"Then you decline to let me have it, Count?"
"Ah, I am desolation, Mees Endeecott, for dat I do not what you desaire;
but I weell rather to do de oder t'ing what you have weesh."
"I am afraid, Count, that your willingness to oblige goes no farther
than to let you do what you wish, instead of what I wish. I only wanted
to know where you have known Mrs. Neligage."
"Ah," he exclaimed, "dat is what Mees Wentsteele have ask. My dear
young lady, eet ees not dat you can be jealous dat once I have known
Madame Neleegaze?"
She faced him with a look of astonishment so complete that the most
simple could not misunderstand it. Then the look changed into profound
disdain.
"Jealous!" she repeated. "I jealous, and of you, Count!"
Her look ended in a smile, as if her sense of humor found the idea of
jealousy too droll to admit of indignation, and she turned to go in
through the window, leaving the Count hesitating behind.
XIII
THE WILE OF A WOMAN
Before the Count had recovered himself sufficiently to go after Miss
Endicott despite her look of contempt and her yet more significant
amusement, Jack Neligage came toward him down the piazza, and called him
by name.
"Oh, Count Shimbowski," Jack said. "I beg your pardon, but may I speak
with you a moment?"
The Count looked after Miss Endicott, but he turned toward Neligage.
"I am always at your service," he said in French.
"I wanted to speak to you about that letter that my mother gave you
yesterday. She made a mistake."
"A mistake?" the Count echoed, noncommittally.
"Yes. It is not for you."
"Well?"
"Will you give it to me, please?" Jack said.
"But why should I give it to you? Are you Christopher Calumus?"
"Perhaps," answered Jack, with a grin. "At least I can assure you that
it is on the authority of the author of 'Love in a Cloud' that I ask for
the letter."
"But I've already refused that letter to a lady."
"To a lady?"
"To Miss Endicott."
"Miss Endicott!" echoed Jack again, in evident astonishment. "Why should
she want it?"
"She said that she had the authority of the writer, as you say that you
have the authority of the man it was written to."
"Did you give it to her?"
"No; but if I did not give it to her, how can I give it to you?"
Neligage had grown more sober at the mention of Miss Endicott's name; he
stood looking down, and softly beating the toe of his boot with his polo
mallet.
"May I ask," he said at length, raising his glance to the Count's face,
"what you propose to do with the letter?"
The other waved his hands in a gesture which seemed to take in all
possible combinations of circumstances, while his shrug apparently
expressed his inner conviction that whichever of these combinations
presented itself Count Shimbowski would be equal to it.
"At least," he returned, "as Mrs. Harbinger has acknowledged that she
wrote it, I could not give it up without her command."
Neligage laughed, and swung his mallet through the air, striking an
imaginary ball with much deftness and precision.
"She said she wrote it, I know; but I think that was only for a lark,
like mother's part in the play. I don't believe Mrs. Harbinger wrote
it. However, here she comes, and you may ask her. I'll see you again. I
must have the letter."
He broke into a lively whistle, and went off down the walk, as Mrs.
Harbinger emerged through the window which a few moments before she had
entered.
"I decided that I wouldn't go down to the brook," she said. "It is too
warm to walk. Besides, I wanted to speak to you."
"Madame Harbeenger do to me too mooch of _honneur_," the Count
protested, with his usual exuberance of gesture. "Eet ees to be me at
her sarveece."
She led the way back to the chairs where her group had been sitting
shortly before, and took a seat which placed her back toward the only
other persons on the piazza, a couple of men smoking at the other end.
"Sit down, Count," she said, waving her hand at a chair. "Somebody will
come, so I must say what I have to say quickly. I want that letter."
The Count smiled broadly, and performed with much success the inevitable
shrug.
"You dat lettaire weesh; Madame Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; Mr.
Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; everybody dat lettaire weesh. Count
Shimbowski dat lettaire he keep, weell eet not?"
"Mrs. Neligage and Jack want it?" Mrs. Harbinger exclaimed. "What in the
world can have set them on? Did they ask you for it?"
"Eet ees dat they have ask," the Count answered solemnly.
"I cannot understand that," she pursued thoughtfully. "Certainly they
can't know who wrote it."
"Ees eet not dat you have said--"
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Harbinger interrupted him, with a smile, "I forgot that
they were there when I confessed to it."
The Count laid his hand on his heart and rolled up his eyes,--not too
much.
