Part 11

Jack sat up suddenly and looked at him, his sunny face full of earnestness.

"What the deuce do you mean?" he echoed. "What can a man mean when he begins to distrust his wife? Heavens! I'm beastly ashamed of you, Tom Harbinger! To think of your coming to the club and talking to a man about that little trump of a woman! You ought to be kicked! There, old man," he went on with a complete change of manner, "I beg your pardon. I only wanted to show you how you might look to an unfriendly eye. You know you can't be seriously jealous of Letty."

The other changed color, and looked shame-facedly into the coals.

"No, of course not, Jack," he answered slowly. "I'm as big an idiot as Barnstable. I do hate to see men dangling about her, though. I can't help my disposition, can I?"

"You've got to help it if it makes a fool of you."

"And that infernal Count with his slimy manners," Tom went on. "If he isn't a rascal there never was one. I'm not really jealous, I'm only--only--"

"Only an idiot," concluded Jack. "If I were Letty I'd really flirt with somebody just to teach you the difference between these fool ideas of yours and the real thing."

"Don't, Jack," Tom said; "the very thought of it knocks me all out."

XIX

THE CRUELTY OF LOVE

What might be the result of such a match as that of May Calthorpe and Jack Neligage must inevitably depend largely upon the feelings of one or the other to another love. If either were constant to a former flame, only disaster could come of the _mariage de convenance_ which Mrs. Neligage had adroitly patched up. If both left behind forgotten the foolish flares of youthful passion, the married pair might arrange their feelings upon a basis of mutual liking comfortable if not inspiring. What happened to Jack in regard to Alice and to May's silly attraction toward the unknown Christopher Calumus was therefore of much importance in influencing the future.

Since Alice Endicott knew of the engagement of May and Jack it was not to be supposed that the malicious fates would fail to bring her face to face with her former lover. The meeting happened a couple of days after. Jack was walking down Beacon street, and Alice came out of May's just in front of him. He quickened his steps and overtook her.

"Good-morning," he said; "you've been in to May's, I see. How is she to-day?"

The tone was careless and full of good-nature, and his face as sunny as the bright sky overhead. Alice did not look up at him, but kept her eyes fixed on the distance. To one given to minute observation it might have occurred that as she did not glance at him when he spoke she must have been aware of his approach, and must have seen him when she came out from the house. That she had not shown her knowledge of his nearness was to be looked upon as an indication of something which was not indifference.

"Good-morning," she answered. "May didn't seem to be in particularly good spirits."

"Didn't she? I must try to find time to run in and cheer her up. I'm not used to being engaged, you see, and I'm not up in my part."

He spoke with a sort of swagger which was obviously intended to tease her, and the heightened color in her cheeks told that it had not missed the mark.

"I have no doubt that you will soon learn it," she returned. "You were always so good in amateur theatricals."

He laughed boisterously, perhaps a little nervously.

"'Praise from Sir Hubert,'" he quoted. "And speaking of engagements, is it proper to offer congratulations on yours?"

She turned to him with a look of indignant severity.

"You know I am not engaged, and that I don't mean to be."

"Oh, that's nothing. I didn't mean to be the other day."

"I am not in the market," she said cuttingly.

"Neither am I any more," Jack retorted coolly. "I've sold myself. That's what they mean, I suppose, by saying a girl has made her market."

Alice had grown more and more stern in her carriage as this talk proceeded. Jack's tone was as flippant as ever, and he carried his handsome head as jauntily as if they were talking of the merriest themes. His brown eyes were full of a saucy light, and he switched his walking-stick as if he were light-heartedly snapping off the heads of daisies in a country lane. The more severe Alice became the more his spirits seemed to rise.

As they halted at a corner to let a carriage pass Alice turned and looked at her companion, the hot blood flushing into her smooth cheek.

"There is nothing in the world more despicable than a fortune-hunter!" she declared with emphasis.

"Oh, quite so," Jack returned, apparently full of inward laughter. "Theoretically I agree with you entirely. Practically of course there are allowances to be made. The Count has been brought up so, and you mustn't be too hard on him."

"You know what I mean," she said, unmoved by the cunning of his speech.

"Yes, of course I can make allowances for you. You mean, I suppose, that as long as you know he's really after you and not your money you can despise public opinion; but naturally it must vex you to have the Count misjudged. Everybody will think Miss Wentstile hired him to marry you."

She parted her lips to speak, then restrained herself, and altered her manner. She turned at bay, but she adopted Jack's own tactics.

"You are right," she said. "I understand that the Count is only acting according to the standards he's been brought up to. May hasn't that consolation. I'm sure I don't see, if you don't mind my saying so, on what ground she is going to contrive any sort of an excuse for her husband."

"She'll undoubtedly be so fond of him," Jack retorted with unabashed good-nature, "that it won't occur to her that he needs an excuse. May hasn't your Puritanical notions, you know. Really, I might be afraid of her if she had."

It was a game in which the man is always the superior of the woman. Women will more cleverly and readily dissemble to the world, but to the loved one they are less easily mocking and insincere than men. Alice, however, was plucky, and she made one attempt more.

