"Papa is lazy to-day," Freddy remarks the next morning, breaking the silence that reigns at the breakfast-table and looking pensively at his father's empty chair. It is late, Freddy has drunk his milk, and Rohritz and the tutor are engaged with their second cup of tea. The host, usually so early, has not yet made his appearance.
"You ought not to make such remarks about papa," Katrine corrects her son on this occasion, although she is usually very indulgent to Freddy's impertinence. "Run up to his room and tell him I sent you to ask whether he took cold last evening, and if he would not like a cup of tea sent to him." In two minutes the boy returns, shouting gaily, "Papa sends you word that he does not want anything; he has nothing but a bad cold in his head, and he is coming presently."
In fact, the captain follows close upon the heels of his pretty little messenger.
"I was troubled about you," Katrine says, receiving him with a sort of timid kindness which seems painfully forced.
"Indeed? Very kind of you," he makes reply, in a very hoarse voice, "but quite unnecessary."
"You seem, however, to have taken cold," Rohritz interposes.
"Pshaw! 'tis nothing. I lost my way in the dark last night, and got into a drift this side of K----: that's all.--Well, Katrine, am I to have my tea?"
"I have just made you some fresh; the first was beginning to be bitter," she makes excuse. "Wait a moment."
The captain is about to reply, but a fit of coughing interrupts him.
"Papa barks as Hector does at the full moon," Freddy remarks, merrily.
Katrine frowns. Why does Freddy seem so thoroughly spoiled to-day?
"I told you just now that it is very wrong in you to speak in that way of your father."
"Let him do it; papa knows what he means," the captain replies, turning to his little son sitting beside him rather than to his wife. "You're fond enough of papa,--love him pretty well,--eh, my boy?"
"Oh, don't I?" says Freddy, nestling close to his father; "don't I?" That any one could doubt this fact evidently amazes him. The captain talks and plays merrily with the boy, never addressing a single word to Katrine.
Breakfast is over. For an hour Katrine has been sitting in her room, some sewing which has dropped from her hands lying in her lap, listening and waiting for his step,--in vain. Another quarter of an hour glides by: her heart throbs louder and louder, and tears fill her eyes. Suddenly she tosses her work aside, rises, and with head erect, looking neither to the right nor to the left, walks with firm, rapid steps along the corridor to the captain's room. At the door she pauses,--pauses for one short moment,--then boldly turns the latch and enters. Is he there? Yes, he is standing at the window, looking out upon the quiet, white landscape. Rather surprised, he looks back over his shoulder at his wife, for he knows it is she: he could recognize her step among a thousand.
"Do you want anything?" he asks, dryly.
"N--no."
The captain turns again to the snowy landscape.
"What are you gazing at so steadily?" Katrine asks him. "Is there anything particularly interesting to be seen out there?"
"No," he replies; "but when the room is cheerless, one looks out of the window for diversion."
A pause ensues.
"What shall I say to him? what can I say to him?" she asks herself, uneasily. The blood mounts to her cheeks; she stands rooted to the spot, not venturing to approach him. At last, she begins with all the indifference at her command, "You have forgotten our wedding-day today, for the first time. Strange!"
"Very," the captain rejoins, with bitter irony.
Another pause ensues. Katrine is just about to withdraw, mortified, when the captain again turns to her.
"I did not forget. No, I do not forget such things; and, if you care to know, I had provided the yearly, touching surprise in celebration of the anniversary; but I suppressed it at the very last moment."
"And why?"
"Why? A woman of your superior sense should be able to answer that question herself. After having been laughed at eight times for my well-meant attentions, I said to myself finally that it was useless to serve for the ninth time as a target for your sarcasm."
She comes a step nearer to him.
"I had no desire to laugh to-day."
"Indeed! Hm! then you can open the packet on my writing-table. I had the boy photographed for you, and the picture turned out very well."
She opens the packet. 'Tis a perfect picture,--Freddy himself, bright, wayward, charming, one hand upon his hip, his fur cap on his head.
"He is a beauty, our boy!" she exclaims, smiling down upon the picture in its simple frame.
"Our boy!" the captain murmurs. "You are immensely gracious to-day; you usually speak of him as if he belonged to you only."
