Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

"Say? Why should she say anything? You needn't tell her till she's told me. She would have told me sometime."

"She did tell you in that wretched letter; or rather she gave you a sign to know her by. How did you dare to write to any young girl like that?"

The red flushed into his cheeks and his laughter died.

"You don't mean that she showed you my letters?"

"Oh, no; she didn't show them to me. But I know well enough what they were like. You are a pair of young dunces."

Fairfield cast down his eyes and studied his finger-nails in silence a moment. When he looked up again he spoke gravely and with a new firmness.

"Mrs. Harbinger," he said, "I hope you don't think that I meant anything wrong in answering her letters. I didn't know who wrote them."

"You must have known that they were written by a girl that was young and foolish."

"I'm afraid I didn't think much about that. I had a letter, and it interested me, and I answered it. It never occurred to me that – "

"It never occurs to a man that he is bound to protect a girl against herself," Mrs. Harbinger responded quickly. "At least now that you do know, I hope that there'll be no more of this nonsense."

Fairfield did not reply for a moment. Then he looked out over the landscape instead of meeting her eyes.

"What do you expect me to say to that?" he asked.

"I don't know that I expect anything," she returned dryly. "Hush! They are coming."

He leaned forward, and spoke in a hurried whisper.

"Does she know?" he demanded.

"Of course not. She thinks it's the Count, for all I can tell."

The arrival of Alice and May put an end to any further confidential discourse. Fairfield rose hastily, looking dreadfully conscious, but as the two girls had some interesting information or other to impart to Mrs. Harbinger, he had an opportunity to recover himself, and in a few moments the party was on its way to the polo-field.

With the game this story has nothing in particular to do. It was not unlike polo games in general. The playing was neither especially good nor especially bad. Jack Neligage easily carried off the honors, and the men pronounced his playing to be in remarkable form for so early in the season. Fairfield sat next to Miss Calthorpe, but he was inclined to be quiet, and to glance at Mrs. Harbinger when he spoke, as if he expected her to be listening to his conversation. Now and then he fixed his attention on the field, but when the game was over, and the clever plays were discussed, he showed no signs of knowing anything about them. To him the game had evidently been only an accident, and in no way a vital part of the real business of the day.

There was afternoon tea at the club-house, – groups chatted and laughed on the piazza and the lawn; red coats became more abundant on the golf links despite the lateness of the hour; carriages were brought round, one by one took their freights of pleasure-seekers, and departed. Fairfield still kept in the neighborhood of Miss Calthorpe, and although he said little he looked a great deal. Mrs. Harbinger did not interfere, although for the most part she was within ear-shot. Fairfield was of good old family, well spoken of as a rising literary man, and May had money enough for two, so that there were no good grounds upon which a chaperone could have made herself disagreeable, and Mrs. Harbinger was not in the least of the interfering sort.

Before leaving the County Club Mrs. Harbinger had a brief talk with Mrs. Neligage.

"I wish you'd tell me something about the Count's past," she said. "You knew him in Europe, didn't you?"

"Yes, I met him in Rome one winter; and after that I saw a good deal of him for a couple of seasons."

"Was he received?"

"Oh, bless you, yes. He's real. His family tree goes back to the tree in the Garden of Eden."

"Perhaps his ancestor then was the third person there."

Mrs. Neligage laughed, and shook her head.

"Come, Letty," she said, "that is taking an unfair advantage. But really, the Count is all right. He's as poor as a church mouse, and I've no doubt he came over here expressly to marry money. That is a foreign nobleman's idea of being driven to honest toil, – to come to America and hunt up an heiress."

Mrs. Harbinger produced the letter which she had received from Barnstable earlier in the afternoon.

"That crazy Mr. Barnstable that made an exhibition of himself at my house yesterday has given me a letter about the Count. I haven't read much of it; but it's evidently an attack on the man's morals."

"Oh, his morals," Mrs. Neligage returned with a pretty shrug; "nobody can find fault with the Count's morals, my dear, for he hasn't any."

"Is he so bad then?" inquired Mrs. Harbinger with a sort of dispassionate interest.

"Bad, bless you, no. He's neither good nor bad. He's what all his kind are; squeamishly particular on a point of honor, and with not a moral scruple to his name."

Mrs. Harbinger held the letter by the corner, regarding it with little favor.

"I'm sure I don't want his old letter," she observed. "I'm not a purveyor of gossip."

"Why did he give it to you?"

"He wanted me to read it, and then to show it to my friends. He telegraphed to New York last night, Tom said, to find out about the Count, and the letter must have come on the midnight."

"Characters by telegraph," laughed Mrs. Neligage. "The times are getting hard for adventurers and impostors. But really the Count isn't an impostor. He'd say frankly that he brought over his title to sell."

"That doesn't decide what I am to do with this letter," Mrs. Harbinger remarked. "You'd better take it."

"I'm sure I don't see what I should do with it," Mrs. Neligage returned; but at the same time she took the epistle. "Perhaps I may be able to make as much mischief with this as I did with that letter yesterday."

The other looked at her with serious disfavor expressed in her face.

"For heaven's sake," she said, "don't try that. You made mischief enough there to last for some time."

XV

THE MISCHIEF OF A LETTER

The meditations of Mrs. Neligage in the watches of the night which followed the polo game must have been interesting, and could they be known might afford matter for amusement and study. It must be one of the chief sources of diversion to the Father of Evil to watch the growth in human minds and hearts of schemes for mischief. He has the satisfaction of seeing his own ends served, the entertainment of observing a curious and fascinating mental process, and all the while his vanity may be tickled by the reflection that it is he who will receive the credit for each cunningly developed plot of iniquity. That the fiend had been agreeably entertained on this occasion was to be inferred from the proceedings of Mrs. Neligage next morning, when the plans of the night were being carried into effect.

As early in the day as calling was reasonably possible, Mrs. Neligage, although it was Sunday, betook herself to see May Calthorpe. May, who had neither father nor mother living, occupied the family house on Beacon street, opposite the Common, having as companion a colorless cousin who played propriety, and for the most part played it unseen. The dwelling was rather a gloomy nest for so bright a bird as May. Respectability of the most austere New England type pervaded the big drawing-room where Mrs. Neligage was received. The heavy old furniture was as ugly as original sin, and the pictures might have ministered to the Puritan hatred for art. Little was changed from the days when May's grandparents had furnished their abode according to the most approved repulsiveness of their time. Only the brightness of the warm April sun shining in at the windows, and a big bunch of dark red roses in a crystal jug, lightened the formality of the stately apartment.

When May came into the room, however, it might have seemed that she had cunningly retained the old appointments as a setting to make more apparent by contrast her youthful fresh beauty. With her clear color, her dark hair, and sparkling eyes, she was the more bewitching amid this stately, sombre furniture, and in this gloomy old lofty room.

"My dear," Mrs. Neligage said, kissing her affectionately, "how well you look. I was dreadfully afraid I should find you worried and unhappy."

May returned her greeting less effusively, and seemed somewhat puzzled at this address.

"But why in the world should I look worried?" she asked.

Mrs. Neligage sat down, and regarded the other impressively in silence a moment before replying.