The meditations of Mrs. Neligage in the watches of the night which followed the polo game must have been interesting, and could they be known might afford matter for amusement and study. It must be one of the chief sources of diversion to the Father of Evil to watch the growth in human minds and hearts of schemes for mischief. He has the satisfaction of seeing his own ends served, the entertainment of observing a curious and fascinating mental process, and all the while his vanity may be tickled by the reflection that it is he who will receive the credit for each cunningly developed plot of iniquity. That the fiend had been agreeably entertained on this occasion was to be inferred from the proceedings of Mrs. Neligage next morning, when the plans of the night were being carried into effect.
As early in the day as calling was reasonably possible, Mrs. Neligage, although it was Sunday, betook herself to see May Calthorpe. May, who had neither father nor mother living, occupied the family house on Beacon street, opposite the Common, having as companion a colorless cousin who played propriety, and for the most part played it unseen. The dwelling was rather a gloomy nest for so bright a bird as May. Respectability of the most austere New England type pervaded the big drawing-room where Mrs. Neligage was received. The heavy old furniture was as ugly as original sin, and the pictures might have ministered to the Puritan hatred for art. Little was changed from the days when May's grandparents had furnished their abode according to the most approved repulsiveness of their time. Only the brightness of the warm April sun shining in at the windows, and a big bunch of dark red roses in a crystal jug, lightened the formality of the stately apartment.
When May came into the room, however, it might have seemed that she had cunningly retained the old appointments as a setting to make more apparent by contrast her youthful fresh beauty. With her clear color, her dark hair, and sparkling eyes, she was the more bewitching amid this stately, sombre furniture, and in this gloomy old lofty room.
"My dear," Mrs. Neligage said, kissing her affectionately, "how well you look. I was dreadfully afraid I should find you worried and unhappy."
May returned her greeting less effusively, and seemed somewhat puzzled at this address.
"But why in the world should I look worried?" she asked.
Mrs. Neligage sat down, and regarded the other impressively in silence a moment before replying.
"Oh, my dear child," she said dramatically, "how could you be so imprudent?"
May became visibly paler, and in her turn sank into a chair.
"I don't know what you mean," she faltered.
"If you had lived in society abroad as much as I have, May," was the answer, delivered with an expressive shake of the head, "you would know how dreadfully a girl compromises herself by writing to a strange gentleman."
May started up, her eyes dilating.
"Oh, how did you know?" she demanded.
"The Count thinks the most horrible things," the widow went on mercilessly. "You know what foreigners are. It wouldn't have been so bad if it were an American."
Poor May put her hands together with a woeful gesture as if she were imploring mercy.
"Oh, is it the Count really?" she cried. "I saw that he had a red carnation in his buttonhole yesterday, but I hoped that it was an accident."
"A red carnation?" repeated Mrs. Neligage.
"Yes; that was the sign by which I was to know him. I said so in that letter."
It is to be doubted if the Recording Angel at that moment wrote down to the credit of Mrs. Neligage that she regretted having by chance stuck that flower in the Count's coat at the County Club.
"You poor child!" she murmured with a world of sympathy in her voice.
The touch was too much for May, who melted into tears. She was a simple-hearted little thing or she would never have written the unlucky letters to Christopher Calumus, and in her simplicity she had evidently fallen instantly into the trap set for her. She dabbed resolutely at her eyes with her handkerchief, but the fountain was too free to be so easily stanched.
"It will make a horrid scandal," Mrs. Neligage went on by way of comfort. "Oh, I do hate those dreadful foreign ways of talking about women. It used to make me so furious abroad that I wanted to kill the men."
May was well on the way to sobs now.
"Such things are so hard to kill, too," pursued the widow. "Everybody here will say there is nothing in it, but it will be repeated, and laughed about, and it will never be forgotten. That's the worst of it. The truth makes no difference, and it is almost impossible to live a thing of that sort down. You've seen Laura Seaton, haven't you? Well, that's just what ruined her life. She wrote some foolish letters, and it was found out. It always is found out; and she's always been in a cloud."
Mrs. Neligage did not mention that the letters which the beclouded Miss Seaton had written had been to a married man and with a full knowledge on her part who her correspondent was.
"Oh, Mrs. Neligage," sobbed May. "Do you suppose the Count will tell?"
"My dear, he showed me the letter."
"Oh, did he?" moaned the girl, crimson to the eyes. "Did you read it?"
"Read it, May? Of course not!" was the answer, delivered with admirable appearance of indignation; "but I knew the handwriting."
May was by this time so shaken by sobs and so miserable that her condition was pitiful. Mrs. Neligage glided to a seat beside her, and took the girl in her arms in a fashion truly motherly.
"There, there, May," said she soothingly. "Don't give way so. We must do something to straighten things out."
"Oh, do you think we could?" demanded May, looking up through her tears. "Can't you get that letter away from him?"
"I tried to make him give it to me, but he refused."
It really seemed a pity that the widow was not upon the stage, so admirably did she show sympathy in voice and manner. She caressed the tearful maiden, and every tone was like an endearment.
"Somebody must get that letter," she went on. "It would be fatal to leave it in the Count's possession. He is an old hand at this sort of thing. I knew about him abroad."
She might have added with truth that she had herself come near marrying him, supposing that he had a fortune to match his title, but that she had luckily discovered his poverty in time.
"But who can get it?" asked May, checking her tears as well as was possible under the circumstances.
"It must be somebody who has the right to represent you," Mrs. Neligage responded with an air of much impressiveness.
"Anybody may represent me," declared May. "Couldn't you do it, Mrs. Neligage?"
"My dear," the other answered in a voice of remonstrance, "a lady could hardly go to a man on an errand like that. It must be a man."
May dashed her hands together in a burst of impatience and despair.
"Oh, I don't see what you gave it to him for," she cried in a lamentable voice. "You might have known that I wouldn't have written it if I'd any idea that that old thing was Christopher Calumus."
"And I wouldn't have given it to him," returned Mrs. Neligage quietly, "if I'd had any idea that you were capable of writing to men you didn't know."
May looked as if the tone in which this was said or the words themselves had completed her demoralization. She was bewitching in her misery, her eyes swimming divinely in tears, large and pathetic and browner than ever, her hair ruffled in her agitation into tiny rings and pliant wisps all about her temples, her cheeks flushed and moist. Her mouth, with its trembling little lips, might have moved the sternest heart of man to compassion and to the desire at least of consoling it with kisses. The more firm and logical feminine mind of Mrs. Neligage was not, however, by all this loveliness of woe turned away from her purpose.
