Part 8

In the midst of all her tender-heartedness she has fits of harsh, repellant roughness, which, like so much about her, are an inheritance from her father.

With loosened hair, half undressed, she sits before the fire, with her bare feet resting on the bear-skin. "Ah, it was lovely!" A great embarrassment robs her of breath. Again she looks at her hand. "He loves me!" And suddenly an uneasiness, something like dissatisfaction, creeps over her. Why had he not immediately told her that he loved her? Why had he not drawn her to his breast and kissed her?

She kneels down on the bear-skin, draws the shaggy head of the beast to her breast, and kisses it on the forehead.

* * * * *

"Why are you so out of temper; is anything the matter?"

This question Karl Baerenburg hears to annoyance in the days which follow his visit in the Avenue Wagram. And old friend even asked him: "Have you gambling debts? Confide in me."

He looks badly, and his manner is absent-minded.

He does not show himself in the Avenue Wagram. The recollection of the scene with Mascha is painful to him. He repeats to himself incessantly that he has behaved perfectly correctly, that every other man would have taken the situation differently. He would have given his life for a kiss, and--really, she would not have fought against it. To have renounced that was an heroic deed which bordered on quixotism. Why, then, was he not satisfied with himself?

He was not a bad, but only a weak, wavering man, a man without any originality, who, of his own inclination, had courage neither to do anything good nor bad which was not on the fixed programme of life of his companions in rank.

Still, he had fallen desperately in love with this little Russian. It was really fatal, for he could not marry her. In principle he was resolved to marry, to marry soon; he was urged on all sides to marry. What could he wish better than Sylvia Anthropos? She was beautiful, wealthy, of very good family, and, more than all this, she was wise, practical, and possessed the strength of will which he lacked. She would take the responsibility of his existence upon herself, think for him, act for him, resolve for him. There had formerly been a time when he was one of her most ardent admirers. She had refused him, but that was long ago, full three years, and in the life of a young diplomat that is an eternity. She had done her best to recompense him for her former unkindness and win him back; but the charm was gone. He knew that if he offered her his hand to-day it would not be refused. But never had he felt such a warm feeling for any one as for Mascha. With all her unconventional impulsiveness, her lack of restraint and social routine, her physical and moral personality was yet penetrated by such a subtle refinement! Shame, eternal shame! Well, he did not need to decide to-day or to-morrow. Perhaps it would pass. Before he had made up his mind he courted Sylvia Anthropos, and in a sympathetic hour, in the Hotel Meurice, she laughed at him quite unexpectedly, and suddenly resting her large eyes very seductively upon him, she said: "You good, faithful, stupid man! Can you then never find courage to tell me that you love me?"

When, about an hour later, he left the Hotel Meurice he was betrothed, and carried away with him a comfortable feeling of general satisfaction with himself. At least, all was now settled!

Between his betrothal and the moment when he had murmured to Mascha, "If you ever need a man who would go through fire for you, you know where to seek him!" scarcely five days had elapsed!

XVI.

Among the different returns of attention which the Jeliagins' musicale have brought them, come several invitations to a large charity ball in the Hotel Continental. Anna is not disinclined to attend it, but has already been invited for the same evening to a dance. But Mascha is going with Madame d'Olbreuse, who, at the last moment, has good-naturedly offered to take her with her.

It is against custom to take such a young girl to this ball; but what is not against custom in Mascha's loveless, unprotected existence?

Mascha, who has passed the last days in feverish expectation of Baerenburg's proposal, looks forward with a kind of feeling between hope and fear to this ball. Perhaps he will be there. "But will he trouble himself about me?" she asks herself.

Ah! what does it concern her? He is quite indifferent to her, she persuades herself--quite, however little she can understand him. Who could? How can one say such feeling words to a girl, look at her with such tender enthusiasm, kiss her hand as he had kissed Mascha's, and then suddenly disappear, and for eight long days let nothing be heard of him? It is incomprehensible. "Perhaps he thinks that with a child like me he can permit himself anything," says she to herself, "but I will show him that he has deceived himself in me. I wish he would be at this ball, only that I might show him how little I think of him, how arrogant I can be!"

