Chapter III: Part 3

The windows of Mrs. Neligage's little parlor were open, and the morning air with all its provoking suggestions was floating in softly, as she rose to welcome a caller. He was not in the first springtime of life, yet suggested a season which was to spring what Indian summer is to autumn. A certain brisk jauntiness in face, dress, and manner might mean that he had by sheer determination remained far younger than his years. He had a hard, handsome face, with cleanly cut features, and side whiskers which were perhaps too long and flowing. His hair was somewhat touched with gray, but it was abundant, and curled attractively about his high, white forehead. His dress was perfection, and gave the impression that if he had moral scruples--about which his hard, bright eyes might raise a doubt--it would be in the direction of being always perfectly attired. His manner as he greeted Mrs. Neligage was carefully genial, yet the spring which was in the air seemed in his presence to be chilled by an untimely frost.

"How bright you are looking this morning, Louise," Mr. Sibley Langdon said, kissing her hand with an elaborate air of gallantry. "You are really the incarnation of the spring that is upon us."

She smiled languidly, drawing away her hand and moving to a seat.

"You know I am getting old enough to like to be told I am young, Sibley," was her answer. "Sit down, and tell me what has happened in the month that I've been in Washington."

"Nothing can happen while you are away," he responded, with a smile. "We only vegetate, and wait for your return. You don't mind if I smoke?"

"Certainly not. How is Mrs. Langdon?"

He drew out a cigarette-case of tortoise-shell and gold, helped himself to a cigarette, and lighted it before he answered.

"Mrs. Langdon is as usual," he replied. "She is as ill and as pious as ever."

"For which is she to be pitied the more?"

"Oh, I don't know that she is to be pitied for either," Langdon responded, in his crisp, well-bred voice. "Both her illness and her piety are in the nature of occupations to her. One must do something, you know."

Mrs. Neligage offered no reply to this, and for half a moment the caller smoked in silence.

"Tell me about yourself," he said. "You cruelly refuse to write to me, so that when you are away I am always in the dark as to what you are doing. I've no doubt you had all Washington at your feet."

"Oh, there were a few unimportant exceptions," Mrs. Neligage returned, her voice a little hard. "I don't think that if you went on now you'd find the capital draped in mourning over my departure."

Langdon knocked the ashes from his cigarette with the deliberation which marked all his movements. Then he looked at his hostess curiously.

"You don't seem to be in the best of spirits this morning, Louise," he said. "Has anything gone wrong?"

She looked at him with contracting brows, and ignored his question as she demanded abruptly:--

"What did you come to say to me?"

"To say to you, my dear? I came as usual to say how much I admire you, of course."

She made an impatient gesture.

"What did you come to say?" she repeated. "Do you think I don't know you well enough to see when you have some especial purpose in mind?"

Sibley Langdon laughed lightly,--a sort of inward, well-bred laugh,--and again with care trimmed his cigarette.

"You are a person of remarkable penetration, and it is evidently of no use to hope to get ahead of you. I really came for the pleasure of seeing you, but now that I am here I may as well mention that I have decided to go abroad almost at once."

"Ah," Mrs. Neligage commented. "Does Mrs. Langdon go with you?"

He laughed outright, as if the question struck him as unusually droll.

"You really cannot think me so selfish as to insist upon her risking her fragile health by an ocean voyage just for my pleasure."

"I suspected that you meant to go alone," she said dryly.

"But, my dear child," he answered with no change of manner, "I don't mean to go alone."

She changed color, but she did not pursue the subject. She took up from the table a little Japanese ivory carving, and began to examine it with close scrutiny.

"You do not ask whom I hope to take with me," Langdon said.

She looked at him firmly.

"I have no possible interest in knowing," she responded.

"You are far too modest, Louise. On the contrary you have the greatest. I had hoped--"

He half hesitated over the sentence, and she interrupted him by rising and moving to the open window.

"It is so nice to have the windows open again," she said. "I feel as if I were less alone when there is nothing between me and the world. That big fat policeman over there is a great friend of mine."

"We are all your slaves, you see," Langdon responded, rising languidly and joining her. "By the way, I had a letter from Count Marchetti the other day."

Mrs. Neligage flushed and paled, and into her eye came a dangerous sparkle. She moved away from him, and went back to her seat, leaving him to follow again. She did not look at him, but she spoke with a determined manner which showed that she was not cowed.

"Before I go to bed to-night, Sibley," she said, "I shall write to the Countess the whole story of her necklace. I was a fool not to do it before."

He smiled indulgently.

"Oh, did I call up that old unpleasantness?" he observed. "I really beg your pardon. But since you speak of it, what good would it do to write to her now? It would make no difference in facts, of course; and it wouldn't change things here at all."

She sprang up and turned upon him in a fury.

"Sibley Langdon," she cried, "you are a perfect fiend!"

He laughed and looked at her with admiration so evident that her eyes fell.

"You have told me that before, and you are so devilish handsome when you say it, Louise, that I can't resist the temptation sometimes of making you repeat it. Come, don't be cross. We are too wise if not too old to talk melodrama."

