Part 7

When Princess Nachmeister received in this room she wore a powdered wig and a brocade as stiff as a hoopskirt, consequently was less of an eyesore than usual. Ordham had murmured his compliments, then after a hasty glance about—he arrived late—taken an empty chair between two people he did not know. Frau von Wass, a siren to-night in pale green tulle, water-lilies, and many pearls, left her seat, took a chair conspicuously apart, drew her eyelids into bows, and sent him a quiverful of arrows. All in vain.

A number of distinguished amateurs played and warbled brilliantly; for in the most musical city of northern Europe no one dared offend the hypercritical ear with a second-rate performance. Possart recited from _Manfred_. There was a small orchestra, and a tenor from Paris. At the end of two hours, when even the most artistic were thinking wistfully of supper and motion, there was a sharp rustle throughout the _Festsaal_, a deep intaking of breath: little Baron Walleypeg of the crooked smile had announced that Countess Tann had arrived at the last moment and would sing. (But he made the announcement in redundant phrases and tones of emotion, for he was a German, and he cherished a hopeless passion for Die Styr.)

She appeared suddenly on the platform at the head of the room and received a demonstration. Not only was she the artist best beloved in Munich, but surprise shattered the languor appropriate to so fashionable an occasion.

Ordham saw his lilies. They were in her hair, on her breast, on the front of her skirt. But what diverted his attention from this expected compliment was the surprise afforded by her evening gown. He had seen her only in the heavy white draperies affected by the heroines of Wagnerian romance, and in the still more classic costume she had worn at Neuschwanstein; he had supposed her to be a massive woman built for such rôles, and the more untuned to private life. To-night she wore a closely fitting modish gown of maize-coloured tulle, in which the purple lilies seemed to grow. Her neck and arms were uncovered, every line of her figure was salient. She was almost slender, clean-limbed, with a low small bust, and hips barely accentuated. Her shoulders sloped gracefully, her waist was so round that it looked small if it was not. Ordham was familiar, of course, with her long round throat, the famous arms and hands, and he marvelled that he had not taken for granted that the rest of her figure was built in harmony. Then he wondered what part that incomparable form, which might have risen from the mould of Messalina, had played in her unhappy past; and fancied he understood why she veiled it from the public eye with so complete an indifference. Again he felt sorry for her, and more determined than ever to know her.

She wore her heavy dark hair in a low knot. Her skin, ivory-white, had the luminous effect he had often noted on the stage and missed at Neuschwanstein; her eyes were sullen and heavy, she held her head very high. To the surprise of her audience she sang them several folk-songs. When she paused, there was a spontaneous outburst of approval, then a vocal demand for more. The applause subsided, and as she smiled and bowed, they took for granted that their desire for these old songs of their hearts was about to be gratified.

She burst softly into the _Liebestod_. Her face remained as immobile as ivory, but she threw the soul of Isolde into her voice. It floated upward in the first rapture of delirium, and few but saw the wild face of the dying queen rise above the body of Tristan, the castle towers, the dead Kurwenal, the weeping figures of King Mark and Brängane, the army of retainers in the background. Ordham, at least, shared Isolde’s vision of the valiant soul that had replaced the clay, as she sang, in tones heart-breaking in their sweet frenzy:

“Seht ihr’s Freunde? Säh’t ihr’s nicht?”

As her voice, rising on a higher and higher note, clear and sustained in the triumph of the seer, the heaven-given vision of the woman to whom her lost has been restored, it seemed the golden pathway upon which her own soul mounted to disappear among the stars. When she opened the flood-gates many gasped and wept; and Ordham, petrified, wondered if all the passion of the world were being swept out into eternity by that soul of Isolde, whom nothing but the passion of death could satisfy.

The voice, remote, dying, drawn to a mere crystal thread, sank away on the last lines:

“ertrinken, versinken, unbewusst— höchste Lust!”

A great woman and her passion were dead and the world was poorer.

