CHAPTER VIIGUESTS OF CHANCE"'Twould be a wildish destinyIf we, who thus together roamIn a strange land and far from home,Were in this place the Guests of Chance!Yet who would stop or fear to advance...?"WORDSWORTH."The Lord Burgrave is not at the castle. The gracious Lady Burgravine never receives visitors."—Thus Martin the gatekeeper, thrusting his ugly head out of thevasistasof the great nail-studded door.The last of the sunlight had faded. Grey and sheer rose the Burg walls and turrets above the visitors' heads; sheer and grey fell the mountainside away at their feet."Mark now, comrade, for here are we back in the Middle Ages," whispered Geiger-Hans to his companion. Aloud he cried to the porter, who was slowly withdrawing his countenance: "Half a minute, friend, and let us examine your statement. That the Lord Burgrave is away, I am aware; but that your lady does not receive has still to be proved. How if we two come upon the invitation of His Excellency himself? Consider me that."Through the gathering gloom Steven peered at the musician's mocking features. Martin the doorward stared in silence for a moment; then, with a great groaning of bars and grinding of keys, set the heavy door ajar—not to admit them, indeed, but that he might stare the closer."Martin," pursued the fiddler, gravely, "your name had better have been Thomas: you were born an unbeliever.""My orders are," said Martin, in surly tones, "to admit no one.""Fellow," said the fiddler, "a servant's orders, I take it, are not like the Ten Commandments, but subject to variations according to another's pleasure. What if I tell you that, knowing your master——""You? Know my master!" The doorward's teeth showed like an old dog's in a grin, half scorn, half doubt."Aye, we have but recently parted. By the same token, friend, he is now at Halberstadt and may be here to-morrow. Meanwhile, as it is damp and night falls, admit us to your stone hall and let us sit, for you will be wise to gaze at us a while longer before you take upon yourself to drive off the lord Burgrave's friend and the lady Burgravine's kinsman from doors to which they have been invited. Look at that gentleman. There is a gentleman for you, from the crown of his noble head to the sole of his high-born foot! And look at me! Ah, you know me! Geiger-Hans, am I not? Beware, Martin, great people have their disguises."Martin showed signs of agitation and yielding. Geiger-Hans, keeping him under the raillery of his glance, pursued his argumentative advantage:"Now, cease scratching that grey stubble, and I will tell thee what to do to save thee from a false step. Go thou to the gracious lady, and ask her if her lord has not advised her of the probable visit of two travellers, and request of her whether (these two gentlemen having presented themselves) it is not her wish, in obedience to her lord, that they should be admitted. Meanwhile, we shall sit on this bench, and I shall beguile my noble companion's weariness with a little air of music."The porter withdrew slowly, without another word, but not without casting backward glances of doubt upon the new-comers."How do you dare?" asked Steven, fixing almost awestruck eyes upon Geiger-Hans, who, nursing his instrument upon one knee, was coolly winding up the strings."Dare, I?" He twanged the cord, shook his head, and fell to screwing again. "Why should I not dare? What have I to fear? What have I to lose? We are sure of a welcome, I tell you—of a supper, and of a good joke.""Your magnificent audacity!" said Steven, sitting gingerly down at the end of the bench, and looking at the other's lean figure as if it had been that of the Prince of Lies himself. "Positively, I myself could hardly believe you were not speaking the truth.""And so I was," said the other, composedly. "Not one word but was solemn verity.""Oh, but stay! How come I to be kinsman to the Burgravine?""You are Austrian," quoth the musician. "So is she, as I happen to know. Both the finest flower of the Empire's aristocracy. If you're not related somewhere ... I'll eat my fiddle.""Upon my word!" ejaculated Steven, opening his eyes very wide. "I suppose it is on the same kind of plea that you have your acquaintance with the Burgrave. An intimate acquaintance?""Intimate. I have said so. The Burgrave of Wellenshausen is a type that is true to itself.""And he has invited us to visit the Burg?" Steven's tones broke into mirth."Indubitably." The player raised his fiddle and drew a long note from it that was a musical mockery of the young man's high key. "The husband who locks up a light-hearted wife alone in a solitary tower invites in terms most positive every gentleman of heart and spirit in the country to come and console her. M. de Wellenshausen is at Halberstadt, on the King's business—I was playing at the Crown Hotel. He will be here to-morrow. And he said to me: 'Friend'—mark you,friend(the Burgrave had dined satisfactorily; the wine is excellent at the Crown), 'you must come and play that tune at my castle.' He's fond of music, you see. 'Twas a promise. And the only person who will lie in the whole matter to-day is the noble lady Burgravine. She is dying by inches ofennui, and she will—be quite certain of it!—she will assure the porter that our visit has indeed been announced to her. 'Tis to be regretted, but such is the way of women who eat their hearts away in lonely strong houses."He caught his fiddle to his breast: liquid melody flowed out into the empty hall, and went echoing down long passages and up into vaulted roofs. Like rabbits from a warren, now a scullion popped a head out of some dark corner, now a rosy wench half opened a side door and peeped, smiling. There awoke all about the sleepy castle a sound of skirmishing and tittering; now a patter of bare feet; now the tramp of boots that no precautions could hush. At length the majestic form of the major-domo himself appeared before the vagrants, magnificent in his silver chain and silk stockings and buckle shoes. Geiger-Hans hushed his music and leaned over to Steven to whisper in his ear:"See, he has been putting on his grand garb of ceremony to deliver his lady's little lie.""The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow," said the butler, with a deep bow to Steven. He cast a fish-like eye of astonishment upon the fiddler, but, nevertheless, pursued: "Will your honour follow me to your apartment?" Again he stared at the musician, who nimbly rose and bowed.[image]"The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow,"said the butler, with a deep bow to Steven."My honour will also follow," he said blandly. "Our valise is on the donkey's back, at the door; see to it, my man."* * * * *If Geiger-Hans were surprised at his own success, it was only the humorous twitch of his eyebrows that betrayed the fact. He was of those, apparently, whose talent for seizing opportunities generally evoke the belief that they have created them."Comrades should share and share alike," said he presently, laying down Steven's brush, which he had been wielding dexterously on his own locks—"lend me a black ribbon for my queue—it is out of mode, but I am of the old stock. I have been shavedà veloursto-day—'twas an inspiration! A cloud of powder would complete me, but you new-century bucks know not of these refinements. Nay, but here is a pot of the finest Parma, as I live! For the chin and cheek ofmilordafter the razor, no doubt? Now shall you see how it became the countenance of a better-looking generation.—I think that black suit of yours so neatly folded in the corner of our valise is, perhaps, what would best grace my gravity. Yes. And a ruffle shirt.... Thank you. Ah! ... And those violet silk stockings."Steven stood hypnotized."Your eyes will positively drop out," said the fiddler, "if you stare any more." He drew a snuff-box from his discarded coat, and tapped it with his finger. "A pinch is but a poor thing, if a man has not a frill to his wrist," he said. And he was apparently not ill-pleased to see how Steven marvelled at the grace with which he swung his borrowed laces, the air with which he flipped an invisible atom from his cuff. He took a step, as though his legs had never known but silk. Steven's suit, if a little large, hung on his figure with a notable fitness."As I live!" cried Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg, with a loud laugh of discovery, "a gentleman, after all!"Geiger-Hans drew his black brows together with his swift frown."Your equal, you mean, doubtless?" said he, dryly. "You do me too great honour." Then his eyes softened again, as in his turn he surveyed his companion. "Come," said he, "I would give all my superior years for some of your youthful disabilities. I cherish no illusions as to which of us the fair Burgravine will deem the better worth her notice."And, indeed, when the two were ushered into the long, dim, tapestry-hung saloon, the bright eyes of the lady of the castle merely swept Geiger-Hans, amazingly distinguished as he was in his borrowed plumes, to rest with complacency on the youth who followed him.Steven held his head