if it
+were your wife?"
+
+She regarded him with a glance which gave him up as incorrigible, and
+half turned away her head.
+
+"I'm sure I can't say," she responded. "I never had a wife."
+
+Barnstable was too much excited to be restrained by the mild jest, and
+dashed on, beginning to gesticulate in his earnestness.
+
+"And by such a man!" he ran on. "Why, Mrs. Harbinger, just look at this.
+Isn't this obliquitous!"
+
+He pulled from one pocket a handful of letters, dashed through them at a
+mad speed, thrust them back and drew another handful from a second
+pocket, scrabbled through them, discarded them for the contents of a
+third pocket, and in the end came back to the first batch of papers,
+where he at last hit upon the letter he was in search of.
+
+"Only this morning I got this letter from a friend in New York that knew
+the Count in Europe. He's been a perfect rake. He's a gambler and a
+duelist. There, you take it, Mrs. Harbinger, and read it. You'll see,
+then, how I felt when that sort of a man scandaled my wife."
+
+"But I thought that you received the letter only this morning,"
+suggested Mrs. Harbinger, with a smile.
+
+Her companion was too thoroughly excited to be interrupted, and dashed
+on.
+
+"You take the letter, Mrs. Harbinger, and read it for yourself. Then
+you show it to your friends. Let people know what sort of a man they are
+entertaining and making much of. Damme--I beg your pardon; my temper's
+completely roused up!--it makes me sick to see people going on so over
+anything that has a title on it. Why, damme--I beg your pardon, Mrs.
+Harbinger; I really beg your pardon!--in America if a man has a title he
+can rob henroosts for a living, and be the rage in society."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger reached out her hand deliberately, and took the letter
+which was thus thrust at her. She had it safe in her possession before
+she spoke again.
+
+"I shall be glad to see the letter," she said, "because I am curious to
+know about Count Shimbowski. That he is what he pretends to be in the
+way of family I am sure, for I have seen his people in Rome."
+
+"Oh, he is a Count all right," Barnstable responded; "but that doesn't
+make him any better."
+
+"As for the book," she pursued calmly, "you are entirely off the track.
+The Count cannot possibly have written it. Just think of his English."
+
+"I've known men that could write English that couldn't speak it
+decently."
+
+"Besides, he hasn't been in the country long enough to have written it.
+If he did write it, Mr. Barnstable, how in the world could he know
+anything about your affairs? It seems to me, if I may say so, that you
+might apply a little common sense to the question before you get into a
+rage over things that cannot be so."
+
+"I was hasty," admitted Barnstable, an expression of mingled penitence
+and woe in his face. "I'm afraid I was all wrong about the Count. But
+the book has so many things in it that fit, things that were particular,
+why, of course when Mrs.--that lady yesterday--"
+
+"Mrs. Neligage."
+
+"When she said the Count wrote it, I didn't stop to think."
+
+"That was only mischief on her part. You might much better say her son
+wrote it than the Count."
+
+"Her son?" repeated Barnstable, starting to his feet. "That's who it is!
+Why, of course it was to turn suspicion away from him that his mother--"
+
+"Good heavens!" Mrs. Harbinger broke in, "don't make another blunder.
+Jack Neligage couldn't--"
+
+"I see it all!" Barnstable cried, not heeding her. "Mr. Neligage was in
+Chicago just after my divorce. I heard him say he was there that winter.
+Oh, of course he's the man."
+
+"But he isn't a writer," Mrs. Harbinger protested.
+
+She rose to face Barnstable, whose inflammable temper had evidently
+blazed up again with a suddenness entirely absurd.
+
+"That's why he wrote anonymously," declared the other; "and that's why
+he had to put in real things instead of making them up! Oh, of course
+it was Mr. Neligage."
+
+"Mr. Barnstable," she said with seriousness, "be reasonable, and stop
+this nonsense. I tell you Mr. Neligage couldn't have written that book."
+
+He glared at her with eyes which were wells of obstinacy undiluted.
+
+"I'll see about that," he said.
+
+Without other salutation than a nod he walked away, and left her.
+
+She gazed after him with the look which studies a strange animal.
+
+"Well," she said softly, aloud, "of all the fools--"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE CONCEALING OF SECRETS
+
+
+Where a number of persons are in the same place, all interested in the
+same matter, yet convinced that affairs must be arranged not by open
+discussion but by adroit management, the result is inevitable. Each will
+be seeking to speak to some other alone; there will be a constant
+shifting and rearranging of groups as characters are moved on and off
+the stage in the theatre. Life for the time being, indeed, takes on an
+artificial air not unlike that which results from the studied devices of
+the playwright. The most simple and accurate account of what takes place
+must read like the arbitrary conventions of the boards; and the reader
+is likely to receive an impression of unreality from the very closeness
+with which the truth has been followed.
+
+At the County Club that April afternoon there were so many who were in
+one way or another interested in the fate of the letter which in a
+moment of wild fun Mrs. Neligage had handed over to the Count, that it
+was natural that the movements of the company should have much the
+appearance of a contrived comedy. No sooner, for instance, had
+Barnstable hastened away with a new bee in his bonnet, than Mrs.
+Harbinger was joined by Fairfield. He had come on in advance of the
+girls, and now at once took advantage of the situation to speak about
+the matter of which the air was full.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I left the young ladies chatting with
+Mrs. Staggchase, and they'll be here in a minute. I wanted to speak to
+you."
+
+She bestowed the letter which she had received from Barnstable in some
+mysterious recess of her gown, some hiding-place which had been devised
+as an attempted evasion of the immutable law that in a woman's frock
+shall be no real pocket.
+
+"Go on," she said. "I am prepared for anything now. After Mr. Barnstable
+anything will be tame, though; I warn you of that."
+
+"Mr. Barnstable? I didn't know you knew him till his circus last night."
+
+"I didn't. He came to me here, and I thought he was going to apologize;
+but he ended with a performance crazier than the other."
+
+"What did he do?" asked Fairfield, dropping into the chair which
+Barnstable had recently occupied. "He must be ingenious to have thought
+of anything madder than that. He might at least have apologized first."
+
+"I wasn't fair to him," Mrs. Harbinger said. "He really did apologize;
+but now he's rushing off after Jack Neligage to accuse him of having
+written that diabolical book that's made all the trouble."
+
+"Jack Neligage? Why in the world should he pitch upon him?"
+
+"Apparently because I mentioned Jack as the least likely person I could
+think of to have written it. That was all that was needed to convince
+Mr. Barnstable."
+
+"The man must be mad."
+
+"We none of us seem to be very sane," Mrs. Harbinger returned, laughing.
+"I wonder what this particular madman will do."
+
+"I'm sure I can't tell," answered Fairfield absently. Then he added
+quickly: "I wanted to ask you about that letter. Of course it isn't you
+that's been writing to me, but you must know who it is."
+
+She stared at him in evident amazement, and then burst into a peal of
+laughter.
+
+"Well," she said, "we have been mad, and no mistake. Why, we ought to
+have known in the first place that you were Christopher Calumus. How in
+the world could we miss it? It just shows how we are likely to overlook
+the most obvious things."
+
+Fairfield smiled, and beat his fist on the arm of his chair.
+
+"There," he laughed, "I've let it out! I didn't mean to tell it."
+
+"What nonsense!" she said, as if not heeding. "To think that it was you
+that May wrote to after all!"
+
+"May!" cried Fairfield. "Do you mean that Miss Calthorpe wrote those
+letters?"
+
+The face of Mrs. Harbinger changed color, and a look of dismay came over
+it.
+
+"Oh, you didn't know it, of course!" she said. "I forgot that, and now
+I've told you. She will never forgive me."
+
+He leaned back in his chair, laughing gayly.
+
+"A Roland for an Oliver!" he cried. "Good! It is only secret for
+secret."
+
+"But what will she say to me?"
+
+"Say? Why should she say anything? You needn't tell her till she's told
+me. She would have told me sometime."
+
+"She did tell you in that wretched letter; or rather she gave you a sign
+to know her by. How did you dare to write to any young girl like that?"
+
+The red flushed into his cheeks and his laughter died.
+
+"You don't mean that she showed you my letters?"
+
+"Oh, no; she didn't show them to me. But I know well enough what they
+were like. You are a pair of young dunces."
+
+Fairfield cast down his eyes and studied his finger-nails in silence a
+moment. When he looked up again he spoke gravely and with a new
+firmness.
+
+"Mrs. Harbinger," he said, "I hope you don't think that I meant anything
+wrong in answering her letters. I didn't know who wrote them."
+
+"You must have known that they were written by a girl that was young and
+foolish."
+
+"I'm afraid I didn't think much about that. I had a letter, and it
+interested me, and I answered it. It never occurred to me that--"
+
+"It never occurs to a man that he is bound to protect a girl against
+herself," Mrs. Harbinger responded quickly. "At least now that you do
+know, I hope that there'll be no more of this nonsense."
+
+Fairfield did not reply for a moment. Then he looked out over the
+landscape instead of meeting her eyes.
+
+"What do you expect me to say to that?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know that I expect anything," she returned dryly. "Hush! They
+are coming."
+
+He leaned forward, and spoke in a hurried whisper.
+
+"Does she know?" he demanded.
+
+"Of course not. She thinks it's the Count, for all I can tell."
+
+The arrival of Alice and May put an end to any further confidential
+discourse. Fairfield rose hastily, looking dreadfully conscious, but as
+the two girls had some interesting information or other to impart to
+Mrs. Harbinger, he had an opportunity to recover himself, and in a few
+moments the party was on its way to the polo-field.
+
+With the game this story has nothing in particular to do. It was not
+unlike polo games in general. The playing was neither especially good
+nor especially bad. Jack Neligage easily carried off the honors, and the
+men pronounced his playing to be in remarkable form for so early in the
+season. Fairfield sat next to Miss Calthorpe, but he was inclined to be
+quiet, and to glance at Mrs. Harbinger when he spoke, as if he expected
+her to be listening to his conversation. Now and then he fixed his
+attention on the field, but when the game was over, and the clever plays
+were discussed, he showed no signs of knowing anything about them. To
+him the game had evidently been only an accident, and in no way a vital
+part of the real business of the day.
+
+There was afternoon tea at the club-house,--groups chatted and laughed
+on the piazza and the lawn; red coats became more abundant on the golf
+links despite the lateness of the hour; carriages were brought round,
+one by one took their freights of pleasure-seekers, and departed.
+Fairfield still kept in the neighborhood of Miss Calthorpe, and although
+he said little he looked a great deal. Mrs. Harbinger did not interfere,
+although for the most part she was within ear-shot. Fairfield was of
+good old family, well spoken of as a rising literary man, and May had
+money enough for two, so that there were no good grounds upon which a
+chaperone could have made herself disagreeable, and Mrs. Harbinger was
+not in the least of the interfering sort.
+
+Before leaving the County Club Mrs. Harbinger had a brief talk with Mrs.
+Neligage.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me something about the Count's past," she said. "You
+knew him in Europe, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I met him in Rome one winter; and after that I saw a good deal of
+him for a couple of seasons."
+
+"Was he received?"
+
+"Oh, bless you, yes. He's real. His family tree goes back to the tree in
+the Garden of Eden."
+
+"Perhaps his ancestor then was the third person there."
+
+Mrs. Neligage laughed, and shook her head.
+
+"Come, Letty," she said, "that is taking an unfair advantage. But
+really, the Count is all right. He's as poor as a church mouse, and I've
+no doubt he came over here expressly to marry money. That is a foreign
+nobleman's idea of being driven to honest toil,--to come to America and
+hunt up an heiress."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger produced the letter which she had received from
+Barnstable earlier in the afternoon.
+
+"That crazy Mr. Barnstable that made an exhibition of himself at my
+house yesterday has given me a letter about the Count. I haven't read
+much of it; but it's evidently an attack on the man's morals."
+
+"Oh, his morals," Mrs. Neligage returned with a pretty shrug; "nobody
+can find fault with the Count's morals, my dear, for he hasn't any."
+
+"Is he so bad then?" inquired Mrs. Harbinger with a sort of
+dispassionate interest.
+
+"Bad, bless you, no. He's neither good nor bad. He's what all his kind
+are; squeamishly particular on a point of honor, and with not a moral
+scruple to his name."
+
+Mrs. Harbinger held the letter by the corner, regarding it with little
+favor.
+
+"I'm sure I don't want his old letter," she observed. "I'm not a
+purveyor of gossip."
+
+"Why did he give it to you?"
+
+"He wanted me to read it, and then to show it to my friends. He
+telegraphed to New York last night, Tom said, to find out about the
+Count, and the letter must have come on the midnight."
+
+"Characters by telegraph," laughed Mrs. Neligage. "The times are getting
+hard for adventurers and impostors. But really the Count isn't an
+impostor. He'd say frankly that he brought over his title to sell."
+
+"That doesn't decide what I am to do with this letter," Mrs. Harbinger
+remarked. "You'd better take it."
+
+"I'm sure I don't see what I should do with it," Mrs. Neligage returned;
+but at the same time she took the epistle. "Perhaps I may be able to
+make as much mischief with this as I did with that letter yesterday."
+
+The other looked at her with serious disfavor expressed in her face.
+
+"For heaven's sake," she said, "don't try that. You made mischief enough
+there to last for some time."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE MISCHIEF OF A LETTER
+
+
+The meditations of Mrs. Neligage in the watches of the night which
+followed the polo game must have been interesting, and could they be
+known might afford matter for amusement and study. It must be one of the
+chief sources of diversion to the Father of Evil to watch the growth in
+human minds and hearts of schemes for mischief. He has the satisfaction
+of seeing his own ends served, the entertainment of observing a curious
+and fascinating mental process, and all the while his vanity may be
+tickled by the reflection that it is he who will receive the credit for
+each cunningly developed plot of iniquity. That the fiend had been
+agreeably entertained on this occasion was to be inferred from the
+proceedings of Mrs. Neligage next morning, when the plans of the night
+were being carried into effect.
+
+As early in the day as calling was reasonably possible, Mrs. Neligage,
+although it was Sunday, betook herself to see May Calthorpe. May, who
+had neither father nor mother living, occupied the family house on
+Beacon street, opposite the Common, having as companion a colorless
+cousin who played propriety, and for the most part played it unseen.
+The dwelling was rather a gloomy nest for so bright a bird as May.
+Respectability of the most austere New England type pervaded the big
+drawing-room where Mrs. Neligage was received. The heavy old furniture
+was as ugly as original sin, and the pictures might have ministered to
+the Puritan hatred for art. Little was changed from the days when May's
+grandparents had furnished their abode according to the most approved
+repulsiveness of their time. Only the brightness of the warm April sun
+shining in at the windows, and a big bunch of dark red roses in a
+crystal jug, lightened the formality of the stately apartment.
+
+When May came into the room, however, it might have seemed that she had
+cunningly retained the old appointments as a setting to make more
+apparent by contrast her youthful fresh beauty. With her clear color,
+her dark hair, and sparkling eyes, she was the more bewitching amid this
+stately, sombre furniture, and in this gloomy old lofty room.
+
+"My dear," Mrs. Neligage said, kissing her affectionately, "how well you
+look. I was dreadfully afraid I should find you worried and unhappy."
+
+May returned her greeting less effusively, and seemed somewhat puzzled
+at this address.
+
+"But why in the world should I look worried?" she asked.
+
+Mrs. Neligage sat down, and regarded the other impressively in silence a
+moment before replying.
+
+"Oh, my dear child," she said dramatically, "how could you be so
+imprudent?"
+
+May became visibly paler, and in her turn sank into a chair.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she faltered.
+
+"If you had lived in society abroad as much as I have, May," was the
+answer, delivered with an expressive shake of the head, "you would know
+how dreadfully a girl compromises herself by writing to a strange
+gentleman."
+
+May started up, her eyes dilating.
+
+"Oh, how did you know?" she demanded.
+
+"The Count thinks the most horrible things," the widow went on
+mercilessly. "You know what foreigners are. It wouldn't have been so bad
+if it were an American."
+
+Poor May put her hands together with a woeful gesture as if she were
+imploring mercy.
+
+"Oh, is it the Count really?" she cried. "I saw that he had a red
+carnation in his buttonhole yesterday, but I hoped that it was an
+accident."
+
+"A red carnation?" repeated Mrs. Neligage.
+
+"Yes; that was the sign by which I was to know him. I said so in that
+letter."
+
+It is to be doubted if the Recording Angel at that moment wrote down to
+the credit of Mrs. Neligage that she regretted having by chance stuck
+that flower in the Count's coat at the County Club.
+
+"You poor child!" she murmured with a world of sympathy in her voice.
+
+The touch was too much for May, who melted into tears. She was a
+simple-hearted little thing or she would never have written the unlucky
+letters to Christopher Calumus, and in her simplicity she had evidently
+fallen instantly into the trap set for her. She dabbed resolutely at her
+eyes with her handkerchief, but the fountain was too free to be so
+easily stanched.
+
+"It will make a horrid scandal," Mrs. Neligage went on by way of
+comfort. "Oh, I do hate those dreadful foreign ways of talking about
+women. It used to make me so furious abroad that I wanted to kill the
+men."
+
+May was well on the way to sobs now.
+
+"Such things are so hard to kill, too," pursued the widow. "Everybody
+here will say there is nothing in it, but it will be repeated, and
+laughed about, and it will never be forgotten. That's the worst of it.
+The truth makes no difference, and it is almost impossible to live a
+thing of that sort down. You've seen Laura Seaton, haven't you? Well,
+that's just what ruined her life. She wrote some foolish letters, and it
+was found out. It always is found out; and she's always been in a
+cloud."
+
+Mrs. Neligage did not mention that the letters which the beclouded Miss
+Seaton had written had been to a married man and with a full knowledge
+on her part who her correspondent was.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Neligage," sobbed May. "Do you suppose the Count will tell?"
+
+"My dear, he showed me the letter."
+
+"Oh, did he?" moaned the girl, crimson to the eyes. "Did you read it?"
+
+"Read it, May? Of course not!" was the answer, delivered with admirable
+appearance of indignation; "but I knew the handwriting."
+
+May was by this time so shaken by sobs and so miserable that her
+condition was pitiful. Mrs. Neligage glided to a seat beside her, and
+took the girl in her arms in a fashion truly motherly.
+
+"There, there, May," said she soothingly. "Don't give way so. We must do
+something to straighten things out."
+
+"Oh, do you think we could?" demanded May, looking up through her tears.
+"Can't you get that letter away from him?"
+
+"I tried to make him give it to me, but he refused."
+
+It really seemed a pity that the widow was not upon the stage, so
+admirably did she show sympathy in voice and manner. She caressed the
+tearful maiden, and every tone was like an endearment.
+
+"Somebody must get that letter," she went on. "It would be fatal to
+leave it in the Count's possession. He is an old hand at this sort of
+thing. I knew about him abroad."
+
+She might have added with truth that she had herself come near marrying
+him, supposing that he had a fortune to match his title, but that she
+had luckily discovered his poverty in time.
+
+"But who can get it?" asked May, checking her tears as well as was
+possible under the circumstances.
+
+"It must be somebody who has the right to represent you," Mrs. Neligage
+responded with an air of much impressiveness.
+
+"Anybody may represent me," declared May. "Couldn't you do it, Mrs.
+Neligage?"
+
+"My dear," the other answered in a voice of remonstrance, "a lady could
+hardly go to a man on an errand like that. It must be a man."
+
+May dashed her hands together in a burst of impatience and despair.
+
+"Oh, I don't see what you gave it to him for," she cried in a lamentable
+voice. "You might have known that I wouldn't have written it if I'd any
+idea that that old thing was Christopher Calumus."
+
+"And I wouldn't have given it to him," returned Mrs. Neligage quietly,
+"if I'd had any idea that you were capable of writing to men you didn't
+know."
+
+May looked as if the tone in which this was said or the words themselves
+had completed her demoralization. She was bewitching in her misery, her
+eyes swimming divinely in tears, large and pathetic and browner than
+ever, her hair ruffled in her agitation into tiny rings and pliant wisps
+all about her temples, her cheeks flushed and moist. Her mouth, with its
+trembling little lips, might have moved the sternest heart of man to
+compassion and to the desire at least of consoling it with kisses. The
+more firm and logical feminine mind of Mrs. Neligage was not, however,
+by all this loveliness of woe turned away from her purpose.
+
+"At any rate," she went on, "the thing that can't be altered is that you
+have written the letter, and that the Count has it. I do pity you
+terribly, May; and I know Count Shimbowski, so I know what I'm saying. I
+came in this morning to say something to you, to propose something, that
+is; but I don't know how you'll take it. It is a way out of the
+trouble."
+
+"If there's any way out," returned May fervently, "I'm sure I don't care
+what it is; I'm ready for it, if it's to chop off my fingers."
+
+"It isn't that, my dear," Mrs. Neligage assured her with a suggestion of
+a laugh, the faint suggestion of a laugh, such as was appropriate to the
+direful situation only alleviated by the possibility which was to be
+spoken. "The fact is there's but one thing to do. You must let Jack act
+for you."
+
+"Oh, will he, Mrs. Neligage?" cried May, brightening at once.
+
+It has been noted by more than one observer of life that in times of
+trouble the mere mention of a man is likely to produce upon the feminine
+mind an effect notably cheering. Whether this be true, or a mere
+fanciful calumny of those heartless male writers who have never been
+willing to recognize that the real glory of woman lies in her being able
+entirely to ignore the existence of man, need not be here discussed. It
+is enough to record that at the sound of Jack's name May did undoubtedly
+rouse herself from the abject and limp despair into which she was
+completely collapsing. She caught at the suggestion as a trout snaps at
+the fisherman's fly.
+
+"He will be only too glad to," said Mrs. Neligage, "if he has the
+right."
+
+She paused and looked down, playing with the cardcase in her hands. She
+made a pretty show of being puzzled how to go on, so that the most
+stupid observer could not have failed to understand that there was
+something of importance behind her words. May began to knit her white
+forehead in an evident attempt to comprehend what further complication
+there might be in the affair under discussion.
+
+"I must be plain," the widow said, after a slight, hesitating pause.
+"What I have to say is as awkward as possible, and of course it's
+unusual; but under the circumstances there's no help for it. I hope
+you'll understand, May, that it's only out of care for you that I'm
+willing to come here this morning and make a fool of myself."
+
+"I don't see how you could make a fool of yourself by helping me," May
+said naïvely.
+
+The visitor smiled, and put out a trimly gloved hand to pat the fingers
+of the girl as they lay on the chair-arm.
+
+"No, that's the truth, May. I am trying to help you, and so I needn't
+mind how it sounds. Well, then; the fact is that there's one thing that
+makes this all very delicate. Whoever goes to the Count must have
+authority."
+
+"Well, I'm ready to give Jack authority."
+
+"But it must be the authority of a betrothed, my dear."
+
+"What! Oh, Mrs. Neligage!"
+
+May sat bolt upright and stiffened in her chair as if a wave of liquid
+air had suddenly gone over her.
+
+"To send a man for the letters under any other circumstances would be as
+compromising as the letters in the first place. Besides, the Count
+wouldn't be bound to give them up except to your _fiancé_."
+
+"That horrid Count!" broke out May with vindictive irrelevancy. "I wish
+it was just a man we had to deal with!"
+
+"Now Jack has been in love with you for a long time, my dear," pursued
+Jack's mother.
+
+"Jack! In love with me? Why, he's fond of Alice."
+
+"Oh, in a boy and girl way they've always been the best of friends. It's
+nothing more. He's in love with you, I tell you. What do you young
+things know about love anyway, or how to recognize it? I shouldn't tell
+you this if it weren't for the circumstances; but Jack is too delicate
+to speak when it might look as if he were taking advantages. He is
+furious about the letter."
+
+"Oh, does he know too?" cried poor May. "Does everybody know?"
+
+Her tears began again, and now Mrs. Neligage dried them with her own
+soft handkerchief, faintly scented with the especial eastern scent which
+she particularly affected. Doubtless a mother may be held to know
+something of the heart and the opinions of her only son, but as Jack had
+not, so far as his mother had any means of knowing, in the least
+connected May Calthorpe with the letter given to Count Shimbowski, it is
+perhaps not unfair to conclude that her maternal eagerness and affection
+had in this particular instance led her somewhat far. It is never the
+way of a clever person to tell more untruths than are actually needed by
+the situation, and it was perhaps by way of not increasing too rapidly
+her debit account on the books of the Recording Angel that Mrs. Neligage
+replied to this question of May's with an evasion,--an evasion, it is
+true, which was more effective than a simple, direct falsehood would
+have been.
