Wrath of celestial goddesses darkened the face of Mrs. Croydon as a white squall blackens the face of the sky. Her eyes glared with an expression as fierce if not as bright as the lightning.
"What do you say?" she screamed. "Challenge my husband?"
"Your husband!" ejaculated Dick, a staring statue of surprise.
"Yes, my husband," she repeated vehemently. "He didn't make a fool of himself that day! A man can't come to the defense of a woman but you men sneer at him. Do you mean that that beastly foreign ape dared to challenge him for that? I'd like to give him my opinion of him!"
When a man finds himself entertaining a wildcat unawares he should either expel the beast or himself take safety in flight. Dick could apparently do neither. He stood speechless, gazing at the woman before him, who seemed to be waxing in fury with every moment and every word. She swept across the short space between them in a perfect hurricane of streamers, and almost shook her fists in his face.
"I understand it all now," she said. "You were in it from the beginning! I suppose that when you worked on my books you took the trouble to find out about me, and that's where your material came from for your precious 'Love in a Cloud.' Oh, my husband will deal with you!"
Fairfield looked disconcerted enough, as well he might, confronted with a woman who was apparently so carried away by anger as to have lost all control of herself.
"Mrs. Croydon," he said, with a coldness and a dignity which could not but impress her, "I give you my word that I never knew anything about your history. That was none of my business."
"Of course it was none of your business!" she cried. "That's just what makes it so impertinent of you to be meddling with my affairs!"
Fairfield regarded her rather wildly.
"Sit down, please," he said beseechingly. "You mustn't talk so, Mrs. Croydon. Of course I haven't been meddling with your affairs, and—"
"And not to have the courage to say a word to prevent my husband's being dragged into a duel with that foreigner! Oh, it does seem as if I couldn't express my opinion of you, Mr. Fairfield!"
"My dear Mrs. Croydon—"
"And as for Erastus Barnstable," she rushed on to say, "he's quick-tempered, and eccentric, and obstinate, and as dull as a post; he never understood me, but he always meant well; and I won't have him abused."
"I hadn't any idea of abusing him," Dick pleaded humbly. "Really, you are talking in an extraordinary fashion."
She stopped and glared at him as if with some gleam of returning reason. Her face was crimson, and her breath came quickly. Women of society outside of their own homes so seldom indulge in the luxury of an unbecoming rage that Dick had perhaps never before seen such a display. Any well-bred lady knows how to restrain herself within the bounds of personal decorum, and to be the more effective by preserving some appearance of calmness. Mrs. Croydon had evidently lacked in her youth the elevating influence of society where good manners are morals. It was interesting for Dick, but too extravagantly out of the common to be of use to him professionally.
"I hope you are proud of your politeness this morning," Mrs. Croydon ended by saying; and without more adieu she fluttered tumultuously to the door.
The fierce light of publicity which nowadays beats upon society has greatly lessened the picturesqueness of life. There is no longer the dusk favorable to crime, and the man who wishes to be wicked, if careful of his social standing, is constantly obliged to be content with mere folly, or, if desperate, with meanness. It is true that from time to time there are still those, even in the most exclusive circles, who are guilty of acts genuinely criminal, but these are not, as a rule, regarded as being in good form. The days when the Borgias invited their enemies to dinner for the express purpose of poisoning them, or visited nobles rich in money or in beautiful wives and daughters with the amiable intent to rob them of these treasures, are over, apparently forever. In the sixteenth century—to name a time typical—success made an excuse more than adequate for any moral obliquity; and the result is that the age still serves thrillingly the romantic dramatist or novel-writer. To-day success is held more than to justify iniquity in politics or commerce, but the social world still keeps up some pretext of not approving. There is in the best society really a good deal of hesitation about inviting to dinner a man who has murdered his grandmother or run away with the wife of his friend. Society is of course not too austere in this respect; it strives to be reasonable, and it recognizes the principle that every transaction is to be judged by the laws of its own class. In the financial world, for instance, conscience is regulated by the stock market, and society assumes that if a crime has been committed for the sake of money its culpability depends chiefly upon the smallness of the amount actually secured. Conservative minds, however, still object to the social recognition of a man who has notoriously and scandalously broken the commandments. He who has not the skill or the good taste to display the fruits of his wickedness without allowing the process by which they were obtained to be known, is looked at askance by these prudish souls. In all this state of things is great loss to the romancer, and not a little disadvantage to bold and adventurous spirits. Were the latter but allowed the freedom which was enjoyed by their forerunners of the sixteenth century, they would do much to relieve the tedium under which to-day the best society languishes.
This tendency of the age toward the suppression of violent and romantic transgressions in good society was undoubtedly largely responsible for the course taken by Sibley Langdon. Foiled in his plan of blackmailing Mrs. Neligage into being his companion on a European tour, he attempted revenge in a way so petty that even the modern novelist, who stops at nothing, would have regarded the thing as beneath invention.
Mr. Langdon had sent Mrs. Neligage her canceled note, with a floridly worded epistle declaring that its real value, though paid, was lost to him, since it lay in her signature and not in the money which the document represented. This being done, he had called once or twice, but the ignominy of living at the top of a speaking-tube carries with it the advantage of power to escape unwelcome callers, and he never found Mrs. Neligage at home. When they met in society Mrs. Neligage treated him with exactly the right shade of coolness. She did not give rise to any gossip. The infallible intuition of her fellow women easily discovered, of course, that there was an end of the old intimacy between the widow and Mr. Langdon, but nobody had the satisfaction of being able to perceive anything of the nature of a quarrel.
They met one evening at a dinner given by Mrs. Chauncy Wilson. The dinner was not large. There were Mr. and Mrs. Frostwinch, Mrs. Neligage, Alice Endicott, Count Shimbowski, and Mr. Langdon. The company was somewhat oddly assorted, but everybody understood that Mrs. Wilson did as she pleased, leaving social considerations to take care of themselves. She had promised Miss Wentstile, who still clung to the idea of marrying Alice to the Count, that she would ask the pair to dinner; and having done so, she selected her other guests by some principle of choice known only to herself.
The dinner passed off without especial incident. The Count took in Alice, and was by her treated with a cool ease which showed that she had come to regard him as of no consequence whatever. She chatted with him pleasantly enough at the proper intervals, but more of her attention was given to Mr. Frostwinch, her neighbor on the other side. She would never talk with the Count in French, although she spoke that tongue with ease, and his wooing, such as it was, had to be carried on in his joint-broken English. The engagement of May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield, just announced, and the appearance of "Love in a Cloud" with the author's name on the title-page, were the chief subjects of conversation. The company were seated at a round table, so that the talk was for the most part general, and each person had something to add to the little ball of silken-fibred gossip as it rolled about. Mr. Frostwinch was May's guardian, and a man of ideas too old-fashioned to discuss his ward or her affairs in any but the most general way; yet even he did now and then add a word or a hint.
