Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

"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."