"At any rate," she went on, "the thing that can't be altered is that you have written the letter, and that the Count has it. I do pity you terribly, May; and I know Count Shimbowski, so I know what I'm saying. I came in this morning to say something to you, to propose something, that is; but I don't know how you'll take it. It is a way out of the trouble."
"If there's any way out," returned May fervently, "I'm sure I don't care what it is; I'm ready for it, if it's to chop off my fingers."
"It isn't that, my dear," Mrs. Neligage assured her with a suggestion of a laugh, the faint suggestion of a laugh, such as was appropriate to the direful situation only alleviated by the possibility which was to be spoken. "The fact is there's but one thing to do. You must let Jack act for you."
"Oh, will he, Mrs. Neligage?" cried May, brightening at once.
It has been noted by more than one observer of life that in times of trouble the mere mention of a man is likely to produce upon the feminine mind an effect notably cheering. Whether this be true, or a mere fanciful calumny of those heartless male writers who have never been willing to recognize that the real glory of woman lies in her being able entirely to ignore the existence of man, need not be here discussed. It is enough to record that at the sound of Jack's name May did undoubtedly rouse herself from the abject and limp despair into which she was completely collapsing. She caught at the suggestion as a trout snaps at the fisherman's fly.
"He will be only too glad to," said Mrs. Neligage, "if he has the right."
She paused and looked down, playing with the cardcase in her hands. She made a pretty show of being puzzled how to go on, so that the most stupid observer could not have failed to understand that there was something of importance behind her words. May began to knit her white forehead in an evident attempt to comprehend what further complication there might be in the affair under discussion.
"I must be plain," the widow said, after a slight, hesitating pause. "What I have to say is as awkward as possible, and of course it's unusual; but under the circumstances there's no help for it. I hope you'll understand, May, that it's only out of care for you that I'm willing to come here this morning and make a fool of myself."
"I don't see how you could make a fool of yourself by helping me," May said naïvely.
The visitor smiled, and put out a trimly gloved hand to pat the fingers of the girl as they lay on the chair-arm.
"No, that's the truth, May. I am trying to help you, and so I needn't mind how it sounds. Well, then; the fact is that there's one thing that makes this all very delicate. Whoever goes to the Count must have authority."
"Well, I'm ready to give Jack authority."
"But it must be the authority of a betrothed, my dear."
"What! Oh, Mrs. Neligage!"
May sat bolt upright and stiffened in her chair as if a wave of liquid air had suddenly gone over her.
"To send a man for the letters under any other circumstances would be as compromising as the letters in the first place. Besides, the Count wouldn't be bound to give them up except to yourfiancé."
"That horrid Count!" broke out May with vindictive irrelevancy. "I wish it was just a man we had to deal with!"
"Now Jack has been in love with you for a long time, my dear," pursued Jack's mother.
"Jack! In love with me? Why, he's fond of Alice."
"Oh, in a boy and girl way they've always been the best of friends. It's nothing more. He's in love with you, I tell you. What do you young things know about love anyway, or how to recognize it? I shouldn't tell you this if it weren't for the circumstances; but Jack is too delicate to speak when it might look as if he were taking advantages. He is furious about the letter."
"Oh, does he know too?" cried poor May. "Does everybody know?"
Her tears began again, and now Mrs. Neligage dried them with her own soft handkerchief, faintly scented with the especial eastern scent which she particularly affected. Doubtless a mother may be held to know something of the heart and the opinions of her only son, but as Jack had not, so far as his mother had any means of knowing, in the least connected May Calthorpe with the letter given to Count Shimbowski, it is perhaps not unfair to conclude that her maternal eagerness and affection had in this particular instance led her somewhat far. It is never the way of a clever person to tell more untruths than are actually needed by the situation, and it was perhaps by way of not increasing too rapidly her debit account on the books of the Recording Angel that Mrs. Neligage replied to this question of May's with an evasion,—an evasion, it is true, which was more effective than a simple, direct falsehood would have been.
"Oh, May dear, you don't know the horrid way in which those foreign rakes boast of what they call their conquests!"
The idea of being transformed from a human, self-respecting being into a mere conquest, the simple, ignominious spoils of the chase, might well be too much for any girl, and May became visibly more limp under it.
"The simple case is here," proceeded the widow, taking up again her parable with great directness. "Jack is fond of you; he is too delicate to speak of it, and he knows that this is a time when nobody but afiancéhas a right to meddle. If you had a brother, of course it would be different; but you haven't. Something must be done, and so I came this morning really to beg you, for Jack's sake and your own, to consent to an engagement."
"Did Jack send you?" demanded May, looking straight into the other's eyes.
Mrs. Neligage met the gaze fairly, yet there was a little hesitation in her reply. It might be that she considered whether the risk were greater in telling the truth or in telling a lie; but in the end it was the truth that she began with. Before she had got half through her sentence she had distorted it out of all recognition, indeed, but it is always an advantage to begin with what is true. It lends to any subsequent falsifying a moral support which is of inestimable value.
"He knows nothing of it at all," she confessed. "He is too proud to let anybody speak for him, just as under the circumstances he is too proud to speak for himself. Besides, he is poor, and all your friends would say he was after your money. No, nothing would induce him to speak for himself. He is very unhappy about it all; but he feels far worse for you than for himself. Dear Jack! He is the most generous fellow in the world."
"Poor Jack!" May murmured softly.
"Poor Jack!" the widow echoed, with a deep-drawn sigh. "It frightens me so to think what might happen if he hears the Count boasting in his insolent way. Foreigners always boast of their conquests! Why, May, there's no knowing what he might do! And the scandal of it for you! And what should I do if anything happened to Jack?"
Perhaps an appeal most surely touches the feminine heart if it be a little incoherent. A pedant might have objected that Mrs. Neligage in this brief speech altered the point of view with reckless frequency, but the pedant would by the effect have been proved to be wrong. The jumble of possibilities and of consequences, of woe to Jack, harm to May, and of general inconsolability on the part of the mother finished the conquest of the girl completely. She was henceforth only eager to do whatever Mrs. Neligage directed, and under the instigation of her astute counsellor wrote a note to the young man, accepting a proposal which he had never heard of, and imploring him as her accepted lover to rescue from the hands of Count Shimbowski the letter addressed to Christopher Calumus. It is not every orator, even among the greatest, who can boast of having achieved a triumph so speedy and so complete as that which gladdened the heart of Mrs. Neligage when, after consoling and cheering her promised daughter-in-law, she set out to find her son.
