Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

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!"