The applause was long and Styr was forced to return and bow many times; but when Baron Walleypeg announced that she would not sing again, the audience rose, and Ordham went in search of her. She had not glanced in his direction, but he chose to believe that she had kept her word and sung to him. He found her near the door of the supper room, surrounded by so dense a crowd of men and women that he could not approach within two feet of her. But she smiled at him, and a few moments later, when there was a break in the ranks, extended her hand. When he would have lifted it to his lips in the German fashion, which he privately thought beneath his dignity unless the hand were young and shapely, she shook his warmly, as if to remind him that she was an American. It was pleasant to feel a hearty clasp again, and he smiled with quick response, but asked her formally if it did not tire her to sing so often. She replied that nothing tired her; and then her ear was claimed by a personage in a light blue uniform embellished with many orders, whom she addressed as “Königliche Hoheit.” It was impossible to interrupt her conversation with a prince of the blood, but Ordham stood his ground and glanced about idly. Nothing could be more formal than Princess Nachmeister’s dinners, and nothing less so than her suppers, when her guests, presumably, had had enough of the straight and narrow chairs of Louis XIV. Only the unfortunate royalties were marshalled to an alcove and seated about a table on a dais; the other guests stood, sat on little sofas, grouped about small tables, as they listed; the women waited upon, not only by the lackeys, but by the young officers and diplomatic attachés. Now and again the imposing and portly, who no doubt commanded the incessant service of their hausfraus at home, were moved to demonstrate their youthful agility.

Ordham’s eye met the fixed gaze of Hélène Wass, sitting conspicuously apart. He nodded carelessly to the wife of the distinguished Geheimrath, heedless of the significance of the act, then coloured with annoyance as he turned to meet a glance of keen inquiry in the eyes of Margarethe Styr. Those eyes deliberately travelled from his to the siren in green tulle and water-lilies, and encountered a look of haughty defiance. Another dignitary offering his arm, she moved away, but gave Ordham a little nod and smile which seemed to say, “Later—_nicht wahr_?”

As he turned he could not avoid seeing that Frau von Wass was still strangely alone, and felt that he could do no less than offer his services. She was quite at the end of the room, and she had time to observe that he came on a leaden foot. Once more hatred flamed and almost routed the octopus of her love. She had leapt to the not unwarranted conclusion that there was an understanding between Ordham and the great singer whom no man pretended to know informally. The hand-shake and smile, the challenging glance at herself, caused the depths of the desperate woman to swarm with fighting devils, rushing on their armours and polishing their blades. She swore under her breath that she would ruin him if she could not have him, and her momentary hatred gave her a poise which, in her ferment, she might otherwise have been unable to command. She smiled brightly when he finally stood before her.

“Bring me an ice and a cup of coffee,” she said, in the pretty woman’s careless tone of command, which he had thought so charming a few weeks ago. He left her with alacrity; then, as he never could find anything, it was quite fifteen minutes before he returned, followed by two servants bearing a small table and a delicate but abundant supper.

“Always the grand seigneur!” she said lightly. “Even one or two _Hoheits_ are waiting on the ladies, and as for several of my husband’s portly old confrères—Well! the less one expects of you the better.”

She took a chair that gave her the advantage of sitting with her back to the room, and Ordham wondered if she meant to treat him to a scene, then reassured himself with the memory of her formal renunciation. And her present manner was light and agreeable, that of the gay young woman of the world.

“See how bored those poor dears are!” She indicated the segregated royalties. “Whatever else has been my unhappy fate, I can at least be thankful that I was not born a _Hoheit_. Do you know that all the queer people of my acquaintance I have met at one or other of the royal palaces? No wonder royalties grasp at the few liberties permitted them, and snatch at any straw that relieves their ennui.”

“You met me at court,” said Ordham, for want of something better.

“Oh, not at court. You forget I cannot go to court. We met at a rout at the Red Palace. Have you forgotten?”

