CHAPTER V.

PRINCESS AND MODEL.

Of course the Princess Olsdorf was not unknown to Paul Meyrin's relatives. On his return from Russia, being questioned by his family on the incidents of his journey, the painter was forced to speak of the Olsdorfs and the hospitality he had enjoyed at Pampeln. He must needs show them the portrait of the princess, too, as it was to be shown at the coming exhibition.

We must therefore introduce the Meyrin family to our readers, amid whom some of the chief scenes of the story will happen.

Some ten years before the time of which we are speaking, the family had left Bucharest to come and live in Paris. Frantz Meyrin, Paul's elder brother, had some skill as a violinist. He was a member of an orchestra imported into Austria and Germany, where the concerts they gave were much appreciated. The Roumanian artiste had accepted the offer of the Barnum who exhibited his and his companions' talents in this country, and that with the sole idea of settling wheresoever he saw a chance of making his fortune, or at any rate of establishing himself well. After playing in most of the chief towns of Europe, he came to Paris, where the success he won determined him to stay. When he came to depend upon himself alone, the struggle at first was a hard one, but Frantz was energetic and laborious. Things soon improved. Before a year had passed he had pupils enough to make him easy about the future.

Then he sent for those of his family that he had left behind in Roumania--his old mother; his wife, Barbe; his daughter, Nadeje, a child of five; and his young brother Paul, who had just turned fifteen.

The little girl was clever, and she was to be trained as a musician, and Paul, who also showed aptitude, was to be a painter.

At first they all lived together in the Rue Nollet, at Batignolles; afterward, Frantz's success as a teacher and an executant having made its mark, they were able to take more comfortable rooms in the Rue de Douai.

Six or eight years later Nadeje was entered as a pupil at the Conservatoire, and Paul, under the tuition of Bouguereau, exhibited at the Salon a portrait of a child which won an honorable mention and made him known.

Paul had grown up into a handsome young fellow, well built and strong. With his dark complexion, fine black eyes, and silky beard in its first growth, it was easy to guess that he would be successful among the women. But under this outward show of strength the young painter had a character lacking in energy and originality. Lazy and effeminate, he was entirely under the rule of his mother, and above all, of his sister-in-law, Mme. Frantz Meyrin. She was the autocrat of the household. She governed them all, her husband--a good fellow, who was untiring in his work as a teacher and player--as well as Paul, whose rare and feeble attempts at self-emancipation she repressed. The violinist's wife was proud and weak about her daughter alone, in favor of whose future everything had to give way.

Through a psychological phenomenon which, becoming commoner from day to day, is a mark of our practical epoch, all in this family of artistes, for Mme. Meyrin herself was an excellent musician--was tradesman-like and prosaic--manners, dispositions, tastes, aspirations. Success was only success with them when it brought in plenty of money. It mattered nothing to Mme. Meyrin whether her husband had executed a piece of music in a masterly manner, or Paul had drawn with skill a child's head. How much had been paid for them? That was the only question, as well too, unhappily, for Frantz and his brother as for the mistress of the household.

While devoting themselves to their work at the time of doing it, the musician and the painter did not linger long in these regions of high art after they had laid aside the one his violin, the other his brush. They did not work without taste, but they worked in the most prosaic acceptation of the word, hastening in a sense to finish the task that the material wants of life put upon them.

Their mode of life had its natural results in the matter of friendships and acquaintances. Though justice was done to his talents and modesty and tact, Frantz got no higher than being a paid musician at the houses where he played. As much from economy as through her indifference to society, Mme. Meyrin held few receptions. She gave in the course of a winter three or four musical matinees, to show off her husband's pupils, and especially her daughter.

As for the friends of the family, they numbered a dozen at most--some countrymen of theirs, a few musicians, Armand Dumesnil, an old actor at the Odeon, and a young woman, Mme. Daubrel, the heroine of a very painful story.

Married when quite young to a man in a large way of business as an export agent, an honest fellow, Marthe Daubrel, who was of a romantic turn of mind and was often left alone by her husband, had listened to the madrigals of a third-class writer. Thanks to her romantic imagination and her inexperience, she had yielded to him, was about to become a mother, and had confessed everything to her husband, who, instead of taking a violent revenge, appealed to the law, a judicial separation being decreed on his petition. He returned her dowry to his adulterous wife, and emigrated, taking with him the son she had borne to him before her fall.

