Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

"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."