high, after the fashion of your shy, self-conscious fellow. But his head being one upon which Nature had set a noble stamp, this became it well. If there was pride in the arch of his eyebrow and the curl of his lip, there was, likewise, race to justify it. Betty, the Burgravine, could note as much between two flickers of her long eyelashes; note, too, that (thank goodness!) he wore none of those new, odious Cossack trousers, but kept to the fashion which made it worth while for a man to have a good line to his limb; note, furthermore, that plum-colour frac, maize waistcoat, and dove-grey kerseymeres make excellent harmony with rose taffeta. The lady had been created for courts, and even now, perched like a humming bird in the eyrie of a mountain eagle, moved in a gay, trifling atmosphere of her own. And, as he returned her gaze, Count Steven, who had also been constructed for the high places of life, felt that he was in his element once more."The—the gentlemen!" announced Niklaus, with a nervous giggle. He knew Geiger-Hans—as who did not that belonged to the country-side? But familiarity had not so far bred contempt, and neither he nor his compeers would have ventured to question anything the mysterious being chose to do. Had the fiddler desired himself to be announced as the Archangel Michael, or Prince Lucifer, or the Emperor Napoleon, or the Wandering Jew, Niklaus would scarcely have been surprised.The rose-red lady advanced a sweet little sandal and made a profound curtsey. Her classic top-knot of curls was richly dark, and so was the olive velvet of her cheek; but as she looked up slowly from her inclination, Steven was quite startled to find that her eyes opened blue as forget-me-nots."Gentlemen!" ejaculated she, translating Niklaus' clumsy Saxon German into tripping French—it being the tone of German Courts to speak French. The blue flowers of her eyes widened in surprise upon Geiger-Hans. She had not known there were twogentlemenwhen she looked forth from the window; only the goodly youth and his roadside guide. But this elderly person was a gentleman, no doubt about that, and a fine one, too.... Only, so old!And now he took the lead, as became his years."Madame la Comtesse," responded he; and even Steven, in spite of his Anglo-Austrian ear, could note the exquisite purity of his Gallic accent, "permit two travellers to express their gratitude for the generous alacrity with which you have granted them hospitality. We had lost our way——""Lost your way!" interrupted the lady; and an irrepressible smile curved her lips upwards."Yes, madam," pursued the other, imperturbably; "and, with the night coming on, in this wild and mountainous district, Heaven knows what might not have happened to us!""I know not what your destination may be, sir," answered she, drawing back with a faint air of haughtiness, "but surely yours is a strange itinerary that took an isolated crag on the road.""Madame," said he, "we gave ourselves infinite pains to attain this height."The glance towards herself, the touch at his heart, the bow, made of these words a delicate compliment. The line of her mouth began once more to waver."To have gone down again, madam, would have been impossible. Our itinerary, as you say, is perhaps difficult to explain. If I were to tell you that we took a wrong turning, my friend here would correct me, for he is convinced, madam, it was the right turning, since it brought him to your feet."Here Steven could do nothing but bow in his turn. This he did, however, with such youthful grace and so ardent a look, that his hostess melted outright into smiles."Sir—!" said she, coyly; and the young man felt he had been eloquent indeed."Count Steven Lee zu Waldorff-Kielmansegg," introduced Geiger-Hans, with a wave of his arm."Lee? ... Waldorff?" quoth she, surprised."Steven Lee in England, Waldorff-Kielmansegg in Austria," said the fiddler, blandly."O du mein lieber Oesterreich!" she exclaimed, singing; and the forget-me-not eyes became suffused with the tear of sensibility."Waldorff-Kielmansegg of Waldeck," enumerated the master of ceremonies; while Steven stood in dignity, conscious of his honours."Then we are cousins!" She clapped her soft palms; the rising emotion was forgotten in laughter. "Positively we are cousins. I am Schwartzenberg—Betty von Schwartzenberg—and my mother's second cousin, Rezy Lützow, married Tony Kielmansegg. You are welcome, my cousin."She held out her hand. He kissed it ceremoniously; and she, bending forward, sketched a butterfly salute on his forehead. It was the custom in his father's country; but he had lived long enough in England for it to have grown unfamiliar. His heart contracted with a delicious spasm, and the blood sang in his ears. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself holding the taper fingers close, found his lips upon them again.Perhaps the lady was displeased; but, if so, she cloaked the fact with a very pretty blush, and, as they drew apart, there could be no doubt but that the young visitor's position was established. She now looked expectantly towards the elder of her guests.He stood watching them with quizzical gaze, tapping his snuff-box, one leg becomingly advanced. She waited to hear a no less fine-sounding introduction. But as the waiting was prolonged to almost a hint of awkwardness:"Will you not," said she, "Cousin Kielmansegg, return Monsieur's good offices?"It was Count Steven's turn to blush."My friend," said the fiddler, after enjoying the poor youth's agony with a relentless eye for a second or two, "has been content to accept my companionship as entertaining and useful to himself without inquiring into my ancestry. But such indulgence, my gracious hostess, I cannot claim of you. Through all the noble blood that flows in your veins, there mingles, of course, still a drop of Mother Eve's. Permit me to make myself known to you as Jean, Seigneur de la Viole, Marquis de Grand-Chemin.... I lay but a couple of my poor titles at your feet."She pondered awhile, nibbling her little finger, her delicate eyebrows wrought as if in effort of memory. Then she said with gravity:"Your name, sir, has an ancient sound.""Madam," he responded, "I would not boast, but there is none more ancient in our world."Over again she pondered, looking down at the tip of her sandal. The blue eyes took stock afresh, and, thereupon, sunshine chased the gathering cloud from her face. With the air of one making up her mind to be amused without questioning:"You are welcome, too," she said, "Monsieur My Guest.""Ah, madam," responded he, "pity that this, the fairest of my titles, must needs be the most fleeting!"Tying a blue riband into a hasty knot as she came, entered Sidonia, almost at a run. All this time she had been striving to turn her heavy fair tresses into the fashionable top-knot, as demonstrated by Countess Betty—with what result her aunt's first glance of pity told her but too clearly. She halted in her rapid advance, and stood, blushing like a school-girl, unable to lift her eyes."Child," said the Burgravine, "here is my cousin, Count Kielmansegg, who could not pass by his kinswoman in exile without personally inquiring after her well-being." When Sidonia ventured a stealthy look, it was to find—oh, bitter moment!—that she was unrecognized. "And this gentleman——" pursued her aunt, with a small, sarcastic smile.The girl, bewildered, had begun her second curtsey, when she stopped herself with a cry of utter amazement—"Thou, Geiger-Onkel!""Madam," intervened the fiddler, gravely, addressing the Burgravine, "that is yet another of my honours—to young people who love my music, I am the Geiger-Onkel.""We are decidedlyen familleto-night," said the Burgravine, with a trace of acidity. "But here, child," she proceeded in a meaning tone, "your friend had better be known as Monsieur de la Viole.""Marquis de Grand-Chemin," insistently added the vagrant, with his courtly bow."Marquis de Grand-Chemin," admitted the lady. Nevertheless, it was the arm of her cousin, the mere Count, that she took to conduct her to the dining apartment.CHAPTER VIIIROSES OF TRIANON"As for the girl, she turned to her new being—Loved, if you will: she never named it so:Love comes unseen—we only see it go."AUSTIN DOBSON.The servants had retired: Master Geiger-Hans' promised supper-party was over. It had been to the full as succulent and as elegant as he had foretold. And now, holding the stem of a long cut-glass beaker between his second and third fingers, he was gazing abstractedly at the noble wine. Where were his thoughts, and why was he so dull all at once, with flower and silver before him, crystal and fine porcelain? With the ruby waiting in his cup, too—the ruby of that noble "Clos Vougeot" before which Bonaparte, the republican, on his way to Italy, had made his soldiers halt and present arms as to the prince of vintages! Geiger-Hans, who could sing over a hard crust by the dusty roadside and give thanks for the water of the mountain stream, had he had his violin in his hand now, its music would have been of tears.His eye moved. It rested first on the