"I have so weesh' to tell you how dat I have dat beauteous lettaire
adore," he said. "I have wear de lettaire een de pocket of my heart."
This somewhat startling assertion was explained by his pushing aside his
coat so that the top of a letter appeared peeping out of the left pocket
of his waistcoat as nearly over his heart as the exigencies of tailoring
permitted.
"I shouldn't have let you know that I wrote it," she said.
"But eet have geeve to me so joyous extrodinaire eet to know!"
She regarded him shrewdly, then dropping her eyes, she asked:--
"Was it better than the other one?"
"De oder?" he repeated, evidently taken by surprise. "Ah, dat alone also
have I treasured too mooch."
Mrs. Harbinger broke out frankly into a laugh.
"Come," she said, "I have caught you. You know nothing about any other.
We might as well be plain with each other. I didn't write that letter
and you didn't write 'Love in a Cloud,' or you'd know about the whole
correspondence."
"Ah, from de Eden_garten_," cried the Count, "de weemens ees too mooch
for not to fool de man. Madame ees for me greatly too clevaire."
"Thank you," she said laughingly. "Then give me the letter."
He bowed, and shrugged, and smiled deprecatingly; but he shook his head.
"So have Mees Endeecott say. Eef to her I geeve eet not, I can geeve eet
not to you, desolation as eet make of my heart."
"Miss Endicott? Has she been after the letter too? Is there anybody
else?"
"Madame Neleegaze, Mr. Neleegaze, Mees Endeecott, Madame Harbeenger,"
the Count enumerated, telling them off on his fingers. "Dat ees all now;
but eef I dat lettaire have in my heart-pocket she weell come to me dat
have eet wrote. Ees eet not so? Eet ees to she what have eet wrote dat
eet weell be to geeve eet. I am eenterest to her behold."
"Then you will not give it to me?" Mrs. Harbinger said, rising.
He rose also, a mild whirlwind of apologetic shrugs and contortions,
contortions not ungraceful, but as extraordinary as his English.
"Eet make me desolation een de heart," he declared; "but for now eet
weell be for me to keep dat lettaire."
He made her a profound bow, and as if to secure himself against farther
solicitation betook himself off. Mrs. Harbinger resumed her chair, and
sat for a time thinking. She tapped the tip of her parasol on the
railing before her, and the tip of her shoe on the floor, but neither
process seemed to bring a solution of the difficulty which she was
pondering. The arrivals at the club were about done, and although it
still wanted some half hour to the time set for the polo game, most of
those who had been about the club had gone over to the polo-field. The
sound of a carriage approaching drew the attention of Mrs. Harbinger. A
vehicle easily to be recognized as belonging to the railway station was
advancing toward the club, and in it sat Mr. Barnstable. The gentleman
was landed at the piazza steps, and coming up, he stood looking about
him as if in doubt what to do next. His glance fell upon Mrs. Harbinger,
and the light of recognition flooded his fluffy face as moonlight floods
the dunes of a sandy shore. He came forward abruptly and awkwardly.
"Beg pardon, Mrs. Harbinger," he said. "I came out to find your husband.
Do you know where I can see him?"
"He is all ready to play polo now, Mr. Barnstable," she returned. "I
don't think you can see him until after the game."
She spoke rather dryly and without any cordiality. He stood with his hat
in his two hands, pulling nervously at the brim.
"You are very likely angry with me, Mrs. Harbinger," he blurted out
abruptly. "I ought to apologize for what I did at your house yesterday.
I made a fool of myself."
Mrs. Harbinger regarded him curiously, as if she could hardly make up
her mind how such a person was to be treated.
"It is not customary to have scenes of that kind in our parlors," she
answered, smiling.
"I know it," he said, with an accent of deep despair. "It was all my
unfortunate temper that ran away with me. But you don't appreciate, Mrs.
Harbinger, how a man feels when his wife has been made the subject of an
infamous libel."
"But if you'll let me say so, Mr. Barnstable, I think you are going out
of your way to find trouble. You are not the only man who has been
separated from his wife, and the chances are that the author of 'Love in
a Cloud' never heard of your domestic affairs at all."
"But he must have," protested Barnstable with growing excitement,
"why--"
"Pardon me," she interrupted, "I wasn't done. I say that the chance of
the author of that book knowing anything about your affairs is so small
as to be almost impossible."