"They say," Mrs. Wilson observed, "that there's some kind of a romantic story behind the engagement. Mrs. Neligage, you ought to know—is it true that Richard Fairfield got Jack to go and propose for him?"
"If he did," was the answer, "neither you nor I will ever know it from Jack. He's the worst to get anything out of that I ever knew. I think he has some sort of a trap-door in his memory to drop things through when he doesn't want to tell them. I believe he contrives to forget them himself."
"You can't conceive of his holding them if he did remember them, I suppose," chuckled Dr. Wilson.
"Of course he couldn't. No mortal could."
"That's as bad as my husband," observed Mrs. Frostwinch, with a billowy motion of her neck, a movement characteristic and perhaps the result of unconscious cerebration induced by a secret knowledge that her neck was too long. "I tried to get out of him what Mr. Fairfield said when he came to see him about May; and I give you my word that after I'd worn myself to shreds trying to beguile him, I was no wiser than before."
"I tell you so entirely all my own secrets, Anna," her husband answered, "that you might let me keep those of other people."
"Indeed, I can't help your keeping them," was her reply. "That's what I complain of. If I only had a choice in the matter, I shouldn't mind."
"If Jack Neligage is in the way of proposing," Langdon observed in his deliberate manner, "I should think he'd do it for himself."
"Oh, bless you," Mrs. Neligage responded quickly, "Jack can't afford to marry. I've brought him up better than to suppose he could."
"Happy the man that has so wise a mother," was Langdon's comment.
"If you don't believe in marriages without money, Mrs. Neligage," asked Mrs. Wilson, "what do you think of Ethel Mott and Thayer Kent?"
"Just think of their marrying on nothing, and going out to live on a cattle ranch," put in Mrs. Frostwinch. "I wonder if Ethel will have to milk?"
Dr. Wilson gave a laugh full of amusement.
"They don't milk on cattle ranches," he corrected. "She may have to mount a horse and help at a round-up, though."
"Well, if she likes that kind of a burial," Mrs. Neligage said, "it's her own affair, I suppose. I'd rather be cremated."
"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," Mr. Frostwinch observed genially. "They'll have a piano, and that means some sort of civilization."
"I suppose she'll play theranz des vacheson the piano," Mrs. Wilson laughed.
"Of course it's madness," Langdon observed, "but they'll like it for a while. I can't understand, though, how Miss Mott can be so foolish. I always supposed she was rather a sensible girl."
"Does this prove that she isn't?" asked Alice.
"Don't you think a girl that leaves civilization, and goes to live in the wilderness just to follow a man, shows a lack of cleverness?"
The seriousness of the tone in which Alice had asked her question had drawn all eyes in her direction, and it might easily be that the knowledge of the interest which she was supposed to have in penniless Jack Neligage would in any case have given to her words especial mark.
"That depends on what life is for," Alice answered now, in her low, even voice. "If she is happier with Thayer Kent on a cattle ranch than she would be anywhere else without him, I think she shows the best kind of sense."
"But think what a stupid life she'll lead," Langdon persisted. "She doesn't know what she's giving up."
"Eet eestrès romanesque," declared the Count, "but eet weel to betriste. Weell she truthfully ride de cow?"
Politely veiled laughter greeted this sally, except from Dr. Wilson, who burst into an open guffaw.
"She'll be worth seeing if she does!" he ejaculated.
Mrs. Frostwinch bent toward Alice with undulating neck.
"You are romantic, of course, Alice," she remarked, "and you look at it like a girl. It's very charming to be above matter-of-fact considerations; but when the edge is worn off—"
She sighed, and shook her head as if she were deeply versed in all the misfortunes resulting from an impecunious match; her manner being, of course, the more effective from the fact that everybody knew that she had never been able to spend her income.
"But what is life for?" Alice said with heightened color. "If people are happy together, I don't believe that other things matter so much."
"For my part," Mrs. Wilson declared, "I think it will be stunning! I wish I were going out to live on a ranch myself, and ride a cow, as the Count says. Chauncy, why don't we buy a ranch? Think how I'd look on cow-back!"
She gave the signal to rise, and the ladies departed to the drawing-room, where they talked of many things and of nothing until the gentlemen appeared. Mr. Langdon placed himself so that he faced Mrs. Neligage across the little circle in which the company chanced to arrange itself.
"We've been talking of adventures," he said, "and Mr. Frostwinch says that nobody has any nowadays."
"I only said that they were uncommon," corrected Mr. Frostwinch. "Of course men do have them now and then, but not very often."
"Men! Yes, they have them," Mrs. Wilson declared; "but there's no chance nowadays for us poor women. We never get within sight of anything out of the common."
"You're enough out of the common to do without it, Elsie," laughed her husband.
"Madame Weelson ees an adventure eetself," the Count put in gallantly.
Mr. Langdon raised his head deliberately, and looked over to Mrs. Neligage.
"You could tell them differently, Mrs. Neligage," he said. "Your experience at Monte Carlo, now; that was far enough out of the common."
Her color went suddenly, but she met his eyes firmly enough.
"My adventures?" she returned. "I never had an adventure. I'm too commonplace a person for that."
"You don't do yourself justice," Langdon rejoined. "You haven't any idea how picturesque you were that night."
Telepathy may or may not be established on a scientific basis, but it is certain that there exists some occult power in virtue of which intelligence spreads without tangible means of communication. There was nothing in the light, even tones of Langdon to convey more intimation than did his words that mischief was afoot, yet over the group in Mrs. Wilson's drawing-room came an air of intentness, of alert suspense. No observer could have failed to perceive the general feeling, the perception that Langdon was preparing for some unusual stroke. The atmosphere grew electric. Mr. Frostwinch and his wife became a shade more grave than was their wont. They were both rather proper folk, and proper people are obliged to be continually watching for indecorums, lest before they are aware their propriety have its fine bloom brushed away. The Count moved uneasily in his chair. The unpleasant doubts to which he had been exposed as to how his own past would affect a Boston public might have made him the more sympathetic with Mrs. Neligage, and the fact that he had seen her at the tables at Monte Carlo could hardly fail to add for him a peculiar vividness to Langdon's words. Doctor and Mrs. Wilson were both openly eager. Alice watched Mrs. Neligage intently, while the widow faced Langdon with growing pallor.
"Madame Neleegaze ees all teemes de peecture," declared Count Shimbowski gallantly. "When more one teeme eet ees de oder?"
"She was more picturesque that time than another," laughed Langdon, by some amazing perception getting at the Count's meaning. "I'm going to tell it, Mrs. Neligage, just to show what you are capable of. I never admired anything more than I did your pluck that night. It's nonsense to say that women have less grit than men."
"Less grit!" cried Mrs. Wilson. "They have a hundred times more. If men had the spunk of women or women had the strength of men—"
"Then amen to the world!" broke in her husband. "Don't interrupt. I want to hear Langdon's story."
