"I have talked with you as long as I care to," she responded, the color
in her cheeks, and her head held high. "I am going in here to see Mrs.
West. You had better go and cheer up May."
Before he could reply a servant had opened the door. Jack lifted his
hat.
"Good-by," said he. "Remember what I said about believing the worst."
Then the door closed behind her, and he went on his way down the street.
That the course of true love never ran smooth has been said on such a
multitude of occasions that it is time for some expert in the affections
to declare whether all love which runs roughly is necessarily genuine.
The supreme prerogative of young folk who are fond is of course to tease
and torment each other. Alice and Jack had that morning been a spectacle
of much significance to any student in the characteristics of
love-making. Youth indulges in the bitter of disagreement as a piquant
contrast to the sweets of the springtime of life. True love does not
run smooth because love cannot really take deep hold upon youth unless
it fixes attention by its disappointments and woes. Smooth and sweet
drink quickly cloys; while the cup in which is judiciously mingled an
apt proportion of acid stimulates the thirst it gratifies. If Jack was
to marry May it was a pity that he and Alice should continue thus to
hurt each other.
XX
THE FAITHFULNESS OF A FRIEND
The friendship between Jack Neligage and Dick Fairfield was close and
sincere. For a man to say that the friendships of men are more true and
sure than those of women would savor of cynicism, and might be objected
to on the ground that no man is in a position to judge on both sides of
the matter. It might on the other hand be remarked that even women
themselves give the impression of regarding masculine comradeship as a
finer product of humanity than feminine, but comparisons of this sort
have little value. It is surely enough to keep in mind how gracious a
gift of the gods is a genuine affection between two right-hearted men.
The man who has one fellow whom he loves, of whose love he is assured;
one to whom he may talk as freely as he would think, one who understands
not only what is said but the things which are intended; a friend with
whom it is possible to be silent without offense or coldness, against
whom there need be no safeguards, and to whom one may turn alike in
trouble and in joy--the man who has found a friend like this has a gift
only to be outweighed by the love of her whose price is far above rubies
and whose works praise her in the gates. Such a friendship is all but
the most precious gift of the gods.
To evoke and to share such a friendship, moreover, marks the possession
of possibilities ethically fine. A man may love a woman in pure
selfishness; but really to love his male friend he must possess
capabilities of self-sacrifice and of manliness. It is one of the charms
of comradeship that it frankly accepts and frankly gives without
weighing or accounting. In the garden of such a friendship may walk the
soul of man as his body went in Eden before the Fall, "naked and not
ashamed." He cannot be willing to show himself as he is if his true self
have not its moral beauties. It may be set down to the credit both of
Dick and of Jack that between them there existed a friendship so close
and so trustful.
Even in the closest friendships, however, there may be times of
suspension. Perhaps in a perfect comradeship there would be no room for
the faintest cloud; but since men are human and there is nothing perfect
in human relations, even friendship may sometimes seem to suffer. For
some days after the announcement of Jack's engagement there was a marked
shade between the friends. Jack, indeed, was the same as ever, jolly,
careless, indolent, and apparently without a trouble in the world. Dick,
on the other hand, was at times absent, constrained, or confused. To
have his friend walk in and coolly announce an engagement with the girl
whose correspondence had fired Dick's heart was naturally trying and
astonishing. Dick might have written a bitter chapter about the way in
which women spoiled the friendships of men; and certain cynical remarks
which appeared in his next novel may be conceived of as having been set
down at this time.
More than a week went by without striking developments. The engagement
had not been announced, nor had it, after the first evening, been
mentioned between the two friends. That there should be a subject upon
which both must of necessity reflect much, yet of which they did not
speak, was in itself a sufficient reason for a change in the mental
atmosphere of their bachelor quarters, which from being the cheeriest
possible were fast becoming the most gloomy.
One morning as Dick sat writing at his desk, Jack, who since breakfast
had been engaged in his own chamber, came strolling in, in leisurely
fashion, smoking the usual cigarette.
"I hope I don't disturb you, old man," he said, "but there's something
I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind."
Dick, whose back was toward the other, did not turn. He merely held his
pen suspended, and said coldly:--
"Well?"
Jack composed himself in a comfortable position by leaning against the
mantel, an attitude he much affected, and regarded his cigarette as if
it had some close connection with the thing he wished to say.