"I shall act melodrama if you keep on tormenting me! What did you come here for this morning? Say it, and have done."

"If you take it that way," returned he, "I came only to say good-morning."

His coolness was unshaken, and he smiled as charmingly as ever.

"Tell me," he remarked, flinging his cigarette end into the grate and taking out his case again, "did you see the Kanes in Washington?"

He lighted a fresh cigarette, and for half an hour talked of casual matters, the people of their set in Washington, the new buildings there, the decorations, and the political scandals. His manner became almost deferential, and Mrs. Neligage as they chatted lost gradually all trace of the excitement which she had shown. At length the talk came round to their neighbors at home.

"I met Count Shimbowski at the club the other day," Langdon remarked, "and he alluded to the old days at Monte Carlo almost with sentiment. It is certainly amusing to see him passed round among respectable Boston houses."

"He is respectable enough according to his standards," she responded. "It is funny, though, to see how much afraid he is that Miss Wentstile should know about his past history."

"I suppose there's no doubt he's to marry Alice Endicott, is there?"

"There is Alice herself," Mrs. Neligage answered. "I should call her a pretty big doubt."

"At any rate," her companion observed, "Jack can't marry her. Miss Wentstile would never give them a penny."

"I have never heard Jack say that he wished to marry her," Mrs. Neligage responded coolly. "You are quite right about Miss Wentstile, though; she regards Jack as the blackest sheep imaginable."

Langdon did not speak for a moment or two, and when he did break silence his manner was more decided than before.

"What line do you like best to cross by?" he asked.

"I have been on so many," she answered, "that I really can't tell."

"It is safe to say then that you like a fast boat."

She made no reply, and only played nervously with the clever carving in her hand, where little ivory rats were stealing grain with eternal motionless activity.

"Of course if you were going over this spring," Langdon said, "we should be likely to meet somewhere on the other side; Paris, very possibly. It is a pity that people gossip so, or we might go on the same steamer."

She looked him squarely in the face.

"I am not going abroad this summer," she said distinctly.

"Oh, my dear Louise," returned he half mockingly, half pleadingly, "you really can't mean that. Europe would be intolerably dull without you."

She looked up, pale to the eyes.

"My son would be dull here without me," she said.

"Oh, Jack," returned the other, shrugging his shoulders, "he'll get on very well. If you were going, you know, you might leave him something--"

She started to her feet with eyes blazing.

"You had better go," she said in a low voice. "I have endured a good deal from you, Sibley; and I've always known that the day would come when you'd insult me. It will be better for us both if you go."

He rose in his turn, as collected as ever.

"Insult you, my dear Louise? Why, I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything in the world. I give you leave to repeat every word that I have said to any of your friends,--to Miss Wentstile, or Letty Harbinger, or to Jack--"

"If I repeated them to Jack," she interrupted him, "he'd break every bone in your body!"

"Would he? I doubt it. At any rate he would have to hear me first; and then--"

Mrs. Neligage, all her brightness quenched, her face old and miserable, threw out her hands in despairing supplication.

"Go!" she cried. "Go! Or I shall do something we'll both be sorry for! Go, or I'll call that policeman over there."

He laughed lightly, but he moved toward the door.

"Gad!" he ejaculated. "That would make a pretty item in the evening papers. Well, if you really wish it, I'll go; but I hope you'll think over what I've said, or rather think over what I haven't said, since you haven't seemed pleased with my words. I shall come at one to drive you to the County Club."

He bade her an elaborate good-morning, and went away, as collected, as handsome, as debonaire as ever; while Mrs. Neligage, the hard, bright little widow who had the reputation of being afraid of nothing and of having no feelings, broke down into a most unusual fit of crying.

X

THE BUSINESS OF A CLUBMAN

The first game of polo for the season at the County Club was to be played that Saturday. The unusually early spring had put the turf in condition, and the men had had more or less practice. It was too soon, of course, for a match, but there was to be a friendly set-to between the County Club team and a team from the Oracle Club. It was not much more than an excuse for bringing the members out, and for having a mild gala, with fresh spring toilettes and spring buoyancy to add to the zest of the day.

Amusement is a business which calls for a good deal of brains if it is to be carried on successfully. Of course only professionals can hope to succeed in a line so difficult, and in America there are few real professionals in the art of self-amusement. Most men spoil their chances of complete success by dallying more or less with work of one sort or another; and this is fatal. Only he who is sincere in putting amusement first, and to it sacrifices all other considerations, can hope for true preëminence in this calling. Jack Neligage was one of the few men in Boston entirely free from any weakness in the way of occupation beyond that of pleasure-seeking; and as a consequence he was one of the few who did it well.

All forms of fashionable play came easily and naturally to Jack, and in them all he bore a part with tolerable grace. He was sufficiently adept at tennis in its day; and when that had passed, he was equally adroit in golf and in curling; he could lead a german better than anybody else; nobody so well managed assemblies and devised novel surprises in the way of decorations; nobody else so well arranged coaching trips or so surely made the life of a house party. All these things were part of his profession as a pleasure-seeker, and they were all done with a quick and merry spirit which gave to them a charm not to be resisted.

