Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

May Calthorpe moved forward so quickly that Mrs. Harbinger, who had extended her hand to take the letters from her husband, turned to restrain the girl. Mrs. Croydon swayed forward a little.

"That is the author of 'Love in a Cloud,'" she said with a simper of self-consciousness.

Mrs. Neligage, who was standing with Bradish and Alice at the moment, made a grimace.

"She'll really have the impudence to take it," she said to them aside. "Now see me give that woman a lesson."

She swept forward in a flash, and deftly took the letter out of Tom Harbinger's hand before he knew her intention. Flourishing it over her head, she looked them all over with eyes full of fun and mischief.

"Honor to whom honor is due," she cried. "Ladies and gentlemen, be it my high privilege to deliver this to its real and only owner. Count," she went on, sweeping him a profound courtesy, "let your light shine. Behold in Count Shimbowski the too, too modest author of 'Love in a Cloud.'"

There was a general outburst of amazement. The Count looked at the letter which had been thrust into his hand, and stammered something unintelligible.

"Vraiment, Madame Neleegaze," he began, "eet ees too mooch of you – "

"Oh, don't say anything," she interrupted him. "I have no other pleasure in life than doing mischief."

Mrs. Croydon looked from the Count to Mrs. Neligage with an expression of mingled doubt and bewilderment. Her attitude of expecting to be received as the anonymous author vanished in an instant, and vexation began to predominate over the other emotions visible in her face.

"Well," she said spitefully, "it is certainly a day of wonders; but if the letter belongs to the Count, it would be interesting to know who writes to him as Christopher Calumus."

Mrs. Harbinger answered her in a tone so cold that Mrs. Croydon colored under it.

"Really, Mrs. Croydon," she said, "the question is a little pointed."

"Why, it is only a question about a person who doesn't exist. There isn't any such person as Christopher Calumus. I'm sure I'd like to know who writes to literary men under their assumed names."

May was so pale that only the fact that everybody was looking at Mrs. Harbinger could shield her from discovery. The hostess drew herself up with a haughty lifting of the head.

"If it is of so great importance to you," she said, "it is I who wrote the letter. Who else should write letters in this house?"

She extended her hand to the Count as she spoke, as if to recover the harmless-looking little white missive which was causing so much commotion, but the Count did not offer to return it. Tom Harbinger stood a second as if amazement had struck him dumb. Then with the air of a puppet pronouncing words by machinery he ejaculated: —

"You wrote to the Count?"

His wife turned to him with a start, and opened her lips, but before she could speak a fresh interruption prevented. Barnstable in the few moments during which he had been in the room had met with so many strange experiences that he might well be bewildered. He had been greeted by May as one for whom she was waiting, and then had been hailed as the author of the book which he hated; the eccentric Graham had made of him a sort of involuntary penny-post; he had been in the midst of a group whisking a letter about like folk in the last act of a comedy; and now here was the announcement that the Count was the anonymous libeler for whom he had been seeking. He dashed forward, every fold of his chins quivering, his hair bristling, his little eyes red with excitement. He shook his fist in the face of the Count in a manner not often seen in a polite drawing-room.

"You are a villain," he cried. "You have insulted my wife!"

Bradish and Mr. Harbinger at once seized him, and between them he was drawn back gesticulating and struggling. The ladies looked frightened, but with the exception of Mrs. Croydon they behaved with admirable propriety. Mrs. Croydon gave a little yapping screech, and fell back in her chair in hysterics. More complete confusion could hardly have been imagined, and Mrs. Neligage, who looked on with eyes full of laughter, had certainly reason to congratulate herself that if she loved making mischief she had for once at least been most instantly and triumphantly successful.