"You remember perhaps that letter that I gave you from May?"
Dick laid his pen down suddenly, and sat up, but he did not turn.
"Well?" he said again.
"And the other letters before it?"
"Well?"
"It has occurred to me that perhaps I ought to ask for them,--demand
them, don't you know, the way they do on the stage."
Dick said nothing. By keeping his back to his chum he missed sight of a
face full of fun and mischief.
"Of course I don't want to seem too bumptious, but now I'm engaged to
Miss Calthorpe--"
He paused as if to give Fairfield an opportunity of speaking; but still
Dick remained silent.
"Well," observed Jack after a moment, "why the dickens don't you say
something? I can't be expected to carry on this conversation all alone."
"What do you want me to say?" Fairfield asked, in a tone so solemn that
it was no wonder his friend grinned more than ever.
"Oh, nothing, if that's the way you take it."
"You knew about those letters when I got them," Fairfield went on. "I
read them to you before I knew where they came from."
"Oh, my dear fellow, hold on. You never read me any but the first one."
"At any rate," rejoined Dick, obviously disturbed by this thrust, "I
told you about them."
"Oh, you did? You told me very little about the second, and nothing
about the third. I didn't even know how many you had."
Fairfield rose from his seat, thrust his hands into his pockets, and
began to pace up and down the room. Jack smoked and watched.
"Look here, Jack," Dick said, "we've been fencing round this thing for a
week, and it's got to be talked out."
"All right; heave ahead, old man."
Fairfield stopped in his walk and confronted his friend.
"Are you really fond of Miss Calthorpe, Jack?"
"Oh, I don't object to her; but of course the marriage is for purely
business reasons."
"You're not in love with her?"
"Not the least in the world, old man," Jack responded cheerfully,
blowing a ring of smoke and watching it intently as it sailed toward the
ceiling. "But then she doesn't love me, so there's no bother of
pretending on either side."
The color mounted in Dick's cheeks.
"Do you think it's the square thing to marry a young girl like that, and
tie her up for life when she doesn't know what she's doing?"
"Oh, girls never know what they are doing. How should they know about
marriage in any case? The man has to think for both, of course."
"But suppose she shouldn't be happy."
"Oh, I'll be good to any girl I marry. I'm awfully easy to live with.
You ought to know that."
"But suppose," Dick urged again, "suppose she--"
"Suppose she what?"
"Why, suppose she--suppose she--she liked somebody else?"
Jack looked shrewdly at Dick's confused face, and burst into a laugh.
"I guessed those letters were pretty fair," he burst out, "but they must
have been much worse than I even suspected!"
"What do you mean?" stammered Dick.
"Mean? Oh, nothing,--nothing in the world. By the way, as the matter
relates to my _fiancée_, I hope you won't mind my asking if she's
written to you since our engagement."
"Why--"
"Then she has written," pronounced Jack, smiling more than ever at the
confusion of his friend. "You haven't the cheek to bluff a baby, Dick. I
should hate to see you try to run a kelter through."
"She only wrote to say that she was glad the Count didn't write 'Love in
a Cloud,' and a few things, you know, that she wanted to say."
Jack flung the end of his cigarette away and stepped swiftly forward to
catch his chum by the shoulders behind. He whirled Dick about like a
teetotum.
"Oh, Dick, you old fool," he cried, "what an ass you are! Do you suppose
I'm such a cad as really to propose to marry May when she's fond of you
and you're fond of her? It doesn't speak very well of your opinion of
me."
Dick stared at him in half-stupefied amazement for an instant; then the
blood came rushing into his cheeks.
"You don't mean to marry her?" he cried amazedly.
"Never did for a minute," responded Jack cheerfully. "Don't you know,
old man, that I've sold my polo ponies, and taken a place in the bank?"
"Taken a place in the bank!" exclaimed Dick, evidently more and more
bewildered. "Then what did you pretend to be engaged to her for?"
"Confound your impudence!" laughed Jack, "I was engaged to her, you
beast! I am engaged to her now, and if you're n't civil I'll keep on
being. You can't be engaged to her till I break my engagement!"
"But, Jack, I don't understand what in the deuce you mean."