It was on the polo-field, however, that Jack was at his best. No man who hopes to keep up with the fashions can afford to become too much interested in any single sport, for presently the fad will alter, and he must perforce abandon the old delights; but polo held its own very well, and it was evidently the thing in which Jack reveled most. He was the leading player not of his club only, but of all the clubs about. His stud of polo-ponies was selected with more care than has often gone to the making of a state constitution, for the matters that are really important must be attended to with zeal, while public politics may be expected more or less to take care of themselves. His friends wondered how Neligage contrived to get hold of ponies so valuable, or how he was able to keep so expensive an outfit after he had obtained it; but everybody was agreed that he had a most wonderful lot.

The question of how he managed might have been better understood by any one who had chanced to overhear a conversation between Jack and Dr. Wilson, which took place just before luncheon that day. Dr. Wilson was chairman of the board of managers of the club. He was a man who had come into the club chiefly as the husband of Mrs. Chauncy Wilson, a lady whose stud was one of the finest in the state, and he was somewhat looked down upon by the men of genuine old family. He was good-humored, however; shrewd if a little unrefined; and he had been rich long enough to carry the burden of his wife's enormous fortune without undue self-consequence. To-day it became his duty to talk to Jack on an unpleasant matter of business.

"Jack," he said, "I've got to pitch into you again."

"The same old thing, I suppose."

"Same old thing. Sometimes I've half a mind to resign from the club, so as to get rid of having to drub you fellows about your bills."

Jack gnawed his mustache, twisting his cigar in his fingers in a way that threatened to demolish it altogether.

"I've told you already that I can't do anything until--"

"Oh, I know it," Wilson broke in. "I'm satisfied, but the committee is getting scared. The finances of the club are in an awful mess; there's no denying that. Some of the men on the committee, you see, are afraid of being blamed for letting the credits run on so."

Jack did not take advantage of the pause which gave him an opportunity to speak, and the other went on again.

"I'm awfully sorry, old man; but there's got to be an end somewhere, and nobody's been given the rope that you have."

"I can resign, of course," Jack said shortly.

"Oh, dry up that sort of talk! Nobody'd listen to your resigning. Everybody wants you here, and we couldn't spare you from the polo team."

"But if I can't pay up, what else can I do?"

"But you can't resign in debt, man."

Jack laughed with savage amusement.

"What the devil am I to do? I can't stay, and I can't leave. That seems to be about the size of it."

Dr. Wilson looked at his companion keenly, and there was in his tone some hesitation as he replied.

"You might sell--"

"Sell my ponies!" broke in Neligage excitedly. "When I do I'll give up playing."

"Oh, nonsense! Don't be so infernally stubborn. Harbinger'll buy one, and I'll buy a couple, and the others it doesn't matter about. You've always had twice as many as you need."

"So you propose that I shouldn't have any."

"You could use them just the same."

Jack swore savagely.

"Thank you," he returned. "I may be a beggar, but I won't be a beat."

Wilson laughed with his oily, chuckling laugh.

"I don't see," he observed with characteristic brusqueness, "why it is any worse to take a favor from a friend that offers it than to get it out of a club that can't help itself."

Jack's cheeks flushed, and he began an angry reply. Then he restrained himself.

"I won't quarrel with you for doing your official duty, Wilson," he said stiffly. "I'll fix things somehow or get out."

"Oh, hang it, man," returned the doctor good-naturedly, "you mustn't talk of getting out. I'll lend you what you need."

"Thank you, but you know I can't pay you."

"That's no matter. Something will turn up, and you may pay me when you get ready."

"No; I'm deep enough in the mire as it is. I won't make it worse by borrowing. That's the only virtue that I ever had,--that I didn't sponge on my friends. I'm just as much obliged to you; but I can't do it."

They had been sitting in the smoking-room before the fireplace where a smouldering log or two took from the air its spring chill. Jack as he spoke flung the stub of his cigar into the ashes, and rose with an air of considering the conversation definitely ended. Wilson looked up at him, his golden-brown eyes more sober than usual.

"Of course it is just as you say, old man," he remarked; "but if you change your mind, you've only to let me know."

Jack moved off with a downcast air unusual to him, but by the time he had encountered two or three men who were about the club-house, and had exchanged with them a jest or a remark about the coming game, his face was as sunny as ever. People were now arriving rather rapidly, and soon the stylish trap of Sibley Langdon came bowling up the driveway in fine style, with Mrs. Neligage sitting beside the owner. Jack was on the front piazza when they drove up, and his mother waved her hand to him gayly.

"Gad, Jack," one of the men said, "your mother is a wonder. She looks younger than you do this minute."

"I don't think she is," Jack returned with a grin; "but you're right. She is a wonderfully young woman to be the mother of a great cub like me."

