On strange and brittle threads hang the apples of fate. Hélène Wass had matured her plan for the following Wednesday night. Like all plans promising success, it was very simple. She divined Ordham’s nervous dread of finding himself alone with her, but parties at her house were always gay, and he was ever more than willing to be amused. She invited him to dinner “to meet a party of friends from Vienna who were giving her a night on their way to Paris.” Upon arrival he would discover that the party had disappointed her, but he could not well refuse to eat her dinner; nor could he run away immediately after. The Herr Geheimrath never graced these late dinners of his wife, adhering stoutly to the heavy midday meal of his ancestors, and partaking of a Spartan supper of eggs, cold ham, sausage, tongue, salad, and compôte at six o’clock. At eight he was slumbering peacefully. The dainty French repast finished, Hélène would sing in her boudoir,—all the newest, gayest songs,—until Ordham’s apprehensions, if he cherished any, were lulled, and he had made himself too comfortable to think of moving before eleven o’clock, at least. Then she would confide to him a long list of new indignities, visited upon her by Munich society and her old husband, gradually working herself up into a mighty passion—no difficult matter at any time—and when, in a climax of uncontrollable excitement, she had flung herself into his arms, her faithful maid, having awakened the virtuous Geheimrath, would usher him in at precisely the right moment and exhibit the scandalous tableau. She would shriek and sob and plead for forgiveness, which, she well knew, would never kindle in that flabby mass of vanity, shocked out of the fatuousness of a lifetime. Ordham, of course, would not plead his innocence, and when she cowered to the floor, wailing that now indeed all the world was against her, he would walk over and take his place at her side. There would be no duel, for the Herr Geheimrath had chronic rheumatism in his right shoulder, and she would leave Munich with the young Englishman at eight o’clock on the following morning.
She had not the least doubt that, given conditions as she planned them, Ordham would go with her, and that between sympathy and Italy—her villa was romantically situated in the Alban Hills—she could persuade him that he loved the dainty versatile charming creature who had sacrificed the world for his sake. And, it may be, the vanity of youth being very great indeed, she would continue to win in the uneven game.
Hélène Wass was as clever as only a subtle unscrupulous highly seasoned European can be. She belonged to a class that responds automatically to the intrigues hatched under thrones and disseminated to the outposts of society; in whose brains are dark and tortuous recesses furrowed by generations of ancestors that have lied and schemed for royal favour; and what birth had not given her, she had industriously colonized in the rich soil of her brain for twenty years.
But the cleverest of mere mortals, even the wise old statesman at the helm, is unable to see far into that dense belt just beyond his horizon, can but guess at the forces generating there. Hélène Wass’s inimical forces were trivial, almost ridiculous, but less have wrecked life and reputation.
She had written a month since to her Parisian milliners to set to work on her summer trousseau at once, for even then she had contemplated a house party in her Italian villa, where Ordham would find it difficult to dodge her. On the day of their apparent reconciliation she telegraphed orders that it be sent at once. If delivered to her in Munich, her husband must pay the bill, to say nothing of the duties. Munich had denounced her extravagance as regularly as the seasons called their attention to it; but she was, in truth, a thrifty creature, and had kept her own inheritance, capital and income, intact. The Italian villa was her only personal extravagance, and Wass supported that. This trousseau, in spite of letters and telegrams, was unaccountably delayed. Go without it she would not, and not only for economical reasons, but because it was already hot in Italy, and she depended in no small measure upon these exquisite diaphanous garments for the ultimate conquest of her observing young lover.
It had been a mere chance that had taken Ordham on the Isar that night, or, to speak by the book, an undetected chain of circumstances. Paddling on the river in the city limits was a privilege granted to few, but a friend of Ordham, Count Kilchberg, whose garden sloped to the banks, had long since invited him to use a boat whenever he chose; and on the night when he had so unpremeditatedly won the friendship of Margarethe Styr, he had, after excusing himself from a dinner where he was likely to meet Frau von Wass, suddenly bethought himself of this novel and congenial way of passing the evening.
The trousseau arrived on Monday, and, still unpacked, was ready to be spirited out of the house by the annoyed but acquisitive Lotte, who, as a guardian of secrets and a surgeon of obstacles, received a salary rather than a wage, and was meditating respectable matrimony at no distant date. Lotte, although profoundly indifferent to moral lapses, did not like Italy and was in love with a valet de chambre in the Residenz. She was in a bad humour at the proposed flight, but dared not forsake her mistress, who, beyond question, would give her a wedding present. On Tuesday morning the Herr Geheimrath suddenly took it into his fussy old head to go to Berlin and attend a scientific conference. He invited Hélène to accompany him, and she screamed her refusal, almost beside herself. Assuming that she was merely more nervous than usual, he departed in haste, promising to bring her a present, and to return in the course of ten days; he needed a little vacation and should see many of his old friends.
