Part 10

"Ah!" was all the Princess said, putting up her double eyeglass and surveying Bertram curiously. Then, after a long pause--

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"It is so easy to make a mistake in these things."

"There is no chance of a mistake here."

"How so?"

Hildegard hesitated before she replied. But her heart was too full. The pain--repressed with difficulty--caused her by the merciless condemnation of the Baron, her displeasure in reference to Bertram, her anger against Erna--all these emotions were clamouring for expression, although her pride bade her desist. She bent over the Princess and whispered hurriedly--

"You will not condemn a mother even if, in her despair, she has recourse to desperate remedies, or, at least, allows things to be done on which she could never voluntarily determine. I was positively free from the faintest suspicion, but Lydia--Fraeulein von Aschhof--who had reasons of her own for exercising minute control over the gentleman's demeanour, felt sure she had found it out. Indeed, she communicated to me observations she had made--words she had heard, looks she had intercepted--I thought the charge monstrous, incredible, abominable; but my confidence was shaken--I saw with new eyes, heard with new ears--saw and heard what caused me to shudder. And yet I would certainly have shrunk much longer from accepting a conviction which every day and every hour was urging upon me anew; but two days ago Fraeulein von Aschhof brought me a letter which my daughter had written to her cousin Agatha, written but not sent--why, I know not. Nor do I know how Lydia--Fraeulein Von Aschhof--got hold of the letter. I believe ..."

"Go on, go on!" said Alexandra, as Hildegard, embarrassed, was pausing. "That does not matter at all. The chief thing is that you have seen the letter. And what did the letter say? That she loved this man?"

"Not in these words, but in words which it were impossible to interpret differently."

"Have you the letter still?"

"No, I am sorry to say. Lydia has ..."

"Has replaced it where she found it; of course. It's a pity, though. It might be possible to imagine another interpretation. However, let us assume that it is so. What have you resolved?"

"To die rather than give my consent--a thousand times rather!"

Their eyes met, and they looked; steadily at each other for a few moments. Then the Princess nodded, and said--

"I see you are in earnest. I can quite understand it; nay, more, I will help you. You will not have to die. I promise my help. Will you reject it?"

She had seized Hildegard's hand.

"I shall be eternally grateful to you," said Hildegard; "but ..."

"No 'but!' I am one of these people who always do what they undertake. You shall be content with me."

"I fear, I fear it is too late."

"We shall see about that. Now, in the first instance, bring me the man, and leave me alone with him. One more condition: you are never to ask me what means I have employed. Will you promise?"

"Anything you wish, my kind, good friend!"

She would have pressed the little ringed hands, (which she still held clasped) to her lips, but the Princess prevented it by a swift movement, saying as she did so--

"For goodness sake, do not be demonstrative! People are not to see what intimate friends we have become!"

Hildegard had risen to fetch Bertram. Alexandra was again examining, with the help of her double eyeglass, the painted ceiling above; but her thoughts were not with Apollo and the nymphs.

"So now we are going to see Mr. Right! To be sure, the other one was scarcely worth the trouble. But this one it will not be so easy to subdue. Poor Kurt--I could take such sweet revenge here! But no, no! I have vowed to myself, by the love wherewith I loved you, wherewith I love you still--as a brother--that I would bring you back your loved one though I should have to fetch her out of Inferno. I will keep my vow. I will be able to look with a clear conscience into your beautiful eyes to-morrow.... Ah, Mr. Bertram! Now I call this very nice of you. I was already beginning to feel offended. I am not accustomed to be neglected by clever people. You must try to atone for it now. Pray, sit down!"

XV.

Bertram had no difficulty in replying merrily to the merry questions of the fair stranger. His head was full of merry thoughts, there was nothing but rapture in his heart. All the world seemed to him to be filled with the fragrance of that rose Erna had given him to-day, that rose which he had since worn near his heart, and from which the hostile looks of Hildegard and the others fell off harmless, as from a potent talisman. Human envy notwithstanding, things awarded him by the grace of the gods were coming to him, nay, had come. If he had still required any confirmation, what confirmation more delightful could he have had than the exuberant mirth to which the beloved child's melancholy gravity had suddenly turned? Like fairy music her rippling laugh seemed to him, coming from the adjoining room, where, surrounded by her cousins, she was as indefatigable in admiring Herr von Busche's feats, as that gentleman himself was in performing them. And he was willing to bear in patience that she was taken up by her friends all the evening, even as he was himself by the rest of the company, and that thus he had not found one single moment when he might have approached her, might have told her what she knew already, what no longer required to be said, what could be said only by a kiss on those pure, sweet lips.