fresh briar-rose face of the girl with a strange look of tenderness; then it fell upon the Burgravine. Her plump, olive shoulders half out of her gown, her exquisite little doll face thrust forward—the whole of her an altar to admiration—she was offering herself in eagerness, in ecstasy, to the fire that was beginning to kindle in the hitherto decorous countenance of the youth opposite to her. And as the musician noted this, he frowned and his lips curled into contempt. Then his gaze sought Steven. He saw the flush upon the boy's cheek and the light in his eye; and his frown grew deeper. This trivial flame was none of his kindling.He turned in his chair and looked again keenly at the silent girl. There was something austere in the mantle of pride and shyness in which she had wrapped herself."Little Mamzell Sidonia!" said he, softly. She flashed a glance at him and her eyes filled. "Shall I make you some music?" His face relaxed into tenderness again as he spoke.She nodded. The corners of her mouth quivered; if she had said a word, she must have burst into sobs."She but put a pillow under his head," thought the fiddler, "and that was enough to make the flower of love blossom! Ah, youth! Poor heart!" Once more he regarded the other pair, who were now whispering."After the feast, the dance. What say you?" he cried."Oh, the dance, the dance!" exclaimed the Burgravine, leaping to her feet.—What a woman, what a puppet!"Then I will play to you," went on Geiger-Hans. And grinning Niklaus was despatched for his violin."It shall be a minuet," said the player after a pause, on the echo of a sigh.Then the Marquis de Grand-Chemin waved his bow with a flourish. The ruffles at his wrists flew, he took a step with a grace: it was as if a fragrance from dead Trianon roses were wafted in between the barbarous Gothic tapestries of the Burg."It is the dance of great ladies and fine gentlemen," he said, beginning a melody of bygone days, mingled with archness and subtle melancholy. And playing, he went on, his words winding themselves with a kind of lilt of their own into the garland of sounds: "You, sir, bow with your hand on your heart. You take her hand and you look into her eyes. 'Ah!' say you, eloquent though silent, 'to hold those delicate finger-tips, madam, through life ... to have the rapture of your sweet company ... then, indeed, would every step be music!' 'Oh, sir' (says she in the same language), 'you overpower me!' And with this she sinks from you into a curtsey that is all dignity, all grace. Again you bow—'of a verity you did not deserve her!' But what is this? Her hand is in yours again. Oh, this time you draw closer to her ... you hold her little hand aloft! The satin of her gown whispers to your damask—her shoulder for one instant touches yours—you lead her from right to left—with what pride, heavens! what respect! You turn her lovely form, by the merest hint of your adoring fingers, from that side to this, that all may see, and see again, the prize that has fallen to your lot....""We do not dance the minuet in our days," interrupted Steven, with bashful resentment.John of the Viol's delicate measures, that had rung half humorous, half pathetic, wholly sweet, as memories of past delights must ever be, ceased abruptly. He gave the young man a dark look as he held his bow aloft."No," said he, "you are right. The minuet has gone to the guillotine. France has brought new dances into fashion:Ça ira, Ça ira ... Dansons la carmagnole!" His face grew terrible as he struck the notes of the blood-stained gutter-song into his strings. "New dances for France, that she may dance to her death!...""Fie, the ugly tune!" said Countess Betty. No shadow of the musician's tragic passion was reflected upon her face. "Monsieur le Marquis, play us a valse!" She caught joyfully at her own suggestion as a child its ball. "A valse, a valse! Beau Cousin of Kielmansegg, they tell me 'tis the rage. A pin for your old minuets!""A valse be it!" said Geiger-Hans. Anger was upon him, and he made his violin chant it, setting it and the brutal irony of the "Ça ira" to the rhythm of a fantastic valse. "Twirl, vapid heart and empty head! Hold her, prance round with her, feel your goat's legs growing, you who might have lifted your head with the gods and known the matchless rapture of the heights! Is it for this that you are young?"Faster and faster went the music, fevered, with mad, shrill skirl; and faster the whirling. Beau Cousin began to pant. He held Belle Cousine so close to him that she, too, scarce could breathe. Loose flew her hair—one little sleeve almost broke across the heaving shoulder. Sidonia could look no longer; she turned to the window and leaned her hot cheek against the pane, staring at the stars with burning eyes. Something clutched at her heart and throat with a fierce grip.Without warning, Geiger-Hans brought his bow across his strings with a tearing sound, and, as if a sharp sword had fallen between them, the dancers fell apart, astonished and not a little confused.Steven staggered and caught at the chair behind him. The Burgrave's lady put a hand to her dishevelled tresses, then to the laces at her bosom and grew scarlet: brow and cheek, throat and shoulder."You no longer dance the minuet?" said Geiger-Hans, with a little laugh, picking at his now placid strings; and Steven thought that the man had the laugh of a devil and that it was echoed by his instrument. "Oh, you have a thousand reasons, sir, and so has madame, for the valse is a fuller measure. Gracious lady, you are out of breath. May I sit beside you awhile? And you, sir, will you not expound the first principles of this—this graceful and elegant pastime to mademoiselle yonder, whose youth has yet to learn the new fashion? Is it not right, Burgravine, that these young things, after all, should foregather, while you and I look on—you, the staid, married woman; I, the old man?"She answered him not, save by a look of wondering offence."Ah, madam," he went on, as he sat down beside her, "and you are angry with your lord and master because he shuts you up in this strong-house? But, good heavens, it is the proof of his loving appreciation of your value.""Oh, ay!" she answered in high contempt, "it is a sign of strong affection, doubtless.""Madam, he lays his treasure where thieves cannot attain it. At least, poor man, so he fondly trusts!""And therefore the unhappy treasure is to be consumed by moth and rust," retorted the lady."Madam," said the fiddler, in a low voice, "I imagine that the owner of the treasure had reason to fear a more indelible stain——""How dare you!" she flashed upon him.But he was picking his violin with a pensive air. Then he suddenly looked up at her and smiled."Ah! most gracious one, if I were the happy possessor of a bird of such brilliant plumage as yourself, I would——" He paused."You would what? Pray proceed." She was waiting for her triumph."I would open wide all the doors and bid it fly."And then she called to him again, "How dare you!" And so insulted was she that there came a sob into her throat."You see," said he, drawing an accompaniment of whispering notes to his words, "that, after all, it is monsieur your husband's point of view that you think the more complimentary.""He should trust me," she whimpered."Madam, who knows?" he responded; "stranger things have come to pass. Some day, perhaps, the bird will not crave for flight; it may cling to the nest."His fingers moved delicately; the bow swung with the gentle pliancy of some green bough of spring—it was a measure of engaging rhythm and playfulness; yet soft, soft as, under the eaves, the swallow's note at dawn.Fascinated, she cried, under her breath: "What is it?"He answered her, "A cradle song——" and stopped.His own face had altered indescribably. His restless eye had grown fixed and wistful. Little Madame de Wellenshausen hung her head, and—wonderful indeed—a tear gathered and fell!