Simple were this world if it were governed by frankness, albeit perchance in some slight particulars less interesting. Certainly if straightforwardness ruled life, Mrs. Neligage would have fared differently in her efforts that morning. She would have had no opportunity in that case of displaying her remarkable astuteness, and she would have left the life-threads of divers young folk to run more smoothly. Knots and tangles in the lives of mortals are oftener introduced by their fellows than by the unkindly fingers of the Fates, although the blame must be borne by the weird sisters. The three might well stand aghast that forenoon to see the deftness with which Mrs. Neligage wrought her mischief. A fisherman with his netting-needle and a kitten playing with the twine together produce less complication of the threads than the widow that day brought about by the unaided power of her wits.
Jack Neligage had chambers with Fairfield in a semi-fashionable apartment-house. Both the young men had a certain position to maintain, and neither was blessed with means sufficient to do it without much stretching. Fairfield was industrious and Neligage was idle, which in the end was more favorable to the reputation of the former and to the enjoyment of the latter. Jack fared the better in material things, because the man who is willing to run into debt may generally live more expensively than he who strives to add to an inadequate income by the fruit of his toil.
On this particular morning Dick had gone to church in the vain hope of seeing May Calthorpe, while Jack was found by his mother smoking a cigarette over the morning paper. He had just finished his late breakfast, and opened his letters. The letters lay on the uncleared breakfast table in various piles. The largest heap was one made of bills torn to bits. Jack made it a matter of principle to tear up his bills as soon as they came. It saved trouble, and was, he said, a business-like habit. The second heap was composed of invitations to be answered; while advertisements and personal letters made the others. Jack received his mother with his usual joyous manner. It had been said of him that his continual good nature was better than an income to him. It certainly made him a favorite, it procured for him many an invitation, and it had even the effect of softening the hard heart of many a creditor. He was in appearance no less cheerful this morning for his talk with Wilson at the County Club or for the mysterious hints of ill which his mother had given him. It was all confoundedly awkward, he had commented to Fairfield before retiring on the previous night, but hang it, what good would it do to fret about it?
"Good-morning, mater," he greeted her. "You must have something mighty important on your mind to come flying round here at this time in the day."
"I have," she said, "and I want you to try for once in your life to take things seriously."
"Seriously!" was his answer. "Don't I always take things seriously? Or if I don't, it can't be in me, for I'm sure I have enough to make me serious. Look at that pile of bills there."
Mrs. Neligage walked to the table, inspected first the invitations, which she looked over with truly feminine attention, and then began to pick up pieces of the torn-up bills.
"How in the world, Jack, do you ever know what you owe?" she asked.
"Know what I owe? Gad! I wouldn't know that for the world. Sit down, and tell me what disagreeable thing brought you here."
"Why is it necessarily disagreeable?" she demanded, seating herself beside the table, and playing with the torn paper.
"You said yesterday that you were in a mess."
"Yes," she replied slowly; "but that was yesterday."
"Does that mean that you are out of it? So much the better."
Mrs. Neligage clasped her hands in her lap, and regarded her son with a strong and eager look.
"Jack," she began, "I want you to listen to me, and not interrupt. You must hear the whole thing before you begin to put in your word. In the first place, you are engaged to May Calthorpe."
The exclamation and the laugh which greeted this piece of information were so nearly simultaneous that Jack might be given the benefit of the doubt and so evade the charge of swearing before a lady.
"Why in the world, mother," he said, "must you come harping on that string again? You know it's of no use."
"You are engaged now, Jack, and of course that makes a difference."
"Oh, bother! Do speak sensibly. What are you driving at?"
The widow regarded him with a serene face, and settled herself more comfortably in her chair.
"I came to congratulate you on your engagement to Miss May Calthorpe," she said, with all possible coolness and distinctness.
"Indeed? Then I am sorry to tell you that you have wasted your labor. I haven't even seen May since we left the County Club yesterday."
"Oh, I knew that."
"What in the world are you driving at, mother? Perhaps you don't mind telling me who told you of the engagement."
"Oh, not in the least. May told me."
"May Calthorpe!"
It was not strange that Jack should receive the announcement with surprise, but it was evident that there was in his mind more bewilderment. He stared at his mother without further word, while she pulled off her gloves and loosened her coat as if to prepare herself for the explanation which it was evident must follow.
"Come, Jack," she remarked, when she had adjusted these preliminaries, "we may as well be clear about this. I made an offer in your name to May, and she has accepted it."
Jack rose from his seat, and stood over her, his sunny face growing pale.
"You made an offer in my name?" he demanded.
"Sit down," she commanded, waving her hand toward his chair. "There is a good deal to be said, and you'll be tired of standing before I tell it all. Is there any danger that Mr. Fairfield may come in?"
Jack walked over to the door and slipped the catch.
"He is not likely to come," he said, "but it's sure now. Fire away."
He spoke with a seriousness which he used seldom. There were times when lazy, good-tempered Jack Neligage took a stubborn fit, and those who knew him well did not often venture to cross him in those moods. The proverb about the wrath of a patient man had sometimes been applied to him. When these rare occasions came on which his temper gave way he became unusually calm and self-possessed, as he was now. It could not but have been evident to his mother that she had to do with her son in one of the worst of his rare rages. Perhaps the vexations of the previous days, the pile of torn bills on the table, the icy greeting Alice Endicott had given him yesterday, all had to do with the sudden outbreak of his anger, but any man might have been excused for being displeased by such an announcement as had just been made to Jack.
"I'm not going into your financial affairs, Jack," Mrs. Neligage remarked, with entire self-possession, "only that they count, of course."
"I know enough about them," he said curtly. "We'll take them for granted."
"Very well then—we will talk about mine. You've hinted once or twice that you didn't like the way I flirted with Sibley Langdon. I owe him six thousand dollars."
If the widow had been planning a theatrical effect in her coolly pronounced words, she had no reason to be disappointed at the result. Jack started to his feet with an oath, and glared at her with angry eyes.