+
+"Oh, May dear, you don't know the horrid way in which those foreign
+rakes boast of what they call their conquests!"
+
+The idea of being transformed from a human, self-respecting being into a
+mere conquest, the simple, ignominious spoils of the chase, might well
+be too much for any girl, and May became visibly more limp under it.
+
+"The simple case is here," proceeded the widow, taking up again her
+parable with great directness. "Jack is fond of you; he is too delicate
+to speak of it, and he knows that this is a time when nobody but a
+_fiancé_ has a right to meddle. If you had a brother, of course it would
+be different; but you haven't. Something must be done, and so I came
+this morning really to beg you, for Jack's sake and your own, to consent
+to an engagement."
+
+"Did Jack send you?" demanded May, looking straight into the other's
+eyes.
+
+Mrs. Neligage met the gaze fairly, yet there was a little hesitation in
+her reply. It might be that she considered whether the risk were greater
+in telling the truth or in telling a lie; but in the end it was the
+truth that she began with. Before she had got half through her sentence
+she had distorted it out of all recognition, indeed, but it is always an
+advantage to begin with what is true. It lends to any subsequent
+falsifying a moral support which is of inestimable value.
+
+"He knows nothing of it at all," she confessed. "He is too proud to let
+anybody speak for him, just as under the circumstances he is too proud
+to speak for himself. Besides, he is poor, and all your friends would
+say he was after your money. No, nothing would induce him to speak for
+himself. He is very unhappy about it all; but he feels far worse for you
+than for himself. Dear Jack! He is the most generous fellow in the
+world."
+
+"Poor Jack!" May murmured softly.
+
+"Poor Jack!" the widow echoed, with a deep-drawn sigh. "It frightens me
+so to think what might happen if he hears the Count boasting in his
+insolent way. Foreigners always boast of their conquests! Why, May,
+there's no knowing what he might do! And the scandal of it for you! And
+what should I do if anything happened to Jack?"
+
+Perhaps an appeal most surely touches the feminine heart if it be a
+little incoherent. A pedant might have objected that Mrs. Neligage in
+this brief speech altered the point of view with reckless frequency,
+but the pedant would by the effect have been proved to be wrong. The
+jumble of possibilities and of consequences, of woe to Jack, harm to
+May, and of general inconsolability on the part of the mother finished
+the conquest of the girl completely. She was henceforth only eager to do
+whatever Mrs. Neligage directed, and under the instigation of her astute
+counsellor wrote a note to the young man, accepting a proposal which he
+had never heard of, and imploring him as her accepted lover to rescue
+from the hands of Count Shimbowski the letter addressed to Christopher
+Calumus. It is not every orator, even among the greatest, who can boast
+of having achieved a triumph so speedy and so complete as that which
+gladdened the heart of Mrs. Neligage when, after consoling and cheering
+her promised daughter-in-law, she set out to find her son.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE DUTY OF A SON
+
+
+Simple were this world if it were governed by frankness, albeit
+perchance in some slight particulars less interesting. Certainly if
+straightforwardness ruled life, Mrs. Neligage would have fared
+differently in her efforts that morning. She would have had no
+opportunity in that case of displaying her remarkable astuteness, and
+she would have left the life-threads of divers young folk to run more
+smoothly. Knots and tangles in the lives of mortals are oftener
+introduced by their fellows than by the unkindly fingers of the Fates,
+although the blame must be borne by the weird sisters. The three might
+well stand aghast that forenoon to see the deftness with which Mrs.
+Neligage wrought her mischief. A fisherman with his netting-needle and a
+kitten playing with the twine together produce less complication of the
+threads than the widow that day brought about by the unaided power of
+her wits.
+
+Jack Neligage had chambers with Fairfield in a semi-fashionable
+apartment-house. Both the young men had a certain position to maintain,
+and neither was blessed with means sufficient to do it without much
+stretching. Fairfield was industrious and Neligage was idle, which in
+the end was more favorable to the reputation of the former and to the
+enjoyment of the latter. Jack fared the better in material things,
+because the man who is willing to run into debt may generally live more
+expensively than he who strives to add to an inadequate income by the
+fruit of his toil.
+
+On this particular morning Dick had gone to church in the vain hope of
+seeing May Calthorpe, while Jack was found by his mother smoking a
+cigarette over the morning paper. He had just finished his late
+breakfast, and opened his letters. The letters lay on the uncleared
+breakfast table in various piles. The largest heap was one made of bills
+torn to bits. Jack made it a matter of principle to tear up his bills as
+soon as they came. It saved trouble, and was, he said, a business-like
+habit. The second heap was composed of invitations to be answered; while
+advertisements and personal letters made the others. Jack received his
+mother with his usual joyous manner. It had been said of him that his
+continual good nature was better than an income to him. It certainly
+made him a favorite, it procured for him many an invitation, and it had
+even the effect of softening the hard heart of many a creditor. He was
+in appearance no less cheerful this morning for his talk with Wilson at
+the County Club or for the mysterious hints of ill which his mother had
+given him. It was all confoundedly awkward, he had commented to
+Fairfield before retiring on the previous night, but hang it, what good
+would it do to fret about it?
+
+"Good-morning, mater," he greeted her. "You must have something mighty
+important on your mind to come flying round here at this time in the
+day."
+
+"I have," she said, "and I want you to try for once in your life to take
+things seriously."
+
+"Seriously!" was his answer. "Don't I always take things seriously? Or
+if I don't, it can't be in me, for I'm sure I have enough to make me
+serious. Look at that pile of bills there."
+
+Mrs. Neligage walked to the table, inspected first the invitations,
+which she looked over with truly feminine attention, and then began to
+pick up pieces of the torn-up bills.
+
+"How in the world, Jack, do you ever know what you owe?" she asked.
+
+"Know what I owe? Gad! I wouldn't know that for the world. Sit down, and
+tell me what disagreeable thing brought you here."
+
+"Why is it necessarily disagreeable?" she demanded, seating herself
+beside the table, and playing with the torn paper.
+
+"You said yesterday that you were in a mess."
+
+"Yes," she replied slowly; "but that was yesterday."
+
+"Does that mean that you are out of it? So much the better."
+
+Mrs. Neligage clasped her hands in her lap, and regarded her son with a
+strong and eager look.
+
+"Jack," she began, "I want you to listen to me, and not interrupt. You
+must hear the whole thing before you begin to put in your word. In the
+first place, you are engaged to May Calthorpe."
+
+The exclamation and the laugh which greeted this piece of information
+were so nearly simultaneous that Jack might be given the benefit of the
+doubt and so evade the charge of swearing before a lady.
+
+"Why in the world, mother," he said, "must you come harping on that
+string again? You know it's of no use."
+
+"You are engaged now, Jack, and of course that makes a difference."
+
+"Oh, bother! Do speak sensibly. What are you driving at?"
+
+The widow regarded him with a serene face, and settled herself more
+comfortably in her chair.
+
+"I came to congratulate you on your engagement to Miss May Calthorpe,"
+she said, with all possible coolness and distinctness.
+
+"Indeed? Then I am sorry to tell you that you have wasted your labor. I
+haven't even seen May since we left the County Club yesterday."
+
+"Oh, I knew that."
+
+"What in the world are you driving at, mother? Perhaps you don't mind
+telling me who told you of the engagement."
+
+"Oh, not in the least. May told me."
+
+"May Calthorpe!"
+
+It was not strange that Jack should receive the announcement with
+surprise, but it was evident that there was in his mind more
+bewilderment. He stared at his mother without further word, while she
+pulled off her gloves and loosened her coat as if to prepare herself for
+the explanation which it was evident must follow.
+
+"Come, Jack," she remarked, when she had adjusted these preliminaries,
+"we may as well be clear about this. I made an offer in your name to
+May, and she has accepted it."
+
+Jack rose from his seat, and stood over her, his sunny face growing
+pale.
+
+"You made an offer in my name?" he demanded.
+
+"Sit down," she commanded, waving her hand toward his chair. "There is a
+good deal to be said, and you'll be tired of standing before I tell it
+all. Is there any danger that Mr. Fairfield may come in?"
+
+Jack walked over to the door and slipped the catch.
+
+"He is not likely to come," he said, "but it's sure now. Fire away."
+
+He spoke with a seriousness which he used seldom. There were times when
+lazy, good-tempered Jack Neligage took a stubborn fit, and those who
+knew him well did not often venture to cross him in those moods. The
+proverb about the wrath of a patient man had sometimes been applied to
+him. When these rare occasions came on which his temper gave way he
+became unusually calm and self-possessed, as he was now. It could not
+but have been evident to his mother that she had to do with her son in
+one of the worst of his rare rages. Perhaps the vexations of the
+previous days, the pile of torn bills on the table, the icy greeting
+Alice Endicott had given him yesterday, all had to do with the sudden
+outbreak of his anger, but any man might have been excused for being
+displeased by such an announcement as had just been made to Jack.
+
+"I'm not going into your financial affairs, Jack," Mrs. Neligage
+remarked, with entire self-possession, "only that they count, of
+course."
+
+"I know enough about them," he said curtly. "We'll take them for
+granted."
+
+"Very well then--we will talk about mine. You've hinted once or twice
+that you didn't like the way I flirted with Sibley Langdon. I owe him
+six thousand dollars."
+
+If the widow had been planning a theatrical effect in her coolly
+pronounced words, she had no reason to be disappointed at the result.
+Jack started to his feet with an oath, and glared at her with angry
+eyes.
+
+"More than that," she went on boldly, though she cast down her glance
+before his, "the money was to save me from the consequences of--"
+
+Her voice faltered and the word died on her lips. Jack stood as if
+frozen, staring with a hard face and lips tightly shut.
+
+"Oh, Jack," she burst out, "why do you make me shame myself! Why can't
+you understand? I'm no good, Jack; but I'm your mother."
+
+Actual tears were in her eyes, and her breath was coming quickly. It is
+always peculiarly hard to see a self-contained, worldly woman lose
+control of herself. The strength of emotion which is needed to shake
+such a nature is instinctively appreciated by the spectator, and affects
+him with a pain that is almost too cruel to be borne. Jack Neligage,
+however, showed no sign of softening.
+
+"You must tell me the whole now," he said in a hard voice.
+
+The masculine instinct of asserting the right to judge a woman was in
+his tone. She wiped away her tears, and choked back her sobs. A little
+tremor ran over her, and then she began again, speaking in a voice lower
+than before, but firmly held in restraint.
+
+"It was at Monte Carlo five years ago," she said. "I was there alone,
+and the Countess Marchetti came. I'd known her a little for years, and
+we got to be very intimate. You know how it is with two women at a
+hotel. I'd been playing a little, just to keep myself from dying of
+dullness. Count Shimbowski was there, and he made love to me as long as
+he thought I had money, but he fled when I told him I hadn't. Well, one
+day the countess had a telegram that her husband had been hurt in
+hunting. She had just half an hour to get to the train, and she took her
+maid and went. Of course she hadn't time to have things packed, and she
+left everything in my care. Just at the last minute she came rushing in
+with a jewel-case. Her maid had contrived to leave it out, and she
+wouldn't take it. The devil planned it, of course. I told her to take
+it, but she wouldn't, and she didn't; and I played, and I lost, and I
+was desperate, and I pawned her diamond necklace for thirty thousand
+francs."
+
+"And of course you lost that," Jack said in a hard voice, as she paused.
+
+"Oh, Jack, don't speak to me like that! I was mad! I know it! The worst
+thing about the whole devilish business was the way I lost my head. I
+look back at it now, and wonder if I'm ever safe. It makes me afraid;
+and I never was afraid of anything else in my life. I'm not a 'fraid-cat
+woman!"
+
+He gave no sign of softening, none of sympathy, but still sat with the
+air of a judge, cold and inexorable.
+
+"What has all this to do with Sibley Langdon?" he asked.
+
+"He came there just when the countess sent for her things. I was wild,
+and I went all to pieces at the sight of a home face. It was like a
+plank to a shipwrecked fool, I suppose. I broke down and told him the
+whole thing, and he gave me the money to redeem the necklace. He was
+awfully kind, Jack. I hate him--but he was kind. I really think I should
+have killed myself if he hadn't helped me."
+
+"And you have never paid him?"
+
+"How could I pay him? I've been on the ragged edge of the poorhouse ever
+since. I don't know if the poorhouse has a ragged edge," she added, with
+something desperately akin to a smile, "but if it has edges of course
+they must be ragged."
+
+Few persons have ever made a confession, no matter how woeful the
+circumstances, without some sense of relief at having spoken out the
+thing which was festering in the secret heart. Shame and bitter
+contrition may overwhelm this feeling, but they do not entirely destroy
+it. Mrs. Neligage would hardly have been likely ever to tell her story
+save under stress of bitter necessity, but there was an air which showed
+that the revelation had given her comfort.
+
+"Has he ever spoken of it?" asked Jack, unmoved by her attempted
+lightness.
+
+"Never directly, and never until recently has he hinted. Jack," she
+said, her color rising, "he is a bad man!"
+
+He did not speak, but his eyes plainly demanded more.
+
+"The other day,--Jack, I've known for a long time that it was coming.
+I've hated him for it, but I didn't know what to do. It was partly for
+that that I went to Washington."
+
+"Well?"
+
+Mrs. Neligage was not that day playing a part which was entirely to be
+commended by the strict moralist. Certainly in her interview with May
+she had left much to be desired on the score of truthfulness and
+consideration for others. Hard must be the heart, however, which might
+not have been touched by the severity of the ordeal which she was now
+undergoing. Jack's clear brown eyes dominated hers with all the force of
+the man and the judge, while hers in vain sought to soften them; and the
+pathos of it was that it was the son judging the mother.
+
+"I give you my word, Jack," she said, leaning toward him and speaking
+with deep earnestness, "that he has never said a word to me that you
+might not have heard. Silly compliments, of course, and fool things
+about his wife's not being to his taste; but nothing worse. Only now--"
+
+Ruthless is man toward woman who may have violated the proprieties, but
+cruel is the son toward his mother if she may have dimmed the honor
+which is his as well as hers.
+
+"Now?" he repeated inflexibly.
+
+"Now he has hinted, he has hardly said it, Jack, but he means for me to
+join him in Europe this summer."
+
+The red leaped into Jack's face and the blaze into his eyes. He rose
+deliberately from his chair, and stood tall before her.
+
+"Are you sure he meant it?" he asked.
+
+"He put in nasty allusions to the countess, and--Oh, he did mean it,
+Jack; and it frightened me as I have never been frightened in my life."
+
+"I will horsewhip him in the street!"
+
+She sprang up, and caught him by the arm.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Jack, think of the scandal! I'd have told you long
+ago, but I was afraid you'd make a row that would be talked about. When
+I came home from Europe, and realized that all my property is in the
+hands of trustees so that I couldn't pay, I wanted to tell you; but I
+didn't know what you'd do. I'm afraid of you when your temper's really
+up."
+
+He freed himself from her clasp and began to pace up and down, while
+she watched him in silence. Suddenly he turned to her.
+
+"But this was only part of it," he said. "What was that stuff you were
+talking about my being engaged?"
+
+She held out to him the note that May had written, and when he had read
+it explained as well as she could the scene which had taken place
+between her and May. She did not, it is true, present an account which
+was without variations from the literal facts, but no mortal could be
+expected to do that. She at least made it clear that she had bargained
+with the girl that the letter should be the price of an engagement. Jack
+heard her through, now and then putting in a curt question. When he had
+heard it all, he laughed angrily, and threw the letter on the floor.
+
+"You have brought me into it too," he said. "We are a pair of
+unprincipled adventurers together. I've been more or less of a beat, but
+I've never before been a good, thorough-paced blackguard!"
+
+She flashed upon him in an outburst of anger in her turn.
+
+"Do you mean that for me?" she demanded. "The word isn't so badly
+applied to a man that can talk so to his mother! Haven't I been saving
+you as well as myself? As to May, any girl will love a husband that has
+character enough to manage her and be kind to her."
+
+He was silent a moment, and when he spoke he waived the point.
+
+"Do I understand," he said, "that you expect me to go to Count
+Shimbowski and announce myself as May's representative, and demand her
+letter?"
+
+"Not at all," she answered, a droll expression of craftiness coming over
+her face. "Sit down, and let me tell you."
+
+She resumed her own seat, and Jack, after whirling his chair around
+angrily, sat down astride of it, with his arms crossed on the back.
+
+"There are letters and letters," Mrs. Neligage observed with a smile.
+"When Mrs. Harbinger gave me this one last night I began to see that it
+might be good for something. You are to exchange this with the Count.
+You needn't mention May's name."
+
+Jack took the letter, and looked at it.
+
+"This is to Barnstable," he said.
+
+"Yes; he gave it to Letty to be shown to people. Barnstable is the
+silliest fool that there is about."
+
+"And you think the Count would give up that letter for this?"
+
+"I am sure he would if he thought there was any possibility that this
+might fall into the hands of Miss Wentstile."
+
+"If it would send the damned adventurer about his business," growled
+Jack, "I'd give it to Miss Wentstile myself."
+
+"Oh, don't bother about that. I can stop that affair any time," his
+mother responded lightly. "I've only to tell Sarah Wentstile what I've
+seen myself, and that ends his business with her."
+
+"Then you'd better do it, and stop his tormenting Alice."
+
+"I'll do anything you like, Jack, if you'll be nice about May."
+
+He got up from his seat and walked back and forth a few turns, his head
+bowed, and his manner that of deep thought. Then he went to his desk and
+wrote a couple of notes. He read them over carefully, and filled out a
+check. He lit a cigarette, and sat pondering over the notes for some
+moments. At last he brought them both to his mother, who had sat
+watching him intently, although she had turned her face half away from
+him. Jack put the letters into her hand without a word.
+
+The first note was as follows:--
+
+     DEAR MAY,--My mother has just brought me your note, and I am going
+     out at once to find the Count. I hope to bring you the letter
+     before night. I need not tell you that I am very proud of the
+     confidence you have shown in me and of the honor you do me. Until I
+     see you it will, it seems to me, be better that you do not speak of
+     our engagement.
+
+     Very sincerely yours,
+
+     JOHN T. NELIGAGE.
+
+The second note was this:--
+
+     SIBLEY LANGDON, ESQ.
+
+     _Sir_,--I have just heard from my mother that she is indebted to
+     you for a loan of $6000. I inclose check for that amount with
+     interest at four per cent. As Mrs. Neligage has doubtless expressed
+     her gratitude for your kindness I do not know that it is necessary
+     for me to add anything.
+
+     JOHN T. NELIGAGE.
+
+"You are right, of course," he said. "I can't show him that I know his
+beastly scheme without a scandal that would hurt you. He'll understand,
+though. But why in the world you've let him browbeat you into receiving
+his attentions I cannot see."
+
+"I felt so helpless, Jack. I didn't know what he would do; and he could
+tell about the necklace, you see. He's been a millstone round my neck.
+He's never willing I should do anything with anybody but himself."
+
+Jack ground his teeth, and held out his hand for the letters.
+
+"But, Jack," Mrs. Neligage cried, as if the thought had just struck her.
+"You can't have $6000 in the bank."
+
+"I shall have when he gets that check," Jack returned grimly. "If father
+hadn't put all our money into the hands of trustees--"
+
+"We should neither of us have anything whatever," his mother
+interrupted, laughing. "It is bad enough as it is, but it would have
+been worse if we'd had our hands free."
+
+Her spirits were evidently once more high; she seemed to have cast off
+fear and care alike.
+
+"Well," she said, rising, "I must go home. You want to go and find the
+Count, of course."
+
+She went up to her son, and put her hands on his shoulders.
+
+"Dear boy," she said, "I'm not really so bad as I seem. I was a fool to
+gamble, but I never did anything else that was very bad. Oh, you don't
+know what a weight it is off my shoulders to have that note paid. Of
+course it will be hard on you just now, but we must hurry on the
+marriage with May, and then you'll have money enough."
+
+He smiled down on her with a look in which despite its scrutiny there
+was a good deal of fondness. Worldly as the Neligages were, there was
+still a strong bond of affection between them.
+
+"All right, old lady," he said, stooping forward to kiss her forehead.
+"I'm awfully sorry you've had such a hard time, but you're out of it
+now. Only there's one thing I insist on. You are to tell nobody of the
+engagement till I give you leave."
+
+She studied his face keenly.
+
+"If I don't announce it," she said frankly, "I'm afraid you'll squirm
+out of it."
+
+He laughed buoyantly.
+
+"You are a born diplomat," he told her. "What sort of a concession do
+you want to make you hold your tongue?"
+
+"Jack," she said pleadingly, changing her voice into earnestness, "won't
+you marry May? If you only knew how I want you to be rich and taken care
+of."
+
+"Mr. Frostwinch has offered me a place in the bank, mater, with a salary
+that's about as much as I've paid for the board of one of my ponies."
+
+"What could you do on a salary like that? You won't break the engagement
+when you see May this afternoon, will you? Promise me that."
+
+"She may break it herself."
+
+"She won't unless you make her. Promise me, Jack."
+
+He smiled down into her face as if a sudden thought had come to him, and
+a gleam of mischief lighted his brown eyes.
+
+"The engagement, such as it is," he returned, "may stand at present as
+you've fixed it, if you'll give me your word not to mention it or to
+meddle with it."
+
+"I promise," she said rapturously, and pulled him down to kiss him
+fervently before departing.
+
+Then in the conscious virtue of having achieved great things Mrs.
+Neligage betook herself home to dress for a luncheon.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE BUSINESS OF A LOVER
+
+
+Jack's first care, after his mother had left him, was to dispatch a
+messenger to May with his note.
+
+Then he set out in search of Dr. Wilson. After a little hunting he
+discovered the latter lunching at the club. Jack came straight to his
+business without any beating about the bush.
+
+"Wilson," he said, "I've come on an extraordinary errand. I want you to
+lend me $6000 on the spot."
+
+The other whistled, and then chuckled as was his good-humored wont.
+
+"That's a good round sum," he answered.
+
+"I know that a deuced sight better than you do," Neligage returned.
+"I've had more experience in wanting money. I'm in a hole, and I ask you
+to help me out of it. Of course I'm taking a deal of advantage of your
+good nature yesterday; and you may do as you like about letting me have
+the money. All the security I can give is to turn over to you the income
+of the few stocks I have. They 're all in the hands of trustees. My
+father left'em so."
+
+"Gad, he knew his son," was the characteristic comment.
+
+"You are right. He did. Can you let me have the money?"
+
+The other considered a moment, and then said with his usual bluntness:--
+
+"I suppose it's none of my business what you want of it?"
+
+Jack flushed.
+
+"It may be your business, Wilson, but I can't tell you."
+
+The other laughed.
+
+"Oh, well," he said, "if you've been so big a fool that you can't bear
+to tell of it, I'm not going to insist. I can't do anything better than
+to send you a check to-morrow. I haven't that amount in the bank."
+
+Jack held out his hand.
+
+"You're a trump, Wilson," he said. "I'd tell you the whole thing if it
+was my secret, but it isn't. Of course if you lose anything by moving
+the money, I'll be responsible for it. Besides that I want you to buy
+Starbright, if you care for him. Of course if you don't I can sell him
+easily enough. He's the best of the ponies."
+
+"Then you're going to sell?"
+
+"Clean out the whole thing; pay my debts, and leave the club."
+
+"Oh, you mustn't do that."
+
+"I'm going into a bank, and of course I shan't have any time to play."
+
+Wilson regarded him with an amused and curious smile, playing with his
+fork meanwhile. Wilson was not by birth of Jack's world, having come
+into social position in Boston by his marriage with Elsie Dimmont, the
+richest young woman of the town. He and Jack had never been especially
+intimate, but Jack had always maintained that despite traces of
+coarseness in manner Wilson was sound at heart and essentially a good
+fellow. Perhaps the fact that in times past Neligage had not used his
+opportunities to patronize Wilson had something to do with the absence
+of anything patronizing in the Doctor's manner now.