“Of course not. Only these distinctions are beyond me. When do you break all our hearts by leaving Munich?”

“Fritz puts me off! But I shall get him away almost as soon as I planned. It is time!” The last sentence was delivered as from the mouth of a toy cannon, and he jumped.

“What is it?”

“Do you not see that I am ostracized? Did you not notice that I was driven to seat myself apart—like a pariah?”

“Well, you are here”—he answered vaguely. “It is not so easy—”

“You forget that Fritz is one of the Nachmeister’s oldest and closest friends—a prehistoric lover, no doubt. No matter how much she may hate me, she will never insult him. But when he dies—”

“Oh, well, you do not like Munich and would live elsewhere in any case.” Ordham’s supper was turning to gall. Why would this woman always talk about herself?

“But the present? And if I should not be able to persuade Fritz to go, after all? Like all old men he is full of whims. It will be a martyrdom—I may as well tell you the cause. I learned it to-day. All your friends and admirers of my own dear sex have suddenly discovered that you see more of me than of any one else and have formed the one conclusion that can tickle the Munich palate. They have made up their minds that as yet you are not seriously in love with me, however, and have determined to get me out of the way before I have worked your ruin.”

“Ruin?”

“Yes—It seems that I have a reputation! You would neglect your studies, miss your examinations, wreck your chances of a wealthy marriage—heaven knows what not! So they have made up their minds to put a stop to it.”

“Made up their minds—” An odd light was kindling in Ordham’s eyes, which no longer looked juvenile, or even absent.

“It is a cabal. I only learned of it by the merest chance—rather, to be exact, through the consideration of one faithful friend. They have agreed to cut me, drop me, mortify me so that I shall no longer have the courage to go anywhere. Meanwhile they will shower you with invitations that you may not have an instant’s time to seek me. When you no longer meet me, even see me, of course you will forget my existence, after the fashion of volatile youth. Even the men that once liked me are in the plot, for they have guessed for a long time that I was interested in no one but you; and men are pettier than women.”

She told this preposterous story with so much concentrated passion, such bitterness and venom of accent, that almost any man would have believed her. And Ordham was young and full of the vanity of youth. His eyes were blazing, his jaw line looked even longer than usual. She was quite aware that he mistook his natural (and British) resentment at coercion of any sort for righteous wrath, also, that by this time he knew something of the petty cabals and intrigues of European court society; whose smiling distaste for truth in any form, he had once remarked to her, made even his diplomatic soul feel blunt and Anglo-Saxon.

“They have persuaded themselves that they think only of your welfare, that extraordinary future they all predict for you. But they know what their real motive is! It is their opportunity to cast me out, a pleasure too long deferred. And out, I suppose, I must go.”

“Well, I will go with you.” This came through his teeth. “How dare they?”

Her eyes dilated, but she dropped her lashes. She was not so carried away by her victory as to lose sight of its contributing cause. To ask him now if he loved her, to pin him down, might be fatal.

“Dare? They have taken you up to such an extent that they look upon themselves as the natural arbiters of your destiny. They are devoted to you. They have made you the fashion. Not tamely will they sit by and watch their work undone. If you want the whole truth,” she ran on with her amazing fertility, “they even wish to make you one of them. They have decided upon the Brobdingnagian daughter of the rich Herr von Schmidt, whose beer is justly famous. She is to be presented privately to the Queen-mother, and then she will be formally on the market. She looks as if she had beer in her very veins, and her ankles are as thick as my waist. But what does that signify? She is the only child of an ennobled Schmidt and will inherit millions. They will succeed! They will succeed! They are so clever—and you—you are so indolent—you would accept any one determined to marry you. It is your destiny to be managed, and when these friends fling garlands about your neck and gold dust into your eyes, you will murmur: ‘What a bore, but why not? My family expect something of the sort. What matter a yellow skin and thick ankles?’ While I—I—” She pounded the table in her mounting passion, no longer entirely simulated. “I shall be an outcast. Once out, they will never let me in again. Fritz, stupid as he is, will notice, inquire; he will treat me as badly as the rest. I shall have the whole world against me. I have always had the whole world against me. Those words will be found flaming in my heart when I am dead. Even if I left Munich, these people would hound me. It is my destiny. I can never escape it—never! never! You cannot understand; you, who were born at the top, who would compel deference for that alone if you committed the seven deadly sins, if you wore rags in Australia—while I—I, the daughter of a small merchant,—even if I had married a duke, the world would never let me forget that I was born bourgeois. And a mere ritter, like Fritz—”

