Kitabı oku: «Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree», sayfa 6

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.