+
+"Well," Wilson said at length, "don't do anything rash. Your dues for
+the whole year are paid,--or will be when you square up, and you might
+as well get the worth of them. We need you on the team, so you mustn't
+go back on us if you can help it."
+
+Matters being satisfactorily arranged both in relation to the loan and
+to the sale of the pony, Jack left Wilson, and departed in search of
+Count Shimbowski. Him he ultimately found at another club, and at once
+asked to speak with him alone on business.
+
+"Count," he began when they were in one of the card-rooms, "I want to
+add a word to what I said to you yesterday."
+
+"Each one word of Mr. Neleegaze eet ees treasured," the Count responded
+with a polite flourish of his cigarette.
+
+"Since you wouldn't give me that letter," pursued Jack, acknowledging
+the compliment with a grin and a bow, "perhaps you'll be willing to
+exchange it."
+
+"Exchange eet?" repeated the Hungarian. "For what weell eet be
+exchange'?"
+
+Jack produced Barnstable's letter.
+
+"I thought that you'd perhaps be willing to exchange it for this letter
+that's otherwise to be read and passed about. I fancy that the person
+who got it had Miss Wentstile particularly in mind as likely to be
+interested in it."
+
+The touch showed Jack to be not without some of the astuteness of his
+mother.
+
+"What weell eet be?" inquired the Count.
+
+"I haven't read it," answered Jack, slowly drawing it from the envelope.
+"It is said to contain a full account of the life of Count Shimbowski."
+
+"_Sacré!_"
+
+"Exactly," acquiesced Jack. "It's a devilish shame that things can't be
+forgotten when they're done. I've found that out myself."
+
+"But what weell be weetheen dat lettaire?"
+
+Jack ran his eye down a page.
+
+"This seems to be an account of a duel at Monaco," he returned. "On the
+next page--"
+
+The Count stretched out his hand in protest.
+
+"Eet ees not needed dat you eet to read," he said. "Eet ees leeklie
+lees."
+
+"Oh, very likely it is lies. No story about a fellow is ever told right;
+but the worst things always get believed; and Miss Wentstile is very
+particular. She's deucedly down on me for a lot of things that never
+happened."
+
+"Oh, but she ees extr'ordeenaire particle!" exclaimed the Count, with a
+shrug and a profane expletive. "She does not allow dat money be play
+for de card, she have say eet to me. She ees most extr'ordeenaire
+particle!"
+
+"Then I am probably right, Count, in thinking you wouldn't care to have
+her read this letter?"
+
+The Count twisted his silky mustache, looking both angry and rather
+foolish.
+
+"Eet ees not dat eet ees mooch dat I have done," he explained. "You know
+what eet ees de leefe. A man leeves one way. But she, she ees so
+particle damned!"
+
+Jack burst into a laugh that for the moment threatened to destroy the
+gravity with which he was conducting the interview; but he controlled
+his face, and went on.
+
+"Since she is so damned particular," said he, "don't you think you'd
+better let me have the other letter for this? Of course I hate to drive
+you to a bargain, but I must have that other letter. I don't mind
+telling you that I'm sent after it by the one who wrote it."
+
+"Den you weell know who have wrote eet?"
+
+"Yes, of course I know, but I'm not going to tell."
+
+The Count considered for a moment, and then slowly drew out the letter
+addressed to Christopher Calumus. He looked at it wistfully, with the
+air of a man who is reluctantly abandoning the clue to an adventure
+which might have proved enchanting.
+
+"But eet weell look what I was one great villaine dat fear," he said.
+
+"Nonsense," returned Neligage, holding out the letter of Barnstable for
+exchange. "We know both sides of the business. All there is to it is
+that we both understand what a crochety old maid Miss Wentstile is."
+
+Count Shimbowski smiled, and the exchange was effected. Jack turned
+May's letter over in his hand, and found it unopened.
+
+"You're a gentleman, Count," he said, offering his hand.
+
+"Of de course," the other replied, with an air of some surprise. "I am
+one Shimbowski."
+
+"Well, I'm obliged to you," observed Jack, putting the letter in his
+pocket. "I'll try to keep gossip still."
+
+"Oh, eet ees very leek," Shimbowski returned, waving his hand airily,
+"dat when I have read heem I geeve eet to Mees Wentsteele for one's
+self. Eet ees very leekly."
+
+"All right," Jack laughed. "I'd like to see her read it. So long."
+
+With the vigor which belongs to an indolent man thoroughly aroused, Jack
+hunted up Tom Harbinger before the day was done, and sold to him his
+second best pony. Then he went for a drive, and afterward dined at the
+club with an appetite which spoke a conscience at ease or not allowed to
+make itself heard. He did not take the time for reflection which might
+have been felt necessary by many men in preparation for the interview
+with May Calthorpe which must come before bedtime. Indeed he was more
+than usually lively and busy, and as he had a playful wit, he had some
+difficulty in getting the men at the club to let him go when soon after
+eight in the evening he set out for May's. He had kept busy from the
+moment his mother had left him in the morning, and on his way along
+Beacon street, he hummed to himself as if still resolved to do anything
+rather than to meditate.
+
+May came into the sombre drawing-room looking more bewitchingly pretty
+and shy than can be told in sober prose. She was evidently frightened,
+and as she came forward to give her hand to Neligage the color came and
+went in her cheeks as if she were tremblingly afraid of the
+possibilities of his greeting. Jack's smile was as sunny as ever when he
+stepped forward to take her hand. He simply grasped it and let it go, a
+consideration at which she was visibly relieved.
+
+"Well, May," Jack said laughingly, "I understand that we are engaged."
+
+"Yes," she returned faintly. "Won't you sit down?"
+
+She indicated a chair not very near to that upon which she took her own
+seat, and Jack coolly accepted the invitation, improving on it somewhat
+by drawing his chair closer to hers.
+
+"I got the letter from the Count," he went on.
+
+She held out her hand for it in silence. He took the letter from his
+pocket, and held it as he spoke again, tapping it on his knee by way of
+emphasis.
+
+"Before I give it to you, May," he remarked in a voice more serious than
+he was accustomed to use, "I want you to promise me that you will never
+do such a thing again as to write to a stranger. You are well out of
+this--"
+
+She lifted her eyes with a quick look of fear in them, as if it had
+flashed into her mind that if she were out of the trouble over the
+letter she had escaped this peril only to be ensnared into an engagement
+with him. The thought was so plain that Jack burst into a laugh.
+
+"You think that being engaged to me isn't being well out of anything, I
+see," he observed merrily and mercilessly; "but there might be worse
+things than that even. We shall see. You'll be awfully fond of me before
+we are through with this."
+
+The poor girl turned crimson at this plain reading of her thought. She
+was but half a dozen years younger than Jack, but he had belonged to an
+older set than hers, and under thirty half a dozen years seems more of a
+difference in ages than appears a score later in life. It was not to be
+expected that she would be talkative in this strange predicament in
+which she found herself, but what little command she had of her tongue
+might well vanish if Jack was to read her thoughts in her face. She
+rallied her forces to answer him.
+
+"I know that for doing so foolish a thing," she said, "I deserved
+whatever I get."
+
+"Even if it's being engaged to me," responded he with a roar. "Well, to
+be honest, I think you do. I don't know what the Count might have done
+if he had read the letter, but--"
+
+"Oh," cried May, clasping her hands with a burst of sunshine in her
+face, "didn't he read it? Oh, I'm so glad!"
+
+"No," Jack answered, "the Count's too much of a gentleman to read
+another man's letters when he hasn't been given leave. But what have you
+to say about my reading this letter?"
+
+"Oh, you can't have read it!" May cried breathlessly.
+
+"Not yet; but as we are engaged of course you give me leave to read it
+now."
+
+She looked for a moment into his laughing eyes, and then sprang up from
+her chair with a sudden burst of excitement.
+
+"Oh, you are too cruel!" she cried. "I hate you!"
+
+"Come," he said, not rising, but settling himself back in his chair with
+a pose of admiring interest, "now we are getting down to nature. Have
+you ever played in amateur theatricals, May?"
+
+She stood struck silent by the laughing banter of his tone, but she made
+no answer.
+
+"Because, if you ever do," he continued in the same voice, "you'll do
+well to remember the way you spoke then. It'll be very fetching in a
+play."
+
+The color faded in her cheeks, and her whole manner changed from
+defiance to humiliation; her lip quivered with quick emotion, and an
+almost childish expression of woe made pathetic her mobile face. She
+dropped back into her chair, and the tears started in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, I don't think you've any right to tease me," she quavered in a
+voice that had almost escaped from control. "I'm sure I feel bad enough
+about it."
+
+Jack's face sobered a little, although the mocking light of humor did
+not entirely vanish from his eyes.
+
+"There, there," he said in a soothing voice; "don't cry, May, whatever
+you do. The modern husband hates tears, but instead of giving in to
+them, he gets cross and clears out. Don't cry before the man you marry,
+or," he added, a fresh smile lighting his face, "even before the man you
+are engaged to."
+
+"I didn't mean to be so foolish," May responded, choking down her
+rebellious emotions. "I'm all upset."
+
+"I don't wonder. Now to go back to this letter. Of course I shouldn't
+think of reading it without your leave, but I supposed you'd think it
+proper under the circumstances to tell me to read it. I thought you'd
+say: 'Dearest, I have no secrets from thee! Read!' or something of that
+sort, you know."
+
+He was perhaps playing now to cheer May up, for he delivered this in a
+mock-heroic style, with an absurd gesture. At least the effect was to
+evoke a laugh which came tear-sparkling as a lark flies dew-besprent
+from a hawthorn bush at morn.
+
+She rallied a little, and spoke with more self-command.
+
+"Oh, that was the secret of a girl that wasn't engaged to you," she
+said, "and had no idea of being; no more," she added, dimpling, "than I
+had."
+
+Jack showed his white teeth in what his friends called his "appreciative
+grin."
+
+"Perhaps you're right," he returned. "By the way, do you know who
+Christopher Calumus really is?"
+
+She colored again, and hung her head.
+
+"Yes," she murmured, in a voice absurdly low. "Mrs. Harbinger told me
+last night. He told her yesterday at the County Club."
+
+"Does he know who wrote to him?"
+
+Her cheeks became deeper in hue, and her voice even lower yet.
+
+"Yes, he found out from Mrs. Harbinger."
+
+"Well, I must say I thought that Letty Harbinger had more sense!"
+
+"She didn't mean to tell him."
+
+"No woman ever meant to tell anything," he retorted in good-humored
+sarcasm; "but they always do tell everything. Then if you and Dick both
+know all about it, perhaps I had better give the letter to him."
+
+He offered to put the letter into his pocket, but she held out her hand
+for it beseechingly.
+
+"Oh, don't give it to anybody else," she begged. "Let me put it into the
+fire, and be through with it. It's done mischief enough!"
+
+"It may have done some good too," he said enigmatically. "I hope nothing
+worse will ever happen to you, May, than to be engaged to me. I give you
+my word that, as little as you imagine it, it's your interest and not my
+own I'm looking after. However, that's neither here nor there."
+
+He put the letter into his pocket without farther comment, disregarding
+her imploring look. Then he rose, and held out his hand.
+
+"Good-night," he said. "Some accepted lovers would ask for a kiss, but
+I'll wait till you want to kiss me. You will some time. Good-night.
+You'll remember what I wrote you about mentioning our engagement."
+
+She had at the mention of kisses become more celestial rosy red than in
+the whole course of that blushful interview, but at his last word her
+color faded as quickly as it had come.
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, "I had told one person before your note
+came. She won't tell though."
+
+"Being a 'she,'" he retorted mockingly.
+
+"Oh, it was only Alice," May explained, "and of course she can be
+trusted."
+
+It was his turn to become serious, and in the cloud on his sunny face
+there was not a little vexation.
+
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Of all the women in Boston why must you
+pick out the one that I was most particular shouldn't know! You girls
+have an instinct for mischief."
+
+"But I wrote to her as soon as your note came; besides, she has promised
+not to say anything. She won't tell."
+
+"No; she won't tell," he echoed moodily. "What did she say?"
+
+May cast down her eyes in evident embarrassment.
+
+"Oh, it's no matter," Jack went on. "She wouldn't say half as hard
+things as she must think. However, it's all one in the end. Good-night."
+
+With this abrupt farewell he left his betrothed, and went hastily out
+into the spring night, with its velvety darkness and abundant stars. The
+mention of Alice Endicott had robbed him of the gay spirits in which he
+had carried on his odd interview with May. The teasing jollity of manner
+was gone as he walked thoughtfully back to his chambers.
+
+He found Fairfield in their common parlor.
+
+"Dick," he said without preface, "congratulate me. I'm engaged."
+
+"Engaged!" exclaimed the other, jumping up and extending his hand.
+"Congratulations, old fellow. Of course it's Alice Endicott."
+
+"No," his friend responded coolly; "it's May Calthorpe."
+
+"What!" cried Fairfield, starting back and dropping his hand before
+Neligage had time to take it. "Miss Calthorpe? What do you mean?"
+
+"Just as I say, my boy. The engagement is a secret at present, you
+understand. I thought you'd like to know it, though; and by the way,
+it'll show that I've perfect confidence in you if I turn over to you the
+letter that May wrote to you before we were engaged. That one to
+Christopher Calumus, you know."
+
+"But," stammered his chum, apparently trying to collect his wits,
+scattered by the unexpected news and this strange proposition, "how can
+you tell what's in it?"
+
+"Tell what's in it, my boy? It isn't any of my business. That has to do
+with a part of her life that doesn't belong to me, you know. It's enough
+for me that she wrote the letter for you to have, and so here it is."
+
+He put the envelope into the hands of Dick, who received it as if he
+were a post-box on the corner, having no choice but to take any missive
+thrust at him.
+
+"Good-night," Jack said. "I'm played out, and mean to turn in. Thanks
+for your good wishes."
+
+And he ended that eventful day, so far as the world of men could have
+cognizance, by retiring to his own room.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE MISCHIEF OF MEN
+
+
+Barnstable seemed bound to behave like a bee in a bottle, which goes
+bumping its idiotic head without reason or cessation. On Monday morning
+after the polo game he was ushered into the chambers of Jack and Dick,
+both of whom were at home. He looked more excited than on the previous
+day, and moved with more alacrity. The alteration was not entirely to
+his advantage, for Mr. Barnstable was one of those unfortunates who
+appear worse with every possible change of manner.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield," was the visitor's greeting. "Damme if
+I'll say good-morning to you, Mr. Neligage."
+
+Jack regarded him with languid astonishment.
+
+"Well," he said, "that relieves me of the trouble of saying it to you."
+
+Barnstable puffed and swelled with anger.
+
+"Damme, sir," he cried, "you may try to carry it off that way, but--"
+
+"Good heavens, Mr. Barnstable," interrupted Fairfield, "what in the
+world do you mean?"
+
+"Is it your general custom," drawled Jack, between puffs of his
+cigarette, "to give a Wild West show at every house you go into?"
+
+Dick flashed a smile at his chum, but shook his head.
+
+"Come, Mr. Barnstable," he said soothingly, "you can't go about making
+scenes in this way. Sit down, and if you've anything to say, say it
+quietly."
+
+Mr. Barnstable, however, was not to be beguiled with words. He had
+evidently been brooding over wrongs, real or fancied, until his temper
+had got beyond control.
+
+"Anything to say?" he repeated angrily,--"I've this to say: that he has
+insulted my wife. I'll sue you for libel, damme! I've a great mind to
+thrash you!"
+
+Jack grinned down on the truculent Barnstable from his superior height.
+Barnstable stood with his short legs well apart, as if he had to brace
+them to bear up the enormous weight of his anger; Jack, careless,
+laughing, and elegant, leaned his elbow on the mantle and smoked.
+
+"There, Mr. Barnstable," Fairfield said, coming to him and taking him by
+the arm; "you evidently don't know what you're saying. Of course there's
+some mistake. Mr. Neligage never insulted a lady."
+
+"But he has done it," persisted Barnstable. "He has done it, Mr.
+Fairfield. Have you read 'Love in a Cloud'?"
+
+"'Love in a Cloud'?" repeated Dick in manifest astonishment.
+
+"You must know the book, Dick," put in Jack wickedly. "It's that
+rubbishy anonymous novel that's made so much talk lately. It's about a
+woman whose husband's temper was incompatible."
+
+"It's about my wife!" cried Barnstable. "What right had you to put my
+wife in a book?"
+
+"Pardon me," Neligage asked with the utmost suavity, "but is it proper
+to ask if it was your temper that was incompatible?"
+
+"Shut up, Jack," said Dick hastily. "You are entirely off the track, Mr.
+Barnstable. Neligage didn't write 'Love in a Cloud.'"
+
+"Didn't write it?" stammered the visitor.
+
+"I give you my word he didn't."
+
+Barnstable looked about with an air of helplessness which was as funny
+as his anger had been.
+
+"Then who did?" he demanded.
+
+"If Mr. Barnstable had only mentioned sooner that he wished me to write
+it," Jack observed graciously, "I'd have been glad to do my best."
+
+"Shut up, Jack," commanded Dick once more. "Really, Mr. Barnstable, it
+does seem a little remarkable that you should go rushing about in this
+extraordinary way without knowing what you are doing. You'll get into
+some most unpleasant mess if you keep on."
+
+"Or bring up in a lunatic asylum," suggested Jack with the most
+unblushing candor.
+
+Barnstable looked from one to the other with a bewildered expression as
+if he were just recovering his senses. He walked to the table and took
+up a glass of water, looked around as if for permission, and swallowed
+it by uncouth gulps.
+
+"Perhaps I'd better go," he said, and turned toward the door.
+
+"Oh, by the way, Mr. Barnstable," Jack observed as the visitor laid his
+hand on the door-knob, "does it seem to you that it would be in good
+form to apologize before you go? If it doesn't, don't let me detain
+you."
+
+The strange creature turned on the rug by the door, an abject expression
+of misery from head to feet.
+
+"Of course I'd apologize," he said, "if it was any use. When my temper's
+up I don't seem to have any control of what I do, and what I do is
+always awful foolish. This thing's got hold of me so I don't sleep, and
+that's made me worse. Of course you think I'm a lunatic, gentlemen; and
+I suppose I am; but my wife--"
+
+The redness of his face gave signs that he was not far from choking, and
+out of his fishy eyes there rolled genuine tears. Jack stepped forward
+swiftly, and took him by the hand.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barnstable," he said. "Of course I'd no idea
+what you were driving at. Will you believe me when I tell you something?
+I had nothing to do with writing 'Love in a Cloud,' but I do know who
+wrote it. I can give you my word that the author didn't have your story
+in mind at all."
+
+"Are you sure?" stammered Barnstable.
+
+"Of course I'm sure."
+
+"Then there is nothing I can do," Barnstable said, shaking his head
+plaintively. "I've just made a fool of myself, and done nothing for
+her."
+
+The door closed behind Barnstable, and the two young men looked at each
+other a moment. Neither laughed, the foolish tragedy of the visitor's
+last words not being mirth-provoking.
+
+"Well, of all the fools I've seen in my life," Jack commented slowly,
+"this is the most unique specimen."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't blame the divorced Mrs. Barnstable," responded Dick;
+"but there's something pathetic about the ass."
+
+It seemed the fate of Barnstable that day to afford amusement for Jack
+Neligage. In the latter part of the afternoon Jack sauntered into the
+Calif Club to see if there were anything in the evening papers or any
+fresh gossip afloat, and there he encountered the irascible gentleman
+once more. Scarcely had he nodded to him than Tom Harbinger and Harry
+Bradish came up to them.
+
+"Hallo, Jack," the lawyer said cordially. "Anything new?"
+
+"Not that I know of," was the response. "How are you, Bradish?"
+
+"How are you?" replied Bradish. "Mr. Barnstable, I've called twice
+to-day at your rooms."
+
+"I am sorry that I was out," Barnstable answered with awkward
+politeness. "I have been here since luncheon."
+
+"I'm half sorry to find you now," Bradish proceeded, while Harbinger and
+Jack looked on with some surprise at the gravity of his manner. "I've
+got to do an errand to you that I'm afraid you'll laugh at."
+
+"An errand to me?" Barnstable returned.
+
+Bradish drew out his pocket-book, and with deliberation produced a note.
+He examined it closely, as if to assure himself that there was no
+mistake about what he was doing, and then held out the missive to
+Barnstable.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I have the honor to be the bearer of a challenge from
+the Count Shimbowski, who claims that you have grossly insulted him.
+Will you kindly name a friend? There," he concluded, looking at
+Harbinger and Neligage with a grin, "I think I did that right, didn't
+I?"
+
+"Gad!" cried Jack. "Has the Count challenged him? What a lark!"
+
+"Nonsense!" Harbinger said. "You can't be serious, Bradish?"
+
+"No, I'm not very serious about it, but I assure you the Count is."
+
+"Challenged me?" demanded Barnstable, tearing open the epistle. "What
+does the dago mean? He says--what's that word?--he says his honor
+ex--expostulates my blood. Of course I shan't fight."
+
+Bradish shook his head, although he could not banish the laughter from
+his face.
+
+"Blood is what he wants. He says he shall have to run you through in the
+street if you won't fight."
+
+"Oh, you'll have to fight!" put in Jack.
+
+"The Count's a regular fire-eater," declared Tom. "You wouldn't like to
+be run through in the street, Barnstable."
+
+Barnstable looked from one to another as if he were unable to understand
+what was going on around him.
+
+"Curse it!" he broke out, his face assuming its apoplectic redness.
+"Curse those fellows that write novels! Here I've got to be assassinated
+just because some confounded scribbler couldn't keep from putting my
+private affairs in his infernal book! It's downright murder!"
+
+"And the comic papers afterward," murmured Jack.
+
+"But what are you going to do about it?" asked Tom.
+
+"You might have the Count arrested and bound over to keep the peace,"
+suggested Bradish.
+
+"That's a nice speech for the Count's second!" cried Jack with a roar.
+
+"What am I going to do?" repeated Barnstable. "I'll fight him!"
+
+He struck himself on the chest, and glared around him, while they all
+stood in astonished silence.
+
+"My wife has been insulted," he went on with fresh vehemence, "and I had
+a right to call the man that did it a villain or anything else! I owe it
+to her to fight him if he won't take it back!"
+
+"Gad!" said Jack, advancing and holding out his hand, "that's melodrama
+and no mistake; but I like your pluck! I'll back you up, Barnstable!"
+
+"Does that mean that you'll be his second, Jack?" asked Harbinger,
+laughing.
+
+"There, Tom," was the retort, "don't run a joke into the ground. When a
+man shows the genuine stuff, he isn't to be fooled any longer."
+
+Bradish followed suit, and shook hands with Barnstable, and Harbinger
+after him.
+
+"You're all right, Barnstable," Bradish observed; "but what are we to do
+with the Count?"
+
+"Oh, that ass!" Jack responded. "I'd like to help duck him in a
+horse-pond; but of course as he didn't write the book, Mr. Barnstable
+won't mind apologizing for a hasty word said by mistake. Any gentleman
+would do that."
+
+"Of course if you think it's all right," Barnstable said, "I'd rather
+apologize; but I'd rather fight than have any doubt about the way I feel
+toward the whelp that libelized my wife."
+
+Jack took him by the shoulder, and spoke to him with a certain slow
+distinctness such as one might use in addressing a child.
+
+"Do have some common sense about this, Barnstable," he said. "Do get it
+out of your head that the man who wrote that book knew anything about
+your affairs. I've told you that already."
+
+"I told him too," put in Harbinger.
+
+"I suppose you know," Barnstable replied, shaking his head; "but it is
+strange how near it fits!"
+
+Bradish took Barnstable off to the writing room to pen a suitable
+apology to the Count, and Jack and Harbinger remained behind.
+
+"Extraordinary beggar," observed Jack, when they had departed.
+
+"Yes," answered the other absently. "Jack, of course you didn't write
+'Love in a Cloud'?"
+
+"Of course not. What an idiotic idea!"
+
+"Fairfield said Barnstable had been accusing you of it, but I knew it
+couldn't be anything but his crazy nonsense. Of course the Count didn't
+write it either?"
+
+Jack eyed his companion inquiringly.