VII

THE COUNSEL OF A MOTHER

If an earthquake shook down the house in which was being held a Boston function, the persons there assembled would crawl from the ruins in a manner decorous and dignified, or if too badly injured for this would compose with decency their mangled limbs and furnish the addresses of their respective family physicians. The violent and ill-considered farce which had been played in Mrs. Harbinger's drawing-room might elsewhere have produced a long-continued disturbance; but here it left no trace after five minutes. Mr. Barnstable, babbling and protesting like a lunatic, was promptly hurried into confinement in the library, where Mr. Harbinger and Bradish stood guard over him as if he were a dangerous beast; while the other guests made haste to retire. They went, however, with entire decorum. Mrs. Croydon was, it is true, a disturbing element in the quickly restored serenity of the party, and was with difficulty made to assume some semblance of self-control. Graham, being sent to call a carriage, first caught a forlorn herdic, which was prowling about like a deserted tomcat, and when the lady would none of this managed to produce a hack which must have been the most shabby in the entire town. The Count was taken away by Miss Wentstile, who in the hour of his peril dropped the stiffness she had assumed at his recognition of Mrs. Neligage. She dragged Alice along with them, but Alice in turn held on to May, so that the Count was given no opportunity to press his suit. They all retired in good order, and however they talked, they at least behaved beautifully.

As Neligage took his hat in the hall Fairfield caught him by the arm.

"Jack," he said under his breath, "do you believe Mrs. Harbinger wrote me those letters?"

"Of course not," Jack responded instantly. "Not if they are the sort of letters you said. Letty Harbinger is as square as a brick."

"Then why did she say she did?"

Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"The letter was evidently written here," he said. "She must know who did write it."

"Ah, I see!" exclaimed the other. "She was shielding somebody."

Jack regarded him with sudden sternness.

"There was nobody that it could be except – "

He broke off abruptly, a black look in his face, and before another word could be exchanged Mrs. Neligage called him. He went off with his mother, hastily telling his friend he would see him before bedtime.

Mrs. Neligage was hardly up to her son's shoulder, but so well preserved was she that she might easily have been mistaken for a sister not so much his senior. She was admirably dressed, exquisitely gloved and booted, to the last fold of her tailor-made frock entirely correct, and in her manner provokingly and piquantly animated.

"Who in the world was that horror that made the exhibition of himself?" she asked. "I never saw anything like that at the Harbingers' before."

"I know nothing about him except that his name is Barnstable, and that he came from the West somewhere. He's joined the Calif Club lately. How he got in I don't understand; but he seems to have loads of money."

"He is a beast," Mrs. Neligage pronounced by way of dismissing the subject. "What did Mrs. Harbinger mean by thanking you for arranging something with the Count? What have you to do with him?"

"Oh, that is a secret."

"Then if it is a secret tell it at once."

"I'll tell you just to disappoint you," Jack returned with a grin. "It is only about some etchings that the Count brought over. Mrs. Harbinger has bought a couple as a present for Tom."

"She had better be careful," Mrs. Neligage observed. "Tom thinks more of the collection now than he does of anything else in the world. But what are you mixed up in the Count's transactions for?"

"She asked me to fix it, and besides the poor devil needed to sell them to raise the wind. I'm too used to being hard up myself not to feel for him."

"But you wrote me that you detested the Count."

"So I do, but you can't help doing a fellow a good turn, can you, just because you don't happen to like him?"

She laughed lightly.

"You are a model of good nature. I wish you'd show it to May Calthorpe."

Her son looked down at her with a questioning glance.

"She is always at liberty to admire my virtues, of course; but she can't expect me to put myself out to make special exhibitions for her benefit."

The faces of both mother and son hardened a little, as if the subject touched upon was one concerning which they had disagreed before. The change of expression brought out a subtle likeness which had not before been visible. Jack Neligage was usually said to resemble his father, who had died just as the boy was entering his teens, but when he was in a passion – a thing which happened but seldom – his face oddly took on the look of his mother. The change, moreover, was not entirely to his disadvantage, for as a rule Jack showed too plainly the easy-going, self-indulgent character which had been the misfortune of the late John Neligage, and which made friends of the family declare with a sigh that Jack would never amount to anything worth while.