Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

"What is worrying you?" he asked, his voice a little lowered.

She looked at him with a smile.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked. "I was flattering myself that I'd been particularly frolicsome all the evening."

"You have; that's just it."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that you've had to try."

"You must have watched me pretty closely," she remarked, flushing a little, and lowering her glance.

"Oh, I know you so well that I don't need to; but to be sure I have kept my eyes on you."

She played with her fork as if thinking, while his look was fixed on her face.

"I didn't think I was so transparent," she said. "Do you suppose other people noticed me?"

"Oh, no," he responded. "You don't give me credit for my keenness of perception. But what's the row?"

"Nothing," was her answer, "only – Well, the truth is that I've had a talk with Aunt Sarah that wasn't very pleasant. Jack, I believe she's going to marry the Count."

"I'm glad of it," was his laughing response. "He'll make her pay for all the nasty things she has done. He'll be a sort of public avenger."

Alice became graver. She shook her head, smiling, but with evident disapproval.

"You promised me long ago that you wouldn't say things against Aunt Sarah."

"No, I never did," he declared impenitently. "I only said that I'd try not to say things to you about her that would hurt your feelings."

"Well, weren't you saying them then?"

"That depends entirely upon your feelings; but if they are so sensitive, I'll say I am delighted that the 'venerated Mees Wentsteele,' as the Count calls her, is at last to be benefited by the discipline of having a master."

Alice laughed in spite of herself.

"She won't enjoy that," she declared. "Poor Aunt Sarah, she's been very kind to me, Jack. She's really good-hearted."

"You can't tell from the outside of a chestnut burr what kind of a nut is inside of it," retorted he; "but if you say she is sound, it goes. She's got the outside of the burr all right."

The servant with a fresh course briefly interrupted, and when they had successfully dodged his platter Jack went back to the subject.

"Is it proper to ask what there was in your talk that was especially unpleasant, – not meaning that she was unpleasant, of course, but only that with your readiness to take offense you might have found something out of the way."

Alice smiled faintly as if the question was too closely allied to painful thoughts to allow of her being amused.

"She is still angry with me," she said.

"For giving her a husband? She's grateful."

"No, it isn't that. She can't get over my not doing what she wanted."

"You've done what she wanted too long. She's spoiled. She thinks she owns you."

"Of course it's hard for her," Alice murmured.

"Hard for her? It's just what she needed. What is she going to do about it I'd like to know?"

Alice looked at him with a wistful gravity.

"If I tell you a secret," she said in a low tone, "can I trust you?"

"Of course you can," was the answer. "I should think that by this time, after May's engagement, you'd know I can keep still when I've a mind to."

Jack's chuckle did not call a smile to her face now. She had evidently forgotten for the moment the need of keeping up a smiling appearance in public; her long lashes drooped over cheeks that had little color in them, and her mouth was grave.

"She was very severe to-night," Alice confided to her companion. "She said – Oh, Jack, what am I to do if she goes away and leaves me without a home? She said that as of course I shouldn't want to go with her to Hungary, she didn't know what would become of me. She wanted to know if I could earn my living."

"The infernal old – " began Jack; then he checked himself in time, and added: "You shall never want a home while – " but an interruption stopped him.

"Jack," called Tom Harbinger from the other end of the table, "didn't the Count say: 'Stones of a feather gather no rolls'?"

The society mask slipped in a flash over the faces of Alice and Jack. The latter had ready instantly a breezy laugh which might have disarmed suspicion if any of the company had seen his recent gravity.

"Oh, Tom," he returned, "it wasn't so bad as that. He said: 'Birds of one feder flock to get eet.' I wish I had a short-hand report of all his sayings."

"He told me at the club," put in Mrs. Harbinger, improving on the fact by the insertion of an article, "that Miss Wentstile was 'an ext'rdeenaire particle.' I hope you don't mind, Alice?"

"Nothing that the Count says could affect me," was the answer.

Having the eyes of the ladies in her direction, Mrs. Harbinger improved the opportunity to give the signal to rise, and the talk between Alice and Jack was for that evening broken off.

XXVI

THE WOOING OF A WIDOW

"Jack," Mrs. Neligage observed one morning when her son had dropped in, "I hope you won't mind, but I've decided to marry Harry Bradish."

Jack frowned slightly, then smiled. Probably no man is ever greatly pleased by the idea that his mother is to remarry; but Jack was of accommodating temper, and moreover was not without the common sense necessary for the acceptance of the unpalatable. He trimmed the ashes from the cigarette he was smoking, took a whiff, and sent out into the air an unusually neat smoke-ring. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the involving wreath until it was shattered upon the ceiling and its frail substance dissolved in air.

"Does Bradish know it?" he inquired.

"Oh, he doesn't suspect it," answered she. "He'll never have an idea of such a thing till I tell him, and then he won't believe it."

Jack laughed, blew another most satisfactory smoke-ring, and again with much deliberation watched it ascend to its destruction.

"Then you don't expect him to ask you?" he propounded at length.