+
+"Look here, Tom," he said, "What are you driving at? Of course the Count
+didn't write it. You are about as crazy as Barnstable."
+
+"Oh, I never thought he was the man; but who the deuce is it?"
+
+"Why should you care?"
+
+Harbinger leaned forward to the grate, and began to pound the coal with
+the poker in a way that bespoke embarrassment. Suddenly he turned, and
+broke out explosively.
+
+"I should think I ought to care to know what man my wife is writing
+letters to! You heard her say she wrote that letter to Christopher
+Calumus."
+
+Jack gave a snort of mingled contempt and amusement.
+
+"You old mutton-head," he said. "Your wife didn't write that letter. I
+know all about it, and I got it back from the Count."
+
+"You did?" questioned Harbinger with animation. "Then why did Letty say
+she wrote it?"
+
+"She wanted to shield somebody else. Now that's all I shall tell you.
+See here, are you coming the Othello dodge?"
+
+Tom gave a vicious whack at a big lump which split into a dozen pieces,
+all of which guzzled and sputtered after the unpleasant fashion of soft
+coal.
+
+"There's something here I don't understand," he persisted.
+
+Jack regarded him curiously a moment. Then he lighted a fresh cigarette,
+and lay back in his chair, stretching out his legs luxuriously.
+
+"It's really too bad that your wife's gone back on you," he observed
+dispassionately.
+
+"What?" cried Tom, turning violently.
+
+"Such a nice little woman as Letty always was too," went on Jack
+mercilessly. "I wouldn't have believed it."
+
+"What in the deuce do you mean?" Tom demanded furiously, grasping the
+poker as if he were about to strike with it. "Do you dare to
+insinuate--"
+
+Jack sat up suddenly and looked at him, his sunny face full of
+earnestness.
+
+"What the deuce do you mean?" he echoed. "What can a man mean when he
+begins to distrust his wife? Heavens! I'm beastly ashamed of you, Tom
+Harbinger! To think of your coming to the club and talking to a man
+about that little trump of a woman! You ought to be kicked! There, old
+man," he went on with a complete change of manner, "I beg your pardon. I
+only wanted to show you how you might look to an unfriendly eye. You
+know you can't be seriously jealous of Letty."
+
+The other changed color, and looked shame-facedly into the coals.
+
+"No, of course not, Jack," he answered slowly. "I'm as big an idiot as
+Barnstable. I do hate to see men dangling about her, though. I can't
+help my disposition, can I?"
+
+"You've got to help it if it makes a fool of you."
+
+"And that infernal Count with his slimy manners," Tom went on. "If he
+isn't a rascal there never was one. I'm not really jealous, I'm
+only--only--"
+
+"Only an idiot," concluded Jack. "If I were Letty I'd really flirt with
+somebody just to teach you the difference between these fool ideas of
+yours and the real thing."
+
+"Don't, Jack," Tom said; "the very thought of it knocks me all out."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE CRUELTY OF LOVE
+
+
+What might be the result of such a match as that of May Calthorpe and
+Jack Neligage must inevitably depend largely upon the feelings of one or
+the other to another love. If either were constant to a former flame,
+only disaster could come of the _mariage de convenance_ which Mrs.
+Neligage had adroitly patched up. If both left behind forgotten the
+foolish flares of youthful passion, the married pair might arrange their
+feelings upon a basis of mutual liking comfortable if not inspiring.
+What happened to Jack in regard to Alice and to May's silly attraction
+toward the unknown Christopher Calumus was therefore of much importance
+in influencing the future.
+
+Since Alice Endicott knew of the engagement of May and Jack it was not
+to be supposed that the malicious fates would fail to bring her face to
+face with her former lover. The meeting happened a couple of days after.
+Jack was walking down Beacon street, and Alice came out of May's just in
+front of him. He quickened his steps and overtook her.
+
+"Good-morning," he said; "you've been in to May's, I see. How is she
+to-day?"
+
+The tone was careless and full of good-nature, and his face as sunny as
+the bright sky overhead. Alice did not look up at him, but kept her eyes
+fixed on the distance. To one given to minute observation it might have
+occurred that as she did not glance at him when he spoke she must have
+been aware of his approach, and must have seen him when she came out
+from the house. That she had not shown her knowledge of his nearness was
+to be looked upon as an indication of something which was not
+indifference.
+
+"Good-morning," she answered. "May didn't seem to be in particularly
+good spirits."
+
+"Didn't she? I must try to find time to run in and cheer her up. I'm not
+used to being engaged, you see, and I'm not up in my part."
+
+He spoke with a sort of swagger which was obviously intended to tease
+her, and the heightened color in her cheeks told that it had not missed
+the mark.
+
+"I have no doubt that you will soon learn it," she returned. "You were
+always so good in amateur theatricals."
+
+He laughed boisterously, perhaps a little nervously.
+
+"'Praise from Sir Hubert,'" he quoted. "And speaking of engagements, is
+it proper to offer congratulations on yours?"
+
+She turned to him with a look of indignant severity.
+
+"You know I am not engaged, and that I don't mean to be."
+
+"Oh, that's nothing. I didn't mean to be the other day."
+
+"I am not in the market," she said cuttingly.
+
+"Neither am I any more," Jack retorted coolly. "I've sold myself. That's
+what they mean, I suppose, by saying a girl has made her market."
+
+Alice had grown more and more stern in her carriage as this talk
+proceeded. Jack's tone was as flippant as ever, and he carried his
+handsome head as jauntily as if they were talking of the merriest
+themes. His brown eyes were full of a saucy light, and he switched his
+walking-stick as if he were light-heartedly snapping off the heads of
+daisies in a country lane. The more severe Alice became the more his
+spirits seemed to rise.
+
+As they halted at a corner to let a carriage pass Alice turned and
+looked at her companion, the hot blood flushing into her smooth cheek.
+
+"There is nothing in the world more despicable than a fortune-hunter!"
+she declared with emphasis.
+
+"Oh, quite so," Jack returned, apparently full of inward laughter.
+"Theoretically I agree with you entirely. Practically of course there
+are allowances to be made. The Count has been brought up so, and you
+mustn't be too hard on him."
+
+"You know what I mean," she said, unmoved by the cunning of his speech.
+
+"Yes, of course I can make allowances for you. You mean, I suppose, that
+as long as you know he's really after you and not your money you can
+despise public opinion; but naturally it must vex you to have the Count
+misjudged. Everybody will think Miss Wentstile hired him to marry you."
+
+She parted her lips to speak, then restrained herself, and altered her
+manner. She turned at bay, but she adopted Jack's own tactics.
+
+"You are right," she said. "I understand that the Count is only acting
+according to the standards he's been brought up to. May hasn't that
+consolation. I'm sure I don't see, if you don't mind my saying so, on
+what ground she is going to contrive any sort of an excuse for her
+husband."
+
+"She'll undoubtedly be so fond of him," Jack retorted with unabashed
+good-nature, "that it won't occur to her that he needs an excuse. May
+hasn't your Puritanical notions, you know. Really, I might be afraid of
+her if she had."
+
+It was a game in which the man is always the superior of the woman.
+Women will more cleverly and readily dissemble to the world, but to the
+loved one they are less easily mocking and insincere than men. Alice,
+however, was plucky, and she made one attempt more.
+
+"Of course May might admire you on the score of filial obedience. It
+isn't every son who would allow his mother to arrange his marriage for
+him."
+
+"No," Jack responded with a chuckle, "you're right there. I am a model
+son."
+
+She stopped suddenly, and turned on the sidewalk in quick vehemence.
+
+"Oh, stop talking to me!" she cried. "I will go into the first house I
+know if you keep on this way! You've no right to torment me so!"
+
+The angry tears were in her eyes, and her face was drawn with her effort
+to sustain the self-control which had so nearly broken down. His
+expression lost its roguishness, and in his turn he became grave.
+
+"No," he said half-bitterly, "perhaps not. Of course I haven't; but it
+is something of a temptation when you are so determined to believe the
+worst of me."
+
+She regarded him in bewilderment.
+
+"Determined to believe the worst?" she echoed. "Aren't you engaged to
+May Calthorpe?"
+
+He took off his hat, and made her a profound and mocking bow.
+
+"I apparently have that honor," he said.
+
+"Then why am I not to believe it?"
+
+He looked at her a moment as if about to explain, then with the air of
+finding it hopeless he set his lips together.
+
+"If you will tell me what you mean," Alice went on, "I may understand.
+As it is I have your own word that you are engaged; you certainly do not
+pretend that you care for May; and you know that your mother made the
+match. You may be sure, Jack," she added, her voice softening a little
+only to harden again, "that if there were any way of excusing you I
+should have found it out. I'm still foolish enough to cling to old
+friendship."
+
+His glance softened, and he regarded her with a look under which she
+changed color and drew away from him.
+
+"Dear Alice," he said, "you always were a brick."
+
+She answered only by a startled look. Then before he could be aware of
+her intention she had run lightly up the steps of a house and rung the
+bell. He looked after her in amazement, then followed.
+
+"Alice," he said, "what are you darting off in that way for?"
+
+"I have talked with you as long as I care to," she responded, the color
+in her cheeks, and her head held high. "I am going in here to see Mrs.
+West. You had better go and cheer up May."
+
+Before he could reply a servant had opened the door. Jack lifted his
+hat.
+
+"Good-by," said he. "Remember what I said about believing the worst."
+
+Then the door closed behind her, and he went on his way down the street.
+
+That the course of true love never ran smooth has been said on such a
+multitude of occasions that it is time for some expert in the affections
+to declare whether all love which runs roughly is necessarily genuine.
+The supreme prerogative of young folk who are fond is of course to tease
+and torment each other. Alice and Jack had that morning been a spectacle
+of much significance to any student in the characteristics of
+love-making. Youth indulges in the bitter of disagreement as a piquant
+contrast to the sweets of the springtime of life. True love does not
+run smooth because love cannot really take deep hold upon youth unless
+it fixes attention by its disappointments and woes. Smooth and sweet
+drink quickly cloys; while the cup in which is judiciously mingled an
+apt proportion of acid stimulates the thirst it gratifies. If Jack was
+to marry May it was a pity that he and Alice should continue thus to
+hurt each other.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE FAITHFULNESS OF A FRIEND
+
+
+The friendship between Jack Neligage and Dick Fairfield was close and
+sincere. For a man to say that the friendships of men are more true and
+sure than those of women would savor of cynicism, and might be objected
+to on the ground that no man is in a position to judge on both sides of
+the matter. It might on the other hand be remarked that even women
+themselves give the impression of regarding masculine comradeship as a
+finer product of humanity than feminine, but comparisons of this sort
+have little value. It is surely enough to keep in mind how gracious a
+gift of the gods is a genuine affection between two right-hearted men.
+The man who has one fellow whom he loves, of whose love he is assured;
+one to whom he may talk as freely as he would think, one who understands
+not only what is said but the things which are intended; a friend with
+whom it is possible to be silent without offense or coldness, against
+whom there need be no safeguards, and to whom one may turn alike in
+trouble and in joy--the man who has found a friend like this has a gift
+only to be outweighed by the love of her whose price is far above rubies
+and whose works praise her in the gates. Such a friendship is all but
+the most precious gift of the gods.
+
+To evoke and to share such a friendship, moreover, marks the possession
+of possibilities ethically fine. A man may love a woman in pure
+selfishness; but really to love his male friend he must possess
+capabilities of self-sacrifice and of manliness. It is one of the charms
+of comradeship that it frankly accepts and frankly gives without
+weighing or accounting. In the garden of such a friendship may walk the
+soul of man as his body went in Eden before the Fall, "naked and not
+ashamed." He cannot be willing to show himself as he is if his true self
+have not its moral beauties. It may be set down to the credit both of
+Dick and of Jack that between them there existed a friendship so close
+and so trustful.
+
+Even in the closest friendships, however, there may be times of
+suspension. Perhaps in a perfect comradeship there would be no room for
+the faintest cloud; but since men are human and there is nothing perfect
+in human relations, even friendship may sometimes seem to suffer. For
+some days after the announcement of Jack's engagement there was a marked
+shade between the friends. Jack, indeed, was the same as ever, jolly,
+careless, indolent, and apparently without a trouble in the world. Dick,
+on the other hand, was at times absent, constrained, or confused. To
+have his friend walk in and coolly announce an engagement with the girl
+whose correspondence had fired Dick's heart was naturally trying and
+astonishing. Dick might have written a bitter chapter about the way in
+which women spoiled the friendships of men; and certain cynical remarks
+which appeared in his next novel may be conceived of as having been set
+down at this time.
+
+More than a week went by without striking developments. The engagement
+had not been announced, nor had it, after the first evening, been
+mentioned between the two friends. That there should be a subject upon
+which both must of necessity reflect much, yet of which they did not
+speak, was in itself a sufficient reason for a change in the mental
+atmosphere of their bachelor quarters, which from being the cheeriest
+possible were fast becoming the most gloomy.
+
+One morning as Dick sat writing at his desk, Jack, who since breakfast
+had been engaged in his own chamber, came strolling in, in leisurely
+fashion, smoking the usual cigarette.
+
+"I hope I don't disturb you, old man," he said, "but there's something
+I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind."
+
+Dick, whose back was toward the other, did not turn. He merely held his
+pen suspended, and said coldly:--
+
+"Well?"
+
+Jack composed himself in a comfortable position by leaning against the
+mantel, an attitude he much affected, and regarded his cigarette as if
+it had some close connection with the thing he wished to say.
+
+"You remember perhaps that letter that I gave you from May?"
+
+Dick laid his pen down suddenly, and sat up, but he did not turn.
+
+"Well?" he said again.
+
+"And the other letters before it?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It has occurred to me that perhaps I ought to ask for them,--demand
+them, don't you know, the way they do on the stage."
+
+Dick said nothing. By keeping his back to his chum he missed sight of a
+face full of fun and mischief.
+
+"Of course I don't want to seem too bumptious, but now I'm engaged to
+Miss Calthorpe--"
+
+He paused as if to give Fairfield an opportunity of speaking; but still
+Dick remained silent.
+
+"Well," observed Jack after a moment, "why the dickens don't you say
+something? I can't be expected to carry on this conversation all alone."
+
+"What do you want me to say?" Fairfield asked, in a tone so solemn that
+it was no wonder his friend grinned more than ever.
+
+"Oh, nothing, if that's the way you take it."
+
+"You knew about those letters when I got them," Fairfield went on. "I
+read them to you before I knew where they came from."
+
+"Oh, my dear fellow, hold on. You never read me any but the first one."
+
+"At any rate," rejoined Dick, obviously disturbed by this thrust, "I
+told you about them."
+
+"Oh, you did? You told me very little about the second, and nothing
+about the third. I didn't even know how many you had."
+
+Fairfield rose from his seat, thrust his hands into his pockets, and
+began to pace up and down the room. Jack smoked and watched.
+
+"Look here, Jack," Dick said, "we've been fencing round this thing for a
+week, and it's got to be talked out."
+
+"All right; heave ahead, old man."
+
+Fairfield stopped in his walk and confronted his friend.
+
+"Are you really fond of Miss Calthorpe, Jack?"
+
+"Oh, I don't object to her; but of course the marriage is for purely
+business reasons."
+
+"You're not in love with her?"
+
+"Not the least in the world, old man," Jack responded cheerfully,
+blowing a ring of smoke and watching it intently as it sailed toward the
+ceiling. "But then she doesn't love me, so there's no bother of
+pretending on either side."
+
+The color mounted in Dick's cheeks.
+
+"Do you think it's the square thing to marry a young girl like that, and
+tie her up for life when she doesn't know what she's doing?"
+
+"Oh, girls never know what they are doing. How should they know about
+marriage in any case? The man has to think for both, of course."
+
+"But suppose she shouldn't be happy."
+
+"Oh, I'll be good to any girl I marry. I'm awfully easy to live with.
+You ought to know that."
+
+"But suppose," Dick urged again, "suppose she--"
+
+"Suppose she what?"
+
+"Why, suppose she--suppose she--she liked somebody else?"
+
+Jack looked shrewdly at Dick's confused face, and burst into a laugh.
+
+"I guessed those letters were pretty fair," he burst out, "but they must
+have been much worse than I even suspected!"
+
+"What do you mean?" stammered Dick.
+
+"Mean? Oh, nothing,--nothing in the world. By the way, as the matter
+relates to my _fiancée_, I hope you won't mind my asking if she's
+written to you since our engagement."
+
+"Why--"
+
+"Then she has written," pronounced Jack, smiling more than ever at the
+confusion of his friend. "You haven't the cheek to bluff a baby, Dick. I
+should hate to see you try to run a kelter through."
+
+"She only wrote to say that she was glad the Count didn't write 'Love in
+a Cloud,' and a few things, you know, that she wanted to say."
+
+Jack flung the end of his cigarette away and stepped swiftly forward to
+catch his chum by the shoulders behind. He whirled Dick about like a
+teetotum.
+
+"Oh, Dick, you old fool," he cried, "what an ass you are! Do you suppose
+I'm such a cad as really to propose to marry May when she's fond of you
+and you're fond of her? It doesn't speak very well of your opinion of
+me."
+
+Dick stared at him in half-stupefied amazement for an instant; then the
+blood came rushing into his cheeks.
+
+"You don't mean to marry her?" he cried amazedly.
+
+"Never did for a minute," responded Jack cheerfully. "Don't you know,
+old man, that I've sold my polo ponies, and taken a place in the bank?"
+
+"Taken a place in the bank!" exclaimed Dick, evidently more and more
+bewildered. "Then what did you pretend to be engaged to her for?"
+
+"Confound your impudence!" laughed Jack, "I was engaged to her, you
+beast! I am engaged to her now, and if you're n't civil I'll keep on
+being. You can't be engaged to her till I break my engagement!"
+
+"But, Jack, I don't understand what in the deuce you mean."
+
+"Mean? I don't know that I meant anything. I was engaged to her without
+asking to be, and when a lady says she is engaged to you you really
+can't say you're not. Besides, I thought it might help you."
+
+"Help me?"
+
+"Of course, my boy. There is nothing to set a girl in the way of wishing
+to be engaged to the right man like getting engaged to the wrong one."
+
+Dick wrung his friend's hand.
+
+"Jack," he said, "I beg your pardon. You're a trump!"
+
+"Oh, I knew that all the time," responded Jack. "It may comfort you a
+little to know that it hasn't been much of an engagement. I've been
+shamefully neglectful of my position. Now of course an engaged man is
+supposed to show his ardor, to take little liberties, and be generally
+loving, you know."
+
+Dick grew fiery red, and shrank back. Jack laughed explosively.
+
+"Jealous, old man?" he demanded provokingly. "Well, I won't tease you
+any more. I haven't so much as kissed her hand."
+
+Dick's rather combative look changed instantly into shamefacedness, and
+he shook hands again. He turned away quickly, but as quickly turned back
+again once more to grasp the hand of his chum.
+
+"Jack Neligage," he declared, "you're worth more than a dozen of my best
+heroes, and a novelist can't say more than that!"
+
+"Gad! You'd better put me in a novel then," was Jack's response. "They
+won't believe I'm real though; I'm too infernally virtuous."
+
+A knock at the door interrupted them, and proved to be the summons of
+the janitor, who announced that a lady wished to see Mr. Fairfield.
+
+"Don't let her stay long," Jack said, retreating to his room. "I can't
+get out till she is gone, and I want to go down town. I've got to order
+the horses to take my _fiancée_ out for a last ride. It's to break my
+engagement, so you ought to want it to come off."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE MISCHIEF OF A FIANCÉ
+
+
+The lady proved to be Alice Endicott. She came in without shyness or
+embarrassment, with her usual air of quiet refinement, and although she
+must have seen the surprise in Dick's face, she took no notice of it.
+Alice was one of those women so free from self-consciousness, so
+entirely without affectations, yet so rare in her simple dignity, that
+it was hard to conceive her as ever seeming to be out of place. She was
+so superior to surroundings that her environment did not matter.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield," she said. "I should apologize for
+intruding. I hope I am not disturbing your work."
+
+"Good-morning," he responded. "I am not at work just now. Sit down,
+please."
+
+She took the chair he offered, and came at once to her errand.
+
+"I came from Miss Calthorpe," she said.
+
+"Miss Calthorpe?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes. She thought she ought not to write to you again; and she asked me
+to come for her letters; those she wrote before she knew who you were."
+
+"But why shouldn't she write to me for them?"
+
+"You forget that she is engaged, Mr. Fairfield."
+
+"I--Of course, I did forget for the minute; but even if she is, I don't
+see why so simple a thing as a note asking for her letters--"
+
+Alice rose.
+
+"I don't think that there is any need of my explaining," she said. "If I
+tell you that she didn't find it easy to write, will that be sufficient?
+Of course you will give me the letters."
+
+"I must give them if she wishes it; but may I ask one question first?
+Doesn't she send for them because she's engaged?"
+
+"Isn't that reason enough?"
+
+"It is reason enough," Dick answered, smiling; "but it isn't a reason
+here. She isn't engaged any more. That is, she won't be by night."
+
+Alice stared at him in astonishment.
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded.
+
+"I mean that Jack never meant to marry her, and that he is going to
+release her from her engagement."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"He told me himself."
+
+They stood in silence a brief interval looking each other in the face.
+Fairfield was radiant, but Miss Endicott was very pale.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said presently. "Is Mr. Neligage in the house?"
+
+"Yes; he's in his room."
+
+"Will you call him, please?"
+
+Fairfield hesitated a little, but went to call his chum.
+
+"Miss Endicott wants to speak to you," he said abruptly.
+
+"What does she want?"
+
+"I haven't any idea."
+
+"What have you been telling her?"
+
+The necessity of answering this question Dick escaped by returning to
+the other room; and his friend followed.
+
+"Jack," Alice cried, as soon as he appeared, "tell me this moment if
+it's true that you're not to marry May!"
+
+He faced her stiff and formal in his politeness.
+
+"Pardon me if I do not see that you have any right to ask me such a
+question."
+
+"Why, I came to ask Mr. Fairfield for May's letters because she is
+engaged to you, and he told me--"
+
+She broke off, her habitual self-control being evidently tried almost
+beyond its limit.
+
+"I took the liberty, Jack," spoke up Fairfield, "of saying--"
+
+"Don't apologize," Neligage said. "It is true, Miss Endicott, that
+circumstances have arisen which make it best for May to break the
+engagement. I shall be obliged to you, however, if you don't mention the
+matter to her until she brings it up."
+
+Alice looked at him appealingly.
+
+"But I thought--"
+
+"We are none of us accountable for our thoughts, Miss Endicott, nor
+perhaps for a want of faith in our friends."
+
+She moved toward him with a look of so much appeal that Dick discreetly
+turned his back under pretense of looking for something on his
+writing-table.
+
+"At least," she said, her voice lower than usual, "you will let me
+apologize for the way in which I spoke to you the other morning."
+
+"Oh, don't mention it," he returned carelessly. "You were quite
+justified."
+
+He turned away with easy nonchalance, as if the matter were one in which
+he had no possible interest.
+
+"At least," she begged, "you'll pardon me, and shake hands."
+
+"Oh, certainly, if you like," answered he; "but it doesn't seem
+necessary."
+
+Her manner changed in the twinkling of an eye. Indignation shone in her
+face and her head was carried more proudly.
+
+"Then it isn't," she said. "Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield."
+
+She went from the room as quickly as a shadow flits before sunlight. The
+two young men were so taken by surprise that by the time Dick reached
+the door to open it for his departing caller, it had already closed
+behind her. The friends stared a moment. Then Jack made a swift stride
+to the door; but when he flung it open the hall without was empty.
+
+"Damn it, Dick," he ejaculated, coming back with a face of anger, "what
+did you let her go off like that for?"
+
+"How in the world could I help it?" was all that his friend could
+answer.
+
+Jack regarded Dick blackly for the fraction of a second; then he burst
+into a laugh, and clapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"I beg your pardon, old man," he said, as cheerily as ever. "I'm going
+off my nerve with all these carryings on. If you hadn't written that
+rotten old novel of yours, we shouldn't have had these continual
+circuses."
