THE TEST OF LOVE
One of the distinctive features of "good society" is that its talk is chiefly of persons. Less distinguished circles may waste precious time on the discussion of ideas, but in company really select such conversation is looked upon as dull and pedantic. One of the first requisites for entrance into the world of fashion is a thorough knowledge of the concerns of those who are included in its alluring round; and not to be informed in this branch of wisdom marks at once the outsider. It follows that concealment of personal affairs is pretty nearly impossible. Humanity being frail, it frequently happens that fashionable folk delude themselves by the fond belief that they have escaped the universal law of their surroundings; but the minute familiarity which each might boast of all that relates to his neighbors should undeceive them. That of which all the world talks is not to be concealed.
Everybody in their set knew perfectly well that Jack Neligage had been in love with Alice Endicott from the days when they had paddled in the sand on the walks of the Public Garden. The smart nursery maids whose occupation it was to convey their charges thither and keep them out of the fountains, between whiles exchanging gossip about the parents of the babies, had begun the talk. The opinions of fashionable society are generally first formed by servants, and then served up with a garnish of fancifully distorted facts for the edification of their mistresses; and in due time the loves of the Public Garden, reported and decorated by the nursery maids, serve as topics for afternoon calls. Master Jack was known to be in love with Miss Alice before either of them could have written the word, and in this case the passion had been so lasting that it excited remark not only for itself as an ordinary attachment, but as an extraordinary case of unusual constancy.
Society knew, of course, the impossibility of the situation. It was common knowledge that neither of the lovers had anything to marry on. Jack's handsome and spendthrift father had effectually dissipated the property which he inherited, only his timely death preserving to Mrs. Neligage and her son the small remnant which kept them from actual destitution. Alice was dependent upon the bounty of her aunt, Miss Wentstile. Miss Wentstile, it is true, was abundantly able to provide for Alice, but the old lady seriously disapproved of Jack Neligage, and of his mother she disapproved more strongly yet. Everybody said—and despite all the sarcastic observations of that most objectionable class, the satirists, what everybody says nobody likes to disregard—that if Jack and Alice were so rash as to marry they would never touch a penny of the aunt's money. Jack, moreover, was in debt. Nobody blamed him much for this, because he was a general favorite, and all his acquaintance recognized how impossible it was for a young man to live within an income so small as from any rational point of view to be regarded as much the same thing as no income at all; but of course it was recognized also that it is not well in the present day to marry nothing upon a capital of less than nothing. It has been successfully done, it is true; but it calls for more energy and ingenuity than was possessed by easy-going Jack Neligage. In view of all these facts, frequently discussed, society was unanimously agreed that Jack and Alice could never marry.
This impossibility excited a faint sort of romantic sympathy for the young couple. They were invited to the same houses and thrown together, apparently with the idea that they should play with fire as steadily and as long as possible. The unphrased feeling probably was that since the culmination of their hopes in matrimony was out of the question, it was only common humanity to afford them opportunities for getting from the ill-starred attachment all the pleasure that was to be had. Society approves strongly of romance so long as it stops short of disastrous marriages; and since Jack and Alice were not to be united, to see them dallying with the temptation of making an imprudent match was a spectacle at once piquant and diverting.
On the evening of the day when the news of Alice's pseudo-engagement had been discussed at Mrs. Harbinger's tea, Jack called on her. She received him with composure, coming into the room a little pale, perhaps, but entirely free from self-consciousness. Alice was not considered handsome by her friends, but no one could fail to recognize that her face was an unusual one. The Count, in his distorted English, had declared that Miss Endicott "have een her face one Madonna," and the description was hardly to be bettered. The serene oval countenance, the dark, clear skin, the smooth hair of a deep chestnut, the level brows and long lashes, the high, pure forehead, all belonged to the Madonna type; although the sparkle of humor which now and then gleamed in the full, gray eyes imparted a bewitching flavor of humanity. To-night she was very grave, but she smiled properly, the smile a well-instructed girl learns as she learns to courtesy. She shook hands in a way perhaps a little formal, since she was greeting so old an acquaintance.
"Sit down, please," she said. "It is kind of you to come in. I hardly had a chance to say a word to you this afternoon."
Jack did not return her greeting, nor did he accept her invitation to be seated. He stooped above the low chair into which she sank as she spoke.
"What is this amazing story that you are engaged to Count Shimbowski?" he demanded abruptly.
She looked up to him with a smile which was more conventional than ever.
"What right have you to ask me a question like that?" she returned.
He waved his hand as if to put aside formalities.
"But is it true?" he insisted.
"What is it to you, Jack, if it were?"
She grew visibly paler, and her fingers knit themselves together. He, on the contrary, flushed and became more commanding in his manner.
"Do you suppose," he answered, "that I should be willing to see a friend of mine throw herself away on that old roué? He is old enough to be your father."
"But you know," said she, assuming an air of raillery which did not seem to be entirely genuine, "that the proverb says it's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave."
