the letter. Who else should write letters in this house?"
She extended her hand to the Count as she spoke, as if to recover the
harmless-looking little white missive which was causing so much
commotion, but the Count did not offer to return it. Tom Harbinger stood
a second as if amazement had struck him dumb. Then with the air of a
puppet pronouncing words by machinery he ejaculated:--
"You wrote to the Count?"
His wife turned to him with a start, and opened her lips, but before she
could speak a fresh interruption prevented. Barnstable in the few
moments during which he had been in the room had met with so many
strange experiences that he might well be bewildered. He had been
greeted by May as one for whom she was waiting, and then had been hailed
as the author of the book which he hated; the eccentric Graham had made
of him a sort of involuntary penny-post; he had been in the midst of a
group whisking a letter about like folk in the last act of a comedy; and
now here was the announcement that the Count was the anonymous libeler
for whom he had been seeking. He dashed forward, every fold of his chins
quivering, his hair bristling, his little eyes red with excitement. He
shook his fist in the face of the Count in a manner not often seen in a
polite drawing-room.
"You are a villain," he cried. "You have insulted my wife!"
Bradish and Mr. Harbinger at once seized him, and between them he was
drawn back gesticulating and struggling. The ladies looked frightened,
but with the exception of Mrs. Croydon they behaved with admirable
propriety. Mrs. Croydon gave a little yapping screech, and fell back in
her chair in hysterics. More complete confusion could hardly have been
imagined, and Mrs. Neligage, who looked on with eyes full of laughter,
had certainly reason to congratulate herself that if she loved making
mischief she had for once at least been most instantly and triumphantly
successful.
VII
THE COUNSEL OF A MOTHER
If an earthquake shook down the house in which was being held a Boston
function, the persons there assembled would crawl from the ruins in a
manner decorous and dignified, or if too badly injured for this would
compose with decency their mangled limbs and furnish the addresses of
their respective family physicians. The violent and ill-considered farce
which had been played in Mrs. Harbinger's drawing-room might elsewhere
have produced a long-continued disturbance; but here it left no trace
after five minutes. Mr. Barnstable, babbling and protesting like a
lunatic, was promptly hurried into confinement in the library, where Mr.
Harbinger and Bradish stood guard over him as if he were a dangerous
beast; while the other guests made haste to retire. They went, however,
with entire decorum. Mrs. Croydon was, it is true, a disturbing element
in the quickly restored serenity of the party, and was with difficulty
made to assume some semblance of self-control. Graham, being sent to
call a carriage, first caught a forlorn herdic, which was prowling about
like a deserted tomcat, and when the lady would none of this managed to
produce a hack which must have been the most shabby in the entire town.
The Count was taken away by Miss Wentstile, who in the hour of his peril
dropped the stiffness she had assumed at his recognition of Mrs.
Neligage. She dragged Alice along with them, but Alice in turn held on
to May, so that the Count was given no opportunity to press his suit.
They all retired in good order, and however they talked, they at least
behaved beautifully.
As Neligage took his hat in the hall Fairfield caught him by the arm.
"Jack," he said under his breath, "do you believe Mrs. Harbinger wrote
me those letters?"
"Of course not," Jack responded instantly. "Not if they are the sort of
letters you said. Letty Harbinger is as square as a brick."
"Then why did she say she did?"
Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"The letter was evidently written here," he said. "She must know who did
write it."
"Ah, I see!" exclaimed the other. "She was shielding somebody."
Jack regarded him with sudden sternness.
"There was nobody that it could be except--"
He broke off abruptly, a black look in his face, and before another word
could be exchanged Mrs. Neligage called him. He went off with his
mother, hastily telling his friend he would see him before bedtime.
Mrs. Neligage was hardly up to her son's shoulder, but so well preserved
was she that she might easily have been mistaken for a sister not so
much his senior. She was admirably dressed, exquisitely gloved and
booted, to the last fold of her tailor-made frock entirely correct, and
in her manner provokingly and piquantly animated.
"Who in the world was that horror that made the exhibition of himself?"
she asked. "I never saw anything like that at the Harbingers' before."
"I know nothing about him except that his name is Barnstable, and that
he came from the West somewhere. He's joined the Calif Club lately. How
he got in I don't understand; but he seems to have loads of money."