Not only in her looks did Mrs. Neligage give the impression of youth, but her movements and her unquenchable vivacity might put to a disadvantage half of the young girls. She tripped up the steps as lightly as a leaf blown by the wind, her trim figure swaying as lithely as a willow-shoot. As she came to Jack she said to him in a tone loud enough to be heard by all who were on the piazza:--

"Oh, Jack, come into the house a moment. I want to show you a letter."

She dropped a gay greeting here and there as she led the way, and in a moment they were alone inside the house. Mrs. Neligage turned instantly, with a face from which all gayety had vanished as the color of a ballet-dancer's cheek vanishes under the pall of a green light.

"Jack," she said hastily, "I am desperate. I am in the worst scrape I ever was in, in my life. Can you raise any money?"

He looked at her a moment in amazed silence; then he laughed roughly.

"Money?" he retorted. "I am all but turned out of the club to-day for want of it. This is probably my last game."

"You are not in earnest?" she demanded, pressing closer to him, and putting her hand on his arm. "You are not really going to leave the club?"

"What else can I do? The committee think it isn't possible to let things go any longer."

She looked into his face, her own hardening. She studied him with a keen glance, which he met firmly, yet with evident effort.

"Jack," she said at length, her voice lower, "there is only one way out of it. Last night you wouldn't listen to me; but you must now. You must marry May Calthorpe. If you were engaged to her it would be easy enough to raise money."

"You talk as if she were only waiting for me to say the word, and she'd rush into my arms."

"She will, she must, if you'll have her. You wouldn't take her for your own good, but you've got to do it for mine. You can't let me be ruined just through your obstinacy."

"Ruined? What under the canopy do you mean, mother? You are trying to scare me to make me go your way."

"I'm not, Jack; upon my word I'm not! I tell you I'm in an awful mess, and you must stand by me."

Jack turned away from her and walked toward the window; then he faced her again with a look which evidently questioned how far she was really in earnest. There had been occasions when Mrs. Neligage had used her histrionic powers to get the better of her son in some domestic discussion, and the price of such success is inevitably distrust. Now she faced him boldly, and met his look with a nod of perfect comprehension.

"Yes, I am telling you the truth, Jacky. There is nothing for it but for us both to go to smash if you won't take May."

"Take May," he echoed impatiently, "how you do keep saying that! How can I take her? She doesn't care a straw about me anyway, and I've no doubt she looks on me as one of the old fellows."

"She being eighteen and you twenty-five," his mother answered, smiling satirically. "But somebody is coming. I can't talk to you now; only this one thing I must say. Play into my hands as you can if you will, and you'll be engaged to May before the week's over."

He broke into a roar of laughter which had a sound of being as much nerves as amusement.

"Is this a comic opera?" he demanded.

"Yes, dear Jacky," his mother retorted, resuming her light manner, "that's just what it is. Don't you miss your cue."

She left him, and went gayly forward to greet the new-comers, ladies who had just driven up, and Jack followed her lead with a countenance from which disturbance and bewilderment had not entirely vanished.

XI

THE GAME OF CROSS-PURPOSES

Mrs. Neligage escaped from her friends speedily, with that easy swiftness which is in the power of the socially adroit, and returned to the piazza by a French window which opened at the side of the house, and so was not in sight from the front of the club. There she came upon Count Shimbowski comfortably seated in a sunny corner, smoking and meditating.

"Ah, Count," she said, as he rose to receive her, "this is unexpected pleasure. Are you resting from the strain of continual adulation?"

"What you say?" he responded. Then he dropped into his seat with a despairing gesture. "Dis Eengleesh," he said; "eet ees eemposseeble eet to know. I have told Mees Wentsteele dat she ees very freesh, and--"

He ended with a groan, and a snug little Hungarian oath under his breath.

"Fresh!" echoed Mrs. Neligage, with a laugh like a redbird whisking gayly from branch to branch. "My dear Count, she is anything but fresh. She is as stale as a last year's love-affair. But she ought to be pleased to be told she is fresh."

"Oh, I say: 'You be so freesh, Mees Wentsteele,' and she, she say: 'Freesh, Count Shimbowski? You result me!' Den day teel me freesh mean fooleesh, _sotte_. What language ees dat?"

"Oh, it isn't so bad as you think, Count. It is only _argot_ anyway, and it doesn't mean _sotte_, but _naïve_. Besides, she wouldn't mind. She is enough of a woman to be pleased that you even tried to tell her she was young."

"But no more ees she young."

"No more, Count. We are all of us getting to be old enough to be our own grandmothers. Miss Wentstile looks as if she was at the Flood and forgot to go in when it rained."

The Count looked more puzzled than amused at this sally, but his politeness came to his rescue. A compliment is always the resource of a man of the world when a lady puzzles him.

"Eet ees only Madame Neleegaze to what belong eemortal youth," he said with a bow.

She rose and swept him a courtesy, and then took from her dress one of the flowers she was wearing, which chanced to be very portly red carnations.

