THE GAME OF CROSS-PURPOSES
Mrs. Neligage escaped from her friends speedily, with that easy swiftness which is in the power of the socially adroit, and returned to the piazza by a French window which opened at the side of the house, and so was not in sight from the front of the club. There she came upon Count Shimbowski comfortably seated in a sunny corner, smoking and meditating.
"Ah, Count," she said, as he rose to receive her, "this is unexpected pleasure. Are you resting from the strain of continual adulation?"
"What you say?" he responded. Then he dropped into his seat with a despairing gesture. "Dis Eengleesh," he said; "eet ees eemposseeble eet to know. I have told Mees Wentsteele dat she ees very freesh, and—"
He ended with a groan, and a snug little Hungarian oath under his breath.
"Fresh!" echoed Mrs. Neligage, with a laugh like a redbird whisking gayly from branch to branch. "My dear Count, she is anything but fresh. She is as stale as a last year's love-affair. But she ought to be pleased to be told she is fresh."
"Oh, I say: 'You be so freesh, Mees Wentsteele,' and she, she say: 'Freesh, Count Shimbowski? You result me!' Den day teel me freesh mean fooleesh, sotte. What language ees dat?"
"Oh, it isn't so bad as you think, Count. It is only argot anyway, and it doesn't mean sotte, but naïve. Besides, she wouldn't mind. She is enough of a woman to be pleased that you even tried to tell her she was young."
"But no more ees she young."
"No more, Count. We are all of us getting to be old enough to be our own grandmothers. Miss Wentstile looks as if she was at the Flood and forgot to go in when it rained."
The Count looked more puzzled than amused at this sally, but his politeness came to his rescue. A compliment is always the resource of a man of the world when a lady puzzles him.
"Eet ees only Madame Neleegaze to what belong eemortal youth," he said with a bow.
She rose and swept him a courtesy, and then took from her dress one of the flowers she was wearing, which chanced to be very portly red carnations.
"You are as gallant as ever, Count," she said, "so that your English doesn't matter. Besides that, you have a title; and American women love a title as a moth loves a candle."
She stuck the carnation into his buttonhole as she spoke, and returned to her seat, where she settled herself with the air of one ready for a serious chat.
"It is very odd to see you on this side of the Atlantic, Count," she remarked. "Tell me, what are you doing in this country,—besides taking the town by storm, that is?"
"I weell range my own self;—say you een Eengleesh 'arrange my own self'?"
"When it means you are going to marry, Count, it might be well to say that you are going to arrange yourself and derange somebody else. Is the lady Miss Endicott?"
"Eet ees Mees Endeecott. Ees she not good for me?"
"She is a thousand times too good for you, my dear fellow; but she is as poor as a church mouse."
"Ah, but her aunt, Mees Wentsteele, she geeve her one dot: two thousand hundred dollar. Eet weell be a meellion francs, ees eet not?"
"So you get a million francs for yourself, Count. It is more than I should have thought you worth."
"But de teettle!"
"Oh, the title is worth something, but I could buy one a good deal cheaper. If I remember correctly I might have had yours for nothing, Count."
The Count did not look entirely pleased at this reminiscence, but he smiled, and again took refuge in a compliment.
"To one so ravissante as madame all teettles are under her feet."
"I wish you would set up a school for compliments here in Boston, Count, and teach our men to say nice things. Really, a Boston man's compliments are like molasses candy, they are so home-made. But why don't you take the aunt instead of the niece? Miss Wentstile is worth half a million."
"Dat weell be mouche," responded the Count with gravity; "but she have bones."
The widow laughed lightly. The woman who after forty can laugh like a girl is one who has preserved her power over men, and she is generally one fully aware of the fact. Mrs. Neligage had no greater charm than her light-hearted laugh, which no care could permanently subdue. She tossed her head, and then shook it at the Count.
"Yes," she responded, "you are unfortunately right. She has bones. By the way, do you happen to have with you that letter I gave you at Mrs. Harbinger's yesterday?"
"Yes," he answered, drawing from his pocket the note addressed to Christopher Calumus, "I have eet."
"I would like to see it," Mrs. Neligage said, extending her hand.
The Count smiled, and held it up.
"You can see eet," said he, "but eet ees not permeet you weedeen de hand to have eet."
She leaned forward and examined it closely, studying the address with keen eyes.
"It is no matter," was her remark. "I only wanted to make sure."
"Do you de handwrite know?" he demanded eagerly.
"And if I do?"
"You do know," he broke out in French. "I can see it in your face. Tell me who wrote it."
She shook her head, smiling teasingly. Then she rose, and moved toward the window by which she had come from the house.
"No, Count," was her answer. "It doesn't suit my plan to tell you. I didn't think quickly enough yesterday, or I wouldn't have given it to you. It was in your hands before I thought whose writing it was."
The Count, who had risen, bowed profoundly.
"After all," he said, "I need not trouble you. Mrs. Harbinger acknowledged that she wrote it."
Mrs. Neligage flashed back at him a mocking grimace as she withdrew by the window.
"I never expected to live to see you believe a thing because a woman said it," she laughed. "You must have been in strange hands since I used to know you!"
Left alone, the Count thoughtfully regarded the letter for a moment, then with a shrug he restored it to his pocket, and turned to go around the corner of the house to the front piazza. Sounds of wheels, of voices, of talking, and of laughter told of the gathering of pleasure-seekers; and scarcely had the Count passed the corner than he met Mr. Bradish face to face. There were groups of men and women on the piazza and on the lawn, with the horses and dogs in sight which are the natural features in such a picture at an out-of-town club. The Count heeded none of these things, but stepped forward eagerly.