"More than that," she went on boldly, though she cast down her glance before his, "the money was to save me from the consequences of—"
Her voice faltered and the word died on her lips. Jack stood as if frozen, staring with a hard face and lips tightly shut.
"Oh, Jack," she burst out, "why do you make me shame myself! Why can't you understand? I'm no good, Jack; but I'm your mother."
Actual tears were in her eyes, and her breath was coming quickly. It is always peculiarly hard to see a self-contained, worldly woman lose control of herself. The strength of emotion which is needed to shake such a nature is instinctively appreciated by the spectator, and affects him with a pain that is almost too cruel to be borne. Jack Neligage, however, showed no sign of softening.
"You must tell me the whole now," he said in a hard voice.
The masculine instinct of asserting the right to judge a woman was in his tone. She wiped away her tears, and choked back her sobs. A little tremor ran over her, and then she began again, speaking in a voice lower than before, but firmly held in restraint.
"It was at Monte Carlo five years ago," she said. "I was there alone, and the Countess Marchetti came. I'd known her a little for years, and we got to be very intimate. You know how it is with two women at a hotel. I'd been playing a little, just to keep myself from dying of dullness. Count Shimbowski was there, and he made love to me as long as he thought I had money, but he fled when I told him I hadn't. Well, one day the countess had a telegram that her husband had been hurt in hunting. She had just half an hour to get to the train, and she took her maid and went. Of course she hadn't time to have things packed, and she left everything in my care. Just at the last minute she came rushing in with a jewel-case. Her maid had contrived to leave it out, and she wouldn't take it. The devil planned it, of course. I told her to take it, but she wouldn't, and she didn't; and I played, and I lost, and I was desperate, and I pawned her diamond necklace for thirty thousand francs."
"And of course you lost that," Jack said in a hard voice, as she paused.
"Oh, Jack, don't speak to me like that! I was mad! I know it! The worst thing about the whole devilish business was the way I lost my head. I look back at it now, and wonder if I'm ever safe. It makes me afraid; and I never was afraid of anything else in my life. I'm not a 'fraid-cat woman!"
He gave no sign of softening, none of sympathy, but still sat with the air of a judge, cold and inexorable.
"What has all this to do with Sibley Langdon?" he asked.
"He came there just when the countess sent for her things. I was wild, and I went all to pieces at the sight of a home face. It was like a plank to a shipwrecked fool, I suppose. I broke down and told him the whole thing, and he gave me the money to redeem the necklace. He was awfully kind, Jack. I hate him—but he was kind. I really think I should have killed myself if he hadn't helped me."
"And you have never paid him?"
"How could I pay him? I've been on the ragged edge of the poorhouse ever since. I don't know if the poorhouse has a ragged edge," she added, with something desperately akin to a smile, "but if it has edges of course they must be ragged."
Few persons have ever made a confession, no matter how woeful the circumstances, without some sense of relief at having spoken out the thing which was festering in the secret heart. Shame and bitter contrition may overwhelm this feeling, but they do not entirely destroy it. Mrs. Neligage would hardly have been likely ever to tell her story save under stress of bitter necessity, but there was an air which showed that the revelation had given her comfort.
"Has he ever spoken of it?" asked Jack, unmoved by her attempted lightness.
"Never directly, and never until recently has he hinted. Jack," she said, her color rising, "he is a bad man!"
He did not speak, but his eyes plainly demanded more.
"The other day,—Jack, I've known for a long time that it was coming. I've hated him for it, but I didn't know what to do. It was partly for that that I went to Washington."
"Well?"
Mrs. Neligage was not that day playing a part which was entirely to be commended by the strict moralist. Certainly in her interview with May she had left much to be desired on the score of truthfulness and consideration for others. Hard must be the heart, however, which might not have been touched by the severity of the ordeal which she was now undergoing. Jack's clear brown eyes dominated hers with all the force of the man and the judge, while hers in vain sought to soften them; and the pathos of it was that it was the son judging the mother.
"I give you my word, Jack," she said, leaning toward him and speaking with deep earnestness, "that he has never said a word to me that you might not have heard. Silly compliments, of course, and fool things about his wife's not being to his taste; but nothing worse. Only now—"
Ruthless is man toward woman who may have violated the proprieties, but cruel is the son toward his mother if she may have dimmed the honor which is his as well as hers.
"Now?" he repeated inflexibly.
"Now he has hinted, he has hardly said it, Jack, but he means for me to join him in Europe this summer."
The red leaped into Jack's face and the blaze into his eyes. He rose deliberately from his chair, and stood tall before her.
"Are you sure he meant it?" he asked.
"He put in nasty allusions to the countess, and—Oh, he did mean it, Jack; and it frightened me as I have never been frightened in my life."
"I will horsewhip him in the street!"
She sprang up, and caught him by the arm.
"For heaven's sake, Jack, think of the scandal! I'd have told you long ago, but I was afraid you'd make a row that would be talked about. When I came home from Europe, and realized that all my property is in the hands of trustees so that I couldn't pay, I wanted to tell you; but I didn't know what you'd do. I'm afraid of you when your temper's really up."
He freed himself from her clasp and began to pace up and down, while she watched him in silence. Suddenly he turned to her.
"But this was only part of it," he said. "What was that stuff you were talking about my being engaged?"
She held out to him the note that May had written, and when he had read it explained as well as she could the scene which had taken place between her and May. She did not, it is true, present an account which was without variations from the literal facts, but no mortal could be expected to do that. She at least made it clear that she had bargained with the girl that the letter should be the price of an engagement. Jack heard her through, now and then putting in a curt question. When he had heard it all, he laughed angrily, and threw the letter on the floor.
"You have brought me into it too," he said. "We are a pair of unprincipled adventurers together. I've been more or less of a beat, but I've never before been a good, thorough-paced blackguard!"
She flashed upon him in an outburst of anger in her turn.
"Do you mean that for me?" she demanded. "The word isn't so badly applied to a man that can talk so to his mother! Haven't I been saving you as well as myself? As to May, any girl will love a husband that has character enough to manage her and be kind to her."
He was silent a moment, and when he spoke he waived the point.
"Do I understand," he said, "that you expect me to go to Count Shimbowski and announce myself as May's representative, and demand her letter?"
"Not at all," she answered, a droll expression of craftiness coming over her face. "Sit down, and let me tell you."
