Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree
"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: —