Within three months' time Mme. Daubrel was delivered of a daughter, who lived but a few weeks. Her illusions dispelled, she broke off all intercourse with her seducer, returned to her mother, and, gentle and resigned, speaking of her husband only with the greatest respect, determined to expiate the past by conduct irreproachable at all points. She lived isolated, and saw scarcely anybody but the Meyrins. She had been one of the first pupils of Mme. Frantz when she, on first coming to Paris, had to give lessons on the pianoforte to increase the resources of the family. With an indulgence one would scarcely have looked for in her, Mme. Meyrin excused, pitied the poor woman, and liked her very much.

As for Paul, his natural idleness, his want of backbone, the surroundings he lived amid, all had a bad influence on his talents. It was to be feared that he would never rise to higher work than that which had at first occupied him; that he would remain a painter, in a pleasing fashion, of women and children, and faithful to his blue and pink colors.

However, he made headway, and chiefly in the Russian colony.

Orders followed upon orders, and he began to be paid very fairly, to the joy of Mme. Meyrin, who was his self-appointed steward and cashier. Indeed, when five-and-twenty Paul was not thoroughly out of leading-strings. He had his studio on the Boulevard de Clichy, at a short distance from the Rue de Douai, but he still lived with his family. His sister-in-law would not have suffered any other arrangement, for his removal would have deprived the Meyrin household of a notable part of its income. Mme. Frantz seemed to think that no change would ever come.

The rule he was under, from which he dared make no effort to free himself, determined Paul to lend an ear to the propositions to Count Barewski one fine day. He had painted a full-length portrait of the Countess Barewski which was not without merit, and her husband had persuaded him that if he would accompany him to St. Petersburg he would be received by the Russian aristocracy after a fashion that would result in a rich harvest.

The painter lost no time in telling his family of the plan. At first his sister-in-law Barbe had declared against it, but when Paul had explained what he hoped would be the outcome in money of his journey she consented to his going. Thereupon Paul had set off to Russia in company with Count Barewski.

In an earlier chapter we have seen what a flattering reception the young artist had at the hands of a goodly number of the Russian nobility, and notably on the part of Prince Olsdorf; and we know what were the consequences, for the honor of Lise Barineff's husband, of the hospitality which he so graciously offered to Paul Meyrin in Courland.

Let us anticipate by some days the arrival of the Princess Olsdorf in Paris, where Paul, in spite of her promise to him, had not looked to see her so soon.

From the day after their separation the lovers had written to each other regularly, but they could not say by post all that they thought. Made acquainted by his mistress of the customs and practices of the Russian Government, the painter knew that all letters, going or coming, were stopped and read at the frontier by clerks whose discretion was more than doubtful. They had both been forced, therefore, to write with great care, and apt as their love made them to read between the lines of their guardedly affectionate letters, the correspondence instead of calming had given a sharper edge to their passion.

Two or three times the princess, it is true, had used the good offices of one or other of her women friends to intrust them with letters in which she could give herself rein, but Paul had found no way of answering in the like strain; and Lise worse off than her lover, had often tormented herself with the question whether she was still passionately loved.

It is certain she would have doubted it somewhat could she have known in all its details the life the artist led at Paris. In fact, though he adored the princess, Paul had nevertheless taken up the course of his old life; nor did he think himself unfaithful to his love in renewing on his return the intrigues he had had at the time of his departure for Russia.

Amid the former sweethearts of the young man was one who had played a more important part than the others. She was one Sarah Lamber, very pretty, a ballet-girl at the theaters of burlesque, and a well-known model in the studios. After posing for Paul five or six times she had taken a great fancy to him, and the painter had made her his mistress, supposing that it would be with her as it had been with others who had gone before her; that is, that he would rid himself of her easily when it pleased him so to do.

He was mistaken. Sarah, a handsome bohemian, like so many others of her class in Paris, in spite of the change which has come about of late in the manners of the shady world--Sarah cared little about having everything she might take a fancy to. What she did want, and for the first time perhaps, was to be loved as she herself loved. Thanks to the want of grit in Paul's character she had gained such an ascendency over him that he had to steal away unknown to her when he left Paris.