She resumed her own seat, and Jack, after whirling his chair around angrily, sat down astride of it, with his arms crossed on the back.
"There are letters and letters," Mrs. Neligage observed with a smile. "When Mrs. Harbinger gave me this one last night I began to see that it might be good for something. You are to exchange this with the Count. You needn't mention May's name."
Jack took the letter, and looked at it.
"This is to Barnstable," he said.
"Yes; he gave it to Letty to be shown to people. Barnstable is the silliest fool that there is about."
"And you think the Count would give up that letter for this?"
"I am sure he would if he thought there was any possibility that this might fall into the hands of Miss Wentstile."
"If it would send the damned adventurer about his business," growled Jack, "I'd give it to Miss Wentstile myself."
"Oh, don't bother about that. I can stop that affair any time," his mother responded lightly. "I've only to tell Sarah Wentstile what I've seen myself, and that ends his business with her."
"Then you'd better do it, and stop his tormenting Alice."
"I'll do anything you like, Jack, if you'll be nice about May."
He got up from his seat and walked back and forth a few turns, his head bowed, and his manner that of deep thought. Then he went to his desk and wrote a couple of notes. He read them over carefully, and filled out a check. He lit a cigarette, and sat pondering over the notes for some moments. At last he brought them both to his mother, who had sat watching him intently, although she had turned her face half away from him. Jack put the letters into her hand without a word.
The first note was as follows:—
Dear May,—My mother has just brought me your note, and I am going out at once to find the Count. I hope to bring you the letter before night. I need not tell you that I am very proud of the confidence you have shown in me and of the honor you do me. Until I see you it will, it seems to me, be better that you do not speak of our engagement.Very sincerely yours,John T. Neligage.
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.
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.
Jack's first care, after his mother had left him, was to dispatch a messenger to May with his note.
Then he set out in search of Dr. Wilson. After a little hunting he discovered the latter lunching at the club. Jack came straight to his business without any beating about the bush.
"Wilson," he said, "I've come on an extraordinary errand. I want you to lend me $6000 on the spot."
The other whistled, and then chuckled as was his good-humored wont.
"That's a good round sum," he answered.
"I know that a deuced sight better than you do," Neligage returned. "I've had more experience in wanting money. I'm in a hole, and I ask you to help me out of it. Of course I'm taking a deal of advantage of your good nature yesterday; and you may do as you like about letting me have the money. All the security I can give is to turn over to you the income of the few stocks I have. They 're all in the hands of trustees. My father left'em so."
"Gad, he knew his son," was the characteristic comment.
"You are right. He did. Can you let me have the money?"
The other considered a moment, and then said with his usual bluntness:—
"I suppose it's none of my business what you want of it?"
Jack flushed.
"It may be your business, Wilson, but I can't tell you."
The other laughed.
"Oh, well," he said, "if you've been so big a fool that you can't bear to tell of it, I'm not going to insist. I can't do anything better than to send you a check to-morrow. I haven't that amount in the bank."
Jack held out his hand.
"You're a trump, Wilson," he said. "I'd tell you the whole thing if it was my secret, but it isn't. Of course if you lose anything by moving the money, I'll be responsible for it. Besides that I want you to buy Starbright, if you care for him. Of course if you don't I can sell him easily enough. He's the best of the ponies."
"Then you're going to sell?"
"Clean out the whole thing; pay my debts, and leave the club."
"Oh, you mustn't do that."
"I'm going into a bank, and of course I shan't have any time to play."
Wilson regarded him with an amused and curious smile, playing with his fork meanwhile. Wilson was not by birth of Jack's world, having come into social position in Boston by his marriage with Elsie Dimmont, the richest young woman of the town. He and Jack had never been especially intimate, but Jack had always maintained that despite traces of coarseness in manner Wilson was sound at heart and essentially a good fellow. Perhaps the fact that in times past Neligage had not used his opportunities to patronize Wilson had something to do with the absence of anything patronizing in the Doctor's manner now.
"Well," Wilson said at length, "don't do anything rash. Your dues for the whole year are paid,—or will be when you square up, and you might as well get the worth of them. We need you on the team, so you mustn't go back on us if you can help it."
Matters being satisfactorily arranged both in relation to the loan and to the sale of the pony, Jack left Wilson, and departed in search of Count Shimbowski. Him he ultimately found at another club, and at once asked to speak with him alone on business.
"Count," he began when they were in one of the card-rooms, "I want to add a word to what I said to you yesterday."
"Each one word of Mr. Neleegaze eet ees treasured," the Count responded with a polite flourish of his cigarette.
"Since you wouldn't give me that letter," pursued Jack, acknowledging the compliment with a grin and a bow, "perhaps you'll be willing to exchange it."
"Exchange eet?" repeated the Hungarian. "For what weell eet be exchange'?"
Jack produced Barnstable's letter.
"I thought that you'd perhaps be willing to exchange it for this letter that's otherwise to be read and passed about. I fancy that the person who got it had Miss Wentstile particularly in mind as likely to be interested in it."
The touch showed Jack to be not without some of the astuteness of his mother.
"What weell eet be?" inquired the Count.
"I haven't read it," answered Jack, slowly drawing it from the envelope. "It is said to contain a full account of the life of Count Shimbowski."
"Sacré!"
"Exactly," acquiesced Jack. "It's a devilish shame that things can't be forgotten when they're done. I've found that out myself."
"But what weell be weetheen dat lettaire?"
Jack ran his eye down a page.
"This seems to be an account of a duel at Monaco," he returned. "On the next page—"
The Count stretched out his hand in protest.
"Eet ees not needed dat you eet to read," he said. "Eet ees leeklie lees."
"Oh, very likely it is lies. No story about a fellow is ever told right; but the worst things always get believed; and Miss Wentstile is very particular. She's deucedly down on me for a lot of things that never happened."
"Oh, but she ees extr'ordeenaire particle!" exclaimed the Count, with a shrug and a profane expletive. "She does not allow dat money be play for de card, she have say eet to me. She ees most extr'ordeenaire particle!"
"Then I am probably right, Count, in thinking you wouldn't care to have her read this letter?"
The Count twisted his silky mustache, looking both angry and rather foolish.
"Eet ees not dat eet ees mooch dat I have done," he explained. "You know what eet ees de leefe. A man leeves one way. But she, she ees so particle damned!"