“Oh, please, please compose yourself! Let us go into another room.” Ordham was cold with terror. A scene threatened him, with all Munich as audience. She had stirred his anger, his dramatic sense, his pity; but for the moment he had no thought of her. She controlled herself so quickly and completely, however, that he was moved to admiration. “Forgive me,” she said quietly, wishing that she had worn black velvet instead of this frivolous Lorelei costume, but contriving to look dignified in spite of her flushed cheeks and suffused eyes. “How could I forget myself? But I was carried away by the thought of that abominable cabal—remember that I only heard of it this afternoon. I wonder if they will succeed?”

“Of course not.”

She stared at him, fascinated, as she had done on the day of their reconciliation. Again his brain seemed to cast its shadow of maturity over his face. This singular effect, combined with his youthful bloom and indolent strength, entranced the blasée woman choking with the dregs of life. With a last effort she controlled herself again. He had had as much as he could stand for one evening; better she go home and mature her plans. She rose and drew herself up, looking far more the great lady than many of the homely shapeless women whose pedigrees ran back into the Holy Roman Empire. “I shall go now,” she said. “Will you tell a lackey to call my carriage?”

He went with her into the courtyard, and as he bade her good-night, she said softly: “You will come to-morrow?”

“Of course.”

“I shall expect you.”

He returned hastily to the house in the hope of a word with Margarethe Styr. But she had gone; and he took his own leave immediately, almost scowling at his many good friends, and wondering if any young man had ever been thrown into such perturbation before.

IX EXCELLENZ, THE POTTER

The next morning he was rejoiced by the news that Fräulein Lutz was confined to the house by a severe _katarrh_, and he remained in bed until twelve, meditating upon the position in which he found himself. He had slept well—nothing had ever kept him awake—and he discovered that refreshed by sleep and coffee, to say nothing of the brilliant sunlight streaming over his bed, he hated his friends less than he had supposed the night before. He would be managed by nobody, but women were born matchmakers; it was not an unamiable vice; why should he resent their efforts in his behalf? He had not the least apprehension of being married against his will, and the painful picture of Fräulein von Schmidt no longer maddened him. Last night he had felt almost trapped, so communicable had been the excitement of that poor little woman.

He endeavoured to analyze his feeling for Frau von Wass. (He had never called her Hélène even in his thoughts.) Could it be that he was really fond of her? Certainly his soul had risen in arms last night as she poured out her wrongs, passionately dwelt upon her isolation. “With all the world against her.” It was a phrase to affect any man with a rag of feeling in him.

Unconsciously he shook his head. He was not in love with her. On that point at least he was quite clear. But he was uneasily sensible that events might rush too rapidly for his guidance. Were she ostracized on his account, cast out, perhaps, by an infuriated husband, there was no folly that he might not be induced to commit, particularly when his family combined in opposition. Although he had no suspicion of the plot hatching by Frau von Wass, a new light rose in his mind and played about the dangers of inspiring such a woman with a desperate passion. It is true that she had announced her complete recovery, but her eyes had betrayed her last night; moreover, he could not doubt that she had made a deliberate appeal to his pity, his tenderness, his humanity. Could it be that she wanted to elope with him? He broke into a cold perspiration. A moment later he was out of bed and writing her a note protesting that he was too ill to call on her that afternoon; he was really in a pitiable condition and must break all his engagements. Would she forgive him and let him call the instant he was presentable? Perhaps she would honour him at a little dinner he intended to give during the following week at one of the restaurants? Which did she prefer? And would Friday suit her? He would speak to Princess Nachmeister as soon as he could get out.