He wrote to her from St. Petersburg to explain the reasons for his journey, and as he did not foresee that he was about to be the hero of the adventure with which our readers have been made acquainted, he had not failed to promise Sarah that he would always love her and would return soon.

The young woman had made up her mind to bear his absence, but she had forgotten him so little that within twenty-four hours of his return to Paris she was in his arms. The artist tried to resist her; but to have repulsed Sarah he would have had to say that he loved another. He did not dare. Besides, he was young, ardent; and the model was a superb creature, full of fire, reminding him, though a brunette, of the Princess Olsdorf. He kept silence, yielded; and their old relations were begun anew.

From time to time--for instance, when a letter from Lise reached him--Paul felt some remorse; but he dared not break off with Sarah now; besides which, he did not think the princess would ever be able to keep her promise of rejoining him in France.

This was the state of things when he got the telegram which told him that in two days she would be in Paris.

At the news the painter lost his head for the moment. No doubt Lise's coming, reawakening all his desires, gave him very great joy, but he asked himself with terror what he was to do with Sarah. The princess would be sure to wish to see his studio, she would make long stays there, and as it would be practically impossible for him to shut out the model altogether, the two women would before long be face to face. It was easy to foresee what would happen then. Lise was not the woman to give way; he knew by experience how little she cared about compromising herself; on the other hand, Sarah was not a girl to complacently make room for a rival, especially when she saw that the struggle would be against a woman of fashion.

Paul was so troubled at the anticipation of this conflict that he could think of nothing else to do than to tell the facts to his brother. It was like consulting a blind man on a question of colors. Frantz knew nothing of the A B C of passion, and consequently could not see that difficulties of the kind submitted to him were real. He could find only a single remedy for the evil. It was a simpleton's. The artist must forbid the princess to come to his studio, on the plea that she would be exposed to meet there too often people not of her world. Meanwhile Paul would have leisure to break off gently with Sarah.

Charmed with the idea, and himself imagining none better, Frantz's brother adopted the plan, and on the following day, scarcely at all uneasy in his mind, he met the princess at the Great Northern Station.

We know that Lise Olsdorf had traveled alone, bringing with her no servants, not even a lady's-maid. She wanted to be free from the moment of her departure. On seeing Paul she sprung into his arms without care for the onlookers, or for her countrymen who had come by the same train.

Greatly moved, the painter almost carried her to the carriage he had waiting, and for some moments, forgetful of everything, they remained pressed against each other, exchanging only broken words and warm caresses.

However, they must needs return to reality and look after the luggage. Paul wished to go alone to claim it, but the young woman would not leave him for a moment, and there they were presently, both of them, mixed up with the other travelers. So they passed half an hour, not impatient, because they were with one another. At last the princess's trunks were delivered to them and put upon an omnibus, Paul giving the address of the Baden Hotel to the driver. Lise Olsdorf had telegraphed thither for rooms.

Twenty minutes later they were at table, and the great Russian lady was telling her lover how she had won her husband's consent that she should leave St. Petersburg. When she ended by telling him that she was about to become a mother, and that she wished to bring into the world while near him this child, whose father he was, there was a renewal of fervid tenderness between them.

They determined what their mode of life should be thenceforward, beginning with the next day. Every evening they would dine together, and when they did not remain at the hotel they would go to the theater.

Lise Olsdorf knew nothing of Paris but what she had heard from her countrymen. She was eager to see it, leaning on Paul's arm. Then she would keep him company in his studio, for he must work and grow famous. And, then, he had to paint this portrait of her which she had refused to pose for at St. Petersburg, and the idea made her thrill voluptuously.

What had seemed impossible to her in Russia was quite simple in France. At Paris was not she his alone and entirely? What did she care now for the world! What had she to fear? Who could say whether she would ever return to the banks of the Neva! He must introduce her, too, to his family. She wanted to be loved by all whom Paul loved. Oh, trust her to charm the ladies of his family. She knew how to win a mother's heart, she said, with an air of profound conviction; it was through her children. Now she would only give his little niece a week to be desperately in love with her.

Paul, who had listened to these plans with as much pride as joy, had not the courage to protest against the long visits the princess meant to pay him; so that next day, when she came to him in the Boulevard Clichy at the hour she had appointed, he was all the time in a state of alarm. He had, indeed, told Sarah that he expected some strangers, and that he would be glad if she would not come as usual, but, all the same, he dreaded the curiosity of the young girl, who, perhaps, would not guess how compromising her presence there might be.