In such rapturous dreams his soul was rejoicing whilst he was conversing gaily with the Russian beauty. And rapture, too, it was to compare this foreign beauty, from whom, in spite of her youth, the strong and not always pure breath of the great world had long ago brushed away the dainty down, with the chaste grace of the beloved maid. She needed no sparkling diamonds, no jingling of golden bracelets; she could dispense with all these over-refined arts of the toilet, this coquetterie which calculated every pose of the plump little frame, every movement of the round arms and the white hands, every rise and fall of the long lids, every glance, every smile from the black eyes! His Erna was the fairer and nobler of the two, a born Princess!

In their conversation, which was carried on, as far as Bertram was concerned, all the more eagerly the less his heart was touched by it, and to which Alexandra, passing as lightly as a bird from one subject to another, was constantly adding fresh topics of interest, they were interrupted by the loud laughter of the girls. Indeed, two of the sisters came rushing into the drawing-room to invite those who were there to come and admire a positively incredible trick which Herr von Busche had just performed, and which he was prepared to repeat--but by universal desire only. They drew the others away with them, uncle and aunt, the Herr _Oberfoerster_ and the Baron.

"You would like to go," said Alexandra. "Do not stay on my account. I have already withdrawn you too long from the society of the others."

"You dismiss me?"

"One should never detain any one who wants to escape!"

"But what has brought such evil suspicion upon me?"

"Your eyes, which are constantly, though ever so discreetly, wandering to that door, in whose frame, it is true, the group of young ladies appears as full of charms as one of Winterhalter's tableaux. Four girls, one of whom, for the sake of contrast, I suppose, has had the superb inspiration to be ugly, while the other three vie with each other in beauty. Which of the girls do you think the most beautiful?"

"I thought the question could not be asked."

"Do you think so? But since I have asked it, I suppose you will have to be polite enough to answer it. You mean the young lady with the lovely neck and the glorious Titian-like hair? I could wager that you do."

"Don't; you would lose your wager."

"Then I declare that you are not an impartial judge, perhaps absolutely bribed; bribed by the rose, say, that you wear in your button-hole."

Alexandra had dropped the eye-glass which she had raised to look upon the group of girls in the doorway, and now, turning swiftly round to Bertram, she looked laughingly into his eyes, and said--

"That was indiscreet, was it not?"

"Not at all," Bertram replied. "This rose, it is true, is the gift of one of the young ladies, and indeed, of the one who seems to me to be by far the most beautiful--the daughter of our host, if you wish to know. But it was no secret gift. I have had it awarded to me before the whole party assembled, as a reward, by the way, for staying a few days longer than I had promised. You see in this case, as in so many others, the small merit is out of all proportion to the great reward."

"Then I was not altogether wrong," said Alexandra, "there was a certain amount of bribery connected with it, although there was no call for it. Openly speaking, I can but confirm your decision. Fraeulein Erna is by far the most beautiful, most graceful, most interesting, not only of the few young ladies yonder, but of all those I have recently, perhaps whom I have ever seen. And my evidence is assuredly unprejudiced and unbribed, nay, more, it is generous, for, between you and me, Fraeulein Erna is not treating me in a friendly way."

"That," Bertram asserted eagerly, "is assuredly a mistake; it may seem so, but her cousins are claiming so much of her attention, and, perhaps too, having been so little in society as yet, she may be a little shy before a lady of the _grand monde_."

"Perhaps," said Alexandra, "although the latter alternative would not be very flattering for me, seeing that I fancy, besides being somewhat of a grand lady, I have remained a good deal of the _bonne enfant_. Nor have I at all given up the hope of proving to the dear child that I am indeed her friend. I believe I have found out that she needs one. Do you not think so?"

Bertram was puzzled. But she had spoken kindly, naturally, just like some one rather given to blurt out whatever thought came uppermost.

"Who does not need friends?" he answered with a smile.