"You are as gallant as ever, Count," she said, "so that your English doesn't matter. Besides that, you have a title; and American women love a title as a moth loves a candle."

She stuck the carnation into his buttonhole as she spoke, and returned to her seat, where she settled herself with the air of one ready for a serious chat.

"It is very odd to see you on this side of the Atlantic, Count," she remarked. "Tell me, what are you doing in this country,--besides taking the town by storm, that is?"

"I weell range my own self;--say you een Eengleesh 'arrange my own self'?"

"When it means you are going to marry, Count, it might be well to say that you are going to arrange yourself and derange somebody else. Is the lady Miss Endicott?"

"Eet ees Mees Endeecott. Ees she not good for me?"

"She is a thousand times too good for you, my dear fellow; but she is as poor as a church mouse."

"Ah, but her aunt, Mees Wentsteele, she geeve her one _dot_: two thousand hundred dollar. Eet weell be a meellion francs, ees eet not?"

"So you get a million francs for yourself, Count. It is more than I should have thought you worth."

"But de teettle!"

"Oh, the title is worth something, but I could buy one a good deal cheaper. If I remember correctly I might have had yours for nothing, Count."

The Count did not look entirely pleased at this reminiscence, but he smiled, and again took refuge in a compliment.

"To one so _ravissante_ as madame all teettles are under her feet."

"I wish you would set up a school for compliments here in Boston, Count, and teach our men to say nice things. Really, a Boston man's compliments are like molasses candy, they are so home-made. But why don't you take the aunt instead of the niece? Miss Wentstile is worth half a million."

"Dat weell be mouche," responded the Count with gravity; "but she have bones."

The widow laughed lightly. The woman who after forty can laugh like a girl is one who has preserved her power over men, and she is generally one fully aware of the fact. Mrs. Neligage had no greater charm than her light-hearted laugh, which no care could permanently subdue. She tossed her head, and then shook it at the Count.

"Yes," she responded, "you are unfortunately right. She has bones. By the way, do you happen to have with you that letter I gave you at Mrs. Harbinger's yesterday?"

"Yes," he answered, drawing from his pocket the note addressed to Christopher Calumus, "I have eet."

"I would like to see it," Mrs. Neligage said, extending her hand.

The Count smiled, and held it up.

"You can see eet," said he, "but eet ees not permeet you weedeen de hand to have eet."

She leaned forward and examined it closely, studying the address with keen eyes.

"It is no matter," was her remark. "I only wanted to make sure."

"Do you de handwrite know?" he demanded eagerly.

"And if I do?"

"You do know," he broke out in French. "I can see it in your face. Tell me who wrote it."

She shook her head, smiling teasingly. Then she rose, and moved toward the window by which she had come from the house.

"No, Count," was her answer. "It doesn't suit my plan to tell you. I didn't think quickly enough yesterday, or I wouldn't have given it to you. It was in your hands before I thought whose writing it was."

The Count, who had risen, bowed profoundly.

"After all," he said, "I need not trouble you. Mrs. Harbinger acknowledged that she wrote it."

Mrs. Neligage flashed back at him a mocking grimace as she withdrew by the window.

"I never expected to live to see you believe a thing because a woman said it," she laughed. "You must have been in strange hands since I used to know you!"

Left alone, the Count thoughtfully regarded the letter for a moment, then with a shrug he restored it to his pocket, and turned to go around the corner of the house to the front piazza. Sounds of wheels, of voices, of talking, and of laughter told of the gathering of pleasure-seekers; and scarcely had the Count passed the corner than he met Mr. Bradish face to face. There were groups of men and women on the piazza and on the lawn, with the horses and dogs in sight which are the natural features in such a picture at an out-of-town club. The Count heeded none of these things, but stepped forward eagerly.

"Ah, Count, you have come out to the games like everybody else, I see," Bradish said pleasantly.

"Eet ees extreme glad to see me, Mr. Bradeesh," the Count returned, shaking him by the hand. "Do you weelleengly come wid us a leettle, for dat I say to you ver' particle?"

Bradish, with his usual kindly courtesy, followed the Count around the corner of the house, out of sight of the arriving company.

"Something particular to say to me, Count?" he observed. "You do me too much honor."

"Eet weell be of honor dat I weell to you speak," the Count responded. "Weell you for myself de condescension to have dat you weell be one friend to one _affaire d'honneur_?"

Bradish stared at him in undisguised amazement.

"An _affaire d'honneur_?" he echoed. "Surely you don't mean that you are going to fight? You can't mean a duel?"

"Oh, _oui, oui_; eet weell be a duel dat eet calls you."

Bradish stared harder than ever, and then sat down as if overcome.

"But, my dear Count, you can't fight duels in America."

"For what weell not een Amereeca fight? He have result me! Me, Count Ernst Shimbowski! Weell I not to have hees blood?"

"I'm afraid you won't," Bradish responded, shaking his head. "That isn't the way we do things here. But who is it has insulted you?"

