Read the book: «Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree», page 9

"You have brought me into it too," he said. "We are a pair of unprincipled adventurers together. I've been more or less of a beat, but I've never before been a good, thorough-paced blackguard!"

She flashed upon him in an outburst of anger in her turn.

"Do you mean that for me?" she demanded. "The word isn't so badly applied to a man that can talk so to his mother! Haven't I been saving you as well as myself? As to May, any girl will love a husband that has character enough to manage her and be kind to her."

He was silent a moment, and when he spoke he waived the point.

"Do I understand," he said, "that you expect me to go to Count Shimbowski and announce myself as May's representative, and demand her letter?"

"Not at all," she answered, a droll expression of craftiness coming over her face. "Sit down, and let me tell you."

She resumed her own seat, and Jack, after whirling his chair around angrily, sat down astride of it, with his arms crossed on the back.

"There are letters and letters," Mrs. Neligage observed with a smile. "When Mrs. Harbinger gave me this one last night I began to see that it might be good for something. You are to exchange this with the Count. You needn't mention May's name."

Jack took the letter, and looked at it.

"This is to Barnstable," he said.

"Yes; he gave it to Letty to be shown to people. Barnstable is the silliest fool that there is about."

"And you think the Count would give up that letter for this?"

"I am sure he would if he thought there was any possibility that this might fall into the hands of Miss Wentstile."

"If it would send the damned adventurer about his business," growled Jack, "I'd give it to Miss Wentstile myself."

"Oh, don't bother about that. I can stop that affair any time," his mother responded lightly. "I've only to tell Sarah Wentstile what I've seen myself, and that ends his business with her."

"Then you'd better do it, and stop his tormenting Alice."

"I'll do anything you like, Jack, if you'll be nice about May."

He got up from his seat and walked back and forth a few turns, his head bowed, and his manner that of deep thought. Then he went to his desk and wrote a couple of notes. He read them over carefully, and filled out a check. He lit a cigarette, and sat pondering over the notes for some moments. At last he brought them both to his mother, who had sat watching him intently, although she had turned her face half away from him. Jack put the letters into her hand without a word.

The first note was as follows: —

Dear May, – My mother has just brought me your note, and I am going out at once to find the Count. I hope to bring you the letter before night. I need not tell you that I am very proud of the confidence you have shown in me and of the honor you do me. Until I see you it will, it seems to me, be better that you do not speak of our engagement.

Very sincerely yours,

John T. Neligage.

The second note was this: —

Sibley Langdon, Esq.

Sir, – I have just heard from my mother that she is indebted to you for a loan of $6000. I inclose check for that amount with interest at four per cent. As Mrs. Neligage has doubtless expressed her gratitude for your kindness I do not know that it is necessary for me to add anything.

John T. Neligage.

"You are right, of course," he said. "I can't show him that I know his beastly scheme without a scandal that would hurt you. He'll understand, though. But why in the world you've let him browbeat you into receiving his attentions I cannot see."

"I felt so helpless, Jack. I didn't know what he would do; and he could tell about the necklace, you see. He's been a millstone round my neck. He's never willing I should do anything with anybody but himself."

Jack ground his teeth, and held out his hand for the letters.

"But, Jack," Mrs. Neligage cried, as if the thought had just struck her. "You can't have $6000 in the bank."

"I shall have when he gets that check," Jack returned grimly. "If father hadn't put all our money into the hands of trustees – "

"We should neither of us have anything whatever," his mother interrupted, laughing. "It is bad enough as it is, but it would have been worse if we'd had our hands free."

Her spirits were evidently once more high; she seemed to have cast off fear and care alike.

"Well," she said, rising, "I must go home. You want to go and find the Count, of course."

She went up to her son, and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Dear boy," she said, "I'm not really so bad as I seem. I was a fool to gamble, but I never did anything else that was very bad. Oh, you don't know what a weight it is off my shoulders to have that note paid. Of course it will be hard on you just now, but we must hurry on the marriage with May, and then you'll have money enough."

He smiled down on her with a look in which despite its scrutiny there was a good deal of fondness. Worldly as the Neligages were, there was still a strong bond of affection between them.

