Chapter VIII: Part 8

The day was enchanting, and in the air was the exciting stir of spring which turns lightly the young man's fancy to thoughts of love. Whether Bradish felt its influence or not, he had at least the air of a man emotionally much stirred. Mrs. Neligage looked more alert, more provoking, more piquant, than ever. She had, it is true, an aspect less sentimental than that of her companion, but nature had given to Harry Bradish a likeness to Don Quixote which made it impossible for him ever to appear mischievous or sportive, and if he showed feeling it must be of the kindly or the melancholy sort. The widow might be reflecting on the effectiveness of the turnout, the fineness of the horses, the general air of style and completeness which belonged to the equipage, or she might be ruminating on the character of the driver. She might on the other hand have been thinking of nothing in particular except the light things she was saying,--if indeed it is possible to suppose that a clever woman ever confines her thoughts to what is indicated by her words. Bradish, however, was evidently meditating of her.

When he had brought the horses with a proper flourish to Mrs. Neligage's door, Bradish descended and helped her out with all his careful politeness of manner. He was a man to whom courtesy was instinctive. At the stake he would have apologized to the executioner for being a trouble. He might to-day be absorbed and perplexed, but he was not for that less punctiliously attentive.

"May I come in?" he asked, hat in hand.

"By all means," Mrs. Neligage responded. "Come in, and I'll give you a cup of tea."

Bradish sent the trap away with the satisfactory groom, and then accompanied his companion upstairs. They were no sooner inside the door of her apartment than he turned to the widow with an air of sudden determination.

"Louisa," he said with awkward abruptness, "what did you mean this afternoon?"

He grasped her hands with both his; his hat, which he had half tossed upon the table, went bowling merrily over the floor, but he gave it no heed.

"Good gracious, Harry," she cried, laughing up into his face, "how tragic you are! Pick up your hat."

He glanced at the hat, but he did not release her hands. He let her remark pass, and went on with increasing intensity which was not unmixed with wistfulness.

"I've been thinking about it all the way home," he declared. "You've always teased me, Louisa, from the days we were babies, and of course I'm an old fool; but--Were you willing I should kiss your hand?"

He stopped in speechless confusion, the color coming into his cheeks, and looked pathetically into her laughing face.

"Lots of men have," she responded.

He dropped her hands, and grew paler.

"But to-day--" he stammered.

"But what to-day?" she cried, moving near to him.

"I thought that to-day--Louisa, for heaven's sake, do you care for me?"

"Not for heaven's sake," she murmured, looking younger and more bewitching than ever.

Some women at forty-five are by Providence allowed still to look as young as their children, and Mrs. Neligage was one of them. Her airs would perhaps have been ridiculous in one less youthful in appearance, but she carried them off perfectly. Bradish was evidently too completely and tragically in earnest to see the point of her quip. He looked so disappointed and abashed that it was not strange for her to burst into a peal of laughter.

"Oh, Harry," she cried, "you are such a dear old goose! Must I say it in words? Well, then; here goes, despite modesty! Take me!"

He stared at her as if in doubt of his senses.

"Do you mean it?" he stammered.

"I do at this minute, but if you're not quick I may change my mind!"

Then Harry Bradish experienced a tremendous reaction from the excessive shyness of nearly half a century, and gathered her into his arms.

XXVII

THE CLIMAX OF COMEDY

Society has always a kindly feeling toward any person who furnishes material for talk. Even in those unhappy cases where the matter provided to the gossips is of an iniquitous sort, it is not easy utterly to condemn evil which has added a pleasant spice to conversation. It is true that in word the sinner may be entirely disapproved, but the disapproval is apt to be tempered by an evident feeling of gratitude for the excitement which the sin has provided to talkers. In lighter matters, where there is no reason to regard with reprobation the course discussed, the friendliness of the gossips is often covered with a sauce piquant of doubtful insinuation, of sneer, or of ridicule, but in reality it is evident that those who abuse do so, like Lady Teazle, in pure good nature. To be talked about in society is really to be awarded for the time being such interest as society is able to feel; and the interest of society is its only regard.