"He is a beast," Mrs. Neligage pronounced by way of dismissing the
subject. "What did Mrs. Harbinger mean by thanking you for arranging
something with the Count? What have you to do with him?"
"Oh, that is a secret."
"Then if it is a secret tell it at once."
"I'll tell you just to disappoint you," Jack returned with a grin. "It
is only about some etchings that the Count brought over. Mrs. Harbinger
has bought a couple as a present for Tom."
"She had better be careful," Mrs. Neligage observed. "Tom thinks more of
the collection now than he does of anything else in the world. But what
are you mixed up in the Count's transactions for?"
"She asked me to fix it, and besides the poor devil needed to sell them
to raise the wind. I'm too used to being hard up myself not to feel for
him."
"But you wrote me that you detested the Count."
"So I do, but you can't help doing a fellow a good turn, can you, just
because you don't happen to like him?"
She laughed lightly.
"You are a model of good nature. I wish you'd show it to May Calthorpe."
Her son looked down at her with a questioning glance.
"She is always at liberty to admire my virtues, of course; but she can't
expect me to put myself out to make special exhibitions for her
benefit."
The faces of both mother and son hardened a little, as if the subject
touched upon was one concerning which they had disagreed before. The
change of expression brought out a subtle likeness which had not before
been visible. Jack Neligage was usually said to resemble his father, who
had died just as the boy was entering his teens, but when he was in a
passion--a thing which happened but seldom--his face oddly took on the
look of his mother. The change, moreover, was not entirely to his
disadvantage, for as a rule Jack showed too plainly the easy-going,
self-indulgent character which had been the misfortune of the late John
Neligage, and which made friends of the family declare with a sigh that
Jack would never amount to anything worth while.
Mother and son walked on in silence a moment, and then the lady
observed, in a voice as dispassionate as ever:--
"She is a silly little thing. I believe even you could wind her round
your finger."
"I haven't any intention of trying."
"So you have given me to understand before; but now that I am going away
you might at least let me go with the consolation of knowing you'd
provided for yourself. You must marry somebody with money, and she has
no end of it."
He braced back his shoulders as if he found it not altogether easy not
to reply impatiently.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Oh, to Europe. Anywhere out of the arctic zone of the New England
conscience. I've had as long a spell of respectability as I can stand,
my boy."
Something in her manner evidently irritated him more and more. She spoke
with a little indefinable defiant swagger, as if she intended to anger
him. He looked at her no longer, but fixed his gaze on the distance.
"When you talk of giving up respectability," he remarked in an aggrieved
tone, "I should think you might consider me."
Her eyes danced, as if she were delighted to see him becoming angry.
"Oh, I do, Jack, I assure you; but I really cannot afford to be
respectable any longer. Respectability is the most expensive luxury of
civilization; and how can I keep it up when I'm in debt to everybody
that'll trust me."
"Then you might economize."
"Economize! Ye gods! This from you, Jack! Where did you hear the word?
I'm sure you know nothing of the thing."
He laughed in evident self-despite.
"We are a nice pair of ruffianly adventurers," he responded; "a regular
pair of genteel paupers. But we've both got to pull up, I tell you."
"Oh, heavens!" was his mother's reply. "Don't talk to me of pulling up.
What fun do I have as it is but quarreling with Miss Wentstile and
snubbing Harry Bradish? I've got to keep up my authority in our set, or
I should lose even these amusements."
Jack flashed her a swift, questioning look, and with a new note in his
voice, a note of doubt at once and desperation, blurted out a fresh
question.
"How about flirting with Sibley Langdon?"
Mrs. Neligage flushed slightly and for a brief second contracted her
well-arched eyebrows, but in an instant she was herself again.
"Oh, well," she returned, with a pretty little shrug, "that of course is
a trifle better, but not much. Sibley really cares for himself so
entirely that there's very little to be got out of him."
"But you know how you make folks talk."
"Oh, folks always talk. There is always as much gossip about nothing as
about something."
"But he puts on such a damnable air of proprietorship," Jack burst out,
with much more feeling than he had thus far shown. "I know I shall kick
him some time."
