A Fool and His Money Part 48

"Your mother is here," I remarked hurriedly.

She glanced toward my bedroom door.

"Oh, what a night!" she sighed. "I did all that I could to keep her out of your bed. It was useless. I _did_ cry, Mr. Smart. I know you must hate all of us."

I laughed. "'Love thy neighbour as thyself,'" I quoted. "You are my neighbour, Countess; don't forget that. And it so happens that your mother is also my neighbour at present, and your brothers too. Have you any cousins and aunts?"

"I can't understand how any one can be so good-natured as you," she sighed.

The crown of her head was on a level with my shoulder. Her eyes were lowered; a faint line of distress grew between them. For a minute I stared down at the brown crest of her head, an almost ungovernable impulse pounding away at my sense of discretion. I do take credit unto myself for being strong enough to resist that opportunity to make an everlasting idiot of myself. I knew, even then, that if a similar attack ever came upon me again I should not be able to withstand it.

It was too much to expect of mortal man. Angels might survive the test, but not wingless man.

All this time she was staring rather pensively at the second b.u.t.ton from the top of p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's coat, and so prolonged and earnest was her gaze that I looked down in some concern, at the same time permitting myself to make a nervous, jerky and quite involuntary digital examination of the aforesaid b.u.t.ton. She looked up with a nervous little laugh.

"I shall have to sew one on right there for poor Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e," she said, poking her finger into the empty b.u.t.tonhole. "You dear bachelors!"

Then she turned swiftly away from me, and glided over to the big armchair, from the depths of which she fished a small velvet bag.

Looking over her shoulder, she smiled at me.

"Please look the other way," she said. Without waiting for me to do so, she took out a little gold box, a powder puff, and a stick of lip rouge. Crossing to the small Florentine mirror that hung near my desk, she proceeded, before my startled eyes, to repair the slight--and to me unnoticeable--damage that had been done to her complexion before the sun came up.

"Woman works in a mysterious way, my friend, her wonders to perform,"

she paraphrased calmly.

"No matter how transcendently beautiful woman may be, she always does that sort of thing to herself, I take it," said I.

"She does," said the Countess with conviction. She surveyed herself critically. "There! And now I am ready to accept an invitation to breakfast. I am disgustingly hungry."

"And so am I!" I cried with enthusiasm. "Hurray! You shall eat p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's breakfast, just to penalise him for failing in his duties as host during my unavoidable--"

"Quite impossible," she said. "He has already eaten it."

"He has?"

"At half-past six, I believe. He announced at that unG.o.dly hour that if he couldn't have his coffee the first thing in the morning he would be in for a headache all day. He suggested that I take a little nap and have breakfast with you--if you succeeded in surviving the night."

"Oh, I see," said I slowly. "He knew all the time that you were napping in that chair, eh?"

"You shall not scold him!"

"I shall do even worse than that. I shall pension him for life."

She appeared thoughtful. A little frown' of annoyance clouded her brow.

"He promised faithfully to arouse me the instant you were sighted on the opposite side of the river. I made him stand in the window with a field gla.s.s. No, on second thought, _I_ shall scold him. If he had come to the door and shouted, you wouldn't have caught me in this odious dressing-gown. Helene--"

"It is most fascinating," I cried. "Adorable! I love flimsy, pink things. They're so intimate. And p.o.o.pend.y.k.e knows it, bless his ingenuous old soul."

I surprised a queer little gleam of inquiry in her eyes. It flickered for a second and died out.

"Do you really consider him an ingenuous old soul?" she asked. And I thought there was something rather metallic in her voice. I might have replied with intelligence if she had given me a chance, but for some reason she chose to drop the subject. "You _must_ be famished, and I am dying to hear about your experiences. You must not omit a single detail.

I--"

There came a gentle, discreet knocking on the half-open door. I started, somewhat guiltily.

"Come!"

Blatchford poked his irreproachable visage through the aperture and then gravely swung the door wide open.