The Wass disposed of for at least three days, he shoved the memory of her into one of those wonderful water-tight compartments of his brain, and, returning to the pleasant places, met Margarethe Styr. Whether he wanted to know any woman again well he was not sure, but his experience of this isolated creature on the strange night of their meeting gave him hope that she had outlived the vanities and follies of her sex. He wondered that a woman to whom the fiery furnace of life had left no precipitation but mind could retain so much of feminine charm. Or was it but the magnetism of a strong brain, with the sauce piquante of fine manners? It would be worth while to discover. No beauty, so far, had appealed to his senses as odd and complex personalities did to his cool analytical brain. And how delightful even the occasional companionship of such a woman might be! Yes, he would know her if he could.

He did not care to call and run the risk of being turned from her door, but after the deliberate compliment she had paid him he felt at liberty to write and crave admittance. He was very guarded in expressing himself, for he had all a young man’s sensitive fear of being laughed at by a woman so much older in years and in life; the enterprises of blasée women of the world, and mothers with marriageable daughters, while they had augumented a self-confidence as inevitable as his grammar, had not disposed of his natural modesty.

He sent the note by a messenger, but no reply came until the following morning. It was very brief.

“DEAR MR. ORDHAM: I have hesitated a long time—but it is better not. Friends are not for me. I shall not even go into society again for a long while. Think of me as a stage creature only. And after all, I am nothing else.

“MARGARETHE TANN.”

This put Ordham into such a villanous humour that he went out and lunched alone.

“Does she think that I want to make love to her?” He addressed the dinner (alas! not luncheon), which was very bad. “Little she knows! And whoever would be the wiser if I called out there occasionally? Or is she merely trying to _intriguer_ me? Is it that inflexible principle of sex which will not let a man go in peace, but must hold him in the toils even while denying him the little he asks? Or does she fear to step down from her pedestal? Well, I’ll think no more about her. I hate them all.”

He returned to the Legation in time for coffee, and to help Mr. Trowbridge entertain several pretty women that had lunched there. Later he called at the Nachmeister Palast, sure of not meeting Frau von Wass; she, with many another, never entered the gates save when bidden to a function. Several old ladies were taking tea with Excellenz, and they increased our hero’s ill humour by their maternal petting, for he was almost as tired of being mothered as of being made love to. Nachmeister’s sole charm was her entire indifference to his health and his emotions.

When the women had gone, she invited him into her famous porcelain boudoir, where the walls were made up of innumerable panels painted by a disciple of Watteau, the windows and chairs covered with fading brocades; and exhibited a photograph of Mabel Cutting that had arrived in the morning mail. Of the note enclosed by the young beauty’s mamma, the wise old diplomatist said nothing.

“Is she not lovely?”

Ordham scowled at the picture. “All American girls look alike. I saw them by wholesale in Paris.”

“I do not pretend to vie with such experience, but, myself, I never saw anything so lovely as Mabel. Leaning on that railing, she looks like The Blessed Damozel. But it should be painted. Of course it gives no idea of her exquisite colouring—pink and white and gold and brown. And such soft pathetic eyes!” The Nachmeister looked almost sad.

“Those fluffy American beauties are passée at twenty-five. I like women to be handsome at forty—as our women are,” he hastened to add.

“Of course, mon enfant. At your age the woman of forty, or a little less, nicht? is part of Life’s curriculum. So is the unhappy wife who wants sympathy—and all the rest of them. Fortunately there are the Mabel Cuttings to marry.”

“Is she being trotted out for my inspection?”

“What if she were? Do you fancy that you can ever do better? Youth, beauty, gentle blood, millions—and you merely look bored? I have no patience with you.”

“I am in no hurry to marry.”