Read the book: «Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree», page 14

"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.

XXVI
THE WOOING OF A WIDOW

"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.

XXVII
THE CLIMAX OF COMEDY

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 be drôle!" 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 – your fiancé's discredit."

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 one affaire 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 ees hommes 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.