"Breakfast is served, sir,--your ladyship. I beg pardon."

I have never seen him stand so faultlessly rigid. As we pa.s.sed him on the way out a mean desire came over me to tread on his toes, just as an experiment. I wondered if he would change expression. But somehow I felt that he would say "Thank you, sir," and there would be no satisfaction in knowing that he had had all his pains for nothing.

I shall never forget that enchanted breakfast--never! Not that I can recall even vaguely what we had to eat, or who served it, or how much of the naked truth I related to her in describing the events of the night; I can only declare that it was a singularly light-hearted affair.

At half-past one o'clock I was received by Mrs. t.i.tus in my own study.

The Countess came down from her eerie abode to officiate at the ceremonious function--if it may be so styled--and I was agreeably surprised to find my new guest in a most amiable frame of mind. True, she looked me over with what seemed to me an unnecessarily and perfectly frank stare of curiosity, but, on sober reflection, I did not hold it against her. I was still draped in p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's garments.

At first sight I suppose she couldn't quite help putting me down as one of those literary freaks who typify intellect without intelligence.

As for her two sons, they made no effort to disguise their amazement.

(I have a shocking notion that the vowel u might be subst.i.tuted for the a in that word without loss of integrity!)

The elder of the two young men, Colingraft t.i.tus, who being in the business with his father in New York was permitted to travel most of the time so that he couldn't interfere with it, was taller than I, and an extremely handsome chap to boot. He was twenty-six. The younger, Jasper, Jr., was nineteen, short and slight of build, with the merriest eyes I've ever seen. I didn't in the least mind the grin he bestowed upon me--and preserved with staunch fidelity throughout the whole interview,--but I resented the supercilious, lordly scorn of his elder brother.

Jasper, I learned, was enduring a protracted leave of absence from Yale; the hiatus between his freshman and soph.o.m.ore years already covered a period of sixteen months, and he had a tutor who appreciated the b.u.t.tery side of his crust.

Mrs. t.i.tus, after thanking me warmly--and I think sincerely--for all that I had done for Aline, apologised in a perfunctory sort of way for having kept me out of my bed all night, and hoped that I wouldn't catch cold or have an attack of rheumatism.

I soon awoke to the fact that she was in the habit of centralising attention. The usually volatile Countess became subdued and repressed in her presence; the big son and the little one were respectfully quiescent; I confess to a certain embarra.s.sment myself.

She was a handsome woman with a young figure, a good complexion, clear eyes, wavy brown hair, and a rich, low voice perfectly modulated. No doubt she was nearing fifty but thirty-five would have been your guess, provided you were a bachelor. A bachelor learns something about women every day of his life, but not so much that he cannot be surprised the day after.

I endeavoured to set her mind at rest by politely reminding her that I couldn't have slept in the bed any way, having been out all night, and she smilingly a.s.sured me that it was a relief to find a literary man who wasn't forever saying flat stupid things.

I took them over the castle--that is, a _part_ of the castle. Mrs. t.i.tus wouldn't climb stairs. She confessed to banting, but drew the line at anything more exhausting. I fear I was too palpably relieved when she declined to go higher than the second story.

"It isn't necessary, Mr. Smart," she said sweetly, "to go into the history of the wretched Rothhoefens, as a Cook's interpreter might do.

You see, I know the castle quite well--and I have had all the _late_ news from my daughter."

"Of course!" I agreed. "Stupid of me not to remember that you are descended from--"

"Mother isn't half as stuck up about it as you might think, Mr. Smart,"

interrupted Jasper, Jr., glibly. "She prefers to let people think her ancestors were Dutch instead of merely German. Dutch ancestors are the proper thing in Jew York."

"j.a.ppie," said his mother severely, "how often must I caution you not to speak of New York as Jew York? Some day you will say it to a Jew.

One can't be too careful. Heaven alone knows when one is in the presence of a Jew in these days."