The Count became more and more excited as he spoke of his wrongs, and with wide gestures he appealed to the whole surrounding region to bear him out in his rage and his resolution. He stood over Bradish like an avenging and furious angel, swaying his body by way of accent to his words.

"You deed see! De ladies day deed see! All de world weell have heard dat he result--he eensult me! De Shimbowski name have been eensult'! Deed he not say 'Veelaine! Veelaine!' Oh, _sacré nom de mon père_! 'Veelaine! Veelaine!' Eet weell not but only blood to wash dat eensult!"

How an American gentleman should behave when he is seriously asked to act as a second in a duel in this land and time is a question which has probably never been authoritatively settled, and which might be reasoned upon with very curious arguments from different points of view. It is safe to say that any person who finds himself in such a position could hardly manage to incur much risk of running into danger, or even of doing violence to any moral scruples with which he may chance to be encumbered. He must always feel that the chances of a duel's actually taking place are so ridiculously small that the whole matter can be regarded only as food for laughter; and that no matter how eager for fight one or both of the possible combatants might be, the end will be peace. So far from making the position of a second more easy, however, this fact perhaps renders it more difficult. It is harder to face the ridiculous than the perilous. If there were any especial chance that a duel would proceed to extremes, that principals would perhaps come to grief and seconds be with them involved in actual danger, even though only the ignoble danger of legal complications, a man might feel that honor called upon him not to fail his friend in extremity. When it is merely a question of becoming more or less ridiculous according to the notoriety of the affair, the matter is different. The demand of society is that a gentleman shall be ready to brave peril, but there is nothing in the social code which goes so far as to call upon him to run the chance of making himself ridiculous. Society is founded upon the deepest principles of human nature, and if it demanded of man the sacrifice of his vanity the social fabric would go to pieces like a house of cards in a whirlwind. Bradish might have been called upon to risk his life at the request of the Count, although they were in reality little more than acquaintances; but he certainly cannot be held to have been under any obligations to give the world a right to laugh at him.

Bradish regarded the Count with a smile half amused and half sympathetic, while the Hungarian poured out his excited protest, and when there came a pause he said soothingly:--

"Oh, sit down and talk it over, my dear Count. I see you mean that stupid dunce of a Barnstable. You can't fight him. Everybody would laugh at the very idea. Besides, he isn't your equal socially. You can't fight him."

"You do comprehend not!" cried the Count. "De Shimbowski name weell eet to have blood for de eensult!"

"But--"

The Count drew himself up with an air of hauteur which checked the words on Bradish's lips.

"Eet ees not for a Shimbowski to beg for favors," he said stiffly. "Eef eet ees you dat do not serve me--"

"Oh, I assure you," interrupted Bradish hastily, "I am more than willing to serve you; but I wanted to warn you that in America we look at things so differently--"

"Een Amereeca even," the Count in his turn interrupted with a superb gesture, "dare weell be gentlemans, ees eet not?"

In the face of that gesture there was nothing more to be said in the way of objection. Time and the chapter of accidents must determine what would come of it, but no man of sensibility and patriotism, appealed to in that grand fashion in the name of the honor of America, could have held out longer. Least of all was it to be expected that Harry Bradish, kindest-hearted of living men, and famous for never being able to refuse any service that was asked of him, could resist this last touch. He rose as if to get out of the interview as speedily as possible.

"Very well then," he said, "if you persist in going on, I'll do what I can for you, but I give you fair warning once more that it'll come to nothing more than making us both ridiculous."

The Count shook hands warmly, but his response was one which might be said to show less consideration than might have been desired for the man who was making a sacrifice in his behalf.

"De Shimbowski name," he declared grandiloquently, yet with evident sincerity, "ees never reedeeculous."

There followed some settling of details, in all of which Bradish evinced a tendency to temporize and to postpone, but in which the ardor of the Count so hurried everything forward that had Barnstable been on the spot the duel might have been actually accomplished despite all obstacles. It was evident, however, that one side cannot alone arrange a meeting of honor, and in the end little could be done beyond the Count's receiving a promise from Bradish that the latter would communicate with Barnstable as soon as possible.

This momentous and blood-curdling decision having been arrived at, the two gentlemen emerged from their retirement on the side piazza, and once more joined the gay world as represented by the now numerous gathering assembled to see the polo at the County Club.

XII

THE WASTING OF REQUESTS

The exhilaration of the spring day, the pleasure of taking up once more the outdoor life of the warm season, the little excitement which belongs to the assembling of merry-makers, the chatter, the laughter, all the gay bustle combined to fill the County Club with a joyous atmosphere. Before the front of the house was a sloping lawn which merged into an open park, here and there dotted with groups of budding trees and showing vividly the red of golf flags. The driveway wound in curves of carefully devised carelessness from the country road beyond the park to the end of the piazza, and all arrivals could be properly studied as they approached. The piazza was wide and roomy, so that it was not crowded, although a considerable number of men and women were there assembled; and from group to group laughter answered laughter.