"All right, old lady," he said, stooping forward to kiss her forehead. "I'm awfully sorry you've had such a hard time, but you're out of it now. Only there's one thing I insist on. You are to tell nobody of the engagement till I give you leave."

She studied his face keenly.

"If I don't announce it," she said frankly, "I'm afraid you'll squirm out of it."

He laughed buoyantly.

"You are a born diplomat," he told her. "What sort of a concession do you want to make you hold your tongue?"

"Jack," she said pleadingly, changing her voice into earnestness, "won't you marry May? If you only knew how I want you to be rich and taken care of."

"Mr. Frostwinch has offered me a place in the bank, mater, with a salary that's about as much as I've paid for the board of one of my ponies."

"What could you do on a salary like that? You won't break the engagement when you see May this afternoon, will you? Promise me that."

"She may break it herself."

"She won't unless you make her. Promise me, Jack."

He smiled down into her face as if a sudden thought had come to him, and a gleam of mischief lighted his brown eyes.

"The engagement, such as it is," he returned, "may stand at present as you've fixed it, if you'll give me your word not to mention it or to meddle with it."

"I promise," she said rapturously, and pulled him down to kiss him fervently before departing.

Then in the conscious virtue of having achieved great things Mrs. Neligage betook herself home to dress for a luncheon.

XVII
THE BUSINESS OF A LOVER

Jack's first care, after his mother had left him, was to dispatch a messenger to May with his note.

Then he set out in search of Dr. Wilson. After a little hunting he discovered the latter lunching at the club. Jack came straight to his business without any beating about the bush.

"Wilson," he said, "I've come on an extraordinary errand. I want you to lend me $6000 on the spot."

The other whistled, and then chuckled as was his good-humored wont.

"That's a good round sum," he answered.

"I know that a deuced sight better than you do," Neligage returned. "I've had more experience in wanting money. I'm in a hole, and I ask you to help me out of it. Of course I'm taking a deal of advantage of your good nature yesterday; and you may do as you like about letting me have the money. All the security I can give is to turn over to you the income of the few stocks I have. They 're all in the hands of trustees. My father left'em so."

"Gad, he knew his son," was the characteristic comment.

"You are right. He did. Can you let me have the money?"

The other considered a moment, and then said with his usual bluntness: —

"I suppose it's none of my business what you want of it?"

Jack flushed.

"It may be your business, Wilson, but I can't tell you."

The other laughed.

"Oh, well," he said, "if you've been so big a fool that you can't bear to tell of it, I'm not going to insist. I can't do anything better than to send you a check to-morrow. I haven't that amount in the bank."

Jack held out his hand.

"You're a trump, Wilson," he said. "I'd tell you the whole thing if it was my secret, but it isn't. Of course if you lose anything by moving the money, I'll be responsible for it. Besides that I want you to buy Starbright, if you care for him. Of course if you don't I can sell him easily enough. He's the best of the ponies."

"Then you're going to sell?"

"Clean out the whole thing; pay my debts, and leave the club."

"Oh, you mustn't do that."

"I'm going into a bank, and of course I shan't have any time to play."

Wilson regarded him with an amused and curious smile, playing with his fork meanwhile. Wilson was not by birth of Jack's world, having come into social position in Boston by his marriage with Elsie Dimmont, the richest young woman of the town. He and Jack had never been especially intimate, but Jack had always maintained that despite traces of coarseness in manner Wilson was sound at heart and essentially a good fellow. Perhaps the fact that in times past Neligage had not used his opportunities to patronize Wilson had something to do with the absence of anything patronizing in the Doctor's manner now.

"Well," Wilson said at length, "don't do anything rash. Your dues for the whole year are paid, – or will be when you square up, and you might as well get the worth of them. We need you on the team, so you mustn't go back on us if you can help it."

Matters being satisfactorily arranged both in relation to the loan and to the sale of the pony, Jack left Wilson, and departed in search of Count Shimbowski. Him he ultimately found at another club, and at once asked to speak with him alone on business.

"Count," he began when they were in one of the card-rooms, "I want to add a word to what I said to you yesterday."

