Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

"Sit down, Count," she said, waving her hand at a chair. "Somebody will come, so I must say what I have to say quickly. I want that letter."

The Count smiled broadly, and performed with much success the inevitable shrug.

"You dat lettaire weesh; Madame Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; Mr. Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; everybody dat lettaire weesh. Count Shimbowski dat lettaire he keep, weell eet not?"

"Mrs. Neligage and Jack want it?" Mrs. Harbinger exclaimed. "What in the world can have set them on? Did they ask you for it?"

"Eet ees dat they have ask," the Count answered solemnly.

"I cannot understand that," she pursued thoughtfully. "Certainly they can't know who wrote it."

"Ees eet not dat you have said – "

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Harbinger interrupted him, with a smile, "I forgot that they were there when I confessed to it."

The Count laid his hand on his heart and rolled up his eyes, – not too much.

"I have so weesh' to tell you how dat I have dat beauteous lettaire adore," he said. "I have wear de lettaire een de pocket of my heart."

This somewhat startling assertion was explained by his pushing aside his coat so that the top of a letter appeared peeping out of the left pocket of his waistcoat as nearly over his heart as the exigencies of tailoring permitted.

"I shouldn't have let you know that I wrote it," she said.

"But eet have geeve to me so joyous extrodinaire eet to know!"

She regarded him shrewdly, then dropping her eyes, she asked: —

"Was it better than the other one?"

"De oder?" he repeated, evidently taken by surprise. "Ah, dat alone also have I treasured too mooch."

Mrs. Harbinger broke out frankly into a laugh.

"Come," she said, "I have caught you. You know nothing about any other. We might as well be plain with each other. I didn't write that letter and you didn't write 'Love in a Cloud,' or you'd know about the whole correspondence."

"Ah, from de Edengarten," cried the Count, "de weemens ees too mooch for not to fool de man. Madame ees for me greatly too clevaire."

"Thank you," she said laughingly. "Then give me the letter."

He bowed, and shrugged, and smiled deprecatingly; but he shook his head.

"So have Mees Endeecott say. Eef to her I geeve eet not, I can geeve eet not to you, desolation as eet make of my heart."

"Miss Endicott? Has she been after the letter too? Is there anybody else?"

"Madame Neleegaze, Mr. Neleegaze, Mees Endeecott, Madame Harbeenger," the Count enumerated, telling them off on his fingers. "Dat ees all now; but eef I dat lettaire have in my heart-pocket she weell come to me dat have eet wrote. Ees eet not so? Eet ees to she what have eet wrote dat eet weell be to geeve eet. I am eenterest to her behold."

"Then you will not give it to me?" Mrs. Harbinger said, rising.

He rose also, a mild whirlwind of apologetic shrugs and contortions, contortions not ungraceful, but as extraordinary as his English.

"Eet make me desolation een de heart," he declared; "but for now eet weell be for me to keep dat lettaire."

He made her a profound bow, and as if to secure himself against farther solicitation betook himself off. Mrs. Harbinger resumed her chair, and sat for a time thinking. She tapped the tip of her parasol on the railing before her, and the tip of her shoe on the floor, but neither process seemed to bring a solution of the difficulty which she was pondering. The arrivals at the club were about done, and although it still wanted some half hour to the time set for the polo game, most of those who had been about the club had gone over to the polo-field. The sound of a carriage approaching drew the attention of Mrs. Harbinger. A vehicle easily to be recognized as belonging to the railway station was advancing toward the club, and in it sat Mr. Barnstable. The gentleman was landed at the piazza steps, and coming up, he stood looking about him as if in doubt what to do next. His glance fell upon Mrs. Harbinger, and the light of recognition flooded his fluffy face as moonlight floods the dunes of a sandy shore. He came forward abruptly and awkwardly.

"Beg pardon, Mrs. Harbinger," he said. "I came out to find your husband. Do you know where I can see him?"

"He is all ready to play polo now, Mr. Barnstable," she returned. "I don't think you can see him until after the game."

She spoke rather dryly and without any cordiality. He stood with his hat in his two hands, pulling nervously at the brim.

"You are very likely angry with me, Mrs. Harbinger," he blurted out abruptly. "I ought to apologize for what I did at your house yesterday. I made a fool of myself."

Mrs. Harbinger regarded him curiously, as if she could hardly make up her mind how such a person was to be treated.

"It is not customary to have scenes of that kind in our parlors," she answered, smiling.

"I know it," he said, with an accent of deep despair. "It was all my unfortunate temper that ran away with me. But you don't appreciate, Mrs. Harbinger, how a man feels when his wife has been made the subject of an infamous libel."

"But if you'll let me say so, Mr. Barnstable, I think you are going out of your way to find trouble. You are not the only man who has been separated from his wife, and the chances are that the author of 'Love in a Cloud' never heard of your domestic affairs at all."

"But he must have," protested Barnstable with growing excitement, "why – "

"Pardon me," she interrupted, "I wasn't done. I say that the chance of the author of that book knowing anything about your affairs is so small as to be almost impossible."

"But there were circumstances so exact! Why, all that scene – "

"Really, Mr. Barnstable," Mrs. Harbinger again interrupted, "you must not go about telling what scenes are true. That is more of a publishing of your affairs than any putting them in a novel could be."

His eyes stared at her from the folds and undulations of his face like two remarkably large jellyfish cast by the waves among sand heaps.

"But – but," he stammered, "what am I to do? How would you feel if it were your wife?"

She regarded him with a glance which gave him up as incorrigible, and half turned away her head.

"I'm sure I can't say," she responded. "I never had a wife."

Barnstable was too much excited to be restrained by the mild jest, and dashed on, beginning to gesticulate in his earnestness.

"And by such a man!" he ran on. "Why, Mrs. Harbinger, just look at this. Isn't this obliquitous!"

He pulled from one pocket a handful of letters, dashed through them at a mad speed, thrust them back and drew another handful from a second pocket, scrabbled through them, discarded them for the contents of a third pocket, and in the end came back to the first batch of papers, where he at last hit upon the letter he was in search of.

"Only this morning I got this letter from a friend in New York that knew the Count in Europe. He's been a perfect rake. He's a gambler and a duelist. There, you take it, Mrs. Harbinger, and read it. You'll see, then, how I felt when that sort of a man scandaled my wife."

"But I thought that you received the letter only this morning," suggested Mrs. Harbinger, with a smile.

Her companion was too thoroughly excited to be interrupted, and dashed on.