Mrs. Harbinger in the capacity of chaperone had with her Alice Endicott and May Calthorpe. The three ladies stood chatting with Dick Fairfield, tossing words back and forth like tennis-balls for the sheer pleasure of the exercise.

"Oh, I insist," Fairfield said, "that spring is only a season when the days are picked before they are ripe."

"You say that simply in your capacity of a literary man, Mr. Fairfield," Alice retorted; "but I doubt if it really means anything."

"I am afraid it doesn't mean much," he responded laughing, "but to insist that an epigram must mean something would limit production dreadfully."

"Then we are to understand," Mrs. Harbinger observed, "that what you literary men say is never to be taken seriously."

"Oh, you should make a distinction, Mrs. Harbinger. What a literary man says in his professional capacity you are at liberty to believe or not, just as you choose; but of course in regard to what is said in his personal capacity it is different."

"There, I suppose," she retorted, "he is simply to be classed with other men, and not to be believed at all."

"Bless me, what cynicism! Where is Mr. Harbinger to defend his reputation?"

"He is so absorbed in getting ready for the game that he has forgotten all about any reputation but that of a polo-player," Mrs. Harbinger returned. "And that reminds me that I haven't seen his new pony. Come, Alice, you appreciate a horse. We must go and examine this new wonder from Canada."

"We are not invited apparently," May said, seating herself in a piazza chair. "It is evidently your duty, Mr. Fairfield, to stay here and entertain me while they are gone."

"I remain to be entertained," he responded, following her example.

Mrs. Harbinger and Alice went off to the stables, and the pair left behind exchanged casual comments upon the day, the carriages driving up, the smart spring gowns of the ladies, and that sort of verbal thistledown which makes up ordinary society chit-chat. A remark which Fairfield made on the attire of a dashing young woman was the means of bringing the talk around again to the subject which had been touched upon between them on the previous afternoon.

"I suppose," Miss Calthorpe observed, "that a man who writes stories has to know about clothes. You do write stories, I am sure, Mr. Fairfield."

He smiled, and traced a crack in the piazza floor with his stick.

"Which means, of course," he said, "that you have never read any of them. That is so far lucky for me."

"Why is it lucky?"

"Because you might not have liked them."

"But on the other hand I might have liked them very much."

"Well, perhaps there is that chance. I don't know, however, that I should be willing to run the risk. What kind of a story do you like?"

"I told you that yesterday, Mr. Fairfield. If you really cared for my opinion you would remember."

"You said that you liked 'Love in a Cloud.' Is that what you mean?"

"Then you do remember," she remarked with an air of satisfaction. "Perhaps it was only because you liked the book yourself."

"Why not believe that it was because I put so much value on your opinion?"

"Oh, I am not so vain as that, Mr. Fairfield," she cried. "If you remember, it was not on my account."

He laughed without replying, and continued the careful tracing of the crack in the floor as if the occupation were the pleasantest imaginable. May watched him for a moment, and then with the semblance of pique she turned her shoulder toward him. The movement drew his eyes, and he suddenly stopped his occupation to straighten up apologetically.

"I was thinking," he said, "what would be the result of your reading such stories of mine as have been published--there have been a few, you know, in the magazines--if you were to test them by the standard of 'Love in a Cloud.' I'm afraid they might not stand it."

She smiled reassuringly, but perhaps with a faint suggestion of condescension.

"One doesn't expect all stories to be as good as the best," she observed.

Fairfield turned his face away for a quick flash of a grin to the universe in general; then with perfect gravity he looked again at his companion.

"I am afraid," he said, "that even the author of 'Love in a Cloud' wouldn't expect so much of you as that you should call his story the best."

"I do call it the best," she returned, a little defiantly. "Don't you?"

"No," he said slowly, "I couldn't go so far as that."

"But you spoke yesterday as if you admired it."

"But that isn't the same thing as saying that there is nothing better."

Miss Calthorpe began to tap her small foot impatiently.

"That is always the way with men who write," she declared. "They always have all sorts of fault to find with everything."

"Have you known a great many literary men?" he asked.

There are few things more offensive in conversation, especially in conversation with a lady, than an insistence upon logic. To ask of a woman that she shall make only exact statements is as bad as to require her to be always consistent, and there is small reason for wonder if at this inquiry Miss Calthorpe should show signs of offense.

"I do not see what that has to do with the matter," she returned stiffly. "Of course everybody knows about literary men."

The sun of the April afternoon smiled over the landscape, and the young man smiled under his mustache, which was too large to be entirely becoming. He glanced up at his companion, who did not smile in return, but only sat there looking extremely pretty, with her flushed cheeks, her dark hair in pretty willful tendrils about her temples, and her dark eyes alight.

"Perhaps you have some personal feeling about the book," he said. "You know that it is claimed that a woman's opinion of literature is always half personal feeling."

She flushed more deeply yet, and drew herself up as if he were intruding upon unwarrantable matters.

"I don't even know who wrote the book," she replied.

"Then it is only the book itself that you admire, and not the author?"