However, Sarah did not come this day, and the princess, untroubled by an appearance that would assuredly have aroused her suspicions, could examine at her ease the studio which the painter had spent pains in adorning. Unhappily, the artistic things it contained were not many. Here and there were a few indifferent pictures, presents from friends, some sketches, some plaster casts, and, in the middle of the room, on an easel with dark-colored drapery, the portrait of the mistress of Pampeln.

It was what Lise Olsdorf's eyes first fell on. Full of gratitude and love she sunk into her lover's arms, saying, passionately:

"You were waiting, were you not, to paint the other?"

"The other" was the portrait that the painter had sketched at the chateau, and the princess had not dared to let him finish.

What most struck the artist's mistress, however, was the want of elegance in the studio.

She took, as it were, a detailed note of what was lacking, and next day Paul saw delivered at his rooms a superb selection of fanciful Japanese silks.

They were accompanied by a note in these words only:

"The Princess Olsdorf to her painter in ordinary."

For a moment or two the young painter thought of refusing this present, but he was afraid of rebuffing Lise too cruelly. As it was early and he did not expect her before the afternoon, he sent for a neighboring upholsterer and set to work with him.

In less than an hour the studio was transformed. The walls, distempered in a dull gray, were hidden under brilliant hangings, artistically draped; a thick carpet covered and made more level the rough wooden floor, while the large sofa had assumed quite an Oriental look, with its ample drapery of many-colored cashmere.

Paul was quite vain of his work, and was eying it proudly, scarcely thinking of the sources of his riches, when the door opened suddenly and admitted Sarah, whom he had forgotten altogether.

"The deuce!" she exclaimed, stopping on the threshold of the studio, "how grand we are here. One might be at Carolus's. Have you become a millionaire in this last twenty-four hours? Was it to give me this surprise that you forbade me to come? That was very nice of you."

The young girl had flung her arms about Paul's neck, and he, though he did not repulse her, could find nothing to say. But he had grown so red and was so plainly ill at ease that the model added, quickly:

"I seem to be in the way."

"No," stammered the artist, "how can you be so foolish?--but--"

"But what? Come, speak out. Ah! this portrait. Whose is it?"

Up to this time the portrait had lain at Frantz Meyrin's. Out of prudence Paul had left it there. He had brought it to the studio only the day before.

"It is the Princess Olsdorf," he said, "a great Russian lady whose husband was most kind to me in St. Petersburg."

"You never told me about it. Why? Where was this picture?"

"In Russia. It came yesterday, that I might have time to work at it before the exhibition."

"She is a pretty woman."

"Yes; not bad."

"No doubt it was with the price of this portrait that you bought all these fine things."

"I painted five or six pictures over there, which I was well paid for."

At this moment he heard the wheels of a carriage stopping before the house.

Going to the window he saw it was the princess's carriage.

Returning quickly to the young girl, who was looking with a frown, as if feeling a jealous presentiment, at the portrait of the stranger, he said to her:

"My little Sarah, if you are a dear, good little thing, you will go now. Here are visitors, and they had better not see so pretty a girl as you here."

"Why so?" replied the model, coldly. "Do Carolus and Henner send me away when visitors come?"

"I am not sending you away. I only ask you simply--"

It was too late.

There was a knock at the door, and, without waiting for an answer, the person came in.

It was the Princess Olsdorf.

At first she did not see Sarah, and was on the point of running to Paul, but, catching sight of this young girl, whose great black eyes were fixed on her with a strange look, Lise at once felt instinctively that she was in presence of a rival.

A complete change came over her face. The mistress was lost in the great lady as she said in a patronizing and ironical tone of voice.

"A thousand pardons, Monsieur Meyrin. I thought you were alone."

"Why, madame," the artist stammered, scarcely knowing what he said, and wishing himself buried a hundred feet deep in the ground, "it is much the same thing as if I were. Mademoiselle is not a stranger. She is a charming model, whom women of the best society often find in my studio, and in those of my most eminent brother artists."