Alice Endicott had thus far said nothing, but as Langdon smiled as if to himself, and parted his lips to begin, she stopped him.
"No," she said, "he shan't tell it. If it is Mrs. Neligage's adventure, she shall tell it herself."
Mrs. Neligage flashed a look of instant comprehension, of gratitude, to Alice, and the color came back into her cheeks. She had been half cowering before the possibility of what Langdon might be intending to say, but this chance of taking matters into her own hands recalled all her self-command. Her eyes brightened, and she lifted her head.
"It isn't much to tell," she began, "and it isn't at all to my credit."
"I protest," interpolated Langdon. "Of course she won't tell a story about herself for half its worth."
"Be quiet," Alice commanded.
The eyes of all had been turned toward Mrs. Neligage at her last words, but now everybody looked at Alice. It was not common to see her take this air of really meaning to dominate. In her manner was a faint hint of the commanding manner of her aunt, although without any trace of Miss Wentstile's arrogance. She was entirely cool and self-possessed, although her color was somewhat brighter than usual. The words that had been spoken were little, yet the hearer heard behind them the conflict between herself and Langdon.
"I am not to be put down so," he persisted. "I don't care much about telling that particular story, but I can't allow you to bully me so, Miss Endicott."
"Go on, Mrs. Neligage, please," Alice said, quite as if she were mistress of ceremonies, and entirely ignoring Langdon's words except for a faint smile toward him.
"My adventure, as Mr. Langdon is pleased to call it," Mrs. Neligage said, "is only a thing I'm ashamed of. He is trying to make me confess my sins in public, apparently. He came on me one night playing at Monte Carlo when I lost a lot of money. He declares he watched me an hour before I saw him, but as I didn't play more than half that time—"
"I told you she would spoil the story," interrupted Langdon, "I—"
"You shall not interrupt, Mr. Langdon," Alice said, as evenly and as commandingly as before.
"Oh, everybody he play at Monte Carlo," put in the Count. "Not to play, one have not been dere."
"I've played," Mrs. Wilson responded. "I think it's the greatest fun in the world. Did you win, Mrs. Neligage?"
"Win, my dear," returned the widow, who had recovered perfectly her self-command; "I lost all that I possessed and most that I didn't. I wonder I ever got out of the place. The truth is that I had to borrow from Mr. Langdon to tide me over till I could raise funds. Was that what you wanted to tell, Mr. Langdon? You were the real hero to lend it to me, for I might have gone to playing again, and lost that too."
Langdon was visibly disconcerted. To have the tables so turned that it seemed as if he were seeking a chance to exploit his own good deeds left him at the mercy of the widow. Mrs. Neligage had told in a way everything except the matter of the necklace, and no man with any pretense of being a gentleman could drag that in now. It might have been slid picturesquely into the original story, whether that were or were not Mr. Langdon's intention; but now it was too late.
"I don't see where the pluck came in," pronounced Dr. Wilson.
"Oh, I suppose that was the stupid way in which I kept on losing," Mrs. Neligage explained. "I call it perfect folly."
"Again I say that I knew she'd spoil the story," Langdon said with a smile.
The announcement of carriages, and the departure of the Frostwinches brought the talk to an end. When Mrs. Neligage had said good-night and was leaving the drawing-room, Langdon stood at the door.
"You got out of that well," he said.
She gave him a look which should have withered him.
"It is a brave man that tries to blacken a woman's name," she answered; and went on her way.
In the dressing-room was Alice, who had gone a moment before. Mrs. Neligage went up to her and took her by the arms.
"How did you know that I needed to have a plank thrown to me?" she demanded. "Did I show it so much?"
Alice flushed and smiled.
"If I must tell the truth," she answered, "you looked just as I saw Jack look once in a hard place."
Mrs. Neligage laughed, and kissed her.
"Then it was Jack's mother you wanted to help. You are an angel anyhow. I had really lost my head. The story was horrid, and I knew he'd tell it or hint it. It wasn't so bad," she added, as Alice half shrank back, "but that I'll tell it to you some time. Jack knows it."
Miss Wentstile was as accustomed to having her way as the sun is to rising. She had made up her mind that Alice was to marry Count Shimbowski, and what was more, she had made her intention perfectly plain to her friends. It is easily to be understood that her temper was a good deal tried when it became evident that she could not force her niece to yield. Miss Wentstile commanded, she remonstrated, she tried to carry her will with a high hand by assuming that Alice was betrothed, and she found herself in the end utterly foiled.
"Then you mean to disobey me entirely," she said to Alice one day.
"I have tried all my life to do what you wanted, Aunt Sarah," was the answer, "but this I can't do."
"You could do it if you chose."
Alice was silent; and to remain silent when one should offer some sort of a remark that may be disputed or found fault with or turned into ridicule is one of the most odious forms of insubordination.
"Why don't you speak?" demanded Miss Wentstile sharply. "Haven't I done enough for you to be able to get a civil answer out of you?"
"What is there for me to say more, Aunt Sarah?"
"You ought to say that you would not vex and disobey me any more," declared her Aunt. "Here I have told everybody that I should pass next summer at the Count's ancestral castle in Hungary, and how can I if you won't marry him?"
"You might marry him yourself."
Her aunt glared at her angrily, and emitted a most unladylike snort of contempt.
"You say that to be nasty," she retorted; "but I tell you, miss, that I've thought of that myself. I'm not sure I shan't marry him."
Alice regarded her in a silence which drew forth a fresh volley.
"I suppose you think that's absurd, do you? Why don't you say that I'm too old, and too ugly, and too ridiculous? Why don't you say it? I can see that you think it; and a nice thing it is to think, too."
"If you think it, Aunt Sarah," was the demure reply, "there's no need of my saying it."
"I think it? I don't think it! I'm pleased to know at last what you think of me, with your meek ways."
The scene was more violent than usually happened between aunt and niece, as it was the habit of Alice to bear in silence whatever rudeness it pleased Miss Wentstile to inflict. Not that the spinster was accustomed to be unkind to the girl. So long as there was no opposition to her will, Miss Wentstile was in her brusque way generous and not ill-natured. Now that her temper was tried to the extreme, her worst side made itself evident; and Alice was wise in attempting to escape. She rose from the place where she had been sewing, and prepared to leave the room.
"Go to your room by all means," the spinster said bitterly, regarding her with looks of marked disfavor. "All I have to say is this: if I do marry the Count, and you find yourself without a home, you'll have nobody but yourself to thank for it. I'm sure you've had your chance."
Whether the antique heart of the spinster had cherished the design of attempting to glide into the place in the Count's life left vacant by the refusal of her niece is a fact known only to her attendant angels, if she had any. Certain it is that within twenty-four hours she had summoned that nobleman to her august presence.