Meanwhile she prepares for the ball, and takes the greatest pains about her toilet. As, since Nikolai is gone, no one has time to accompany her, she drives about the boulevards alone, and makes the wildest purchases. In the midst of her preparations she takes a trip to the Avenue Frochot, where she is always a welcome guest in Nita's studio.

With no one is she on such a good footing as with Nita, whom she clings to with a kind of idolatry, and--Nita returns her affection. Sonia is consumed with jealousy when she sees her friend, formerly not at all inclined to exaggeration, caressing the dear little witch.

On the evening of the great event, Mascha puts on the same white dress which she had worn in honor of her social _debut_, and places a wreath of loosely fastened pink anemones on her head. That this adornment, which she herself thought of and which became her excellently, was a trifle too picturesque for a young girl of good family she does not suspect, and who should direct her attention thereto? The Jeliagins have already gone their own way, before she had begun to dress, and Madame d'Olbreuse, when she comes to get Mascha, does not leave her carriage, but merely sends her servant to announce that she is waiting.

They have reached the Hotel Continental. In the vestibule a gentleman comes up to the Countess d'Olbreuse, some vicomte, who is introduced to Mascha, bows to her, and troubles himself no further about her. He offers the Countess his arm; she looks around for a cavalier for Mascha, but finds none.

"Keep by me, dear child," says she, taking the Vicomte's arm. And so, somewhat ashamed and vexed, as an accidental dependant of the Countess, Maschenka enters.

People like the Countess visit such entertainments from curiosity, from a wish to admire the arrangements and criticise the people.

She walks through all the rooms on the arm of her cavalier, and from time to time turns round to Maschenka with a "Are you here, my child?" Whereupon her companion shows her something droll, and she immediately forgets Mascha again.

The heat is stifling, the crowd fearful. At first Maschenka takes pleasure in shyly looking at herself in the mirrors along the walls, then no longer--her eyes meet such a weary, disappointed little face, with such a vexed, gloomy look.

"Now you have shown me enough foolishness. I should like at length to see something beautiful," says the Countess, petulantly, to her companion.

"Do you really wish to see something beautiful--the most beautiful thing ever created?" replies the Vicomte. "A beautiful woman. Then you must come with me into the patronesses' room."

"Oh, clear, no; I know all the ladies; they would immediately take possession of me, and there would be an end of my independence for the rest of the evening."

"At least take a peep through the door," the Vicomte proposes. "There, the lady under the palm near the statue--an Englishwoman, one sees at the first glance--blonde, and in a white gown."

Mascha puts up her _lorgnon_, looks into the room.

There, near the statue, in a white toilet slipping far down from her shoulders, sits Sylvia Anthropos with her imperial diadem of reddish curls, her short, antique upper lip, her large dark eyes, her golden eyelashes, and finely pencilled eyebrows.

The regular faultlessness of her features is to-day warmed by an expression unusual to her. She holds her head somewhat bent back, and looks up--to whom? Mascha feels something like a cold, hard blow on her heart.

There, leaning against the pedestal of the statue, speaking to the beautiful Englishwoman, stands Karl Baerenburg. Now he raises his eyes, discovers Mascha, starts perceptibly, and turns his eyes away from her.

* * * * *

An hour has passed since then.

Maschenka is one humiliation richer. The only man who has asked her to dance was her Italian teacher, Signor Supino. Besides, a wealthy leather dealer has offered her his arm for a promenade. Poor Supino she dismissed with a harshness which later pains her, but her strength and resolution did not suffice to shake off the leather merchant. He had met Mascha a single time in Nita's studio, and treats her as if she were his niece.

At length she is rid of him. With convulsive resolution she clings to an old, white-haired American, whom she knows as the father of one of the scholars in the Sylvain studio. His daughter is waltzing in the ball-room, the Countess d'Olbreuse is waltzing. Maschenka sits with Mr. Cornelius Merryfield in the prettiest room, a winter garden with artificial moonlight and rocks; sits there weary, sad, and lets the old man explain to her the narrow influence of the North American Quakers.