Katrine blushes a little, but, without apparently noticing this last remark, says, "He begins to look like you, the dear little fellow!"
"Indeed? Tis a pity----"
"You really would do better to sit by the fire and warm yourself than to stand shivering at that cold window."
"The fire has gone out, and there is small comfort in sitting by the ashes."
"You ought to have made the fire burn afresh."
"I tried to," he replied, with significant emphasis, "but I failed."
"Really!" she says, laughing archly in the midst of her vexation; "you must have tried very awkwardly. If I am not mistaken, there are embers enough under the ashes to set Rome on fire. I should like to see."
She kneels upon the hearth, scrapes together the embers, and with great skill and precision piles three logs of wood on top of them. One minute later the wood is burning with a clear flame.
"Jack!" she calls, very gently.
He starts, and looks round.
"Jack, is the fire burning brightly enough for you now?" she asks.
As in a dream he approaches her.
"Now sit down," she says, in a tone of gay command, pulling forward a large, comfortable arm-chair, "and warm yourself."
He obeys, looking down at her half in surprise, half in tenderness, as she kneels beside him, slender, graceful, wonderfully fair to see, with the reflection from the fire crimsoning her cheeks and lending a golden lustre to her light-brown hair.
Her breath comes quick, as it does when there is something in the heart, longing for utterance, which will not rise to the lips. She had thought out so many fine phrases early this morning in which to clothe her repentance, but they all stick fast in her throat.
The bell rings for lunch. Good heavens! is this moment to pass without sealing their reconciliation?
He sits mute. The wood in the chimney crackles loudly, sometimes with a noise almost like a pistol-shot.
Katrine still kneels before the fire, growing more and more restless. On a sudden she throws back her head, and, casting off the unnatural degree of feminine gentleness which has characterized her all the morning, she exclaims angrily, her eyes flashing through burning tears, "What would you have, Jack? How far must I go before you come to meet me?"
"Oh, Katrine, my darling, wayward Katrine!" the captain almost shouts, clasping her in his arms. "At last I know that 'tis no deceitful dream mocking me!"
A light tripping step is heard in the corridor. Both spring up as Freddy's merry little face appears at the door:
"Lunch is growing cold."
In the evening, as the couple are sitting in the drawing-room in the twilight, Katrine says,--
"If only there were no such thing as war!"
"What makes you think of that?" asks the captain.
"Why, because I should beg you to go back to the service, if I were not so mortally afraid of a campaign."
"No need to take that into consideration," the captain rejoins, "for in case of war I should go back immediately: not even you could prevent me, Kitty. But tell me, could you really summon up courage enough?"
"Could I not? It will be very hard eventually to part from the boy, but sooner or later we must send him to the Theresianeum, and--to speak frankly--even a separation from Freddy would not distress me so much as to see you degenerate in an inactive life."
"You really would, then, Kitty?--would voluntarily subject yourself again to all the inconveniences and petty miseries of the soldier's nomadic life?"
"Try me," and her large eyes are very serious and determined as they look into his own, "try me, and you shall see what a comfortable home I will make for you in the forlornest Hungarian village."
"Ah, you angel!" her husband exclaims, taking her soft little hand in his and pressing it against his cheek. "What a pity it is that we have lost so much time in all these nine years!"
"A pity indeed," she admits, "but 'tis never too late to mend,--eh?"
At this moment Rohritz enters the room, as is usual at this hour every afternoon, to get a cup of tea. He observes, first, that the pair have forgotten to ring for the lamp, and, secondly, that they stop talking upon his entrance; in short, that, for the first time, he has intruded.
"You have come for your tea," says Katrine. "I had positively forgotten that there was such a thing. Ring the bell, Jack."
Before the evening is over Edgar has made a very important discovery,--to wit, that however cordially one may rejoice when two human souls after long and aimless wanderings come together and are united, any prolonged association with a couple so reconciled is considerably more tedious than with an unreconciled pair; wherefore he leaves Erlach Court on the following day.
In Thérèse's boudoir are assembled four people, Thérèse, her husband, her brother Zino, and Edgar,--Edgar, who on the previous day, to the great surprise of his relatives in Paris, was persuaded to transfer himself from the Hôtel Bouillemont, whither he had gone upon his arrival, to the Avenue Villiers and the shelter of his brother's hospitable roof.
Thérèse, exhausted, more breathless than usual, is lying on a lounge, wrapped in a thick white coverlet, shivering, coughing, feverish, with every symptom of a violent cold, and disputing vehemently with her husband as to whether, as he maintains, she caught the said cold on Monday at the Bon-Marché, or, as she maintains, on Tuesday in his smoking-room.
"No one could take cold in my smoking-room; it is the only room in the house where the temperature is a healthy one," Edmund declares. "Judge for yourself, Edgar; there's no getting a sensible word out of Zino. How could any one catch cold in my smoking-room? I know perfectly well how she caught it. Day before yesterday--Monday--there were bargains in Oriental rugs advertised at the Bon-Marché. My wife rushes there in such a storm----"
"That means, I drove there in an hermetically-closed coupé," Thérèse defends herself.
"Pshaw! the damp air always penetrates into every carriage," her husband cuts her words short. "The fact is, she rushed to the Rue du Bac, where she did not buy a single rug, but instead a dozen umbrellas, and then came home in a state of exhaustion,--such exhaustion that I had positively to carry her up-stairs, because she was unable to stir; and now she blames my smoking-room for her cold! It is absurd!" And, by way of further expression of his anger, for which words do not suffice, Edmund rattles the tongs about among the embers on the hearth.
"Have some regard for my nerves, Edmund," Thérèse entreats, stopping her ears with her fingers. "You make more noise than one of Wagner's operas. Twelve umbrellas!" Then turning to Edgar, "To place the slightest dependence upon what my husband says----"
But before she can finish her sentence Edmund breaks in again:
"It makes no difference; it might have been three umbrellas and six straw bonnets: it is all the same. Every Parisian woman suffers from the bargain-mania, but I have never seen the disease developed to such a degree as in my wife. She buys everything she comes across, if it is only a bargain,--old iron rubbish, new plans of Paris, embroideries, antique clocks, and bottles of rock-crystal as----christening-presents for children who are not yet born!"
"À proposof presents," Thérèse observes, reflectively, "do you not think, Zino, that the chandelier of Venetian glass I bought last year would be a good wedding-present for Stella Meineck?"
"Is she betrothed, then?" Zino inquires, naturally.
"As good as," Thérèse assents.
"To whom?" Capito asks, sitting down, both hands in his trousers-pockets, and crossing his legs.
"To Arthur de Hauterive,--a brilliant match," says Thérèse.
"Cabouat de Hauterive," murmurs Zino, ironically stroking his moustache, and stretching his legs out a little farther. "A brilliant match if you choose, but rather a scaly fellow,--eh?"
"I should like to know what objection you can make to him," Thérèse asks, crossly.
Zino shrugs his shoulders up to his ears, and then straightens them again, without taking any further pains to clothe in words his opinion of Monsieur Cabouat.
"He is not a thorough gentleman," says the elder Rohritz.
"He is a thorough snob," says Zino.
"One question, if you please." Edgar suddenly and unexpectedly takes part in the conversation: he has hitherto seemed quite absorbed in contemplation of a photograph on the mantel-piece of his little niece. "Has Fräulein Meineck agreed to the match?"
"Yes, to my great surprise," his brother replies. "I did not expect it of her."
"It was no easy task to bring her round," Thérèse declares; "but I went to work in the most sensible manner. 'Have you any other preference?' I asked Stella yesterday, after telling her that Monsieur de Hauterive was ready to lay his person and his millions at her feet and had begged me to ascertain for him beforehand that his suit would not be rejected."
"And what was Stella's reply?" Edmund asks.
"She started and changed colour. 'Dear child,' I said, 'it is perfectly natural that you should have some little fancy: we have all had our enthusiasms for the man in the moon;cela va sans dire; such trifles never count. The question is, Have you a passion for some one who returns it and who you have reason to hope will marry you?'
"'No!' she answered, very decidedly.
"'Then do not hesitate an instant, dear child,' I exclaimed; and when she did not reply I laid the case before her, making clear to her how unjustifiable her refusal of this offer would be. 'You have no money!' I exclaimed. 'You propose to go upon the stage. That is simply nonsense; for, setting aside the fact that you have scarcely voice enough to succeed, a theatrical career for a girl with your principles and prejudices is impossible. Look your future in the face, dear heart. Your little property must soon, as you cannot but admit, be consumed; that meanwhile the fairy prince of your girlish dreams should appear as your suitor is not within the bounds of probability. You must choose between two courses, either to earn your living as a governess or to give lessons; since you do not wish to leave your mother, you must adopt the latter. Fancy it!--running about in galoshes and a water-proof in all kinds of weathers, looked at askance by servants in the halls, tormented by your clients and pupils, no gleam of light anywhere, except in an occasional ticket for the theatre, either given to you or purchased out of your small savings, and finally in your old age a miserable invalid existence supported chiefly by the alms of a few charitable pupils. This is the future that awaits you if you refuse Monsieur de Hauterive. On the other hand, if you accept him, how delightful a life you will lead! You can assist your mother and sister largely, and will have nothing to do except to treat with a reasonable degree of consideration a good husband who exacts no passionate devotion from you, and to be the mistress, with all the grace and charm natural to you, of one of the finest houses in Paris. Why, you cannot possibly hesitate, my darling.'"
All three gentlemen have listened with exemplary patience to this lengthy exordium,--Edmund with a gloomy frown, and Zino with the half-contemptuous smile which he has taught himself to bestow upon the most tragic occurrences, while Edgar's face tells no tale, as during his sister-in-law's long speech it has been steadily turned away, gazing into the fire.
"And what did the little Baroness have to say to your brilliant argument in favour of a sensible marriage?" Zino asks, after a short pause.
"For a moment she sat perfectly quiet: she had grown very pale, and her breath came quick. Then she looked up at me out of those large, dark eyes of hers, which you all know, and said,--
"'Yes, you are right. I will be sensible.'
"I took her in my arms, and exulted in my victory. I confess I had a hard battle; but you must all admit that I was right."
"I admit that you went resolutely to work," says her husband, gloomily.
"What do you think, Edgar?"
"Since I have no personal knowledge of Monsieur Cabouat de Hauterive, my opinion is of no value," Edgar replies, dryly.
"Well, you at least think I was right, Zino?" Thérèse exclaims, rather piqued.
"Certainly," he replies, "since I have lately become quite too poor to indulge in expensive pleasures, and consequently cannot marry for love. I shall be glad at least to know Stella well taken care of."
"Mauvais sujet!" Thérèse laughs. "I see it is high time to marry you off, or you'll be committing some stupidity. I must marry you all off,--you too, Edgar--ah,pardon, I believe I did promise to leave you unmolested; but I have such a superb match for you."
"Who is it?" asks Zino. "I am really curious."
"Natalie Lipinski."
"Pardon, there you are reckoning without your host," the Prince says, almost crossly. "Natalie does not wish to marry."
"So say all girls, before the right man appears."
"You're wrong," Zino interposes. "I know of three people--hm! people of some importance--to whom Natalie has given the mitten. Two of them I cannot name: the third well, I myself am the third. She refused me point-blank."
"Tiens!now I guess the reason of your lasting friendship for Natalie: you are ever grateful to her for that refusal!" Thérèse laughs. "You and Natalie!--it is inconceivable."
"She pleased me," the Prince confesses. "'Tis strange: you're sure to over-eat yourself on delicacies; you never do on good strong bouillon. Natalie always reminds me of bouillon. She is the only girl for whom ever since I first knew her--that is, ever since I was a boy--I have felt the same degree of friendship.Ça!" he takes his watch out of his pocket; "she begged me not to fail to come to the Rue de la Bruyère to-day. Will not you come too, Edgar? She would be delighted to see you."
Edgar lifts his brows with a bored expression. Before he finds time in his slow way to answer, Thérèse interposes:
"Do go, Edgar, please! You must know that Monsieur de Hauterive is to make his declaration to Stella to-day. I advised him to speak to her before he preferred his suit to her mother: it is the fashion in Austria. Stella would be sure to value such a concession to Austrian custom. Yes, Edgar, go to the Lipinskis' and watch little Stella and her adorer. If I were not so utterly done up I would go too, I am so very curious."
Like most of the salons of foreigners in Paris, even of the most distinguished, that of the Lipinskis produces the impression of a social menagerie. Artists, Americans, diplomatists, stand out in strong relief against a background of old Russian acquaintances. French people are seldom met with there. Scarcely three months have passed since the Lipinskis took up their abode in Paris, and they have not yet had time to organize their circle. The agreeable atmosphere of every-day intimacy which constitutes the chief charm of every select circle is lacking. The Russians and the elderly diplomatists gather for the most part about the fireplace, where Madame Lipinski holds her little court.
She is an uncommonly distinguished, graceful old lady, who had been a celebrated beauty in the best days of the Emperor Nicholas's reign, and had played her part at court. One of the Empress's maids of honour, she had preserved in her heart an undying, unchanging love for the chivalric, maligned Emperor, so sadly tried towards the end of his life. She wears her thick white hair stroked back from her temples and adorned by a rather fantastic cap of black lace; her tiny ears, undecorated by ear-rings, are exposed,--which looks rather odd in a woman of her age. As soon as she becomes at her ease with a new acquaintance she tells him of the annoyance which these same tiny ears occasioned her at the time when she was maid of honour. The Empress condemned her to wear her hair brushed down over her cheeks, merely because the Emperor once at a ball extolled the beauty of her ears.
"She was jealous, the poor Empress," the old lady is wont to close her narrative by declaring, and then, raising her eyes to heaven, she says, with a deprecatory shrug, "Of me!" What she likes best to tell, however, is how the Emperor once, when he honoured her with a morning call, had with the greatest patience kindled her fire in the fireplace, whereupon she had exclaimed, "Ah, Sire, if Europe could behold you now!"
The artistic element collects about Natalie.
On the day when Edgar and Zino are sent to the Lipinskis' to observe Stella and Monsieur Cabouat, the artistic element is represented by a pianist of much pretension and with his fingers stuck into india-rubber thimbles, and besides by Signor della Seggiola.
Della Seggiola, without his gray velvet cap, in a black dress-coat, looks freshly washed and--immensely unhappy. His comfortable, barytone self-possession stands him in no stead in this cool atmosphere: he has no opportunity to produce the jokes and merry quips with which he is wont to enliven his scholars during his lessons. Restless and awkward, he goes from one arm-chair to another, is absorbed in admiration of a piece of Japanese lacquer, and breathes a sigh of relief when he is asked to sing something, which seems to him far easier in a drawing-room than to talk.
The pianist, on the contrary, needs a deal of urging before he consents to pound away fiercely at the Pleyel piano as though he were a personal enemy of the maker.
"I have a great liking for artists," Madame Lipinski, after watching the barytone through her eye-glass, declares to her neighbour Prince Suwarin, who is known in Parisian society by the nickname ofmemento mori, "but they seem to me like hounds,--delightful to behold in the open air, but mischievous in a drawing-room. One always dreads lest they should upset something. Natalie disagrees with me: she likes to have them in the house; she is exactly my opposite, my daughter."
In this Prince Capito agrees with her, and hence his regard for Natalie.
It is about half-past ten when Edgar and Zino enter the Lipinski drawing-room. After Edgar has paid his respects to both ladies of the house,--a ceremony much prolonged by Madame Lipinski,--he looks about for Stella, and perceives her directly in the centre of the room, seated on a yellow divan from which rises a tall camellia-tree with red blossoms, beside Zino. He is about to approach her, when he feels a hand upon his arm. He turns. Stasy stands beside him, affected, languishing, in a youthful white gown, a bouquet of roses on her breast, and a huge feather fan in her hand.
"What an unexpected pleasure!" she murmurs.
As just at this moment a young lady, a pupil of the pianist, has seated herself at the piano, to play a bolero, Edgar is obliged to keep quiet, and cannot help being detained beside the wicked old fairy; nay, he is even pinned down in a chair beside her.
The assemblage listens in silence to the young performer's first effort; but when the Spanish dance is followed by a Swedish 'reverie' the silence ceases. The hum of conversation rises throughout the room,--conversation conducted in that half-whisper which reminds one of the low murmur of faded leaves. The first to begin it was Zino.
"I do not understand how such delicate hands can have so hard a touch," he whispers, leaning a little towards Stella, with a significant glance towards the narrow-chested little American at the piano. "Dummy instruments ought always to be provided for these drawing-room performances of young ladies: there would be just as much opportunity for the performers to display their beautiful hands, and the misery of the audience would be greatly alleviated."
Stella laughs a little, a very little. She is melancholy to-night. Zino thinks of the sword of Damocles suspended above her fair head, and pities her. For a moment he is compassionately silent; then, espying Anastasia, he says, "I should like to know how the Gurlichingen comes here. She is a person of whom, were I Natalie, I should steer clear."
"To steer clear of the Gurlichingen against her will is almost as difficult as to steer clear of an epidemic disease; she steals upon us perfectly unawares," says Stella, with a slight shrug.
"Of all antipathetic women whom I have ever encountered, the Gurlichingen is the most antipathetic," the Prince boldly asseverates. "Her smile is peculiarly agreeable. It always reminds me of Captain White's Oriental pickles,--'the most exquisite compound of sweet and sour.' At Nice they called her the death's-head with forget-me-not eyes. To-night she looks like a skeleton at a masquerade. Just look at her! If she only would not show all her thirty-two teeth at once!"
"Where is she?" asks Stella, slightly turning her head. So great has been her dread of perceiving somewhere her menacing destiny, Monsieur de Hauterive, that hitherto she has not looked about at all.
"There, between Rohritz and that flower-table, there----"
By 'Rohritz' Stella has been wont for weeks to understand the husband of Thérèse; she has not yet heard of Edgar's arrival in Paris. She raises her eyes, and starts violently. He is here in the same room with her, and has not even taken the trouble to bid her good-evening. Good heavens! what of that? How many minutes will pass before Monsieur de Hauterive comes to ask her to redeem Thérèse Rohritz's pledged word? and then---- The blood mounts to her cheeks.
"Sapristi!" Zino thinks to himself, "can it be possible that my brother-in-law has been keener of vision than my very clever sister?"
"Do you not think, Baron Rohritz," Stasy meanwhile remarks to the victim still fettered to her side, "that Prince Capito pays too marked attention to our little friend Stella?"
"That is his affair," Edgar replies, coldly.
"And what does your sister-in-law say to Stella's conduct with Capito?"
"My sister-in-law evidently has no fault whatever to find with the young lady, for this very day she praised her in the warmest terms."
"Yes, yes," Stasy murmurs; "Thérèse, they say, has taken Stella under her wing."
"She is very fond of her."
"Yes, yes; all Paris is aware that Thérèse,"--to speak all the more familiarly of her distinguished acquaintances the less intimate she is with them is one of Stasy's disagreeable characteristics,--"that Thérèse has set herself the task of marrying Stella well. If this be so she ought to advise the girl to conduct herself somewhat more prudently, or the little goose will soon have compromised herself so absolutely that it will be impossible to find a respectable match for her. Do you know that for Stella's sake Zino has joined della Seggiola's class?"
"Would you make Stella Meineck responsible for Prince Capito's eccentricities?"
"Granted that it was not in consequence of her direct permission, I do not say it was. But she makes appointments with him in the Louvre; and"--Stasy's eyes sparkle with fiendish triumph--"she visits him at his lodgings. A very worthy and truthful friend of mine has rooms opposite the Prince's in the Rue d'Anjou, and she lately saw Stella, closely veiled, pass beneath the archway of his----"
"Absurd!" Rohritz exclaims, indignantly; and, without allowing her to finish, he leaves her very unceremoniously to go to Stella. But before he can make his way among the various trains, and the thicket of furniture of a Parisian drawing-room, to the yellow divan, some one else has taken the place beside Stella just vacated by Zino,--a handsome, broad-shouldered man of about forty, well dressed, correct in his appearance, but not distinguished, although it would be impossible to describe what is lacking. There is something brand-new, stiff, shiny, about him. Between him and a dandy of the purest water, like Capito, for instance, there is the same difference that is to be found between a piece of genuine old Meissner porcelain and some of modern manufacture.
"Who is the man with the red face and peaked moustache beneath the camellia there?" Edgar asks his old acquaintance Prince Suwarin, whom he has just met.
"That is a certain Cabouat de Hauterive, a millionaire, who is very fond of pretty things," replies Suwarin. "A little while ago he bought a superb Rousseau for his gallery, and now, they say, he intends to buy a pretty wife for his house. But he is absolutely lacking in the veryA,B,Cof æsthetic knowledge. The picture-dealer, Arthur Stevens, selected his Rousseau for him. I should like to know who found a wife for him. Whoever it was had good taste, I must say. The stupid fellow brags to all his acquaintances of the beauty of his new acquisition. She's a countrywoman of yours, if I'm not mistaken,--the young girl there beside him. She is simply divine!"
In fact, she is exquisitely lovely. How can Stasy presume to slander her so brutally? Truly it would be difficult to imagine anything more modest, more innocent, than the slender creature beside that broad-shouldered parvenu! Her elbows pressed close to her sides, her hands in her lap, with drooping head she sits there deadly pale, and evidently trembling with dread, as if awaiting sentence of death.
"It is a crime to force a young girl thus," Rohritz mutters between his set teeth. "I would not for the world have Thérèse's work to answer for. Fool that I am!--fool!"
Every drop of blood in his veins boils; for a moment it seems as if the sight of that pale, sad, child-like face must rob him of all self-control, as if thus at the last moment he must snatch her from the glittering, terrible fate to which she has devoted herself and bear her off in his arms, far, far away, to a peaceful green country where in the dreamy evening twilight stands a white castle in the shade of a mighty linden, where the odour of the linden-blossoms mingles on the evening breeze with the fragrance of the large, pale roses which look up from the dark verdure to the blue evening skies, where the music of gently-rustling leaves blends sadly with the sobbing ripple of the Save!
None but a maniac, however, would in our civilized century yield to such an impulse. Edgar is by no means a maniac: he is even too well bred to show the slightest outward sign of his agitation. Calmly, his eye-glass in his eye, he stands beside Suwarin and answers intelligibly and connectedly his questions as to the new Viennese ballet.
Stella Meineck has less self-control. While Monsieur in the most insinuating minor tones is preluding the momentous question, she is vainly trying to convince herself of all that should force her to receive his suit with joyful gratitude from the hand of fate as a gift of God. She recalls the petty poverty of the life that lies behind her, the endless, monotonous misery of the future in galoches and water-proof that lies before her, the hotel-bill that is not paid, the golden brooch she has been obliged to sell to buy two pair of new gloves,--everything, in short, that is hopeless and comfortless in her life. Oh, she will be sensible, will accept his offer. There,--now he has put the great question, so distinctly, so clearly, that no pretence of misunderstanding that might delay the necessity for her reply is possible. She catches her breath; her heart beats as if it would break; black misty clouds float before her eyes; there is a sound in her ears as of the rushing of a far-distant stream. She raises her head, and is about to speak, when her eyes meet Edgar's; and if instant death were to be the consequence of her refusal, her consent is no longer possible.
"You are very--very kind," she stammers, imploringly, "Monsieur de Hauterive, but I cannot--I cannot--forgive me, but--I cannot."
A moment more, and she is sitting alone beneath the camellia-bush.
"She has given him the sack."
"So it seems."
"A pretty affair! How pleased Thérèse will be!"
The speakers are Capito and Edgar as they leave the Rue de la Bruyère, where the small hotel which the Lipinskis have rented is situated, and walk along under the blue-black heavens glittering with millions of stars, to the more animated part of Paris.
"Yes, Thérèse will be pleased," Edgar murmurs, repeating Zino's words.
"It serves her right," Zino says, laughing. "I must confess, Stella ought not to have let matters go so far; but I cannot help liking it in her that she refused the fellow. Natalie and I were looking at her; it was immensely funny,--and yet so sad. Ah, that poor, distressed, pale face! After it was all over, Natascha--she has lately grown very intimate with Stella--called the girl into a little private boudoir, where the poor child began to sob bitterly. Natascha kissed her and comforted her, I brought her a cup of tea, and we gradually soothed her."