+
+He went for his hat as he spoke, and without farther adieu took his way
+down town. Men in this peculiar world are to be envied or pitied not so
+much for their fortunes as for their dispositions; and if outward
+indications were to be trusted, Jack Neligage was one of those enviable
+creatures who will be cheerful despite the blackest frowns of fate. From
+indifference or from pluck, from caring little for the favors of fortune
+or from despising her spite, Jack took his way through life merrily,
+smiling and sunny; up hill or down dale as it chanced he followed the
+path, with a laugh on his lip and always a kindly greeting for his
+fellow travelers. This morning, as he walked out into the sunlight,
+handsome, well-groomed, debonaire, and jocund, certainly no one who saw
+him was likely to suspect that the world did not go smoothly with him.
+Least of all could one suppose that his heart or his thought was
+troubled concerning the favor or disfavor of any woman whatsoever.
+
+Jack in the afternoon took May for a drive. The engagement had thus far
+been a somewhat singular one. Jack had been to see May nearly every
+day, it is true, but either by the whimsical contrivance of fate or by
+his own cunning he had seldom seen her alone. She either had callers or
+was out herself; and as no one but Mrs. Neligage and Alice knew of the
+engagement there was no chance for that sentiment which makes callers
+upon a lady feel it necessary to retreat as speedily as possible upon
+the appearance of her acknowledged lover. So well settled in the public
+mind was the conviction that Jack was in love with Alice Endicott, that
+nobody took the trouble to notice that he was calling on May Calthorpe
+or to get out of his way that he might be alone with her. This
+afternoon, in the face of all the world, in a stylish trap, on the open
+highway, they were at last together without other company.
+
+Had not the mind of May been provided with an object of regret and
+longing in the person of Fairfield, there might have been danger that
+Jack would engage her fancy by sheer indifference. Any girl must be
+puzzled, interested, piqued, and either exasperated or hurt according to
+her nature, when the man to whom she is newly betrothed treats her as
+the most casual of acquaintances. If nothing else moved her there would
+be the bite of unsatisfied curiosity. To be engaged without even being
+able to learn by experience what being engaged consists in may well wear
+on the least inquisitive feminine disposition. The _fiancé_ who does not
+even make pretense of playing the lover is an object so curious that he
+cannot fail to attract attention, to awake interest, and the chances
+are largely in favor of his developing in the breast of his fair the
+determination to see him really aroused and enslaved. Many a woman has
+succumbed to indifference who would have been proof against the most
+ardent wooing.
+
+"Well, May," Jack said, smiling upon her as they drove over the Mill
+Dam, "how do you like being engaged?"
+
+She looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes which made her bewitching.
+
+"I don't see that it's very different from not being engaged," she said.
+
+"It will be if you keep on looking so pretty," he declared. "I shall
+kiss you right here in the street, and that would make folks talk."
+
+The color came into her cheeks in a way that made her more charming
+still.
+
+"Now you color," Jack went on, regarding her with a teasing coolness,
+"you are prettier yet. Gad! I shall have to kiss you!"
+
+His horses shied at something at that instant, and he was forced to
+attend to them, so that May had a moment's respite in which to gather up
+her wits. When he looked back, she took the aggressive.
+
+"It is horrid in you to talk that way," she remarked. "Besides, you said
+that I needn't kiss you until I wanted to."
+
+"Well, I didn't promise not to kiss you, did I?"
+
+"How silly you are to-day!" she exclaimed. "Isn't there anything better
+to talk about than kissing?"
+
+Jack regarded her with a grin; a grin in which, it must be confessed,
+there was something of the look with which a boy watches a kitten he is
+teasing.
+
+"Anything better?" repeated he. "When you've had more experience, May,
+perhaps you won't think there is anything better."
+
+May began to look sober, and even to have the appearance of feeling that
+the conversation was becoming positively improper.
+
+"I think you are just horrid!" she declared. "I do wish you'd behave."
+
+He gave her a respite for some moments, and they drove along through the
+sunlight of the April afternoon. The trees as they came into the country
+were beautiful with the buds and promise of nearing summer; the air soft
+with that cool smoothness which is a reminder that afar the breeze has
+swept fragments of old snowdrifts yet unmelted; the sky moist with the
+mists of snow-fields that have wasted away. All the landscape was
+exquisite with delicate hues.
+
+The supreme color-season of New England begins about the middle of
+March, and lasts--at the very latest--until the middle of May. Its
+climax comes in late April, when pearly mists hover among the branches
+that are soon to be hidden by foliage. Glowing tints of amethyst,
+luminous gray, tender green, coral, and yellow white, make the woods a
+dream of poetic loveliness beside which the gorgeous and less varied
+hues of autumn are crude. Something dreamlike, veiled, mysterious, is
+felt in these tints, this iridesence of the woods in spring; as if one
+were looking at the luminous, rosy mists within which, as Venus amid the
+rainbow-dyed foam of the sea, is being shaped to immortal youth and
+divine comeliness the very goddess of spring. The red of the maple-buds
+shows from afar; the russet leaflets of the ash, the vivid green, the
+amber, the pearl, and the tawny of the clustering hardwood trees, set
+against the heavy masses of the evergreens, are far more lovely than all
+the broad coloring of summer or the hot tints of autumn.
+
+Under the afternoon sun the woods that day were at their best, and
+presently May spoke of the colors which spread down the gentle slopes of
+the low hills not far away.
+
+"Isn't it just too lovely for anything!" she said. "Just look at that
+hill over there. It is perfectly lovely."
+
+Jack glanced at the hill, and then looked at her teasingly.
+
+"That's right," he remarked. "Of course spoony people ought to talk
+about spring, and how perfectly lovely everything is."
+
+"I didn't say that because we're engaged," returned May, rather
+explosively. "I really meant it."
+
+"Of course you did. That shows that you are in the proper frame of mind.
+Now I'm not. I don't care a rap to talk about the whole holy show. It's
+pretty, of course; but I'm not going in for doing the sentimental that
+way."
+
+She looked up with mingled indignation and entreaty.
+
+"Now you are going to be horrid again," she protested. "Why can't you
+stop talking about our being engaged?"
+
+"Stop talking about it? Why, good heavens, we're expected to talk about
+it. I never was engaged before, but I hope I know my business."
+
+"But I don't want to talk about it!"
+
+"Oh, you really do, only you are shy about owning it."
+
+"But I won't talk about it!"
+
+"Oh, yes, you will, my dear; for if I say things you can't help
+answering 'em."
+
+"I won't say another word!"
+
+"I'll bet you a pair of gloves that the next thing I say about our being
+engaged you'll not only answer, but you'll answer in a hurry."
+
+"I'll take your bet!" cried May with animation. "I won't answer a word."
+
+Jack gave a wicked chuckle, and flicked his horses into a brisk run. In
+a moment or two he drew them down to an easy trot, and turned to May
+with a matter-of-fact air.
+
+"Of course now we have been engaged a week," he said, "I am at liberty
+to read that letter you wrote to Christopher Calumus?"
+
+"Read it!" she cried. "Oh, I had forgotten that you kept it! Oh, you
+mustn't read it! I wouldn't have you read it for the world."
+
+"Would you have me read it for a pair of gloves?" inquired Jack
+wickedly. "You've lost your bet."
+
+"I don't care anything about my bet," she retorted, with an earnestness
+so great as to suggest that tears were not so far behind. "I want that
+letter."
+
+"I'm sorry you can't have it," was his reply; "but the truth is, I
+haven't got it."
+
+"Haven't got it? What have you done with it?"
+
+"Delivered it to the one it was addressed to,--Christopher Calumus."
+
+"Delivered it? Do you mean you gave it to Mr. Fairfield?"
+
+"Just that. You wrote it to him, didn't you?"
+
+Poor May was now so pale and miserable that a woman would have taken her
+in her arms to be kissed and comforted, but Jack, the unfeeling wretch,
+continued his teasing.
+
+"I didn't want you to think I was a tyrant," he went on. "Of course I'm
+willing you should write to anybody that you think best."
+
+"But--but I wrote that letter to Mr. Fairfield before I knew who he
+was!" gasped May.
+
+"Well, what of it? Anything that you could say to a stranger, of course
+you could say to a man you knew."
+
+For reply May put up one hand to her eyes, and with the other began a
+distressing and complicated search for a handkerchief. Jack bent forward
+to peer into her face and instantly assumed a look of deep contrition.
+
+"Oh, I say," he remonstrated, "it's no fair to cry. Besides, you'll
+spoil your gloves, and now you've got to pay me a pair you can't afford
+to be so extravagant."
+
+The effect of this appeal was to draw from May a sort of hysterical
+gurgle, a sound indescribably funny, and which might pass for either a
+cry of joy or of woe.
+
+"I think you are too bad," she protested chokingly. "You know I didn't
+want Mr. Fairfield to have that letter when I was engaged to you!"
+
+"Oh, is that all?" he returned lightly. "Then that's easily fixed. Let's
+not be engaged any more, and then there'll be no harm in his having it."
+
+Apparently astonishment dried her tears. She looked at him in a sort of
+petrified wonder.
+
+"I really mean it, my dear," he went on with a paternal air which was
+exceedingly droll in Jack Neligage. "I'll say more. I never meant for a
+minute to marry you. I knew you didn't want to have me, and I'd no
+notion of being tied to a dragooned wife."
+
+"A dragooned wife?" May repeated.
+
+She was evidently so stupefied by the turn things had taken that she
+could not follow him.
+
+"A woman dragooned into marrying me," Jack explained, with a jovial
+grin; "one that was thinking all the time how much happier she would be
+with somebody else."
+
+"And you never meant to marry me? Then what did you get engaged to me
+for?"
+
+"I didn't. You wrote me that you were engaged to me, and of course as a
+gentleman I couldn't contradict a lady, especially on a point so
+delicate as that."
+
+May flushed as red as the fingers of dawn.
+
+"Your mother--" she began; but he interrupted her.
+
+"Isn't it best that we don't go into that?" he said in a graver voice.
+"I confess that I amused myself a little, and I thought that you needed
+a lesson. There were other things, but no matter. I never was the whelp
+you and Alice thought me."
+
+"Oh, Alice!" cried May, with an air of sudden enlightenment.
+
+"Well, what about her?" Jack demanded.
+
+"Nothing," replied May, smiling demurely to herself, "only she will be
+glad that the engagement is broken. She said awfully hard things about
+you."
+
+"I am obliged to her," he answered grimly.
+
+"Oh, not really awful," May corrected herself quickly, "and anyway it
+was only because she was so fond of you."
+
+To this he made no reply, and for some time they drove on in silence.
+Then Jack shook off his brief depression, and apparently set himself to
+be as amusing as he could. He aroused May to a condition of mirth almost
+wildly joyous. They laughed and jested, told each other stories, and the
+girl's eyes shone, her dimples danced in and out like sun-flecks
+flashing on the water, the color in her cheeks was warm and delightful.
+Not a word more was said on personal matters until Jack deposited her at
+her own door once more.
+
+"I never had such a perfectly lovely ride in my life!" she exclaimed,
+looking at him with eyes full of animation and gratitude.
+
+"Then you see what you are losing in throwing me over," he returned.
+"Oh, you've had your chance and lost it!"
+
+She laughed brightly, and held out her hand.
+
+"But you see," she said mischievously, "the trouble is that the best
+thing about the ride was just that loss!"
+
+"I like your impudence!" he chuckled. "Well, you're welcome. Good-by.
+I'll send Fairfield round to talk with you about the letter."
+
+And before she could reply he was away.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE COOING OF TURTLE-DOVES
+
+
+There is nothing like the possibility of loss to bring a man to his
+bearings in regard to a woman. Dick Fairfield had told Jack that of
+course he was not a marrying man, that he could not afford to marry a
+poor woman, and that nothing would induce him to marry a rich one; he
+had even set down in his diary on the announcement of Jack's engagement
+that he could never have offered his hand to a girl with so much money;
+what his secret thought may have been no sage may say, but he had all
+the outward signs of a man who has convinced himself that he has no idea
+of trying to secure the girl he loves. Now that the affair had shaped
+itself so that May was again free, he hurried to her with a
+precipitation which had in it a choice flavor of comedy.
+
+May always told him afterward that he did not even do her the honor to
+ask her for her hand, but that he coolly walked in and took up the
+engagement of Jack Neligage where it had been dropped. It was at least
+true that by nine o'clock that very evening they were sitting side by
+side as cosy and as idiotically blissful as a young couple newly
+betrothed should be. However informally the preliminaries had been
+conducted, the conclusion seemed to be eminently satisfactory.
+
+"To think that this is the result of that little letter that I found on
+my table one rainy night last February," Dick observed rapturously. "I
+remember just how it looked."
+
+"It was horrid of me to write it," May returned, with a demure look
+which almost as plainly as words added: "Contradict me!"
+
+"It was heavenly of you," Dick declared, rising to the occasion most
+nobly. "It was the nicest valentine that ever was."
+
+Some moments of endearments interesting to the participants but not
+edifying in narration followed upon this assertion, and then the little
+stream of lover-talk purled on again.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Fairfield," May began with utter irrelevancy, "I--"
+
+"You promised not to call me that," he interrupted.
+
+"But it's so strange to say Dick. Well, Dick, then--"
+
+The slight interruption of a caress having been got over, she went on
+with her shattered observation.
+
+"What was I going to say? You put me all out, with your 'Dick'--I do
+think it's the dearest name!--Stop! I know what I was going to say. I
+was frightened almost to death when Mrs. Neligage said the Count wrote
+'Love in a Cloud.' Oh, I wanted to get under the tea-table!"
+
+"But you didn't really think he wrote my letters?"
+
+"I couldn't believe it; but I didn't know what to think. Then when he
+wore a red carnation the next day, I thought I should die. I thought
+anyway he'd read the letter; and that's what made me so meek when Mrs.
+Neligage took hold of me."
+
+"But you never suspected that I wrote the book?" Fairfield asked.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me as if I really did know all
+the time. Don't you remember how we talked about the book at Mrs.
+Harbinger's tea?"
+
+"That's just your intuition," Dick returned. "I know I didn't suspect
+you, for it troubled me tremendously that I cared so much for you when I
+thought I was in love with my unknown correspondent. It didn't seem
+loyal."
+
+"But of course it was, you know, because there was only one of us."
+
+Dick laughed, and bestowed upon her an ecstatic little hug.
+
+"You dear little Paddy! That's a perfect bull!"
+
+She drew herself away, and pretended to frown with great dignity.
+
+"I don't care if it is a bull!" protested she. "I won't be called a
+Paddy!"
+
+Dick's face expressed a consternation and a penitence so marked that she
+burst into a trill of laughter and flung herself back into his arms.
+
+"I was just teasing," she said. "The truth is that Jack Neligage has
+teased me so awfully that I've caught it like the measles."
+
+The tender follies which make up the talk of lovers are not very
+edifying reading when set down in the unsympathetic blackness of print.
+They are to be interpreted, moreover, with the help of many signs,
+trifling in themselves but essential to a correct understanding. Looks,
+caresses, sighs, chuckles, giggles, pressures and claspings, intonations
+which alter or deny the word spoken, a thousand silly becks, and nods,
+and wreathèd smiles, all go to make up the conversation between the
+pair, so that what may be put into print is but a small portion of the
+ecstatic whole. May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield were not behind in all
+the enchanting idiocy which belongs to a wooing, where each lover,
+secure in being regarded as perfection, ventures for once in a lifetime
+to be frankly childish, to show self without any mask of convention.
+
+"Oh, I knew you were a man of genius the very first time I saw you," May
+cried, in an entirely honest defiance of all facts and all evidence.
+
+"I wish I were for your sake," Dick replied, with an adoring glance, and
+a kiss on the hand which he held. "And to think that this absurdly small
+hand wrote those beautiful letters."
+
+"You didn't suppose I had an amanuensis, did you?" laughed May.
+
+Then Dick laughed, and together they both laughed, overpowered by the
+exquisite wit of this fine jest.
+
+"Really, though," Dick said, "they came to me like a revelation. I never
+had such letters before!"
+
+May drew away her hand, and sat upright with an air of offended
+surprise.
+
+"Well, I should hope you never did!" she cried. "The idea of any other
+woman's daring to write to you!"
+
+"But you were writing to a stranger; some other woman--"
+
+"Now, Richard," declared May resolutely, "this has got to be settled
+right here. If you are going to twit me all my life with having written
+to you--"
+
+He effectually stopped her speech.
+
+"I'll never speak of it again," he said; "or at least only just often
+enough so that it shan't be entirely forgotten."
+
+"You are horrid!" declared she with a pout. "You mean to tease me
+with--"
+
+"Tease you, May? Heavens, how you mistake! I only want all my life to be
+kept your slave by remembering--"
+
+The reader is at liberty from experience to supply as many hours of this
+sort of talk as his taste calls for. There were, however, some points of
+real interest touched upon in the course of the evening. Dick confided
+to May the fact that Jack Neligage had sold his ponies, was paying his
+debts, and had accepted a place in a bank. Mr. Frostwinch, a college
+friend of Jack's father, had offered the situation, and although the
+salary was of course not large it gave Neligage something to live on.
+
+"Oh, I'll tell that to Alice to-morrow," May said. "She will be
+delighted to know that Jack is going to do something. Alice is awfully
+fond of him."
+
+The conversation had to be interrupted by speculations upon the relative
+force of the attachment between Alice and Jack and the love which May
+and Dick were at that moment confirming; and from this the talk drifted
+away to considerations of the proper manner of disclosing the
+engagement. May's guardian, Mr. Frostwinch, Dick knew well, and there
+was no reason to expect opposition from him unless on the possible
+ground of a difference of fortune. It was decided that Dick should see
+him on the morrow, and that there should be no delay in announcing the
+important news.
+
+"It will take us two or three days to write our notes, of course," May
+said, with a pretty air of being very practical in the midst of her
+sentiment. "We'll say next Wednesday."
+
+Dick professed great ignorance of the social demands of the situation,
+and of course the explanation had to be given with many ornamental
+flourishes in the way of oscular demonstrations. May insisted that
+everything should be done duly and in order; told him upon whom of her
+relatives he would have to call, to whom write, and so many other
+details that Dick accused her of having been engaged before.
+
+"You horrid thing!" she pouted. "I've a great mind to break the
+engagement now. I have been engaged, though," she added, bursting into
+a laugh of pure glee. "You forget that I woke up this morning engaged
+to one man and shall go to sleep engaged to another."
+
+"Dear old Jack!" Fairfield said fervently. "Well, I must go home and
+find him. I want to tell him the news. Heavens! I had no idea it was so
+late!"
+
+"It isn't late," May protested, after the fashion of all girls in her
+situation, both before and since; but when Dick would go, she laughingly
+said: "You tell Jack if he were here I'd kiss him. He said I'd want to
+some time."
+
+And after half an hour of adieus and a brisk walk home, Dick delivered
+the message.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE BUSINESS OF A MUSE
+
+
+The decadence of literature began insensibly with the invention of
+printing, and has been proceeding ever since. How far it has proceeded
+and whether literature yet exists at all are questions difficult if not
+impossible to answer at the present time, because of the multitude of
+books. No living man can have more than a most superficial knowledge of
+what is being done in what was formerly the royalty and is now the
+communism of letters. A symphony played in the midst of a battle would
+stand much the same chance of being properly appreciated as would to-day
+a work of fine literary worth sent forth in the midst of the innumerous
+publications of the age.
+
+Men write, however, more than ever. There is perhaps a difference, in
+that where men of the elder day deluded themselves or hoped to delude
+others with impressive talk about art and fame and other now obsolete
+antiquities, the modern author sets before him definite and desirable
+prizes in the shape of money and of notoriety which has money's worth.
+The muse of these days is confronted on the door of the author with a
+stern "No admittance except on business," and she is not allowed to
+enter unless she bring her check-book with her. The ideal of art is
+to-day set down in figures and posted by bankers' clerks. Men once
+foolishly tried to live to write; now they write to live. If men seek
+for Pegasus it is with a view to getting a patent on him as a
+flying-machine; and the really progressive modern author has much the
+same view of life as the rag-picker, that of collecting any sort of
+scraps that may be sold in the market.
+
+Dick Fairfield had much the attitude of other writers of his day and
+generation. He had set out to make a living by writing, because he liked
+it, and because, in provincial Boston at least, there is still a certain
+sense of distinction attached to the profession of letters, a legacy
+from the time when the public still respected art. Fairfield had been
+for years struggling to get a foothold of reputation sufficiently secure
+to enable him to stretch more vigorously after the prizes of modern
+literary life, where notoriety commands a price higher than genius could
+hope for. He had done a good deal of hack work, of which that which he
+liked least, yet which had perhaps as a matter of training been best for
+him, had been the rewriting of manuscripts for ambitious authors. A
+bureau which undertakes for a compensation to mend crude work, to infuse
+into the products of undisciplined imagination or incompetency that
+popular element which shall make a work sell, had employed Fairfield to
+reconstruct novels which dealt with society. In this capacity he had
+made over a couple of flimsy stories of which Mrs. Croydon claimed the
+credit, on the strength of having set down the first draught from
+events which had happened within her own knowledge. So little of the
+original remained in the published version, it may be noted in passing,
+that she might have been puzzled to recognize her own bantlings. The
+success of these books had given Dick courage to attempt a society novel
+for himself; and by one of those lucky and inexplicable flukes of
+fortune, "Love in a Cloud" had gained at least the success of immediate
+popularity.
+
+Fairfield had published the novel anonymously partly from modesty,
+partly from a business sense that it was better to have his name clear
+than associated with a failure. He had been deterred from acknowledging
+the book after its success by the eagerness with which the public had
+set upon his characters and identified each with some well known person.
+If the scene of a novel be laid in a provincial city its characters must
+all be identified. That is the first intellectual duty of the readers of
+fiction. To look at a novel from a critical point of view is no longer
+in the least a thing about which any reader need concern himself; but it
+would be an omission unpardonably stupid were he to remain unacquainted
+with some original under the disguise of every character. A single
+detail is sufficient for identification. If a man in a tale have a wart
+on his nose, the intelligent reader should not rest until he think of a
+dweller in the town whose countenance is thus adorned. That single
+particular must thenceforth be held to decide the matter. If the man in
+the novel and the man in the flesh differ in every other particular,
+physical and mental, that is to be held as the cunning effort of the
+writer to disguise his real model. The wart decides it, and the more
+widely the copy departs in other characteristics from the chosen person
+the more evident is it that the novelist did not wish his original to be
+known. The more striking therefore is the shrewdness which has
+penetrated the mystery. The reader soddens in the consciousness of his
+own penetration as the sardine, equally headless, soaks in oil.
+Fairfield was now waiting for this folly of identification to pass
+before he gave his name to the novel, and in the mean time he was
+tasting the delight of a first literary success where the pecuniary
+returns allowed his vanity to glow without rebuke from his conscience.
+
+Fairfield was surprised, one morning not long after the polo game, by
+receiving a call from Mrs. Croydon. He knew her slightly, having met her
+now and then in society, and his belief that she was entirely ignorant
+of his share in her books might naturally invest her with a peculiar
+interest. She was a Western woman who had lived in the East but a few
+years, and her blunders in regard to Eastern society as they appeared in
+her original manuscripts had given him a good deal of quiet amusement.
+Why she should now have taken it upon herself to come to his chambers
+could only become evident by her own explanation.
+
+"You are probably surprised to see me here, Mr. Fairfield," she
+began, settling herself in a chair with the usual ruffling of
+rag-tag-and-bobbery without which she never seemed able to move.
+
+"I naturally should not have been vain enough to foresee that I should
+have such an honor," he responded, with his most elaborate society
+manner.
+
+She smirked, and nodded.
+
+"That is very pretty," she said. "Well, I'll tell you at once, not to
+keep you in suspense. I came on business."
+
+"Business?" repeated he.
+
+"Yes, business. You see, I have just come from the Cosmopolitan Literary
+Bureau."
+
+Fairfield did not look pleased. He had kept his connection with that
+factory of hack-work a secret, and no man likes to be reminded of
+unpleasant necessities.
+
+"They have told me," she went on, "that you revised the manuscript of my
+novels. I must say that you have done it very satisfactorily. We women
+of society are so occupied that it is impossible for us to attend to all
+that mere detail work, and it is a great relief to have it so well
+done."
+
+Fairfield bowed stiffly.