"Count," she said to him, "I can't express to you how distressed I am that my niece has put such a slight on you. She is absolutely determined not to marry."
The Count as usual shrugged his shoulders, and remarked in mangled English that in America there was no authority; and that in his country the girl would not have been asked whether she was determined to marry or not. Her determination would have made no difference.
"That is the way it should be here," Miss Wentstile observed with feeling; "but it isn't. The young people are brought up to have their own way, no matter what their elders wish."
"Then she weell not to marry wid me?" he asked.
"No, there's no hope of it. She is as obstinate as a rock."
There was a brief interval of silence in which the Count looked at Miss Wentstile and Miss Wentstile looked at the floor.
"Count Shimbowski," she said at last, raising her eyes, "of course it doesn't make much difference to you who it is you marry if you get the money."
He gave a smile half of deprecation, and spread out his hands.
"One Shimbowski for dedotmarries," he acknowledged, "but eet ees not wid all weemeens. Dat ees not honor."
"Oh, of course I mean if your wife was a lady."
"Eet ees for dedotonly one Shimbowski would wid all Amereecans marry," he returned with simple pride.
Miss Wentstile regarded him with a questioning look.
"I am older than my niece," she went on, "but mydotwould be half a million."
The whole thing was so entirely a matter of business that perhaps it was not strange that she spoke with so little sign of emotion. Most women, it is true, would hardly come so near to proposing to a man without some frivolous airs of coquetry; but Miss Wentstile was a remarkable and exceptional woman, and her air was much that in which she might have talked of building a new house.
"Ees eet dat de wonderful Mees Wentsteele would marry wid me for all datdot?"
Miss Wentstile took him up somewhat quickly.
"I don't say that I would, Count," she returned; "but since you've been treated so badly by my niece, I thought I would talk with you to see how the idea struck you."
"Oh, eet weell be heavenly sweet to know what we weell be mine for all datdot," the Count asserted, bowing with his hand on his heart.
She smiled somewhat acidly, and yet not so forbiddingly as to daunt him.
"If we are yours what is there left for me?" she asked.
"Ah," the Count sighed, with a shake of his head, "dat Engleesh—"
"Never mind," she interrupted, "I understand that if I do marry you I get the name and not much else."
"But de name!" he cried with fervor. "De Shimbowski name! Oh, eet ees dat de name weell be older dan dere was any mans een dees country."
"I dare say that is true," she responded, smiling more pleasantly. "My sentiments for the name are warm enough."
"Desentimentsof de esteemfully Mees Wentsteele ees proud for me," he declared, rising to bow. "Ees eet dat we weell marry wid me? Mees Wentsteele ees more detracteeve for me wid herdotdan Mees Endeecott. Eet ees mooch more detracteeve."
"Well," Miss Wentstile said, rising also, "I thought I would see how the idea struck you. I haven't made up my mind. My friends would say I was an old fool, but I can please myself, thank heaven."
The Count took her hand and bowed over it with all his courtly grace, kissing it respectfully.
"Ah," he told her, echoing her words with unfortunate precision, "one old fool ees so heavenly keend!"
Miss Wentstile started, but the innocence of his intention was evident, and she offered no correction. She bade him good-by with a beaming kindness, and for the rest of the day carried herself with the conscious pride of a woman who could be married if she would.
For the next few days there was about Miss Wentstile a new atmosphere. She snubbed her niece with an air of pride entirely different from her old manner. She dropped hints about there being likely to be a title in the family after all, and as there could be no mystery what she must mean she attempted mystification by seeming to know things about the Count and his family more magnificent than her niece had ever dreamed of. She sent to a school of languages for an instructor in Hungarian, and when none was to be found at once, she purchased a grammar, and ostentatiously studied it before Alice. Altogether she behaved as idiotically as possible, and whether she really intended to go to the extreme of marrying Count Shimbowski and endowing him with her fortune or not, she at least contrived to make her friends believe that she was prepared to go to any length in her absurdity.
The announcement of the engagement of Dick Fairfield and May Calthorpe, which was made at once, of course produced the usual round of congratulatory festivities. May, as it is the moral duty of every self-respecting Bostonian to be, was related to everybody who was socially anybody, and great were the number of dinners which celebrated her decision to marry. It was too late in the season for balls, but that was of little consequence when she and her betrothed could have dined in half a dozen places on the same night had the thing been physically possible.
The real purpose of offering multitudinous dinners to a couple newly engaged has never been fully made clear. On first thought it might seem as if kindness to young folk newly come to a knowledge of mutual love were best shown by letting them alone to enjoy the transports inevitable to their condition. Society has decided otherwise, and keeps them during the early days of their betrothal as constantly as possible in the public eye. Whether this custom is the result of a fear lest the lovers, if left to themselves, might too quickly exhaust their store of fondness, or of a desire to enhance for each the value of the other by a display of general appreciation, were not easy to decide. A cynic might suggest that older persons feel the wisdom of preventing the possibility of too much reflection, or that they give all publicity to the engagement as a means of lessening the chances of any failure of contract. More kindly disposed reasoners might maintain that these abundant festivities are but testimony to the truth of Emerson's declaration that "all the world loves a lover." Philosophy, in the mean time, leaning neither to cynicism on the one hand nor to over-optimism on the other, can see in these social functions at least the visible sign that society instinctively recognizes in the proposed union a contract really public, since while men and women love for themselves they marry for the state.
Alice Endicott and Jack Neligage were naturally asked to many of these dinners, and so it came about that they saw a good deal of each other during the next few weeks. Their recent disagreement at first bred a faint coolness between them, but Jack was too good-natured long to keep up even the pretense of malice, and Alice too forgiving to cherish anger. The need, too, of hiding from the public all unpleasantness would in any case have made it necessary for them to behave as usual, and it is one of the virtues of social conventions that the need of being outwardly civil is apt to blunt the edge of secret resentments. Of course a healthy and genuine hate may be nourished by the irksomeness of enforced suavity, but trifling pique dies a natural death under outward politeness. Alice and Jack were not only soon as friendly as ever, but either from the reaction following their slight misunderstanding or from the effect of the sentimental atmosphere which always surrounds an engaged couple, their attitude became more confidential and friendly than ever.
They sat side by side at a dinner in which the Harbingers were officially testifying their satisfaction in the newly announced engagement. Jack had been doing his duty to the lady on the other side, and turned his face to Alice.
"What is worrying you?" he asked, his voice a little lowered.
She looked at him with a smile.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked. "I was flattering myself that I'd been particularly frolicsome all the evening."
"You have; that's just it."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that you've had to try."
"You must have watched me pretty closely," she remarked, flushing a little, and lowering her glance.
"Oh, I know you so well that I don't need to; but to be sure I have kept my eyes on you."
She played with her fork as if thinking, while his look was fixed on her face.
"I didn't think I was so transparent," she said. "Do you suppose other people noticed me?"