"But there were circumstances so exact! Why, all that scene--"
"Really, Mr. Barnstable," Mrs. Harbinger again interrupted, "you must
not go about telling what scenes are true. That is more of a publishing
of your affairs than any putting them in a novel could be."
His eyes stared at her from the folds and undulations of his face like
two remarkably large jellyfish cast by the waves among sand heaps.
"But--but," he stammered, "what am I to do? How would you feel if it
were your wife?"
She regarded him with a glance which gave him up as incorrigible, and
half turned away her head.
"I'm sure I can't say," she responded. "I never had a wife."
Barnstable was too much excited to be restrained by the mild jest, and
dashed on, beginning to gesticulate in his earnestness.
"And by such a man!" he ran on. "Why, Mrs. Harbinger, just look at this.
Isn't this obliquitous!"
He pulled from one pocket a handful of letters, dashed through them at a
mad speed, thrust them back and drew another handful from a second
pocket, scrabbled through them, discarded them for the contents of a
third pocket, and in the end came back to the first batch of papers,
where he at last hit upon the letter he was in search of.
"Only this morning I got this letter from a friend in New York that knew
the Count in Europe. He's been a perfect rake. He's a gambler and a
duelist. There, you take it, Mrs. Harbinger, and read it. You'll see,
then, how I felt when that sort of a man scandaled my wife."
"But I thought that you received the letter only this morning,"
suggested Mrs. Harbinger, with a smile.
Her companion was too thoroughly excited to be interrupted, and dashed
on.
"You take the letter, Mrs. Harbinger, and read it for yourself. Then
you show it to your friends. Let people know what sort of a man they are
entertaining and making much of. Damme--I beg your pardon; my temper's
completely roused up!--it makes me sick to see people going on so over
anything that has a title on it. Why, damme--I beg your pardon, Mrs.
Harbinger; I really beg your pardon!--in America if a man has a title he
can rob henroosts for a living, and be the rage in society."
Mrs. Harbinger reached out her hand deliberately, and took the letter
which was thus thrust at her. She had it safe in her possession before
she spoke again.
"I shall be glad to see the letter," she said, "because I am curious to
know about Count Shimbowski. That he is what he pretends to be in the
way of family I am sure, for I have seen his people in Rome."
"Oh, he is a Count all right," Barnstable responded; "but that doesn't
make him any better."
"As for the book," she pursued calmly, "you are entirely off the track.
The Count cannot possibly have written it. Just think of his English."
"I've known men that could write English that couldn't speak it
decently."
"Besides, he hasn't been in the country long enough to have written it.
If he did write it, Mr. Barnstable, how in the world could he know
anything about your affairs? It seems to me, if I may say so, that you
might apply a little common sense to the question before you get into a
rage over things that cannot be so."
"I was hasty," admitted Barnstable, an expression of mingled penitence
and woe in his face. "I'm afraid I was all wrong about the Count. But
the book has so many things in it that fit, things that were particular,
why, of course when Mrs.--that lady yesterday--"
"Mrs. Neligage."
"When she said the Count wrote it, I didn't stop to think."
"That was only mischief on her part. You might much better say her son
wrote it than the Count."
"Her son?" repeated Barnstable, starting to his feet. "That's who it is!
Why, of course it was to turn suspicion away from him that his mother--"
"Good heavens!" Mrs. Harbinger broke in, "don't make another blunder.
Jack Neligage couldn't--"
"I see it all!" Barnstable cried, not heeding her. "Mr. Neligage was in
Chicago just after my divorce. I heard him say he was there that winter.
Oh, of course he's the man."
"But he isn't a writer," Mrs. Harbinger protested.
She rose to face Barnstable, whose inflammable temper had evidently
blazed up again with a suddenness entirely absurd.
"That's why he wrote anonymously," declared the other; "and that's why
he had to put in real things instead of making them up! Oh, of course
it was Mr. Neligage."
"Mr. Barnstable," she said with seriousness, "be reasonable, and stop
this nonsense. I tell you Mr. Neligage couldn't have written that book."
He glared at her with eyes which were wells of obstinacy undiluted.
"I'll see about that," he said.
Without other salutation than a nod he walked away, and left her.
She gazed after him with the look which studies a strange animal.