She spent the greater part of Tuesday in bed, after her fashion when her astonished ego was forced to admit that there were conflicting egos in the world which her stupid patron saint went to sleep and forgot. She wept, she had hysterics, she bit several handkerchiefs to pieces, she tormented herself with visions of Ordham’s sudden recall to England before her husband’s return; finally, in a flash of blinding light, saw him infatuated with Margarethe Styr. That cordial hand-shake, that unstereotyped smile, had meant something from the woman who would have the world believe that she dwelt on a pedestal—in a niche—with a curtain in front of her. Ordham, true to his temperament, had not mentioned his meeting with Styr at Neuschwanstein, but Hélène knew of the visit, and leaped at conclusions not far from the truth. Of course he was fascinated, no doubt was talking Wagner (they were sure to begin on Wagner) with her at that very moment.
She sprang out of bed and ordered her victoria brought round in an hour. She must have movement, diversion, or her mind would become so inflamed that she could not plan, and a new plan was imperative, unless, indeed, she found the self-control to await her husband’s return.
It was a cold spring with occasional warm days. Lotte, anxious to shake out one of the new gowns, expatiated upon the weather. Frau von Wass, soothed by the thought that she could always command the envy of Munich, permitted herself to be arrayed in a gown and hat designed to make its wearer look as like a butterfly as a mere mortal can. The parasol, the slippers and stockings, the gloves and handkerchief, assisted to transform her into at least the Parisian she loved to be mistaken for, and she forgot her woes for an hour in the delight of showing herself. But she by no means forgot Ordham and directed her coachman to drive in the Englischergarten, where he occasionally strolled with Kilchberg and other friends. The beautiful day had brought out all Munich, driving, riding, walking; the great park was filled with good-natured saunterers, many of whom stared in open admiration, amazement, or disapproval at the dazzling vision behind the liveries of the excellent Geheimrath Wass.
But she saw nothing of the young Englishman. She ordered her coachman to leave the park by the Schwabing entrance and drive to the tennis court on the other side of the village. This was a sacred enclosure, which, with all her social adroitness and her husband’s popularity, she had never penetrated. Reserved in the first instance for the young and active members of the House of Wittelsbach, poverty in numbers had forced them to open the gates to the embassies and legations, as well as to the older families of the Bavarian aristocracy. Ordham had been admitted to this club as a matter of course, and tennis being the only form of exercise that he tolerated, he was an expert player, and might be seen at the courts four or five times a week.
To-day, the air being charged with the elixir of spring, he was frisking about like a kitten; and the sight not only made Hélène Wass pale with fury, but induced a spasm of bitter despair. It was manifest that nothing in him but his youth, his incontrovertible youth, was sentient. What cared this buoyant healthy young Englishman for the pleasures of the intellect, for impending examinations, the momentous question of career? What cared he for Life, its problems, its tragic females? They were non-existent, as was proper at his age, and his blood was sweeping from his heels to his head in exultant waves, his lungs were full of oxygen, and he was winning his game.
He made her feel old, forlorn, remember that whether she captured and held him or not there was one of life’s gates to which she had lost the key. That belonged to other young people like himself. True, she could play tennis, and a very good game, but she could not abandon herself to it, and that was the whole point.
Then, for the first time, she lost her head. She had imposed a severe strain upon her excitable spoilt temper in disciplining herself for a week. The prospect of ten days more, during which she must still control herself, play the rôle of the arch indulgent friend, when she was devoured by at least four different passions, abruptly declared itself beyond her powers of endurance. The game of tennis finished, she sent her footman to Ordham with an imperious summons. He came reluctantly, for he intended to play another game at once.
“Come with me!” she exclaimed below her breath. “You must! you must! The most dreadful thing has happened, and you are my only friend. I must talk to you.”
Wondering what dreadful fate could menace any one so carefully and exquisitely arrayed, but recalling that he had practically engaged himself to stand by her for a fortnight, he sent the footman for his coat and entered the victoria. She waved her hand in the direction of the Englischergarten, and ten minutes later, leaving the carriage at the opening of a secluded path in the woods, she led Ordham along the romantic windings of the Isar. When they were out of earshot, she suddenly caught him by the shoulders and brought her morbid excited little face close to his.