"That is the sort of thing you had better leave to the Barnstable man,"
she responded dryly. "Sibley only has the air of owning everything.
That's just his nature. He's really less fun than good old Harry
Bradish. But such as he is, he is the best I can do. If that stuffy old
invalid wife of his would only die, I think I'd marry him out of hand
for his money."
Jack threw out his arm with an angry gesture.
"For Heaven's sake, mother," he said, "what are you after that you are
going on so? You know you drive me wild when you get into this sort of a
talk."
"Or I might elope with him as it is, you know," she continued in her
most teasing manner; but watching him intently.
"What in the deuce do you talk to me like that for!" he cried, shaking
himself savagely. "You're my mother!"
Mrs. Neligage grew suddenly grave. She drew closer to her son, and
slipped her hand through his arm.
"So much the worse for us both, isn't it, Jack? Come, we may as well
behave like rational beings. Of course I was teasing you; but that isn't
the trouble. It's yourself you are angry with."
"What have I to be angry with myself about?"
"You are trying to make up your mind that you're willing to be poor for
the sake of marrying Alice Endicott; but you know you wouldn't be equal
to it. If I thought you would, I'd say go ahead. Do you think you'd be
happy in a South End apartment house with the washing on a line between
the chimneys, and a dry-goods box outside the window for a
refrigerator?"
Jack mingled a groan and a laugh.
"You can't pay your debts as it is," she went on remorselessly. "We are
a pair of paupers who have to live as if we were rich. You see what your
father made of it, starting with a fortune. You can't suppose you'd do
much better when you've nothing but debts."
"I think I'll enlist, or run away to sea," Jack declared, tugging
viciously at his mustache.
"No, you'll accept your destiny. You'll like it better than you think,
when you're settled down to it. You'll stay here and marry May
Calthorpe."
"You must think I'm a whelp to marry a girl just for her money."
"Oh, you must fall in love with her. Any man is a wretch who'd marry a
girl just for her money, but a man's a fool that can't fall in love with
a pretty girl worth half a million."
Jack dropped his mother's hand from his arm with more emphasis than
politeness, and stopped to face her on the corner of the street.
"The very Old Boy is in you to-day, mother," he said. "I won't listen to
another word."
She regarded him with a saucy, laughing face, and put out her hand.
"Well, good-night then," she said. "Come in and see me as soon as you
can. I have a lot of things to tell you about Washington. By the way,
what do you think of my going there, and setting up as a lobbyist? They
say women make no end of money that way."
He swung hastily round, and left her without a word. She went on her
way, but her face turned suddenly careworn and haggard as she walked in
the gathering twilight toward the little apartment where she lived in
fashionable poverty.
VIII
THE TEST OF LOVE
One of the distinctive features of "good society" is that its talk is
chiefly of persons. Less distinguished circles may waste precious time
on the discussion of ideas, but in company really select such
conversation is looked upon as dull and pedantic. One of the first
requisites for entrance into the world of fashion is a thorough
knowledge of the concerns of those who are included in its alluring
round; and not to be informed in this branch of wisdom marks at once the
outsider. It follows that concealment of personal affairs is pretty
nearly impossible. Humanity being frail, it frequently happens that
fashionable folk delude themselves by the fond belief that they have
escaped the universal law of their surroundings; but the minute
familiarity which each might boast of all that relates to his neighbors
should undeceive them. That of which all the world talks is not to be
concealed.
Everybody in their set knew perfectly well that Jack Neligage had been
in love with Alice Endicott from the days when they had paddled in the
sand on the walks of the Public Garden. The smart nursery maids whose
occupation it was to convey their charges thither and keep them out of
the fountains, between whiles exchanging gossip about the parents of the
babies, had begun the talk. The opinions of fashionable society are
generally first formed by servants, and then served up with a garnish of
fancifully distorted facts for the edification of their mistresses; and
in due time the loves of the Public Garden, reported and decorated by
the nursery maids, serve as topics for afternoon calls. Master Jack was
known to be in love with Miss Alice before either of them could have
written the word, and in this case the passion had been so lasting that
it excited remark not only for itself as an ordinary attachment, but as
an extraordinary case of unusual constancy.