Jack flung himself into a chair with an impatient exclamation, and immediately got up again to walk the floor.
"I wouldn't have believed it of you, Alice. How can you joke about a thing like that!"
"Why, Jack; you've told me a hundred times that the only way to get through life comfortably is to take everything in jest."
"Oh, confound what I've told you! That's good enough philosophy for me, but it's beneath you to talk so."
"What is sauce for the goose—"
"Keep still," he interrupted. "If you can't be serious—"
"You are so fond of being serious," she murmured, interrupting in her turn.
"But I am serious now. Haven't we always been good friends enough for me to speak to you in earnest without your treating me as if I was either impertinent or a fool?"
He stopped his restless walk to stand before her again. She was silent a moment with her glance fixed on the rug. Then she raised her eyes to his, and her manner became suddenly grave.
"Yes, Jack," she said, "we have always been friends; but has any man, simply because he is a friend, a right to ask a girl a question like that?"
"You mean—"
"I mean no more than I say. There are other men with whom I've been friends all my life. Is there any one of them that you'd think had a right to come here to-night and question me about my engagement?"
"I'd break his head if he did!" Jack retorted savagely.
"Then why shouldn't he—whoever he might be—break yours?"
He flung himself into his chair again, his sunny face clouded, and his brows drawn down. He met her glance with a look which seemed to be trying to fathom the purpose of her mood.
"Why, hang it," he said; "with me it's different. You know I've always been more than a common friend."
"You have been a good friend," she answered with resolute self-composure; "but only a friend after all."
"Then you mean that I cannot be more than a friend?"
She dropped her eyes, a faint flush stealing up into her pale cheeks.
"You do not wish to be; and therefore you have no right—"
He sprang up impulsively and seized both her hands in his.
"Good God, Alice," he exclaimed, "you drive me wild! You know that if I were not so cursedly poor—"
She released herself gently, and with perfect calmness.
"I know," she responded, "that you have weighed me in the balance against the trouble of earning a living, and you haven't found me worth the price. In the face of a fact like that what is the use of words?"
He thrust his empty hands into his pockets, and glowered down on her.
"You know I love you, Alice. You know I've been in love with you ever since I began to walk; and you—you—"
She rose and faced him proudly.
"Well, say it!" she cried. "Say that I was foolish enough to love you! That I knew no better than to believe in you, and that I half broke my heart when you forced me to see that you weren't what I thought. Say it, if you like. You can't make me more ashamed of it than I am already!"
"Ashamed—Alice?"
"Yes, ashamed! It humiliates me that I should set my heart on a man that cared so little for me that he set me below his polo-ponies, his bachelor ease, his miserable little self-indulgences! Oh, Jack," she went on, her manner suddenly changing to one of appeal, and the tears starting into her eyes, "why can't you be a man?"
She put her hand on his arm, and he covered it affectionately with one of his while she hurried on.
"Do break away from the life you are living, and do something worthy of you. You are good to everybody else; there's nothing you won't do for others; do this for yourself. Do it for me. You are throwing yourself away, and I have to hear them talk of your debts, and your racing and gambling, and how reckless you are! It almost kills me!"
The full sunniness of his smile came back as he looked down into her earnest face, caressing her hand.
"Dear little woman," he said; "are you sure you have got entirely over being fond of me?"
"I couldn't get over being fond of you. You know it. That's what makes it hurt so."
He raised her hand tenderly, and kissed it. Then he dropped it abruptly, and turned away.
"You must get over it," he said, so brusquely that she started almost as if from a blow.
She sank back into her seat, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, while he walked back to his chair and sat down with an air of bravado.
"It's no use, Alice," he said, "I'm not worth a thought, and it isn't in me to—Well, the fact is that I know myself too well. I know that if I promised you to-night that to-morrow I'd begin better fashions, I'm not man enough to live up to it. I couldn't involve you in—Oh, don't, don't!"
He broke off to turn to toy with some of the ornaments on the table. In a moment Alice had suppressed her sobs, and he spoke again, but without meeting her look. His voice was hard and flippant.
"You see I have such a good time that I wouldn't give it up for the world. I think I'd better keep on as I'm going. The time makes us, and we have to abide by the fashion of the time."
"If that is the way you feel," she said coldly, "it is I who have presumed on old friendship."
He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed harshly.
"We have both been a little unnecessarily tragic, it seems to me," was his rejoinder. "Love isn't for a poor man unless he'll take it on the half-shell without dressing; and I fancy neither of us would much care for it that way. My bank-account is a standing reason why I shouldn't marry anybody."
"The sentiment does credit to Mr. Neligage's head if not to his heart," commented the sneering voice of Miss Wentstile, who at that moment came through the portières from the library. "I hope I don't intrude?"
"Certainly not," Alice answered with spirit. "Mr. Neligage was giving me a lesson in the social economics of matrimony; but I knew before all he has to tell."
"Then, my dear," her aunt said, "I trust he will excuse you. It is time we went to Mrs. Wilson's. I promised the Count that we would be there early."