"Oh, no," he responded. "You don't give me credit for my keenness of perception. But what's the row?"
"Nothing," was her answer, "only—Well, the truth is that I've had a talk with Aunt Sarah that wasn't very pleasant. Jack, I believe she's going to marry the Count."
"I'm glad of it," was his laughing response. "He'll make her pay for all the nasty things she has done. He'll be a sort of public avenger."
Alice became graver. She shook her head, smiling, but with evident disapproval.
"You promised me long ago that you wouldn't say things against Aunt Sarah."
"No, I never did," he declared impenitently. "I only said that I'd try not to say things to you about her that would hurt your feelings."
"Well, weren't you saying them then?"
"That depends entirely upon your feelings; but if they are so sensitive, I'll say I am delighted that the 'venerated Mees Wentsteele,' as the Count calls her, is at last to be benefited by the discipline of having a master."
Alice laughed in spite of herself.
"She won't enjoy that," she declared. "Poor Aunt Sarah, she's been very kind to me, Jack. She's really good-hearted."
"You can't tell from the outside of a chestnut burr what kind of a nut is inside of it," retorted he; "but if you say she is sound, it goes. She's got the outside of the burr all right."
The servant with a fresh course briefly interrupted, and when they had successfully dodged his platter Jack went back to the subject.
"Is it proper to ask what there was in your talk that was especially unpleasant,—not meaning that she was unpleasant, of course, but only that with your readiness to take offense you might have found something out of the way."
Alice smiled faintly as if the question was too closely allied to painful thoughts to allow of her being amused.
"She is still angry with me," she said.
"For giving her a husband? She's grateful."
"No, it isn't that. She can't get over my not doing what she wanted."
"You've done what she wanted too long. She's spoiled. She thinks she owns you."
"Of course it's hard for her," Alice murmured.
"Hard for her? It's just what she needed. What is she going to do about it I'd like to know?"
Alice looked at him with a wistful gravity.
"If I tell you a secret," she said in a low tone, "can I trust you?"
"Of course you can," was the answer. "I should think that by this time, after May's engagement, you'd know I can keep still when I've a mind to."
Jack's chuckle did not call a smile to her face now. She had evidently forgotten for the moment the need of keeping up a smiling appearance in public; her long lashes drooped over cheeks that had little color in them, and her mouth was grave.
"She was very severe to-night," Alice confided to her companion. "She said—Oh, Jack, what am I to do if she goes away and leaves me without a home? She said that as of course I shouldn't want to go with her to Hungary, she didn't know what would become of me. She wanted to know if I could earn my living."
"The infernal old—" began Jack; then he checked himself in time, and added: "You shall never want a home while—" but an interruption stopped him.
"Jack," called Tom Harbinger from the other end of the table, "didn't the Count say: 'Stones of a feather gather no rolls'?"
The society mask slipped in a flash over the faces of Alice and Jack. The latter had ready instantly a breezy laugh which might have disarmed suspicion if any of the company had seen his recent gravity.
"Oh, Tom," he returned, "it wasn't so bad as that. He said: 'Birds of one feder flock to get eet.' I wish I had a short-hand report of all his sayings."
"He told me at the club," put in Mrs. Harbinger, improving on the fact by the insertion of an article, "that Miss Wentstile was 'an ext'rdeenaire particle.' I hope you don't mind, Alice?"
"Nothing that the Count says could affect me," was the answer.
Having the eyes of the ladies in her direction, Mrs. Harbinger improved the opportunity to give the signal to rise, and the talk between Alice and Jack was for that evening broken off.
"Jack," Mrs. Neligage observed one morning when her son had dropped in, "I hope you won't mind, but I've decided to marry Harry Bradish."
Jack frowned slightly, then smiled. Probably no man is ever greatly pleased by the idea that his mother is to remarry; but Jack was of accommodating temper, and moreover was not without the common sense necessary for the acceptance of the unpalatable. He trimmed the ashes from the cigarette he was smoking, took a whiff, and sent out into the air an unusually neat smoke-ring. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the involving wreath until it was shattered upon the ceiling and its frail substance dissolved in air.
"Does Bradish know it?" he inquired.
"Oh, he doesn't suspect it," answered she. "He'll never have an idea of such a thing till I tell him, and then he won't believe it."
Jack laughed, blew another most satisfactory smoke-ring, and again with much deliberation watched it ascend to its destruction.
"Then you don't expect him to ask you?" he propounded at length.
"Ask me, Jack? He never could get up the courage. He'd lie down and die for me, but as for proposing—No, if there is to be any proposing I'm afraid I should have to do it; so we shall have to get on without."
"It wouldn't be decorous for me to ask how you mean to manage, I suppose."
"Oh, ask by all means if you want to, Jacky dear; but never a word shall I tell you. All I want of you is to say you aren't too much cut up at the idea."
"I've brought you up so much to have your own way," Jack returned in a leisurely fashion, "that I'm afraid it's too late to begin now to try to control you. I wish you luck."
They were silent for some minutes. Mrs. Neligage had been mending a glove for her son, and when she had finished it, she rose and brought it to him. She stood a minute regarding him with an unwonted softness in her glance.
"Dear boy," she said, with a tender note in her voice, "I haven't thanked you for the money you sent Langdon."
He threw his cigarette away, half turning his face from her as he did so.
"It's no use to bring that up again," he said. "I'm only sorry I couldn't have the satisfaction of kicking him."
She shook her head.
"I've wanted you to a good many times," returned she, "but that's a luxury that we couldn't afford. It would cost too much." She hesitated a moment, and added: "It must have left you awfully hard up, Jack."
"Oh, I'm going into the bank. I'm a reformed man, you know, so that doesn't matter. If I can't play polo what good is money?"
His mother sighed.
"I do wish Providence would take my advice about giving the money round," she remarked impatiently. "Things would be a great deal better arranged."
"For us they would, I've no doubt," he assented with a grin.
"When do you go into that beastly old bank?" she asked.
"First of the month. After all it won't be so much worse than being married."
"You must be awfully hard up," she said once more regretfully.
"Oh, I'm always hard up. Don't bother about that."
She stooped forward and kissed him lightly, an unusual demonstration on her part, and stood brushing the crisp locks back from his forehead. He took her hand and pulled her down to kiss her in turn.
"Really, mater," he observed, still holding her hand, "we're getting quite spoony. Does the idea of marrying Harry Bradish make you sentimental?"
She smiled and did not answer, but withdrew her hand and returned to her seat by the window. She took up a bit of sewing, and folded down on the edge of the lawn a tiny hem.
"When I am married," she observed, the faint suspicion of a blush coming into her cheek, "I can pay that money back to you. Harry is rich enough, and generous enough."
Jack stopped in the lighting of a fresh cigarette, and regarded her keenly.
"Mother," he said in a voice of new seriousness, "are you marrying him to get that money for me?"