"Mademoiselle is indeed a very beautiful person, well fitted to give inspiration to a painter," said the princess, with a smile, which stung Sarah so deeply that she said, quickly, in a hot tone:

"Monsieur Meyrin might have added that his friends as well as himself show regard for me."

Paul saw that things would soon be in a mess if he did not do something to regulate them; but being little used to this sort of encounters, he would certainly have made some new blunder, when the princess, no doubt taking pity on him, said, going toward the door:

"My dear sir, I would not hinder you in your work. You are having a sitting probably; I will go. I shall see you this evening. You have not forgotten that we dine together and go to the opera afterward."

"Madame," said Paul, with a movement to hinder her going.

"No, no; it will be better so. This evening."

Without another look she went out quickly.

A few moments later the sound of the carriage wheels proved that she had driven off.

"Why could not you hold your tongue?" said the painter to Sarah. "In another moment you would have told the Princess Olsdorf that you are my mistress."

"So I ought to have done," the young girl said, angrily, "since you are her lover."

"Her lover--you are mad."

"If I am mad, I am not so blind nor such a fool as you think. I would bet it is this fine lady that has given you all these things. That is becoming, isn't it?"

"You don't know what you are talking about. If you are going to make these scenes with me you had better not come here any more."

"That is it--you are turning me off. Come, swear that you are not the lover of this woman."

Her eyes glittering, her voice threatening, she had seized the painter's hands.

"You worry me," he said, pulling them away roughly.

"So I have guessed right," exclaimed the model. "Well, I will have my revenge on her and on you, too. Ah, women of good society take our lovers from us; they buy them. We shall see. This princess has a husband somewhere or other."

"You are mistaken; she is a widow."

"You lie. In your letters you often mentioned Prince Olsdorf. No doubt he is in Russia while his wife deceives him here; the idiot."

"Come, what can you do, when all is said? I can surely live as I like. After all, I am free."

"Why did you take up with me again on your return? You ought to have told me the truth."

"I had nothing to tell you. It was you who came back. I did not go to seek you."

"And what about your letters from Russia, in which you said you loved me still?"

Not knowing how to make an end of the scene, Paul became brutal.

"See now, Sarah, we have had enough of this," he said. "We loved one another; we don't love one another any longer. It happens every day. Instead of getting angry, let us remain good friends. We could not always have gone on as we were doing, could we? Besides--I should have had to tell you very soon--I am going to marry."

"You marry!" said Sarah, shrugging her shoulders, and not believing this fresh lie. "You marry! The princess, perhaps. You are a scoundrel. By heavens, your fine lady shall hear more of me. Good-bye."

And flinging open the door of the studio, the young girl rushed out.

"Ouf!" sighed the artist, flinging himself on the sofa. "That is over; so much the better."

He sprung up again with a frown, and muttered:

"But the other one! What shall I tell her this evening? Bah, I shall find some way of calming her."

The princess herself was to save her lover the trouble of finding this way, for when he joined her at dinner and was very embarrassed, fearing some reproach, she said, tenderly:

"One word only, dear, about the meeting I had in your studio this morning. Swear that this girl is nothing to you--that you will never receive or see her again; it is all I require of you."

"I swear it," said the painter, glad to get off so cheaply.

"Don't you feel," continued the young woman, "as I do, that there must not be the shadow of a cloud between us, not the faintest suspicion? Your past does not concern me; but your present is mine--wholly mine, is not it?"

"Wholly," repeated he, drawing her to his heart.

Two hours later the artist, having the princess on his arm, was mounting the grand staircase at the opera and taking his seat in their box.

Sarah had plainly not wasted the afternoon, for at once twenty opera-glasses were leveled at them; the name of the great Russian lady was whispered from stall to stall; and next day two or three of the morning papers recorded in their notices of the theaters that among the leaders of fashion present at the opera on the previous evening had been noticed the beautiful Princess Olsdorf, accompanied by her painter in ordinary, Paul Meyrin.

But these notices, between the lines of which it was so easy to read, did not trouble the noble stranger an instant. Determined to make no concession to public opinion, infatuated by her passion, she began with him she loved the life apart that she had dreamed of.

Meanwhile, having full confidence in her, Prince Olsdorf, who had gone back to Pampeln, was hunting the wolf and the boar, stopping occasionally at Elva, the home of his tenant Soublaieff, the father of the pretty Vera.