“Johann! Johann!” she gasped. (She spoke English perfectly.) “Take me away! Fritz suspects—he threatened this morning to kill me. He has gone to Berlin. It is only a ruse! He will return suddenly, hoping to entrap me—”
“But he cannot.” Ordham recalled some of her recent lies, and felt the necessity of keeping his head clear. “I will even stay away from your house. Then, what danger?”
“Oh, you don’t understand! It is the knowledge of the sword that hangs over my head. If he came back suddenly and discovered nothing immediate, it would make him the more furious. He would ferret out other things.”
“I don’t think he could.” But his blood congealed, and he wondered if it were the damp woodland after his hour of tennis. That this would be an excellent excuse for illness on the morrow cheered him somewhat, and he said with his exquisite gentle courtesy:
“I am sure that you are agitating yourself for nothing. But could we not talk it over to-morrow? I feel that I am getting a chill—I have not had a shower and rub down, you know, and this enchanting nook is rather like a new-made grave. You know how easily I take cold.”
“I don’t believe you ever had a cold in your life,” she screamed. “In those flannels you look like a pink baby that hasn’t cut its teeth. You shall listen to me, and if you write me to-morrow that you are ill I’ll go to the Legation.”
“Oh, for your own sake, don’t do that.”
“I’m beyond caring for appearances. If Fritz discovers that I love you, will he not divorce me? What matter if Munich cut me first? I know now that is what they expect Fritz to do. Some one of them has told him. My life here is rushing to a climax. It is only a question of days when I shall be cast out for every she-wolf—led by Princess Nachmeister—to set her teeth in my flesh.”
Ordham, colder each moment, stared at the ground with blanching face. He recalled the discreet hint of Excellenz. And if she knew, why not others? He wondered somewhat at Munich’s sudden access of virtue, then remembered its deathless intolerance of the outsider. Might it not be true that this poor woman—he had never seen any one look so weak and helpless, as she wrung her hands and stared into vacancy—was about to be publicly disgraced on his account? He turned faint and sick at the burden cast upon his unwilling shoulders, but he made up his mind to temporize until the last moment.
Her eyes dismissed their fixed stare and met his in an agony of appeal. So may martyrs have looked when beholding the torch approach the fagots.
“Ah!” she wailed softly. “If you but loved me! Then it would not matter. My villa in Italy! We could be so happy. In Italy nothing matters. And by and by all would be forgotten. You are of the elect, and to them all things are forgiven. But you hate me! You hate me!”
“How can you say such a thing? You have taken away my breath. You suggest enchanting possibilities, but we must both take more time to think. And I really must leave this damp spot. It is dangerous for us both. If you have not come to the conclusion by to-morrow that your fears are exaggerated, we will talk it over. Shall we meet here?”
“Will you swear not to send me word that you are ill?”
“Of course.”
“Then come to the house. I shall receive you in the salon. If we sit in the middle of the room no one can overhear a word we say, and did Fritz return suddenly no situation could disconcert him more. Whereas, did we meet here—and were followed—how do I not know that the footman was not told to spy?—yes! Let us go—now—quickly!”
She hastened out of the grove, but at the end of the path paused abruptly. “I must walk!” she announced. “I shall dismiss the carriage. It is better, too, that you should walk.”
“Very well.” He resigned himself to another tête-à-tête. The park was nearly deserted. They walked along the outer carriage drive. He endeavoured to divert her mind. He might as well have attempted to dam a flood with his hands. She had reached that pitch of nerves which must find relief in a torrent of words or in hysterics. Her maid would soon be methodically administering sedatives; and meanwhile Ordham was forced to listen to a tirade against Wass, Munich, and her thrice unhappy fate in loving a man who, for worldly reasons, would not permit himself to return her love, hesitated to fly to a Paradise in Italy lest a few ridiculous people cut him for six months. He was appalled at the strength of the woman’s passion, and distracted at the thought of the possible consequences. No longer could he cheat himself with the delusion that she had transmuted her love into friendship, that she would open her net after the fashion of sensible women of the world when the captive began to flutter. For once his diplomatic instinct was at a loss. Again he felt that events were rushing too quickly for him, and he had not the least idea what to do.