The engagement of Mrs. Neligage to Harry Bradish naturally set the tongues of all their acquaintances wagging, and many pretty things were said of the couple which were not entirely complimentary. The loves of elderly folk always present to the eyes of the younger generation an aspect somewhat ludicrous, and the buds giggled at the idea of nuptials which to their infantine minds seemed so venerable. The women pitied Bradish, who had been captured by the wiles of the widow, and the men thought it a pity that so gifted and dashing a woman as Mrs. Neligage should be united to a man so dull as her prospective husband. The widow did not wear her heart on her sleeve, so that daws who wished to peck at it found it well concealed behind an armor of raillery, cleverness, and adroitness. Bradish, on the other hand, was so openly adoring that it was impossible not to be touched by his beaming happiness. On the whole the match was felt to be a suitable one, although Mrs. Neligage had no money; and from the mingled pleasure of gossiping about the pair, and nominally condemning the whole business on one ground or another, society came to be positively enthusiastic over the marriage.

The affairs of Jack Neligage might in time be influenced by his mother's alliance with a man of wealth, but they were little changed at first. It is true that by some subtile softening of the general heart at the thought of matrimony in the concrete, as presented by the spectacle of the loves of Mrs. Neligage and Bradish, his social world was moved to a sort of toleration of the idea of his marrying Alice Endicott in spite of his poverty. People not in the least responsible, who could not be personally affected by such a match, began to wonder after all whether there were not some way in which it might be arranged, and to condemn Miss Wentstile for not making possible the union of two lovers so long and so faithfully attached. Society delights in the romantic in other people's families, and would have rolled as a sweet morsel under its tongue an elopement on the part of Jack and Alice, or any other sort of extravagant outcome. The marriage of his mother gave him a new consequence both by keeping his affairs in the public mind and by bringing about for him a connection with a man of money.

Miss Wentstile was not of a character which was likely sensitively to feel or easily to receive these beneficent public sentiments. She was a woman who was entirely capable of originating her own emotions, a fact which in itself distinguished her as a rarity among her sex. No human being, however, can live in the world without being affected by the opinions of the world; and it is probable that Miss Wentstile, with all her independence, was more influenced by the thought of those about her than could be at all apparent.

Mrs. Neligage declared to Jack that she meant to be very civil to the spinster.

"She's a sort of cousin of Harry's, you know," she remarked; "and it isn't good form not to be on good terms with the family till after you're married."

"But after the wedding," he responded with a lazy smile, "I suppose she must look out."

Mrs. Neligage looked at him, laughing, with half closed eyes.

"I should think that after the marriage she would do well to remember her place," was her reply. "I shall have saved her from the Count by that time, too; and that will give her a lesson."

But Providence spared Mrs. Neligage the task of taking the initiative in the matter of the Count. One day in the latter part of April, just before the annual flitting by which all truly patriotic Bostonians elude the first of May and the assessors, the widow went to call on her prospective relative. Miss Wentstile was at home in the drawing-room with Alice and the Count. Tea had been brought in, and Alice was pouring it.

"I knew I should be just in time for tea," Mrs. Neligage declared affably; "and your tea is always so delicious, Miss Wentstile."

"How do you do, Louisa," was Miss Wentstile's greeting. "I wish you'd let me know when you are at home. I wouldn't have called yesterday if I'd supposed you didn't know enough to stay in to be congratulated."

"I had to go out," Mrs. Neligage responded. "I was sorry not to see you."

"There was a horrid dog in the hall that barked at me," Miss Wentstile continued. "You ought not to let your visitors be annoyed so."

"It isn't my dog," the widow replied with unusual conciliation in her manner. "It belongs to those Stearnses who have the apartment opposite."

"I can't bear other people's dogs," Miss Wentstile declared with superb frankness. "Fido was the only dog I ever loved."

"Where is Fido?" asked the widow. "I haven't heard his voice yet."

Miss Wentstile drew herself up stiffly.

"I have met with a misfortune. I had to send dear Fido away. He would bark at the Count."

Whatever the intentions of Mrs. Neligage to conciliate, Providence had not made her capable of resisting a temptation like this.