Suddenly she hears a voice near her say: "At last! I have sought you already for half an hour!" It is Baerenburg.

All the blood in her body rushes to her heart. She has but the one thought, not to let him notice how much she cares for him, to be as indifferent to him as possible.

"Ah, really! Then Miss Anthropos has already left the ball half an hour ago?" says she, slowly, raising her brows, whereupon, turning to Mr. Merryfield, she asks: "Did you know President Lincoln?"

"Have the kindness to introduce me," interrupts Baerenburg, irritably.

"Count Baerenburg--Mr. Merryfield," says she, shortly; and still turned toward Mr. Merryfield, she continues: "I heard once that when an Englishman, in conversation with Lincoln, let fall a French phrase, the latter remarked that he did not understand Greek. Do you think that possible?"

"It may be," says Mr. Merryfield, with an uneasy glance at the door. "I do not understand what keeps my daughter so long; she promised to only dance one waltz. Permit me to go and look after her a little."

"But, Mr. Merryfield, I promised Countess d'Olbreuse to wait here for her," says Maschenka, very excited, and catching him by the sleeve.

The American looks helplessly at Baerenburg. "You see that you must put up with my protection, Fraeulein," says the latter, whereupon the two men bow formally, and Mr. Merryfield withdraws.

Then she is alone with him in the green twilight of the winter garden,--as good as alone. Truly, from time to time people pass by the young couple, men with ladies and alone, but they are people who know neither him nor her.

Here, in the pale pseudo-moonshine of the electric lights, her beauty has a quite magical effect. The mixture of pride and sadness in her manner, the poetic unusualness of the arrangement of her hair, the pink wreath, on whose bloom lies already a touch of sad weariness, the dark green background, against which her white child's face stands out--all unite in heightening the charm of her fantastic, peculiar loveliness.

For a while both are silent, he and she. At length he begins: "In my whole life, a week has never passed so slowly as the last."

"Indeed! I find it, on the contrary, very short. In my monotonous life one day follows the other before one perceives it."

"Do you not go out at all?" asks he.

"No; my aunt says I am too young to go out in society; my cousin says I have too bad manners; in consequence of which I stay at home," says she, to a certain extent dropping the superior _role_ which she childishly and defiantly has planned for herself.

"Your cousin speaks nonsense, and if your aunt really thinks you too young to go out, she should not send you to such a ball as this one."

"Is it an unsuitable ball?" asks Mascha, quickly.

"No; but it is a ball which such a young girl as you does not visit with a superficial chaperon like Countess d'Olbreuse. If one of the patronesses had taken you with her, it would be quite different."

"The patronesses?" Mascha shrugs her shoulders. "The patronesses are great ladies, with whom I have nothing to do; I am no one, only papa's daughter." Her voice trembles a little. "That does not count here in foreign parts; Anna tells me so every day. I did not know it; it was certainly very necessary, but it pained me." She fans herself with her large fan, and smiles as one smiles to keep from weeping.

Baerenburg pulls his mustache.

"And except your cousin, have you no one in Paris who is near to you?" he begins anew.

"Yes, one--one person whom I love with my whole heart," says Mascha, with the exaggeration to which hurt and vexed people are always inclined. "She is sweet to me. It is your cousin, Fraeulein von Sankjewitch."

"Do you ever go to the studio?"

"Yes," says Mascha, shortly.

"H-m! Will you be there to-morrow morning?"

She throws back her little head, looks at him from her dark eyes with unspeakable, reproving pride, and says: "No!"

A longer silence follows. He knows that she was justified in repelling him; knows that he acts unresponsibly to her. This consciousness only assists in robbing him of his self-control. He loves her passionately, unspeakably. He must have her, only her. More and more the recollection of his betrothal shrinks to a purely theoretical hinderance which can and shall be removed.