"Very true," replied the Princess, "and very diplomatic. I quite understand your diplomacy. You are the friend of this fair creature; it is therefore your bounden duty, if other people clamour for admission to the ranks of her friends, to be very critical, particularly so if it strikes you as incomprehensible whence those others derive the sudden sympathy to which they lay claim. But, _que voulez-vous?_ A young woman, whose heart is wholly unoccupied, and who is driven about in the world by this aforesaid unoccupied heart, like a balloon that has lost its ballast--what other and what better thing can she do, than be interested in anything interesting that chance puts in her way? This is my occupation. Any occupation seriously pursued makes you an expert, sooner or later, in that occupation. I have always pursued mine seriously, and have pursued it long enough to claim to be something like an expert in it. Now here everything is so simple and clear that the meanest understanding can make for itself a fairly correct picture in half a dozen hours. Given: a man who would be the very pattern of a loving father for his daughter, if he were not a rare specimen of the truly obedient husband; a wife who would swear by all she held sacred that she thinks of nothing but how to make her daughter happy, and who makes her as unhappy as only a narrow-hearted narrow-minded mother can make a singularly gifted, large-hearted daughter; an aged scandal-loving, intriguing _confidante_, who likes to make mischief, the better to pursue her own mean objects in troubled waters; a young suitor, endowed by nature for the very part of _jeune premier_ at a second-rate theatre; an older friend of the family whose clear, clever eyes see all this, of course, and whose whole sympathy, equally a matter of course, is enlisted for the girl whose gradual growth and glorious development he has watched. Why, I should think the matter was as plain as the 'secret' in the most casual novel. And, should you care for a more complicated ... fable,--let the friend of the family conceive a serious, passionate attachment to the 'dear child,' and then you have abundant material for volume number two."

Bertram started. This could no longer--it was impossible--be the mere inspiration of the moment, and only a harmless _causerie_. There was treachery at work here, evidently inspired by Hildegard, with whom the Russian lady had, a short time ago, conversed so long and so eagerly. And if the Princess, as was quite possible, considering the great vivacity of her disposition, had already chosen a side: which side? Erna's? or that of her mother? Probably the latter, for she spoke so very bitterly of her. One does that kind of thing to draw one's opponent out. But in that case the great lady must use greater cunning yet.

"I admire your wonderful imagination," he said, "and if I were a poet, I would envy it. How charming to see poetical elements everywhere, and also to be at once clear as to the arranging and dove-tailing which torments the poet so much. You should really make a book of it. Even if the subject is not quite new--where, indeed, could, quite new ones be found nowadays?--a clever author will see something new even in the most hackneyed subject. For myself, of course, the second volume would be specially interesting, when the old friend of the family comes on the stage; for him, of course, the business cannot possibly end well."

"I beg," said the Princess, "that you, will not spoil my text. I have by no means said that my hero is old. On the contrary, he is in the prime of life; of that age when we women only begin to find you men amiable, and rightly so, for you only begin then to become amiable; somewhere about fifty, we'll say."

Bertram bowed.

"Accept my sincere thanks," he said, "in my own name, seeing I am of the amiable age, and in the name of my many contemporaries. You are taking a load off my heart, for now, equally of course, the issue need by no means be so bad. The chances for and against are anyhow equal."

"There, again, you go too far," replied the Princess. "The bad issue, to be sure, is no longer necessary; it must, however, always remain probable."

"Always?"

"I think so, even under the most favourable circumstances."

"What would you call favourable circumstances?"

"We will talk of that later on. Let us first take a specially unfavourable case, which, perhaps, is so all the more the less it would appear to be so. It seems, for example, that our fair young friend would feel less keenly the difference in years, and all the unpleasant and awkward things connected with it, and resulting from it. She is--at least so I judge her to be, and that is sufficient for our purpose--one of those deeply serious natures who are greatly given to confounding the wild phantasies of the head with the true enthusiasm of the heart, and who will conscientiously, and to its utmost consequences, adhere to what once they have seized upon and vowed. But I presume that she is as passionate as she is conscientious; and if her passion and her conscience once come in conflict, the struggle will be terrific. She may come forth victorious from the battle, but what avails a victory that ends in resignation? There we should have an issue, which may be convenient enough for the oldish husband, but then--his convenience and her happiness are surely very different things."

"If I under stand you correctly," Bertram made answer, "you plead for the same theory which I hold, too, and which, as it happens, I have had to defend repeatedly during the last few days in our little circle: namely, that a man who is no longer young, cannot become the object of a passionate attachment on the part of a young girl; or it is anyhow in some way an aberration, and therefore cannot last."

"That is exactly what I mean," the Princess assented eagerly. "We come, then, to a law of nature, which we must accept like other laws, although they are by no means flattering, nay, downright humiliating to our pride. Perhaps, however, on the other hand, the danger of an error and of the consequent conflict is not quite so great in the case in point, since the curiously-veiled radiance of the glorious eyes of that fair child seems to imply that she has already more than a mere vague foreboding of that passion--that she has already loved, perhaps loved unhappily, and would, consequently, not have to make these bitter experiences, which teach us to be wise, and quiet, and resigned, one after the other, in actual wedlock. But who is to give us the guarantee that the last supposition is correct? I could tell you a curious story, if you care to hear it."