"Of course May might admire you on the score of filial obedience. It isn't every son who would allow his mother to arrange his marriage for him."

"No," Jack responded with a chuckle, "you're right there. I am a model son."

She stopped suddenly, and turned on the sidewalk in quick vehemence.

"Oh, stop talking to me!" she cried. "I will go into the first house I know if you keep on this way! You've no right to torment me so!"

The angry tears were in her eyes, and her face was drawn with her effort to sustain the self-control which had so nearly broken down. His expression lost its roguishness, and in his turn he became grave.

"No," he said half-bitterly, "perhaps not. Of course I haven't; but it is something of a temptation when you are so determined to believe the worst of me."

She regarded him in bewilderment.

"Determined to believe the worst?" she echoed. "Aren't you engaged to May Calthorpe?"

He took off his hat, and made her a profound and mocking bow.

"I apparently have that honor," he said.

"Then why am I not to believe it?"

He looked at her a moment as if about to explain, then with the air of finding it hopeless he set his lips together.

"If you will tell me what you mean," Alice went on, "I may understand. As it is I have your own word that you are engaged; you certainly do not pretend that you care for May; and you know that your mother made the match. You may be sure, Jack," she added, her voice softening a little only to harden again, "that if there were any way of excusing you I should have found it out. I'm still foolish enough to cling to old friendship."

His glance softened, and he regarded her with a look under which she changed color and drew away from him.

"Dear Alice," he said, "you always were a brick."

She answered only by a startled look. Then before he could be aware of her intention she had run lightly up the steps of a house and rung the bell. He looked after her in amazement, then followed.

"Alice," he said, "what are you darting off in that way for?"

"I have talked with you as long as I care to," she responded, the color in her cheeks, and her head held high. "I am going in here to see Mrs. West. You had better go and cheer up May."

Before he could reply a servant had opened the door. Jack lifted his hat.

"Good-by," said he. "Remember what I said about believing the worst."

Then the door closed behind her, and he went on his way down the street.

That the course of true love never ran smooth has been said on such a multitude of occasions that it is time for some expert in the affections to declare whether all love which runs roughly is necessarily genuine. The supreme prerogative of young folk who are fond is of course to tease and torment each other. Alice and Jack had that morning been a spectacle of much significance to any student in the characteristics of love-making. Youth indulges in the bitter of disagreement as a piquant contrast to the sweets of the springtime of life. True love does not run smooth because love cannot really take deep hold upon youth unless it fixes attention by its disappointments and woes. Smooth and sweet drink quickly cloys; while the cup in which is judiciously mingled an apt proportion of acid stimulates the thirst it gratifies. If Jack was to marry May it was a pity that he and Alice should continue thus to hurt each other.

XX

THE FAITHFULNESS OF A FRIEND

The friendship between Jack Neligage and Dick Fairfield was close and sincere. For a man to say that the friendships of men are more true and sure than those of women would savor of cynicism, and might be objected to on the ground that no man is in a position to judge on both sides of the matter. It might on the other hand be remarked that even women themselves give the impression of regarding masculine comradeship as a finer product of humanity than feminine, but comparisons of this sort have little value. It is surely enough to keep in mind how gracious a gift of the gods is a genuine affection between two right-hearted men. The man who has one fellow whom he loves, of whose love he is assured; one to whom he may talk as freely as he would think, one who understands not only what is said but the things which are intended; a friend with whom it is possible to be silent without offense or coldness, against whom there need be no safeguards, and to whom one may turn alike in trouble and in joy--the man who has found a friend like this has a gift only to be outweighed by the love of her whose price is far above rubies and whose works praise her in the gates. Such a friendship is all but the most precious gift of the gods.

To evoke and to share such a friendship, moreover, marks the possession of possibilities ethically fine. A man may love a woman in pure selfishness; but really to love his male friend he must possess capabilities of self-sacrifice and of manliness. It is one of the charms of comradeship that it frankly accepts and frankly gives without weighing or accounting. In the garden of such a friendship may walk the soul of man as his body went in Eden before the Fall, "naked and not ashamed." He cannot be willing to show himself as he is if his true self have not its moral beauties. It may be set down to the credit both of Dick and of Jack that between them there existed a friendship so close and so trustful.

Even in the closest friendships, however, there may be times of suspension. Perhaps in a perfect comradeship there would be no room for the faintest cloud; but since men are human and there is nothing perfect in human relations, even friendship may sometimes seem to suffer. For some days after the announcement of Jack's engagement there was a marked shade between the friends. Jack, indeed, was the same as ever, jolly, careless, indolent, and apparently without a trouble in the world. Dick, on the other hand, was at times absent, constrained, or confused. To have his friend walk in and coolly announce an engagement with the girl whose correspondence had fired Dick's heart was naturally trying and astonishing. Dick might have written a bitter chapter about the way in which women spoiled the friendships of men; and certain cynical remarks which appeared in his next novel may be conceived of as having been set down at this time.