"I mean to get it for you," she returned, without looking up.
Again he began to send rings of smoke to break on the ceiling above, and meanwhile she fixed her attention on her sewing. The noise of the carriages outside, the profanity of the English sparrows quarreling on the trees, and the sound of a distant street-organ playing "Cavalleria" came in through the open window.
"Mother," he said, "I won't have it."
"Won't have what?"
"I won't have you marry Harry Bradish."
"Why not?"
"Do you think," he urged, with some heat, "that I don't see through the whole thing? You are bound to help me out, and I won't have you do it."
The widow let her sewing fall into her lap, and turned her face to the window.
"How will you help it?" she asked softly.
"I'll stop it in one way or another. I tell you—"
But she turned toward him a face full of confusion and laughter.
"Oh, Jack, you old goose, I've been fond of Harry Bradish for years, only I didn't dare show it because—"
"Because what?"
"Because Sibley Langdon was so nasty if I did," she returned, her tone hardening. "You don't know," she went on, the tone changing again like a flute-note, "what a perfect dear Harry is. I've teased him, and snubbed him, and bullied him, and treated him generally like a fiend, and he's been as patient, and as sweet—Why, Jack, he's a saint beside me! He's awkward, and as stupid as a frog, but he's as good as gold."
Jack's face had darkened at the mention of Langdon, but it cleared again, and his sunny smile came back once more. He sent out a great cloud of smoke with an entire disregard of the possibilities of artistic ring-making which he sacrificed, and chuckled gleefully.
"All right, mater," he said, "if that's the state of things I've nothing more to say. You may even fleece him for my benefit if you want to."
He rose as he spoke, and went over to where his mother was sitting. With heightened color, she had picked up her sewing, and bent over it so that her face was half hidden.
"Who supposed there was so much sentiment in the family," he remarked. "Well, I must go down town. Good-by. I wish you joy."
They kissed each other with a tenderness not customary, for neither was much given to sentimental demonstrations; and Jack went his way.
It has been remarked by writers tinged with cynicism that a widow who wishes to remarry is generally able to do a large part of whatever wooing is necessary. In the present case, where the lady had frankly avowed her intention of doing the whole, there was no reason why the culmination should be long delayed. One day soon after the interview between Mrs. Neligage and her son, the widow and Harry Bradish were at the County Club when they chanced to come into the parlor just in time to discover May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield, when the lover was kissing his lady's hand. Mrs. Neligage was entirely equal to the situation.
"Yes, Mr. Bradish," she observed, looking upward, "you were right, this ceiling is very ugly."
"I didn't say anything about the ceiling," he returned, gazing up in amazement, while Dick and May slipped out at another door.
She turned to him with a countenance of mischief.
"Then you should have said it, stupid!" she exclaimed. "Didn't you see Dick and May?"
"I saw them go out. What of it?"
"Really, Harry," she said, falling into the name which she had called him in her girlhood, "you should have your wits about you when you stumble on young lovers in a sentimental attitude."
"I didn't see what they were doing. I was behind you."
"Oh, he had her hand," explained she, extending hers.
Bradish took it shyly, looking confused and mystified. The widow laughed in his face.
"What are you laughing at?" he asked.
"What do you suppose he was doing?" Mrs. Neligage demanded. "Now you have my hand, what are you going to do with it?"
He dropped her hand in confusion.
"I—I just took it because you gave it to me," he stammered. "I was only going—I was going to—"
"Then why in the world didn't you?" she laughed, moving quickly away toward the window which opened upon the piazza.
"But I will now," he exclaimed, striding after.
"Oh, now it is too late," she declared teasingly. "A woman is like time. She must be taken by the forelock."
"But, Mrs. Neligage, Louisa, I was afraid of offending you!"
"Nothing offends a woman so much as to be afraid of offending her," was her oracular reply, as she flitted over the sill.
All the way into town that sunny April afternoon Harry Bradish was unusually silent. While Mrs. Neligage, in the highest spirits, rattled on with jest, or chat, or story, he replied in monosyllables or in the briefest phrases compatible with politeness. He was evidently thinking deeply. The very droop of his yellow mustaches showed that. The presence of the trig little groom at the back of the trap was a sufficient reason why Bradish should not then deliver up any confidential disclosures in regard to the nature of his cogitations, but from time to time he glanced at the widow with the air of having her constantly in his thoughts.
Bradish was the most kindly of creatures, and withal one of the most self-distrustful. He was so transparent that there was nothing surprising in the ease with which one so astute as Mrs. Neligage might read his mood if she were so disposed. He cast upon her looks of inquiry or doubt which she gave no sign of perceiving, or now and then of bewilderment as if he had come in his thought to a question which puzzled him completely. During the entire drive he was obviously struggling after some mental adjustment or endeavoring to solve some deep and complicated problem.
The day was enchanting, and in the air was the exciting stir of spring which turns lightly the young man's fancy to thoughts of love. Whether Bradish felt its influence or not, he had at least the air of a man emotionally much stirred. Mrs. Neligage looked more alert, more provoking, more piquant, than ever. She had, it is true, an aspect less sentimental than that of her companion, but nature had given to Harry Bradish a likeness to Don Quixote which made it impossible for him ever to appear mischievous or sportive, and if he showed feeling it must be of the kindly or the melancholy sort. The widow might be reflecting on the effectiveness of the turnout, the fineness of the horses, the general air of style and completeness which belonged to the equipage, or she might be ruminating on the character of the driver. She might on the other hand have been thinking of nothing in particular except the light things she was saying,—if indeed it is possible to suppose that a clever woman ever confines her thoughts to what is indicated by her words. Bradish, however, was evidently meditating of her.
When he had brought the horses with a proper flourish to Mrs. Neligage's door, Bradish descended and helped her out with all his careful politeness of manner. He was a man to whom courtesy was instinctive. At the stake he would have apologized to the executioner for being a trouble. He might to-day be absorbed and perplexed, but he was not for that less punctiliously attentive.
"May I come in?" he asked, hat in hand.
"By all means," Mrs. Neligage responded. "Come in, and I'll give you a cup of tea."
Bradish sent the trap away with the satisfactory groom, and then accompanied his companion upstairs. They were no sooner inside the door of her apartment than he turned to the widow with an air of sudden determination.
"Louisa," he said with awkward abruptness, "what did you mean this afternoon?"
He grasped her hands with both his; his hat, which he had half tossed upon the table, went bowling merrily over the floor, but he gave it no heed.
"Good gracious, Harry," she cried, laughing up into his face, "how tragic you are! Pick up your hat."
He glanced at the hat, but he did not release her hands. He let her remark pass, and went on with increasing intensity which was not unmixed with wistfulness.
"I've been thinking about it all the way home," he declared. "You've always teased me, Louisa, from the days we were babies, and of course I'm an old fool; but—Were you willing I should kiss your hand?"
