Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree. Bates Arlo

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СКАЧАТЬ that is a secret."

      "Then if it is a secret tell it at once."

      "I'll tell you just to disappoint you," Jack returned with a grin. "It is only about some etchings that the Count brought over. Mrs. Harbinger has bought a couple as a present for Tom."

      "She had better be careful," Mrs. Neligage observed. "Tom thinks more of the collection now than he does of anything else in the world. But what are you mixed up in the Count's transactions for?"

      "She asked me to fix it, and besides the poor devil needed to sell them to raise the wind. I'm too used to being hard up myself not to feel for him."

      "But you wrote me that you detested the Count."

      "So I do, but you can't help doing a fellow a good turn, can you, just because you don't happen to like him?"

      She laughed lightly.

      "You are a model of good nature. I wish you'd show it to May Calthorpe."

      Her son looked down at her with a questioning glance.

      "She is always at liberty to admire my virtues, of course; but she can't expect me to put myself out to make special exhibitions for her benefit."

      The faces of both mother and son hardened a little, as if the subject touched upon was one concerning which they had disagreed before. The change of expression brought out a subtle likeness which had not before been visible. Jack Neligage was usually said to resemble his father, who had died just as the boy was entering his teens, but when he was in a passion – a thing which happened but seldom – his face oddly took on the look of his mother. The change, moreover, was not entirely to his disadvantage, for as a rule Jack showed too plainly the easy-going, self-indulgent character which had been the misfortune of the late John Neligage, and which made friends of the family declare with a sigh that Jack would never amount to anything worth while.

      Mother and son walked on in silence a moment, and then the lady observed, in a voice as dispassionate as ever: —

      "She is a silly little thing. I believe even you could wind her round your finger."

      "I haven't any intention of trying."

      "So you have given me to understand before; but now that I am going away you might at least let me go with the consolation of knowing you'd provided for yourself. You must marry somebody with money, and she has no end of it."

      He braced back his shoulders as if he found it not altogether easy not to reply impatiently.

      "Where are you going?" he asked.

      "Oh, to Europe. Anywhere out of the arctic zone of the New England conscience. I've had as long a spell of respectability as I can stand, my boy."

      Something in her manner evidently irritated him more and more. She spoke with a little indefinable defiant swagger, as if she intended to anger him. He looked at her no longer, but fixed his gaze on the distance.

      "When you talk of giving up respectability," he remarked in an aggrieved tone, "I should think you might consider me."

      Her eyes danced, as if she were delighted to see him becoming angry.

      "Oh, I do, Jack, I assure you; but I really cannot afford to be respectable any longer. Respectability is the most expensive luxury of civilization; and how can I keep it up when I'm in debt to everybody that'll trust me."

      "Then you might economize."

      "Economize! Ye gods! This from you, Jack! Where did you hear the word? I'm sure you know nothing of the thing."

      He laughed in evident self-despite.

      "We are a nice pair of ruffianly adventurers," he responded; "a regular pair of genteel paupers. But we've both got to pull up, I tell you."

      "Oh, heavens!" was his mother's reply. "Don't talk to me of pulling up. What fun do I have as it is but quarreling with Miss Wentstile and snubbing Harry Bradish? I've got to keep up my authority in our set, or I should lose even these amusements."

      Jack flashed her a swift, questioning look, and with a new note in his voice, a note of doubt at once and desperation, blurted out a fresh question.

      "How about flirting with Sibley Langdon?"

      Mrs. Neligage flushed slightly and for a brief second contracted her well-arched eyebrows, but in an instant she was herself again.

      "Oh, well," she returned, with a pretty little shrug, "that of course is a trifle better, but not much. Sibley really cares for himself so entirely that there's very little to be got out of him."

      "But you know how you make folks talk."

      "Oh, folks always talk. There is always as much gossip about nothing as about something."

      "But he puts on such a damnable air of proprietorship," Jack burst out, with much more feeling than he had thus far shown. "I know I shall kick him some time."

      "That is the sort of thing you had better leave to the Barnstable man," she responded dryly. "Sibley only has the air of owning everything. That's just his nature. He's really less fun than good old Harry Bradish. But such as he is, he is the best I can do. If that stuffy old invalid wife of his would only die, I think I'd marry him out of hand for his money."

      Jack threw out his arm with an angry gesture.

      "For Heaven's sake, mother," he said, "what are you after that you are going on so? You know you drive me wild when you get into this sort of a talk."

      "Or I might elope with him as it is, you know," she continued in her most teasing manner; but watching him intently.

      "What in the deuce do you talk to me like that for!" he cried, shaking himself savagely. "You're my mother!"

      Mrs. Neligage grew suddenly grave. She drew closer to her son, and slipped her hand through his arm.

      "So much the worse for us both, isn't it, Jack? Come, we may as well behave like rational beings. Of course I was teasing you; but that isn't the trouble. It's yourself you are angry with."

      "What have I to be angry with myself about?"

      "You are trying to make up your mind that you're willing to be poor for the sake of marrying Alice Endicott; but you know you wouldn't be equal to it. If I thought you would, I'd say go ahead. Do you think you'd be happy in a South End apartment house with the washing on a line between the chimneys, and a dry-goods box outside the window for a refrigerator?"

      Jack mingled a groan and a laugh.

      "You can't pay your debts as it is," she went on remorselessly. "We are a pair of paupers who have to live as if we were rich. You see what your father made of it, starting with a fortune. You can't suppose you'd do much better when you've nothing but debts."

      "I think I'll enlist, or run away to sea," Jack declared, tugging viciously at his mustache.

      "No, you'll accept your destiny. You'll like it better than you think, when you're settled down to it. You'll stay here and marry May Calthorpe."

      "You must think I'm a whelp to marry a girl just for her money."

      "Oh, you must fall in love with her. Any СКАЧАТЬ