* * * * *Whilst Geiger-Hans thus engaged his hostess, Steven Lee, with slow steps, had gone across the room to the girlish figure by the window. He had grown to believe that the wanderer had some uncanny power by which he enforced his will, after the fashion of that Mesmer of whom one had heard so much. Sidonia turned upon him, with a sudden jerk of her chin, a flash of her eye, as he halted beside her. Upon which he exclaimed in amazement:"Why, great heavens, you are the girl of the forest house!""You have not, I think, sir," she answered him, "eyes that see quick or far; it is, no doubt, your town breeding."The colour was slowly fading from her cheeks. She held herself very stiff and proud. But he was still all eager over his discovery."Geiger-Hans told me how you brought me your pillow," said he, "when I lay hurt in the forest.""I would have done the same to a sick dog," said she."You cried over me when you thought I was dead, he said," exclaimed Steven, stung by her contempt."Had I known you better, sir——"Her eyes were bright and hard, her lip was a curve of scorn and her chin a tilted defiance. But all at once he saw that, under the close-clinging fabric of her short-waisted gown, her heart was beating like a madly frightened bird in the fowler's net. The knot of blue ribands upon her bosom danced with its fluttering. And there came upon him a desire, at once tender and cruel, to feel that beating heart beneath his hand. He gave a short laugh."Shall I teach you the valse?" he said, leaning forward. "It is quite easy—just my arm about you, and the music does the rest."She shrank back with a look that would have blasted him."Do not dare to touch me!" Though her heart palpitated into her very voice, she held her head high as the hind in the forest and went on: "I might have danced that minuet, as Geiger-Onkel put it into music. But I don't like your manner of dancing, sir—nor your English manners at all. It would be best if people stayed in their own country." And then, while he stood, as if her childish hand had struck him, she passed from him, paused for a moment before her aunt and the fiddler, who were still sitting together in silence: "I am going to sleep," she said, and went proudly out of the room.Geiger-Hans had shaken off his musing fit. He laughed out loud."What, comrade, won't mademoiselle learn the valse from you, after so pretty a display?"Madame gazed down at her feet, as they peeped side by side from the hem of her garment, looking, the little humbugs, the pink of innocent propriety. She was subdued, even frightened, and her small heart was unwontedly stirred within her."Our evening is finished," said the Marquis de Grand-Chemin, rising with his great air. "Madam, this gentleman and I must march out with the dawn. Permit us now to offer you our very respectful gratitude, and to retire."She held out her hand, and he took the tips of her fingers, bowing low. She curtseyed. They might have been in his minuet now, but it was with the music left out."Good-bye, my cousin," she said timidly. And "Good-bye" said he. They stood stiffly before each other, like two children found at fault. She was longing to tell him that it must not be "good-bye" between her and him. But the fiddler's eye was upon them.* * * * *Steven felt the world very flat, even on a mountain strong-house, as he sat down in the state bedroom and began with a yawn to unwind the folds of his stock. Next door Geiger-Hans had locked himself in. He had not spoken to his companion since they had entered their apartment. Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg felt that he was in disgrace with the roadside fiddler, and the sensation was curiously uncomfortable. Suddenly the door was opened and his companion walked in. He was clad once more in his own shabby suit, and across his arms carried the borrowed garments.One by one he laid them down neatly in the valise, rolling up the violet silk stockings at the last."Continue," said he, "my friend, to develop the growth of those goat legs of yours; it will save you in hosiery.—Pulchrum ornatum, turpes mores.... Need I quote further?""Upon my soul!" cried the young man, "I don't understand what you mean!" But his cheek crimsoned."You disgraced me to-night," said Geiger-Hans. "What, sir! I have the kindness to bring you up here that you may snatch a delicate, courtlike comedy from a lost century, and you turn it into a gross latter-day romp. I bring you from an alehouse into a castle, but you must needs drag up your Teniers with you and spoil my Watteau! I play you a minuet, but what appeals to you is to clutch and to gambade and——""You made the music, man," interrupted Steven, sulky as a schoolboy. "And it was she who asked for a valse.""Mon Dieu!" went on the fiddler, passionately; "it may be that we were no better as to morals, in my youth, than you are nowadays, but at least we took our pleasure like gentlemen. If we plucked a rose, we did it with a grace—between two fingers; we did not tear it with the fist. We did not seize a lady round the body and prance with her like hind and milkmaid; what favours we took we bent the knee to receive. Oh, sir, how little fragrance remains in the flower you mangle thus in your grasp! Three things there are, young man, that he who understands life must touch with fingers of gossamer—a subtle pleasantry, a lady's discretion, the illusions of a maiden's heart. You have laid brute hands on all three to-night.—Fie! you have spoiled my evening."The contrast between the man in his humble clothes and the arrogant culture of his speech suddenly struck Steven to such a degree that he forgot to be angry in his eagerness to catch further self-betrayal from the fantastic enigma. Become aware of his eye and smile, the fiddler broke off abruptly and, for the first time in their acquaintance, looked disconcerted. Then he gave a good-humoured laugh, and his brow cleared."Blind, blind!" he resumed. "Why, was she not worthy of one look, the child in her virginal grace? When I came across you again to-day, under the shadow of the Burg, my heart leaped like a little hare. 'Here is one now,' I told myself, 'who is learning worthily the value of his youth. He shall yet learn of a better than I: for youth must to youth—the creatures of spring to each other.' I resolved, God willing, that the fair romance that fortune had brought across your path in the forest should not, after all, close at the first page. It was but cloud-building; it was but a spring fancy in an autumn dream—fancy of an old fool! Why, you did not even recognize her! Yet she held your head on her knees, when you were hurt. You were a knight to her, all gallant—and now!""She seems an ill-mannered child," said Steven, sullenly."She is as lovely as the woods at dawn—young, reluctant, mysterious, chill. When I approach her, it is with my hat in my hand. If I were young like you, I should kneel to her. The set of her head, the line of her little throat——" His voice grew suddenly husky. "Her little throat——" he repeated.And Steven, he knew not why, had an impression of a sadness so piercing that he dropped his eyes and dared not look at Geiger-Hans again.After a while, with a change of voice: "I will wake you at sunrise," said the musician. "I have promised the children to play for them before school. Besides, I must see you safely to the foot of the hill, ere we part, Count Comrade, having brought you up so high, else heaven knows what fall might not be in store for you!"And on this he left the room once more.* * * * *The crescent moon, very delicate and soul-satisfying, hung in a wreath of watery mist, high in the sky; far down, the plain was wrapt away in white vapour. The rugged walls of the Burg, even its rocky foundations, seemed poised between heaven and earth amid these floating wreaths of immateriality. It was a strange sight. The fiddler sat on the sill of the deep window embrasure, his knees drawn towards his chin, for it was but a narrow space, and his eyes wandered out through the open casement over the unsubstantial world. He looked forth. Downward the gleaming rock emerged into stern reality, out of a dream of vapour. He looked up: the shredded mists were scudding over a faint sky, carrying the moon along, it seemed, with incredible swiftness.The wanderer sighed. Sorrow went with him in all his ways, though he held so mocking a front to life. It was luxury now and then in the hour of solitude to fall into that deep embrace, and give his very soul to those bitter lips.* * * * *Very unwilling was Steven Lee to rise after a poor night. And very ill-humoured was he as they set out at last, with their donkey, breakfastless, together. There was no joy or mystery in the morn; it granted them but white mists that wet like rain and clung close as they descended.The fiddler was silent, absorbed in his own thought, and paid small heed to his companion's moodiness.As they crossed the bridge, a travelling-chaise, escorted by three dragoons, came through the haze towards them, passed them at full thunder, and drew up with a clatter some hundred yards beyond. Geiger-Hans smiled sardonically."There goes the lord of Wellenshausen to surprise his fond little wife! He is a trifle earlier on the road than I expected. Did I not do well to hurry your toilet? Who knows, you might have been hurried in still more disagreeable fashion.... Well, the episode is over; and though you have much disappointed me, young sir——""But what will she tell him about our visit?" interrupted Steven, with some anxiety.Geiger-Hans remained silent for a few paces."That," he answered at last, "is a matter for illimitable fancy."
CHAPTER VII
GUESTS OF CHANCE
"'Twould be a wildish destinyIf we, who thus together roamIn a strange land and far from home,Were in this place the Guests of Chance!Yet who would stop or fear to advance...?"WORDSWORTH.
"'Twould be a wildish destinyIf we, who thus together roamIn a strange land and far from home,Were in this place the Guests of Chance!Yet who would stop or fear to advance...?"WORDSWORTH.
"'Twould be a wildish destiny
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange land and far from home,
Were in this place the Guests of Chance!
Yet who would stop or fear to advance...?"
WORDSWORTH.
WORDSWORTH.