He stopped in speechless confusion, the color coming into his cheeks, and looked pathetically into her laughing face.
"Lots of men have," she responded.
He dropped her hands, and grew paler.
"But to-day—" he stammered.
"But what to-day?" she cried, moving near to him.
"I thought that to-day—Louisa, for heaven's sake, do you care for me?"
"Not for heaven's sake," she murmured, looking younger and more bewitching than ever.
Some women at forty-five are by Providence allowed still to look as young as their children, and Mrs. Neligage was one of them. Her airs would perhaps have been ridiculous in one less youthful in appearance, but she carried them off perfectly. Bradish was evidently too completely and tragically in earnest to see the point of her quip. He looked so disappointed and abashed that it was not strange for her to burst into a peal of laughter.
"Oh, Harry," she cried, "you are such a dear old goose! Must I say it in words? Well, then; here goes, despite modesty! Take me!"
He stared at her as if in doubt of his senses.
"Do you mean it?" he stammered.
"I do at this minute, but if you're not quick I may change my mind!"
Then Harry Bradish experienced a tremendous reaction from the excessive shyness of nearly half a century, and gathered her into his arms.
Society has always a kindly feeling toward any person who furnishes material for talk. Even in those unhappy cases where the matter provided to the gossips is of an iniquitous sort, it is not easy utterly to condemn evil which has added a pleasant spice to conversation. It is true that in word the sinner may be entirely disapproved, but the disapproval is apt to be tempered by an evident feeling of gratitude for the excitement which the sin has provided to talkers. In lighter matters, where there is no reason to regard with reprobation the course discussed, the friendliness of the gossips is often covered with a sauce piquant of doubtful insinuation, of sneer, or of ridicule, but in reality it is evident that those who abuse do so, like Lady Teazle, in pure good nature. To be talked about in society is really to be awarded for the time being such interest as society is able to feel; and the interest of society is its only regard.
The engagement of Mrs. Neligage to Harry Bradish naturally set the tongues of all their acquaintances wagging, and many pretty things were said of the couple which were not entirely complimentary. The loves of elderly folk always present to the eyes of the younger generation an aspect somewhat ludicrous, and the buds giggled at the idea of nuptials which to their infantine minds seemed so venerable. The women pitied Bradish, who had been captured by the wiles of the widow, and the men thought it a pity that so gifted and dashing a woman as Mrs. Neligage should be united to a man so dull as her prospective husband. The widow did not wear her heart on her sleeve, so that daws who wished to peck at it found it well concealed behind an armor of raillery, cleverness, and adroitness. Bradish, on the other hand, was so openly adoring that it was impossible not to be touched by his beaming happiness. On the whole the match was felt to be a suitable one, although Mrs. Neligage had no money; and from the mingled pleasure of gossiping about the pair, and nominally condemning the whole business on one ground or another, society came to be positively enthusiastic over the marriage.
The affairs of Jack Neligage might in time be influenced by his mother's alliance with a man of wealth, but they were little changed at first. It is true that by some subtile softening of the general heart at the thought of matrimony in the concrete, as presented by the spectacle of the loves of Mrs. Neligage and Bradish, his social world was moved to a sort of toleration of the idea of his marrying Alice Endicott in spite of his poverty. People not in the least responsible, who could not be personally affected by such a match, began to wonder after all whether there were not some way in which it might be arranged, and to condemn Miss Wentstile for not making possible the union of two lovers so long and so faithfully attached. Society delights in the romantic in other people's families, and would have rolled as a sweet morsel under its tongue an elopement on the part of Jack and Alice, or any other sort of extravagant outcome. The marriage of his mother gave him a new consequence both by keeping his affairs in the public mind and by bringing about for him a connection with a man of money.
Miss Wentstile was not of a character which was likely sensitively to feel or easily to receive these beneficent public sentiments. She was a woman who was entirely capable of originating her own emotions, a fact which in itself distinguished her as a rarity among her sex. No human being, however, can live in the world without being affected by the opinions of the world; and it is probable that Miss Wentstile, with all her independence, was more influenced by the thought of those about her than could be at all apparent.
Mrs. Neligage declared to Jack that she meant to be very civil to the spinster.
"She's a sort of cousin of Harry's, you know," she remarked; "and it isn't good form not to be on good terms with the family till after you're married."
"But after the wedding," he responded with a lazy smile, "I suppose she must look out."
Mrs. Neligage looked at him, laughing, with half closed eyes.
"I should think that after the marriage she would do well to remember her place," was her reply. "I shall have saved her from the Count by that time, too; and that will give her a lesson."
But Providence spared Mrs. Neligage the task of taking the initiative in the matter of the Count. One day in the latter part of April, just before the annual flitting by which all truly patriotic Bostonians elude the first of May and the assessors, the widow went to call on her prospective relative. Miss Wentstile was at home in the drawing-room with Alice and the Count. Tea had been brought in, and Alice was pouring it.
"I knew I should be just in time for tea," Mrs. Neligage declared affably; "and your tea is always so delicious, Miss Wentstile."
"How do you do, Louisa," was Miss Wentstile's greeting. "I wish you'd let me know when you are at home. I wouldn't have called yesterday if I'd supposed you didn't know enough to stay in to be congratulated."
"I had to go out," Mrs. Neligage responded. "I was sorry not to see you."
"There was a horrid dog in the hall that barked at me," Miss Wentstile continued. "You ought not to let your visitors be annoyed so."
"It isn't my dog," the widow replied with unusual conciliation in her manner. "It belongs to those Stearnses who have the apartment opposite."
"I can't bear other people's dogs," Miss Wentstile declared with superb frankness. "Fido was the only dog I ever loved."
"Where is Fido?" asked the widow. "I haven't heard his voice yet."
Miss Wentstile drew herself up stiffly.
"I have met with a misfortune. I had to send dear Fido away. He would bark at the Count."
Whatever the intentions of Mrs. Neligage to conciliate, Providence had not made her capable of resisting a temptation like this.
"How interesting the instinct of animals is," she observed with an air of the most perfect ingenuousness. "They seem to know doubtful characters by intuition."
"Doubtful characters?" echoed Miss Wentstile sharply. "Didn't Fido always bark at you, Louisa?"
"Yes," returned the caller as innocently as ever. "That is an illustration of what I was saying."
"Oh, Madame Neleegaze ees so continuously to bedrôle!" commented the Count, with a display of his excellent teeth. "So she have to marry, ees eet not?"
"Do you mean those two sentences to go together, Count?" Alice asked, with a twinkle of fun.