"Well," she said softly, aloud, "of all the fools--"
XIV
THE CONCEALING OF SECRETS
Where a number of persons are in the same place, all interested in the
same matter, yet convinced that affairs must be arranged not by open
discussion but by adroit management, the result is inevitable. Each will
be seeking to speak to some other alone; there will be a constant
shifting and rearranging of groups as characters are moved on and off
the stage in the theatre. Life for the time being, indeed, takes on an
artificial air not unlike that which results from the studied devices of
the playwright. The most simple and accurate account of what takes place
must read like the arbitrary conventions of the boards; and the reader
is likely to receive an impression of unreality from the very closeness
with which the truth has been followed.
At the County Club that April afternoon there were so many who were in
one way or another interested in the fate of the letter which in a
moment of wild fun Mrs. Neligage had handed over to the Count, that it
was natural that the movements of the company should have much the
appearance of a contrived comedy. No sooner, for instance, had
Barnstable hastened away with a new bee in his bonnet, than Mrs.
Harbinger was joined by Fairfield. He had come on in advance of the
girls, and now at once took advantage of the situation to speak about
the matter of which the air was full.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I left the young ladies chatting with
Mrs. Staggchase, and they'll be here in a minute. I wanted to speak to
you."
She bestowed the letter which she had received from Barnstable in some
mysterious recess of her gown, some hiding-place which had been devised
as an attempted evasion of the immutable law that in a woman's frock
shall be no real pocket.
"Go on," she said. "I am prepared for anything now. After Mr. Barnstable
anything will be tame, though; I warn you of that."
"Mr. Barnstable? I didn't know you knew him till his circus last night."
"I didn't. He came to me here, and I thought he was going to apologize;
but he ended with a performance crazier than the other."
"What did he do?" asked Fairfield, dropping into the chair which
Barnstable had recently occupied. "He must be ingenious to have thought
of anything madder than that. He might at least have apologized first."
"I wasn't fair to him," Mrs. Harbinger said. "He really did apologize;
but now he's rushing off after Jack Neligage to accuse him of having
written that diabolical book that's made all the trouble."
"Jack Neligage? Why in the world should he pitch upon him?"
"Apparently because I mentioned Jack as the least likely person I could
think of to have written it. That was all that was needed to convince
Mr. Barnstable."
"The man must be mad."
"We none of us seem to be very sane," Mrs. Harbinger returned, laughing.
"I wonder what this particular madman will do."
"I'm sure I can't tell," answered Fairfield absently. Then he added
quickly: "I wanted to ask you about that letter. Of course it isn't you
that's been writing to me, but you must know who it is."
She stared at him in evident amazement, and then burst into a peal of
laughter.
"Well," she said, "we have been mad, and no mistake. Why, we ought to
have known in the first place that you were Christopher Calumus. How in
the world could we miss it? It just shows how we are likely to overlook
the most obvious things."
Fairfield smiled, and beat his fist on the arm of his chair.
"There," he laughed, "I've let it out! I didn't mean to tell it."
"What nonsense!" she said, as if not heeding. "To think that it was you
that May wrote to after all!"
"May!" cried Fairfield. "Do you mean that Miss Calthorpe wrote those
letters?"
The face of Mrs. Harbinger changed color, and a look of dismay came over
it.
"Oh, you didn't know it, of course!" she said. "I forgot that, and now
I've told you. She will never forgive me."
He leaned back in his chair, laughing gayly.
"A Roland for an Oliver!" he cried. "Good! It is only secret for
secret."
"But what will she say to me?"
"Say? Why should she say anything? You needn't tell her till she's told
me. She would have told me sometime."
"She did tell you in that wretched letter; or rather she gave you a sign
to know her by. How did you dare to write to any young girl like that?"
The red flushed into his cheeks and his laughter died.
"You don't mean that she showed you my letters?"
"Oh, no; she didn't show them to me. But I know well enough what they
were like. You are a pair of young dunces."
Fairfield cast down his eyes and studied his finger-nails in silence a
moment. When he looked up again he spoke gravely and with a new
firmness.
"Mrs. Harbinger," he said, "I hope you don't think that I meant anything
wrong in answering her letters. I didn't know who wrote them."
"You must have known that they were written by a girl that was young and
foolish."
"I'm afraid I didn't think much about that. I had a letter, and it
interested me, and I answered it. It never occurred to me that--"
"It never occurs to a man that he is bound to protect a girl against
herself," Mrs. Harbinger responded quickly. "At least now that you do
know, I hope that there'll be no more of this nonsense."