"The Lord Burgrave is not at the castle. The gracious Lady Burgravine never receives visitors."—Thus Martin the gatekeeper, thrusting his ugly head out of thevasistasof the great nail-studded door.
The last of the sunlight had faded. Grey and sheer rose the Burg walls and turrets above the visitors' heads; sheer and grey fell the mountainside away at their feet.
"Mark now, comrade, for here are we back in the Middle Ages," whispered Geiger-Hans to his companion. Aloud he cried to the porter, who was slowly withdrawing his countenance: "Half a minute, friend, and let us examine your statement. That the Lord Burgrave is away, I am aware; but that your lady does not receive has still to be proved. How if we two come upon the invitation of His Excellency himself? Consider me that."
Through the gathering gloom Steven peered at the musician's mocking features. Martin the doorward stared in silence for a moment; then, with a great groaning of bars and grinding of keys, set the heavy door ajar—not to admit them, indeed, but that he might stare the closer.
"Martin," pursued the fiddler, gravely, "your name had better have been Thomas: you were born an unbeliever."
"My orders are," said Martin, in surly tones, "to admit no one."
"Fellow," said the fiddler, "a servant's orders, I take it, are not like the Ten Commandments, but subject to variations according to another's pleasure. What if I tell you that, knowing your master——"
"You? Know my master!" The doorward's teeth showed like an old dog's in a grin, half scorn, half doubt.
"Aye, we have but recently parted. By the same token, friend, he is now at Halberstadt and may be here to-morrow. Meanwhile, as it is damp and night falls, admit us to your stone hall and let us sit, for you will be wise to gaze at us a while longer before you take upon yourself to drive off the lord Burgrave's friend and the lady Burgravine's kinsman from doors to which they have been invited. Look at that gentleman. There is a gentleman for you, from the crown of his noble head to the sole of his high-born foot! And look at me! Ah, you know me! Geiger-Hans, am I not? Beware, Martin, great people have their disguises."
Martin showed signs of agitation and yielding. Geiger-Hans, keeping him under the raillery of his glance, pursued his argumentative advantage:
"Now, cease scratching that grey stubble, and I will tell thee what to do to save thee from a false step. Go thou to the gracious lady, and ask her if her lord has not advised her of the probable visit of two travellers, and request of her whether (these two gentlemen having presented themselves) it is not her wish, in obedience to her lord, that they should be admitted. Meanwhile, we shall sit on this bench, and I shall beguile my noble companion's weariness with a little air of music."
The porter withdrew slowly, without another word, but not without casting backward glances of doubt upon the new-comers.
"How do you dare?" asked Steven, fixing almost awestruck eyes upon Geiger-Hans, who, nursing his instrument upon one knee, was coolly winding up the strings.
"Dare, I?" He twanged the cord, shook his head, and fell to screwing again. "Why should I not dare? What have I to fear? What have I to lose? We are sure of a welcome, I tell you—of a supper, and of a good joke."
"Your magnificent audacity!" said Steven, sitting gingerly down at the end of the bench, and looking at the other's lean figure as if it had been that of the Prince of Lies himself. "Positively, I myself could hardly believe you were not speaking the truth."
"And so I was," said the other, composedly. "Not one word but was solemn verity."
"Oh, but stay! How come I to be kinsman to the Burgravine?"
"You are Austrian," quoth the musician. "So is she, as I happen to know. Both the finest flower of the Empire's aristocracy. If you're not related somewhere ... I'll eat my fiddle."
"Upon my word!" ejaculated Steven, opening his eyes very wide. "I suppose it is on the same kind of plea that you have your acquaintance with the Burgrave. An intimate acquaintance?"
"Intimate. I have said so. The Burgrave of Wellenshausen is a type that is true to itself."
"And he has invited us to visit the Burg?" Steven's tones broke into mirth.
"Indubitably." The player raised his fiddle and drew a long note from it that was a musical mockery of the young man's high key. "The husband who locks up a light-hearted wife alone in a solitary tower invites in terms most positive every gentleman of heart and spirit in the country to come and console her. M. de Wellenshausen is at Halberstadt, on the King's business—I was playing at the Crown Hotel. He will be here to-morrow. And he said to me: 'Friend'—mark you,friend(the Burgrave had dined satisfactorily; the wine is excellent at the Crown), 'you must come and play that tune at my castle.' He's fond of music, you see. 'Twas a promise. And the only person who will lie in the whole matter to-day is the noble lady Burgravine. She is dying by inches ofennui, and she will—be quite certain of it!—she will assure the porter that our visit has indeed been announced to her. 'Tis to be regretted, but such is the way of women who eat their hearts away in lonely strong houses."
He caught his fiddle to his breast: liquid melody flowed out into the empty hall, and went echoing down long passages and up into vaulted roofs. Like rabbits from a warren, now a scullion popped a head out of some dark corner, now a rosy wench half opened a side door and peeped, smiling. There awoke all about the sleepy castle a sound of skirmishing and tittering; now a patter of bare feet; now the tramp of boots that no precautions could hush. At length the majestic form of the major-domo himself appeared before the vagrants, magnificent in his silver chain and silk stockings and buckle shoes. Geiger-Hans hushed his music and leaned over to Steven to whisper in his ear:
"See, he has been putting on his grand garb of ceremony to deliver his lady's little lie."
"The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow," said the butler, with a deep bow to Steven. He cast a fish-like eye of astonishment upon the fiddler, but, nevertheless, pursued: "Will your honour follow me to your apartment?" Again he stared at the musician, who nimbly rose and bowed.
[image]"The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow,"said the butler, with a deep bow to Steven.
[image]
[image]
"The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow,"said the butler, with a deep bow to Steven.
"My honour will also follow," he said blandly. "Our valise is on the donkey's back, at the door; see to it, my man."
* * * * *
If Geiger-Hans were surprised at his own success, it was only the humorous twitch of his eyebrows that betrayed the fact. He was of those, apparently, whose talent for seizing opportunities generally evoke the belief that they have created them.
"Comrades should share and share alike," said he presently, laying down Steven's brush, which he had been wielding dexterously on his own locks—"lend me a black ribbon for my queue—it is out of mode, but I am of the old stock. I have been shavedà veloursto-day—'twas an inspiration! A cloud of powder would complete me, but you new-century bucks know not of these refinements. Nay, but here is a pot of the finest Parma, as I live! For the chin and cheek ofmilordafter the razor, no doubt? Now shall you see how it became the countenance of a better-looking generation.—I think that black suit of yours so neatly folded in the corner of our valise is, perhaps, what would best grace my gravity. Yes. And a ruffle shirt.... Thank you. Ah! ... And those violet silk stockings."
Steven stood hypnotized.
"Your eyes will positively drop out," said the fiddler, "if you stare any more." He drew a snuff-box from his discarded coat, and tapped it with his finger. "A pinch is but a poor thing, if a man has not a frill to his wrist," he said. And he was apparently not ill-pleased to see how Steven marvelled at the grace with which he swung his borrowed laces, the air with which he flipped an invisible atom from his cuff. He took a step, as though his legs had never known but silk. Steven's suit, if a little large, hung on his figure with a notable fitness.
"As I live!" cried Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg, with a loud laugh of discovery, "a gentleman, after all!"
Geiger-Hans drew his black brows together with his swift frown.
"Your equal, you mean, doubtless?" said he, dryly. "You do me too great honour." Then his eyes softened again, as in his turn he surveyed his companion. "Come," said he, "I would give all my superior years for some of your youthful disabilities. I cherish no illusions as to which of us the fair Burgravine will deem the better worth her notice."
And, indeed, when the two were ushered into the long, dim, tapestry-hung saloon, the bright eyes of the lady of the castle merely swept Geiger-Hans, amazingly distinguished as he was in his borrowed plumes, to rest with complacency on the youth who followed him.
