THE MISCHIEF OF A GENTLEMAN
The Goddess of Misfortune sometimes capriciously takes a spite against an entire family, so that all of its members are at the same time involved in one misadventure or another. She shows a malicious impulse to wreak her disfavor on all of a connection at once, apparently from a knowledge that misery begets misery, and that nothing so completely fills to overflowing the cup of vexation as the finding that those from whom sympathy would naturally be expected are themselves in a condition to demand rather than to give it. She apparently amuses herself in mere wantonness of enjoyment of the sufferings of her victims when no one of them is in a condition to cheer the others. She illustrated this unamiable trait of her celestial character next day in her dealing with the Neligages, mother and son.
It was a beautiful spring day, not too warm in the unseasonable fashion which often makes a New England April so detestable, but with a fresh air full of exhilaration. Even in the city the cool, invigorating morning was refreshing. It provoked thoughts of springing grass and swelling buds, it suggested the marsh-marigolds preparing their gold down amid the roots of rushes, it teased the sense with vague yet disquieting desires to be in the open. The sun called to mind the amethystine foliage, half mist and half leaves, which was beginning to appear in the woods, as if trailing clouds had become entangled among the twig-set branches. The wind brought a spirit of daring, as if to-day one could do and not count the cost; as if adventures were the normal experience of man, and dreams might become tangible with the foliage which was condensing out of the spring air. It was one of those rare days which put the ideal to shame.
The windows of Mrs. Neligage's little parlor were open, and the morning air with all its provoking suggestions was floating in softly, as she rose to welcome a caller. He was not in the first springtime of life, yet suggested a season which was to spring what Indian summer is to autumn. A certain brisk jauntiness in face, dress, and manner might mean that he had by sheer determination remained far younger than his years. He had a hard, handsome face, with cleanly cut features, and side whiskers which were perhaps too long and flowing. His hair was somewhat touched with gray, but it was abundant, and curled attractively about his high, white forehead. His dress was perfection, and gave the impression that if he had moral scruples—about which his hard, bright eyes might raise a doubt—it would be in the direction of being always perfectly attired. His manner as he greeted Mrs. Neligage was carefully genial, yet the spring which was in the air seemed in his presence to be chilled by an untimely frost.
"How bright you are looking this morning, Louise," Mr. Sibley Langdon said, kissing her hand with an elaborate air of gallantry. "You are really the incarnation of the spring that is upon us."
She smiled languidly, drawing away her hand and moving to a seat.
"You know I am getting old enough to like to be told I am young, Sibley," was her answer. "Sit down, and tell me what has happened in the month that I've been in Washington."
"Nothing can happen while you are away," he responded, with a smile. "We only vegetate, and wait for your return. You don't mind if I smoke?"
"Certainly not. How is Mrs. Langdon?"
He drew out a cigarette-case of tortoise-shell and gold, helped himself to a cigarette, and lighted it before he answered.
"Mrs. Langdon is as usual," he replied. "She is as ill and as pious as ever."
"For which is she to be pitied the more?"
"Oh, I don't know that she is to be pitied for either," Langdon responded, in his crisp, well-bred voice. "Both her illness and her piety are in the nature of occupations to her. One must do something, you know."
Mrs. Neligage offered no reply to this, and for half a moment the caller smoked in silence.
"Tell me about yourself," he said. "You cruelly refuse to write to me, so that when you are away I am always in the dark as to what you are doing. I've no doubt you had all Washington at your feet."
"Oh, there were a few unimportant exceptions," Mrs. Neligage returned, her voice a little hard. "I don't think that if you went on now you'd find the capital draped in mourning over my departure."
Langdon knocked the ashes from his cigarette with the deliberation which marked all his movements. Then he looked at his hostess curiously.
"You don't seem to be in the best of spirits this morning, Louise," he said. "Has anything gone wrong?"
She looked at him with contracting brows, and ignored his question as she demanded abruptly:—
"What did you come to say to me?"
"To say to you, my dear? I came as usual to say how much I admire you, of course."
She made an impatient gesture.
"What did you come to say?" she repeated. "Do you think I don't know you well enough to see when you have some especial purpose in mind?"
Sibley Langdon laughed lightly,—a sort of inward, well-bred laugh,—and again with care trimmed his cigarette.
"You are a person of remarkable penetration, and it is evidently of no use to hope to get ahead of you. I really came for the pleasure of seeing you, but now that I am here I may as well mention that I have decided to go abroad almost at once."
"Ah," Mrs. Neligage commented. "Does Mrs. Langdon go with you?"
He laughed outright, as if the question struck him as unusually droll.
"You really cannot think me so selfish as to insist upon her risking her fragile health by an ocean voyage just for my pleasure."
"I suspected that you meant to go alone," she said dryly.
"But, my dear child," he answered with no change of manner, "I don't mean to go alone."
She changed color, but she did not pursue the subject. She took up from the table a little Japanese ivory carving, and began to examine it with close scrutiny.
"You do not ask whom I hope to take with me," Langdon said.
She looked at him firmly.
"I have no possible interest in knowing," she responded.