"Ah, Count, you have come out to the games like everybody else, I see," Bradish said pleasantly.
"Eet ees extreme glad to see me, Mr. Bradeesh," the Count returned, shaking him by the hand. "Do you weelleengly come wid us a leettle, for dat I say to you ver' particle?"
Bradish, with his usual kindly courtesy, followed the Count around the corner of the house, out of sight of the arriving company.
"Something particular to say to me, Count?" he observed. "You do me too much honor."
"Eet weell be of honor dat I weell to you speak," the Count responded. "Weell you for myself de condescension to have dat you weell be one friend to one affaire d'honneur?"
Bradish stared at him in undisguised amazement.
"An affaire d'honneur?" he echoed. "Surely you don't mean that you are going to fight? You can't mean a duel?"
"Oh, oui, oui; eet weell be a duel dat eet calls you."
Bradish stared harder than ever, and then sat down as if overcome.
"But, my dear Count, you can't fight duels in America."
"For what weell not een Amereeca fight? He have result me! Me, Count Ernst Shimbowski! Weell I not to have hees blood?"
"I'm afraid you won't," Bradish responded, shaking his head. "That isn't the way we do things here. But who is it has insulted you?"
The Count became more and more excited as he spoke of his wrongs, and with wide gestures he appealed to the whole surrounding region to bear him out in his rage and his resolution. He stood over Bradish like an avenging and furious angel, swaying his body by way of accent to his words.
"You deed see! De ladies day deed see! All de world weell have heard dat he result—he eensult me! De Shimbowski name have been eensult'! Deed he not say 'Veelaine! Veelaine!' Oh, sacré nom de mon père! 'Veelaine! Veelaine!' Eet weell not but only blood to wash dat eensult!"
How an American gentleman should behave when he is seriously asked to act as a second in a duel in this land and time is a question which has probably never been authoritatively settled, and which might be reasoned upon with very curious arguments from different points of view. It is safe to say that any person who finds himself in such a position could hardly manage to incur much risk of running into danger, or even of doing violence to any moral scruples with which he may chance to be encumbered. He must always feel that the chances of a duel's actually taking place are so ridiculously small that the whole matter can be regarded only as food for laughter; and that no matter how eager for fight one or both of the possible combatants might be, the end will be peace. So far from making the position of a second more easy, however, this fact perhaps renders it more difficult. It is harder to face the ridiculous than the perilous. If there were any especial chance that a duel would proceed to extremes, that principals would perhaps come to grief and seconds be with them involved in actual danger, even though only the ignoble danger of legal complications, a man might feel that honor called upon him not to fail his friend in extremity. When it is merely a question of becoming more or less ridiculous according to the notoriety of the affair, the matter is different. The demand of society is that a gentleman shall be ready to brave peril, but there is nothing in the social code which goes so far as to call upon him to run the chance of making himself ridiculous. Society is founded upon the deepest principles of human nature, and if it demanded of man the sacrifice of his vanity the social fabric would go to pieces like a house of cards in a whirlwind. Bradish might have been called upon to risk his life at the request of the Count, although they were in reality little more than acquaintances; but he certainly cannot be held to have been under any obligations to give the world a right to laugh at him.
Bradish regarded the Count with a smile half amused and half sympathetic, while the Hungarian poured out his excited protest, and when there came a pause he said soothingly:—
"Oh, sit down and talk it over, my dear Count. I see you mean that stupid dunce of a Barnstable. You can't fight him. Everybody would laugh at the very idea. Besides, he isn't your equal socially. You can't fight him."
"You do comprehend not!" cried the Count. "De Shimbowski name weell eet to have blood for de eensult!"
"But—"
The Count drew himself up with an air of hauteur which checked the words on Bradish's lips.
"Eet ees not for a Shimbowski to beg for favors," he said stiffly. "Eef eet ees you dat do not serve me—"
"Oh, I assure you," interrupted Bradish hastily, "I am more than willing to serve you; but I wanted to warn you that in America we look at things so differently—"
"Een Amereeca even," the Count in his turn interrupted with a superb gesture, "dare weell be gentlemans, ees eet not?"
In the face of that gesture there was nothing more to be said in the way of objection. Time and the chapter of accidents must determine what would come of it, but no man of sensibility and patriotism, appealed to in that grand fashion in the name of the honor of America, could have held out longer. Least of all was it to be expected that Harry Bradish, kindest-hearted of living men, and famous for never being able to refuse any service that was asked of him, could resist this last touch. He rose as if to get out of the interview as speedily as possible.
"Very well then," he said, "if you persist in going on, I'll do what I can for you, but I give you fair warning once more that it'll come to nothing more than making us both ridiculous."
The Count shook hands warmly, but his response was one which might be said to show less consideration than might have been desired for the man who was making a sacrifice in his behalf.
"De Shimbowski name," he declared grandiloquently, yet with evident sincerity, "ees never reedeeculous."
There followed some settling of details, in all of which Bradish evinced a tendency to temporize and to postpone, but in which the ardor of the Count so hurried everything forward that had Barnstable been on the spot the duel might have been actually accomplished despite all obstacles. It was evident, however, that one side cannot alone arrange a meeting of honor, and in the end little could be done beyond the Count's receiving a promise from Bradish that the latter would communicate with Barnstable as soon as possible.
This momentous and blood-curdling decision having been arrived at, the two gentlemen emerged from their retirement on the side piazza, and once more joined the gay world as represented by the now numerous gathering assembled to see the polo at the County Club.