Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

"Oh, nothing, if that's the way you take it."

"You knew about those letters when I got them," Fairfield went on. "I read them to you before I knew where they came from."

"Oh, my dear fellow, hold on. You never read me any but the first one."

"At any rate," rejoined Dick, obviously disturbed by this thrust, "I told you about them."

"Oh, you did? You told me very little about the second, and nothing about the third. I didn't even know how many you had."

Fairfield rose from his seat, thrust his hands into his pockets, and began to pace up and down the room. Jack smoked and watched.

"Look here, Jack," Dick said, "we've been fencing round this thing for a week, and it's got to be talked out."

"All right; heave ahead, old man."

Fairfield stopped in his walk and confronted his friend.

"Are you really fond of Miss Calthorpe, Jack?"

"Oh, I don't object to her; but of course the marriage is for purely business reasons."

"You're not in love with her?"

"Not the least in the world, old man," Jack responded cheerfully, blowing a ring of smoke and watching it intently as it sailed toward the ceiling. "But then she doesn't love me, so there's no bother of pretending on either side."

The color mounted in Dick's cheeks.

"Do you think it's the square thing to marry a young girl like that, and tie her up for life when she doesn't know what she's doing?"

"Oh, girls never know what they are doing. How should they know about marriage in any case? The man has to think for both, of course."

"But suppose she shouldn't be happy."

"Oh, I'll be good to any girl I marry. I'm awfully easy to live with. You ought to know that."

"But suppose," Dick urged again, "suppose she – "

"Suppose she what?"

"Why, suppose she – suppose she – she liked somebody else?"

Jack looked shrewdly at Dick's confused face, and burst into a laugh.

"I guessed those letters were pretty fair," he burst out, "but they must have been much worse than I even suspected!"

"What do you mean?" stammered Dick.

"Mean? Oh, nothing, – nothing in the world. By the way, as the matter relates to my fiancée, I hope you won't mind my asking if she's written to you since our engagement."

"Why – "

"Then she has written," pronounced Jack, smiling more than ever at the confusion of his friend. "You haven't the cheek to bluff a baby, Dick. I should hate to see you try to run a kelter through."

"She only wrote to say that she was glad the Count didn't write 'Love in a Cloud,' and a few things, you know, that she wanted to say."

Jack flung the end of his cigarette away and stepped swiftly forward to catch his chum by the shoulders behind. He whirled Dick about like a teetotum.

"Oh, Dick, you old fool," he cried, "what an ass you are! Do you suppose I'm such a cad as really to propose to marry May when she's fond of you and you're fond of her? It doesn't speak very well of your opinion of me."

Dick stared at him in half-stupefied amazement for an instant; then the blood came rushing into his cheeks.

"You don't mean to marry her?" he cried amazedly.

"Never did for a minute," responded Jack cheerfully. "Don't you know, old man, that I've sold my polo ponies, and taken a place in the bank?"

"Taken a place in the bank!" exclaimed Dick, evidently more and more bewildered. "Then what did you pretend to be engaged to her for?"

"Confound your impudence!" laughed Jack, "I was engaged to her, you beast! I am engaged to her now, and if you're n't civil I'll keep on being. You can't be engaged to her till I break my engagement!"

"But, Jack, I don't understand what in the deuce you mean."

"Mean? I don't know that I meant anything. I was engaged to her without asking to be, and when a lady says she is engaged to you you really can't say you're not. Besides, I thought it might help you."

"Help me?"

"Of course, my boy. There is nothing to set a girl in the way of wishing to be engaged to the right man like getting engaged to the wrong one."

Dick wrung his friend's hand.

"Jack," he said, "I beg your pardon. You're a trump!"

"Oh, I knew that all the time," responded Jack. "It may comfort you a little to know that it hasn't been much of an engagement. I've been shamefully neglectful of my position. Now of course an engaged man is supposed to show his ardor, to take little liberties, and be generally loving, you know."

Dick grew fiery red, and shrank back. Jack laughed explosively.

"Jealous, old man?" he demanded provokingly. "Well, I won't tease you any more. I haven't so much as kissed her hand."

Dick's rather combative look changed instantly into shamefacedness, and he shook hands again. He turned away quickly, but as quickly turned back again once more to grasp the hand of his chum.

"Jack Neligage," he declared, "you're worth more than a dozen of my best heroes, and a novelist can't say more than that!"

"Gad! You'd better put me in a novel then," was Jack's response. "They won't believe I'm real though; I'm too infernally virtuous."

A knock at the door interrupted them, and proved to be the summons of the janitor, who announced that a lady wished to see Mr. Fairfield.

"Don't let her stay long," Jack said, retreating to his room. "I can't get out till she is gone, and I want to go down town. I've got to order the horses to take my fiancée out for a last ride. It's to break my engagement, so you ought to want it to come off."

XXI