"Each one word of Mr. Neleegaze eet ees treasured," the Count responded with a polite flourish of his cigarette.

"Since you wouldn't give me that letter," pursued Jack, acknowledging the compliment with a grin and a bow, "perhaps you'll be willing to exchange it."

"Exchange eet?" repeated the Hungarian. "For what weell eet be exchange'?"

Jack produced Barnstable's letter.

"I thought that you'd perhaps be willing to exchange it for this letter that's otherwise to be read and passed about. I fancy that the person who got it had Miss Wentstile particularly in mind as likely to be interested in it."

The touch showed Jack to be not without some of the astuteness of his mother.

"What weell eet be?" inquired the Count.

"I haven't read it," answered Jack, slowly drawing it from the envelope. "It is said to contain a full account of the life of Count Shimbowski."

"Sacré!"

"Exactly," acquiesced Jack. "It's a devilish shame that things can't be forgotten when they're done. I've found that out myself."

"But what weell be weetheen dat lettaire?"

Jack ran his eye down a page.

"This seems to be an account of a duel at Monaco," he returned. "On the next page – "

The Count stretched out his hand in protest.

"Eet ees not needed dat you eet to read," he said. "Eet ees leeklie lees."

"Oh, very likely it is lies. No story about a fellow is ever told right; but the worst things always get believed; and Miss Wentstile is very particular. She's deucedly down on me for a lot of things that never happened."

"Oh, but she ees extr'ordeenaire particle!" exclaimed the Count, with a shrug and a profane expletive. "She does not allow dat money be play for de card, she have say eet to me. She ees most extr'ordeenaire particle!"

"Then I am probably right, Count, in thinking you wouldn't care to have her read this letter?"

The Count twisted his silky mustache, looking both angry and rather foolish.

"Eet ees not dat eet ees mooch dat I have done," he explained. "You know what eet ees de leefe. A man leeves one way. But she, she ees so particle damned!"

Jack burst into a laugh that for the moment threatened to destroy the gravity with which he was conducting the interview; but he controlled his face, and went on.

"Since she is so damned particular," said he, "don't you think you'd better let me have the other letter for this? Of course I hate to drive you to a bargain, but I must have that other letter. I don't mind telling you that I'm sent after it by the one who wrote it."

"Den you weell know who have wrote eet?"

"Yes, of course I know, but I'm not going to tell."

The Count considered for a moment, and then slowly drew out the letter addressed to Christopher Calumus. He looked at it wistfully, with the air of a man who is reluctantly abandoning the clue to an adventure which might have proved enchanting.

"But eet weell look what I was one great villaine dat fear," he said.

"Nonsense," returned Neligage, holding out the letter of Barnstable for exchange. "We know both sides of the business. All there is to it is that we both understand what a crochety old maid Miss Wentstile is."

Count Shimbowski smiled, and the exchange was effected. Jack turned May's letter over in his hand, and found it unopened.

"You're a gentleman, Count," he said, offering his hand.

"Of de course," the other replied, with an air of some surprise. "I am one Shimbowski."

"Well, I'm obliged to you," observed Jack, putting the letter in his pocket. "I'll try to keep gossip still."

"Oh, eet ees very leek," Shimbowski returned, waving his hand airily, "dat when I have read heem I geeve eet to Mees Wentsteele for one's self. Eet ees very leekly."

"All right," Jack laughed. "I'd like to see her read it. So long."

With the vigor which belongs to an indolent man thoroughly aroused, Jack hunted up Tom Harbinger before the day was done, and sold to him his second best pony. Then he went for a drive, and afterward dined at the club with an appetite which spoke a conscience at ease or not allowed to make itself heard. He did not take the time for reflection which might have been felt necessary by many men in preparation for the interview with May Calthorpe which must come before bedtime. Indeed he was more than usually lively and busy, and as he had a playful wit, he had some difficulty in getting the men at the club to let him go when soon after eight in the evening he set out for May's. He had kept busy from the moment his mother had left him in the morning, and on his way along Beacon street, he hummed to himself as if still resolved to do anything rather than to meditate.