Then a large, bearded man comes up to Mascha, a man with round shoulders and the insolently careless manner of men of good family who have long moved in dubious circles of society. His eyes are watery, his lips twitch, while bowing to Mascha, he says in French: "Do you remember me, Miss Marie?"

"Prince Orbanoff," replies Mascha, affirmatively, nodding cordially, "from Nice."

Behind the Russians stand two young men who have admired Mascha with unconcealed boldness, and watch the scene.

"May I ask for this waltz?" stammers the Russian.

With the greatest readiness Mascha rises.

"You forget that you are already engaged to me," Baerenburg interposes.

"You are entirely mistaken, Count," replies Mascha arrogantly, and takes a step toward the Russian.

"For Nikolai's sake, listen to me, do not dance," Baerenburg whispers in her ear.

Softly, hastily, and in a strange language as the words were whispered, the prince still has heard them.

"May I ask who the young man is who so insolently wishes to influence your resolve?" he asks Mascha, with still more difficult utterance, and his red face becomes yet redder.

Baerenburg draws out his card and hands it to him; at the same moment the Countess d'Olbreuse comes up to her.

The Russian has disappeared. "Have you entertained yourself well, my child?" says she. "I have danced _comme une perdue_; it is not suitable for a woman of my age. Now we can go, the ball begins to be too amusing."

Silently, laying the extreme tips of her fingers in Baerenburg's offered arm, Mascha follows the Countess and her cavalier into the ante-room.

Suddenly she raises her head. "Why did you prevent me from dancing with the Prince?" she asks in an angry tone.

"First, he was intoxicated; secondly--but that you do not understand-- secondly, he has such a horrible reputation that I would rather see my sister dance with a clown from the circus ring, for example, than with him. To dance with Orbanoff at a public ball when you had not moved your foot before, and at two o'clock in the morning, would be something so fearful, so ambiguous, so--well, I would rather have my right arm cut off than let you do it."

They now stand in the ante-room. Baerenburg takes Mascha's wrap from the servant and lays it about her shoulders. But Mascha's rage flames stronger than ever. More than before she feels the need to pain him, to injure him, to insult him.

"So you would let your right arm be cut off for me! How easily that is said," mocks she. Then looking him full in the face:

"I am very much obliged to you for your good intentions, but I should have preferred that you had not further troubled yourself with my affairs. I have known the Prince longer than you."

Scarcely has she said these impolite words when she would give everything in the world to recall them. It is too late.

"I was wrong; pardon me," says he, shortly. And taking leave with a deep bow, first of her and then of Countess d'Olbreuse, he retires without another word.

"Now, _ma petite_, come!" says the Countess, looking for her _protegee_. Mascha stands there, pale, petrified, and looks at the crowd in which he has disappeared. He did not once notice that, repenting her rudeness, she had stretched her hand out shyly to him; he did not even look at it.

Yes, she has shown him how little she thinks of him, how arrogant she can be. But now that it is over, she has little pleasure in her heroic achievement; on the contrary, torments herself over it, and would take it back at any price. She suddenly knows that she loves him with all her heart; loves him so that she would die to spare him one pang. And this poor, physically mature, mentally still childish little being suddenly longs for one thing only; namely, to see him very, very soon again in order to expiate her harshness and intolerance.

But how should she see him again? she thought, as in the early morning hours she sleeplessly tossed her curly head here and there on the pillow. After her repellant manner, he would scarcely wish to come to the Avenue Wagram. Ah! why had she not simply rejoiced in him, and let herself be so happy and confidential with him!

XVII.

The following day was a Sunday. When Mascha came home from church, Anna had just returned from a ride in the Bois. The Marquis de Lusignan had come for her early with his horses, and accompanied her in the Bois. Several diplomats had there joined her; they had been attentive to her. She was in the best of humors, and so hungry that she did not take time before lunch to take off her habit, but sat down to the table in it.

Anna told of her ride, of the leaps she had taken, of the enthusiasm she had excited, and that she certainly must have a new habit from Wolmerhausen. Maschenka listened with the childish, quite reverential astonishment which the elder cousin always caused in her when she told of the triumphs she had achieved in the great world.