"You simply owe me the story, my gracious Princess, as a proof of our joint theory."

"Well, it is fortunately not a long story, and the rest of the company have given us up, anyhow. Listen, then."

Alexandra's eyes had been examining the large chamber; they were quite alone in it now, for all the others were crowding with merry laughter round the magician's table. She leaned forward in her chair; Bertram courteously, approached his own, and she began with a lowered voice, keeping her black eyes under the half closed lids steadily fixed upon him:--

"The scene is Paris; the time some two years ago; the heroine is a friend of mine, a lady belonging to the highest society in France, whose fate had been similar to my own in one respect only: she too had married at sixteen, and been shortly after left a childless widow. Claudine--I give you her Christian name alone, for the other is unimportant to us--was not only, of course, much more beautiful than I, in fact, extraordinarily beautiful and much more gifted; she was also for good--and, as I may add without boasting, for evil--a much greater, more energetic creature. Not that I have anything very bad to say of dear Claudine, or, at least, nothing worse than has been said of many a woman who could not, perhaps, claim such weighty 'extenuating circumstances.' Her mother had, for reasons of her own, persuaded her into this marriage, which had turned out singularly unhappy. Her husband, although allowing for the difference of sex, he was scarcely older than she herself at the time of the marriage--he was then two-and-twenty--had, though so young, already managed to be acknowledged as one of the completest _roues_ of all Paris, in spite of the keen rivalry of his high-born compeers. He had seen in the innocent young girl only an additional mistress whom, after a brief period, one could neglect with the greater impunity, since one could feel sure of her, and since she, moreover, in spite of, or perhaps, rather because of, her pride, did not seem to belong to those troublesome women who make 'scenes.' And indeed, after she had realised what, from another side, was made clear to her, they had but one 'scene,' but a terrible one, a recurrence of which was both impossible and unnecessary. He thoroughly understood her then--and she had proved a hundred times the stronger of the two. He was allowed to continue his own way of living, on the one condition that he did not concern himself in the least about hers. And hers? Well, I told you hers was a passionate nature, and she was an unhappy wife; that combination can yield nothing but unhappiness. Fortunately for her, she was speedily set free from the worst impulse, the one which had poisoned and warped her passionate nature; for her husband died. She was free once more, and vowed to remain free. Not that she did not mean to marry again; in the circles where she lived, she could only by a second marriage escape from the bondage of those relationships into which one is forced as into a new fashion, abominable though you may think either. Her second marriage was but to guarantee her a clear position in the world; the other guarantees for peace and for freedom she thought she bore within herself. And so she made her choice.

"At this period of the story I became intimate with Claudine, whose acquaintance I had previously but hurriedly made when travelling. It was in Trouville. You know how swiftly people become intimate in a watering-place. She introduced to me the victor in the endless row of suitors for her hand. After careful examination I could not altogether agree with her choice. In most points, it is true, he answered the requirements of the programme. He was no longer young--fifty-one, or -two; held a high command in the army, and brought her as dower a not inglorious past. He had led a wild and wandering life, and been the hero of a thousand adventures, but there was not the slightest stain upon his name--at least not in the eyes of society. Moreover, though not an intellectual man,--which she would have disliked in the long run,--he was one of those who are able to captivate even the most fastidious company, by their quick perception, their lively temperament, and their varied and abundant experience, upon which they can, aided by an excellent memory and natural eloquence, draw at all times. All this was, as I said, excellent as far as it went; but one thing I thought very hazardous--it seemed by no means impossible to me that he should still be capable of a serious, passionate attachment, and--this comes, almost to the same thing--still capable of inspiring it. Now, either lay assuredly beyond the programme which my friend had sketched out for herself.

"I told Claudine of my fears. She endeavoured to argue me out of them thus: 'What you think to be real and direct light,' she would say, 'is nothing but the reflection of the sun that set long ago upon glacial Alpine summits. It looks beautiful, and people cry, Ah! and Oh! when they see it; and for their sake I would not willingly miss it. But one cannot be warmed by it, or set on fire by it! My dear child, with all that blaze you could not make your kettle boil, far less rekindle the bitter and bare embers of a heart like mine!'

"As far as the gentleman was concerned, Claudine might be right. At least the somewhat boastful and exaggerated gallantry with which he laid his homage at her feet corresponded, as far as I could judge, exactly with her prediction. But how greatly she had been mistaken about herself the immediate future was to show.