Thus it happened that Margarethe Styr, seated in the curtained depths of her tower, that she might amuse herself with glimpses of the world she so seldom cared to enter, sat up suddenly and gazed hard at a voluble white reckless woman dressed like a butterfly, and a dejected young cavalier in flannels. She had heard no gossip of these two, but this vision, linked with his similar appearance when leaving the house of the same woman a few days before and his careless nod on the night of the Nachmeister concert, told the story. Countess Tann concerned herself not in the least with the affairs of others, and it is probable that if she had not met Ordham a second time, she merely would have smiled half in pity, half in scorn, at the eternal folly of young men, as manifested in this moving tableau. But she had unbent to him even at Neuschwanstein, far more on that night when he had leaped through this window to her rescue. And to no one else in eight years had she given the least of herself. That alone entitled him to a unique place in her regard; and to refrain from some degree of personal interest in so sympathetic a creature she had discovered to be impossible. Moreover, in spite of the remodelling of character effected by that strong brain and will, there was no lack of plain female in Margarethe Styr. She determined then and there, not only to save this charming young man from the toils of an unscrupulous siren, but to indulge in the pleasure of outwitting another woman. She knew enough of Hélène Wass to conclude that her life had reached a desperate climax which threatened danger to the man that had magnetized the remnant of her youth. As she rose and went upstairs to dress for supper, she felt even more stimulated than when about to engage in a round with the opera-house cabal.
It was on this night that he was to sup with her. The hour appointed was seven, and, not knowing his habits, she dressed early. As she arrayed herself in one of the loose Fedora tea-gowns that Bernhardt had made fashionable, she congratulated herself upon the inspiration that had bade him, as he swung down from her window, “not to dress.” After that scene in the park she resolved definitely to make him understand at once that although living alone, and an artist, about whom, no doubt, many stories were current, she was not to be confounded with the cocottes of society: she could picture the costumes in which Hélène Wass received her admirers at tête-à-tête suppers! The Fedora gown, with its curved but loosely fitting back, its straight panel in front that hung from throat to slipper, unrevealing but by no means negligée, was the golden mean betwixt the formal and the intimate in feminine attire. And no one could carry such a garment with more dignity than Countess Tann. A number of these Fedora gowns had come to her recently from Paris, and she selected one to-night of which all save the ivory-white panel of crêpe de chine was of mignonette-green velvet. The girdle, which hung low, was composed of flexible silver links and had been picked up in one of the antiquity shops of Munich. Only her beautiful throat was bare. Her hair was arranged like a coronet. She had seldom lost her interest in clothes, and once or twice a month entertained at supper Excellenz Nachmeister, Possart, Lenbach, and a number of the older authors, artists, and scientific men, who could talk, and who were content to await her summons.
To-night she smiled at the unmistakable excitement of titivating once more for a mere man, although he made no appeal whatever to her deeper feminine instincts. Those had long been dead, and she stared down for a moment at their graves, almost forgotten under the heavy mounds of loathing and hatred for the sex for which they had been implanted. She no longer hated men; she had not even the desire, common to the woman that has been deeply wronged, to wreak vengeance upon them as a sex, now that all the cards were in her hands; art had enchained every faculty and left little room in her mind for the meaner interests of life. But she was a woman still, or she would not have been the great artist she was; and she sighed a little as she clasped her girdle, and even experienced a fleeting envy of Hélène Wass, who was two years older than herself. She was very happy, she dwelt upon serene heights, and one day Wagner would conquer London and she would sing there and behold the world at her feet. But Life, Life itself, had cheated her horribly; she must die when her time came without one tender or beautiful memory. It had gorged her with its knowledge, but its lessons had been hideous; and only her strong will—perhaps the greatest of her gifts—banished their memory when they rose and flitted, phosphorescent ghosts, across her upper consciousness. She swept them aside to-night and went downstairs, grateful that with the power to love had gone the power to suffer; for she would go out that instant from the world and its music rather than descend into those buried depths of her nature again.
Although it was ten minutes past seven her guest had not arrived, and she went into the drawing-room to wait for him. She felt some vanity in displaying her salon to one who she knew instinctively possessed a cultivated and exacting taste. It was a large room on the right of the entrance, with a row of alcoves on the garden side, each furnished to represent one of the purple flowers. The woodwork was ivory-white; the silk panels of the same shade were painted with violets or lilacs, pansies, asters, orchids, or lilies, as if reflecting the alcoves. There was but one picture, a full-length portrait of Styr as Brynhildr, by Lenbach. The spindle-legged furniture was covered with pale brocades and not aggressively of any period. It was distinctly a “Styr Room,” as her admirers, who were admitted on the first Sunday of the month, had long since agreed, while sealing it with their approval.
At half-past seven Ordham was shown in, exclaiming: “I am so sorry! But my driver went to sleep. I am positive of it. I spent the entire time between Barerstrasse and Schwabing crying ‘Schnell!’ ”
“They are always at least half asleep at this hour. They have reached almost the limit of their day’s allowance of beer. For that matter, I often see them asleep in the park three hours earlier, huddled down into their meridians and trusting to their patient old nags to keep the road. One drove up a tree in front of my window not long since. Shall we go in to supper?”
