"Sit down, Count," she said, waving her hand at a chair. "Somebody will come, so I must say what I have to say quickly. I want that letter."
The Count smiled broadly, and performed with much success the inevitable shrug.
"You dat lettaire weesh; Madame Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; Mr. Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; everybody dat lettaire weesh. Count Shimbowski dat lettaire he keep, weell eet not?"
"Mrs. Neligage and Jack want it?" Mrs. Harbinger exclaimed. "What in the world can have set them on? Did they ask you for it?"
"Eet ees dat they have ask," the Count answered solemnly.
"I cannot understand that," she pursued thoughtfully. "Certainly they can't know who wrote it."
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Harbinger interrupted him, with a smile, "I forgot that they were there when I confessed to it."
The Count laid his hand on his heart and rolled up his eyes,--not too much.
"I have so weesh' to tell you how dat I have dat beauteous lettaire adore," he said. "I have wear de lettaire een de pocket of my heart."
This somewhat startling assertion was explained by his pushing aside his coat so that the top of a letter appeared peeping out of the left pocket of his waistcoat as nearly over his heart as the exigencies of tailoring permitted.
"I shouldn't have let you know that I wrote it," she said.
"But eet have geeve to me so joyous extrodinaire eet to know!"
She regarded him shrewdly, then dropping her eyes, she asked:--
"De oder?" he repeated, evidently taken by surprise. "Ah, dat alone also have I treasured too mooch."
Mrs. Harbinger broke out frankly into a laugh.
"Come," she said, "I have caught you. You know nothing about any other. We might as well be plain with each other. I didn't write that letter and you didn't write 'Love in a Cloud,' or you'd know about the whole correspondence."
"Ah, from de Eden_garten_," cried the Count, "de weemens ees too mooch for not to fool de man. Madame ees for me greatly too clevaire."
"Thank you," she said laughingly. "Then give me the letter."
He bowed, and shrugged, and smiled deprecatingly; but he shook his head.
"So have Mees Endeecott say. Eef to her I geeve eet not, I can geeve eet not to you, desolation as eet make of my heart."
"Miss Endicott? Has she been after the letter too? Is there anybody else?"