May came into the sombre drawing-room looking more bewitchingly pretty and shy than can be told in sober prose. She was evidently frightened, and as she came forward to give her hand to Neligage the color came and went in her cheeks as if she were tremblingly afraid of the possibilities of his greeting. Jack's smile was as sunny as ever when he stepped forward to take her hand. He simply grasped it and let it go, a consideration at which she was visibly relieved.

"Well, May," Jack said laughingly, "I understand that we are engaged."

"Yes," she returned faintly. "Won't you sit down?"

She indicated a chair not very near to that upon which she took her own seat, and Jack coolly accepted the invitation, improving on it somewhat by drawing his chair closer to hers.

"I got the letter from the Count," he went on.

She held out her hand for it in silence. He took the letter from his pocket, and held it as he spoke again, tapping it on his knee by way of emphasis.

"Before I give it to you, May," he remarked in a voice more serious than he was accustomed to use, "I want you to promise me that you will never do such a thing again as to write to a stranger. You are well out of this – "

She lifted her eyes with a quick look of fear in them, as if it had flashed into her mind that if she were out of the trouble over the letter she had escaped this peril only to be ensnared into an engagement with him. The thought was so plain that Jack burst into a laugh.

"You think that being engaged to me isn't being well out of anything, I see," he observed merrily and mercilessly; "but there might be worse things than that even. We shall see. You'll be awfully fond of me before we are through with this."

The poor girl turned crimson at this plain reading of her thought. She was but half a dozen years younger than Jack, but he had belonged to an older set than hers, and under thirty half a dozen years seems more of a difference in ages than appears a score later in life. It was not to be expected that she would be talkative in this strange predicament in which she found herself, but what little command she had of her tongue might well vanish if Jack was to read her thoughts in her face. She rallied her forces to answer him.

"I know that for doing so foolish a thing," she said, "I deserved whatever I get."

"Even if it's being engaged to me," responded he with a roar. "Well, to be honest, I think you do. I don't know what the Count might have done if he had read the letter, but – "

"Oh," cried May, clasping her hands with a burst of sunshine in her face, "didn't he read it? Oh, I'm so glad!"

"No," Jack answered, "the Count's too much of a gentleman to read another man's letters when he hasn't been given leave. But what have you to say about my reading this letter?"

"Oh, you can't have read it!" May cried breathlessly.

"Not yet; but as we are engaged of course you give me leave to read it now."

She looked for a moment into his laughing eyes, and then sprang up from her chair with a sudden burst of excitement.

"Oh, you are too cruel!" she cried. "I hate you!"

"Come," he said, not rising, but settling himself back in his chair with a pose of admiring interest, "now we are getting down to nature. Have you ever played in amateur theatricals, May?"

She stood struck silent by the laughing banter of his tone, but she made no answer.

"Because, if you ever do," he continued in the same voice, "you'll do well to remember the way you spoke then. It'll be very fetching in a play."

The color faded in her cheeks, and her whole manner changed from defiance to humiliation; her lip quivered with quick emotion, and an almost childish expression of woe made pathetic her mobile face. She dropped back into her chair, and the tears started in her eyes.

"Oh, I don't think you've any right to tease me," she quavered in a voice that had almost escaped from control. "I'm sure I feel bad enough about it."

Jack's face sobered a little, although the mocking light of humor did not entirely vanish from his eyes.

"There, there," he said in a soothing voice; "don't cry, May, whatever you do. The modern husband hates tears, but instead of giving in to them, he gets cross and clears out. Don't cry before the man you marry, or," he added, a fresh smile lighting his face, "even before the man you are engaged to."

"I didn't mean to be so foolish," May responded, choking down her rebellious emotions. "I'm all upset."

"I don't wonder. Now to go back to this letter. Of course I shouldn't think of reading it without your leave, but I supposed you'd think it proper under the circumstances to tell me to read it. I thought you'd say: 'Dearest, I have no secrets from thee! Read!' or something of that sort, you know."

He was perhaps playing now to cheer May up, for he delivered this in a mock-heroic style, with an absurd gesture. At least the effect was to evoke a laugh which came tear-sparkling as a lark flies dew-besprent from a hawthorn bush at morn.