The dining-room was across the hall, a stately little room fitted up in brown and dull gold. The small table, with its delicate service of porcelain and crystal, was perfectly appointed, and the simple supper of omelette aux fines herbes, pigeons, salad, and American hot breads, was so refreshing to Ordham, after the heavy English cooking of the Legation, and the heavier of such of the Bavarian aristocracy as did not employ chefs, that it diverted and comforted him. But he had looked pale and harassed when he entered, and Styr bore her purpose in mind.
They talked, as Hélène had anticipated, of Wagner, and Margarethe succeeded in interesting him deeply when she spoke of her early doubts and fears, not of the difficulties of the music, but of the strange women she must portray.
“I had never heard the rôles sung, you know,” she was saying, as they entered the gallery by the river and she motioned him into the deepest of the chairs. “Please sit still. I am given to prowling. And smoke. Those are Russian cigarettes, and very good, but smoke your own, if you prefer. I had read those operas over and over,—Heavens, but how often!—imagining myself the heroine of each in turn; but when my voice was ready for interpretation, I realized that thought—brain—as well as imagination, was a prerequisite. Of course I had not long been in Bayreuth before I heard how others interpreted them, but that conveyed little to me. As soon as I had begun really to analyze and ponder upon the characters of Brünhilde and Isolde, I chose to call them from their graves into my own soul, divested of all the conventions which already clung to them like barnacles. My ardour was so great that when roaming alone in the woods of Eremetage, the old park of the Margraves on the hill outside of the town, I really persuaded myself—and for hours at a time—that I was one or other of those great women, torn with her passions, delirious with her hopes, exalted with her despair. My God! my God! What happiness! I lived the life of the imagination, the artistic imagination on fire; I gave not a thought to my personal self. Nor was there time for anything but study. Frau Cosima, regarding me as an irresponsible genius, found me a lodging with a good creature who kept me from starving—and the clothes on my back. Perhaps even The Master laughed at my intoxication,—for it was far beyond enthusiasm,—but I neither knew nor cared. I was quite mad. Of course such a time can never come again, for I have learned all the great rôles, and who shall write others? But at least I am happy while singing them, and throughout the day preceding the night of a performance I live the part to myself. I see the Rhine beneath my window, my tower is the Hall of the Gibichungs. I hear the Atlantic in the Isar and fling myself face downward on that divan and let the passions of all womankind tear my heart as they tore Isolde’s when they transformed her into a fate and the avenger of her sex.”
Ordham had forgotten Hélène Wass. He would rather have made no reply, but when she paused, he took refuge, after his habit when excited, in commonplace:
“That is perhaps your greatest acting—that first act of Tristan. But of course there is no other in which you run the gamut of the passions—although in Götterdämmerung—but really I am not up to criticism. You are terribly real in all of your tragic rôles. I wonder how real it all is—if you are capable of sweeping a man out into eternity with you to-day? You must have been once.”
“I am capable of nothing but acting to-day; and of getting quite wrought up in the novelty of talking to some one besides myself in this room. I receive those I receive at all in the salon, but in this I live. Let me show it to you.”
He followed her about the long room that reminded him of galleries in certain old houses in England. It must have been very bright during the day, for the side facing the river was made almost entirely of windows. The other three walls were set thick with pictures, many of them sketches laid at the feet of Die Styr by the devotees of another art; a few old prints and etchings, and an infinite number of photographs. Ordham wondered how a woman who made so few friends had managed to collect so many signed presentments, until he examined the signatures and found that they were all from celebrities or members of the royal families of Bavaria and other German states. Ludwig had sent her no less than twelve, ranging from the supreme if morbid beauty of his young manhood to the pallid corpulence of the present, in which nothing lived to remind the world of one of the most promising monarchs that ever had ascended a throne but the deathless ideality of the eyes. Other members of the royal and ducal Wittelsbachs, kindly and genuine people, who came sometimes to drink a cup of tea with the great artist (whom they admired with that true reverence for art that the centuries had bred in them) had sent their photographs handsomely framed and affectionately autographed. Ennobled though she was, the fact that she was of those that received payment for services rendered debarred her from court functions at the Residenz, but that was all. She had dined with the Queen-mother more than once, and was invited to the routs at the other palaces in common with the rest of the Bavarian aristocracy. Although that strong brain could never turn, it must have admitted an occasional wave of astonishment, perhaps exultation, at the significance of this eccentric curve in her fortunes.
