Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree. Bates Arlo
said he, "to find somebody who really appreciates the book for what is best in it. Of course there are a great many people who say nice things about it, but they don't seem to go to the real heart of it as you do."
"Oh, the story has so much heart," she returned. Then she regarded him quizzically. "You speak almost as if you had written it yourself."
"Oh, I – That is – Why, you see," he answered, in evident confusion, "I suppose that my being an embryo literary man myself makes it natural for me to take the point of view of the author. Most readers of a novel, you know, care for nothing but the plot, and see nothing else."
"Oh, it is not the plot," May cried enthusiastically. "I like that, of course, but what I really care for is the feeling in the book."
Jack Neligage, with his eyes on Alice Endicott, had made his way over to the tea-table, and came up in time to hear this.
"The book, Miss Calthorpe?" he repeated. "Oh, you must be talking of that everlasting novel. I wish I had had the good luck to write it."
"Oh, I should adore you if you had, Mr. Neligage."
"By Jove, then I'll swear I did write it."
Fairfield regarded the girl with heightened color.
"You had better be careful, Miss Calthorpe," he commented. "The real author might hear you."
She started in pretty dismay, and covered with her hand the flower nestling under her chin.
"Oh, he is not here!" she cried.
"How do you know that?" demanded Jack laughingly.
She sank back into the corner of the sofa with a blush far deeper than could be called for by the situation.
"Oh, I just thought so," she said. "Who is there here that could have written it?"
"Why, Dick here is always scribbling," Neligage returned, with a chuckle. "Perhaps you have been telling him what you thought of his book."
The face of Fairfield grew suddenly sober.
"Come, Jack," he said, rising, "that's too stupid a joke to be worthy of you."
He was seized at that moment by Mrs. Harbinger, who presented him to Miss Wentstile. Fairfield had been presented to Miss Wentstile a dozen times in the course of the two winters since he had graduated at Harvard and settled in Boston; but since she never seemed to recognize him, he gave no sign of remembering her.
"Miss Wentstile," the hostess said, "don't you know Mr. Fairfield? He is one of our literary lights now, you know."
"A very tiny rushlight, I am afraid," the young man commented.
Miss Wentstile examined him with critical impertinence through her lorgnette.
"Are you one of the Baltimore Fairfields?" she asked.
"No; my family came from Connecticut."
"Indeed!" she remarked coolly. "I do not remember that I ever met a person from Connecticut before."
The lips of the young man set themselves a little more firmly at this impertinence, and there came into his eyes a keen look.
"I am pleased to be the humble means of increasing your experience," he said, with a bow.
Miss Wentstile had the appearance of being anxious to quarrel with somebody, a fact which was perhaps due to the conversation which she had had with her niece as they came to the house. Alice had been ordered to be especially gracious to Count Shimbowski, and had respectfully but succinctly declared her intention to be as cold as possible. Miss Wentstile had all her life indulged in saying whatever she felt like saying, little influenced by the ordinary restraints of conventionality and not at all by consideration for the feelings of others. She had gone about the room that afternoon being as disagreeable as possible, and her rudeness to Fairfield was milder than certain things which were at that very moment being resented and quoted in the groups which she had passed. She glared at the young man now as if amazed that he had dared to reply, and unfortunately she ventured once more.
"Thank you," she said. "Even the animals in the Zoo increase one's experience. It is always interesting to meet those that one has heard chattered about."
He made her a deeper bow.
"I know," he responded with a manner coolly polite. "I felt it myself the first half dozen times I had the honor to be presented to you; but even the choicest pleasures grow stale on too frequent repetition."
Miss Wentstile glared at him for half a minute, while he seemed to grow pale at his own temerity. Then a humorous smile lightened her face, and she tapped him approvingly on the shoulder with her gold lorgnette.
"Come, come," she said briskly but without any sharpness, "you must not be impertinent to an old woman. You will hold your own, I perceive. Come and see me. I am always at home on Wednesdays."
Miss Wentstile moved on looking less grim, but her previous sins were still to be atoned for, and Mrs. Neligage, who knew nothing of the encounter between the spinster and Fairfield, was watching her opportunity. Miss Wentstile came upon the widow just as a burst of laughter greeted the conclusion of a story.
"And his wife is entirely in the dark to this day," Mrs. Neligage ended.
"That is – ha, ha! – the funniest thing I've heard this winter," declared Mr. Bradish, who was always in the train of Mrs. Neligage.
"I think it's horrid!" protested Mrs. Croydon, with an entirely unsuccessful attempt to look shocked. "I declare, Miss Wentstile, they are gossiping in a way that positively makes me blush."
"So you see that the age of miracles is not past after all," put in Mrs. Neligage.
"Mrs. Neligage has lived abroad so much," Miss Wentstile said severely, "that I fear she has actually forgotten the language of civility."
"Not to you, my dear Miss Wentstile," was the incorrigible retort. "My mother taught me to be civil to you in my earliest youth."
And all that the unfortunate lady, thus cruelly attacked, could say was, —
"I wish you remembered all your mother taught you half as well!"
V
THE BLAZING OF RANK
The usual mass of people came and went that afternoon at Mrs. Harbinger's. It was not an especially large tea, but in a country where the five o'clock tea is the approved method of paying social grudges there will always be a goodly number of people to be asked and many who will respond. The hum of talk rose like the clatter of a factory, the usual number of conversations were begun only to end as soon as they were well started; the hostess fulfilled her duty of interrupting any two of her guests who seemed to be in danger of getting into real talk; presentations were made with the inevitable result of a perfunctory exchange of inanities; and in general the occasion was very like the dozen other similar festivities which were proceeding at the same time in all the more fashionable parts of the city.
As time wore on the crowd lessened. Many had gone to do their wearisome duty of saying nothing at some other five o'clock; and the rooms were becoming comfortable again. The persons who had come early were lingering, and one expert in social craft might have detected signs that their remaining so long was not without some especial reason.
"If he is coming," Mrs. Neligage observed to Mr. Bradish, "I wish he would come. It is certainly not very polite of him not to arrive earlier if he is really trying to pass as the slave of Alice."
"Oh, he is always late," Bradish answered. "If you had not been in Washington you would have heard how he kept Miss Wentstile's dinner waiting an hour the other day because he couldn't make up his mind to leave the billiard table."
Mrs. Neligage laughed rather mockingly.
"How did dear Miss Wentstile like that?" asked she. "It is death for any mortal to dare to be late at her house, and she does not approve of billiards."
"She was so taken up with berating the rest of us for his tardiness that when he appeared she had apparently forgotten all about his being to blame in anything."
"She loves a title as she loves