"Did you see Baerenburg at the ball?" asked Anna, suddenly, turning to her.

"Yes."

"Did he dance with you?"

"No; I did not dance at all."

"That is better," said Anna. "Young girls do not dance at such balls. At such bacchanals in honor of charity, all sorts of things are permitted. Have you a suspicion who the young lady was whom Baerenburg was so attentive to?"

"Miss Anthropos."

"Not she, every one knows her; a new beauty whom nobody knows. It must have been one of his Austrian cousins--a very young girl, exquisitely dressed in white, with a wreath of red flowers on her head. It seems that he had a scene on her account with Orbanoff, whom he would not permit to dance with her. Evidently, it must be a girl who is very near to him, one whom he thinks a great deal of, or else he would not have interfered with the old tiger for her sake. As it seems, Orbanoff has challenged him. It is a bad season for duelling; Monteglin told me that three men of our set have already fallen in a duel since autumn. I felt quite upset, especially as they say Orbanoff is the most unconscientious man and the best pistol shot in Paris. He seems very angry with Baerenburg-- But what is the matter? You are deathly pale. Heavens; if you take the fate of every superficial acquaintance so to heart!"

* * * * *

Anna has retired to her room and lain down. She is invited with her mother to a dinner, and spares her complexion. Another solitary evening for Mascha. But she does not think of that. Only of one thing does she think: "He fights for my sake; fights on account of my arrogant, obstinate lack of tact! Why would I not understand him; why did I not let it pass when he said he was already engaged to me for that dance? But no, I would not let him dispose of me as of an unresisting child, and must show him that I thought nothing of him, and now--oh, my God! now perhaps he will die, and it is my fault."

Uneasily she walks up and down, quicker and quicker. She sees nothing in the future but a horrible, cold void, where he will no longer be, and nothing will be left to her heart but the consciousness that she has offended and misunderstood him, and that he died for her. His death has ceased to be a fearful possibility for her; it is something that must come if she does not prevent it. But how can she prevent it? If Colia were here, she would beg him to arrange the affair, to speak to Baerenburg or Orbanoff.

Oh! there must be some way of escape which he could find. But Colia is away. She cannot longer bear her despair. She must confide in some one, ask advice, seek consolation, or, at least, pity.

She goes down in the drawing-room to speak to her aunt. Her aunt has a visitor, an old Russian friend.

With a kind of rage, she closes the scarcely opened door of the drawing-room, and hurries back to her room.

A half-hour passes, a desolate, endless half-hour. It is half-past four. Before the house still stands the visitor's cab. Ever more restlessly Mascha wrings her poor little white hands; ever more reproachfully every unkind word that she has said to him comes back to her memory; her heart grows heavier. Oh! if she could only see him, at least beg his forgiveness before he dies! No, he shall not die; she cannot let it happen. Colia's farewell words come to her mind: "If you should ever be in any embarrassment, go to Fraeulein von Sankjewitch."

Yes, she will speak with her; Nita is his cousin, she knows his affairs; Nita will advise, will help.

"Hurry, Eliza, you must go out with me," says she, going into the maid's room. But near the maid stands Anna.

"Must you go out just now?" says she, vexedly; "my dress is not ready. Where are you going?"

"To Fraeulein von Sankjewitch."

"Eliza has not time. You can go the few steps alone."

And she goes alone, fairly runs through the Rue de la Prony, through the Parc Monceau. She pants for breath, there is a ringing in her ears. Now she has reached No. 8 of the Avenue Murillo. She hurries up the steps, rings. The maid opens the door. "The ladies have gone out; they will not be back before evening."

Quite crushed, Mascha stands there in the pretty little ante-room.

"Has mademoiselle any message for the ladies?" asks the maid.

"No, no!" sadly Mascha shakes her head. She trembles in her whole body, rests her hand on a little table on which stands a plate with visiting cards.

Her eyes mechanically dwell on one which lies uppermost:

Le Comte Charles De Baerenburg, Attache, etc. _Avenue de Messine, No_. ----.