Some such thought flitted through Ordham’s mind, but he made no comment, and admired the graceful crowded room in general. It looked as if the disposition of the tables and chairs were changed daily, and although the walls were of a delicate grey, there was colour somewhere, in what he could not define, so perfect was the harmony, that gave the room warmth and brightness. At one end a marble bust of Wagner stood alone on a pedestal. The books were in the tower, opposite whose arch was the divan with its many pillows.
“You should be very happy in such a room,” he said with a sigh, as he returned to the deep comfort of his chair. “I can well imagine that here you can conjure up any vision you wish. I have been here but half an hour, and already it seems more like home to me than any room in Munich. I cannot fancy anything disagreeable happening in it.”
“But there are so many beautiful rooms in Munich.” She took a chair facing him, lit a cigarette, and prepared to draw him out.
“Beautiful, but not gemütlich—wonderful word! Either they are magnificent, like Princess Nachmeister’s, or merely formal, with fine things in them, or quite awful, with stuffy ancestral furniture that should have been refilled seven generations ago. My room at the Legation is done up in chintz and is very pretty and fresh, but it is not—well, it does not shut out the world as this room does.”
“But your place is in the world. And it is very good to you.”
“Oh, sometimes.”
There being no fire to stare into, his gaze had wandered to the open window near his chair. Suddenly he realized that the dark object beyond was a bit of the Englischergarten, and the scene of the afternoon flashed back to his mind. The vague sense of dissatisfaction that had stolen over him at the last words of Countess Tann crystallized, and he turned pale and drew in his breath sharply.
“Has Fraülein Lutz been scolding you? She gave me many unhappy quart d’heures.”
“I can only be grateful to her—and to you.”
“That was a sort of gambler’s throw on my part—I am curious to see how far you will go in the diplomatic career. Very far, I venture to predict.”
“Oh!” He twisted about again and looked hard at the dark panel of the window. His languid ambition gathered a sudden vehemence as he seemed to behold a forking road in his future and a sinister pointing finger.
“What is the age limit for examinations?”
“Twenty-six.”
“That gives you two years. With Fraülein Lutz you cannot fail to pass in German. But I find those examinations rather stupid. It gives too many opportunities to the wrong class of young men, while those more naturally gifted for such a career are thinking only of amusing themselves. And after all, an under secretary can acquire one language after another in the capitals where he is attached long before he has any but a purely personal need of them. By the time he is a first secretary he will know at least four languages, no matter how limited his linguistic talents.”
“How wonderful of you to have thought about a career so far removed from your own.”
“Is it? In your case, however, I have had the benefit more than once of Princess Nachmeister’s disquisitions. She has made up her mind to live to see you an ambassador; and she is quite capable of living till ninety.”
“I could hardly be an ambassador at forty-four, unless I had had uncommon opportunities.” But his eyes kindled and he smiled. He was easily diverted, and even though his ambition might not grow fast enough to conquer his indolence and love of pleasure before it was too late, his natural sense of dignity, and a pride both personal and racial, reminded him, now and again, that it was his duty to take the place among men to which his talents and his opportunities entitled him.
“Well—you might come back as Minister Resident to Bavaria, and cheer your good old friend’s last days.”
“Oh!” He had turned pale again. “I may never embark upon the diplomatic career, Countess. It—I—it is too expensive, I am afraid. It is only in the last year that I have learned the disagreeable lesson that money is not to be had for the wishing. When I chose the diplomatic career,—not, I fear, with any idea of serving my country, but as the most congenial I could think of,—I had a vague idea that money in unlimited quantities was my birthright, that it would flow in, every quarter, with the changing seasons. Intellectually, I accept the fact that I am a younger son and likely to remain one for another quarter of a century; but personally, this knowledge seems to make no impression on me whatever. I keep on spending more than my income, even here in Munich where I am a guest. How can I expect properly to maintain the position of a regular member of the staff with increasing social obligations? There is no pay at all for two years; for many it is insignificant. I scorn to be a mere hanger-on, professional diner-out. It is my disposition to entertain, to give as good as I get.”
“Young men, particularly young officials, are in such demand—that need hardly worry you. And then you can marry. High Heaven has preordained that young Englishmen of great expectations and immediate debts shall capture ambitious fortunes. Your family influence must be immense. Cause yourself to be appointed to your legation in Washington—that Mecca of the worthy and impecunious young attaché. You will have married a rich, pretty, and charming girl before your first year is out. I am beginning to feel that I have the seeds of the match-maker in the débris of my feminine soul. I fancy that half the American wives in Europe were caught in their own diplomatic pond.”