"How interesting the instinct of animals is," she observed with an air of the most perfect ingenuousness. "They seem to know doubtful characters by intuition."

"Doubtful characters?" echoed Miss Wentstile sharply. "Didn't Fido always bark at you, Louisa?"

"Yes," returned the caller as innocently as ever. "That is an illustration of what I was saying."

"Oh, Madame Neleegaze ees so continuously to be _drôle_!" commented the Count, with a display of his excellent teeth. "So she have to marry, ees eet not?"

"Do you mean those two sentences to go together, Count?" Alice asked, with a twinkle of fun.

He stood apparently trying to recall what he had said, in order to get the full meaning of the question, when the servant announced Mrs. Croydon, who came forward with a clashing of bead fringes and a rustling of stiff silk. She was ornamented, hung, spangled, covered, cased in jet until she might not inappropriately have been set bodily into a relief map to represent Whitby. She advanced halfway across the space to where Miss Wentstile sat near the hearth, and then stopped with a dramatic air. She fixed her eyes on the Count, who, with his feet well apart, stood near Miss Wentstile, stirring his tea, and diffusing abroad a patronizing manner of ownership.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Wentstile," Mrs. Croydon said in a voice a little higher than common, "I will come to see you again when you haven't an assassin in your house."

There was an instant of utter silence. The remark was one well calculated to produce a sensation, and had Mrs. Croydon been an actress she might at that instant have congratulated herself that she held her audience spellbound. It was but for a flash, however, that Miss Wentstile was paralyzed.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed the spinster, recovering the use of her tongue.

"I mean," retorted Mrs. Croydon, extending her bugle-dripping arm theatrically, and pointing to the Count, "that man there."

"Me!" cried the Count.

"The Count?" cried Miss Wentstile an octave higher.

"Ah!" murmured Mrs. Neligage very softly, settling herself more comfortably in her chair.

"He tried to murder my husband," went on Mrs. Croydon, every moment with more of the air of a stage-struck amateur. "He challenged him!"

"Your husband?" the Count returned. "Eet ees to me thees teeme first know what you have one husband, madame."

"I thought your husband was dead, Mrs. Croydon," Miss Wentstile observed, in a voice which was like the opening of an outside door with the mercury below zero.

Mrs. Croydon was visibly confused. Her full cheeks reddened; even the tip of her nose showed signs of a tendency to blush. Her trimmings rattled and scratched on the silk of her gown.

"I should have said Mr. Barnstable," she corrected. "He was my husband once when I lived in Chicago."

The Count, perfectly self-possessed, smiled and stirred his tea.

"Ees eet dat de amiable Mrs. Croydon she do have a deeferent husband leek a sailor mans een all de harbors?" he asked with much deference.

Mrs. Neligage laughed softly, leaning back as if at a comedy. Alice looked a little frightened. Miss Wentstile became each moment more stern.

"Mr. Barnstable and I are to be remarried immediately," Mrs. Croydon observed with dignity. "It was for protecting me from the abuse of an anonymous novel that he offended you. You would have killed him for defending me."

The Count waved his teaspoon airily.

"He have eensult me," he remarked, as if disposing of the whole subject. "Then he was one great cowherd. He have epilogued me most abject."

Mrs. Neligage elevated her eyebrows, and turned her glance to Mrs. Croydon, who stood, a much overdressed goddess of discord, still in the middle of the floor.

"That is nonsense, Mrs. Croydon," she observed honeyedly. "Mr. Barnstable behaved with plenty of pluck. The apology was Jack's doing, and wasn't at all to your--your _fiancé's_ discredit."

Miss Wentstile turned with sudden severity to Mrs. Neligage.

"Louisa," she demanded, "do you know anything about this affair?"

"Of course," was the easy answer. "Everybody in Boston knew it but you."

The Count put his teacup on the mantelpiece. He had lost the jauntiness of his air, but he was still dignified.

"Eet was one _affaire d'honneur_," he said.

"But why was I not told of this?" Miss Wentstile asked sharply.

"You?" Mrs. Croydon retorted with excitement. "Everybody supposed--"

Mrs. Neligage rose quickly.