Jack burst into a laugh that for the moment threatened to destroy the gravity with which he was conducting the interview; but he controlled his face, and went on.
"Since she is so damned particular," said he, "don't you think you'd better let me have the other letter for this? Of course I hate to drive you to a bargain, but I must have that other letter. I don't mind telling you that I'm sent after it by the one who wrote it."
"Den you weell know who have wrote eet?"
"Yes, of course I know, but I'm not going to tell."
The Count considered for a moment, and then slowly drew out the letter addressed to Christopher Calumus. He looked at it wistfully, with the air of a man who is reluctantly abandoning the clue to an adventure which might have proved enchanting.
"But eet weell look what I was one great villaine dat fear," he said.
"Nonsense," returned Neligage, holding out the letter of Barnstable for exchange. "We know both sides of the business. All there is to it is that we both understand what a crochety old maid Miss Wentstile is."
Count Shimbowski smiled, and the exchange was effected. Jack turned May's letter over in his hand, and found it unopened.
"You're a gentleman, Count," he said, offering his hand.
"Of de course," the other replied, with an air of some surprise. "I am one Shimbowski."
"Well, I'm obliged to you," observed Jack, putting the letter in his pocket. "I'll try to keep gossip still."
"Oh, eet ees very leek," Shimbowski returned, waving his hand airily, "dat when I have read heem I geeve eet to Mees Wentsteele for one's self. Eet ees very leekly."
"All right," Jack laughed. "I'd like to see her read it. So long."
With the vigor which belongs to an indolent man thoroughly aroused, Jack hunted up Tom Harbinger before the day was done, and sold to him his second best pony. Then he went for a drive, and afterward dined at the club with an appetite which spoke a conscience at ease or not allowed to make itself heard. He did not take the time for reflection which might have been felt necessary by many men in preparation for the interview with May Calthorpe which must come before bedtime. Indeed he was more than usually lively and busy, and as he had a playful wit, he had some difficulty in getting the men at the club to let him go when soon after eight in the evening he set out for May's. He had kept busy from the moment his mother had left him in the morning, and on his way along Beacon street, he hummed to himself as if still resolved to do anything rather than to meditate.
May came into the sombre drawing-room looking more bewitchingly pretty and shy than can be told in sober prose. She was evidently frightened, and as she came forward to give her hand to Neligage the color came and went in her cheeks as if she were tremblingly afraid of the possibilities of his greeting. Jack's smile was as sunny as ever when he stepped forward to take her hand. He simply grasped it and let it go, a consideration at which she was visibly relieved.
"Well, May," Jack said laughingly, "I understand that we are engaged."
"Yes," she returned faintly. "Won't you sit down?"
She indicated a chair not very near to that upon which she took her own seat, and Jack coolly accepted the invitation, improving on it somewhat by drawing his chair closer to hers.
"I got the letter from the Count," he went on.
She held out her hand for it in silence. He took the letter from his pocket, and held it as he spoke again, tapping it on his knee by way of emphasis.
"Before I give it to you, May," he remarked in a voice more serious than he was accustomed to use, "I want you to promise me that you will never do such a thing again as to write to a stranger. You are well out of this—"
She lifted her eyes with a quick look of fear in them, as if it had flashed into her mind that if she were out of the trouble over the letter she had escaped this peril only to be ensnared into an engagement with him. The thought was so plain that Jack burst into a laugh.
"You think that being engaged to me isn't being well out of anything, I see," he observed merrily and mercilessly; "but there might be worse things than that even. We shall see. You'll be awfully fond of me before we are through with this."
The poor girl turned crimson at this plain reading of her thought. She was but half a dozen years younger than Jack, but he had belonged to an older set than hers, and under thirty half a dozen years seems more of a difference in ages than appears a score later in life. It was not to be expected that she would be talkative in this strange predicament in which she found herself, but what little command she had of her tongue might well vanish if Jack was to read her thoughts in her face. She rallied her forces to answer him.
"I know that for doing so foolish a thing," she said, "I deserved whatever I get."
"Even if it's being engaged to me," responded he with a roar. "Well, to be honest, I think you do. I don't know what the Count might have done if he had read the letter, but—"
"Oh," cried May, clasping her hands with a burst of sunshine in her face, "didn't he read it? Oh, I'm so glad!"
"No," Jack answered, "the Count's too much of a gentleman to read another man's letters when he hasn't been given leave. But what have you to say about my reading this letter?"
"Oh, you can't have read it!" May cried breathlessly.
"Not yet; but as we are engaged of course you give me leave to read it now."
She looked for a moment into his laughing eyes, and then sprang up from her chair with a sudden burst of excitement.
"Oh, you are too cruel!" she cried. "I hate you!"
"Come," he said, not rising, but settling himself back in his chair with a pose of admiring interest, "now we are getting down to nature. Have you ever played in amateur theatricals, May?"
She stood struck silent by the laughing banter of his tone, but she made no answer.
"Because, if you ever do," he continued in the same voice, "you'll do well to remember the way you spoke then. It'll be very fetching in a play."
The color faded in her cheeks, and her whole manner changed from defiance to humiliation; her lip quivered with quick emotion, and an almost childish expression of woe made pathetic her mobile face. She dropped back into her chair, and the tears started in her eyes.
"Oh, I don't think you've any right to tease me," she quavered in a voice that had almost escaped from control. "I'm sure I feel bad enough about it."
Jack's face sobered a little, although the mocking light of humor did not entirely vanish from his eyes.
"There, there," he said in a soothing voice; "don't cry, May, whatever you do. The modern husband hates tears, but instead of giving in to them, he gets cross and clears out. Don't cry before the man you marry, or," he added, a fresh smile lighting his face, "even before the man you are engaged to."
"I didn't mean to be so foolish," May responded, choking down her rebellious emotions. "I'm all upset."
"I don't wonder. Now to go back to this letter. Of course I shouldn't think of reading it without your leave, but I supposed you'd think it proper under the circumstances to tell me to read it. I thought you'd say: 'Dearest, I have no secrets from thee! Read!' or something of that sort, you know."
He was perhaps playing now to cheer May up, for he delivered this in a mock-heroic style, with an absurd gesture. At least the effect was to evoke a laugh which came tear-sparkling as a lark flies dew-besprent from a hawthorn bush at morn.
She rallied a little, and spoke with more self-command.