“I may never marry. I have little inclination for matrimony.” But he spoke sadly, for the alluring vision of Mabel Cutting and her millions had risen with the advice of the Styr. “Besides—well—”
Countess Tann rose and closed the window, drawing the curtains. The room looked even more friendly, more shut in from the world, than before. He had risen to assist her, and as she resumed her seat, he stood looking down at her. He had never liked any one so much, never felt so oddly at home, since the death of his father. Her atmosphere of mystery had vanished in this room where she lived her intimate woman’s life. She was not seductive nor too fascinating, but friendly, intelligent, gemütlich. A wave of boyish despair swept over him. He would have liked to put his head in her lap and pour out his troubles and receive her comfort and advice. Although he looked as impassive as the Sphinx, she knew that the time had come to speak.
“You are in trouble,” she said softly. “I knew it the moment you came in, and it has been rising to the surface at intervals ever since. I can only divert you for a few moments at a time. You are not in the least what you were at Neuschwanstein, and you have a great reputation in Munich for high spirits. New friends often make the best confidants. Something tells me that I can help you. Do let me if I can. I have given you more of my confidence than I have ever given to any one. It is your turn. And there is a bond—you must feel it as well as I. Indeed—I am almost superstitious about it, so—let me help you.”
He sat down under this assault, but instead of sinking into the deepest embrace of the easy chair, after his habit whenever he captured that triumph of modern furnishing, he leaned forward, staring at her as if magnetized, and feeling something of the gratitude he so often politely expressed.
“You are very good! Why do you take so much interest—you, of all women? You do not dwell on the same plane with poor tormented human beings.”
“But I did once! Bear that in mind, and tell me what troubles you.”
“I am afraid I cannot.”
“You mean that it involves a woman and that I will put two and two together and discover who she is?”
“Something like that.”
“You forget that I am not of your world. I enter it on rare occasions, as a sort of lay figure. None of its gossip comes to me. I have a few acquaintances, but they know better than to regale me with the scandal of the town. To me Munich is a mere audience.”
“Princess Nachmeister seems to have talked to you a good deal about me.”
“But only because of her genuine interest. She has never gossiped about you.”
“I don’t think there has been any gossip—no, I suppose you never could guess. I have been foolish and I am afraid I shall have to pay heavily.”
“Don’t believe all that unscrupulous girls—”
“Oh! oh! It is not as bad as that. Perhaps, though, it is worse, if only because more intangible. It is a sort of pressure—an accumulation—a woman fancies herself in love with me—of course she isn’t, but—well—she thinks that she is willing to sacrifice everything. She has great strength of feeling, and I am haunted by the fear that she will carry me away on that current whether I will or not. I do not love her in the least, but there are obligations—”
“Were you very much in love with her? You do not look as if you had passed through the throes of the grande passion.”
“I was fascinated.”
“But she did the love-making? If it is what I imagine—a casual episode with some light-headed blasée society woman who is fascinated with your youth—I fail to see that you have incurred a permanent obligation.”
He gave her a sharp look, but forgot that he was in the hands of a woman whom many rated as the greatest actress of her time. Her expression was speculative, disapproving; there was no canny gleam in her eyes, no undue eagerness in her manner. It was patent that she was theorizing out of her wide knowledge of the world and human nature.
“She is not old—at least in looks,—and I don’t think she is blasée,” he replied, driven to defend his taste. “She is extraordinarily full of life, of interest in everything; but she is high-strung and takes things too tragically. It is my misfortune that she fancies just now that I have inspired the serious passion of her life. No doubt she will soon get over it. But meanwhile!”
“Why don’t you flee to England?”
“I won’t run. Besides, she would follow. And—well, there is an obligation. I could have stopped it in the beginning—as I did later, when I had only the excuse of being bored. But I did not. That I did not take the matter seriously at any time does not alter the fact that she did—does. And that seems to give her a hold I cannot shake off.”
“Ah! She appeals to your chivalry, your sympathy, pity! She is a clever woman at all events. She has played upon—Oh, I have no patience with such women. They ruin more lives than the labelled women of the streets, for they make the insidious approach. She wants to marry you, of course.”
“I fancy she has some such idea, but her husband lives.”
“Then she wants to run away with you first.”
Ordham stood up again. The more or less vague apprehensions that had haunted him for several hours took form and substance.
“Yes,” he said; “I am afraid that is it.”
“Good God!” Styr stood up, her face expressing a horror that lashed his own brain. “That means ruin, no career—being a social outcast—for several valuable years, at all events. No opportunity to marry a decent girl of fortune. Nothing! And you—all the delightful freshness of your young good looks faded, your enjoyment of life dulled, embittered,—your splendid pride broken. Oh, you cannot, you do not contemplate such a step!”