More than a week went by without striking developments. The engagement had not been announced, nor had it, after the first evening, been mentioned between the two friends. That there should be a subject upon which both must of necessity reflect much, yet of which they did not speak, was in itself a sufficient reason for a change in the mental atmosphere of their bachelor quarters, which from being the cheeriest possible were fast becoming the most gloomy.

One morning as Dick sat writing at his desk, Jack, who since breakfast had been engaged in his own chamber, came strolling in, in leisurely fashion, smoking the usual cigarette.

"I hope I don't disturb you, old man," he said, "but there's something I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind."

Dick, whose back was toward the other, did not turn. He merely held his pen suspended, and said coldly:--

"Well?"

Jack composed himself in a comfortable position by leaning against the mantel, an attitude he much affected, and regarded his cigarette as if it had some close connection with the thing he wished to say.

"You remember perhaps that letter that I gave you from May?"

Dick laid his pen down suddenly, and sat up, but he did not turn.

"Well?" he said again.

"And the other letters before it?"

"Well?"

"It has occurred to me that perhaps I ought to ask for them,--demand them, don't you know, the way they do on the stage."

Dick said nothing. By keeping his back to his chum he missed sight of a face full of fun and mischief.

"Of course I don't want to seem too bumptious, but now I'm engaged to Miss Calthorpe--"

He paused as if to give Fairfield an opportunity of speaking; but still Dick remained silent.

"Well," observed Jack after a moment, "why the dickens don't you say something? I can't be expected to carry on this conversation all alone."

"What do you want me to say?" Fairfield asked, in a tone so solemn that it was no wonder his friend grinned more than ever.

"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

THE MISCHIEF OF A FIANCÉ

The lady proved to be Alice Endicott. She came in without shyness or embarrassment, with her usual air of quiet refinement, and although she must have seen the surprise in Dick's face, she took no notice of it. Alice was one of those women so free from self-consciousness, so entirely without affectations, yet so rare in her simple dignity, that it was hard to conceive her as ever seeming to be out of place. She was so superior to surroundings that her environment did not matter.

"Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield," she said. "I should apologize for intruding. I hope I am not disturbing your work."

"Good-morning," he responded. "I am not at work just now. Sit down, please."

She took the chair he offered, and came at once to her errand.

"I came from Miss Calthorpe," she said.

"Miss Calthorpe?" he repeated.

"Yes. She thought she ought not to write to you again; and she asked me to come for her letters; those she wrote before she knew who you were."

"But why shouldn't she write to me for them?"

"You forget that she is engaged, Mr. Fairfield."

"I--Of course, I did forget for the minute; but even if she is, I don't see why so simple a thing as a note asking for her letters--"

Alice rose.

"I don't think that there is any need of my explaining," she said. "If I tell you that she didn't find it easy to write, will that be sufficient? Of course you will give me the letters."

"I must give them if she wishes it; but may I ask one question first? Doesn't she send for them because she's engaged?"

"Isn't that reason enough?"

"It is reason enough," Dick answered, smiling; "but it isn't a reason here. She isn't engaged any more. That is, she won't be by night."

Alice stared at him in astonishment.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"I mean that Jack never meant to marry her, and that he is going to release her from her engagement."

"How do you know that?"

"He told me himself."

They stood in silence a brief interval looking each other in the face. Fairfield was radiant, but Miss Endicott was very pale.

"I beg your pardon," she said presently. "Is Mr. Neligage in the house?"

"Yes; he's in his room."

"Will you call him, please?"

Fairfield hesitated a little, but went to call his chum.

"Miss Endicott wants to speak to you," he said abruptly.

"What does she want?"

"I haven't any idea."

"What have you been telling her?"

The necessity of answering this question Dick escaped by returning to the other room; and his friend followed.

"Jack," Alice cried, as soon as he appeared, "tell me this moment if it's true that you're not to marry May!"

He faced her stiff and formal in his politeness.

"Pardon me if I do not see that you have any right to ask me such a question."

"Why, I came to ask Mr. Fairfield for May's letters because she is engaged to you, and he told me--"

She broke off, her habitual self-control being evidently tried almost beyond its limit.

"I took the liberty, Jack," spoke up Fairfield, "of saying--"

"Don't apologize," Neligage said. "It is true, Miss Endicott, that circumstances have arisen which make it best for May to break the engagement. I shall be obliged to you, however, if you don't mention the matter to her until she brings it up."

Alice looked at him appealingly.

"But I thought--"

"We are none of us accountable for our thoughts, Miss Endicott, nor perhaps for a want of faith in our friends."

She moved toward him with a look of so much appeal that Dick discreetly turned his back under pretense of looking for something on his writing-table.

"At least," she said, her voice lower than usual, "you will let me apologize for the way in which I spoke to you the other morning."

"Oh, don't mention it," he returned carelessly. "You were quite justified."

He turned away with easy nonchalance, as if the matter were one in which he had no possible interest.

"At least," she begged, "you'll pardon me, and shake hands."

"Oh, certainly, if you like," answered he; "but it doesn't seem necessary."

Her manner changed in the twinkling of an eye. Indignation shone in her face and her head was carried more proudly.

"Then it isn't," she said. "Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield."