"My dear friend, have you forgotten me?"
"My dear friend, have you forgotten me?"
He looked up with a start, but when he saw me his eyes softened. He clasped my hand.
"Neberhausen?" he said.
"Yes; we met in Forstadt."
"To be sure," he laughed. "May I present my friend to you? M. le Baron de Neberhausen, M. Struboff. You will know Struboff's name. He gives us the best operas in the world, and the best singing."
"M. Struboff's fame has reached me," said I, sitting down.
Evidently Struboff did not know me; he received the introduction without any show of deference. I was delighted. I should have seen little of the true man had he been aware from the first who I was. Things being as they were, I could flatter him, and he had no motive for flattering me. A mere baron had no effect on him. He resumed the interrupted conversation; he was telling Wetter how he could make money out of music, and then more music out of the money, then more money out of the music, and so on, in an endless chain of music and money, money and music, money, music, money. Wetter sat looking at him with a smile of malicious mockery.
"Happy man!" he cried suddenly. "You love only two things in the world, and you've married both."
Struboff pulled his whisker meditatively.
"Yes, I have done well," he said, and drained his glass. "But hasn't Coralie done well too? Where would she have been but for me?"
"Indeed, my dear Struboff, there's no telling, but I suppose in the arms of somebody else."
"Your own, for example?" growled the husband.
"Observe the usual reticences," said Wetter, with a laugh. "My dear Baron, Struboff mocks my misery by a pretended jealousy. You can reassure him. Did Madame Mansoni ever favour me?"
"I can speak only of what I know," I answered, smiling. "She never favoured you before me."
He caught the ambiguity of my words, and laughed again. Struboff turned toward me with a stare.
"You also knew my wife?" he asked.
"I had the honour," said I. "In Forstadt."
"In Forstadt! Do you know the king?"
"Not so well as I could wish," I answered. "About as well as I know Wetter here."
"That's admirably well!" cried Wetter. "Well enough not to trust me."
The fat man looked from one to the other of us in an obtuse suspicion of our hilarity.
"The king admired my wife's talents," said he. "We intend to visit Forstadt next year."
"Do you?" said I, and Wetter's peal broke out again.
"The king will find my wife's talent much increased by training," pursued Struboff.
"Damn your wife's talent!" said Wetter, quite suddenly. "You talk as much about it as she does of your beauty."
"I hope madame is well?" I interposed quickly and suavely, for Struboff had grown very red and gave signs of temper. Wetter did not allow him to answer. He sprang to his feet and dragged Struboff up by the arm.
"Take his other arm!" he cried to me. "Bring him along. Come, come, we'll all go and see how madame is."
"It's nearly eleven," remonstrated Struboff sourly. "I want to go to bed."
"You? You go to bed? You, with your crimes, go to bed? Why, you couldn't sleep! You would cower all night! Go to bed! Oh, my dear Struboff, think better of it. No, no, we'll none of us go to bed. Bed's a hell for men like us. For you above all! Think again, Struboff, think again!"
Struboff shrugged his fat shoulders in helpless bad temper. I was laughing so much (at what, atwhat?) that I could hardly do my part in hustling him along. Wetter set a hot pace, and Struboff soon began to pant.
"I can't walk. Call a cab!" he gasped.
"Cab? No, no. We can't sit still. Conscience, my dear Struboff!Post equitem—you know. There's nothing like walking for sinners like us. Bring him along, Baron, bring him along!"
"Perhaps M. Struboff doesn't desire our company," I suggested.
"Perhaps!" shouted Wetter, with a laugh that turned a dozen heads toward him. "Oh, my dear Struboff, do you hear this suggestion of our friend the baron's? What a pity you have no breath to repudiate it!"
But now we were escaping from the crowd. Crossing in front of the Opera House, we made for the Rue de la Paix. The pace became smarter still; not only was Struboff breathless with being dragged along, but I was breathless with dragging him. I insisted on a cab. Wetter yielded, planted Struboff and me side by side, and took the little seat facing us himself. Here he sat, smiling maliciously, as the poor impresario mopped his forehead and fetched up deep gasps of breath. Where lay the inspiration of this horseplay of Wetter's?
"Quicker, quicker!" he cried to the driver. "I am impatient, my friends are impatient. Quick, quick! Only God is patient."
"He's mad," grunted Struboff. "He's quite mad. The devil, I'm hot!"
Wetter suddenly assumed an air of great dignity and blandness.
"In offering to present us to madame at an hour possibly somewhat late," he said, "our dear M. Struboff shows his wonted amiability. We should be failing in gratitude if we did not thank him most sincerely."
"I didn't ask you to come," growled Struboff.
Wetter looked at him with an air of grieved surprise, but said nothing at all. He turned to me with a ridiculous look of protest, as though asking for my support. I laughed; the mad nonsense was so welcome to me.
We stopped before a tall house in the Rue Washington; Wetter bundled us out with immense haste. There were lights in the second-floor windows. "Madame expects us!" he cried with a rapturous clasping of his hands. "Come, come, dear Struboff!—Baron, Baron, pray take Struboff's arm; the steps to heaven are so steep."
Struboff seemed resigned to his fate; he allowed himself to be pushed upstairs without expostulation. He opened the door for us, and ushered us into the passage. As he preceded us, I had time for one whisper to Wetter.
"You're still mad about her, are you?" I said, pinching his arm.
"Still? Good Heavens, no! Again!" he answered.
The door that faced us was thrown open, and Coralie stood before me in a loose gown of a dark-red colour. Before she could speak, Wetter darted forward, pulling me after him.
"I have the distinguished honour to present my friend, M. de Neberhausen," he said. "You may remember meeting him at Forstadt."
Coralie looked for a moment at each of us in turn. She smiled and nodded her head.
"Perfectly," she said; "but it is a surprise to seehim here, a very pleasant surprise." She gave me her hand, which I kissed with a fine flourish of gallantry.
"This gentleman knows the King very well," said Struboff, nodding at her with a solemn significance. "There's money in that!" he seemed to say.
"Does he?" she asked indifferently; and added to me, "Pray come in. I was not expecting visitors; you must make excuses for me."
She did not seem changed in the least degree. There was the same indolence, the same languid, slow enunciation. It struck me in a moment that she ignored her husband's presence. He had gone to a sideboard and was fingering a decanter. Wetter flung himself on a sofa.
"It is really you?" she asked in a whisper, with a lift of her eyelids.
"Oh, without the least doubt!" I answered. "And it is you also?"
Struboff came forward, tumbler in hand.
"Pray, is your King fond of music?" he asked.
"He will adore it from the lips of Madame Struboff," I answered, bowing.
"He adored it from the lips of Mlle. Mansoni," observed Wetter, with a malicious smile. Struboff glared at him; Coralie smiled slightly. An inkling of Wetter's chosen part came into my mind. He had elected to make Struboff uncomfortable; he did not choose that the fat man should enjoy his victory in peace. My emotions chimed in with his resolve, but reason suggested that the ethical merits were more on Struboff's side. He was Coralie's career; the analogy of my own relation toward Elsa urged that he who is a career is entitled to civility. Was not I Elsa's Struboff? I broke into a suddenlaugh; it passed as a tribute to Wetter's acid correction.
"You are studying here in Paris, madame?" I asked.
"Yes," said Coralie. "Why else should we be here now?"
"Why else should I be here now?" asked Wetter. "For the matter of that, Baron, why else should you be here now? Why else should anybody be here now? It is even an excuse for Struboff's presence."
"I need no excuse for being in my own home," said Struboff, and he gulped down his liquor.
Wetter sprang up and seized him by the arm.
"You are becoming fatter and fatter and fatter. Presently you will be round, quite round; they'll make a drum of you, and I'll beat you in the orchestra while madame sings divinely on the boards. Come and see if we can possibly avoid this thing," and he led him off to the sofa. There they began to talk, Wetter suddenly dropping his burlesque and allowing a quiet, earnest manner to succeed his last outburst. I caught some mention of thousands of francs; surely there must be a bond of interest, or Wetter would have been turned out before now.
Coralie moved toward the other end of the room, which was long, although narrow. I followed her. As she sat down she remarked:
"He has lent Struboff twenty thousand francs; but for that I must have sung before I was ready."
The situation seemed a little clearer.
"But he is curious," she pursued, fixing a patiently speculative eye on Wetter. "You would say that he was fond of me?"
"It is a possible reason for his presence."
"He doesn't show it," said she, with a shrug.
I understood that little point in Wetter's code; besides, his humour seemed just now too bitter for love-making. If Coralie felt any resentment, it did not go very deep. She turned her eyes from Wetter to my face.
"You're going to be married very soon?" she said.
"In a month," said I. "I'm having my last fling. You perceived our high spirits?"
"I've seen her picture. She's pretty. And I've seen the Countess von Sempach."
"You know about her?"
"Have you forgotten that you used to speak of her? Ah, yes, you've forgotten all that you used to say! The Countess is still handsome."
"What of that? So are you."
"True, it doesn't matter much," Coralie admitted. "Does your Princess love you?"
"Don't you love your husband?"
A faint slow smile bent her lips as she glanced at Struboff—himself and his locket.
"Nobody acts without a motive," said I. "Not even in marrying."
The bitterness that found expression in this little sneer elicited no sympathetic response from Coralie. I was obliged to conclude that she considered her marriage a success; at least that it was doing what she had expected from it. At this moment she yawned in her old, pretty, lazy way. Certainly there were no signs of romantic misery or tragic disillusionment about her. Again I asked myself whether my sympathy were not more justly due to Struboff—Struboff, who sat now smoking a big cigar and wobbling his head solemnly in answer to the emphatictaps of Wetter's forefinger on his waistcoat. The question was whether human tenderness lay anywhere under those wrappings; if so, M. Struboff might be a proper object of compassion, his might be the misery, his (O monstrous thought!) the disillusionment. But the prejudice of beauty fought hard on Coralie's side. I always find it difficult to be just to a person of markedly unpleasant appearance. I was piqued to much curiosity by these wandering ideas; I determined to probe Struboff through the layers.
Soon after I took my leave. Coralie pressed me to return the next day, and before I could speak Wetter accepted the invitation for me. There was no very strong repugnance in Struboff's face; I should not have heeded it had it appeared. Wetter prepared to come with me. I watched his farewell to Coralie; his smile seemed to mock both her and himself. She was weary and dreary, but probably only because she wanted her bed. It was a mistake, as a rule, to attribute to her other than the simplest desires. The moment we were outside, Wetter turned on me with a savagely mirthful expression of my own thoughts.
"A wretched thing to leave her with him? Not the least in the world!" he cried. "She will sleep ten hours, eat one, sing three, sleep three, eat two, sleep—— Have I run through the twenty-four?"
"Well, then, why are we to disturb ourselves?" I asked.
"Why are we to disturb ourselves? Good God, isn't it enough that she should be like that?"
I laughed, as I blew out my cigarette smoke.
"This is an old story," said I. "She is not in love with you, I suppose? That's it, isn't it?"
"It's not the absence of the fact," said he, witha smile; "it's the want of the potentiality that is so deplorable."
"Why torment Struboff, though?"
"Struboff?" he repeated, knitting his brows. "Ah, now Struboff is worth tormenting! You won't believe me; but he can feel."
"I was right, then; I thought he could."
"You saw it?"
"My prospects, perhaps, quicken my wits."
My arm was through his, and he pressed it between his elbow and his side.
"You see," said he, "perversity runs through it all. She should feel; he should not. It seems she doesn't, but he does. Heavens, would you accept such a conclusion without the fullest experiment? For me, I am determined to test it."
"Still you're in love with her."
"Agreed, agreed, agreed. A man must have a spur to knowledge."
We parted at the Place de la Concorde, and I strolled on alone to my hotel. Vohrenlorf was waiting for me, a little anxious, infinitely sleepy. I dismissed him at once, and sat down to read my letters. I had the feeling that I would think about all these matters to-morrow, but I was also pervaded by a satisfaction. My mind was being fed. The air here nourished, the air of Artenberg starved. I complimented Paris on a virtue not her own; the house in the Rue Washington was the source of my satisfaction.
There was a letter from Varvilliers; he wrote from Hungary, where he was on a visit. Here is something of what he said:
"There is a charming lady here, and we fall in love, all according to mode and fashion. (The buttons are on the foils, pray understand.) It is the simplest thing in the world; the whole process might, as I believe, be digested into twelve elementary motions or thereabouts. The information is given and received by code; it is like playing whist. 'How much have you?' her eyes ask. 'A passion,' I answer by the code. 'I have apenchant,' comes from her side of the table. 'I am leading up to it,' say I. 'I am returning the lead.' Good! But then comes hers (or mine), 'I have no more.' Alas! Well then, I lead, or she leads, another suit. It's a good game; and our stakes are not high. You, sire, would like signals harder to read, I know your taste. You're right there. And don't you make the stakes higher? I have plunged into indiscretion; if I did not, you would think that Bederhof had forged my handwriting. Unless I am stopped on the frontier I shall be in Forstadt in three weeks."
"There is a charming lady here, and we fall in love, all according to mode and fashion. (The buttons are on the foils, pray understand.) It is the simplest thing in the world; the whole process might, as I believe, be digested into twelve elementary motions or thereabouts. The information is given and received by code; it is like playing whist. 'How much have you?' her eyes ask. 'A passion,' I answer by the code. 'I have apenchant,' comes from her side of the table. 'I am leading up to it,' say I. 'I am returning the lead.' Good! But then comes hers (or mine), 'I have no more.' Alas! Well then, I lead, or she leads, another suit. It's a good game; and our stakes are not high. You, sire, would like signals harder to read, I know your taste. You're right there. And don't you make the stakes higher? I have plunged into indiscretion; if I did not, you would think that Bederhof had forged my handwriting. Unless I am stopped on the frontier I shall be in Forstadt in three weeks."
I dropped the letter with a laugh, wondering whether the charming lady played the game as he did and a stake as light. Or did she suffer? Well, anybody can suffer. The talent is almost universal. There was, it seemed, reason to suppose that Struboff suffered. I acquiesced, but with a sense of discontent. Pain should not be vulgarized. Varvilliers' immunity gave him a new distinction in my eyes.
Struboff's inevitable discovery of my real name was a disaster; it delayed my operations for three days, since it filled his whole being with a sense of abasement and a hope of gain, thereby suspending for the time those emotions in him which had excited my curiosity. Clearly he had unstinted visions of lucrative patronage, dreams, probably, of a piece of coloured ribbon for his button-hole, and a right to try to induce people to call him "Chevalier." He made Coralie a present, handsome enough. I respected the conscientiousness of this act; my friendship was an unlooked-for profit, a bonus on the marriage, and he gave his wife her commission. But he seemed cased in steel against any confidence; he trembled as he poured me out a glass of wine. He had pictured me only as a desirable appendage to a gala performance; it is, of course, difficult to realize that the points at which people are important to us are not those at which they are important to themselves. However I made progress at last. The poor man's was a sad case; the sadder because only with constant effort could the onlooker keep its sadness disengaged from its absurdity, and remember that unattractiveness does not exclude misery. The wife in a marriage of interest is the spoiled child ofromancers; scarcely any is rude enough to say, "Well, who put you there?" The husband in such a partnership gains less attention; at the most, he is allowed a subordinate share of the common stock of woe. The clean case for observation—he miserable, she miles away from any such poignancy of emotion—was presented by Coralie's consistency. It was not in her to make a bargain and pull grimaces when she was asked to fulfil it. True, she interpreted it in her own way. "I promised to marry you. Well, I have. How are you wronged,mon cher? But did I promise to speak to you, to like you?Mon Dieu!who promised, or would ever promise, to love you?" The mingled impatience and amusement of such questions expressed themselves in her neglect of him and in her yawns. Under his locket, and his paunch, and his layers, he burned with pain; Wetter was laying the blisters open to the air, that their sting might be sharper. At last, sorely beset, he divined a sympathy in me. He thought it disinterested, not perceiving that he had for me the fascination of a travesty of myself, and that in his marriage I enjoyed a burlesque presentiment of what mine would be. That point of view was my secret until Wetter's quick wit penetrated it; he worked days before he found out why I was drawn to the impresario; his discovery was hailed with a sudden laugh and a glance, but he put nothing into words. Both to him and to me the thing was richer for reticence; in the old phrase, the drapery enhanced the charms which it did not hide.
A day came when I asked the husband to luncheon with me. I sent Vohrenlorf away; we sat down together, Struboff swelling with pride, seeing himself telling the story in the wings, meditating theappearance and multiplication of paragraphs. I said not a word to discourage the visions; we talked of how Coralie should make fame and he money; he grew enthusiastic, guttural, and severe on the Steinberg. I ordered more Steinberg, and fished for more enthusiasm. I put my purse at his disposal; he dipped his fingers deep, with an anxious furtive eagerness. The loan was made, or at least pledged, before it flashed across my brain that the money was destined for Wetter—he wanted to pay off Wetter. We were nearing the desired ground.
"My dear M. Struboff," said I, "you must not allow yourself to be embarrassed. Great properties are slow to develop; but I have patience with my investments. Clear yourself of all claims. Money troubles fritter away a man's brains, and you want yours."
He muttered something about temporary scarcity.
"It would be intolerable that madame should be bothered with such matters," I said.
He gulped down his Steinberg and gave a snort. The sound was eloquent, although not sweet. I filled his glass and handed him a cigar. He drank the wine, but laid the cigar on the table and rested his head on his hand.
"And women like to have money about," I pursued, looking at the veins on his forehead.
"I've squandered money on her," he said. "Good money."
"Yes, yes. One's love seeks every mode of expression. I'm sure she's grateful."
He raised his eyes and looked at me. I was smoking composedly.
"Were you once in love with my wife?" he askedbluntly. His deference wore away under the corrosion of Steinberg and distress.
"Let us choose our words, my dear M. Struboff. Once I professed attachment to Mlle. Mansoni."
"She loved you?"
"It is discourteous not to accept any impression that a lady wishes to convey to you," I answered, smiling.
"Ah, you know her!" he cried, bringing his fist down on the table.
"Not the least in the world," I assured him. "Her beauty, her charm, her genius—yes, we all know those. But her soul! That's her husband's prerogative."
There was silence for a moment, during which he still looked at me, his thick eyelids half hiding the pathetic gaze of his little eyes.
"My life's a hell!" he said, and laid his head between his hands on the table. I saw a shudder in his fat shoulders.
"My dear M. Struboff," I murmured, as I rose and walked round to him. I did not like touching him, but I forced myself to pat his shoulder kindly. "Women take whims and fancies," said I, as I walked back to my seat.
He raised his head and set his chin between his fists.
"She took me for what she could get out of me," said he.
"Shall we be just? Didn't you look to get something out of her?"
"Yes. I married her for that," he answered. "But I'm a damned fool! I saw that she loathed me; it isn't hard to see. You see it; everybody sees it."
"And you fell in love with her? That was breaking the bargain, wasn't it?" It crossed my mind that I might possibly break my bargain with Elsa. But the peril was remote.
"My God, it's maddening to be treated like a beast. Am I repulsive, am I loathsome?"
"What a question, my dear M. Struboff!"
"And I live with her. It is for all day and every day."
"Come, come, be reasonable. We're not lovesick boys."
"If I touch a piece of bread in giving it to her, she cuts herself another slice."
How I understood you in that, O dainty cruel Coralie!
"And that devil comes and laughs at me."
"He needn't come, if you don't wish it."
"Perhaps it's better than being alone with her," he groaned. "And she doesn't deceive me. Ah, I should like sometimes to say to her, 'Do what you like; amuse yourself, I shall not see. It wouldn't matter.' If she did that, she mightn't be so hard to me. You wonder that I say this, that I feel it like this? Well, I'm a man; I'm not a dog. I don't dirty people when I touch them."
I got up and walked to the hearthrug. I stood there with my back to him. He blew his nose loudly, then took the bottle; I heard the wine trickle in the glass and the sound of his noisy swallowing. There was a long silence. He struck a match and lit his cigar. Then he folded up the notes I had given him, and the clasp of his pocket-book clicked.
"I have to go with her to rehearsal," he said.
I turned round and walked toward him. His uneasy deference returned, he jumped up with a bow and an air of awkward embarrassment.
"Your Majesty is very good. Your Majesty pardons me? I have abused your Majesty's kindness. You understand, I have nobody to speak to."
"I understand very well, M. Struboff. I am very sorry. Be kind to her and she will change toward you."
He shook his head ponderously.
"She won't change," he said, and stood shuffling his feet as he waited to be dismissed. I gave him my hand. (O Coralie, you and your bread! I understood.)
"She'll get accustomed to you," I murmured, with a reminiscence of William Adolphus.
"I think she hates me more every day." He bowed over my hand, and backed out with clumsy ceremony.
I flung myself on the sofa. Was not the burlesque well conceived and deftly fashioned? True, I did not seem to myself much like Struboff. There was no comfort in that; Struboff did not seem to himself much like what he was. "Am I repulsive, am I loathsome?" he cried indignantly, and my diplomacy could answer only, "What a question, my dear M. Struboff!" If I cried out, asking whether I were so unattractive that my bride must shrink from me, a thousand shocked voices would answer in like manner, "Oh, sire, what a question!"
Later in the day I called on Coralie and found her alone. Speaking as though from my own observation, I taxed her roundly with her coldness to Struboff and with allowing him to perceive her distaste for him. I instanced the matter of the bread, declaring that I had noticed it when I breakfasted with them. Coralie began to laugh.
"Do I do that? Well, perhaps I do. You'vefelt his hand? It is not very pleasant. Yes, I think I do take another piece."
"He observes it."
"Oh, I think not. He doesn't care. Besides he must know. Have I pretended to care for him? Heavens, I'm no hypocrite. We knew very well what we wanted, he and I. We have each got it. But kisses weren't in the bargain."
"And you kiss nobody now?"
"No," she answered simply and without offence. "No. Wetter doesn't ask me, and you know I never felt love for him; if he did ask me, I wouldn't. These things are very troublesome. And you don't ask me."
"No, I don't, Coralie," said I, smiling.
"I might kiss you, perhaps."
"I have something to give too, have I?"
"No, that would be no use. I should make nothing out of you. And the rest is nonsense. No, I wouldn't kiss you, if you did ask."
"Perhaps Wetter will ask you now. I have lent your husband money, and he will pay Wetter off."
"Ah, perhaps he will then; he is curious, Wetter. But I shan't kiss him. I am very well as I am."
"Happy?"
"Yes; at least I should be, if it were not for Struboff. He annoys me very much. You know, it's like an ugly picture in the room, or a dog one hates. He doesn't say or do much, but he's there always. It frets me."
"Madame, my sympathy is extreme."
"Oh, your sympathy! You're laughing at me. I don't care. You're going to be married yourself."
"What you imply is not very reassuring."
"It's all a question of what one expects," she said with a shrug.
"My wife won't mind me touching her bread?" I asked anxiously.
"Oh, no, she won't mind that. You're not like that. Oh, no, it won't be in that way."
"I declare I'm much comforted."
"Indeed you needn't fear that. In some things all women are alike. You needn't fear anything of that sort. No woman could feel that about you."
"I grow happier every moment. I shouldn't have liked Elsa to cut herself another slice."
Coralie laughed, sniffed the roses I had brought, and laughed again, as she said:
"In fact I do. I remember it now. I didn't mean to be rude; it came natural to do it; as if the piece had fallen on the floor, you know."
Evidently Struboff had analyzed his wife's feelings very correctly. I doubted both the use and the possibility of enlightening her as to his. Kisses were not in the bargain, she would say. After all, the desire for affection was something of an incongruity in Struboff, an alien weed trespassing on the ground meant for music and for money. I could hardly blame her for refusing to foster the intruder. I felt that I should be highly unjust if, later on, I laid any blame on Elsa for not satisfying a desire for affection should I chance to feel such a thing. And as to the bread Coralie had quite reassured me. I looked at her. She was smiling in quiet amusement. Evidently her fancy was tickled by the matter of the bread.
"You notice a thing like that," she said. "But he doesn't. Imagine his noticing it!"
"I can imagine it very well."
"Oh no, impossible. He has no sensibility. You laugh? Well, yes, perhaps it's lucky."
During the next two or three days I was engaged almost unintermittently with business which followed me from home, and had no opportunity of seeing more of my friends. I regretted this the less, because I seemed now to be possessed of the state of affairs. I resigned myself to the necessity of a speedy return to Forstadt. Already Bederhof was in despair at my absence, and excuses failed me. I could not tell him that to return to Forstadt was to begin the preparations for execution; a point at which hesitation must be forgiven in the condemned. But before I went I had a talk with Wetter.
He stormed Vohrenlorf's defences and burst into my room late one night.
"So we're going back, sire?" he cried. "Back to our work, back to harness?"
"You're going too?" I asked quietly.
He threw back his hair from his forehead.
"Yes, I too," he said. "Struboff has paid me off; I have played, I have won, I am rich, I desire to serve my country. You don't appear pleased, sire?"
"When you serve your country, I have to set about saving mine," said I dryly.
"Oh, you'll be glad of the distraction of public affairs," he sneered.
"Madame Mansoni-Struboff has not fulfilled my hopes of her. I thought you'd have no leisure for politics for a long while to come."
"The pupil of Hammerfeldt speaks to me," he said with a smile. "You would be right, very likely, but for the fact that madame has dismissed me."
"You use a conventional phrase?"
"Well then, she has—well, yes, I do use a conventional phrase."
"I shall congratulate M. Struboff on an increased tranquillity."
The evening was chilly, and I had a bit of fire. Wetter sat looking into it, hugging his knees and swaying his body to and fro. I stood on the hearthrug by him.
"I have still time," he said suddenly. "I'm a young man. I can do something still."
"You can turn me out, you think?"
"I don't want to turn you out."
"Use me, perhaps?"
"Tame you, perhaps."
I looked down at him and I laughed.
"Why do you laugh?" he asked. "I thought I should have roused that sleeping dignity of yours."
"Oh, my friend," said I, "you will not tame me, and you will not do great things."
"Why not?" he asked, briefly and brusquely.
"You'll play again, you'll do some mad prank, some other woman will—let us stick to our phrase—will not dismiss you. When an irresistible force encounters an immovable object—— You know the old puzzle?"
"Interpret your parable, O King!"
"When a great brain is joined to an impossible temper—result?"
"The result is nothing," said he, taking a fresh grip of his knees.
"Even so, even so," I nodded.
"But I have done things," he persisted.
"Yes, and then undone them. My friend, you're a tragedy." And I lit a cigarette.
He sat where he was for a moment longer; then he sprang up with a loud laugh.
"A tragedy! A tragedy! If I make one, by Heaven the world is rich in them! Take Struboff for another. But your Majesty is wrong. I'm a farce."
"Yes, you're a bit of a farce," said I.
He laid his hand on my arm and looked full and long in my face.
"So you've made your study of us?" he asked. "Oh, I know why you came to Paris! Coralie, Struboff, myself—you have us all now?"
"Pretty well," said I. "To understand people is both useful and interesting; and to a man in my position it has the further attraction of being difficult."
"And you think Bederhof is too strong for me?"
"He is stupid and respectable. My dear Wetter, what chance have you?"
"There's a river in this town. Shall I jump in?"
"Heavens, no! You'd set it all a-hissing and a-boiling."
"To-night, sire, I thought of killing Struboff."
"Ah, yes, the pleasures of imagination! I often indulge in them."
"Then a bullet for myself."
"Of course! And another impresario for Coralie! You must look ahead in such matters."
"It would have made a great sensation."
"Everywhere, except in the bosom of Coralie."
"Your cleverness robbed the world of that other sensation long ago. If I had killed you!"
"It would have been another—another impresario for my Princess."
"We shall meet at Forstadt? You'll ask me to the wedding?"
"Unless you have incurred Princess Heinrich's anger."
"I tell you I'm going to settle down."
"Never," said I.
"Be careful, sire. The revolver I bought for Struboff is in my pocket."
"Make me a present of it," I suggested.
He looked hard in my eyes, laughed a little, drew out a small revolver, and handed it to me.
"Struboff was never in great danger," he said.
"I was never much afraid for Struboff," said I. "Thanks for the revolver. You're not quibbling with me?"
"I don't understand."
"There's no river in this town; no institution called the Morgue?"
"Not a trace of such things. Do you know why not?"
"Because it's the king's pleasure," said I, smiling and holding out my hand to him.
"Because I'm a friend to a friend," he said, as he took my hand. Then without another word he turned and walked out quickly. I heard him speak to Vohrenlorf in the outer room, and laugh loudly as he ran down the stairs.
He had reminded me that I was a pupil of Hammerfeldt's. The reminder came home to me as a reproach. I had been forgetful of the Prince's lessons; I had allowed myself to fall into a habit of thought which led me to assume that my happiness or unhappiness was a relevant consideration in judging of the merits of the universe. The assumption is so common as to make us forget that so far from being proved it is not even plausible. I saw the absurdity of it at once, in the light of my recent discoveries. Was God shamed because Struboff was miserable, because Coralie was serenely selfish, because Wetter was tempestuous beyond rescue? I smiled at all these questions, and proceeded to the inference that the exquisite satisfaction of my own cravings was probably not an inherent part of the divine purpose. That is, if there were such a thing; and if there were not, the whole matter was so purely accidental as not to admit of any one consideration being in the least degree more or less relevant than another. "Willingly give thyself up to Clotho, allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever things she pleases." That was an extremely good maxim; but it would have been of no service to cast the pearl before Coralie's impresario. I would use it myself, though. I summoned Vohrenlorf.
"We have stayed here too long, Vohrenlorf," said I. "My presence is necessary in Forstadt. I must not appear wanting in interest in these preparations."
"Undoubtedly," said he, "they are very anxious for your Majesty's return."
"And I am very anxious to return. We'll go by the evening train to-morrow. Send word to Bederhof."
He seemed rather surprised and not very pleased, but promised to see that my orders were executed. I sat down in the chair in which Wetter had sat, and began again to console myself with my Stoic maxim. But there was a point at which I stuck. I recalled Coralie and her bread, and regarded Struboff not in the aspect of his own misery (which I had decided to be irrelevant), but in the light of Coralie's feelings. It seemed to me that the philosopher should have spared more consideration to this side of the matter.Had he reached such heights as to be indifferent not only to his own sufferings, but to being a cause of suffering to others? Perhaps Marcus Aurelius had attained to this; Coralie Mansoni, by the way, seemed most blessedly to have been born into it. To me it was a stone of stumbling. Pride came to me with insidious aid and admired while I talked of Clotho; but where was my ally when I pictured Elsa also making her surrender to the Fates? My ally then became my enemy. With a violent wrench I brought myself to the thought that neither was Elsa's happiness a relevant consideration. It would not do, I could not maintain the position. For Elsa was young, fresh, aspiring to happiness as a plant rears its head to the air. And our wedding was but a fortnight off.
"Am I repulsive, am I loathsome?"
"What a question, my dear M. Struboff!"
I had that snatch of talk in my head when I fell asleep.
The next day but one found me back at Forstadt. They had begun to decorate the streets.
The contrast of outer and inner, of the world's myself and my own myself, of others as they seem to me and to themselves (of the reality they may be, through inattention or dulness, as ignorant as I), which is the most permanent and the dominant impression that life has stamped on my mind, was never more powerfully brought home to me than in the days which preceded my marriage to my cousin Elsa. As I have said, they had begun to decorate the streets; let me summarize all the rest by repeating that they decorated the streets, and went on decorating them. The decorative atmosphere enveloped all external objects, and wrapped even the members of my own family in its spangled cloud. Victoria blossomed in diamonds, William Adolphus sprouted in plumes; my mother embodied the stately, Cousin Elizabeth a gorgeous heartiness; the Duke's eyes wore a bored look, but the remainder of his person was fittingly resplendent. Bederhof was Bumble in Olympus; beyond these came a sea of smiles, bows, silks, and uniforms. Really I believe that the whole thing was done as handsomely as possible, and the proceedings are duly recorded in a book of red leather, clasped in gold and embellished with manypictures, which the Municipality of Forstadt presented to Elsa in remembrance of the auspicious event. It lies now under a glass case, and, I understand, excites much interest among ladies who come to see my house.
Elsa was a puzzle no longer; I should have welcomed more complexity of feeling. The month which had passed since we parted had brought to her many reflections, no doubt, and as a presumable result of them a fixed attitude of mind. William Adolphus would have said (and very likely did say to Victoria) that she had got used to me; but this mode of putting the matter suffers from my brother-in-law's bluntness. She had not defied Clotho, but neither had she altogether given herself up to Clotho. She had compromised with the Formidable Lady, and, although by no means enraptured, seemed to be conscious that she might have come off worse. What was distasteful in Clotho's terms Elsa attempted to reduce to insignificance by a disciplined arrangement of her thoughts and emotions. Much can be done if one will be firm with would-be vagrants of the mind. The pleasant may be given prominence; the disagreeable relegated to obscurity; the attractive installed in the living apartments; the repellant locked in a distant cellar, whence their ill-conditioned cries are audible occasionally only and in the distance. What might have been is sternly transformed from a beautiful vision into a revolting peril, and in this new shape is invoked to applaud the actual and vilify what is impossible. This attitude of mind is thought so commendable as to have won for itself in popular speech the name of philosophy—so even with words Clotho works her will. Elsa, then, in this peculiar sense of the term wasphilosophical about the business. She was balanced in her attitude, and, left to herself, would maintain equilibrium.
"She's growing fonder and fonder of you every day," Cousin Elizabeth whispered in my ear.
"I hope," said I, with a reminiscence, "that I am not absolutely repulsive to her." And in order not to puzzle Cousin Elizabeth with any glimmer of truth I smiled.
"My dearest Augustin" (that she seemed to say "Struboff" was a childish trick of my imagination), "what an idea!" ("What a question, my dear M. Struboff!")
I played too much, perhaps, with my parallel, but I was not its slave. I knew myself to be unlike Struboff (in my case Coralie scouted the idea of a fresh slice of bread). I knew Elsa to be of very different temperament from Coralie's. These variances did not invalidate the family likeness; a son may be very like his father, though the nose of one turns up and the other's nose turns down. We were, after making all allowances for superficial differences—we were both careers, Struboff and I. I need none to point out to me my blunder; none to say that I was really fortunate and cried for the moon. It is admitted. I was offered a charming friendship; it was not enough. I could give a tender friendship; I knew that it was not enough.
And there was that other thing which went to my heart, that possibility which must ever be denied realization, that beginning doomed to be thwarted. As we were talking once of all who were to come on the great day, I saw suddenly a little flush on Elsa's cheek. She did not look away or stammer, or make any other obvious concession to her embarrassment, but the blush could not be denied access to her face and came eloquent with its hint.
"And M. de Varvilliers—he will be there, I suppose?" she asked.
"I hope so; I have given directions that he shall be invited. You like him, Elsa?"
"Yes," she said, not looking at me now, but straight in front of her, as though he stood there in his easy heart-stealing grace. And for an instant longer the flush flew his flag on her cheek.
But Struboff had been so mad as to fall in love with Coralie, and to desire her love out of no compassion for her but sheerly for itself. Was I not spared this pang? I do not know whether my state were worse or better. For with him, even in direst misery, there would be love's own mad hope, that denial of impossibility, that dream of marvellous change which shoots across the darkest gloom of passion. Or at least he could imagine her loving as he loved, and thereby cheat the wretched thing that was. I could not. In dreary truth, I was toward her as she toward me, and before us both there stretched a lifetime. If an added sting were needed, I found it in a perfectly clear consciousness that a great many people would have been absolutely content, and, as onlookers of our case, would have wondered what all the trouble was about. There are those who from a fortunate want of perception are called sensible; just as Elsa by her resolute evasion of truth would be accorded the title of philosophical.
Victoria was the prophet of the actual, picking out with optimistic eye its singular abundance of blessedness. I do not think that she reminded me that Elsa might have had but one eye, one leg, ora crooked back, but her felicitations ran on this strain. Their obvious artificiality gave them the effect of sympathy, and Victoria would always sanction this interpretation by a kiss on departure. But she had her theory; it was that Elsa only needed to be wooed. The "only" amused me, but even with that point waived I questioned her position. It left out imagination, and it left out Varvilliers, who had become imagination's pet. Nevertheless, Victoria spoke out of experience; she did not blush at declaring herself "after all very comfortable" with William Adolphus. Granted the argument's sincerity, its force could not be denied with honesty.
"We're not romantic, and never have been, of course," she conceded.
"My dear Victoria, of course not," said I, laughing openly.
"We have had our quarrels."
"The quarrels wouldn't trouble me in the least."
"We don't expect too much of one another."
"I seem to be listening to the address on the wedding day."
"You're an exasperating creature!" and with that came the kiss.
Victoria's affection was always grateful to me, but in the absence of Wetter and Varvilliers, neither of whom had made any sign as yet, I was bereft of all intellectual sympathy. I had looked to find some in the Duke, and some, as I believe, there was; but its flow was checked and turned by what I must call a repressed resentment. His wife's blind heartiness was impossible to him, and he read with a clear eye the mind of a loved daughter. With him also I ranked as a necessity; so far as the necessity was distasteful to Elsa, it was unpalatable to him. Beneathhis friendliness, and side by side with an unhesitating acceptance of the position, there lay this grudge, not acknowledged, bound to incur instant absurdity as the price of any open assertion of itself, but set in his mind and affecting his disposition toward me. He was not so foolish as to blame me; but I was to him the occasion of certain fears and shrinkings, possibly of some qualms as to his own part in the matter, and thus I became a less desired companion. There was something between us, a subject always present, never to be mentioned. As a result, there came constraint. My pride took alarm, and my polite distance answered in suitable terms to his reticent courtesy. I believe, however, that we found one common point in a ludicrous horror of Cousin Elizabeth's behaviour. Had she assumed the air she wore, she must have ranked as a diplomatist; having succeeded in the great task of convincing herself, she stands above those who can boast only of deceiving others. To Cousin Elizabeth the alliance was a love match; had she possessed the other qualities, her self-persuasion would have been enough to enable her to found a religious sect and believe that she was sent from heaven for its prophet.
Amid this group of faces, all turned toward the same object but with expressions subtly various, I spent my days, studying them all, and finding (here has been nature's consolation to me) relief from my own thoughts in an investigation of the mind of others. The portentous pretence on which we were engaged needed perhaps a god to laugh at it, but the smaller points were within the sphere of human ridicule; with them there was no danger of amusement suffering a sudden death, and a swift resurrection in the changed shape of indignation.
There was already much to laugh at, but now a new occasion came, taking its rise in a thing which seemed very distinct, and appertaining to moods and feelings long gone by, a plaything of memory destined (as it had appeared) to play no more part in actual life. The matter was simply this: Count Max von Sempach was on leave, and proposed with my permission to be in Forstadt for the wedding festivities.
Bederhof had heard legendary tales; his manner was dubious and solemn as he submitted the Count's proposal to me; Princess Heinrich's carelessness of reference would have stirred suspicion in the most guileless heart; William Adolphus broke into winks and threatened nudges; I invoked my dignity just in time. Victoria was rather excited, rather pleased, looking forward to an amusing spectacle. Evidently something had reached Cousin Elizabeth's ears, for she overflowed with unspoken assurances that the news was of absolutely no importance, that she took no notice of boyish follies, and did not for a moment doubt my whole-hearted devotion to Elsa. Elsa herself betrayed consciousness only by not catching my eye when the Sempachs' coming cropped up in conversation. For my own part I said that I should be very glad to see the Count and the Countess, and that they had a clear claim to their invitation. My mother's manner had shown that she felt herself in no position to raise objections; Bederhof took my commands with resigned deference. I was aware that his wife had ceased to call on the Countess some time before Count Max went Ambassador to Paris.
Max had done his work very well—his appointment has been quoted as an instance of my precociousinsight into character—and his work did not appear to have done him any harm. When he called on me I found him the same sincere simple fellow that he had been always. By consent we talked of private affairs, rather than of business. He told me that Toté was growing into a tall girl, that his other children also shot up, but (he added proudly) his wife did not look a day older, and her appearance had, if anything, improved. She had been happy at Paris, he said, "but, to be sure, she'd be happy anywhere with the children and her home." The modesty of the last words did not conceal his joyous confidence. I felt very kindly toward him.
"Really you're an encouragement to me at this moment," I said. "You must take me to see the Countess."
"She will be most honoured, sire."
"I'd much rather she'd be a little pleased."
He laughed in evident gratification, assuring me that she would be very pleased. He answered for her emotions in the true style of the blessed partner; that is an incident of matrimony which I am content to have escaped. I doubted very much whether she were so eager for the renewal of my acquaintance as he declared. I recollected the doubts and fears that had beset her vision of that event long ago. But my part was plain—to go, and to go speedily.
"To the Countess'?" exclaimed Victoria, to whom I mentioned casually my plans for the afternoon. "You're in a great hurry, Augustin."
"It's no sign of hurry to go to a place at the right time," said I, with a smile.
"I don't call it quite proper."
"I go because it is proper."
"If you flirt with her again——"
"My dear Victoria, what things you suggest!"
Victoria returned to her point.
"I see no reason why you should rush off there all in a minute," she persisted.
Nevertheless I went, paying the tribute of a laugh to the picture of Victoria flying with the news to Princess Heinrich. But the Princess' eye could tell a real danger from an imaginary one; she would not mind my seeing the Countess now.
I went quite privately, without notice, and was not expected. Thus it happened that I was ushered into the drawing-room when the Countess was not there to receive me. There I found Toté undeniably long-legged and regrettably shy. The world had begun to set its mark on her, and she had discovered that she did not know how to behave to me. I was sorry not to be pleasant company for Toté; but, perceiving the fact too plainly to resist it I sent her off to hasten her mother. She had not been gone a moment before the Countess came in hurriedly with apologies on her lips.
Not a day older! O my dear Max! Shall we pray for this blindness, or shall we not? She was older than she had been, older than by now she should be. Yet her charm hung round her like a fine stuff that defies time, and a gentle kindness graced her manner. We began to talk about anything and nothing. She showed fretful dread of a pause; when she spoke she did not look me in the face. I could not avoid the idea that she did not want me, and would gladly see me take my leave. But such a feeling was, as it seemed to me, inhuman—a falseness to our true selves, born of some convention, or of a scruple overstrained, or of a fear not warranted.
"Have you seen Elsa?" I asked presently, and perhaps rather abruptly.
"Yes," she said, "I was presented to her. She was very sweet and kind to me."
"She's that to me too," I said, rising and standing by her chair.
She hesitated a moment, then looked up at me; I saw emotion in her eyes.
"You'll be happy with her?" she asked.
"If she isn't very unhappy, I daresay I shan't be."
"Ah!" she said with a sort of despairing sigh.
"But I don't suppose I should make anybody particularly happy."
"Yes, yes," she cried in low-voiced impetuosity.
"Yes, if——" She stopped. Fear was in her eyes now, and she scanned my face with a close jealous intensity. I knew what her fear was, her own expression of it echoed back across the years. She feared that she had given me occasion to laugh at her. I bent down, took her hand, and kissed it lightly.
"Perhaps, had all the world been different," said I, with a smile.
"I'm terribly changed?"
"No; not terribly, and not much. How has it been with you?"
Her nervousness seemed to be passing off; she answered me in a sincere simplicity that would neither exaggerate nor hide.
"All that is good, short of the best," she said. "And with you?"
"Shall I say all that is bad, short of the worst?"
"We shouldn't mean very different things."
"No; not very. I've done many foolish things."
"Have you? They all say that you fill your place well."
"I have paid high to do it."
"What you thought high when you paid," she said, smiling sadly.
I would not do her the wrong of any pretence; she was entitled to my honesty.
"I still think it high," I said, "but not too high."
"Nothing is too high?"
"But others must help to pay my score. You know that."
"Yes, I know it."
"And this girl will know it."
"She wouldn't have it otherwise."
"I know, I know, I know. She would not. It's strange to have you here now."
"Max would come. I didn't wish it. Yet—" She smiled for a moment and added: "Yet in a way I did wish it. I was drawn here. It seemed to concern me. Don't laugh. It seemed to be part of my story, too; I felt that I must be there to hear it. Are you laughing?"
"I've never laughed."
"You're good and kind and generous. No, I think you haven't. I'm glad of it, because——"
"Yes? Why?"
"Because even now I can't," she whispered. "No, don't think I mean—I mean a thing which would oblige you to laugh now. It's all over, all over. But that it should have been, Augustin?" My name slipped from unconscious lips. "That it should have been isn't bad to me; it's good. That's wicked? I can't help it. It's the thing—the thing of my life. I've no place like yours. I've nothing to make it come second. Ah, I'm forgetting againhow old I am. How you always make me forget it! I mustn't talk like this."
"We shall never, I suppose, talk like this again. You go back to Paris?"
"Yes, soon. I'm glad."
"But it's not hard to you now?"
She seemed to reflect, as though she were anxious to give me an answer accurately true.
"Not very hard now," she said at last, looking full at me. "Not very hard, but very constant, always with me. I love them all, all my folk. But it's always there."
"You mean—What do you mean? The thought of me?"
"Yes, or the thought that somehow I have just missed. I'm not miserable. And I like to dream—to be gorgeous, splendid, wicked in dreams." She gave a laugh and pressed my hand for a moment. "Toté grows pretty," she said. "Don't you think so?"
"Toté was unhappy with me, and I let her go. Yes, she's pretty; she won't be like you, though."
"I'll appeal to you again in five, in ten years," said she, smiling, pleased with my covert praise. "Oh, it's pleasant to see you again," she went on a moment later. "I'm a bad penitent. I wish I could be with you always. No, I am not dreaming now. I mean, just in Forstadt and seeing you."
"A moment ago you were glad to go back to Paris."
"Ah, you assume more ignorance of us than you have. Mayn't I be glad of one thing and wish another?"
"True; and men can do that too."
I felt the old charm of the quick word comingfrom the beautiful lips, the twofold appeal. Though passion was gone, pleasure in her remained; my love was dead. As I sat there I wished it alive again; I longed to be back in the storm of it, even though I must battle the storm again.
"After all," she said, with a glance at me, "I have my share in you. You can't think of your life without thinking of me. I'm something to you. I'm one among the many foolish things—You don't hate the foolish things?"
"On my soul, I believe not one of them; and if you're one, I love one of them."
"I like you to say that."
A long silence fell on us. The thing had not come in either of the fashions in which I had pictured it, neither in weariness nor in excitement. It came full with emotions, but emotions that were subdued shadows of themselves, of a mournful sweetness, bewailing their lost strength, yet shrinking from remembrance of it. Would we have gone back if we could? Now I could not answer the question. Yet we could weep, because to go back was impossible. But it was with a slight laugh that at last I rose to my feet to say good-bye.
"It's like you always to laugh at the end," she said, a little in reproach, but more, I think, in the pleasure of recognising what was part of her idea of me. "You used often to do it, even when you were—even before. You remember the first time of all—when we smiled at one another behind your mother's back? That oldest memory comforts me. Do you know why? I was never so many centuries older than you again. I'm not so many even now. You look old, I think, and seem old; if we're nearer together, it's your fault, not my merit. Well, youmust go. Ah, how you fill time! How you could have filled a woman's life!"
"Could have? Your mood is right."
"Surely she'll be happy with you? If you could love her?"
"Not even then. I'm not to her measure."
"Are you unhappy?"
"It's better than the worst, a great deal better. Good-bye."
I pressed her hand and kissed it. With a sudden seeming formality she curtseyed and kissed mine.
"I don't forget what you are," she said, "because I have fancied you as something besides. Good-bye, sire. Good-bye, Augustin."
"There's a name wanting."
"Ah, to Cæsar I said good-bye five years ago." The tears were in her eyes as I turned away and left her.
I had a fancy to walk back alone, as I had walked alone from her house on the day when I cut the bond between us that same five years ago. Having dismissed my carriage, I set out in the cool of the autumn evening as dusk had just fallen, and took my way through the decorated streets. Only three days more lay between the decorations and the occasion they were meant to grace. There was a hum of gaiety through all the town; they had begun their holiday-making, and the shops did splendid trade. They in Forstadt would have liked to marry me every year. Why not? I was to them a sign, a symbol, something they saw and spoke of, but not a man. I reviewed the troops every year. Why should I not be married every year? It would be but the smallest extension of my functions, and all on thelines of logic. I could imagine Princess Heinrich according amplest approval to the scheme.
Suddenly, as I passed in meditation through a quiet street, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I knew only one man who would stop me in that way. Was he here again, risen again, in Forstadt again, for work, or mirth, or mischief? He came in fitting with the visit I had paid. I turned and found his odd, wry smile on me, the knit brows and twinkling eyes. He lifted his hat and tossed back the iron-gray hair.
"I am come to the wedding, sire," said he, bowing.
"It would be incomplete without you, Wetter."
"And for another thing—for a treat, for a spectacle. They've written an epithalamium, haven't they?"
"Yes, some fool, according to his folly."
"It is to be sung at the opera the night before? At the gala performance!"
"You're as well up in the arrangements as Bederhof himself."
"I have cause. Whence come you, sire?"
"From paying a visit to the Countess von Sempach."
He burst into a laugh, but the look in his eyes forbade me to be offended.
"That's very whimsical too," he observed. "There's a smack of repetition about this. Is fate hard-up for new effects?"
"There's variety enough here for me. There were no decorations in the streets when I left her before."
"True, true; and—for I must return to my tidings—I bring you something new." He paused andenjoyed his smile at me. "Who sings the marriage song?" he asked.
"Heavens, man, I don't know! I'm not the manager. What is it to me who sings the song?"
"You would like it sung in tune?"
"Oh, unquestionably."
"Ah, well, she sings in tune," he said, nodding his head with an air of satisfaction. "She is not emotional, but she sings in tune."
"Does she, Wetter? Who is she?"
He stood looking at me for a moment, then broke into another laugh. I caught him by the arm; now I laughed myself.
"No, no?" I cried. "Fate doesn't joke, Wetter?"
"Fate jokes," said he. "It is Coralie who will sing your song. To-morrow they reach here, she and Struboff. Yes, sire, Coralie is to sing your song."
We stood looking at one another; we both were laughing. "It's a great chance in her career," he said.
"It's rather a curious chance in mine," said I.
"She sings it, she sings it," he cried, and with a last laugh turned and fairly ran away down the street, like a mischievous boy who has thrown his squib and flies from the scene in mirthful fear.
When Fortune jested she found in him quickwitted loving audience.