Steven held his head high, after the fashion of your shy, self-conscious fellow. But his head being one upon which Nature had set a noble stamp, this became it well. If there was pride in the arch of his eyebrow and the curl of his lip, there was, likewise, race to justify it. Betty, the Burgravine, could note as much between two flickers of her long eyelashes; note, too, that (thank goodness!) he wore none of those new, odious Cossack trousers, but kept to the fashion which made it worth while for a man to have a good line to his limb; note, furthermore, that plum-colour frac, maize waistcoat, and dove-grey kerseymeres make excellent harmony with rose taffeta. The lady had been created for courts, and even now, perched like a humming bird in the eyrie of a mountain eagle, moved in a gay, trifling atmosphere of her own. And, as he returned her gaze, Count Steven, who had also been constructed for the high places of life, felt that he was in his element once more.
"The—the gentlemen!" announced Niklaus, with a nervous giggle. He knew Geiger-Hans—as who did not that belonged to the country-side? But familiarity had not so far bred contempt, and neither he nor his compeers would have ventured to question anything the mysterious being chose to do. Had the fiddler desired himself to be announced as the Archangel Michael, or Prince Lucifer, or the Emperor Napoleon, or the Wandering Jew, Niklaus would scarcely have been surprised.
The rose-red lady advanced a sweet little sandal and made a profound curtsey. Her classic top-knot of curls was richly dark, and so was the olive velvet of her cheek; but as she looked up slowly from her inclination, Steven was quite startled to find that her eyes opened blue as forget-me-nots.
"Gentlemen!" ejaculated she, translating Niklaus' clumsy Saxon German into tripping French—it being the tone of German Courts to speak French. The blue flowers of her eyes widened in surprise upon Geiger-Hans. She had not known there were twogentlemenwhen she looked forth from the window; only the goodly youth and his roadside guide. But this elderly person was a gentleman, no doubt about that, and a fine one, too.... Only, so old!
And now he took the lead, as became his years.
"Madame la Comtesse," responded he; and even Steven, in spite of his Anglo-Austrian ear, could note the exquisite purity of his Gallic accent, "permit two travellers to express their gratitude for the generous alacrity with which you have granted them hospitality. We had lost our way——"
"Lost your way!" interrupted the lady; and an irrepressible smile curved her lips upwards.
"Yes, madam," pursued the other, imperturbably; "and, with the night coming on, in this wild and mountainous district, Heaven knows what might not have happened to us!"
"I know not what your destination may be, sir," answered she, drawing back with a faint air of haughtiness, "but surely yours is a strange itinerary that took an isolated crag on the road."
"Madame," said he, "we gave ourselves infinite pains to attain this height."
The glance towards herself, the touch at his heart, the bow, made of these words a delicate compliment. The line of her mouth began once more to waver.
"To have gone down again, madam, would have been impossible. Our itinerary, as you say, is perhaps difficult to explain. If I were to tell you that we took a wrong turning, my friend here would correct me, for he is convinced, madam, it was the right turning, since it brought him to your feet."
Here Steven could do nothing but bow in his turn. This he did, however, with such youthful grace and so ardent a look, that his hostess melted outright into smiles.
"Sir—!" said she, coyly; and the young man felt he had been eloquent indeed.
"Count Steven Lee zu Waldorff-Kielmansegg," introduced Geiger-Hans, with a wave of his arm.
"Lee? ... Waldorff?" quoth she, surprised.
"Steven Lee in England, Waldorff-Kielmansegg in Austria," said the fiddler, blandly.
"O du mein lieber Oesterreich!" she exclaimed, singing; and the forget-me-not eyes became suffused with the tear of sensibility.
"Waldorff-Kielmansegg of Waldeck," enumerated the master of ceremonies; while Steven stood in dignity, conscious of his honours.
"Then we are cousins!" She clapped her soft palms; the rising emotion was forgotten in laughter. "Positively we are cousins. I am Schwartzenberg—Betty von Schwartzenberg—and my mother's second cousin, Rezy Lützow, married Tony Kielmansegg. You are welcome, my cousin."
She held out her hand. He kissed it ceremoniously; and she, bending forward, sketched a butterfly salute on his forehead. It was the custom in his father's country; but he had lived long enough in England for it to have grown unfamiliar. His heart contracted with a delicious spasm, and the blood sang in his ears. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself holding the taper fingers close, found his lips upon them again.
Perhaps the lady was displeased; but, if so, she cloaked the fact with a very pretty blush, and, as they drew apart, there could be no doubt but that the young visitor's position was established. She now looked expectantly towards the elder of her guests.
He stood watching them with quizzical gaze, tapping his snuff-box, one leg becomingly advanced. She waited to hear a no less fine-sounding introduction. But as the waiting was prolonged to almost a hint of awkwardness:
"Will you not," said she, "Cousin Kielmansegg, return Monsieur's good offices?"
It was Count Steven's turn to blush.
"My friend," said the fiddler, after enjoying the poor youth's agony with a relentless eye for a second or two, "has been content to accept my companionship as entertaining and useful to himself without inquiring into my ancestry. But such indulgence, my gracious hostess, I cannot claim of you. Through all the noble blood that flows in your veins, there mingles, of course, still a drop of Mother Eve's. Permit me to make myself known to you as Jean, Seigneur de la Viole, Marquis de Grand-Chemin.... I lay but a couple of my poor titles at your feet."
She pondered awhile, nibbling her little finger, her delicate eyebrows wrought as if in effort of memory. Then she said with gravity:
"Your name, sir, has an ancient sound."
"Madam," he responded, "I would not boast, but there is none more ancient in our world."
Over again she pondered, looking down at the tip of her sandal. The blue eyes took stock afresh, and, thereupon, sunshine chased the gathering cloud from her face. With the air of one making up her mind to be amused without questioning:
"You are welcome, too," she said, "Monsieur My Guest."
"Ah, madam," responded he, "pity that this, the fairest of my titles, must needs be the most fleeting!"
Tying a blue riband into a hasty knot as she came, entered Sidonia, almost at a run. All this time she had been striving to turn her heavy fair tresses into the fashionable top-knot, as demonstrated by Countess Betty—with what result her aunt's first glance of pity told her but too clearly. She halted in her rapid advance, and stood, blushing like a school-girl, unable to lift her eyes.
"Child," said the Burgravine, "here is my cousin, Count Kielmansegg, who could not pass by his kinswoman in exile without personally inquiring after her well-being." When Sidonia ventured a stealthy look, it was to find—oh, bitter moment!—that she was unrecognized. "And this gentleman——" pursued her aunt, with a small, sarcastic smile.
The girl, bewildered, had begun her second curtsey, when she stopped herself with a cry of utter amazement—
"Thou, Geiger-Onkel!"
"Madam," intervened the fiddler, gravely, addressing the Burgravine, "that is yet another of my honours—to young people who love my music, I am the Geiger-Onkel."
"We are decidedlyen familleto-night," said the Burgravine, with a trace of acidity. "But here, child," she proceeded in a meaning tone, "your friend had better be known as Monsieur de la Viole."
"Marquis de Grand-Chemin," insistently added the vagrant, with his courtly bow.
"Marquis de Grand-Chemin," admitted the lady. Nevertheless, it was the arm of her cousin, the mere Count, that she took to conduct her to the dining apartment.
CHAPTER VIII
ROSES OF TRIANON
"As for the girl, she turned to her new being—Loved, if you will: she never named it so:Love comes unseen—we only see it go."AUSTIN DOBSON.
"As for the girl, she turned to her new being—Loved, if you will: she never named it so:Love comes unseen—we only see it go."AUSTIN DOBSON.
"As for the girl, she turned to her new being—
Loved, if you will: she never named it so:
Love comes unseen—we only see it go."
AUSTIN DOBSON.
AUSTIN DOBSON.