+
+"I am glad that you were satisfied," he replied; "but it is a violation
+of confidence on the part of the bureau."
+
+"Oh, you are one of us now," Mrs. Croydon observed with gracious
+condescension. "It isn't as if they had told anybody else. They told me,
+you see, that you wrote 'Love in a Cloud.'"
+
+"That is a greater violation of confidence still," Fairfield responded.
+"Indeed, it was a most un-gentlemanly thing of Mr. Cutliff. He only
+knew it because a stupid errand boy carried him the manuscript by
+mistake. He had no right to tell that. I shall give him my opinion of
+his conduct."
+
+Mrs. Croydon accomplished a small whirlwind of ribbon ends, and waved
+her plump hand in remonstrance.
+
+"Oh, I beg you won't," she protested. "It will get me into trouble if
+you do. He especially told me not to let you know."
+
+Fairfield smiled rather sardonically.
+
+"The man who betrays a confidence is always foolish enough to suppose
+his confidence will be sacred. I think this is an outrageous breach of
+good faith on Mr. Cutliff's part."
+
+Mrs. Croydon gave a hitch forward as if she were trying to bring her
+chair closer to that of Fairfield.
+
+"As I was saying," she remarked, "we society women have really so little
+time to give to literature, and literature needs just our touch so much,
+that it has been especially gratifying to find one that could carry out
+my ideas so well."
+
+The young man began to regard her with a new expression in his face. As
+a literary woman she should have recognized the look, the expression
+which tells of the author on the scent of material. Whether Fairfield
+ever tried his hand at painting Mrs. Croydon or not, that look would
+have made it plain to any well-trained fellow worker that her
+peculiarities tempted his literary sense. Any professional writer who
+listens with that gleam in his eyes is inevitably examining what is
+said, the manner of its saying, the person who is speaking, in the hope
+that here he has a subject for his pen; he is asking himself if the
+reality is too absurd to be credible; how much short of the extravagance
+of the original he must come to keep within the bounds of seeming
+probability. Fairfield was confronted with a subject which could not be
+handled frankly and truthfully. Nobody would believe the tone of the
+woman or her remarks to be anything but a foolish exaggeration; if she
+had had the genuine creative instinct, the power of analysis, the
+recognition of human peculiarities, Mrs. Croydon must have seen in his
+evident preoccupation the indication that he was deliberating how far
+toward the truth it would in fiction be possible to go.
+
+"It is very kind of you," he murmured vaguely.
+
+"Oh, don't mention it," responded she, more graciously than ever. "You
+are really one of us now, as I said; and I always feel strongly the ties
+of the literary guild."
+
+"The guild owes you a great deal," Fairfield observed blandly.
+
+Mrs. Croydon waved her hand engagingly in return for this compliment,
+incidentally with a waving of various adornments of her raiment which
+gave her the appearance in little of an army with banners.
+
+"I didn't come just for compliments," she observed with much sweetness.
+"I am a business woman, and I know how to come to the point. My father
+left me to manage my own property, and so I've had a good deal of
+experience. When I see how women wander round a thing without being able
+to get at it, it makes me ashamed of them all. I don't wonder that men
+make fun of them."
+
+"You are hard on your sex."
+
+"Oh, no harder than they deserve. Why, in Chicago there are a lot of
+women that do business in one way or another, and I never could abide
+'em. I never could get on with them, it was so hard to pin them down."
+
+"I readily understand how annoying it must have been," Fairfield
+observed with entire gravity. "Did you say that you had business with
+me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered. "I suppose that I might have written, but there are
+some things that are so much better arranged by word of mouth. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"Oh, there's no doubt of it."
+
+"Besides," she went on, "I wanted to tell you how much I like your work,
+and it isn't easy to express those things on paper."
+
+It would be interesting to know whether to Fairfield at that moment
+occurred the almost inevitable reflection that for Mrs. Croydon it was
+hard, if her manuscripts were the test, to express anything on paper.
+
+"You are entirely right," he said politely. "It is easy enough to put
+facts into words, but when it comes to feelings such as you express, it
+is different, of course."
+
+He confided to Jack Neligage later that he wondered if this were not
+too bold a flout, but Mrs. Croydon received it as graciously as
+possible.
+
+"There is so complete a difference," she observed with an irrelevance
+rather startling, "between the mental atmosphere in Boston and that I
+was accustomed to in Chicago. Here there is a sort of--I don't know that
+I can express it exactly; it's part of an older civilization, I suppose;
+but I don't think it pays so well as what we have in Chicago."
+
+"Pays so well?" he repeated. "I don't think I understand."
+
+"It doesn't sell so well in a book," she explained. "I thought that it
+would be better business to write stories of the East for the West to
+buy; but I've about made up my mind that it'll be money in my pocket to
+write of the West for the eastern market."
+
+Fairfield smiled under his big mustache, playing with a paper-knife.
+
+"Pardon my mentioning it," he said, "but I thought you wrote for fame,
+and not for money."
+
+"Oh, I don't write for money, I assure you; but I was brought up to be a
+business woman, and if I'm going to write books somebody ought to pay
+for them. Now I wanted to ask you what you will sell me your part in
+'Love in a Cloud' for."
+
+Whether this sudden introduction of her business or the nature of it
+when introduced were the more startling it might have been hard to
+determine. Certain it is that Fairfield started, and stared at his
+visitor as if he doubted his ears.
+
+"My part of it?" he exclaimed. "Why, I wrote it."
+
+"Yes," she returned easily, "but so many persons have supposed it to be
+mine, that it is extremely awkward to deny it; and you have become my
+collaborateur, of course, by writing on the other novels."
+
+"I hadn't realized that," Dick returned with a smile.
+
+"You've put so much of your style into my other books," she pursued,
+"that it's made people attribute 'Love in a Cloud' to me, and I think
+you are bound now not to go back on me. I don't know as you see it as I
+do, but it seems to me that since you took the liberty of changing so
+much in my other stories you ought to be willing to bear the
+consequences of it, especially as I'm willing to pay you well."
+
+"But as long as you didn't write the book," Dick observed, "I should
+think you'd feel rather queer to have it said you did."
+
+"I've thought of that," Mrs. Croydon said, nodding, with a flutter of
+silken tags, "but I reason that the ideas are so much my own, and the
+book is so exactly what I would have written if social duties hadn't
+prevented, that that ought not to count. The fact that so many folks
+think I wrote it shows that I might have written it."
+
+"But after all you didn't write it," Fairfield objected. "That seems to
+make it awkward."
+
+"Why, of course it would have been better if I had given you a sketch of
+it," Mrs. Croydon returned, apparently entirely unmoved; "but then of
+course you got so much of the spirit of 'Love in a Cloud' out of my
+other books--"
+
+This was perhaps more than any author could be expected to endure, and
+least of all a young author in the discussion of his first novel.
+
+"Why, how can you say that?" he demanded indignantly.
+
+"Do you suppose," she questioned with a benign and patronizing smile,
+"that so many persons would have taken your book for mine in the first
+place if you hadn't imitated me or taken ideas from my other books?"
+
+Dick sprang to his feet, and then sat down, controlling himself.
+
+"Well," he said coldly, "it makes no difference. It is too late to do
+anything about it now. An edition of 'Love in a Cloud' with my name on
+the title-page comes out next Wednesday. If folks say too much about the
+resemblance to your books, I can confess, I suppose, my part in the
+others."
+
+She turned upon him with a burst of surprise and indignation which set
+all her ribbon-ends waving in protest.
+
+"That," she said, "is a professional secret. No man of honor would tell
+it."
+
+She rose as she spoke, her face full of indignation.
+
+"You have not treated me fairly," she said bitterly. "You must have seen
+that the book was attributed to me, and you knew the connection between
+'Love in a Cloud' and my other books--"
+
+"Other books!" exclaimed Dick.
+
+Mrs. Croydon waved him into silence with a magnificent gesture, but
+beyond that took no notice of his words.
+
+"You saw how everybody looked at me that day at Mrs. Harbinger's," she
+went on. "If you were going to give your name to the book why didn't you
+do it then?"
+
+"I didn't think of you at all," was his answer. "I was too much amused
+in seeing that absurd Barnstable make a fool of himself with Count
+Shimbowski. Did you know that the Count actually challenged him?"
+
+Wrath of celestial goddesses darkened the face of Mrs. Croydon as a
+white squall blackens the face of the sky. Her eyes glared with an
+expression as fierce if not as bright as the lightning.
+
+"What do you say?" she screamed. "Challenge my husband?"
+
+"Your husband!" ejaculated Dick, a staring statue of surprise.
+
+"Yes, my husband," she repeated vehemently. "He didn't make a fool of
+himself that day! A man can't come to the defense of a woman but you men
+sneer at him. Do you mean that that beastly foreign ape dared to
+challenge him for that? I'd like to give him my opinion of him!"
+
+When a man finds himself entertaining a wildcat unawares he should
+either expel the beast or himself take safety in flight. Dick could
+apparently do neither. He stood speechless, gazing at the woman before
+him, who seemed to be waxing in fury with every moment and every word.
+She swept across the short space between them in a perfect hurricane of
+streamers, and almost shook her fists in his face.
+
+"I understand it all now," she said. "You were in it from the beginning!
+I suppose that when you worked on my books you took the trouble to find
+out about me, and that's where your material came from for your precious
+'Love in a Cloud.' Oh, my husband will deal with you!"
+
+Fairfield looked disconcerted enough, as well he might, confronted with
+a woman who was apparently so carried away by anger as to have lost all
+control of herself.
+
+"Mrs. Croydon," he said, with a coldness and a dignity which could not
+but impress her, "I give you my word that I never knew anything about
+your history. That was none of my business."
+
+"Of course it was none of your business!" she cried. "That's just what
+makes it so impertinent of you to be meddling with my affairs!"
+
+Fairfield regarded her rather wildly.
+
+"Sit down, please," he said beseechingly. "You mustn't talk so, Mrs.
+Croydon. Of course I haven't been meddling with your affairs, and--"
+
+"And not to have the courage to say a word to prevent my husband's being
+dragged into a duel with that foreigner! Oh, it does seem as if I
+couldn't express my opinion of you, Mr. Fairfield!"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Croydon--"
+
+"And as for Erastus Barnstable," she rushed on to say, "he's
+quick-tempered, and eccentric, and obstinate, and as dull as a post; he
+never understood me, but he always meant well; and I won't have him
+abused."
+
+"I hadn't any idea of abusing him," Dick pleaded humbly. "Really, you
+are talking in an extraordinary fashion."
+
+She stopped and glared at him as if with some gleam of returning reason.
+Her face was crimson, and her breath came quickly. Women of society
+outside of their own homes so seldom indulge in the luxury of an
+unbecoming rage that Dick had perhaps never before seen such a display.
+Any well-bred lady knows how to restrain herself within the bounds of
+personal decorum, and to be the more effective by preserving some
+appearance of calmness. Mrs. Croydon had evidently lacked in her youth
+the elevating influence of society where good manners are morals. It was
+interesting for Dick, but too extravagantly out of the common to be of
+use to him professionally.
+
+"I hope you are proud of your politeness this morning," Mrs. Croydon
+ended by saying; and without more adieu she fluttered tumultuously to
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE MISCHIEF OF A CAD
+
+
+The fierce light of publicity which nowadays beats upon society has
+greatly lessened the picturesqueness of life. There is no longer the
+dusk favorable to crime, and the man who wishes to be wicked, if careful
+of his social standing, is constantly obliged to be content with mere
+folly, or, if desperate, with meanness. It is true that from time to
+time there are still those, even in the most exclusive circles, who are
+guilty of acts genuinely criminal, but these are not, as a rule,
+regarded as being in good form. The days when the Borgias invited their
+enemies to dinner for the express purpose of poisoning them, or visited
+nobles rich in money or in beautiful wives and daughters with the
+amiable intent to rob them of these treasures, are over, apparently
+forever. In the sixteenth century--to name a time typical--success made
+an excuse more than adequate for any moral obliquity; and the result is
+that the age still serves thrillingly the romantic dramatist or
+novel-writer. To-day success is held more than to justify iniquity in
+politics or commerce, but the social world still keeps up some pretext
+of not approving. There is in the best society really a good deal of
+hesitation about inviting to dinner a man who has murdered his
+grandmother or run away with the wife of his friend. Society is of
+course not too austere in this respect; it strives to be reasonable, and
+it recognizes the principle that every transaction is to be judged by
+the laws of its own class. In the financial world, for instance,
+conscience is regulated by the stock market, and society assumes that if
+a crime has been committed for the sake of money its culpability depends
+chiefly upon the smallness of the amount actually secured. Conservative
+minds, however, still object to the social recognition of a man who has
+notoriously and scandalously broken the commandments. He who has not the
+skill or the good taste to display the fruits of his wickedness without
+allowing the process by which they were obtained to be known, is looked
+at askance by these prudish souls. In all this state of things is great
+loss to the romancer, and not a little disadvantage to bold and
+adventurous spirits. Were the latter but allowed the freedom which was
+enjoyed by their forerunners of the sixteenth century, they would do
+much to relieve the tedium under which to-day the best society
+languishes.
+
+This tendency of the age toward the suppression of violent and romantic
+transgressions in good society was undoubtedly largely responsible for
+the course taken by Sibley Langdon. Foiled in his plan of blackmailing
+Mrs. Neligage into being his companion on a European tour, he attempted
+revenge in a way so petty that even the modern novelist, who stops at
+nothing, would have regarded the thing as beneath invention.
+
+Mr. Langdon had sent Mrs. Neligage her canceled note, with a floridly
+worded epistle declaring that its real value, though paid, was lost to
+him, since it lay in her signature and not in the money which the
+document represented. This being done, he had called once or twice, but
+the ignominy of living at the top of a speaking-tube carries with it the
+advantage of power to escape unwelcome callers, and he never found Mrs.
+Neligage at home. When they met in society Mrs. Neligage treated him
+with exactly the right shade of coolness. She did not give rise to any
+gossip. The infallible intuition of her fellow women easily discovered,
+of course, that there was an end of the old intimacy between the widow
+and Mr. Langdon, but nobody had the satisfaction of being able to
+perceive anything of the nature of a quarrel.
+
+They met one evening at a dinner given by Mrs. Chauncy Wilson. The
+dinner was not large. There were Mr. and Mrs. Frostwinch, Mrs. Neligage,
+Alice Endicott, Count Shimbowski, and Mr. Langdon. The company was
+somewhat oddly assorted, but everybody understood that Mrs. Wilson did
+as she pleased, leaving social considerations to take care of
+themselves. She had promised Miss Wentstile, who still clung to the idea
+of marrying Alice to the Count, that she would ask the pair to dinner;
+and having done so, she selected her other guests by some principle of
+choice known only to herself.
+
+The dinner passed off without especial incident. The Count took in
+Alice, and was by her treated with a cool ease which showed that she
+had come to regard him as of no consequence whatever. She chatted with
+him pleasantly enough at the proper intervals, but more of her attention
+was given to Mr. Frostwinch, her neighbor on the other side. She would
+never talk with the Count in French, although she spoke that tongue with
+ease, and his wooing, such as it was, had to be carried on in his
+joint-broken English. The engagement of May Calthorpe and Dick
+Fairfield, just announced, and the appearance of "Love in a Cloud" with
+the author's name on the title-page, were the chief subjects of
+conversation. The company were seated at a round table, so that the talk
+was for the most part general, and each person had something to add to
+the little ball of silken-fibred gossip as it rolled about. Mr.
+Frostwinch was May's guardian, and a man of ideas too old-fashioned to
+discuss his ward or her affairs in any but the most general way; yet
+even he did now and then add a word or a hint.
+
+"They say," Mrs. Wilson observed, "that there's some kind of a romantic
+story behind the engagement. Mrs. Neligage, you ought to know--is it
+true that Richard Fairfield got Jack to go and propose for him?"
+
+"If he did," was the answer, "neither you nor I will ever know it from
+Jack. He's the worst to get anything out of that I ever knew. I think he
+has some sort of a trap-door in his memory to drop things through when
+he doesn't want to tell them. I believe he contrives to forget them
+himself."
+
+"You can't conceive of his holding them if he did remember them, I
+suppose," chuckled Dr. Wilson.
+
+"Of course he couldn't. No mortal could."
+
+"That's as bad as my husband," observed Mrs. Frostwinch, with a billowy
+motion of her neck, a movement characteristic and perhaps the result of
+unconscious cerebration induced by a secret knowledge that her neck was
+too long. "I tried to get out of him what Mr. Fairfield said when he
+came to see him about May; and I give you my word that after I'd worn
+myself to shreds trying to beguile him, I was no wiser than before."
+
+"I tell you so entirely all my own secrets, Anna," her husband answered,
+"that you might let me keep those of other people."
+
+"Indeed, I can't help your keeping them," was her reply. "That's what I
+complain of. If I only had a choice in the matter, I shouldn't mind."
+
+"If Jack Neligage is in the way of proposing," Langdon observed in his
+deliberate manner, "I should think he'd do it for himself."
+
+"Oh, bless you," Mrs. Neligage responded quickly, "Jack can't afford to
+marry. I've brought him up better than to suppose he could."
+
+"Happy the man that has so wise a mother," was Langdon's comment.
+
+"If you don't believe in marriages without money, Mrs. Neligage," asked
+Mrs. Wilson, "what do you think of Ethel Mott and Thayer Kent?"
+
+"Just think of their marrying on nothing, and going out to live on a
+cattle ranch," put in Mrs. Frostwinch. "I wonder if Ethel will have to
+milk?"
+
+Dr. Wilson gave a laugh full of amusement.
+
+"They don't milk on cattle ranches," he corrected. "She may have to
+mount a horse and help at a round-up, though."
+
+"Well, if she likes that kind of a burial," Mrs. Neligage said, "it's
+her own affair, I suppose. I'd rather be cremated."
+
+"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," Mr. Frostwinch observed genially.
+"They'll have a piano, and that means some sort of civilization."
+
+"I suppose she'll play the _ranz des vaches_ on the piano," Mrs. Wilson
+laughed.
+
+"Of course it's madness," Langdon observed, "but they'll like it for a
+while. I can't understand, though, how Miss Mott can be so foolish. I
+always supposed she was rather a sensible girl."
+
+"Does this prove that she isn't?" asked Alice.
+
+"Don't you think a girl that leaves civilization, and goes to live in
+the wilderness just to follow a man, shows a lack of cleverness?"
+
+The seriousness of the tone in which Alice had asked her question had
+drawn all eyes in her direction, and it might easily be that the
+knowledge of the interest which she was supposed to have in penniless
+Jack Neligage would in any case have given to her words especial mark.
+
+"That depends on what life is for," Alice answered now, in her low, even
+voice. "If she is happier with Thayer Kent on a cattle ranch than she
+would be anywhere else without him, I think she shows the best kind of
+sense."
+
+"But think what a stupid life she'll lead," Langdon persisted. "She
+doesn't know what she's giving up."
+
+"Eet ees _très romanesque_," declared the Count, "but eet weel to
+be _triste_. Weell she truthfully ride de cow?"
+
+Politely veiled laughter greeted this sally, except from Dr. Wilson, who
+burst into an open guffaw.
+
+"She'll be worth seeing if she does!" he ejaculated.
+
+Mrs. Frostwinch bent toward Alice with undulating neck.
+
+"You are romantic, of course, Alice," she remarked, "and you look at it
+like a girl. It's very charming to be above matter-of-fact
+considerations; but when the edge is worn off--"
+
+She sighed, and shook her head as if she were deeply versed in all the
+misfortunes resulting from an impecunious match; her manner being, of
+course, the more effective from the fact that everybody knew that she
+had never been able to spend her income.
+
+"But what is life for?" Alice said with heightened color. "If people are
+happy together, I don't believe that other things matter so much."
+
+"For my part," Mrs. Wilson declared, "I think it will be stunning! I
+wish I were going out to live on a ranch myself, and ride a cow, as the
+Count says. Chauncy, why don't we buy a ranch? Think how I'd look on
+cow-back!"
+
+She gave the signal to rise, and the ladies departed to the
+drawing-room, where they talked of many things and of nothing until the
+gentlemen appeared. Mr. Langdon placed himself so that he faced Mrs.
+Neligage across the little circle in which the company chanced to
+arrange itself.
+
+"We've been talking of adventures," he said, "and Mr. Frostwinch says
+that nobody has any nowadays."
+
+"I only said that they were uncommon," corrected Mr. Frostwinch. "Of
+course men do have them now and then, but not very often."
+
+"Men! Yes, they have them," Mrs. Wilson declared; "but there's no chance
+nowadays for us poor women. We never get within sight of anything out of
+the common."
+
+"You're enough out of the common to do without it, Elsie," laughed her
+husband.
+
+"Madame Weelson ees an adventure eetself," the Count put in gallantly.
+
+Mr. Langdon raised his head deliberately, and looked over to Mrs.
+Neligage.
+
+"You could tell them differently, Mrs. Neligage," he said. "Your
+experience at Monte Carlo, now; that was far enough out of the common."
+
+Her color went suddenly, but she met his eyes firmly enough.
+
+"My adventures?" she returned. "I never had an adventure. I'm too
+commonplace a person for that."
+
+"You don't do yourself justice," Langdon rejoined. "You haven't any
+idea how picturesque you were that night."
+
+Telepathy may or may not be established on a scientific basis, but it is
+certain that there exists some occult power in virtue of which
+intelligence spreads without tangible means of communication. There was
+nothing in the light, even tones of Langdon to convey more intimation
+than did his words that mischief was afoot, yet over the group in Mrs.
+Wilson's drawing-room came an air of intentness, of alert suspense. No
+observer could have failed to perceive the general feeling, the
+perception that Langdon was preparing for some unusual stroke. The
+atmosphere grew electric. Mr. Frostwinch and his wife became a shade
+more grave than was their wont. They were both rather proper folk, and
+proper people are obliged to be continually watching for indecorums,
+lest before they are aware their propriety have its fine bloom brushed
+away. The Count moved uneasily in his chair. The unpleasant doubts to
+which he had been exposed as to how his own past would affect a Boston
+public might have made him the more sympathetic with Mrs. Neligage, and
+the fact that he had seen her at the tables at Monte Carlo could hardly
+fail to add for him a peculiar vividness to Langdon's words. Doctor and
+Mrs. Wilson were both openly eager. Alice watched Mrs. Neligage
+intently, while the widow faced Langdon with growing pallor.
+
+"Madame Neleegaze ees all teemes de peecture," declared Count Shimbowski
+gallantly. "When more one teeme eet ees de oder?"
+
+"She was more picturesque that time than another," laughed Langdon, by
+some amazing perception getting at the Count's meaning. "I'm going to
+tell it, Mrs. Neligage, just to show what you are capable of. I never
+admired anything more than I did your pluck that night. It's nonsense to
+say that women have less grit than men."
+
+"Less grit!" cried Mrs. Wilson. "They have a hundred times more. If men
+had the spunk of women or women had the strength of men--"
+
+"Then amen to the world!" broke in her husband. "Don't interrupt. I want
+to hear Langdon's story."
+
+Alice Endicott had thus far said nothing, but as Langdon smiled as if to
+himself, and parted his lips to begin, she stopped him.
+
+"No," she said, "he shan't tell it. If it is Mrs. Neligage's adventure,
+she shall tell it herself."
+
+Mrs. Neligage flashed a look of instant comprehension, of gratitude, to
+Alice, and the color came back into her cheeks. She had been half
+cowering before the possibility of what Langdon might be intending to
+say, but this chance of taking matters into her own hands recalled all
+her self-command. Her eyes brightened, and she lifted her head.
+
+"It isn't much to tell," she began, "and it isn't at all to my credit."
+
+"I protest," interpolated Langdon. "Of course she won't tell a story
+about herself for half its worth."
+
+"Be quiet," Alice commanded.
+
+The eyes of all had been turned toward Mrs. Neligage at her last words,
+but now everybody looked at Alice. It was not common to see her take
+this air of really meaning to dominate. In her manner was a faint hint
+of the commanding manner of her aunt, although without any trace of Miss
+Wentstile's arrogance. She was entirely cool and self-possessed,
+although her color was somewhat brighter than usual. The words that had
+been spoken were little, yet the hearer heard behind them the conflict
+between herself and Langdon.