"Disgusting creature, that Cabouat!" growls Rohritz.
"In my opinion he is an awkward, common snob," says Zino, "and if I am not mistaken he will shortly prove himself to be so in the eyes of every one. The affair cannot fail to be unpleasant, since he has been boasting everywhere that he intended to marry a most beautiful Austrian, a friend of Madame de Rohritz, a charming young girl, very highly connected, and with no dowry."
"He is at perfect liberty to say that at the last moment he changed his mind," Rohritz remarks, casually.
"I rather think he'll not content himself with that.Ça, you are coming with me to the masked ball at the opera?"
"Not exactly. I am going to bed."
"Indolent, degenerate race!" Zino jeers. "What is to become of Paris, if this indifference to all gaiety gets the upper hand? I dreamed last night of a white domino: I am going to look for it." So saying, he leaves Edgar, and has walked on a few steps, when he hears himself recalled.
"Capito! Capito!"
"What is it?"
"Pray get me an invitation to the Fanes' ball; it is short notice, but----"
"All right: that's of no consequence at an American's ball," Zino replies, and hurries on to his goal. The two men turn their steps in opposite directions. Capito hastens back into the heart of Paris, where the garish light from gas-jets and lamps illuminates a night life as busy as that of the day, and Rohritz passes along the Boulevard Malesherbes, towards the Rue Villiers. Around him all is quiet; the few shops are closed; an occasional pedestrian passes, his coat-collar drawn up over his ears, and humming somecafé-chantantair, or a carriage with coach-lamps sparkles along the middle of the street like a huge firefly. The street-cars are no longer running: the street is but dimly lighted. The Dumas monument looms, clumsy and awkward, on its huge pedestal in the little square on the Place Malesherbes.
A thousand delightful thoughts course through Rohritz's brain. What a pleasant hour he has had talking with Stella at the Lipinskis'! At first she was stiff towards him, but gradually, slowly, she thawed into the loveliest, most child-like confidence. He will wait no longer. At the Fanes' ball, the next evening but one, he will confess all to her. What will she reply? Blind as are all mortals to the future, he looks back, and seeks her answer in the past. Slowly, slowly, he passes in review all the lovely summer days which he has spent with her, to that evening when he carried her in his arms through the drenching rain across the slippery, muddy road. Again he sees the windows of the little inn gleam yellow through the gloom; he hears Stella's soft word of thanks as he puts her down on the threshold. The picture changes. He sees a large, watery moon gleaming through prismatic clouds, sees a little skiff by the shore of a dark, swollen stream, and in the skiff, at his--Edgar's--feet, kneels a slender girl in a light dress, trembling with distress, her eyes imploringly raised to his, her delicate hands clasping his arm.
He bends over her. "Stella, my poor, dear, unreasonable child!" He has lifted her, clasps her in his arms, presses his lips upon her golden hair, her eyes, her mouth---- With a sudden start he rouses from his dream to find that he has run against a passer-by, who is saying, crossly, "Mais comment donc?Is not the pavement wide enough for two?" And, looking up, Edgar perceives that he has already passed ten numbers beyond his brother's hotel.
"My dear Rohritz,--
"Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families! As I was escorting my cousin in a ride yesterday, my horse slipped and fell on the ice, and I sprained my ankle. Was there ever anything so stupid! If it could be called a misfortune for which one could be pitied; but no, 'tis a mere tiresome annoyance. Ridiculous! And I am engaged to dance the cotillon at the Fanes' with Stella Meineck. Old fellow as I am, I had really looked forward to this pleasure.Eh bien!all the massage in the world will not enable me to put my foot on the ground before the end of a week. Have the kindness, as they say in your native Vienna, to dance the cotillon in my stead with our fair star. Send me a line to say that you agree, or come and tell me so yourself.
"Is Thérèse going to the ball? Tell her from me to be nice to Stella, and not to reckon it against her that, in spite of a moment of indecision induced by the distinguished eloquence of my very clever little sister, she has behaved nobly and honestly throughout,--in short, just as was to be expected of her. Adieu! Yours forever,
"Capito."