The servants had retired: Master Geiger-Hans' promised supper-party was over. It had been to the full as succulent and as elegant as he had foretold. And now, holding the stem of a long cut-glass beaker between his second and third fingers, he was gazing abstractedly at the noble wine. Where were his thoughts, and why was he so dull all at once, with flower and silver before him, crystal and fine porcelain? With the ruby waiting in his cup, too—the ruby of that noble "Clos Vougeot" before which Bonaparte, the republican, on his way to Italy, had made his soldiers halt and present arms as to the prince of vintages! Geiger-Hans, who could sing over a hard crust by the dusty roadside and give thanks for the water of the mountain stream, had he had his violin in his hand now, its music would have been of tears.
His eye moved. It rested first on the fresh briar-rose face of the girl with a strange look of tenderness; then it fell upon the Burgravine. Her plump, olive shoulders half out of her gown, her exquisite little doll face thrust forward—the whole of her an altar to admiration—she was offering herself in eagerness, in ecstasy, to the fire that was beginning to kindle in the hitherto decorous countenance of the youth opposite to her. And as the musician noted this, he frowned and his lips curled into contempt. Then his gaze sought Steven. He saw the flush upon the boy's cheek and the light in his eye; and his frown grew deeper. This trivial flame was none of his kindling.
He turned in his chair and looked again keenly at the silent girl. There was something austere in the mantle of pride and shyness in which she had wrapped herself.
"Little Mamzell Sidonia!" said he, softly. She flashed a glance at him and her eyes filled. "Shall I make you some music?" His face relaxed into tenderness again as he spoke.
She nodded. The corners of her mouth quivered; if she had said a word, she must have burst into sobs.
"She but put a pillow under his head," thought the fiddler, "and that was enough to make the flower of love blossom! Ah, youth! Poor heart!" Once more he regarded the other pair, who were now whispering.
"After the feast, the dance. What say you?" he cried.
"Oh, the dance, the dance!" exclaimed the Burgravine, leaping to her feet.—What a woman, what a puppet!
"Then I will play to you," went on Geiger-Hans. And grinning Niklaus was despatched for his violin.
"It shall be a minuet," said the player after a pause, on the echo of a sigh.
Then the Marquis de Grand-Chemin waved his bow with a flourish. The ruffles at his wrists flew, he took a step with a grace: it was as if a fragrance from dead Trianon roses were wafted in between the barbarous Gothic tapestries of the Burg.
"It is the dance of great ladies and fine gentlemen," he said, beginning a melody of bygone days, mingled with archness and subtle melancholy. And playing, he went on, his words winding themselves with a kind of lilt of their own into the garland of sounds: "You, sir, bow with your hand on your heart. You take her hand and you look into her eyes. 'Ah!' say you, eloquent though silent, 'to hold those delicate finger-tips, madam, through life ... to have the rapture of your sweet company ... then, indeed, would every step be music!' 'Oh, sir' (says she in the same language), 'you overpower me!' And with this she sinks from you into a curtsey that is all dignity, all grace. Again you bow—'of a verity you did not deserve her!' But what is this? Her hand is in yours again. Oh, this time you draw closer to her ... you hold her little hand aloft! The satin of her gown whispers to your damask—her shoulder for one instant touches yours—you lead her from right to left—with what pride, heavens! what respect! You turn her lovely form, by the merest hint of your adoring fingers, from that side to this, that all may see, and see again, the prize that has fallen to your lot...."
"We do not dance the minuet in our days," interrupted Steven, with bashful resentment.
John of the Viol's delicate measures, that had rung half humorous, half pathetic, wholly sweet, as memories of past delights must ever be, ceased abruptly. He gave the young man a dark look as he held his bow aloft.
"No," said he, "you are right. The minuet has gone to the guillotine. France has brought new dances into fashion:Ça ira, Ça ira ... Dansons la carmagnole!" His face grew terrible as he struck the notes of the blood-stained gutter-song into his strings. "New dances for France, that she may dance to her death!..."
"Fie, the ugly tune!" said Countess Betty. No shadow of the musician's tragic passion was reflected upon her face. "Monsieur le Marquis, play us a valse!" She caught joyfully at her own suggestion as a child its ball. "A valse, a valse! Beau Cousin of Kielmansegg, they tell me 'tis the rage. A pin for your old minuets!"
"A valse be it!" said Geiger-Hans. Anger was upon him, and he made his violin chant it, setting it and the brutal irony of the "Ça ira" to the rhythm of a fantastic valse. "Twirl, vapid heart and empty head! Hold her, prance round with her, feel your goat's legs growing, you who might have lifted your head with the gods and known the matchless rapture of the heights! Is it for this that you are young?"
Faster and faster went the music, fevered, with mad, shrill skirl; and faster the whirling. Beau Cousin began to pant. He held Belle Cousine so close to him that she, too, scarce could breathe. Loose flew her hair—one little sleeve almost broke across the heaving shoulder. Sidonia could look no longer; she turned to the window and leaned her hot cheek against the pane, staring at the stars with burning eyes. Something clutched at her heart and throat with a fierce grip.
Without warning, Geiger-Hans brought his bow across his strings with a tearing sound, and, as if a sharp sword had fallen between them, the dancers fell apart, astonished and not a little confused.
Steven staggered and caught at the chair behind him. The Burgrave's lady put a hand to her dishevelled tresses, then to the laces at her bosom and grew scarlet: brow and cheek, throat and shoulder.
"You no longer dance the minuet?" said Geiger-Hans, with a little laugh, picking at his now placid strings; and Steven thought that the man had the laugh of a devil and that it was echoed by his instrument. "Oh, you have a thousand reasons, sir, and so has madame, for the valse is a fuller measure. Gracious lady, you are out of breath. May I sit beside you awhile? And you, sir, will you not expound the first principles of this—this graceful and elegant pastime to mademoiselle yonder, whose youth has yet to learn the new fashion? Is it not right, Burgravine, that these young things, after all, should foregather, while you and I look on—you, the staid, married woman; I, the old man?"
She answered him not, save by a look of wondering offence.
"Ah, madam," he went on, as he sat down beside her, "and you are angry with your lord and master because he shuts you up in this strong-house? But, good heavens, it is the proof of his loving appreciation of your value."
"Oh, ay!" she answered in high contempt, "it is a sign of strong affection, doubtless."
"Madam, he lays his treasure where thieves cannot attain it. At least, poor man, so he fondly trusts!"
"And therefore the unhappy treasure is to be consumed by moth and rust," retorted the lady.
"Madam," said the fiddler, in a low voice, "I imagine that the owner of the treasure had reason to fear a more indelible stain——"
"How dare you!" she flashed upon him.
But he was picking his violin with a pensive air. Then he suddenly looked up at her and smiled.
"Ah! most gracious one, if I were the happy possessor of a bird of such brilliant plumage as yourself, I would——" He paused.
"You would what? Pray proceed." She was waiting for her triumph.
"I would open wide all the doors and bid it fly."
And then she called to him again, "How dare you!" And so insulted was she that there came a sob into her throat.
"You see," said he, drawing an accompaniment of whispering notes to his words, "that, after all, it is monsieur your husband's point of view that you think the more complimentary."
"He should trust me," she whimpered.
"Madam, who knows?" he responded; "stranger things have come to pass. Some day, perhaps, the bird will not crave for flight; it may cling to the nest."
His fingers moved delicately; the bow swung with the gentle pliancy of some green bough of spring—it was a measure of engaging rhythm and playfulness; yet soft, soft as, under the eaves, the swallow's note at dawn.
Fascinated, she cried, under her breath: "What is it?"
He answered her, "A cradle song——" and stopped.
His own face had altered indescribably. His restless eye had grown fixed and wistful. Little Madame de Wellenshausen hung her head, and—wonderful indeed—a tear gathered and fell!
* * * * *
Whilst Geiger-Hans thus engaged his hostess, Steven Lee, with slow steps, had gone across the room to the girlish figure by the window. He had grown to believe that the wanderer had some uncanny power by which he enforced his will, after the fashion of that Mesmer of whom one had heard so much. Sidonia turned upon him, with a sudden jerk of her chin, a flash of her eye, as he halted beside her. Upon which he exclaimed in amazement:
"Why, great heavens, you are the girl of the forest house!"