He stood apparently trying to recall what he had said, in order to get the full meaning of the question, when the servant announced Mrs. Croydon, who came forward with a clashing of bead fringes and a rustling of stiff silk. She was ornamented, hung, spangled, covered, cased in jet until she might not inappropriately have been set bodily into a relief map to represent Whitby. She advanced halfway across the space to where Miss Wentstile sat near the hearth, and then stopped with a dramatic air. She fixed her eyes on the Count, who, with his feet well apart, stood near Miss Wentstile, stirring his tea, and diffusing abroad a patronizing manner of ownership.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Wentstile," Mrs. Croydon said in a voice a little higher than common, "I will come to see you again when you haven't an assassin in your house."
There was an instant of utter silence. The remark was one well calculated to produce a sensation, and had Mrs. Croydon been an actress she might at that instant have congratulated herself that she held her audience spellbound. It was but for a flash, however, that Miss Wentstile was paralyzed.
"What do you mean?" exclaimed the spinster, recovering the use of her tongue.
"I mean," retorted Mrs. Croydon, extending her bugle-dripping arm theatrically, and pointing to the Count, "that man there."
"Me!" cried the Count.
"The Count?" cried Miss Wentstile an octave higher.
"Ah!" murmured Mrs. Neligage very softly, settling herself more comfortably in her chair.
"He tried to murder my husband," went on Mrs. Croydon, every moment with more of the air of a stage-struck amateur. "He challenged him!"
"Your husband?" the Count returned. "Eet ees to me thees teeme first know what you have one husband, madame."
"I thought your husband was dead, Mrs. Croydon," Miss Wentstile observed, in a voice which was like the opening of an outside door with the mercury below zero.
Mrs. Croydon was visibly confused. Her full cheeks reddened; even the tip of her nose showed signs of a tendency to blush. Her trimmings rattled and scratched on the silk of her gown.
"I should have said Mr. Barnstable," she corrected. "He was my husband once when I lived in Chicago."
The Count, perfectly self-possessed, smiled and stirred his tea.
"Ees eet dat de amiable Mrs. Croydon she do have a deeferent husband leek a sailor mans een all de harbors?" he asked with much deference.
Mrs. Neligage laughed softly, leaning back as if at a comedy. Alice looked a little frightened. Miss Wentstile became each moment more stern.
"Mr. Barnstable and I are to be remarried immediately," Mrs. Croydon observed with dignity. "It was for protecting me from the abuse of an anonymous novel that he offended you. You would have killed him for defending me."
The Count waved his teaspoon airily.
"He have eensult me," he remarked, as if disposing of the whole subject. "Then he was one great cowherd. He have epilogued me most abject."
Mrs. Neligage elevated her eyebrows, and turned her glance to Mrs. Croydon, who stood, a much overdressed goddess of discord, still in the middle of the floor.
"That is nonsense, Mrs. Croydon," she observed honeyedly. "Mr. Barnstable behaved with plenty of pluck. The apology was Jack's doing, and wasn't at all to your—yourfiancé'sdiscredit."
Miss Wentstile turned with sudden severity to Mrs. Neligage.
"Louisa," she demanded, "do you know anything about this affair?"
"Of course," was the easy answer. "Everybody in Boston knew it but you."
The Count put his teacup on the mantelpiece. He had lost the jauntiness of his air, but he was still dignified.
"Eet was oneaffaire d'honneur," he said.
"But why was I not told of this?" Miss Wentstile asked sharply.
"You?" Mrs. Croydon retorted with excitement. "Everybody supposed—"
Mrs. Neligage rose quickly.
"Really," she said, interrupting the speaker, "I must have another cup of tea."
The interruption stopped Mrs. Croydon's remark, and Miss Wentstile did not press for its conclusion.
"Count," the spinster asked, turning to that gentleman, who towered above her tall and lowering, "have you ever fought a duel?"
The Count shrugged his shoulders.
"All Shimbowski eeshommes d'honneur."
She made him a frigid bow.
"I have the honor to bid you good day," she said, with a manner so perfect that the absurdity of the situation vanished.
The Count drew himself up proudly. Then he in his turn bowed profoundly.
"You do eet too much to me honor," he said, with a dignity which was worthy of his family. "Ladies,votre serviteur."
He made his exit in a manner to be admired. Mrs. Croydon feigned to shrink aside as he passed her, but Mrs. Neligage looked at her with so open a laugh at this performance that confusion overcame the dame of bugles, and she moved forward disconcerted. She had not yet gained a seat, when Miss Wentstile faced her with all her most unrestrained fashion.
"I shouldn't think, Mrs. Croydon, that you, with the stain of a divorce court on you, were in position to throw stones at Count Shimbowski. He has done nothing but follow the customs to which he's been brought up."
"Perhaps that's true of Mrs. Croydon too," murmured Mrs. Neligage to Alice.
"If you wanted to tell me," Miss Wentstile went on, "why didn't you tell me when he was not here? No wonder foreigners think we are barbarians when a nobleman is insulted like that."
"I didn't mean to tell you," Mrs. Croydon stammered humbly. "It just came out."
"Why didn't you mean to tell me?" demanded Miss Wentstile, whose anger had evidently deprived her for the time being of all coolness.
"Why, I thought you were engaged to him!" blurted out Mrs. Croydon, fairly crimson from brow to chin.
"Engaged!" echoed Miss Wentstile, half breathless with indignation.
Mrs. Neligage came to the rescue, cool and collected, entirely mistress of herself and of the situation.
"Really, Mrs. Croydon," she suggested, smiling, "don't you think that is bringing Western brusqueness home to us in rather a startling way? We don't speak of engagements until they are announced, you know."
"But Miss Wentstile told me the other day that she might announce one soon," persisted Mrs. Croydon, into whose flushed face had come a look of baffled obstinacy.
Mrs. Neligage threw up her hands in a graceful little gesture. She played private theatricals infinitely better than Mrs. Croydon. There was in their art all the difference between the work of the most clumsy amateur and a polished professional.
"There is nothing to do but to tell it," she said, as if appealing to Miss Wentstile and Alice. "The engagement was that of Miss Endicott and my son. Miss Wentstile never for a moment thought of marrying the Count. She knew from me that he gambled and was a famous duelist."
Alice put out her hand suddenly, and caught that of the widow.
"Oh, Mrs. Neligage!" she cried.
The widow patted the girl's fingers. The face of Miss Wentstile was a study for a novelist who identifies art with psychology.
"Of course I ought not to have told, Alice," Mrs. Neligage went on; "but I'm sure Mrs. Croydon is to be trusted. It isn't fair to your aunt that this nonsensical notion should be abroad that she meant to marry the Count."
Mrs. Croydon was evidently too bewildered to understand what had taken place. She awkwardly congratulated Alice, apologized to Miss Wentstile for having made a scene, and somehow got herself out of the way.
"What an absolutely incredible woman! With the talent both she and Mr. Barnstable show for kicking up rows in society," observed Mrs. Neligage, as soon as the caller had departed, "I should think they would prevent any city from being dull. I trust they will pass the time till their next divorce somewhere else than here."