"Mean? I don't know that I meant anything. I was engaged to her without
asking to be, and when a lady says she is engaged to you you really
can't say you're not. Besides, I thought it might help you."
"Help me?"
"Of course, my boy. There is nothing to set a girl in the way of wishing
to be engaged to the right man like getting engaged to the wrong one."
Dick wrung his friend's hand.
"Jack," he said, "I beg your pardon. You're a trump!"
"Oh, I knew that all the time," responded Jack. "It may comfort you a
little to know that it hasn't been much of an engagement. I've been
shamefully neglectful of my position. Now of course an engaged man is
supposed to show his ardor, to take little liberties, and be generally
loving, you know."
Dick grew fiery red, and shrank back. Jack laughed explosively.
"Jealous, old man?" he demanded provokingly. "Well, I won't tease you
any more. I haven't so much as kissed her hand."
Dick's rather combative look changed instantly into shamefacedness, and
he shook hands again. He turned away quickly, but as quickly turned back
again once more to grasp the hand of his chum.
"Jack Neligage," he declared, "you're worth more than a dozen of my best
heroes, and a novelist can't say more than that!"
"Gad! You'd better put me in a novel then," was Jack's response. "They
won't believe I'm real though; I'm too infernally virtuous."
A knock at the door interrupted them, and proved to be the summons of
the janitor, who announced that a lady wished to see Mr. Fairfield.
"Don't let her stay long," Jack said, retreating to his room. "I can't
get out till she is gone, and I want to go down town. I've got to order
the horses to take my _fiancée_ out for a last ride. It's to break my
engagement, so you ought to want it to come off."
XXI
THE MISCHIEF OF A FIANCÉ
The lady proved to be Alice Endicott. She came in without shyness or
embarrassment, with her usual air of quiet refinement, and although she
must have seen the surprise in Dick's face, she took no notice of it.
Alice was one of those women so free from self-consciousness, so
entirely without affectations, yet so rare in her simple dignity, that
it was hard to conceive her as ever seeming to be out of place. She was
so superior to surroundings that her environment did not matter.
"Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield," she said. "I should apologize for
intruding. I hope I am not disturbing your work."
"Good-morning," he responded. "I am not at work just now. Sit down,
please."
She took the chair he offered, and came at once to her errand.
"I came from Miss Calthorpe," she said.
"Miss Calthorpe?" he repeated.
"Yes. She thought she ought not to write to you again; and she asked me
to come for her letters; those she wrote before she knew who you were."
"But why shouldn't she write to me for them?"
"You forget that she is engaged, Mr. Fairfield."
"I--Of course, I did forget for the minute; but even if she is, I don't
see why so simple a thing as a note asking for her letters--"
Alice rose.
"I don't think that there is any need of my explaining," she said. "If I
tell you that she didn't find it easy to write, will that be sufficient?
Of course you will give me the letters."
"I must give them if she wishes it; but may I ask one question first?
Doesn't she send for them because she's engaged?"
"Isn't that reason enough?"
"It is reason enough," Dick answered, smiling; "but it isn't a reason
here. She isn't engaged any more. That is, she won't be by night."
Alice stared at him in astonishment.
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
"I mean that Jack never meant to marry her, and that he is going to
release her from her engagement."
"How do you know that?"
"He told me himself."
They stood in silence a brief interval looking each other in the face.
Fairfield was radiant, but Miss Endicott was very pale.
"I beg your pardon," she said presently. "Is Mr. Neligage in the house?"
"Yes; he's in his room."
"Will you call him, please?"
Fairfield hesitated a little, but went to call his chum.
"Miss Endicott wants to speak to you," he said abruptly.
"What does she want?"
"I haven't any idea."
"What have you been telling her?"
The necessity of answering this question Dick escaped by returning to
the other room; and his friend followed.
"Jack," Alice cried, as soon as he appeared, "tell me this moment if
it's true that you're not to marry May!"
He faced her stiff and formal in his politeness.
"Pardon me if I do not see that you have any right to ask me such a
question."
"Why, I came to ask Mr. Fairfield for May's letters because she is
engaged to you, and he told me--"
She broke off, her habitual self-control being evidently tried almost
beyond its limit.
"I took the liberty, Jack," spoke up Fairfield, "of saying--"
"Don't apologize," Neligage said. "It is true, Miss Endicott, that
circumstances have arisen which make it best for May to break the
engagement. I shall be obliged to you, however, if you don't mention the
matter to her until she brings it up."