+
+"I am not to be put down so," he persisted. "I don't care much about
+telling that particular story, but I can't allow you to bully me so,
+Miss Endicott."
+
+"Go on, Mrs. Neligage, please," Alice said, quite as if she were
+mistress of ceremonies, and entirely ignoring Langdon's words except for
+a faint smile toward him.
+
+"My adventure, as Mr. Langdon is pleased to call it," Mrs. Neligage
+said, "is only a thing I'm ashamed of. He is trying to make me confess
+my sins in public, apparently. He came on me one night playing at Monte
+Carlo when I lost a lot of money. He declares he watched me an hour
+before I saw him, but as I didn't play more than half that time--"
+
+"I told you she would spoil the story," interrupted Langdon, "I--"
+
+"You shall not interrupt, Mr. Langdon," Alice said, as evenly and as
+commandingly as before.
+
+"Oh, everybody he play at Monte Carlo," put in the Count. "Not to play,
+one have not been dere."
+
+"I've played," Mrs. Wilson responded. "I think it's the greatest fun in
+the world. Did you win, Mrs. Neligage?"
+
+"Win, my dear," returned the widow, who had recovered perfectly her
+self-command; "I lost all that I possessed and most that I didn't. I
+wonder I ever got out of the place. The truth is that I had to borrow
+from Mr. Langdon to tide me over till I could raise funds. Was that what
+you wanted to tell, Mr. Langdon? You were the real hero to lend it to
+me, for I might have gone to playing again, and lost that too."
+
+Langdon was visibly disconcerted. To have the tables so turned that it
+seemed as if he were seeking a chance to exploit his own good deeds left
+him at the mercy of the widow. Mrs. Neligage had told in a way
+everything except the matter of the necklace, and no man with any
+pretense of being a gentleman could drag that in now. It might have been
+slid picturesquely into the original story, whether that were or were
+not Mr. Langdon's intention; but now it was too late.
+
+"I don't see where the pluck came in," pronounced Dr. Wilson.
+
+"Oh, I suppose that was the stupid way in which I kept on losing," Mrs.
+Neligage explained. "I call it perfect folly."
+
+"Again I say that I knew she'd spoil the story," Langdon said with a
+smile.
+
+The announcement of carriages, and the departure of the Frostwinches
+brought the talk to an end. When Mrs. Neligage had said good-night and
+was leaving the drawing-room, Langdon stood at the door.
+
+"You got out of that well," he said.
+
+She gave him a look which should have withered him.
+
+"It is a brave man that tries to blacken a woman's name," she answered;
+and went on her way.
+
+In the dressing-room was Alice, who had gone a moment before. Mrs.
+Neligage went up to her and took her by the arms.
+
+"How did you know that I needed to have a plank thrown to me?" she
+demanded. "Did I show it so much?"
+
+Alice flushed and smiled.
+
+"If I must tell the truth," she answered, "you looked just as I saw Jack
+look once in a hard place."
+
+Mrs. Neligage laughed, and kissed her.
+
+"Then it was Jack's mother you wanted to help. You are an angel anyhow.
+I had really lost my head. The story was horrid, and I knew he'd tell it
+or hint it. It wasn't so bad," she added, as Alice half shrank back,
+"but that I'll tell it to you some time. Jack knows it."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE WAKING OF A SPINSTER
+
+
+Miss Wentstile was as accustomed to having her way as the sun is to
+rising. She had made up her mind that Alice was to marry Count
+Shimbowski, and what was more, she had made her intention perfectly
+plain to her friends. It is easily to be understood that her temper was
+a good deal tried when it became evident that she could not force her
+niece to yield. Miss Wentstile commanded, she remonstrated, she tried to
+carry her will with a high hand by assuming that Alice was betrothed,
+and she found herself in the end utterly foiled.
+
+"Then you mean to disobey me entirely," she said to Alice one day.
+
+"I have tried all my life to do what you wanted, Aunt Sarah," was the
+answer, "but this I can't do."
+
+"You could do it if you chose."
+
+Alice was silent; and to remain silent when one should offer some sort
+of a remark that may be disputed or found fault with or turned into
+ridicule is one of the most odious forms of insubordination.
+
+"Why don't you speak?" demanded Miss Wentstile sharply. "Haven't I done
+enough for you to be able to get a civil answer out of you?"
+
+"What is there for me to say more, Aunt Sarah?"
+
+"You ought to say that you would not vex and disobey me any more,"
+declared her Aunt. "Here I have told everybody that I should pass next
+summer at the Count's ancestral castle in Hungary, and how can I if you
+won't marry him?"
+
+"You might marry him yourself."
+
+Her aunt glared at her angrily, and emitted a most unladylike snort of
+contempt.
+
+"You say that to be nasty," she retorted; "but I tell you, miss, that
+I've thought of that myself. I'm not sure I shan't marry him."
+
+Alice regarded her in a silence which drew forth a fresh volley.
+
+"I suppose you think that's absurd, do you? Why don't you say that I'm
+too old, and too ugly, and too ridiculous? Why don't you say it? I can
+see that you think it; and a nice thing it is to think, too."
+
+"If you think it, Aunt Sarah," was the demure reply, "there's no need of
+my saying it."
+
+"I think it? I don't think it! I'm pleased to know at last what you
+think of me, with your meek ways."
+
+The scene was more violent than usually happened between aunt and niece,
+as it was the habit of Alice to bear in silence whatever rudeness it
+pleased Miss Wentstile to inflict. Not that the spinster was accustomed
+to be unkind to the girl. So long as there was no opposition to her
+will, Miss Wentstile was in her brusque way generous and not
+ill-natured. Now that her temper was tried to the extreme, her worst
+side made itself evident; and Alice was wise in attempting to escape.
+She rose from the place where she had been sewing, and prepared to leave
+the room.
+
+"Go to your room by all means," the spinster said bitterly, regarding
+her with looks of marked disfavor. "All I have to say is this: if I do
+marry the Count, and you find yourself without a home, you'll have
+nobody but yourself to thank for it. I'm sure you've had your chance."
+
+Whether the antique heart of the spinster had cherished the design of
+attempting to glide into the place in the Count's life left vacant by
+the refusal of her niece is a fact known only to her attendant angels,
+if she had any. Certain it is that within twenty-four hours she had
+summoned that nobleman to her august presence.
+
+"Count," she said to him, "I can't express to you how distressed I am
+that my niece has put such a slight on you. She is absolutely determined
+not to marry."
+
+The Count as usual shrugged his shoulders, and remarked in mangled
+English that in America there was no authority; and that in his country
+the girl would not have been asked whether she was determined to marry
+or not. Her determination would have made no difference.
+
+"That is the way it should be here," Miss Wentstile observed with
+feeling; "but it isn't. The young people are brought up to have their
+own way, no matter what their elders wish."
+
+"Then she weell not to marry wid me?" he asked.
+
+"No, there's no hope of it. She is as obstinate as a rock."
+
+There was a brief interval of silence in which the Count looked at Miss
+Wentstile and Miss Wentstile looked at the floor.
+
+"Count Shimbowski," she said at last, raising her eyes, "of course it
+doesn't make much difference to you who it is you marry if you get the
+money."
+
+He gave a smile half of deprecation, and spread out his hands.
+
+"One Shimbowski for de _dot_ marries," he acknowledged, "but eet ees not
+wid all weemeens. Dat ees not honor."
+
+"Oh, of course I mean if your wife was a lady."
+
+"Eet ees for de _dot_ only one Shimbowski would wid all Amereecans
+marry," he returned with simple pride.
+
+Miss Wentstile regarded him with a questioning look.
+
+"I am older than my niece," she went on, "but my _dot_ would be half a
+million."
+
+The whole thing was so entirely a matter of business that perhaps it was
+not strange that she spoke with so little sign of emotion. Most women,
+it is true, would hardly come so near to proposing to a man without some
+frivolous airs of coquetry; but Miss Wentstile was a remarkable and
+exceptional woman, and her air was much that in which she might have
+talked of building a new house.
+
+"Ees eet dat de wonderful Mees Wentsteele would marry wid me for all dat
+_dot_?"
+
+Miss Wentstile took him up somewhat quickly.
+
+"I don't say that I would, Count," she returned; "but since you've been
+treated so badly by my niece, I thought I would talk with you to see how
+the idea struck you."
+
+"Oh, eet weell be heavenly sweet to know what we weell be mine for all
+dat _dot_," the Count asserted, bowing with his hand on his heart.
+
+She smiled somewhat acidly, and yet not so forbiddingly as to daunt him.
+
+"If we are yours what is there left for me?" she asked.
+
+"Ah," the Count sighed, with a shake of his head, "dat Engleesh--"
+
+"Never mind," she interrupted, "I understand that if I do marry you I
+get the name and not much else."
+
+"But de name!" he cried with fervor. "De Shimbowski name! Oh, eet ees
+dat de name weell be older dan dere was any mans een dees country."
+
+"I dare say that is true," she responded, smiling more pleasantly. "My
+sentiments for the name are warm enough."
+
+"De _sentiments_ of de esteemfully Mees Wentsteele ees proud for me," he
+declared, rising to bow. "Ees eet dat we weell marry wid me? Mees
+Wentsteele ees more detracteeve for me wid her _dot_ dan Mees Endeecott.
+Eet ees mooch more detracteeve."
+
+"Well," Miss Wentstile said, rising also, "I thought I would see how the
+idea struck you. I haven't made up my mind. My friends would say I was
+an old fool, but I can please myself, thank heaven."
+
+The Count took her hand and bowed over it with all his courtly grace,
+kissing it respectfully.
+
+"Ah," he told her, echoing her words with unfortunate precision, "one
+old fool ees so heavenly keend!"
+
+Miss Wentstile started, but the innocence of his intention was evident,
+and she offered no correction. She bade him good-by with a beaming
+kindness, and for the rest of the day carried herself with the conscious
+pride of a woman who could be married if she would.
+
+For the next few days there was about Miss Wentstile a new atmosphere.
+She snubbed her niece with an air of pride entirely different from her
+old manner. She dropped hints about there being likely to be a title in
+the family after all, and as there could be no mystery what she must
+mean she attempted mystification by seeming to know things about the
+Count and his family more magnificent than her niece had ever dreamed
+of. She sent to a school of languages for an instructor in Hungarian,
+and when none was to be found at once, she purchased a grammar, and
+ostentatiously studied it before Alice. Altogether she behaved as
+idiotically as possible, and whether she really intended to go to the
+extreme of marrying Count Shimbowski and endowing him with her fortune
+or not, she at least contrived to make her friends believe that she was
+prepared to go to any length in her absurdity.
+
+The announcement of the engagement of Dick Fairfield and May Calthorpe,
+which was made at once, of course produced the usual round of
+congratulatory festivities. May, as it is the moral duty of every
+self-respecting Bostonian to be, was related to everybody who was
+socially anybody, and great were the number of dinners which celebrated
+her decision to marry. It was too late in the season for balls, but that
+was of little consequence when she and her betrothed could have dined in
+half a dozen places on the same night had the thing been physically
+possible.
+
+The real purpose of offering multitudinous dinners to a couple newly
+engaged has never been fully made clear. On first thought it might seem
+as if kindness to young folk newly come to a knowledge of mutual love
+were best shown by letting them alone to enjoy the transports inevitable
+to their condition. Society has decided otherwise, and keeps them during
+the early days of their betrothal as constantly as possible in the
+public eye. Whether this custom is the result of a fear lest the lovers,
+if left to themselves, might too quickly exhaust their store of
+fondness, or of a desire to enhance for each the value of the other by a
+display of general appreciation, were not easy to decide. A cynic might
+suggest that older persons feel the wisdom of preventing the possibility
+of too much reflection, or that they give all publicity to the
+engagement as a means of lessening the chances of any failure of
+contract. More kindly disposed reasoners might maintain that these
+abundant festivities are but testimony to the truth of Emerson's
+declaration that "all the world loves a lover." Philosophy, in the mean
+time, leaning neither to cynicism on the one hand nor to over-optimism
+on the other, can see in these social functions at least the visible
+sign that society instinctively recognizes in the proposed union a
+contract really public, since while men and women love for themselves
+they marry for the state.
+
+Alice Endicott and Jack Neligage were naturally asked to many of these
+dinners, and so it came about that they saw a good deal of each other
+during the next few weeks. Their recent disagreement at first bred a
+faint coolness between them, but Jack was too good-natured long to keep
+up even the pretense of malice, and Alice too forgiving to cherish
+anger. The need, too, of hiding from the public all unpleasantness would
+in any case have made it necessary for them to behave as usual, and it
+is one of the virtues of social conventions that the need of being
+outwardly civil is apt to blunt the edge of secret resentments. Of
+course a healthy and genuine hate may be nourished by the irksomeness of
+enforced suavity, but trifling pique dies a natural death under outward
+politeness. Alice and Jack were not only soon as friendly as ever, but
+either from the reaction following their slight misunderstanding or from
+the effect of the sentimental atmosphere which always surrounds an
+engaged couple, their attitude became more confidential and friendly
+than ever.
+
+They sat side by side at a dinner in which the Harbingers were
+officially testifying their satisfaction in the newly announced
+engagement. Jack had been doing his duty to the lady on the other side,
+and turned his face to Alice.
+
+"What is worrying you?" he asked, his voice a little lowered.
+
+She looked at him with a smile.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" she asked. "I was flattering myself that I'd
+been particularly frolicsome all the evening."
+
+"You have; that's just it."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that you've had to try."
+
+"You must have watched me pretty closely," she remarked, flushing a
+little, and lowering her glance.
+
+"Oh, I know you so well that I don't need to; but to be sure I have kept
+my eyes on you."
+
+She played with her fork as if thinking, while his look was fixed on her
+face.
+
+"I didn't think I was so transparent," she said. "Do you suppose other
+people noticed me?"
+
+"Oh, no," he responded. "You don't give me credit for my keenness of
+perception. But what's the row?"
+
+"Nothing," was her answer, "only--Well, the truth is that I've had a
+talk with Aunt Sarah that wasn't very pleasant. Jack, I believe she's
+going to marry the Count."
+
+"I'm glad of it," was his laughing response. "He'll make her pay for all
+the nasty things she has done. He'll be a sort of public avenger."
+
+Alice became graver. She shook her head, smiling, but with evident
+disapproval.
+
+"You promised me long ago that you wouldn't say things against Aunt
+Sarah."
+
+"No, I never did," he declared impenitently. "I only said that I'd try
+not to say things to you about her that would hurt your feelings."
+
+"Well, weren't you saying them then?"
+
+"That depends entirely upon your feelings; but if they are so sensitive,
+I'll say I am delighted that the 'venerated Mees Wentsteele,' as the
+Count calls her, is at last to be benefited by the discipline of having
+a master."
+
+Alice laughed in spite of herself.
+
+"She won't enjoy that," she declared. "Poor Aunt Sarah, she's been very
+kind to me, Jack. She's really good-hearted."
+
+"You can't tell from the outside of a chestnut burr what kind of a nut
+is inside of it," retorted he; "but if you say she is sound, it goes.
+She's got the outside of the burr all right."
+
+The servant with a fresh course briefly interrupted, and when they had
+successfully dodged his platter Jack went back to the subject.
+
+"Is it proper to ask what there was in your talk that was especially
+unpleasant,--not meaning that she was unpleasant, of course, but only
+that with your readiness to take offense you might have found something
+out of the way."
+
+Alice smiled faintly as if the question was too closely allied to
+painful thoughts to allow of her being amused.
+
+"She is still angry with me," she said.
+
+"For giving her a husband? She's grateful."
+
+"No, it isn't that. She can't get over my not doing what she wanted."
+
+"You've done what she wanted too long. She's spoiled. She thinks she
+owns you."
+
+"Of course it's hard for her," Alice murmured.
+
+"Hard for her? It's just what she needed. What is she going to do about
+it I'd like to know?"
+
+Alice looked at him with a wistful gravity.
+
+"If I tell you a secret," she said in a low tone, "can I trust you?"
+
+"Of course you can," was the answer. "I should think that by this time,
+after May's engagement, you'd know I can keep still when I've a mind
+to."
+
+Jack's chuckle did not call a smile to her face now. She had evidently
+forgotten for the moment the need of keeping up a smiling appearance in
+public; her long lashes drooped over cheeks that had little color in
+them, and her mouth was grave.
+
+"She was very severe to-night," Alice confided to her companion. "She
+said--Oh, Jack, what am I to do if she goes away and leaves me without a
+home? She said that as of course I shouldn't want to go with her to
+Hungary, she didn't know what would become of me. She wanted to know if
+I could earn my living."
+
+"The infernal old--" began Jack; then he checked himself in time, and
+added: "You shall never want a home while--" but an interruption stopped
+him.
+
+"Jack," called Tom Harbinger from the other end of the table, "didn't
+the Count say: 'Stones of a feather gather no rolls'?"
+
+The society mask slipped in a flash over the faces of Alice and Jack.
+The latter had ready instantly a breezy laugh which might have disarmed
+suspicion if any of the company had seen his recent gravity.
+
+"Oh, Tom," he returned, "it wasn't so bad as that. He said: 'Birds of
+one feder flock to get eet.' I wish I had a short-hand report of all his
+sayings."
+
+"He told me at the club," put in Mrs. Harbinger, improving on the fact
+by the insertion of an article, "that Miss Wentstile was 'an
+ext'rdeenaire particle.' I hope you don't mind, Alice?"
+
+"Nothing that the Count says could affect me," was the answer.
+
+Having the eyes of the ladies in her direction, Mrs. Harbinger improved
+the opportunity to give the signal to rise, and the talk between Alice
+and Jack was for that evening broken off.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE WOOING OF A WIDOW
+
+
+"Jack," Mrs. Neligage observed one morning when her son had dropped in,
+"I hope you won't mind, but I've decided to marry Harry Bradish."
+
+Jack frowned slightly, then smiled. Probably no man is ever greatly
+pleased by the idea that his mother is to remarry; but Jack was of
+accommodating temper, and moreover was not without the common sense
+necessary for the acceptance of the unpalatable. He trimmed the ashes
+from the cigarette he was smoking, took a whiff, and sent out into the
+air an unusually neat smoke-ring. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the
+involving wreath until it was shattered upon the ceiling and its frail
+substance dissolved in air.
+
+"Does Bradish know it?" he inquired.
+
+"Oh, he doesn't suspect it," answered she. "He'll never have an idea of
+such a thing till I tell him, and then he won't believe it."
+
+Jack laughed, blew another most satisfactory smoke-ring, and again with
+much deliberation watched it ascend to its destruction.
+
+"Then you don't expect him to ask you?" he propounded at length.
+
+"Ask me, Jack? He never could get up the courage. He'd lie down and die
+for me, but as for proposing--No, if there is to be any proposing I'm
+afraid I should have to do it; so we shall have to get on without."
+
+"It wouldn't be decorous for me to ask how you mean to manage, I
+suppose."
+
+"Oh, ask by all means if you want to, Jacky dear; but never a word shall
+I tell you. All I want of you is to say you aren't too much cut up at
+the idea."
+
+"I've brought you up so much to have your own way," Jack returned in a
+leisurely fashion, "that I'm afraid it's too late to begin now to try to
+control you. I wish you luck."
+
+They were silent for some minutes. Mrs. Neligage had been mending a
+glove for her son, and when she had finished it, she rose and brought it
+to him. She stood a minute regarding him with an unwonted softness in
+her glance.
+
+"Dear boy," she said, with a tender note in her voice, "I haven't
+thanked you for the money you sent Langdon."
+
+He threw his cigarette away, half turning his face from her as he did
+so.
+
+"It's no use to bring that up again," he said. "I'm only sorry I
+couldn't have the satisfaction of kicking him."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I've wanted you to a good many times," returned she, "but that's a
+luxury that we couldn't afford. It would cost too much." She hesitated a
+moment, and added: "It must have left you awfully hard up, Jack."
+
+"Oh, I'm going into the bank. I'm a reformed man, you know, so that
+doesn't matter. If I can't play polo what good is money?"
+
+His mother sighed.
+
+"I do wish Providence would take my advice about giving the money
+round," she remarked impatiently. "Things would be a great deal better
+arranged."
+
+"For us they would, I've no doubt," he assented with a grin.
+
+"When do you go into that beastly old bank?" she asked.
+
+"First of the month. After all it won't be so much worse than being
+married."
+
+"You must be awfully hard up," she said once more regretfully.
+
+"Oh, I'm always hard up. Don't bother about that."
+
+She stooped forward and kissed him lightly, an unusual demonstration on
+her part, and stood brushing the crisp locks back from his forehead. He
+took her hand and pulled her down to kiss her in turn.
+
+"Really, mater," he observed, still holding her hand, "we're getting
+quite spoony. Does the idea of marrying Harry Bradish make you
+sentimental?"
+
+She smiled and did not answer, but withdrew her hand and returned to her
+seat by the window. She took up a bit of sewing, and folded down on the
+edge of the lawn a tiny hem.
+
+"When I am married," she observed, the faint suspicion of a blush
+coming into her cheek, "I can pay that money back to you. Harry is rich
+enough, and generous enough."
+
+Jack stopped in the lighting of a fresh cigarette, and regarded her
+keenly.
+
+"Mother," he said in a voice of new seriousness, "are you marrying him
+to get that money for me?"
+
+"I mean to get it for you," she returned, without looking up.
+
+Again he began to send rings of smoke to break on the ceiling above, and
+meanwhile she fixed her attention on her sewing. The noise of the
+carriages outside, the profanity of the English sparrows quarreling on
+the trees, and the sound of a distant street-organ playing "Cavalleria"
+came in through the open window.
+
+"Mother," he said, "I won't have it."
+
+"Won't have what?"
+
+"I won't have you marry Harry Bradish."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Do you think," he urged, with some heat, "that I don't see through the
+whole thing? You are bound to help me out, and I won't have you do it."
+
+The widow let her sewing fall into her lap, and turned her face to the
+window.
+
+"How will you help it?" she asked softly.
+
+"I'll stop it in one way or another. I tell you--"
+
+But she turned toward him a face full of confusion and laughter.
+
+"Oh, Jack, you old goose, I've been fond of Harry Bradish for years,
+only I didn't dare show it because--"
+
+"Because what?"
+
+"Because Sibley Langdon was so nasty if I did," she returned, her tone
+hardening. "You don't know," she went on, the tone changing again like a
+flute-note, "what a perfect dear Harry is. I've teased him, and snubbed
+him, and bullied him, and treated him generally like a fiend, and he's
+been as patient, and as sweet--Why, Jack, he's a saint beside me! He's
+awkward, and as stupid as a frog, but he's as good as gold."
+
+Jack's face had darkened at the mention of Langdon, but it cleared
+again, and his sunny smile came back once more. He sent out a great
+cloud of smoke with an entire disregard of the possibilities of artistic
+ring-making which he sacrificed, and chuckled gleefully.
+
+"All right, mater," he said, "if that's the state of things I've nothing
+more to say. You may even fleece him for my benefit if you want to."
+
+He rose as he spoke, and went over to where his mother was sitting. With
+heightened color, she had picked up her sewing, and bent over it so that
+her face was half hidden.
+
+"Who supposed there was so much sentiment in the family," he remarked.
+"Well, I must go down town. Good-by. I wish you joy."
+
+They kissed each other with a tenderness not customary, for neither was
+much given to sentimental demonstrations; and Jack went his way.
+
+It has been remarked by writers tinged with cynicism that a widow who
+wishes to remarry is generally able to do a large part of whatever
+wooing is necessary. In the present case, where the lady had frankly
+avowed her intention of doing the whole, there was no reason why the
+culmination should be long delayed. One day soon after the interview
+between Mrs. Neligage and her son, the widow and Harry Bradish were at
+the County Club when they chanced to come into the parlor just in time
+to discover May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield, when the lover was kissing
+his lady's hand. Mrs. Neligage was entirely equal to the situation.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Bradish," she observed, looking upward, "you were right, this
+ceiling is very ugly."
+
+"I didn't say anything about the ceiling," he returned, gazing up in
+amazement, while Dick and May slipped out at another door.
+
+She turned to him with a countenance of mischief.
+
+"Then you should have said it, stupid!" she exclaimed. "Didn't you see
+Dick and May?"