“No, I don’t,” he said intensely, although he did not raise his voice to the tragic pitch of hers. “But she does. That is the whole point. Her husband may accuse her at any moment. I think that is what she wants. Then she will confess. He will cast her out. I must go with her. Whatever she may be, there will be no altering the fact that she will have courted ruin for my sake, and I cannot desert her. I have been a fool. I must pay the price. How could I act otherwise?”
He looked so obstinate that Margarethe could have shaken him, but she was aghast. It was far worse than she had supposed. She was the more determined to save him—but how? She longed to be alone, to set her wits to work.
“Suppose you were to be convinced that she had had many other lovers—which, no doubt, is the case?”
“What difference would that make?”
“Well, none, I suppose, with a psychological young modern like yourself! But you are too good to throw away. This must not happen. Cannot you keep her quiet by renewed devotion and let her down by degrees?”
“I am afraid I haven’t the self-command. I almost hate her—except when she appeals to my sympathies, and then I almost love her.”
“If you were ten years older you would manage it all so well! But, to be sure, if you were ten years older you would not be in this predicament, for more reasons than one. I suppose that you have never in your life done anything you did not want to do, nor failed to gratify every desire?”
“When possible,” he said ingenuously. “But I have to do many things I don’t like.”
“I fancy you would have some difficulty in enumerating them. You radiate an atmosphere of self-indulgence, and the caresses of fortune. But this! I must, I will save you! I have learned in a hard school to succeed in whatever I undertake, and I shall not fail here—”
“You will not try to find out who she is?” He did not speak excitedly, but in a very low and quiet tone.
“I do not care in the least who she is. And how could I find out? No—but you are too good—It seemed to me when I sent Lutz to you that I pledged myself to your future.”
She came up to him swiftly and took both his hands. He stared at her, fascinated, for she looked stronger than any one he had ever seen. Involuntarily he leaned forward a little, as if to rest on that great strength; and that moment witnessed the forging of the real bond between them. “Give me your word,” she said, “that you will take no step until I have had time to think.”
“Of course.” And then he felt that his usual ready formula was unworthy of this woman. “I don’t know,” he faltered; “events might be too strong.”
“Oh, I know the pressure of events! But you are not fifteen, and you are very clever. You can temporize for a week or two. Give her a chance to cool down and think better of it.”
“I have put her off so often. She no longer believes one of my excuses.” He spoke with some humour.
“Oh, pretend that you love her, but beg her to wait till you have passed your examinations.”
“What does she care for my examinations? And if she means to marry me, she knows well enough that I cannot enter diplomacy blackened by a scandal.”
“Well, find some other excuse—tell her that you are on the verge of cajoling a larger income out of your brother—and meanwhile you really must pretend that you love her more than ever—”
“I cannot!” There was such tragic disgust in his tones that Margarethe had never liked him half as well.
“I am afraid that you really hate her.”
“I wish she were dead and buried!”
“And yet you are thinking of spending your ruined life with her! Oh, the folly of youth! But one might as well talk to the winds. What would become of the world if women had such extravagant notions of honour?”
Ordham, being a man, laughed at this. But he replied, “I should think that you—of all women—had a very keen sense of honour.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t strain the point. And I have lived long enough to leaven ideals with common sense. Well—at least promise me this—that for one week—seven whole days, mind you—you will not take a step that would ruin your life. It is not so much to ask.”
“Yes—I think I can promise you that. I have a sore throat and no doubt can develop a case of bronchitis and go to bed for a few days. Strangers always get bronchitis during their first year in Munich.”
“Good!”
“But I don’t see what you can do.”
“Nor I; but I shall disown myself for the rest of my life if I don’t think of something. Only I must have time.”
He dropped her hands and moved away uneasily. She might be honourable according to her standards, but he remembered that she could look like a fate—and was supreme in the first act of Tristan! He doubted if, given an impulse strong enough to rouse her, she would stick at anything. But, he reflected, she was not in love with him. The vainest of men could admit no delusion on that point; Ordham had no more than his share of vanity, and had been given opportunities to decipher the danger signals he dreaded. Therefore would she do nothing rash; and he had some curiosity, although little hope, as to what she might suggest when he emerged from the refuge of his chamber.
“You are too kind,” he said. “Of course I shall be only too ready to listen if you can show me a way out. May I come again soon? Ah! if I were swept away on that current, I suppose I never should see this room again.”
“I do not fancy you would care to show yourself again in Munich for several years, at least. Come meanwhile as often as you can—except on the night before I sing, or on the day of a performance. I practise my vocal gymnastics before you are awake in the morning!”