Fairfield did not reply for a moment. Then he looked out over the
landscape instead of meeting her eyes.
"What do you expect me to say to that?" he asked.
"I don't know that I expect anything," she returned dryly. "Hush! They
are coming."
He leaned forward, and spoke in a hurried whisper.
"Does she know?" he demanded.
"Of course not. She thinks it's the Count, for all I can tell."
The arrival of Alice and May put an end to any further confidential
discourse. Fairfield rose hastily, looking dreadfully conscious, but as
the two girls had some interesting information or other to impart to
Mrs. Harbinger, he had an opportunity to recover himself, and in a few
moments the party was on its way to the polo-field.
With the game this story has nothing in particular to do. It was not
unlike polo games in general. The playing was neither especially good
nor especially bad. Jack Neligage easily carried off the honors, and the
men pronounced his playing to be in remarkable form for so early in the
season. Fairfield sat next to Miss Calthorpe, but he was inclined to be
quiet, and to glance at Mrs. Harbinger when he spoke, as if he expected
her to be listening to his conversation. Now and then he fixed his
attention on the field, but when the game was over, and the clever plays
were discussed, he showed no signs of knowing anything about them. To
him the game had evidently been only an accident, and in no way a vital
part of the real business of the day.
There was afternoon tea at the club-house,--groups chatted and laughed
on the piazza and the lawn; red coats became more abundant on the golf
links despite the lateness of the hour; carriages were brought round,
one by one took their freights of pleasure-seekers, and departed.
Fairfield still kept in the neighborhood of Miss Calthorpe, and although
he said little he looked a great deal. Mrs. Harbinger did not interfere,
although for the most part she was within ear-shot. Fairfield was of
good old family, well spoken of as a rising literary man, and May had
money enough for two, so that there were no good grounds upon which a
chaperone could have made herself disagreeable, and Mrs. Harbinger was
not in the least of the interfering sort.
Before leaving the County Club Mrs. Harbinger had a brief talk with Mrs.
Neligage.
"I wish you'd tell me something about the Count's past," she said. "You
knew him in Europe, didn't you?"
"Yes, I met him in Rome one winter; and after that I saw a good deal of
him for a couple of seasons."
"Was he received?"
"Oh, bless you, yes. He's real. His family tree goes back to the tree in
the Garden of Eden."
"Perhaps his ancestor then was the third person there."
Mrs. Neligage laughed, and shook her head.
"Come, Letty," she said, "that is taking an unfair advantage. But
really, the Count is all right. He's as poor as a church mouse, and I've
no doubt he came over here expressly to marry money. That is a foreign
nobleman's idea of being driven to honest toil,--to come to America and
hunt up an heiress."
Mrs. Harbinger produced the letter which she had received from
Barnstable earlier in the afternoon.
"That crazy Mr. Barnstable that made an exhibition of himself at my
house yesterday has given me a letter about the Count. I haven't read
much of it; but it's evidently an attack on the man's morals."
"Oh, his morals," Mrs. Neligage returned with a pretty shrug; "nobody
can find fault with the Count's morals, my dear, for he hasn't any."
"Is he so bad then?" inquired Mrs. Harbinger with a sort of
dispassionate interest.
"Bad, bless you, no. He's neither good nor bad. He's what all his kind
are; squeamishly particular on a point of honor, and with not a moral
scruple to his name."
Mrs. Harbinger held the letter by the corner, regarding it with little
favor.
"I'm sure I don't want his old letter," she observed. "I'm not a
purveyor of gossip."
"Why did he give it to you?"
"He wanted me to read it, and then to show it to my friends. He
telegraphed to New York last night, Tom said, to find out about the
Count, and the letter must have come on the midnight."
"Characters by telegraph," laughed Mrs. Neligage. "The times are getting
hard for adventurers and impostors. But really the Count isn't an
impostor. He'd say frankly that he brought over his title to sell."
"That doesn't decide what I am to do with this letter," Mrs. Harbinger
remarked. "You'd better take it."
"I'm sure I don't see what I should do with it," Mrs. Neligage returned;
but at the same time she took the epistle. "Perhaps I may be able to
make as much mischief with this as I did with that letter yesterday."
The other looked at her with serious disfavor expressed in her face.
"For heaven's sake," she said, "don't try that. You made mischief enough
there to last for some time."
XV
THE MISCHIEF OF A LETTER