+
+"I saw them go out. What of it?"
+
+"Really, Harry," she said, falling into the name which she had called
+him in her girlhood, "you should have your wits about you when you
+stumble on young lovers in a sentimental attitude."
+
+"I didn't see what they were doing. I was behind you."
+
+"Oh, he had her hand," explained she, extending hers.
+
+Bradish took it shyly, looking confused and mystified. The widow laughed
+in his face.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" he asked.
+
+"What do you suppose he was doing?" Mrs. Neligage demanded. "Now you
+have my hand, what are you going to do with it?"
+
+He dropped her hand in confusion.
+
+"I--I just took it because you gave it to me," he stammered. "I was only
+going--I was going to--"
+
+"Then why in the world didn't you?" she laughed, moving quickly away
+toward the window which opened upon the piazza.
+
+"But I will now," he exclaimed, striding after.
+
+"Oh, now it is too late," she declared teasingly. "A woman is like time.
+She must be taken by the forelock."
+
+"But, Mrs. Neligage, Louisa, I was afraid of offending you!"
+
+"Nothing offends a woman so much as to be afraid of offending her," was
+her oracular reply, as she flitted over the sill.
+
+All the way into town that sunny April afternoon Harry Bradish was
+unusually silent. While Mrs. Neligage, in the highest spirits, rattled
+on with jest, or chat, or story, he replied in monosyllables or in the
+briefest phrases compatible with politeness. He was evidently thinking
+deeply. The very droop of his yellow mustaches showed that. The presence
+of the trig little groom at the back of the trap was a sufficient reason
+why Bradish should not then deliver up any confidential disclosures in
+regard to the nature of his cogitations, but from time to time he
+glanced at the widow with the air of having her constantly in his
+thoughts.
+
+Bradish was the most kindly of creatures, and withal one of the most
+self-distrustful. He was so transparent that there was nothing
+surprising in the ease with which one so astute as Mrs. Neligage might
+read his mood if she were so disposed. He cast upon her looks of inquiry
+or doubt which she gave no sign of perceiving, or now and then of
+bewilderment as if he had come in his thought to a question which
+puzzled him completely. During the entire drive he was obviously
+struggling after some mental adjustment or endeavoring to solve some
+deep and complicated problem.
+
+The day was enchanting, and in the air was the exciting stir of spring
+which turns lightly the young man's fancy to thoughts of love. Whether
+Bradish felt its influence or not, he had at least the air of a man
+emotionally much stirred. Mrs. Neligage looked more alert, more
+provoking, more piquant, than ever. She had, it is true, an aspect less
+sentimental than that of her companion, but nature had given to Harry
+Bradish a likeness to Don Quixote which made it impossible for him ever
+to appear mischievous or sportive, and if he showed feeling it must be
+of the kindly or the melancholy sort. The widow might be reflecting on
+the effectiveness of the turnout, the fineness of the horses, the
+general air of style and completeness which belonged to the equipage, or
+she might be ruminating on the character of the driver. She might on
+the other hand have been thinking of nothing in particular except the
+light things she was saying,--if indeed it is possible to suppose that a
+clever woman ever confines her thoughts to what is indicated by her
+words. Bradish, however, was evidently meditating of her.
+
+When he had brought the horses with a proper flourish to Mrs. Neligage's
+door, Bradish descended and helped her out with all his careful
+politeness of manner. He was a man to whom courtesy was instinctive. At
+the stake he would have apologized to the executioner for being a
+trouble. He might to-day be absorbed and perplexed, but he was not for
+that less punctiliously attentive.
+
+"May I come in?" he asked, hat in hand.
+
+"By all means," Mrs. Neligage responded. "Come in, and I'll give you a
+cup of tea."
+
+Bradish sent the trap away with the satisfactory groom, and then
+accompanied his companion upstairs. They were no sooner inside the door
+of her apartment than he turned to the widow with an air of sudden
+determination.
+
+"Louisa," he said with awkward abruptness, "what did you mean this
+afternoon?"
+
+He grasped her hands with both his; his hat, which he had half tossed
+upon the table, went bowling merrily over the floor, but he gave it no
+heed.
+
+"Good gracious, Harry," she cried, laughing up into his face, "how
+tragic you are! Pick up your hat."
+
+He glanced at the hat, but he did not release her hands. He let her
+remark pass, and went on with increasing intensity which was not unmixed
+with wistfulness.
+
+"I've been thinking about it all the way home," he declared. "You've
+always teased me, Louisa, from the days we were babies, and of course
+I'm an old fool; but--Were you willing I should kiss your hand?"
+
+He stopped in speechless confusion, the color coming into his cheeks,
+and looked pathetically into her laughing face.
+
+"Lots of men have," she responded.
+
+He dropped her hands, and grew paler.
+
+"But to-day--" he stammered.
+
+"But what to-day?" she cried, moving near to him.
+
+"I thought that to-day--Louisa, for heaven's sake, do you care for me?"
+
+"Not for heaven's sake," she murmured, looking younger and more
+bewitching than ever.
+
+Some women at forty-five are by Providence allowed still to look as
+young as their children, and Mrs. Neligage was one of them. Her airs
+would perhaps have been ridiculous in one less youthful in appearance,
+but she carried them off perfectly. Bradish was evidently too completely
+and tragically in earnest to see the point of her quip. He looked so
+disappointed and abashed that it was not strange for her to burst into a
+peal of laughter.
+
+"Oh, Harry," she cried, "you are such a dear old goose! Must I say it in
+words? Well, then; here goes, despite modesty! Take me!"
+
+He stared at her as if in doubt of his senses.
+
+"Do you mean it?" he stammered.
+
+"I do at this minute, but if you're not quick I may change my mind!"
+
+Then Harry Bradish experienced a tremendous reaction from the excessive
+shyness of nearly half a century, and gathered her into his arms.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE CLIMAX OF COMEDY
+
+
+Society has always a kindly feeling toward any person who furnishes
+material for talk. Even in those unhappy cases where the matter provided
+to the gossips is of an iniquitous sort, it is not easy utterly to
+condemn evil which has added a pleasant spice to conversation. It is
+true that in word the sinner may be entirely disapproved, but the
+disapproval is apt to be tempered by an evident feeling of gratitude for
+the excitement which the sin has provided to talkers. In lighter
+matters, where there is no reason to regard with reprobation the course
+discussed, the friendliness of the gossips is often covered with a sauce
+piquant of doubtful insinuation, of sneer, or of ridicule, but in
+reality it is evident that those who abuse do so, like Lady Teazle, in
+pure good nature. To be talked about in society is really to be awarded
+for the time being such interest as society is able to feel; and the
+interest of society is its only regard.
+
+The engagement of Mrs. Neligage to Harry Bradish naturally set the
+tongues of all their acquaintances wagging, and many pretty things were
+said of the couple which were not entirely complimentary. The loves of
+elderly folk always present to the eyes of the younger generation an
+aspect somewhat ludicrous, and the buds giggled at the idea of nuptials
+which to their infantine minds seemed so venerable. The women pitied
+Bradish, who had been captured by the wiles of the widow, and the men
+thought it a pity that so gifted and dashing a woman as Mrs. Neligage
+should be united to a man so dull as her prospective husband. The widow
+did not wear her heart on her sleeve, so that daws who wished to peck at
+it found it well concealed behind an armor of raillery, cleverness, and
+adroitness. Bradish, on the other hand, was so openly adoring that it
+was impossible not to be touched by his beaming happiness. On the whole
+the match was felt to be a suitable one, although Mrs. Neligage had no
+money; and from the mingled pleasure of gossiping about the pair, and
+nominally condemning the whole business on one ground or another,
+society came to be positively enthusiastic over the marriage.
+
+The affairs of Jack Neligage might in time be influenced by his mother's
+alliance with a man of wealth, but they were little changed at first. It
+is true that by some subtile softening of the general heart at the
+thought of matrimony in the concrete, as presented by the spectacle of
+the loves of Mrs. Neligage and Bradish, his social world was moved to a
+sort of toleration of the idea of his marrying Alice Endicott in spite
+of his poverty. People not in the least responsible, who could not be
+personally affected by such a match, began to wonder after all whether
+there were not some way in which it might be arranged, and to condemn
+Miss Wentstile for not making possible the union of two lovers so long
+and so faithfully attached. Society delights in the romantic in other
+people's families, and would have rolled as a sweet morsel under its
+tongue an elopement on the part of Jack and Alice, or any other sort of
+extravagant outcome. The marriage of his mother gave him a new
+consequence both by keeping his affairs in the public mind and by
+bringing about for him a connection with a man of money.
+
+Miss Wentstile was not of a character which was likely sensitively to
+feel or easily to receive these beneficent public sentiments. She was a
+woman who was entirely capable of originating her own emotions, a fact
+which in itself distinguished her as a rarity among her sex. No human
+being, however, can live in the world without being affected by the
+opinions of the world; and it is probable that Miss Wentstile, with all
+her independence, was more influenced by the thought of those about her
+than could be at all apparent.
+
+Mrs. Neligage declared to Jack that she meant to be very civil to the
+spinster.
+
+"She's a sort of cousin of Harry's, you know," she remarked; "and it
+isn't good form not to be on good terms with the family till after
+you're married."
+
+"But after the wedding," he responded with a lazy smile, "I suppose she
+must look out."
+
+Mrs. Neligage looked at him, laughing, with half closed eyes.
+
+"I should think that after the marriage she would do well to remember
+her place," was her reply. "I shall have saved her from the Count by
+that time, too; and that will give her a lesson."
+
+But Providence spared Mrs. Neligage the task of taking the initiative in
+the matter of the Count. One day in the latter part of April, just
+before the annual flitting by which all truly patriotic Bostonians elude
+the first of May and the assessors, the widow went to call on her
+prospective relative. Miss Wentstile was at home in the drawing-room
+with Alice and the Count. Tea had been brought in, and Alice was pouring
+it.
+
+"I knew I should be just in time for tea," Mrs. Neligage declared
+affably; "and your tea is always so delicious, Miss Wentstile."
+
+"How do you do, Louisa," was Miss Wentstile's greeting. "I wish you'd
+let me know when you are at home. I wouldn't have called yesterday if
+I'd supposed you didn't know enough to stay in to be congratulated."
+
+"I had to go out," Mrs. Neligage responded. "I was sorry not to see
+you."
+
+"There was a horrid dog in the hall that barked at me," Miss Wentstile
+continued. "You ought not to let your visitors be annoyed so."
+
+"It isn't my dog," the widow replied with unusual conciliation in her
+manner. "It belongs to those Stearnses who have the apartment opposite."
+
+"I can't bear other people's dogs," Miss Wentstile declared with superb
+frankness. "Fido was the only dog I ever loved."
+
+"Where is Fido?" asked the widow. "I haven't heard his voice yet."
+
+Miss Wentstile drew herself up stiffly.
+
+"I have met with a misfortune. I had to send dear Fido away. He would
+bark at the Count."
+
+Whatever the intentions of Mrs. Neligage to conciliate, Providence had
+not made her capable of resisting a temptation like this.
+
+"How interesting the instinct of animals is," she observed with an air
+of the most perfect ingenuousness. "They seem to know doubtful
+characters by intuition."
+
+"Doubtful characters?" echoed Miss Wentstile sharply. "Didn't Fido
+always bark at you, Louisa?"
+
+"Yes," returned the caller as innocently as ever. "That is an
+illustration of what I was saying."
+
+"Oh, Madame Neleegaze ees so continuously to be _drôle_!" commented the
+Count, with a display of his excellent teeth. "So she have to marry, ees
+eet not?"
+
+"Do you mean those two sentences to go together, Count?" Alice asked,
+with a twinkle of fun.
+
+He stood apparently trying to recall what he had said, in order to get
+the full meaning of the question, when the servant announced Mrs.
+Croydon, who came forward with a clashing of bead fringes and a rustling
+of stiff silk. She was ornamented, hung, spangled, covered, cased in jet
+until she might not inappropriately have been set bodily into a relief
+map to represent Whitby. She advanced halfway across the space to where
+Miss Wentstile sat near the hearth, and then stopped with a dramatic
+air. She fixed her eyes on the Count, who, with his feet well apart,
+stood near Miss Wentstile, stirring his tea, and diffusing abroad a
+patronizing manner of ownership.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Wentstile," Mrs. Croydon said in a voice a
+little higher than common, "I will come to see you again when you
+haven't an assassin in your house."
+
+There was an instant of utter silence. The remark was one well
+calculated to produce a sensation, and had Mrs. Croydon been an actress
+she might at that instant have congratulated herself that she held her
+audience spellbound. It was but for a flash, however, that Miss
+Wentstile was paralyzed.
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed the spinster, recovering the use of her
+tongue.
+
+"I mean," retorted Mrs. Croydon, extending her bugle-dripping arm
+theatrically, and pointing to the Count, "that man there."
+
+"Me!" cried the Count.
+
+"The Count?" cried Miss Wentstile an octave higher.
+
+"Ah!" murmured Mrs. Neligage very softly, settling herself more
+comfortably in her chair.
+
+"He tried to murder my husband," went on Mrs. Croydon, every moment with
+more of the air of a stage-struck amateur. "He challenged him!"
+
+"Your husband?" the Count returned. "Eet ees to me thees teeme first
+know what you have one husband, madame."
+
+"I thought your husband was dead, Mrs. Croydon," Miss Wentstile
+observed, in a voice which was like the opening of an outside door with
+the mercury below zero.
+
+Mrs. Croydon was visibly confused. Her full cheeks reddened; even the
+tip of her nose showed signs of a tendency to blush. Her trimmings
+rattled and scratched on the silk of her gown.
+
+"I should have said Mr. Barnstable," she corrected. "He was my husband
+once when I lived in Chicago."
+
+The Count, perfectly self-possessed, smiled and stirred his tea.
+
+"Ees eet dat de amiable Mrs. Croydon she do have a deeferent husband
+leek a sailor mans een all de harbors?" he asked with much deference.
+
+Mrs. Neligage laughed softly, leaning back as if at a comedy. Alice
+looked a little frightened. Miss Wentstile became each moment more
+stern.
+
+"Mr. Barnstable and I are to be remarried immediately," Mrs. Croydon
+observed with dignity. "It was for protecting me from the abuse of an
+anonymous novel that he offended you. You would have killed him for
+defending me."
+
+The Count waved his teaspoon airily.
+
+"He have eensult me," he remarked, as if disposing of the whole subject.
+"Then he was one great cowherd. He have epilogued me most abject."
+
+Mrs. Neligage elevated her eyebrows, and turned her glance to Mrs.
+Croydon, who stood, a much overdressed goddess of discord, still in the
+middle of the floor.
+
+"That is nonsense, Mrs. Croydon," she observed honeyedly. "Mr.
+Barnstable behaved with plenty of pluck. The apology was Jack's doing,
+and wasn't at all to your--your _fiancé's_ discredit."
+
+Miss Wentstile turned with sudden severity to Mrs. Neligage.
+
+"Louisa," she demanded, "do you know anything about this affair?"
+
+"Of course," was the easy answer. "Everybody in Boston knew it but you."
+
+The Count put his teacup on the mantelpiece. He had lost the jauntiness
+of his air, but he was still dignified.
+
+"Eet was one _affaire d'honneur_," he said.
+
+"But why was I not told of this?" Miss Wentstile asked sharply.
+
+"You?" Mrs. Croydon retorted with excitement. "Everybody supposed--"
+
+Mrs. Neligage rose quickly.
+
+"Really," she said, interrupting the speaker, "I must have another cup
+of tea."
+
+The interruption stopped Mrs. Croydon's remark, and Miss Wentstile did
+not press for its conclusion.
+
+"Count," the spinster asked, turning to that gentleman, who towered
+above her tall and lowering, "have you ever fought a duel?"
+
+The Count shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"All Shimbowski ees _hommes d'honneur_."
+
+She made him a frigid bow.
+
+"I have the honor to bid you good day," she said, with a manner so
+perfect that the absurdity of the situation vanished.
+
+The Count drew himself up proudly. Then he in his turn bowed profoundly.
+
+"You do eet too much to me honor," he said, with a dignity which was
+worthy of his family. "Ladies, _votre serviteur_."
+
+He made his exit in a manner to be admired. Mrs. Croydon feigned to
+shrink aside as he passed her, but Mrs. Neligage looked at her with so
+open a laugh at this performance that confusion overcame the dame of
+bugles, and she moved forward disconcerted. She had not yet gained a
+seat, when Miss Wentstile faced her with all her most unrestrained
+fashion.
+
+"I shouldn't think, Mrs. Croydon, that you, with the stain of a divorce
+court on you, were in position to throw stones at Count Shimbowski. He
+has done nothing but follow the customs to which he's been brought up."
+
+"Perhaps that's true of Mrs. Croydon too," murmured Mrs. Neligage to
+Alice.
+
+"If you wanted to tell me," Miss Wentstile went on, "why didn't you tell
+me when he was not here? No wonder foreigners think we are barbarians
+when a nobleman is insulted like that."
+
+"I didn't mean to tell you," Mrs. Croydon stammered humbly. "It just
+came out."
+
+"Why didn't you mean to tell me?" demanded Miss Wentstile, whose anger
+had evidently deprived her for the time being of all coolness.
+
+"Why, I thought you were engaged to him!" blurted out Mrs. Croydon,
+fairly crimson from brow to chin.
+
+"Engaged!" echoed Miss Wentstile, half breathless with indignation.
+
+Mrs. Neligage came to the rescue, cool and collected, entirely mistress
+of herself and of the situation.
+
+"Really, Mrs. Croydon," she suggested, smiling, "don't you think that is
+bringing Western brusqueness home to us in rather a startling way? We
+don't speak of engagements until they are announced, you know."
+
+"But Miss Wentstile told me the other day that she might announce one
+soon," persisted Mrs. Croydon, into whose flushed face had come a look
+of baffled obstinacy.
+
+Mrs. Neligage threw up her hands in a graceful little gesture. She
+played private theatricals infinitely better than Mrs. Croydon. There
+was in their art all the difference between the work of the most clumsy
+amateur and a polished professional.
+
+"There is nothing to do but to tell it," she said, as if appealing to
+Miss Wentstile and Alice. "The engagement was that of Miss Endicott and
+my son. Miss Wentstile never for a moment thought of marrying the Count.
+She knew from me that he gambled and was a famous duelist."
+
+Alice put out her hand suddenly, and caught that of the widow.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Neligage!" she cried.
+
+The widow patted the girl's fingers. The face of Miss Wentstile was a
+study for a novelist who identifies art with psychology.
+
+"Of course I ought not to have told, Alice," Mrs. Neligage went on; "but
+I'm sure Mrs. Croydon is to be trusted. It isn't fair to your aunt that
+this nonsensical notion should be abroad that she meant to marry the
+Count."
+
+Mrs. Croydon was evidently too bewildered to understand what had taken
+place. She awkwardly congratulated Alice, apologized to Miss Wentstile
+for having made a scene, and somehow got herself out of the way.
+
+"What an absolutely incredible woman! With the talent both she and Mr.
+Barnstable show for kicking up rows in society," observed Mrs. Neligage,
+as soon as the caller had departed, "I should think they would prevent
+any city from being dull. I trust they will pass the time till their
+next divorce somewhere else than here."
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE UNCLOUDING OF LOVE
+
+
+Miss Wentstile sat grimly silent until they heard the outer door
+downstairs close behind the departing guest. Then she straightened
+herself up.
+
+"I thank you, Louisa," she said gravely; "you meant well, but how dared
+you?"
+
+"Oh, I had to dare," returned Mrs. Neligage lightly. "I'm coming into
+the family, you know, and must help keep up its credit."
+
+"Humph!" was the not entirely complimentary rejoinder. "If you cared for
+the credit of the family why didn't you tell me about the Count sooner?
+Is he really a fast man?"
+
+"He's been one of the best known sports in Europe, my dear Miss
+Wentstile."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me then?"
+
+"Why should I? I wasn't engaged to Harry then, and if the Count wanted
+to reform and settle down, you wouldn't have had me thwart so virtuous
+an inclination, would you?"
+
+"I thought you wanted him to marry Alice!"
+
+"I only wanted Alice out of the way of Jack," the widow confessed
+candidly.
+
+"Why?" Miss Wentstile asked.
+
+The spinster was fond of frankness, and appreciated it when it came in
+her way.
+
+"Because I hated to have Jack poor, and I knew that if Alice married him
+you'd never give them a cent to live on."
+
+Alice, her face full of confusion and pain, moved uneasily, and put her
+hand on the arm of Mrs. Neligage once more, as if to stop her. The widow
+again patted the small hand reassuringly, but kept her eyes fixed full
+on those of the aunt.
+
+"You took a different turn to-day," the spinster observed suspiciously.
+
+"I had to save you to-day," was the ready answer; "and besides I can't
+do anything with Jack. He's bound to marry Alice whether you and I like
+it or not, and he's going to work in a bank in the most stupid manner."
+
+To hear the careless tone in which this was said nobody could have
+suspected that this speech was exactly the one which could most surely
+move the spinster, and that the astute widow must have been fully aware
+of it.
+
+"So you are sure I won't give Alice anything if she marries Jack, are
+you?" Miss Wentstile said. "Well, Alice, you are to marry Jack Neligage
+to save me from the gossips."
+
+"It seems to me," Alice said, blushing very much, "that if I can't have
+any voice in the matter, Jack might be considered."
+
+"Oh, my dear," returned Mrs. Neligage quickly, "do you suppose that if I
+made an alliance for Jack, he would be so undutiful as to object?"
+
+Alice burst into a laugh, but Miss Wentstile, upon whom, in her
+ignorance of the engagement between Jack and May, the point was lost,
+let it pass unheeded.
+
+"Well," she said, "I think I'll surprise you for once, Louisa. If Jack
+will stick faithfully to his place in the bank for a year, I'll give him
+and Alice the _dot_ I promised the Count."
+
+Mrs. Neligage got away from Miss Wentstile's as soon as possible,
+leaving Alice to settle things with her aunt, and taking a carriage at
+the next corner, drove to Jack's lodgings. She burst into his room
+tumultuously, fortunately finding him at home, and alone.
+
+"Oh, Jack," she cried, "I didn't mean to, but I've engaged you again!"
+
+He regarded her with a quizzical smile.
+
+"Matchmaking seems to be a vice which develops with your age," he
+observed. "I got out of the other scrape easily enough, and I won't deny
+that it was rather good fun. I hope that this isn't any worse."
+
+"But, Jack, dear, this time it's Alice!"
+
+"Alice!" he exclaimed, jumping up quickly.
+
+"Yes, it's Alice, and you ought to be grateful to me, for she's going to
+have a fortune, too."
+
+With some incoherency, for she was less self-contained than usual, Mrs.
+Neligage told him what had happened.
+
+"See what it is to have a mother devoted to your interests," she
+concluded. "You'd never have brought Miss Wentstile to terms. You ought
+to adore me for this."
+
+"I do," he answered, laughing, but kissing her with genuine affection.
+"I hope you'll be as happy as Alice and I shall be."
+
+"I only live for my child," returned she in gay mockery. "For your sake
+I'm going to be respectable for the rest of my life. What sacrifices we
+parents do make for our children!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late that evening Jack was taking his somewhat extended adieus of Alice.
+
+"After all, Jack," she said, "the whole thing has come out of the novel.
+We'll have a gorgeously bound copy of 'Love in a Cloud' always on the
+table to remind us--"
+
+"To remind us," he finished, taking the words out of her mouth with a
+laugh, "that our love has got out of the clouds."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The Riverside Press
+    PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON & CO.
+    CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
+    U.S.A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Books by Arlo Bates.
+
+
+LOVE IN A CLOUD. A Novel.
+
+THE PURITANS. A Novel.
+
+THE PHILISTINES. A Novel.
+
+THE PAGANS. A Novel.
+
+PATTY'S PERVERSITIES. A Novel.
+
+PRINCE VANCE. The Story of a Prince with a Court in his Box. By ARLO
+BATES and ELEANOR PUTNAM.
+
+A LAD'S LOVE.
+
+UNDER THE BEECH-TREE. Poems.
+
+TALKS ON WRITING ENGLISH.
+
+TALKS ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE.
+
+
+    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
+    BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42831 ***