"Oh, that was the secret of a girl that wasn't engaged to you," she said, "and had no idea of being; no more," she added, dimpling, "than I had."
Jack showed his white teeth in what his friends called his "appreciative grin."
"Perhaps you're right," he returned. "By the way, do you know who Christopher Calumus really is?"
She colored again, and hung her head.
"Yes," she murmured, in a voice absurdly low. "Mrs. Harbinger told me last night. He told her yesterday at the County Club."
"Does he know who wrote to him?"
Her cheeks became deeper in hue, and her voice even lower yet.
"Yes, he found out from Mrs. Harbinger."
"Well, I must say I thought that Letty Harbinger had more sense!"
"She didn't mean to tell him."
"No woman ever meant to tell anything," he retorted in good-humored sarcasm; "but they always do tell everything. Then if you and Dick both know all about it, perhaps I had better give the letter to him."
He offered to put the letter into his pocket, but she held out her hand for it beseechingly.
"Oh, don't give it to anybody else," she begged. "Let me put it into the fire, and be through with it. It's done mischief enough!"
"It may have done some good too," he said enigmatically. "I hope nothing worse will ever happen to you, May, than to be engaged to me. I give you my word that, as little as you imagine it, it's your interest and not my own I'm looking after. However, that's neither here nor there."
He put the letter into his pocket without farther comment, disregarding her imploring look. Then he rose, and held out his hand.
"Good-night," he said. "Some accepted lovers would ask for a kiss, but I'll wait till you want to kiss me. You will some time. Good-night. You'll remember what I wrote you about mentioning our engagement."
She had at the mention of kisses become more celestial rosy red than in the whole course of that blushful interview, but at his last word her color faded as quickly as it had come.
"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, "I had told one person before your note came. She won't tell though."
"Being a 'she,'" he retorted mockingly.
"Oh, it was only Alice," May explained, "and of course she can be trusted."
It was his turn to become serious, and in the cloud on his sunny face there was not a little vexation.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Of all the women in Boston why must you pick out the one that I was most particular shouldn't know! You girls have an instinct for mischief."
"But I wrote to her as soon as your note came; besides, she has promised not to say anything. She won't tell."
"No; she won't tell," he echoed moodily. "What did she say?"
May cast down her eyes in evident embarrassment.
"Oh, it's no matter," Jack went on. "She wouldn't say half as hard things as she must think. However, it's all one in the end. Good-night."
With this abrupt farewell he left his betrothed, and went hastily out into the spring night, with its velvety darkness and abundant stars. The mention of Alice Endicott had robbed him of the gay spirits in which he had carried on his odd interview with May. The teasing jollity of manner was gone as he walked thoughtfully back to his chambers.
He found Fairfield in their common parlor.
"Dick," he said without preface, "congratulate me. I'm engaged."
"Engaged!" exclaimed the other, jumping up and extending his hand. "Congratulations, old fellow. Of course it's Alice Endicott."
"No," his friend responded coolly; "it's May Calthorpe."
"What!" cried Fairfield, starting back and dropping his hand before Neligage had time to take it. "Miss Calthorpe? What do you mean?"
"Just as I say, my boy. The engagement is a secret at present, you understand. I thought you'd like to know it, though; and by the way, it'll show that I've perfect confidence in you if I turn over to you the letter that May wrote to you before we were engaged. That one to Christopher Calumus, you know."
"But," stammered his chum, apparently trying to collect his wits, scattered by the unexpected news and this strange proposition, "how can you tell what's in it?"
"Tell what's in it, my boy? It isn't any of my business. That has to do with a part of her life that doesn't belong to me, you know. It's enough for me that she wrote the letter for you to have, and so here it is."
He put the envelope into the hands of Dick, who received it as if he were a post-box on the corner, having no choice but to take any missive thrust at him.
"Good-night," Jack said. "I'm played out, and mean to turn in. Thanks for your good wishes."
And he ended that eventful day, so far as the world of men could have cognizance, by retiring to his own room.
Barnstable seemed bound to behave like a bee in a bottle, which goes bumping its idiotic head without reason or cessation. On Monday morning after the polo game he was ushered into the chambers of Jack and Dick, both of whom were at home. He looked more excited than on the previous day, and moved with more alacrity. The alteration was not entirely to his advantage, for Mr. Barnstable was one of those unfortunates who appear worse with every possible change of manner.
"Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield," was the visitor's greeting. "Damme if I'll say good-morning to you, Mr. Neligage."
Jack regarded him with languid astonishment.
"Well," he said, "that relieves me of the trouble of saying it to you."
Barnstable puffed and swelled with anger.
"Damme, sir," he cried, "you may try to carry it off that way, but—"
"Good heavens, Mr. Barnstable," interrupted Fairfield, "what in the world do you mean?"
"Is it your general custom," drawled Jack, between puffs of his cigarette, "to give a Wild West show at every house you go into?"
Dick flashed a smile at his chum, but shook his head.
"Come, Mr. Barnstable," he said soothingly, "you can't go about making scenes in this way. Sit down, and if you've anything to say, say it quietly."
Mr. Barnstable, however, was not to be beguiled with words. He had evidently been brooding over wrongs, real or fancied, until his temper had got beyond control.
"Anything to say?" he repeated angrily,—"I've this to say: that he has insulted my wife. I'll sue you for libel, damme! I've a great mind to thrash you!"
Jack grinned down on the truculent Barnstable from his superior height. Barnstable stood with his short legs well apart, as if he had to brace them to bear up the enormous weight of his anger; Jack, careless, laughing, and elegant, leaned his elbow on the mantle and smoked.
"There, Mr. Barnstable," Fairfield said, coming to him and taking him by the arm; "you evidently don't know what you're saying. Of course there's some mistake. Mr. Neligage never insulted a lady."
"But he has done it," persisted Barnstable. "He has done it, Mr. Fairfield. Have you read 'Love in a Cloud'?"
"'Love in a Cloud'?" repeated Dick in manifest astonishment.
"You must know the book, Dick," put in Jack wickedly. "It's that rubbishy anonymous novel that's made so much talk lately. It's about a woman whose husband's temper was incompatible."
"It's about my wife!" cried Barnstable. "What right had you to put my wife in a book?"
"Pardon me," Neligage asked with the utmost suavity, "but is it proper to ask if it was your temper that was incompatible?"