"Of course it is the book. Haven't I said that I don't even know who the author is? I can't see," she went on somewhat irrelevantly, "why it is that as soon as there is anything that is worth praising you men begin to run it down."

He looked as if he were a trifle surprised at her warmth.

"Run it down?" he repeated. "Why, I am not running it down. I said that I admired the novel, didn't I?"

"But you said that you didn't think it was one of the best," she insisted.

"But you might allow a little for individual taste, Miss Calthorpe."

"Oh, of course there is a difference in individual tastes, but that has to do with the parts of the story that one likes best. It's nothing at all to do with whether one isn't willing to confess its merits."

He broke into a laugh of so much amusement that she contracted her level brows into a frown which made her prettier than ever.

"Now you are laughing at me," she said almost pouting. "It is so disappointing to find that I was deceived. Of course I know that there is a good deal of professional jealousy among authors, but I shouldn't have thought--"

She perhaps did not like to complete her sentence, and so left it for him to end with a fresh laugh.

"I wish I dared tell you how funny that is!" he chuckled.

She made no reply to this, but turned her attention to the landscape. There was a silence of a few moments, in which Fairfield had every appearance of being amused, while she equally showed that she was offended. The situation was certainly one from which a young author might derive a good deal of satisfaction. It is not often that it falls to the lot of a writer to find his work so sincerely and ardently admired that he is himself taken to task for being jealous of its success. Such pleasure as comes from writing anonymous books must be greatly tempered by the fact that in a world where it is so much more easy to blame than to praise the author is sure to hear so much more censure of his work than approbation. To be accused by a young and pretty girl of a fault which one has not committed and from which one may be clear at a word is in itself a pleasing pastime, and when the imaginary fault is that of not sufficiently admiring one's own book, the titillation of the vanity is as lively as it is complicated. The spirit which Miss Calthorpe had shown, her pretty vehemence, and her marked admiration for "Love in a Cloud" might have seemed charming to any man who had a taste for beauty and youthful enthusiasm; upon the author of the book she praised it was inevitable that they should work mightily.

The pair were interrupted by the return of Mrs. Harbinger and Alice, who reported that there were so many men about the stables, and the ponies were being so examined and talked over by the players, that it was plainly no place for ladies.

"It was evident that we weren't wanted," Mrs. Harbinger said. "I hope that we are here. Ah, here comes the Count."

The gentleman named, fresh from his talk with Harry Bradish, came forward to join them, his smile as sunny as that of the day.

"See," May whispered tragically to Mrs. Harbinger as the Hungarian advanced, "he has a red carnation in his buttonhole."

"He must have read the letter then," Mrs. Harbinger returned hastily. "Hush!"

To make the most exciting communication and to follow it by a command to the hearer to preserve the appearance of indifference is a characteristically feminine act. It gives the speaker not only the last word but an effective dramatic climax, and the ever-womanly is nothing if not dramatic. The complement of this habit is the power of obeying the difficult order to be silent, and only a woman could unmoved hear the most nerve-shattering remarks with a manner of perfect tranquillity.

"Ah, eet ees so sweet loovly ladies een de landscape to see," the Count declared poetically, "where de birds dey twatter een de trees and things smell you so mooch."

"Thank you. Count," Mrs. Harbinger responded. "That is very pretty, but I am afraid that it means nothing."

"What I say to you, Madame," the Count responded, with his hand on his heart, "always eet mean mooch; eet ees dat eet mean everyt'ing!"

"Then it is certainly time for me to go," she said lightly. "It wouldn't be safe for me to stay to hear everything. Come, girls: let's walk over to the field."

The sitters rose, and they moved toward the other end of the piazza.

"It is really too early to go to the field," May said, "why don't we walk out to the new golf-holes first? I want to see how they've changed the drive over the brook."

"Very well," Mrs. Harbinger assented. "The shortest way is to go through the house."

They passed in through a long window, and as they went Alice Endicott lingered a little with the Count. That part of the piazza was at the moment deserted, and so when before entering the house she dropped her parasol and waited for her companion to pick it up for her, they were practically alone.

"Thank you, Count," she said, as he handed her the parasol. "I am sorry to trouble you."

"Nodings what eet ees dat I do for Mees Endeecott ees trouble."

"Is that true?" she asked, pausing with her foot on the threshold, and turning back to him. "If I could believe it there are two favors that I should like to ask."

"Two favors?" he repeated. "Ah, I weell be heavenlee happee eef eet ees dat I do two favors."

"One is for myself," she said, "and the other is for Miss Wentstile. I'm sure you won't refuse me."

"Who could refuse one ladee so loovlaie!"

"The first is," Alice went on, paying no heed to the Count's florid compliments, "that you give me the letter Mrs. Neligage gave you yesterday."

"But de ladee what have wrote eet--"

"The lady that wrote it," Alice interrupted, "desires to have it again."

"Den weell I to her eet geeve," said the Count.

"But she has empowered me to receive it."

"But dat eet do not empower me eet to geeve."

"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?"