"You are far too modest, Louise. On the contrary you have the greatest. I had hoped—"
He half hesitated over the sentence, and she interrupted him by rising and moving to the open window.
"It is so nice to have the windows open again," she said. "I feel as if I were less alone when there is nothing between me and the world. That big fat policeman over there is a great friend of mine."
"We are all your slaves, you see," Langdon responded, rising languidly and joining her. "By the way, I had a letter from Count Marchetti the other day."
Mrs. Neligage flushed and paled, and into her eye came a dangerous sparkle. She moved away from him, and went back to her seat, leaving him to follow again. She did not look at him, but she spoke with a determined manner which showed that she was not cowed.
"Before I go to bed to-night, Sibley," she said, "I shall write to the Countess the whole story of her necklace. I was a fool not to do it before."
He smiled indulgently.
"Oh, did I call up that old unpleasantness?" he observed. "I really beg your pardon. But since you speak of it, what good would it do to write to her now? It would make no difference in facts, of course; and it wouldn't change things here at all."
She sprang up and turned upon him in a fury.
"Sibley Langdon," she cried, "you are a perfect fiend!"
He laughed and looked at her with admiration so evident that her eyes fell.
"You have told me that before, and you are so devilish handsome when you say it, Louise, that I can't resist the temptation sometimes of making you repeat it. Come, don't be cross. We are too wise if not too old to talk melodrama."
"I shall act melodrama if you keep on tormenting me! What did you come here for this morning? Say it, and have done."
"If you take it that way," returned he, "I came only to say good-morning."
His coolness was unshaken, and he smiled as charmingly as ever.
"Tell me," he remarked, flinging his cigarette end into the grate and taking out his case again, "did you see the Kanes in Washington?"
He lighted a fresh cigarette, and for half an hour talked of casual matters, the people of their set in Washington, the new buildings there, the decorations, and the political scandals. His manner became almost deferential, and Mrs. Neligage as they chatted lost gradually all trace of the excitement which she had shown. At length the talk came round to their neighbors at home.
"I met Count Shimbowski at the club the other day," Langdon remarked, "and he alluded to the old days at Monte Carlo almost with sentiment. It is certainly amusing to see him passed round among respectable Boston houses."
"He is respectable enough according to his standards," she responded. "It is funny, though, to see how much afraid he is that Miss Wentstile should know about his past history."
"I suppose there's no doubt he's to marry Alice Endicott, is there?"
"There is Alice herself," Mrs. Neligage answered. "I should call her a pretty big doubt."
"At any rate," her companion observed, "Jack can't marry her. Miss Wentstile would never give them a penny."
"I have never heard Jack say that he wished to marry her," Mrs. Neligage responded coolly. "You are quite right about Miss Wentstile, though; she regards Jack as the blackest sheep imaginable."
Langdon did not speak for a moment or two, and when he did break silence his manner was more decided than before.
"What line do you like best to cross by?" he asked.
"I have been on so many," she answered, "that I really can't tell."
"It is safe to say then that you like a fast boat."
She made no reply, and only played nervously with the clever carving in her hand, where little ivory rats were stealing grain with eternal motionless activity.
"Of course if you were going over this spring," Langdon said, "we should be likely to meet somewhere on the other side; Paris, very possibly. It is a pity that people gossip so, or we might go on the same steamer."
She looked him squarely in the face.
"I am not going abroad this summer," she said distinctly.
"Oh, my dear Louise," returned he half mockingly, half pleadingly, "you really can't mean that. Europe would be intolerably dull without you."
She looked up, pale to the eyes.
"My son would be dull here without me," she said.
"Oh, Jack," returned the other, shrugging his shoulders, "he'll get on very well. If you were going, you know, you might leave him something—"
She started to her feet with eyes blazing.
"You had better go," she said in a low voice. "I have endured a good deal from you, Sibley; and I've always known that the day would come when you'd insult me. It will be better for us both if you go."
He rose in his turn, as collected as ever.
"Insult you, my dear Louise? Why, I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything in the world. I give you leave to repeat every word that I have said to any of your friends,—to Miss Wentstile, or Letty Harbinger, or to Jack—"
"If I repeated them to Jack," she interrupted him, "he'd break every bone in your body!"
"Would he? I doubt it. At any rate he would have to hear me first; and then—"
Mrs. Neligage, all her brightness quenched, her face old and miserable, threw out her hands in despairing supplication.
"Go!" she cried. "Go! Or I shall do something we'll both be sorry for! Go, or I'll call that policeman over there."
He laughed lightly, but he moved toward the door.
"Gad!" he ejaculated. "That would make a pretty item in the evening papers. Well, if you really wish it, I'll go; but I hope you'll think over what I've said, or rather think over what I haven't said, since you haven't seemed pleased with my words. I shall come at one to drive you to the County Club."
He bade her an elaborate good-morning, and went away, as collected, as handsome, as debonaire as ever; while Mrs. Neligage, the hard, bright little widow who had the reputation of being afraid of nothing and of having no feelings, broke down into a most unusual fit of crying.