"Shut up, Jack," said Dick hastily. "You are entirely off the track, Mr. Barnstable. Neligage didn't write 'Love in a Cloud.'"
"Didn't write it?" stammered the visitor.
"I give you my word he didn't."
Barnstable looked about with an air of helplessness which was as funny as his anger had been.
"Then who did?" he demanded.
"If Mr. Barnstable had only mentioned sooner that he wished me to write it," Jack observed graciously, "I'd have been glad to do my best."
"Shut up, Jack," commanded Dick once more. "Really, Mr. Barnstable, it does seem a little remarkable that you should go rushing about in this extraordinary way without knowing what you are doing. You'll get into some most unpleasant mess if you keep on."
"Or bring up in a lunatic asylum," suggested Jack with the most unblushing candor.
Barnstable looked from one to the other with a bewildered expression as if he were just recovering his senses. He walked to the table and took up a glass of water, looked around as if for permission, and swallowed it by uncouth gulps.
"Perhaps I'd better go," he said, and turned toward the door.
"Oh, by the way, Mr. Barnstable," Jack observed as the visitor laid his hand on the door-knob, "does it seem to you that it would be in good form to apologize before you go? If it doesn't, don't let me detain you."
The strange creature turned on the rug by the door, an abject expression of misery from head to feet.
"Of course I'd apologize," he said, "if it was any use. When my temper's up I don't seem to have any control of what I do, and what I do is always awful foolish. This thing's got hold of me so I don't sleep, and that's made me worse. Of course you think I'm a lunatic, gentlemen; and I suppose I am; but my wife—"
The redness of his face gave signs that he was not far from choking, and out of his fishy eyes there rolled genuine tears. Jack stepped forward swiftly, and took him by the hand.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barnstable," he said. "Of course I'd no idea what you were driving at. Will you believe me when I tell you something? I had nothing to do with writing 'Love in a Cloud,' but I do know who wrote it. I can give you my word that the author didn't have your story in mind at all."
"Are you sure?" stammered Barnstable.
"Of course I'm sure."
"Then there is nothing I can do," Barnstable said, shaking his head plaintively. "I've just made a fool of myself, and done nothing for her."
The door closed behind Barnstable, and the two young men looked at each other a moment. Neither laughed, the foolish tragedy of the visitor's last words not being mirth-provoking.
"Well, of all the fools I've seen in my life," Jack commented slowly, "this is the most unique specimen."
"I'm afraid I can't blame the divorced Mrs. Barnstable," responded Dick; "but there's something pathetic about the ass."
It seemed the fate of Barnstable that day to afford amusement for Jack Neligage. In the latter part of the afternoon Jack sauntered into the Calif Club to see if there were anything in the evening papers or any fresh gossip afloat, and there he encountered the irascible gentleman once more. Scarcely had he nodded to him than Tom Harbinger and Harry Bradish came up to them.
"Hallo, Jack," the lawyer said cordially. "Anything new?"
"Not that I know of," was the response. "How are you, Bradish?"
"How are you?" replied Bradish. "Mr. Barnstable, I've called twice to-day at your rooms."
"I am sorry that I was out," Barnstable answered with awkward politeness. "I have been here since luncheon."
"I'm half sorry to find you now," Bradish proceeded, while Harbinger and Jack looked on with some surprise at the gravity of his manner. "I've got to do an errand to you that I'm afraid you'll laugh at."
"An errand to me?" Barnstable returned.
Bradish drew out his pocket-book, and with deliberation produced a note. He examined it closely, as if to assure himself that there was no mistake about what he was doing, and then held out the missive to Barnstable.
"Yes," he said, "I have the honor to be the bearer of a challenge from the Count Shimbowski, who claims that you have grossly insulted him. Will you kindly name a friend? There," he concluded, looking at Harbinger and Neligage with a grin, "I think I did that right, didn't I?"
"Gad!" cried Jack. "Has the Count challenged him? What a lark!"
"Nonsense!" Harbinger said. "You can't be serious, Bradish?"
"No, I'm not very serious about it, but I assure you the Count is."
"Challenged me?" demanded Barnstable, tearing open the epistle. "What does the dago mean? He says—what's that word?—he says his honor ex—expostulates my blood. Of course I shan't fight."
Bradish shook his head, although he could not banish the laughter from his face.
"Blood is what he wants. He says he shall have to run you through in the street if you won't fight."
"Oh, you'll have to fight!" put in Jack.
"The Count's a regular fire-eater," declared Tom. "You wouldn't like to be run through in the street, Barnstable."
Barnstable looked from one to another as if he were unable to understand what was going on around him.
"Curse it!" he broke out, his face assuming its apoplectic redness. "Curse those fellows that write novels! Here I've got to be assassinated just because some confounded scribbler couldn't keep from putting my private affairs in his infernal book! It's downright murder!"
"And the comic papers afterward," murmured Jack.
"But what are you going to do about it?" asked Tom.
"You might have the Count arrested and bound over to keep the peace," suggested Bradish.
"That's a nice speech for the Count's second!" cried Jack with a roar.
"What am I going to do?" repeated Barnstable. "I'll fight him!"
He struck himself on the chest, and glared around him, while they all stood in astonished silence.
"My wife has been insulted," he went on with fresh vehemence, "and I had a right to call the man that did it a villain or anything else! I owe it to her to fight him if he won't take it back!"
"Gad!" said Jack, advancing and holding out his hand, "that's melodrama and no mistake; but I like your pluck! I'll back you up, Barnstable!"
"Does that mean that you'll be his second, Jack?" asked Harbinger, laughing.
"There, Tom," was the retort, "don't run a joke into the ground. When a man shows the genuine stuff, he isn't to be fooled any longer."
Bradish followed suit, and shook hands with Barnstable, and Harbinger after him.
"You're all right, Barnstable," Bradish observed; "but what are we to do with the Count?"
"Oh, that ass!" Jack responded. "I'd like to help duck him in a horse-pond; but of course as he didn't write the book, Mr. Barnstable won't mind apologizing for a hasty word said by mistake. Any gentleman would do that."
"Of course if you think it's all right," Barnstable said, "I'd rather apologize; but I'd rather fight than have any doubt about the way I feel toward the whelp that libelized my wife."
Jack took him by the shoulder, and spoke to him with a certain slow distinctness such as one might use in addressing a child.