She rallied a little, and spoke with more self-command.

"Oh, that was the secret of a girl that wasn't engaged to you," she said, "and had no idea of being; no more," she added, dimpling, "than I had."

Jack showed his white teeth in what his friends called his "appreciative grin."

"Perhaps you're right," he returned. "By the way, do you know who Christopher Calumus really is?"

She colored again, and hung her head.

"Yes," she murmured, in a voice absurdly low. "Mrs. Harbinger told me last night. He told her yesterday at the County Club."

"Does he know who wrote to him?"

Her cheeks became deeper in hue, and her voice even lower yet.

"Yes, he found out from Mrs. Harbinger."

"Well, I must say I thought that Letty Harbinger had more sense!"

"She didn't mean to tell him."

"No woman ever meant to tell anything," he retorted in good-humored sarcasm; "but they always do tell everything. Then if you and Dick both know all about it, perhaps I had better give the letter to him."

He offered to put the letter into his pocket, but she held out her hand for it beseechingly.

"Oh, don't give it to anybody else," she begged. "Let me put it into the fire, and be through with it. It's done mischief enough!"

"It may have done some good too," he said enigmatically. "I hope nothing worse will ever happen to you, May, than to be engaged to me. I give you my word that, as little as you imagine it, it's your interest and not my own I'm looking after. However, that's neither here nor there."

He put the letter into his pocket without farther comment, disregarding her imploring look. Then he rose, and held out his hand.

"Good-night," he said. "Some accepted lovers would ask for a kiss, but I'll wait till you want to kiss me. You will some time. Good-night. You'll remember what I wrote you about mentioning our engagement."

She had at the mention of kisses become more celestial rosy red than in the whole course of that blushful interview, but at his last word her color faded as quickly as it had come.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, "I had told one person before your note came. She won't tell though."

"Being a 'she,'" he retorted mockingly.

"Oh, it was only Alice," May explained, "and of course she can be trusted."

It was his turn to become serious, and in the cloud on his sunny face there was not a little vexation.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Of all the women in Boston why must you pick out the one that I was most particular shouldn't know! You girls have an instinct for mischief."

"But I wrote to her as soon as your note came; besides, she has promised not to say anything. She won't tell."

"No; she won't tell," he echoed moodily. "What did she say?"

May cast down her eyes in evident embarrassment.

"Oh, it's no matter," Jack went on. "She wouldn't say half as hard things as she must think. However, it's all one in the end. Good-night."

With this abrupt farewell he left his betrothed, and went hastily out into the spring night, with its velvety darkness and abundant stars. The mention of Alice Endicott had robbed him of the gay spirits in which he had carried on his odd interview with May. The teasing jollity of manner was gone as he walked thoughtfully back to his chambers.

He found Fairfield in their common parlor.

"Dick," he said without preface, "congratulate me. I'm engaged."

"Engaged!" exclaimed the other, jumping up and extending his hand. "Congratulations, old fellow. Of course it's Alice Endicott."

"No," his friend responded coolly; "it's May Calthorpe."

"What!" cried Fairfield, starting back and dropping his hand before Neligage had time to take it. "Miss Calthorpe? What do you mean?"

"Just as I say, my boy. The engagement is a secret at present, you understand. I thought you'd like to know it, though; and by the way, it'll show that I've perfect confidence in you if I turn over to you the letter that May wrote to you before we were engaged. That one to Christopher Calumus, you know."

"But," stammered his chum, apparently trying to collect his wits, scattered by the unexpected news and this strange proposition, "how can you tell what's in it?"

"Tell what's in it, my boy? It isn't any of my business. That has to do with a part of her life that doesn't belong to me, you know. It's enough for me that she wrote the letter for you to have, and so here it is."

He put the envelope into the hands of Dick, who received it as if he were a post-box on the corner, having no choice but to take any missive thrust at him.

"Good-night," Jack said. "I'm played out, and mean to turn in. Thanks for your good wishes."

And he ended that eventful day, so far as the world of men could have cognizance, by retiring to his own room.