Society knew, of course, the impossibility of the situation. It was
common knowledge that neither of the lovers had anything to marry on.
Jack's handsome and spendthrift father had effectually dissipated the
property which he inherited, only his timely death preserving to Mrs.
Neligage and her son the small remnant which kept them from actual
destitution. Alice was dependent upon the bounty of her aunt, Miss
Wentstile. Miss Wentstile, it is true, was abundantly able to provide
for Alice, but the old lady seriously disapproved of Jack Neligage, and
of his mother she disapproved more strongly yet. Everybody said--and
despite all the sarcastic observations of that most objectionable class,
the satirists, what everybody says nobody likes to disregard--that if
Jack and Alice were so rash as to marry they would never touch a penny
of the aunt's money. Jack, moreover, was in debt. Nobody blamed him much
for this, because he was a general favorite, and all his acquaintance
recognized how impossible it was for a young man to live within an
income so small as from any rational point of view to be regarded as
much the same thing as no income at all; but of course it was recognized
also that it is not well in the present day to marry nothing upon a
capital of less than nothing. It has been successfully done, it is true;
but it calls for more energy and ingenuity than was possessed by
easy-going Jack Neligage. In view of all these facts, frequently
discussed, society was unanimously agreed that Jack and Alice could
never marry.
This impossibility excited a faint sort of romantic sympathy for the
young couple. They were invited to the same houses and thrown together,
apparently with the idea that they should play with fire as steadily and
as long as possible. The unphrased feeling probably was that since the
culmination of their hopes in matrimony was out of the question, it was
only common humanity to afford them opportunities for getting from the
ill-starred attachment all the pleasure that was to be had. Society
approves strongly of romance so long as it stops short of disastrous
marriages; and since Jack and Alice were not to be united, to see them
dallying with the temptation of making an imprudent match was a
spectacle at once piquant and diverting.
On the evening of the day when the news of Alice's pseudo-engagement
had been discussed at Mrs. Harbinger's tea, Jack called on her. She
received him with composure, coming into the room a little pale,
perhaps, but entirely free from self-consciousness. Alice was not
considered handsome by her friends, but no one could fail to recognize
that her face was an unusual one. The Count, in his distorted English,
had declared that Miss Endicott "have een her face one Madonna," and the
description was hardly to be bettered. The serene oval countenance, the
dark, clear skin, the smooth hair of a deep chestnut, the level brows
and long lashes, the high, pure forehead, all belonged to the Madonna
type; although the sparkle of humor which now and then gleamed in the
full, gray eyes imparted a bewitching flavor of humanity. To-night she
was very grave, but she smiled properly, the smile a well-instructed
girl learns as she learns to courtesy. She shook hands in a way perhaps
a little formal, since she was greeting so old an acquaintance.
"Sit down, please," she said. "It is kind of you to come in. I hardly
had a chance to say a word to you this afternoon."
Jack did not return her greeting, nor did he accept her invitation to be
seated. He stooped above the low chair into which she sank as she spoke.
"What is this amazing story that you are engaged to Count Shimbowski?"
he demanded abruptly.
She looked up to him with a smile which was more conventional than
ever.
"What right have you to ask me a question like that?" she returned.
He waved his hand as if to put aside formalities.
"But is it true?" he insisted.
"What is it to you, Jack, if it were?"
She grew visibly paler, and her fingers knit themselves together. He, on
the contrary, flushed and became more commanding in his manner.
"Do you suppose," he answered, "that I should be willing to see a friend
of mine throw herself away on that old roué? He is old enough to be your
father."
"But you know," said she, assuming an air of raillery which did not seem
to be entirely genuine, "that the proverb says it's better to be an old
man's darling than a young man's slave."
Jack flung himself into a chair with an impatient exclamation, and
immediately got up again to walk the floor.
"I wouldn't have believed it of you, Alice. How can you joke about a
thing like that!"
"Why, Jack; you've told me a hundred times that the only way to get
through life comfortably is to take everything in jest."
"Oh, confound what I've told you! That's good enough philosophy for me,
but it's beneath you to talk so."
"What is sauce for the goose--"
"Keep still," he interrupted. "If you can't be serious--"
"You are so fond of being serious," she murmured, interrupting in her
turn.