Alice looked at him appealingly.
"But I thought--"
"We are none of us accountable for our thoughts, Miss Endicott, nor
perhaps for a want of faith in our friends."
She moved toward him with a look of so much appeal that Dick discreetly
turned his back under pretense of looking for something on his
writing-table.
"At least," she said, her voice lower than usual, "you will let me
apologize for the way in which I spoke to you the other morning."
"Oh, don't mention it," he returned carelessly. "You were quite
justified."
He turned away with easy nonchalance, as if the matter were one in which
he had no possible interest.
"At least," she begged, "you'll pardon me, and shake hands."
"Oh, certainly, if you like," answered he; "but it doesn't seem
necessary."
Her manner changed in the twinkling of an eye. Indignation shone in her
face and her head was carried more proudly.
"Then it isn't," she said. "Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield."
She went from the room as quickly as a shadow flits before sunlight. The
two young men were so taken by surprise that by the time Dick reached
the door to open it for his departing caller, it had already closed
behind her. The friends stared a moment. Then Jack made a swift stride
to the door; but when he flung it open the hall without was empty.
"Damn it, Dick," he ejaculated, coming back with a face of anger, "what
did you let her go off like that for?"
"How in the world could I help it?" was all that his friend could
answer.
Jack regarded Dick blackly for the fraction of a second; then he burst
into a laugh, and clapped him on the shoulder.
"I beg your pardon, old man," he said, as cheerily as ever. "I'm going
off my nerve with all these carryings on. If you hadn't written that
rotten old novel of yours, we shouldn't have had these continual
circuses."
He went for his hat as he spoke, and without farther adieu took his way
down town. Men in this peculiar world are to be envied or pitied not so
much for their fortunes as for their dispositions; and if outward
indications were to be trusted, Jack Neligage was one of those enviable
creatures who will be cheerful despite the blackest frowns of fate. From
indifference or from pluck, from caring little for the favors of fortune
or from despising her spite, Jack took his way through life merrily,
smiling and sunny; up hill or down dale as it chanced he followed the
path, with a laugh on his lip and always a kindly greeting for his
fellow travelers. This morning, as he walked out into the sunlight,
handsome, well-groomed, debonaire, and jocund, certainly no one who saw
him was likely to suspect that the world did not go smoothly with him.
Least of all could one suppose that his heart or his thought was
troubled concerning the favor or disfavor of any woman whatsoever.
Jack in the afternoon took May for a drive. The engagement had thus far
been a somewhat singular one. Jack had been to see May nearly every
day, it is true, but either by the whimsical contrivance of fate or by
his own cunning he had seldom seen her alone. She either had callers or
was out herself; and as no one but Mrs. Neligage and Alice knew of the
engagement there was no chance for that sentiment which makes callers
upon a lady feel it necessary to retreat as speedily as possible upon
the appearance of her acknowledged lover. So well settled in the public
mind was the conviction that Jack was in love with Alice Endicott, that
nobody took the trouble to notice that he was calling on May Calthorpe
or to get out of his way that he might be alone with her. This
afternoon, in the face of all the world, in a stylish trap, on the open
highway, they were at last together without other company.
Had not the mind of May been provided with an object of regret and
longing in the person of Fairfield, there might have been danger that
Jack would engage her fancy by sheer indifference. Any girl must be
puzzled, interested, piqued, and either exasperated or hurt according to
her nature, when the man to whom she is newly betrothed treats her as
the most casual of acquaintances. If nothing else moved her there would
be the bite of unsatisfied curiosity. To be engaged without even being
able to learn by experience what being engaged consists in may well wear
on the least inquisitive feminine disposition. The _fiancé_ who does not
even make pretense of playing the lover is an object so curious that he
cannot fail to attract attention, to awake interest, and the chances
are largely in favor of his developing in the breast of his fair the
determination to see him really aroused and enslaved. Many a woman has
succumbed to indifference who would have been proof against the most
ardent wooing.
"Well, May," Jack said, smiling upon her as they drove over the Mill
Dam, "how do you like being engaged?"
She looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes which made her bewitching.
"I don't see that it's very different from not being engaged," she said.