"Really," she said, interrupting the speaker, "I must have another cup of tea."

The interruption stopped Mrs. Croydon's remark, and Miss Wentstile did not press for its conclusion.

"Count," the spinster asked, turning to that gentleman, who towered above her tall and lowering, "have you ever fought a duel?"

The Count shrugged his shoulders.

"All Shimbowski ees _hommes d'honneur_."

She made him a frigid bow.

"I have the honor to bid you good day," she said, with a manner so perfect that the absurdity of the situation vanished.

The Count drew himself up proudly. Then he in his turn bowed profoundly.

"You do eet too much to me honor," he said, with a dignity which was worthy of his family. "Ladies, _votre serviteur_."

He made his exit in a manner to be admired. Mrs. Croydon feigned to shrink aside as he passed her, but Mrs. Neligage looked at her with so open a laugh at this performance that confusion overcame the dame of bugles, and she moved forward disconcerted. She had not yet gained a seat, when Miss Wentstile faced her with all her most unrestrained fashion.

"I shouldn't think, Mrs. Croydon, that you, with the stain of a divorce court on you, were in position to throw stones at Count Shimbowski. He has done nothing but follow the customs to which he's been brought up."

"Perhaps that's true of Mrs. Croydon too," murmured Mrs. Neligage to Alice.

"If you wanted to tell me," Miss Wentstile went on, "why didn't you tell me when he was not here? No wonder foreigners think we are barbarians when a nobleman is insulted like that."

"I didn't mean to tell you," Mrs. Croydon stammered humbly. "It just came out."

"Why didn't you mean to tell me?" demanded Miss Wentstile, whose anger had evidently deprived her for the time being of all coolness.

"Why, I thought you were engaged to him!" blurted out Mrs. Croydon, fairly crimson from brow to chin.

"Engaged!" echoed Miss Wentstile, half breathless with indignation.

Mrs. Neligage came to the rescue, cool and collected, entirely mistress of herself and of the situation.

"Really, Mrs. Croydon," she suggested, smiling, "don't you think that is bringing Western brusqueness home to us in rather a startling way? We don't speak of engagements until they are announced, you know."

"But Miss Wentstile told me the other day that she might announce one soon," persisted Mrs. Croydon, into whose flushed face had come a look of baffled obstinacy.

Mrs. Neligage threw up her hands in a graceful little gesture. She played private theatricals infinitely better than Mrs. Croydon. There was in their art all the difference between the work of the most clumsy amateur and a polished professional.

"There is nothing to do but to tell it," she said, as if appealing to Miss Wentstile and Alice. "The engagement was that of Miss Endicott and my son. Miss Wentstile never for a moment thought of marrying the Count. She knew from me that he gambled and was a famous duelist."

Alice put out her hand suddenly, and caught that of the widow.

"Oh, Mrs. Neligage!" she cried.

The widow patted the girl's fingers. The face of Miss Wentstile was a study for a novelist who identifies art with psychology.

"Of course I ought not to have told, Alice," Mrs. Neligage went on; "but I'm sure Mrs. Croydon is to be trusted. It isn't fair to your aunt that this nonsensical notion should be abroad that she meant to marry the Count."

Mrs. Croydon was evidently too bewildered to understand what had taken place. She awkwardly congratulated Alice, apologized to Miss Wentstile for having made a scene, and somehow got herself out of the way.

"What an absolutely incredible woman! With the talent both she and Mr. Barnstable show for kicking up rows in society," observed Mrs. Neligage, as soon as the caller had departed, "I should think they would prevent any city from being dull. I trust they will pass the time till their next divorce somewhere else than here."

XXVIII

THE UNCLOUDING OF LOVE

Miss Wentstile sat grimly silent until they heard the outer door downstairs close behind the departing guest. Then she straightened herself up.

"I thank you, Louisa," she said gravely; "you meant well, but how dared you?"

"Oh, I had to dare," returned Mrs. Neligage lightly. "I'm coming into the family, you know, and must help keep up its credit."

"Humph!" was the not entirely complimentary rejoinder. "If you cared for the credit of the family why didn't you tell me about the Count sooner? Is he really a fast man?"