"But I am serious now. Haven't we always been good friends enough for me
to speak to you in earnest without your treating me as if I was either
impertinent or a fool?"
He stopped his restless walk to stand before her again. She was silent a
moment with her glance fixed on the rug. Then she raised her eyes to
his, and her manner became suddenly grave.
"Yes, Jack," she said, "we have always been friends; but has any man,
simply because he is a friend, a right to ask a girl a question like
that?"
"You mean--"
"I mean no more than I say. There are other men with whom I've been
friends all my life. Is there any one of them that you'd think had a
right to come here to-night and question me about my engagement?"
"I'd break his head if he did!" Jack retorted savagely.
"Then why shouldn't he--whoever he might be--break yours?"
He flung himself into his chair again, his sunny face clouded, and his
brows drawn down. He met her glance with a look which seemed to be
trying to fathom the purpose of her mood.
"Why, hang it," he said; "with me it's different. You know I've always
been more than a common friend."
"You have been a good friend," she answered with resolute
self-composure; "but only a friend after all."
"Then you mean that I cannot be more than a friend?"
She dropped her eyes, a faint flush stealing up into her pale cheeks.
"You do not wish to be; and therefore you have no right--"
He sprang up impulsively and seized both her hands in his.
"Good God, Alice," he exclaimed, "you drive me wild! You know that if I
were not so cursedly poor--"
She released herself gently, and with perfect calmness.
"I know," she responded, "that you have weighed me in the balance
against the trouble of earning a living, and you haven't found me worth
the price. In the face of a fact like that what is the use of words?"
He thrust his empty hands into his pockets, and glowered down on her.
"You know I love you, Alice. You know I've been in love with you ever
since I began to walk; and you--you--"
She rose and faced him proudly.
"Well, say it!" she cried. "Say that I was foolish enough to love you!
That I knew no better than to believe in you, and that I half broke my
heart when you forced me to see that you weren't what I thought. Say it,
if you like. You can't make me more ashamed of it than I am already!"
"Ashamed--Alice?"
"Yes, ashamed! It humiliates me that I should set my heart on a man that
cared so little for me that he set me below his polo-ponies, his
bachelor ease, his miserable little self-indulgences! Oh, Jack," she
went on, her manner suddenly changing to one of appeal, and the tears
starting into her eyes, "why can't you be a man?"
She put her hand on his arm, and he covered it affectionately with one
of his while she hurried on.
"Do break away from the life you are living, and do something worthy of
you. You are good to everybody else; there's nothing you won't do for
others; do this for yourself. Do it for me. You are throwing yourself
away, and I have to hear them talk of your debts, and your racing and
gambling, and how reckless you are! It almost kills me!"
The full sunniness of his smile came back as he looked down into her
earnest face, caressing her hand.
"Dear little woman," he said; "are you sure you have got entirely over
being fond of me?"
"I couldn't get over being fond of you. You know it. That's what makes
it hurt so."
He raised her hand tenderly, and kissed it. Then he dropped it abruptly,
and turned away.
"You must get over it," he said, so brusquely that she started almost as
if from a blow.
She sank back into her seat, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes,
while he walked back to his chair and sat down with an air of bravado.
"It's no use, Alice," he said, "I'm not worth a thought, and it isn't in
me to--Well, the fact is that I know myself too well. I know that if I
promised you to-night that to-morrow I'd begin better fashions, I'm not
man enough to live up to it. I couldn't involve you in--Oh, don't,
don't!"
He broke off to turn to toy with some of the ornaments on the table. In
a moment Alice had suppressed her sobs, and he spoke again, but without
meeting her look. His voice was hard and flippant.
"You see I have such a good time that I wouldn't give it up for the
world. I think I'd better keep on as I'm going. The time makes us, and
we have to abide by the fashion of the time."
"If that is the way you feel," she said coldly, "it is I who have
presumed on old friendship."
He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed harshly.
"We have both been a little unnecessarily tragic, it seems to me," was
his rejoinder. "Love isn't for a poor man unless he'll take it on the
half-shell without dressing; and I fancy neither of us would much care
for it that way. My bank-account is a standing reason why I shouldn't
marry anybody."