"It will be if you keep on looking so pretty," he declared. "I shall
kiss you right here in the street, and that would make folks talk."
The color came into her cheeks in a way that made her more charming
still.
"Now you color," Jack went on, regarding her with a teasing coolness,
"you are prettier yet. Gad! I shall have to kiss you!"
His horses shied at something at that instant, and he was forced to
attend to them, so that May had a moment's respite in which to gather up
her wits. When he looked back, she took the aggressive.
"It is horrid in you to talk that way," she remarked. "Besides, you said
that I needn't kiss you until I wanted to."
"Well, I didn't promise not to kiss you, did I?"
"How silly you are to-day!" she exclaimed. "Isn't there anything better
to talk about than kissing?"
Jack regarded her with a grin; a grin in which, it must be confessed,
there was something of the look with which a boy watches a kitten he is
teasing.
"Anything better?" repeated he. "When you've had more experience, May,
perhaps you won't think there is anything better."
May began to look sober, and even to have the appearance of feeling that
the conversation was becoming positively improper.
"I think you are just horrid!" she declared. "I do wish you'd behave."
He gave her a respite for some moments, and they drove along through the
sunlight of the April afternoon. The trees as they came into the country
were beautiful with the buds and promise of nearing summer; the air soft
with that cool smoothness which is a reminder that afar the breeze has
swept fragments of old snowdrifts yet unmelted; the sky moist with the
mists of snow-fields that have wasted away. All the landscape was
exquisite with delicate hues.
The supreme color-season of New England begins about the middle of
March, and lasts--at the very latest--until the middle of May. Its
climax comes in late April, when pearly mists hover among the branches
that are soon to be hidden by foliage. Glowing tints of amethyst,
luminous gray, tender green, coral, and yellow white, make the woods a
dream of poetic loveliness beside which the gorgeous and less varied
hues of autumn are crude. Something dreamlike, veiled, mysterious, is
felt in these tints, this iridesence of the woods in spring; as if one
were looking at the luminous, rosy mists within which, as Venus amid the
rainbow-dyed foam of the sea, is being shaped to immortal youth and
divine comeliness the very goddess of spring. The red of the maple-buds
shows from afar; the russet leaflets of the ash, the vivid green, the
amber, the pearl, and the tawny of the clustering hardwood trees, set
against the heavy masses of the evergreens, are far more lovely than all
the broad coloring of summer or the hot tints of autumn.
Under the afternoon sun the woods that day were at their best, and
presently May spoke of the colors which spread down the gentle slopes of
the low hills not far away.
"Isn't it just too lovely for anything!" she said. "Just look at that
hill over there. It is perfectly lovely."
Jack glanced at the hill, and then looked at her teasingly.
"That's right," he remarked. "Of course spoony people ought to talk
about spring, and how perfectly lovely everything is."
"I didn't say that because we're engaged," returned May, rather
explosively. "I really meant it."
"Of course you did. That shows that you are in the proper frame of mind.
Now I'm not. I don't care a rap to talk about the whole holy show. It's
pretty, of course; but I'm not going in for doing the sentimental that
way."
She looked up with mingled indignation and entreaty.
"Now you are going to be horrid again," she protested. "Why can't you
stop talking about our being engaged?"
"Stop talking about it? Why, good heavens, we're expected to talk about
it. I never was engaged before, but I hope I know my business."
"But I don't want to talk about it!"
"Oh, you really do, only you are shy about owning it."
"But I won't talk about it!"
"Oh, yes, you will, my dear; for if I say things you can't help
answering 'em."
"I won't say another word!"
"I'll bet you a pair of gloves that the next thing I say about our being
engaged you'll not only answer, but you'll answer in a hurry."
"I'll take your bet!" cried May with animation. "I won't answer a word."
Jack gave a wicked chuckle, and flicked his horses into a brisk run. In
a moment or two he drew them down to an easy trot, and turned to May
with a matter-of-fact air.
"Of course now we have been engaged a week," he said, "I am at liberty
to read that letter you wrote to Christopher Calumus?"
"Read it!" she cried. "Oh, I had forgotten that you kept it! Oh, you
mustn't read it! I wouldn't have you read it for the world."
"Would you have me read it for a pair of gloves?" inquired Jack
wickedly. "You've lost your bet."