"He's been one of the best known sports in Europe, my dear Miss Wentstile."

"Why didn't you tell me then?"

"Why should I? I wasn't engaged to Harry then, and if the Count wanted to reform and settle down, you wouldn't have had me thwart so virtuous an inclination, would you?"

"I thought you wanted him to marry Alice!"

"I only wanted Alice out of the way of Jack," the widow confessed candidly.

"Why?" Miss Wentstile asked.

The spinster was fond of frankness, and appreciated it when it came in her way.

"Because I hated to have Jack poor, and I knew that if Alice married him you'd never give them a cent to live on."

Alice, her face full of confusion and pain, moved uneasily, and put her hand on the arm of Mrs. Neligage once more, as if to stop her. The widow again patted the small hand reassuringly, but kept her eyes fixed full on those of the aunt.

"You took a different turn to-day," the spinster observed suspiciously.

"I had to save you to-day," was the ready answer; "and besides I can't do anything with Jack. He's bound to marry Alice whether you and I like it or not, and he's going to work in a bank in the most stupid manner."

To hear the careless tone in which this was said nobody could have suspected that this speech was exactly the one which could most surely move the spinster, and that the astute widow must have been fully aware of it.

"So you are sure I won't give Alice anything if she marries Jack, are you?" Miss Wentstile said. "Well, Alice, you are to marry Jack Neligage to save me from the gossips."

"It seems to me," Alice said, blushing very much, "that if I can't have any voice in the matter, Jack might be considered."

"Oh, my dear," returned Mrs. Neligage quickly, "do you suppose that if I made an alliance for Jack, he would be so undutiful as to object?"

Alice burst into a laugh, but Miss Wentstile, upon whom, in her ignorance of the engagement between Jack and May, the point was lost, let it pass unheeded.

"Well," she said, "I think I'll surprise you for once, Louisa. If Jack will stick faithfully to his place in the bank for a year, I'll give him and Alice the _dot_ I promised the Count."

Mrs. Neligage got away from Miss Wentstile's as soon as possible, leaving Alice to settle things with her aunt, and taking a carriage at the next corner, drove to Jack's lodgings. She burst into his room tumultuously, fortunately finding him at home, and alone.

"Oh, Jack," she cried, "I didn't mean to, but I've engaged you again!"

He regarded her with a quizzical smile.

"Matchmaking seems to be a vice which develops with your age," he observed. "I got out of the other scrape easily enough, and I won't deny that it was rather good fun. I hope that this isn't any worse."

"But, Jack, dear, this time it's Alice!"

"Alice!" he exclaimed, jumping up quickly.

"Yes, it's Alice, and you ought to be grateful to me, for she's going to have a fortune, too."

With some incoherency, for she was less self-contained than usual, Mrs. Neligage told him what had happened.

"See what it is to have a mother devoted to your interests," she concluded. "You'd never have brought Miss Wentstile to terms. You ought to adore me for this."

"I do," he answered, laughing, but kissing her with genuine affection. "I hope you'll be as happy as Alice and I shall be."

"I only live for my child," returned she in gay mockery. "For your sake I'm going to be respectable for the rest of my life. What sacrifices we parents do make for our children!"

* * * * *

Late that evening Jack was taking his somewhat extended adieus of Alice.

"After all, Jack," she said, "the whole thing has come out of the novel. We'll have a gorgeously bound copy of 'Love in a Cloud' always on the table to remind us--"

"To remind us," he finished, taking the words out of her mouth with a laugh, "that our love has got out of the clouds."

* * * * *

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Books by Arlo Bates.

LOVE IN A CLOUD. A Novel.

THE PURITANS. A Novel.

THE PHILISTINES. A Novel.

THE PAGANS. A Novel.

PATTY'S PERVERSITIES. A Novel.

PRINCE VANCE. The Story of a Prince with a Court in his Box. By ARLO BATES and ELEANOR PUTNAM.

A LAD'S LOVE.

UNDER THE BEECH-TREE. Poems.

TALKS ON WRITING ENGLISH.

TALKS ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE.

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