"You have not, I think, sir," she answered him, "eyes that see quick or far; it is, no doubt, your town breeding."
The colour was slowly fading from her cheeks. She held herself very stiff and proud. But he was still all eager over his discovery.
"Geiger-Hans told me how you brought me your pillow," said he, "when I lay hurt in the forest."
"I would have done the same to a sick dog," said she.
"You cried over me when you thought I was dead, he said," exclaimed Steven, stung by her contempt.
"Had I known you better, sir——"
Her eyes were bright and hard, her lip was a curve of scorn and her chin a tilted defiance. But all at once he saw that, under the close-clinging fabric of her short-waisted gown, her heart was beating like a madly frightened bird in the fowler's net. The knot of blue ribands upon her bosom danced with its fluttering. And there came upon him a desire, at once tender and cruel, to feel that beating heart beneath his hand. He gave a short laugh.
"Shall I teach you the valse?" he said, leaning forward. "It is quite easy—just my arm about you, and the music does the rest."
She shrank back with a look that would have blasted him.
"Do not dare to touch me!" Though her heart palpitated into her very voice, she held her head high as the hind in the forest and went on: "I might have danced that minuet, as Geiger-Onkel put it into music. But I don't like your manner of dancing, sir—nor your English manners at all. It would be best if people stayed in their own country." And then, while he stood, as if her childish hand had struck him, she passed from him, paused for a moment before her aunt and the fiddler, who were still sitting together in silence: "I am going to sleep," she said, and went proudly out of the room.
Geiger-Hans had shaken off his musing fit. He laughed out loud.
"What, comrade, won't mademoiselle learn the valse from you, after so pretty a display?"
Madame gazed down at her feet, as they peeped side by side from the hem of her garment, looking, the little humbugs, the pink of innocent propriety. She was subdued, even frightened, and her small heart was unwontedly stirred within her.
"Our evening is finished," said the Marquis de Grand-Chemin, rising with his great air. "Madam, this gentleman and I must march out with the dawn. Permit us now to offer you our very respectful gratitude, and to retire."
She held out her hand, and he took the tips of her fingers, bowing low. She curtseyed. They might have been in his minuet now, but it was with the music left out.
"Good-bye, my cousin," she said timidly. And "Good-bye" said he. They stood stiffly before each other, like two children found at fault. She was longing to tell him that it must not be "good-bye" between her and him. But the fiddler's eye was upon them.
* * * * *
Steven felt the world very flat, even on a mountain strong-house, as he sat down in the state bedroom and began with a yawn to unwind the folds of his stock. Next door Geiger-Hans had locked himself in. He had not spoken to his companion since they had entered their apartment. Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg felt that he was in disgrace with the roadside fiddler, and the sensation was curiously uncomfortable. Suddenly the door was opened and his companion walked in. He was clad once more in his own shabby suit, and across his arms carried the borrowed garments.
One by one he laid them down neatly in the valise, rolling up the violet silk stockings at the last.
"Continue," said he, "my friend, to develop the growth of those goat legs of yours; it will save you in hosiery.—Pulchrum ornatum, turpes mores.... Need I quote further?"
"Upon my soul!" cried the young man, "I don't understand what you mean!" But his cheek crimsoned.
"You disgraced me to-night," said Geiger-Hans. "What, sir! I have the kindness to bring you up here that you may snatch a delicate, courtlike comedy from a lost century, and you turn it into a gross latter-day romp. I bring you from an alehouse into a castle, but you must needs drag up your Teniers with you and spoil my Watteau! I play you a minuet, but what appeals to you is to clutch and to gambade and——"
"You made the music, man," interrupted Steven, sulky as a schoolboy. "And it was she who asked for a valse."
"Mon Dieu!" went on the fiddler, passionately; "it may be that we were no better as to morals, in my youth, than you are nowadays, but at least we took our pleasure like gentlemen. If we plucked a rose, we did it with a grace—between two fingers; we did not tear it with the fist. We did not seize a lady round the body and prance with her like hind and milkmaid; what favours we took we bent the knee to receive. Oh, sir, how little fragrance remains in the flower you mangle thus in your grasp! Three things there are, young man, that he who understands life must touch with fingers of gossamer—a subtle pleasantry, a lady's discretion, the illusions of a maiden's heart. You have laid brute hands on all three to-night.—Fie! you have spoiled my evening."
The contrast between the man in his humble clothes and the arrogant culture of his speech suddenly struck Steven to such a degree that he forgot to be angry in his eagerness to catch further self-betrayal from the fantastic enigma. Become aware of his eye and smile, the fiddler broke off abruptly and, for the first time in their acquaintance, looked disconcerted. Then he gave a good-humoured laugh, and his brow cleared.
"Blind, blind!" he resumed. "Why, was she not worthy of one look, the child in her virginal grace? When I came across you again to-day, under the shadow of the Burg, my heart leaped like a little hare. 'Here is one now,' I told myself, 'who is learning worthily the value of his youth. He shall yet learn of a better than I: for youth must to youth—the creatures of spring to each other.' I resolved, God willing, that the fair romance that fortune had brought across your path in the forest should not, after all, close at the first page. It was but cloud-building; it was but a spring fancy in an autumn dream—fancy of an old fool! Why, you did not even recognize her! Yet she held your head on her knees, when you were hurt. You were a knight to her, all gallant—and now!"
"She seems an ill-mannered child," said Steven, sullenly.
"She is as lovely as the woods at dawn—young, reluctant, mysterious, chill. When I approach her, it is with my hat in my hand. If I were young like you, I should kneel to her. The set of her head, the line of her little throat——" His voice grew suddenly husky. "Her little throat——" he repeated.
And Steven, he knew not why, had an impression of a sadness so piercing that he dropped his eyes and dared not look at Geiger-Hans again.
After a while, with a change of voice: "I will wake you at sunrise," said the musician. "I have promised the children to play for them before school. Besides, I must see you safely to the foot of the hill, ere we part, Count Comrade, having brought you up so high, else heaven knows what fall might not be in store for you!"
And on this he left the room once more.
* * * * *
The crescent moon, very delicate and soul-satisfying, hung in a wreath of watery mist, high in the sky; far down, the plain was wrapt away in white vapour. The rugged walls of the Burg, even its rocky foundations, seemed poised between heaven and earth amid these floating wreaths of immateriality. It was a strange sight. The fiddler sat on the sill of the deep window embrasure, his knees drawn towards his chin, for it was but a narrow space, and his eyes wandered out through the open casement over the unsubstantial world. He looked forth. Downward the gleaming rock emerged into stern reality, out of a dream of vapour. He looked up: the shredded mists were scudding over a faint sky, carrying the moon along, it seemed, with incredible swiftness.
The wanderer sighed. Sorrow went with him in all his ways, though he held so mocking a front to life. It was luxury now and then in the hour of solitude to fall into that deep embrace, and give his very soul to those bitter lips.
* * * * *
Very unwilling was Steven Lee to rise after a poor night. And very ill-humoured was he as they set out at last, with their donkey, breakfastless, together. There was no joy or mystery in the morn; it granted them but white mists that wet like rain and clung close as they descended.
The fiddler was silent, absorbed in his own thought, and paid small heed to his companion's moodiness.
As they crossed the bridge, a travelling-chaise, escorted by three dragoons, came through the haze towards them, passed them at full thunder, and drew up with a clatter some hundred yards beyond. Geiger-Hans smiled sardonically.
"There goes the lord of Wellenshausen to surprise his fond little wife! He is a trifle earlier on the road than I expected. Did I not do well to hurry your toilet? Who knows, you might have been hurried in still more disagreeable fashion.... Well, the episode is over; and though you have much disappointed me, young sir——"
"But what will she tell him about our visit?" interrupted Steven, with some anxiety.
Geiger-Hans remained silent for a few paces.
"That," he answered at last, "is a matter for illimitable fancy."